We Don't Understand Anime Games | Trash Taste #8
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- You know how, 'cause in some states in America, if you get caught drink driving, they put a thing on your car, you have to blow into it every time. - Yeah, yeah. - Yeah, some guy, he made a video, it was like, "How to avoid doing that by inhaling alcohol instead." - That sounds safe. - All the cards were like, "I feel like you're missing the point of why this is in your car." But anyway. - Do you reckon like, in Ava, right? Do you reckon they just made an alcoholic version of like, LCL? So you just like...

- Just get fucked up on LCL. - You just get fucked in LCL. - Hey guys and welcome to another episode of Trash Taste Podcast where we talk about our trash taste in anime, gaming, whatever. Actually, we've never talked about gaming. I don't know, whatever. We have our trash taste in everything. I am your host for today, Gigguk, and with me is...

Connor, SeaDogVA and Joey, the anime man. - Oh, go on, go on. - Keeping it real today. - Okay, I cut you off for that. - No facetious nicknames. - What did you wanna say Connor? What did you wanna say? - I mean, if you mention it, should we just talk about games then? Like what games you've been playing? What have you played recently? - Have you been playing anime games? - No, I never play anime.

- I never play anime games. - You never? - I never play anime games. - Okay, what constitutes as an anime game? That's the thing. - If the characters go, "Ha!" every 10 seconds. - That's like every game. - Yeah. - You can say "Last of Us" is an anime game, that's it. - Say they have a cute anime girl going, "Ha!" - I don't know, like how many games do you guys play? Because I found that I just have zero times to play a lot of games nowadays. - Now that the quarantine is over here, right? - As a gamer.

- As a verified gamer girl. - As a pro gamer. - I just wanted to say as a gamer. I don't know, I'm kidding. I mean, I feel like it's probably the thing that got cut the most when I became an adult. Like out of everything that I do, watching films, doing anything else, like gaming got cut down the most for me.

- 'Cause in university- - 'Cause that's all you used to do, right? - I used to do gaming for like 12 hours a day, no problem. - Jesus. - It was easy. I love that shit. - I don't think I could do that. - You used to play League of Legends? - Depends on the game actually, for me. Like I played, when Persona 5 first came out, I definitely spent more than 12 hours a day on that. - Oh no, like for me, the reason I don't play many games anymore is because when I get into a game,

- Get into it. - I'm like one of those guys who just can't go, like I either have eight hour gaming sessions or I just don't game at all. There's like no in between for me. Like especially if it's like an RPG or a story driven game. Like I remember when I last played Persona 5, it was just like, just block out my week, nothing is happening this week but me playing Persona 5.

- Which is why I haven't played Royal yet. - I mean, I played Persona 5, Persona 5 Royal and Persona 5 Scramble. And I think in total that took maybe like five, 600 hours out of my life. - This man finds time where time shouldn't exist. - I mean, that's what I like about Animal Crossing, right? Because I'm still playing that to this day and I've put in maybe like three, 400 hours into that game. But that's the thing, right? It's like, unlike most gaming sessions where it's like zero hours or eight hours, Animal Crossing is just one of those games where you can play for half an hour.

and then you can just drop. - Yeah, I guess. - Fair enough. - Which is what I like, right? It's just like a little thing to just kind of do on the sideline. - As someone who plays League of Legends, I feel like even if it is a 40 minute game session- - Pro gamer here. - That shit felt like eight hours. That mental battle that it took to play a game of League of Legends took eight hours. But I fucking used to love playing League of Legends, man. I was so addicted. - Are there any like actual like games based off anime that you guys like?

- What do you mean? - Like by anime games, I don't mean like games with anime looking characters. Like I'm not talking about like a Xenoblade or like a Dragon Quest 11 kind of thing. - Has there ever been a good anime spinoff? I'm sure that has. - Yeah, no, I don't think. - It's just, I can't really think of any right now. - I bought the Attack on Titan game on Steam and I was like, yo, I'm so hyped. I get 10 minutes into the game, I'm like,

- Probably Dragon Ball Fighters. - You like the fighting games? - I mean, I'm not really much of a fight game enthusiast, but I mean, I had fun playing it and I think it was a pretty good game. - I enjoyed, what was the latest like Naruto fighting game? Like I'm not a huge fan of Naruto. - Like Shippuden Arena 17. - Something like that, I don't know. But like the latest one on that on Steam, like I think someone gifted that to me and I just gave it a go. But I was like, you know, I'm not,

- I'm not that much of an advocate for like fighting games. I'm not that good at fighting games and I'm not much of a fan of the Naruto franchise, but I gave it a go. That game is genuinely fun. I mean, you have, what's the Pokemon fighting game? - Oh, Pokken. - I like Pokken. - Yeah, Pokken. - Pokken's good. - If you like Pokken, it's similar to that, but just with Naruto characters. - No one ever wants to play Pokken. - Pokken's so fun. - It's good though, because I do, you know, you bring your Switch to a party, right? You're like, I've got Mario party. I've got Mario Kart.

