Whatcha Playin | Sea of Thieves, Stranger of Paradise and More
Edited audio transcript

Edited from an automatic transcription of the original recording. Strong language is masked; selected personal asides and adult material are marked [Editorial omission.]. Transcription errors may remain, especially in names and lyrics. Timestamps come from the source; paragraphs split for readability can share a timestamp. The original recording contains adult language and themes. Announcements and offers reflect the recording date.
Source: https://www.buzzsprout.com/2187585/episodes/9468673-whatcha-playin-sea-of-thieves-stranger-of-paradise-and-more.mp3

[0:00] You're about to listen to the first experimental season of our show, formerly called Nat One Presents the Podcast. For better audio quality and our current ongoing DD campaign, skip ahead to season two featuring the Daft Monks. On this episode of Nat One Presents.

[0:22] Is uh just warm up with a little bit of Smash. It's okay.

[0:32] Adventure, hot warming stories, role-playing that could only be seen by the gods. Here at Nat1Present, you get all that and more. Now join us as we start another epic tale of Connor.

[0:48] Just kidding. This is Nat One Presents, a tabletop role-playing game podcast that takes your favorite nerdy games and pop up your icons and ruins them with improv. Welcome back to Nat One Presents, the podcast. Chris, here again with us. Yes, I am. Um I'm not going to accuse you of not being on the last episode as I previously did on the other ones. Well, given that it was what, last episode was like an hour. So it was about an hour ago that you said it. That's right. It's still here. You never know with me. I could literally forget anything. Um so what is on the docket for today? So E3 was not long ago. We had an episode talking about E3 and kind of what we thought about some of the highlights from that.

[0:48] That's right. So I figured we'd do a follow-up to that. You know, if we've played any of the stuff, played any of the demos, see what we're still feeling about that. Turned on my PS5. And just in general, kind of what we've been doing gaming-wise. Yeah, that sounds good. Um, what well, let's start with the game we've both been playing together and with our friends from college, Sea of Thieves. Yep. Um, been around for a while. I talked about it a little bit in the last E3 episode, but uh the kind of big draw recently is that during E3 they announced and launched immediately afterwards uh some Pirates of the Caribbean content. Season three. Season three. And it actually turns out too that looks like they've made some quality of life adjustments.

[0:48] Um we were we were actually just playing a couple nights ago and we encountered enemies. And Chris, who had just started playing like a week or two ago, was like, oh, this is how you kill them. And I'm like, we've been playing this for like a month or two more than you, and I've never seen these enemies, and it's all because they were part of the patch. So I I actually I hadn't read through too many of the notes, I just read the pirates and stuff, and we're like, all right, that's a good time to get back into the game and meet some new people. But turns out there's there's some more they added, so that's kind of cool.

[0:48] Um what are your so I I dig the game, I think I talked a little bit about it in the previous episode that I absolutely I actually enjoy [expletive] over or getting [expletive] over sometimes. Like I enjoy that mechanic. Like that feels very piraty to me. Of like, we're like, oh, they're just finishing up a thing and they're out of supplies. Let's go [expletive] them up and steal their [expletive]. That literally we played last night, yeah. And we someone we did that for like two hours and something with one person, yeah, or one like boat. We arrived at like an island that had a raid on it, and basically uh they it was just like a two-person boat. So we're like, oh, let's just go [expletive] them up and then finish that raid ourselves.

[0:48] Uh so we get there and they they spotted us before we get close enough to blast them with the cannons. So then they they took off, and then we're like, okay, they're not gonna have the balls to come back because there's four of us on our ship. We have like a four-person ship. So we're like, ah, we're fine. We go start the island. Now they come back and sink our ship. We weren't uh expecting it. So then they start stealing our [expletive]. It worked out where two of us were still on the island, like kind of fending them off and like hiding our [expletive]. And then you guys came back fast enough. We respawned back on a different island. We got the boat and then sailed back.

[0:48] So we came back, blew them up, stole our ship back, and as we were re-collecting, so once you blow them up, the treasure rises servers, you collect it again. Then they started to come back. We had a ton of stuff because we had been doing a bunch of other things. We did like a vault, which is like a puzzle, and then has like, and there's one very a lot of very expensive treasure, but there's one very expensive chest. Yeah, and so and then by the time we finished collecting our [expletive], they came back, and then we spent another hour trying to outrun them. Driving around the entire world. Literally, the maps we got to the end of the map had to turn around because if you go off the map, you take damage.

[0:48] We started, we're like, we're gonna drive through storms. I remember Billy yelling, War of Attrition, War of Attrition. Like, it was just so ridiculous. Um, so that's that's what I enjoy about the game. Like, I it's always funny because it's always you and you and Billy now fall into the category of like, oh, we just got a bunch of treasure, let's go like sell it before somebody comes steals it. And me and Dan are always like, nah, like also like let's let's wait around.

[0:48] Because I mean that's that's when when you have treasure and you like look someone like look so if you look at a ship with a periscope and they have treasure, you can see like sparkling lights that kind of indicate once you're like in their line of sight that like oh they got [expletive] on their ship. So it kind of helps draw attention to us, and that's that to me that's more fun. I want that drama, even though we get yeah, [expletive] up. We're not very good at the game, to be totally honest. Yeah. Play playing single player, it's more of a okay, I got a thing I need to go sell before someone just rolls over my entire ship. You can and will die immediately. Um your thoughts on the game so far.

