The Giant Beastcast: Episode 222

Först ☺️

Nice

Judgeing from the gamescom announcement, Looks like I can Look forward to more yakuza talk from Alex for quite awhile!

Haven't listened yet but it's in the show notes so I'll talk about it and you can't stop me!

Started playing Yakuza 3 when it released. I was pretty unimpressed with Judgment and the way it handled its story and characters, so I went into Yakuza 3 with my barometer for goodness pretty low. While it's pretty clear that this is no Yakuza 0, the attachment I feel towards Dad Kiryu and his kids (or Dad-yu as I like to call him (please don't ever call him that)) is already handled much better than what was in Judgment. Hearing Kiryu tell Haruka to wipe her shoes before entering, or seeing him cut an onion for curry with more focus and intensity than some of the most savage parts of Yakuza 0, is pretty adorable. As Alex put it, Kiryu is a comic rube, and anything he does immediately becomes ten times more endearing.

The combat is notably kind of unimpressive, with stiff hits and random encounters that are both preceded by and followed up with dialogue exchanges, and a distinct lack of Heat moves, though both are to be expected from a game as old as this. The few boss encounters I've run into so far, though, have actually been pretty challenging. The Fighting Viper was fast and sharp and the Yakuza boss in the office building could whip out some pretty hard hits. This is the first time in my experience with the series where I've felt I had to use weapons to get the upper hand.

Overall, I'm pretty excited to get back home and dig in further. And more than anything, it makes me excited for Yakuza 5 which I'm pretty sure has an amazing Quick Look headed by Austin. (I remember watching it and thinking it was a weird goofball of a game but I bet it's actually fucking awesome)

Another interesting thing to note, not having played 3, 4, or 5 before, is the echoes of Yakuza 6 I'm getting from the story. Okinawa reminds me a lot of Onomichi, down to beating a couple of goofballs so hard that you become their aniki.

A note on the Yakuza 3 re-release: All the cut content from the PS3 version that was released in the West has been restored.

For Yakuza 4, one of the characters is getting reworked due to a Judgement-type scandal with the actor that voiced and was used as the face model for the character. Yakuza 4 recast for remaster.

Yakuza 5 should be the original game. But the day 1 / special edition physical release for the US will include a PS3 case for Yakuza 5 because it was never released physically in the US. Digital only.

Also: Double-dip on the waffle fries / curly fries question from the Bombcast this week.

Oh boy, judging from that thumbnail, there’s going to be at least one special conversation here, lol :x

Why do people send the same email to both his podcast and the Bombcast? Are you that thirsty for attention?

My birthday was on August 21st! But I'll take this congratulating as for my birthday as well! Thanks Vinny!

The insistence on saying "monkey" for apes is making me irrationally angry... which I have to assume is the desired effect.

I'm always fascinated to hear Dan talk about his time at Game Informer. If it wasn't for watching Dan for years and years on Replay (and especially Super Replay; do yourself a favor and watch Tail of the Sun, Blue Stinger, Overblood, or even Raw Danger which happened right after he left), I wouldn't be here right now. I followed he and Jason over to GB because I loved GI so much and was legitimately sad when they left. Tim leaving a few years later was a huge blow, too.

But you know what? That crew is awesome. They still are even after losing such integral members like Dan and Tim. They have passion and wit, and they don't have nearly the presence online they deserve. I'm still in awe Kyle got laid off so coldly, and it really sucks that this crew is getting torn apart to pay for the sins of their shitty parent company. I can only hope they get an out from all this to form a Giant Bomb-esque model plus the more press side of things (or whatever needs to happen) before it's too late.

This time of day talk is just crazy-talk. You're trying to tell me there are three different periods during the night and "middle of the night" is literally the last of the three?!?!

I just can't with that...

Off topic but is the tweet decknot updating anyone for the last couple of days

It's true, Vectorman does kick ass.

@the_nubster: I'm sold. I loved Onomichi so much in 6, can't wait to see Okinawa. By the way, you should give Judgment another chance. Yagami is no Kiryu, I'll give you that, but I finished it yesterday and I gotta say it's got the best final chapter in all RGG games.

@the_nubster: 4 and 5 have multiple characters and each have a different fighting style so that helps keep the combat varied. I remember the boss fights in 3 starting a little harder but leveling out as it goes. The ending of 3 to the beginning of 4 is wild though. So enjoy that. 5 is probably the best mechanically because it shows you where available substories are located and has some other quality-of-life upgrades for the series.

I used to think Hollow Knight was great but then I bought it for myself and my god is this game frustrating. I still haven't finished it.

