Guest: Dj SoundStorm - Let's Talk Games (Pt 2)

00:00:00Hello everyone and welcome back to Spelfaschen med Benne. This is the second episode where we will be talking even more with our dear guest DG Soundstorm and we will continue exactly where we left off in episode one. So hopefully you'll get right back on track and we will continue this nice little session. So I did have an interesting question for you guys and I know this is your podcast but I have a question for both of you because I know you guys You guys have played RPGs as much as I have, but I had an interesting concept brought up in a comment on YouTube on one of my Final Fantasy videos that stated that Monster Hunter Wilds has systematically and fundamentally changed how open world RPGs operate because of the market for games like Monster Hunter. Do you guys feel like that same formula they have is even creeping into the concepts behind

00:00:57how they put together final fantasy rebirth and then seeing the clips and the gameplay from final fantasy revelation and how they're putting the weapons out there in the wild are you seeing that correlation to yourselves when you compare the two yes i would say much yeah sadly i think yeah it depends on it i mean i i was about to say i mean i don't want to alienate all the monster hunter fans out there because I know that's like a huge brand, specifically in Japan, of course. But yes, I would say that they definitely have influence because I think it's maybe it's three or four games now that they have managed to take outside of Japan and they became huge. And I think a lot of people enjoyed that type of roaming freedom. And as with everything else, people take notice. And seeing as they're both from Japan, maybe they...

00:01:54looked at the Monster Hunter formula, I thought like, yeah, so we managed to somehow break through in North America and in the EU. How can we get a little bit of that into what we do and broaden our consumer base, basically? Because, I mean, we love JRPGs, but we're not really the ones they want to add to their fans because we're there already. Like, we're basically the faithful. And I know... Specifically, Square Enix have been very, very harsh when it comes to what they expect of their games. They basically shed their entire Western catalog, I think, a couple of years ago because it didn't bring them the revenue that they wanted. So I think if they can tweak, even just a little bit, their classic recipe for JRPGs, they're more than willing to do that if that would bring them 2 million new fans or...

00:02:4910 million more copies sold. So yes, I think you're definitely onto something. And I've seen, if you want to call it like a bit of scope creep in how they view the formula for JRPGs, then yes, I would certainly agree with that. No, what I've noticed is if I compare, and this is just the framing. for a game like final fantasy seven or a game like eight what we didn't have at the time for those games in the playthroughs was the monsters in the field unless it was like diablo waiting for us with the map or ifrit in the first couple of of training missions but we the random encounters were not the focus they were a part of the machine to complete the rest of the game the way that the rest of these new rpgs and jrpgs have been put out i feel like the focus is on the biomes and is on where the enemies are on the field and in a way i feel like that has shifted the the interpretation of the okay is this next boss is this next fight going to be an ancient dragon or is this next fight going to be um a hedge a hedgehog or a a minor bestiary like

00:03:59we never really knew what we were going to get with the random encounter generator, but because we know exactly what we're walking into now, I think it takes away a little more of the cerebral aspect and puts us more into the biome itself and takes us out of the story immersion. So I saw that comment. I was like, I never really considered that, but that's the same reason like the, the, the island of heaven and hell. For the grinding areas, for end of game, you never knew what you were going to get. You didn't know if on the Tonberry Island, if it was, or the Cactar Island, if it was going to be the King Cactar or the other ones that was part of the random generation. And I feel like that's how a lot of JRPGs are being built now is the smash square. Here's how you combo. Here's the neat flashy thing that we've incorporated. Less of that turn-based combat, which took...

00:04:51and felt more like combat chess. And that's appealing to a different group. And I feel like they're losing some of us and the diehard RPG genre because of that. And my opinion is also that it's not just that it is, of course, a mold school, but the thing is that they have proven that even modern games can be turn-based with very much success. Just look at, for example, Star Wars Zero Company. It was out now that is like a... Perfect turn-based game. But for me, of course, I do understand and I get the thing that you need a bit more complexity to the fights than just standing in line waiting for your turn. But I think that if you could combine a modern thing with, like, for me, one of the best systems I had was in Final Fantasy X, then you can make this...

00:05:46thing that they were aiming for in the beginning in the first fantasy 7 remake where you can slow you can still but you could slow down time and you get this more of that you make the strategic choices and then you can have some interactions and so i'm leaning that you could you should scale down the bit of the action rpg and have a bit more of the strategic thing within it i think Also, because now that we're talking about this topic, I was thinking about when this actually started to creep into the main Final Fantasy series. If you want to take the Final Fantasy series as a template for this, and correct me if I'm wrong, but I think XV was the first game where you had free roaming when the rock band was out with the car and you had enemies on screen roaming a big area and you could just go around and zip around as you wanted to. So I think during that time, I think they were kind of...

