Nintendo News and More Silksong

Jason, Kirk, and Maddy convene to discuss all the news in the latest Nintendo Direct, from the Super Mario Galaxy movie to a new Fire Emblem and the mysterious Danganronpa 2x2. Then: more Silksong! They talk about difficulty, opacity, and how cool Hornet is... I mean seriously. She's just so cool.

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

• 0:04Speaker 00

  We all thought it was impossible for Samus Erin to be any cooler, but we hadn't yet seen her on a motorcycle. Welcome to TripleClick, where we bring the games to you. This week, we talk about the September Nintendo Direct, new Fire Emblem, 80's 2 and 1.0, and the Virtual Boy. Okay, Nintendo. And we also talk a little more about Silk Song again.

• 0:31Speaker 00

  I'm Maddy Myers.

• 0:32Kirk Hamilton?

  I'm Jason Schreier. And I'm Kirk Hamilton, and hello.

• 0:35Speaker 00

  Hello. We're back again.

• 0:37Kirk Hamilton?

  Welcome back.

• 0:38Speaker 00

  We did it again.

• 0:39Kirk Hamilton?

  Back again.

• 0:40Speaker 00

  It did an elaborate series of jumps over various spikes, and traps, and flowers, and pogoing in whichever direction we personally prefer, and we all made it here.

• 0:50Kirk Hamilton?

  Tore ourselves away from Silk Song.

• 0:52Speaker 00

  To the safe resting place that is TripleClick. And we're grateful. I feel like I'm delivering a sermon, although I guess that fits the Silk Song vibe. I am clearly, all I have on the brain is Silk Song, but it's not too long ago that all I had on the brain was Ocarina of Time. And why should I say that? Because we recorded a bonus episode, three of us, where we spilled the beans on everything that happens in Ocarina of Time. That's out in the bonus feed. And how would you get access to that bonus feed? Well, you would go to maximumfun.org/join, and you'd become a member, and you'd support us.

• 1:34Speaker 00

  You'd make sure that we keep making this wonderful show that is ad-free every single time. But also, you get a monthly bonus episode, which this month is Ocarina of Time, like I said. And next time around, it's gonna be us spilling the beans on Silk Song, or spilling the rosaries, whatever. Spilling, spilling the bugs?

• 1:55Kirk Hamilton?

  You spill a lot of rosaries in this game.

• 1:57Speaker 00

  I do spill a lot of rosaries.

• 1:59Kirk Hamilton?

  Spill a lot of beads. We're spilling the beads. It's a beads cast.

• 2:03Speaker 00

  Yeah, it's a beads cast.

• 2:04Kirk Hamilton?

  Beads?

• 2:06Speaker 00

  We will, we will have that in the bonus feed. But once again, maximumfun.org/join is where you would go in order to become a member. But hey, we're here for a main feed episode today. And we're just, we're just gonna talk about, about video games yet again. Jason. Lead us, lead us through this thorny path.

• 2:28Jason Schreier?

  Through the promised land.

• 2:30Speaker 00

  To the Citadel, to the gate.

• 2:32Jason Schreier?

  So a few things have happened. We, we got some more Silk Song to talk about. We'll put a pin in that until later. We'll call the pin master.

• 2:40Kirk Hamilton?

  Oh, yeah, pins. No, pins are in the game, too.

• 2:42Jason Schreier?

  Cause first we gotta talk about the Nintendo Direct. Last week Nintendo held a big 60-minute Nintendo Direct, and once again Silk Song did not appear, but a few other things did appear. A whole bunch of news got announced at that one, and it feels like they finally laid out their full plans for Switch two releases this fall, including the release date for Metroid Prime 4, which comes out in December, and a bunch of other stuff. I want to talk about a few things. First of all, the Mario Brothers movie sequel is called Super Mario Galaxy, and hearing Gusty

• 3:24Jason Schreier?

  Gardens play in like a film trailer is pretty wild, I've gotta say. Are you guys excited? Did you guys both see the first one? And are you excited to see Mario Galaxy?

• 3:34Speaker 00

  I mean, it was fine. It's a kid's movie.

• 3:37Jason Schreier?

  It was fine, yeah.

• 3:37Speaker 00

  I gotta admit, I will watch it. I'm, I'm not gonna pretend I won't watch Super Mario Galaxy despite not having children. I'm having no real reason to see this film, but I will, I will watch it and I will probably have a perfectly adequate time, which is how I felt about the first one. How do we feel about them skipping over all these other Mario games, though? They're just going straight into Galaxy? We're just going ahead?

• 3:59Kirk Hamilton?

  No Doki Doki panic.

• 4:00Speaker 00

  I mean, does the canon matter? I don't know. It's, it's Mario.

• 4:04Jason Schreier?

  Well, I mean, the last one was, did already, already did like a lot of Mushroom Kingdom stuff, right? And so like Mario World, Mario 64, you don't want to do Mario Sunshine. That would be a weird title for a game. Mario Galaxy, you just, you're up in the stakes. You're going to space. It's like what Marvel does, right? It's like when they run out of things to do on Earth, they just send the characters to space.

• 4:26Kirk Hamilton?

  Bring in the aliens. I'm excited about it. I actually started playing Galaxy for the first time when that collection came out, the 3D collection for Switch. Cool. Galaxy is amazing. I mean, my god, it's, it's an incredible game and also narratively really cool. I mean, it has a narrative that actually feels sort of beautiful. It has this bittersweetness to it. And then a lot of that is actually the music. I was happy to hear the Galaxy music play at the very end of the trailer, just because it sort of put me in that mode. And yeah, I think they could do a lot of cool stuff with that. Introduce the new princess, introduce, I don't know, some of those cool and funky, unique mechanics that you see in Galaxy. I think it could be a lot of fun.

• 5:05Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, Rosalina is a cool character. Yeah, it could definitely be fun. Also, as part of this announcement, they announced that Super Mario Galaxy 1 and 2 are getting a remastered re-release on the Switch and Switch 2, which is cool because that 3D All-Stars collection that you mentioned, Kirk, is no longer available for sale for some inexplicable reason.

• 5:27Kirk Hamilton?

  And it didn't include Galaxy 2, is that correct?

• 5:30Jason Schreier?

  It did not include Galaxy 2, so this will be the first time you can play Galaxy 2 on modern platforms.

• 5:34Kirk Hamilton?

  And I've heard it's like, kind of almost feels like, I don't know, the hardcore DLC for Galaxy 1. Is that an accurate way of describing it? It's not quite as magical, but it has like a lot of ideas and is really kind of wild.

• 5:45Jason Schreier?

  I really like it. Yeah, that's a really cool game. It has Yoshi, it has a lot of fun. Yes, you're right that it does feel like DLC with a whole bunch of new ideas. It's almost Silk Song-esque in that way, the way you just described it.

• 5:56Kirk Hamilton?

  And I haven't played it. I'm really just going off my memory of reading the internet or whatever.

• 6:00Jason Schreier?

  No, you're right. That is an accurate description from what I remember, that it's kind of like, like a DLC turned into a big sequel or something like that. I was taken aback when I saw that they are charging $70 for this remaster collection or $40 for each game on its own. I was a little, I was a little surprised by that one.

• 6:22Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, did they, I actually haven't seen this part of the direct. Did they, are they changing it in more substantive ways than the 3D All-Stars version? Or is it pretty much just the 3D All-Stars version being sold to us again? Just given it to you again.

• 6:33Jason Schreier?

  Well, so, okay, so that 3D All-Stars version. Like for it makes no sense, but for some reason that is no longer available to buy. You can no longer buy 3D, Super Mario 3D All Stars, either physically or digitally.

• 6:44Kirk Hamilton?

  It makes sense if you're Nintendo and you want to make money.

• 6:47Jason Schreier?

  Well, no, because you're no longer selling something that would make you money. Like that's been off stores. Like they released it as a limited edition product for some reason. But again, both physically and digitally, I think this is the only time they've done that digitally.

• 7:04Kirk Hamilton?

  I guess they can re-release Sunshine at some point if they want to. They could now piecemeal, re-release the games in that collection.

• 7:11Jason Schreier?

  I guess. None of it makes any sense. But anyway, $70 for Galaxy 1 and 2, which is, man, that's, that's a lot. New Fire Emblem game. Uh, looked, looked cool, looked, looked more appealing than the last one. Fire Emblem Engage, where all the characters had cotton candy hair and uh, it was uh, the story was left, left a little bit to be desired. This one seems a little more grounded.

• 7:35Speaker 00

  I remember those strategy mechanics were kind of fun. Once you actually got far enough.

• 7:39Kirk Hamilton?

  Super fun. It was a great strategy.

• 7:41Speaker 00

  I liked it and I just kind of played with the sound off a lot and had a great time. But yeah, I, I definitely would like a new Fire Emblem that does something a little different. We'll see. I think everybody wants to recapture the magic of Three Houses, right? I mean, who among us?

