Bombin' the A.M. With Alexa Ray Corriea: 06/23/2014

The Sonic fan art is a hole you definitely don't want to go down. Sometimes its better to pretend there is a whole section of the Internet that doesn't really exist.

Good chapter, though. Alexa was a pretty good guest.

"There are a lot of buttholes on the Internet." - Alex Navarro

Your avatar pretty much invalidates your opinion.

Great podcast. Also, I've probably not heard a single good account of the new Sonic game...so that game probably won't be any good (but I don't really think ANY Sonic games were good and have absolutely no nostalgia for the series).

@mikelemmer:

That is the only correct answer.

Good show today BTW

Yeah Double Dash! Alexa is now pretty cool in my book.

"Yo fuck Nomura he ruined FF"

"Yo the reason I think FFXIII sucks without any actual knowledge is because of the pacing of the mechanics, not the art style"

"Yo my favorite FF is FFVIII with it's shitty battle system that, from beggining to end, reaches a level of mechanical depth that FFXIII hits within the first few hours and completely eclipses a quarter of the way through. Also it was made by Nomura."

Ah Patrick just when I was starting to warm up to you again.

I'm one of the few supporters of Sonic games around here and Colours and Generations, as good as they are have not stopped the Sonic Cycle. There have been two Sonic games post Generations( Sonic 4-2 and Lost World, three if you want to count the 3DS version of LW) and both of them have been huge steps back for the series. Sonic Boom was a rare chance for someone other than Sonic Team (Who clearly have no clue what they want for Sonic franchise.) to try something fresh and all evidence points to them making a TV show tie-in. People don't want to punch stuff in Sonic games (fucking Werehog.) and they don't want to tether shit and throw it at bosses, they want to go fast, and this game, like the last two games doesn't seem to focus on speed.

When it comes to All Star racing the appeal isn't Sonic but the crazy fanservice for people that grew up with Sega consoles. The Sonic stuff is secondary in those games. Transformed is great though, I like it more than MK8.

@metalliccookies said:

I dont know man, FF8 is a heaping pile of garbage, IMO

You know what? That Alexa chick is alright.

Alexa is ok but I didn't agree with her over a lot of points. I'm surprised I'm the only one who thinks like that lol. I'd be cool with having her back again though.

When you mention that tons of people use public transport in Japan you're actually talking about Tokyo, Japan which has a population of roughly 9 million people. If you were to go to a smaller place like Chiba, which still resides in Japan and has a population of roughly 1 million I'm sure you'd encounter a lot less street passing. Likewise, in the US, I'm sure you will encounter a lot more street passing in a city like New York where a large percentage of people use public transport than a place like Los Angeles.

Just my 2 cents.

EDIT: also regarding Watch Dogs - I'm not sure where all the hate is coming from. First of all what does it matter how many acts the game has? If it was 12 chapters would that be an arbitrarily more pleasing number than 4 acts? Second of all the comment that "hey he's white!" seems like a cheap shot and really pushing something onto the game that simply wasn't there. He's never really made out to be an "every man" - from the very beginning he is a thief and a hacker and quite obviously not your every day uncle - at least my uncle never took part in corporate data theft and lived in a souped up cargo container. His motivations are to find the people responsible for the death of his niece, which was partially his fault. So he is driven by guilt and a sense of revenge which is nothing new in video games. As for being a man that wants to do right by his family but continues to makes bumbling and wrong decisions? Incidentally that is the entire plot of Breaking Bad - which is not to say that Watch Dogs is anything like that show but it's not some far fetched concept.

Honestly I just don't understand why even game critics are reaching so far to try and run this game into the mud, despite as Patrick mentioned himself, actually having a decent time with it. It almost feels like people consider it dirty to enjoy it.

Sorry for the rant.

yo

I have to agree with the Alexa is awesome sentiment, have her on more often!

To be fair, Tactics is so good (and different, to be honest), that it shouldn't even be considered to be in same realm of comparison for other Final Fantasy games.

But I guess if we had to say what is the best PS1 game (and arguably system-wide) that happens to have "Final Fantasy" within the title of it, you would be 100% correct.

@patrickklepek Now, Patrick, in all fairness... Even though I agree with you on FFVIII being the best FF in the PS1 era, and finding a Sonic-clone named Alex is funny and all: For balance sake, here's Patrick "Klip Klop" Klepek:

Ok so few things...

To whoever chose that picture... sigh please stop.

Sonic Colours and Generatios are great, everything else besides the 3 Mega Drive games (never played CD) goes from mehhh to awful (I guess you could make a case for adventure, but I feel it aged badly)

Next, I'm a KH fan, just to put it out there, but I recognize the flaws of the series. Yes, the story is a mess, but it stays true to itself throughout the games (well I didn't play 3D...) and caters to the fans so I don't really see anything wrong with that. The amount of platforms the series is on is ridiculous and it actually pushed me away for a while. So I'd say play KH, KH2 and BBS. BBS is in my opinion way better than KH2 and it stands pretty well on it's own.

Finally, I'm all for bashing Squenix, but at least do it right. XV is the first FF Nomura is directing. I think he's been involved in all of the games since X, mainly as character designer. The head you're after is Toriyama's, which is the responsible for all the "amazing" stories we got about Lightning.

