Transcript

[00:00:02] Speaker A: Hello and welcome back to the Gaming Backlog Book club reminder. We do go into spoilers here and there, so if you want to avoid that, start at a previous episode, play along and come back to this one when you’re caught up. So when we last left our heroes, they had all gathered together to defend Narshe from the oncoming armies of Kefka, the psychotic Jester slowly marching on their location to recover the esper. Let’s see how we’ll fare.

Jokes aside, I had been wondering how they would portray a battle against a little literal army of this scale in a turn based jrpg which typically has maybe two to four enemies on screen at any given time, occasionally a fifth. And I feel the whole channels or I guess canyons thing with the individual skirmishes against small groups made sense given the limitations.

It almost made me consider if Square Enix would ever give the reins to Final Fantasy as a franchise over to Koei Tecmo to try out a Musou Dynasty warriors style game.

Because they could portray a battle like this in a more realistic way at this point. I think it’d be pretty cool actually.

Have you ever played a Musou game? I don’t think I have to be honest. Although I don’t think no.

I have a couple of them.

I have the Zelda Hyrule warriors something and Persona I think has one too. Persona 5 strikers.

[00:01:30] Speaker B: Did they make the Dynasty Warrior games?

[00:01:33] Speaker A: Koei Tecmo is the Dynasty warriors dev.

[00:01:35] Speaker B: Yeah, I played those one back in the day like on the OG ones they were fun back then like they were fun. The OG ones I haven’t played in a long time but yeah, the OG ones I played.

[00:01:47] Speaker A: Yeah it’s like from a surface level they seem kind of button mashy but I they.

But that doesn’t mean they’re not entertaining.

[00:01:56] Speaker B: But again back then when we don’t have as much options it was like a fun like just button mash like hack and slash. See how many enemies you can take out at once. Yeah, I enjoyed it.

[00:02:08] Speaker A: They could make a. They could just reimagine just this one fight into a giant. An entire game fighting against Kefka. Anyway, so for this battle you are forced to split your party into three teams because there aren’t, you know, enough space and you also need to defend various areas and you can’t let them reach. What’s the guy’s name?

It’s not Bannon. Bannon. That’s the one. So he, for whatever reason he’s can heal everybody but he’s also very frail because we can never use him around, so we got to defend him and Narshe. Anyway, do you remember who your three party groups were?

[00:02:52] Speaker B: I do, yes. You know who Bannon reminds me of? For some reason, and I don’t know why. I don’t know if it’s the picture or it’s just like the little pixel guy. He reminds me of the.

Now I’m not going to remember the king’s name.

The king in Lord of the Rings.

Who’s at.

My gosh, I can’t remember.

[00:03:13] Speaker A: No, you’re totally right. You mean like the king of the humans?

[00:03:17] Speaker B: Yeah.

[00:03:18] Speaker A: Yep. Where the big.

[00:03:19] Speaker B: The giant battle is right in the two Towers.

[00:03:22] Speaker A: I believe it’s the battle in Return of the King. But it’s, isn’t it? Either way.

[00:03:31] Speaker B: No, there’s a giant battle in the two Towers, like at night in the mud.

[00:03:34] Speaker A: Yes. Right.

[00:03:36] Speaker B: Best battle scenes ever in movies.

[00:03:37] Speaker A: Very true.

[00:03:40] Speaker B: He reminds me of that king.

[00:03:42] Speaker A: Of that king. Yeah.

[00:03:45] Speaker B: That’s who Banon reminds me of.

[00:03:47] Speaker A: You know, you’re not far off.

[00:03:50] Speaker B: It’s going to kill me. I can’t remember his name.

[00:03:52] Speaker A: And in this case, it’s more of a scenario.

I highly doubt that Peter Jackson took inspiration from Final Fantasy 6 for choosing a specific actor, but you might be onto something.

Well, hopefully we get him in our party at some point because at least his healing is useful.

[00:04:08] Speaker B: Dude. His prey. Earlier in the game. Yeah. In the last episode when we had it, I was just using prey with him to heal everybody. It was so good.

[00:04:16] Speaker A: Every turn he needed. Yeah.

[00:04:19] Speaker B: So, yeah. So you asked me who I split my party to, Correct?

[00:04:25] Speaker A: That is the question.

All right.

[00:04:27] Speaker B: So I did. Because I think it’s. As AB said, I think it’s 2, 2, 3 is how you have to do it. So one party, I had Cyan and gal.

Cyan and gal. That’s one.

And then in another one, I had my three was.

Cells.

Yeah, I think cells. Edgar and Locke.

[00:04:56] Speaker A: Okay.

[00:04:57] Speaker B: And then Terra and Sabin together.

I split cells or sell us or whatever. Entera. Because obviously then it’s two healers, like.

[00:05:06] Speaker A: Split them in parties or two mages of some sort. Yeah.

Okay.

[00:05:11] Speaker B: Yeah.

[00:05:11] Speaker A: I guess they both have access to cure.

[00:05:13] Speaker B: Huh.

[00:05:15] Speaker A: And then point.

[00:05:18] Speaker B: Yeah. And then for.

[00:05:19] Speaker A: Okay.

[00:05:24] Speaker B: Cyan. It’s cyan, Right? Am I saying that right? Yeah, I haven’t.

[00:05:27] Speaker A: I’ve been calling it cyan because I think it’s the same as the color. But I. You know, you probably. I don’t know.

[00:05:34] Speaker B: Yeah. I had cyan and gal. Because to be honest, for me, that was just a team that just is like power, power, power. And I just demolish people with those.

[00:05:43] Speaker A: And it does kind of click, click after they. Cause Cyan was part of the original meeting with. With Sabin and Gao.

[00:05:51] Speaker B: So I did that. I had those as my teams, and then obviously, I’d split with, like, I think I had Cyan and Gal go down. If you’re looking at it, go down to the right. And then I have my team of three go down the middle, and then my other team of two, Terran, Saban, go down to the.

To the left.

And that’s how I did it. And then kind of just encountered.

[00:06:13] Speaker A: Okay. Okay, sweet. Yeah. I put Terra and Saban together also. I put Edgar and Cyan together, um, I guess for no particular reason. And I used. I put Gao, Celes, and Locke together to have a combo of magic, gauss, superpower, damage dealing. And then Locke just seems like the weakest, weakest of the characters in terms of damage right now. He’s just like the guy that steals. So he needs protection.