I've got all these amazing multiplayer games, right? The last thing anyone wants to play is pocket. But if people give it a chance, it's actually fun. I don't think it's a great game, but it's a really fun party game. - It's fun. It's really, really fun. - It's just like a brain dead fighting game. It's really easy. You're dumbed down a lot, but I think it's fun.

It needed to be, 'cause I suck at fighting games. - Well, here's a question for you guys. And have you ever watched an anime and thought this would be a really cool game? 'Cause I can think of one off the top of my head. - Sword Art Online. - Would Sword Art Online be a good game though? - I've played the Sword Art Online games, they all suck. - No, no, I'm not just saying that. - Wait, there's one in the arcade, right? - Yeah, and I'm not just saying that because I don't like Sword Art Online. Like genuinely,

- I just had a huge epiphany. The JoJo battle, the JoJo Fortnite game. - The JoJo Fortnite game. - The JoJo Fortnite game. - In Japan they have an arcade game and it's a battle royale of JoJo and you go around Morio and all you do is like try and fucking punch each other to death. It's so fun. - That game's fun. - It's kind of bad. It's kind of a bad game. - It kind of sucks but it's fun. - But it's good. - It's fucking great because

- Like I completely forgot about Japanese arcades as well. - Oh my God, we even spoke about that. - Yeah, we haven't spoken about that. - My second home, baby. I'm at an arcade. I was at an arcade just yesterday actually. 'Cause I wanted to get, what's that piano game that you and I are really into? - It's like NOS. - Nostalgia, I think it's called.

- I think it's something like that. Basically, Japanese arcades are fucking next level. Like, arcades just didn't die here. And there's so many cool things about Japanese arcades that you just can't get anywhere else in the world. - If you think American arcades are fun, you will not in a Japanese arcade. - Yeah, yeah, exactly. - It's a different experience from an arcade. 'Cause growing up, my arcade experience is always like kind of like, you know, "House of the Dead," those types of games. Like party games- - "Time Crisis." - Yeah, "Time Crisis," right?

And they do have those. I'd say those are the only games that really translated well from like Western arcades, like maybe Dance Dance Revolution as well. - I don't know, 'cause like Japanese arcades have so many rhythm games. - It's like 80% rhythm games. - But they've got so many unique ideas about rhythm games. 'Cause I remember when I was like, before I came to a Japanese arcade, I was like, oh yeah, rhythm games aren't really my thing. I didn't really enjoy DDR or that kind of stuff. And then I went to a Japanese arcade and there are just,

so many different types of rhythm games and it's fucking crazy. I mean, I thought after playing guitar here and just pretending to be a band or was it rock band? - Rock band. - No, just playing basically every instrument. I was like, okay, rhythm games aren't gonna get better than this 'cause you're pretending to be playing the instruments. And then Japanese arcades be like, "Now how about we just invent instruments?" - You see this DJ board right here? Six buttons, you're a DJ now.

And it feels amazing when you like turn the knobs and stuff. And it's like, "Ooh, ooh, okay. I'm making some music right now, God damn." - Yeah, but no, I was the exact same. Like I've always liked rhythm games even way before, you know, like Rhythm Heaven and stuff like that on the DS. Like I played the fuck out of those games, loved it. But when I moved here, I was the exact same, right? I was like,

I'm not a huge fan of DDR. Never really played a lot of rhythm games like in Western arcades. And I didn't really even have an arcade in Australia. We didn't really have an arcade that was nearby enough. Like we had one in the city. - Yeah, there's one that's really far away from me. - Yeah, but like the city for me where I live is like 45 minute drive. So to a 14 year old, it might as well be in a different country. So my only experience with arcades is the Japanese arcades.

But even when I was little, I would go to a Japanese arcade and I never really touched the rhythm games because all these like high school kids are around. And as a 10 year old, you don't want to go into that crowd. - It's intimidating. Those dudes on some of these games are insane. - You know someone is like insane when there's like a 16 year old just rocking up in front of a tune rhythm machine and he just puts his gloves on. - If they wear gloves, they're like serious. - It's like the anime moment, you know, when you put on the glove. - He puts on the gloves, he just does the shine.

and it just gets ready. - It just stretches and shit. - Is that the game where they go like this? - Yeah. - Yeah, for some reason, I don't know why all the good players do it. There must be a trick to it, but they all throw their hands in the air when they're playing this game. - I've played "Tune In" before, that's an actual movement. - What did you say?

- Don't worry about it. - I'm gonna see the replay and be like, "Mother fucks." - No, but like I played "Tunism" once because I was also interested. That's an actual movement you need to do. You have to, there's a sensor in the actual board that senses your hands moving up. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - But a lot of them do it like when they've, you know in the movies, they finish their piano solo and they just like raise their hand. They go high. - Yeah, it looks like, you know, a classical pianist just finishing their performance, right?

