- the crew seriously doubts the show's assertion about Pakistan's development during ancient times vs Japan, but it's more-or-less true. The Harappan culture in the Indus valley was one of the first big centers of civilization, existing from roughly 3000 BCE to 1000 BCE. AFAIK there's no evidence that Japan had a similar level of development during that period (people tend to forget that for most of its history, Japan was kind of a backwater, relatively speaking). As it turns out, sometimes a 90s guy who only had access to dumb books can know more about history than 4 otakus with Internet access.
- the idea that the "No Pakistanis" version of Get Back was not satire, and that the satire angle was a modern retconning, is just horseshit. It's pretty obvious from the rest of their work; especially if you look at the Commonwealth song, another outtake from the same album as Get Back, which is a direct attack on Enoch Powell and the racist anti-immigrant sentiment in the UK at the time. Plus, even if you think the Beatles were all secret racists, it's kind of ridiculous to imagine them just deciding to take a break from the counterculture and recording a rabidly racist song that would have alienated all of their (mostly young and progressive) fanbase. To be fair, it wasn't good satire, but hey, that version was scrapped for a reason.
@oc92: Jess' tendency to be dismissive of genres she doesn't "get" isn't much of a problem on its own, but when it's amplified by Dan (who does it even more) and not counterbalanced by anyone on staff, it can be a bit grating. This stream could have used more Jan or Tam.
I like the site's new direction overall, and I don't think they need to manufacture fake enthusiasm. But streams like this kinda emphasize the crew's blind spots.
For me, CC is the only real disappointment from PS-era Square RPGs, which IMO was their best period overall. And that's despite being probably the best-looking and sounding game on the Playstation. Not as ambitious as FF7 or Xenogears. Not as intricate and thought-out as the Matsuno games or Front Mission. Not as coherent as FF9. Broken and messy, but unlike FF8, not broken and messy in a fun way. And while I didn't play the Saga Frontiers, from what I've heard and seen, they seemed like a high point for that series, which certainly wasn't the case for CC.
The game felt like a hodgepodge of leftover storylines and mechanics Square wanted to stick somewhere before moving on to the PS2. Aside from the disjointed, pointlessly huge cast of characters, which you discuss very well, my biggest sticking point with the game was the way it controlled your party's strength at all times. That game seemed so obsessed with making sure you're not overpowered or underpowered that it ended up kneecapping its own mechanics. The terrible level-scaled progression system seems clinically designed to provide as little satisfaction as possible to both min-maxers and casual players. The tedious magic/elemental system (which theoretically is at the core of combat) never feels rewarding or necessary. And as you point out, even the unique character mechanics of Sprigg and Pip, which I should have been thrilled by given how samey the rest of the cast feels, never really feels worth it.
It's telling that I felt let down by this game when I played it around 02, around the peak of my Square fandom and before the subsequent 20 years of disappointment. Though I think comparing it to Kingdom Hearts is going a little too far; CC still has some redeeming qualities.
I've never really understood the appeal of replaying through an established story through a videogame. It can still work if it's purely an action game, but in an RPG? I don't wanna spend 80 hours watching a tedious, poorly-paced version of a story I already know.
I guess part of the problem is that DBZ is not really well-suited for sidestories. The world of DBZ was never very sketched-out (especially compared with other popular shonen), so there isn't a ton of opportunities to tell a story other than Goku/Gohan vs Frieza/Cell/Buu. But compared to FighterZ, this just seems like a bad use of that license. Wandering through a big open meadow where random DB characters pop up for no reason and tell you 2 lines of dialogue? What am I supposed to get out of that?
As a sidenote, Vinny and Alex chime in to say Crusader Kings doesn't have the same "community problem" as Mordhau, but it totally does, just like every other Paradox game. Which is too bad, because these games are amazing, but the reality of making a game with a focus on European history is that you'll attract attention from ultra-nationalists and the far-right in general. It's not the majority of the fanbase, and it's not the devs' fault, but it's still there.
