Oblivion Remastered, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, And More

The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion got a surprise remaster, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 received rave reviews, and The Hundred Line: Defense Academy is way deeper — and way better — than we expected. This week, the gang dives into all three games. Plus: some cool TV shows!

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:04Speaker 00

  I have seen the gates of oblivion beyond which no waking eye may see. And now I've seen it in Unreal Engine 5. Welcome to TripleClick, where we bring the games to you. This week, we talk about Oblivion Remastered, but also Claire Obscure Expedition 33, and also 100 Line: Last Defense Academy. It's a video game grab bag with three games: TripleClick, TripleGames... Rule of threes or something, yeah? I'm Maddy Myers.

• 0:33Jason Schreier?

  I'm Jason Schreier.

• 0:34Kirk Hamilton?

  And I'm Kirk Hamilton, and hello.

• 0:35Speaker 00

  Hello.

• 0:37Kirk Hamilton?

  Hello, my friends.

• 0:38Speaker 00

  Hello, it's us again.

• 0:39Jason Schreier?

  Kirk, how many times have you edited saying our names today? And were any of those fake?

• 0:45Speaker 00

  And have you thought about changing them again at any point?

• 0:49Kirk Hamilton?

  I have thought about it. I haven't done it, but I've thought about just starting to sneak that in and then testing the most dedicated among our listeners to see if they can find it. But no, there's nothing like that. Save your time out there.

• 1:00Speaker 00

  There's no secrets.

• 1:01Kirk Hamilton?

  Nioh and everyone else, don't worry.

• 1:03Speaker 00

  We're not becoming some sort of Blueprints-esque unlockable...

• 1:07Kirk Hamilton?

  The spectrograph of each TripleClick episode does not contain secret information.

• 1:11Jason Schreier?

  TripleClick is actually a homonym.

• 1:13Speaker 00

  But what if you play them backwards? Yeah, but what if you play the record version backwards? Because we are releasing TripleClick on vinyl. No, we're not. But if you ever wanted us to do that, I make absolutely no promises whatsoever. However, I will say that we do periodically do special things for those people who navigate to a little URL called maximumfun.org/join and become members. They get access to our bonus feed. It's almost as high quality as listening to TripleClick on vinyl, backwards or forwards. Our most recent episode in the bonus feed was A Beans Cast.

• 1:57Speaker 00

  We spilled the beans about Severance, seasons one and two. But we've got a big backlog in there of us spilling the beans on video games and movies and TV and our personal lives sometimes. So if that sounds interesting to you, or maybe you just want that warm fuzzy feeling of supporting a show that doesn't have ads and also you're supporting Max Fun, which is a really cool network that we love being a part of, then why not? Why not go to maximumfun.org/join and become a member? And just, just more why nots. If you are in the general vicinity of Portland, Oregon on Friday, July 11th, or if you think you could get yourself there just in time for this,

• 2:42Speaker 00

  then I would recommend that you go to the Triple Click Live show that's happening that very night at the Alberta Rose Theater. Doors at seven, show at eight. We're going to have a ticket link in the show notes. I think we've had that couple of weeks now, so please get your tickets. Then we'll know how many of you are going to come. And also then you'll know that you can go. So July 11th.

• 3:01Kirk Hamilton?

  People are buying tickets, so get yours.

• 3:02Speaker 00

  Yeah, get them. Go ahead and get them. Those tickets are getting, getting snatched on up. All right. I have forgotten which of us is running this. Jason, is it you? Okay. Jason, what are we doing today?

• 3:17Jason Schreier?

  Today, we're talking about video games. We got a video game grab bag. We've got three games with colons in their titles that we're going to discuss.

• 3:27Speaker 00

  That's the through line.

• 3:29Jason Schreier?

  Today, we're mostly going to discuss The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion and Claire Obscure: Expedition 33, but also a dash towards the end. I'll throw in a little dash of The Hundred Line: Defense Academy. Let's start out with Oblivion. Last week, Oblivion Remastered was surprise released, was shadow dropped by Bethesda and Microsoft. It was remastered by a company called Virtuos that has studios all over the world, but I believe is primarily based in China. And it was very popular, reached 4 million players, Bethesda said, within its first few days on sale.

• 4:12Jason Schreier?

  Of course, when they say reach 4 million players, that also means game pass. But hey, we're still talking about millions of people, millions of people playing a game. 2006, we've all been playing or at least dabbling with it. So we thought we'd talk about it a little bit before we get into Clear Obscure. Kirk, I think you have the strongest opinions about Oblivion. So I'm curious to hear your take. What did you think of the remaster? What do you think of Oblivion in general? How's it hold up in 2025?

• 4:41Kirk Hamilton?

  Strongest opinions makes it sound like I like, I really feel passionately about Oblivion. I think I have the most.

• 4:46Jason Schreier?

  You, you've definitely been in our, the three, among the three of us, you've been several times you've called it mid and other kind of harsh words.

• 4:54Kirk Hamilton?

  Well. So I've played the most Oblivion of the three of us. And I played a ton of that game in 2006, or I guess in 2007 for me, when I got an Xbox 360. This is a story I've told many times when I kind of got back into video gaming after taking several years off. And I bought an Xbox 360 and I got two games for it. I got Grand Theft Auto San Andreas and I got The Elder Scrolls Oblivion. And it may not surprise you to know that I was smoking a lot of weed at the time. So this was sort of.

• 5:24Jason Schreier?

  What? That's shocking.

• 5:25Kirk Hamilton?

  These were both games. I was living in San Francisco. I was a jazz musician living in San Francisco.

• 5:30Jason Schreier?

  Smoking the devil's grass.

• 5:33Kirk Hamilton?

  That's right. I know, can you believe it? So I would occasionally smoke a jazz cigarette and I would play some Xbox 360 open world games. And so, you know, my experience of this game was very just like time to chill out and wander around Siradil and just do repetitive stuff for a long time because it's a pretty chill game for that. And so, you know, I liked it okay at the time, but I had already been in love with Morrowind. And even then, this was before I was writing any games criticism or really thinking about video games that way, but I was aware of all the ways that Oblivion kind of sanded off some of the interesting edges of Morrowind and just made it a little bit more generic fantasy. Like, I think that the Elder Scrolls setting is actually very interesting.

• 6:15Kirk Hamilton?

  I think Siradil and all of the lore is more interesting than it appears at a first glance. And I think Morrowind, which is the, of course, for anyone who doesn't know the game that preceded Oblivion and is set in the land of Morrowind, a much stranger looking game, this kind of swamp land. It's the land of the dark elves. There's huge mushrooms everywhere. People get around on these giant striding bugs. The story is just like odder. It just feels more particular. And it feels a little more in the lineage of a Planescape torment or some of those early Infinity Engine RPGs that were just set in stranger and more specific worlds. Oblivion is much more post Lord of the Rings, kind of big fantasy world with open, bright fields and sunlight

• 6:55Kirk Hamilton?

  and an empire with, you know, a threat from a dark world where like a dark leader is going to lead these monsters, these like hordes through these gates to destroy everything. It just feels much more post Lord of the Rings and a little less remarkable, at least in the big picture, even though some of that specific stuff is still there. So playing it this time, that struck me all over again. And I, I've kind of just, I find the world and its approach to the Elder Scrolls to just be a little bit less interesting. I'm curious what the two of you thought, though, since you're a little less familiar with this game.

• 7:27Jason Schreier?

  I mean, my only thought is I played through the intro and was like, I wish I was playing Avowed right now. It definitely shows its age.

• 7:33Kirk Hamilton?

  It's really interesting, right? Yeah, that it, that it is out the same year as Avowed, because they are very similar.

• 7:38Jason Schreier?

  Well, and Avowed has really mastered that first-person combat. It made it so much more tactile and so much more entertaining and gives you so many more options and jumping into oblivion. I mean, it really, it, it's interesting to see a game that looks like it's from 2025, but feels like it's from 2006. And I'm sure for nostalgia's sake, it's cool. I'm sure people, a lot of people are just like, kind of going back to the days when the Xbox 360 had just come out and they were in high school or college or whatever, and have all sorts of fond memories of that time. But for me, who doesn't have a lot of nostalgia with that game, it was just not a good experience. Manny, what about you?