- They're almost putting in as many inputs as like a Japanese pianist, like a professional pianist sometimes. It looks so cool though. When someone's good, you're like,

- Man, this is amazing. This is like a spectator sport right here. - Yeah. But then you think about, man, how many 100 yen coins did they have to go through to get to that level? - To be fair though, you get like three songs most of the time. So about 10 minutes for about a hundred yen, which is less than a dollar. - So wait, so what are the go-to rhythm games for you guys at an arcade? - I like the one you showed me. I can't remember what it was called, but it's one where it's like a massive circle.

- Oh yeah, Waka. - Waka. - Waka, yeah, yeah. And basically it's a really unique input where it's like the entire circle and you have to like follow the lines and everything like that. - We'll have a video on screen. - Yeah, yeah. - Yeah, I'm sure. - It was something that, it's really in games like this that you just can't, that I've just never seen before. - That shit burned my fingers though. When you're trying to do the,

- It was the first time I considered, I was like, should I buy gloves? - It's like a plastic thing, right? And some of the inputs are like do a full 360 with your hands. So you just slide in your sweaty palms all around this thing. And you're like, trying to get your hand around. - I was like, oh, that's where the gloves come in here. - 'Cause the thing is, they're not buttons as well. They're all just senses. So you're just here like smashing this hard surface like,

- And it just, it hurts your fingers. - It hurts. - Oh my God. - It really fucking hurts. - Shit hurts. I love the piano one, but that's 'cause it's basically, what's the other piano one where the guys do the thing in the air? What's it called? - Tunism. - I feel like that's the hard version. And the one that I like is the easy one because it's like a piano thing, but you don't have to actually hit the right,

- It's close enough. - It's close, it's somewhere around there. - So you basically look at the screen and you just do that. It's really like beginner friendly and I really like it 'cause a lot of them, I feel the problem with a lot of the games is there's medium and then there's fucking insane. There's no in between. And I always had this problem with Guitar Hero where I could do medium fine, but when we put the little pinky involved, that's when it all fell apart. I couldn't do it. - It makes you feel like a big guy.

- Oh my God, shut the fuck up. Or the classic, the Taiko drums, right? - Oh yeah. - That's like whenever you bring someone, you're like, get off the club. - Yeah, come on. You'll enjoy this. - It's so easy to understand, right? It's like monkey brain mode activate. - I hit two places, okay, I understand. - What about you?

- I mean, the one I always go to is a Groove Coaster. - Oh, you always play Groove Coaster. It looks cool though. - Groove Coaster is fun. - Which one's that one? - Groove Coaster is the one with the giant screen. - It's like pure ADHD. - And there's two like knobs that you have to like move around and tap. And I sucked at it at first, but then I went to this con in Washington DC like two years ago, maybe three years ago. And they had a Groove Coaster machine, but no one was in front of it. And at this point I'd never played Groove Coaster before.

And I just saw this Groove coaster machine that nobody was lining up in front of and it was free to play. - Yeah, and the cons are free. - The whole con. - Yeah, right, yeah. - So I was like, I got like two hours to kill, fuck it. And no one's lining up in front of this thing, let's do it. And I got so good in those two hours where I was just like, I have to go to Japan and like actually get on these machines. And then ever since then I've loved it. - And there's also, what's the other one? What's the cube one?

- Oh, the one where you got to like tap the things. - Tap the things in time. - I forgot what that's called. - That was really old. - That's everywhere. - Yeah, that's like a classic game in Japanese arcade. - Yeah, 'cause I remember my first experience with like Japanese arcade games. There's always that fear where you're just like, I have no idea what I'm doing.

You know what I mean? Like, especially at conventions when there's always that guy. That guy who just like, and he's always before you as well. - Comes up with the Excel spreadsheet on the best technique. It's like, all right, I just want to play the game. - Yeah, yeah. And you're just standing there being like,

what buttons do I press? Like, I don't even know any of these songs. - It's time crisis. - And it's always like, it's always the worst at condoms as well because you know there's people standing around you. - Oh no. - Judging you so hard. It's like, look at this fucking room. - Like if you're like a guest there, everyone's gonna look at you like, wow, Drew's kinda sucks at that. - Yeah, it's like, I'm definitely gonna bring this up

but they panel later. You sucked at DDR. Do you have any comments about that? - I suck at DDR. - But that's what I love about like Japanese arcades is that you can just spend, you can just lose so many hours in there and it's really easy because it's- - Oh, and you get the cards. - Yeah, I was gonna talk about the cards as well. - Oh, sorry, sorry, sorry. - Like basically, actually you explain, Joey, 'cause you're the one who did it for me. So you probably know the process better than me. - So different machines,

are owned by, I guess, different rhythm game companies or whatever. - Yeah, yeah. - And you can, if you get so good at it, you can buy these cards for like 300 yen, which is nothing, it's like $3.

and you print them out and you can save your progress on it because it's a public rhythm game. So if you just put the money in, you're treated as a guest. So your records for whatever you do, high scores, that kind of stuff doesn't get saved because you're just a guest. So if you get so invested in a particular rhythm game or a number of rhythm games, you can buy these cards

and to save your records and stuff like that. And you can, a lot of Japanese people I know like share it online to flex on each other essentially. - Yeah, they do. - And like, I recommend getting it anyway because there are some rhythm games like the piano one that if you don't have a card, they're gonna make you sit through the tutorial. - Oh my God. - And there's no way to skip it. - Exactly. - Like I remember, I really enjoyed it. And I went to the arcade on three separate occasions. And for the first like three minutes, I was just sitting there being like- - I remember I finished like my first two songs and I'm like, "You don't have the tutorial yet?"