[0:48] Uh I like it. Uh I think there are still like a few issues. One of the nights I was playing and I had like a bunch of stuff on my ship, and I had survived getting attacked by a Megalodon and by a Kraken. Oh, you've seen a Kraken? I've never even seen a Kraken. Yeah, it's not great. No, it just kind of grabbed my ship and then picked me up and started squeezing me to death. Oh, that's amazing. You survived both of those? Yeah, I did. And then I was almost to um getting to a place to like sell all of my stuff, change servers, it exploded my ship and sunk my entire ship.

[0:48] Oh it put a hole in every single thing and knocked down my mast, and it was just like, oh, well, I'm like in the middle of the ocean, so I guess I can't do it. Or after the patch. It was after. So it must that that's I mean, that's obviously a glitch. That's not good. We've we've sailed through servers, you just see like it's like the sunrise changes, and then suddenly you're in a snap and you're on the you get a thing over the screen that's basically like you're joining a new server. Yeah. Um, but you your ship doesn't have a bunch of holes appear and blow up. So yeah, that's not that's not how it's supposed to be. I can imagine you were not happy.

[0:48] Yeah, I was real frustrated because it was like an hour and a half of work, and I went through all of my supplies and everything just to keep the ship afloat. Hats off to you. I can't play that game alone. I tried it once and I'm like, this is not like this is hard. This is just hard. Yeah. Like it it's extreme mode for sure, like critical mode. You get a lot better at the game, that's for sure. Yeah, you're already better than I am, probably. So well, you're also playing on a controller. You kind of have a handicap, whatever. Um casual gamer here. Uh so okay, cool. Uh, I've not seen the Kraken, so that super annoys me because I love like that kind of [expletive].

[0:48] Like, I don't mind if we get destroyed by a megalodon. Like, that's where I'm at. I don't know. For me, it's just fun. It also doesn't help now. I think one of the problems with the game still, maybe, is that like I have like I'm up I'm approaching it's not even a lot, but I have like a million gold. I'm like, aside from just buying more outfits that like I don't care about, there's really nothing to do with this gold. Yeah, it's they don't let you buy any of the cool stuff with gold. Yeah, it seems kind of odd that like gold is just so abundant. It's literally the only thing you play for, you but like there's nothing to do with it.

[0:48] Yeah, like except for out like again, it like we can't buy ship stuff. We can't buy pets, that's all microtransaction. It's all that stuff. Yeah, you do get some I think you no, you don't get premium currency, you get a different currency, which I think is like the PvP currency. Yeah, I think you can get that from like normal. We might need to just see like what else there is to do. I haven't like researched what like I don't want to call it end game because there's no end game, but maybe there is more uses for your money. But so far, I'm just like that's why too, when you guys are like, Oh, we're gonna lose our own money, I'm like, okay, like wasn't that like I have a lot less than you guys.

[0:48] I need it. I know. I'm like [expletive] screwing McDoc. Like I'm just like swimming in it. Like, what's the point? I'd rather just have those like fun situations. Have you had instances? So you've had a lot of like separate, like, oh, here's a megalodon, here's a kraken. Have you had multiple, like we've had the like, oh, we're fighting two guys, oh here's another ship, oh here's a megalodon at the same time. I haven't had to deal with that, but that's because playing single player, I play on the smallest ship, which is quick and like agile. So you're just zoning through the area. I've gotten attacked by like bigger ships, but because of how small my ship is, I can just maneuver in and out of like small things. Yeah, pretty much. Exactly.

[0:48] It works out great. Um, it's fun, but it's stressful. Like when all that stuff happens, like it's just chaos. It doesn't go like I maybe good players can really maneuver around like a megalodon and fighting ships for us, not even in the realm of skill and not like when that happens, like might as well just [expletive] blow your ship up. That's basically what it's good. I think the most like effective thing we did yesterday when we were playing was when we just straight up rammed other ships. So it's just like, okay, we're close and we don't have to worry about anything. Yeah, that was when we were most effective, it was when we were doing the thing you're really not supposed to do. When we had nothing to lose and was not playing great.

[0:48] Yeah, I can say our group is just horrible at and and I'm the biggest offender. I don't do any research into how we play better or practice playing better, so it's on me. I'm not like [expletive] talking the group, but we're truly bad when we fight people at like really controlling the ship. Like we obviously get to point A to point B, we understand the basic mechanics of sailing into the wind against the wind, all that jazz. But when it comes to like we're coming up on an enemy, we're always going too fast or too slow.

[0:48] We always oversh overshoot it, or like so if we could do anything to get better, it would be to like be able to like stay in line and make adjustments to like be able to like stay with an enemy. It was like kind of ridiculous that we were like struggling to kill a two-person ship for like an hour. It's also because we're in the biggest ship and they're in the smallest ship. So it makes it a little tougher. It's meant to be harder, but not it's not meant to be. Like there was times where like when we rammed into it, we caught it. Like at that point, you know, like we were also like sloppy with the cannons, like yeah, yeah. So um, fun game though. Uh what do you think of so far?

[0:48] We've done one of the what there's like four or five tall tales. Yeah, I think so. Uh what did you think of the first one? Uh I enjoyed it. I think it's interesting. It's definitely very different than like the open world part. I didn't play much of season two, so I don't really know if there's anything like that, but it seemed like a big departure. We only did a little bit of Tall Tales, and it was more of the same, it felt like. I don't know if we just didn't get far enough, but yeah, it was a departure. More puzzle. It was like this isolated puzzle island. Yep. Um, and it was a lot of fun. Like we kept finding things. Everyone kind of split up and did their own thing.