• 8:18Speaker 00

  Yeah, for me, it was also a very similarly tough hang. I did not play Oblivion the first time around. Skyrim was my first one, which I think is a pretty typical experience with Elder Scrolls. And even Skyrim, the combat feels a little bad. It's a little bit unusual. It's maybe not the strongest part of the game. But Avowed is like another step up where it's like, okay, there's no lock on in Avowed. I think we talked about that a little bit on the episode, but something interesting about that game. Like, you're still kind of... You know, strafing around and just trying to get your sword to hit the guy at the right angle, or whatever. If you're, if you're me, you're trying to get your sword or axe to hit the guy, because obviously that's the kind of character class I'm playing

• 9:00Speaker 00

  as. But in Oblivion, it's like as though I've taken 40 steps back in terms of how confident I am that my sword is ever really going to hit the guy. I, that, that feeling is not great, in my estimation. But that sensation of like, oh, there's something more to this world. You talk to all these characters. There's like, kind of fun conversations to be had and goofy conversations to be had. I enjoy that stuff. The, the facial expressions are silly, like the 2006 of it all. I, I still have some nostalgia for 2006 era video games in general, even if not this one specifically. So I still felt that. But yeah, I, I also was in the midst of playing Claire Obscure, which I know

• 9:43Speaker 00

  we're going to talk about in a second. And it's totally different, but it's so fun that I, I had my moments of being like, what am, what am I doing?

• 9:52Kirk Hamilton?

  Claire Obscure is a good comparison point, along with Avowed, just in terms of world building and just interestingness of the world, just visual interestingness. Because Claire Obscure, of course, incredibly interesting environments. And Avowed as well. Avowed kind of felt like Morrowind, I think I mentioned this back when we talked about that game. That world, this weird fungal kind of magical avatar world or whatever, definitely felt kind of particular and unusual in a way that Seratil and Oblivion doesn't. And I agree there, I mean, I have a lot of nostalgia for this game. So just playing it, hearing the music, whatever, hearing some of the lines of dialogue, Sir Patrick Stewart at the beginning.

• 10:29Speaker 00

  Yeah, he's there.

• 10:29Kirk Hamilton?

  It has an all-timer credit sequence. That opening line when he says, those portentous lines of dialogue to, to set things off.

• 10:38Speaker 03

  This is the 27th of Last Seed, the year of Akatosh 433. These are the closing days of the third era, and the final hours of my life.

• 10:57Kirk Hamilton?

  And then like Bethesda Games presents, and the da-da-dun, da-da-dun, da-da-dun, starts playing.

• 11:02Speaker 00

  It's very epic with a capital E.

• 11:14Kirk Hamilton?

  It's very epic and it feels very Lord of the Rings. It feels very, you know, these are the, it feels like the beginning of the Lord of the Rings. Like, and they've got Patrick Stewart. Sean Bean is in this game as well. He plays a major character.

• 11:24Speaker 00

  Yeah, Lord of the Rings own Sean Bean. He's in there. They got him.

• 11:27Kirk Hamilton?

  So it's, it's that kind of mid 2000s stunt casting thing where video games were just starting to kind of try to say, hey, look, we're for real. We're, we're as big of a deal as, you know, the Lord of the Rings. We're just like the movies. And then of course you play this game and there's this very silly sequences where Sean Bean will give a rousing speech and it's very like Helm's Deep or something. You're waiting for this huge battle to happen, but then, but then it's like six good guys and six bad guys and they just kind of run at each other and just start like.

• 11:56Speaker 00

  Just kind of collide.

• 11:57Kirk Hamilton?

  Swinging their swords around. Right. And you run into the fight and you're accidentally killing your own guys because it's so hard to aim at enemies. And like, it's all very nostalgic and I think that's the main appeal for it. And I'll say, you know, I'm playing on PC and I'm very disappointed with the performance of this port. I just, it's very hard for me to get consistent performance on my PC. And I gather that's been a real problem across the board. And it's too bad because visually this remaster is incredible. When you just look at screenshots, it's so cool what they've managed to do. It's just a real shame that it doesn't run better because I, I do like the idea of taking these older games and making them look as nice as this one does.

• 12:34Jason Schreier?

  So yeah, I mean, I'm sure nostalgia was a big point in making it popular, but also the lack of Elder Scrolls games. There hasn't been a new single player Elder Scrolls game since 2011. So that's a big, a big factor as well. One thing I'll say just on the Skyrim comparison, so I also Skyrim was my first like real Elder Scrolls title. I had played a tiny bit, mostly watched my roommate in college play Oblivion, but Skyrim was my first main one. And I'm struck by the differences in how each of those games start. They both kind of give you this guided tutorial for your first 30 minutes or so. But then afterwards Oblivion just kind of sends you to go talk to a dude who says some ominous things and then sends you to go talk to another dude, whereas Skyrim kind of.

• 13:19Jason Schreier?

  Signpost you, it doesn't explicitly tell you you have to do this, but it signposts you to go on this treasure hunt where you get to go through a dungeon and you get a treasure and you bring it back and then you you have these dragon encounters and you get a get a sense of the what the overall story would be and it feels a lot more substantial than Oblivion does during the those kind of opening moments and I think it's it it's much easier to get kind of your hooks into Skyrim.

• 13:45Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah.

• 13:46Jason Schreier?

  I also think the Nordic setting just does wonders for Skyrim that in.

• 13:51Kirk Hamilton?

  It's again, it's a more specific setting.

• 13:53Jason Schreier?

  It is, yeah. And Oblivion, yeah, does Oblivion have, just because I haven't, Kirk, I'm curious, does it, just because I haven't explored the entire world or anything, is it really just all just kind of generic fantasy land? Is there any sort of theme to its world other than the Oblivion gates or whatever?

• 14:07Kirk Hamilton?

  There are different towns, if memory serves anyways, that have kind of their own identity, but no, it's a little more of a just central, you know, because it's set in Seridil, which is kind of the central part of the continent and it's just a little bit less interesting from a, you know, in terms of climate and and landscape, though there are some side quests, like the Dark Brotherhood side quest as usual in these games is terrific. I think the Thieves Guild one is really cool. I remember there being some really great side quests. And the overall story actually isn't bad either, once it gets cooking, if my memory of it holds up, which I think it kind of does. I was reading a little bit about it to remember it. And there's some cool stuff in there, even though there's a lot of repetitive dungeons and that kind of copy paste thing.

• 14:48Kirk Hamilton?

  And I, you know what you're saying about how it kind of guide, how Skyrim guides you along in the story? And sort of gives you a little bit more scaffolding when you get started and has that early dragon attack and has the dragons overall, like there's this feeling that there's just a little bit more to it that when you're moving through it. That is a change that this series underwent and actually Morrowind is even less directed than Oblivion and that's not always a bad thing, even though I think it is a real strength of Skyrim's and it's something that sets the game apart. One thing that I really liked about Morrowind was that it felt very reactive in a subtle way that was almost mysterious. You would, I would, I remember playing that game for long periods of time and not really. Really knowing what I was supposed to be doing.

• 15:31Kirk Hamilton?

  And then I just sort of would read my diary, you know, my journal. And it would give me some indication of something in some town and I'd go talk to a guy. And then that night I'd have a dream and a spirit would appear to me out of nowhere and be like, you blah, say some mysterious shit to me and I would, I would wake up out of the dream and be like, oh, man, that was so cool. I just, I'm moving along the quest and I didn't even realize it. And so that was kind of cool. It was just, it's a little less, you know, it, it doesn't work for as many people. It's a little harder to get, to get into.

• 16:00Jason Schreier?

  Yeah. I mean, I think for me, the Skyrim scaffolding, it wasn't necessarily as important to me to have direction as much as it was to kind of signal to me, oh, there is cool things here. This world does contain multitudes as opposed to Oblivion where like, I started walking. I talked to some dude, he said some generic stuff. I found some like landmark that had some generic fantasy name and I went into it. And it was just kind of a tomb with a bunch of skeletons in it. And I was just, there wasn't really anything grabbing me that was like, okay, here is an interesting thing. As opposed to you get to that first town, you have a few interesting quests immediately pop up. You have that kind of, the person who sends you to go get the treasure from the, the burrows or whatever it's called, the barrows.

• 16:41Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, the tomb.

• 16:42Jason Schreier?

  So, yeah, so it, it just gives you more to grab on to in a way that Oblivion doesn't, doesn't necessarily have to be like guiding you to a story as much as it is a promise of something interesting there, which I didn't really get from Oblivion. But really it's just the gameplay and the combat that just made me feel like, God, this is a game of 2006. I don't want to be playing this right now.

• 17:01Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 17:02Jason Schreier?

  Anyway, um, let's talk about Claire Obscure Expedition.

• 17:06Speaker 00

  Perfect.

• 17:06Jason Schreier?

  Thirty.

• 17:07Speaker 00

  Perfect, 10 out of 10.

• 17:08Kirk Hamilton?

  This is going to be a fun episode for Jason's French pronunciation.

• 17:11Jason Schreier?

  Merde, merde, my friends, merde.

• 17:14Speaker 00

  Here we go. Goosebumps.

• 17:17Jason Schreier?

  The, the main character is Matthew Merde, isn't he?

• 17:22Jason Schreier?

