Transcript

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Hello and welcome back to the Gaming Backlog Book club. We are here to chat about files 6 and 7 of Astral Chain.

Reminder. As always, we do go into some spoilers. So if you want to avoid that, start at a previous episode and then come back and listen when you’ve caught up. So to not even think twice about skipping a beat. File 6 started immediately with reading through the files that Jenna gave us that we were talking about last time.

You don’t even see a scene or a cutscene or any kind of interaction at all. It just opens into a menu with all the files. Files. So thank you, Platinum, for listening to our podcast and providing us with all this juicy info when we asked for it.

[00:00:38] Speaker B: Yes,

[00:00:41] Speaker A: jokes aside, we find out so much info and lore here in these files and you likely already read them for yourselves, listeners. I don’t know if you can actually skip any of them, but don’t need to recount the details, all the specific details here. But I think the most interesting tidbits are the fact that a meteor impacted Earth and that’s what caused the gates to start opening up in the first place.

[00:01:02] Speaker B: Mm.

[00:01:03] Speaker A: The prophets is the name of the entities we haven’t seen yet. And they took special interest in Yosef’s research and told them to build the Ark. So all biblical for some reason, but come to think of it, even in Bayonetta, another Platinum Games title, you’re fighting angels and demons. So I guess the team at Platinum has a strong interest in that type of lore. But yeah, it’s.

It’s very biblical. It has a lot of kind of imagery of that kind of thing as well.

Another kind of interesting piece for me is that the ark was being built and moored offshore near Valparaiso, Chile. So as someone who was born in Chile, it’s a pretty under the radar country in broader media, to be honest, with the exception of Pedro Pascal blowing up and becoming a global phenomenon recently.

But it’s always fun for me to see Chile even being mentioned in something that’s not expected.

You still got to make it down there, Alex.

[00:02:04] Speaker B: I do, yes. There’s gotta be someone though, on the team probably who’s from. From Chile. And it’s like I gotta.

[00:02:11] Speaker A: I suppose so someone that get myself in here, moved over to Japan and decided to became a game developer.

[00:02:18] Speaker B: Mm.

[00:02:22] Speaker A: And I think the last final piece that I thought was curious was there are three duty reports that are password pin protected. So I wonder what, if anything, or if we will ever find out what’s in those files.

[00:02:35] Speaker B: Oh, yeah.

[00:02:35] Speaker A: Hard to say.

[00:02:36] Speaker B: Yeah. I tried random numbers. I didn’t get it open.

[00:02:39] Speaker A: Yeah, same here. I thought about looking it up, but then decided I’ll just kind of wait and see what happens.

[00:02:44] Speaker B: Yeah.

[00:02:46] Speaker A: Did you realize you can fast travel from the police station to your dad’s cat sanctuary?

[00:02:52] Speaker B: So, yes. But later on it was like, later on. On, actually, I think after file six or whatever, when I got back to the police station, I was just like fast traveling to start seven. And I like looked in on the list and I realized it said that and I was like, I didn’t. I have done it. Just thought on the list.

[00:03:13] Speaker A: Yeah, I think it was. It was right. Right after reading those files and then opening up the menu, I, you know, randomly noticed it was at the bottom of the list there of rooms you can travel to. So I did try it.

And yes, the bunch of cats are there, but you can’t actually do anything else.

You can. You can’t pet the cats. You can’t interact with the cats in any way. You can just kind of walk around in a circle and then leave.

I don’t know if there’s something you can do later. Maybe it becomes your safe house. If you go on the run at some point. But don’t know why they included it other than maybe they’re just big fans of cats.

[00:03:48] Speaker B: Which I was gonna say there’s obviously someone from Chile on the team and someone who absolutely loves cats and just wanted to put a cat seafood on the team.

[00:03:57] Speaker A: Maybe we were the developers of this game. Could be that. Maybe then there’s some tiny side quests in Harmony Square again and you finally reach where you need to be with Hal to infiltrate and get into Zone nine, which is where you were born. And he has some kind of connection to that. He doesn’t really give you much of a lead on. He gives you a disguise to wear, which is pretty much just a hoodie and jeans.

Yeah, not exactly. I mean, I guess you don’t need to disguise that well, but I figured it would be a little more than that. But yeah, you have to get past a bunch of guards. Don’t you just love a forced stealth section in a game that’s not about stealth at all?

[00:04:37] Speaker B: Dude, I’m not gonna. This. This section annoyed me slightly.

It just. I don’t know.

I like stealthing games and I stealth, like usually in most types of games,

[00:04:50] Speaker A: like battle when it’s available, when it’s.

[00:04:53] Speaker B: When it’s available, like Horizon and other ones where you can stealth machines and all that. Like, I Try and do it. This one. Why?