- I was still doing the tutorial every time. So I was like, I gotta get a fucking card. I need a card. - Yeah. And the good thing is as well with those cards is that not only are they cheap, but a lot of the cards, the first game that you do with the card is usually free. So you actually make that money back. - Oh, is it? - Yeah, yeah, yeah. So like with Groove Coaster at least when you get a, it's called a Nesca card. - Yeah, there's Nesca and then there's a few other ones. - Yeah, then there's the Bandai one as well. - Yeah, I have that. - Yeah, so with the Nesca card at least, when you, the first game of Groove Coaster you play,

is free because you just put that money into the card. - Right. - Which I think is a nice compromise because it doesn't feel like you're paying extra to save your progress essentially. - And you can, you like, you'll only have a set amount of stages, I guess. - Yeah. - And if you level up, you would learn more stages. - Yeah, yeah, exactly. It's just cool to like go back to an arcade every so often. - Like your favorite anime song. - Yeah, yeah. I got a triple S this stage, man. I just have to, I have to invest money. - They have Undertale on Groove Coaster, right? - Yeah, they have the entire soundtrack.

- I'm fucking, dude, I can do level 12 megalovania, like triple S. I was pretty proud of myself, not gonna lie. - It's so cool 'cause on Groove Coaster, they have like special animations just for the Undertale song. - Oh really? - So it looks like an Undertale game playing out. - Oh no, that's every song that they have. Even all the Vocaloid stuff as well, they use like the music videos for it. And that's what I love about Groove Coaster because every stage,

actually looks really unique as well because it has to match the song. - Have you tried using your card, the ones in America? Have you ever tried that? - No. - I should try that. - That'd be pretty cool. - Does it work? - If you're at a convention and you just- - Probably wouldn't, right? - Whip out the card, right? - Yeah. - Probably need to be connected to the internet. - I gotta flex on these people that I triple S Megalovania on level 12, you know? - Oh, you have all the stages?

- How'd you guys feel about like the UFO machines or like what, like the prize machines here in Japan? - Aki's fucking amazing at it. And I don't know how she is. - Because what really surprised me is that most in most in everywhere else is kind of like a luck kind of like, like luck based. But in here I see people who are just really good at

these machines and they can actually turn it into a profit because then they just sell the figures or whatever you get or buy. - That's a huge industry as well. - Yeah, yeah, exactly. - Like a lot of the stores in Akihabara are selling crane game stuff. It's like, how do they get so many? - I just don't understand how people can get good at that

- Every time we go to an arcade, Aki always is like, fuck the rhythm games. I'm just gonna go to the crane games to just get random shit. But every time I try it and she's standing next to me, she's always like, oh no, you should move that more to the right. I'm like, how do you know that? I was just fucking going for it. But there's like a whole like secret thing where it's like, yeah, you have to aim it slightly to the left so that it drags the plushie close to the hole. I'm just like, how do you figure that shit out? - I just wanna go beep, beep, beep.

I don't wanna think about this. I wanna just play it. - I guess you have to if you wanna like not spend as much money on the thing. - But if I really, really want the thing and the crane, I'll just go to the shop next door that probably is selling it used for like 800 yen, which is way cheaper than it would be. - Yeah, every time you go to an arcade in Akihabara, there's always the store next to it is selling the exact thing you're trying to gamble for. - But in Japan, if you mess up enough and you put enough money in the machine, the staff will come over and be like,

"Hey, you wanna help?" - We feel kind of bad. You've spent like how many thousands of yen on this? - Yeah, which is why like when I have friends who are doing it, who are fucking up loads and they put like 20 bucks, I'm like, "Put like 10 more bucks in then I'll call the staff over."

And if you do that, normally they'll place it. They'll pick it up, literally put it on the box and just require you to like tap it. Like they'll pretty much set it up for you. - Baby mode, baby mode activate. - Literally baby mode. So that pro tip, if you come to Japan, just fuck up a lot. - Use your gaijin card and be like, I don't know how to do this. - Sumimasen. - Just chuck them a sumimasen and they'll be like, all right, I got you fam. - Man, damn. Have you ever seen a crane game at the,

conventions in America? - No, I haven't actually. - I've seen them, but I've always been scared to try them. - I guess 'cause you can set the crane game to how difficult you want it on the inside. - And just knowing how like a lot of, at least American,

- I mean, they're best scams, bro. - How they might as well just be like, there might as well not be a claw. - It's basically just a slot machine with a claw attached. You know what I mean? - Yeah, exactly. - With less odds of winning. - With less odds of winning. I'd rather put my money into an actual slot machine than a crane game. - Which I would not rather do anyway. - Yeah.

