SPEAKER_10 0:17

All you cool cats out there. Howdy. Happy Saturday, you goons. Welcome to the Cool Cats Cass. I'm one of the three hosts. Connor, aka the Cat Dad, alongside Shelani and Cameron. Hello, boys. Yo. What's happening?

SPEAKER_07 0:44

Yeah, but as I was saying earlier, I just ran into it. Let's jump into the couple of things. Wait, now you gotta preface it now because no one knows what you're talking about. Wait, wait, hold on. So I was on TikTok earlier that today, and some kid came on Al Gore's internet and said, I like to move it. Was written and produced for the Madagascar movies, and I immediately felt ancient as fuck.

SPEAKER_01 1:14

I have a quick note for that, and I'm gonna get maybe crucified over this. Yes. And and Shay has sh she's given me a s well, not a scolding, but she's wondered why. I haven't seen Madagascar. None of them. Not a single one.

SPEAKER_07 1:27

Okay. Yeah, I can't blame you for that. That's they're like it is a series of movies that has its following of like, what do you mean you didn't watch Madagascar? Yeah. Did you have a childhood?

SPEAKER_01 1:41

That's basically what if I if I remember the conversation, I think that's like like, what do you mean you didn't watch that? Like I it just I don't know. It's that one just like flew by me when I was younger. I don't know why.

SPEAKER_10 1:50

I think because you were an adult. What did it come? I got it. 2005. So you were 15 years old. That's not an adult, but yeah. I mean, you're not, you know, you're 15. Your first notion is like, dude, if it's not rated R, it can go fuck itself. If they're not titties in there, I really care.

SPEAKER_07 2:12

I think like I saw it mostly based on the fact that A grew up sheltered, and B, I have a younger sister as well.

SPEAKER_10 2:21

So do I. Right, right. You know?

SPEAKER_01 2:24

Yeah. I have an older brother, so I guess that makes sense.

SPEAKER_10 2:26

I also think there's like a cutoff, like you either were like super into Toy Story when you're a kid, or you were like mad at because it wasn't that wasn't a Pixar. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't think so. No, that's what's it's one of the it's DreamWorks. So the Shrek people. It's so you watch Shrek.

SPEAKER_01 2:45

I like I watched Shrek. I watched two Shrek movies. I don't know if I watched the third one.

SPEAKER_07 2:49

I also feel like it was in the middle of like a flurry for like a few years there, where there was a kid, a new animated kids franchise in theaters, like at least four or five times a year for a few years there. And I could be absolutely am exaggerating.

SPEAKER_10 3:11

That it wasn't pretty Disney movies, though.

SPEAKER_01 3:14

So at least to a degree. Like I feel like that was kind of like the golden age for like Disney Pixar and stuff like that. Cause like I don't I don't feel like that's really the case anymore. I don't I don't feel like we're seeing like movies being like all we're really seeing nowadays is just like live action stuff getting like just pumped out and trying to recapture the you know I mean it depends on what what circle you're in.

SPEAKER_10 3:38

Like I could tell you right away that the the house I'm currently living in, there are grown-ass adults who go see these animated films, not with children just as a date night.

SPEAKER_01 3:49

Like it's perfectly that's perfectly fine. I'm just saying, like, there aren't there aren't like movies I feel like that are being like there's some that there's but not to the same degree from like the 90s and the to the early 2000s in terms of like how many are getting just like churned out constantly, like uh fucking a bug's life and shit like that, and like all just like so many movies that were getting churned, like churned out all the time because that they never stop making kids' musicals, but like outside of the songs of what's in frozen, has anything really touched fucking Smash Mouth in Shrek?

SPEAKER_10 4:27

That's a good point. Enough said, Yeah, but that's see that's another thing. That that wasn't made for Shrek, and then Shrek made it like another level.

SPEAKER_07 4:36

That era of what's it called? That era of animated shit for kids not only had like really good storylines, blah dahdy blah blah blah, back in my day, blah day blah blah blah. But they had banger ass fucking licensed soundtracks for a lot of the musical ones.

SPEAKER_10 4:54

That's fair. I got I do have a hot take that the minions movies that aren't terrible, but the worst thing to come out of those movies that are not the minions themselves is that goddamn happy song by Pharrell. I swear to fucking god, does the opposite of making me happy.

SPEAKER_07 5:13

Brother, brother, like when it dropped, I loved it. I was depressed as shit. So like the fact that the song dropped, and it's like I'm I'm like, you know what? This actually puts a smile on my face, and I don't smile very often anymore. But now, as an adult, like a fully matured, happily married adult, that song is annoying as fuck.

SPEAKER_10 5:37

It's the most annoying song. Like I can get behind let it go, and then the other hit into the unknown, which is on the second one, which is also a banger.

SPEAKER_07 5:49

But fucking if I hear happy one more fucking time. I swear to God. I swear to god.

SPEAKER_10 5:56

I want to go meet Pharrell and just smack about his fedora.

SPEAKER_01 5:59

When did F2 come out? That was pre-2020. Okay, so that's 2019.

SPEAKER_07 6:02

I kind of I'm kinda down for that trip, Connor, because somebody also somebody also needs to smack him with an original van. Because that bullshit he put out recently with the classic reimagined, which is basically whatever brand he's I'm not a I'm not a fashion head. But it's basically just a van's with a highbrow name on it, to the point where Vans were like, Really, nigga? For real? Is that what we're doing here? Like, this is a streamlined and paraphrase like of the beef, but it was still like it came down to Vans being like Be so for real right now, brother.

SPEAKER_10 6:47

A Louis Vuitton skate sneaker. Yes.

SPEAKER_06 6:51

Yes.

SPEAKER_10 6:53

What the fuck? Pharrell Pharrell is interesting. He's an interesting guy. Go ahead, Cameron. I'm sorry.

SPEAKER_01 7:01

No, it's okay. I was just wondering if we have any like game updates for you guys. I did.

SPEAKER_10 7:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:07

Like what?

SPEAKER_10 7:09

I did. Let's keep it simple. I did. Um I got a couple. One. What do you got? People were uh people in our Discord were blessed with me playing through a horror game last Friday titled The Skin Stapler, which was twelve dollars uh well spent. Uh what is the what is the goal of this game?

SPEAKER_01 7:36

Is it someone is the skin stapler someone who's attacking or coming after you, or are you the skin stable?

SPEAKER_10 7:42

I will explain it to you in a second because it's worth reading the synopsis. Right. The skin stapler is a retro-styled PSX grind house horror adventure set in the rotting, crime-soaked sprawl of Carrion City. Players follow Jaded Detective, Dick Slater, and his eager rookie partner, Robbie Knox, as they hunt a mysterious serial killer known as the Skin Stapler.

SPEAKER_01 8:18

Why do they both sound like fucking porn names? Like that's by intent.

SPEAKER_10 8:22

Yes. By intent. Okay. Yes. Oh if you were present for the playthrough, the man who made it, A, has to be our age. Yes. And B, he went on another level of perversion. Um to the point where I serve hot wieners. That's what I was screening filled holes to. Right. And just a whole slew of things.

SPEAKER_07 8:47

If you've seen the shorts or the videos on YouTube of the zombie at looking as people doing diabolical shit with hot dogs, it's that game. It is in fact that game.

unknown 8:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:59

Here's the thing balls. Shockingly good reviews. Shockingly good reviews.

SPEAKER_10 9:05

It's a great game. It was fun. Repetitive, but it didn't overstay its welcome. It was so quick. It was like three and a half to four hours long. So it's a quick game, okay. Yes. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 9:18

It was in plenty of laughs, fun as shit.

SPEAKER_01 9:22

Was that the night that we had like there was a little drinking going on? Was that the night that that was happening? Yes, it was. It was some alcohol. Not me. Others enjoying it. I mean, I'm not going to judge you if you did, even if you had.

SPEAKER_03 9:35

Oh yeah, I drank the motherfucker.

SPEAKER_01 9:37

I did not.

SPEAKER_06 9:40

Ain't no shade.

SPEAKER_10 9:41

I was so invested. I was invested in solving the uh mystery of the skin stapler.

SPEAKER_01 9:47

Um that sounds like a lot of fun. I'm gonna have to look at that since it's more of like a horror experience. I feel like Shay might enjoy it, but at the same time, it's like a Steam game, so I'll have to figure out how we can like I guess I could probably get it on my Steam Deck.

SPEAKER_10 9:59

Yep. Yeah, I'm gonna look into more of his games because he was like tying other titles into this game. Like referencing them? Um yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Nice. Um, this isn't his first game then. No, no, no, no, no, no. Okay, sorry. And then he involved a lot of streamers too, and they're all credited in there, and they did voice acting and stuff. It was pretty cool. Nice. That sounds awesome. What else? Uh oh. Marvel Tokan Fighting Souls. Ooh, yeah. God getting that so bad. I did play a little bit of this for Jelani. Uh it looks fun. It's fun, and it is so full of anime tropes. It's insane.

SPEAKER_07 10:48

Oh my god, that opening. The opening. Right. Like, even if you're not interested in playing the game, I need everyone to l listening to this in a playback format who is not driving to pause, go to YouTube, watch that fucking opening, and then come back.

SPEAKER_10 11:07

It goes fucking hard. It goes fucking hard. Too hard.

SPEAKER_07 11:12

Like it's um there's some anime in 2026 that do not have openings that go that hard.

SPEAKER_10 11:22

Right, they should take some notes because they went fully into that anime aesthetic to the point where like everything.

SPEAKER_07 11:30

Iron Man is.

SPEAKER_01 11:32

Yeah, I like that a lot. I think I love that design. It looks so cool. Oh, gun management. And I saw a lot of people on like the Reddit being like, that's not fucking Iron Man. I'm like, dude, let people cook a little bit. Like, this is one of the coolest Iron Man designs I've seen in fucking years.

SPEAKER_07 11:47

Wait, that's not Iron Man? You mean the Iron Man who has like what a hundred or a hundred or so different suits, and this can't be like, yo, this can't be the anime fan service suit. You know Tony would do some shit like that. Like, come on.

SPEAKER_01 12:05

That fucking degenerate. You know he would.

SPEAKER_07 12:08

That's a hundred percent. Like, wait, we have a mission in Japan. Nah, I got a suit for this.

SPEAKER_01 12:13

Yeah. I got my Gundam outfit. Let's do it. Cause you dude, if I hold if I was a super genius, you absolutely fucking know I'm making a Gundam suit. Like, there's no way in hell, and it's gonna have like the little floaty laser guys that like follow you around and stuff like that, because that's like fucking Gundam 101. You gotta have those. Man, you know I'm going for that.

SPEAKER_00 12:33

Go ahead. Go ahead. Did I you?

SPEAKER_01 12:44

You were, you were. He was like, I'm cooking. That's great.

SPEAKER_07 12:46

Actually, that's a great lead-in because I've been play I've been playing more power world with Morgan, my wife.

unknown 12:53

Okay.

SPEAKER_07 12:54

That's fucking great. And I've gotten to end game. I have like the endgame armor and the weapons, and as you mentioned, the little floaty things around you.

SPEAKER_01 13:06

Exactly. I love the drone launcher, bro. It's so cool.

SPEAKER_07 13:10

Yo, when you hit endgame in Battle World, you also become a Gundam. You have a beam sword, and you have floating, what's it called, shield bits.

SPEAKER_01 13:22

Yep. I love it. Those things are so they will tear a boss apart.

SPEAKER_06 13:28

It's so fucking great. It's so good.

SPEAKER_01 13:32

Yeah. But yeah, so anyway, do you guys want to watch? Like, I can pull it up if we want to have everybody watch the intro for Tokon with us. Maybe a little fun. We could add the audio in there.

SPEAKER_10 13:43

Oh to you guys. I just thought it'd be. Sorry. Okay. Alright. It's a weird post-production thing.

SPEAKER_01 13:51

You mean having to do something?

SPEAKER_10 13:54

No, I just mean like copyright-wise, probably.

SPEAKER_07 13:56

Oh, so if in the what's it called? The problem is on the stream, I think. I don't think it would be too much of an issue on the I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 14:08

It's all right.

SPEAKER_10 14:09

We can talk about it post-it. YouTube it. YouTube it. YouTube. Um a good one to YouTube is just um Deadpool stuff. Because of course, on top of him being Deadpool, imagine Deadpool in like anime form where he's just like over the top annoying and there isn't call him he is another layer of Deadpool for Deadpool fans.

SPEAKER_07 14:38

Because just like every layer of Deadpool you stack on top of Deadpool, the new layer is aware of every layer before him. So this new Deadpool is primally aware of the movie Deadpool, the other game Deadpools, as well as the comic Deadpool.

SPEAKER_10 15:02

Throw in like fighting game references in like a majority of his moves that like he does. He like mimics other gaming um fighting game moves.

SPEAKER_01 15:14

It makes me wonder if he uses anything from Marvel vs. Capcom 3 when he was in there where like his his like level 3 was he would like take the his like literal health bar and slap the shit out of the enemy with it. And like it was just this like great, just kind of like fourth wall breaking kind of experience. So I I wonder if they reference that at all in his kit. That would bring me. When I bought Street Fighter 6, and this is probably the only reason I haven't bought it yet, is because like I basically played it for like only a month and I didn't really have anybody to play with to like actively like do anything outside of like just online. Yeah when you play online, there's like you're either put up against like just like a mad person who just like you can't get past their defenses in any way, shape, or form, or you're dealing with like lag because that was a big thing that I saw about the PC version for Tokon was that like there was severe like input latency issues that like it uh I think Maximilian that's he's like one of like a really really big like fighting game streamer. Yeah, he had to completely abandon the PC version and go play the PlayStation 5 version because apparently the PlayStation 5 version was just like far and away better than the the PC version was. Yeah, I thought it hurt too. So but I'm definitely excited to try it out. I think that would be really, really fun. Um cool. Did you have anything else for like your game of the week there, Jelani, before we move on?

SPEAKER_07 16:50

It's been a very simple and stressful week. I've been I go to work, I come home, I play paled with my wife, and decompress from work. It's it's been yo, and that circles back to something else I'll talk about later, but that's fine.