[00:05:01] Speaker A: It’s like Ghost of Games. Or like Last of Us. Metal Gear Solid. I know you haven’t played yet, but there’s so many games that have. But stealth is built into the system here. You can. You can crouch, but the primary function of your crouch is to walk under low hanging doors and cracks in walls, not to stealths. So I didn’t love this either. It was not much fun. I had to retry it a bunch of times.

So did I.

[00:05:28] Speaker B: And then to bind, like you have to bind them to take them down. And the areas to bind are so small. And I was like.

And they’re kind of alerted by your legion.

[00:05:38] Speaker A: Yes. Right.

If you’re close enough, then by summoning your legion, the kind of blast radius of that apparently creates enough noise to alert them. So then you have to restart anyway. So. Yeah, it’s not a. I mean it’s somewhat simple and straightforward, but it is not particularly enjoyable.

[00:05:56] Speaker B: No, it was. It was a bit frustrating. It took me. It took me a few tries.

[00:06:01] Speaker A: I hope there’s not much more of that, if any. But like, hey, they gave so far. They had the one off motorcycle sequence. Maybe they can just one off that one too.

[00:06:10] Speaker B: Yeah, that would be. I’d be fine with that.

[00:06:12] Speaker A: That would be preferred. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Enough said. Once you reach the slums, there are some small little scuffles with hermits that are beating up police and a handful of things to collect, but nothing majorly notable. But once you reach the town, you get to eat some delicious congee.

Did you participate?

[00:06:33] Speaker B: I didn’t buy any. No, I didn’t.

[00:06:36] Speaker A: Did you buy some for the other guy that was saying how hungry he was?

[00:06:42] Speaker B: I don’t think so.

[00:06:43] Speaker A: It was like a tiny, you know, whatever case file that was like in the corner there somewhere. But yeah, so of all the foods, it was kind of random.

Now, my sister made me kanji a couple years ago and it was sadly the first time I’d ever tried it, but it’s just so good.

And so playing and seeing this show up in this game gave me an appetite for some since it had been a while, but I really wanted it like right then and there. So fortunately, I’m now living in an area where I just spotted a place the other day known for kanji while driving around. So I knew exactly where to go. Anyway, aside from where kanji is, it’s like a porridge.

[00:07:20] Speaker B: Just looking it up.

[00:07:20] Speaker A: It’s a porridge that’s eaten for breakfast that I, you know, I’VE only had it with. It’s like basically a bunch of rice that’s cooked slow cooked or pressure cooked so far down that it’s like a porridge. Like a creamy almost with some ginger and chicken. Shredded chicken is how I’ve had it, but super good. You should try it.

[00:07:42] Speaker B: I love. I was gonna say, I’m looking it up and I was like, I love porridge and I like rice pudding, so. So I need to try this.

[00:07:48] Speaker A: It doesn’t taste like either of those all that much, but it’s very good.

And if you’re okay with that consistency, you’ll be okay with it.

[00:07:56] Speaker B: Yeah, I’m fine with that. I need to. Now I gotta find a place by me that sells it.

[00:08:00] Speaker A: You should give it a shot. But yeah, aside from the feasting, we otherwise just do some minor investigations for how best to reach the hideout.

And once you get inside the hermit’s hideout, you end up in the vents pretty quickly. Like there’s not much sneaking to be had. Fortunately, to be honest, I do feel like I missed out on something in this section. Probably because I found the vent to drop in with Kyle very quickly because I figured it was the hidden collectible in the corner route rather than the main one. I don’t know if you went to the right first or just went straight to Kyle like I did.

[00:08:33] Speaker B: No, I think I went to the right. Trying to remember now where the hell where the vent was.

Yeah, I did a few extra things around before dropping in on Kyle.

[00:08:47] Speaker A: Do you have any recollection of what any of that stuff was? I mean, I’m assuming there was like a chest or two and maybe some like red matter to clean up that kind of thing.

[00:08:54] Speaker B: Yeah, I’ve just found. Yeah. Some extra chests and red matter for people wise. I mean, there were little blue, like blue side quests. I did help this kid get his dog back, which that was annoying. Running around after the dog took a while to get. I thought it was like I have to bind the dog and catch it or like run up to it slowly or stealth up to it and then I can grab it. But no, it was like a. You run around with it until you run it to the kid and then it does.

[00:09:22] Speaker A: It’s kind of like a soccer ball thing earlier on.

[00:09:24] Speaker B: Yeah, so did that.

I mean, I kind of explored.

I won’t say every nook and cranny. There are a few where like pieces of red matter and other stuff where I was like, I don’t know how to get to that.

[00:09:42] Speaker A: Yeah.

[00:09:42] Speaker B: And I Don’t want to. I’m sure it’s not massively difficult to figure out, but I don’t.

I’m just going to continue with the story. So.

Yeah, I don’t think I missed. I don’t think I missed too much.

But the thing is there was nothing. Nothing that I did that was.

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

Particularly notable.