Btw bring Alexa again on the show, she's great and actually understands what is the best FF from PSX era.

Exactly. If anything FF8 is the definitive Nomura Final Fantasy. FF7 has his art direction, sure, but at least the story is (comparatively) easy to follow and everyone's motivation makes sense. FF8 is a convoluted mess! I never played FF9 but it certainly looks like something that none of the Nomura squad had anything to with.

8 is the one where they go "We were all orphans at the same orphanage but we all forgot that fact until now", right?

Alexa is awesome!

i feel like i have never heard anyone on the internet that liked final fantasy 7,8,9,10,12,13. I will admit Tactics is maybe my favorite ever but i liked them all in varying amounts with 13 probably at the low end. I feel like the internet is always torn between one or other as being garbage. While the SNES ones seem to be universally praised.

Yeah all of the stories are a little up there own ass i just enjoy the ride and especially in the case of Kingdom Hearts all the fun characters/cameos/colorful worlds/and (preparing for hate) battle system

I really like all of them. There are only a few that I'd say are merely okay(6, 2 and 13-2) but I love the rest of them.

The hate for games i like in this episode is too much. T_T

Everyone is wrong, it's actually Xenogears.

<3

'Aiden' Pearce isn't a great character but Watch dogs isn't as bad as yall wanted it to be.

Hmmmm... hmmmm... that was a great morning show.

I am 100% behind Alexa's love for FFIX, because it is great. Way better than VII or VIII.

YEAH I SAID IT.

Glad to hear Shovel Knight is as, if not more, gorgeous and fun as it looked. Also, what even is Square Enix anymore and who is still buying all these new Final Fantasy games?

The right answer is FF9, Patrick you are wrong.

Really liked Alexa. She seems pretty chill and fit in well with you guys. Be sure to have her back in the future, Patrick.

Sonic Boom continues to sound terrible. SEGA really has no clue what their own franchise is. As someone who has no emotional investment in the Final Fantasy series, I enjoyed 10 and 10-2. I think 13 was okay at best. I'm skipping 13-2 and waiting for Lightning Returns to drop in price more before I pick it up. I've tried once or twice to get into the old Nintendo games and they just don't do it for me.

FF9 was the last FF Sakaguchi worked on and was planned as a throwback to the SNES-era entries in the series. Nomura indeed wasn't reallly involved in the project.

You might want to try out 13-2 actually. The story is a poorly told mess about time travel with a philosophical twist (read: bullshit), but the gameplay is a streamlined version of 13 and gets going immediately instead of easing you into the battle system over the course of 20 hours. It's my favorite of the 3 games 'starring' Lightning.

Weird, previous post got eaten or something.

First, I was promised a deeeep dive into LotR mythos. So boo-urns to that. But definitely jive with Alexa on the game choices here. Hope she's able to come back.

EDIT - Also played the shit out of Tiger Heli. Games with powerups where you get a miniature version of yourself shooting shit was my jam for a summer or two.

Alexa is fantastic, smart, funny.

Great show Klipklop!

STOP SAYING THE WORD "ACTS"!!!

Also, I was disappointed in the quantity of Lord of the Rings talk. I believe you guys promised a full hour of it.

Alexa was a great guest. I liked her energy and how it plays off the both of you.

Bring her back sometime.

Another great guest, another quality show

Klip-Klop delivers

you know what its a shame this show is fun and to cut off any talk of jrpgs is a real shame

Didn't they show Final Fantasy XV gameplay like 2+ years ago? It was like an action RPG (a la Kingdom Hearts more or less) but also had OK looking third person shooting and some light mech/vehicle combat.

FFVIII is absolutely the best FF post SNES era.

She backed up Double Dash that won points in my book.

Happy Birthday Sonic! hahahahahaha...

Tetsuya Nomura has been nothing but a character designer until Versus. The man responsable for Final Fantasy's decline is Motomu Toriyama.

edit: back at the beginning of the year, a user on Neogaf made a thread detailing the inner-workings of Square Enix, and what lead to their current state. It's a very fascinating read. Check it out here !

@alex@patrickklepek

Good show, some interesting commentary and Alexa was a good addition. Very much disagree with Patrick about Watch Dogs, both my friends and I got it and have been having a blast with it. He can feel how he wants but the game seems to have generated this ridiculous cloud of negativity that I feel is unjustified. Also, I love this site and the personalities that come with it (I'm a paid subscriber) and I know that their humor is a big reason for that but it's getting incredibly old hearing every Giant Bomb personality go "this would be way better if it was dumb" followed by every possible way they would make it dumber. Just because you like Saints Row 3 and 4 doesn't mean every game should include stupid stuff for the sake of being stupid.

I learned not to take Patrick's opinions of Nomura seriously after he went off on a Bombcast and blamed him for everything he apparently found wrong with latter-day Final Fantasy despite his only having direct involvement in a handful of later titles.

I love Mystery Men as well (Fun fact: It was the first DVD I ever bought!) so I was perplexed when the We Hate Movies podcast were so down on it.