[0:48] I was jumping on all of the geometry to see if I could find ways to break things, and I did. And you did very successfully, and in ways where you you weren't necessarily punished for it. So it was nice. I even managed to get back out. Yeah. Um, that was pretty cool. Yeah, we all kind of contributed. I almost found that chest early on, but struggle. I was digging around it, but not in the right spot. You guys later found like I found the map and the magnifying glass pointed the spot on the map, but you had to do in even more things to get the X to appear on the map, so we missed the X. So it was cool that we could keep going into areas and find things we kept missing.

[0:48] Um, I really dig that. But it was it was mostly puzzle, there was no battle or anything. It could have been maybe a little bit more fun if there were some enemies in it, like if that zone was a little bit more alive. I think so, but I think that's probably what the next few ones are going to be because we can only do the next one like they're all ordered. Yeah. But looking at what some of them are, like Davy Jones is in one of them, and it's like, that's not going to be no fighting at all. That's going to happen. Absolutely. Um, yeah, I really dig it. Um excited to see more of what comes, but I like breaking it up. I don't like less.

[0:48] So we did Tall Tale, then we switch back to like kind of fun voyages. Um, I like breaking it up. I don't want to just do, I think if I were to do all Tall Tales, and maybe might be too much of the same. I I don't know. I want a little bit of that chaos sprinkled in. I I kind of hope it seems like the only bummer is the Tall Tales are very they're they're quests that are so far seem to be isolated from at least in this season. Um I wouldn't mind like still having to deal with other players while trying to accomplish stuff. I think that would again, I like the sense of urgency.

[0:48] That might be like I don't know how it's going to work, but it might end up being once you do all of the tall tales, it puts more stuff into the world, so there'll be more events where you actually will interact with other players while you're doing it. But I think when you have like characters and stuff, you can't have them on your ship and also on the other ship when you're trying to do stuff, it would be kind of weird. Makes total sense. I I agree. Um, so we'll see. Um, like I said, the other quality of life stuff so far, the enemy variety was much needed.

[0:48] Like I'm you're kind of not lucky, but in that you started at a much better time because the enemies before skeleton, other skeleton, and also another skeleton. That's what it was. That's what it was. And it was just that like one was bronze and like was more like resistant to the sword. And then one like at night you need to hold a lantern. But that was it. Now you have like teleportation, you have these like coral shield monsters. It's just a little, it's you have like sirens in the water, like nothing attacked you in the water except sharks. So like the sirens are even like, even though this just makes this game more frustrating and harder, um, it's good for me.

[0:48] I I want this to feel I want the sea of thieves to feel treacherous, and that's definitely they're building that on. So more that definitely was when we were trying to scoop up all our treasure and there were like 30 enemies around. Yeah, and someone suggested too, like it was based on the amount of treasure, and I want to believe that's true because there was, I'm like, there's no reason for there to be like seven sirens. Yeah, there were a ton of sirens, there were siren leaders, we had a bunch of sharks and like the higher level sharks too, the ones that have like all the scars and like the uh harpoons and stuff stuck in them. Clearly, we were doing it right. Um it was a mess. It was a hot mess.

[0:48] Um, all right, so what else have you been playing? What uh what what's been on your so for watching, you don't have to necessarily play the game. So following up on E3 stuff, um I watched some people play through the Final Fantasy Endwalker, I think is the No, that's that's the expansion for 14. Uh uh Stranger uh Stranger Paradise or something. Final Fantasy Chaos, that one. Sure. Yeah, we'll call it that one. Yes. Uh so I watched uh some people play through that. How long about did it take to like what for the player to get through?

[0:48] Uh so for the first run through, because this one like lets you play through, and then when you finish it, you can start again with the same character with all your levels and all your equipment and everything. Uh so the first one I think they said was like four-ish hours, like kind of going in, not really knowing what to expect, and like doing it and adapting and playing on hard, so the hardest difficulty. So about four hours. Alright. Which for a demo, that's pretty good. Yeah, I'd say so. Um and I have to say, game a lot better than the trailer kind of lends itself to. The trailer is like kind of really cringy and it seems very like repetitive. Gameplay, not so much.

[0:48] It's still somewhat repetitive, but it requires a lot more from like the player, and you're moving around a lot. Would you were you to possess a PS5 and had the game uh which I would be so lucky? Would you were you so blessed? Uh would would you do you think this is a game you would consider playing hypothetically? I mean it's like combat-wise, it's in that like kind of Dark Souls area, not the same thing. It's more like Neo, which is also referred to like being Dark Souls-y, um, but it's in that vein. I also play a lot of Final Fantasy games, so it's just two types of games that I like as one. So I I dig it. I might try it. We we talked about this before the show.

[0:48] Um, not usually my cup of tea. Like I play Final Fantasies, but I don't usually play any of the what is the genre? Is Dark Souls the genre for Dark Souls games? What is uh you call that kind of style of game? Like Dark Souls is usually like what people call it when they're talking about it, because it's like when people say that they know exactly what it is. It's supposed to be tough, a lot of focus on combat and like management of resources and stuff like that. Um I think it just falls into general action RPG, okay, is what it falls into. Okay.

[0:48] Well, see that that still seems a little too vague to me, but anyway, I don't play very dark souls-y action RPG games, so we're not sure if it's something I would like, but I would give it a try. I'm all about the story, and uh I mean the story looks like [expletive]. That's not a draw to the game, but I am drawn to in a prequel origin story to the first Final Fantasy that and a Final Fantasy that's also a little darker, yeah, a little edgier. That's fine. You know, at this point, I'm more of the yes, I'll probably [expletive] on your terrible game, but I will tend to be a little bit more forgiving when you try something new. A lot of people just are like, give us the old school JRBG.

