Triple Play: Fire Emblem: Fortune's Weave

The Triple Click gang dives into Fire Emblem: Fortune's Weave, the new Switch 2 exclusive that blends grid-based strategy combat with... a whole lot more. They talk about the sprawling story, the tactical battles, and whether the whole thing is just Too Much.

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

• 0:03Jason Schreier?

  Before you listen to this podcast, did you remember to have a meal at the inn? What about training your troops? Did you spend time with your bird today? Welcome to Triple Click, where we bring the games to you. This week, we are talking about Fire Emblem Fortunes Weave, a new video game for the Nintendo Switch, too, that combines strategy, simulation, and a lot more.

• 0:30Jason Schreier?

  I'm Jason Schreier.

• 0:31Kirk Hamilton?

  I'm Kirk Hamilton.

• 0:33Speaker 02

  And I'm Maddy Myers.

• 0:35Jason Schreier?

  Hello.

• 0:36Speaker 02

  We're all back together again.

• 0:38Jason Schreier?

  It's good to be back.

• 0:40Speaker 02

  Yay.

• 0:40Jason Schreier?

  Lucy James has metamorphed into metamorphosis.

• 0:44Kirk Hamilton?

  It was a brief morphing.

• 0:46Speaker 02

  Almost replaced you for good, but we decided to bring Jason back after all.

• 0:49Jason Schreier?

  Thank you. That's very generous of you, Maddie. I appreciate that.

• 0:52Kirk Hamilton?

  It was a little bit of a toss up, but you know, in the end.

• 0:54Speaker 02

  It seemed like she had this other podcast she had to do.

• 0:57Kirk Hamilton?

  That's true. She did have some other commitments.

• 1:00Jason Schreier?

  Some other bros to hang with.

• 1:02Speaker 02

  Yep, it's true. It's true. But so did you, Jason. You had some other commitments.

• 1:05Jason Schreier?

  I had some gallivanting to do. I've been traveling all across the world. I went to Japan for a week. I went to, I got home, was home for 24 hours, flew to the UK for a few days, then came back again. And I think as of last night, my jet lag has finally subsided.

• 1:22Speaker 02

  Because you like went to opposite sides of the world just to fully reset your sleep schedule and then it averaged out.

• 1:29Jason Schreier?

  There wasn't a flight directly from Tokyo to the UK where I was going, so I kind of had to go back. And also, it was nice to be able to do laundry and like see my kids for 24 hours before I went back. But yeah, it's, it's been, it's been fun. I'll talk about some of that stuff more down the road. And in fact, I'll talk about Tokyo a little bit more, maybe later in this show. But in the meantime, did you know, Kirk, Maddie, did you guys know that we are a listener supported podcast, that we make this show because of listeners supporting us?

• 2:04Speaker 02

  Tell me more.

• 2:05Jason Schreier?

  I just learned this six years ago, and I just wanted to share it with all of you today, which is that you can help us make this show possible by going to maximumfun.org/jointripleclick. And if you become a Maximum Fun member, not only do you make this show continue to pump into your ears every week, you also get access to our monthly bonus episodes where we talk about all sorts of cool things from video games to not video games to multi-episode extravaganza, where we dive deep into The Sopranos, which we have just been doing. Just, just our most recent episode was The Sopranos, seasons four and five.

• 2:47Jason Schreier?

  Although by the time you're listening to this, you might have also heard our newest bonus episode, which is called Triple Cuck, I mean, sorry, Triple Kiss. And it is giving dating advice, answering listener questions about romance and weddings and all sorts of interesting relationship related topics. So that's a fun one, too, and lots more ahead, including video game talk and non-video game talk. Plus, you get a massive backlog full of bonus episodes. To become a member, go to maximumfun.org/jointripleclick. All right, Kirk, what are we talking about today?

• 3:24Kirk Hamilton?

  Well, as promised, we are talking about Fire Emblem Fortunes Weave, the new Fire Emblem game that we talked a bit with Lucy about last week. Maddie and I shared some early impressions that we have played more of the game. I have played much more of the game, and now we have Jason here as well. So we're going to do a full on triple play of Fire Emblem Fortunes Weave. So this game, we have already kind of talked about it. Let me give a very brief setup. I didn't write a whole thing or anything. But basically, Fortunes Weave is the first new Fire Emblem game since Engage, which came out in 2023, which I think we talked about, I don't think we did a whole episode on it. It was a game that did not really sweep any of us away, certainly not to the extent

• 4:06Kirk Hamilton?

  of Fire Emblem Three Houses from 2019, which was, I think, a lot of people's first Fire Emblem love. And that comes after a kind of a run of games. They've been doing these every few years. Echoes in 2017, Fates in 15, Awakening in 2012. Kind of every three years, there's a new Fire Emblem game. Here we are in 2026, and we have got Fortunes Weave, which is set in the same world as Three Houses, and it is, it is set in a different empire or a different part of the globe. It takes place in the Dagden Empire, which is south of the Kingdom of Fodlan, which was where Three Houses was set. It's still narrated by Seteth, which I think is interesting. You see, like you hear his voice at the beginning and you think, oh, okay, this is going to

• 4:51Kirk Hamilton?

  be just like Three Houses. And then, no, it's just narrated by the same guy who actually is a character in the game, which is kind of interesting. And so there are connections to Three Houses and to the lore of Fodlan, but we are in a new setting. And mostly, we're in the city of Dagzeon, I believe is the name, which is the imperial, the seat of imperial power in the Dagden Empire. And people have come from all around the empire to compete in the heroic games, which are a sort of, you know, Olympics slash Colosseum gladiatorial combat trial, where we will crown one person the winner, and then the god, who is also kind of the mayor,

• 5:32Kirk Hamilton?

  the emperor, I guess, the, the god Solal will grant one wish to them. That's the kind of setup, but then of course, also, as we have discussed, but as should, I should say for anyone who hasn't played the game, there is a kind of frame to this all, which is the game actually begins five years after the heroic games, when the evil lord, wait, what's his name? It's not Balor, but it's something just like that.

• 5:57Jason Schreier?

  Balor.

• 5:58Kirk Hamilton?

  Balor, that's it. The evil dark lord Balor, who is like kind of the god of the underworld, has risen up and his army of zombies has like basically caused the apocalypse. And a group of people led by Fortuna, one of the gods of this world, have traveled back in time, they've kind of sent your avatar back in time to try to influence the fate of four champions, four flame lords, as they're called. These four characters, Kai, Dietrich, Theodora, and Lida, each of whom has their own story and their own path through the heroic games. So you pick one of those four characters, you play through the first act of the game, which can, which, you know, includes the whole heroic game storyline. Then if you want, you can go and play through all the other storylines, the other three, and then you kind of eventually kind of unite all of the characters in order to fight against

• 6:44Kirk Hamilton?

  Balor. And that's the game. It's a top-down, turn-based tactics game, mixed with a little bit of a life sim and a lot of team management and sort of arcane hidden systems. And there's a lot of complexity to this game. And we'll get into all of that, I think. Maddie and I are both playing Kai's storyline. I actually finished Kai's storyline and moved over to Lida's. Jason, though, I want to hear from you on this game in general, because we haven't heard from you, and also because you are playing Theodora's storyline. You actually started with that, which is a bit uncommon, since a lot of people tend to start with Kai. So how about you kick us off? How are you feeling about the game? How is Theodora's storyline? And yeah, what do you make of Fire Emblem?

• 7:25Jason Schreier?

  Is it uncommon? I didn't realize that. I guess people really, Kai definitely seems like the JRPG hero, but he also seems like an annoying kid. So that's why I didn't play as him when I started.

• 7:34Kirk Hamilton?

  He's definitely, I mean, I think it helps that he's on the left.

• 7:37Jason Schreier?

  Right.

• 7:38Kirk Hamilton?

  He is the first of the flame lords that you encounter in that fight as well, where in the, in the intro to this game, we're not going to say big story spoilers or anything, but I think it's okay if we talk about just the prologue. And in the prologue, you kind of.

• 7:50Jason Schreier?

  First 10 minutes, yeah.

• 7:51Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, the first hour or so, you fight against the four flame lords, and they've, they're kind of their fallen, possessed undead versions, and Kai is the first one that you fight against, which I think there's a lot of subtle ways that the game nudges you toward picking Kai. And then having played through Kai, he is, I think, the, the natural first choice. His story is actually much more interesting than it seems at first, but like, it's a real ground level thing. You meet everybody, like the pacing and the way he's introduced to all the characters, and just the fact that he's a kid, like it all kind of, yeah, he's kind of the natural choice.

• 8:23Jason Schreier?

  Well, Theodora is pretty cool. She's this badass queen of this, this neighboring country who's come with her entourage to, to compete in the heroic games. This game, Fire Emblem in general, it's a lot. I didn't get a chance to listen to you guys talking about this last week, but I am guessing that you had this discussion because it is a lot. It's a lot of proper nouns, it's a lot of characters, it's a lot of systems that get thrown at you, a lot to keep track of during your free time between each of the battles. I find myself really enjoying the story battles and less enjoying the stuff in between it all.

• 9:08Jason Schreier?

  And it's just a lot. I'm just, I'm more so kind of, more than like enjoying or not enjoying things, I'm just kind of overwhelmed on a moment to moment basis with the amount of stuff there is to do. Except for one, one thing I really can just flat out say is awful is garbage, which are the dungeons in this game.

• 9:26Speaker 02

  Yeah, we talked about this last week.

• 9:29Jason Schreier?

  Oh, you did? Okay, good.

• 9:30Speaker 02

  We agree, we agree. It's tough.

• 9:33Jason Schreier?

  Just, those are just garbage. And, and that, that whole weird kind of like combat system that just doesn't make any sense and just seems equipped to make you just skip it, it's just baffles me. Everything else, I'm just kind of way overwhelmed. So I'm up to part seven, I believe, seven or eight of Theodora's story in act one in the heroic games. And I'm really intrigued by the story and I really like the actual story battles. They've got the whole Fire Emblem thing going. I'm playing on hard, which adds a nice little level of spice to it, adds a kick to it, I would say, makes it actually feel challenging to play through some of these battles in a

• 10:17Jason Schreier?

  way that I imagine if you're playing on normal or easy mode, it's not.

• 10:21Kirk Hamilton?

  Well, there's only normal and I can speak to that. It is, it actually gets quite hard on normal.

• 10:24Jason Schreier?

  It does, okay.

• 10:25Kirk Hamilton?

  I know hard is much harder.

• 10:26Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, well, it's getting, it's getting, yeah, quite hard for me on hard. I'm also playing on casual because I'm losing characters in most battles and I would be very pissed if I was permanently losing them. And yeah, I think like, by the time I've gotten up to like, by part seven, I feel like I've gotten a sense of the rhythm of free time and like what I should be doing, what I should be focusing on, gotta get to those temples, gotta worry about my renown. But it's still so much and I'm just constantly being nagged by this sensation that I'm missing something and I'm not playing the optimal way, which is a very annoying feeling to have while playing the game.

• 11:02Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah.

• 11:03Jason Schreier?

  But I like it. I mean, overall, overall, I'm enjoying what I'm playing. It's just a lot.

