00:00.00 Dave Hello everybody. My name is Dave Jackson and you're listening to tales from the backlog. This is a video games review podcast where each week I'm joined by a guest to bring a game out of the backlog play it and discuss I have 2 wonderful guests with me today. Both are friends of the show. Ah, longtime recurring guests on the show. First up, one of my co-hosts on a top 3 podcast the warrior cook aaron angle and we're also joined today by rpg sicko and Wheels Hustler Ryan Arrington welcome back 00:36.53 Aaron Sup boy. 00:48.56 Ryan N*****. 00:51.18 Aaron You don't have to be scared it if if you know it's coming. 01:08.98 Dave longtime listeners of the show will recognize Ryan and Aaron from Many episodes in the past. Ah, last time the 3 of us did an episode together I believe it was for the Eldon Ring newbies episode back summer of 2022 or something like that. we also did persona 5 together and we also did the very first episode of the show about rocket league. Together and Aaron's been on a couple other episodes including another game that might come up in conversation. The last episode we did together was about chained echoes and final fantasy. 6 So many times these guys have been on the show and we're here with another rpg today. We're going to talk about sea of stars. Which is an rpg developed and published by sabotage studio for pc and contemporary consoles in 2023 if you have not played sea of stars here's how the spoiler policy goes. It's the same as every episode on the show. We're not going to spoil the story of sea of stars for you before the spoiler wall. So if you want to avoid spoilers you can check down in the show notes and find out when the spoilers begin now a special thing in this episode in the spoiler section by nature of some things that happen and the inspirations that inspired sea of stars here were also going to spoil the plot of chrono trigger. Because this game takes direct inspiration and sometimes lifts entire plot beats from chrono trigger. So if you haven't played chrono trigger and you don't want to be spoiled maybe steer clear of that spoiler discussion as well. But there are some plot beats where I'm like i. 02:43.35 Dave Can't talk about this the way I want to without talking about what happens in Chrono Trigger. So um, that leads directly into my elevator pitch for what sea of stars is if you don't know what it is I say the kids who grew up loving Chrono trigger and super Mario Rpg made a new game using those inspirations. Guys. What would you say. 03:04.71 Aaron And yeah I would I would say the same thing you know the game did ah more so than chained echoes hit me in that. Oh I'm twelve years old on my super Nintendo kind of feel again, you know for it being like a a modern jrpg it did check all of those bot like all of those like ah. Those reminiscing boxes. You know what? I mean all those childhood feeling playing rpg boxes. So while I do have a lot of stuff I do want to say about this game if if you enjoyed the art rpgs on like the super Nintendo or maybe even the sega or even some of the more like early playstation one rpgs. This is definitely going to be up your alley and. 03:43.46 Ryan Yeah I would agree I think that's ah actually a throwback to paper Mario I think it kind of ah it's a modernized version. It looks really really good as far as how they handle the 8 bit I think I love the art style of it. Um, edd. Yeah I think it's ah a take on just a classic rpg with this a little. 04:00.47 Ryan Touch of the fresh is nothing necessarily new. But I do oddly enough I don't think it's a take that I've really seen that often as much as I think I should have to be honest, as far as the battle system things like that go. So. 04:10.23 Dave Yeah, exactly. Um, we're going to get into all those kind of new things like in the battle system and the familiar things as well. First want to talk about how long the game is where we played it I played this on switch I played. Ah, long enough to get both endings including the secret stuff which we'll talk about in the spoilers section that took me 37 hours to do how about you guys. How long did it take. 04:36.20 Aaron Oh man I should have looked at this. It had to have been like 30 hours I wasn't like you I didn't I just I didn't have it in me to to do like the new game plus and do like the extra ah true ending or anything or at least I didn't think it would have been worth any extra time spent. Ah. On. It. But I mean I did a fair amount of stuff and I tried to find ways to grind I think I think I was still like in that like 28 to 32 hour range somewhere I I definitely got my fill 05:05.61 Ryan I was kind of a mixture I did about I'd say close to about 40 hours some of that are just idling just chilled. But um I try I um I always do my normal thing I do a little bit of everything I tried to ah of late make sure that I finished games. So I tried not to do I thought if I tried to go to finish the game I don't think I would have finished it. So. Would to or refuse to get the secretig I don't think I would have finish to complete these I just went ahead just finish it out. So I'd say probably about 40 hours I'd say 05:29.22 Dave Gotcha yeah I was I was kind of surprised because when this game first came out people were like this is a 20 to 25 hour game and then when I played it I was like this is not a 20 to 25 hour game even if you don't do the extra ending stuff the 30 hours minimum I think. 05:44.15 Ryan Yeah, completely agree. 05:45.40 Aaron I yeah some of those puzzles were I'm not a puzzle guy but some of those puzzles I had trouble with too I would say a good 3 extra hours I spent getting mad not figuring out a puzzle going outside smoking a cigarette and coming back at it and being like I'm just gonna Google this. 05:56.82 Dave Ah. 06:02.62 Dave Hell yeah, um, so let's ah, get into our histories. Our personal histories with sea of stars. What made us want to play it. Did we play their previous game the messenger and then we've already mentioned chrono trigger. Super mario rpg paper mario those types of games. So if you played those games too. So ah Ryan I'll kick to you first. What made you want to play see of stars. 06:23.64 Ryan Of To be honest I was told about it I remember Aaron is essentially ah didy had brought it up as far as it being like a good title and so I kind of just looked at it because of that saw the reviews on Steam saw just the overall kind of like graphics down I was like yeah I mean I had just finished chain of echoes ah probably a couple of. Few months prior to that as Well. So I was all on board for having like a lewis little single player tied to be to play on the side I Didt fit that gap something I kind of casually played and yeah I enjoyed that that casuality of it had to come to it whenever I wanted to just kind of play something on the solo. 06:55.91 Dave And back in the day. Did you play the stuff like chrono trigger and like Mario and luigi games. 06:59.79 Ryan I Played a little bit of paper Mario back in the day but I'd say my probably my biggest touch would be ledger dragoon as far as like the overall style that looks style overall is a little more like final fantasy as far as a little more grandiose little. More serious but as one of my favorite I think it's one of the most underrated rpgs Actually I wish they would have followed up with it as far as just the ah the battle system and stories. Oh All that stuff kind of fits the the ah classic Rpg style but the battle system was always unique to me So That's probably my biggest shout out to to the new style that that it brought. 07:32.88 Dave Right on Aaron how about you. 07:35.83 Aaron And well I was I mean I saw the trailer for this game I don't remember if it was on Reddit but this would have been like a year probably before it came out I was I'd either just finished chained echoes or I was right in the throes of chained echoes and I saw this shit and I saw them. I saw jrpg for the first time that that I can recall where it actually looked like they were climbing up ledges when they climbed up stuff or they would jump off their knees would bend as they hit the ground I was really really attract there and or see them swirling around in the water. Was really attracted to the game based on like what it looked like you could do within the environment that you can't really do in a lot of other video games which I do think they do a very good job of but I told Ryan I told Dave I told every person that I thought cared about rpgs I was like this is my next game. I what did I just I just finished I don't even remember what I just finished but I was just like oh my god I can't wait to get to the end of this because all I want to play is sea of stars. Balder's gate can come next like even though I know that's probably a better game zelda that's right that's right that's right I was playing tears of the kingdom. 08:35.78 Ryan Zelda. 08:39.11 Aaron And I I finally got to a point where I was like no see a stars is out I have to beat tears at the kingdom. That's how excited I was for this game but I I never played the messenger I never played the mario and the ouija games even though I have had multiple people tell me I would love them I did play chrono trigger now. It's been. Ah, long enough time to where like I don't know if I could pick out specific plot points from krono trigger without you you know, gently nudging me into them Dave but the battle system I did get a huge chrono trigger vibe from as I was playing it so but yeah, that was kind of my whole thing I've been watching this game I had it. Preordered I had it on my watch list on playstation I I was very very excited to play this game. 09:19.73 Dave Yeah, um I am like you I've been watching this for a long time because I kickstarted this and it was because I played the messenger and I loved the messenger so much by the way, an old old episode of tales from the backlog maybe like episode 25 or so I should. Is my own show I should know which episode it is but it's it's around that area. Um about the Messenger. So I Really love that game and I liked it so much that after I beat it I went I like googled the studio because I was like oh this game came out a couple years ago. What are they doing now. 09:40.59 Ryan Um, yeah. 09:55.77 Dave And I found the Kickstarter page for sea of stars and I backed the kickstarter like while the credits for the messenger were still rolling like that's that's how much I was like into the messenger and then also excited for this one. So um. 10:04.21 Aaron Yes. 10:05.32 Ryan Yeah. 10:10.67 Dave I I was real excited for it. I also have a little bit of experience with those inspirations back from the 90 s I did chrono trigger on the podcast in 2022 point that was my first time playing all the way through that game I played a couple of the paper Marios I've played super mario rpg um. Some of the game boy advance mario and luigi games too. So I feel like I have a pretty good basis in like the games that inspired this um and to get into some like opening thoughts before we dive in here I think that this game does ah a really cool thing with its gameplay like bringing something new to the table and not. It takes inspiration from those older games but the combat system in this is it feels like its own system which is always appreciated in ah turn based rpgs. Um on the other hand I really dislike the story in this game. Um I could not connect to the characters. And I feel like 1 of the things that makes an rpg like this like a jrpg style game really connect with people is if you get a connection with the characters and with their greater story then like that's that's the ticket to making you love those games the way that like. Me and Aaron on the podcast. We did final fantasy 6 and chained echoes games that we love because the stories are great and we connect with them and the 3 of us with Ryan here did persona 5 another one where like we like the characters we like the story and I just I didn't get that with sea of stars I I don't. 11:45.97 Dave Think that the game is like trash or anything like that. But I didn't connect with it and it just kind of ended up being all right? You know. 11:53.75 Ryan Yeah, complete and now I was just gonna agree I agree with you. 11:55.65 Aaron Okay, yeah, no, oh go ahead. Go ahead Ryan I and I agree with you Ryan I'm the I will go as a step farther to say that. Ah when I first started playing sea of stars I was not completely sold on the battle system. Ah, but by the time I had got to the end of the game and all the different ah elements of the battling system had shown themselves and allowed me to incorporate them and use them. Blah blah blah that the battle system kind of grew on me and not only that I think it carries the I think I think the battle system carries the game entirely. 100% with you Dave I just could not get into the story. Every major there's like maybe 2 things in the story where I was like o or like maybe 1 thing where I was like oh my god but it but it was it wasn't like it wasn't like anything else. This is why we played these games they're they're books they're stories. This is the kind of game. It needs to be. 12:36.21 Dave Yeah. 12:47.83 Aaron And while I think it excelled in a lot of other things. The story was the 1 thing to me where I was like the story's like the 1 thing like an rpg can lose and make the game objectively worse like if the story's good I can deal with a crappy battle system if the story's good I can deal with shitty music or shitty controls if the. You know if the battle system is really good, but the story sucks the game automatically loses 3 points from me or whatever you know what? I'm saying so I'm I'm 100% on board with you I expected a lot but I didn't I I shouldn't I shouldn't have expected a lot from the story because I knew nothing about it and just assume do it all work out. 13:20.67 Dave M. 13:21.84 Ryan Yeah I Think after seeing the reviews on it I did expect a little I know I guess I did expect to do something a little more grandiose when it came to the story but it seems like the the game. The story kind of flowed the way that they intended it to. They didn't really take themselves very serious like the cliches and things like that they pointed out is all very much just like. Making a kind of like a fun with traditional rpgs. You know say it's almost like they're like it's all been Done. You're not going to see anything new here and they just kind of felt like they designed it that way which I appreciate it. It's kind of funny at times. But I agree I think that the battle system was definitely the highlight I enjoyed it thoroughly. But the story wasn't anything that I was coming back for so. Specifically for sure. 14:01.83 Dave Yeah, and that that's something that like um, the Messenger also had that same kind of Meta self-referential type of humor in it and the difference is the messenger is not a game based like on its story. It's a 2 D Ninja Guiden like action platformer like. You can have like the most bullshit or absent story in that kind of game as long as the game plays tight. Ah, you'll love that game and so like that stuff was just kind of like flavor every now and then but when you transfer it to an Rpg and I just kind of like got the feeling that nothing is ever serious and then like. Sometimes shit gets real serious but then like it's not serious anymore like an hour later. It just like that that didn't transfer well in in my opinion but we'll get into it. We will take a little music break here when we come back, We will talk about the story. The characters. And everything else like that. 14:59.58 Dave So in sea of stars you pick between 2 main characters. Their names are zale and valere they are solstice warriors children born on the solstice who are then able to wield the power of the sun if it's the summer solstice or the moon. In the winter solstice I believe Zale is the sun warrior and valere is the moon warrior I picked valere at the beginning who'd you guys pick. 15:27.65 Aaron I 100% valere long. Yeah, one long blue I'm telling you dude if if my options are a girl or some teenager with spiky blonde hair I'm going the girl every single time I I like zail. 15:32.24 Ryan Valere all day baby. 15:40.38 Dave Um, ah yep. 15:44.28 Aaron Kind to but I was like I'm not playing as the teenager of Spiky Blonde hair. 15:48.20 Dave Yeah, yeah, exactly I Just just picked her because of valeer's character looked more interesting. Um, it's kind of unfortunate because neither character is interesting in the slightest in my opinion they are ah they're not silent protagonists. I Almost feel like they'd be better if they were silent protagonists because because then then maybe I could insert myself into it a little bit but they're not they do talk and they do have like personalities but they are just like wet blankets of the not wet blankets. They're just. 16:05.40 Ryan I was good to say here. Yeah. 16:06.39 Aaron I yes. 16:15.48 Ryan Mean. 16:24.31 Dave Cardboard cutouts of people I'm supposed to care about this is like strike 1 and two I feel like for this game story is like we have these main characters that I'm supposed to care about their quest I'm supposed to care about their feelings but there's like nothing there with these 2 16:39.83 Ryan The man against. 