SPEAKER_01 17:12

Um so for me, uh a lot of retro stuff. I did a lot of uh setting up like emulation on my Steam Deck this last week. Um more just trying to fix some issues that I had with because I was trying to get Dynasty Warriors Gundam 3 going. Um because like that's just one of the best, in my opinion, Dynasty Warriors games out there. Uh at least because it just it does a perfect job of like blending Dynasty Warriors format with like Gundam like characters. Yeah. Um but the issue I was having was that my Steam Deck, like uh it for the Xenia like emulator, it doesn't want to like select a profile for me, like when I'm using like gaming mode. I don't know if you guys have a Steam Deck, but there's there's like gaming mode and there's deck desktop mode. And I like I had to do all this kind of like back end to like figuring out like changing files, all this kind of stuff. But anyway, so finally like thought I had it, but then I didn't. So I was like, well fuck it, whatever. So I just started like downloading other ROMs for different games and stuff like that, and I got a whole bunch of stuff from when I was like young that like I had completely forgotten about. I got a couple like Dreamcast emulators or uh uh ROMs. Like, I don't know if you guys remember this game called Time Stalkers. Um, but I I got I downloaded that. Um but another big thing was that me and Shay actually beat Mario 64 this uh a couple days ago. Oh, oh yeah. Yeah, we we didn't we didn't like 100% complete it because I don't got time for that in this 2026 world. But we we basically got to like 86 or 87 stars. We we had done pretty much all of the courses. We ended up finding out after that we had missed one course, um, but we were just like whatever, we beating the game at this point, so who cares? So but yeah, we um we beat the final Bowser fight, and uh we got to the point where you know you save Princess Peach and she's like, Oh thanks, that's my reward for you is not a paycheck or anything, it's a cake. And so she literally makes Mario cake and then outro, and you're done. I was like, okay. Listen, that cake looked good as fuck though. It did look good. Please. Um and then outside of that, we uh Shay also showed me this game uh Mystical Ninja, Mystic Ninja? Ninja Mystic Ninja.

SPEAKER_10 19:25

Uh quick sidebar. I put in the chat. Time stalkers was also known as Climax Landers in Japan.

SPEAKER_01 19:33

Probably should have stuck with Climax landers? Like, are they saying they're pinpoint climaxers? Is that what they're trying to say? Nah, perfect. We land the plate on the script when it comes to climaxing, okay? Yo, yo.

SPEAKER_07 19:51

I get I'm not trying to say anything, but I always get it done. I always get it done.

SPEAKER_01 19:59

Hey. Um, but no, she she told me this great game, uh Mystical Ninja, and I for whatever reason, I the only thing I remember of this game from when I was a kid was the box art. It's it it just stands out. Um I'm sure if you guys like look it up and you see like the blue hair guy Gale or a Goamon or whatever. Yeah. I remember so uh for whatever reason, I like that I think it's because it came out like five years before it literally came out when I was like a one-year-old, and I guess at that time I just didn't really have any purchasing power, but um I it just remembered it went past me. And it we so anyway, we've been playing it recently, and I'm like I was surprised at like how like snappy the controls in this game were. Like I almost felt like they're better than Mario 64, and I know I'm gonna get crucified by like any fucking like speedrunners out there or whatever, but like there there are some major frustrations with Mario 64's like movement in that game where like you will be like trying to jump off of something or or like walk off of something, and it has like the automatic like latch onto the the edge kind of thing, and it really fucks with you when you're trying to do like timed things where you're trying to like stay on like a rug or whatever that's floating and or a magic carpet, and so it's there was just so many times where we were playing Mario 64 where the movement fucked us, and I feel like that wasn't a thing at all in Mystical Ninja. Like whenever I want to jump, I jump, there's no issues with it. Um, and you know, I think that's probably just needing to because I don't know if you've ever looked up like Mario 64 shorts, but like people have like figured this shit out. There's like a whole minute of just be like, all right, if you hit this angle and you pull back on the the analog at just the right time and you hit B and then you do a backflip 14 times in the right direction, you're gonna get this star in less than 20 seconds. And I'm like, okay, I don't need to do all that shit. But yeah, it was definitely it was definitely fun to kind of feel the difference of a game that was actually older, but for whatever reason the controls just felt better. Um but yeah, that's basically what we've been doing. Um I also Also, tried this new game, uh, and I I don't know if either of you ever played like um Genshin Impact or like Honkai Star Reel or anything like that before, but I played this new game from Perfect World called uh Neverness to Everness. It's been out for like three months, I think.

SPEAKER_03 22:14

I've heard of it.

SPEAKER_01 22:15

It's surprisingly fun. It's like and all of them are fun games from my understanding. Yeah, I I've I I spent a couple years on Genshin Impact, and I definitely put a lot of time into Honkai Starwell. And I feel like they kind of took both of those and blended them together in a really, really good way. The combat is just like really, really good. The characters are really well designed. I will say it is absolutely a like waifu fest. Like there's this one character named Mint. And I told Shay about this. It is like I almost want to say it's like egregious how big they made this character's boobs. Oh yeah. It makes it sense compared compared to the rest of this character's body. It makes no fucking sense whatsoever. Um, but they they're just like, we know our we know our fucking audience and we know what's gonna sell, and so they it's just wild. It's like it's constantly in your face. Um, and you know, I'm not saying that I don't enjoy boobs, but like I think we all know this, but at the same time, it was like like calm it down a little bit. Yeah, trying to play. Like, what are we doing? Yeah.

SPEAKER_10 23:23

I think that's my main problem with some of those. Like, they're probably they are good games. I'm not saying probably they have good elements to them. It's definitely gotcha. It's so hard to play a game that I actively feel I just feel dirty. I just feel it's like okay, good example. Good example. Most animes are tolerable to watch, right? They have good stories, emotions, sure. Yeah, but when they start getting horny, yeah, I start I do one of those no one's even here in this movie, it's just me. But I'm like subconsciously, like, you know, like get ready to flip the fucking channel fucking move.

SPEAKER_07 24:08

It turns sends you right back to being a kid watching HBO at a time you shouldn't be watching HBO.

SPEAKER_10 24:14

Like you have the the previous channel button key to a fucking appropriate channel, like the head center or some shit. So you can quickly just click the button. That's so funny. It's just a tiny deal. Like, I'm yeah, I remember watching Food Wars the anime. Oh my god. Yeah, I'm sorry about this. Great anime, dude. Awesome. Uh super horny. Um to the point where like where people like eat a dish and like they just like orgasm to a point where like their clothes are fucking stripping off.

SPEAKER_01 24:45

Yeah, it just makes sense. Okay, I'm I get it. It's kind of like um there's this character in Fire Force, and I can't remember the name right now, but she basically has this. It they literally give a name to it as like a power of hers in the game, or the it's called like the it's called the lecture lure. And it basically just like she could be fighting at any point, and just like no matter what, she just has this terrible look where all of her clothes will just come off like apropos of nothing. It just it literally just fucking she could she could trip and her entire outfit just like flies out of the window. Yeah, and like at first, like you know, especially like during the first two seasons, you're just like what the fuck are we doing here? Like it's it's like I I get having fan service, like I understand, but at the same time, it's just like so in your face that it's just like all right, dude. It's like I get it, I get it, let's move on. Like, I understand. It's funny, she trips and she does this thing, it's the 700th time you've done this. I understand. But then they like somehow by the end of the anime, they like plug it into like the actual story. Yeah. It's actually really funny how they fucking did it. I can't believe it. Because I actually I literally just finished Fire Force like last week, a couple days ago. So I'm super happy about how it ties into Soul Leader and everything.

SPEAKER_03 25:58

But anyway, the ending of Fire Force was dope. But continue. I'm sorry.

SPEAKER_01 26:03

No, I agree with you. I it's super, super good. What were you saying, Connor?

SPEAKER_10 26:07

I was saying, so yeah, the waifu gotcha games. Yeah. There's a market, I understand it. Uh it can't be me, unfortunately. It can't be me. I have this thing. Oh, hold up.

SPEAKER_01 26:25

Oh damn, new character. Oh, hell yeah. Yeah. No, I mean I was surprised. Like, the the when I started playing this game, I kind of like you know, I I knew what I was getting into with this whole like wife who gotcha thing. Like, I understand. Like, I I they do have like cool like male stuff, and so I'm like, I've been trying to primarily build my team out of like male characters. Um obviously that doesn't always fucking hey man, I'm a I'm a dude, I like playing as male characters, that's just how I am.

SPEAKER_07 26:52

But you could have you could have just said I I feel weird with all this anime ass in my face all the time. But no, yeah, yeah. You went with the nah, I play dudes.

SPEAKER_01 27:09

It's not even that. Like I have like if I play like Star Wars The Old Republic or whatever, I have female characters. It's not like I'm against it. It's just like that's just generally my default is like you said, I don't I I'm not playing the game to have a bunch of ass in my face. That's not like the point of why I'm playing. Because the the real is actually quite good, but I can also recognize that it is absolutely a Gunnar game. Like that's the whole point of it. So like I I have a little bit of you know self-reflection in that, you know.

SPEAKER_07 27:36

Give it give it some credit. If it was if it was absolutely a Gooner game and that was the entire point of it, we would have covered it in steamy steam reviews by now. That's fair.

SPEAKER_10 27:47

If it's like that's a good point. Yeah, I don't think I should probably look at those uh reviews uh the recent reviews, maybe. Maybe I can cook up some uh steamy steam reviews with them.

SPEAKER_01 27:59

But but yeah, that's uh that's basically what I've been into this last uh week or so. Just just a little bit of retro. It's it's kind of fun because like I I feel like I'm at an uh age now where and and also it's kind of a difference between like now I'm an adult, but also I feel like we're kind of in a place where games are kind of like at least the gaming space in general is becoming like just iterative of things that have come before. And so it's interesting as an adult to go back to these games that are like made you know 20-30 years ago when they're when developers were like breaching the space and like learning what they could to you know how how to make these consoles and how to make the design work for the game that we want to make. Like it's so interesting to see that versus the nostalgia of what I remember from that. And so like it's kind of like cyclical where like I'm I've been playing a lot of games that I played when I was younger, and then just kind of like trying to reimagine or re-examine them as an adult, um, versus like the current gaming space where it's like 90% of the games that come out are specifically designed to get as much money out of you as possible instead of just being like for the sake of fun and like what's good for the gamer, it's just about like how much you know uh what's either micro transactions, yeah, like money or engagement base if we well, if it's not necessarily money, it's something with like how long can we keep you in the game or something like that.

SPEAKER_00 29:30

It's yeah.

SPEAKER_01 29:32

And that's why I was so impressed with Power Old, because they don't have any microtransactions whatsoever, like none. And that's what it's it's so good because like while I do think the game has some improvements that they can make, or you know, because I'm like I'm level 79, I have like one level left. Um you know, but like it's just such a good experience while also not trying to just like get ya, you know, like give me that money. Like it, you know, it's a cheap game, it's only like I think it was like 30 bucks, if I remember right, from when I bought it. Um, and they you know, they're not trying to like screw us over, and I think that's a really great thing.

SPEAKER_07 30:04

Look, it Pow World specally talking about their monetization and their execution. I will say that the fact that they it is in fact thirty dollars right now. The fact that they are executing it in this way where like you're not nickel and diming me. You g you gave I gave you thirty dollars, you gave me what do I have? A hundred some odd hours of entertainment, two hundred some odd hours in it.

SPEAKER_00 30:40

Wow.

SPEAKER_07 30:41

That let's be honest, the multiplayer role me and Morgan player on run runs on my computer, so like if she's having a day off or something, I will just turn on my computer and let it run so she can play while I'm working or something.

SPEAKER_00 30:57

Nice.

SPEAKER_07 30:58

But it's to the point now where it's like, oh, you have DLC coming out? Alright, cool. Immediate. Immediate buy. Why? Homie, 200 and something hours entertainment for both me and my wife, and it's this awesome. Like, at this point, day one, I'll buy the DLC. If the DLC sucks, that means the second one I might think about before buying, but I'll still probably buy it. Like, let's be 100% honest. Specifically because I feel respected as a consumer.

SPEAKER_01 31:30

Exactly. Yeah. And like that's that is exactly the kind of developer that I want to put my money towards because they're not trying to constantly like get something from me, they're just trying to provide a fun experience for me as the consumer. And that I feel like is what got lost with like you know, EA, for example. Like, I mean, theirs is just egregious, obviously, with their historic like this historical track record with just like canceling like Star Wars things, um, because they're not profitable, or just like any number of other like companies that they just shut down, despite commercial success.

SPEAKER_07 32:00

Don't worry, it'll get better now that the Saudis and the Trumps on it.

unknown 32:05

Right.

SPEAKER_01 32:06

Yeah, I bet. Yeah. Ugh, that's a whole other topic that I would love to get into. Not today.

SPEAKER_10 32:13

I was gonna say not today.

SPEAKER_01 32:14

Yeah, that's fine.

SPEAKER_10 32:15

I was gonna say to like piggyback on like why older games aren't as or the way older games feel opposed to now, is that if you kind of think about it, at one point in any video game fist if you watch any video game history movie or documentary or whatever, there was some point where like video games were like not gonna be a thing. Like everyone fucking hated it, you know. Yeah. And it became uh it came back, you know, it had a resurgence and people started playing it more, and um as we gotten older, we've watched it evolve into this fucking insane monopoly fucking you know art. It's everywhere, and then and with anything that becomes that globally recognized and globally like loved, how can we squeeze money out of the people who want to enjoy it? So that's where we are. Like back in the day, like it was how much money we can make, but at the same time, it's like here's a good experience worth that money. But now it's like like what Johanny said, how long can we keep them here to spend money on this one particular game or games series, and how much can we make and squeeze out of these people? So like that's the main difference, I think.

SPEAKER_01 33:35

And I and I think to a degree, like I there is I don't want to say natural, like a progression where like that's almost kind of expected, but like I do think that there's like a certain point, like it's the same thing with like movies nowadays, too, where it's like you're just seeing a lot of the same things being built because they know that they'll get money out of it versus it being like an actual creative project or something like that that they like they want to do because it's gonna be good. Like I I don't have any specific examples in mind at the moment. Like, I had thought about like Last of Us, but I feel like they're actually doing a pretty good job with Last of Us.

SPEAKER_03 34:06

Um, but like take The Witcher for example, or like kind of like the concept TV show based on how some of the Halo fans feel about it.

SPEAKER_01 34:16

Right. Like if you I don't know if you guys heard Christopher Judge's kind of like recent um discussion about this topic, and you know, I think there's there's some truth to it and I or a lot of truth to it, but I think like there's you know, whatever he said, which is basically just the fact that like you take these properties that have long-standing people in the space, like God of War, for example, like there's several games out at this point, even before the re uh like the Ragnarok series, like um where he was the actual God of War, um, like but the original series, like one through three, I think they maybe even four. But like they basically take that and they don't hire any of the writers from that era who know that shit back and forward, and because they want to do like their own thing with it, but like at the same time, like why do you think you're gonna do better than the people that know that shit? Like the same thing with Witcher, like the showrunner for that basically took an actor who knew everything about it and basically said no no no to everything he was saying to the point where he left the show, and they they basically ruined the show for what a lot of people like. I I liked it for the for the first couple seasons, but as soon as Henry Henry Cavill was out, I was out too. Like, I'm not interested in a showrunner or a series that isn't interested in its own material, especially where they like even make fun of it, from what I've heard.