• 11:09Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah. It's funny, you know, I think that something I've heard just universally in listening to people talk about this game is, is how hard it is to get your arms around it because it's so much and that your early impressions of the game are really pretty incomplete. I think that, I feel that mine were certainly, based on the first 10 hours that I played. Now my switch says I've played more than 35 hours and finished Kai's storyline. I just have such a better sense of it and I have to say, I like it a lot more than I did in those first few hours. Like I've really come to where I'm like, wow, this game is incredibly cool and a lot of the things it's doing are amazing. And also a lot of the tedious micromanagement stuff, I both kind of have put it in its

• 11:52Kirk Hamilton?

  place, like I understand what I need to focus on and what I don't. And also I think have just developed the facility with it to like move quickly through all the things I need to do. And I even find some of it sort of soothing in that way that busy work in a JRPG kind of eventually becomes soothing once you're just in the groove, you're 15 hours in, instead of in those first few hours where you're like, ugh, like, what am I even doing? Am I doing the right thing? You know, am I not focusing on the right thing? I'm going to screw myself down the road. So I think, yeah, I think that's an important thing to keep in mind when evaluating this game and also for listeners to keep in mind when they listen to us talk about it is, it really is so big. It is like one of the biggest RPGs I've ever played so that when you've played six

• 12:35Kirk Hamilton?

  hours, you really have only seen this like very small amount of it. So there's a lot more to say about that. But Matty, I'm curious how you're finding it after another week playing it.

• 12:43Speaker 02

  Yeah, I, like Jason, I'm up to chapter seven, although I'm still playing Kai's story and I don't entirely disagree with him that I still feel like I'm not always sure I'm spending free time in the right way. But something I wanted to say that distinguishes that from last week is that ahead of this conversation, I decided to head back to the obelisk and just start Dietrich's story because I didn't think any of the three of us had started his story yet and I just wanted to see what that was like. And I found it really fun because he's such a wildly different personality than Kai. And I think that speaks to just something-

• 13:22Kirk Hamilton?

  He also gets Fabio, the best character in the entire game.

• 13:25Speaker 02

  I'll get into Fabio in a second, but preliminarily, I wanted to say, I think it's clever that this game has these four characters. I know it's not really recommended that you switch between them at any time and I am going to go back to Kai again because I want to finish his story out before I fully switch to Dietrich. But I just wanted to like get a little flavor of what Dietrich was bringing because he's so completely different from Kai in a fun way and in a way that I would expect. Lita and Theodora are also different from Dietrich and Kai as well. He is, Lucy described him as like an a la carte type. He's like beautiful, kind of got this Sephiroth-esque, long flowing white hair. He's giving psychopath and like he's kind of plays off this guy that he meets super

• 14:07Speaker 02

  early in his story, Fabio, who's like this elderly priest who talks to himself under his breath a lot and like keeps being overheard by Dietrich who keeps being like, what are you saying? Are you insulting me? And like their dynamic is so funny so quickly and is just so refreshing. And I just think the writing, the character dynamics and writing in this game is really what's been propelling me. I, I did think that like Kai's story was a little corny at first and I think that's by design as well. They're introducing you to the world. They need to have Kai be somebody who's asking all these questions so that he understands what's going on because I, I agree, I think you're supposed to start with him. But I just also wanted to say, I really appreciate the writing of this game and find it really fun.

• 14:52Speaker 02

  And that kind of helps me get through some of what I would consider to be the bumpier parts, the dungeon battles that are easily skippable and which I have been skipping and also just the kind of spreadsheet sim aspect of the mercenaries, which I mentioned last week and which I still is probably my least favorite part of the game is recruiting people, giving people gifts, just having to deal with all that chore aspect is like, I, I don't know. It's a necessity of this kind of system, I suppose, but it's, it's not interesting to me personally.

• 15:25Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, I, I, I have some tips. I think at some point, maybe, I want to keep talking about the story, but I also want to maybe give a few tips for listeners.

• 15:33Speaker 02

  And maybe for me.

• 15:34Kirk Hamilton?

  And for either of you, because I do have a few that I've, that I've gleaned. And I should say, I've been, I've been spending time in our Discord. We have a, there's a Fire Emblem channel and I want to shout out We're Mutton, Lulu and Relaxatorium, our three Discord users who are really like kind of active in that channel and have played a lot of the game and have just been very helpful. Like I like going in there and asking them questions. Hey, so does this stack carry over? Like what does this do? Or how does this mounted unit work? Rather than like trying to look it up because it's actually very hard to find good information. And I've really appreciated them. So shout outs to those three, as well as everyone in that channel, because it's actually been a really great place to hang out with a game like this that's so complicated and

• 16:16Kirk Hamilton?

  has so many different systems and a lot of them are not well explained. And while I think a game like this does benefit from having all those systems, it's kind of cool that it's very complicated and progression is happening across all of these paths. I think this game could be way better about communicating how they work and the interface could be way better. Like those are points of very valid critique and just because something is complicated does not mean that it needs to be as impenetrable as this game is. It doesn't mean you should have to have as many tabs as I have open on my iPad while I'm playing for like paralog timing and, you know, recruitment and perfect bird time guides and like things that I just don't, or even the location of, you know, you gotta go find this old lady, she's missing and that's the quest.

• 17:00Kirk Hamilton?

  And I'm like, dude, I don't want to just poke around the map until I find her, like in the city, just tell me where she is. Like so many things like that, that just feel like information that is hidden from me that I don't find any pleasure in sorting out or finding for myself.

• 17:14Jason Schreier?

  Even hearing you talk about things like paralog timing has been like, oh God, I'm, what am I missing now?

• 17:20Kirk Hamilton?

  Okay, actually, you know what? I'm going to give my tips. I want to come back to the story because I want to talk about, I have some thoughts too, now that I've finished one and started Lita's spoiler free thoughts, but I want to share some, some thoughts there. But yeah, let me give my tips now, I guess. So number one tip is, yeah, there are paralogs in this game. They come up around chapter eight or nine, so every chap-

• 17:39Speaker 02

  So we're like about to reach them.

• 17:41Kirk Hamilton?

  You're right about there. They, they all happen like at the, in September into October, like nine into 10 in the months of the year. This game is moving along a calendar. For anyone who doesn't know, you kind of start in January, so it's later in the year, toward the end. And these paralogs open up, which are, I think, inexcusably hidden for how good they are. There are all kinds of articles out there now. You can just look up where the timing is. And as long as you just know when they're happening, it's really easy. You just go talk in the capital city in Dagsey and you just go talk to whichever character's paralog it is, they'll have a little flag over their head and then you start the paralog and it's just a, it's a combat encounter that you'll go do that is similar to the story act, you know, in the story like encounters in terms of the design. Like they're all really clever and interesting.

• 18:26Kirk Hamilton?

  They're all challenging. They all introduce like other elements. So you're, you know, there's like other cool stuff going on that you have to keep track of and they flesh out the story and some of the side characters in cool ways. So I totally recommend them. Also man, one of them, Talimans has like the best battle music in the entire game and it only plays during his mission. I'm probably playing it right now because I finally tracked down a kind of low quality copy on YouTube.

• 18:58Kirk Hamilton?

  It's totally sick. It has this like tenor, it has saxophone, that's why I like it. But also it's just, it's pretty big.

• 19:08Kirk Hamilton?

  Kirk here, I actually just wanted to take an opportunity to talk about this game's music a little bit more than I did when we were recording because the music of this game is really good.

• 19:20Kirk Hamilton?

  I actually captured this clip. This is the music that plays in taverns and down at the docks and like,

• 19:29Kirk Hamilton?

  the lead composer was Takeru Kanazaki, though there are a number of composers credited on this game, a lot of longtime Fire Emblem composers.

• 19:43Kirk Hamilton?

  And while there are some familiar motifs and sounds that you've heard in, you know, Three Houses or other Fire Emblem games, they actually bring back some of the leitmotif from Three Houses in some pretty cool ways. This game also has its own musical identity and a lot of that identity is driven by the acoustic guitar, the fiddle and the sound of Spanish flamenco music.

• 20:09Kirk Hamilton?

  They just had a killing studio band on some of this stuff. This track accompanies the opening cutscene for the dancer musician Lita, who is actually a guitarist. She plays the vuela, a Spanish string instrument that preceded the guitar. And like, listen to this.

• 20:33Kirk Hamilton?

  This is like Pat Metheny group Chick Corea stuff.

• 20:42Kirk Hamilton?

  So anyway, shoutouts to all these composers who did a fantastic job. A huge part of the pleasure of this game for me is just this soundtrack. There's so much amazing music and I'm sure, you know, there's a lot of stuff I haven't even heard, since there's a lot of the game that I haven't played yet. But yeah, just wanted to take that moment to highlight the music of the game because it's a really special part of this game.

• 21:04Kirk Hamilton?

  Okay, back to the show.

• 21:10Kirk Hamilton?

  Anyways, so that is one tip. Just look at the timing for the paralogs. Just put it in front of you and then go do it. Because the game doesn't tell you that they're happening. You can just miss them like so easily and they're worth doing. Another tip, and this is a big one for recruitment that I think is important. Basically, so everyone that you recruit around the city, there are like a million characters who all can be technically recruited into your army. And it's similar to three houses where like each of the houses, there was kind of a group of people and their default, they're on your party by default if you picked that house. But if you didn't, you can still go recruit them. Think of this game the same way. Like, a lot of the NPCs are actually kind of associated with one of the four storylines.

• 21:53Kirk Hamilton?

  And you can go recruit them, but they're like, they don't have any like story, like that you're, you're like link with them as it builds up. Like you don't, your main character won't get a lot of dialogue scenes with them. I always forget the name of the, of what this is called. Oh, support scenes. So you know how like, like Kai goes with his friends Peter and Tiala? Like, those are his two friends and they're kind of like the shonen anime trio. And then they have support scenes like all through, as you rank up and get closer with them, you kind of get this nice storyline between the three of them that's actually really cool and like flushes them out. And that's a very classic Fire Emblem thing. But there are a lot of other characters that you can recruit as Kai who don't have any support scenes with them at all.

• 22:36Kirk Hamilton?

  And that's often because those characters have support scenes with another of the Flame Lords. So if someone's like requirements to recruit them are like renown level 10 or renown level eight even, I would say just ignore them because you're supposed to recruit them on a different storyline. I didn't know that when I started playing and I felt so overwhelmed because I was like, there's so many of these people, like who am I supposed to recruit and not recruit? But actually, if you go around and meet them all, there are only like two or three that are within reach of you at any given time. And those are the people you're supposed to recruit. And if you haven't recruited them by like act seven or eight, it's just kind of forget about recruiting at that point. Like you probably have the kind of eight people that you'll want anyways.

• 23:21Kirk Hamilton?

  And you only need like eight or maybe eight people in your core kind of battalion. So like, you don't have to recruit everybody. And I think that's like a, it's a failing of the game that they give you so many people and it's not totally clear like who you're supposed to be, you know, having dinner with and like, you know, giving gifts to, to try to level them up.

• 23:38Speaker 02

  Yeah, no, this is already helping me so much because I was like, okay, clearly I'm supposed to have completed all of these recruitment cycles by the time I'm done with Kai, but it's good to know that that's not the case.

• 23:51Kirk Hamilton?

  Right. And like really, I recruited a bunch of people like right around chapter eight, eight, I think, when I was at renown level eight, I like went on a recruitment binge and I recruited like a ton of people just because I could. I went and did all of it. Like a lot of them kind of require you to go get an item for them. And I was like recruiting so many of them. And then my core group really was just Kai's core group plus the characters that are given to you because like a few people just join your party over the course of his story. And then like Halvan, I think, like the jester girl was kind of my archer. And there was like one other character and neither of them was even really that good because they joined kind of late and I didn't have time to level them. So I think the game kind of overwhelms you with recruits in a way that is confusing until you know how it works.

• 24:35Kirk Hamilton?

  So I have one more tip and it's brief and it's relates to what you were saying, Matty, which is it is worth finishing one storyline before you start the other ones because you do carry over like some of the side quests and like, you know, there are things that carry over if you finish an entire storyline and it's worth doing that. Not a ton of stuff carries over, but enough that it's like much, much more streamlined. Plus you can start to give yourself like XP bonuses and there's this whole system where you like unlock faster leveling for your subsequent storylines. And that also will make things go a lot faster. Oh, and the map is unlocked if you finish and start a new storyline, which is huge. Like the fact that all the locations on the map are unlocked and you can just jump around anywhere like makes things go way, way faster and makes it way easier.