00:06:41honest with how they viewed Final Fantasy as a brand because they have at a couple of times said that we have a few series that are evergreens. We will always come back to them and they have a huge following. Final Fantasy is the one that we are willing to experiment with as opposed to Dragon Quest which is their traditional series where they haven't changed anything. Or tactics, yeah, for sure. But I think this is like, yeah, if you want the old formula where nothing ever changes and you have the turn-based thing, you know exactly what to expect, then Dragon Quest is there for you, and it will always be your, like, comfort blanket, if you will. But with Final Fantasy, we will try new things. Even if we know that some of you won't like this, we will still do it. And I was at FanFest this summer, and...

00:07:33They had the guys from the Final Fantasy remake team, I guess the larger team, but specifically for the new trilogy. And they basically reiterated that same thing. Like, we know that you are hugely faithful to the brand and we're going to change things anyway, because we think that we can create new cool things that will give you something that you would enjoy. But a lot of other people that haven't been a part of the traditional Final Fantasy journey. we might bring them in as well so they are aware that some of us are feeling a little bit alienated by what they're doing but then they're just basically saying like yeah but you still have dragon quest if you want that old school thing uh so yeah there's a real and what really concerns me and this is just because the math doesn't make sense this is kind of a gripe but it also doesn't mathematically present itself

00:08:26as the same answer. So what I feel like Square is doing is they are putting a product out right now with this trilogy that is supposed to, and you can tell by the jokes that Kate Sith has or when Sisney tries to pat down the machine because it's about to spring her. They know that they are talking to us, the almost 40s or just over 40s that played these games. And we also know that... When you are doing content creation, the CPM and the RPM for the money that you're bringing in is focused on our age group. So that group is that they are focusing on. That is the highest bread, like the breadwinner for content creation of people that will support those streamers is still that group. But they, for some reason, think that catering to the current group that's coming into games.

00:09:15is the the group that they need to as opposed to making us the coolest grandparents ever to walk this planet in our 60s playing rpgs still so i'm i i'm very confused at the business model of trying to have this fountain of youth for how they're putting these concepts together when they know that if they're playing their cards right unlike the generation before us that would have put down games already we're ready to be the coolest 50 year olds on the planet who will still enjoy a glass of scotch while we're playing a new JRPG that we like. And I feel like it's kind of a missed opportunity on Square's part just to keep that group engaged for the end of time for as far as I'm concerned. Oh, yeah. I mean, I am entertaining the idea of, like, founding a chain of gaming retirement homes. Because our generation will be the first ones still rocking it out in our 60s, 70s, and 80s.

00:10:12Gaming, as you said, it has transcended that age. I mean, I would assume that around 15 to 20 years of age, a generation before us would drop gaming because it was part of growing up in your childhood, and then you would move on to other things. But gaming now, it's a hobby among everything else. You could be a golfer or a gamer. It doesn't really matter anymore. So they are missing vast amounts of money. I mean, because I'm... For everyone that took offense to me calling people money, this is how corporations do see you. Yes, of course. They can say whatever they want, but they are after you as a customer. They don't really care about you loving the game and hanging out with them. It's a company. So the best part of their, and I think the same thing that you just, it's mesmerizing that they don't reach the same conclusion. Like we have people in the middle of the life.

00:11:08which should correlate to doing well career-wise, which in the end gives them more money. And what would they spend that money on? Well, gaming, if they're gamers. So if you cater to them, they might be numerically fewer than the fountain of youth crowd. But the fountain of youth crowd are working two shifts at McDonald's. They don't have that money. So it doesn't really make sense to go for them. And also they're very fickle because they are trend. They're much more open to trends. So they might be... all over your final fantasy one year and the next year they're all gone because they're doing the next thing so yeah it doesn't make sense it really doesn't it's almost like go ahead oscar curiosity i know that yeah you picture that you are and has been quite into the 14 online experience

00:11:57Their modules still stick to the kind of how it was from the beginning, or have they had 14 also involved into some kind of experimental newish style of a game? No, I would say that what they're trying to do is to be the easy to pick up and live in MMORPG, if you will, because it has never been as hardcore as the old school games in the sense that... It was always community driven in 14 because they pride themselves on the fact that everyone is friendly and you can talk to everyone and you can get along and you can do raids and things like that. So they are trying to get that to be the core element of that game. And they're also trying to, the experimental thing there is they had this 10 year arc that they ended with the expansions, the expansion before this one.