SPEAKER_07 35:32

Yes, that was gonna be my thing. I think uh the Henry Cavill leaving was right around the same time. I think it was reported somebody working on the show actually hated the source material.

SPEAKER_01 35:45

It was the showrunner. Yeah. The showrunner hated it. Like they were they were literally making fun of the source material, and it's like, dude, why are you the showrunner for a show that you like for a book that you don't even like? Like you know, like it just doesn't make any sense to me.

SPEAKER_07 35:57

I don't uh like this is a showrunner for a TV show, like it boggles my mind that that that the Witcher TV show thing even went the way it did after The Witcher knows exactly how after that franchise, like there's so many people around who know how to make it work. Hence the Witcher game series that was doing that was actually successful and popular before the games were good.

SPEAKER_00 36:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 36:33

Like let's be a hundred percent honest. Witcher one is a jank fest that I could not come that I could not get into. Is a little better, but let's be honest, Witcher 3 the games were popular and well respected well before Witcher 3 because they deserved it. And then Richard 3 was basically, oh, this is proof of concept.

SPEAKER_01 36:59

Yeah, it was like the culmination of all of that.

SPEAKER_07 37:01

And then let's and we make all that step with the Witcher media only for us to take three steps backward with that fucking TV show with the way that evolved.

SPEAKER_01 37:14

Yeah, and I guess that's like that's that basically is like kind of my point is like not respecting where these things come from and the people that were involved with them and thinking that you can do better. Like I think George R.R. Tolkien basically had like a similar like thing of just like you think you can like beat the people at their own game when they're the ones who provided the original source material. Like it just at the very least, you should sit there and respect it and not like sit there and make fun of it, you know. But yeah, I think there's definitely like a few exceptions to this in like the in in the like current space, but at the same time, uh it's just every everything that's being made is being made for the sake of profit and not the the the sake of just actually like trying to do uh a creative piece of art or you know trying to really just do something for your consumers to make an actual fun experience, uh whether it be uh movies or like that. I think that's why the Odyssey is like doing so well right now, is because it was such a you know Christopher Nolan just fucking knocked it out of the park in terms of just like making it feel like a true like fun experience to like because you I feel like you're super immersed in that world. They may not have like I've seen some like critique about like you know how you know I think the people from like playwrights and stuff like that were like oh this isn't a this isn't like treating it properly. But at the same time, as the consumer, the person who was viewing it, I felt super super immersed in the story that I remember, and I thought that was a great thing.

SPEAKER_07 38:42

So it's it's like it's not a truthful rendition of the epic, but like at the end of the day, the epic that we have isn't a true rendition of the epic because the transcript that we have and study is significantly younger than the poem itself. Therefore, in my humble opinion, that movie continues the tradition of epics in that there is an originating tale that's originating, but over time the retelling evolves and grows and becomes what each generation it becomes an adventure for each generation that like touches it.

SPEAKER_01 39:27

Absolutely. Like I before this movie came out for the Odyssey, it had been like 15 years, I think, since I had seen any sort of like publ uh popular media about the Odyssey itself. Like it's been a very long time, and now you're gonna have a whole new like generation of fans who like this media. Because I remember back when I was in high school, we had we had read the Iliad and um the Odyssey and stuff like that, and like I I actually really enjoyed it. And so when I was when I was watching the movie, I was like, Yes, they're hitting like all of like my major like the things that I remember from this. Like, yeah, there's maybe like a couple things missing, but I can see why they made them like might have removed them or whatever. Um, but I don't know, it was just such a great experience, and now I'm just really happy to see that there's probably like I wouldn't be surprised if we get like more of that kind of like maybe not from Christopher Nolan, but we might see a resurgence in like Greek mythology kind of like projects coming out, and that I don't feel like I've seen a lot of in the last while. Like, I think the only time I've really seen any sort of like Odyssey type stuff was when Assassin's Creed came out with theirs. I forget what they're not really the Odyssey exactly, but kind of like uh it was immersed in like Greek culture and that kind of stuff. I forgot what it was called. Was it literally called Odyssey? Yeah, it was Odyssey.

SPEAKER_06 40:34

It's called Odyssey because you said it's not Odyssey, and then I my head's like, I think it is.

SPEAKER_10 40:39

Yeah, no, it's not Odyssey.

SPEAKER_01 40:41

It's not the Odyssey, but yeah, I get I don't even know if they try to like have like mythological kind of like such in that game or not. They do? Okay, yeah. Oh yeah. It actually has really good reviews. I might have to try that one out.

SPEAKER_10 40:53

Um go ahead. I was gonna say, like, I think when you're saying, like um, sorry, um with the source material and like being true to it, or not even true to it, just being more respectful. Yes, there you go, thank you. Like a big one now, it's not as like in culturally important as the Odyssey, but the new Resident Evil is getting a lot of flack, right?

SPEAKER_08 41:22

Because people are like it's it's in a different place, inside of in Raccoon City, there's cell phones.

SPEAKER_10 41:32

Yo, it is 2026. Yo, the dude is taking an IP that has historically in movie form been fucking awful. Yeah, awful. It's all bad.

SPEAKER_01 41:45

Let him cook. I also don't understand. I don't understand the fact that it's getting it because frankly, one, they're returning to the horror aspect of it versus like the action kind of shit, which is what Resident Evil should have been this entire time. They like took Resident Evil, which was a scary horror game that was like that was very, very slow. You went hallway by hallway trying to figure out what's coming next. It wasn't some big action adventure experience. And I think that they're taking that and and let's not act like when you're playing a Resident Evil game that you don't get taken off of location sometimes. Like when you're uh I think Resident Evil 2, you start off at like the police station, but then you end up in the city and shit like that, doing other things and eventually leading into the laboratory. And I think that's exactly what's happening here. He starts off in an in an area outside of the city, he gets back to the city, which is raccoon city, by the way. Like literally in the trailer, they say raccoon general hospital. Like they literally are talking about it. And I don't know if it's you know, maybe the movie is like an outside city outside of Raccoon City and it's experiencing like the the invasion of zombies. I don't know, but like it's still there. Yeah, and I don't I really don't understand the flack that's coming for this this movie because it's they're literally trying to reintroduce the horror aspect of these games. I I don't understand it.

SPEAKER_10 43:02

The major flack that I read is that like I said, they are trying to put it in like modern times, and according to the source material, Resident Evil happened.

SPEAKER_01 43:17

That's fucking stupid.

SPEAKER_10 43:18

Like nineties, so like by this time in the t Resident Evil timeline, Raccoon City is just fucked, it's just been fucking you know, bombed to out of existence.

SPEAKER_07 43:31

Yeah, Raccoon City no basically no longer exists, if I understand.

SPEAKER_10 43:35

Right, so that's their whole hubbub bullshit. Is that what it's just gonna be?

SPEAKER_07 43:42

The fact that like this Resident Evil movie looks like it's actually set in the world that the Resident Evil games come from rather than some weird ass like we know the Resident Evil games, like the action sequences come. Kind of almost evolved to become what those OG movies were a little bit, but not even close still. But like the fact that this movie looks like it's set where Resident Evil began. That's a whole ass fucking step forward.

SPEAKER_00 44:19

I agree.

SPEAKER_07 44:20

Like the fact that I am not going to see someone like do a backflip while like shooting two guns at the same time while the zombies are both zombies and ninjas at the like I know that last part was an exaggeration. But you know what I fucking make.

SPEAKER_10 44:37

You're cooking. Hold up. Shut up. We gotta keep this whole thing. We gotta make a movie now. What are we doing? Ninja zombies? Hold up.

SPEAKER_01 44:46

Look at that. I mean, that's basically what the liquors are. I mean, I'd be just be honest.

SPEAKER_07 44:52

All I'm trying to say is that's diabolical. I lost what I was trying to say. I get what you're saying.

SPEAKER_10 45:01

I get where you're going. It's I think people should stop really like no one's gonna take an IP, a video game IP, and sit there, play through it, right? Play through the game and be like, I'm gonna make a movie step by step of exactly what I just played. You know why? Because you can just fucking play it. Just play it. Play the game. Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 45:25

Brother, I'm gonna make a movie that's step by step how you play with a story beats of the game. Brother, I need you to understand by the time two hours after you release the game, there's gonna be some asshole on YouTube who has ripped all the cutscenes and put them in a compilation and dropped them on YouTube, and you're gonna make a movie that's literally what this asshole did. Like, let's be let's be so for real. Let's be so for real.

SPEAKER_10 45:53

Yeah I think people are just like people just aren't ever going to be happy about anything, and I think we've talked about this before. It's just like everybody can be haters, yeah. Fucking critique like any little bit. They're like, uh, let's jump on it. That's the problem with the fucking internet. Yeah. Oh my god. Our culture, our video game culture, I fucking hate everyone. I'm sorry. I hate it.

SPEAKER_07 46:18

Video was fucked that game, our gate.

SPEAKER_01 46:23

Well, my here's my thing. It's another thing about the game or the the movie that's coming out that I don't understand that everyone's giving flack about. Is like you're literally seeing this character, he's scavenging, he's scavenging around in a house. He's finding shotgun round like boxes and shit like that. He ends up like having like an arsenal, as far as I can tell, like by the end. It's like one versus mini kind of a situation. It's literally fucking Resident Evil. You literally start in a house out in the middle of nowhere, just like the very first Resident Evil game. Like, what are we talking about at this point in terms of it not being like accurate to the source material? Like, what are you talking about? Yeah, like just because they moved forward, like this is the thing. We have to move forward in terms of like time. You can't just be like, oh, well, Resident Evil was made in the 90s, so every single property that ever comes out about Resident Evil has to stay in the 90s. That makes no fucking sense. The little first Resident Evil movie, it was made in like what was it, the 2000s?

SPEAKER_10 47:13

So, like whenever it was bad, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 47:18

They had like modern shit at the time. Like, so what are you talking about? Like, I get you want to see like the the typewriter, and I'm actually pretty sure there was a typewriter in the typewriter in it. There was a fucking like typewriter. So, like, they're literally taking all the points, but you just can't be happy about it because that what not it's they're trying to make it a little bit more relevant for the new fans.

SPEAKER_07 47:37

It's just a little bit more relevant for the new fans, and you know how that goes. As soon as any property or any franchise tries to do a little bit to make it a little bit easier for the new fans to onboard, there's a specific subset of the old fans that get why do you need new friends? Yeah. Am I not good enough for you? Why do you think people?

SPEAKER_10 48:02

Yeah. They're trying to gatekeep what like every it's like music. Like everyone just trying to gatekeep certain things and they don't like when it's fucked with, right? You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_01 48:14

Like so expectations versus reality, is what it is. Right.

SPEAKER_10 48:17

They have this like threshold when they were a child that this is how they saw the Resident Evil movie was gonna go, and this is how they wanted it to go. And so instead of writing it themselves and becoming a movie director or a movie writer, they sit behind their fucking keyboard, they watch a trailer, the movie's not even out yet, they watch the trailer and make assumptions about how they don't recognize and and pay homage to the original um uh source source material. Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 48:48

If they tried to make a Resident Evil game based on the movies, and they added Chris Redfield, how the half the community would be, but why is Chris in it? Where's Leon? And vice versa.

SPEAKER_10 49:02

Yeah. There's just no. How about you just make the Resident Evil 5 uh movie and and have the uh action packed in Africa, wherever it was. Like four, if I remember correctly. No, four is five. That's five. No, five is five. Five is Africa. Four is what Leon. Four was the one that was in uh South America with like five is the one where they people were like, whoa, what the fuck are we doing?

SPEAKER_01 49:33

I mean, five was five, but it's I mean, yeah. But crazy work.

SPEAKER_07 49:39

Five was crazy work, and this was definitely a leap. It was like five was like, Wait, was this game made in the American South? No, nope, it's Japanese. Oh, this is weird.

SPEAKER_01 49:55

Yeah, yeah. They also went a little like too far into the uh again, the action stuff. Like I felt like I like four did a really, really good job of blending the horror aspects with action. Um, but they basically saw how popular four was, and I think they basically were like, oh, that means everyone's wants the action stuff, and they just like want full tilt, like pure action. Like, I felt like I was playing Metal Gear Solid at a certain point in terms of like the paranormal like action stuff that we were dealing with, like Metal Gear Solid 4 Plus. Like, I don't know, it's just they just go into that too. No, it's go for it.

SPEAKER_10 50:30

It's a sign of the times. It's just like when that was released, was like peak, like I don't know what Transformers was out, like all these fucking crazy Michael Bay.

SPEAKER_05 50:39

Call of Duty and Battlefield were big.

SPEAKER_10 50:42

Yeah, yeah, but it's like, and it's it's kind of like you just said Metal Gear Solid 4, like, dude, I love Metal Gear Solid 4. That one's great. Same. But if you talked to me years ago when me and my neighbor were playing Metal Gear Solid 1 and 2, and we saw what Metal Gear Solid 4, we'd be like, yo, that's not tactical espionage. Wildly different games. Yeah, right. Yeah, you know what I mean? It's just a sign of the times with all that. Well, it's also changed. Yeah, oh, for sure.

SPEAKER_01 51:12

Because like Final Fantasy did the exact same thing. Like Final Fantasy, it started off because I mean it's just the the the way the technology was, you could only go at a certain pace, right? But now, like, take Final Fantasy XIV, even where it's just very, very it's about quick, lots of uh animations, very bright, colorful, and it's about like hitting as many actions per minute as you can. It's not about like slow, tactically thought out like combat. It's more just like how many buttons can I push and how cool can I make it look? And that's like literally every Final Fantasy since like I don't know, so honestly, like maybe 12 has done this. 13 started it. Um 14, obviously, like I just said, 15 went full tilt into the action, and then obviously 16 is only action. Like you, yeah, you have the cool combos and stuff like that, but it's like it that at a certain point they have completely left away the the slow kind of just like methodical thought process of it, and it's just pure button matching.