• 7:57Kirk Hamilton?

  There are people who don't like Three Houses from a strategy perspective in particular. I was surprised actually reading through threads reacting to this trailer, which I thought looked really cool. And yeah, for me, it's exciting because I do really like Three Houses and I like having that narrative layer over top of the strategy. Just because you get so pumped up when it's a big showdown and it's finally been building to this for so long.

• 8:20Speaker 00

  And it's your friends or your enemies. Yeah.

• 8:23Kirk Hamilton?

  Like I do like that part of a Fire Emblem game, even though I haven't played every single one. And there are definitely people who have, who have very, I think, well-informed takes about the variety of encounters in particular. And I think that was what Three Houses was seen as lacking. Uh, they just, there weren't that many types of battles that you would have to do compared with some other games. And I don't know whether they'll address that or not, but. Narratively, yeah, like the tone of this trailer was really cool. It looked something like Three Houses. It's kind of a Colosseum setup, like there's a, there's kind of a very violent games, like Olympic Games going on, which would be a fun backdrop for a game like this. And yeah, I mean, just watching the trailer got me pumped up to play another Fire Emblem.

• 9:05Jason Schreier?

  Some theories also that it's like a sequel to Three Houses or possibly a prequel, a lot of.

• 9:10Kirk Hamilton?

  Right, cuz, cuz what's her name is in the, is it the stinger, the like goddess, who she's like a kid in Three Houses, but she also grows up at one point. She's like travels through time or something, so.

• 9:20Jason Schreier?

  They always make the goddesses look like children.

• 9:24Speaker 00

  While also being immortal and ageless.

• 9:26Kirk Hamilton?

  Indeed, they do.

• 9:27Jason Schreier?

  Metroid Prime 4, Samus has a bike now. What do we think of Samus's motorcycle?

• 9:32Kirk Hamilton?

  They give everyone a motorcycle in these games.

• 9:34Speaker 00

  You know what? I'm a sucker for this. I think the motorcycle is awesome. I think it looks great. I was already gonna play this game, but now it has a motorcycle in it. I am excited to ride a motorcycle. I also think those sections look like they could be slightly open worldy. I'm not sure if I'm overthinking the trailer too much here. It's just a trailer, hard to say. But if the game's a little bigger, that would explain why it's taken them so long to make. But I also am naturally hesitant about that because Metroid games being very specific and confined experiences where abilities unlock certain things and it's a coherent streamlined world, changing that to be slightly open world could break everything.

• 10:19Kirk Hamilton?

  I would imagine, I would have to imagine that if there is an open world element to this game, it'll be like a hub.

• 10:25Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 10:25Kirk Hamilton?

  And that, you know, and even the hub will have.

• 10:28Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 10:28Kirk Hamilton?

  And the hub will have gates, like just sort of similar to the beginning area of Prime where you go back there a lot. It's just a lot bigger and has kind of more of an open world feel, but I think there are a lot of ways you can do that.

• 10:38Speaker 00

  Yeah, that feels like it could work. And also, like, I assume the bike is gonna make it easier to travel long distances, so maybe you can just have bigger areas, but they're still-

• 10:47Kirk Hamilton?

  The bike's name is Apona.

• 10:49Speaker 00

  Yeah, and you can call the bike from anywhere in the world, and she'll come to you.

• 10:53Kirk Hamilton?

  Play a little song.

• 10:54Speaker 00

  You play her special song.

• 10:56Jason Schreier?

  Metroid Prime 4 first announced at E3 2017-

• 11:00Speaker 00

  I know, right?

• 11:01Jason Schreier?

  At the end of the Nintendo Direct. Just, that was the same E3 that Breath of the Wild- no, sorry, not Breath of the Wild. Mario Odyssey was like the main focus on like, showing off the hat and stuff. Breath of the Wild had just come out.

• 11:12Kirk Hamilton?

  And Breath of the Wild had just come out. It was, they were, Nintendo was on fire, and we were thinking, oh great, Metroid Prime, we'll see that in a few years.

• 11:18Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, we were thinking, oh man, can't wait for next year. In 2019, they put out this apologetic video where a couple of Nintendo executives said, "We're so sorry, this development is restarted." Reportedly, it was in development at Bandai Namco, and then switched over to Retro Studios in 2019, and so now it is coming out about six years later. So, pretty normal AAA game development time, if you don't count those first two years. So, eight years since it's been announced, six years since it's restarted development at Retro Studios. Retro also since then has made the Metroid Prime 1 remaster slash remake.

• 12:00Speaker 00

  And I've given up on there ever being a two or three remake. I think we're just imagining those games didn't happen.

• 12:05Kirk Hamilton?

  Never say die. It could happen, one of these days.

• 12:07Speaker 00

  Hey, if it happens, I can be pleasantly surprised.

• 12:10Jason Schreier?

  Well, I don't think we were imagining it. There were definitely rumors about-

• 12:12Speaker 00

  I know.

• 12:13Jason Schreier?

  -those being in existence. They weren't just made up.

• 12:15Speaker 00

  They never happened, so I don't know.

• 12:17Jason Schreier?

  Maybe the rumors were made up, but we didn't make them. They weren't your fever dream, Maddie.

• 12:23Jason Schreier?

  Also, we announced Pokemon Minecraft, AKA Poketopia, which was a real, that was a real, a real trip, watching a ditto transform into a person, but keep the same face, and then go around and like, build stuff and create a farm and do all sorts of Minecraft slash animal crossing stuff.

• 12:39Kirk Hamilton?

  This is like when we saw Mario in New Dog Cities, standing next to normal human beings.

• 12:43Jason Schreier?

  That is, yes. Also a trip.

• 12:45Speaker 00

  Yeah, there's like a plotline in Detective Pikachu about ditto's taking on human form, but it like had a horror- Element in that movie. I thought that was really cool and unnerving that I don't know that anybody else remembers that. Clearly it was burned into my brain and just what I thought about.

• 13:00Kirk Hamilton?

  That movie, but, but it was pretty fun. I just put it on one night and then we kinda just kinda lost the because we had to do something and then never finished it. But it was pretty fun. It was kind of the beginning of this current era of video game movies just being very true to the game and then being successful as a result.

• 13:15Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 13:15Jason Schreier?

  They could totally, if they wanted to go all out, they could make it like a Resident Evil or Silent Hill style Pokemon game with the Didos as people and they like, like totally shock you, like you have to figure out who's imposters.

• 13:27Kirk Hamilton?

  That's the thing. I mean, it's basically the thing.

• 13:30Speaker 00

  Oh, my goodness. Yeah, yeah. Or like pod people. Yeah, you name it. It's creepy.

• 13:34Jason Schreier?

  Also announced Virtual Boy support and they're releasing actual Virtual Boy headline for all those people out there who thought Nintendo was, gave up on being weird.

• 13:45Kirk Hamilton?

  Wait, did any of you, did either of you have a Virtual Boy?

• 13:47Speaker 00

  No.

• 13:48Jason Schreier?

  No.

• 13:48Kirk Hamilton?

  I had one. So I was on a band trip, I think in high school and we were just at the mall, like, I don't know, getting lunch and all the other band kids were there and I passed by, you know, whatever, an electronics boutique or one of those gaming stores and they had just a huge stack of Virtual Boys for sale for like nothing. So this is when they were in give up, fire sale. Just get, make back whatever we can. This is a failed experiment mode.

• 14:13Speaker 00

  Oh, my God.

• 14:13Kirk Hamilton?

  And I bought one and got a few games and I had it for a long time and I think just gave it away or something. I would kind of wish I'd kept it though.

• 14:19Speaker 00

  Did it make you sick? Cause you like VR, so maybe you were cool with it.

• 14:24Kirk Hamilton?

  It has so little in common though with like modern VR. I mean, regular VR, like modern VR is not super easy on me either. Like I can play it, but it doesn't make me immediately sick. It's not always super pleasant, but the Virtual Boy was a cursed device. I mean, it was genuinely awful physical experience.

• 14:41Jason Schreier?

  And, and now you can recreate that experience today.

• 14:44Kirk Hamilton?

  There must be like, people must have created emulators for like the Quest or whatever other VR headset where you can play, you know, virtual, virtual tennis or whatever those other games.

• 14:54Jason Schreier?

  I suspect people will buy this just for the novelty of it and then maybe be like, what are we doing here?

• 15:00Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah. I mean, I have one of those super mini Super Nintendos in a drawer somewhere that I bought that I never use. People are suckers and they're much bigger Nintendo suckers than me out there.

• 15:09Jason Schreier?