[00:10:00] Speaker B: That. Yeah, notable.

[00:10:03] Speaker A: So, yeah, I got to the Kyle like vent portion and the scene started and I just thought, shouldn’t you give me the option to drop in or something so I can go back and do the things that I probably missed? And it just threw me in there.

But. Oh, well, I’m glad to hear that it wasn’t anything major. And even better fighting against Kyle’s lackeys and then Kyle was a super fun fight.

Yeah, the cow fight.

[00:10:27] Speaker B: No, it was fun. I. I enjoyed the Kyle boss fight.

[00:10:31] Speaker A: Yeah. Being surrounded is just a great, entertaining way to prove your skills against mobs and then unleash all the fun legion skills like the spinning swords or the autobind. So like that. I mean, obviously it’s just like take out the minions first and then Kyle himself is so fast paced with all sorts of trickery up his sleeves. He can zip around the battlefield just like you can. He has a smoke screen that large kind of electric aoe attack as well. And it’s just generally a well rounded, fun kind of matching of skill sets to yours.

[00:11:03] Speaker B: Yeah, it was.

[00:11:06] Speaker A: It reminded me a lot of fighting the other actual human hunters in Bloodborne, which are some of the best fights in that game. So it. I would hope that we get something similar to this Kyle fight again in the future.

I don’t know. We’re running out of. Out of files to go through, so maybe it’s just do it again on the next playthrough. Yeah. On harder difficulty.

[00:11:25] Speaker B: Yeah, we’ll see. I also like. I don’t know, I like how Kyle looks. Badass. I like how Kyle looks.

[00:11:30] Speaker A: Oh yeah. Kyle’s character design is top notch here.

[00:11:35] Speaker B: Definitely.

[00:11:37] Speaker A: Yeah. That kind of like digital mask, that digital shifts and what now? It doesn’t make a lot of sense, but it’s cool. It’s really cool. And I’m trying to think of like dreads too.

[00:11:48] Speaker B: No, what it reminds me of.

And I just like can’t pinpoint, you

[00:11:54] Speaker A: know, what I want to say. It’s something from some kind of like EDM music from the 20s.

[00:11:58] Speaker B: That’s exactly what I was going to say. Like an EDM band. And I’m trying to think of exactly who. Oh, well, sort of deadmau5, it sort of reminds me of.

[00:12:07] Speaker A: It’s. It’s sort of dead. Did deadmau5 mask kind of change what it looked like?

[00:12:12] Speaker B: I don’t know if it changed, but did he have the X eyes?

It reminds me sort of something of that.

[00:12:18] Speaker A: Yeah, I hear you a little bit like that, but, like, obviously more. More futuristic. It also reminds me a little bit of Astrobot, actually. Who can. Who has a digital face?

But this is cooler. Way cooler.

[00:12:30] Speaker B: No, it was. It was really cool. It was a good fight.

[00:12:34] Speaker A: Yeah. I think this is my favorite fight of the game so far. Like, some of the homunculi and the whatever are cool and whatnot, but this was. This was the most fun I’ve had in combat so far.

And I mean, even better, once you beat him, he just becomes this happy go lucky dude who calls you, hey, we’re friends now, and takes you on a tour of the place, you know, even though you and Hal are rightfully suspicious. I did find it extra clever that they have a hologram wall in place, though.

Gotta love that technology.

[00:13:08] Speaker B: Yeah, that’s cool.

That was cool.

[00:13:13] Speaker A: Yeah. It would have been useful to see that in other areas where you have to use some form of. I mean, I guess use your iris to find walls like that in hidden spaces. Maybe we’ve been missing them all along. Maybe not, though. Maybe it’s just something that they set up for.

[00:13:25] Speaker B: I was gonna say, I don’t think I have, because I’m not gonna lie. I play this game probably 90% with my iris on.

[00:13:31] Speaker A: So.

Yeah, no, I don’t.

I kind of like, I get why they do it because it’s an easy workaround to, you know, I guess, improve quality of life, but kind of takes the immersion out. But, like, way too many games have the focus to, you know, see around a corner that you can’t actually see around future in it. And so I don’t feel it’s all that necessary. I mean, in. In game, in world, in lore, it makes sense that they would actually have the technology for this. But, like, I don’t know, someone in some other game, like, just focusing, like in Last of Us, honestly, probably shouldn’t exist in that. Like, Batman might have superhuman hearing or something, so he can do it in Arkham series, but I don’t know if it fits in Last of Us, Batman.

[00:14:23] Speaker B: A lot of technology because of the money.

[00:14:25] Speaker A: That’s true. That’s true. Yeah. That is true. It’s all about the money, really. That’s it. At the End of the day.

[00:14:30] Speaker B: Really?

[00:14:30] Speaker A: You got the money, you got the tech.

[00:14:32] Speaker B: Exactly. After Kyle, did you do the, the Proving Ground or whatever?