On the night/morning email: No way that 5 PM is evening. In Europe we don't start saying "good evening" before 6 PM and in the summer even that feels early. Furthermore I would say the night starts at 9 PM as I consider having dinner at 8 part of the evening. In any case, during the summer, the sun sets at around 9 PM, and I'm pretty sure it ain't night before the sun sets.

In my part of the US, in a multiple state spread, waffle fries by default are the soft soggy fry and any curly fry you get will be the crispiest fry in the area. That answer from the crew was pure madness!

that handwriting sheesh

i'm very glad to see them try to move on from Dan's red meat revelation. hahah great job guys.

a pox on the house of people sending the same question to both podcasts

Alright, here's how you split this shit fairly: you just quarter the clock and sprinkle a couple of "late"'s and "early"'s around. First you throw the concept of personal schedule out the window because people go to bed and wake up at wildly different hours. Sunrise and set also do not count, because those times differ depending on the season and where you are on the globe. The only thing that's sacred is noon and midnight.

Morning: 6AM-9AM
Late Morning: 9AM-11:59AM (There's an actual proper name for this period of time in Finnish, English is durrrr)
Afternoon: 12:01PM-3PM
Late Afternoon: 3PM-6PM
Evening: 6PM-9PM
Night: 9PM-11:59PM
Late Night: 12:01AM-3AM
Early Morning: 3AM-6AM

Answer to email: 3AM

When I was in college ist was so easy to care about 10PM to 3AM as time I could care about. Now starting at 9PM I just crave bed. Now my life centers around the minutiae of 5AM to 5PM.

Does it bother anyone else that when they reiterate they’re still playing a certain game (Judgment, Fire Emblem Three Houses, etc.), they somehow have nothing new to say? I think it’s just bizarre that they gloss over it without giving any continuing impressions, when surely they must have some new or refined thoughts on how they feel about the game now compared to 7 or 14 days ago when they were just starting and mentioned it on the podcast.

I feel like Jeff G goes to the effort of explaining how his thoughts on the game change over several weeks of playing it, but with nearly everyone else on the Bombcast and Beastcast, you get:

-maybe an early podcast episode where they’ve just started a game but are too early to say much about it or are embargoed

-the one episode where they spend 5-20 minutes talking about, usually very much in the honeymoon phase of the game, usually 20 hours or less into the game where everything is so fresh and new. If it’s terrible they put it on blast, otherwise it is usually very positive impressions because they haven’t got bored of anything yet, or uncovered any long-term flaws with the story/mechanics/whatever. OR they’ve been playing the game for review, and we get one big discussion blast of the game that includes final thoughts.

-all future episodes, at best they mention the game for about 5 seconds to say they are still playing.

-then maybe the game gets mentioned months later at GotY, where their opinion could be wildly different from the last time they talked about it at length on a podcast, if their final impressions of the game end up being different than their first impressions.

I know the staff isn’t playing every game to completion for review, but aside from a few exceptions like Dan actually bringing up on-air his gradual disillusionment with RDR2, the “what are you playing” segment is really “what game have you just started playing, btw this is your one chance to talk about it”. When they do continue to play a game beyond a Quick Look, or even finish a game, it’s still a 5-second brief mention most of the time. It suffers from the same issue as Quick Looks, where we’re always hearing first impressions, but rarely final thoughts having seen the game in full.

If you’re still playing a game, give us your continuing impressions of it! Did a certain mechanic get lame/tedious over time, or do you actually like it more now that you’re deeper into the game? Is the story/character stuff still good, or did you not like where they went with it? It doesn’t have to be a full-on spoilercast, but for a gaming podcast, “I’m still playing it and it’s still good” seems like an incredibly shallow summary.

In regards to Alex's wonder on how much consumer interest there is for Ratchet & Clank games, allow me to enter my input:

EXTREMELY FUCKING HIGH.

Dan's list of times of day is exactly right.

I could not agree more with you man. I think Vinny, as much as I love him in so many respects, is especially bad with this. I think it's because they have an attitude they will talk about it somewhere else but where else? Game of the Year when everyone is so negative and at each others throats? This very podcast really the best spot for it.

It's sad to me because in the golden age of the Bombcast, with Ryan as host, they would always talk games in detail and depth, even week to week and I loved it. I go back and still listen to those podcasts and it's really clear in comparison to now. They used to spend like an hour or so talking a new big release or something any given week. And it even became something they'd rag on with Fallout 3 over time. I love in depth games talk that talks details and impressions on specifics and its sad there really isn't much of that on GB anymore.

I wish they would at the least do more spoilercasts or something. But what your'e speaking to has been disappointing to me for years on GB.

@slicknickles : I thought Spiderman was fine, but I really want more Ratchet and Clank. I've played them since the beginning, and never really loved anything else Insomniac has done. VR Ratchet and Clank could be Astro Bot Rescue type cool.