• 25:17Jason Schreier?

  The map is what is kind of bumming me out a little bit.

• 25:21Kirk Hamilton?

  It's kind of tough the first time, yeah.

• 25:24Jason Schreier?

  Yeah. I mean, it's just like trying to figure out, okay, so I need to go and do the bird and click through those kind of meandering dialogue options that wastes a few minutes and then go and do some meals and watch those meandering dialogue options. And that wastes a few minutes. And then I go on the map and then I get a notification while I'm exploring somewhere saying that my weekly activities have reset. And then I get this nagging feeling that I need to be going back to maximize my progress. And it's just by the time, like I'll have a night where I have a couple of hours to play and I won't even get to a new story mission, which is such a bummer. It really makes me feel like, God, this game is kind of wasting my time, which is

• 26:06Jason Schreier?

  part of why the overwhelmingness of it all is a little bit, it's, it's a little much.

• 26:12Speaker 02

  Yeah, that was happening to me too, and I just decided to not care and just do more story missions. So I was like, well, at least these are like leveling up.

• 26:20Jason Schreier?

  So are you skipping ahead to the story missions?

• 26:24Speaker 02

  When I say story missions, I just mean like walking around the world map and like engaging with actual quests that are giving me experience. I'm never skipping all the way ahead to the next battle. I have yet to do that. But I kind of made a decision that I would do bird time and meals at the end when I just so happen to be going back home to drop off my quests. And other than that, I'm good. I'm not heading all the way home just for bird time. Anyone who hasn't played this game is like, why is she saying bird time? It's just one of the many silly mechanics in this game and explaining it is almost completely meaningless. You feed a bird, I don't know, it's part of the thing.

• 27:01Kirk Hamilton?

  The bird is actually Eschmel.

• 27:03Speaker 02

  The bird is kind of a god.

• 27:04Kirk Hamilton?

  Character that you created.

• 27:06Speaker 02

  Don't worry about it. It's just one of the repeatable weekly tasks that you can do that gives you incremental progress. It's something that I barely understand.

• 27:16Kirk Hamilton?

  I do really like that you, that actually the you, the character, the main character is a bird.

• 27:22Speaker 02

  Yeah, like technically I'm the bird. The bird is me.

• 27:24Kirk Hamilton?

  Yes. And you're a bird specifically because the goddess of time has said you cannot go back in your corporeal form because it will upset like the flow of time too much. So you have to be a bird, which is really funny.

• 27:37Speaker 02

  This video games.

• 27:39Kirk Hamilton?

  Yes, I think it is a big hump, Jason. What you're describing, I had that feeling too. It was when I was the most down on the game was when I would spend like two hours playing and I wouldn't get to the next story mission, which I really wanted to get to just because those are so great. Like each, each of those heroic games challenges is really fun and different and challenging and interesting. And I would just be like, man, I spent this whole time just going around the map, doing kind of boring, you know, side, whatever they're called, the little, they're map battles, like, but they're not that interesting. It's like you fight a bunch of dogs. They're all kind of the same. Or going to a dungeon and then like skipping the combat because I don't care just to kind of get levels. Like all of that stuff is fine if it were, there were a little less

• 28:22Kirk Hamilton?

  of it at the beginning and it didn't feel like you were spending so much time on it. And the thing is like the more you play and now especially on latest game, it's all so much faster. Like the map, you know, eventually you unlock those carriages and you can fast travel. There's the gate of the gods, so you can warp around. You start to just, like I at least have really figured out, okay, this is what I should be spending time on and not that. Anytime I've got free time, there's like a lot of stuff I actually want to be doing. And I'm so much more engaged with the systems that I find it all enjoyable, even like trying to go find rare materials or, you know, trying to get cullet, which is a type of metal that you need to upgrade a longbow or some of the swords and it's called cullet. And it's only in like two places on the map and it's really hard to get. And I, and yet I like find myself doing the thing of, all right, I'm going to get

• 29:07Kirk Hamilton?

  cullet. And so the next 20 minutes is just me trying to get cullet. But then that's kind of enjoyable because I'm like engaged with it.

• 29:13Jason Schreier?

  Kirk, is this, is this like when we used to go after spin metal?

• 29:17Kirk Hamilton?

  Very much appeals to the same part of my brain. And I think for like the micromanaging min-maxers among us, like there are so many of those little hidden systems in this game. The leveling is very opaque. It's all tied to like probabilities of stat increases. I've been learning how it works, but it's like, you know, I didn't really engage with it as I was playing on normal and I found the game plenty fun and think they've actually like really perfected the sort of balance. And especially given that there are these god boons that you can get. So Fortuna gives you like unlimited rewinds, at least on normal difficulty. You can just rewind anytime you want to in combat and really just like perfect your strategy. And the minute I realized that was unlimited, I started using it because that's like how I played XCOM.

• 30:02Kirk Hamilton?

  I like to save scum in these games and just kind of problem solve my way through the encounter. And like that makes that possible. And then also the other goddesses boons, especially Kala, who gives a boon that's like plus 50 of like dodge for an entire round. If I lose, I'm playing on permadeath. If I lose someone I don't want to lose, I can just rewind and then turn that on for the next round and like almost every time they'll survive. So the difficulty is like actually very malleable and you have a lot of control over it, which means it's not as important to min-max and do all the side stuff, which actually like it should let the pressure off on players, but it doesn't. Because I think all three of us have had the same experience of like, even knowing that that's true, it doesn't remove the feeling of like, yeah, but I should be doing all

• 30:47Kirk Hamilton?

  this stuff. Like I should be leveling up. And I think that is like a flaw in the game. It's a, it's a challenging part of the game, especially in the early hours.

• 30:55Jason Schreier?

  Yeah. I mean, and then, so when I'm actually, I want to talk about the stuff that I do like because Theodore's story is cool and like her and her retinue are pretty fun to hang out with. And then when you're actually doing the battles, there's really cool stuff. There's a lot of fun strategy. There's a lot of fun gimmicks. There was one battle I fought where it was like just a dude by himself and, and then suddenly summoned like an army of undead that surrounded my dudes. And fortunately the game had warned me to get this cleansing sword in advance. So that helped me take him out. And then I was like, I was really, again, I'm playing on hard mode. So I found myself like in a really tough spot and had to just kind of bum rush the boss and luckily took him out, which ended the battle.

• 31:38Jason Schreier?

  And so I didn't have to kill anyone, everyone, just the kind of the, the main villain and so on and so on. A lot of just kind of like surviving by the skin of my teeth sort of moments, which is super cool. A lot of fun strategy to play around with in terms of your unit makeup and your classes that each of them have. I haven't quite unlocked, quite unlocked the specialty classes yet, but I'm excited to goof around with that stuff. And I'm really enjoying that part and I'm very tempted to skip ahead and just kind of automate the, the, do the thing where you can go to the inn and just set, like go through your turns by just automating combat and, and training and searching and stuff.

• 32:19Kirk Hamilton?

  A viable thing to do.

• 32:20Jason Schreier?

  Yeah. I mean, I wonder if it is because yeah, those are the parts of the game that I'm enjoying most, but I also don't want to miss out on like the side quests and getting better gear for my dudes. I have recruited a few people in town as I've gotten my renown, renown up. I think I've recruited like three or four people and I've actually gotten to the point where, to your point earlier Kirk, about only needing like eight dudes, I have like 10 or 11. And so now I can't actually use them all in battles. So I'm already having to make smart decisions about which ones I'm going to focus on and which I'm not. I assume at some point it'll all come together and you'll have to have like 40 people on the battlefield at once, like at the end of the game.

• 33:03Jason Schreier?

  And that's the point of doing all this, which again, I, I have that nagging feeling that if I'm not doing some of this min-maxing stuff, then I'll screw myself over by the time I get to act three. And it's like, oh, you didn't train up your characters enough. Now you will never beat this game. I'm hoping that's not the case, but that's the feeling I'm getting. And one more thought about all of this stuff, by the way, is that there's this very helpful screen you can access. If you press the, I believe it's the X button and it'll pop up. It'll be like, here are some things that you should be doing. It'll give you helpful reminders.

• 33:36Kirk Hamilton?

  It's just Anna being like, here's what to do.

• 33:39Jason Schreier?

  Good old Anna, classic Fire Emblem Anna, being like, here's what you should be doing. And I found that very helpful, but I wish that you could remove some of them as you finish them. I wish it was more of a checklist instead of just a bunch of hint boxes, because I find it very difficult to, or very annoying, tedious to, to go through it all, knowing that I've done some of them already, but not others. I want to keep track of just the ones I haven't done because they're so helpful and it would be useful to be like, okay, I've knocked these out. Now I can just kind of automate it to the next turn. So the, the menuing in general, I think could be just streamlined and handled a lot better. But that part in particular, I feel like could, could be a lot more useful than it

• 34:24Jason Schreier?

  actually is.

• 34:25Speaker 02

  Yeah. I'm realizing that this is good for me. I'm like having sort of an existential problem with how many people I'm trying to recruit. But like you, Jason, I'm already past the point where I have more guys than I could ever physically use.

• 34:38Kirk Hamilton?

  This is when you just let go.

• 34:39Speaker 02

  I'm gonna let go. I'm letting it go. I'm Elsa now. I'm letting it go officially. It's happening. I'm going to my ice castle with only the guys that I've gathered and moving on. Because I, I feel like even though I thought I had let go of all my chores and Jason, I do go to the inn sometimes and I automate what I'm going to do. And usually I do that when I'm like approaching the main quest and I have like eight turns to go or whatever. And I'm like, I've done all the quests. I'm good. I'm just going to automate for the rest of the time and I'll just switch between whatever I think is most necessary for my characters at that moment in time. It's search, which kind of gives you extra gold if you wanted to buy some stuff or training or combat.

• 35:22Speaker 02

  And obviously those level up your guys in two different types of ways. And that's been helpful and it's great. It's a great way to just get past that final hump and feel like you were quote unquote productive before the end battle. All that said, since I'm not playing on hard, I never have felt unprepared yet for a battle. So I'm also kind of hoping that maybe eventually I will hit the point in the game that Kirk is at, where it starts getting a little more difficult for me.

• 35:55Kirk Hamilton?

  You will.

• 35:56Speaker 02

  Also had some moments. That's good to hear because I've had some moments in the battles where I'm like, these are not that complicated.

• 36:02Kirk Hamilton?

  There are some real tough fights. I found some of the fights quite challenging as Kai.

• 36:07Speaker 02

  That's great.

• 36:08Kirk Hamilton?

  Just, and you know, and that is to get everyone through since I'm on permadeath, but it definitely gets harder and that's on normal. So I know that hard is quite a bit harder. And yeah, you know, it's funny. I should shout, so I want to shout out another podcast, actually. You know, the podcast Into the Aether?

• 36:25Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 36:26Kirk Hamilton?

  It's hosted by Brendan Begley and Stephen Hilger. They are super Fire Emblem freaks on that show. I don't think they would object to me describing them that way. They like love those games and loved Three Houses in particular. I really recommend their recent episode about this game. I've got a lot out of it because it's nice to just listen to two people who have played the hell out of it already. Like they played it just super hard when it came out and have such a strong grasp of it. And it was also nice to listen to people who are so deep in the lore of Three Houses that they can speak to like how cool what's going on narratively in this game is. It really made me like the game more, just listening to them talk about it.

• 37:09Kirk Hamilton?