00:12:54They ended that 10-year arc. So they had to sort of reinvent the entire game because people had beaten the end boss and saved the universe. But this game doesn't end. It's an online game. So they had to come up with what's next. And they're struggling a bit with that because we've already saved the universe. What could possibly be the next thing? So what they're trying to do now is to funnel millions and millions of people that have this. I mean, a lot of them have played through the entire journey. They have this god character now that basically can do anything and beat everything. So what could the next challenge be? So they, for the last experience, and this is spoiler-ish for people that for some reason are invested in the game but haven't played it. So, you know, I'll go with it anyway. But they transformed the hero journey into a mentor journey. So they presented in the last expansion, they had this new young heroine that was on a journey of discovery. And then you showed up.

00:13:53found her and helped her along the way. And you were basically hovering in the background because all the challenges that they threw at her, you could just wave away with like minimal effort for the character that you had become. So they are trying to figure out how to, basically, if you want to have a correlation, they're trying to marvel this thing because Marvel did the same thing with Endgame where they had all the heroes. The big bash, they saved the world, and then everything started to fall apart dramatically because they didn't know where to go from there. And I think Square Enix has the same challenge with Final Fantasy XIV because we've already done everything. We've saved the world. What happens then? So it's a bit different. Enix needs to make a phone call to some of the old members of Squaresoft and ask them if...

00:14:42time travel was actually the answer over and over and over again. Because six, eight, we could keep going. The biggest reason why I've never gotten into Final Fantasy XIV is because I feel a major disconnect in how everything that we have seen up to the point of where they are at. I've seen a huge disconnect on where those guys are trying to drive the story when they have a treasure trove of... like decidious style content that they could be doing or that they could be involving in that story and the first week that i played that game when i asked about one of the summons that these guys were in chat talking about and i said does he still do and i brought up the ultimate move from the game i believe it was alexander they were like yeah he doesn't do that what is that i'm sorry yeah did i miss something are we not playing the same title here that that disconnect for me is

00:15:40terrifying because if 14 wanted to explode with people that are our age and have people in enjoying that experience why not have an ultra messiest style back in time and then oh this entire final fantasy 14 community now gets to square off against kefka like we're missing opportunities that would would get me to play the game you know what i mean like introduce magic i think i think what you Because basically what they have is a shared catalog. So you will run across everything in the game. It's just their version of it. Because as you say, when you have a boss encounter with Ifrit, and instead of being like the fierce god of fire and brimstone, it's an ogre dude on a platform in a cave. And I spent that entire fight thinking, any time now, he'll just do some fiery explosion and we'll all die.

00:16:36But it was like, no, the thing you have to watch out for, he's trying to push you off the platform. It's like, oh, well, that's not the effort I knew from eight games before this. I still ended up liking XIV, but it is vastly different. It just has a lot of the same backbone because you still have the MOGs and you have the Shokobos and you have a lot of different names, but they mean different things. And I think they try to... solve a little bit of the problem that you brought up which is a real problem by having events or like themed adventures like we have a guest from another universe and one time it was from final fantasy 8 and one time it was from final fantasy 15 and everyone was driving around the car for a couple of weeks so i think they're trying to bring in bits of it but i have yet to hear anyone mention the broader strategy behind why they didn't go fully

00:17:31like Final Fantasy-esque in the classical sense. I would assume that they had a reason behind not doing that, but I've never heard what it would be. One thing that has really bothered me, I think, for the last couple of years, which is the saving grace has been the Expedition game because I enjoyed watching that playthrough a lot. I think they did an excellent job with the storytelling for that. But what has really bothered me is I've noticed that old school Blizzard and old school Squaresoft did sensationalism. better than any gaming company right now has available for targeting and the reason i bring that up is because we went from cypher or safer sephiroth blowing up the universe to eden showing a screenshot during eden and eight of supernova happening in the background before she shattered reality and then into nine if you look at some of like the arc any of these they did really big over the top

00:18:27mind bending and and hard to wrap your head around stuff good just like sargeras stabbing azeroth like those things from the old group of the old guard that was making that i just feel like the everything is very watered down and that's one of the reasons why i didn't play 15 the way that they were sensationalizing things it goes back to this is the the some of the summons seemed like the they were the the land They were the environment. They were not these summoned, trapped guardian forces like they were in 8, like Diablo being upset that he was captured. Those little nuances are lost on some of these newer titles, and I feel like that was what got us as addicted to the fantasy. This is more grounded, and that's why they aren't sticking like they used to. I'm wondering also if it has to do with how easy they are to digest.

00:19:19Like, a lot of the things I liked with the old things were they took a bit of work. And also the aspect of finding hidden things, which has basically vanished entirely from games. Not just the JRPGs, but every game. Only one company argues with that. And that's why they win Game of the Year every time FromSoft brings out a video game. There's one company that continues to rebuke that aspect, and thank God they do. Yeah, and also reward exploration. in the right sort of... And it's weird, because I love that aspect of games. If you're diligent, going for that 100%, you might just find something that changes your entire experience of the game. Like if you take, because we have all talked about it so much, but Final Fantasy VII. The first time I found the little forest where there was a summon that was just rolling around on the floor.