[0:48] I'm like, you know, if if I was a game developer, maybe after 20 years I would not want to make the same game, and that's their prerogative. So um I'm usually a bit more forgiving. I'm like, yeah, I'll give it a try. Based on that trailer, it wasn't looking so good. It sounds like maybe the gameplay mechanics um aren't as bad. Yeah. I did hear that the gameplay I just vaguely that they needed some work. Um, I I'd say it's not polished yet. I'd say I can kind of tell the class that they liked the most because the um the demo has three different classes.

[0:48] You have what is essentially warrior, these are also like you start as one class and you get upgraded to the other because it's more based on um the first Final Fantasy, yeah. Which had you play through the game, you start as one thing, you got to the dragon, whatever, and you got leveled up to your new thing. Yep, yep. Um, so this has elements of that. So you have something that's uh like a warrior, you have something that's like a dragoon, and you have something that's like a black mage. That's cool. So I didn't know that part about that.

[0:48] So it has a fluid changing between you can have two different classes equipped at one time, and um you can tell which one they like had the base one, they had the one that they liked a lot, and maybe the one that needed the most work. What do you think is matched those to the warrior one? Is the one you start out as, it's the one that has like all the basic fundamentals of like actually just being in combat. It's um the weapon you start out with is a great sword, so it's kind of slow, but it hits hard and it has like knockback and stuff like that. I go the other way. I prefer like more dexterous things and being able to weave in attacks in like smaller spaces, like smaller openings.

[0:48] Um but there's that one. There's Black Mage, which I think required the most work, but because of that is probably the most polished. This one is it's a shield and a hammer, is what you use, and um it has like a pretty good way of like switching between all the different spells, because you have fire, water, lightning, air, ice, uh, earth, and flare. I think those are all of them. But you just have those on a wheel, you select one, it imbues your weapon with some of that damage properties. You hold the button down to cast spells. The longer you hold it down, the higher the level the spell goes.

[0:48] When you upgrade to black mage, you get access to the third level of the spells, and your default is second level when you're casting things. Got it. So it's like all meshed together really well. And then Dragoon, which is like a weird, their hybrid, like kind of ranged thing. They have like a spear throw ability on I think Lancer is what it starts out as. Yep. Um and they seem to be trying to work out how they're going to do any kind of ranged combat with that. So it's the one that's kind of the most clunky right now. Interesting. I would have thought like Dragoon being like such a beloved Final Fantasy class, I would have thought it would have had maybe more. I think it's more like that's why it's in there at all.

[0:48] Like, why wouldn't they just do a ranger if they wanted to do ranged combat? But instead they put in Dragoon, maybe also because they wanted to figure out how they're gonna do like jump. Do you get the vibe? I I was kind of wondering if this demo was truly just a pilot for like is this a tech demo and maybe this is a game that won't be made. I don't think so at all. You think it up you think it will be made, or you think it will be made. I think it's definitely going to come to be a thing. It's Ninja Theory is the studio that's doing it. They did Neo, and they've already done two Neos.

[0:48] They've already done the first one and a follow up to it, and this is like more or less the same system for that, but with a Final Fantasy skin to it and some changes. But it seems like they already know what they're doing with this, and they're just trying to get it to feel Correctly. Well, you know, you you almost like sold me on it a little bit more. I was I was kind of unsure. I know there is a time limit on this demo, so is there? I believe so, yeah. Or there was a survey after. Maybe the survey just has a time limit. I'll check. I think the survey just has a time limit because I've seen people play through it many, many, many times.

[0:48] Well, sure, but I I thought we can always check on it later. I thought at the end of June or something there was a time limit, but we'll see. Um but I might I might only be around for so long. Knowing it's for me, just I am a workaholic sometimes and also just a lazy [expletive]. So um and married and all of those things together. So I don't always make time, but knowing it's like a four-hour thing, I might be more willing to give it a try. So and there's also a lot of save points that you can just start up from again. So valid.

[0:48] Uh the biggest thing for me that I'm sure doesn't change from the gameplay is just that really dreary setting, which is very Dark Soulsy, but um the game is very like bleak, dark, and like green, yeah, essentially. And like maybe that's something they're going for, but it can't I I mean I've seen a lot of Final Fantasy games, I've seen a lot of Chaos Realms, I've seen a lot of Dark Realms, I've seen a lot of whatever, and they can still be cool looking. So I think along with everything else, aesthetically they're still working on it. It needs more polish along with everything else. Probably one of the easiest things they can fix, too, honestly, is the environment. And it could also just be a thing of we're only in one place.

[0:48] This might just be the place that is dark and dreary, whereas everywhere else might be more vibrant and interesting. Fair enough. We'll see. Yeah, that's another. I mean, I get the vibe that this is supposed to be like a tragic story. Um, I don't think these warriors are going to win type deal. Uh we kind of already talked about that, but um, but it would be cool to see them in other parts of like the Final Fantasy I universe. I because like I don't know, was that where wherever you are, is that referenced to like where it is? Is it given a name or anything? Uh not in the demo, and I don't remember. It's been a long time since it played the first Final Fantasy, but the continent does have a name.

[0:48] I just don't remember. But are you in like a castle? Are you in an environment? Yeah, you're in a castle, I think. If I had to guess in in Final Fantasy I, the first thing you do as a Warriors of Light is you go like the princess is kidnapped and you have to get garland. Yeah, that's I think it's in that place. So you're playing literally like that first kind of area. Okay. Um, well, something I might still check out if there isn't a time limit on the demo. Um glad to hear that while sad that the trailer sucked, good to hear that there is maybe more potential for the game. Um we'll see. I don't know. Squeenix has been so hit or miss lately, like for a long time now, really.