- But no, there's like a lot of different games that you just don't see anywhere else in arcades. Like, I don't know why there's always a fake go like section that's like- - It's not just one machine, there's an entire row. - There's a row of fake go machines in every fucking arcade, I swear to God. - And those machines, have you played on those machines? - I haven't, yeah. - They're fucking expensive. - What is it? I've never played the game. The cards, right? - Yeah, so they're expensive because you can print out

of the waifus that you get in fake go. - Oh, yo for real? - Yeah. - You don't know that? - Oh shit. - Oh shit. - I'm surprised. - Oh shit. - No, 'cause you'll be broke, don't. - So Nabi, one of my best friends here, he is like a super heavy fake go player. I mean, he used to be. - AKA he has no money. - Yeah, AKA he's broke. - I don't need to give fate any more money.

any more money. - Don't tell me this, don't tell me this. - But from what I saw, 'cause I went to an arcade with him and he was like, "Oh, can I just go onto the fake going machines?" And I'm like, "Yeah, actually, 'cause I've always wanted to know what they were. I've always just walked past them." And yeah, it's like a double screen. It's like a giant DS essentially, where the bottom screen is like a touch screen and you have these packet of cards and you can essentially use cards to summon fake characters.

- That's so cool. Oh my God, you're telling me this and I'm just like- - And if you like win, like, and if it's like you use the fate characters to like beat like a certain quest, it's kind of like Dragon Quest with fate characters. And if you beat a certain quest and depending on how you beat it, then you can unlock different waifus and you can actually print out the waifus from the machine

- Don't tell him. - Oh no. - And like just to play one game is already expensive enough, but of course they take money to like actually print out the cards. So it's just like,

so much money for the Fate franchise right now. And I know after today, you're gonna go to one. - You're just gonna see me in a week and just be like, "Guys, I've sunk way too much money into this." - Just gonna come in with like a deck. - I'm surprised you never went on it considering you made that whole Gacha video. - I mean, because of quarantine. It was quarantine that started my process for the Gacha video. So I haven't actually been to an arcade since quarantine started. So I've just been playing Fate/Go. - You know what we're doing after this episode?

- We're going to an arcade that has a fake go machine. - It just sounds like Skylanders, but for questionable adults. That's what it sounds like. You can like summon the cards. Oh, okay. - I mean, to be fair, it's pretty fun. - I mean, that's basically gotcha games in a nutshell. - Yeah, exactly. - I mean, you're just collecting PNGs or cards.

or whatever literal PNGs printed out this time. - Wait, so you're telling me that we're not just collecting PNGs, but they're physical and printed out? Bruh. - Laminated cards? - Once a PNG, always a PNG.

- Man, you know the coolest game I ever saw on an arcade here was, you know Typing of the Dead? It's actually an arcade machine. - Are you serious? - Yeah, it's in Akihabara. It's on like one of the Sega buildings. - There's like four Sega buildings. - Yeah, one of them, one of them. The Typing of the Dead mod, they actually have a Typing of the Dead. So it's House of the Dead, but you type all the things. - Yeah, so what, there's like a keyboard there. - It's a keyboard, two keyboards are an extra channel. - Oh, that's so cool. - And you type up, it's so fucking cool. I need to get a picture of it. - Yeah, that's so cool. - I remember being next to the game where you tip the table.

- There's an arcade game in Japan where all you do is like, you have to tip this table as hard as possible. - You know in like American arcades they have the punching machines? - Yeah. - It's that, but instead of punching something, you flip something. - You just flip the table. - Yeah, yeah. - You flip it as hard as you can. - On screen right now there'll be a reference, but yeah, it's really fucking cool. - Yeah, it's very fun. - But it's kind of expensive 'cause you get one flip. - Yeah. - And then you better make that flip count. - You better make that flip count.

- That sounds fucking amazing. - Only in Japan they'll come up with shit like that. - Why else would you want to flip a table? - I can't flip a table in real life. - Where else can you flip a table in real life and just get away with it and not have to clean up the mess? - Not only get away with it, but be rewarded for it.

- Well done, you got a high score. - In your home countries, did you ever have these arcades at home where they would have this one Japanese arcade machine and everyone would be on it? - In Wales they didn't, but in London they did. - Yeah, in London there's a few. I remember there was one arcade machine called, I think it was Bishi Bashi. - I love that game. - Oh, they had that too, yeah, yeah. - Yeah, yeah, but in London it was a really, really old arcade. - It was beaten up. - It was beaten up.