[00:14:37] Speaker A: Oh, with the guy next to the elevator or the door? Yes. I, I, he said it was going to be training and it was just.

You’re up against waves of enemies.

[00:14:47] Speaker B: Yeah, it’s like four waves or whatever, and they just get harder. Four or five waves. Yeah.

[00:14:52] Speaker A: It was fun, though.

[00:14:53] Speaker B: I, yeah, you know, I, yeah, it was fun. I beat it. I didn’t dialogue.

[00:14:58] Speaker A: Not too crazy, but it was kind of like a bait and switch from that dude.

[00:15:03] Speaker B: Yeah.

[00:15:05] Speaker A: And yeah. And so Kyle did promise us that if we entertain him, he would answer any question that we have. So if we get straight to the point and ask about drugs and he reveals its name. It’s called Blue Evolve, which boosts your reflexes and even lets you see Chimeras when you’re not, you know, our player character. But then there’s the person that’s been supplying it. Douglas, the dealer is nowhere to be found.

So how convenient that we’re detectives. Right?

[00:15:33] Speaker B: Exactly.

Also, I just love like the people, like these fast people. It’s like their names are just like Jenna, Kyle, Doug. Doug the drug dealer.

[00:15:46] Speaker A: Doug the drug dealer.

Dougie. I feel like he would be called Dougie.

[00:15:51] Speaker B: Dougie.

[00:15:53] Speaker A: Yeah, there’s no, there’s no like fancy futuristic names. They’re just, they just kept on with the same culture. I’m fine with that.

[00:16:00] Speaker B: Yeah.

[00:16:00] Speaker A: No, yeah.

So, yeah, and then you, you move through on your search for, for Dougie and the gigantic Tartarus boss fight right before you find him in the astral plane.

Really felt like a moment where I was kind of truly hitting stride between all the abilities and the legions and my own skill, like knowing exactly when to kind of like dodging timing. I’ve got down for years now from souls, likes and everything else, but, like knowing when to pull out the Legion and then wrap someone up and then like switch between them and use their skills and all that stuff kind of all felt like it was coming together at this point.

[00:16:40] Speaker B: Mm.

Yeah, I. Tartarus.

[00:16:44] Speaker A: Yeah.

[00:16:45] Speaker B: No, no, go for it.

I was just gonna say like a lot in this, Sorry. A lot of times in this fight.

Yeah, the dodging part I’ve definitely gotten. Also, I don’t play as many Soul Team, but otherwise a lot of games just dodging. And I’ve definitely gotten better at dodging in games. But there was like, for this, and I think there’s another boss later on where I’m trying to, I’m Using the bow or the arrow Legion more. And with the technique of where you’re literally holding them like a bow, trying to shoot the.

In the middle, there’s like, a little area.

Yeah. But I will say the part that noise was like, even though I know it’s about to charge on me, if you’re in that mode and you try and dodge, they don’t dodge. And when I try and get out of that mode, it’s a bit. It’s slower than, like, calling your legion back in.

And so I was just getting like, so are you.

[00:17:39] Speaker A: When you try, actually. So that it does have a dodge when you’re in that, like, manual arrow aim, but it’s not a very great dodge. It gives you, like, a little sidestep instead of a big roll. Um, so I hear you.

When you are getting out of it, are you hitting, like, the same button that you used to call it up, like the L button, or are you. Because what I’ve been doing in those is I use.

What’s it. I think it’s the R button. Makes them disappear.

[00:18:05] Speaker B: Yeah, I was using the R button, but I feel like it’s a little bit. It’s just from. And it makes sense because the legion’s, like, on you, probably. It’s just like. It’s a little bit. It’s maybe like a half second slower compared to, like, if you have your legion out on the tr. On the chain and you bring it back in.

[00:18:21] Speaker A: Right. That’s true.

[00:18:22] Speaker B: But again, like, that half second, like, sometimes with dodging, it’s just. Yeah.

[00:18:26] Speaker A: Yeah. I suppose the only helpful bit there is that your manual arrow aim is only gives you like, four or five shots if you have it slowed down and then it runs out of. Get out of battery, so.

[00:18:38] Speaker B: Oh, yeah.

[00:18:38] Speaker A: At least you can’t be in it for that long. I mean, but still. Yes. I guess you just gotta, like, anticipate more.

[00:18:44] Speaker B: Yeah, I just gotta get. Yeah. Which is on me too, because I got better later on some of the other fights too, because I was using it later on of just. Of just, like, making sure. Like, okay, I see something. Let’s just get it out now. Like, get out of that mode now and then move and let him do the charge.

[00:19:01] Speaker A: And then that makes sense. So. And then. And then it was a good. Yeah.

[00:19:05] Speaker B: Yeah. It was a good fight, though, with Tartarus.

Again, the character designs of these enemies are really cool, too, Visually.