  Couple more things, Dragon Quest VII Remake, that looks hilarious of hilarious character models in that one. That's a fun one for all the Dragon Quest sickos out there. The order of them doing Dragon Quest Remake so far has been Dragon Quest III, Dragon Quest I and II, which comes out next month, and now Dragon Quest VII, which comes out in February. Interesting, interesting decision making there. Dragon Quest VII, even for, it's a good one, but even for Dragon Quest standards, it's like way too long, to the point where even the developers are like, this game is too long. In this remade version, we're gonna cut down some of the fat. So this game should be kind of a, that's why they're calling it Dragon Quest VII Reimagined, because they're not

• 15:53Jason Schreier?

  just changing the graphics, they're also just kind of like slimming it down a little bit. I expect it'll still be like an 80 hour game, but it won't be quite as unreal as the original one, which is really fascinating. This is one of those games where it's like you have this party of characters, turn-based RPG, all the typical Dragon Quest flourishes, character classes, all that stuff. But it's very much a, it's like a sequence of short stories. You are on this island and you go out to different islands throughout the world and each of them kind of has its own kind of genre, almost like themed story. It feels very much like, like, I don't know, one of those manga collections or anime collections or whatever, where it's all a bunch of different genres, which I think is what they were going

• 16:35Jason Schreier?

  for. Should be fun to revisit in February. I'm excited for that one. You two might not be quite on the level of sicko JRPG as I am.

• 16:43Kirk Hamilton?

  I'm trying to remember. I think it's Dragon Quest V. There's one of these that I played, but I, they all kind of blur together for me. But I believe it was V that I played on the DS. But I don't think I've ever played the seven.

• 16:54Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, I don't know. I don't, I'm trying to remember, was seven remade for the DS? I don't remember. Might have been a 3DS thing. Another four, five and six were remade for the DS and then seven and eight were the three DS, I believe.

• 17:07Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, I think it was five. It might have been four. It was four or five. It was cool. Those games are fun. I just never really quite like make time or find them quite remarkable enough to really commit, even though I think if you do, I get the sense if you do, they become quite interesting and rewarding.

• 17:20Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, they can be. I mean, they're, they're also good, just kind of TV watching games. Hades 2 gets a 1.0 release in just a couple of weeks. Actually, by the time this airs, it'll just be one week. This is less exciting, at least for me personally, it's less exciting than some of the other big, I mean, Silk Song as an example, just because we've played a lot of it already. We did an episode, we talked about Hades 2 last year when it first entered early access. I'm excited to see what else is in there and play some more, but we, it's not brand new.

• 17:54Speaker 00

  Yeah, I'm curious how much they've added to it because I played a lot of the first version, the early access version of Hades 2, saw a big chunk of the story.

• 18:02Kirk Hamilton?

  I think the most of the three of us, right, Matty? You played the most.

• 18:04Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah. And enjoyed the story, but that means that I'm like, I feel like I should start over again. And then I'll notice if they've changed the story at all. But yeah, I, I know they changed Hades 1 a ton after early access. And I'm not sure if that's going to be the same here.

• 18:20Kirk Hamilton?

  I, so I barely played Hades 2. I'm actually really excited about this. I've been waiting for this. Like I played, I don't know, only a few runs, enough to kind of talk about it briefly on the show. But I like just stopped because I said, you know what? I'm just totally gonna wait. So I haven't seen the story. I haven't really gotten super far. I haven't figured out all the systems. And all I really know is, or the only person I've heard really talk about it at length is Justin McElroy on The Besties, who he like kept playing and he's just been playing, or at least he was playing for a long time. And he just like, you know, he, he was really excited, like he was always kind of sharing, you know, new updates and kind of keeping up with the latest big updates because there have been a few really big updates for the game.

• 19:02Kirk Hamilton?

  And it sounds really cool. So I'm actually like coming in pretty fresh. I'm definitely going to start a new game and I'm very excited about this. It is funny timing only because it's like two big, intense, difficult indie games that I'm just, they're going to demand a lot of time and focus. But they're both great games and they're both sequels to games that I love. So I'm certainly going to play Hades 2.

• 19:22Jason Schreier?

  Last announcement that I thought was noteworthy, Danganronpa 2 times 2.

• 19:28Kirk Hamilton?

  What a weird announcement, right?

• 19:30Jason Schreier?

  Super weird. So what was weird, there are a couple of things that are weird about this. What is they announced like just Danganronpa 2? They already released the three main Danganronpa games as a compilation that came out on the Switch a couple of years ago and Steam, modern platforms. So for them to be like, Danganronpa 2, now it's on modern platforms is very strange. Then they said with some new tweaks in mechanics and I was like, oh, okay. Like, what's the point of this? And then they said they're adding an entire new scenario to the game that they have since said is like as big as a normal Danganronpa campaign. And then you think about it again and Danganronpa 2 times 2 is 4. And it's like, is this a secret Danganronpa 4 announcement?

• 20:14Jason Schreier?

  Cause they've done like, I don't think you two finished the third one, but they've done some kind of twisty things with titles of games.

• 20:22Kirk Hamilton?

  There was twisty stuff in 2 as well, yeah.

• 20:24Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 20:24Jason Schreier?

  Well, no, with with titles specifically, they've done like specific twisty things with the titles of these games. And so for them to be like, Danganronpa 2 by 2, hmm, and secretly release like a Danganronpa 4, that is very intriguing to me. So I will have my eye on this one. That is slated for launch next year. Cause yeah, what a strange thing to be like, we're just re-releasing 2 for some reason.

• 20:48Speaker 00

  Yeah, you're right.

• 20:49Jason Schreier?

  And also there's a new campaign in it. Like, is this secretly? I don't know. There's something really interesting here, I think.

• 20:55Speaker 00

  I I'm kind of with you now. I didn't think of the 2 times 2 of it all. It does feel like it's 4 now. I don't know.

• 21:02Jason Schreier?

  Yeah. I mean, the the caveat here, of course, is that Kodak, who is the director of the first three games, is no longer with Spike Chunsoft. He's made games with them, but he has his own studio now. He just released, we talked a little bit. It was my one more thing, 100 Line earlier this year, one of the best games of the year, I think, one of my favorites.

• 21:19Kirk Hamilton?

  Which I've started and is very cool so far, but I know it's very long, so I don't know how I'm gonna play it.

• 21:23Jason Schreier?

  Crazy ambitious game. Yeah, man. And it's hard to imagine him also having the time to work on a new Danganronpa game. So maybe this is new people doing it? I don't know. I I'm I I'm excited to see what they do with this thing.

• 21:37Kirk Hamilton?

  And without spoiling anything in Danganronpa 2, given some things about the setup of that game, it seems as though it would be ripe for this kind of thing.

• 21:45Jason Schreier?

  What do you mean?

• 21:47Kirk Hamilton?

  Oh, well, I mean, I don't want to spoil it, I guess. So I'm just saying that for anyone who knows what is going, what is actually happening.

• 21:53Speaker 00

  The circumstances of what you mean.

• 21:54Jason Schreier?

  Got it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's actually, it's hard to really talk about the nature of the series without spoiling the ending of the third game. So I just won't go there. But yeah, lots of questions about. Before we talk about some other stuff, like Silk Song, any other kind of announcements you two wanted to bring up from the Nintendo Direct?

• 22:15Kirk Hamilton?

  No.

• 22:16Speaker 00

  Nah, looked cool.

• 22:17Jason Schreier?

  Okay, cool. Let's talk about Silk Song.

• 22:19Speaker 00

  More motorcycles for everyone. Maybe Hornet should have a motorcycle.

• 22:23Kirk Hamilton?

  DK could get a motorcycle.

• 22:24Jason Schreier?

  You haven't finished the game yet, Maddie, so.

• 22:27Speaker 00

  I know, maybe she gets one.

• 22:28Jason Schreier?

  Don't make assumptions.

• 22:29Speaker 00

  Maybe she gets one.

• 22:30Jason Schreier?

  Let's talk some more about Silk Song. The game's now been out for a couple of weeks. I think people have made their way further in so we can do a little less stancing around spoilers. So I guess I'll warn people here that if you want a complete spoiler free Silk Song experience, you should skip ahead to one more thing. Don't, don't listen to this segment. Cause I think we'll get into a little bit more about the game, maybe talk a little bit more about our experiences with it.

• 22:54Kirk Hamilton?

  And since we told people to skip ahead, I'm actually going to give them a timestamp to skip ahead to. So here's a timestamp for one more thing. If you don't want to hear any of this, the timestamp is 46 minutes and 34 seconds. That's 4634.

• 23:09Jason Schreier?

  All of us have gotten at least past act one. Maddie just finished act one. Kirk is in the thick of act two and actually beat act two at some point, but isn't yet on act three. And I have finished the game.

• 23:22Speaker 00

  Congrats.

• 23:23Jason Schreier?

  Yes, very recently. I've completed the game. And yeah, let's get into a little bit. I know I for one was like surprised by the structure of the game and how it just kind of transforms when you finish act one. And essentially it's just a second game in there. But let's get into it. I mean, do you guys have, have your thoughts on the game kind of evolved or changed at all since we last talked about it last week?