- And here, I didn't realize there was new iterated versions of it. - Right, right. - Yeah, Bishi Bashi is a lot of fun. It's just basically like Mario Party on crack. - With only one mechanic. You have to press your button in certain ways, but it's one button. - I mean, Bishi Bashi means to hit. - Oh yeah. - Yeah. - That's why. - 'Cause there's some games where you're just like, pfft. - Yeah. - Fucking spamming it. I love those games.

- It's a fun game, you should play it if you ever come. - Yeah, it's super fun. - Yeah, basically, I feel like one of the weeb experiences is to go to Akihabara, but I feel like you'd be missing half of that by not going to an arcade as well. - Yeah. - And that's the good thing about Japanese arcades, right? Is that you don't have to go to Akihabara to experience it. - No, no, you don't. - They're literally everywhere. - Yeah. - It's definitely like a different gaming experience from normal gaming in a way that is hard to quantify the value of, I guess, 'cause as a gamer, right?

I love spending 10 hours a day playing video games, but I can't spend more than like four hours in an arcade in Japan. - Yeah. - It's hard. - Yeah, it depends on the game for me. I mean, I think nowadays- - It's hot as well. - Yeah. - Oh, it's so fucking hot. - And if you're on the floor where they smoke, like, 'cause there's always one floor where you're allowed to smoke. - Yeah, yeah. - Oh my God, that floor reeks. - Oh yeah, yeah. I mean, I feel like,

- Nowadays, I probably have a little bit of an easier time because I've kind of diversified my rhythm game portfolio. - Bring headphones, bring headphones. - Oh yeah, bring headphones. - Bring your own headphones as well. - You need an aux cord basically. - But if you don't, then you're gonna try and play a rhythm game while you're hearing 50 other rhythms at the same time. - I think that's why it's so hard for me to sit down. Most times before for like months, I didn't use headphones. I couldn't get into it. But when I put headphones on, I just do my thing. - You're just in that zone. - For like maybe like an hour,

but I can't sit there for too long. - It feels so good, 'cause I remember the first time I tried the piano machine and I didn't have headphones and I'm just like, I can't even hear the music. So I'm just playing press the color. You know what I mean? There's no rhythm to this game. I'm just smashing what I see on screen. But with headphones, I'm like, oh, this feels good. - Yeah, exactly. - I feel like a fucking master at playing piano. I'm here, I'm just like smashing. - Ooh, pretty colors. - This episode is sponsored by ExpressVPN.

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So when it comes to like actual anime games, like games that are based off of anime, which ones have

'cause we briefly mentioned about the Dragon Ball fighting games or the Naruto fighting games, but have you guys played any recently?

- I don't think so. 'Cause the only games, anime games I can think of that I played recently are all like mobile games or like Gatch games. - Right. - Do they really count as games? I mean, yes. - I mean, they're kind of in a league of their own. - Yeah, I feel like that's a separate genre, right? - I'm a pure multiplayer slave. So I think there's like no anime games in like the multiplayer sphere. - Because the recent anime game that I played, which,

apparently no one fucking played was the "Fist of the North Star" game. - Oh, 'cause it was like a skin on a Yakuza game. - Yeah, it was basically, it was done by the people who did the Yakuza games, but it's just "Fist of the North Star." And I mean, I fucking love "Fist of the North Star." So when I saw that and I was like, oh, it's basically just a Yakuza game. I was like, hell yeah, I played it. That game is so fucking fun. No one played it. - If you like the Yakuza games, you'll like it. - No, but here's the thing, I've never played a Yakuza game.

- Oh, okay. - I've only heard about Yakuza games because a lot of my friends like it. But I was just more drawn to the fact that it was a fifth of an all-star game and it looked fucking amazing. - I saw a clip where he was like, "Ah!" - Yeah, dude, you can do the Omae wa Moshinde in the game. - Oh my God! - Yes! It's so fun. It's so good. I love it. Yeah.

- Did that get localized over to the West? - I'm pretty sure it did. - Oh, okay. - I saw a few of my stream friends playing it. - Okay. - Yeah, I saw a few reviews and it came out and it was just kind of like, yeah, it's a Yakuza game. - Yeah. - Do you guys remember when Jump Force was announced? - Oh my God. - Oh my God.

- Remember the shitstorm that caused? - That was hilarious. - Oh my God. It was the beautiful irony that a game about anime characters had some of the worst cut scenes imaginable. - I know. - I just remember the scene where I think it was freezer or something just like floating up.

- It was like T posing and he's like, "All right, I have to go, guys." - "I have to go." - That whole game is jank, bro. - That's the problem with anime games recently because I don't know if the game will be out by the time this episode is out, but right now I'm doing a video where I collect a bunch of old retro anime games that never made it out of January to like kind of review anime games because like the general consensus I feel with anime based games

at least in the West is that they're very much a modern endeavor. It's like only recently than now anime is becoming a lot more of a mainstream thing in the West that they're finally starting to capitalize on the Western market. And, but you know, in retrospect, anime games have been around since like the end

the NES super Nintendo period. They just never made it out of Japan. But it's so unfortunate that now all these like people in the West who love anime are finally starting to get kind of a glimpse into like anime based games. And yet you get shit like Jump Force and One Piece World Seeker. - That One Piece game, I saw footage of that. Oh my God, the frame rate was garbage. - Dude, I was kind of looking forward to that game too.