16:39.88 Aaron It. It's like that it's like that animmate it's like 1 of those reasons why I hate anime it's just like somebody'll say something like oh Garl you silly you silly bastard and then it'll cut to zale and he's like ha ha ha and I'm just like what's what's what's what's happening here. 16:56.98 Dave Ah, you know. 16:57.70 Aaron Me and David talked about the zale says ha ha ha that's like 30% of his written dialogue in the story. But yeah I'm I'm telling you and if this isn't like if this doesn't speak to how much I really really enjoyed the battle system and running around the map and collecting things like the the. 17:01.93 Dave Yeah. 17:03.11 Ryan So trip. 17:16.80 Aaron The worse your characters are the worse. Your story is the harder. It's going to be for me to give a shit enough to finish the game but it is a this should be a testament to like why this game is actually pretty good is because mechanically it is just it is a fundamentally sound video game. But it was written by a sixth grader and that's why we're all mad and. 17:35.15 Ryan Yeah, was a very fun experience for sure. But yeah, the the story was. 17:42.97 Aaron That that's the best way to describe it Ryan yes you. 17:45.40 Ryan Yeah, yeah. 17:45.20 Dave Yeah, well, we'll get into a little bit more of like the story set up here because like I actually think because you have other characters with you and I actually think that they are better. And propel the story forward much more than your main characters do which is a really weird like writing decision in my opinion. Ah but Zell and valeer are these solstice warriors they the fact that they're born on the solstice gives them the ability to wield magic of the sun or the moon. And they're the only ones who can protect the world from these monsters known as dwellers um during an eclipse this lunar or solar magic can hurt the dwellers if you don't fight the dwellers they become these bigger monsters called world eaters and you can probably guess how that ends so. They are born. They're kind of like children of destiny they need to fight the dwellers to protect the world and um, eventually you know, fight off all these other minions of like the big bad in this game which is known as the flesh manr. So um. After this opening section where you you get to know Zale and valere. They're joined on their quest they're going out to fight a dweller called the dweller of torment. They're joined on their quest by their childhood friend named Garl Garl is a cook and Garl is kind of. 19:14.33 Dave Special because he can't do magic so you have like these 2 god children basically and then you just have like this dude fighting with like a ah pot lid in shit like that and for as much as I like yeah well kind of but like I was going to say girls. 19:27.61 Ryan They're butler for sure. 19:33.74 Dave Of the main 3 Garl's the one that has a character and a personality and a character arc and like character growth and the things that you want from characters in rpg stories like Garl's the only good character. 19:45.43 Ryan Yeah, he runs of alfred from Batman like you mean, let's be honest, like like Batman's got a lot just a lot going on up top and Alfred is just sound. Yeah I'm saying just steady as definitely that this the situation except oh gay batbbi is still has a little more personality than these 2 Unfortunately. 19:45.52 Aaron And I he's their butler. Yeah. 20:04.40 Aaron I'm just going to say like yeah Dave you're right about all the things about girl having arc and growth and a personality and all of these things but like I mean so does marmadu you know what? I'm saying like like like just just cause he can't just because he does do those things. Doesn't mean they're not great I'm notorious in the discord everybody talks about it all the time at Discord you should go there and find out people are constantly talking about by takes on Discord but I made it very obvious how much I hate Garl as a character now what girl does do is he introduces cooking mechanics to the game which I had a lot of Fud with. End of statement. 20:43.53 Dave It's It's interesting because like you're you're right like I'm grading garl on the sea of stars curve if you put garl in another Rpg I'd be like yeah, he's fine. 20:49.42 Aaron You You're right? you yep somebody cut that guy's head off. 20:57.56 Dave Ah, not quite like that but he would be fine but like the fact that of your main party members and this extends to later in the game when more people join your party Garl is the only one who like takes initiative to talk to people. He's the only one that experiences like a character arc he's. The only one who really like I don't know like deals with interesting things until something big happens later in the game where the other characters have to deal with big stuff too like girls. The only fully fleshed out character. But I do agree with you that if this were if you transported him to another game I would be like oh yeah, that's like the fourth or fifth. Best character in the party. 21:39.53 Aaron Yeah, yeah, good point. Good point. 21:41.23 Ryan Yes, he's definitely like the only non introvert on the squad. Everybody else is just like you know what? I'm kind of scared of conversation. Don't really like dialogue or any kind of interaction with people for most part I Just you know do pushups to do some setups. It's kind of me. 21:50.23 Dave Ah, yeah. 21:54.12 Dave Yeah, there's there's a lot of conversations where Garl will you have to have an important conversation with an important character. Garl's the one who does the talking and then like it'll cut to Zale and it'll be like zall.dot.dotdot and then it'll cut to valeer ha ha ha or something like that. 22:13.11 Dave And Garl and it cuts back to Garl and garl is like all right? So like let's cut to brass tacks this is what we need to do? yeah. 22:16.00 Aaron Yeah what's the what's the play. No, that's very funny I always to you know you always have that conversation like what would you do? if you were to zombie apocalypse. How would you survive I would survive like Garl right? I would be the I would be our our group's diplomat I'd I'd speak to people you know what I mean I'd that's what I can't fight I don't got magical sun and moon powers. But he's he's the diplomat you're right literally every main story point. It's just like him jumping in front of everybody and being like hey what's going on here. Let's talk to this creature that nobody's talked to in a thousand years or whatever. 22:48.16 Ryan Yeah, he's like the rod weasley for beat. He's like the Rod Weasley essentially of the the group you know I'm saying it because I hate rod weasley yeah I just wanted to say real quick as it. 22:49.18 Dave Yep. 22:59.52 Dave Ah, there are a couple of other characters that are kind of important in the story that you meet early on there is the headmaster of the solstice warrior moraine and then there are the mentor characters. They're kind of older solstice warriors named Elena and brew gaves and. Stuff happens with them throughout the game some of the more interesting plot stuff happens with those characters I think overall um I think that this story like takes a really long time to go anywhere. Um. The beginning of the game like the tutorial section is really really slow. You do a combat tutorial like an hour and a half into the game before that it's just walking around and talking um and then. 23:49.86 Dave This game also does this thing like on the other end of the game I think where you reach a point where it's like very clear to me like this is we had a climax and now we're gearing up. We're going to go beat the final boss. We're going to finish the game and this is one of those games where they're like. No, you're not, you're going to do eight more hours of stuff and we hope you like it because we're not, you're not going to be quite sure why you're doing it. You know, real weird pacing I think in this game coupled with the fact that um it it just for a long time. This game. Story didn't seem to be about anything. It was just kind of like a Saturday morning cartoony adventure and then like it introduced some stuff and then like it didn't camp out long enough or something like that I'm just like really disappointed by this as ah as an rpg story. Especially one that took me 37 hours to play. 24:53.73 Aaron I. Okay I'm just gonna go first on ah on cut breaks I was ah all right here we go. So yeah I mean that's kind of the ah same thing for me. Dude is like and and I I still put the time in I still put the hours in I still enjoyed pieces of it and stuff like that. But. We can talk about the story and the characters and the pacing and all of these things all day. None of it matters in the grand scheme of how I feel about this game because I've completely shut out that part of it as being part of sea of stars I'm like if I if I think about these things too much. It's going to make me hate the game like I can't focus on the tare because I never would have finished it if it was that bad so I don't want to have like this giant shit fest about this game because there are parts of it that are good I just I don't know I was I was profoundly. I was so excited for this game I was profoundly disappointed by the the result of the game any other game like any other rpg out have been like you had have been like yeah let's go get the true ending see the story I want extra content but when I got to the end of this game I'm like what what extra content would I even give a single shit about you know? so. we we could we could beat this to death all all night but you know at at the end of the day it wasn't like it completely ruined the game for me entirely. But it's a it's a huge problem. It's it's the biggest problem this game has so yeah. 26:15.34 Ryan Yeah, unfortunate I would agree I didn't I wasn't as hyped so in in general me going into the game I was just kind of you know, enjoy looking for a like you said it's fairly shallow as far as overall game time so that could be fairly quickly and just kind of enjoy myself and go On. And it't being that for me, it kind of fit that I It wasn't expecting anything grandiose. But um I did I guess I'll I'll agree to the extent that I was also not very impressed with but the storyline um and if it wasn't for the fact it agreed that the the game was so enjoyable. The experience that they gave you outside of that was so fun. Um, yeah I would have also probably not finished or super rushed it I was best way for you to say it I did a little extra here and there but I wouldn't have done a single extra thing if I if it wasn't for that. 27:03.35 Dave Yeah I don't want to like have this be like a ah total shit fest without mentioning some stuff that I did think was cool about the story. Um I think that this game has some interesting ideas about like. The nature of going on big adventures like you do in this kind of rpg you know valeer and Zail are these you know magic wielders. They're the most powerful people in the world basically and then you also have Garl who's just a guy and so. A lot of times in that situation. You'd be like well hold on what what? how can garl fight alongside them without getting in any bad situations and see if stars to its credit is like no actually some bad shit's going to happen to garl for example in the first hour of the game ah you go and like fight some monsters in like this cave you sneak out. It's it's like this you know you're you're kind of rebelling sneaking out having a good time with your friends you go in this sealed off like ah forbidden cave and there's some monsters in there and 1 of them fucking like attacks Garl and like. Basically destroys one of his eyes and so I'm like oh shit like this game has something to say about you know people getting in over their heads and stuff like that. Um there's some other stuff later about like the nature of being. 28:25.22 Dave These children of destiny and how people deal with the expectations put on them and stuff like that. But in the Grand scheme of the story I didn't think they leaned hard enough into that like I said I spent a lot of the game wondering if this game had a point like if this story had a point at all and. When we did get there. Um, it was either too little too late or it was like we're going to introduce this cool idea and then never bring it up ever again. 28:51.57 Aaron I oh yeah, like I I don't want to talk about that if that's a spoiler. It's a spoilerer thing but there's the huge thing about the story that just bothered me but what I will say is you're right like Garl loses his fucking eye like life right? It's like the first big action. You see this game. It all is like oh damn. This game's taken. Little children's eyeballs dude this is gonna be awesome. This is gonna be maybe what I want out of this game. What I got from chained echoes you know is being a little bit more adult and then like that was like the most metal thing that happened in the whole game that was like. 29:10.93 Dave Yeah. 29:26.56 Aaron By far the most violent sadistic thing that happened the entire. It's like yeah take a little kid's eyeball all right Now. It's just rainbows and puppy dogs for the rest of it I'm just I'm with the I I could not find it like I'm sure there is a point but if but if there if there was a whole point of the story or like you said by the time we got there. I didn't care I just I was I was close enough to finishing the game where I just wanted it to be done and. 29:46.89 Dave Yeah I'll bring that stuff up in the spoiler section for sure because they to its credit again. There are some cool ideas in there I do want to talk about those but not right now. 29:59.21 Ryan Yeah I Definitely don't think that I give the best way to say it is the game is so so is very very good I would say it's It's great, but the story is not biting point for me the driving force. 30:11.36 Dave Yeah, it. It'll be a story that I um, like I'm not going to take this story with me in my day-to-day like a lot of rpg stories ill I'll just kind of sit around and think about some games and be like man that story was really good or like this moment was really impactful and this game. Just doesn't really have that kind of lasting appeal as far as the story goes. But um I do want to talk about some good stuff we have ah been fairly negative so far so we're going to take a music break. We're going to come back. Ah and talk about ah visuals and sound. So. Ah let's talk about the way this game looks first. Um I think this game looks excellent. It's really really colorful. Really great kind of modern pixel art. 1 of those games that like you know it's it's inspired by those like super Nintendo titles but like this could never have. Been on a super Nintendo it looks way too good, but ah, really, really incredible looking game I think. 31:15.40 Aaron I yeah I'm totally with you I got I got a whole like a legend of manna like vibe from it like a watercolory like storybook style art style. Um, that was in with all games like this is always the allure for me to jump into them like it. It doesn't look like a super Nintendo rpg it looks like a playstation one rpg that's when those starts say it kind of reminds me. You know a little bit of legend a manna a little bit star ocean second story. Um, where with the art style where you're getting more than just just pixelations I think ah watercoy. The best. Ah real word that I can use to describe it. But yeah I I was totally into it I mean they they did a lot of good things with the graphics too like you get out of water. It looks like you're wet. You never saw that kind of shit on playstation 1 you know you jump in. It's got like a realistic splash. Ah i. These little things are like what I look for in games like this I always talk about how the first time I saw link walk up a step ladder in ah, oak green of time. It blew my fucking lid open because his legs were moving up and down the ladder like you know so I look for little things like that this game has a lot of little things like that that work really well. The. The style of the game is what attracted me the most and they do a really good job. Not only of having like a really really pretty like setting for each of the places that you go but I also think the world map is really cool as well. I think they do a good job with ah making the islands that you travel back and forth from not look too much like a super mario world game. 32:44.63 Aaron Ah, but like they they really like the the 1 thing I can think about there's a sleeping dragon that like rests on this giant island you go to and every time you go past it on the world map. It's breathing. It's coming up and down. It's got the little snot bubble coming out like hey I like I love that it was very quirky. It was very cute and it. That was good payoff for me. The the graphics were what I expected and I think they did a really good job with him I enjoyed them a lot and. 33:09.81 Ryan Yeah I think that they basically took a bit or the overall 62 bit style and just pushed it to as as about as best as you can make it look it literally the the world almost felt alive like he was saying as far as the dragons. Everything felt so charming. 33:26.27 Ryan It was fun to be in the world and traverse it and do everything they had there was was really ah yeah, very enjoyable and and fun to be and I completely agree. 33:33.40 Dave Yeah, um I I played this on my switch oled and the oled screen really made like those neon colors like pop out and look really really great and um Aaron you mentioned like along the lines of animation I want to shout out the animations in the game too for just being like. Excellent, excellent pixel art animation for all the moves you're doing in combat. Um, they have a ton of personality like I'm thinking of like when serai like goes out of that portal and kind of like tosses her dagger up in the air and catches it and stabs. You know it's ah like the the animations in combat. 33:55.95 Aaron Oh man. 34:10.69 Dave They have um, unique animations for swimming for every character like based on what that character is like without spoiling too much that I thought was like this is great like they made me smile. Um, so you know props across the board as far as like. Visuals and animation goes I think. 34:30.20 Aaron I it took me way too long to figure out that everybody had not only swimming animations but climbing on walls animations too like or or walking a tightrope animations. It took me a long long time to figure out that like they were ah do that everybody had their own different 1 34:36.90 Dave Yeah. 34:47.76 Aaron But you're right about the ah battle mechanic thing. Dude it was. It was super sad like even when I would get annoyed with some of the battle mechanics because I felt like they kind of took a little bit too long sometimes just to pull off an attack that you're gonna do maybe 2 times a battle. You're right? They're very cool and then I don't know if you want to talk about this now. But when you start getting ultimate attacks like. All of those are like very very well I admitteded they take you outside of the well what the game actually is and actually give you like ah like a 3 d like stratosphere to you know, engage in these and they do things like ah they they have little. 35:21.83 Aaron Cut scenes like you know where it'll show them in like an anime style like which is also very very cool. They they do a good job of like presenting you with this world and then finding ways through the animation to take take you out of it a little bit. Ah but I I liked them all in the bat like I said the ultimate Attacks specifically. 