SPEAKER_07 52:08

You want to know what really upsets me about the way Final Fantasy evolved? Sure, and this might be a little bit of a trans a forced transition, is because we know Square Enix knows oh god, is it Square Enix hour? It's Square Enix, Squaresoft is the old name. Square we know Square Enix knows how to make good action combat like that. Because Kingdom Hearts. And if you had to sit me down and ask me which which what's it called? Which action JRPG I would rather play Final Fantasy XVI or Kingdom Hearts 2 based solely off mechanics, like mechanics all day. That's a crowd agreements all day, every so it's not even that Final Fantasy 16 like was an actual evolution of the change of the formula, it was a bad fucking evolution, change my mind.

SPEAKER_01 53:13

I mean, I still liked 16. I thought that 16 the the story was really, really good, and I had fun for what it was. Yeah. And and I'm and I'm okay with that being one of like the main titles in the game or uh in the in the series of Final Fantasy games. I'm okay with that. I just think there's a certain point where we're getting too held up in whether we're doing like cool action shit versus like what brings you like take Final Fantasy IX for example. That is like still by and far the most like if I think of the the term Final Fantasy, that is the one that I think of in terms of like the feel of Final Fantasy. And like 16, while really really good and really really fun, it was like they just took Final Fantasy and just put it into Game of Thrones world and did what you could with it and just like lots and lots of action stuff. Like there was like cool you know Moogles and stuff like that, but like I in terms of like the feeling of Final Fantasy, you could have called it anything else, and it still would have been a perfectly fine game because like it doesn't have to have the term Final Fantasy attached to it, in my opinion. Like I might be wrong about that, but I have two co I have two counterpoints.

SPEAKER_07 54:18

Go for it. I feel like Final Fantasy's biggest thing is that when you go from numbers to number, main number to main number, it is supposed to give you somewhat of a feeling of but is this still Final Fantasy? I think that's part of the point of Final Fantasy. And I think they have acknowledged that to the point where if you look at the other side of the coin, they still do Dragon Quest.

SPEAKER_00 54:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 54:49

And Dragon Quest is the series that they do where it's just like, no, but if like you want a consistent, this is a turn-paced day RPG, we might do like little flares or differences in the mechanics, but no, this is a turn-based RPG. Uh uh what Dragon Quest has always been and what Final Fantasy started with, and you're not happy with Final with what Final Fantasy has become. Okay, here's a bedtime story. It is still like themed as like a really feel-good, lighthearted bedtime story, rather than like the high-stakes Final Fantasy story that you're used to. Like, at least story beats and pacing is still a high stakes story in and of itself.

SPEAKER_00 55:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 55:39

But it gives it they still offer that gameplay through a franchise, and that is one thing. I am not a fan of Final Fantasy 16. I have several complaints about it, not only from a mechanical point of view, I feel like it, um, even story-wise, I feel like it fell flat on its face because it didn't want to say its message with its full test. It didn't it kind of held back to the like, but we still have to appeal somewhat to the to stick to the status quo type shit. It it didn't like really go for like, no, this is a society that needs to be changed based on the inherent inequalities. We need a full revolution. Like, that's what it felt like it was starting to get towards, and then it like walled itself off at a certain point where it wouldn't allow it to go full into that. And that's another, but I don't know. That's another reason I really like Metaphor. The remote agree. What's it called? I feel like I feel like that one story beat for story beat is what Final Fantasy 16 was trying to say. But whereas Final Fantasy 16 was saying, like, hey, we can do this, maybe we can make changes. Like, Metaphor was like, no, no, no, no. The way things are in this kingdom right now, we need to break shit and rebuild it to make something new. I feel like that's a better I've I have several reasons not to like Final Fantasy XVI, but I understand why it is Final Fantasy XV.

SPEAKER_01 57:28

Well, like my thing is like I think there's certain some point down the line, I think the executives of Square Enix kind of got into their head that you have to have like the what's gonna sell is gonna be action, high action, high animation. Like I mentioned this a few minutes ago, but like then I think they saw the success of one metaphor, like you were saying, but also like Expedition 33. That game came out and fucking showed everybody that you can make a modern game that can handle fucking turn-based combat and still make it very fun and engaging because it fucking threw like it was a huge commercial success. And then finally you're seeing like Square Enix coming out after the fact of being like, We hear you, and it's like, dude, we've been telling you guys for years that we want to go back to a return of like turn-based combat, and they're just kind of like they just went full down the rabbit hole of just pure action, and like you know, it's it's one thing when you have 15, which is kind of like a you know, it was definitely getting into like fully like action-based at that point, but like there were still things you could do to like slow things down, very similar to like Final Fantasy VII remake. Um, that I and I I honestly love the Final Fantasy VII remake like combat because it does give you that chance to like just stop for a fucking second and just like plan out what you want to do, versus like in 16 where it's like you just have to know a combo, you have to know how to do it perfectly, and then as long as you're doing that, you're probably gonna win. And it's like or or if you dodge properly at the right time, and it's like it's more just like quick time events, kind of like old school like God of War, versus like actually methodically planning out a combat sequence that like Expedition 33 and Metaphor like make you do, you have to plan out things, and that challenge is what made Final Fantasy fun. And I mean, obviously the story too, but like it was just the part of the challenge of oh, Demon Wall, for example, in Final Fantasy VII, that was a hard fucking like combat or uh like boss fight that was like a big wall, obviously, for a lot of people. And like I remember as a kid, like that was the thing I was always fucking worried about whenever I was gonna get to that point in the game. When you get to that point in the remake, I barely remember that fight at all. Barely. Like, it's just does not have the same impact because it's not as challenging as it used to be. But anyway, that's that's my two cents on the matter. Kind of ran out of gas at the end of that one. You're fine.

SPEAKER_03 59:49

Go on.

SPEAKER_10 59:50

I was gonna say, I was about to I was about to throw we were talking about Square, I was about to throw it into some uh announcements there.

SPEAKER_03 59:58

Yeah, hit it, hit it, hit it.

SPEAKER_10 1:00:01

I love it. We were talking about how uh Square likes to do the uh the numbers there. We got Kingdom Hearts 4. Uh yeah, I saw that last week. This um this weekend at the D twenty three event, which is the uh uh Disney showcase event they have over there in Anaheim. Um they announced um a 2027 late 2027 release date. Also they showed off 90 seconds of a new world, which is gonna be the Coco World. Yeah. Hell yeah. We love Coco. I think that's great. Um I'm excited, even though I really didn't like Kingdom Hearts 3, and I don't understand Kingdom Hearts story, and if I did, if I told you I did, I'd be straight up a lion.

SPEAKER_07 1:00:58

It's convoluted as fuck.

SPEAKER_10 1:01:00

You like for no reason.

SPEAKER_07 1:01:02

The most recent, what's it called the most recent overview of the entire story that was comprehensive and decent on YouTube is like four hours. And it's like four or five hours, and you have to and through the process you're going through like four or five different like gaming platforms, including mobile. And what's it called? And at the same time, there are moments where it's like, is this canon? I don't know. Is this the timeline gets muddy here? I thought it is all absolutely canon.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:44

Yeah, it is the like yes. That's like the the major issue with what I deal with with Kingdom Hearts because I fucking love Kingdom Hearts. But the ol I think the only I mean maybe played two of them that were like non-mainline games. But the issue is that they put major, major story all the games everything like 358.

SPEAKER_07 1:02:06

Including the throwaway mobile shit. What are we doing? I'm sorry. This is triggering for me. Because like like come come the fuck on now. How are you going to put story critical lore, story critical lore in a mobile game that you whole ass take off the fucking market?

SPEAKER_10 1:02:28

Well, my favorite thing that they do is that when they did like the re-releases on like PS3 or PS4, they legitimately just put a whole movie section to catch you up on lore because they're like, uh no one wanted to play this anyways, so here's just like all the cutscenes you can watch.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:48

That's the same dung bullshit that Destiny 2 does, like where like they they just don't have that content anymore. You can't go back and replay it. And so, like, when you like if you're a new player, because um Shay's friend Milo tried to get Shay to like start playing like this uh Destiny 2 with us. Um I haven't played with him, but he basically were trying to get her like onboarded onto the game. And that first cutscene that you experience, like it just it's just explain it's just a bunch of exposition to put you onto like where you're at with the world right now, and it just like explains all this like super like necessary context within like two or three minutes, and you're just expected to just be like, okay, all right, we're good, and just like move in from there and sort of understand anything. And I don't know, it's just I think that's a super frustrating experience for a new player is to like just be told what the story is instead of experiencing that story along the way, and like you can't you you literally can't go experience that story anymore anywhere else, like just can't do it. I don't know. I think it's stupid. Like you said, just taking that mobile game off of the fucking market after the fact and also making it like required material for understanding like this entire like story. Like, what are we doing? Makes no sense.

SPEAKER_10 1:03:53

Well, we'll play the fourth one, it doesn't matter.

SPEAKER_07 1:03:54

Oh yeah, I'm absolutely fucking fine. Did I lose audio? I fucking huh?

SPEAKER_01 1:03:59

I lost audio. Hold hold up. Keep going. Oh yeah, I hear it.

SPEAKER_07 1:04:04

Like absolutely I didn't even really enjoy Kingdom Hearts 3. I didn't even really enjoy Kingdom Hearts 3. I bought it on lunch. Am I gonna buy Kingdom Hearts 4 on lunch? Absolutely. Absolutely. I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Do not pre-order games. I want you to understand the official stance of the Cool Cats podcast is you probably shouldn't be pre-ordering games. However, I will absolutely be pre-ordering the fuck of Kingdom Hearts 4 because I know and I understand the fact that I'm a fucking hypocrite.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:40

I think there's some games that everyone will break that rule on.

SPEAKER_10 1:04:44

Oh yeah. Um I have Kingdom Hearts 3, like collector's edition, I think, somewhere. It's somewhere in the show. I do too. But I have it as well. I actively didn't like enjoy it, but I still played it. And then them announcing this, I'm like, yeah, I guess I'll go back because I I want to see my boy Sora and my boy uh Goof and Donald, dude. I want to hang out.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:07

I had a friend actively ruined Kingdom Hearts 3 for me because like all of us were big fans, and I'm not gonna name names, but all of us were fans of the game, but every single time I hopped into Discord, this particular friend was non-stop talking shit about the game, and it was driving me fucking insane. And it got to the point where I couldn't separate the game that I was playing from his critique of the game. Yeah, and it literally drove me to stop playing the game in general. And by the time it got to that point where I even wanted to pick it back up again, like I just I was like halfway through the game and I don't understand what's going on anymore, because it's been like year probably or two since I played it. And it's like I don't know. I don't really know where I was going with that, but it's but it I I was got so frustrated because like it literally ruined the entire game for me. I still haven't beaten it to this day. I mean, there was definitely major problems with the the combat for me, um, and I think it's something that a lot of people have talked about um as like a major issue for them is the fact that like there was again zero fucking challenge. They went full on into the the the combat and like the action, you know, lots and lots of things that you can do that I think a lot of people liked about two, but then they're like, all right, well just hit triangle and then you're gonna have a fucking train run over your enemies and you're gonna have nothing to do with it and the animation's gonna handle it for you.

SPEAKER_07 1:06:23

But you know, there might be a quick time event prompt somewhere that spore extra damage, but like that's about it.

SPEAKER_10 1:06:32

You gotta mash the square button.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:34

I think they just wanted to flaunt the technology at that point because they were like so far ahead of like what other people like companies were doing in terms of like what they could do with the the the code and all that kind of stuff. And that's great.

SPEAKER_07 1:06:46

You can feel it in the lead up trailers and everything. It was it was a whole lot of this is it and it was even in the com comment section. Game looks beautiful this is amazing. These are great graphics. Um can someone please explain to me what the fuck is going on on the screen and how it translates to actual gameplay. You saw that from the control from the tri pre-release trailers for three. Yeah. With the like from from the moment they showed off the roller coaster that with everybody was like it felt like it felt like you know you know you know Stuart from Mad TV where he goes like look what I can do.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:24

Exactly it felt like that. Where it was just like hey look at this cool shit we can do with like the technology but it would like it had nothing to do with like actual like Kingdom Hearts core like gameplay like at least for my opinion.

SPEAKER_07 1:07:36

It was like you turned you you turned Sora's special attacks that used to be awesome anime bullshit.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:44

Because Sora used to have awesome anime bullshit finishers for his moves because Kingdom Hearts remembered that it was still a Final Fantasy uh Final Fantasy spin-off as well as a Disney spin-off and you replaced it with replicas of the roller coasters from the parks yeah that drove me fucking insane like motherfucker I don't even like roller coasters I get vertical what is this yeah no I super well now you can enjoy them in a game one of my favorite things from like uh Kingdom Hearts 2 was like the the stances that you get like it's basically like the limit break right and by the time you get the last one which is they they kind of had a system sort of similar to this in three but like I feel like it was not nearly as cool in my opinion. Like master form the form the master form yeah yeah like one the the final one you get eventually like you're floating around you got like you're not even touching your keyblades you're like moving them around with like telekinesis and shit like that like it's so fucking cool. And then they were just like yeah but you know we've got a train that goes on a cool little ride and that's the cool stuff that's what you wanted right like no I want Final Fantasy but that's just me.

SPEAKER_10 1:08:55

Um yeah that's the thing about those guys it's like they te they teeter on that like Final Fantasy Disney line and then they're like should we fan service Final Fantasy people or should we fan service Disney people and I feel they were like Disney because they're gonna make a little more money because we can tie everything into everything we own aka pins merch bullshit that they can sell at the parks and make a ton of fucking money off of especially pins. If you don't know about the pin the pin game over in the Disney parks Disney pins yeah the pin trading in Disney is fucking insane it is an addiction have a friend who's big into pins big into pins I was big into pins are they like three years the adult not really they're an anime fan like me they're closer and they have pins somewhere they have a I like what you're doing.

SPEAKER_07 1:10:10

Hey we're all on thing so check it out she has one of those big pin boards full of pins and three of them on the wall in their game room and it's all cool shit. I love it to death I think pins are dope. Honestly I feel like pins are like a little better than my personal like collection which is like Magic the Gathering cards. Like pins are something who you can like show regular people and they're like oh this is cool shit. If I bring out my like five six hundred dollar vampire deck to show random people like it's just like how much did you spend on money I'd be impressed.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:57

Yeah I would I would be impressed as fuck. But yeah I see what you mean by like just like the just like a friend you're gonna bring over like oh yeah shit on this shit collection I got I'm not even thinking I'm not even saying that the collection is necessarily bad.

SPEAKER_10 1:11:09

I was gonna say were you at my ex's house because she literally had a pinboard of pins but the the the the game they have the trading they have like where you just walk up to people in the park like you want to trade pins first off that piss I already hate that I'm at the park with a ton of motherfuckers there.