[0:48] But not even Squeenix this time, so right, that's true. It's just their franchise, that's it. Um aside from that, I was gonna ask you about some other games, but I guess I can attempt to share, even though I barely played much much games these days. Um, just a quick update, not from me three yet, but from Pokemon Go World. Um the Pokemon Fest is coming up. Um for people who haven't been playing a long time, it's a great chance to get things like different letters for unknown, um, unknown, rather, sorry. Um, there's just like a lot of cool if you've missed out on a lot of the raids, a lot of legendaries, it is a paid event. But if you buy that, it you know, I mean that is Pokemon Go now, unfortunately.

[0:48] It is, it is all I mean there's there's plenty of free stuff too, like, but anything cool or trying to fill your Pokedex really requires a little bit more time and money, usually. Um, but they did do what was really cool a couple weeks ago. They had a uh Gibble event, and I caught lots of Gibble. I had over like 600 Gibble candy. Um I fully I already had a fully evolved Gibble that took like months of walking because during COVID where we weren't doing much. Uh, but I was able to evolve another Garchomp fully, and then I am in the process of powering up the more powerful one. Um and that's it's already now it's my number three uh highest CP at like 3750.

[0:48] And I think I did like you can now check, you can like hold down the power up, and even though you don't have the money, it will tell you like based on the amount if you have enough candy, yeah, not enough stardust, it will tell you though how high CP you can get up. He's gonna max out just before like 4k, which is pretty good, I think, for Pokemon Go. So uh that was a pretty cool event, and that was a free one. Community days are still fun sometimes. Um, that was while I was in Mexico too, so all my gibbles are Mexican. Uh um so I've been playing a lot of that. I recently got to level 41 finally. Uh only nine more levels to go.

[0:48] I know, and it's so obnoxious, but I will say they they quite a bit. If you haven't played the game in a while, um they adjusted the bonuses to experience quite a bit. So, like an excellent gives you a thousand experience now. Um, a lot of things just give a lot more experience. So it's not quite so much of a chug. Like the fact that I got to 41 in a couple months of barely playing, just doing like dailies is a good sign. Um so yeah, that's it. Um, the biggest challenge I still have and I wish uh Niantic would fix is that uh you can invite people to raids.

[0:48] So I can like if I either use a remote pass or I'm at like a gym and there's a raid, I can go ahead, sign up for the raid, and I can invite five friends to come to a raid. Problem is you have 120 seconds for a raid. It almost always takes me like 30 to 40 seconds to like go through the interface and invite five people, and then when I text my friends from across the world, they're like, Yeah, I'll be right on, but like not 120 seconds on. Yeah, and it's almost impossible for me to get all five of those people. And I pretty much need all five because I would say a lot of raids, if you're like mid-30s to early 40s, need like four to six people.

[0:48] So you're five stars, yeah, for five stars. So and like four is like you gotta be you have to have like four people with like legendaries and [expletive] like that know and like correct counters. Typically, you're gonna need five or six, and so there's been times I've been able to like invite my friends and get like five star raids. It's like seems like I had some good luck in the beginning, and then after that, like the last few times I've tried any time, we're always short of being able to defeat it and whatever. So that's been a bummer, but it's kind of cool. They could fix that and just give a little bit more time.

[0:48] If like if I have a private group, I get they want to leave it open for others to join, like naturally out in the wild. Yeah. Um, but if I'm like opting to do a remote group, like give us a little bit like more time for technology, you know. People we've also had people like glitch immediately as they log on, like that [expletive] happens still. So that's kind of the bummer. So that is the kind of recap for Pokemon Go. Uh, we'll see if I ever get to 50. I don't know. I used to feel like a degree of prestige being kept maxed at 40, and now I don't feel special at all. So that's sad. I'm not not a pretty princess anymore. Um, that's it.

[0:48] The other thing I've been following but not playing similar to you. So Smash Bros released a couple different updates recently. Um one was the new player from Tekken, Kagura. Kazuya. Kazuya, sorry. Um, basically Hayachi's son. Yep. Uh, if you know much about Tekken, which I don't, but basically that whole family's [expletive] in Tekken. Hayachi, Hayachi like, is as close to a main antagonist as you'll probably get for that series. Like a bad dad tried to like kill his children. There's a lot more to it, and frankly, I don't know all the lore of Tekken, not really a fighting game I've spent a lot of time on. I also don't know it super well.

[0:48] All I know is that family has a thing for throwing people off of cliffs and Kazuya, the character that's actually in, is also a demon. Yes. Yep. And if he's I'm not sure, I played a lot of like Tekken 3 or I think it was. It was on PlayStation 3. Like PlayStation 1. Yeah. Yeah. And I think um he, if if, if that was him, I thought it was maybe his like son, but if it's him, he has like a demon form, and you can like fly and shoot like a laser beam, and it was pretty [expletive] OP. I think that's gonna be his like final Smash stuff. Yeah, it was. You you did see like a little bit of a demon form.

[0:48] Funny you mentioned throwing people off the ledge because that was his for Smash Bros. They always do like a reveal trailer, yeah. And his was had more humor, I would say, than other ones in the past, yeah. Where he was just throwing other players off the ledge, and then you you made an interesting connection that I hadn't. Uh, do you want to share what that was? Over the internet, just people of like Captain Falcon got thrown over. Haven't had a new Captain Falcon game or an F-Zero game in forever. Threw uh Min Min off the edge. I haven't heard anything about arms or anything like that, and it's just like all of the dead series just like shuffling them off the edge. I didn't even put that together, but that's freaking hilarious.