00:20:17The ancient forest next to Cosmo. Yeah. And I remember that I talked to any number of people. It was like, did you see that there was a summon just hanging out in that area? It was like, no. Eight of ten had missed it. But I had found it, and that just blew my mind. It's like, this is a summon you could just entirely miss. It's not mentioned by anyone, but it's... Correct me if I'm wrong. Seven was the last game where you could miss a character completely. Yeah, I think... That might still hold true, yeah. And also, I mean, I love that in Final Fantasy VI, they had people that could actually die. But if you stuck around when the world was going to ruin and waited for Shadow to actually come back, I think you had like 10 minutes to leave. But if you waited 30 seconds before everything went to hell, he came back and then he would survive and you could find him again in the world of ruin.

00:21:10Things like that were really, really cool. The cool thing with World of Ruin is that you can technically, and there is a challenge for it, that you can complete World of Ruin with three characters. That's also cool because I think they have a roster of like 14 characters. Yeah, something like that. But I love that. I said this and I had a conversation with Strife on stream about that too. Arguably, I understand how retail novel Final Fantasy VII is, but taking Final Fantasy VI... outside of just a pixel remaster and giving that an actual remake vibe would bring an entire new group of people into a game that they may have been too young to even appreciate while it was out. And I think that that would light a fire under a lot of brand new fans, but it has to have, that's the, that's the thing from soft continues to remind everybody that even if it's hard.

00:21:57they're going to take all of the negative press right off the get-go because people think something's hard and they're going to sit back and wait for the greatest hits to come out after they win game of the year because you're not going to put it down. Some of these games forgot that hard and making someone invest time is not a bad thing. It can be super rewarding. Just because you mentioned it, but at FanFest, that exact question came up from... Because they had a panel where you could ask questions and the first question they got was like, so... How come we haven't Final Fantasy VI? Well, I think that was the most popular one, but even I think they mentioned some of the even older games and also like... Why? I think we've talked about that. We love it, but it's a much smaller game in the huge scheme of things. But specifically Final Fantasy VI, why haven't you brought it into the modern age? And they were very blunt. It's like, yeah, because that game, as opposed to VII,

00:22:55was vastly bigger. If we would have to give it the same love and care as we did with this trilogy of seven games, they basically said it would take us 25 to 30 years to actually get through that project. So we deemed it virtually impossible. So they actually were very frank with why they haven't done that. I would love it, but at the scope that people would expect us to deliver, it would take us a generation. We don't want all those fetch quests that they've put in. Yes, save 10 years. Save 10 years, just leave them out. But again, Final Fantasy VI was, and I've always said this, I've had this conversation on stream hundreds of times. Final Fantasy was that game where there are two conversations to be had about the mainline trilogy from VI all the way through X. And I stop at X for a reason, because I feel like a lot of things changed when we started trying to implement...

00:23:50MMORPG aspects into the game. And I feel like 13 and 14 were a result of that data that they were pulling in. I love 14. I still think that is the best Star Wars rip of any JRPG ever. And I love that game. So absolutely love it. But that's the same context and understanding people have when I said, I love disc three and seven. And somebody in chat said it was empty. And I said, no, it wasn't. If it was empty, you went right into the crater and that's where your game ended. Outside of the fact that the rest of us that have run hard modes know, now it's time to go visit Lucretia. Now it's time for the gold Chocobo quest. Now it's time for getting Aeris. That was like the good stuff. Yes. The open part of that. And that part is what Final Fantasy VI would excel at because of all the things that are parts that would be missed or would be so good to jump in. But there is an entire generation that didn't know about Final Fantasy until VII.

00:24:48They think that 7 is an arbitrary name. They weren't playing it on SNES. They were just playing the PlayStation platform. But if that group that loved 7 saw a remake or a remaster of 6, they would love that just as much, in my opinion. There's no argument there. I still argue, for me, 6 will always be my favorite. And I'm saying this as a huge fan of 7. But 6 was the game that won me over to the entire JRPG genre. because it was so groundbreaking and everything was just at a super high level. And, I mean, they argue that it would take them 30 years. I argue that it would take them 30 years to do the game in the sense that they're making games now. But if they did a faithful interpretation with modern graphics of that game, it wouldn't be as big of a project, even nearly as big of a project. But I guess they are basically saying that we don't do that type of game anymore. We don't have that.