  So Claire Obscure Expedition 33 just came out. It is a new FRPG, France RPG with turn-based combat. Very heavily inspired by a lot of old-school Final Fantasy games, Final Fantasy X in particular. Very French, very stylish, has also sold a lot of copies, been very popular. I believe the developers said they have sold 1 million copies, which is pretty impressive for a game that I think is not like one of the heavy hitters. Has also been reviewed exceptionally well, one of the best-reviewed games of the year alongside Blue Prince. Maddie, you've played the most. What do you think of Claire Obscure Expedition 33, beyond what you said last week in your one more thing?

• 18:04Speaker 00

  I'm so into it. And the more I play, the more into it I am. I'm really into the story. I'm in Act 2 now, so if people are playing it, they'll know which plot points I've seen transpire. And I loved them all. I thought they were amazing. I hope that you two don't get spoiled on anything, because this is a really story-heavy game, and I'm enjoying that. I feel like it's been a while since I played a really story-heavy RPG. I feel like I compared it a little bit to Metaphorie Fantazio before, and I think that still holds true in the sense that I still think it has a really original world. But I also am loving how just not awkward all the conversations feel. I talked about that as well,

• 18:48Speaker 00

  but I think that's still the case. I really love the voice acting and performances in the game. And I'm sure we're going to talk about the combat, but the more I play, the more abilities I unlock and the more I become just a full combat mastermind of Claire Obscure. Like, I remember the first few hours, I was like, "I don't know if I have any idea what I'm doing at all." And I was like talking to our guides team members a lot and being like, "How am I supposed to do this?" And then at a certain point, it clicked, and now I'm like an unstoppable powerhouse every time I enter battle. And I'm like, "Oh, I get to be creative. I get to like decide which abilities I'm going to stack on top of each other. Maybe I'm going to switch out my party members and use somebody else this time." And that's been really just fun all around. So yeah, glowing recommendation from me. I am enjoying it. Playing it top to bottom. Good video game.

• 19:33Jason Schreier?

  That's awesome. Yeah, I was struck by, I'm still pretty early. I just beat the boss with the flowers. Did you have you guys beaten that one, the boss? So still pretty early in act one or whatever it is. I was struck by one early scene where Loon and Gustav are chatting and they're kind of speaking over each other in a way that feels very natural.

• 19:55Speaker 00

  Yeah, I know what you're talking about.

• 19:57Kirk Hamilton?

  I have this in my nose.

• 19:58Speaker 00

  I loved that scene. I thought that was great. It's interesting. We all noticed it.

• 20:02Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, cuz they're arguing over whether to proceed with the mission or procedure or to break off and follow this node and try to find their buddy Myel. And the way they argue with each other feels like a way that people would argue where they're kind of stepping over each other. It feels like the way a podcast would sound if Kirk did an edit.

• 20:23Speaker 00

  But it's great. That's what's great about it.

• 20:25Kirk Hamilton?

  I get the sense that they performed these scenes in the room together. It very much feels that way. I don't know if they did. But yeah, that was the first time I noticed it, but it happens a lot throughout. It's really cool.

• 20:36Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, and I really like it too. The combat, I think I'm still kind of waiting for it to really grip me. Cuz I'm not really enjoying just kind of the random like filler encounters. They feel a little bit easy for me. But I'm really impressed by the story and the style of it all and the performances especially I find really interesting. I appreciate that this game is very focused and doesn't seem to be throwing a bazillion different mechanics at you. And it's just kind of saying, okay, here is how things work. It's also, and I don't like this about it, it's a very busy game.

• 21:14Jason Schreier?

  Everything from the UI to the visual effects on like in the like areas you're exploring and also in combat. It just feels like it's throwing a lot at you and that can be overwhelming in a way that I don't really love. But there's a lot about it I do like. I mean, I really like the Persona style UI for the combat and the snappiness of it. It feels very quick when you do things. So combat never really wears out its welcome. I like the paper. Mario RPG stuff. I like that there's chests that you have to like throw your leviathan axe at three different things to unlock. That's a fun little, that's a mechanic where I always wonder why no one else took that from God of War. So it's, it's fun that they took that one. Um, yeah, there's a lot to like about it.

• 21:59Jason Schreier?

  I'm not as kind of glowing on it just yet, but I'm certainly going to play more and see if I really fall in love with it. Cause I'm sure there's a really, I, I believe that all these critics like are adored it. So I, I, I'm curious to see like where the story goes from here, but yeah, I like it. Kirk, what about you?

• 22:18Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, I'm, I'm digging it as well. I think the story does make a very strong first impression. And I know, Matty, you summarized the narrative setup last week, but maybe let me take a crack at it now to see.

• 22:27Speaker 00

  Yeah. See if you can explain what's going on.

• 22:31Kirk Hamilton?

  It's cool. And I, I really liked your essay at Polygon about how this game resists exposition dump and just sort of drops you into the thick of things. Someone, I saw someone describe it as kind of like walking into a movie 30 minutes in, and then just having to figure out what's going on, which I've done from time to time, even on accident. Started a TV show in the middle of the season without realizing it. And I'm like, wow, okay. I guess we're just going. But then you do typically figure it out if it's a well-written show, and this I think is a well-written game. The premise is basically that in, it appears to be France, there was some sort of a massive supernatural catastrophe that stripped reality apart. In that way, it actually feels a little bit like Death Stranding.

• 23:11Kirk Hamilton?

  It has that same kind of mournful, confused energy where everyone is pretty doomed and the world has just been ripped apart and things are super crazy, but everyone's just trying to survive.

• 23:21Jason Schreier?

  Let me just interject for a second. It's Final Fantasy X, like through and through. That's the game this is taking that entire, the idea of like going on a pilgrimage to defeat this doom-causing thing and everyone's melancholy. It's all Final Fantasy X.

• 23:34Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah. Okay. But it's also Death Stranding. Um, that is true. One, it's also Final Fantasy X's combat. I think it has a lot in common with FF10 in terms of the combat design and like the turn structure and the way that initiative works. Yeah, yeah, the sort of, the way that initiative works and the way that speed and that you're kind of managing the turn economy feels to me, at least like my memories of FF10. But yeah, it has that Death Stranding feeling. I think in terms of vibes, it also feels a lot like Lies of P to me for a number of reasons. Partly it's that whole Belle Époque France like thing where it's sort of steampunk and it sort of looks like, you know, the town outside of Montmartre. And also just, I don't know, it's like, it's kind of derivative in the same ways as Lies of P where you're seeing stuff from other games, but it's being repurposed.

• 24:19Kirk Hamilton?

  The music in this game is exceptionally beautiful right from the start.

• 24:35Kirk Hamilton?

  And actually reminds me a little bit of several Japanese games where there will be like a featured vocal soloist.

• 24:47Kirk Hamilton?

  There's a singer who is like the primary, you know, the voice of the game and she'll sing these songs and the songs that she sings are like, "Claire obscur."

• 24:56Speaker 00

  Yeah, she's like singing the words "Claire obscur," which I was like, I, this might be a little corny for me. Like when I was first playing it, I was playing it like with an advanced code. I was talking to no one else and I was like, I don't know what I think about Opewoman singing "Claire obscur," but then it captured me. It captured me in the end.

• 25:13Kirk Hamilton?

  Well, and it's a rich tradition because when you start a Persona game, there is a person singing or rapping about the shadow world or about like what we're gonna do in this Persona game.

• 25:21Speaker 00

  Also, what else are you gonna write a song about if you live in Lumiere? This is what's going on.

• 25:26Kirk Hamilton?

  So, and I think she has a beautiful voice and I think that the music in general is like really gorgeous and very atmospheric and lush in a similar way to Lies of P and to just that it has a very kind of similar vibe.

• 25:43Kirk Hamilton?

  Bing! Kirk here, as I'm editing the show. I just wanted to add a little bit more about the music, since I didn't have everybody's names ready when we were recording, and I wanted to give proper credit. The score for Clair Obscur was composed by Laureen Testard, and there's a cool little promotional mini-documentary they put out, where you can watch him and all these lovely musicians recording the whole thing. The featured vocalist is Alice Dupont-Percier. Hopefully, I haven't mangled either of their names. She is wonderful.

• 26:25Kirk Hamilton?

  Also, there's really great battle music in this game. A track will begin one way. It'll sound, you know, another nice, groovy, atmospheric track. But then they'll add some new element, like a synthesizer. And then suddenly, I'm just not fighting, because I'm sitting back and listening to the music.

• 26:49Kirk Hamilton?

  So yeah, it's really special stuff. Shoutouts to Testard and all the musicians who worked on it. A wonderful soundtrack. Okay, back to the show. Bing!

• 27:03Kirk Hamilton?