[0:48] I mean, even just without knowing that, I mean, uh, we talked about the theory maybe doesn't totally hold up because like he throws off Ganondorf and a couple other characters too. Um, but I I I think that's I think it's a funny spin on it. It would be funny if like developers had hidden meaning that maybe like marketing people didn't realize or something that snuck through. You joked about how like only basically uh Kirby being the only one that made it and Kirby being the creation of Sakurai at Hal. So that was his his creation, and it's the only one that survived. Uh haven't played him yet. I already I always pay for the passes to get all the characters on the rare occasions now as a doll I get to play Smash Bros.

[0:48] But it is the game I grew up playing in high school and college, so I will always have that game on my systems. I only have the first pass and I haven't gotten any of the other ones. So it's it's tough to quantify when you don't have people to play with. And yeah, I will always I haven't tried now, I have kind of fixed some of my internet problems in my home, but Nintendo, I have never enjoyed playing Smash Bros. online. Their network is awful. You just can't do it. There's too much I mean, and I'm not one of those people, like I played with people who are like, this television is lag, and I'm like, [expletive] you, like it's fine, like you can still play the game-ish.

[0:48] Um, well, that's not the case with like playing online. I found like even as a casual player, yeah, it's bad borderline not playable. So we'll see if my internet fixed, so maybe I'll try it. But it would be nice to be able to play Smash Bros again more. Maybe that should just be like a tradition before the podcast is uh just warm up with a little bit of Smash. So good. Phrasing. Um, another other news though in the Smash Bros, kind of sad news, but also like not sad in that well, no, it's sad. So uh Sakurai first of all released more me fighter costumes, which is the thing nobody wants, and it's basically a consolation. Usually for characters we're not getting, yeah, they make us me fighter costumes. That's the idea.

[0:48] They've never officially confirmed that, but it's also like you already made a thing for it, that's probably going to be like yeah, it's verbiatum. So you said the new ones were Lloyd, Lloyd, uh Shantae, and Dante. Yeah, I would have liked Dante, that would have been cool. He would have been interesting. It would have been another sword fighter, which is like not the best, but he's also just a whole mess of things. Yeah, well, he fights with guns and stuff too, right? That would have been guns, punches, all kinds of stuff. All kinds of a motorcycle I could have seen worked in there. Very warrior-esque. Um, that way I could actually see them like in the trailer like clashing. Yeah. Um so that was a bummer.

[0:48] Um, a couple just more confirmations characters we're not getting, but the real sad news probably would be that Sakurai confirmed that the last DLC character that they have left is the is going to be the final. I say it's not necessarily not sad news because I feel I don't know, everybody jokes that like that guy just wants to make anything else other than Smash Bros. But I also kind of believe that like he just can't keep turning down these like large contracts, but it's also like that he doesn't want to play. The fact that he made a game where he put every single character ever from any of the other games plus new characters, that must mean this guy's done.

[0:48] Like that if that's not a going out, like how do you how is he gonna release another Smash Bros after this? After releasing a version with every character to date plus new characters from the series. It might just not involve him anymore. That might be the thing. I mean that's probably exactly what happened because Nintendo won't stop making Smash Bros. That's one thing. But um so kind of sad. Uh speculations on who the last character would be. I have I have no idea. It's all over the place. If I had to bet money, it would be a fire emblem sword wielding character. I feel like we haven't had enough of a buffer between those yet. I think we might get something else, but who knows? We'll see. We'll see.

[0:48] Um if you could have one person, who would it be? Yeah, he's already a me fighter, so sure. But alright, even acknowledging the fact that it means there's 0% chance, who would you already dream of? I would have liked to have Dante in there. I think he's an interesting mix of like there's not a whole lot of like mid-range people that are like competent up close. It's usually mid-range to long is where people are good. So I think he would have been like an interesting area for that. For sure. Um, let me just get out my small list. Um for me, there there was many. The top one was Gino, Mii Fighter, one of the first Mii Fighter costumes uh to acknowledge it wasn't happening. Just put the stake in the heart right away.

[0:48] It kills me for that one because in Smash Bros, especially like the N64 Smash Bros, the whole thing is like because it's master hands, it's hands playing their action figures, and Gino is a [expletive] action figure that comes to life. Like it is so perfect, and Gino appears in the first Mario RPG game. Yep. So like it's just it actually was super fitting, but what I can only presume is that Square Soft, it's from the age of Squaresoft, yeah, square and the soft part of Square must not be willing to give up the can't get the rights for it. It's probably what the actual reason is.

[0:48] I would I would imagine the one that there is still hope for, but I know it won't happen, and there's no reason to get my hopes up, but as I say it, I still have a tiny bit of excitement of maybe there's a chance our good friend would be happy. Bill, um, I hope it's Wall O EG. Yeah, um, it seems like it's not a right, right? There's no rights thing. We can guarantee that there's no issue there. There might actually be because he's from Mario Tennis, that is where he originally came from. I don't know who the other people that actually made that game is, so I don't know what the deal is with that. Yeah. Because it might be that Nintendo can use Waluigi, but this is Nintendo and Hal Labs.

[0:48] So it might just be how labs can't do anything with it. It could be. I just for me, right? You're very right that that could be the case. For me, it's like if we already got that's not how it works, but if we already got Wario, how hard can it be to get Waluigi? But that's not actually how these things work, right? Different contracts and stuff. There's there's a business behind this. Who who owns what? Yeah. So we'll see. But that would be um, in terms of who technically hasn't been canceled out, uh, it would be Waluigi. Um, do I think it'll be Waluigi? No, I don't probably not at all. So it's going to be someone lame we don't care about.