Yeah, but. Yeah, I don’t. I sent. I sent Terra’s group down the middle, I sent Gauss down the left, and I sent Edgar’s kind of down the right, but it ended up funneling into the same place anyway. So I just swapped them out once they got one of the teams took too much damage.

But.

And it’s funny because we were talking last time about the fact that in our previous fight as Sabin against Kefka, where he just ran away multiple times. It was just kind of goofy that he was really just a normal sprite character like we were.

[00:07:16] Speaker B: Mm.

[00:07:17] Speaker A: Well, now we get our fully detailed Kefka art. And he sure looks just as creepy as I expected.

[00:07:23] Speaker B: Yeah, he does.

[00:07:25] Speaker A: He’s somehow floating in an invisible chair.

I don’t know if I saw, like, a wine goblet or something, too.

[00:07:36] Speaker B: I don’t remember. Maybe. I don’t. Yeah, I don’t remember. It just. Yeah, it’s just creepy. I kept thinking he’s a clown, which. I think you’re all right. He’s a jester. I don’t know why.

[00:07:45] Speaker A: I mean, just considering. You know what, though? His sprite. His sprite art, when he’s, like, walking north south, looks like a clown. It looks like there’s, like, a red nose and, like, maybe some red curly hair or whatever. But I think it also, you know, you know, clown and jester are similar professions. Just Jester’s like the middle. Middle Ages version True, true. I guess. I guess I do agree, though.

[00:08:10] Speaker B: Like, I think he is a. Yeah. A jester.

[00:08:13] Speaker A: Look, he’s like. He’s like the king’s court jester.

[00:08:18] Speaker B: To the empire. Yeah.

[00:08:21] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. No, it’s obvious. I mean, obviously we already know he’s a bad dude, but it’s just like. It just keeps piling on.

[00:08:30] Speaker B: Yeah, he is a terrible person.

Yeah.

[00:08:34] Speaker A: If he. If he even is one. You never know.

[00:08:37] Speaker B: I said person and then I’m thinking to myself, even if he actually is.

[00:08:41] Speaker A: One, I wouldn’t be shocked to see some twist where he’s like actually the devil or whatever else.

[00:08:47] Speaker B: Yeah.

[00:08:50] Speaker A: But, yeah, you know, we take about he’s somehow fighting by himself as the last stand and then escapes, obviously. But we have that kind of chit chat with the esper on the cliff and then everyone gets launched almost off the cliff, and Terra goes all Phoenix from X Men and flies away to who knows where.

[00:09:11] Speaker B: Yeah, she goes.

Yeah, she completely disappears. That was weird. Just watching. I don’t know, for me, I was like, completely caught off guard. And then it’s just like her flying around the map.

[00:09:22] Speaker A: Yeah.

It’s funny because they use that kind of like, they use that as a cut scene multiple times. It’s like there’s the one with Tara flying over the map. There’s the one with the.

With the airship flying around the map.

You get kind of a similar view when you’re riding a chocobo, but.

[00:09:42] Speaker B: Hey, I haven’t ridden a chocobo. But you get the.

[00:09:44] Speaker A: You should try it.

[00:09:45] Speaker B: Yeah, but you get the other one. Remember from the cave when you dive in the water and then it does.

[00:09:50] Speaker A: The water. Yeah, yeah. There’s the one. Yeah. Floating through the water.

[00:09:53] Speaker B: Yeah.

[00:09:54] Speaker A: I mean, they’re using the. That’s the. What’s it called? Mode 7.

[00:09:58] Speaker B: Yeah.

[00:09:58] Speaker A: For like graphic feature.

[00:10:01] Speaker B: The water one definitely. Remember, reminds me of like F0, like as if it’s like a track moving. Yeah.

[00:10:09] Speaker A: So very well implemented. And they use it also a bit later too. But yeah. So it’s time to go find Terra, but we have to continue to protect the esper. So we have to split up again.

This game just loves splitting our team up.

[00:10:23] Speaker B: Yes, it does.

[00:10:25] Speaker A: Here I chose as my go find Terra search party Edgar, Sabin, Gau, and Locke.

[00:10:34] Speaker B: Okay.

I chose Cyan, Sabin, Celes, and Gau.

[00:10:43] Speaker A: Okay.

Gau’s always around.

I’m sensing it’s.

There’s a reason for it.

[00:10:50] Speaker B: Yeah.

[00:10:50] Speaker A: He’s like the inconsequential to the story, but super powerful in the fights guy. He doesn’t even say anything in some of the scenes.

[00:10:59] Speaker B: No, but I will say what I still don’t like about is that I. There are a couple on the way here. Like, if you encounter enable to do leap or whatever and get new, you have to re. Give him meat to have him join the party again.

[00:11:13] Speaker A: That doesn’t sound good.

[00:11:15] Speaker B: Yeah, which luckily I had like a couple extra pieces.

[00:11:18] Speaker A: I didn’t think I bought like five when I got the one for him.

Okay, so you had.

[00:11:27] Speaker B: So I had Gal, Celes, Sabin and Cyan for this one to go for Terra.

[00:11:33] Speaker A: You didn’t have Edgar with your party then in Figaro?

[00:11:38] Speaker B: No, I did not have Edgar, no. Oh, that’s actually a good point. No, I did not. I had Sabin instead, who when we get there, he goes, oh, and leaves and goes, I’m gonna go take a look around. And leaves the party.

[00:11:52] Speaker A: Okay, that’s all that happened to you?

[00:11:54] Speaker B: That’s all that happened.

[00:11:55] Speaker A: Okay, well, since you’re not going to go back and do it, I’m just going to give you the spoiler here, which isn’t all that crazy, but it’s still some backstory. So I had both Edgar and Saban in the party and Figaro, again, Saban is like, oh, I haven’t been here in super long. And he goes and wanders off and then you can go and walk around the castle. When you rest in the room full of beds, there’s a scene where Sabin is remembering the past 10 years earlier, their dad, the king, was supposedly poisoned by the empire and killed.

So Sabin and Edgar decided to flip a coin to see who would decide what to do next. Whether they bail and leave the area completely together or if they decide one to stay and be king.

Obviously, we know how that turned out. Edgar stayed to be the king. But the flashback to humanize these characters more was a nice touch. And they keep doing that through flashbacks throughout the game that I’ve seen at least including in the next piece.

You get past this scene that I had and, you know, you do whatever shopping you to do and then, you know, people tell you, oh, go find the engine room.