  It was like very helpful for me because they kind of were coming at it with both the enthusiasm of people who really like it, but also the knowledge of people who have been like really deep in it for a while. And I'm definitely finding, so starting Lita's storyline, I'm already struck by how vast and ambitious and really cool this game's story is. This is definitely like, this is a kind of Sandersonian fantasy epic. This has, it's got that kind of Brandon Sanderson scope where it's just this like wild amount of stuff. It's a really complex magic system and world, the politics, there's all these different kingdoms. Like it really does feel like, it actually feels like Warbreaker, which is a book of

• 37:50Kirk Hamilton?

  his, where there's like a kingdom where the gods are basically in charge of the kingdom and they are just people, but they're sort of super people, the way that they are in this world. It's kind of really similar. And that part of this world, the fact that there are these temples to a variety of gods, there's like a kind of polytheistic government, like hybrid, like it's a polytheistic theocracy, I guess, where like the head, the emperor is also an actual god. And then like his sister Kala, for example, in Kai's storyline, this isn't really a spoiler or anything, I'll be vague, but like in Kai's storyline, you just go to all the temples because he want to get the blessings and Kala's blessing is really good. It's that dodge blessing. So like I went and talked to her and I'm like, oh, okay, there's another god.

• 38:35Kirk Hamilton?

  One of the gods, humorously, is just Mars, the bringer of war. Like it's literally just Mars, the Roman god, and he's the god of war. So there are all these different gods and you go talk to them. But then in, Leda's storyline, Kala is actually like way more of a character. Where in Kai's storyline, another one of the gods is like a really main character. And so actually, this whole story is really about the gods. Like what's going on with Belor and his whole plot? And like who, all the people who are like distributing these cursed artifacts that everybody's getting their hands on? Because each character has like a cursed artifact they're using. You know, Theodora, it's like her arm. And Leda, it's her vuela, it's her guitar.

• 39:17Kirk Hamilton?

  And so on, like everyone has something cursed and that's all part of this plot to like empower Belor. Like that all relates to the gods and it's actually like playing Leda's storyline. I'm like, oh, so that's the deal with this god. Oh, I'm learning all this stuff that I actually had some context for having played Kai, but now I'm getting way more of it. And you know, I'm meeting NPCs that I met as Kai, but now I'm getting their full story. And it's clear that this story is just so vast and ambitious that it can really only be told with four protagonists. And you can almost imagine it like one of those Sanderson style fantasy epics where each chapter jumps to a different point of view character. Stormlight Archive being probably the most famous example of this. But I mean, even moving outside of Sanderson, like A Song of Ice and Fire, George R.R.

• 40:02Kirk Hamilton?

  Martin, that those books do this as well. That's how you tell a story as big as Game of Thrones, is you're jumping from through four very different protagonists. Who are kind of doing four very different stories, you know? Intrigue in the Capitol or action adventure up at the Wall. And that's what this feels like as well. And that's really cool that, you know, they're taking the ambition, the narrative ambitions they've had for this series before, which they had with Fates. And they kind of did that where you bought multiple games and eventually it told one huge story. And now they've put it all into one game, which is really almost four games. And that's amazing, especially just finally start to get into the like, the meat of it and to see a second storyline through.

• 40:41Jason Schreier?

  God, I wish more of the game was like that and less was like, oh, I really enjoyed this meal. Oh, I, Mr. Bird, I really like it when people sing to me.

• 40:51Speaker 02

  And I'm like frantically pressing A or whatever button it is, being like, how quickly can I move through this non-interaction?

• 40:58Jason Schreier?

  It's really such a contrast between all of that story stuff that is clearly very well thought out and intricate and full of all this nuance and complexity. And then some of the other stuff in the game that just feels like it was just slapped together and just like paint by numbers, especially the dungeon stuff, which really is such a contrast to. Here you have these battles that are just like well thought out, strategy battles require you to really think to lure enemies in, to attack enemies with ranged attacks first. And then close in with your melee encounters, et cetera, et cetera. And then you have these battles in these dungeons that are just like, now you can press the auto battle, or you could just skip to the whole end of it. Cause it doesn't matter what you're actually doing in this. You literally are just mashing the A button the entire time. It's really such a, such an interesting contrast.

• 41:42Jason Schreier?

  I wonder like, why make that decision is because you didn't have the confidence in, in the length of the rest of it? You're worried it would be too short? Like, I just don't, I really don't understand it. Cause it's like, it's really a tale of two cities. You have such high highs and then such slow lows. Cause yeah, Kirk, I'm really excited to see that stuff and I wish I could just skip ahead to it.

• 42:02Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, that's a good question. Like why, like what would a game, what would this game look like if it didn't have just maybe like 50% of that stuff? Of the dungeon crawling and the sort of repetitive, you know, copy paste challenges and side quests? Like if it was more just the meat, because it's so big. I mean, like it is, it's totally like a valid criticism that this game, if it were cut down by some percentage, it would still be huge. Like, I'm sure the majority of people won't play all four storylines, but what if they could? Like, what if it did focus on the same story, you know, and just cut out some of that like really empty stuff? Where yeah, it's just people, like repetitive meals and like kind of empty dialogue that doesn't give you anything about the character.

• 42:46Kirk Hamilton?

  And instead just let you like get through, you know, the 12 chapters of someone's act one in say 15 hours instead of 30 hours or whatever. You know, if it was just like cut down some, I, it seems to me like that would work. And I, cause I totally agree, like that stuff is just so much weaker than the strongest stuff in the game. Even though I've gotten, I've gotten into it or I kind of don't mind it. Some of that is just that the game has gotten more streamlined for me. And then on the second and third time through, a lot of that stuff kind of falls away and you don't have to do it as much.

• 43:18Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's interesting that that stuff falls away. It's almost like at some point in the process, they knew that it should. And that some aspects of the game should be streamlined and the designers of those systems were like, okay, we're going to make all of these easier. But then why have this part at the beginning where it feels like you're engaging with systems that are ultimately not moving the needle enough? In terms of your leveling to matter, or even the entire recruitment system. Like now that I'm thinking about it in terms of how you described it, Kirk, I'm like, okay, why even have all those level 10 renowned characters be recruitable to me? If I'm going to recruit them later as Theodora or Leda or Dietrich? Like why, why not just limit that as well?

• 44:01Jason Schreier?

  I assume, Matty, because you don't have to play through the game as all four. So like, if you wanted to just stick with Kai, that's why it's available to you.

• 44:09Speaker 02

  Yeah, and I could just fixate entirely on him. Yeah. But I also, I mean, I think that's plausible, but I think that what shines about the game, now that I've played the beginning of Dietrich, is the fact that you can play as these other characters and get to know them. Like, I think that's the strength of the game and that's something that should be encouraged by the design. The fact that these other storylines are there and that they all eventually will weave together, Fortunes Weave style, baby. Like that, I think is what the game's strength is.

• 44:42Kirk Hamilton?

  Right. The fact that you could like, Esmeralda is a factor in Dietrich's storyline. And like Esmeralda and Dietrich have a relationship and presumably, I haven't seen them, but presumably support scenes. And presumably she also has support scenes with Fabio. And like, those characters are just like Dietrich characters. And Kai can't recruit Fabio, but he can recruit Esmeralda, which I did. And then I was kind of like, ah, she's not really a main player for me. And it's just clear to me that she's kind of from a different storyline. And it does like, it makes sense, I guess, yes, that they would say, okay, we want you to be able to recruit everyone. But also like, I could totally see a version of this game where there are just some NPCs that go with each storyline. And given that you have all four of them, if you want them, like they just restrict it in that way.

• 45:25Kirk Hamilton?

  Like it's all kind of, you know, balanced decisions, I guess. And they, they made the choices that they made. The game is still spectacular. I mean, and I really think like, you know, I'm still kind of nowhere, you know? I've just started the second run through, I'm not even halfway through act one. If you consider act one has all four of the Flame Lords, so I'm a quarter of the way.

• 45:47Jason Schreier?

  Are you really going to play through all four stories for all 15 of their parts? Or whatever it is, 12 of their parts, but I forget the exact number.

• 45:55Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, it's 12 parts, so it's 12 times, so it's 48 chapters. Yeah, for sure. I'm going to, I'm not going to like this week. I think a really important thing about this game is to maybe pace yourself. Like I've stopped now that I'm at Leda, because there's just so much other stuff to play right now. And that's partly because like, you know, we're playing stuff for the show and I have all these new games. I want to play Control, I want to play Ace Combat, I want to play Onimusha. And then of course, soon we'll have Grand Theft Auto. Like there is not going to be time to finish the 100 plus hours it'll take. But eventually, yeah, like there's no reason this game can't be just like a big, long epic fantasy novel that I sort of read for the next four or five months. That seems really appealing.

• 46:35Kirk Hamilton?

  And given how the story is clearly written to be experienced in that way, if you really want to get the whole story, that's really cool. Like that sounds good to me. I would just definitely caution against anyone who's planning to like devour the whole game, unless you just know that's how you enjoy things and you want to just drown in it for the next month. Because that's, I would imagine you could burn out at some point, just because there's so much of it.

• 46:56Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's reminding me of 100 Line: Last Defense Academy in terms of how I intend to play it, which was, I waited and I actually played that game in like January, I think. Like after I was really done with the fall rush of games. And then I was a little sad, so I was like, I can't put this on my game of the year list. But I could play it really slowly. And that is also like, it's a strategy game, it has a ton of characters, it has multiple diverging storylines and paths. And I just played it like I was reading a book over a series of months and enjoyed it that way between other things. And I think that's how this game is intended to be played as well.

• 47:36Speaker 02

  And I think it will be something that I probably finish in January and I'm completely fine with that.

• 47:43Kirk Hamilton?

  That's a really good comparison. I hadn't thought of that, but that's a great comparison to 100 Line. And also because Jason, you played 100 Line and you played like the whole thing. And I remember your take was, it's too much. You were like, there's too much.

• 47:57Speaker 02

  You were specifically, Jason, you were like, don't play all the endings. And I remember that.

• 48:01Kirk Hamilton?

  And you were like, there's this kind of a skip list. Like you're like, here's, there's ones you should do and ones you shouldn't do. Which I think is kind of to an extent, it's different because of the, the structure, the narrative structure is different for 100 Line than, than Fortunes Weave. But I think it's the same idea where in Fortunes Weave, like we're already, it's already like the kind of collective wisdom of this game has already greatly improved the experience of playing it. Because there's people like, like what I'm saying, where I'm like, don't even bother recruiting people beyond this certain point. Like definitely be sure to do the paralogs, but don't worry about this. Like there's an increasing number of that, amount of that out there.

• 48:36Jason Schreier?

  Well, Kirk, can I ask you? Okay, so that to me, those are tips that I probably would have figured out. What I really want to know is like, what in the day to day grind do I not have to worry about? Like, can I skip the bird stuff? Can I skip meals? Can I skip training or can I skip temple service? Do I have to do all of that stuff? That's what I want to know.

• 48:55Kirk Hamilton?

  I think I can't answer all of it because like I haven't played act two, you know? I think that once people have really played the whole game, they'll know, okay, it really doesn't matter if you have the blessings beyond the first rank. Or like, you know, it doesn't matter if you're, you don't, you're not going to need to worry about ranking up everybody. I don't know, so I can't tell you. I think that information will become clear. And I don't know, like I definitely, like I had the weekly stuff that I did, which was training mostly, because that really does help your, just week to week, that really helps. Like at the arena, I mean, like going and doing the training. And then I liked talking to the gods when they're available to be spoken with. I actually didn't realize when the temple icon is gold, that means you can go have an audience with the god, which for a few weeks I didn't realize.

• 49:39Kirk Hamilton?

  There were a lot of things I didn't realize. I didn't realize that your character needs to be at the dinner.

• 49:45Kirk Hamilton?

  Really obvious, like, I guess, like, when you think about it, sure, that makes sense. Like, Kai has to be one of the three people that I'm buying dinner for. I thought at the beginning.

• 49:54Jason Schreier?

  What do you mean, "has to be"? But you can do it without.