35:24.65 Dave Yeah, yeah. 35:41.82 Aaron Blew my fucking lid open like I remember seeing Zale's ultimate for the first time just being like yo what in the hell is that like go to use a little bit more of that all the world baper. Whatever but I ain't mad. 35:48.91 Dave Ah. 35:54.48 Ryan Yeah I agree they ah they just did a great job with the art style in general the fighting again is just is really just the Holy Grail the game. It's fun to to do battles a lot of times I find myself even in chained echos which I really enjoyed I would sometimes avoid fights if I could you just want to try to progress. But in this honestly I found each fight just to be fun I enjoyed trying each time to ah, try beat myself. Whatever came to some of the thebilities where you had to chain them together to try to get your your strings of attacks that that was always.. There was always a challenge.. There's always something fun to do each each time you've got into a battle even if it was just against them. Random enemies on the map. 36:31.90 Dave The music in sea of stars is credited to Eric W Brown who did the music for the messenger under the alias rainbow dragon eyes. It's the same person though who did the messenger ost and um, famously this game has some ah. Outside contribution from famous composer Yasunori Mitsuda who did the music for the Chrono series and the Xeno series among many many other credits. What did you guys think of the music. 37:02.40 Aaron And I don't I don't really I mean I don't really have a lot of thoughts I mean I don't think any of I don't think it's like chained echoes or any of these other like and I'll stop stop with those comparisons right now there there there is not. I don't I don't know nothing ever really like jumped out to me as I was playing the game. You know what? I mean there wasn't a a theme or whatever that would pop into my head I'm not saying the music's bad or anything like that. But I just feel like I don't know. Maybe there's just like a lot of things that aren't super memorable about this game to me I mean i. Finished the game two weeks ago and I'm sitting here struggling to think of a single theme I'm I'm like legit like kind of like the game took me out of it so many times with just like what it was that I don't have a finer appreciation for everything else that went into it. Um I don't think the music was bad. By any means I think it was very good I think I thought the battle theme was ah very good I really like the sailing around in the shit music. But other than that I just think it just kind of I don't know just kind of fell into background noise for me I mean when you have to traverse a map and then. Leave and then go all the way back like to me a lot of the game I felt like I was rushing to get back to areas that I had already gone to and to its credit that is like exactly what it was like to play those rpgs and stuff back then but as an older gamer. You know I wanted to be quick quick quick quick. quick so 38:26.21 Aaron It almost felt like I was rushing around over the map so often between so few destinations that it kind of just got lost in the background because I was almost like I don't care I just got to get out of this area as quick as Possible. So I get to this next Area. So I can get to this next area in. So on and so forth, not that it was bad or anything I Just don't think it was very memorable. 38:44.66 Ryan Yeah I actually with hear I would actually disagree the the music was a bo to me. Theres actually a few times where I would just be sitting in an area. The music was hitting Ariel my party would come in and mitches like the music is hidden and we would it would just be sitting there chilling but I can understand again because of how you. 38:50.87 Dave Yep. 39:02.89 Ryan Gabe was me less. You just trying to do the best she can it kind of progress but still the music was was hitting for me, especially from the 8 bit style some w's definitely I noticed and I enjoyed myself quite a bit like I said it would be something I would have in the background maybe something on my playlist even a couple of them. So I enjoy the music actually quite a bit. 39:18.81 Dave Yeah, something interesting just came to my head like I think back to older rpgs where you know I associate music with story beats or music with characters or something like that like specifically thinking of final fantasy. Chrono trigger xenoblade chronicles I associate music with like big story moments and stuff like that. Um, and I don't in this game I don't really associate music with moments and it's probably because I don't I didn't connect with the story at all. So I didn't get that effect but I do agree with Ryan that the music fucking bops I loved it. Um, this was no surprise to me because like I said Eric W Brown did the music for the messenger which has one of my favorite game soundtracks of all time and I didn't mention in the um story setup section. But. This game is set in the same world as the messenger was set in and so they remix some songs from the messenger to be instead of like driving 2 d action songs. They're more like laid back rpg world map type songs and they were great like the remixes were awesome. Um I couldn't really tell Mitsuda's contribution um I just couldn't really pick them out which could be a credit to just 2 people coming together and forming like a cohesive soundtrack. Ah, but. 40:48.61 Dave when when I heard he was going to be a part of the game I was like oh that's awesome like I love his other work and then I played the game and I was like I couldn't tell which songs he did or not and also ah, recently at the time of recording mitsuda actually gave an interview or like a press release or something where he said. He's not doing any more work like this where he just kind of comes in and contracts on other people's soundtracks because he doesn't like how people can't tell the difference that was like 1 of his quotes so I don't know if it was like a direct response to see of stars. But. I I thought that was interesting kind of lines up with my experience here. But I thought the music was awesome. Um, the battle track was great. Ah let's see like the going around the world map without spoiling like gameplay mechanics for late in the game that song is awesome. Um, there were some moments like some real big like visual spectacle moments that had kickass music too. But like this could could be a soundtrack I just listened to outside of the game I think it rules. 41:53.60 Aaron And I think you made a really really good point about like about the first thing that you said about like not having specific music collected to plot point or connected to plot points because you don't really give a shit about them and you're right when you look back at like big moments like in final fantasy six with the opera scene or. I mean like dude I there might be character themes in this game. But if if there are I I never really noticed them or they didn't get played enough for them to get stuck in my head. But I think you put it way more eloquently. What I was or you put way more eloquently. What I was trying to say at least in terms of mine. I don't think there's a there's a lot of memorable music to me because I don't think it has a lot of memorable plot moments I think that's a really good point I'm not trying to detract for the music at all. But I I think you are saying that the way I want to say it better. 42:40.41 Dave I I know that Garl has a character theme. It's the one that goes deadda dadada did that did it did ah that's Garl's theme um but I don't think I can't remember if valere and Zale have character themes. They're barely characters. So I don't. 42:46.85 Aaron I Go Yeah oh no. 42:57.42 Aaron They So they barely have a theme cool. 42:59.29 Dave Yeah, exactly yeah their theme is just like a ah ah couple of like snare drum hits or something like that I don't know. Ah, ah. 43:05.25 Aaron It's the Burger King commercial. 43:08.00 Ryan Yeah I agree I think that because right now the first thing I thought of when you're mentionching that it was I just immediately start playing the gold saucer music from final fantasy 7 and the amount of hours again I could play I mean every note from that in my head right now but I couldn't necessarily do that for a game I just finished probably like a week or so ago from though even though I did enjoy the music but you're right, there weren't specific points in the game where they're so memorable where you like the music just also went hand in hand with that unfortunately, but I agree though still though the music was in. 43:37.81 Dave Yeah, it's It's a good soundtrack that it's it's Catchy. It's It's Awesome. Um I Just it's interesting. How I often come out of these rpgs like really really associating specific music with specific parts in the story like I. Just recently finished final fantasy 10 again and there's so many moments in that game where like the plot and the soundtrack are like in perfect concert with each other and I Just yeah, it's not something I pulled from this and it's probably because I didn't like the Story. So. What else? Yeah, okay. 44:24.14 Dave So the gameplay in sea of stars. We'll talk about the battle first and then we'll talk about the out of battle stuff after that you do turn based combat in sea of stars. Ah, no atb. So. It's not like in chrono trigger or final fantasy or something it is like real turn based you can actually sit. Take as much time and think about what you want to? do you have 3 party members on the screen at a time and eventually you will collect I believe you if I remember right? you'll get at least 5 maybe 6 characters in your party. Um, and you can switch your party members out free of charge at any time which I always appreciate that. Um, one of the big things about this battle system is that it brings something from the Mario and luigi games which is timing attacks to do extra damage if you press the attack button right? when your attack lands. Ah, or if you press the button right? when someone hits you, you'll block a percentage of the damage that they do um this is a a big feature of the game. How did you guys feel about this. 45:27.59 Aaron And I loved it. I love shit like this this is super mario rpg incarnate what I in and I will not talk a whole whole lot about the battle system because I just feel like it's clearly the best part of it but I thought it was cool. How. Every single enemy had like a different way to trick you into not being able to block their attacks like the first thing that you fight in the game just comes up its arm goes in the air. It comes down boom easy to time the attack. But as you get further on into the game. It's like a guy. It's like a guy will like jump in front of you raise his right hand raise his left hand swing his left hand halfway and then come at you with his right hand you're like bro how the how the fuck am I supposed to block that you did 6 moves. It's like what my dad did when I was a kid and he would like wind up his fist like he was gonna punch me and then just kick me at the d tap like i. 46:23.53 Dave Ah, ah. 46:23.63 Aaron I thought that was very funny cause I was just like oh well, if it's gonna be a time to tag battle system I'm about to fuck this whole game up, but it wasn't like they are constantly cha like sometimes it would get to a point where a character would come up and trick me and I wouldn't be able to block it like 3 times even I was just like you know what? I'm just gonna eat the hp. I don't care I'm done I'm getting so frustrated about being able to do this I'm just gonna let him have the free hit that I'm gonna hit it back 18 times harder with it sp turn but I love shit like this to me like the the Jr and we've talked about this before if you're going to have a modern day J Rpg it or a term-based battle system even like it's got to have some sort of nuance that separates it from other things or at least keeps it from the keeps the battle system from becoming stale I think at the very basics of this battle system adding the time hits and the time blocks were really good for this gaming. Keeps you engaged when not other parts of the game are so I I loved it. I had a ton of fun doing this stuff. So yeah, very cool I just the amount of time something tricked me and I couldn't block it I was like legit like airington like crushing my controller like why can I not fucking block the. Water droplet edy or whatever. 47:35.53 Ryan Yeah, oh man I could like the the battle system is superb I'm honestly genuinely shocked that more games the rpgs especially haven't picked up the style because it's such a simple thing to do and adds so much detail so much context to the to the fighting. It just makes them. Each fight seem unique, fun. Um I I don't know how more games have it done it but this game did and it was again. It was a blast. Ah the attacks all the attacks are fun to do. They look spectacular as you're doing them which makes it even more fun to do so. But yeah I was getting I was definitely getting my shit pushed in several times by the enemies. Ah. Because they were definitely catchyduous, but they were catchy with hella heies some faints in there and the way they the characters look even just each animation was so unique and different. Um I don't know the yeah being really kind of covered the best. It was super super fun to do and even getting. Constantly ah, shaken was was pretty funny and surprising because again each fight you got it like I I'm a get you this time you you literally beat the brakes I'll be like 5 times a row but I'll but get you at least once and I never did on some of those but regardless is just the fact that you always had an opportunity to do so it was super engaging. The ballas system was fantastic. 48:49.64 Dave Yeah, the the timed hits I like them too. It's it in some games. It kind of feels like a ah cheap way to make you pay attention during combat right? It's like well if you time it right? You'll do 2 extra damage or something like that. But the thing that makes. This one work is that you're not just trying to time your attacks right? to do a bit of extra damage. Um, a lot of your attacks and all of your special abilities will have well no all of your attacks even will all have some kind of like property to them. So like. Valeres attack does blunt damage zale does sword damage valeer does Lunar Magic Zale does solar magic and there's other stuff that gets introduced ah enemies will kind of start to prepare spells. This is called the lock system in the game spells or special abilities. And they'll show you like maybe they'll show you one like hammer icon one moon icon and 1 sword icon. So if you hit them 1 time each with like those types of damage. Ah, you will break those locks and if you break all of them. You'll interrupt their spell or their ability that they're trying to do and this is like the crux of the battle system is especially during boss fights is trying to break these and prevent these big attacks and if you can't break all of them. You'll reduce the amount of damage they do. 50:14.30 Dave So You're always incentivized to Try. Um I thought this was like awesome and in a real weird twist compared to a lot of rpgs I thought that the regular enemies were like strangely balanced like the regular enemies were often. Really really fucking hard but then the boss fights I thought like throughout the game. The boss fights were perfect. They were like incredible puzzle challenges for trying to like remove these locks I thought it was great. 50:34.72 Ryan To true. 50:46.81 Aaron And I I Dude I Love the lock system in this game My only but my biggest qualm with like and this is in this goes back to like what you like when you said that you could switch characters in and out like ah without any like cost or anything like that. This was a big part of it is because like sometimes you'd have 3 characters out there and you're like well none of my characters have an attacked break this lock So I'm going to bring in this person that I rarely ever use or this person that I rarely ever use. So it it also gives you a reason to use. 51:13.96 Aaron A bunch of different characters like I found myself in boss fights switching out all the time I would switch out the main characters if the boss called for B to break a certain lock that they didn't have but I guess my only complaint with this is this this is when I think the battle system is at its best is in the boss fights I think I think. 51:28.74 Ryan Yeah. 51:30.80 Aaron And you've talked about it ad nom in the group chat and on Discord how good the fucking boss fights are in this game they are but they they are easier because it's a formula to beat a boss. They have so many locks that you got to break. It's almost like the fight is you keeping them from doing their big attacks because a lot of big attacks in this game. Fuck your life up if you're not careful and I didn't think this game was particularly hard by any means but there were a couple bosses where it was just like oh if I don't break this certain thing I am absolutely fucked I can't fight my way out of this or whatever even with like the food you got. 51:49.37 Dave Um, yep. 52:03.92 Aaron Ah, however, like I think this is when the I think the boss fights are when it's at its best and if I had 1 complaint's that one the the ultimate attacks in the locks didn't really I think play a huge role until maybe like the last 35% of the game I wish they would have incorporated a little bit more into the regular enemies. 