And I think, you know, we chatted about this on the side. I was going in circles around this castle like 10 times.

[00:13:27] Speaker B: Where is this?

[00:13:27] Speaker A: Yeah, it’s like, what engine room are you talking about? It’s on the west side of the castle. I was like, okay, so I went out and you go across the sand to the other piece and. But it’s no, it’s just a tower. And then so I just kept going around and around. And then I finally just, like, walked back inside the castle again and, like, was like, all right, I’m gonna look this up. And when I looked back at the screen, I realized that I was standing right next to a set of two sets of stairs. And I don’t know why they camouflage stairs immediately when you walk into a room, because most people, when they enter a room in an rpg, just start walking forward. Right. You don’t immediately think there’s gonna be a place to go, but yeah, that’s where the engine room is. And then you go burrowing through the sand and you pop out in another desert somewhere else.

[00:14:11] Speaker B: Yeah, you do. I remember. Yeah. I told you this. Yeah. When we were talking offline about this. This, I was. I did it and I went into Figaro and I was like, okay, I’ve, like, talked to everybody. I don’t know where I’m supposed to go. Like, I’ve done everything. And like, when I leave. When you leave. Because I had Saban in my party. Saban, like, as you walk out the door, comes back and says, oh, you guys are leaving. Don’t leave without me. And, like, rejoins.

And I went around the whole map again. Like, I did the whole.

The whole, like, jumping off the cliff into the waterfall and then jumping again and doing the whole swimming. Like, I went around the whole thing and went all the towns again. Because I was like, who am I supposed to talk? Where am I supposed to go right now? How am I supposed to get to these.

This other part of the map? Like, am I missing something?

[00:14:59] Speaker A: Geez.

[00:14:59] Speaker B: So, yeah, I will say this was the nice part of me being able to turn encounters off for this because I could just walk around and, like, search without having to go battle after battle after battle.

[00:15:08] Speaker A: Okay, that’s. That’s. That’s a good thing.

[00:15:10] Speaker B: Yeah. And then you told me about that and I made my way all the way back because then you go end in.

You get to.

What’s it, what’s the town?

[00:15:22] Speaker A: Uh, what’s the town?

[00:15:23] Speaker B: Nakia. Nakia. And then I was able to just take the ship back to Narsh, basically, and then go to Figaro Castle. And then I was like, ah, okay, here’s the staircase. That’s right. And then. Yeah.

[00:15:36] Speaker A: So I mean, yes, I know what they were working with here, but, like, one level design choice made made this much more frictional than it should have been.

[00:15:47] Speaker B: Yeah.

[00:15:47] Speaker A: I’m curious how many people got Lost with this section of just finding a staircase as.

Or if everyone was just a lot more patient and just looked at every square pixel on the map anyway.

But, yeah, okay, so you end up going underground. You end up in another desert, another area, and go to. I don’t know, it was Kalingin, I think, is the name of the town.

[00:16:10] Speaker B: Yeah, Collingen did.

[00:16:13] Speaker A: See, if I remember correctly, you did not have Locke with you in this section.

[00:16:17] Speaker B: No, I did not have Loch. No.

[00:16:19] Speaker A: So did anything noteworthy happen in your wandering through that town?

[00:16:24] Speaker B: No, but now I’m trying to remember because someone does say there was something about Locke said, like there’s a girl there for him or. I don’t.

[00:16:32] Speaker A: Okay. Nope, you are right on it. So here I had another flashback. Like, you walk in and everyone’s. Everyone in town says, oh, Locke, it’s you. Like, you should go to Rachel’s house.

[00:16:42] Speaker B: That’s it. Rachel. Yeah.

[00:16:44] Speaker A: So. So it turns out that Locke’s girlfriend, Rachel also. Timeout here. Because Rachel is such a normal name compared to literally everyone else.

[00:16:54] Speaker B: Every other name in this. Yeah, exactly.

[00:16:57] Speaker A: Rachel fell off while crossing a bridge inside a cave during an earthquake or something.

According to the scene, it just kind of shook the screen while he was looking for some artifact that.

I don’t remember exactly what it does, but. So she fell off this bridge in a cave, hit her head and lost her memory, so didn’t remember who he was.

Her family got all frustrated by him trying to snap her out of it, so he left town. And then a year later, the Empire invaded. And right before she was killed, she remembered everything and said his name. Then that was the last thing she said before she died.

A little melodramatic, JRPG style, but I’m okay with it. It’s just another flashback to further humanize these pixels that were living through. So, yeah, I mean, random party choice, and I end up getting this kind of like, you know, extra layer of info, I guess. So. Happy to share that.

[00:18:00] Speaker B: Yeah, it seems like I made the mistakes of some of these people, not taking them with me.

[00:18:04] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, they don’t really give you. I guess they don’t give you really a hint until you already arrive there. And at that point. Are you really going to go back to NARS to switch your party out? I don’t.

[00:18:13] Speaker B: Switch part. No.

[00:18:15] Speaker A: I mean, if this was the one game you received for Christmas, and it’s gonna be the one game you have for the next six months until your birthday, like, I. Okay, maybe, but probably not.

[00:18:25] Speaker B: Yeah.

[00:18:29] Speaker A: And, yeah, I mean, I’m not sure sort of what path you took from there, but you. I was just wandering around that area kind of trying to grind. Cause you know, I’m. I’m not on. I’m using the Super Nintendo classics, so I walk a bit slow, but I’m just trying to grind myself up some levels to not be crushed and have to repeat fights all the time. Did. Did you go north from Kollingen?

[00:18:51] Speaker B: Yes.

[00:18:52] Speaker A: Did you go. Did you, did you go to the kind of the weird cabin up there?

So there’s, there’s a little.

[00:19:00] Speaker B: I want to say yes because I was, I was checking. Like when I go into a new area, I check all the little dots.

[00:19:06] Speaker A: Yeah. On the map.

[00:19:07] Speaker B: So more than like. Yeah.

[00:19:08] Speaker A: So there, there’s a, there’s a weird pro war guy in a cabin who just like don’t remember exactly what he said, but it just kind of struck me as really off and prepper style. And then there’s a hidden chocobo stable in a forest even farther north of that. So I grabbed one of those and kind of wandered around, which is cool. And there were also some pretty heavy hitter enemies. Did you encounter the fossil dinosaur dragon thing out there?