00:25:44strictness to the game, even though VI was a large game. They probably, I mean, if you just taking one instance, the Veldt in VI, basically, how would that be in an open world Final Fantasy VI of today? It would be a huge area with like hundreds of enemies and a thousand fetch quests, basically. It's what I would... So for the people listening, before we got on and started recording, we had a conversation about the amount of fetch quest for remake and for rebirth. And as somebody who's going through, I was very faithful to my word and didn't watch Max or anybody else play through rebirth. So I am authentically having first time reactions to the formula for remake and for rebirth. I have gone hours without story beats in locations that that's the whole reason I was excited for it. And when I saw the Final Fantasy Revelation trailer where it was showing that you could trade to Vincent to talk to somebody in Gungaga for a side quest, I said, you just gave me a fetch quest and you just let Vincent accept it. That's all you did.

00:26:54You didn't do... You just... You were still doing the same... That is very true. I'm still making the chicken follow me all the way across the map, guys. This didn't get better. Like, I don't know what I'm talking about. You basically just reskinned the quest with other things. So that's my worry. Like, when they had a look at 6, they said, like, oh, my God, we would have to make... 200 000 small quests in order to fill out the the main storyline instead of saying ah well you know what this game was already big so let's just do a modern conversion but i guess they somewhere along the line they have switched the mental picture of what a final fantasy game maybe you could the modern games to like cut out all the crap and then like have a system where you are getting the

00:27:48the items and so on in its own good ways and kind of director's cut or pull it whatever you want. Well, Square Enix, in my opinion, I feel like the substance of what they're doing is waiting for me to get to the outskirts of Junon and look up at the cannon and be in awe. That's the factor that they want to be memorable as opposed to companies like FromSoft saying, no, give us the two-generation old engine. And we're going to make a game that everyone on the planet is going to try at least once. Because we can be more creative with that engine. That's what we're comfortable with. Elden Ring, by all standards, looks nothing like Final Fantasy Remake. More people played and have continued to replay Elden Ring. And it's a harder game with less fetch quests. And if I'm fetching something, I have no idea what's in that cave. And it's going to take... So I just feel like...

00:28:45Maybe the industry was much smaller and it had to have been at the time, right? Like when the original owners that were running Blizzard for their ideas were making the first run through with the way that they put the story together, that felt different. Final Fantasy had a different soul up to 14, in my opinion, moving into 15. And I just feel like those people and those creatives are playing things by the numbers as much as I am as a content creator. They are the reason I'm making the content. They've got to deconstruct the current math that they're using. Or this next generation, we're getting to the point where we're focusing so much on the environments. Why would they not just go outside? Guys, you're killing me here. The idea of putting Kefka in, let's say, Elden Ring's graphics.

00:29:37Or putting all of the characters for that into the universe that FromSoft creates. I would take that over the Pixel remaster any day that ends with Y. Oh my goodness, that would be so good. But they just, they don't want to release it unless it is perfectly ported and polished. And I think of the amount of time that I spent playing Sekiro. Or the amount of time that I've played in Dark Souls 3 or in Elden Ring. And the fact that I know that I've played a FromSoft game up to and including Armored Core. Because, again, a gem that not people talk about. Rubicon was a wonderful game with great endings and was everything I was looking for. But the amount of times that I've replayed a FromSoft game as opposed to when I would traditionally be like, let's do an 8 hard mode. Or let's do a 10 hard mode.

00:30:20FromSoft is winning that battle because that formula is the formula that got me to love RPGs in the first place. Yeah. I think, I mean, we've been over this already a couple of times, but it's up to them to decide if they want to keep the old fans or some new fans. And I'm saying some new fans because I don't think those fans, it's not the same fans from a year-to-year basis. It's more like, do we want to have a huge chunk of some fans that are continuously passing by our brand? buying a game and then moving on, but they have numbers which makes it very attractive to us. As compared to us that might be 50 when they do the next big reimagining of a classic game. I think in the long run they will hopefully realize that sticking to a smaller faithful group will be better than to chase that dragon.

00:31:13continuously, because it also cost them a lot of money to make these gigantic games. I think a AAA game these days are in the $400 to $800 million bracket, which is crazy money. I mean, I would assume that that money would cover the entire catalog of games that Squeenix did up to Final Fantasy X or something like that. Certainly. Easily. So it's gotten crazy because they bloat everything. and they spent like two or three additional years making it with hundreds of hundreds of people in a team so some somewhere along the line they kind of built their own problem uh at least that's my version of it and it's it's insane the the part that's insane to me and it bothers me as a content creator too because i'm honestly if i'm being 100 transparent i am the stubborn guy that when i sit down to make music i still want to make festival music that i was listening to

00:32:11when I was still going to festivals or playing on side stages. That's what's near and dear to my heart. When I play a game, I would like it to have a harder aspect that I can focus on, learn how to beat it, and then feel like I'm accomplished when it's done. For the exact same reason that the internet stopped when they found out that Peter Jackson had reached out to the Tolkien family to try to do The Silmarillion, that group that is going to pack your movie theaters that you haven't been able to pack for how long now, again, I don't understand. where the math is coming from. Because I gotta be honest, if he does, you could pick any story from the sill, I'm going to the movie theaters to watch it. I'm happily sitting there next to just everybody my age eating popcorn and yell at the screen when they introduce anybody from that. So I just, I don't understand when things were different, it was because they knew that the parents were going to get the Game Boy or get the Switch that had the new Pokemon game. And how often did that math change?