52:18.26 Dave Yeah. 52:23.46 Aaron But I also think you know on the reverse side of that coin. That's why the regular enemies were hard was because sometimes you didn't have to break their locks and keep them from fighting. It had to be like a battle of attrition. You know outlasting them instead. So I like that balance but to me my favorite part of the battle system was the locke system and the ultimates and breaking those things. Just didn't think they incorporated it enough in in the game outside of the boss fights I mean I know there was but to me it was like for every you know one fight I get into with a regular enemy that has a ah complicated lock to break I got into 15 more fights where it was just. Me attacking somebody and then attacking me back and. 53:00.19 Ryan Yeah, sometimes I would just literally stunlock my bosses and I would really say that I agree the bosses were I was literally just excited every time a boss was coming up I couldn't wait to see the design. What the attacks were whatever the case is but unfortunately the attacks didn't matter because I was shuting them down. Okay, I'm talking I'm I'm tired I was going some boss fights where they weren't getting an attack off but like I was just systematically making like a surgeon just dismantling these digas in I really enjoyed that aspect of it to be honest and I think the 1 thing that really kind of separated from the regular fights is oh no, when I got to a boss fight I was ready to prove myself like I was ready to take a personal you know for me. 53:22.37 Aaron Yep. 53:36.11 Ryan But the regular fights it's kind of like and I would have locks that came up I probably could have broken just didn't care to I was just I I don't care I'm just going to hit you a couple of times and move on. So I think that was the main difference when it came to just the regular fights of the boss fights enjoyed users'bilities but I didn't really care so much about breaking those locks didn't feel like the damage was enough although sometimes they were. Like b would say they would just they'd rock your shit and you're like okay I have to respect those locks which I joined and I do think they could have maybe elaborate a little bit on that. But overall the the battle system is is a lot of fun I enjoy the fact that there's a little thought process to it. 1 of my favorite things is the the characters. Um. Ah, touch on that. The fact you could switch out on them kind of like found fansy 10 except you have a little more freedom which I think is fantastic. Just a feeling of having characters and just like that slight bit of anxiety is like I want to use this character at least a little bit that it it exists but it's like you have a certain setup that you really enjoy. But. Allowed you the freedom of being able to switch between characters and not feel like you're not able to enjoy all aspects of your other characters that you do enjoy here but to get a little taste of everything because of the fact that every turn you didn't have to go in a certain order of turns you could use one character and then if you wanted to you could technically use them again. As long as it's within you know the the parameters that the game allowed which I really liked. So gave you some some freedom to to really enjoy the characters and just the battle system that offered all thebilities were so cool and everything you do I think really meshed well I mean clearly you could tell that their highlight was I want to make sure this bowel system is fucking clean and it really showed. 55:01.13 Dave Yeah, yeah, ah, the characters are interesting because they all have like defined roles with the type of damage that they can do like I said. Valere can do blunt damage and moon damage Serai can do sword damage and poison damage garl can just do blunt damage because he can't use magic but Garl can heal people too. so that's good too um so I liked how. A lot of the bosses especially would incentivize you to use all of your characters. There were still mvps for sure. But they you were incentivized to use every character get like really familiar with every ability that every character got and I really appreciated that. Um I i. 55:49.87 Dave So the way that these kind of attack and turn based and lock system works also is every every enemy there's a turn order but like it's it's unlike any other game I've really played they'll put up like a turn counter on an enemy and say like. This enemy is going to attack in 1 turn this attack this enemy is going to attack in 2 turns this one's going to attack in 1 turn and then you get 1 move with one of your characters and then those 2 we will tick down to 0 those 2 enemies will attack you then you'll get 1 turn and then that other one will attack you? um. What I ran into a lot of times is like I'd be fighting like 4 enemies. They would all throw up lock puzzles like they got big attacks coming and they're all going to attack in 2 turns and so I can't break those like it can't break all of those and. Since they're all going to do those big attacks like I got party wiped often in those situations and so that kind of felt bad because it felt like like the lock puzzles are presented as puzzles for you to solve and then often they would throw them up against regular enemies where it was like unsolvable situations. And that felt bad but like that was an early game problem once I got to like the midgame and especially the late game I was like I got a handle on all of it I got um. 57:14.27 Dave Used to using siraie skill where she can like delay an enemy's turn by like 2 or 3 turns which was like fucking Mvp skill. Yeah, yeah, exactly yeah, so like I did figure it out but it was interesting like the early game was the hardest with this. Um, and. 57:17.55 Aaron Bro a bit as dude Mvp move Mvp boss move move. 57:20.35 Ryan Clutch clutch. 57:33.83 Dave It kind of also felt bad because at the beginning when they're tutorializing this. They told you like hey if you don't get the timing right? like it's It's fine like think of it as a bonus if you do get the timing right? and then like I'm fighting. The final boss is like you have to get the timing right? You cannot miss. Yeah. 57:45.00 Ryan They did yeah that was a lie that was 100% a lie because if you werent out you were getting scraped so true. Yeah yeah. 57:53.18 Dave Yeah, yeah. 57:54.95 Aaron Well and here's the thing that pisses me off the most is like some of these like complicated locks like you you can really only hope to break them in a short amount of time if you do like a combo attack right? So This is This is my biggest problem that one that I Found. Kind of frustrating is like you would go into a fight and immediately like a lock would pop up and you you don't have the amount of turns to do it unless you have a combo but you can't get a combo unless you build it up using all these skills. So. It's basically like the game saying like hey fuck you, you're going to take this hit no matter what unless you kill this person. Which a lot of the time isn't Feasible. You can't just like straight up kill somebody within 2 shots even regular enemies. A lot of the time so that that was my biggest thing was I where I kind of agree with you like at least the thing that was very frustrating for me is they would throw you locks that you literally had 0 chance of of unlocking you had to take that hit. So while you had saie like little I don't remember what it was called distraction or or whatever it was called but ah disorient disorient right? You also had valere's lunar Shield which I would use ah a lot of the time too at the beginning of a battle like. 58:57.83 Dave Yeah, yeah, disorient. Yeah. 58:57.93 Ryan Think it was disorient. 59:10.49 Aaron In lieu of using an attack for valere to get some damage in or to break a lock if I saw something that I knew was going to hit me I just use a luder shield rightoff rip and just not have to worry about it. So you know I it does find a way to bounce stuff out. But if I had like 1 qualm with the magic air with the magic system with the battle system. It was that sometimes they would throw you things that you just. You. You could not do. You had to figure out a way around them and whether that's a good or bad thing I don't know but I also I found myself frustrated some some boss fights even you know some boss fights where it was just like the boss and like 3 or 4 other things you had to worry about and you're like well I can't break 3 of these things locks the fuck am I going to do I'm going to take some damage right here. No matter what. 59:47.98 Dave Yeah. 59:50.41 Aaron You know is that good is that bad I don't know but I found it kind of frustrating that. 59:52.53 Dave Yeah I think it's a I think it's the way it's presented because like there's no Rpg where you can just avoid damage all the time. It's It's not something you should expect in any game but the way it's presented as a puzzle and puzzles are to be solved. They're given to you to be solved. 01:00:02.38 Aaron The truth. 01:00:11.87 Dave And then it gives you these puzzles that are unsolvable. Feels bad like just purely because of the way they're presented but like I said that was a first half of the game problem in the second half of the game I felt like it was a lot more manageable I had more skills. To help deal with those situations. Um your characters learn skills as you level up and your characters will also learn combo attacks like in chrono trigger. Um those attacks and those skills if they're not like utility things like um. Delaying an enemy's attack or healing or like that lunar shield you talked about Aaron um, those skills and combo attacks are all about like what locks are on the screen what damage types do they need and what abilities do I have that give those combinations of damage types. And then if you time those correctly you might get an extra hit ah to break another piece of that lock which again like later in the game like late game boss fights like mandatory you have to get those otherwise it's going to be a much much harder for you. 01:01:22.90 Ryan Yeah, 1 thing that I notice I'm not sure if you guys notice as well is that by each portion of that lock that you break the damage is and subsequently reduced. So even if you're don't break the locks. It's still good to if you can destroy you know most of them you're still reducing a damage significantly which I thought was pretty cool as a way to. 01:01:30.29 Dave Yeah. 01:01:42.12 Ryan Kind of do seamlessly kind of bridge that where you didn't feel like okay I didn't get the whole thing but at least I'm instead taking the 200 damage I whatever if I'm taking you know 150 maybe a hundred twenty five which is significant so I like the fact that they managed to to kind of meltld the things and make it still you wanted to at least attempt it in a way. Um. 01:01:50.62 Dave Yeah. 01:01:59.80 Ryan So I did like that aspect of it as well. 01:01:59.30 Dave Yeah, they it's on this. It's on the screen. 01:01:59.37 Aaron I I had no idea that was a thing Dave said it earlier. Yeah though I know Dave said earlier and I was like wait what if then stre just talking about a right out of like okay, so so I just took it did. 01:02:12.33 Ryan That's a fake. Yeah yeah. 01:02:13.89 Dave Yeah, if ah so if you if you break like all but 1 lock I think the max damage you can like reduce is like 40% so like they'll do 60% of what they were going to do to you so I mean that's helpful. It's not nothing for sure, especially in boss fights. 01:02:29.72 Aaron Sick That's cool. Okay. 01:02:31.12 Dave Um, yeah. 01:02:31.69 Ryan Yeah, some of those mosses those shots were were definitely deadly and it was a difference of me getting 1 shot sometimes or or not for sure. 01:02:40.34 Dave Yeah, um, and for everyone out there who would be like nervous about a time to hit system like maybe you're not able to do the timing or something like that they do give you these items that will like let you. Adjust the difficulty in a granular way like you can equip this item that basically means you get the timing on your attacks every time you don't even have to do it. Um, there are some that do the same for defense, there's one that I used that just gives you like. A more clear visual indicator of when you get the timing right? like there'll be like a shooting star that shoots off when you get the timing right? and like a sound effect and I had that on the whole game because I'm you're constantly learning the timing for your own attacks. But like. Like Ryan said every new enemy has different animations different timings for their attacks. You have to learn those and just like that extra visual indicator helped me out a lot when I was learning. 01:03:38.98 Aaron Yeah, that was the best relic I I only rolled to the entire game because like I already thought the game was pretty easy I wasn't trying to make it any easier on myself. But I used yeah that I believe they were called relics the relic that gave you the shooting star. Ah. Shooting star graphic when you timed it right? So you you did get a better idea of at least your attacks. Maybe not so much the other enemies but where your sweet spots are and then I use the exp boost one that I found just so I could leveling up really didn't matter a whole lot in this game but but just just so I could. I could say I was higher level than Dave at the end. You know if we'll let you grind that's 2 games in a row I haven't been able to grind dude I'm fucking fiending like a vampire over here man this is Ashley Larry 01:04:13.97 Dave Because yeah, because because this game won't like won't let you grind so you had to use the relic. Yeah. Um, he's over there just itching and shit. Ah Ryan do you use any of those relics. 01:04:33.30 Ryan I did actually I I used the same ones that you did I used the at one point once we there was a certain character introducer I felt like I was kind of struggling with ah the attack I introduced the one where they would do it automatically so that I could see the timing like just so I could understand when to do it and that didn't work. So ah. 01:04:47.56 Dave Um. 01:04:50.12 Ryan Yeah I eventually just used the experience one because I did feel like the experience was a little little grindy as far as they they're giving out to they say a little stingy with it. But yeah as you play later on it didn't feel like it was as necessary to do so but the relics the idea of the relics is very cool. Just the fact if maybe you weren't that into the battle system. Maybe the found a little too difficult. They could simplify a little bit more for you so you can you know maybe push the game a little bit. Ah, my area of my girl she was thinking about playing it as well saw some so of the difficulty the very very beginning like you were mentioning. It was like maybe I don't want to actually try this game and I mentioned the relics and she's like okay, fair enough so it will bring in some interest to people that may be a little put off by the difficulty at first. 01:05:26.39 Dave Yeah, it's interesting. You mentioned the experience. So like this is a game where you don't level up very often like I can't remember what level I finished the game but it's like maybe level 20 or something like that. Um, so. They they are really stingy with experience I think it's because they don't want you to grind I think they want you to like be on a tight level progression. But um so I appreciate games that don't make me grind like don't don't force me to. Let me grind if I want to but like don't force me to do it. But what did happen is um sometimes you'll beat a boss and you'll get like one fifth of a level up and that feels really shitty to like literally beat one of these like world eating bosses. That's like you know this thing's going to eat the entire world and then you fight it and it's like. Congratulations you you need to be 4 of those to get 1 more level up and I'm like all right that? Okay, okay. 01:06:20.92 Aaron Okay, so here's my big question right? So like let's say so when you okay, Okay, this bothered me so let's say you have 50 experience left until you level up and you find a boss that gives you 9800 experience when you win. Does that extra experience carry over or does it stop and start anew from that point. Yeah I wasn't clear either. Ah, Ah, thank God Oh My God There are so many times where I could not find anything else to fight so I could get that level up. 01:06:43.33 Dave I wasn't clear. Yeah, okay, okay. 01:06:47.80 Ryan Um, and it does it does carry over. But yes, yes, but. 01:06:56.54 Aaron And I was like fine I'll go to fight the boss I like there's 10000 experience now the fucking trade right? Okay, all right all right. 01:06:59.70 Dave I it it bothered me because like you don't get experience when you beat the final boss because you just go into the ending but like I guarantee you if you did get experience. You would get like 1 third of a level up for beating the final boss and I was like that feels terrible. 01:07:11.55 Aaron Oh yeah, for sure they do it even with the experience boost Relic that I had it wasn't great. Dude. 01:07:14.69 Ryan I agree. 01:07:18.79 Dave Yeah. 01:07:19.70 Ryan Yeah I can't imagine how you wouldd have thought if you didn't have the experience boost on honestly because I it gave you another. What of the point 5 essentially of what you're earning is pretty fat chunk at least 4 or 5 for me easily. 01:07:26.24 Aaron yeah yeah I would say probably 2 levels higher than I regularly would have finished the game at yeah. 01:07:41.94 Dave The ah other aspects of the gameplay here. Um that I think are really cool are stuff you're doing outside of battle. Um, you are like running around on the world on the so not the world map but the the level screens and this game has a bunch of stuff like hopping over gaps climbing. Ah, ladders and like tightrope walking and stuff like that. It's all really simple like it's all like 1 button press or no button presses. So like it's not like it's not you can't fail and like fall down a cliff and die or something like that. But there. There's a really like. 01:08:13.80 Ryan Right. 