• 49:56Speaker 02

  In order for you to level up with the other characters that you're eating with.

• 49:59Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah.

• 50:00Jason Schreier?

  Oh, you mean with the ones you're trying to recruit?

• 50:02Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 50:02Jason Schreier?

  If you're trying to build the support level with people you're trying to recruit.

• 50:05Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, just in case people don't know, you're trying, you have to build your support level with recruitable characters to a certain point.

• 50:09Jason Schreier?

  Right.

• 50:09Kirk Hamilton?

  And like Kai's level has to be at, you know, level three or level four. But if you, I was just buying dinner for like three people. Cause I was like, well, Kai's buying them dinner, so they all like him. Cause I'm paying for it.

• 50:21Speaker 02

  Turns out they don't, cause he's not going to.

• 50:23Kirk Hamilton?

  No.

• 50:24Speaker 02

  They don't give a shit.

• 50:25Kirk Hamilton?

  They just take it for granted, the freeloaders.

• 50:26Speaker 02

  They don't even care.

• 50:27Kirk Hamilton?

  So Kai has to be there, which now I know, so there's stuff like that, that I like.

• 50:30Jason Schreier?

  Kirk doesn't like doing good deeds just for the sake of it. He needs to get someone out of there.

• 50:34Kirk Hamilton?

  Not in this game, no way, man.

• 50:36Speaker 02

  For God's sake, Z's for crying out loud.

• 50:38Kirk Hamilton?

  No, in Fire Emblem, I'm only going and helping out at church because that god will then give me some benefit on the battlefield.

• 50:44Speaker 02

  Well, helping out at church has tangible benefits in this world in ways that are more metaphysical in ours.

• 50:49Kirk Hamilton?

  The gods are literally sitting right over there.

• 50:52Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, sometimes you meet them, sometimes they'll address you.

• 50:54Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah.

• 50:55Jason Schreier?

  One more quick thought, uh, I don't know if you guys are familiar with this video game series called Sweet Codin'.

• 51:02Speaker 02

  Oh my God, you know what Jason said?

• 51:03Kirk Hamilton?

  Very, very similar to this. I've had that thought many times.

• 51:05Jason Schreier?

  Cause there's a game called Sweet Codin' 3, which is one you two have not played. It's the one that came after Sweet Codin' 2, the one you have played. Sweet Codin' 3, I don't know if you guys know this, but first of all, um, the, it is a multi protagonist story where you kind of switch around different routes and each of them tells a different story, but they all cross into each other and each of them has their own entourage of characters, some of whom can be recruited and, and other storylines, et cetera, et cetera. And then you're also recruiting characters like in each of them that can be recruited in all of them, and eventually they all come, come together in this final, uh, final battle sequence. You'll learn different parts of the story based on each one. I don't know if you guys know this, but Sweet Codin' 3 also has like a skill system where

• 51:47Jason Schreier?

  each come, each skill, uh, in a different weapon has a letter grade and you improve it by training your character over time. And, uh, those are just, that's just the beginning of the, the parallels here. There's also a Flame Lord in Sweet Codin' 3, or Flame Hero, it's called.

• 52:06Kirk Hamilton?

  That's interesting. I'm looking, so Sweet Codin' 3 came out in 2002, which is kind of right when Fire Emblem was kicking off on the Game Boy Advance. This is, they're very like Blinding Blade 2002, Blazing Blade 2003, same era JRPG as well. So that's very cool. I, I definitely thought of Sweet Codin' 2 while playing this game, just the scope of the cast and the kind of overwhelming scale of it.

• 52:28Speaker 02

  Recruiting everyone, the pressure to recruit everyone.

• 52:31Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, I will say, Sweet Codin' 3, like all the Sweet Codin' games, the recruiting is much better, cause, well, in, in some ways it's much better, cause each character has different, like totally different methods of recruiting them or makes you do something. Occasionally it'll be very, uh, opaque, um, or tedious.

• 52:47Kirk Hamilton?

  In Fire Emblem, it's buy me dinner a bunch and then get me a fish.

• 52:51Jason Schreier?

  Well, it's also.

• 52:52Kirk Hamilton?

  Or give me three iron bows.

• 52:53Jason Schreier?

  And have a, have a reputation in town of being super cool. Um, yeah, it's a lot of those differences.

• 52:59Kirk Hamilton?

  Be famous enough.

• 53:00Jason Schreier?

  But Sweet Codin' 3 specifically, a lot of, lot of comparable points here.

• 53:04Speaker 02

  That's interesting. I, it makes sense that it'd be a direct influence, like Kirk said, I think, uh, probably. I mean, this is part of why I'm grateful that even though I know I was kind of bratty about it at the time, I'm always, I'm always grateful that I played Final Fantasy VI and Sweet Codin' 2. They were very influential games and I, I do see their influence in what we play now.

• 53:22Jason Schreier?

  Just wait, we might be playing Chrono Trigger in, in a few months.

• 53:26Speaker 02

  I know, it's another, it's another one on my kind of, uh, list of games that I'm like, I should probably get around to that someday. And Jason Tryer is the person in my life who ensures that sooner or later I do.

• 53:37Jason Schreier?

  It's my job.

• 53:39Kirk Hamilton?

  That'll be, that's a big, like JRPG kind of literacy block, like to fill in for your kind of, your full, full literacy.

• 53:46Jason Schreier?

  Well, I don't know if we'll be playing it, to be clear.

• 53:48Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's true.

• 53:49Kirk Hamilton?

  Oh, I know, I'm just reflecting on Chrono Trigger because it's a great game and like totally fits with this kind of constellation that you've assembled, Jason. Your kind of, your required reading of JRPGs between like Final Fantasy VI, Chrono Trigger, Sweet Codin' 2, like it really is, they're all very different and they fit really well together.

• 54:06Speaker 02

  It's a graduate level course that we're all taking together.

• 54:09Kirk Hamilton?

  I've never gone back, I think it would be interesting to go back and play one of the early Fire Emblem games. I gather they're very different, listening to the guys on Into the Aether talk, cause they're into like those early ones. They're super different. And there are those people who kind of always grumble that it's gone in this more persona-y, you know, developing relationships. I would say dating sim, but that was really just three houses. There's not really a dating sim in this game. It's more just like, there's way less actually of the support conversations.

• 54:36Jason Schreier?

  It's just the dinner sim.

• 54:39Kirk Hamilton?

  The dinners are, yeah.

• 54:40Speaker 02

  Just taking you far too.

• 54:41Kirk Hamilton?

  But there's support conversations as well, and those are really great. Like some of them are really funny. And I've actually missed a few with Kai because I recruited the wrong people. I kind of, I would love to find a guy that's just like, here's who you should recruit because you'll get support scenes with that character. Because some NPCs have support scenes like, I think just with one Flame Lord, or at least it sort of feels that way to me, I might be wrong. That information is like a little hard to come by. But anyways, like there are people who lament that move in that direction, even though I like all that stuff, um, and, and just want the game to be like the kind of hardcore tactics game that it used to be. Though there's a, there's a lot of that in this as well. This is still a really great tactics game, and ultimately that's the thing that I love most about it is just, I like going through these challenges and kind of working my way through them and figuring them out.

• 55:26Kirk Hamilton?

  They're just, it's the, the people, like the design teams at, um, Intelligent Systems are really great at what they do. The encounter designs are so cool and so clever and, and yeah, I, I really think it's a very smartly made game and really cool. Anyway, that's, uh, that's enough for now, I think, on Fortunes Weave, you know? I've played a lot of it, but there's so much more that I think I'll have a way more complete sense of this game, you know?

• 55:53Speaker 02

  Months from now?

• 55:54Kirk Hamilton?

  From now. Yeah. So I'm sure we'll return to it.

• 55:57Jason Schreier?

  We'll have to do another episode.

• 55:58Speaker 02

  Yeah, we can do one in like March 2027. I don't know. That's probably when I'll be done.

• 56:02Kirk Hamilton?

  Right. When I finally finish it. But yeah, for now, I think that'll do it. Let's take a break and then come back for one more thing.

• 56:13Speaker 03

  Max Fun Meetup Day is back on Sunday. Mark your calendars because by popular demand, Meetup Day is back on a weekend. See old friends. Or make new ones. Meetups are happening across the United States, Canada, and as far as France. Find your meetup at maximumfun.org/meetup. Don't see one nearby? Hosting your own is easy. Learn how at maximumfun.org/meetup. That's Max Fun Meetup Day this Sunday, October 4th. See you there.

• 56:52Speaker 04

  Remember Archer, the Emmy-winning animated series? I sure don't. I'm Amber Nash, the voice of Pam Poovey, and I'm hosting an Archer rewatch podcast called Refrasing. It was just pure punchline early on. What's great about it is you can watch it over and over again and you're gonna laugh every time. I agree, Ayesha. It's the gift that keeps on giving.

• 57:10Speaker 05

  When I rewatch it, I'm always very self-conscious about line reads.

• 57:13Speaker 04

  Really?

• 57:14Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 57:14Speaker 04

  Not me, I'm like, man, good work. Bob from Bob's Burgers likes Archer? We're rewatching Archer from the beginning and working our way through all 14 seasons. Each week we'll discuss a new episode and play some dumb games. So check out Refrasing, an Archer rewatch podcast on maximumfun.org.

• 57:34Kirk Hamilton?

  All right, and we are back for one more thing. Jason, you're back with us from your travels abroad. How about you tell us about them?

• 57:40Jason Schreier?

  So I went to Tokyo Game Show while I was in Japan. Bit of a misnomer, cause it's not actually in Tokyo, it's like in Chiba, which is like an hour away from Tokyo.

• 57:52Kirk Hamilton?

  Really? Tokyo is a state of mind.

• 57:53Jason Schreier?

  Tokyo is a state of mind. But I guess Chiba Game Show doesn't have quite the same ring to it.

• 58:00Kirk Hamilton?

  Did it used to be in Tokyo and then they moved it? Or like?

• 58:03Jason Schreier?

  I don't know.

• 58:03Kirk Hamilton?

  Why is it, huh?

• 58:05Jason Schreier?

  Never been before, this is my first time.

• 58:08Jason Schreier?

  One fun fact, by the way, about Japan, as you guys, I'm sure are aware, the train system, public transport in Japan is great, very efficient, very, um, expedient, very easy to navigate, uh, there, everything is in both Japanese and English, so even if you're a foreigner, really easy to get around. And everybody waits in line orderly, as is kind of Japanese, uh, stereotype. But it's very funny because when you're on one of these trains and then it's really crowded, suddenly all hell breaks loose and there's like, it feels like you're in a mosh pit because like there's a crowd of people that is all just literally just pushing out of the subway. It's kind of like breaking the stereotype of, of order.

• 58:45Speaker 02

  Yeah, they just go full, the tea after a Red Sox game at Kenmore Square is my comparison point for this. It's like, we're all the same, we're all the same everywhere in these moments.

• 58:56Kirk Hamilton?

  I have in my head that on some Japanese train stations, there are people who like, have like a board or whatever that they use to push people onto the train so the doors can close. I'll, I'll delete that if that's not true, but I believe that that is, at least at some point that has been a thing. Cause there's so many people on the train that they just like, yeah, like pack them in, like literally pack them in to get the doors closed. Bing, Kirk here, editing the episode, just wanted to say, this is definitely a thing. This role is known as a passenger pusher, and while they were pretty prevalent in Japan, they're, they actually, uh, there are people around the world who do this. And it used to be more prevalent in Japan than it is now. And in Japan, passenger pushers are known as Oshia. So there you go, the more you know. Back to the episode.

• 59:41Jason Schreier?

  One thing they did really right compared to New York subways, which are also great, but unlike New York subways, in Tokyo, the subway system, they have like specific gates and lines for where the subway door is going to be. So you don't just have to bum rush to where you see the door is and just kind of estimate and eyeball it like you do in New York.