Maybe finally we'll get a good one piece adventure game. No, we did not. - I mean, the problem with anime games, a lot of anime games for me is they just look like a quick cash grab. You know what I mean? - They wanna make it look AAA, but they're not willing to put money in. - Yeah, yeah. I remember, I think it was last year or the year before there was like a Mahiru academia game.

- They all looked the same. They all look janky as fuck. And yeah, I don't know. Like I haven't like, and then you read some of the reviews and nothing really sells you on this game versus this, hey, this actual AAA game or something that has nothing to do with anime. Like I don't have enough time to play games as it is, let alone play- - I'm not playing a shit game.

- Yeah, exactly. - If you're gonna get me off like the games I'm cripplingly addicted to, it better be fucking good. - Right, right. It better be "Ark Knights." - It better be "Ark Knights." "Breath of the Wild" was one game that like managed to tear me away. - Oh yeah, of course. - Oh God. - Everybody, everybody. - The only thing that tears me away from like "League of Legends" is another multiplayer thing where I could just keep grinding and getting better. - I remember when I first played "Breath of the Wild," 'cause when I first played "Breath of the Wild" was when I first came to Japan.

And I remember it was great because I was like, it was my first time experiencing Japan, seeing all the stuff and all I can think of is I just wanna go home. - I had the exact same thought. - I need to go to that temple, man. There's this part of the map that is unexplored, I wanna hit that up. - I remember playing in the bathtub. Like I was so addicted that even my bathing thing,

I had to be playing it. - You had to utilize it every amount of time. - I remember I was in that fucking fire dungeon, the wind dungeon thing with those big- - Yeah. - Dude, it was terrible. - I recently, at the beginning of quarantine, I decided to get back into "Breath of the Wild," but this time I played it on pro mode.

- Wow, you're a real gamer. You're such a gamer, Joey. - I know, epic gamer girl moment. But the only difference between pro mode and regular mode is that on the main HUD, like you know how when you're playing Breath of the Wild, there's like the mini map in the corner, like the temperature, time of day, all that stuff? - Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. - Pro mode basically takes all of that away and just shows your heart. So you're forced to explore and look around. And when I played it,

I was like, this is how the game's supposed to be played because I discovered more things in the first- - So such an elitist. - No, legit, because I discovered more shit in the first 10 minutes of promo than I did in the first couple of hours of regular game mode. - Damn, what the fuck are you doing in the regular game mode? - Because in the regular game mode, you have the mini map, right? So you're forced to like go to the closest shiny thing

that you see on the mini map. Whereas when pro mode, you have to fucking look around. And I was like, oh shit, I didn't know there was a temple right here, like right under my feet because I'm too fucking worried about going to this tower that the game is telling me to go to. - Joey's a pro gamer. - At that moment I was like, this is epic gamer good moment right here. - On the topic of anime games though, how'd you guys feel about visual novels? - I fucking love them. - Have you ever played one before?

- I had a moment during high school where all I played was visual novels. - I remember I booted them up several times and every single time I get about five minutes in, I'm like, "Hey, this is just a book."

- In disguise. - They're trying to trick me into reading. - This is just a book with extra pictures. - It's a book with extra steps. - It's like a novel, but there's like visuals to it. What the fuck? - I think the best example I ever heard was my friend saying, "This is just an audio book with pictures."

- Some of them don't even have voice acting. - It's an audio book with pictures, but the main character never has the voice because they want you to immerse. - I don't know. I'm sure there's a lot of people at home who are watching this as well who also are in the same boat as me where I'm like, it's too fucking boring. - I don't blame anybody who says that they can't get into visual novels. - To you, is it in the same category as gaming? Like it can't be, right? I was gonna say, 'cause like I'm a gamer.

- I don't know. - I'm a gamer. - There's like different levels I feel. - Like in a game? - No, no. - I hear you. - No, 'cause like it took me like years because as a kid I would play on my DS, like I was a Nintendo kid, right? So I had like a DS, would like play on that a lot. And then it took me years to realize, wait a minute,

Phoenix Wright is just a visual novel. - I never liked Phoenix Wright. - Did you not? - He was trying to trick me into thinking. - Oh, I love Phoenix Wright. - I love Phoenix Wright. - How dare you trick me into thinking? Let me shoot things. - Where is that high octane gameplay that I signed up for? - Where is the action? I didn't come here to think. If I wanted to think, I'd play.