• 23:50Kirk Hamilton?

  Hmm.

• 23:51Speaker 00

  A little bit. I mean, it definitely gets more difficult. I was very early in the game still when we last talked about it. And it doesn't mean that I don't agree with my past self about how patient you have to be to kind of withstand some of the things that this game throws at you and how many times you might have to watch a boss's patterns, for example, before you can defeat it. But by this point, I have faced a lot of challenges that aren't even bosses and are just regular enemies or, you know, platforming gauntlets that have been things that I've found very challenging. And it doesn't mean I'm not enjoying it, but I feel like I definitely saw

• 24:35Speaker 00

  a lot more stuff in the second half of act one that I was like, wow, there's a, there's a lot here. This is, this is testing the limits of my 39 year old reflexes and making me appreciate every last brain cell that I still have alive. You know what I mean?

• 24:54Kirk Hamilton?

  This is like from Graymore onward, kind of like blasted steps and the woods.

• 24:59Speaker 00

  Yeah. I mean, if you choose to do Sinners Road, I did blasted steps and then circled back to that, which I'm glad I did because Sinners Road is very hard, I would say. I don't love the poison swamps there. But blasted steps is tough. Although by the time I was, by the time I beat the boss there, I had done that run back so many times. I was like doing it in my sleep. Like the boss run backs, I got so good at. I know we kind of like hinted at some of those run backs getting really long. But I just kind of enter a meditative state at a certain point where I'm like, jump, jump. You know, I'm not even, I'm not even human anymore.

• 25:40Speaker 00

  I am hornet. I'm just, I'm embodying this song. Yeah, that's, that's me at my best. But me at my worst is when I enter a room that I don't know is a kill room and I don't know how many waves there are. And then I get angry and then I take a break from the game because I'm mad. How are you feeling Kirk?

• 25:56Jason Schreier?

  The door is shut and you're just like, oh my god.

• 25:59Speaker 00

  Yeah, you never know. You never know when that's gonna happen. Ugh.

• 26:04Jason Schreier?

  Sometimes you know. Sometimes you walk into a room and it kinda looks like an arena.

• 26:09Speaker 00

  Yeah, and I feel like usually you can kinda tell the boss rooms, or so far I feel that way. But there have definitely been some rooms where I'm like, oh, I was gonna spend these rosaries on something else. I didn't realize what was happening here. And now they are maybe gone and I might need to just move on with my life.

• 26:27Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, I mean, I, I think that like, the complaints about losing rosaries are super overblown. Because there's so many, and the game, well, and the game gives you ways to recover them. If you find, um, if you find, uh, there's a certain-

• 26:43Speaker 00

  Yeah, the little silk things that you can eat. What are they called?

• 26:47Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, that if you find a certain spider hidden in Sinner's Road, she'll make you these cocoons that you can get. And then they bring your cocoon to you so you can get them if you're like really stuck somewhere. Um, and those are limited, but still, I mean, you can keep going back and getting more and more of them. Um, and also rosaries are not, I mean, I don't know, maybe the beginning of the game, they seem like they're super rare. But it's really not that bad. And in fact, part of one of the kind of, the silver lining of these long boss runbacks is that you can pick up a bunch of rosaries on the way if you just stop and patiently kill the dudes. Well, shards aren't, you don't lose shards.

• 27:27Speaker 00

  If you're using tools on a boss, then you can might need them.

• 27:29Jason Schreier?

  But my point is, my point is more just that like the rosary economy, I don't think it's that big of a deal. I also don't think that you need to be buying every single item that you got. Like I completed the game without buying a lot of the tools, um, or finding them all that necessary. Um, so I think if you get to a shop and you see a bunch of things and you're like, oh my god, I lost those 200 rosaries. I could've used those on this tool and now I can't. Uh, it's not the end of the world. Um, and then especially in act two, you wind up getting a whole bunch of rosaries that you can then just like go back and, and shop, um, for them.

• 27:59Speaker 00

  I do feel like act two rosaries are more plentiful. I agree. Like, I was surprised by that.

• 28:05Jason Schreier?

  All that said, yes, those arenas, there's nothing worse than that sinking feeling of like, "Oh, my God, I have three health left and the door's just shut and now I'm just totally screwed because a bunch of dudes are gonna come out and who knows how hard they're gonna be."

• 28:18Speaker 00

  I don't know who's coming out or what.

• 28:19Jason Schreier?

  But on the flip side of that, there's also something super awesome and elevating and cathartic if you manage to take them out even under those circumstances.

• 28:28Speaker 00

  That's true.

• 28:29Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, on the rosaries thing, I definitely don't lose rosaries. I mean, I just don't... The rosary system almost started to feel totally irrelevant to me. I guess I play a little bit differently, maybe, in that I'll just go farm rosaries. I've bought every single item because I like having all the toys.

• 28:45Speaker 00

  Aww.

• 28:45Kirk Hamilton?

  And it's just fun to play with them. I use the same two tools, the like triple daggers

• 28:50Speaker 00

  Love those.

• 28:51Kirk Hamilton?

  and the star trap that I talked about last week. I mean, I use those 90% of the time. But I like having everything. I like to buy everything. But it's really easy to get rosaries. If you're at the halfway home in Graymore, there's these three pilgrims right to the right of the bench there. You can just run over there and like kill them in one second and you pick up like 25 rosaries and then just go rest. And like if you like farming, which I actually do in games like this, I find it kind of calming to just go farm some. You can just like crank out a ton of rosaries and I complained some last week about the shards, which we kept calling stone shards and are actually, I believe, shell shards. But anyways, the shards that you need to craft tools. I still kind of find that system to be a little bit like extraneous.

• 29:36Kirk Hamilton?

  But I suppose in the way that I kind of almost find the beads and the run back, like losing your beads when you die, soul style to be a little bit extraneous at this point, like because it just doesn't matter. Like the thing that bums me out about dying is that I have to get my silk back and there's no way to just kill myself really quickly. I almost wish there was a way to sacrifice your rosaries and just get all your full silk capacity back so you can just go do something else instead of having to go and like kill yourself and then collect the silk from where you just died. But anyways. If you farm and like build up a bunch of rosaries, you can just go buy packs of shards with your extra rosaries. And then I just never run out of anything. So I find all of that to just be sort of-

• 30:14Jason Schreier?

  Farming, farming Hamilton over here, Kirk Farmelton.

• 30:18Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, I find it, I find it calming. It's something that I'll do sometimes in between really challenging parts of the game. Because the thing is, like, as you said, Matty, Act 2 is incredibly difficult. It becomes really hard, especially in the optional parts of it, which are a little bit tied to like, I think, getting to Act 3. Like, they're not necessarily tied to getting to the credits, which I just rolled this morning. You know, the path there is pretty straightforward, but I did some incredibly hard things along the way that were not essential. And were really, like, having, that was tearing my hair out. I mean, there are just some very difficult things. And there's one challenge room in particular that is actually on the main path in the, in the forum, as it's called, that is like, really, really hard. And just, I just spent forever trying to beat that. And so there are these, like, very difficult parts of the game.

• 31:04Kirk Hamilton?

  You know, they've mitigated it somewhat. There's a patch now where I think, I talked last week about the platforming is hard, in part because some of the platforming falls would cost you two masks. They've actually reduced some of those falls to one mask, which really helps in platforming. I, I feel like that's like, just feels more fair than losing two masks. It just gives you fewer tries on a platforming, so, on a platforming challenge. So I find that to be a little bit easier. But yeah, it's, it's a hard game. And I want to recommend to, to listeners, to check out Christian Donlin's review in Eurogamer. I think it's a fantastic review. There are definitely some reviews out there that just feel incomplete, or they're kind of just, I don't know, they're the little surface level. Like, I haven't been that impressed with a lot of the critical writing about this game yet. But so far at least, Donlin's review really stands out to me.

• 31:48Kirk Hamilton?

  It's very well-written, and it really gets at the, the like, suffering and the trial, and the patience, and the just kind of arduous nature of the game, and how that's intrinsic to its meaning. And I do think that that's very true about this game.

• 32:00Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, man, I've been thinking, so having finished the game now, the final, final boss, like, the true final boss is really tough. Probably the toughest thing in the game. I don't think anything in this game is a lot, is on the level of the optional challenges in Hollow Knight. A lot of that stuff I just couldn't do. I never wound up doing the god home gauntlets, or like, beating Nightmare King Grim, or anything like that.

• 32:24Kirk Hamilton?

  Same.

• 32:24Jason Schreier?

  Um, that stuff, I think, is way harder than anything in Silksong, at least until the DLC comes out and blows this all away.

• 32:31Kirk Hamilton?

  And notably, that stuff was all added after the fact as DLC, and Silksong hasn't gotten any DLC yet. That's good to hear, because I think that stuff is too hard. Like, that stuff is sicko hard.

• 32:40Jason Schreier?

  That is, yeah.