[00:19:12] Speaker A: Visually, they’ve been crushing it.

[00:19:14] Speaker B: Yeah.

[00:19:15] Speaker A: In this overall. Enemy designs. Character designs. Yeah. It’s been entertaining.

Yeah. And I think that the last comment I had on the Tartarus fight was for some reason, because this one was pretty large.

It for some reason reminded me of that one hour of Monster Hunter World that you and I played in Co op. And maybe you want to give it another go.

[00:19:38] Speaker B: Maybe. Yeah, we’re good. We can give it another go.

Gotta get that. Yeah, get that working out.

[00:19:46] Speaker A: We’ll see. Time is an issue.

[00:19:48] Speaker B: Yeah, we’ll see.

[00:19:50] Speaker A: But yeah. So you. Okay, you beat Tartarus and you bring back Douglas from the astral plane. And who would have guessed that Kyle, a guy with a digital shape shifting mask and equally shifting allegiances would double cross you?

[00:20:03] Speaker B: No.

[00:20:04] Speaker A: Yep.

[00:20:05] Speaker B: Yep. Damn it, Kyle.

[00:20:08] Speaker A: Damn it, Kyle.

He steals Douglas’s case with more drugs. But oh, he didn’t think this one through or have enough research about it, or understand it well enough because all of his hermits take it and immediately lose control.

One even becomes that weird half Chimera hybrid.

[00:20:29] Speaker B: Yeah, with like a giant claw. Or is it like a claw?

[00:20:32] Speaker A: He’s a giant claw.

[00:20:33] Speaker B: Yeah.

[00:20:36] Speaker A: Looks like a character out of Resident Evil. But.

So after you take them all out in that rooftop, the chase is on. Since Douglas ran off. I hear you, dude. This was not what you bargained for. But you gotta like, stand up to your mistakes.

But yeah. Yes. So commences a chase escape sequence. Since all of a sudden this blue evolve starts tearing open the world with all kinds of Astral plane structures and Chimeras bursting through.

I think that was not expected. Like, I can see the drug being injected and then turning people into Chimeras. But the tearing apart the world at the seams was. Caught me off guard.

[00:21:15] Speaker B: Yeah, it did. Same here. I got knocked off running.

Oh, really running on one of the platforms because something just. Yeah, it like, it broke through and like, just knocked off.

[00:21:24] Speaker A: Oh, is that like the staircase one? Yeah, yeah, that got me too. It said, oh, watch out. And I didn’t realize you had to run backwards because it stopped. I guess not that much, but I think they kind of got you on everyone with that one.

But yeah, once you finally catch up, Douglas has shot himself. And you find a pass card to Zone nine, which you’re already in, and find out that Douglas worked for the ari. The Aegis Research Institute we talked about last time. So the plot thickens, my friend.

This particular reveal led me to believe that the ARI is probably purposefully trying to bring the Astral Plane elements to our plane. Or at least trying to sabotage and destroy Zone 9.

I don’t have any Answers yet they didn’t give us any.

[00:22:16] Speaker B: I don’t know. Nope. They didn’t know. Nothing at all.

[00:22:18] Speaker A: Just theories. But that’s security footage. Sure as hell looked very obviously like Jenna Anderson taking the case with Blue Evolved, didn’t it?

[00:22:27] Speaker B: Yes, it did. It definitely looked like Jenna.

[00:22:30] Speaker A: I kind of chuckled because Hal said it was a fuzzy video, but it seemed pretty damn clear to me.

[00:22:36] Speaker B: Yeah, same.

And also, I, I. My thought on this was because you had.

Doug shoots himself, of course. But in the video, like, he, like, talks to.

It looks like he talks to Jenna, hands her the case, but it looks like she kind of.

And then he just goes in there all, like, depressed. But it made it seem like she said something or made him, like, controlled him.

[00:23:00] Speaker A: Like, did some interesting psycho, made him

[00:23:04] Speaker B: kill himself and made him kill himself. That was just like how it looked originally to me, just in the quick video.

[00:23:11] Speaker A: But the video feed cuts out the second he walks through the door.

Yeah, but that’s. That’s an interesting theory. I wouldn’t be totally surprised by it.

[00:23:20] Speaker B: Yeah,

[00:23:23] Speaker A: so. Yeah, so you spoil your cover. Which side note was guaranteed to happen eventually in this segment because Hal made it such a huge point that you. You joining him in Zone nine would be a bad idea. But I digress.

And you’re fighting Homunculus Beta. Take him out, and then he wakes up and you get saved by a flying motorcycle attack and someone in a suit that says Raven on it with basically a dark legion who shows up to save your ass as well as finish it off.

That was cool. Very anime.

[00:23:58] Speaker B: Yeah, it was.

Yeah, it was. That was really cool.