[00:19:36] Speaker B: Yeah, that thing destroys you with Sandstorm. It destroys it.

[00:19:42] Speaker A: So it almost wipes my party the first time around and I just was able to whittle its health down actually and just finally kill it.

And that was the first time. So I guess side note here where whenever I go to any of these towns and they have an item shop, I make sure I have at least one of every item that they sell.

[00:20:06] Speaker B: That’s a good idea.

[00:20:08] Speaker A: Obviously a handful of potions and Phoenix Downs because those are always useful. But I buy one of every status ailment cure as well.

Mostly just because we’ve never played this game. I have no idea what types of enemies are coming up in the next section before the next item shop. And I don’t want to get killed without having saved for a long time since the walk speed and the battle speed are so slow on the original version.

Okay, so back to the fossil dude. After a couple times of narrowly killing him before he killed me, this idea popped into my head from Original Sin 2 of all places. So in that game, one of the species you can pick as a playable character and also a number of characters that you meet as NPCs or you can fight against in the world are undead and they act very differently from the humans gameplay wise, from the humans, from the elves, dwarves and lizards who are the other species Available in the sense that any healing, whether that’s through items, magic, whatever, actually does damage to them instead of healing and vice versa. Poison grenades and attacks heal them.

Which makes managing a party in Original Sin 2 that has a mix of undead and other species especially interesting and kind of tactical.

But anyway, that’s a conversation for another time. But this concept popped into my head from that I remembered I had bought the holy water item at the shop and thought, what the hell, I’m not currently a zombie and so I don’t need it for myself. So I used it on the fossil and bam. One hit kill.

[00:21:47] Speaker B: Oh, okay.

[00:21:50] Speaker A: So yeah, very long winded way to say if you fight anything that’s already dead, try a holy water.

And I obviously went and stocked up on like 10 of them after this.

[00:22:07] Speaker B: Yeah, I’m sure that’s. No, that’s a good idea. Okay, that is a good idea. I think I have like four or five holy waters, but next time I see something, I’m gonna buy some.

I will say like you say when you go into towns. When I go into towns, I go.

I think I was at one point until I finished this whole section that we finished. I had. I was always at like 99 potions, but now I’m at like 75. I don’t know. But then I have like 40 high potions. I have a lot of like Gill like 40,000 or whatever.

[00:22:40] Speaker A: So.

[00:22:40] Speaker B: And I kind of just mainly spend it on that. But I do also go and look at all the weapons and.

[00:22:46] Speaker A: Yeah. And see what weapons are available and.

[00:22:49] Speaker B: The shields and everything. And I do upgrade all my team if I can to upgrade, right?

[00:22:54] Speaker A: Totally.

[00:22:55] Speaker B: Especially with the armors. I’ve noticed though, like with shields it works with, I think Cyan has shields and maybe one other. But otherwise like if you put a shield on if they have a weapon, it decreases their attack power by like phenomenally.

There’s no, no point in doing it.

[00:23:16] Speaker A: Well, I mean I’m sure there’s a point in it somewhere if you like surviving maybe like and carry them around and just equip them. You hit a boss boss that’s too high.

[00:23:25] Speaker B: Like it’ll up my defense, say of a character by eight or whatever. But then my attack power goes from like 109 or whatever it is 150 down to like 105. And I was like, I can’t. Like I’m not going to take that. Yeah, like I’d rather have the higher attack power and him do more damage right now.

[00:23:46] Speaker A: One of the best ways to not get killed is to kill them first.

[00:23:49] Speaker B: Yeah. And then also, like. But then the. What I have him equipped with is like the helmet or the type of armor or clothing that they’re wearing usually also gives them a good amount of defense. Magic defense and whatever else. And then you can also up it with.

My gosh, the little. I want to say trinkets. And now I can’t remember what relics.

[00:24:10] Speaker A: They call them relics.

[00:24:11] Speaker B: Relics that are equipped. Like on Celes, I have two earrings equipped because it ups her magic.

[00:24:17] Speaker A: It doubles the magic. Yeah.

Does extra magic damage or something. Yeah, that’s useful. What’s the one that I.

Yeah. Cause I was using, like, the black belt and the ninja.

That was. For a while, it was good. But I think we’ve, like, moved to a point where we’re just better thinking. Yeah, what do I. I have something on sales called a magus hat.

[00:24:37] Speaker B: Yeah.

[00:24:38] Speaker A: And I think it was a silk robe that I just upgraded recently to. I have a white.

[00:24:44] Speaker B: I have a white robe.

[00:24:45] Speaker A: Yeah. It’s like a bit of a stat boost on the silk robe, but. And I bought an extra one because I put on Terra because it had a.

[00:24:52] Speaker B: You know.

Yeah. That’s what I do too, is if they’re. And I. I like as. Again, I don’t know if it does it for you, but I think I said this last episode. If it tells me that it upgrades, if it’ll upgrade them, it puts a little green arrow above the party member. Above the member. If it’ll be like an upgrade of what they have, or if it’s like the same, it’s just a check mark. Like they have that already. It’s fine. Or if it’s a decrease. If it will decrease them at all, it’ll put a red arrow facing down.

[00:25:19] Speaker A: Mm.

[00:25:20] Speaker B: So when I look to equip something.

So that’s kind of nice. So then I know when I go to look to buy something.

[00:25:27] Speaker A: Sorry, I do.

[00:25:29] Speaker B: But yeah, I’ve upgrade, like the blades and everything too.

[00:25:33] Speaker A: I really like that the shops. All the shops, like the weapon, armor and relic shops, all have an equip option in the menu itself. So you don’t have to quit out to the main menu to do that.

[00:25:48] Speaker B: Yes, I agree. Yep.

That is a nice. Nice little touch.

[00:25:54] Speaker A: Yeah. So, okay, so after.

After that area, you kind of just venture south, finding things as you go along. Go around a mountain pass and whatever. And then after kind of passing through Jidur, which has the rich people and their mansions and the auction house.

And that’s really kind of it.

Yeah.

[00:26:13] Speaker B: The auction house was closed. I walked in, he’s like, the auction’s over for today.

[00:26:17] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. And you talk to the people, and they’re like, you don’t deserve. Oh, actually. Okay, sorry. I was using Locke in this moment as my, like, walking around character. So they were like, yeah, this is the greatest auction around, but you probably can’t afford anything here. It’s, like, rude.

[00:26:33] Speaker B: Mm.