SPEAKER_07 1:11:29

Two get the fuck away from me all right circling back circling back to the TCG reference I get the feeling the Disney pins are like real life Yu-Gi-Oh tournaments where everybody's like walking around trading cards and dueling and just sticking their chest out ready to fight. Yo, yo I got I got my Aladdin pin and I'm going to set my Dumbo in what's it called face down position what do you got?

SPEAKER_01 1:12:03

I mean I guess if you go if you go to Disney wearing the pins I guess that's kind of like a like you're signing up I guess for that kind of experience where someone might come up to you and like try try and trade with you.

SPEAKER_10 1:12:16

But at the same time it's like I might just be trying to represent and it's like get out of my face because it's a certain there's a certain type of uh way way they're displayed if you're in the pen trading dish I just I I have a constant fear of someone trying to get something over on me.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:34

So it's like I would just always be suspicious of what someone's intentions are when they're trying like perfect example last night I was just playing RuneScape on my phone and someone just like someone out of nowhere just ran up to me and said hey and just started like spamming the trade button at me. And instead of like engaging with this person I just logged off I was like no I'm done I'm not dealing with it. I'm not gonna I was literally like under my covers and like so that I wasn't like providing light in the room because Shay will wake up to light. And like I just didn't want to wake her up and I'm like I'm just gonna hide under my covers and just play my game for a few minutes until I get tired and I was just literally just like working on my ranged skill killing fucking frogs uh and next to the starter area and this guy just you know starts spamming me and I'm just like dude I no like I don't know maybe maybe maybe he was trying to give me something maybe he was trying to like give me a million fucking gold or whatever but I don't fucking leave me alone trying to kill you.

SPEAKER_10 1:13:29

What's walking into Disney with pins is probably like driving around walking into the driving a golf cart into the villages with a loofah on the top not knowing what that means yes someone's gonna stop you yeah they don't do that shit all right wow well you've been there confirmed I've watched many documentaries oh I want to live there okay really anyway so with Kingdom Hearts might be the whitest thing you've ever seen it was pretty white having a good enough but um hold on for real kingdom hearts we're back sorry yes yes circling back yeah get the hate off Connor so they they also uh announced the Kingdom Hearts anime yes which I was kind of like reading through it because my first initial thought um kind of circling back to like not um not using the source material and respecting all that they got the director and character design video games yeah um to do the anime good uh good yes tetsuya Nomura yeah keep him off the story but do the designs and I'm all set right as it is because he's the fucking one that was touching the story. I have a thing with like animes where like if the art pisses me off I will not fucking watch it. It's the same I cannot I don't I think that's the reason I can't get him to watch one piece no no wait I won't watch one piece better though because one so much it's like Naruto. What the fuck dude how much filler is there a ton of filler right oh yeah I had to use I had to use a filler list what I was going through.

SPEAKER_07 1:15:36

Like there were entire fucking arcs that like that it's just like this is this is filler and I'm like cool that is 30 episodes I don't have to watch thank god might even be like 60 to 100 like that it there's literally long fucking there's there's like a couple hundred episodes worth of filler at the last you know what Vamp on Kingdom Hearts for a second um Mr. Jesto will be back shortly with the actual number of filler episodes in one piece.

SPEAKER_10 1:16:09

Okay. What I was saying though is that like I don't mind one piece um until Luffy opens up his fucking mouth and then I gotta listen to him. Because I watched the like dubs I know but I watched the dubs oh I mean people I because I don't want to fucking read I'm sorry.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:27

If I'm on my phone I want to have stuff in the background I'm all for dubs I think better I think oh one piece is voice where it gets a lot better along the along the way um I believe it I think I don't know I I will be a because here's the thing I was very similar like when I had shunned One Piece for a very very long time because I was just like you know there's so much and um you know I I hated the at least the original and also I think I was getting it mixed up with a different series um but I I didn't like the original art. Now the art is some of the best fucking shit I've seen out there in terms of modern animation. It is crazy how good it is. Like it I think it rivals fucking Demon Slayer in terms of how good some of the animation it might even be better but I'm not gonna go fucking One Piece crazy right now because I know that there's like it's it's kind of a polarizing thing. You either like fucking One Piece or you don't I can see why people don't want to get into it the lots and lots of episodes my thing when I was approaching One Piece was like 94 94 episodes of out of a like out of like 1200 though.

SPEAKER_10 1:17:35

1168 okay also 1200 episodes holy mother of god yeah I think they're like a lot of I have a life to live motherfucker I burned through you you walked me burn through it in like a month and I lost you and I lost you literally this motherfucker was in one piece world I and that's the thing for me is like when the way that I approached One Piece is the drums of previous I I I I stopped I stopped thinking about the episode count and I just watched it when I felt like watching it.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:11

And that way I wasn't worried about all this other shit that I haven't watched yet it's just I'm just enjoying it for what it is in the moment which is a show that I'm watching and that's great. And eventually I got caught up and like now like I think it is one of the best told stories and maybe not in terms of pacing but like just not in terms of pacing.

SPEAKER_05 1:18:33

Absolutely fucking not in terms of get the fuck out of here with that.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:38

Water seven for example or no not water seven what was the the desert area uh I forget the dressrosa dress rosa dude that one went on for like far far far too long like I absolutely think that like that was a 200 episode arc that did not need to be in any way shape or form um there was I definitely got to a point where I was just clicking like the fast forward like 30 seconds stuff because it's like I know this I know this I know this because they just kind of harp on shit. Like I I feel like it's kind of like Naruto in that way where like Naruto when you start getting to the end it is you'll go two minutes between flashbacks and then you'll have like a four minute flashback and then you'll have two minutes of actual story and then another fucking flashback talk about their feelings and shit.

SPEAKER_07 1:19:19

The levels of flashback in one piece is fucking crazy. Because every arc has more and more new and supporting characters and you better believe if they have more than three lines in the story you're gonna get a flashback of how they got to here. Like a nigga can show up in an episode just to give Luffy a pat on the back and say you did it kid and then as soon as he hits kid and this guy came from bloody blah blah blah he had a rich loving history with his parents but then the Navy came through and killed his entire family. It's just like yo this man just gave I didn't even know about this though.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:10

Yeah I feel yeah like they they definitely will do that and I don't want to get like you know we could have a whole entire episode about one piece if we wanted to so I don't want to go too deep into it but Connor would have to catch the fuck up with we were I would I would sit that one out of the audio I'll edit it.

SPEAKER_10 1:20:30

We're also gonna run it exactly we're also gonna run into and if Cameron's gonna be familiar with this with this connerism here is that when you hype something up enough I will not fucking watch it. That's what they're it's called not trusting your friends it's about it's about you're putting it at a pedestal on this pedestal right yeah and then when I watch it or I partake in whatever activity and you're trying to get me to do I do the thing and I go eh it was cool. That's why when people ask me for recommendations I give them hey I had a good time if you want to try it try yourself I'm not dissing anybody that's gonna tell on me or recommend anything to me just do it like twice and then maybe I'll do it.

SPEAKER_07 1:21:21

No he won't I don't get the fuck out of here. Oh absolutely yeah you know what actually go eat a dick with that one.

SPEAKER_10 1:21:31

No it's like so short story back in the day all my friends including Cameron at the time were really into Doctor Who Doctor Who that's what that was my I don't have a problem with Doctor Who don't have a problem with it. I watch hold up I watch one season actually I watched two seasons Connor has given recommendation for things and then not finish them no no we're not talking about that now because I know what you're gonna talk about and we're not gonna talk about it but like I watched Doctor Who my problem this is a whole this is a Connor problem let me preface this this is a Connor cat dad problem. Don't overhype shit okay just enjoy it recommend it and get the fuck out okay I have a problem with fandoms to a certain point the new one I have and I and this is me and this is Johnny's gonna laugh at me. Dungeon Crawler Carl great great book I'm gonna read more of them okay shut up I'll read them I'll get it I'll get to it my brother you know how when did you recommend them to me?

SPEAKER_07 1:23:03

When was it last year?

SPEAKER_10 1:23:06

Okay Can we talk about when I recommended them A I had sleep apnea I was struggling to sleep at night this is so when I read a book I read it to unwind to go to bed. So by the time I'm reading it I'm actively like falling asleep throughout the day. So I'm reading a book is like the ultimate I'm gonna fucking fall asleep. Yeah. Now that I'm sleeping better I am reading more so I will be reading most of them I'm proud of you.

SPEAKER_07 1:23:39

Sorry I'm glad you're proud of him Cameron I am I'll always be proud of Connor I'm so disappointed.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:48

Yeah I mean it makes for good content I mean I think I can kind of see where you're coming from in terms of like if if with the whole hype train and thing like that. I can I can see where you're coming from because I think you're I think you've kind of always been this way where you're just very much an individual person. You don't kind of like let trends sway who you are. Sure. And I think and I think that's admirable like I think for for me I kind of do something similar uh where like say for example if I'm playing an MMO uh if someone I know or if everyone I know is hyping up a new class or something like that I will probably not play that class until the hype falls like goes down because I don't want to just like groupthink my way into and and I don't know why I do it exactly but it's just like there's a certain point where like if everyone's looking at it I don't really want anything to do with it until it's like something that I can enjoy without all of that like extra noise to like influence my enjoyment of it.

SPEAKER_07 1:24:43

I feel that shit to the point where like back when I was playing MMOs if the new class was a DPS fuck it I'm gonna try a tank. Why? Because I played DPS before and now I'm not gonna get a party be able to get a party because everybody's gonna want the new DPS class because the new DPS is overtuned to get people to try the DPS class fuck it I'll play a tank or fuck it I'll play healer until that's the fuck down.

SPEAKER_10 1:25:12

That's like the hero shooters as soon as like a new fucking character's out everyone install locks the new character. You never get able to try the new character so you're like I guess I'll just default the healer or whatever the fuck we need exactly I'll fill.

SPEAKER_01 1:25:26

I was literally going to give that exact example of just like everyone's gonna be fighting over this character. I do not have the emotional bandwidth for that I'm just gonna go try something else out for a little while and then I'll come back to it when like not everybody's freaking out about it. So like I get I get what you're saying like if everybody's just constantly harping in your ear about how cool fucking Doctor Who is like I can see why you would have been just like it's not that it's off putting it's just like I get it disinterests you and it's I'm sure yeah I it's like when people are like are you mad or you mad or you're mad no I'm not mad you look mad.

SPEAKER_10 1:25:56

Are you mad?

SPEAKER_07 1:25:57

You look mad well now I'm mad now now I'm pissed the fuck off and even circling like circling back to One Piece I wouldn't recommend the current recomm rendition of One Piece with the a thousand plus episodes to Connor. Yeah I would recommend either like the fucking live action which I've heard is fun or I've heard they're doing a remaster with better pacing from the start that shit I would rec when that shit starts that's what I would recommend.

SPEAKER_01 1:26:31

There's also a um there's a one piece like uh it's like an abridged version. I forget what it's called um the fuck was it called it's called one pace one pace um and it's like a it's a like a fan edit that cuts out like a lot of the fucking like filler shit and it like condenses it down down to like a fraction of the amount of actual episodes. And so like I would say that if you're like looking to like get into one piece if you're looking to because I like again I know that's polarizing and not everyone wants that but that's what I would recommend because it's so many less episodes. I'm I'm kind of a freak where or like I I like long running animes. I I like having something I can put in the background and just fucking listen to it without having to worry about whether I'm super keeping up with the story.

SPEAKER_07 1:27:16

I I enjoy that I a hundred percent I'm the type of dude who will wait until the end of the season to catch up on the anime from the past season because I want you to do that. I do the same thing. If I think about like right now I'm keeping up with the couple anime week by week and it is fucking torture. Yeah it is like because sometimes I have the attention span of a squirrel at times I accept the fact that I'm a child of the modern era and let's be 100% honest some of my side some of my side activities are do not promote the longest memory on earth

SPEAKER_00 1:28:00

I know you're going to be able to do that.

SPEAKER_07 1:28:00

So like when it hits that, like every once in a while I have to go back an episode. Like like do that ever 30 second chunks of the past episode to be like, okay, where the fuck were we? Okay, cool, cool, cool, cool. Okay, okay, I got and then we can watch the like no, let me just sit down and consume the product until product is done.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:24

I was the same way with like when I'm reading sometimes, I will have to go back because like I have it's undiagnosed. I don't actually know if I have ADHD or not, but I'm pretty fucking sure I do. Because like I cannot get through an entire page of text without like sometimes I will just skip an entire paragraph. And that fucked me over one time because I was reading Harry Potter 5 back, you know, when it had first come out. And at that point, you didn't know that a very central character in the book series at this point, like dies, right? And my fucking ADHD brain, I'm like, I'm just trying to get through the page, and I realized that like the thing happened, but I skipped over it. And I'm like, wait, what? I had to go back like three fucking pages and reread all of it because I didn't I missed the one fucking paragraph because it's so fucking fast when it happens. That like a crucial thing happened, and I just had completely skipped over it because my fucking attention span is just like that sometimes. Um so yeah, I totally get where you're coming from with that. Um but also to kind of pivot a little bit, uh the uh we were talking about the Kingdom Hearts anime. There's also a Sonic the Hedgehog anime coming out, or at least it's yeah, it's coming out in like late 2026. I don't know if you guys have seen some of the anime for this shit or the the animation that they've shown off of this.

SPEAKER_06 1:29:44

Will we in fact have to go faster? And faster. And faster. But that's the thing is that the case is.

SPEAKER_01 1:29:52

I think they like I think it's called Memories and Beyond. Just the just based off of the short like snippet, they like went fucking crazy with the animation. Like it's like anime, like good anime style, like Demon Slayer style animation level of Sonic the Hedgehog, and it looks fucking cool because it's it's the the basically it's like a trailer showing off Sonic, uh, Shadow, Knuckles, like all the Sonic team fighting against Metal Sonic. And it's just like this short, like little you have to like literally look it up. It's fucking cool. And it makes me so excited for this coming out because I'm like really, really excited um to watch it.

SPEAKER_10 1:30:27

Um is what's her name in it? Not Rose. Who's the uh the boob lady?

SPEAKER_01 1:30:32

Oh, I'm not sure about that. I I think Amy the the pink character.

SPEAKER_10 1:30:38

Rogue.

SPEAKER_01 1:30:39

Oh yeah, she's in it, yeah. Amy Rose is like a match. She's in the room. I didn't see Rogue. Oh, there she is.

SPEAKER_10 1:30:47

Yeah. Um I have one hot take for animes. Go ahead. It's gonna piss you off. Go for it. I'm ready. Anime streaming services, such as Crunchyroll, needs to have a function where I can automatically check a box to have it skip the intro.