  So anyways, in this world, there's been this catastrophe, and now, the Paintress, who is this massive kind of titan who sits on the horizon, will throw a number up onto this pillar behind her every year, and everyone who is that age or older gets basically Thanos snapped out of reality. And it's been 70 years since this started, which is communicated pretty early on in the game. So, society has learned to accept that this just happens, and that they're kind of dwindling in number. And so, I described it last week when you were talking about it, Matty, as a reverse Children of Men. And it has that same kind of haunted energy as Children of Men. And they do so much in that early, you know, that sort of beginning sequence, which is just during the Gomage, they call it, which

• 27:45Kirk Hamilton?

  is the day when a new group of people gets snapped away. They do so much good world-building and character work. There, the performances are really good, the writing is very understated and subtle. For such a huge, like, big idea, like, huge concept, it's like, it's very plain spoken about it. And it doesn't beat you over the head with any one thing. And it's just so sad. It's such a sad and haunted game, and I really like that about it, too. So that's one of my big takes is just that the narrative has really grabbed me. Like, I think the narrative setup is just very strong.

• 28:16Speaker 00

  I agree, and I think something else really strong about it is just the emphasis on the expedition's failing. Like, every time you're going somewhere, you're picking up these kind of notes or these flags throughout the game. Those are like your checkpoints, and they're all numbers of past expeditions that failed.

• 28:34Kirk Hamilton?

  And you're walking past the bodies of-

• 28:35Speaker 00

  And you're walking past the bodies of people who are like trying to essentially kill God, the patroness in this case, and they fail. But the motto that they all have all the time is just, we continue. And they're all focused on this idea of the expedition and the mission because part of that is passing on what they learn to the next group after them about whatever the enemies are that they're gonna face. And like, I don't know, there's something just that really works about that. It's like you're a rogue-like character, but you're like one of the runs that's gonna die. And I never really thought about that in a video game format before, but it's sad, but in a way that feels very recognizable and cool and unexplored.

• 29:13Kirk Hamilton?

  And very human. I think it's true to the scientific method and to the way, the fact of being a human being is that you try to make the world better and learn more about it so that you can leave something to the next generation. It's a really, I agree, it's a really wonderful note in the narrative.

• 29:28Jason Schreier?

  I saw some reviewers talking about how this game kind of pivots on its themes a little bit, like, towards the end in a way that disappointed some people. So I'm very curious to see what happens there.

• 29:41Kirk Hamilton?

  They're being true to their inspirations, if that's the case.

• 29:44Jason Schreier?

  Well, yeah, I was thinking about a lot of Tarifides that kind of go off the rails towards the end of it.

• 29:50Speaker 00

  I mean, it's hard to like kill God at the end of a game and have that be good and satisfying. Like, I don't know how you land that flame. It's a toughie, but I am really enjoying the ride. And I've already prepared emotionally. I'm like, this probably isn't all gonna make sense, but I'm okay with that. I'm okay with not having every question answered.

• 30:08Jason Schreier?

  So the Liza P comparison is a strong one, I think. Both very, very heavy Euro, post-apocalyptic vibes. But I also see a lot of souls in here, especially in the monster design. The monsters feel straight out of Elden Ring or Dark Souls or Demon Souls. Very creative looking monsters that don't kind of, you're not, you're not fighting goblins and, and

• 30:34Kirk Hamilton?

  No.

• 30:35Jason Schreier?

  mechs and just kind of traditional fantasy stuff here. You're finding a lot of weird, totally unrecognizable shapes and creatures. And some of them, I mean, some of them are a little just kind of, I don't know, boring looking, but I appreciate the attempt to do something that is not generic fantasy.

• 30:54Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, I agree. And I mean, to talk a little bit about my take on the combat, I'm having a great time with it. And for a little while was feeling a little similar to what you expressed, Jason, where I, it just hadn't quite clicked just because I'm early enough in a game that is clearly built around a fairly complex upgrade system and like synergy system. You assign these upgrades to your characters. You win enough battles and the upgrades become permanent. Then you spend certain amount of points to keep permanent upgrades on different characters. And eventually you're kind of kitting out each character with their own strengths and weaknesses so that they can synergize together. Also, every character has their own completely unique combat style. Maella is a good example. She's the third character in the party.

• 31:36Kirk Hamilton?

  She's the first character you kind of get after Luna and Gustav kind of team up at the beginning. And she just fights completely differently than everybody else. She, she's a kind of duelist. She's like a fencer. That's her deal. And so all of her attacks revolve around stance shifting. So you'll do a like fire attack that shifts you into defensive stance for the next turn, which means that in the next turn, you take a lot less damage, but you do less damage. Or if somebody else can light an enemy on fire, Maella can then do an attack that switches her into virtuous stance, which does way more damage and is kind of the key to her whole character. So it's already got me kind of thinking two steps ahead and trying to synergize, you know, Gustav and Luna's moves with hers because if they

• 32:18Kirk Hamilton?

  Can set someone on fire, she can get into virtuous stance and sometimes just like one shot a boss because she does so much damage. And that's just the tip of the iceberg from what I've gathered and even from screenshots I've seen where there's a jillion of these skills, you know, that you're kind of picking and choosing between. So at first I was kind of like, okay, this is a lot. Clearly it's going to develop as I go. I don't know. And then I was finding, you know, like you had mentioned last week, Matty, the parry window, because you have to parry attacks is a real time element to these fights. I was finding that really tight and a little bit inconsistent. One tip I will mention that I saw online was if you're playing on PC, to turn your V sync on and set the framerate to 60. And that may make it a little bit easier to hit some of the dodges and parries than if you're on an unlocked framerate.

• 33:03Kirk Hamilton?

  I kind of found that, I'm not totally sure. It might just be like in my head that it's easier.

• 33:07Speaker 00

  You know what? The placebo effect is real. If you think it's helping, it's helping you.

• 33:11Kirk Hamilton?

  Maybe it'll just make you play better. But anyhow, so I was kind of finding all of that. And then I just had a boss fight last night where I kind of went through and really figured out how that whole system works of the lumiere, whatever they're called, the things that you assign. Thank you.

• 33:26Speaker 00

  It's dumb. It's not a real word. None of these are real words.

• 33:30Kirk Hamilton?

  And the UI, like you said, Jason, it's very busy and very complicated.

• 33:32Speaker 00

  I agree. Those are some of my complaints too.

• 33:34Kirk Hamilton?

  I just sat down and figured it out.

• 33:36Jason Schreier?

  Lumina, pictos, merde. Not real words.

• 33:39Kirk Hamilton?

  Merde.

• 33:41Jason Schreier?

  France, not a real place.

• 33:44Kirk Hamilton?

  No.

• 33:44Speaker 00

  Yeah, it's so well developed in this game.

• 33:47Kirk Hamilton?

  Tour Eiffel?

• 33:48Speaker 00

  Yeah, like how did they come up with that?

• 33:52Kirk Hamilton?

  So, once I figured that all out and kind of assigned it, I went into this boss fight really feeling like, okay, I've got a couple of strategies I'm going to really try to employ. Most of it built around mail. And it was super fun. I had a great time. It was the first time I felt like, oh, I'm like building strategies and I was kind of kicking ass and ready for all of the boss's attacks. And I was getting better at dodging and like jumping over their attacks and stuff. So it really got fun. And I can imagine how cool it gets once you have a full party and you've really kidded everyone out.

• 34:19Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, I'm excited for that to develop. I actually, I find the upgrade in skill system very tedious. Like every time I get to one of those flags, I have to go and...

• 34:28Speaker 00

  And just randomly select some stacks and skills.

• 34:31Kirk Hamilton?

  You level up really fast.

• 34:33Speaker 00

  You do.

• 34:33Jason Schreier?

  Yeah. And so every time you get to one of those, you have to go through the, the whole thing. And then when you're in camp, you have a bazillion different things you have to kind of juggle and, and upgrade and, and think about as you go. But yes, I'm looking forward to doing more and kind of getting more to that point. But yes, Kirk, I also was doing the synergizing you were talking about. That's actually why I found it a little bit too easy to start with is because I was just using my L's virtuous stance to just destroy everything, including the optional thing. Like my characters are like, oh, stay away from that thing. And then I just went and just destroyed it because I just could follow that kind of, uh, did you guys fight that one optional boss that like eats your characters? That was a, that was a.

• 35:14Speaker 00

  I have. Although last night I fought an optional boss that I eventually was like, I'm not sure I can beat this optional boss. So I, we'll see if eventually, Jason, you think the game is hard. I.

• 35:24Kirk Hamilton?

  I've hit a couple of optional bosses that just one-shot anyone they hit. And I'm kind of like, eh, I'll come back to this.

• 35:30Speaker 00

  This one just had a combination that I didn't.

• 35:32Jason Schreier?

  Well, so I did, that, that was the first one. That actually, okay. So I, I tried, the first optional boss, one-shot your characters. The first one you can find. And that I found to be a very helpful tutorial almost in like, it was training me to parry and dodge. And once I got the hang of it, I was like, okay, now I like, I'm getting a feel for how this all is functioning. And that's not to say I'm some master where I'm like parrying every single attack, but like beating that boss, I think, got me a lot more prepared for future fights in a way that I, I found them to be much easier than I would have if I hadn't taken on that first boss.

• 36:06Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 36:07Kirk Hamilton?