• 1:00:02Speaker 02

  Wow. Wish we had that too.

• 1:00:04Jason Schreier?

  But anyway, so Tokyo Game Show. So I went there. So the way it works is it was four days. It was actually five days this year, but the fifth one got canceled because of a typhoon. So four days, I only went for one of them. The first two are quote unquote, business days and the second two are public days. I put business days in quotes because even though there's like a whole section for like media influencers, there were so many thousands of people that had media badges that I imagine it was very easy to get one. Even though it was a business day, it was so crowded that I was just like, I never need to go back here. This is, this is fun, but probably not again for me. I can't even imagine

• 1:00:46Jason Schreier?

  how insanely packed it was for the public days. It's also a little bit of a throwback because this convention center where it takes place is maybe the closest that I've seen to the LA convention center where E3 used to be. And so going to Tokyo Game Show actually felt a lot like recreating E3, which ended in 2019. Yeah. And so you go around and it has a feel of E3 in that it's led just these massive booths from these Japanese companies, Capcom and Square Enix and Sega and Level 5. And they have people lining up to play demos of games and it's all just kind of a big shit show of people and crowds and smells and swag and people just handing out all sorts of stickers and nonsense. But it's kind of

• 1:01:30Jason Schreier?

  like an old school E3 because they still have booth babes at Tokyo Game Show, unlike E3. They have all sorts of just kind of interesting displays. At one point I saw a booth and there was this big screen and it had what looked like, kind of like, you know the movie Human Centipede, but like three like anime school girls?

• 1:01:53Kirk Hamilton?

  Where are you going with this?

• 1:01:55Jason Schreier?

  And it wasn't, they weren't doing the Human Centipede thing. They're just kind of in position, like bent over in front of each other. It was a little bit more like a sexual Human Centipede thing and all sorts of, all sorts of stuff like that all over the, the show. I got to play Final Fantasy VII Revelation, which is cool, played as Sid and Vincent. Only like a 30 minute demo, so not much to share for that. Just feels, it's like the beginning of the game feels just like continuation of Rebirth in a lot of ways. But I will say Sid at a, in the opening cutscene of this demo, Sid is like, yeah, I'm gonna fight this time. He has a whole little putting monologue thing. And

• 1:02:35Jason Schreier?

  you get notes of Sid's music, his musical theme playing as he says that in the background and it's just total millennial nerd chills. Got me very excited for Final Fantasy VII Revelation.

• 1:02:49Kirk Hamilton?

  Sid's theme roles, so that's great.

• 1:02:54Jason Schreier?

  Extremely, extremely good. And this is like the, the remade version that is just all over the place. So really cool stuff. That game, very excited for that game. I also played the new Professor Layton game, which does not demo well. The puzzles that they chose for this demo are like staring at a bunch of doors and trying to figure out how many like handles they have, how many different shaped handles and windows and stuff they have. Really terrible game to be demoing at a trade show. Was also spotting, trying to spot AI, which-

• 1:03:27Kirk Hamilton?

  You're a Layton, a Layton head, right?

• 1:03:29Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, yeah. There hasn't been a new one in a long time. So I mean, this new one comes out in December, so I'm excited about that. And overall, it was a really interesting experience. Again, didn't spend more than a day there and most of that day I was just kind of meeting with people and doing interviews and stuff like that, but was cool to see and experience. Craziest thing about TGS this year is that the most popular booth, the most popular game booth there was for Grand Theft Auto VI, which that might not shock you, Grand Theft Auto VI, biggest game in the world. Of course, it would be a big, even in Japan, it would be a humongous thing. But what is surprising

• 1:04:10Jason Schreier?

  about it is that this booth for GTA VI just played the 27 minute Netflix gameplay footage that you can watch online.

• 1:04:20Kirk Hamilton?

  There was no game in the booth?

• 1:04:21Jason Schreier?

  No, you cannot play the game.

• 1:04:22Kirk Hamilton?

  It's like the physical box that you buy. There's no game in it.

• 1:04:25Jason Schreier?

  Exactly. You go in, and so this thing, people were waiting online for hours to, to go and watch the footage that they could just watch on YouTube.

• 1:04:34Kirk Hamilton?

  They're on their phone, in line, watching the footage.

• 1:04:38Jason Schreier?

  So bizarre. I just did not understand. I didn't know if people didn't realize this or what, but that was very funny. Of course, Final Fantasy VII Revelation was also very popular.

• 1:04:48Speaker 02

  Or at least you could play that.

• 1:04:50Jason Schreier?

  Yes, yes, yes. A hundred percent.

• 1:04:52Kirk Hamilton?

  Is it possible that like if you went into the Grand Theft Auto booth, that you like got a shirt or something like that on the other side?

• 1:04:58Jason Schreier?

  Maybe. I heard there was some sort of like haptic sensation thing that I guess made people want to go.

• 1:05:05Kirk Hamilton?

  They spray you with water when a boat goes by. Hell yeah.

• 1:05:09Jason Schreier?

  Also, very fun.

• 1:05:11Kirk Hamilton?

  That would be amazing.

• 1:05:12Speaker 02

  So dumb.

• 1:05:14Jason Schreier?

  I was interviewing Naoki Hamaguchi, the director of Final Fantasy VII Remake Rebirth Revelation. And he gets a lot of attention at these things, which is, which is fun to see. A lot of people want to go and take pictures of them. Final Fantasy, the Square Enix booth, they had a different kind of figurines set up, like photo displays set up for you to take pictures with. One of them, this is incredible, one of them is Sephiroth in the air with his sword held down and he could like pose right below it. And so Hamaguchi, the director of the game, like did a, took a picture of himself, like fingers like crossed, like he's praying on his knees. Well, Sephiroth comes up behind him. That was very funny.

• 1:05:54Jason Schreier?

  And also I was chatting with Shuhei Yoshida, formerly of Sony. He also gets a lot of people coming up to him and like wanting to take pictures of them and stuff. He's a celebrity there. There was a bunch of Japanese indie games or like really indie games from everywhere. I didn't get a chance to play much, unfortunately. Didn't have a ton of time and it was so crowded that it was really hard to get from one place to another. And yeah, walked around, saw a bunch of these booths and stuff. Trying to think, I don't think I saw anything else of note, but it was a cool experience that I probably will not do again. And I'm okay with that because as much as I miss the spectacle of E3, I think Summer Games Fest, where there's

• 1:06:36Jason Schreier?

  kind of like a chill media campus where you can actually walk around and like do your job without having to navigate crowds of hundreds of thousands of people. I think that is a more ideal experience for at least this part of this, for my job and my career. If I was just a fan, I might feel differently. But yeah, Tokyo, a pretty cool city. Also, if you guys agree, I said, I mean, Tokyo was pretty, pretty cool. It was cool being in Shibuya, which is just like being in like a major part of Persona 5 and just kind of seeing that come to life. Not to be all cliche and be like, yeah, Persona, but that was my experience.

• 1:07:11Speaker 02

  I would have been doing that too. And I would have been ordering like beautiful plates of food like they do in Persona. And hopefully you got to do some of that. That feels like a great food city.

• 1:07:21Jason Schreier?

  I did. I didn't have the optimal experience because I had some stomach issues my first couple of days, but I did have a lot of good curry and also just like in Persona. And also, the best, the best meal I had was in this little teppanyaki joint, which is like where they grill food in front of you. And it's just this single guy, this single like middle aged Japanese man with like kind of the, the top bun hair and a big apron. And he is just going person by person and taking their orders and just cooking in front of the, you. I order, and it was like a wagyu steak he would make in front of you. Incredible. And super cheap because the yen is really weak right now compared to the dollar. So everything there was super cheap. Had a lot of good meals for sure. Didn't really have

• 1:08:04Jason Schreier?

  sushi, which people are always surprised. And I'm like, yeah, I didn't really have any sushi there, but they have so much other good food. Yeah. Fun, fun times. I also, I went to the Square Enix store and got chokobo and Mogul plushies for my kids, which, which they enjoyed. My son, my four year old son is sleeping with the Mogul plushie at night now, which is adorable. Getting them into Final Fantasy from a young age. And yeah, that's about it. Tokyo, a super cool city. Next, I mean, I, I was all interviews and meetings and stuff, so I didn't get a chance to like do any actual sightseeing. So one day gonna go back, hopefully we'll get to go back with my family and like actually go around and see stuff in Japan, which I didn't really get to do much of this time. But yeah, it was pretty cool.

• 1:08:49Speaker 02

  That sounds amazing.

• 1:08:50Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, I really want to go on a just trip to Japan. My sister's family went a couple of years ago. They went to like, it's the Studio Ghibli amusement park. I forget what the actual name is of it is, which sounds very interesting. A very like unique as amusement parks go, kind of less of an amusement park in some ways, but that sounds really cool. And yeah, I'd love to see like Japan itself, like to get out of the city and go sort of see the countryside.

• 1:09:14Jason Schreier?

  Should we do a live show there? So we all have an excuse to go.

• 1:09:18Kirk Hamilton?

  Didn't we get an email recently? Someone was like, you should come do a live show in Japan. I'm like, yeah, okay.

• 1:09:24Speaker 02

  We got an email from a Japanese listener, Japan based listener at least, who, who said that. And I was like, ah, not opposed to this.

• 1:09:32Kirk Hamilton?

  Fly us out, maybe. I travel business class when I cross the Pacific, I'm afraid.

• 1:09:37Jason Schreier?

  Tickets would have to be very expensive.

• 1:09:39Speaker 02

  I feel like Kirk and I were reading that email like while Jason was in Japan. So like, obviously that was affecting our perspective on this. But yeah, definitely. I would love to go there someday. It's a, it's a dream.

• 1:09:52Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, it's on my list for sure. Well, I will go next. I have been playing a game. Well, I really was traveling and I played this game while I was traveling. I haven't been playing it over the last couple of weeks now that I'm home. But I played a lot of Fields of Mysteria now that it's in 1.0. And most of that is driven by my wife Emily, who has really gotten into Fields of Mystery. I like kind of finally kind of put, she was like, you picture a person who's like pointed at Animal Crossing and they're like, Animal Crossing, Animal Crossing, Animal Crossing. And then you kind of take them and you just sort of gently turn them until they're looking at Fields of Mystery. And then they're like, Fields of Mystery, Fields of Mystery.

• 1:10:30Jason Schreier?

  I'm surprised she allows you to, uh, to, to take it from her, like, take the switch or seem like whatever you're playing.

• 1:10:36Kirk Hamilton?

  Well, so it actually started because I knew that Fire Emblem was coming out and she had been playing a lot of, she kind of got back into Animal Crossing and I think just really has a good time kind of optimizing and just kind of going through the routines of those games. She grew up Blue Rose in Fire, in Animal Crossing, which I gather is like-

• 1:10:54Speaker 02

  It is very difficult.

• 1:10:55Kirk Hamilton?

  The like, new game, plus, plus, plus, final boss, most difficult thing to do in that game. So she basically beat Animal Crossing and, um, and was kind of ready for something new. And also I was like, I'm gonna need the Switch for a long time. Fields of Mystery and the Steam Deck are a match made in heaven. What a cool game. I really like it a lot. Matty, so you played a lot of this game, right? When it was in early access?

• 1:11:16Speaker 02

  I did. I, I actually haven't played the 1.0 version, cause as you alluded to, I feel like it came out at the wrong time for us.

• 1:11:24Kirk Hamilton?

  I feel like it was like late August or something. It was kind of right before September.

• 1:11:27Speaker 02

  Right before the onslaught. But I did love what I played.

• 1:11:30Kirk Hamilton?