• 32:41Kirk Hamilton?

  To me, it's like actually in a different category than most of Hollow Knight, which I kind of include everything up to the radiance, is like reasonable to me.

• 32:49Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, so now, having seen pretty much everything in Silksong, to me, the entire game, with maybe one exception, feels fair in its difficulty. There's no boss that has RNG attached. Every single pattern, you can recognize, either from the audio cues, or the visual cues, or both, and you can get out of its way. It's all just about executing on that pattern. But it's never unfair. Like, there aren't, uh, I don't know, I can think of a few Souls bosses, or Elden Ring bosses, that have some level of RNG that makes you feel like, man, this is like stupid. That doesn't happen in Silksong, which I think is an important part of that difficulty question. I think maybe the exception is, uh, there's some stuff past Sinners Road that is truly

• 33:32Jason Schreier?

  ridiculous, and stupid, and annoying, and not fun to play.

• 33:36Kirk Hamilton?

  Let me throw a word out there, because there is a boss that I beat, that, where I think you're talking about, Jason. There's a, there's one run back that's just absolutely outrageous. And I think there's another word we can add to our kind of lexicon here, to include with difficult and also fair versus unfair, where this game is difficult but barely unfair. I think this game is frequently arduous. I think it feels like a real trial. There are times where you'll get through this really, really long, incredibly difficult level, and arrive at a multi-phase fight that goes and goes, and then a boss comes into the room, and you're barely hanging on, and you die, and you think, oh my god, so the

• 34:17Kirk Hamilton?

  next thing I have to do is all of that, as many times as it takes me, to probably beat the boss, who is hopefully the last part of it, but I don't actually even know that. And like- It doesn't feel unfair. It does feel difficult, but I think that arduousness, the feeling of like weight that you have to carry is such a big part of this game. And then carrying the weight is like part of the experience of playing it. It's like you suffer at times and they want you to, and you feel that from the game. And it's, it's a really interesting and not unique to this game, but a very distinct thing that this game is doing.

• 34:54Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, it's also very useful as a progress marker because what seemed arduous five tries ago is suddenly just like you're zipping through it and getting to the next thing. Sometimes it can feel a little bit like the game is trying to waste your time if you have to fight through the same gauntlet over and over again, just to have a chance at like getting reps on the boss. But I also think it can be really, it can be helpful in other ways. It can be soothing and meditative, like Matty mentioned with the runbacks, and it can also be just kind of like a measure of your success, almost like, I don't know, like having a child's kind of growth chart and being like, man, look, look how tall I was. I may, I may not seem that tall now, but look at me now compared to five years ago. That's kind of what these stages of these boss fights can feel like.

• 35:40Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, and waste your time is like a very particular phrase that I would like, I would really try to, you know, take to mean exactly what it means, which I think the only way this game would waste my time is if I felt like the time it was asking of me was just kind of arbitrary. It was saying, you're gonna have to do this just because we couldn't be bothered to design a bench halfway through this run back. And it never feels that way to me. It's on purpose. They're making me spend my time. And, you know, sometimes I resent them for it or I feel mad in the moment, not in a way that makes me want to stop, in a way that's actually part of the whole experience is looking and being like, fuck you, like at the game. But like you just rage sometimes at the game and that's like, that's part of it. And you talk to your friends and you complain and then you push through it and you eventually win. And it's like, that's all part of the

• 36:23Kirk Hamilton?

  experience. So yeah, I certainly don't think that this game wastes my time at least.

• 36:27Speaker 00

  Yeah, I, I guess I agree. I, I also think you alluded to something that is important, which is just the, the religious theming of the game and the idea that suffering is part of what all of these characters undergo and that in Hornet's perception, some of that suffering is meaningless. And she's very kind to them about it. This is the thing about the game I really like is the way Hornet talks to people. Like she doesn't have this like- Atheist YouTuber sensibility where she could be like talking down to people about their thoughts. Instead, she'll often just be like, well, it doesn't make a lot of sense to me, but okay. And like that, combined with her coming across

• 37:11Speaker 00

  design choices on the part of this theocracy in the world of the game that feel cruel. Not because like the game designers themselves are cruel, but because they created a cruel world that she has to navigate. And that is something that I really try to take with me when I'm experiencing something frustrating in the game or something that's frustrating me, I guess I should say, is that I'm like, well, is this fitting with the world? And I have yet to find an example where it isn't the case that it's fitting with the world, that like it would be a cruel world that she's navigating.

• 37:48Kirk Hamilton?

  A cruel and a broken world.

• 37:49Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 37:50Kirk Hamilton?

  I think the brokenness of it is part of it, like that things don't work and so they don't work how they're supposed to.

• 37:54Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, totally.

• 37:56Jason Schreier?

  Also a big part of Hollow Knight, of course. Um, there's one more thing I wanted to talk about, which is that this game is opaque in many ways. The story is opaque, just like Hollow Knight's was. A lot of context you could just kind of have to figure out through item descriptions and reading between the lines of what characters are saying, or just kind of figuring out the metaphor. But that is also true of some of the quests. And unlike Hollow Knight, this game actually spells out quests for you. But just like Hollow Knight, there is kind of a fake out ending and then a true ending. And in this case, it's even more pronounced. Um, so what happens in this game, and here I'm going to kind of do some, some broad structural spoilers, but these are spoilers that I think everybody should know, or at least will be able to figure out pretty easily.

• 38:41Jason Schreier?

  Because it's, you kind of have to know if you want to see the entire thing. So what happens is you finish act two and you beat a boss and then credits roll and you get what is basically an unsatisfying ending. And it's very clear. It's very clear that there is more to the story here. Yes, very similar to Hollow Knight. It's very clear there's more to the story. But the game doesn't actually signal to you in any way how you are supposed to unlock the third and final act that concludes the story and gets you on the path of the true ending. And the answer, I recommend finding kind of like a spoiler free guide online somewhere because it's pretty opaque and vague and not something that most people will be able to figure out on their own.

• 39:25Kirk Hamilton?

  Do you think that we could find one and link it in the show notes for people? Like if you could vet one and give it to people?

• 39:30Jason Schreier?

  I posted my own version in the Discord that we can link.

• 39:33Kirk Hamilton?

  Okay, we'll link to that then in the show notes.

• 39:34Jason Schreier?

  But basically, you have to be just doing a lot of the side stuff and then you also have to be like, collecting enough fleas that you reach a certain point and then you get one specific one that you happen to find somewhere and then that'll activate a trigger and then eventually that'll get you to the wish that starts the process of unlocking the third act. And it's kind of, there's nothing in the game suggesting that this needs to happen for you to see the true ending. It's just kind of expecting you to go and do everything. But you can get really frustrated because you can feel like you've done everything, but then there's nothing signaling you to find this one hidden flea who will then start the process of activating the ending. And that I think is actually a frustrating part of the game, especially because some

• 40:18Jason Schreier?

  of the quests are just kind of busy work. There's one, I don't remember if we mentioned this last time, but there's one that's just like finding bells. And this is the one part of the game that is randomly generated and the bells are just randomly generated in the tunnels. It's a very strange choice.

• 40:33Kirk Hamilton?

  It's so, it's so bizarre. It's like the one big, big whiff. I mean, it doesn't take long to do it, but it is noticeable.

• 40:39Jason Schreier?

  Well, I didn't realize when I was first viewing it, I didn't realize that they were going to be randomly generated. And so I was just kind of frustrated, like trying to figure out. I guess you're meant to just find them as you navigate the tunnels, like anyway. A lot of those quests, by the way, are meant to be done as you're doing other stuff anyway. And a lot of them are very cleverly designed because a lot of them lead you, breadcrumb you to other massive hidden areas. Like Matty, you mentioned Sinners Road. A lot of people will go through the game not knowing that exists until you go back to Bellhart and you find a quest that will take you to find- Someone that gets you right to the entrance of Sinner's Road and shows you its existence. So there's a lot of stuff like that in the game. A lot of the quests are good in that way. But yeah, but some of them are tedious still, and some of them are just like rosary dumps and stuff.

• 41:24Jason Schreier?

  And all of this stuff you have to do to unlock the true ending. And again, the game doesn't tell you that. And that I think is the real, one of the, the kind of the biggest flaws in this game is that there isn't more signposting from Act Two to Act Three. And in fact, I think from, based on some reviews I've read and some, some feet, some criticism I've seen online and some people's reactions that I've seen online, I suspect a lot of people will just roll credits after Act Two and be like, okay, done. Sort of like Blueprints where it's like, no, there's a lot of game left. Like just because the credits rolled doesn't mean you're actually done if you want to see the full like intended experience. And in this case, Act Three is like a whole new game on its own. So it's kind of a must. So yeah, I recommend if you're playing this game and you haven't gotten there yet, I recommend that when you finish Act Two,

• 42:08Jason Schreier?

  you look up exactly what you need to do to unlock Act Three.