  You know, speaking of the upgrades, like the character leveling up, you do level up very quickly in this game and you always have more points to allocate. And the tip that Polygon gave anyways, is that you basically want to kind of evenly distribute your points.

• 36:19Speaker 00

  That's pretty much what I've been doing too.

• 36:21Kirk Hamilton?

  Even though each character sort of has, you know, like Gustav luck is a little better and his weapons sort of scale with that. But as a result, I almost wonder if you need to be allocating points for your characters. Like if maybe they could just auto, auto level up like in some Japanese RPGs and you could just not have to worry about that specific part. Every character build. But then again, I don't know, maybe there's some min maxing strat down the road where it's helpful to be able to do that.

• 36:44Speaker 00

  It does kind of feel like Claire Obscure 2 is gonna sort out some of these kinks. I haven't even reached the end of the game. I don't even know if the story makes it possible for there to be another game, but like some of the stuff I'm like.

• 36:55Kirk Hamilton?

  Expedition 32, I guess.

• 36:56Jason Schreier?

  Well, if you all lose at the end, then you have to try again.

• 36:59Speaker 00

  Great point. And then we'll be in Expedition 32, like Kirk just said. But I do feel like some of this is like, well, it's their debut game. The studio is like clearly just working on something that's really complicated. So I'm willing to give them some grace for that. But I agree, it's so annoying to deal with Pictos. And there have been times where I've unlocked a new ability and been like, great, this is like a great new ability. But what am I going to get rid of? Like, so that I can fit this? Because you can only really have these six things lined up. And I don't know, it just becomes increasingly tedious. Like even swapping out the abilities is kind of tedious, but it's worth it because it's fun when you're actually using the abilities in battle.

• 37:39Kirk Hamilton?

  For sure.

• 37:39Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, that idea, the idea is a strong one. It actually comes from Final Fantasy IX, that idea of like, you use a skill enough times or in enough battles, and then you learn it permanently after that. And then you can equip something else. And it's like connected to your item in Final Fantasy IX, and it was connected to your gear. And it made for some interesting strategy or some interesting kind of tactics you had to do because you had to think like, oh, am I going to upgrade this character to a stronger piece of armor or keep the old piece of armor until I learn that skill and then upgrade later? And I have yet to see exactly how that's going, that that kind of interesting decision making is going to play out with the Pictos.

• 38:18Kirk Hamilton?

  It's very generous in this game because when you unlock one of those abilities, it goes across all characters, which is nice because you don't then have to think, oh, now I have to go equip this onto this guy so that he can then unlock the same ability that I just unlocked on the first character. So it reduces micromanagement and is probably good overall, given how many of these abilities there seems to be. But that is kind of a difference that's probably more generous and a good thing overall.

• 38:42Speaker 00

  Yeah. And also, like, weapons have their own entire upgrade system that is separate from all of that. And it's just like another thing. To think about.

• 38:49Jason Schreier?

  It's it's very busy. I would describe this as a very busy game in every possible way and UI and these

• 38:54Kirk Hamilton?

  Visually busy. I agree with you on that. There are times in combat where I'm doing QTEs and I'm like, ah, there's too much on screen. I can't see when I'm supposed to press that.

• 39:02Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, it's a little much. I will say when I said before that I appreciate that this doesn't have too many systems. I guess that's not quite as much of like, it does have too many kind of stat building, level building systems, but I'm glad it doesn't also have a crafting system and a skill. Well, I guess it does have a skill tree, but like other kind of generic open world side like checklisty things that a lot of games do. It feels a lot more.

• 39:25Kirk Hamilton?

  It's fairly focused. It seems fairly focused.

• 39:27Speaker 00

  And it's also not really an open world.

• 39:29Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, it's a lot more linear. Although there are side quests, so you have to kind of fast travel back like that.

• 39:35Kirk Hamilton?

  There's like backtracking.

• 39:36Jason Schreier?

  You do have to do some backtracking. All right. I think the three of us will probably go off and play more and talk about this more soon. Once we've had a chance to really kind of spend a lot more time with it, or at least when Kirk and I have caught up to you, Matty, and gotten past the first act and stuff. So let's put a pin in that. Before we go and take a break and do one more thing, I gotta tell you guys a little bit more about the Hundred Line Colon Defense Academy.

• 39:59Kirk Hamilton?

  Hearing good things.

• 40:00Jason Schreier?

  So, man, okay. So last week I talked about this as my one more thing, and I told you guys the premise of this game, which is basically the creators of Zero Escape and the creators of Dangorampa got together and made this company. And this is their kind of return to form after some whiffs that they released earlier. And I was talking about how I was pretty far into the game, and I had heard there was a flow chart of some sort, the way that like 999 and Virtues: Lost Reward have, but I hadn't yet seen it. Okay, since then, I have seen the flow chart. You guys, this game is insane. I've never seen anything like it. Okay, so the the the structure of this game, and I guess spoiler warning if you, but but you should probably know this if you're going into this.

• 40:42Jason Schreier?

  The structure of this game is that you play through these first 100 days of defending this academy through battles and hanging out with your characters, getting to know everybody and some twists and turns, sci fi twists, all sorts of crazy stuff happens. And that took me about 20ish hours and I got through the 100 days, I was like, okay, cool. This is, this is the end of the story. Sure. It is not, my friends, the end of the story. It is essentially the end of the prologue. This is the end of the first story. So you finish that.

• 41:11Kirk Hamilton?

  The real blueprint starts now.

• 41:12Jason Schreier?

  You finish that. It is very similar in that you finish that and you roll the credits. And then it's like, now you'll have the opportunity to go back through time and play through these 100 days again. Except this time, and you're kind of, the game calls it like your second playthrough or whatever. But it's more than that because in your second playthrough, you get the opportunity to make decisions. The first decision, I won't say because it's very spoilery, but I'll, I'll skip ahead a little bit. That first decision has branches. And then let's say you pick one of those branches, then you might be faced with the decision. Okay, you are being threatened. You have to leave the academy or stay in the academy and, and you can choose what to do. And it'll give you this prompt and it'll be like, decision time. And you get to choose and then that'll start a branch.

• 41:54Jason Schreier?

  And if you leave the academy, you can play for hours and hours and hours, making even more decisions as you go, each of which has their own branch. If you stay in the academy, you can play for hours and hours. Each of it has its own branches along the way. And so some of these have full on routes that they're called that like change the entire nature of the game. So like, if you make a couple of pivotal early decisions, you might wind up in the mystery route, where like, there's a big mystery that happens to the characters and they have to figure out what the deal is. Or the killing game route, where you are subjected by some torturer into a killing game. And you have to figure out how to, how to proceed. Or the romance route, or the comedy route, or like, there are all these themed routes.

• 42:38Jason Schreier?

  And then each of those routes also has like a dozen endings attached to them as you go and make these decisions. And then when you make a decision and you see an ending, you can just go right back to any decision. You can, you are seeing this flowchart unfold. So you can go back to any decision at any point and see how the other way would go. And from what I've gathered, there's like a true ending to all of this that you can only do once you've like unlocked certain parts of the story. And so you're incentivized to see all 100 endings to this game. 100 endings to this game.

• 43:12Kirk Hamilton?

  This really is like they played Nier Automata and we're like, hold my beer.

• 43:15Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, it's well, it's it's like they they took a Danganronpa game and then They played their own games. We're like, let's let's throw in 10 of these. Let's let's throw 10 of these games all into one. It is crazy, man, and it's all really, really good. There's a little bit of repetition involved and it's a little tough to like, keep track of like, where each character is or like what the current status is, but there's some helpful tools that you can use there. You can jump back to any scene and watch it again if you want. There's a conversation log that helps a lot. And also, this is pivotal, it lets you skip battles once you've already beaten them. So like on one route, you might encounter like day seven battle and then you might encounter the day seven battle on a second route. You can skip it if you've already done it. So that's also very, very helpful.

• 44:01Jason Schreier?

  And I'm so into this game that I plan on like beating the entire thing and getting all 100 endings. Cause it's really, really cool and I'm really hooked. The characters all, pretty much all of them start out awful, like Danganronpa style and then grow on you as the game goes on.

• 44:19Jason Schreier?

  Of course, there are a couple that are always cool, but so a lot of them start out awful and then just like gradually grow on you. The more you play, the more you learn about them.

• 44:27Jason Schreier?

  It's really good, you guys. I'm really into it, but like people should know how much of a time commitment it is to jump into this game. Like, I don't know, I'll report back when I've actually beaten the entire thing, how many endings that I've seen. But man, it's it's wild. It's wild. And I will say, so I bit, I beat one of the kind of one of the potential routes. So one of the second playthroughs routes versions, it was the the killing game route I beat last night and it was like a satisfying ending that like could have just, I could have stopped there in theory. Although then I wouldn't uncover all of the different mysteries that have popped up along the way. And so I wouldn't have the entire like satisfying experience, but it was a pretty good ending. Like it felt like a complete story.

