The Giant Beastcast: Episode 106

Woohoo, time for some beast cast to help with the day.

Awww Yiss!

YISSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!

awwww YISS

What a delightful surprise! Beastcast always is, meaning that I still don't have any idea which day it comes out or is it even on a regular schedule.

honestly thank GOd

edit: shit it's my birthday i forgot to request a smooch !!!

Alex confirmed to be dating worst girl

Peace and love, peace and love, the Splatoon headset isn't that hard to figure out and I think it's weird how quickly people have leaned into the assumption that the iPhone 7's lack of 3.5MM as a move all other companies will make despite apple bundling the phone with an adapter. Peace and love, peace and love.

Makoto is best girl

@asadasa5: can I send you some fan mail to sign?

I'm loving the current trend of Dan question, followed by No, not enough time, figure it out on your own.

But then we'd never get this amazing Beastcast bit

I'm not spoiler sensitive in the way that everyone seems to be, but how spoiler-y are the persona spoilers?

Somebody is going to send a correction on Pokeballs for next week

Glad Dan likes Blade Runner, one of my all time favourite films. There's just so much in it that I love, from the whole atmosphere in general to more specifically the music, I think it was that film that gave me my love of electronic music overall. Oh and Rutger flippin' Hauer! Did you know he's 73 now? Holy crap. Sod it, I'm gonna have to watch it again today. It's been a while.

Ha, maybe your right. Man, I miss Austin on here.

1. The Squid dongle is meant for portable play god damnit! So you can mix the gameplay volume on the Switch itself!

2. You don´t NEED the dongle. Just have the game audio on low volume from the TV and use your regular headphones with your phone

I'm very glad Alex discovered the majesty of

Beastcast is the BESTcast!

See what I did there?

Heck yeah Alex, Takemi calling you her "guinea pig" is kiiiinda the best. (P5)

I'm halfway through that segment at the moment and they're not super spoilery. I was cautious but Alex said he wouldn't mention any actual twists or big character moments. He's speaking more generally, though he he speaks to a couple of minor spots. I'm only early on in the game and I feel okay having listened to this. Apparently Alex and Ben are planning to do a spoilercast post-E3 so that'll be where the meat is.

Punch-Out!! Wii is such a wonderful game. I can't get that into original Punch-Out!! It's good, but Punch-Out!! Wii is just the same thing in this amazing, well-stylized, amazingly animated 3D. There was a couple of years where I watched all the Rocky Movies and Hajime no Ippo, and Punch-Out!! Wii just felt like the coolest game.

@allodude: I love that moment!

How did none of you know what a Cormorant is?

(I had to look up how to spell it).

@y2ken: Thank you. I think people are generally WAY too sensitive about spoilers nowadays. Unless it's a plot twist or a major reveal I don't think it takes away from the experience.

Hell yeah, its friday time!

People seem to have mixed feelings with ARMS, i think it sounds and looks kinda goofy in good ways. Dunno, I really want to pick up Splatwoon, still waiting for more games to arrive because I use that console more rather than just considering it "the console that is known mostly for BOTW". I want Super Mario Maker on the switch at some point. It would be dumb if they don't port it to the Switch.

Blade Runner is a fantastic movie and I'm glad Dan likes it.

Regarding P5s social commentary (kinda grim, beware): Japanese culture isn't very individualist, compared to lets say Americans extreme views on individualism and their government kinda reflects that. People there believe that happyness is when you focus on certain things, such as certain goals in life, rather than thinking individually for yourself. Some creative work there is in japan, such as art, even requires people to set the goal above their own thoughts, believes and feelings. Which is kinda crazy since art is usually a reflection of ones personality.

Beside that, working law there requires that if you happen to work at a specific field, you're required to either try to climb up the working ladder, or stay in the same field forever. You can't do much to "break out" from your mundane day-to-day worklife there and its rather soul crushing if you think about it. You're born to become part of the working force before being a human being. So if a machine replaces you, it creates the matter that its only because they're more effective than you as a working person. Thats not only dehumanizing, but also pretty illogical by itself (robots can't have merits or flaws, they're there because they're cheaper than regular workers), but thats how it is and how people feel like.

Japanese overcame real and dire situations only by working together (WWII aftermaths) after all so I certainly can't blame them. That strictness in their culture is almost everywhere seen there. After all, the suicide rates in Japan are kinda off the charts. Obviously that is linked to their stressful culture. That these sorts of "goals" are also rather fascist (for instance, goals come before humans) is something that makes this whole situation even more so depressing. Not every Japanese person is like that of course, one of the reasons a lot of people fall into depression and want to break out of the situation they're coping with.