01:08:18.89 Dave Just kind of calming satisfying aspect to like just kind of hopping over these like rocks or something like that or hopping down ledges and stuff again I think it's animations and just how like dialed in that stuff is but it's really fun to like run around explore these levels like. Maybe you'll see a treasure Chest. You can't get there and you have to like puzzle out how how do I get there from you know where I am down here using these you know light exploration abilities I thought it was cool. 01:08:50.20 Aaron Yeah I agree I think it was one of the coolest things about the game I mentioned earlier? How ah how it was one of the things that a lord be to it was seeing you in this style of an rpg interact with the environment. They they do a very good job of that same way. Ah, you know with like ah like like like finding ingredients to cook with and stuff like that like those are constantly spread out throughout the map too. So like when you go into a level like it almost is like a puzzle in and of itself because each level does have layers to it and some of the. Solstice shrines which are these puzzle shrines that you have to do they they do take perspective and and things like that into it when they're creating these puzzles. So I also think that that is one of the game's strengths right here and like you know you you talked about like oh you know it's aesthetically pleasing to see jump up a cliff or to. Jump into a pull of water and sink down and then pop back up and blah blah blah but they do do a good job of incorporating it into the game to make it like necessary to find like you said to find treasure or to find ingredients or secret areas or extra puzzles or whatever. Like I said in a game where I was like so put off by the story. It was nice that it did the little things well enough to still keep me invested like in the same way that I was invested when I saw the trailer for the first time and. 01:10:07.71 Ryan Yeah I agree I think that as simple as they were. They just added a a best way to for reasons like a little charming personality to the game made it fun to do is not nothing necessarily tedious but as small as they were yeah it it did add a lot to the game. Overall it was just. Again, just fun to be in the world and to diverse for sure and it looked like you said just looks great. The 8 bit style is just something I'm always been a huge huge fan of I'm biased to that and I think they did a fantastic job with it. 01:10:38.30 Dave Yeah I mean it. It definitely helps that like the levels you're going through are gorgeous I Love the music again. Just kind of hopping around doing light puzzle solving none none of the puzzles like really gave me any issue but like it's all stuff that like. You have to just figure out a little bit of stuff to you know, find that treasure chest or open up a new pathway to go so that was always fun. Um, there are a couple other like bonus you know gameplay things here. There's a phishing minigame. Would you guys think do you go fishing. 01:11:10.78 Aaron I All the time. That's the easiest money you can get in the game man Plus also I'm kind of an achievement hunter.. There were a couple achievements in the game attached to it but the best meals that you can create in the game I feel are at least like most of them involve fish and then if you need quick easy money sell 50 fish Fillets. You probably got enough money to buy whatever you want the fishing minigame was just okay though like it wasn't It wasn't anything groundbreaking or whatever but it's easy money to. 01:11:38.89 Ryan Yeah, your boy got his fish on any time I mean if there's a fish. Um I love fishing but I don't know what it is I don't care how simple it is but the Midty gaze. But if if there's fishing I'm there and this was no different I fished the I mean I cleaned the lake out I was selfish about mys you see? yeah I was taking everything. 01:11:56.35 Dave No. 01:11:58.47 Ryan Ah, so yeah I got my fish on make sure I got all of them all the styles all the kinds and yeah I was I was merciless about Mines I Loved it. 01:12:05.10 Dave Yeah, just fucking depleting the ecosystem. Yeah. 01:12:11.63 Aaron Merciless about MINES like excuse me sir I need to fish this week to feed my family I'm sorry I to hear you as you really get another one. 01:12:16.50 Dave Yeah I sorry I mean I have some herbed filets to cook. Yeah. 01:12:20.67 Ryan I was just like and just continued about by his. But. 01:12:27.15 Dave Ah I did some fishing from time to time like I think it's an all right fishing as far as as far as fishing mini games in rpgs go like this one's like decent.. There's some like real bad fishing mini games out there. But this this one's okay, there is. If you're going for like the secret ending. There is a fishing final boss that fucking sucks like I was so God damn mad doing that like it is there was nothing in this game as difficult as the fishing final boss that you have to do it was it was fucking terrible. 01:13:01.47 Aaron And in just the true ending because you talked about that and I didn't have to do that when I played the game. Okay, cool. 01:13:02.70 Dave And so like yeah yeah, because because you didn't do the secret ending. But. 01:13:03.43 Ryan Or yeah or were you did you execut it. 01:13:10.47 Ryan So wait did you have to is it about reeling it in or are you actually fighting this. 01:13:14.84 Dave But like both it's it's the fishing mini game but it's like a thousand times harder than any fish you've ever had to catch the rest of the game like it's it's fucking terrible. 01:13:23.52 Ryan Um, even even with all the upgrades I assumed everything. 01:13:23.85 Aaron Oh that does it. 01:13:28.36 Dave Yeah, well I didn't have any I didn't have upgrades because again I was not connected to the story. So like you get your little town to upgrade and stuff but I was like I'm not going to go to town and talk to people I don't give a shit what anyone has to say So so maybe my maybe my my gear was ah underpowered or something but like it was it. 01:13:33.72 Ryan Yeah, fair, Yeah, no, no, that makes it. 01:13:44.57 Ryan Yeah, you went know there with a stick and a string. Basically so that's I That's probably nothing of my respect. 01:13:47.70 Aaron You? Yeah yeah, yeah, it's with your figures as Bait That's what. 01:13:47.58 Dave Was rough. Yeah I was out there fucking trying to catch the the white whale with like yeah like by bare hands. Basically yeah, ah so yeah, so so like. 01:13:56.18 Ryan Yeah, that's actually swag that's tight. 01:14:01.42 Dave That made me mad. But like if it was like oh I got to gather some ingredients to cook because I need some food because food is your your healing potions in this game then it was like yeah I'll pop over to the pond I'll fish a little bit. It's okay I wasn't mad at I wasn't mad at it. It was like not like the fishing in fucking near or fire emblem or something that's like. The worst fishing out there. This is okay, the other mini game to to talk about is wheels. It is like the oh think you like your your triple tryad or your gwent type mini game to play you can play it every time you go to an in wheels is kind of. Difficult to explain you kind of just have to like see it but you you basically you play at a table. It's played with like these board game pieces you I don't know how it works you like each character like brings their own fucking like wheels to put on the spinner and you spin them and you can like. Get points to level up your 2 kind of heroes that you set up on the board try and do damage to the other team's castle or some shit like that difficult to explain but I did think it was pretty fun I enjoyed wheels I played it every new town I was like all right, let me find that wheels table. 01:15:15.60 Dave Time to get me a new piece or something like that. 01:15:16.35 Aaron I Did to an extent I liked Wheels So The best way I can describe Wheels is it's like yatzi right? where you're like constantly rolling dice to try and you know in Yatsi, you can like roll some dice so you can pick which ones you want to save and. Ultimately like build your own line above five Dice. That's kind of what wheels is um. 01:15:34.94 Dave Yeah, because you you can roll 3 times or you can spin the the wheels 3 times and you can pick which of like the 5 or six things that you want to keep for your your final move? yeah. 01:15:50.83 Aaron Yeah, so first off like shoutout to the yatsi great game. Ah, but yeah I never played it enough to like like I never beat everybody I never got all the pieces. But if I went somewhere I'd play a couple games against the champion if I didn't win after 3 games I was like peace I don't care. If anybody had like the the healing like wheels piece I was like nope not witted this gay Bob out I'll I'll get frustrated and kick a hole through my Tv before I finish but I liked wheels at first I thought it was weird. It's kind of like Gwen you just you kind of get used to it and every once in a while you you get the. 01:16:11.68 Ryan I Believe here. 01:16:24.85 Aaron Get the thirst for it and I don't have any I don't hate the game I'm usually not into like you know rpg like side card games or side Dicek or what the fuck ever. But I thought this was pretty fun I had some fun playing it There's really no strategy involved like. It's yachtsi it all comes down to a dice roll but it was fun to. 01:16:47.10 Ryan I'm not sure if I'm just dumb. Ah, but I I didn't play I mean a single second of wheels I mean I could the tutorial brother I'm to listen to me Elizabeth they they they they show that tutorial bro and I was I don't know what maybe was the moment I was just like. I don't know what the fuck any of that was but I was just like click and I I literally I literally never saw a wheels table for the rest of the game I just not not one time I mean not once okay, not even as itstor like I'll try it out. Not did that that even try it out. So. 01:17:21.48 Aaron That's that's your. 01:17:21.55 Ryan I have nothing I have nothing to say about wheels. Besides the fact that when you free again I'm not I might be dumb and I've I I feel challenged but regardless yeah I don't know that first introduction was just that it was not it for me it. It wasn't did battle 50 the eight. 01:17:36.50 Dave Dude, No no dude. So I'm with you man like the tutor I played the tutorial and I was like so like tilted by how they don't explain shit to you and like. 01:17:38.66 Ryan Yeah, was off office. He 8 trading card game for me, you have saying. 01:17:52.92 Dave Here read these like tutorial cards that will try to explain wheels to you and they're terrible at explaining the game to you so like I played the tutorial I got my ass kicked I had no idea what was happening I think I went in the Discord server and was like yo what the fuck and then like. 01:18:09.90 Dave 2 or 3 more games and I was like oh this is ah this is actually there's like Aaron said there's no strategic depth to wheels. You just kind of spin and pick the good things that come up and so it's like I thought wheels was cool in the game I played it when I saw it? Um, but. 01:18:18.57 Ryan Jatsy. 01:18:28.60 Dave This is I like pretty pretty confident in saying like you could never play this against another person. It would be infuriating. It's because it's all just like how the shit spins. 01:18:36.97 Aaron I like there there is a little strategy to it but the strategy doesn't exist without them sweet sweet Yahtzee spins shoutouts to Yahtzee guys way way better than wheels oh Davey got to get. 01:18:46.79 Dave I Don't think I've ever played yahtzee dude. 01:18:49.90 Ryan Gotzi I also had what the guy played Yahtzee but I also didn't play wheels. So. 01:18:55.89 Aaron You're right that tracks. 01:18:57.93 Dave Ah, so I think this is a good time to get into our wrap up thoughts before the spoiler section here. So Ah who what we always try to answer in this kind of wrap up section is if you have any kind of final thoughts about the game kind of thoughts about.. Maybe it's kind of impact out there. But also who would you recommend this to what type of person. 01:19:21.96 Aaron And yeah, you know I think it's fairly obvious if you like rpgs you will find something that you like in it I feel like I say that in every episode that I do with you because we mainly just say here and talk rpgs. I will give you a forewarning for the first. This is the first time I've done an episode on tales from the backlog that I actually had a lot of negative stuff to say about it so I will say if you like rpgs. It's probably a safe bet that you're going to like it at least to the extent that me and Dave and Arington to Aaron Ryan did ah but you should be forewarned that. There's not a lot of character depth character depth or progression There's not a whole lot of substance to the story and I cannot say enough bad things about how terrible I think the dialogue in this game is and how it specifically like moves ah within the story format. So. If those are things you can easily deal with or like I said at the beginning you're young enough to where those things don't matter to you I think this is a good pickup for you. But I if stories as important you as it is to me like. Or it is to is today or to Ryan here then I think you should be a little bit weary about it like I do think it has a lot of problems that are only made up for by how good the game is in other places and if those other places aren't important to you and the story is you probably aren't going to like the game. 01:20:41.27 Aaron And I think there were points ah where I was at in the game where I didn't really like it very much either. But I stuck with it and there's no story payoff but the boss fights are fun. The ah the aesthetic is fun. The music is immemorable but I remember being very Good. So. I Mean the the kind of game this is for is for people who play rpgs but it should come with a warning label hey if you expect this out of a game like this. This is actually what you're getting and you should know about that before you you know, spend the money or the time you know invested into it. 01:21:14.95 Ryan Um, I think that I probably have ah have the best way of coming coming being introduced to the game where I had no expectation other than I heard that the game was good and so I didn't come in there expecting anything other than just to try to enjoy the ride and I think that's exactly what the game is designed for the. And even the even the storytelling the dialogue they don't really take themselves seriously within that I think that's kind of made apparent pretty quickly and but the thing that they do take serious which is the battle system I think that that does Shine. So I think that if you're the person that pops into an Rpg puts on the easiest mode and really just constantly enjoy the ride as far as the story goes. Ah, do think that you'll probably be let down a bit here. But if you're again, you're just kind of a casual person just trying to enjoy the experience rpgs and otherwise I don't think that you'll be disappointed I think it's got its writings for a reason because it is fun to play in the end. It's just a fun game to just simply have the control your hands. Ah enjoy the game. 01:22:07.82 Ryan So I would recommend it to pretty much anybody that enjoys rpgs as well. But if you're person that really essentially you are a story driven person. You'd be reading hell of books you like books you you may not whatever I is. 01:22:20.20 Dave Yeah I think that like especially with the story I'm kind of surprised that all 3 of us are as negative on the story as we are because like there are a lot of people out there who who did really enjoy the story so it just you know. Happenstance that all 3 of us didn't seem to like it that much so like despite the 3 of us not connecting with the story know that there are a lot of people who really did like it. So even if I'm the type if I'm I'm going to go ahead and kind of echo what you guys said like if you want to play. Ah, damn near 40 hour rpg because you want to connect with characters and like a plotline that kind of you know compels you to keep playing I don't think this game has that but there are people that do so like as always if you're listening to this show. You're. More than likely an adult. What's up you can make your own decisions. Ah you know yourself and this game's on game pass. It's on ps plus like you might not even have to pay extra money for it. So yeah, give it a try like I think the gameplay is really strong I think the music fucking bopps it looks great. Um. 01:23:34.92 Dave It's just I was like really let down I think that if this game were 20 hours long I maybe I could have enjoyed like that playful kind of innocent tone that it takes for most of the game but the fact that it was almost forty like I said I don't want to play an rpg. Ah, story driven genre in everything to myself does this game have anything to say and I did feel that throughout this. So this is like a like kind of a just know yourself type of recommendation. This won't be on my top games of 2023 I didn't really enjoy it that much. Um, but that being said critical reception has been really high. So as I mean should go without saying but know yourself know your tastes. Why not give it a shot, especially if you have game pass or something like that you have nothing to lose there. Um. 01:24:28.62 Ryan yeah yeah I was gonna say I do what I try to say 1 thing request as is I I actually have a high take was if fact I I fuck with your boy garro I wanted to come in and say that cause I I know that he wasn't wellre received but but but but mcgara is my big. Yeah I'm saying like I wanted to say first of all, he took a shot for baby girl off top. 01:24:33.13 Dave Yeah. 01:24:36.35 Aaron How scorching hot. 01:24:36.63 Dave Okay. 01:24:46.79 Ryan I mean he took the shot she could' have taken that who knows it maybe hited back of the head fucked her head all up. He took it his eyes fucked up. You know his coup I'm saying he' got the food on point. Yep say he got there by I mean let's be honest, the game was tough. But once that that nutrition? Yep, saying once you had the gut bacteria in point was introduced. The game became much easier. So if you wouldn't fuck with garro yu so I'm just saying. And again garl really set the toad as far as the gety. The only really dialogue that was in the game was was garl. Yeah I'm saying anything that was really worth saying I'm I'm just saying Garl was he was lowke the goat but again he didn't the boy didn't have magic I'm saying he looked a little goofy shit. Yeah, he used a pot lid for his web. Um I get it but I'm just saying a girl deserves a little bit of respect. Considering that he was the only part of the game as far as dialogue and character that really carried over anything I'm just I'm just saying um. 01:25:29.20 Dave Yeah I'm with you. 01:25:32.27 Aaron I not only will I not show Garl any respect I know where you live it's less than 5 minutes away and I'm gonna come over to your house and spit your fucking face. Dude I'm tired of this shit I'm tired of you talking about Garl ah. 01:25:41.78 Ryan I Didn't say a lot to be about gar again. He he did disagree but we didn't talk about long. So I the far as I concerned that's a way. So yeah, gar it's true. He let it go. 01:25:42.45 Dave Ah, but. 01:25:49.57 Aaron That that was what that was built up. You're right? You're right I could have been way bor away about this. 01:25:49.70 Dave There. Okay. 01:25:56.19 Ryan So again gara was cool. The story I will say this as well as the story wasn't I mean I played a lot of Rbgs. Um, and I don't know it's it's kind of hard to surprise or or really impressed at this point I think as far as that goes so I think they kind of played it for with for towards that. But. Um I didn't hate the story by any means I get I was just I would simply say that if if your whole purpose of playing the genre is purely for the story which mind is not I enjoy several aspects of the genre that I don't think that this is gonna be maybe your your highest on your list but again like like Dave said I think there are aspects that you'll still enjoy. Um. 01:26:31.88 Ryan And be able to appreciate So I I Definitely highly recommend this title I'll say that because again as far as my boy being hater. Okay, but even someone who hates as much as he does still able to finish the game and enjoy it I mean I Really do think stuff speaks volumes considering that I best be honest I feel like that The story aspect. 