• 45:12Jason Schreier?

  So it's really just telling the story of these characters in like a bazillion different ways. And I'm very curious to see. See how it all comes together. It's pretty wild.

• 45:20Kirk Hamilton?

  It's cool to hear about a game experimenting with repetition. This is like what I was writing about with blueprints and what we've found time and again, something that's true of Nier Automata. Video games are very suited to repetition. And the games that really lean into it and experiment with how you can repeat a story and play through it multiple times and change it and watch how it changes and grow to appreciate new things about it each time through. That is like a really cool thing that this kind of game does that another like a linear Mass Effect or whatever role playing game like doesn't really do the same thing. And that's not always a bad thing, but it is very cool when games lean into it since it's so uniquely suited to video games.

• 45:59Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, and Uchikashi's games have always been doing that and playing around with that form since the 999 and 009. And then there's always just kind of like these weird hints and like, it's always a fun moment in one of those games where you see something crack and it's like, wait a minute, I remember this from another timeline or something like that. That's always very, very enjoyable.

• 46:18Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, it like displays an understanding of the form, I guess. Like these game directors who really understand this kind of like and approach games that way seem to understand that element of video games in a way that is very cool.

• 46:29Jason Schreier?

  Which I love. And I think one of the keys to making it work is to make sure it doesn't feel repetitive, even as you are repeating yourself, which I think this game is pretty good at by letting you skip the combat stuff that you've already done before.

• 46:42Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah.

• 46:42Jason Schreier?

  Anyway, it's really cool.

• 46:44Kirk Hamilton?

  It sounds neat.

• 46:45Speaker 00

  That sounds awesome.

• 46:46Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, I'm curious. If you guys play it, let me know if you, if you feel compelled.

• 46:51Speaker 00

  I would like to. I mean, it's tough that all these games came out at the same time. All three colon games that we're talking about.

• 46:57Jason Schreier?

  Well, Oblivion kind of stomped on everything when it just got shadow dropped in the middle of. I wonder, I've been thinking a little bit about the kind of the ethical quandaries there. If you're like this big game developer, do you have like, is it unethical for you to just like stomp on like potential indie games that are just trying to like?

• 47:15Speaker 00

  But aren't you gonna do that every week?

• 47:16Kirk Hamilton?

  Capitalism babies, stomp on everybody, stomp, stomp, stomp, make all the money, nom, nom, nom.

• 47:22Jason Schreier?

  Well, Matty, in this case, in this case, like it's something you can't plan for because it just comes out of nowhere, whereas like. When GTA's release date gets announced, everybody in the world is going to be planning around that.

• 47:33Kirk Hamilton?

  Right, so the shadow drop.

• 47:34Jason Schreier?

  The shadow drop is a different beast entirely. I wonder about the ethics of that. Not that I would say it's unethical to like, release your game when you want to release it, but like, it does, it feels a little, I don't know, something to unpack there.

• 47:46Kirk Hamilton?

  Right, what, does anybody who worked on it think about that? Or did they have any feelings about it?

• 47:50Jason Schreier?

  Yeah.

• 47:51Kirk Hamilton?

  I wonder.

• 47:51Jason Schreier?

  Yeah. All right, let's take a break and we'll be back with one more thing.

• 48:01Speaker 04

  If you like too many podcasts, you'll love Soundheap with John Luke Roberts. It's got clips from all your favourite podcasts, such as Diary of a Tiny CEO, Leonard Sprague, tell me how you make your money.

• 48:12Speaker 05

  I go to the beach and I steal people's towels.

• 48:16Speaker 04

  Remember Armour.

• 48:17Speaker 06

  I remember the trend of everyone whacking themselves on the head with hammers and mallets when they wanted to lose weight.

• 48:23Speaker 04

  And LT John's lobbly songs. I'm here today with Kiki D. Hello, Kiki D.

• 48:28Speaker 06

  Hello, Elton.

• 48:30Speaker 04

  There's dozens of episodes to catch up on and brand new episodes going out right now, so if you want far, far, far too many podcasts, then look for Soundheap on Maximum Fun.

• 48:42Speaker 04

  Boop, boop.

• 48:44Speaker 00

  All right, we're over 70 episodes into our show, Let's Learn Everything. So let's do a quick progress check. Have we learnt about quantum physics?

• 48:52Speaker 07

  Yes, episode 59.

• 48:54Speaker 00

  We haven't learnt about the history of gossip yet, have we?

• 48:56Speaker 07

  Yes, we have, same episode, actually.

• 48:59Speaker 00

  Have we talked to Tom Scott about his love of roller coasters?

• 49:01Speaker 07

  Episode 64. So how close are we to learning everything?

• 49:05Speaker 00

  Bad news, we still haven't learnt everything yet. Oh, we're ruined! No, no, no, it's good news as well, there is still a lot to learn. I'm Dr Ella Hubber. I'm regular Tom Lum. I'm Caroline Botha.

• 49:19Speaker 07

  On Let's Learn Everything, we learn about science and a bit of everything else too.

• 49:23Speaker 00

  And although we haven't learned everything yet, I've got a pretty good feeling about this next episode. Join us every other Thursday on Maximum Fun.

• 49:31Jason Schreier?

  And we are back. We got three TV shows that we're gonna talk about.

• 49:36Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, we do.

• 49:37Jason Schreier?

  Kirk, why don't you start us off?

• 49:39Kirk Hamilton?

  All right. So My One More Thing is a Netflix show, a very buzzy Netflix show from a little while back called Adolescence that I watched over the weekend. That is one of the most remarkable TV shows I've ever seen in my life.

• 49:51Jason Schreier?

  Wow.

• 49:52Kirk Hamilton?

  Which is not actually, now that I've been reading and sort of obsessively reading and listening to podcasts about it, not at all an uncommon sentiment. It is truly remarkable. It is unbelievable. Really, really amazing. Fairly gutting, incredibly intense.

• 50:09Jason Schreier?

  Strong words.

• 50:10Kirk Hamilton?

  Overwhelming, emotionally devastating. It's a lot of things. And I will describe it to you. This is not really a show that is spoilable. It is not that kind of a show. So I'm just gonna kind of explain what it's about. This is a four-episode mini-series. It's a British production that is on Netflix. It's co-written by Stephen Graham and Jack Thorne, who are both interesting. Stephen Graham, an actor, he played Al Capone in Boardwalk Empire. That's where I know him from. He's in the Matilda movie. He's like, he's in other stuff as well. He's a great actor, kind of plays tough guys. He plays the father in this and is an incredible performance. And then Jack Thorne was the writer. Jack Thorne wrote, I believe, was the writer of the Harry Potter play that was on,

• 50:56Kirk Hamilton?

  I guess it was on Broadway and it was in the West End. And he also developed the His Dark Materials TV show for the BBC and HBO, which was really good. He's a great writer. So the two of them created this show. This is a show about a, it begins with a young boy. He's 13 years old and he is arrested in a very shocking, like, police raid on his house for the murder of a girl in his school. And it begins with that. And then the show is not actually a murder mystery. It's not really- About like whether he did or didn't do it. He is accused and it seems fairly clear that there is a lot of evidence that he did it. And it's much more of this exploration of why?

• 51:41Kirk Hamilton?

  Why did this happen? And Stephen Graham gave a great interview on Fresh Air. I'll link to a couple of things in the show notes for anyone who's watched this, since I'm sure a lot of our listeners have, since this was so, so talked about. There are some really great interviews and Stephen Graham's interview is really good. And he said he had seen this on the news a couple of times, like stories of young boys killing young girls, like in school in England. And it really disturbed him and he was like, there's something going on here. I want to make a show about it. So in the end, this is a show about that murder and why that might happen. And so as a result, it's a show that's about so much. It's about parenting. It's about trying to help your children in the world today. It's about the internet.

• 52:25Kirk Hamilton?

  It's certainly about the manosphere and like the way that radicalization can work. But it's never, it's never like telling you how things work or what people should be doing. Dana Stevens, the Slate's film critic, described it as very elliptical, which I think is a really good way to describe it. It's only four episodes and it never shows you the whole picture. It just shows you these incredibly gripping, true, like moments in time throughout this horrible tragic event that happened. And the really striking thing about this show and the thing that will grab any viewer within the first 10 minutes is that each episode is shot as a one-er. So they rehearsed for two weeks and then spent a week shooting each episode.

• 53:07Kirk Hamilton?