[00:26:35] Speaker A: And, you know, in the conversations there, you pick up some hints that. That the flying lady went north, go up around the bend, and arrive at zozo, which is that really weird town where you actually run into random battles.

[00:26:50] Speaker B: Yes.

[00:26:51] Speaker A: And everyone talks really unusually about time. Like, my minute.

I thought it was.

[00:26:59] Speaker B: Yeah.

[00:26:59] Speaker A: What. What does it remind you of?

[00:27:01] Speaker B: No, Zozo is just. To me, it’s just a city of. It’s, like, just filled with thieves and.

[00:27:06] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah, I guess. Yeah. I don’t really would be.

[00:27:10] Speaker B: Vagabonds. Is that the right word?

[00:27:11] Speaker A: Yeah, that’s a good way to put it. Yeah, it’s, like, super unusual.

[00:27:15] Speaker B: Right.

[00:27:16] Speaker A: Just like a kind of lawless town kind of place. But I just still don’t get why everyone seems to be talking about time in such a weird way.

[00:27:22] Speaker B: Did you do the clock puzzle?

[00:27:25] Speaker A: I did.

Don’t think that rings the bell. No.

[00:27:30] Speaker B: Okay. That’s why there’s a clock puzzle in one of the buildings. There’s like, you can go onto a cl. You can go onto the clock, and it’ll say, like, pick a time. You pick the. The hour, the minute, and the seconds.

[00:27:46] Speaker A: Okay. So Silent Hill 2 in the apartment, basically. All right.

[00:27:52] Speaker B: And if you get it right, it opens up the wall and there’s, like, loot in there. And I’m trying to remember what was the loot boot, because I. I did it.

[00:28:03] Speaker A: Okay, well, now I get why they’re talking about time. I was going to say there probably was a. Should have been a puzzle from that, but there wasn’t.

[00:28:09] Speaker B: Yeah. I’m not gonna lie. I. I did it, but I. I cheated. I had to look it up because I thought I knew it and I was not getting it. And so I just was like, I gotta Google this.

[00:28:19] Speaker A: All right, well, before I spend too much time.

[00:28:21] Speaker B: So I got it. And it gives you.

Yeah, I forgot what it gives you. Oh, I think it gives you. Yeah. And I haven’t got to use it yet. A chainsaw.

[00:28:30] Speaker A: Oh.

Is that like a sword replacement weapon for someone, or is it a tool? It’s a tool for Edgar.

[00:28:38] Speaker B: I think it’s a tool for Edgar. And that’s my thing is. Well, spoilers for later. But I haven’t even got to use it because I.

I obviously have a grudge against Edgar.

[00:28:48] Speaker A: He just never cheat him.

[00:28:49] Speaker B: I just don’t pick him. Oh.

[00:28:51] Speaker A: But yeah, Edgar’s like one of my star players. But that’s. Yeah.

[00:28:56] Speaker B: So me with Cyan and Gao are my star players.

[00:28:59] Speaker A: Oh. Yeah. I haven’t. See, I haven’t used Cyan in like a long time.

[00:29:03] Speaker B: Yeah.

[00:29:05] Speaker A: But yeah, I guess.

Okay. Clock puzzle aside and just kind of working your way up this tower. So after fighting the boss at the top of the fire escape, we find Phoenix Terra in a bed, and then Rama. Rama. I guess that’s how I’m going to pronounce it. Rama the lightning esper appears out of thin air.

Explains a bit about Terra just being confused about her crazy new powers. And then promptly sacrifices himself to become an esper for you or a piece of magicite. Right alongside three other ESPers, which we can now equip as summons. Hooray.

I don’t know about you, but I’ve always loved summons in Final Fantasy.

What’s about love. Right? They’re just giant, beastly magic attacks that do tons of damage.

[00:29:59] Speaker B: Yeah. And I love them. And I will just say this is a not spoiler for later, but for now, I didn’t get to use. I didn’t use any of them in the battles.

Any battles for this whole rest of the section. And I noticed, and there was a part of me through one boss battle, through one battle, I looked and I thought, like, it’s like a scroll over in the menu. And under my attack, it doesn’t give me any of that option to do it.

[00:30:25] Speaker A: Okay.

[00:30:26] Speaker B: But I had equipped them well.

[00:30:28] Speaker A: Oh, I was going to say you’ve equipped them.

Okay. So you’ve equipped them. That’s a good start. It took me a bit to figure that out too, because I really wanted to start using them. What you have to do in every. Every other Final Fantasy game that I’ve played, the Summon, whatever name they go by in each one shows up as its own menu item. Right. So it’s usually Attack, Magic, Summon, and then whatever else.

In this one, it’s in the magic menu, but you don’t scroll down. You gotta scroll up.

[00:31:03] Speaker B: Oh, maybe that’s why. Okay.

[00:31:06] Speaker A: It’s super counterintuitive and doesn’t make a lot of sense from us playing, you know, the next generation of Final Fantasy games.

[00:31:15] Speaker B: I just did 10 after this.

[00:31:16] Speaker A: This one, I didn’t go Backwards.

[00:31:18] Speaker B: Yeah, I just did 10 and 10 was obviously nothing like this. Like it’s much easier to summon.

[00:31:23] Speaker A: Right. Quality of life as they went along. But anyway, so that’s how you do it. I also figured out later too that you can.

You can. You basically by having them equipped for a while through a number of battles, you can actually like memorize or learn the. Some other skills that they have associated to them. And then you kind of like. It gets checked off and you can swap them out and choose another esper and learn more magic attacks. You just really expand your magic list for every character by. By doing that, FYI.

[00:32:00] Speaker B: Okay, well, I’m gonna have to. Now that I know how to. Like, I just totally spaced and forgot how to get to it. I was like, now. I will use them from now on because it’s useful because I know you can only use them once per battle, I believe is what they said.

[00:32:12] Speaker A: Yeah. And I don’t know if that’s because the. Oh, did you say that? Maybe there’s a story reason for it. But really the way that I see it is that they just use all of your.

So much of your magic that it’s.

[00:32:22] Speaker B: Yeah.

[00:32:23] Speaker A: Your mp.

But yeah, I mean, they’re. They’re obviously extremely valuable, especially in boss fights.

[00:32:30] Speaker B: Yeah, I wish I had. I wish I had. Yeah.

[00:32:32] Speaker A: Yeah.