• 42:13Kirk Hamilton?

  Man, can I just say that Act Two has some of the greatest musical moments in this game? Last week I was talking about how great the music is, how, what a great job Chris Larkin did. But man, I mean, like some of the, the choral chambers theme in particular is just outrageously beautiful.

• 42:50Kirk Hamilton?

  Double reeds, man. Oboe and English horn, secret weapon.

• 42:59Kirk Hamilton?

  So that's an obvious standout, but really there's actually a really horrible area later where it has some of my favorite music in the game. It's this really beautiful background music. Where normally, when you're in a horrible area in one of these games, it's like, meh, you know, low since or nightmare music.

• 43:14Speaker 00

  Like, yeah.

• 43:15Kirk Hamilton?

  There's really beautiful music playing there. Some of the boss fights have incredible music, even though I eventually do usually take my headphones off so I can focus.

• 43:22Speaker 00

  Just to focus, yeah.

• 43:23Kirk Hamilton?

  Hornet gets some cool musical moments, as I mentioned last week. I mean, it continues to be the case that music is like an essential part of Silk Song. Like, the Silk Song is the entire narrative, like, thrust of the game. And man, there are all these, like, cool little songs, too. So instead of playing the game this weekend, I, like, did a whole rearranged remix, playing along with Chakrasong.

• 43:58Kirk Hamilton?

  And now I kind of almost want to do that for all the other NPCs. Like, Shurma has the little song that they sing, and I think that would be really fun. So I've, like, gone down a very deep, already very deep rabbit hole in the music of this game.

• 44:15Kirk Hamilton?

  And it just continues to be, like, musically, just the narrative part of the music. I mean, watching Hornet whip out her harp every time she does it, it's the coolest shit ever. And I'm certain there's gonna be even more of that.

• 44:27Jason Schreier?

  You mean her needle-in, Kirk.

• 44:30Kirk Hamilton?

  Yes, her needle-in, apparently a very large mandolin.

• 44:32Speaker 00

  Needle-in, what a good name.

• 44:34Jason Schreier?

  All right, so yeah, we'll be getting more into Silk Song in our Beans Cast in a couple of weeks.

• 44:40Kirk Hamilton?

  Beads Cast.

• 44:40Jason Schreier?

  So make sure you sign up for Maximum Fun, so you can listen to that in a few weeks. And we'll be spilling the whole thing, getting, getting deep.

• 44:48Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah.

• 44:48Jason Schreier?

  Into our favorite stuff.

• 44:49Kirk Hamilton?

  Spilling all the beads. Uh, yeah, I can't wait, I can't wait to, to, to do all this extra stuff. I'm really in a very fun part of the game.

• 44:56Speaker 00

  Yeah, that'll be fun.

• 44:57Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, I'm excited to talk about, like, our favorite discoveries and stuff like that, that'll be cool.

• 45:01Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah.

• 45:01Jason Schreier?

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

• 45:06Speaker 03

  You guys wanna try and do this promo with British accents?

• 45:09Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah, of course.

• 45:10Speaker 05

  Let's do it.

• 45:10Speaker 03

  Okay, okay, Ife, you go.

• 45:12Speaker 04

  Oi, bro. This is TV Chef Fantasy League.

• 45:16Speaker 03

  Fantasy League. Okay, Sierra.

• 45:19Speaker 05

  We take cooking competition shows and treat them like fantasy sports.

• 45:22Speaker 03

  Like a newscaster. Very posh. Right now, we're doing the Great British Bake Off, or The Great British Baking Show, if you're listening from the US.

• 45:30Speaker 05

  Oh, that was really soothing.

• 45:32Speaker 04

  You chose like a prim and proper.

• 45:34Speaker 03

  Thank you.

• 45:34Speaker 04

  Mountain Abbey.

• 45:35Speaker 03

  Thank you. Okay, Ife, I think you have the best accent. You wanna take us home?

• 45:37Speaker 04

  Subscribe to TV Chef Fantasy League on MaximumFun.org and wherever you get your podcasts.

• 45:46Speaker 04

  Better than my Boston one.

• 45:52Speaker 06

  Hi, everybody. It's Ellen Weatherford.

• 45:54Speaker 07

  And Christian Weatherford.

• 45:56Speaker 06

  People say not to judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree.

• 45:59Speaker 07

  But we can judge a snake by its ability to fly, or a spider by its ability to dive.

• 46:05Speaker 06

  Or a dung beetle by its ability to navigate with the starlight of the Milky Way galaxy.

• 46:10Speaker 07

  On Just the Zoo of Us, we rate our favorite animals out of 10 in the categories of physical effectiveness, behavioral ingenuity, and of course, aesthetics.

• 46:18Speaker 06

  Guest experts like biologists, ecologists, musicians, comedians, and more join us to share their unique insights into the animal kingdom.

• 46:26Speaker 07

  Listen with the whole family on MaximumFun.org or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 46:34Jason Schreier?

  And we are back, Kirk. Matty, it is time for one more thing. Kirk, start us off.

• 46:41Kirk Hamilton?

  All right, so my one more thing is a book, but it's more of a broader topic. So.

• 46:46Jason Schreier?

  Classic Kirk.

• 46:47Kirk Hamilton?

  Well, yeah, because I read the book Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yaras, which is like one of the bestselling romanticy books out there.

• 46:54Jason Schreier?

  One of the bestselling books out there, like.

• 46:56Kirk Hamilton?

  Sure, but I but also it is a romanticy book and is kind of notable as one of those. And I've been reading a lot of fantasy lately from a variety of different authors. And I thought, oh, what the hell, I'll read this one. It's probably fun. And read it and then found it to be, it's not a great book, but really interesting in some ways. And then I wound up reading this New York Times article that I want to refer people to. It is called Why Magic Dragons and Explicit Sex Are in Bookstores Everywhere. It's from August by Alexandra Alter for the Times. And it is a really interesting story, and that's actually kind of really what I want to talk about. Because Fourth Wing, like, it's just not really quite my thing.

• 47:39Kirk Hamilton?

  Like, it's, it's just not very well-written, and in the end, like, I'm happy to have books that have, like, fantasy and sexy stuff and, you know, whatever. Like, for example, Lee Bardugo's two most recent ones are very fun, they have, like, a lot of sort of sexiness in them, but they're great, they're really well-written, they're like these killer stories with really exciting, interesting worlds. Fourth Wing, it's so derivative, you know, it's like dragon riders who go to a dragon school, and I just have seen so much of it so many places. A lot of the, the writing is like, it's like reading the internet. So you read the whole book in like five minutes, and it kind of feels like reading the internet, just the way that it's written. That's the best way I can describe it. But I would argue that that's not really the point, and that's kind of part of even maybe why it's successful, is that it's just so readable.

• 48:24Kirk Hamilton?

  It's very sexy, I mean, there's like incredibly graphic sex scenes in this book that are like, you know, it's pretty funny to just be reading a book and then be like, on the, on the bus and like, you're like, oh my god, can anyone see what I'm reading right now? And, you know, in any other media, if you were watching like a movie or something, you'd like, like, close your iPad, you know? Yeah. So it's kind of a, it's an interesting part of the book, I guess. But what really strikes me is that this genre of romanticy, which is, a lot of the books are like this, like, they're kind of, they're not, the point isn't really that they're like wonderfully written or super original. In fact, a lot of them are based on fanfic, and that's something that this article gets into, that I think is part of what makes this such an interesting moment in time for like, the world of literature.

• 49:08Kirk Hamilton?

  So Fifty Shades of Grey, of course, kind of kicked this off. Yeah, I was gonna bring that up, because, yeah, this, it's history. Notable Twilight fanfic. Right, so that's kind of where this started, and I can't remember when the first one of those was published. I've actually never read any of those books or seen the movies. Two thousand, two thousand and eleven was Fifty Shades of. And I gather that Fifty Shades is sort of similar to Fourth Wing in that there's like explicit sex scenes. So it's like really steamy and you're reading it and it's like very adult. And so it kind of has that smutty appeal. And these books, of course, are based on Twilight fanfic, which I didn't know. I had no idea about this. I think I watched a Folding Ideas video series about the movies that I, or at least part of that series. It was kind of a like really long series.

• 49:51Kirk Hamilton?

  And he really goes in depth, Dan Olson, really goes in depth about how they were written and like the whole story. The kind of author behind them who sounds like a real piece of work and, you know, just the whole thing that it started as Twilight fanfic. And then she basically realized, oh, if I just change it from Edward and Bella to like this billionaire guy and this girl. I can like basically have the same story and I can publish it without infringing on anyone else's IP. So that has now become a template. And there's an upcoming book that I didn't know about called Rose in Chains. That is written by another fanfic author who was really into Harry Potter fanfic. And actually, Harry Potter fanfic on like AO3, on an archive of our own, is like one of the biggest categories on AO3. And I'm sure some listeners will be very familiar with this.