  So every episode is one hour long and the whole thing is one take and there's no cheating. They like really did it and it's crazy. Like the experience of watching it is unlike anything I've ever seen before. The beginning sequence with the police raid, it isn't just that we begin with like cops talking in the car and then suddenly the camera pulls out and you see them pulling up to the house and it follows the raid inside as they arrest this kid and it's really upsetting and shocking. Then the camera stays with them and it goes into the van where they have the kid and they're talking to him and they're explaining this is your social worker. He's going to need to be with you for each of these conversations. And it becomes this, you realize as you're watching that it's becoming this procedural that isn't like any procedural ever, because you're actually going through the entire procedure

• 53:52Kirk Hamilton?

  of the first hour of booking a minor on murder charges, which involves so much stuff, like really upsetting things and really just sort of mundane bureaucratic steps. There's a lot of waiting, there's so much tension, his parents don't know what's going on, and that's the first hour.

• 54:08Jason Schreier?

  Does it feel realistic yet also not boring? Because I feel like it would be-

• 54:11Kirk Hamilton?

  It's not boring and it's incredibly realistic. It's like the most gripping, it's the most gripping thing I've seen in so long. I like could not stop watching it.

• 54:18Jason Schreier?

  I mean, it's a testament to their talent that they were able to make-

• 54:21Kirk Hamilton?

  Unbelievable.

• 54:21Jason Schreier?

  That's something, something like that not boring.

• 54:24Kirk Hamilton?

  It's the opposite of boring.

• 54:25Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, wow.

• 54:26Kirk Hamilton?

  It's, the most common thing I've heard, especially from friends I've talked to, is most people start it and then they just watch the entire thing without real, like, because they didn't realize what they were getting into. The second episode jumps a few days later and takes place at the school, and it's the same two police officers are walking around and talking to students, but then the camera will go free of them and follow a student for a while, or follow a teacher, and the whole thing is choreographed around this school. It's, I don't know, the production of it is just crazy. Like, by the end, there's like a foot chase at one point, the camera goes out the window and follows this kid who's running, they run across the street into traffic, then the camera goes in the air, it's like doing drone, like it's flying over everything. So the production is crazy, but then the performances and the writing are really what makes it so special.

• 55:10Kirk Hamilton?

  Because the third episode is basically just a two-hander. It's the kid and a child psychologist. So the kid, Jamie, who is accused of the murder, he's played by an actor named Owen Cooper, who has never been in anything before, and it's one of the most incredible performances I've like seen. I don't know, I don't even know how to describe how incredible this kid is. He's with Erin Doherty, who's a well-known British actress, she's playing the child psychologist, and this whole, it's an hour of them in a room, and it's like- I can't even find words for it. Anyone who's seen it will understand why. Like, his performance is so believable, and it never, it's just, you can tell what he's not saying and what he is saying.

• 55:52Kirk Hamilton?

  The ways that he's trying to manipulate her at times into saying things that he wants her to hear. There's so much truth. It feels so believable, the way that he's struggling with like, his own self-image. The sort of dysmorphia, I think, that a lot of young boys feel about being unattractive. All that manosphere, like, looks-maxing stuff, where he's like, "I'm ugly," and he's like, "Obviously not." And he wants her to tell him that he's not, but she won't, because that's not really the mode that she's in. And then he becomes angry, and he's so scary when he gets angry. And then he's a little kid again, and you're like, it's really disorienting and upsetting and amazing. I mean, it's like, I don't know, I even, it's very hard to find words for it.

• 56:33Jason Schreier?

  I mean, it sounds unpleasant to watch. Like, I don't know if I want to watch something like this.

• 56:36Speaker 00

  It sounds like a play, in a good way. Like, which makes me wonder if the kid did theater. I mean, maybe this truly is his first role ever, but like, a lot of what you're describing is like, what you have to do when you're in a play. Which is very difficult, to be clear.

• 56:49Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah. Stephen Graham talks about how they treated it as though they were doing a play. I don't know whether this actor, Owen Cooper, had done any stage productions. Either way, like, there is a different kind of performance. Like, the camera is moving through the room. There is a lot of blocking. There's choreography. There, things are happening that are like, really elaborate technically, and allow for a kind of intimacy that isn't allowed on the stage. But yes, it does feel like a play. The final episode anyways is just the family, which is also fascinating. Like, and again, to get at Dana Stephens's elliptical thing, it's just his family. Like, it's the family of the accused, of the killer. And it's showing, it's them trying to grapple with how this could have happened,

• 57:31Kirk Hamilton?

  and what their lives are going to be now, and how they can accept that their son did this, or maybe did this, and, you know, probably did this. And just, man, the performances there, again, are just incredible. Like, it's, and the amount of truth, like, it feels so believable. Anyways, I could go on and on and on. It was really not what I was expecting. I knew- I knew it was buzzy, but when I started it, like, it just destroyed me like, and to your point, Jason, like, yeah, it's not like a fun time, but also it feels really important and really just, I haven't seen anything like it in so long, like, that felt this vital and this true, this interested in really looking at the truth of these kinds of situations without

• 58:15Kirk Hamilton?

  preaching to me about this solution or that solution, or over explaining things, or spending too long doing any one thing. It just opens this door into this reality for you and then just shows it to you so powerfully. And I really, to that, I just like, I don't even know what else to say about it.

• 58:34Jason Schreier?

  And now for a little bit of a contrast.

• 58:38Kirk Hamilton?

  I should have gone last.

• 58:39Speaker 00

  Jesus Christ. Oh, well, Jason and I are watching different television shows that aren't that.

• 58:47Kirk Hamilton?

  Maybe we'll play a little music. We can like, get everybody to relax, get back in the just chill out.

• 59:00Speaker 00

  So we are, there is at least one through line that I can paint here. So Dean and I watched The Pit, which is also a show that takes place in real time and is extremely stressful. Not in quite the way that Adolescence is, but it's stressful. It's set in an emergency room and it's 15 episodes and it's like a super long 15 hour shift. It starts at the very beginning of the shift and ends at overtime hours that those same characters are clocking in, uh, cause it's supposed to only be 12 hours, I believe. And then things go wrong and it's good. It's really cool. And, uh, it was supposed to actually be an ER reboot, but the people making the show, uh, are, I believe, currently in a lawsuit with the Michael Crichton estate because they didn't actually manage to negotiate that. And they

• 59:45Speaker 00

  just kind of made the show anyway.

• 59:47Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, fuck it. Noah Wiley's a different guy.

• 59:49Speaker 00

  They cast Noah Wiley, who is like famously played Dr. Carter on ER and he's just kind of playing Dr. Carter again, but older and wiser now. And after watching The Pit, uh, Dean and I were both just like, man, that really was. It was cool. Like, what was ER like? A show that came out in 1994. So I was a child, didn't watch it and really didn't know what the deal was. And we're really liking it. So obviously it's got some real mid 90s politics. I feel like I need to warn people about this up top. Like this may or may not be your vibe. The treatment of queer characters in particular, I would say is upsetting at times. Like this is peak AIDS epidemic. There's a lot of like episodes that I don't love on that score. So like, you have to kind of go into the show knowing,

• 1:00:34Speaker 00

  okay, there's going to be some politics of the time. But I also think it's really impressive. Like it's impressively done, even though it is not, you know, the same pace as The Pit, where The Pit tries to kind of mimic the idea of something happening in real time. It's not doing a oner. It's not doing any of the things Kirk was describing, but it tries to feel like it's real time. ER instead does like one shift per episode most of the time. That's usually the structure and a lot of things happen in real time as well. And so it really keeps up the pace. And when I was a child hearing about ER, people always said it was a soap opera. And I think it's because the term medical drama didn't really exist as much back then. Like this was in a time before we had so many different kinds of procedural TV shows, including medical dramas as part of that.

• 1:01:18Kirk Hamilton?

  It was the time before ER.

• 1:01:20Speaker 00

  Yeah, it was time before ER. And I think ER probably changed a lot of things. And I would describe it as not necessarily a soap opera. It's got some soapy bits in every episode. There's like maybe six minutes of romances between the staff of the hospital, or whatever you want to call that. That's in there. But most of it is kind of like The Pit, except in 1994 and 1995 and so on. I'm not sure we're going to watch the whole thing, but we're really digging it. So if you're like us and you watched The Pit and you kind of wanted to know where it started, you you might get a kick out of this and the politics of the time. It's cool.

• 1:01:50Kirk Hamilton?

  If you're going to stop watching, I do recommend finding the live episode that they did and just watching that one, because it's really cool. And it does feel

• 1:01:57Speaker 00

  That sounds very cool.

• 1:01:58Kirk Hamilton?

  It was a big stunt, but it was really impressive.

• 1:02:00Speaker 00

  See, I didn't even know they did that. But I could totally see how they would, because there are a lot of scenes on ER where it's like a walk and talk, like, you know, pre-West Wing, but like it has a lot of that energy where they're just going from room to room. And they really lean all the way into that on The Pit in an impressive way.

• 1:02:15Kirk Hamilton?

  And since it aired in prime time on NBC, it was much ballyhooed. It was like, we're doing a live episode and everyone tuned in to watch it. I even remember it, even though I was, I was pretty young.

• 1:02:22Speaker 00

  Yeah, it's good stuff. All right, Jason, you're the most lighthearted of us all, right? We're ending on a high note.