00:33:10That same generation would probably still play a brand new Pokemon game. And that generation is the same ones that will play a JRPG if it meets our standards. I just don't understand where that math was taken out of this equation for those guys as we're developing things moving forward. I mean, it's very interesting. As I said, my hypothesis is that they just reached the conclusion that there are millions of more people out there that aren't the faithfuls. And if we can get them, we'll earn more. It's one of those, either stick with what you have or go for what you haven't. And they went for what they haven't. And I think that was, in the long run, the not best strategy they could do. Because people that love their product, love their product, will be there. If they treat us right, we'll show up. And we'll show up with our wallet. The theorem seems like it's just nostalgia in crumbs. That's enough to get us to do it with an entirely brand new...

00:34:05And again, I try not to complain about it when I'm live because I enjoy that. I know the story's coming. Like I was walking in the current position that we're at when we start stream today is we're getting ready to walk into Mount Nibel. We're getting ready to walk into Nibelheim. So we're about to get to a spot where I'm like, oh, sick. Let's see how they do this. Kate Smith is already foreshadowed. I'm super stoked about that. And then I'm like, OK, so the second I walk into town. Three Queen's Blood fights are going to pop up. The bulletin board's going to be there. And I'm like, oh, we're not even going to get to the mansion for the first two hours that I'm there. It's more like they're drip feeding us the good stuff because they know we'll stick around because we are suckers for the pure essence of the Final Fantasy experience. So we'll be there. We're eating, but we're not eating as well as we could. It's basically...

00:34:57Because I'm still loving what they're doing. I just wish they loved it a bit more in the old way. Because that would be better for me. I see some of the conversation that's happened where they bring up... So for Final Fantasy VII's main arc in the Iceberg, we know that you have to have a little bit of understanding about Durge. So you have to understand the Turks. You also have to have seen or know the understanding of what happened with Advent Children. So when I get on and I put a video out and I'm talking about something and they bring up a screenshot from Resurgence and it's Aerith reaching out and it looks like the exact same pose that she was in when she was, the thought of her was pulling Cloud through the Giga Blast from Bahamut into Advent Children. And they're like, oh, is Aerith alive? I'm like, are any of you guys, are we on the same? We're not on the same level. You guys are just missing. When they're like, well, Zack can't really be alive. And I'm like.

00:35:52Guys, the memory of Zack was in Advent Children. The stems of what they're using, they're pulling from a genuine place. I just don't like that it feels like it's confusing an entire generation that didn't experience the iceberg. That's 100% my experience of it as well. We have a wealth of experiences and memories and games to draw from. And them diluting the new game with things from all over the place. without having a crowd that have been on the journey just makes it very confusing for them. So yeah, at some point, I hope they get their, as we talked about, get their band back together and start delivering the pure Final Fantasy experience. I just had a bit of a look at our watch here. We have been talking for a good time, which I'm not surprised because, I mean, it couldn't become any other way. But before we...

00:36:51go further i just want to say because we have i think we have gone through the topics that we wanted to bring up but if we hadn't is there anything that you would like to mention before we start wrapping this session up anything that you are working on or anything that you will be working on or anything that you just feel is really cool in the gaming space right now and you want to bring a thought to to people's knowledge it's it's gotten to the point now and i know it maybe sounds like at certain points that in these conversations that i have with because i i feel like i've had not identical but similar conversations with strife and with suna and with the rest of the modding community about these games that we've all invested a lot of our lives into in one way or another and as a content creator i feel like it is very easy

00:37:42to get very what's what's exciting right now and i have purposely in my mission to continue to be relevant in the space have tried to defy all of that because there is a certain amount of people that want to sit down and experience something with people that are having authentic reactions have authentic gripes and they're going to struggle a little bit now obviously my content has changed when oscar first found me i was very intoxicated beating my face off of a hard mode that I had no business being in because I knew the story, but everybody was watching my content five or six years ago to watch somebody fail. Now that I'm playing games that are considered extremely difficult or have extremely deep stories, the most important thing that I could tell anybody that wants to get into content creation is that regardless of what trends or fads that are happening, those are not going to last forever.