01:26:51.80 Ryan Is probably 1 of the biggest things we've talked about here today and still despite that we all finished the game and the 1 thing I will say I think my biggest negative for the story itself is the fact that I don't think that the true ending should have been hidden behind the continued play wall I think that if that was introduced that was the main ending. 01:27:02.60 Dave Yeah. 01:27:06.89 Ryan I Think it would have been a good top off to the overall experience in my personal opinion. So I think that after seeing the true ending I was like dang I think that was kind of the one of the best parts of about the story quite frankly if you see the true ending. So I think that aspect is kind of missed. 01:27:18.84 Dave Yeah that's a good point to ah to bring up here and obviously I'm not going to talk about specifics about what happens. But I I think the standard ending that you get like kind of sucks. It's like a a big letdown. Pretty anticlimactic in my opinion and then you have to go through like 5 to 10 hours of ah collectathon completionist bullshit to get the real ending which like when I say real ending I mean like there's. This is clearly the canon ending. This is the ending they want you to see this is the ending they're proud of but you have to do a bunch of stuff that I hated doing all this complete you guys. You guys know me I do not collect stuff I don't one hundred percent games I don't want to collect all the goddamn seashells. 01:28:11.44 Ryan Yeah. 01:28:13.73 Dave But this game makes you do that stuff to get the real ending not like not like some secret Easter Egg ending. This is the canon ending and I'm glad you brought this up because now I'm mad it. It is it is It is ridiculous. How unfulfilling the standard ending of this game is and then to hide. 01:28:32.94 Dave The cannon ending behind like collecting all the seashells doing a bunch of like there. There's 1 person to get a seashell from this person you have to give them 40 fucking pieces of fish to get 1 seashell from them and you have to there's what there's like 60 seashells in this game. Oh I'm mad now. 01:28:50.76 Aaron Oh dude. 01:28:52.43 Dave Ah, we but this this is it is ridiculous hiding their intended ending behind all of this stuff. That's usually reserved for like the Platinum trophy sickos like this is ridiculous. Yeah. 01:29:05.70 Aaron So sickos. Yeah, yeah, and I and I would even ah I would even take it a step further and say that like it's if the story were better throughout the whole game. Maybe I would have been more inclined to want to see the true ending when I don't give a shit about any of the plot. Basically the entire time and now it's like okay so we're gonna give we're gonna throw you the true ending the one we're proud of the one that is canon but you got to do a a collectithon like you said I'm like. Sitting here like when I got to the I'm like fuck that you like no yeah, do know if I would but but like more importantly, if I would have given a shit about the story up to that point or if I really wanted to know what happened I would have done the collectathon just to see it and it wouldn't have bothered me. 01:29:38.92 Dave Um, you're like I baldur's gate 3 is waiting for me like. 01:29:40.49 Ryan True. 01:29:53.62 Aaron A little bit if the story had made me think that that extra ending was going to be worth it. But to me I was just like what could it do that? What what is it going to be so good that it changes my entire perspective of the entire story. There's no way it does that So I don't care. Yeah, so ah yeah. 01:30:06.15 Dave It doesn't no it. It doesn't. 01:30:10.53 Aaron I Watched the T True red dig like you know I know it sucks I watch the Golden pelicate restaurant scene doesn't do shit. Do you know what? you gotta do to get to the Golden Pelican bro. No a lot of gross lot of gross stuff. 01:30:14.90 Ryan This is. 01:30:20.76 Ryan It's a lot of nasty shit. 01:30:22.31 Dave Yeah I I I used a guide and this is this is the last thing I'll say and we'll move into housekeeping here but I used a guide to follow to do all this stuff to get the real ending and I was mad the entire time I was doing it because I was like. 01:30:39.98 Dave I Have to comb every fucking inch of this place to find these things that I didn't find before ah it sucked. But the the. 01:30:44.94 Ryan And I was gonna I was gonna say to did be did he did talk that if there was an aspect of the traversal brother. The the fact that you it was such so tedious. Low key to go back to certain points if it just felt so pointless you the enemies are completely useless at that point if they had just introduced a easier way to fast travel just a little bit back and forth I think. 01:30:45.11 Aaron I Can't believe you did it? dude. 01:30:58.63 Dave Yeah. 01:31:04.59 Ryan Ah, been more inclined to finish the game and get the true ending. But the fact that you had to do it all pretty manually essentially till a certain. It's just it just like I was not about it. 01:31:10.77 Dave Yeah I'll say this is the last thing but the thing that made me want to do it was that people told me that the gameplay aspect like you know extra bosses you fight are are worth it and they're good but are they worth It. I don't think so like nothing to me. Nothing is worth collecting all the collectibles I don't want to do that shit. So yeah, all right we will. We'll take a second. We'll Chill. We'll take a deep breath and we'll do some housekeeping here before the Spoiler section. Um. 01:31:31.82 Ryan Same. 01:31:44.32 Dave Like I said at the top of the show. Aaron is one of my co-hosts on my other podcasts which I shout out every show. It's called a top 3 podcast where we do top 3 lists we draft weird topics and we have a good time. Ryan's been a guest on that show before we talked about top 3 video game sidekicks on that episode. Looking forward to having you back on the show sometime. But if you want to listen to a top three podcast. You can find a link down in the show notes. It's a good time. We're also joined by ah, 2 guys. We found on the side of the road Alan and bloodbath for that podcast. 01:32:17.89 Aaron We we we got to name them because we found them and so we named one a human name Alan and we named the other bloodbath because he's cute. It's ironic. 01:32:22.63 Dave That's right. 01:32:25.91 Ryan Yeah, they're bumps for sure for sure. 01:32:29.90 Dave Exactly um, so that is a top 3 podcast please consider listening. It's also rolled into the Patreon for tales from the backlog. So if you support tales from the backlog on Patreon you want to get some of those perks like voting on games that I do on the show you want bonus episodes. You'll also get bonus top 3 content. You'll get the pre and post show banter. That's normally cut out ah to spicy for the general public and you'll also get ah the ability to vote on polls for that show from time to time as well. That's patreon.com/real Dave Jackson if you want to ah support that way. Dave's across the world appreciate the support. We also have a Discord server going we have at the time of recording we have a dedicated sea of stars channel as a kind of game we call it the new hotness in the Discord server that'll probably be replaced by. Upcoming stuff like at the time recording like Spiderman and Alan wake and that might be replaced by the time we get to this episode's release. But we've always got dedicated channels for new releases in there. The boulders gate channel will probably be going for a while as it takes people the rest of their lives to finish that game. Um. Love to have you come join the discord server. It's a good time and as always the final thing is if you have not left a rating and review on Apple Podcasts Spotify or podcast addict. That's highly appreciated. It helps when people search see of stars. It helps them find this show. 01:34:00.50 Dave So that would be much appreciated the 3 of us are going to take a break and when we come back. It is full spoiler time for sea of stars. 01:40:04.90 Dave All right? The 3 of us are back and we're talking spoilers for sea of stars and we're not going to walk beat by beat through the plot I kind of mentioned before that I spent a long time in this game wondering if this game had anything to say and then it did bring up some things that I Think. They are trying to say here So I want to kind of camp out and talk about those things. Um I mentioned before like I think this game started to open up an interesting theme about you know the the children of destiny and how their lives are all laid out before them and it's.. It's a pretty shitty life. It's like you're fighting monsters your entire life like dangerous monsters. Um, and this starts when Brew gaveves and Urlina Um Betray. You basically? um, they were. Ah, just like all the kids they're kind of dropped off by this great Eagle in the Village. They're raised to be these warrior Monks. Basically their whole life. Their kind of decided fate is to be these warriors who just fight these incredibly dangerous monsters all the time and. 01:41:17.36 Dave I thought it was interesting how they these 2 betrayed you kind of like at the halfway point in the game you you fight you beat a dweller and then all of a sudden Erlina and brugaves betray you and they join the other side. Um, the side of the fleshmancer and those four. Ah. Acolytes they called them. Um, and then later they kind of like give you the the background for that they show you some flashbacks where Erlina and Brugaves are talking about like how scared they are of this life. That's been chosen for them and how they don't want to do this. And then there's another flashback when they were kids when a bunch of solstice warriors went out to go fight a dweller and only one of them came back alive and I think that kind of like planted that seed so when they found an opportunity to like. Literally the only way they thought they could get out of this life was to join the evil side. Um I thought that was an interesting like beginning of a theme you know of like we have these heroes of destiny what happens when they don't want to do it. 01:42:24.60 Aaron That So to me that what that screams because I think that is like yeah I'm gonna put on my storyteller hat here like I think that is such an important thematic element to have in the story about characters like those. Why was that not shown through the main characters. 01:42:40.47 Dave Yes. 01:42:42.62 Aaron Why was why in in and and that that was huge for me like there is and they might have lightly brushed it off at a camp fire or blah blah blah but it seems to me like brewgraves and Alina kind of had the right idea of what I want out of a character I want there to be. Some sort of questioning I want I want them to think about you know the grand scheme of what they're doing. You know why not brugaves and Erlina the ones being killed when they went to fight the dweller and the main characters had to see that it would have added so so much more to them and instead they give it to 2 they give that really cool idea to 2 characters that are. Barely in the game at all. So I do think it's a it's a good like plot beat I do like that idea and I like the idea of these people questioning you know what? they've been raised to do but to me it almost felt like the 2 main characters of vaer and zele in the story were robotic. They don't. Question anything they blindly follow and it would have been such a cool thing for their characters to have to experience something like that instead of giving it to to other characters who it seemed like at the end of the day The only reason that that happened was to make them. The bad guy and and I just think that's too strong of a thing for you know them to have to deal with for it to just end with like oh now they're the bad guy. The 1 thing I wanted to bring up that always like bothered me is like you get to that point in the story where Brugaves is that how you say I don't even I think there's a. 01:44:07.89 Aaron It brugaves or something like that something stupid some stupid as shit, but there's a point where yeah where the fleshmancer comes and he agrees to give them their wish or whatever for helping him you know, do whatever, whatever it is. He was doing and then you never see Brugaves again. 01:44:10.11 Ryan Ah, joke most for sure. 01:44:27.33 Aaron Never and they make such a huge thing about how like illyria is how you say your name or or eliah orlina this is how little I cared about the characters I played this two weeks ago, but there there's there's a clear between Brugaves and Erlina is the one that wants this and brugaves has is empathetic towards. 01:44:33.45 Dave Erlina. 01:44:47.22 Aaron What he's doing towards your main characters. So erlena she goes off and gets these ultra powers for helping the flesh banser betray you and then bro grave just kind of goes away and the whole time he's like maybe what we're doing isn't great. We're having this you know he's having this like in it. Internal struggle of like how he feels about like you know, betraying Valere and zale betraying his friends betraying the order and so they both go their separate ways and you see orina later. You never see brugaves again. He's like the 1 guy that questions the question and they snuff it out like a candle like they they never go back to talking about. Him I thought for sure that he was gonna come back at some point and do something is it is it true ending shit is that why you're pointing your finger ah that makes me even so that makes me even more mad that makes me even more bad. Dude. Ah. 01:45:31.31 Dave It is it is in the true ending. Um, yeah, it's it's it's dumb how because it it like you said it's you have a ah hanging character resolution that you get nothing in the standard ending and then in the true ending but in the true ending. It's not like obvious what's going on so like in the true ending. Um Erlina goes down and like talks to this red devil looking character that's Brugaves. Brugaves became this devil character. You can kind of tell because the armor is the same and someone else told me that's how I figured it out. But ah the the key point for that is that that that devil character is that is the villain in the messenger so that was kind of like a showing what happened to brew gaves. And tying it into the messenger a little bit more It's so I like I said this was like the beginning of exploring a theme but then they they just like they just fumbled it I think like so like you said brew gaves goes away. You don't get any resolution. He said that he wants to forget all of this that that's his wish is to forget and so the flesh manser with his you know monkey paw wish granting sends him off turns him into the devil and he's the antagonist in the messenger Erlina goes on like this power quest. She. 01:47:04.88 Dave She's totally cool with being made like the right hand man or the right hand of the ah um, the fleshmancer but it doesn't make any sense to me because the whole reason they wanted to do this is because they were scared and they wanted a peaceful life and they didn't want to fight stuff. So Now she's going to accept unlimited. Power from the fleshmancer and be like the Fleshmancer you know first in Command or some shit like that that doesn't make any sense to me. 01:47:33.20 Aaron It's it's it's why you got to throw it back and give Valere and zale that story point of having to question themselves. 