  I gather, and this was listening to the besties talk about it, that actually like a lot of the game from early access is the same. Like the, I think a lot of the 1.0 stuff is kind of later on and there's a lot of end game stuff. Emily's played a lot and she's like really far in and I think there's like lots of stuff happening in her game, like narrative stuff, and I don't know how much of that is 1.0. I've only played through, like, you start in spring, just like in Stardew Valley, and then I'm in summer. Um, and to, I'm sure a lot of people know this, this is a farming sim, like a life sim, farming sim game. It looks a lot like Stardew Valley. It's that kind of 16-bit graphical style. You move to a small town called Mistrya and you get a farm there. You're kind of hired to come in and fix the town.

• 1:12:12Kirk Hamilton?

  Like, the, the brother and sister in charge of the town are like, we need someone to come in and fix everything. Let's just put up a help wanted sign. And then your character kind of wanders in like, hey, I'm here to help. And the twist, or not the twist, I suppose, the thing that sets this game apart from Stardew is, one, that it's like more explicitly a fantasy world. There were fantasy elements in Stardew Valley, but this is much more like, the world is just like much more fantastical. There's like a mystical dragon beings and like ancient magic and, you know, the mine that you go through, which just like in Stardew, is much more like tied to ancient powers. There's ruins you can explore and relics that you're digging up and spells, you learn spells that like make your crops grow faster or like replenish your stamina.

• 1:12:56Kirk Hamilton?

  So there's like a whole magic system and more kind of-

• 1:12:58Jason Schreier?

  And also it sounds pretty real to me. The real fantasy is people bringing in a stranger and letting him have complete control over their, their, their farm and their fields.

• 1:13:07Speaker 02

  And falling in love with them and all the other things that happen in these sorts of games.

• 1:13:11Jason Schreier?

  That's it. Love is the true fantasy here.

• 1:13:13Kirk Hamilton?

  It is, man, the love and also the thing that makes this game really special to me that I love about it is the way that the community has been written. So the, this game is made by NPC Studio. They're a Chicago indie studio. The co-directors and designers are named Claire Belton and Andrew Duff. So I think those are like the two people who like oversaw this and kind of had the vision for it. It's very clear that they played Stardew Valley and it's very informed by Stardew, but they've made a lot of changes. A lot of it is like quality of life stuff. The game is just like a lot smoother experience. It's not as hardcore in terms of like the economy and the farming. You're not quite as like driven to just maximize your output and it kind of really quickly

• 1:13:56Kirk Hamilton?

  gets you into just like making food and getting to know people and digging up stuff over at the archaeological site and exploring and like you just, it feels like a more multifaceted game and a little less like it's just gonna push you into being a like merciless optimizer on, of one thing, especially the farming, which is nice. Oh, livestock, there's great livestock systems where like you have like really cute cows that you pet every day and I have a dog named Appa and you know. Um, but the thing I really love is the, the writing of the community. This group of people in the town are a very varied and interesting bunch. Each character is really great. They're all really fun. The art is really cool. It's got that kind of Sailor Moon art style, especially the female characters kind of look like Sailor Moon characters.

• 1:14:41Kirk Hamilton?

  I haven't really watched Sailor Moon, but just, I know that art style.

• 1:14:44Speaker 02

  Everyone knows the art style. It's so famous, yeah.

• 1:14:46Kirk Hamilton?

  It's very familiar, like 90's anime. And the characters are just so much fun and they're all so different. There's a nice diversity of like ages and kind of backgrounds. Um, and they, they're much, I find them much livelier and more memorable than the characters in Stardew. And a big part of that is because they're all friends with one another. They all have relationships. Every Friday night, they get together at the inn and there's like three different groups of them. One of them is, they're playing Dungeons and Dragons together, like six of them. So if you make it to the inn on Friday night, you go to that table and you press the button and then you get to see like, you get to see the latest in their campaign. And of course it's written week to week to week, so each time you go in, there's, you know, you learn that story. But then there's another group and they're gambling. And there's like a really funny storyline where like the one like armor guy or like

• 1:15:31Kirk Hamilton?

  the blacksmith is like really good at poker, but he doesn't know how to play. So he's like always winning. So that's like an ongoing storyline. And then another group, they have like a wine tasting club, so they're over at the bar.

• 1:15:42Jason Schreier?

  That also is very realistic, by the way. Uh, the, the guy who comes to your poker game who doesn't know anything about the rules is just like accidentally winning.

• 1:15:50Speaker 02

  And yet is just winning over everybody, yeah.

• 1:15:51Kirk Hamilton?

  And everyone is just like beside themselves. So there, there's these different groups and like, that's really cool. Like, I really like the feeling of community and I'd say it's the biggest fantasy of this game is that there's such this like small town where you're always welcome in the inn. There's always a new stew on that you can have some of. Everyone is like friendly and supporting one another and they all just want you to help. And like, yeah, sure, sometimes they need like civic infrastructure to be built and they just ask you to pay for it entirely by yourself. Because that's just how it works in this town. But it's a small tax really to pay.

• 1:16:24Jason Schreier?

  They should be asking the guy who keeps winning at poker.

• 1:16:26Speaker 02

  Yeah, I know.

• 1:16:27Kirk Hamilton?

  Really, I know. It's true.

• 1:16:29Speaker 02

  He wouldn't pay for it though. That guy, he's, he's-

• 1:16:32Kirk Hamilton?

  No.

• 1:16:33Speaker 02

  He's an iconoclast.

• 1:16:34Kirk Hamilton?

  No, he's, he is. Um, and so that's cool. And then one other quick thought is that, uh, related to all of this is there are also children in this town. There's a group of kids and they're also at the inn and they're having their own little adventure and you go talk to them. And the kids in this game are wonderful. Like, there's something about the fact of a town, like a town needs to have kids in it. Like, there needs to be a group of little kids and they're all so different. They're all so cute and funny. Like, each of them has their own little personality and things that they're into. And like the way that, that it's all kind of tied together, like a lot of times you'll go talk to a kid or even one of the other NPCs and they'll say, oh, I was just at the museum and I saw there's this new exhibit from this thing that you must have donated and that's so cool. And they'll share a fun fact about whatever it is.

• 1:17:19Kirk Hamilton?

  And like, I, I don't know, like the feeling of community in this game is really special and must have been very hard to do. Like, it took a lot of work to write it with as much care as they did. And it's totally for me what makes the game like more than just a like really good Stardew Valley like and something special and something that, uh, of its own. So I really like, love it. I played a lot. It had, you know, any game with a schedule like that where you're just doing a daily schedule, just like Fire Emblem, like it's so easy to just to be like, well, I'll just do one more, I'll just do one more. Like, it really sucks you in. But I think it's so wholesome and so kind of human in the way that it's been written that it is really a very special game and I really love it. I'm, I'll keep playing it, you know, and I'm traveling and stuff. It's such a great travel game.

• 1:18:02Kirk Hamilton?

  Like, it makes a flight fly by. So I, um, yeah, I really, I really, really dig Fields of Mystery. I think it's a wonderful game.

• 1:18:10Speaker 02

  Yeah, you're reminding me how great it was and I'm like, oh, I should go back and check on my friends. Uh, maybe that's another January project for me. I don't know.

• 1:18:20Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, how far did you get, Matty? Like in the schedule or in the calendar?

• 1:18:22Speaker 02

  I think I got all the way up to as far as you could get, because I really got into it. And like there, there is kind of a stopping point in the early access version of the game where you would kind of run out of things to do. And like you could continue to farm your crops and stuff, but you'd be like out of levels in the mine and, and you would kind of be able to tell that you had exhausted a lot of the story content and it would be like, okay, I need to come back when they've written more of this. I don't know if there's like a quote unquote ending at this point or how that would work exactly. I would expect there's just more that's written there that wasn't present before. But if I were to go back, I'd honestly want to just start over because I'm like, I kind of remember all the characters, but getting to know them is part of the delight of the game for sure.

• 1:19:07Jason Schreier?

  There's a game I've been waiting for. One of the reasons I don't really want to sink into this is because there's a game I've been waiting for called Grave Seasons that is like a farming sim-

• 1:19:15Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, hell yeah.

• 1:19:16Jason Schreier?

  -with a murder mystery attached. And if I'm gonna get into a farming sim, that's the one that I want to kind of get my teeth into.

• 1:19:21Speaker 02

  That sounds great too.

• 1:19:22Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, that Blumhouse one. It looks really awesome. Yeah.

• 1:19:25Speaker 02

  That's a great name, Grave Seasons. I get it. I get it. Cause murder.

• 1:19:30Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, those, yeah, I'm really, I, I've just really come to like this kind of game and there are a lot of them, but there aren't that many that are truly great Animal Crossing, Stardew. I would say Fields of Mystery. And I hope Grave Seasons is another one, just because, yeah, like horror, mystery themed one of these would be perfect. Like, that's exactly the niche that someone should go for, so it's very cool that someone is. I'm looking forward to that. When's that out? When is that? Is there a release date for that?

• 1:19:56Jason Schreier?

  It got delayed. It had a release date and then it got kind of pushed back to, I think they're saying this year at some point, but could be early next year. I don't know.

• 1:20:03Kirk Hamilton?

  They can wait.

• 1:20:04Speaker 02

  Yeah, they can wait. That's fine.

• 1:20:06Jason Schreier?

  You've got time. Take your time, please.

• 1:20:08Kirk Hamilton?

  Just February, March, 27.

• 1:20:09Jason Schreier?

  Please wait.

• 1:20:10Kirk Hamilton?

  Honestly, yeah, I would, I would advise it. If anyone working on that game is listening to this, just wait till February, March. It's fine. Apparently, they listened to us even though the episode had not yet published, which I think is a first. After we recorded this, the developers of Grave Seasons announced that the game will be out on March 9, 2027. So they decided to wait a little bit, which is totally fine. And yeah, looking forward to playing that game. I'm sure we'll be talking about it in March of next year. All right, back to the episode.

• 1:20:40Jason Schreier?

  Bing.

• 1:20:41Kirk Hamilton?

  Well, that's, that's me. Maddie, you're last. What's your one more thing?

• 1:20:45Speaker 02

  Okay, my one more thing is, it's an article, according to the one more thing sheet that we have, but it's really a topic that I got fixated on this week and read like 12 articles about, and is fascinating and strange, and I recommend that people look into it. And so I kind of tried to pick the most comprehensive of all the articles that I read about it, which is, it's written by this guy Ian K. Duncan, who's more of a blogger type than a reporter type. And he wrote like a long explainer of the situation that's called Sex, AI, and the Apocalypse. And let me try to summarize it so that you understand why I got fascinated by this. And it's because this is a story, it's got, like, my old editors

• 1:21:30Speaker 02

  at the Phoenix used to say if a story has bodily fluids, you put that in the lead. Let's just say there's some bodily fluids in this, in this story. It gets, it gets salacious and at times upsetting. So you guys might remember earlier this month, we're recording this in September 2026, if you're listening in the far future, this guy Jacob Coxson quit Anthropic, which is an AI company, just kind of have a, Anthropic has kind of a personal brand of being like the ethical AI company. That's part of their branding. Yeah. And when he quit, he did this really viral Twitter thread where he was like, I'm really concerned about AI safety and the apocalypse, and I feel like Anthropic isn't taking it seriously. And after he did that, a lot of people that I follow started talking

• 1:22:12Speaker 02

  about the topic and talking about a couple other guys in this knowing way, and this book that these two guys had written, these two guys being Eliezer Yudkowsky and Nate Sures, who wrote this book called If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies: Why Superhuman AI Would Kill Us All. Have you two heard of these two guys in this book?

• 1:22:30Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah.

• 1:22:31Speaker 02

  Yeah. So these guys are part of, there's kind of a few warring factions in the AI safety world that I learned about this week when I read about all of these cliques.

• 1:22:43Jason Schreier?

  And each of them is led by a firelord.