00:38:41But if you generally care about something, like I care about music or like I care about people understanding the differences from OG Final Fantasy as opposed to the new stuff or the differences in how they were making games when I was a top 500 Mythic Raider in World of Warcraft and why I won't play anymore. There's a reason why things fade in and out of relevancy. But if you... truly care about something you can keep yourself relevant talking about games that were from 1997 to a group of people that didn't get to experience that like you did in your teens hoping that the disc worked in the playstation one because it did survive the car ride so you don't know it was jiggling around there there is a in my opinion there's a massive hole in content creation with authenticity and when people become authentic

00:39:35If you are staying to your convictions, it eventually will pay off. I've never been on a main stage at Lost Lands or at any of the festivals that I've gone to, but I've seen what it takes to get there. And I've seen a lot of guys that were way more talented than me at video games playing the exact same games and only have two or three thousand subscribers on YouTube. The only difference is that I am very stubborn with how I feel about the things that I. produce and the only difference between me then when we talked last time and now is i am even more stubborn and i'm even more turned off by watching all of these people be like oh this new extraction shooter came out we know that they're getting paid to play that game but soundstorm is still in tarkov trying to get to terminal and see if he can handle the black division which of those things is going to be a video that in three years people are going to watch is that new feeling going to be there

00:40:33The more that we have augmented viewers and the more that we have AI starting to steer what's happening, the more we need humans and the more that we need that to be a tool and not be the centerpiece of our entertainment. So don't be dismayed or feel like we're stepping backwards. This is an opportunity for the real humans to still be in a place that they're not moving from as long as we're all willing to continue to support. those humans. So it's, we're in a really weird time right now. I think globally in games, in music, and it's going to come down to people being very serious in their convictions. And as long as we stay where we need to with our feet on the ground, I feel like this is one of those, this too will pass. We just got to survive it. Yeah. Slug through it. Very well said. Where, if people want to discover your content.

00:41:30Where would you point them to as the starting point for that? So the starting point would be to YouTube. That's just the easiest and the biggest flagship that we have. What I would say is, is that we have catered our content to, if people are just looking for clips and stuff, we are on TikTok and we are on Instagram and Meta. If they want to be a part of the experience when we're streaming, we're always going to be live on YouTube and Twitch and all of the platforms when that happens. And we're going to continue to evolve with the system. People can now watch our content on YouTube as a portrait mode, as opposed to the landscape if they are on their phones and that's an easier medium for it. So the only evolution that I'm willing,

00:42:09to give credit to is the visibility and the people being able to find our content. But YouTube with the Soundstorm channel is probably going to be the easiest place for people to find all of our content. Excellent. Oscar, do you have any last questions that you wanted to get up here on the table before we close the show for this time? Just one short because due to the follow yous so long that I've seen. What would it take for you to get to drop Tarkov and get into another extraction shooter or another FPS? Will there be, like, this is the thing that needs to happen for this? So, the reality of the reason why Tarkov has maintained its spot and we haven't gone into a Modern Warfare or dove heavily into Ark Raiders when it came out, which was another excellent game, but the reason why is because of the RPG elements and the grinding elements that are in Escape from Tarkov.

00:43:09So the fact that Nikita and those guys finally gave up and gave us the PVE only means that we don't have hackers. We can still enjoy probably some of the best gunplay and gun configurations of any platform on the internet available for any type of tactical shooter. So we would need somebody to have a game that was equally as in-depth. with the amount of grinding available and with the amount of realism that just makes me want to succeed at the game. So I guess there's a part of me that really has held on to Tarkov because it makes it feel like I'm grinding a hard mode in a classic RPG. And every time you win, even if it's a small win, it feels much larger than anything else. That's the first shooter that can ruin my week if I play PvP too much.

00:44:01just done like yeah stash is gone so i would i would need someone to care as much about the the way the game progresses as they do about the actual mechanics of the game to compete with that on a personal basis because when you yeah when you're starting a wipe and the way pve works if i were to do a subathon and say if we get to this many memberships or this many subs on twitch i will hit the reset button When they're doing that, they could be deleting 1,000 hours of my time because of how many things are happening within Tarkov throughout the leveling process and how Nikita and those guys put the game together. It's the only shooter that's ever made me feel like any of the classic RPGs or feel like an Elden Ring in terms of how you've gotten to the place that you are. So there would have to be a more than likely the same team would have to make a game in space.

00:44:56Because I enjoy the Mass Effect vibe and I think that that would be the only thing that would get me to gravitate. But it would have to have the same nuts and bolts as a Tarkov in a sci-fi atmosphere that I really appreciate because I'll always be a Mass Effect kid at the end of the day. So basically the same challenge and the same commitment in a space value. could work, but it would have to be something along those lines. I can definitely feel that. The first couple of games I can remember that got me to pay more attention to the nuances of early Square was Mass Effect, and then even earlier than that, it was Jedi, is it Jedi? Not Jedi Order. KotAR, Knights of the Old Republic. Oh, yeah. Amazing. Specifically, those games were so insanely good and addictive that I'm looking for games that have that type of addictive quality.