Some european cultures also share similar ways but from personal experience japan seems to be above all else. I think South Korea is also up there, AFAIK. But I've never really been there other than being some tourist chump.

In short, japanese culture is pretty much "Obey and Consume" capitalist culture and a lot of people can't cope with that, the Government and general working related sentiments reflect that sort of feeling. Its Eat or be eaten there. However, from what I know is that theres quite a lot of people that are fed up about it and I do expect change in the next lets say 5-15 years or so.

Some people are giving Hori shit for this whole headphone kerfuffle, it's not their fault! Nintendo is solely to blame for this, for splitting their audio chat onto a third party device.

Honestly, Hori's solution is pretty simple and straight forward. Also, to Vinny's point of not having a mixer for chat and game audio; that's not necessary since both devices have individual volume controls.

Yeah, the Wii Punch-Out!! is incredibly good. It captures the spirit of original Punch-Out!!, amping up the silly nationality-based characters, and gives the rematches against each opponent meaningful visual and mechanical differences. The rematches against opponents in the NES game just feel like cheaper, more bullshit versions of the same character. Also, Mr. Sandman and everything past him in the original NES game is completely cheap bullshit.

The Pokéball bit reminded me that there's that one guy in Azalea town who makes them out of apricots. Pokéballs always seemed like crazy science spheres but then there's just this down-home recipe for fucking whittling fruit into a technological wonder.

@superdomino: I thought about this exact thing as well. Also, apricorns*.

The Dan bracket severely needed Taco Bell vs Amiibo

Thanks for the Sesame Street reference to counting, Vinny!

Alex, you're the first person I've heard mention Ohya who actually likes her(but certainly not the first one who likes Takemi).

I don't like the party members in Persona 5 that much, overall. Some are great, but there are some stinkers(I wish Ryuji would just shut up) and some characters who are barely there as well, like Empress. I's not like Persona 4 was all roses. Yukiko, Rise, Teddie? Not exactly the favorite people I know. Yosuke? That dude had some issues. Naoto? Would normally speak with an annoyingly put-on voice and say real simple things with more advanced words than necessary, the bargain bin version of sounding smart. But as a unit, they had great interaction, and there are tons of scenes in Persona 4 that just have them hanging out and getting into trouble, with no relation to the plot. Everything in Persona 5 ties back to the Phantom Thieves, and there's no party scene as memorable as the Investigation Team getting drunk, participating in beauty pageants or camping in the woods. That's not to say the P5 cast is bad, I especially love Oracle, but there isn't that same connection between them. I was most in love with the Sojiro family unit by the end of that game, that's just as good as Dojima and Nanako.

(I don't really like anyone or anything in Persona 3.)

@vinny You don't have to register your persona anymore to keep it. If you get it in a dungeon, you just have it forever. They've made tons of quality of life changes like that.

Edit: I watched Blade Runner for the first time last Christmas! It was a fine movie, but it didn't particularly speak to me either. I was most surprised that there weren't any cybernetic stuff. I feel like all cyberpunk these days have kids with weird hair and metallic limbs, and I thought that was Blade Runer's genre. Instead, Blade Runner is just regular, older dudes in pretty much normal clothing and no discernible robotic bodies at all. I don't even think the guns were particularly sci-fi. I'm not surprised Dan liked it, what with there being no lasers or space stuff.

I am crying with laughter over the Cool Stuff playoffs, but Cheese winning seems like a sham. Going your entire life without cheese vs. without Zelda? No contest.

Cheese and weiner stuff.

All y'all saying Makoto is best girl are crazy. Fuck Makoto. And not literally fuck Makoto. Just - Fuck. Makoto. If you aren't dating your teacher, you're doing it wrong.

And also, the freaking reporter Alex?!

EDIT: As someone new to the series, I would also disagree with Alex's assertion that Persona 5 is on the "accessible" end of JRPGs. A lot of the mechanics seem pretty unique to that series and aren't explained very well in game. Personally I'd quantify something like Dragon Quest as being more accessible. Maybe some of the older Tales games, too.