[00:24:02] Speaker A: And then, you know, the file ends on the cliffhanger reveal that it was actually Akira all souped up after his stabbing recovery. What a lucky dude. And lucky us that we played file seven this time, too, because I wanted to see what happened after that.

[00:24:20] Speaker B: Yeah, same here. I mean, that was. I’m not gonna lie. That was kind of a. That was a cool little twist. Little twisty, Twisty cliff. Like, cliffhanger of the end of the series. It was. Yeah.

[00:24:31] Speaker A: Seeing Akira, it was, like, had me have mixed in that moment right before finding out more. It had me. It gave me mixed thoughts of, like, Okay, I feel like this could go in a couple directions.

He could be, you know, the ninja type, like, silent helper that’s gonna come and he saves the day and then disappears. And you’ll run into him again later, but this is before you find out that he’s Akira. And then. Or he could just be on your Team, but he’s, you know, a dark version.

Or he could just come take out the homunculus for fun and then kill you anyway. But then you find out it’s Akira and, you know, it’s like, okay, well, I guess we’re gonna be just fine.

[00:25:13] Speaker B: Also, is he the only person of Raven Squad or Raven Team, whatever this is?

[00:25:18] Speaker A: I have no idea. That’s a very good question. It’s a very cool suit. And maybe it unlocks for us later, or maybe it unlocks for us in New Game plus, but I would enjoy an all black and red suit. It did unlock for me, right as the file ended. A head accessory, which is a perched raven, which basically, I’m assuming, goes along with you every single kind of animation you have of a raven with its wings stretched out on your head.

So I put it on for a second and I thought, this is going to look really weird in cutscenes. I’m going to take it off.

[00:25:51] Speaker B: Okay. Actually, that just that. That reminds me, I saw. I got like, all this stuff and then I found stuff too, looking around.

[00:25:57] Speaker A: But I forgo.

[00:25:59] Speaker B: That’s what I forgot to do after file. After this file and file seven, I forgot to go to, like, to the locker room to just see what new appearance things.

[00:26:07] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. I go back at the end of every. Well, I guess the beginning of every file just to kind of switch things out and get a visual. Different visual.

[00:26:15] Speaker B: I’m gonna have to do that before eight, see what I can change.

[00:26:20] Speaker A: But yes. So as File 7 begins with Josef talking to you in a cell for insubordination. And of course, Akira is the one to come talk to you first.

And he’s even more of a brown nose than ever to Josef, just like, singing his praises. But I think we are having our suspicions about something more sinister going on underneath.

[00:26:42] Speaker B: Oh, definitely.

[00:26:43] Speaker A: And on top of that, right, Hal is being tracked down. They’re trying to pin.

Pin his actions on. Well, actually pin your actions on him, that you were coerced into doing it. But then he calls you immediately on an encrypted channel to warn you to stay away from the crows. Without any further details at this point. You’ve just seen someone in a raven suit. Your brother, sibling.

You also have talking about crows, right? They’re very similar, but not the same animal. Is there a connection there? Is that what he’s talking about? Or are the crows like the. What’s it called, those entities from before that Yosef’s working with?

Very curious.

[00:27:24] Speaker B: Mm.

[00:27:27] Speaker A: But yeah, there’s no further Details available. And just like that, Josef lets you out of your cell to help with a chimeric outbreak and a homunculus egg because Jenna attacks Alicia.

So, yeah, I mean, you can do all kinds of against the rules stuff, but, you know, you’re the one with the power, so I guess you’re free.

What a world to live in.

[00:27:52] Speaker B: I know.

That was. Yeah. I don’t know. I found that. Yeah, funny. It’s just, hey, we need her help. It’s like. It’s like, okay, well, you’re gonna behave and then, like, yeah, we’ll let you out.

[00:28:05] Speaker A: Okay, we’ll take your word for it. Yeah. Yeah, we need you, so we’ll do it. Yeah, it’s one of those.

One of those. Just. It needs to be done to drive the story along, because I guess. I mean, they could have done a time jump or something, but no, it needs to keep rolling.

And then once the helicopter drops you off, you kind of revisit the very first file of the game, fighting briefly on the highway, just without the epic motorcycle scene, and find yet another homunculus burst out of a giant egg.

[00:28:32] Speaker B: Yep.

They’re everywhere.

[00:28:35] Speaker A: They’re everywhere. Jenna’s got a whole family of homunculi. And seriously, one at a time, she should just pull, like the Hercules Titans thing and just send them all at the same time.

I mean, you can’t. If you. If you’re the only one that can fight it along with Akita, then you should probably just send all at once. Like, why. Why waste your time with one at a time?

Jenna gotta get her strategy better. The factory. After you see this egg and get inside the factory that you work your way through here to track down the homunculus that’s running away. And Jenna is mostly just standard video game fare, to be honest. There’s some combat encounters, some light platforming, some other police officers to save. Nothing noteworthy. Nothing all that entertaining. It’s more just like a number of barriers on your way to the next boss fight.