01:47:35.62 Dave And that's the other that's the other point they valere and zale do not go through any inner turmoil about their role as solstice warriors. The only turmoil they go through is when Garl dies. But as far as their destiny. Like they never go through this struggle that Erlina and brugaves should or do when they should because they they should be like oh why did they? Why did they do this doesn't it suck that our friend just got killed because of this quest that we're on like what maybe. Maybe it makes you question if it was all worth it like they don't go through that shit ever. 01:48:17.13 Ryan No, these guys are just mannequins is but his best way to put it again just literally just kind of girls basically just background singers as best way to put it. But yeah I don't. I say didn't really think of it to that depth Honestly, as far as the story goes. But now that you guys have said that yeah, that's that's definitely a fair point seeing the brugaves just kind of go through that whole thing I wanted to I Really just wanted to beat the brakes off them after they betrayed me which I really didn't feel like I really got that sense of just gratification either. Um. But yeah, if for' be able to get ahold of them. But I mean if I had at least gotten that true ending and the canon ending essential where you put it just basic on the the basic ending where I have to go through all the shitches to get it and solve you know which that that kind of the image. You know you kind of leave that to imagination like oh that's probably brew graveves I and I don't mind that. But the again the fact that they just had you had to do so I shit to get there. It's still just it's like who cares, you know I'm saying any of the stuff that you could have been at least kind of put to the imagination you just because it gets lost because who really wants to go that tedious stuff for for that again. I just didn't so but yeah I didn't I didn't really think about that. But that's a good point. Ah, there was not much they didn't think about ah a single thing they were just the most just a year like fuck. Yeah dude, let's be fucking social Warriors I'm ready to just I'm ready to fuck shit up. It's basically that they were. They're just soldiers. They're ready to fuck shit up and they did that I mean so as far as things are concerned that was pretty much all they could have gave a fuck about but. 01:49:45.15 Ryan Yeah, is is unfortunate to see that brugaves really didn' get brought back up and in for your point about Erlina She just was she went from like I don't know her whole fuck personality was just kind of fuck. She was like damn the Bu Fuck has died like fuck all of this I guess but I but wouldn't mind just start fucking shit up too like ah. 01:50:03.70 Ryan I'm ready to start I don't know her person I That's a good play I don't know what the fuck her whole thing was. 01:50:05.86 Dave Yeah, it it was just like how confident and eager she was to just join the fleshmancer and be you know the the you know a weapon for the fleshmancer are basically when her entire purpose up to that point was finding a way to like. 01:50:24.58 Aaron Not be a weapon. Yeah, she went from one puppet to another puppet and. 01:50:25.14 Dave Get out of this like fighting lifestyle. Yeah. 01:50:28.90 Ryan Well she character because she's even more shallow than I she was just like all I care about is brugaves as all as long as brugaves is cool and then that's even worse though because you don't even know what the fuck happened to my boy and then you just fight him and he's just basically like some he just looks like some weird fucking guy the business like did you. 01:50:34.69 Dave Yeah. 01:50:46.58 Ryan Even do anything for the boy then did you did you guys get what you wanted in anyway, did you protect him at all that was she was real real stuck about the boy and then yeah, yeah, that's that's true. 01:50:54.64 Dave Yeah, the ah the other kind of like interesting kind of actually I think this is the story theme that they set up and they actually paid off really well until they undid it because they they just had to. They had to. Um, early in the game. We talked about Garl losing his eye and kind of like setting up this idea that some people are not meant to be in these traveling adventuring parties in these rpgs like they did just you know Girl's just a regular dude he fights with a pot Lid. He can't do Magic. He. He's He's just a regular guy. Um and he gets in over his head early in the game. He loses an eye but he's still up for the adventure and he's he's you know he's willing to venture with his friends. This is one of those you know, ah the power of friendship type games for a while and then. 01:51:50.75 Dave Um, I actually like what they did here where ah garl jumps in front of a an attack that was from the fleshmancer that was meant for one of the solstice warriors I can't remember which one um and Garl gets mortally wounded and I think this is the best part in the game. Where basically the only character that I cared about was now like mortally wounded they had the courage at the time to like they they say like you know we have stuff to do and in your head you're kind of thinking like oh are they going to figure out a way to save Garl. But. Nope he just dies when they do this stuff. Um, it's also a like um, not 1 to 1 but like real real close to the way Chrono dies in chrono trigger. Um, when lavos kills him. Ah, except it's more interesting in this game because Chrono is a silent protagonist and Garl is an actual character so I thought that was cool. Um, how they take 1 of the characters they he does his like heroic act he jumps in front of this thing. And then they have the courage to kill him basically but it's kind of an after that it's kind of an indictment on the writing of valere and zale again because they mourn Garl for like 10 minutes of game time. There's a funeral um then they set sail for the sea of stars. 01:53:23.84 Dave You have this like amazing visual thing of traveling the sea of stars then they get to the next level and they they like never talk about Garl again until the true ending stuff like they are not reminded of the person they lost. They're not like. 01:53:40.57 Dave Questioning their journey because their best friend just got killed. It's kind of like well we we garl died and we have the funeral and now we're moving on and now we're everything's cool again. We just don't have Garl now. 01:53:55.31 Aaron There's like a cool little thing you can do if you I don't even remember what it's called mooncradle I think where you can go back to that city and you can visit girl's grave and they it's not like a cut scene or anything but they can talk about it so there there are ways to trigger that but I'm with. You know and even with the whole me like hating on girl like you're right? What my favorite part of the game is after they travel across the sea of stars when they get to surprisee world surprise world kind of brought a a sense of darkness that I have been waiting for in the video game to actually happen. So ah. While like yes now you're relying on your 2 protagonists to carry the story again when girl's not there I feel like they didn't and the plot of what was happening in serai's world was enough to keep me interested through the end of that story. So yeah, like. I I don't know the best way to describe it I just like I mean I'm trying to think of I'm trying to think of the other 2 characters in your party's names. There's like rasha or rahah and b seen I pronounced it bst because that's kind of what it looks like. 01:55:00.12 Dave Yeah, Re'shan and b'st. 01:55:08.26 Aaron But like at the same time It's like we've gone almost 2 hours and not even mentioned a single one of the other characters at at our party band like like I think that's kind of like an indictment on itself. So yeah I don't know I thought the i. Was kind of happy when Garl Died just because it was just like okay at least we're having like a real rpg moment here when there's not really a lot of those you know pace throughout the story. Um, but isn't it like in the true ending like don't you bring it back to life or something like that. 01:55:40.94 Dave You do before I before I talk about that I just want to mention like earlier with Earle and brewgaves I talked about like this this story theme that I think they were trying for of how being these heroes of destiny would kind of suck and brew gaveves and orlena made their choice to. Um, betray them basically and then you you have the opportunity here for Zail and valeer to grapple with the fact that like their quest that Garl like wanted to go on. Got him killed like. Their best friend got killed because of the quest that they're on and it it felt like another opportunity for them to really like revisit that theme of how much it would suck. But I I just don't think they did um I I don't think I don't think. Valeer and zeal are orzee are um, like developed nearly enough as characters to like for me to feel any empathy toward them. You know, but then also they don't talk about this like they Erna and bru gaves had these conversations. About like how scared they were and how they don't want to go fight these monsters zail and valeer don't have those conversations and it gets wild to me that the 2 main characters of the game would not talk about like the effects of their best friend getting killed. 01:57:13.23 Dave Sacrificing himself for them. They kind of just use it as a rallying cry but like they'd never have those moments of questioning the quest or anything like that to my memory. 01:57:24.29 Ryan Now Even almost feels like if you really about just asy it. It's like yeah yeah, it's kind of that's kind of what he was meant to do he did brother could cook make good Really, That's kind of he had a lid I mean like that's yeah, obviously he's gonna die for me I mean that's kind of what his purpose was that's lowke kind of what I felt like realistically because yeah, it was not disgust is like yeah it sucks. But I mean. Be honest, like we're the dope ones and did they go. You know he cooked it. You made a good sandwich but that's kind of it I mean. 01:57:47.33 Aaron We We told him to get rid of the pot get a sword get get rid of the pot. You would listen. 01:57:52.78 Ryan Yeah, they told him that we wouldn't really meant for that life and he said he was so I mean in the end it seemed like yes I yeah you got what you were expecting. That's the way you played it which yeah, it does kind of the a little soulless to be honest. 01:57:58.51 Dave Yeah. 01:58:07.31 Dave It's just like when the other characters have gone through this. Why would you not make the main characters go through this kind of self-doubt too. It doesn't make any sense from a storytelling perspective. 01:58:14.93 Aaron Or or or just make them silent. You know that's how you fix that problem and they didn't they they they were talking to. 01:58:15.99 Ryan It's a good point. True. 01:58:24.29 Dave Yeah, so ah, ain you mentioned Serai's world I'll I'll talk about the true ending with Garl in a little bit. You mentioned sirai's world. Um, this was the part I talked about at the beginning when I felt like okay garl died or. Garl had this like you know his final heroic act is to wake up the dragon to cook the the world's largest loaf of bread hey Arnold style. Um, and yeah shout out. Ah the goat. Um, but garl. 01:58:45.71 Aaron Yeah, he yeah dude horrible was that of. 01:58:50.32 Ryan Ah, shut up the Heyardo baby. 01:58:56.25 Dave Did his last heroic act and then he died you had the funeral and then like you're sad and then everyone regroups and now it's time to go fight the flesh manser and beat the game. But instead you you go do this entire other section in Serai's World there's like there was a plot test twist withirai earlier where. She was like an assassin but she was also the pirate captain and then there's a third plot twist where she's actually a robot which seemed completely unnecessary to me was like you already did a plot test with this care I don't need another one with this character. Um, but like. 01:59:29.49 Ryan Yeah, yeah. 01:59:34.16 Dave This section here was that section where I was like I felt like I was clearly gearing up to go fight the final boss like we gathered our strength. We traveled the sea of stars again. Amazing visual and music during that part and now like. Like 3 hours into this section I'm like I'm fighting a bird cult and I'm just like what the fuck am I doing here. 01:59:59.26 Aaron Ah, this what he's yeah, what do you say it like that it makes me feel like a piece of shit for it being the favorite. My favorite part. 02:00:00.64 Ryan It's true though. 02:00:04.38 Dave No dude you like I understand it being your favorite part because it it is that darker part. It's it's it's the future world from Kronto Trigger again. 02:00:07.26 Ryan Um I was the overall theme. 02:00:15.52 Aaron I Yeah yeah yeah I mean yeah, like pretty much yeah I'm um umm with you by the time I had gotten to that point in the game I kind was just like okay cool I'm ready to beat This Serai was my favorite character. She was my favorite character to use I thought she had the coolest Backstory. So with all like the dumbshit in your world with her being the pirate captain and all this I still felt like whatever underlying things were going on with her were still the most interesting part of the story to me So when it opens her character up in this last part I was totally cool with it. Takes you from like ah like a like a standard jrpg Fantasy Foresty World. It takes you to a bleak you know like post-apocalyptic like Robot Takeover type future area and I thought it was such a weird change of scale. In the game like I Really do think the the feel of the game. The vibe of the game completely changed at that point too. So like I Totally get it where you would be like I'm ready to end this game and I think this is over but to me like this was the one part of the game that I enjoyed the most was being in Sirai's world and being in that. Like I said I think I think chained echoes changed something in Jrpgs for me where I'm like oh you can do this kind of format and be dark and be you know made for adults and I feel like that was the only part of the game where I ever took the characters and what they were doing super seriously because it did have a super serious. 02:01:41.51 Aaron Vibe to it but I understand why you were like ah geez another 10 hours of of stuff and she's a robot but she was my favorite character so I was totally all about this world. This vibe it I don't know it gave me very. I can't really describe it. But you're you're right? It's the it's the future world and chrono trigger. it's it's darkness you know I thought that was cool. 02:02:05.28 Ryan Yeah I admit that it did seem super. It did seem super fucking random I will lie I was just like okay okay, but what why are we suddenly doing this so it did seem. Ah yeah I was like ah wait are are we done. 02:02:12.38 Aaron The word space or. 02:02:18.80 Ryan So it did seem in fucking random and I think that if they had just pastd that a little bit better. Maybe throwing that in there a little bit earlier would have made more sense and give you the maybe the overall cap off of the flow would have just been perfect I Think if they had that in a little bit earlier and I also want to say if that I was so fucking upset that we were not flying on that fucking Dragon Row like I was so but I was so butturt. 02:02:35.51 Dave Oh yeah. 02:02:36.94 Aaron But yes. 02:02:38.74 Ryan Like the fact that you end up turning to these or these little fucking lazy fucking orbs. They're just fine I was like we we could have been on the Motherfuckin boy just fucking glide and they get I was so pissed but that's fine. That's all good I mean it is what it is but I don't give a fuck they good. You should have been you should they should have had you out there fucking whipping that Motherfucker kid me. 02:02:49.45 Aaron But the map was too small man he yeah I I I know you. 02:02:58.51 Ryan I was pissed like ah I was like oh I knew I was I literally would have put my life on it. They I was like oh we I we are for sure going to be using him as the weight and fucking fly around that is going to be sure the way that you travel out because I was like okay, there's some spots you're gonna have to fly around. No here you are we to some 2 but just basic as orbs bro. 02:03:16.30 Aaron And Dragon was right there bro Dragon was right there? yep. 02:03:17.90 Ryan Orbs to dig I was I was heated like a but by Bri he was the coolest fucking looking character to just just over there even what he was just breathing. They could just like you said a little fucking bubble bra I was I was about that dragon but that's fine as it is as all what is. 02:03:32.56 Dave Ah, your character rides on that dragon in the messenger too. Just ah. 02:03:38.22 Ryan Ah, so I did want to ask you This does the messenger playing that game in richer experience like literally in any way by playing that first. 02:03:45.86 Dave Ah, only because some of the area music is remixed Messenger songs and I love the messenger music so like hearing that seeing like the title screen of like the frozen Peaks and the Autumn Hills and hearing that music remixed. 02:03:52.98 Ryan Fair Yeah I dug the music. 02:04:03.30 Dave Ah, that and then the seeing the the devil That's the bad guy in the messenger at the end. That's the only thing um because the messenger is not a story heavy game. So I'm honestly I'm not sure what I expected but those things were cool for sure. 02:04:09.26 Ryan Okay. 02:04:17.43 Ryan And Sir cool I was just curious when you first mentioned that because I didn't play the messenger. 02:04:22.76 Dave It dude if you like ah if you like a a ninja guide to d type game. It's excellent. Um, let's see in in sir surprise world. They do give some cool backstory I thought for like what's going on with the fleshman and um rahan who is like this this. Archivist this alchemist who was kind of like narrating the game at the beginning and then like kind of cool you you just kind of like bust into his room and he's like a what's up I'm I'm the alchemist. Um, but ah, the little backstory like the 2 of them knew each other when they were younger, they were friends and um. 02:04:50.37 Aaron And that was cool. 02:05:00.90 Dave Like the the fleshmans are kind of turned to evil um, and the the thing that's going on is that like ah rashan kind of created these infinite timelines so that like a society would be able to rise up and possibly beat the fleshmans or someday. So like. That's that's pretty cool I dig that um, kind of reminded me of Jacob and the man in black in lost like that little dynamic. There is kind of cool. 02:05:25.24 Aaron I yes I yeah I actually really really like that part of the game legacy. It just seemed you know you said it earlier too little too late with a bunch of this stuff but by the time you it means same thing with lost too. You know too little too late kind of stuff. But yeah, but by the time I was that point in the story I just I I didn't care now here's a question true ending. Do you get a fight the flesh answer. Okay, all right. That's pretty cool that was another thing that I kind of had a problem with is like you fight Erna as like the final. 02:05:51.73 Dave Ah, yeah, you do. 02:05:58.87 Aaron As as like the real final boss at the end of the regular ending and it was not that hard of a boss fight and I kind of expected the fleshman to come in and you know have 1 final big hurrah and then I didn't get that so I was kind of pissed off about it. Ah, but okay. That's that's cool at least I guess in their candid ending that I did not have the patience to attain they at least did something like that. 02:06:17.85 Dave Yeah, yeah, so um, you know yada yada yada you you go fight the ah you go think you're going to fight the fleshman and he he basically says like you're you're below me I'm not fighting you and so you fight orlina instead. Um I was talking with um Chris from retro hangover on his podcast about this and he said that this fight reminded him of Queen's Zeal from krono trigger um, which I I didn't remember the specifics of that fight. But you know chrono trigger fans can confirm or deny. Um, but you you fight her and you you don't get to fight the flesh Manser valeer and Zell kind of fly away. They they beat her and they're like well I guess our watch has begun and they fly away and you fight one of these world eaters out in space in this like shoot him up section. Did you guys enjoy this kind of. 02:07:11.61 Ryan Straight Galaga style. 