SPEAKER_01 1:31:13

Oh yeah. Doing that every time is enough.

SPEAKER_10 1:31:15

You're not like you know, like I can press the button and skip intro. I want it to automatically do it.

SPEAKER_01 1:31:21

See, I can't do that because well, I don't really want to do that. Shea likes the intros. She wants to do it every time. See, this is why it's polarizing because some people are like, I don't know the openings are the best.

SPEAKER_10 1:31:36

Especially if I'm watching like eight episodes in a row. Yeah, I agree. Um I think just a thought.

SPEAKER_00 1:31:43

Go ahead, Jelani.

SPEAKER_04 1:31:44

Go ahead. I feel like that might be I think I feel like there's a back-end reason why they don't do that.

SPEAKER_10 1:31:52

Oh, there's probably some because A, they have like a cold opening sometime, right? Before they hit in the intro. Like most shows.

SPEAKER_07 1:32:01

Some shows have a cold open, some don't, and some have a spoken word intro. Like, here is the lore of the world I'm gonna tell you fit every fucking episode.

SPEAKER_10 1:32:13

Well, that's what I'm saying, too. Is like if I'm watching season three of Avatar, yeah, I don't have to listen to fucking how the three fucking worlds are in war.

SPEAKER_01 1:32:26

I don't need to be reminded. The Fire Nation sucks. I get it. Yeah, I know what you mean. I do think there's also probably a level of like development kind of just like security stuff in there too, because it's that that check of like skipping the intro is probably some way of making you interact with the application so that it knows you're still actively using it. That way, if you're not, it can kick you out and you know, do it.

SPEAKER_10 1:32:47

It's just a funny little thing I thought it would piss some people off.

SPEAKER_07 1:32:50

Oh, it absolutely immediately incensed me. I got it.

SPEAKER_10 1:32:55

Jelani can't be the only it can't be angry over things that you know I don't cause. I want to be the cause of some of the anger sometimes.

SPEAKER_07 1:33:04

It's like you know, he gets pissed off at like at capitalism and social injustices. But you know what? Sometimes I want to be on that fucking list too.

SPEAKER_10 1:33:15

Yeah. I want to poke the hornet's nest. Please let me do it.

SPEAKER_07 1:33:22

I legitimately have deep breaths a couple times. Like to like really process what you just said, and then like accept the fact that it was said in part to trigger me.

SPEAKER_10 1:33:37

It was like it wasn't being I didn't think of it like I'm gonna get him.

SPEAKER_07 1:33:44

I'm gonna get him today. This is my moment. It's just like, but like Dan like Dandadan and like fucking like season two of Mashall and like yo, like what the same ananimous. What the there's so many like that's just the recent shit off the top of my head. There's probably someone listening to this podcast somewhere between now and the future who's listening to this and like like has the list of bangers, and you're just we're like, what about attack on Titan?

SPEAKER_10 1:34:21

Come on.

SPEAKER_01 1:34:22

What the fuck? I can't. Here's a here's a polarizing opinion. Okay. We're not not really opinion. We're gonna hurt any more. Well, it depends on whether you like Jojo's Bizarre Adventure or not. I'm indifferent because everyone I talk to, and I I guess it's kind of like the same thing about like One Piece, it's like the people who've watched it know kind of thing. Yeah. But it's like everyone and their fucking mother tells me I need to watch Jojo's Bizarre Adventure. And I'm like, I don't care because the animation looks stupid. Every character is buffer than God himself, and it makes no fucking sense. Like it's just I give it a style, it's not my style.

SPEAKER_07 1:35:02

I want to watch it. I'm indifferent towards it. Absolutely. Right. I still want to watch it for the simple fact that my brain's my brain, what's it called, survived Baki. Once your brain goes through Baki, it's just like, you know what? Jojo's Bizarre Adventure doesn't seem that bizarre anymore.

SPEAKER_10 1:35:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:35:26

What were you gonna say, Connor?

SPEAKER_10 1:35:28

I was gonna say I like to show solely on the name of the characters because they're all like a weird um um like renaming of like a popular band. Right. So interesting. So like every character, for for instance, let's go to Jojo's characters here. I because I've watched a good amount of JoJo.

SPEAKER_07 1:35:47

Um, music references is car is in fact Connor based.

SPEAKER_10 1:35:53

Just like classic rock names or something like that. It's just really funny.

SPEAKER_01 1:35:57

I'd say that I would say the one thing that kind of like interests me, I guess, is the kind of like almost Castlevania-esque sort of like legacy style thing where like there's large leaps in time, uh, where like it's like isn't it like the JoJo family or whatever? I've never watched it, so I don't know.

SPEAKER_07 1:36:15

Yeah, it's it follows the exploits of the Joe Star family. The Joe Star family.

SPEAKER_01 1:36:22

Yeah. Yeah. Um so like I I guess the that was kind of like the one thing that I was kind of like, oh, that kind of seems interesting. I've just never like pulled the trigger on actually like watching it, and I'm sure that like once I actually do, I'll probably be a big fan. I just really I I have I have a huge hang up when it comes to like whether or not I like an actual uh anime's like art style. Yeah, like it will completely throw me off. It's why I didn't watch One Piece for a very, very long time, largely because I thought I was I was mixing it up with a different anime that I had a really terrible one as well at the time. And so, like, you know, it's definitely a hard wall for me to get past, but I think if I can get past it, I I'd probably end up enjoying it. I'm sure I would. Everybody that I I hear from always raves about it.

SPEAKER_07 1:37:05

So was the other anime that you were thinking about, is it fairy tale?

SPEAKER_01 1:37:13

Might have been. It was another one of those.

SPEAKER_10 1:37:15

That's one that looks like it was very is that the one that has like it literally looked I thought it was One Piece at some point. Yes.

SPEAKER_07 1:37:25

The main character who looks like One Piece looks like Luffy with pink hair. Yeah.

SPEAKER_10 1:37:32

Um I think I've been watching what's the one I was watching, Jelani. Seven Deadly Sins. Jesus Christ. Yeah. Yes, that that one is That one's questionable.

SPEAKER_07 1:37:44

That one you think crazy is questionable. Yo, and the worst oh god, that show. Oh wow.

SPEAKER_01 1:37:52

That doesn't like having your main character a fucking pedophile predator.

SPEAKER_10 1:37:56

Yo, honestly, this has probably been done a million times. I'll watch some dumbass anime recommendations. Not dumbass. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

SPEAKER_07 1:38:04

Now some of the anime recommendations are dumb as fuck. Like, let's be a hundred percent honest. Let's be a like, yo, bo bo bo bo bo bo bo. Okay, enough said. Continue.

SPEAKER_10 1:38:16

Sure. I I will watch an anime series and then I can give it's we had an idea a lot a while ago when we were young adults where I had a podcast called Strong Opinions with Connor. And I would do things that I didn't like and have opinions on it.

SPEAKER_01 1:38:37

Wait, when did you do this? I've known you might be a good one. We did it.

SPEAKER_10 1:38:39

We didn't do this. We didn't do this. We thought about it.

SPEAKER_01 1:38:42

Oh, I was like, what?

SPEAKER_10 1:38:44

Yeah, yeah. I've never done it. Because I've I get pretty passionate about things sometimes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So if I do things like watch a One Piece and then you interview me after I watch One Piece, that would be good content. Honestly.

SPEAKER_01 1:38:57

Yeah, you had to watch it first.

SPEAKER_10 1:38:59

So I've watched like maybe five episodes, maybe.

SPEAKER_07 1:39:03

Okay, so that's well five episodes of a show with a thousand dollars. So like one percent. It's point zero five percent if I if I if my math is right.

SPEAKER_10 1:39:17

Percentage.

SPEAKER_01 1:39:17

I mean it's probably been more than that. Yeah, you could literally get fifty to sixty episodes in you're not even like eight percent done with the series.

SPEAKER_10 1:39:23

Yeah, yeah, it's point five percent of the anime. Yeah, exactly. That's what I'm saying. Good math.

SPEAKER_07 1:39:31

The ninety some odd per the ninety some odd, what's it called, episodes of filler are within like are under ten percent of the anime. That's why I had that number so close in head.

SPEAKER_10 1:39:43

Yeah. It's that's also my favorite um like coping, not coping, it's not coping. Yeah, just like favorite comment when you you say something that you don't particularly want to do and people are really passionate about, or like a show or like a video game or a movie, or like, oh, but like once you get past like the first 20 minutes, it's good. So then like one piece it's like, dude, once you get past like the first like 350 episodes, yeah. I totally get that.

SPEAKER_01 1:40:11

That's why that's why I understand like it is it is like it took me a little while to like super get into it. Like I s especially with the fact that like I think that's it's it's a good thing as to why they're remastering it because I also think that the animation style gets into that as well, where like people don't want to watch it because it looks so old and it's not like you know it takes a little while for it to get going and stuff like that. Like that it's really, really important to get people reeled in in the first few minutes, especially in the Swinny 26 world that we live in, where we're like fucking TikTok is king and shit like that.

SPEAKER_07 1:40:40

We're like Instagram reels, fucking second it started.

SPEAKER_01 1:40:48

Yeah, right. But it's like you literally have three seconds before you you lose someone's attention, and you gotta you gotta reel them in, and like people are not willing to like just put that time into a new potential show that's got 1100 fucking episodes. Like, it's just not it's not like I mean I've tried to brother about it.

SPEAKER_10 1:41:03

Like I could sit here and watch a two and a half hour YouTube movie about a dude investigating Legos, you know what I mean? Yeah, yeah, and then like the same thing with bands. I have I have a thing with bands too. When I listen to a band, all aspects of the band can be good. Guitar, drum, whatever. As soon as the singer has a voice that I cannot fucking stand, you're done. I'm out. You're done. I'm out. I'm fucking out. So same thing with like main characters. Like as soon as like a main character comes in, I'm like, I fucking hate this guy. And I have to watch however many episodes of this guy.

SPEAKER_01 1:41:40

Yeah. No. I will say, I think I think Luffy's a little annoying at first. I will say by the time I get caught up, he's my absolute favorite character, like outside of maybe Zorro. Yeah. That that is the correct source. I was waiting for Jelani to say it. Zoro is fucking awesome. Zoro is fucking awesome.

unknown 1:42:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:42:01

Zoro's fucking amazing. He's literally my fucking background on my on my monitor for my uh my screen.

SPEAKER_07 1:42:07

I what's it called? I aspire to be as loyal and dependable a friend as Zoro. Like, like, niggas are like, yo, there's this character that makes that makes me that shows me how to be a man, how to be this and how to be that. My response to that is like, yo, you don't know how to be a good, like, a good person. A good, like, a good person in someone's life, just a beacon in someone's life until you like actually look at the way Zoro like supports and helps Luffy.

SPEAKER_01 1:42:49

Yeah. And not only that, but I also think he is like the moral conscience for the crew, and also he keeps people in their fucking place when they're acting out. Because God, I can't remember his name. Usopp right now. Usopp, yeah. Um, dude, literally, and I don't want to go too far into the One Piece thing because I feel like we're gonna start losing people at a certain point, but like in terms of there's this, there's this kind of part where Usopp, he's kind of like the complainer of the group, and there's a certain point where they have to they're like having to decide whether they need to uh get a new ship because their ship is basically getting to the point of like breaking, right? And he has this huge problem with it, he has a huge falling out with the rest of the team because he feels like he doesn't contribute as much as everyone else, and he's got a like a lot of just like internal shit going on that he's like putting on the feet of like Luffy and shit. And Luffy just like basically lets him beat the shit out of and all this kind of stuff. But anyway, there's like there's this falling out, and he like leaves the crew. And when he comes back, everyone's like super willing to like let him back in, except for fucking Zoro. Because Zoro's like, you let him back in, I'm gonna have a big fucking problem with this. Because if he like if we let him get away with this shit without ever having him have some sort of accountability for it, then he's just gonna do this shit again down the line when he ends up having a problem again. And like, we can't fucking have that.

SPEAKER_07 1:44:02

We need to have like make sure that like you know your understands who's in charge and what's going on, and he understands that like even if you have an argument with Luffy like type shit, like you have to have a legitimate reason, you have to br you have to talk with the rest of the crew. We are a fucking team.

SPEAKER_01 1:44:23

It's consequences, like it's literally like you can't you literally can't have a huge falling out without like having some sort of consequences behind that. Like, probably compromise, sure, but like there still needs to be some level of comp consequence for that.

SPEAKER_07 1:44:35

Like it's just when you act like a fucking child, you need to like you. We're gonna make you apologize like you're five. I I I'm sorry. What are you sorry for, you dumb bitch? Like, you got you they make him go through it, and mostly it's Zoro. It's great.

SPEAKER_01 1:44:53

That's why he's the coolest character in the show.

SPEAKER_07 1:44:56

He uses three swords at the same time.

SPEAKER_01 1:44:59

Connor.

SPEAKER_07 1:45:00

Like, what the fuck? You can't fight that.

SPEAKER_01 1:45:04

We'll we'll shift off of one piece. I feel I don't want to I don't want to inviate Connor too much.

SPEAKER_10 1:45:08

No, no, we're good. We're good. Um now that I now that we have Jelani hot and heavy, yeah, I was gonna suggest we move on to Jelani's talking topic of the podcast because he uh went pretty hard this morning um typing up typing up some stuff. So I want Jelani while he's in the mode to pop off.

SPEAKER_07 1:45:31

I feel like it's important. I normally do a tech talk, let's talk about something that's happening in technology that's pissing me off, and then I give you a silver lining, but like I want to take a step back and look like at where we are, like collectively. And this is something like I've talked I've had to talk to several people about, I've had to talk to family about it, I talked to an Uber driver about it, my wife had to talk to one of her clients about it, and that is that it's not your fault, and that's me talking to like my castmates, it's mostly me talking to you, the listener. It's not necessarily your fault. What you are going through is by design. There are people who are like making money based off your misery, like how hard it is, like what you're suffering through as an individual, no matter where you are on this planet, there are people who are invested in making your life as hard as it is. It is not your fault. Makes them like exactly. Like, I need you to like really take a step back, and this is where I will talk a little bit about tech. Because I'm gonna touch on social media and what it has become. So social media started as a way for us to keep up with like friends, talk to people like, hey, I went to high school with this guy, I haven't talked to him since high school, but his birthday came up. Let me shoot him a happy birthday message that might become a conversation where we like go back a little bit, whatever, what have you. Our social media has become a place where people like you and me, the listener, we open our phone phones, and all we see are the lifestyles of the rich and famous. We have these influencers dancing across our screens in what's it called, going places we will never get to go, wearing clothes we will never be able to afford, and all of these are paid for and supplied by the brands that are actively profiting off of ruining your life while filling you with a sense of f of FOMO that will never be fulfilled.