[00:29:23] Speaker B: Yeah, it kind of was. There was a. It was like a flying chimera that was kind of annoying to me, but.

[00:29:29] Speaker A: Yes, yes. And there’s like the Poison Pools and all that stuff, which is. It’s all fine, but we’ve done it already, so it’s like, ready to.

Ready to see something new?

[00:29:39] Speaker B: Yeah, I was gonna say, at least with the Poison pools. Yeah, you just put. Put on the arms. Arms Legion. And you just float over.

Yep, that’s what I did. I actually don’t know if you can run through it. With the Beast, I didn’t try that,

[00:29:51] Speaker A: but I don’t think I did that. But I did do the.

Oh, yeah, you’re talking about the ones in the subway tunnels or whatever. Yeah, that was. That was how I got through with the arm. And then there was the other. In the factory, there’s, like, those spores that spew out poison, too, so.

[00:30:06] Speaker B: Those. Yes, Sorry.

[00:30:07] Speaker A: With those, I was just using the, like, the kind of jump to Legion thing, which is simple enough.

[00:30:13] Speaker B: You did that? I. So I guess, like, on the walls they have where you can shoot them and destroy them, but I didn’t see them till late, and I just. This is where I got better with dodging and timing. So I just timed on when they went off, and I just sprinted and dodged.

[00:30:28] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, I did that a bit too.

[00:30:30] Speaker B: Somersault my way through them.

I didn’t get hit once. I was actually pretty proud of myself.

[00:30:38] Speaker A: Bravo. Thank you.

[00:30:40] Speaker B: Thank you. Appreciate it.

[00:30:41] Speaker A: I tipped my hat. Yeah, I got hit.

Well, yes. Okay, so once you’re out of the factory for a good bunch of minutes at the beginning of that big Winged Boss Kalino, I believe it was called, I was planning on asking you, how the hell did you go about damaging it? And also, how the hell did you avoid the tornadoes?

And then before I could even send you a message, the first answer arrived, because before I knew it, it scoops you up and drags you to the astral plane with a ton of minions.

[00:31:10] Speaker B: Yep.

[00:31:12] Speaker A: And then with regards to the tornadoes, I tried all kinds of dodging, but the only reliable way I found was just using the Beast Legion and running around.

[00:31:20] Speaker B: Okay.

[00:31:22] Speaker A: Because he runs faster than you can. And runs faster than you can dodge, too. That’s probably the intended solution, but you can’t really do all that much damage while you’re doing that, so I figured I’d try it. Other options, too. I just kind of eventually whittled the health down, and that was really it.

[00:31:36] Speaker B: But same. I just.

Yeah, I shot. I think I used the Arrow Legion.

[00:31:42] Speaker A: Like shooting lore. Wise bosses that have minions make sense in a lot of games, but I also, unless there’s a specific purpose for it, don’t love minions because they just kind of are meant to distract you instead of focusing on making the boss itself. Great. So this one was just okay? I mean, the tornado attack is cool, but whatever.

Take it or leave it.

And you finally get to Homunculus Gamma, and he’s most definitely influenced by Godzilla. I mean, it has to be, right?

[00:32:12] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, like.

[00:32:14] Speaker A: But I think I mentioned it Last time that. Yeah, there’s like the spikes and there’s the laser out of the mouth and all that. But it was such a great multi phase boss fight here, I thought. And that’s two bosses in a row that I got an S tier on actually. So I was proud of myself here. But just love when I can pull off chaining dodges with abilities with binds, with attacks, all at the same clip and kind of not get hit all that often. It’s a lot of fun.

[00:32:43] Speaker B: Okay, so you had. Okay, you probably played the boss, right?

I’m also bad at this. I don’t actually look at the end and see what grade I got. I didn’t see.

[00:32:54] Speaker A: I only started seeing the grades in the score screen. Did you at any point switch from I don’t know what the difficulties are called casual to like platinum normal or something?

[00:33:04] Speaker B: No, I’m just on casual.

[00:33:06] Speaker A: Okay. Yeah, once you switch it up, once I was able to get my whole setup back together and I’m, you know, now on a. Instead of in handheld, I’m on a. With a pro controller on an actual tv.

I switched it to.

To the whatever the sort of, I guess normal plus the platinum normal difficulty.

And that one’s what, the one that gives you like grades at the end of each one.

Okay.

[00:33:33] Speaker B: Well, I don’t know. I’ve just kept it on casual because it was. That was the default.

[00:33:38] Speaker A: Yeah, right.

[00:33:39] Speaker B: Yeah, Nothing wrong with that.

So I don’t know, to me, like, this boss fight was fine. It was also quite frustrating for me. I don’t think I understood it as well. I mean, I took out like his legs, like the little extra layers on his legs and his arms.