02:07:12.69 Dave Switch up at the end here. Yeah I don't I don't think it was meant to I don't think they wanted you to die during this you know. 02:07:13.13 Aaron Yeah I did but it wasn't hard enough. It was like super fucking easy I was expecting like I yeah yeah I wish I wish I could have and then just restart it again like Galaga but yeah, no I get it I did like it though I thought that was cool i. 02:07:32.30 Ryan Yeah I didn't mind it either. Ah, as far as the gameplay was tight. But yeah agree it was clearly just like a little outro. 02:07:39.40 Dave Yeah, and they did a similar thing in the messenger too with like the final boss and kind of switching up gameplay styles. So like I think they wanted to kind of do a similar thing here. Um, but this ending like you've. You beat Orna the flesh maner leaves. He tells you like okay I'm out of here but like a great evil is coming your way you go out into space and you beat its ass in like 30 seconds and then it's over That's the standard ending. So like. You don't fight the flesh Manser. You don't find out what happened to brew gaves. Ah I was going to say that Garl still being dead is a bad thing I don't think that's a bad thing I think it's good that they didn't resurrect to garl as part of the story yet. Ah, but this ending sucks like. Super unsatisfying as a story ending where he talked about it. But this is why I think it's unsatisfying with full spoilers. 02:08:36.85 Ryan Yeah, my think I do wish that 1 thing that didn't really make any sense to me was the fucking relationship between the alchemist and the fleshmans like where they were they were they lovers like it was weird just at the end like he just ushers him into this little area and just follows behind him I'm not sure if that's like followed up in the cann. But. 02:08:54.38 Dave Um, yeah. 02:08:56.47 Ryan Um, the true ending but it didn't make any sense to me at all. He could have at 1 point the fleshman says it's funny because you could stop all this with the snap of your fingers like even though he's just but you think this is all gonna become good or some shit you're like okay maybe we're gonna find some crazy shit out. Nope my boy just kind of like it's almost like he. The flesh bear is like an old man and he's just like a nurse. He's like come on. You like you've clearly here you got you got a little paranoid. You went off and did some weird shit. Let's just take it back all now it was just weird I just wish they like it explained that a little bit more so I don't know that I thought that was weird. 02:09:28.78 Aaron Yeah, the man in black and Jacob Thing is is ah is a really really good. Ah, reference point for their relationship. Um, yeah like I just got left with a bad taste in my mouth like not only have I been. Following this story and putting in the hours based solely off of the the gameplay that I really really enjoyed but then to me it had absolutely 0 payoff at least you know to some degree in a lot of other rpgs. They'll do like a. Like the end of a high school movie where there'll be like a like a freeze frame and it'll be like well John he ended up going to the University Of Northapton and and played back up tida and they got a scholarship and now he's a teacher and every like they they don't say shit about the. About what happens afterwards I mean I know there's the true ending I get that I get that and that will always be the argument and we've already talked about like why that sucks that you have to go through all that just to get you know something out of it but like it just the whole game I had a bad taste in my mouth and the ending left me with another bad taste I just. Like it said me and I can just never say here and be like you I really like this game I really like parts of it. But I really don't understand parts of it too. I. 02:10:40.30 Dave Yeah, 1 1 thing that's cool about the standard ending is so Zail and valeer go out and like their job now is to just kind of fly around like all the planets and universes and just kind of like keep an eye on shit and um. They return to like this world. Um, they fly across the sky on Garl's birthday and they the like old lady in the town was like telling a story to the kids and it's like legend says that the solstice warriors return on the warrior cook's birthday and I was like that's that's pretty sweet. It's a nice little. 02:11:14.10 Aaron That that's cute. Yep. 02:11:17.34 Dave Touch. But it's it's it's an unsatisfying ending but then like that final thing was kind of cute I liked that at least. 02:11:24.30 Aaron So I did too I did too good point I. 02:11:25.81 Ryan I fuck with Garl, so yeah 02:11:29.72 Dave Yeah, so in the true ending. Um, after collecting all the conch cell ah shells and that sucked we already talked about that. What happens is like at some point in the regular ending Reshan just Leaves. He just fucking peaces Out. Um. And he's gone for a while and what happens is he he takes you through a portal after you do all these things you have to fight some extra bosses which were cool I liked fighting them. You have to do all the solstice shrines you have to get all the seashells you have to? um I think you have to unlock. Like all the shit in Mirth the hometown or like the town that you build? Yeah yeah, you had to do all those like I didn't mind so like the puzzles and the extra bosses is just the conch shells that piss me off after you do that Rashan has like made a portal and found a way to. 02:12:07.46 Aaron Yeah, do all those lunar puzzles or whatever those light puzzles or whatever. 02:12:10.80 Ryan Yeah, all the fishing and shit too. 02:12:25.98 Dave Take you back to the moment where garl dies and so like you guys remembering Chrono trigger when Chrono dies and they travel back in time and replace him with a doll so they can save him. That's what they do here except it's B'st like the the glass. 02:12:42.57 Ryan Yeah, baby. 02:12:44.91 Dave Character takes the shape of garl and like goes back. There takes the hit for Garl you pull Garl out and then you go dig beast up out of the grave and then you go on your merry way again. Um, and that's that's how you bring him back and so like. I'm the whole time I was like watching this just thinking like this the future world surprise world the way the girl died in the first place this is all just straight up ripped out of chrono trigger. This is not. Inspired by chrono trigger this is chrono trigger and it left a bad taste in my mouth where I'm like can't you like think of something else. Can't you put your own unique spin on this like this is it's better than in chrono trigger because like. Putting beast in there is more interesting than finding a doll that looks like krono but like this this just like rubbed me the wrong way. It's like have your own original idea, especially this is like a climactic triumphant moment in your story and like you're you're not even like. It doesn't seem like they're even trying to have their own idea here. This is exactly how it happens in chrono trigger. 02:14:01.73 Aaron You know I don't really got a lot to speak on because it's been so long since I played chronto trigger. But you know the first game they made the first successful game they made was not an rpg you know, maybe you know at that plus like you know how bad I found the story. Maybe they just weren't meant to. Make something this grandiose. Maybe they weren't meant to have something with a complicated story or anything. Maybe maybe they just are incapable of doing something like that. 02:14:30.70 Ryan Yeah I don't know that I didn't get a chance unfortunately to ever finish Chron sugar I did play it I enjoyed what I did but so I didn't have that connection or that that memory for that. So I Unfortunately didn't you know I guess I unfortunate I didn't have to take to have that take on it. But um, yeah I. Definitely agree though that it did. They didn't seem like they were trying almost literally at all when it came to the story on purpose. 02:14:51.66 Dave Yeah, it's it's like it's like all right? So Youtube both played chained echoes. It's another one of these games that's like super influenced by old rpgs like can you imagine if like. Chained echoes like did the exact same thing that happens at the midpoint of final fantasy 6 and like everything was exactly the same like that. That's what they're doing here just with a plot point from chrono trigger and it just strikes me as like really weird that they would copy it to this degree. It's like exactly the same. It's it's real weird it it just you know there's a line between taking inspiration from a story and taking inspiration for ah, a game or a product that you want to make and. At some point you cross over that line into just copying their homework and that's what this feels like to me so it it was supposed to be an emotional like you know you're reuniting with Garl and again, he's the only good character in my opinion and he's back now but in my head I was like wow that was just. Blatantly just copying kind of sucked. 02:16:03.30 Aaron And lot of cool story points shown through other characters and not the main ones you know. 02:16:07.40 Dave Yeah, um, you talked about the Golden pelican. Oh you have to do ah a the final boss for fishing is so that you can get a ticket for the golden Pelican restaurant The final bosch for fishing fishing is awful I wrote in my notes. You have to go into a sunken cave and do a fucking final boss for fishing Comma I Hate this so Much. Um. 02:16:31.83 Ryan I gotta see what it is I'll definitely look it up. 02:16:36.40 Dave Ah, you, you go to have a meal at the golden pelican and this is this is just felt like a you know a nice moment for the characters. Um again I I don't care for the characters that much but it was funny seeing them all dressed up. It's like memory and final fantasy 6 when like gal puts on a suit for that 1 scene like this is like that too like beast is wearing a top hat. Ah that that mole that was causing problems malkaud has like this awesome robe that he's eating in. It's just you know. Funny to see him all dressed up Garl has this sick yellow suit too. 02:17:11.92 Aaron So like aside from the achievement like do you get anything else from witnessing that scene or do you just get the scene and. 02:17:21.66 Dave Ah, Garl learns the recipe for like this incredible food item it like restores all your health all your magic um and like it might even revive everyone who's dead. It's like the best healing item in the game. 02:17:35.18 Aaron You and you only have the fleshmancer to fight after that pretty much right? Fair enough fair enough. 02:17:40.80 Dave Yes, but the fleshmancer was tough so I did use that item. Um, so after that you fight the fleshmancer it starts out the same so like you're talking with him and he's kind of doing that thing where he's like I'm too good to fight you I'm not going to fight you. And he turns around and Garl kind of like steps out from behind the group and he just throws a fucking Apple at the fleshmancer's head and that was really funny that made me laugh. Yeah is like fight me bitch like what's up a back. 02:18:01.94 Ryan Garl the fucking goat 02:18:03.89 Aaron But. I like that I it's not Me. He's He's nothing like me. 02:18:10.63 Ryan I'm fair surprised Bean they hates garl because it's basically him is it a character just that you got all the yeah yep you have all these people that are super talented and that you got this ddude who's just like has to work really really hard to be able to fucking keep up but he's still just put in one hundred and fifty percent yeah up said. 02:18:27.30 Aaron I ah as does it sound like me I'm perfect I'll know what you're talking about 02:18:28.90 Ryan And he's still recognize. He's still the he's still dope but he doesn't have much talent innately You'm saying. 02:18:37.29 Dave Ah, ah it was just very funny like 1 of the only like parts in the story where I was like this that was very cool like Garl was like what's up you punk bitch throws an Apple hits him right in the head. 02:18:49.48 Ryan Yeah, that shit was fucking funny I did see the again I watched the video to see the true ending and I did see that part which I thought was awesome him p to just kind of Swag out call him out and finally get his vene no sight. 02:19:04.15 Dave And ah, yeah, then you you fight the fleshmancer. It's a really fun final boss because all the boss fights in this game are fun. Um, it was a really good challenge and it also like you'll fight the flesh manser for a while then it will go into that shoot him up section and you'll do that for a bit. And then you'll go back to the turn base fight and then you'll go back to the shoot him up section. Um it. It was cool like ah and ah, a good, really good final boss fight. But then at the end you don't defeat him raha lets him leave again. So again. Ah a bit unsatisfying there I don't know if they're. They want to set up sea of stars too or some shit. But yeah, so we already talked about the the ending with brugaves being the devil character. The difference here is Zale and Valere go off to do their patrol except. 02:19:39.60 Aaron So yep, that's exactly what they're doing. 02:19:55.27 Dave Instead of like flying over the planet on Garl's birthday now they come back many years later to visit and girls like old now. So like and valere and Zale haven't aged at all because they're gods now. Basically so that was pretty cool. 02:20:10.10 Aaron But have been a really cool original ending. 02:20:13.81 Dave Yeah. 02:20:17.73 Ryan Yeah, it was cool to seeing them just ah leap it to that Dick's arms at the end that was very cool but just like an old man just hugg. It is like his 2 grand babiesies because they hadn't aged but that's basically what it was he was just might as well been the old band take gar theses little kids because as far as as far as personality they were infants. So. 02:20:35.10 Dave that's that's true yeah, yeah um so yeah, they had their reunion at the end you don't get any real resolution I don't know guys like sea of stars to let's say they're the flesh mansters causing shit again and. Valier and Zell have to go take him on again. I'm going to have to like wait and see you know like there. There's a bunch of other long rpgs that I would rather play right now than see if stars too I'm going to have to like really wait or if it's on game pass or some shit. If game pass exists in 2028 whenever see if stars 2 would come out. But. 02:21:16.25 Aaron Um, they're they're gonna have to show me a lot me and it's a definite no from me right now and like my thing is is like okay so always they could like obviously make improvements and work on these things here and there but with how much reception like positive reception. It's gotten I don't think that they feel like they've done anything Wrong. So I Can't imagine that big of a shift from this game to another game to be enough for me to want to play it but you know who knows might be in a different place by then. 02:21:41.25 Ryan Mean I thought I enjoyed enough where if I thought the second was supposed to be like a a game that took the first 1 further then I would definitely be willing to try to see what they were capable of doing because I enjoyed it enough to to be willing to be like okay, let's see what they could have done with the second one that they elaorated on some things. Because I enjoyed the battle system I assume they would hopefully get get better and maybe they get elaborateated a little bit on that storytelling. Maybe they were I mean they are. They're strong finishers. Not good artist I mean maybe the story really picks up at the sec when they're able to finish strong with the flush man and explain what that weirdness was with the old boy but I don't know but I would be willing to yeah. 02:22:20.70 Dave There is 1 thing after you beat the true ending. There is another thing you can go do. It's just like an easter egg for people who played the messenger. Um, there are these items called flimsy hammers if you get 4 of them I believe. You can kind of break down these walls in the crypt near mirth um, and you find this secret room where the shopkeeper from the messenger is in and like you guys didn't play the messenger so that doesn't mean anything to you but the the shopkeeper is a kind of a memorable character from that game. He's got great music. Ah, tells a bunch of jokes and stuff. It's a fun character and he kind of like pops out of this like cabinet that you find the cabinet is a source of a bunch of jokes in the messenger. Um, but he kind of pops out. He's like clearly not from your world but he pops out and he's just like. Yeah, you can go check out the cabinet like I'm out of here like you open Pandora's box basically like this is not my problem I'm out peace and he leaves and then you go in the cabinet and um, there's a room in like our modern times basically and they're having like a dinner party. And you can talk to them the people in there and it's the people who work for sabotage. Um, and I I this also I think is a reference to Chrono Trigger um I never saw it in chrono trigger but people tell me it is. 02:23:45.25 Dave Um, we're in that game. You could go into the secret room and you can talk to the developers as npcs so a little easter egg for the messenger people at the end. Um, yeah, just to throw that out there for any messenger fans still listening. We're getting on two and a half hours my voice is about to completely give out. Um, guys. Thanks so much for coming on and ah doing sea of stars with me. 02:24:08.35 Ryan I Love you boys. It's always a pleasure. 02:24:08.62 Aaron Yeah man it was really weird doing an episode where I didn't have a lot of really nice things to say about something but I do feel it's a game worth being talked about. So I appreciate you having me on brother. 02:24:20.62 Dave Yeah, for sure. Um, both of you obviously open invitation to come back. We've already discussed the next thing that we'll have you back on the show if everyone's up for it. So ah, yeah, everyone listening I appreciate you listening this far. I especially appreciate if you love see of stars and you listen to us kind of take a dump on the story here, but it's just unfortunately the feeling that I was left with after playing. Hopefully yeah, as always. Hopefully we explain ourselves well, but Thank you all for listening so much again. Appreciate everyone who does and yeah, check down in the show notes for the the other podcast the top 3 podcast um ratings and reviews check out the Patreon if you want to support that way and tune in next week for the next game to come out of the backlog.