• 1:22:45Speaker 02

  Kind of, yes. Kind of, yes. And the faction that those guys are in, at least for now, they call themselves the Rationalists. And there's another faction called the Effective Altruists. And like some, there's some overlap, used to be in those factions. And they're, basically the reason that everyone was posting about this this past couple of weeks is because they were like, saying that these factions had formed what they call a quote, sex cult. And I was like, that's a pretty wacky phrase. That doesn't-

• 1:23:20Kirk Hamilton?

  This goes back to Sam Bankman-Fried, like the effective altruism thing where like, Sam Bankman-Fried was in a polycule, and there's like, there is like a whole, there's stuff to this.

• 1:23:28Speaker 02

  There is, there is. I can confirm after reading far too many articles about it, that there is indeed stuff to this. And it is a wild journey that, again, is at times upsetting, and I think really worth reading about, because these are some very influential people. Like, for example, Yudkowsky was recently in a video with Bernie Sanders, where he was talking about AI safety. Like, these are people who have the ear of pretty popular politicians and policymakers, and are really listened to on this issue. And yet, they also really strongly, they have some beliefs about AI that I think are really odd, and kind of

• 1:24:12Speaker 02

  borderline doomsday kinds of feelings. And I say this as a noted AI skeptic. I've been very skeptical of AI many times on this show. But the types of beliefs that these guys have are very unusual and strange. And this sort of cult-like following has built up around them. And I was certainly, I went into this really skeptical about the sex cult piece, because I started reading it, and I was like, are these guys just polyamorous? And everybody doesn't know how to write about that? I would say it's a little more complicated than just that. And if you read Ian's article, and you're kind of like, I don't know if I buy this, which is kind of where I was. I was like, let's get some real reporters on this issue. Let's get some real reporters in here. And that was when I started reading this other article, which I'm not going to bother linking. Just if you're a listener

• 1:24:57Speaker 02

  who starts getting fixated on things like I do, and you start wanting to read a bunch of articles, I would say, check out this Time article that's called Effective Altruism Promises to Do Better: These Women Say It Has a Toxic Culture of Sexual Harassment and Abuse. This is like, the reporterly version of all the harassment and sexual abuse allegations that women have made against some of these people. It's much more documented, and has women who went on the record and described their experiences in detail about being pressured to be part of these communities and do things that they didn't want to do. So, once I was down that rabbit hole, I was like, this is wild. So I recommend reading about these guys. They're very socially powerful. And I don't know that they should be. That's, that's my takeaway from reading about them.

• 1:25:41Jason Schreier?

  So it's just a cult that has gone mainstream, and nobody thinks of it as a cult?

• 1:25:47Speaker 02

  That is my opinion of it. Anyway, that's my opinion.

• 1:25:51Kirk Hamilton?

  Can I actually, this is a good opportunity to throw in something tangentially related that I've been getting ready to do, that I think our listeners might find interesting.

• 1:26:01Jason Schreier?

  So I'm starting a sex cult.

• 1:26:02Speaker 02

  Our listeners might find this interesting.

• 1:26:05Kirk Hamilton?

  Our listeners might be into this.

• 1:26:08Jason Schreier?

  Listen to Triple Kiss for more details.

• 1:26:10Speaker 02

  You have to become a subscriber, see, you have to, you have to pay us to learn more.

• 1:26:14Kirk Hamilton?

  No, this is a reading. This is related to AI and reading. So my sister has read through all of Tressie McMillan Cottom, the professor and writer, Tressie McMillan Cottom's AI reading list. She made a list of six books that she recommends as like the six books you should read to like, understand what is going on. And we'll link it in show notes. And I haven't read any of them. There are books you've probably heard of. So there's Empire of AI, that's Karen How's book. The Thinking Machine is like the big profile of Jensen Huang, the Nvidia CEO. There's Muskism, which I gather is very interesting. It's written by two people about, like, not just about Elon Musk, but about like Muskism,

• 1:26:59Kirk Hamilton?

  like, it's an analog to Fordism, like, to this way of thinking about progress. The Nerd Reich: Techno Feudalism and End Times: Fascism by Naomi Klein. Those are the six books, but I'll put a link in the show notes. My sister Amanda read all of them and was like, man, everybody should read these six books. And this isn't to like, knock reading articles, because I think like, the thing you're reading about and talking about, Maddie, is like, much more like, in the article space.

• 1:27:24Speaker 02

  No, this is like what I'm gonna do next.

• 1:27:25Kirk Hamilton?

  It's in the article space. But my sister's takeaway, and I think I can safely paraphrase her here, was, everybody should read these six books, because when you read the book, it's not like you come away being like, either like, AI is great, or AI is bad. Like, it's not about the partisan part of it. It's about just like, knowing what the fuck is going on, and like, who these people are, and like, who are the most powerful people in the world. And like, it sounds really great, especially given us, like, our show and our position, the fact that I find myself talking about AI a lot, but also saying, man, I don't know. You know, like, it's hard to feel like you can get your arms around it, because it's such a huge thing. There are so many moving pieces. There are so many different people involved.

• 1:28:07Jason Schreier?

  Kind of like Fire Emblem.

• 1:28:08Speaker 02

  Kinda, yeah.

• 1:28:09Kirk Hamilton?

  You kind of like, it's like the Fire Emblem of the real world. And anyways, so we'll put a link down there. I've been thinking about reading these. And I think that's, if people do want to just like, get away from just like, being on social media and then reading articles and New York Times reports about the latest crazy thing that happened in Anthropic or whatever, and instead just be like, I kind of just want to understand this better. I think that might be a great place to go. And I know Tressie has like, talked about reading this and the experience of like, reading these books. And she is, of course, like, I think, one of the great contemporary thinkers about culture. And so that, I think, would also be helpful to like, read her framing for it. So I'll find a link for that as well, in addition to just the six books. And I think that could be a nice add-on to what you're talking about. Because, yeah, my sister's also been telling

• 1:28:53Kirk Hamilton?

  me about some of these articles you're mentioning, Maddie, and is like, dude.

• 1:28:56Speaker 02

  It's weird. But I do feel like people should know about it. And I'm sorry that I'm not like, adequately summarizing it, but it's because, as far as I've said, is as much as one needs to know before we start getting into like, tragic content warnings and whatnot. But yeah, I, after reading these articles, I started seeing people recommending The Nerd Reich. And I, that's a book I already had intended to read, and it sounds like the other books on this list sound really helpful. And I appreciate that there are reporters out there who are really trying to delve deep into this and do investigative profiles on some of these rich people and influential people, and tell us what is going on in their brains.

• 1:29:38Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, it'd be something, we'll see. If we wind up reading, it's to be something that we could talk about on the show, even maybe one of these books or something. I don't know. Jensen Huang strikes me as someone to know more about. Like, that seems like, he is definitely one of those people that, like it or not, is like, easily one of the most powerful people in the world, and someone that I at least didn't know very much about at all until a few weeks ago, and then finally have been learning a little bit about. And yeah, really worth knowing about, just because of his impact on the world. Anyways, well, cool. That's a, that's a lot of reading we just gave people at the end.

• 1:30:15Speaker 02

  Hey, sometimes it's all you can do. You gotta learn somehow.

• 1:30:19Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, man. Gotta go learn.

• 1:30:20Jason Schreier?

  Go read these six books. Yeah, sure.

• 1:30:24Speaker 02

  Hey, I tried to stick with just one article in my, in my one more thing.

• 1:30:28Kirk Hamilton?

  That's true. And my sister underlined for me, she's like, that is the reaction people have. But she's like, these books are very easy to read. And she's like, and also she said, she, because I said the same to her, and I was like, six books? She's like, dude, you can read six books. It's not that hard. Like, you've read a book before. Like, you can do it. Books aren't that hard. I kind of appreciate it.

• 1:30:45Jason Schreier?

  She's like, dude, you've read six books worth of Fire Emblem dialogue already.

• 1:30:48Speaker 02

  Yeah, you in particular have also read six books like, earlier today. So I feel like you saying that is absurd.

• 1:30:53Kirk Hamilton?

  My one more thing next week, I'll just tease to mine one more thing next week, is the book that I've been reading for the past like, two months. It's not what either of you would predict. And if I can read that book, I can definitely read these six, is what I'll say. And we'll just find out what it is next week in one more thing.

• 1:31:07Speaker 02

  That's a nice little teaser.

• 1:31:09Kirk Hamilton?

  Until then, though. Hey.

• 1:31:10Jason Schreier?

  Until then.

• 1:31:11Kirk Hamilton?

  We did another episode of Triple Click. Welcome back, Jason. Welcome back.

• 1:31:14Jason Schreier?

  Thank you.

• 1:31:14Kirk Hamilton?

  To America, and back to Triple Click. We're very glad to have you back.

• 1:31:17Jason Schreier?

  Never going on an airplane again.

• 1:31:18Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, I know that feeling.

• 1:31:20Speaker 02

  I don't know if that's true, but.

• 1:31:22Kirk Hamilton?

  There's a thing, man, maybe listeners can help me remember this. There was a sci-fi, either game book, something where they, the way that you traveled across the planet, there was an elevator that went through the middle of the planet. And like you, they described it very vividly too, like you got on it and then it like shot at supersonic speed straight through the planet. So you could like get to Australia in like a few hours. And it was such a cool idea.

• 1:31:46Jason Schreier?

  It's the dream.

• 1:31:47Kirk Hamilton?

  For, yeah, for getting someone.

• 1:31:48Speaker 02

  Sounds about as bad as a plane in terms of your ears popping, actually. I don't know if that would actually be any better.

• 1:31:53Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, I think it's, it was, it was pretty intense. Someone's gonna remind me what that is. I have a like, I remember everything about it except what book it was from. So hopefully someone will, I bet like in five minutes, someone will remember.

• 1:32:04Jason Schreier?

  I gotta say, 14 hours, too long to be in an airplane.

• 1:32:07Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, man.

• 1:32:08Speaker 02

  That is too long.

• 1:32:09Kirk Hamilton?

  Did you fly business class at least?

• 1:32:10Jason Schreier?

  I, I used a whole lot of credit card points.

• 1:32:12Speaker 02

  As it should be. It was like the only way to get through it.

• 1:32:17Kirk Hamilton?

  When I went to, yeah, when I went to Australia, we didn't, we flew coach because the, the host of the show that were having me on like very generously flew us there. And I couldn't ask them to pay for business, but man, yeah, that would be the difference. There's a reason that it costs like $10,000 or whatever the hell it costs to fly business. Cause otherwise it's pretty brutal.

• 1:32:37Jason Schreier?

  But I gotta say, I fly a lot and most of those flights are to like LA or west coast for one reason or another. That's like a sweet spot. That's like a good amount of time to be on a plane. It's six hours. That's a perfect amount of time. 14 hours, way too much time to be on a plane.

• 1:32:49Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, anything more than six really starts to wear on you.

• 1:32:51Speaker 02

  I feel like anything more than four and I start questioning everything that led to that moment.

• 1:32:57Kirk Hamilton?

  Six is, six is.

• 1:32:58Jason Schreier?

  Six isn't too bad.

• 1:32:59Speaker 02

  It's just that last two hours where I start being like, I gotta, I gotta switch video games. I gotta, I gotta walk around, you know?

• 1:33:06Jason Schreier?

  I always, six is like, I can finish a book and then play a game for a while. It's like a good, a good amount of time. Anyway, this episode's way too long already.

• 1:33:14Speaker 02

  It's almost six hours.

• 1:33:17Jason Schreier?

  See you guys both next week.

• 1:33:18Kirk Hamilton?

  Yes, this was fun and I will see you both next week.

• 1:33:22Speaker 02

  Bye.

• 1:33:25Kirk 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. Email us at [email protected] and find links to our merch store and our Discord server in the show notes. Thanks for listening. See you next time.

• 1:34:23Speaker 06

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