I'm not done with it yet so apologies but, when Dan talks about comic books I find it so weird. He is so dismissive of a genre of entertainment that he would ABSOLUTELY be into.

Abby and Brad really should coordinate on the e-mail questions they answer.

one time I was on the train and saw a very unassuming middle-aged white guy with the hugest knuckle tats that said "BROO KLYN"

There's different people on them, it's probably to hear what each person of the crew says instead of just half of them. Same email, probably different answers. You could also easily complain about them talking about the same news topics on both podcasts every week.

For real, and it seems it's sent to every "big" gaming podcast out there. Hear the repeats often on the esteemed Game Informer podcast mentioned in this one. I say it needs to be bigger than a pox, I damn them to hell.

@bisonhero: I've talked repeatedly and in-depth about Judgment and what I like about it on multiple episodes. If something radically changed over the course of my playtime, I would mention that or address it. But if I'm just going to end up repeating the same descriptions as I continue to plug away at it, I generally opt not to. None of us are averse to giving continuing impressions over time, but I'm generally of the mind that I don't want to spend multiple episodes doing so unless there's something meaningfully new or different to say.

I go by Animal Crossing time: Midnight-6am is night, then morning until midday, then afternoon until 6pm and then evening until midnight.

The correct times:

6am-11:59am = Morning

12:00pm - 5:59pm = Afternoon

6:00pm - 11:59pm = Evening/Night

12:00am - 2:59am = Late Night

3:00am - 5:59am = Early Morning

Anything else is the time period of a SYNTH!

Dan. It’s an APE and not a MONKEY! You baboon!

I want the Jack Nicholson Joker.

Also, they don’t make good porn like they did in the ‘70s anymore. They just don’t put any effort into the story anymore. It has to be believable.

Okay, here's the story with Portillo's. It was originally a Chicago chain, but about 15 years ago, it opened a location in L.A., allegedly with the help of a handful of Chicago expat actors, including Joe Mantegna and William Petersen. Then they opened a couple locations in the Phoenix area, presumably for the snowbirds.

However, the chain was sold to a private equity firm in 2014, and since then it's begun to expand out of the Chicago area. The quality of the food hasn't suffered yet, but as a Chicagoan, I'm nervous that this will eventually be the case.

@sintes:

Same here, waited a long ass time for this supposed amazing game to come to switch but I coudn't make it 2 hours in, exploring is punished because of losing your currency and having to grind to get currency for a map and upgrades was so not fun, also coming across a boss during exploration, dying and being sent back to the start sucked, there was way to try to figure the boss out because you had to run and find your way back to him. Thought it was a waste of my time for this kind of trial and error.

@bisonhero: I don't want to put words in their mouths but I think a part of it might be being gunshy about spoilers. Since characters and mechanics and even things that occur in the opening trailer can be considered spoilers they might be trying to avoid complaints since these games are relatively new.

How does late at night come before the middle of the night.

How did they not talk about the Death Stranding insanity? Lol

Lame move, curly fry guy.

I 10000000000% agree with Dan's assessment of time, as documented in the thumbnail for this cast. i cant believe i'm saying it, but Dan got this absolutely right (at least for my schedule).

@ravelle: It seems you didn't make it too far into the game and maybe it's for the best. It gets much more frustrating after a few bosses. In the mid-game, half of all enemies become flying ones and there is never a good way to hit them because you only have your melee attack, while they are crazy agile and very aggressive. What's the worst is the platforming sections that take away 1 heart on each failure while there isn't a way to regain health without fighting enemies. And often there aren't many enemies in the difficult platforming sections...

Any time Portillos is brought up and all people talk about are their hotdogs I get unreasonably upset. Their italian beef sandwich dipped in gravy is absolutely the best thing they have on the menu and more people need to be aware of it.

@zemavieira: I got to the part where it feels like you're about to finish up, but then the game screeches to a halt and makes you do three (or four?) pointless quests first. I actually really like Yagami and his crew of goofballs (especially Kaito, who is a loveable idiot much in the same way Kiryu is), but this last stretch is so emblematic of the problems with that game: every time the central mystery is starting to spin up and get interesting, it take a hard left turn to some stuff that feels barely related. Even the infodump interrogation scenes are broken up awkwardly into a handful of segments where you can just, like, walk out the door and go have a hamburger. I like the story and the mystery itself enough, but the pacing of it is just awful.

@mb2814: They actually added the side story markers in Yakuza 3! I'm still torn on whether or not I actually like that, because it takes a lot of the weird mystery out of the game. It was fun seeing a couple NPCs talking that you could interact with, or have your trip to the store interrupted by whatever bizarre nightmare found its way to Kiryu. Putting the marker on the map is undeniably more convenient, but it makes it feel much less organic and less like a lived-in city.