And there were times where I thought you had to shoot the back as well, the face, and it wasn’t seeming to do anything with the arrow. And then to be honest, like, for the last like quarter of his health, I literally just stood under his legs and just kept hitting his foot over and over and over and over and over and over until he died. And I was like, okay, well, that was. I was like. It was a cool fight, but like that just kind of got a little to me at the end. But yeah, I hear that.

[00:34:22] Speaker A: I mean, I like that he jumped over to the building and you start. You had to shoot him and all that for a while and then he comes back and like almost falls off the building and that kind of stuff.

[00:34:29] Speaker B: Yeah, that was all cool. Yeah.

[00:34:31] Speaker A: And that was all fun. The set piece elements of it were fun and the.

But yes, he has A very large health pool in each phase. So it took some time, but. No, I. I understand that too. Like, yeah, it’s. If you just got to keep doing the exact same thing forever, it’s not as great. It was cool that you could actually bind the individual limbs though.

But yeah, I think my only kind of other major comment I guess for.

For this file is that I’m at this point somewhat surprised we actually still don’t have our fifth Legion yet.

[00:35:08] Speaker B: Yeah, same. Because I saw there are a few areas that I passed in six.

[00:35:14] Speaker A: There are. Yeah, there are areas that have.

Actually I think there was even one in like file two.

So I think that’s meant. It’s meant to be a go replay the files or go replay the whole game once you have everything unlocked. And you can probably continue to unlock skills and rank up and all that stuff.

But. But hey. Well, they might give it to us soon or maybe not until the end to kind of entice you into that second playthrough.

I don’t know. Another question actually related to your boss fight. Kind of slowly damaging.

Have you been keeping up with upgrading your skills and specifically actually upgrading your weapons and lidjanas? Yes.

[00:35:56] Speaker B: Yes.

[00:35:59] Speaker A: As much of the currency as you have. Okay. Yeah. All right. Yeah, that Homunculus Gamma just had too much health.

[00:36:07] Speaker B: Yeah. I don’t know what level you’re at, but both are. Mine are at six.

[00:36:10] Speaker A: Yeah, I think. I think we’re around the same. If not, I think there might be staggered at this point, but I don’t know. I think they’re both six.

[00:36:16] Speaker B: Yeah, I could.

[00:36:18] Speaker A: I.

[00:36:19] Speaker B: There’s a part like I could easily have one, maybe one or two levels above the other, but I was kind of right.

[00:36:25] Speaker A: Oh yeah.

[00:36:26] Speaker B: Right.

[00:36:26] Speaker A: Like I’m trying to keep them semi even.

[00:36:28] Speaker B: Yeah.

[00:36:30] Speaker A: But yeah, I mean overall a great session. I really like the change in pace. Pace somewhat, but really the kind of the vibe and the. The atmosphere of the. Of file six a lot.

Getting out of the cyberpunk kind of futuristic neon lit streets environment, which we’ve seen a lot of and will continue to. But it was. It was cool to be in kind of like a sunny sunset moment for a bit.

But I thought it was a good, good session here and especially nice to get that.

That break.

So for next time, our goal is to play files 8 through 11 and finish the game. There’s also file 12, but yeah, so now I know that five files, potentially six, sounds like a lot, but supposedly the plot really picks up here and each file becomes a bit shorter. I guess it starts to pick up in File 9 because File 8 is primarily just blue and red cases, side quests along the way with some minor story details and mini games peppered in.

But supposedly, yes, the story itself mostly ends with file 11, so file 12 is just optional endgame content.

So once you beat the game, let’s catch back up and chat about everything that went down.

[00:37:54] Speaker B: Yeah, definitely.

So yeah, I’m excited to, I am excited to continue like to continue on and I’m thinking there’s still some holes I feel obviously there are in the story and I’m sure, yeah, they will.

I will assume that they will be filled in these.

[00:38:12] Speaker A: They better plug up those holes because I do not want to do heavy, extensive research afterwards into like fan fiction to find out what happened.

[00:38:20] Speaker B: Exactly.

[00:38:20] Speaker A: So hopefully they covered their bases at least for the important plot beats. I’m going to assume that they did knowing it’s platinum games, but they’ve got 4 and a half ish files to figure it out. Let’s see what happens.

[00:38:34] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. Let’s see. So yeah, looking forward to continuing on and finishing the game and seeing, seeing how it, how it ends. So yeah. So thank you everyone for listening and for again following along and hope you’re excited to get to the end here and see what happens here for the end of Astral Train. So thank you and have a good one.

[00:38:57] Speaker A: Catch up next time. Bye.

[00:39:00] Speaker B: If you want to follow along and discuss our playthrough of native games on the Gaming Backlog Book Club Podcast, please give us a follow on your podcast platform of choice, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, iHeartRadio, Pandora, Amazon Music or Pocketcasts, as well as our Discord and Instagram account under the same name. Thanks.