00:45:46For instance, the next Fallout, when we get to that point, the next Dark Souls, if you do it right, I will come back. If you don't, then I'm going to give it a little bit of a taste of flavor and then I'm going to bail out of it again. But the reality of me not playing a Fallout 5 or not playing a Dark Souls 4 is zero. Because those companies, regardless of what people want to complain about, because they're never perfect, but they are perfect for me. And that's why I'm going to buy your game. GTA 6 would be the thing. So, and I'm kind of, my thing with Grand Theft Auto is when I played, I was a Vice City kid. So I was like the original style for that. I love those games, but I'm so burnt. with specific studios putting out games where I am beta testing all of their fixes for the first season. And I know how big Grand Theft Auto 6 is going to be. So that's a game that I will watch from the outside and enjoy as a third person watching some of my friends stream the game before I dive into it. But it's also not really my fantasy shtick either. Like Tarkov is a dark fantasy, like a post-apocalyptic, more along the lines of Fallout. Final Fantasy.

00:46:55How I want to play Final Fantasy is, you know, it's in the past, but it's futuristic. It's steampunk. It's 8. It's 10. It's aliens. Correct. But that's what, yeah, it's aliens. No, only 9 is aliens. Only 9 is aliens. True. I'm going to get an unfollow on Twitch if we start talking about Final Fantasy 9 because Suna is just going to be mad at me. It's that atmosphere, right? Like the reason why people play fallout is not because they really want to know how bad the vault, like you don't play the game to feel bad. You play the game to experience the surroundings and fallout has always had that balance that I want to feel like you are alone. Elden ring. You're alone. Like a final fantasy 10 hard mode. You've got a full party, but you still feel super alone when all of them are dead. So those are the situations that I want to play in. And grand theft auto has always been one of those.

00:47:50Okay, I got 30 minutes after work. I'm going to start, see how high I can get the police, the rating for the police to come after me. That's what that ends up being for me. Unless I'm wrong and they've got one insane story to really evolve for this one, which I won't count those guys out because they're very narrative driven. It's just not the narrative that gets me excited. I think, at least to me, it's more of a casual popcorn movie adventure. That's GTA to me. The other franchise we talked about is deep, immersive, hardcore experience with a lot of grit. And back in the days, a high level of challenge as well on top of that. Which is kind of, for me, the opposite of what GTA is. That is easily consumed, sitting in your sofa after work for a couple of hours, just enjoying weird, funny things in an urban environment.

00:48:46And there's nothing wrong with that. It's just vastly different experiences. So, yeah. And I'm with you. I will be happily watching people play that game before I play it myself. But, I mean, that's just us, as you see. I mean, millions of people buy that day one and put hundreds of hours into it. There's only one company that gets a pre-order from me now, and that's because FromSoft has never disappointed me, and the game's finished when I get it. So everybody else has proven. Yeah. And I feel that way about a lot of companies these days. They have to prove that they have earned that trust. Some people used to have it and they have sort of squandered a little bit. A few still have it, but it's not like a dozen of them anymore. So yeah, that's where we are with that. Oscar.

00:49:31Did you have anything else or are we sort of on the home stretch? We could go for hours. Yeah, we could probably talk for like a dozen more hours for sure. But at some point we would be sitting here without an audience. Yeah. Anyway, I just wanted to say if we didn't have any more pressing questions for now, I just wanted to once again, thank you so much for coming back and nerding with us for a few minutes here. And it's been great. As we said, we could talk about this. for at least twice as long, maybe even more than that, probably even more than that. But yeah, it's been a lot of fun and it's been super cool to see how you've grown as a content creator these past few years and that you still have, from what it seems like, a magnificent drive and a vision for what you want to do and where you want to take it even further. And that things have, you sort of figured out how you wanted to do it and you were well on your way getting there. And that's been super cool to see.

00:50:27and now also super cool to hear about how they all came together. So I just wanted to make sure that we mentioned that, because it was very, very cool to get your perspective and a little bit of your experience getting there. I appreciate you guys having me. Yeah, cool. Anytime. Oskar, I guess it's up to you to wrap this up. Yeah, and with that said, we are, of course, very happy to have you back. It's been a blast. Yeah, we will hope that it will not be five more years before we do this again. We can have that as a group pledge. Let it not be five more years. It's way too much fun to do this. We shouldn't keep it on the back burner for that long. But from us to you, a big thank you and see you next time. Take care and bye bye for now.