[0:48] Probably there's a chance it is the last one, so maybe there is some kind of exception. They might be saving it for last. I mean, it could be like they really wanted something good for being the very last one to go out on a high note, but who knows? And then no matter who it's going to be, there's gonna be people that are gonna be upset. One last thing I'll throw in there. Um this is already a character, but it's not a character. Um, I was a little disappointed that Peach was an Echo character, which just means it wasn't Daisy. Sorry, Daisy, right? Uh Daisy was an Echo character, so she was a reskin.

[0:48] They they instead of just making her a skin, they actually they gave her a model, but she's still the model changed her animations, but pretty much the same. I would have liked her to be a little bit your own independent woman. Exactly. A strong independent princess. Uh so that is uh that's kind of what I've been following for Smash Bros. What else have you gotten? Uh try anything. I'm trying to have some intentional leading going on here, but is there intentional leading? Um I have I well you had a chance uh on the new PS5 to play uh you got like an hour in maybe of Demon Souls. What were your thoughts there? Yeah, uh I enjoyed it so far. It's kind of what I expected it to be.

[0:48] Um more no less, or it's exactly what I expected it to be. I've already seen the game. I saw the original game before, I've seen the new game. Uh I just haven't played either of them, so played a little bit of this. It feels like a PS3 game, but quick. Okay. And it looks very nice. Yeah. Yeah. I I watched you for like 10 minutes before I had to leave. Yeah. Um it looks okay. Yeah. So uh have to play it more, have to see how it goes. But yeah, I think so far it's meeting the expectation that I'd want from it. I'm just bad at it.

[0:48] Uh pretty cool that it was like part of the launching lineup for PS5, but definitely not enough, I feel like, in terms of original titles, considering it is uh it was a P it was a PS3 exclusive and now it's a PS5 exclusive. Um I'm hoping for a little bit more right now. It seems like my options, it looks like the next game that I might grab. You've kind of sold me maybe a little bit on Ratch and Clank, and that one just seems to have better reviews. Aside from there, I'm I'm not too sure. Actually, I'm still kind of looking at PS4 games to just download on PS5, so we'll see.

[40:05] Yeah.

[40:05] Well, PS5 doesn't have a whole lot of games, but next gen just doesn't have a whole lot at the moment. Oh, one of these days I am going to buy, I had, I was able to upgrade from the PS4 the Final Fantasy uh 7 remake. Uh I upgraded it to the PS5 version, and then I bought the add-on for Intelude, so I will intermission, sorry. Yep. So I will check out the Eufy uh expansion and go through it. From what I hear, that's a standalone thing, essentially. It's like its own contained story. Yeah. And then it adds some stuff to the main game, like an extra super boss or something like that, I think is what I've heard. I'll check out I haven't even played that game.

[40:05] Came out while I was at basic training, and then I got back and I was tired, and now I just haven't found a reason a year almost a year later to play it. So we'll see. But that's probably uh that's probably what's on my radar until some more stuff comes out. I've also been kind of casually following it's not even a great game, but the Dungeons and Dragons Dark Alliance. Um, just I mean, to some extent, it has the word Dungeon Dragons I want to play. It's based on like a novel um from the game series. So there's a part of me that wants to give it a try. I also miss kind of like I love I played Gauntlet with my dad growing up. We played it when we were roommates.

[40:05] I played it with my husband even, and he doesn't play a lot of games. Um, so I have I still like these like fantasy RP, these uh co-op engines, crawlery type things. Right now, you were telling me it has a lot of glitches, a lot of issues. Yeah, it's a little buggy. The AI needs a bit of work, it's very easy to choose. From what I hear, very fun in like groups of people. Yeah, but to play like seriously, it's a bit rough. I'm gonna leave it alone. Um, primarily because I want it has online play. I would actually like to just do couch co-op. Maybe I'm still I am a sucker for for a good couch co-op game.

[40:05] So they promised that after feedback uh around when the game came out or just before, they promised that like in one of the first patches this summer, they'll give us couch co-op. So I was gonna wait for that and then hopefully it fixes maybe some of the issues you talked about. I don't know if all of that can be fixed. Yeah, like that AI, but we can see. Yeah, have to wait and see. Bolsi, hoping, hoping uh to get you or my husband or everyone. I don't I don't know how many co-ops you can have. I think it's up to four. Yeah, that'd be cool.

[40:05] Um, that's just you know, and I I'm not expecting anything or shattering, it's just like but going back to the days of yeah, a fun yeah, fun game to play and like kind of chat over. Yep, exactly. Um, that is about all that's on my rare. Anything in the future coming up that you're maybe excited for? Anything you're looking towards? Um for new games, not so much. One thing that I am looking forward to for too, which I will have to buy something in order to play, is there's a new mod coming out for the first Dark Souls game, which is Nightfall, which has been like in production for a long time and it looks really good. Oh, I don't know much about mods.

[40:05] So first Dark Souls, so after Demon Souls, um not connected, but yeah. Um what is the the k the the pitch or the the sales pitch for this mod? It's more Why would you go back to this game that's been around and remade a couple times now? So it's more or less like a total in-engine sequel, essentially, is the idea of it. It's changing up how everything works, adding new mechanics. Uh the first thing that they put into it was actually like a day-night cycle. Because right now everything's like static. It's you go to a place, that's the lighting of the thing. I guess now they put in like day and night, so there'll be mechanics tied to that and stuff like that.

[40:05] And um I know some of the I don't know, but I know of some of the like people that have been working on it and they do a lot of like interesting and good stuff through other mods they've done. So I'm excited to see what that is. And in general, the community is very excited for it. That's pretty awesome. Is the like game creators and publishers cool with that? Like, right, with mods sometimes. Yeah, sometimes people get upset, but for Dark Souls, people like from soft has never like cracked down on that stuff. And you know, our my quick take would be that it just creates more interest around your it keeps it keeps the game alive for longer. Yep, so I don't hurt it.