• 50:35Kirk Hamilton?

  And I think that some other listeners will be less familiar with this. So I'm partly talking to people who have never really heard of this stuff. And if you're not in these particular nerd worlds, you might not know about it. And actually, that makes this New York Times article a really good primer. So basically, a big, there's a whole sub-subcategory of fanfic, which is Dramian-y fanfic. And that is fanfic about Draco and Hermione. And in particular, there's one, and I'm forgetting the name right now, but it imagines that basically Voldemort won, Harry Potter died. And like, it's all really awful, like all the good guys were killed and like Hermione is like enslaved and like branded and sold at an auction.

• 51:12Speaker 00

  Yeah, I've heard of this one. It's very famous.

• 51:14Kirk Hamilton?

  Draco buys her. It's incredibly famous.

• 51:16Speaker 00

  According to some definitions of the world.

• 51:17Kirk Hamilton?

  What's it called? It's called like, I know one is, a story is called The Auction. Anyways, it's in this, it's in this New York Times article. Bing, the original fanfic series is called Manacold.

• 51:28Kirk Hamilton?

  So basically, he buys her, but then like, it turns out he's actually tortured over what happens and he's kind of bad, but maybe he can be saved. And it's like a really long series. Classic. Yeah, where it's like enemies to lovers, kind of a, it's all these different tropes of this kind of fanfic. And so this author has then taken it and turned it into rose in thorns, or rose in chains, sorry, which is like the same idea, but it's not Hermione and Draco Malfoy. It's like different magic system, et cetera. And I think there's another one that this is happening with as well. And I'm struck by a few things about this. First, I think it's just so interesting that the world of literature is being completely dominated. The statistics from this Times article are that last year, romanticy sales

• 52:08Kirk Hamilton?

  topped more than 32 million copies in print alone, a 47% jump over the previous year. And five of the 10 bestselling adult fiction titles this year are romanticy fiction novels. So half of the bestsellers this year are romanticy. And, and I just think, I think that that is very interesting. I think it's notable that so many of the authors of these romanticy books are either currently Christian or were raised in conservative, Christian or Mormon, like, upbringings. And I mean, I've talked about, a lot about Brandon Sanderson on this show, who is notably Mormon, and his books are also notably sexless, which is a real contrast with all of these romanticy books. And I'm sure this is something that people

• 52:51Kirk Hamilton?

  who know more about this kind of thing than I do have talked about. But there's just something there, that a lot of these authors come from conservative backgrounds. And then just the fact that we live in this age of like, constant moral panics over books, and like, actual book bannings that are happening in libraries and at schools, over, you know, things like, uh, gender identity, or LGBTQ issues, or things that freak out the right, or specifically, the religious Christian right in America, and say, oh, this book is horrible, and it's corrupting our children, and we can't have it in, in school libraries anymore. While at the same time, a whole bunch of like conservative Christian women, or at least formerly conservative Christian women, are writing explicit porn. And it's like topping the bestseller list.

• 53:35Kirk Hamilton?

  I just, there's something there, like there is like, there's some kind of really big, hard to fully understand, like, statement about where our culture is at, that I just think is so interesting and I had no real idea about, until I read Fourth Wing and then read this New York Times article and started thinking about it.

• 53:52Jason Schreier?

  Well, so the part of the story you haven't mentioned is the effect of TikTok. A lot of this has come because of what's called BookTok, which has become like one of the biggest drivers of book sales in the last, I don't know, two, three years, to the point where if you go to Barnes and Noble, you'll see sometimes like a big stack of books that is like popular on BookTok. Yeah, BookTok recommends. And a lot of this is coming from that, where just like a lot of people, mostly women, are reading these books and talking about them and advertising them to other people. And it just kind of like took off from there. I haven't actually seen any of the TikToks or anything, but like a lot of these sales are coming from TikTok. People in the book publishing world, of which I know just a tiny bit,

• 54:34Jason Schreier?

  but like from what I've heard and seen, are kind of looking at this, eyes askew and being like, oh, interesting. But also really happy because it's encouraging more people to read, which is an important part of this, which is like, so a lot of young people might be getting into smut, but at least they're reading books. And that is always good.

• 54:52Speaker 00

  Yeah, that's like what people used to say about Harry Potter. I have such mixed feelings about that. Like, I read Twilight, I've read them all, I read Fifty Shades, I've seen the movie. But it's really, it's tough for me personally, having also read many incredible feminist explications of these books and the themes they're in, for these to be the books that are becoming such a cultural zeitgeist. And I think it really does say something about like societally where we are, in terms of like, what are the acceptable sexy books? And they're ones where women are in bondage and it turns out they kind of like it. I'm not kink shaming in any way by saying this, I'm just noting the trend.

• 55:36Speaker 00

  And I think there's something interesting about that. And it's not always, I don't know, I don't always feel great about that being the only thing that is dominating all of these romanticy books, you know what I mean?

• 55:49Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, so a couple of thoughts on each of those things in order. One, yeah, book talk is an interesting part of this. I think it's like a, it's partly a marketing vector. Like, the cultural part of this is, goes beyond that, or at least to me, like, the book talk part of it is like how these books are spreading and why I think a lot of people who aren't necessarily big readers are reading them, though there is a long history of, you know, genre smut aimed at women that kind of flies under the radar, that other people don't talk about, that sort of predates TikTok. But TikTok is a real acceleration engine, and that's certainly part of why they're so successful. But there's so much else there too. Like, it's like, book talk is like an interesting aspect of it, though, for sure. And yeah, to the subject matter, I will say that Fourth Wing is not about that.

• 56:29Speaker 00

  That's good.

• 56:30Kirk Hamilton?

  It is definitely like, it's, you know, it's clearly actually, very explicitly at times, written to not embrace toxic tropes in a way that feels incredibly clumsy, like the narrator.

• 56:42Speaker 00

  And it also can be cringe-worthy, too, yeah.

• 56:45Kirk Hamilton?

  Oh, I mean, you will cringe out of your skin reading this book. The narrator is so unbelievably horny, but also empowered, and also vulnerable, and she loves a man who is like, a bad guy, but actually, he is actually a good guy, and he is not toxic, and he's not abusive. And then the nice guy, like, turns out to be toxic, and like, she, like, establishes boundaries, and they talk a lot about different things, and it's all very heavy-handed.

• 57:07Speaker 00

  That's so funny.

• 57:08Kirk Hamilton?

  But it's not a bad thing. There's a lot of enthusiastic consent. And, you know, it's a hetero relationship, but there's also a lot of queer characters in the book, and they're just depicted as regular characters, like anyone else, which is nice. And I should say that when it stops being about the romance, it becomes a lot more fun, or at least, I was enjoying the parts of the book that are just about dragons and fighting. Like, it can be pretty exciting at times. It's mostly the romance stuff that's just so over the top that I couldn't really deal with it sometimes. Like, it just made me laugh. But it's very much like, it feels like the next generation of these books, which are kind of people who have probably been on Book Talk a lot, and seen a lot of the sort of call-out videos and posts and critiques.

• 57:47Speaker 00

  Right. And have seen the, like, backlash to the Fifty Shades era.

• 57:50Kirk Hamilton?

  Right. And been like, I'm gonna write something that is immune to all of that, that can just sell a billion copies, and be really fun and breezy, have a lot of sex, and like, make money. Or at least, that's, that's my most cynical read.

• 58:01Speaker 00

  Yeah. Fascinating. I guess I shouldn't throw stones at Fourth Wing, when my, my vantage point for this is like Fifty Shades, where I'm like, God, this is not for me, but...

• 58:13Kirk Hamilton?

  Right. I think this is kind of the next generation. And it's not to say that Fourth Wing is unimpeachable by any stretch. I haven't like read any feminist critique of Fourth Wing, but it does seem to have been written explicitly to go beyond those tropes.

• 58:28Speaker 00

  Fascinating. What a weird spot.

• 58:30Jason Schreier?

  The other big one is A Court of Thorns and Roses, which is why you said roses, rose and thorns.

• 58:36Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, that must be why I'm mixing it up because yeah, that's mentioned in the Times article.

• 58:40Speaker 00

  Yeah, I keep seeing that in bookstores too.

• 58:42Jason Schreier?

  Well, that's a series. It's a big series. I think there are five of them and it has sold, I believe, 13 million copies. So that one is everywhere. Yeah, it's a fascinating trend. All right, Maddie, what's your one more thing?

• 58:57Speaker 00

  I'm also reading a book. It's not based on fanfiction, although maybe, maybe it could be. I don't know.

• 59:04Kirk Hamilton?

  Noted romanticy author, John Gans.

• 59:07Speaker 00

  Noted romanticy author, John Gans. It's actually, it's romanticy about the post-Reagan era of America.

• 59:12Kirk Hamilton?

  Remancy about Ross Perot.