@allprox: You're correct that some of the story talk wouldn't have made it to other content because of fear of spoilers. Unfortunately, it's also my least favorite part of these things, because it usually boils down to "Remember that thing? It was cool!", which isn't great fodder for discussion. The rest of the podcast was pretty well-trodden ground. You felt that both coasts were interacting, but I felt the opposite: to me it felt like they were just politely taking turns to state their opinion about the games, and deliberately keeping themselves from rocking the boat. I get that, that's how I act in chill, casual conversations too. But to me it prevents more interesting discussions from popping up. Maybe that'll change when more contentious games come up, we'll see.
And you're right that there were tedious, uncomfortable moments during the lists in the past. A few staff members come to these things with a "that's my opinion and that's that" mindset that makes these discussions stall. Particularly with Austin gone, maybe there's no point going back to the old format. I just wish they came up with a new format that made me want to listen.
@allprox: To clarify, the complaint that people are bored listening to them talk about the games one by one is because most of us listen to the Bombcast/Beastcast, and 90% of what was said in those 4 hours was talked about at length during those (plus QLs, features, reviews, and even probably in the individual top 10s that'll come out soon).
Now you're perfectly entitled to your opinion. I guess there's value in a year-in-review type thing like this, and if that's what they wanna do, then they should keep doing it.
But the main reason I liked these podcasts originally was because they had more than just opinions: they had arguments (not as in "fights", but as in "arguing a point"). Arguments typically require more thought and reflection about a game than opinions, and some staff members (particularly Vinny, Alex and sometimes Ben) were very interesting to listen to under that format. Now not only is it restricted to the last 2 podcasts, but they'll likely be rushing through those categories, meaning we'll get less arguments and more bickering over arbitrary placements. Bums me out a bit.
@bladededge: The thing is, I don't think most people really liked the straight-up hostility and yelling of some past GOTY podcasts. But people liked the discussions. The reasoned, respectful arguments about specific games. This new format doesn't really have discussion: it has individual opinions stated one after the other, then it's on to another game. It brings nothing new; for every game, it's already been done 3-4 times on this site. Frankly, defending your opinion generally requires more thought than just stating it, and tends to lead to more interesting conversations (as long as everyone keeps their emotions in check).
I get Jeff's concerns about the old format, but I feel it could have been fixed through changes that kept the podcasts list-focused.
"Once I realized that the games we were cutting were leading to more interesting and passionate discussion than the categories it was a pretty easy change to make."
That's fine! Honestly I agree. But then the problem is not that they were arguing, but that they were arguing about the wrong things. I don't care what's no 8 on GB's end-year list. But I am interested in hearing a staff member explain why he/she thinks it's better than that other game. Now, those "interesting and passionate discussions" seem like they're gone, because nobody really has an incentive to argue.
Maybe you're right that some of the criticism is just from people wanting to see their negativity reflected in GB's opinions, which isn't great. But either way, I don't think the new format is the answer. Maybe it would be best to just cut the podcasts and just do a bunch of other video content.
I'll agree with most people here: this seems pointless. At least, last year, they would use this to nominate games for certain categories. Here, it's purely a rehash of the year's QLs/ Bombcasts/ Beastcasts.
People can argue that the lists are dumb and useless, and sure, that's true. But they're better at bringing out the crew's true feelings about a given game than a casual conversation like this. Here the person who's led the coverage about the game restates their opinion again, and the rest of the crew mostly follows along, agreeing and maybe adding a point or two. It's essentially the same casual, pleasant context as during the podcasts, where they're more reticent to argue (or even be negative). That makes the whole thing feel really stale.
I don't know what the solution is. At the very least this part should be shorter. If they don't want to argue, they could focus more on creating dumb, low-stakes categories. Or maybe just cut those podcasts and focus on the other stuff. Often, for me, the most fun part of GOTY is just seeing the 2 coasts doing things together (also why I'm not excited by those solo videos).
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