And you know, before he offed himself and the other three, he explained that the ESPers lived alongside the humans and then exiled themselves after the War of the Magi, but finally got hunted down 20 years ago by this empire that we’re dealing with.

So we’re off to the Magitech factory on the southern continent to go liberate more espers that are being experimented on. But first we come across the famous opera scene.

[00:33:03] Speaker B: Yes.

[00:33:04] Speaker A: So this is a moment that is quite possibly more famous and more Talked about in FF6 than anything else I always knew about it and it’s always referred to.

And because of that, I always avoided reading any more in any conversation or any story or any article about Final Fantasy 6, the moment I saw the words opera house pop up for fear of major story event twists or spoilers.

And I was simultaneously underwhelmed and pleasantly surprised at how the opera scene goes, both because of its duping heist style setup and the general silliness associated with it, as well as the fact that they all went out with. They went all out with putting a true opera sequence into a pixel art game. So kudos there.

But seriously though, I’ve spent at least 15 years hearing about the Opera scene. And expecting Kefka to storm in, kill everyone or kill someone important or do something else even more shocking. And this was not that nothing major happened. It was an opera.

I’m still shocked actually, even just like revisiting it. I’m still pretty, pretty shocked that I.

Well, there you go.

[00:34:27] Speaker B: It was an opera and it was.

I was so. I almost like screwed it up because you have to remember your lines.

[00:34:37] Speaker A: Oh, I. Oh, I just got it a couple times. I got it wrong for sure.

[00:34:40] Speaker B: Oh.

[00:34:41] Speaker A: But yeah, you only have like three days or something. Yeah, I screwed it up.

[00:34:44] Speaker B: You only have like three days. Three. Try.

[00:34:46] Speaker A: Yeah, I wasn’t sure how much when they first say, oh, you should read your. Read your lines. I wasn’t sure if there was going to be any consequence to not writing it all down. So I. Yeah, I screwed it up on the second line immediately. And then I got it right the next time. But still kind of funny. Yeah.

But yeah, opera scene.

Still can’t believe it.

[00:35:14] Speaker B: No, it was.

[00:35:15] Speaker A: It was. I mean. Yeah, it was. It was like. Okay. Yeah, no, it was.

[00:35:18] Speaker B: It was fun.

[00:35:20] Speaker A: You know, they.

They specifically used the Mode 7 chip. Not so much, but they. They. The way that they set the scene at the beginning and had the. Like the castle looked almost 3D in a way. And like they just. They did a really good job of kind of like animating a story there and then even like the orchestra was super cool to see in the intro and.

[00:35:41] Speaker B: Yeah.

Yeah, the orchestra is really cool.

[00:35:45] Speaker A: Overall, very good. And you end up meeting Setzer who shows up on his airship to try to snag. What was her name?

Maria, who is Selous in disguise. And then you end up sneaking onto his airship.

I think it’s. Yeah.

And you end up. End up saying, hey, why don’t you join us? And I think she flips a coin, right? It has a double. Double sided head’s coin.

[00:36:11] Speaker B: Yep. It’s just like two face.

[00:36:14] Speaker A: Oh, yeah.

Well, Celes kind of is two face.

[00:36:17] Speaker B: If you think about it.

[00:36:18] Speaker A: Ditching the Empire.

[00:36:21] Speaker B: Yeah.

[00:36:22] Speaker A: So Setzer just gets convinced to take us along. I mean, he won. He lost that coin flip fair and square or not fair. And we start. Start flying. And so it gives you. Here’s another Mode 7 moment, right? You fly across the ocean and you see the city. I guess it’s a city of Vector pop up and vector the Magitech research facility. Within it is the place where they’ve been torturing Diaspers.

Hold on. Did I already say all that shit? Yeah, I did. Huh?

[00:36:55] Speaker B: No, no.

[00:36:57] Speaker A: Weren’t we talking about Ifrit and Shiva?

[00:37:03] Speaker B: Got it.

[00:37:03] Speaker A: Okay.

[00:37:04] Speaker B: We were talking about summons earlier. Just that we got summons, but not what they were.

[00:37:10] Speaker A: Okay, so you missed the whole thing. So. Okay, I was cutting out for a long time then.

Because I was talking about Ifrit and Shiva.

[00:37:18] Speaker B: No, you were out then. You were off by that point.

[00:37:21] Speaker A: Alrighty, then. All right, all right. Okay. I’ll just redo that again. Okay. And start scene. I can Google that later.

So the Magitek research facility in Vector is the place where they’ve been torturing the espers and extracting their essences.

It’s just such a typical authoritarian empire. Cruelty, like, textbook. And then, you know, wandering through the facility, you know, it was a typical JRPG dungeon. Like, nothing super noteworthy about it. It had the conveyor belts and the weird pathways and all that stuff, but it was just dope. Okay. I guess the enemies were standard. But then you get to the room in the kind of just disposal room where Ifrit and Shiva are just kind of moping around, and then you get a boss battle with them. And it’s just such a great moment retroactively because. Right. You know, we’re coming from playing not the newest Final Fantasy games, but the ones that came right after six, and then going back to this now. And Ifrit and Shiva specifically are two of the consistently the coolest summons throughout the Final Fantasy series, if you ask me.

[00:38:29] Speaker B: Yeah, definitely. Ifrit. Ifrit was one of my favorite ones in 10.

[00:38:32] Speaker A: Ifrit’s a badass. He’s just like a giant fire demon, you know, and it’s, you know, very, you know, the standard elementals, fire, ice and lightning are always, you know, going to be a summon. But just Ifrit’s design in every Final Fantasy is really sweet. And, you know, no different here. They just did a phenomenal job with that pixel art.

And. And yeah, I mean, I think that the fact that you fight them and then they decide, oh, you guys are not so bad. I’ll be a Magicite for you.

And then after the subject 24 boss and all that. Got something to say about it.

[00:39:09] Speaker B: I hated that subject 24. That took me a few times. I was getting. Yeah, so. Because for this part, right, so we’ve gone back. We’ve now redid our party. Correct. Yeah.

From the first one. Because you have the first party to find Terra, then you find Terra.

[00:39:31] Speaker A: Yes, yes. We don’t think we touched on that. But. But when you go, am I wrong.

[00:39:36] Speaker B: On this right now?

[00:39:37] Speaker A: No, no, I think you’re right. Because when we go from when you leave, I don’t remember where exactly it happens, but at some point you have to go and you have to use.

Before you get to Zozo, you have to use Lock and Celes in your.