It's really not going for the "cool robot arm" or "cybernetic jack in the back of my skull" thing. That was always more of a William Gibson's Neuromancer sorta thing. Blade Runner is loosely based on a Philip K. Dick novel, and like most of his writing (and perhaps because of his heavy drug use), it's very focused on separating reality from illusion, simulacra from genuine items, etc. The book features:

• a religion box people plug into to receive religious visions which are later revealed to have been recorded on a soundstage
• a much heavier focus on people owning fake, animatronic animals because many of Earth's animals are now extinct and it's a huge prestige thing to own a real, live animal even though the fake animals are good enough that it's not very obviously different (I think this is only briefly in the movie when somebody owns an owl or something)
• a bunch of stuff with replicants, including one sequence where Decker finds himself arrested by the police, only to find that replicants have infiltrated that entire police precinct and everyone in the building is a replicant (unbeknownst to the rest of the city, as replicants are not supposed to have anything other than menial labour jobs, like in the movie). Lots of musing on whether their experience is any less valid than that of a human, is Deckard himself a replicant, is his partner a replicant, etc.

The movie is very much its own thing, but its origins in the book explain why the movie makes no effort to give humans/replicants cool cybernetic arms and laser beam eyes and whatever: on a core level, the story is about androids/replicants being visually indistinguishable from real humans, and about the paranoia surrounding not knowing whether the person you're speaking to is a genuine human being or an artificial one, or if you, yourself, could be artificial without realizing it due to implanted memories.

This paranoia/exploration of what is real runs through pretty much all of Dick's work, except some of his earlier stuff that is just fun, sci-fi short stories (one of which inspired Minority Report, for example).

Oh no... That Switch headset set-up reminds me of the freaking PS2 3rd-party headset set up that I had (And only used for the original Metal Gear Online). They really should have thought this through with their initial designs for the Switch. It seems incredibly inconvenient and slapped on haphazardly.

On P5 - Seriously, Alex, the reporter lush? :)

I'm aiming for Takemi myself and just need to nudge my Charm up a smidgen to progress with her now. Glad you finished and enjoyed it for the most part! Looking forward to the spoilercast for sure.

Hyper Realistic Anime Boyz is my new band name.

Great episode, guys!

Someone please animate the Giant Bomb IRL Murder Island.

Sounds like Alex's style of play in Persona was fairly similar to my own. Like I didn't max out quite a few confidants and I just ended up fusing Personas whenever it was convenient. However I dated Makoto because she's the best and I'm the sort of prude that doesn't want my son main character dating any of these hussy adult ladies. Seriously, what kind of lives are these women leading that they can't find time to have a relationship with anyone other than this weird enigmatic teenager approaching them to be co-conspirators? Desperate much? I understand that the P5 discussion was primarily about Alex's thoughts on the narrative and flow of the game but I honestly wanted to hear him talk up the soundtrack a little bit because it's really great. The percussion parts in particular are something I think a drummer like him would have really appreciated throughout it. Looking forward to him and Ben getting together to talk about it in depth, just don't be surprised if I dunk on ya'll in the comments for talking shit about a game I really like. Though if I'm being honest, I'd rank Yakuza 0 above Persona 5 in terms of fun I've had with a game this year.

I still love this podcast but emails were pretty bad this week. I think the less focus there is on Dan ranking and comparing things the better. If that person truly did a scientific compilation of stuff, they'd all be brand-named stuff because of what an insufferable brand siren he's become.

Why wasn't Commando in the Cool Guy Playoffs? :/

For what it's worth to persona 5 players, I think Alex did a good job in dodging heavy spoilers. I'm only 3 dungeons into P5 and I didn't feel spoiled on anything. BTW comments on the premium version are broken

Time to get beastly!

Makoto or bust.

Prey is FUCKING AMAZING and just gets better and better, get back to that thing people :(

Azithromycin (Z-Pak) is a macrolide antibioitic used for typically respiratory infections such as pneumnia. It can be used to treat chalmydia (STD infection) as well!

Providers do sometimes over prescribe antibiotics, but there is more awareness about resistance and prescribing less now. However, patient satifisfaction scores are becoming more and more relevant in healthcare, and can affect a provider's pay or job. So for a provider it is easier to prescribe an antibiotic demanded by a patient in order to avoid poor patient satisfaction scores. This is one of the major reasons for over prescribing antibiotics.

I love the non gaming discussion in these podcasts!

Is it blasphemous if I feel as if the BeastCast has become the primo podcast on the site? I mean I love the BombCast like everybody else, but Vinny, Alex, Dan, Jeff and Abby have truly crafted something special and my most highly anticipated discussion of the week, no matter the subject! Baby spiders, weiners, cheese, air conditioning or playing Zelda in the bathtub... it's always something and always fun! :)

"Does Arms have legs?" still tickles me probably more than it should.

Also Abby is great, I really appreciate her contribution to the Beastcast.

It took a dad to finally figure out how to handle it.

Though I would tell @vinny to hold out on the PS4 version due to the latest patch, which introduced some weird frame stuttering