• 1:02:29Jason Schreier?

  My one more thing is a TV show called The Studio on Apple TV Plus that stars

• 1:02:36Kirk Hamilton?

  Hell, yeah.

• 1:02:36Jason Schreier?

  Seth Rogen as a movie executive who runs the studio and must run, must, must deal with all sorts of

• 1:02:45Kirk Hamilton?

  The poor bastard.

• 1:02:46Jason Schreier?

  All sorts of craziness. And he's also kind of a dick.

• 1:02:49Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, true.

• 1:02:50Jason Schreier?

  The studio, it's definitely lighthearted, but it's also very anxiety inducing.

• 1:02:55Speaker 00

  Is it?

• 1:02:56Jason Schreier?

  Maddie, so I don't know if it's like your description of it isn't quite.

• 1:03:00Speaker 00

  More of a comedy, but maybe it's not?

• 1:03:01Jason Schreier?

  No, no, not, not, well, I mean, kind of, but

• 1:03:04Kirk Hamilton?

  It's funny.

• 1:03:05Jason Schreier?

  It's funny. It's something funny, but I would describe it as

• 1:03:07Kirk Hamilton?

  Describe the show.

• 1:03:08Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, so it's, it's kind of like, it's like a comedy version of Uncut Gems in that

• 1:03:14Kirk Hamilton?

  That's a very good description.

• 1:03:15Jason Schreier?

  You're following someone around as he's just a ball of anxiety all the time, like having to make horrible decisions. So the premise of the show is, it's also delightful. I mean, I absolutely love it.

• 1:03:28Kirk Hamilton?

  Just laughing, thinking about, go ahead, sorry. It's a funny show.

• 1:03:31Jason Schreier?

  I keep turning to Amanda after every episode. I mean, like, holy shit, like, I can't believe this show is so good. I love this show so much.

• 1:03:38Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:39Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, so it's, it's every episode, it's a procedural, so every episode tells a different story, but it starts off with this kind of ridiculous premise where the studio head is fired and Seth Rogen takes over her job, but this owner of the studio, the kind of real mogul who calls the shots, played by Bryan Cranston, comes in and gives him some edicts that he has to make happen in order to get that job. And one of those edicts is to make a movie based on the Kool-Aid man.

• 1:04:11Speaker 00

  This sounds like comedy to me.

• 1:04:13Jason Schreier?

  Everything goes off the rails from there. Well, the premise is hilarious, but they take it very seriously because that's what they have to do.

• 1:04:20Speaker 00

  That rules.

• 1:04:21Jason Schreier?

  And every episode is very different. A lot of them are themed. So like, there's one episode, the next episode is really remarkable. I mean, talk about what Kirk was talking about one shot.

• 1:04:30Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:30Jason Schreier?

  The next episode is, is called The One-er, and it's all about the behind the scenes at this one shoot that they're supposed to be shooting this one-er and the entire Episode is shot like a oner and so it's very cool to watch and very hilarious to watch Seth Rogen just keep stepping on rakes over and over again as he tries to make this happen. Seth Rogen, he's kind of, he's played as this guy who like really loves cinema and especially loves artsy cinema and really cares about movies in this deep, passionate way. But also is just kind of a clueless studio executive who is just bumbling and is always like screwing things up for the creatives. And people want to take advantage of him all the time and it's just kind of a mess.

• 1:05:12Jason Schreier?

  And there's some great stories and episodes in there. There's one that's kind of like a riff on Chinatown where it's all about this movie set where like one of the film reels gets stolen and it's, it's parodies. And he's like noir films to a T and it's pretty great.

• 1:05:29Jason Schreier?

  Seth Rogen winds up in like wearing a trench coat and like a fedora because he showed up and said that it was too cold. And so he had to borrow one of the, the, the uniforms from the actual set itself.

• 1:05:41Kirk Hamilton?

  Oh, he winds up in costume again, in wardrobe again. Oh, that's really.

• 1:05:45Jason Schreier?

  He's always, always putting on costumes. And yeah, it's just so much fun to watch, but also just you're kind of on the edge of your seat the whole time. Because what's he gonna screw up this time?

• 1:05:56Kirk Hamilton?

  Like I, I watched that oner episode like through my fingers.

• 1:06:00Jason Schreier?

  But it's so much fun. It's like, I would describe it as like a cross between uncut gems and Curb Your Enthusiasm. Because it's got a lot of both of those.

• 1:06:09Kirk Hamilton?

  A little BoJack. It's got a little of that BoJack Hollywood satire.

• 1:06:13Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, it's got, yeah, some satirical stuff for sure. I mean, the concept of like, oh, now we're making Kool-Aid.

• 1:06:20Kirk Hamilton?

  Barbie works, so we want Kool-Aid.

• 1:06:24Jason Schreier?

  Kind of like the what time is it right now.com.

• 1:06:29Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, it's exceptional. I loved it. I highly recommend it to everybody. I'm like, it's the rare show. There hasn't been a show in ages where I'm just like waiting every week for the new episode to come out. And like excited to watch it as it happens as opposed to like waiting to marathon it all. So yeah, really enjoying it. Really, really love it. And it's, even the credits are like. Set up like an old timey film reel. It's really cool. There's just a lot of it that is just like very much an appreciation for film, but it's also just kind of a satire of the modern film industry and how self-serious. There's one, the most recent episode, fantastic episode, but it's all about Seth Rogen going to this

• 1:07:07Jason Schreier?

  convention of doctors and they all just kind of laugh at his job the entire time and how he thinks he's so important while they're saving lives and it's very entertaining. Yeah, just a delightful show to watch. I'm just enjoying every second of it and Seth Rogen is fantastic. Also shout out to Ike Baranhols, who is a very longtime character actor, underappreciated, who always kind of steals scenes whenever he's in anything. I remember him from like The League. He plays like one of the villainy villainous characters and he's always like a villain and stuff, like a douchey villain. He's very good at playing a douchey villain. And in this, he's Seth Rogen's best friend and studio executive, fellow studio executive, who is just truly ridiculous and

• 1:07:52Kirk Hamilton?

  He's wonderful.

• 1:07:54Jason Schreier?

  Steal scenes as always, but also Catherine Han is in it and Catherine O'Hara plays a major role in some of the episodes as well. But just a great, a great show. I love it. The studio. Everyone should check it out.

• 1:08:06Speaker 00

  I'm gonna watch it.

• 1:08:07Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, I've watched just a little bit and it is, yeah, the filmmaking craft on display is super wild. It is very funny to watch it and then have adolescents come out and be like, what is in the water right now? Everyone is like making the most incredible looking stuff I've ever seen.

• 1:08:19Jason Schreier?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:20Kirk Hamilton?

  But yeah, it is definitely a love hate letter to movies, which is a, it occupies a funny place for that reason.

• 1:08:26Jason Schreier?

  It is a very funny place. It's clearly, I mean, yeah, it's like in the same way we love hate video games. Like it's clearly they love them, but like they also, there's so much to criticize.

• 1:08:34Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:08:35Speaker 00

  I'm sure it's based in like semi-real experiences and like succession.

• 1:08:39Jason Schreier?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:08:39Speaker 00

  There's probably like people out there being like, this is too real and this is actually based on this real person.

• 1:08:44Kirk Hamilton?

  Well, and the cameos are out of control too. There's a cameo in at least every, at least one in every episode.

• 1:08:49Jason Schreier?

  Oh, yeah. I mean, Seth Rogen got his whole Rolodex of contacts for this from like Martin Scorsese to Olivia Wilde to so many, many more.

• 1:08:57Kirk Hamilton?

  Charlize Theron, yeah.

• 1:08:59Jason Schreier?

  And they are all just like making bid appearances. That's one of the reasons it reminds me of Curb is because that sort of thing happens. I know all the time, too. All right, that is it for this week's episode. Well, hopefully we'll get some time to play some more Clara Obscure and we can talk about it a little bit more next week, perhaps. We'll see. In the meantime, Kirk, Manny, I'll see you both next week.

• 1:09:20Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, see you both next week.

• 1:09:22Speaker 00

  Bye.

• 1:09:25Kirk Hamilton?

  Triple Click is produced by Jason Schreier, Maddy Myers, and me, Kirk Hamilton. I edit and mix the show and also wrote our theme music. Our show art is by Tom DJ. Some of the games and products we talked about on this episode may have been sent to us for free for review consideration. You can find a link to our ethics policy in the show notes. Triple Click is a proud member of the Maximum Fun Podcast Network, and if you like our show, we hope you'll consider supporting us by becoming a member at maximumfun.org/join. Find us on Twitter at TripleClickPod, send email to [email protected], and find a link to our Discord in the show notes. Thanks for listening. See you next time.

• 1:10:23Kirk Hamilton?

  Maximum Fun. A worker-owned network. Of artist-owned shows. Supported. Directly. By you.