[00:39:51] Speaker B: For the opera house. Yes. You have to use. Yeah, because of. Yes.

Yeah. So I had Celes, Locke, Cyan and Gau.

[00:39:59] Speaker A: I had Selis, Lock, Edgar and Gal.

[00:40:02] Speaker B: Okay.

[00:40:05] Speaker A: So. Okay. I don’t know if you’ve picked up all the tools that you can get with Edgar.

Maybe it sounds like maybe you haven’t because you have this chainsaw thing that I don’t have.

[00:40:13] Speaker B: But.

[00:40:14] Speaker A: But there’s. There’s one called a noise blaster, which confuses the enemies. The drill is really good. Single target attack. And the crossbow we already talked about.

I don’t know.

[00:40:26] Speaker B: I know I bought the noise.

[00:40:28] Speaker A: Packs a good chunk of damage.

[00:40:29] Speaker B: Yeah.

[00:40:34] Speaker A: But. Yeah. So. Well, subject 24 got the better you. Huh?

[00:40:37] Speaker B: He got the better of me a few times. And then luckily. What was it on one of the last. Because he changes, right? He has a barrier change where he changes what element type.

[00:40:47] Speaker A: Yeah, it’s really annoying.

[00:40:48] Speaker B: So you have to. I was just basically kind of attacking him with normal. Just what’s. It attacks and then lock. Lock. In this battle, I kind of used more as. Just heal, I guess.

[00:41:00] Speaker A: Steal for me.

[00:41:01] Speaker B: Steal, heal as much as I could. The other teammates, Gao, I did not use. So the first time. Yeah, so I died, I think. I don’t know if I died once or twice, but I was using like an elemental attack with Gal Rage and that was not. It would work. And then obviously then if he changed, it wouldn’t work. So I had to use one that wasn’t elemental. And I found one that.

I can’t remember what it’s called. I think it starts with a Z, but it throws stones and other stuff. But it does a lot of damage.

A lot of damage.

So for me, lock was like a steel slash. And then with Celes as well of I’d make her do it a regular attack or if I sort of knew what he changed to barrier wise, I’d do a magic attack with her. But it was more of keeping Gal and Cyan alive because Cyan can use Fang or Fury and get the multiple hits with his. With his busudo attacks. Yeah, yeah. So I did that and then I. Yeah, I was able to take him out using that sort of technique.

[00:42:02] Speaker A: Yeah, that was powerful.

Yeah, he’s great. I use. I use Stray Cat a lot. Just for the pure physical damage.

[00:42:09] Speaker B: Don’t have stray cat.

[00:42:10] Speaker A: Oh, see that. You know, I was. I was super confused when I first saw a stray cat enemy.

And then when I saw it in. In the. What’s it called? The Veld, I was like, okay, well, there’s the cat. I’m gonna jump it. And then I. You know, I just tried all the. Or all the. I mean, at the time that I first got Gao, I tried all the rages that I was able to find. And that one, just like. He does just like a bunch of damage all at one, like a thousand damage. Oh, wow.

[00:42:38] Speaker B: I need to.

[00:42:41] Speaker A: And there’s also.

What else?

[00:42:45] Speaker B: Hornet. Hornet, where he uses a sting attack that he gets off hornets.

[00:42:49] Speaker A: That one’s tried that.

[00:42:51] Speaker B: That one’s good.

[00:42:52] Speaker A: There’s one. There’s one from Templar that uses the fire to fira attack on all enemies, which is really cool. And then there’s the one that’s called Bomb.

[00:43:04] Speaker B: I have that one.

[00:43:05] Speaker A: Bomb is good.

[00:43:07] Speaker B: Yeah, that one’s good. And then if so, for ones that can take elemental damage, I have an attack called Cloud that does Thundara damage, but and to every enemy and. Oh, man.

It does.

[00:43:20] Speaker A: Yeah.

Second tier evolution grid.

[00:43:24] Speaker B: Yeah.

[00:43:25] Speaker A: Of the magic attacks are.

Are great.

[00:43:29] Speaker B: Yeah.

[00:43:32] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. It’s. There’s really not a whole lot of reason to use just the standard attack in this game so far.

Unless you’re locked, I guess.

[00:43:42] Speaker B: Yeah.

[00:43:43] Speaker A: Because. Because most of the other ones that aren’t magic attacks just have really strong values and they don’t require mp, so why not?

At least that’s what I’ve found so far.

[00:43:54] Speaker B: Yeah. Same.

[00:43:57] Speaker A: Well, yeah. Okay, so you get past subject 24 and then you go through all the test tube rooms and then you end up with the one with the six ESPers in it. And Celes seemingly betrays you. And then Kefugo walks in the room laughing, but she teleports them away. And then Cid helps you escape. And good thing too, because I really was about to lose it if Sid, the recurring Final Fantasy character that is just so much fun to have around most of the time, turned out to be a bad dude.

You know, you can’t have Sid be a villain in this, or you’re going to just ruin the whole experience here. They showed him as like the scientist running the experiments in the first place, but he had a change of hearts when he saw us walk in the door, so that’s cool. Um, I don’t think it’ll deliver. Top sit in Final Fantasy 7, which I don’t. Have you played seven all the way through?

[00:44:50] Speaker B: I have. I’m not gonna.

[00:44:52] Speaker A: A long time ago.

I mean, probably two decades plus ago. And most of the ones I remember, he’s like, he’s the.

What’s it called? Usually I think it’s called the high wind. To the airship pilot, which he is in seven as well. But he’s a party member that can fight with you. And he has a spear, which is different and fun.

And then the final boss fight of the section has these two sentient cranes that attack you while you’re on.

[00:45:24] Speaker B: There’s another boss fight before that, though, remember?

Yeah. When you were going on the minecart. You fight all the people and then you fight the boss that is number 128 with blades in its body.

[00:45:38] Speaker A: The, the ES escape. The escape. The facility boss. Yes. Okay. I did completely gloss over that. Yeah, that guy was a little annoying.

[00:45:46] Speaker B: Yeah, I, I, I died to him like three times, I think. And the problem was I was annoyed because I knew I was like one hit away from Gal or one fury or Flurry or whatever. Fang strike from Cyan to finish him. And I just, yeah, everybody just died. I was like, no.

[00:46:07] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. You know, I think what I, I did at that point, usually with those bosses that have like pieces that you can attack as long as you’re able to do damage to the main part, like not the arm or leg or whatever, I just like, narrow focus on them. So I stopped using the hit hit all enemies type attacks and just really focused on just hitting him.