SPEAKER_10 1:47:53

I was gonna say, hold on, I was gonna butt in. That isn't a result that I saw. She's they're not gonna listen to shit. My ex and her best friend are a good example of this. For real. My best her best friend, my ex-best friend is a very um well off successful individual. Yeah, okay. Good on her. She worked for it, she made her money, she's doing what she needs to do. When she posts her what I don't know who you're talking about. My current my my most recent one. So her friend works for a company where she makes a good amount of money, where she can do what she wants to do, afford what she wants to do, do this life, right? And and more. You know what I'm talking about? So when she goes on trips, buys things, she's consistently posting about it on social media. She doesn't get paid for it, but she sees it from other people who are getting paid to show her this stuff, right? So then when she goes on these trips and does these things, it trickles down to my ex who sees her successful and doing extravagant things and probably wishes, I wish that could be me. And then it brings you into that loop of like, I can't afford to do that. Now I'm sad because my job I have sucks, and blah blah blah. Like, so it's like an active thing, people that are getting paid to sell this bullshit to us, people who actually are affording that shit, and then people like us. At the bottom who are just fucking FOMOing, yeah. Yeah. Who are just fine. Sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt you.

SPEAKER_07 1:49:35

No, you're good. Thrust into FOMO that we will never get to fulfill. We they are they are profit of profiting off of like some fermenting this sense of lack of self work and depression because like this circles back to the fact that so much of like It's not even just American culture at this point, because we've exported this, but it's become a sense of global culture that a person's bank account or what's in their wallet equates their worth in society.

SPEAKER_01 1:50:15

Yeah, it's the haves and the have nots. Like it literally, all the people, the influencers and stuff like that that we're seeing every day, the streamers and stuff like that, they're literally living the lives of quote unquote what what many would probably call the American dream, right? The self-employed person making millions and millions of dollars, and then like you're trying to compare yourself against that, which is like one in a million fucking chance that that's ever gonna happen to you, if not higher. Like it's it's and it's something that's literally come up in my own life with like um like my relationships and stuff like that, where like, you know, now that we're 35 years old, yeah, there's the you know, where are like the the check of like where you're at in your current life and stuff like that. And it's like you're seeing other people in their lives who've they've got kids or whatever, and not to say that like anybody needs to like try and ha do that or whatever, but like if that's what they want. Um, but in terms of just like where other people at at your same age group are doing with their lives, they might be a little bit further in life, they might have like the things that they want, but you're also only ever seeing like the highlights of those things. You're not seeing the day-to-day grind that those people are putting in for themselves and the things that they struggle with, too. You're just seeing the good stuff that they feel were like is worth sharing with others, or at least like you were saying with like the inst uh Instagram and all that kind of stuff, with like you know, going on these huge trips and saying, like, ooh, look at this great amazing thing I'm doing. Like, that's all good and all, but like if you're comparing yourself to these people's highs when you're only living in your lows, you're obviously gonna feel a certain way about it. And it's like you can't let the current system at play, which is like basically cap-I mean, it's just capitalism at like you know, late late stage capitalism. Like, you can't let that determine your self-worth. It's about where, like, personally, the way that I've kind of approached it lately is like where am I at versus where I was 10 years ago. Ten years ago, just to open up a little bit here for everybody, I was a hardcore fucking alcoholic. I was drinking every fucking night, I ballooned up like a hundred fucking pounds. Now I don't fucking drink like anything. I haven't had a drink in like four years. So it's like it's about where you were previously in your life and how far you've come and where you're at with your life and your own goals. And if you're not reaching those things, like you know, sometimes you gotta have a plan for yourself. If you want to reach a certain thing and you want to have a plan, that's great. But there's also like Jelani's saying, it's you have to have like a certain awareness of the fact that there are structures in place that are actively working against you and making sure that that happens for you, and like, you know, just recognizing that that that's there can in a lot of ways help take that pressure off of your shoulders because it's like just recognize you're doing your best and you're surviving in a world that is literally designed to put like put you under the boot of people who are rich. So anyway.

SPEAKER_00 1:52:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:52:57

I had yeah, that's right.

SPEAKER_10 1:53:01

I mean, he's right. It's yeah, people I think I think it's crazier that people understand that, yet they it's like a drug, dude. They like have to know what's going on with the the better uh with the quote unquote better better well off people because it somehow makes them feel better and for like a short period of time. I don't fucking know. Like Taylor Swift people, not to get the Ts the the Swifties in here. Come at me, bro. I personally don't give a shit about you, don't give a shit about T Swift, don't give a shit about Travis Kelsey, whatever. If it makes you happy that they're a couple, cool. Guess what? You're not gonna have that. Yeah just so you know, you're not gonna have your Travis Kelsey. Sorry. I mean, you're not gonna be Taylor Swift. But like you're not gonna have a fucking Madison Square Garden wedding, like following her on following her on Instagram in every fucking move that she has is not gonna make you Taylor Swift.

SPEAKER_01 1:54:01

I think there's a point where people just start to, because that person or celebrity, whoever, is in their life so often, they start to think of them as a friend. Yeah, it's an interpersonal bullshit. What were we gonna say, Jelani? What are they like? Nothing.

SPEAKER_10 1:54:14

Nothing. Absolutely nothing. We made Jelani's speechless.

SPEAKER_07 1:54:19

I had I I had a completely different thing, and I I guess we'll try again next week. Next next episode, I had a completely different bend and like thing plan. Like, I had like con as Connor said, like, I I thought I had a really good, like I thought I had a thing. I'm not trying to stop.

SPEAKER_01 1:54:47

We went off of one thing and went off way off that. So do your thing.

SPEAKER_07 1:54:49

Do your thing. It's good. It's good. We're good.

SPEAKER_08 1:54:54

Either way, we're not good.

SPEAKER_05 1:54:59

Next week, we're gonna try to do this again, but more importantly, before we get into Steamy Steamy.

SPEAKER_07 1:55:07

Hey, don't you do this? Next week, I don't understand what's happening. We're gonna, what's it called? We are going to be talking about this new EDP documentary.

SPEAKER_00 1:55:18

Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_07 1:55:20

That is good.

SPEAKER_05 1:55:20

That is something I've watched it. I'm gonna watch this.

SPEAKER_01 1:55:23

I'm gonna watch it this week so I can be like up to date on it. So we all need to watch this.

SPEAKER_05 1:55:27

I need you gentlemen to watch this. We'll watch it.

SPEAKER_10 1:55:30

For the listeners who want to follow along next episode, be prepared. We've got a little homework for you. Go watch Mike Clum's EDP 445 documentary on YouTube. Yes. Um trigger. There are a lot of trigger warnings. All of the trigger warnings. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:55:50

Every single trigger warning.

SPEAKER_01 1:55:53

All of them.

SPEAKER_10 1:55:53

Um that'll keep you kind of in the conversation per se. Mm-hmm. Um for next week. Next time. Not next week, but next time. Whatever.

SPEAKER_07 1:56:02

Like, no, but for real but for real trigger warning, there's uh pedophilia, there's mention of scat, there's what's it called? Mention of malicious masturbation and like a not safe word, for sure.

SPEAKER_10 1:56:17

Fucking god.

SPEAKER_07 1:56:18

And what's it called? And just in general, just trigger warning of nasty ass niggas being nasty as fuck. That's that's that's what it boils down to.

SPEAKER_01 1:56:32

Yeah, I mean, it's it's definitely, you know, that's what we'll be talking about next time. So if if that's not your bag, hopefully we'll have some other content in that episode for you. Yeah, there'll be some maybe.

SPEAKER_05 1:56:44

We will absolutely have other things to talk about. I promise you.

SPEAKER_10 1:56:48

I promise you. We'll play some video games as well. Um anime.

SPEAKER_07 1:56:56

I will cat I will catch up and start watching a few things so we can have we will absolutely have other sections and things to talk about.

SPEAKER_00 1:57:06

First.

SPEAKER_02 1:57:16

I thought that's what we agreed on.

SPEAKER_01 1:57:18

We're gonna talk about it next time anyway, right?

SPEAKER_10 1:57:19

I thought that was like No no no no no the the um the social media stuff. We kind of went off of it because I'm reading when you put it. And like, you know. I don't see we put it on like a smaller scale where he was about to pop off on. But I think we got the general.

SPEAKER_01 1:57:38

I don't think we're done yet. Like, if you want to pop off, do your thing. We don't have to.

SPEAKER_10 1:57:41

I want him to, but he's saying no.

SPEAKER_07 1:57:43

Look, okay, so do it.

SPEAKER_01 1:57:46

I want to know. I want to know what you had to say.

SPEAKER_07 1:57:48

Alright, fine. We're gonna circle back. We're gonna circle back. What I was getting to, what I was getting to was like on a grand scale, we are constantly consuming this media, this pie in the sky media. And it even goes down to I just need people to like really find a center of gravity where like we sit back and we honestly grasp the fact that there are there's trad rif influencers out here who are like 90% like the wives of men who are making a lot more money than any of us are. These are people who are what's it called, living out on this land as what's it called, as a status symbol, as uh we're saying we can because it's fun, not out of a like level of need or necessity. They're not actu a lot of them aren't actually working farm jobs. Let's be a hundred percent honest. And these and these people are pushing this content, this life, this artificial lifestyle of having like six kids and having more than enough food to feed all of them like four meals a day with no worries whatsoever. You're feeding this content into homes with single mothers who do not who are deciding whether to feed themselves or their children at night.

SPEAKER_02 1:59:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 1:59:22

That is where this content is going. That is where we are. Like like even a further step back, like this this pie in the sky content is mixed in with content from people that are significantly significantly closer in once again, monetary value to you and me. And these people are living in poverty and in war zones. They are they are dealing with addiction, pain, death, and loss, and these are the relatable peoples that we see. Like, it is like that is just the media landscape you live in. So, like to put it in scale, you have people living at the top. We have a society that tells you these are the people that are worth something, and then you have the rest of us living at like even if we're in the middle, because of how far the top away is away from us, our only what's it called, frame of reference, the people we relate to are the people at the bottom, and that just drives us to feel even worse in our personal lives, even if theoretically we're doing something decent. Like you all work so hard to r to get where you've gotten. Every single one of you has fought and sacrificed, has gone through some of the worst times of their life. Like, I want you to look outside and realize like shit's rough for everyone. And that's not me saying that, like, buckle up, get get what you need to get done, have a plan and work towards it. That's me saying and acknowledging and empathizing with you. Yeah, that it is rough out here, it is painful out here, but it is not necessarily your fault that you are out here.

SPEAKER_00 2:01:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 2:01:27

Society was built so that people like us end up out here so that the people up top who are making this pie in the sky media can maybe feel something on the inside because they know they're empty. They have to try to take our happiness away from us so that they can feel something. Because, like, at the end of the day, like, I need you to understand it's hard out here, but if you're anything like me or Cameron or Connor, you have people who love and care about you. You have people who want to see you succeed, who want to see the best for you, even if you're not talking to them, even if you're not on the best terms with them. There are people out there who want to see you get better, who want to see you succeed. Yeah, and I can guarantee you have it better than a lot of these influencers or billionaires, because most of us want to see them burn. Because all they do is contribute to our misery. Yeah, it's not your fault. It is the the world has been designed to make things more and more difficult for us. Just turn on the TV and you will see some billionaire in a fucking suit that's worth more than my yearly salary telling me that AI is coming for my job at a at an IT help desk. It's trying to normalize it too. And try to normalize it. It is not your fault. Shit sucks. It's hard, it's painful. We are making decisions we shouldn't have to make. I drive for work, I have to decide between gas and an oil change. These are decisions we should not have to make. That mother I spoke of earlier, that is not your fault. You should be able to eat a full meal and feed your child. The fact that we live in a society that will tell you that it's your fault that you're living like that while also giving people like Elon and Bezos and all of these motherfuckers tax breaks, the same taxes that could go towards social programs that could be helping you put food on the table, it is not your fault. Our society has a priority problem.

SPEAKER_01 2:04:07

I think there's an element.

SPEAKER_07 2:04:12

There's been people who whether like it's life, whether it's society, I don't care what's going on. I don't care what's going on. I just need you to know that some of it you cannot take all of it on your shoulders. Because not all of it belongs there. Some of it belongs in your heart, as the fire and the rage we need to like even if we don't have the power to do anything, we need to say something. We all need to say things, and we all need to keep saying them. Because even though shit sucks, motherfucker, you better fucking complain. Like, do not let them convince you to shut up and tie lift yourself by the bootstraps. No, you're going to work, you're gonna keep working, but you're gonna let them hear about how fucked the situation they have you in is. We're not going to sit and toil quietly. Motherfucker, my mom raised a fighter, but my mom also raised someone who's gonna tell you about the bullshit you got me fighting through. And I need the rest of you to do that too. You were saying, Camera.

SPEAKER_01 2:05:49

Oh no, sorry, I wasn't trying to interrupt you either. I uh I I wasn't sure if you were continuing from that point. But but what I was gonna say is there's also a certain element of people who like defend that bullshit too, in terms of like, you know, there's a certain element of folks who are like, oh well, the billionaires, they're the creatives, they're the ones who are holding this country up, they're the ones who are, you know, they're doing everything and all the technology that we're seeing today and all this kind of stuff. And it's like but they're also the person who's saying this bullshit is someone who's right down here with us surfing just as fucking much as we are, but they have this fucking disillusion that the billionaires are gonna come save us all. They're not fucking saving anybody, they're literally there to make a profit and they're gonna do it at your expense every single day of the fucking week, every minute of the fucking day, as long as they can. Total darkness. Exactly. Like they're every billionaire out there.

SPEAKER_07 2:06:39

Bruce Reign doesn't exist. Like, niggas aren't gonna pull a Scrooge, McDuck, or Ebenezer Scrooge and realize the error of their race or some such shit. Shit ain't gonna happen. The only like I need you to understand, chair charity for these niggas is a tax break. And as a matter of fact, they're working the tax code to the point where they don't where they're probably not even gonna feel the need for charity anymore because they're not gonna be paying any taxes anyway. Like they're not going to help you, they don't care about you.

SPEAKER_01 2:07:17

Exactly.

SPEAKER_07 2:07:19

As a matter of fact, if you if this being your last breath would put another penny in their pocket, you better believe they would pay money to get that they would pay a hundred dollars to get that penny. Because that's where their fucking mind is.