• 59:15Speaker 00

  It's called When the Clock Broke. It's a nonfiction book by John Gans, who is also a podcaster I really enjoy. He co-hosts a podcast with Jamel Boui that we've talked about before on this show. As one more thing in the past, it's called Unclear and Present Danger. And he wrote this book, which again is called When the Clock Broke. I kind of rushed by that. It's about the 90s and the post-Reagan political era in America. But it is really, it's, I feel like there are a lot of books right now and in the past few years that are trying to explain Trump, and they can be really exhausting. And this book, I think, does that, but doesn't set out to do that in a way that's really annoying, where like every other chapter in the book is like, and this is how we got here.

• 1:00:00Speaker 00

  It's like a true history that focuses on the 90s and talks about right-wing political figures who were populist and how that works. Like, we're talking Ross Perot, Pat Buchanan, some of the early neo-Nazi guys of that era who ran. And it's just really fascinating. I was a literal child during this time period, so was John Gans hilariously enough. So obviously he had to do his research to write this one. We're the same age or thereabouts. And so I kind of think of the 90s as like this idyllic time. You know, the economy was doing great. Clinton was pretty popular. Those were kind of like the extent of my political leanings as a child is like not

• 1:00:42Speaker 00

  really knowing a lot beyond those things. So, reading this book and hearing about what the right wing and far right, and especially the Christian right, and the rise of those just different seeds of domination and political discourse is really, really fascinating to me because it's just a world I didn't know much about due to being a kid then. And it really helped explain some of what's happened to the right wing since that time. I usually clock Reagan as like the beginning of that, but John Gantz's theory is really, no, it was after Reagan and it was specifically these guys in the 90s. And I'm going to make my argument as to how they changed the right wing into what it is today. I don't know if I agree with that or not, but I think he makes some really compelling arguments

• 1:01:25Speaker 00

  in the book and it's super readable. He's got a dry wit. It just really rushes by and you learn a lot quickly while also being entertained. So, yeah, it's called When the Clock Broke by John Gantz. And I really recommend it if you want to know more about the far right in the 90s in America.

• 1:01:42Kirk Hamilton?

  Man, I'm so into Gantz lately. He's really kind of one of my favorite political thinkers. He has a Substack newsletter, Unpopular Front.

• 1:01:50Speaker 00

  Yeah, I love it, too.

• 1:01:51Kirk Hamilton?

  That's really good. He, he just writes really brilliantly. He turns up on so many podcasts that I listen to and just always has a lot of interesting stuff to say. And yeah, I listened to that Slow Burn podcast series about David Duke that came out several years ago.

• 1:02:03Speaker 00

  He's a figure in the book, for sure.

• 1:02:05Kirk Hamilton?

  Because Duke and Buchanan are kind of like two sides of that kind of like racial animus, you know, coin that, that flipped in the early 90s. And then Perot and, and Elon Musk. Yeah, I, I really want to read this book. It's like been on my list forever. So, this may inspire me to finally do it.

• 1:02:19Speaker 00

  Yeah, check it out.

• 1:02:21Jason Schreier?

  My one more thing is also about one of America's great political thinkers, Nathan Fielder. I have been watching a show called Nathan for You. I'm a little late to this party. This is a show that ran on Comedy Central 10, 12 years ago, something like that. And I have talked about how I loved the rehearsal, especially season two, which was some bonkers shit. And I talked about this a couple of months ago. And I was home alone. My wife wasn't there. And so, I was like flipping through the TV, wanted to put something on while I was like playing some games on my Steam Deck and landed on Nathan for You. I was like, oh, I've always been meaning to check this out. Man, I have not laughed so hard in a while, probably since the rehearsal, as watching some of these

• 1:03:05Jason Schreier?

  episodes. My goodness. Have you two watched this show?

• 1:03:08Speaker 00

  I haven't actually.

• 1:03:09Jason Schreier?

  Okay.

• 1:03:10Speaker 00

  I meant to circle back.

• 1:03:10Jason Schreier?

  You watch a lot of it. So like anything that, everything we liked in the rehearsal that is enjoyable rehearsal, you can see the prototypes of that in this. It is amazing. It is like taking the, the

• 1:03:23Jason Schreier?

  prank show hidden camera to a whole new level. And so the concept is he goes around America and well, as he says in his intro, he graduated from one of Canada's top business schools with good grades, which is a great joke because then it shows his grades and it's like A minus, B, C plus. It's amazing. Really good grades, he says. And then he goes around and helps people fix their struggling businesses and somehow gets them to agree to be on camera on this ridiculous show. I guess he pitches it to them as if it's like, like Gordon Ramsay, like fixing restaurants or something like that. And it is truly insane and amazing. And just to give you an example of this,

• 1:04:08Jason Schreier?

  I'll share one of the episodes that I was truly like losing my mind at, which is called Gas Station. And he goes to this gas station that is struggling. It's hard for gas stations to survive these days. And he says, here's what we're gonna do. We are going to say $1 a gallon on your gas prices. And the guy's like, what are you talking about? Like, we're gonna lose, I'm gonna lose all my money. Like, how could that, how could that be? And he's gonna be like, we, we can say that legally if we also say with rebate, like an asterisk, it says with rebate. And the guy's like, okay, but then people will just get their money back from me. And Nathan is like, no, we will make this the hardest rebate to possibly get. And so he stages this thing where like people in

• 1:04:51Jason Schreier?

  order to get this rebate will have to hike up a nearby mountain and then go through this trivia competition and it gets out of control. You have, it winds up being like these three people remaining who are like actually going through his gauntlet of trivia and like spend a camping trip on the mountain. And then one of them turns out, one of the three people turns out to be like a bonkers person and.

• 1:05:15Speaker 00

  You think?

• 1:05:16Jason Schreier?

  Man, it's, it's, it gets out of control. It gets into like, um, uh, let's just say it, it gets into conversations about drinking children's pee, uh, and I'll just leave it at that. Uh, truly iconic television, but every episode is just full of winners, uh, winning ideas. I think a lot of people know this show from the whole dumb Starbucks, uh, shtick. And that became a whole big news story that I think was, was like the viral moment of that show, but, um, every episode I've seen so far is just golden. Uh, his ideas are, man, this show is incredible. Uh, so yeah, I'll be watching the rest of it. I've watched like the first season or so, so far. And, uh, if you like the rehearsal, but you never watched Nathan for You, I highly recommend going back and doing that. It's also on HBO Max.

• 1:06:01Kirk Hamilton?

  Have you guys watched Detroiters yet?

• 1:06:03Jason Schreier?

  Yes.

• 1:06:03Kirk Hamilton?

  Have either of you watched it?

• 1:06:04Jason Schreier?

  Yes.

• 1:06:04Speaker 00

  No, I need to.

• 1:06:05Kirk Hamilton?

  We've talked about this, Maddie, you haven't.

• 1:06:06Speaker 00

  I need to.

• 1:06:06Kirk Hamilton?

  I've been watching it again because we renewed our Netflix subscription and it's kind of a similar feeling where it's like, feels like going back to the prototype for I think you should leave.

• 1:06:14Jason Schreier?

  Right. For I think usually, yeah, yeah, you're right. Yes. Um, but of course different types of humor and that's all scripted. This is, this is reality.

• 1:06:21Kirk Hamilton?

  Oh yeah. I mean, yeah, just kind of like, oh yeah, anyone who likes this one thing should definitely watch this other thing.

• 1:06:26Jason Schreier?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:26Kirk Hamilton?

  Cause it's very similarly great.

• 1:06:28Jason Schreier?

  If you watch the rehearsal and I mean, for many reasons, you should watch this, but especially if you watch the rehearsal and you thought, how are, has he found these people and gotten them to say these things on camera? Uh, Nathan for You is full of moments like that too.

• 1:06:40Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, it's the talent that he's got for sure.

• 1:06:42Jason Schreier?

  He's man, it's so many ways. He's so talented. All right. That is that for this week's episode. Thank you for sticking around. Thank you both Kirk and Maddie for making podcasts with me.

• 1:06:55Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:55Speaker 00

  You're welcome.

• 1:06:56Kirk Hamilton?

  And thanks to Hornet, you know, for, for really just sticking it out.

• 1:06:59Speaker 00

  Yeah. Just sticking people with their needle. Keep on sticking Hornet.

• 1:07:04Kirk Hamilton?

  Thanks Hornet.

• 1:07:05Jason Schreier?

  Sticking by her principles, no matter what happens.

• 1:07:08Kirk Hamilton?

  Uh, all right, cool. Well, I will, uh, talk to both of you next week.

• 1:07:11Jason Schreier?

  See you next week.

• 1:07:12Speaker 00

  Bye.

• 1:07:16Kirk Hamilton?

  TripleClick 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. TripleClick 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.

• 1:08:14Jason Schreier?

  Maximum Fun, a worker-owned network of artist-owned shows supported directly by you.