[00:46:30] Speaker B: Same.

[00:46:31] Speaker A: I just kept using the drill tool with Edgar and it.

And then I used single IO. What’s it called? Stray Cat. Again. Just because that packs a punch.

[00:46:42] Speaker B: Yeah, I think I beat him. I had Gal down to like 90 health and he used the Thundara attack and finished him. And I was like, oh, thank God. Before the guy could get attack off. Because I was like, I’m dead if he gets one more off.

Because I use some Phoenix down on people, but then it only heals like 50 health.

[00:47:01] Speaker A: Yeah.

[00:47:01] Speaker B: And then they just die on the next attack. And it’s like, well, I didn’t even have a chance.

[00:47:05] Speaker A: Yeah, I think they definitely program the AI so that they know who’s almost dead to just focus them down. Yeah. Not nice, but it, you know, it provides a challenge.

[00:47:15] Speaker B: Yeah.

[00:47:18] Speaker A: So, so, yeah, I mean, the, that the last boss of this section has those, those two cranes. If you have a mind of their own, they do magic damage. They’re cranes.

It doesn’t make any sense. But.

And then they also.

If you don’t kill them fast enough, they end up using the magic attack that heals the opposite one.

I mean all these boss fights are like puzzles, which is cool.

[00:47:50] Speaker B: It is cool.

[00:47:50] Speaker A: It provides some variety. Like it’s not just a standard. Just like, oh, let’s just do attack attack constantly, no matter what.

[00:47:57] Speaker B: No, on this one though, I definitely used like the Flurry.

I can’t even remember if it’s Fury or Flurry Attack was. Was Cyan where I could hit both. And then with.

With Gao since they could also they would take magic hits. I could use Thundara or whatever. And then I put quite a lot of damage into them pretty quick, which was. And they’re actually not too strong compared to the other previous bosses. But then with Setzer, Setzer has like. I tried it. The slot ability. Did you try his slots ability?

[00:48:36] Speaker A: You know.

Oh yes, I did. It’s. It’s.

[00:48:39] Speaker B: It’s so fast.

I could not get.

[00:48:44] Speaker A: I. I know. You know what? I actually was able to get like two or three.

Like line them all up. I got it with the chok bow and like a diamond looking thing. I guess you line it up.

[00:48:56] Speaker B: It’s like so fast. It’s so fast and blurry. I can’t even see what the picture is that I’m clicking on.

[00:49:02] Speaker A: You know what I think I don’t know if this is actually it or if I just lucked out multiple times. But I just hit the button on whatever and I just kind of like in my head like almost counted to three. Like I just was like, click, one, two, three, click. One, two, three, click. And it just worked.

[00:49:20] Speaker B: Good for you.

[00:49:22] Speaker A: And I don’t know if it’s ever going to work again because I put it out there.

[00:49:26] Speaker B: Yeah, as I said it, it didn’t work for me. Like I didn’t get any in a row. But still like he does like a little rabbit comes out and it still gave me like 70 health on each one. I was like, at least it’s something.

But yeah, it keeps me alive for an extra. I know. It’s like it keeps me alive potentially for an extra turn.

[00:49:40] Speaker A: So yeah.

Can’t go wrong.

[00:49:43] Speaker B: Yes.

[00:49:45] Speaker A: And before you really get a chance to save, which is where we. I think it indicated to do so you’re shoveled along to checking in on Terra and then the esper or the magicite for an esper called Madouin that we just picked up at the research facility starts acting up and we get a playable flashback where we find out that a human named Madeline believe.

[00:50:12] Speaker B: Yes, Madeline. Yep.

[00:50:13] Speaker A: Madeline found her way to the espers dimension somehow and then decided to stay when she was allowed to and then had a baby with Madeline.

[00:50:25] Speaker B: Yeah, that was an interesting scene, like in the cave. And it just like floats them up in the air together. And then all of a sudden there’s little pixel baby Terra.

[00:50:35] Speaker A: And then you got Pixel baby Terra. So she’s a hybrid with a human mother and an esper father.

And then of course the Empire shows up to, you know, abduct.

Abduct as many ESPers as they can.

They of course find out that Terra is the child of. Is a hybrid child and abduct her too.

And then she grows up, she gets brainwashed her entire childhood by the Empire and trained into their super soldier. So yeah, learning about her herit get get. You know, that moment lets her pull.

Pull her powers under control and come back to being, you know, conscious. So that’s cool.

But just another point against the Empire and another reason to take him down.

[00:51:31] Speaker B: Exactly.

[00:51:33] Speaker A: And yeah, and now we. We are on the airship and given control of it. And I just basically landed the airship to save to hold on for next time.

[00:51:42] Speaker B: I didn’t even land the airship. But I guess that’s why, because I’m on the pixel thing. Because I can just quick save. So I just quick saved.

[00:51:50] Speaker A: Yeah, no, I couldn’t. I wandered around the whole airship trying to find a safe point and there was not one. So I landed and saved.

Anyway, that was a good, good chunk of Final Fantasy 6. So for next time to keep this as vague as humanly possible.

Thanks to our spoiler free source of info that has helped us break this game into reasonable chunks. Our goal is to play until. What I’ll just say is the way you see the world shifts drastically.

Okay, it’s kind of cryptic kind of thing.

[00:52:27] Speaker B: Very cryptic.

[00:52:28] Speaker A: I don’t, I don’t. I guess we’ll like drastically enough that you’re going to be like, that’s what they mean.

[00:52:33] Speaker B: I hope so. I hope so too.

[00:52:35] Speaker A: I hope so too. Otherwise, yeah, I guess we’re going to be mismatched a little bit. But that’s okay. So anyway, once the way you see the world shifts really, really drastically, save and quit and hang on for next time.

Just don’t continue after the whatever the new status quo is established.

[00:52:52] Speaker B: Well, thank you everybody for listening to this episode. Hope you’re enjoying Final Fantasy 6 so far like we are, and looking forward to talking to you guys more about it in the next episode.

Have a good one.

If you want to follow along and discuss our playthrough of naive games on the Gaming Backlog Book Club Podcast, please give us a follow on your podcast platform of Spotify, Apple Podcasts, iHeartRadio, Pandora, Amazon Music or Pocketcasts, as well as our Discord and Instagram account under the same name. Thanks.