[40:05] I think it's also Yeah, because they're not making any money off of it. I think that's why they've like left them alone. They like put up like um Patreons and like PayPal stuff of just like if you want to give me a tip, if you want to help support me with what I'm doing, you can give me money. But it will be available for it's going to be available for free. That's cool. That's a good way to go about it. Um and then you have to own the game, right? To be able to use the mod. So it's the supports. You need all the base files and everything.

[40:05] Like um, why I have to buy something is I own Dark Souls Prepare to Die edition, which was the old version of the game, but this one only runs on the remaster. So I'd have to buy that for PC in order to which is so funny because you own the remaster on another. Yeah, I have that on Switch, you've got that for me. Which I'm sure runs like [expletive]. No, it actually runs pretty good. Brilliant. That's surprising. Because like when I play High Rule Warriors on the Switch, it's like it's having a seizure. Well, yeah, but that's also like doing split screen. It like really messed it up. Playing it with just the one made it work a lot better. Sure. But then bored me to tears. I yeah.

[40:05] I played like 40 more minutes after you left, and I was like, this is a lot less interesting. You seemed a very let down once we got to Urbosa and you weren't a fan of her. Yeah. Uh I I just was already kind of not loving it. It's a it's a very specific genre of games. I kind of knew I wasn't gonna like it. I've tried Dynasty Warriors and [expletive] like that. It it wasn't my thing, but it just looked whereas the other Hyrule Warriors that wasn't the based on the Breath of the Wild version, like didn't at all catch my interest. This one I was like, oh, this this does look kind of cool. You like Breath of the Wild, so yeah, yeah, I don't know. I fell for that, right?

[40:05] Like that's not that's not a good reason. That should not be a good reason to buy a game, but that's how my mind works sometimes, so we'll see. Yeah, nothing else really on my radar right now. Um, probably Final Fantasy and Walker, I can see myself coming back. So I I also want to play that at some point. Um, just you know how I go. I usually just do the story, dabble first few fights and then get depressed about how much I suck. I get really in my head uh about rating. I am curious to see, I know it's not the case, but like with better internet, I wonder if well, with better internet now you have no excuses, so when you mess up, it should be all.

[40:05] I'll just be hard on my like ultimately, of course, I will not be better or maybe feel better, but there was times where I really did feel like it's like by the time the uh what do you call it? The like when warning circles and stuff like that. I for they forgot whatever name they have, but like by the time like they wouldn't even be freshly off the screen yet, and I would be taking damage. I'm like, yeah, this must be some kind of lag. Maybe that's not the case. Uh we'll have to see. But I almost I have hope maybe I'll try it again, so we'll see. Um, but I'll definitely play the story because it's always a good time. And uh this is unique.

[40:05] Obviously, some people who play like Final Matter 14 for an MMO, it's like one of the ones that's like as story driven as an MMO can be. Um it's still pretty story driven. So and have like a pretty good story that people are actually invested in, which is like saying something up and downs. It hasn't always been that way, um, but definitely with the last expansion, Shadowbringers, that was the case. And then what I'm excited about this is that this NES expansion is going to end the arc that like all the other expansions have been following, which to me is also unique. Like it's every game, usually it's like expansion closed ending, maybe picks up a little bit. I'm sure there's I mean, maybe with wow, you have more experience than I do.

[40:05] Maybe there are expansions that go back and reference other expansions, but they always go backwards though. They never go forwards really. So it's always like you're buying a self-contained story. This is cool in that it's been connected, they've done, they've been building on the other expansions, and then this will like end that, and whatever proceeds from after this is supposed to be like a completely new arc. I can imagine some new characters. We have we've had a lot of the same the scions really kind of being with us this whole time. So I could really see them cycling out some some new characters. So maybe that means they're gonna be killing off some characters. Oh, we'll have to see.

[40:05] So yeah, uh, if uh so if you like what you heard, if you want to play maybe uh one of those online games with us, uh probably not Sea of Thieves, but because there's only four slots. Well, actually, no, wait, there might be bigger ships, are there? No, no, no, there's just four people. I think four is max, it might go to five, but I think yeah, never mind. [expletive] you. But if you guys want to play uh Final Fantasy XIV, now let us know. Do you remember the last server we were on for Final Fantasy XIV? Nope. Diablos was one of them, but there's a good chance we switched off of that one. We might no, I think we did switch off of Diablos.

[40:05] Every time I come back, my friend's on a different server. No, we started on Ferry. I think we moved to Diablos, or at least I moved to Diablos from there, and then I don't remember what there was Excalibur was in there at one point for like a minute. You might not even been for that round. I have every time I like literally every time I come back, it's a different server. So we'll see. Catch us if you can. Um, so thanks for listening. If you want to become Patreon, or goddamn it, a patron and support our show, um patreon.com slash Nat1, the numeral one presents, um, or go to our website, nat1presents.com. Um, and we have tiers for as low as a dollar where you can support, you get a bonus episode every month.

[40:05] Uh ad free listening when we do have ads uh and uh also video episodes if you'd like to actually watch and see what we look like. Today I went to the gym, didn't shower, slapped on some DR, and here I am. So look forward to that. Um yeah, um and it looks like I think for next week we might have Nate back and warning. I'm sure he's gonna be super psycho about his crazy meth-filled vacation. Yeah, that sounds bad. Nate's he's gonna have some stories. He's gonna have some stories. Nate's not one to underplay something, so I'm sure looking forward to that. Uh catch us next week, I'm sure it'll be a good time. Thanks so much, and talk to you later. See ya.