SPEAKER_01 2:07:43

Any thoughts, Connor? Any thoughts, Connor?

SPEAKER_07 2:07:49

Thank you. I just love it.

SPEAKER_01 2:07:51

See, that's why I wanted you to go into it. And I also don't think that was too far and away from what we were talking about. It wasn't.

SPEAKER_10 2:07:56

No. We were kind of cooking with it. We just went a different route. He went a more broad a broader idea of it all. I love it. At the end of the day, everyone, if you're listening to this shit and you enjoy our shit, we love you. Love you. You're a good person. You got it. Fuck all these naysayers. Do what you gotta do. Be yourself.

SPEAKER_07 2:08:18

I'm not I'm not gonna say necessarily that you're a good person, because like let's be 100% honest. Let's be 100% honest. We're in a space, we're in a space in this society where we kind of need bad people on our side.

SPEAKER_10 2:08:30

No, yeah.

SPEAKER_07 2:08:31

I mean, I'm not saying I'm not necessarily saying you're a good person, but I am saying I'm hoping you're an ally and I hoping you're using your skills to benefit the mute movement. Like, if you're a bad person, using your skills for good is still like shit. Steal from billionaires.

SPEAKER_01 2:08:49

Net positive.

SPEAKER_07 2:08:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_10 2:08:51

Also, if you are Tony Stark listening right now, hit us up.

SPEAKER_01 2:08:56

Robert Downey Jr. Hey Connor.

SPEAKER_10 2:08:58

Hey man, I'm actually Dr. Doom now.

SPEAKER_01 2:09:01

Crazy. Well, I think that was a great topic to kind of get into. I I definitely always like the once we start again into the like the more real stuff at the end. And yeah, I I definitely hope that if anybody is out there that they're struggling and stuff like that, that they kind of heard that, you know, really just you can't let this disillusion of billionaires coming to save you at the end of the day. Like, that's never gonna happen. And like it's it's and that's not even like you were saying, it's not about like pulling yourself by your bootstraps, it's just recognizing this the system for what it is, and that billionaires are not out here trying to do you any favors. It's just not fucking happening. It is all about trying to get a buck out of you, and they're not they're not trying to save the the country, they're not trying to save the world. Elon Musk got his dirty little fucking mitts inside of our like uh coffers and shit like that, and he fucking raided the bank. Like that's what he did with the power that he was given uh when he was given some sort of like you know.

SPEAKER_07 2:09:58

It's well known that they pulled private citizen data out of it. He has and that private data is very the the level of private data the government just has on you is a level of what's it called, valuable that most companies, like private companies, salivate. Salivate at the level of data the government just has on you that they have to work so hard to put together from your habits and whatever and what have you. And he walked away with it, Scotch fruit.

SPEAKER_01 2:10:34

Yep. Uh I do think there's a good idea there. Maybe what we can do is also uh I don't know if we have it, but we could put the a link on our cool cat site. Uh if that's something we want to do. What are you what is the face you're making right now?

SPEAKER_10 2:10:48

I was gonna sneeze, it didn't happen. Um all right, sorry. The Discord, the cool cat's Discord is linked in the Spotify, so um, like our chat is suggesting here, Morgan and chat. Shout out to the Twitch chat, twitch.tv slash iTheCat Dad Eye. Um there's a Discord link to the CoolCats Discord with like-minded people in it. Come join. Yeah, say hello.

SPEAKER_01 2:11:13

Uh we're just to just uh yeah, I know we just talked about how fuck marketing, but just to market ourselves a little bit, but I think it's important to just let people know how to reach us when they you know if that's something they want to do. And you know, yeah.

SPEAKER_10 2:11:26

I'm also not a rich billionaire asshole.

SPEAKER_07 2:11:28

So I'm not much I'm not trying to monetize my Discord. I'm just I'm just trying to make it a place where you guys can hang out and talk about things as long as you're not being like, you know, weird little guys, as one of my favorite podcasters Emily Conger would put it.

SPEAKER_10 2:11:47

Don't be an EDP. 'Cause we'll kick you out of Discord.

SPEAKER_07 2:11:52

Just say look, if you uh if you come into my Discord trying to be some kind of EDP, I might be lying.

SPEAKER_01 2:12:04

But that's not what's gonna happen, I'm hoping.

SPEAKER_07 2:12:07

Well, speaking of things all I'm trying to say is stay the fuck out of my Discord with that EDP shit. Maybe I'll find you.

SPEAKER_10 2:12:14

Now speaking of things you don't want to be uh on the podcast, I think it's time for a section that we like to call the steamy steam.

SPEAKER_09 2:12:30

That was that was water. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 2:12:38

What was that? Little steamy steamer view. That's water. That's that's the steam. Steam.

SPEAKER_10 2:12:44

Okay. I pulled a couple, of course. Uh I'm gonna keep them pretty brief. Um I'm gonna read through it. This one is um titled Fallen Adventurer Anna. Uh this was released Friday. So pretty new. Oh, it's new, huh? Yeah, I got some relevant ones these days.

SPEAKER_01 2:13:09

I can actually look at this while you're doing it now. So Fallen Adventurer. Okay, here we go.

SPEAKER_10 2:13:13

Anna, yep. Um I'm gonna read two short reviews and then one long one. Okay. Uh this one was uh posted by Martin. Uh he has about six hours on record. The theme is great. I really like it. The gameplay is simple, allowing for effortless one-handed play. I'm also a big fan of the character designs. Listen, that's important for these these games. I mean, I guess that's true.

SPEAKER_07 2:13:42

Um my question is one from my question is for for this review. I'm a big fan like I'm looking at the art style and it's generic as fuck. It is generic as fuck, like anime asset flip.

SPEAKER_10 2:13:59

Hold on. I'll get to that because this next review really goes in depth on the character design. Here we fucking go. This one's uh by Ready9, about five hours of gameplay. Posted today, so this is fresh.

SPEAKER_06 2:14:15

Oh.

SPEAKER_10 2:14:16

Uh the character illustration is really nice. It has the vibe of a little mischievous girl, which creates a really strong contrast with her big breasts. She absolutely must be punished hard for being such a little mischievous girl.

SPEAKER_01 2:14:34

That's some weird fucking language to attribute to this. I mean, I think it's like a it's like a sex game, I understand, but that's some like brother, brother.

SPEAKER_07 2:14:43

Remember what I said earlier about not coming into my Discord on some EDP shit. Yeah. This nigga right here, right there. This nigga right here. Stay the fuck out of my discord. If you are listening to this, get how seat. He's right here. Now, we got him.

SPEAKER_10 2:15:02

Now here goes the final review for Anna here. Okay. This is by Joker Dad 4. Um 1.4 hours on record, so I'm not really sure uh how um genuine this review is. And he received it for free. Hmm. Nine out of ten. Game good with good action scene. I am the conquest of these games. I am so lonely. All the other Steam users are scared of me. No one talks to me. No one wants to accept my friend requests. They think I am a so-called gooner. They send me from sale to sale, buying anything of the name of my own game's badges or badge. As I get more of them, they loathe me more and more. I am a victim of my own greed. It's a professional game. I don't even get a re reward. Only a reaction emoji. I am capable of so much more, and no one sees it. Some days, I feel so alone I could shower, but I don't. I never do. Because what would be the point? Not a single person in the entire Steam community would be able to smell me. Take it to your profile. Yo, damn.

SPEAKER_01 2:16:27

What did I just that sound that that was like if you took a horny, outraged gamer and put it inside of that BMO from fucking Rick and Morty. What is my purpose? Oh, what is my purpose? Spread butter. Oh god. Oh, that's like I forgot about.

SPEAKER_07 2:16:47

That's a wild movie.

SPEAKER_10 2:16:48

That guy that guy could join the Discord. Yeah, absolutely. Um. Alright, so the next one uh we're gonna look at is Chronicles of Clam's Island. Okay. Chronicles This was released on the 14th, so also pretty recent.

SPEAKER_07 2:17:20

Um, look at that. It's a game with an actual art style, too.

SPEAKER_01 2:17:26

I was just saying, an actual art style. There we go. Alright.

SPEAKER_10 2:17:32

This is by uh So said. He's got about 2.1 hours, or they do.

SPEAKER_07 2:17:38

Wait, I need a description of the game.

SPEAKER_10 2:17:40

Oh, sure, sure, sure, sure, sure, sure.

SPEAKER_07 2:17:42

Yes, I need the description.

SPEAKER_10 2:17:43

In this RPG, play as Amy, a shipwrecked rookie uh rookie stranded on Clam's Clam uh Clam's Island. It's your shit too. Battle monsters. Just complete quests, upgrade your gear, meet locals, and explore the nightlife, where even more adventures await. Rise to become a top-ranked adventurer, or lose your pure purity trying.

SPEAKER_09 2:18:11

Scandalous.

SPEAKER_01 2:18:17

Like that's a bummer.

SPEAKER_10 2:18:20

Um interesting reviews so far. Um I got one from Omni here, which is kind of familiar to a guy we know. Um 4.1 hours on records. Um I started playing for the spicy content and stayed because the adventure is genuinely fun. He meant the name is not part of the plan.

SPEAKER_01 2:18:45

He meant the name, not the person. The name is similar.

SPEAKER_10 2:18:49

Yeah, the name is similar to someone I know. Yeah. Um so then we got Coco Coco Black, I believe. Coco Black Seven Hours. Yeah. I played too good that the only H scene I see so far, it's the adventurers girl uh Adventurers Guild Girl playing with herself.

SPEAKER_01 2:19:13

Sob Adventurers, that's how they smell adventurers game.

SPEAKER_10 2:19:19

Um the final one here. I understand by So said. This is basically a JRPG adventure with a dangerous amount of fan service. My priorities were destroyed very quickly, and Olivia is now officially my waifu. By the way, you can download a patch that makes the content even hotter, if you know what I mean.

SPEAKER_01 2:19:47

This kind of reminds me of like this this kind of game this reminds me of like a obviously sexualized like next step of like these the kind of like um games where it's like the uh kind of like dating sim of sorts where it's like uh not even I think dating sim, but uh what was what is Shaven playing lately? It's like the midnight piece of it. How about cozy games, bro? Like Fardew? Kinda, yeah, where it's like you have like the relationship with people. If somebody took that and just fuckeyed it. Oh, that's easy. I would that's easy mother. That's what I'm saying. That's why they that's why they get people to play this because they're like essentially.

SPEAKER_10 2:20:26

Yeah, like Coral Island um putting tickets. I'm a big fan of those. Fields of Mistra is a new one that came out.

SPEAKER_07 2:20:35

I feel like I feel like H games have always been a thing. But I also feel like we're also circling back. I hate circling back, but we're also in a time of such like desperate loneliness and sadness that they're they're doing gangbusters. They're doing gangbusters. Like we are off the top of the loneliness of the sunny. Yeah. And we are actively creat I saw a piece on dating apps earlier this week. We are actively creating a society that makes it harder for people to meet and connect on an emotional, not even an in just an intimate, on an emotional level, it is harder for people it's getting harder for people to make friends and shit.

SPEAKER_00 2:21:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 2:21:27

So, like, of course, H games and like shit like that are gonna be doing gangbusters. My AI girlfriend, AI best friend type shit, money. Why? Because most of our, what's it called, we we have allowed a lot of our like life to be taken over by certain things to the point where like apps control most of our dating, and these apps make money off of keeping us in the app paying the subscription. So at the best, yeah, at the best, the app wants you to have a one-night stand. At best. It does not actually want you to fall in love.

SPEAKER_01 2:22:06

Well, I think it's for the the draw for people is the fact that it's like a kind of like a it's a relationship that you have full control over. Yeah, or at least to a degree of like it's it's it's not anything where like it because and there's a lot of people out there who just like want to like have a relationship that don't they don't want to have to like try in or anything like that, and no sort of introspection of any kind. They don't want to have someone tell them that they need to improve in any way, they just want what they want from whatever experience they're gonna have when they want it.

SPEAKER_07 2:22:36

It's funny how I'm going to stop you there because what you're doing is giving spoilers for next week. You have to do your homework and you will immediately understand what I mean by EDP cover.

SPEAKER_05 2:22:53

Hold on.

SPEAKER_10 2:22:55

So not to end up such a weird not to another weird, sour note. I got one more review for it. I'm so excited to talk about someone I hate. I mean too.

SPEAKER_07 2:23:05

Nothing fuels me. Like being able to talk shit correctly about someone I hate. I am so excited for next recording.

SPEAKER_00 2:23:14

It's gonna be a good one.

unknown 2:23:16

Two.

SPEAKER_10 2:23:17

One more review and then we'll we're gonna check this out. This is from Kishmish. 3.4 hours. Really enjoyed working at the bar as a waitress and as prostitute. By the way, if you buy the special book, you can walk around naked at night in exhibitionist mode. This is the best part of the game to me. TBH. Also, there actually is a patch for this game that adds more scenes.

SPEAKER_01 2:23:47

But I feel like every one of these games has a patch or a mod or something like that. It adds like extra sauces. Always. Always.

SPEAKER_06 2:23:53

You need it.

SPEAKER_07 2:23:54

And on that note, that's I think that is a mark of success in this genre.

SPEAKER_10 2:23:58

Yeah, that means you're you're doing it right. Fair enough. Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 2:24:02

Your fans are making fan patches to add extra shit.

SPEAKER_01 2:24:06

They're invested.

SPEAKER_10 2:24:10

Folks, that was the cool cats cast. Thank you for joining. Yeah. Um we stream it live on twitch.tv slash I the cat dad i, where you can join in on the chat with a couple of our friends and viewers. Um look for the Discord link in the podcast info. Um if you want to join the Discord and chat with the boys and the girls, and the they's and the themes, and the dogs and the cats. We got dogs and cats in there. Um, and birds. Do we have birds? It doesn't matter.

SPEAKER_00 2:24:53

Uh I don't know about the cats. I don't know about the dogs.

SPEAKER_05 2:24:59

I don't have birds.

SPEAKER_10 2:25:02

Lions and tigers and bears. Thank you, bears.

SPEAKER_09 2:25:05

Oh my.

SPEAKER_10 2:25:07

I wish y'all have a great rest of your day, week, whatever you got going on. Thanks for tuning in. Um, boys, say your byes.

SPEAKER_07 2:25:18

Bye.

SPEAKER_10 2:25:19

We'll close it out.

SPEAKER_07 2:25:20

Thanks for coming. We appreciate you listening. Go fuck yourselves.

SPEAKER_01 2:25:26

I'll also be love you.

SPEAKER_07 2:25:27

Bye. Bye.