- I think I'm gonna read. - I wanna play Professor Layton if I wanted to think. - Hey, Professor Layton's also a really good game. - It's actually, I love puzzle games. But that's what, when I try to play Phoenix Wright, I'm like, this isn't a puzzle game. They're trying to trick me into thinking I'm using my brain. I'm just reading the whole time. - Weirdly enough, I got into visual novels because I really heavily gone into "Aerogaze."

- Oh my God. - Yes, yes. - I started with "Eregeis" and then- - That's my brother. - That's my brother. - I started with "Eregeis" obviously because I am a 13 year old horny boy on Maine. - Wait, what's the first visual novel that you played? - Why didn't you just watch porn if you were horny? - I did. - You're in Google, you have all of Google and you think, "I wanna read the porn." - No, because, okay, okay. - No, it's not read. - Before you get to the porn, you need to, like, it doesn't feel as good if they just hand it to you.

- You earned that shit. - You don't read the porn, you experience the porn. - So how old were you guys when you got into this first of all? - Erigase? - Yeah. - Like 14. - 13, 14. - When I was 14, right? My mom could have come in the room at any second, right? This needed to be like special ops precision.

I needed to get in and out and get the deed done. Because, you know, did you have like two floors through the house? - No, I had one floor. - Oh, no, no, I had two floors, but we're all on the same floor. - Okay, so my bedroom's on the second, right?

And I had about a five second window where I could hear the stairs creaking. I didn't know which room she was going into, but just in case I had to prepare every time. - During those five seconds, just the mission impossible theme playing in your head. It's like, dun, dun, dun. - I had like a whole setup ready just in case my mom was gonna walk in the room, right? And it was playing with, how did you have the time to get into a story, right? And without any of your parents finding you watching porn. - Because I was one of those kids that had a lock on his door.

"Your parents gave you a lock?" - Yeah. - Bro, my parents would never give me a lock. - Actually, the only computer we had in my household was like the family computer. - Yeah, I used a family laptop. - Yeah, yeah. - So I was watching porn on the family laptop. - Because my dad has been working in an IT company for 30 years, so he gave everybody like our own computers.

- He had it on easy mode. He didn't have to like work around schedules or anything. - But like, I had like, I knew because my parents would always, they would always be out in several like specific hours of the day for work. So I'd be like, okay,

- It's eroge time. - I would just like 10 minutes, get the deed done, go back to gaming. - I don't even remember what the first eroge was that I played. It was probably some shitty one. - I remember what it was for me. It was called the Sagara family or something like that. And how I discovered it, right?

- This is like going before "Era Gaze" but it was technically "Era Gaze." Did you guys ever go through that phase where you're just playing shitty like hentai visual novels on Newgrounds? - Yeah. - Yeah, yeah. - "Frank's Adventure." - That was the shit. Are you kidding me? Like "Gangaroo Girl." - Yes.

- Hentai sex kid or something like that? - I feel like this was two hobbies that you should not have combined at a young age. - That just like blew the biggest wave of nostalgia in me too. - Yeah, do you remember? Do you remember? - Of course I do. Of course I do. - You go onto Newgrounds and you see that like red letter A, I was like, "It's my game boys, let's go."

It was so shitty because you know this was made by like one dude living in like the middle of fucking like Winnie Pegg. And it's like mom's basement being like, I'm gonna make a really shitty like hentai flash game. - But like as a kid at that time, that was like the only exposure you can get. So you were just like, holy shit. - Because I was too afraid at that moment to like go onto Google images to like look, 'cause I didn't know how to search for that shit, right?

- No. - Wait, wait, wait. So you're telling me you know how to find porn games, but you didn't know how to find porn? - Yeah, because on Newgrounds, they have an entire section. I don't know if it's still to this day, but back then on Newgrounds, there was an entire adult section that clearly just said adult. So you knew that if you clicked on that part of the website, every game or animation that came up was going to be of that caliber. - Exactly, and they were all hentai games. - They were all hentai games. - Why not?

- I just watch porn. - Because you don't know how to look it up. - What do you mean? - Because you don't know what porn is. - No, no, no, no, PornHub didn't exist. - Wait, when did PornHub come around? - When I was like 16 maybe? - This is to show my age now, but this was before the age of streaming. Okay? - This fucking anime boomerang. - So what do you do if you need to find porn, but you can't stream it? - Google images.

when did Google get popularized? 'Cause I remember back then I was probably using Yahoo or Ask Jeeves. - Yahoo, Ask Jeeves. - Ask Jeeves. - Jeeves, where is the porn? - Where is Brazzers, Jeeves? I'm wondering. - No, 'cause the reason I discovered Sagara Family was because you know in those hentai, like the Newgrounds visual novels, you don't get what I'm talking about. You know what I'm talking about, Connor? - I'm gonna sit this one out. - I know what you're talking about. - They would always like,

the porn part would always be these gifs. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - And then I saw one of the comments and they were like, oh, they sourced the gif. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - I'm like, yeah, yeah. And so that's what introduced me to the world of eroge. - That's how I found my first eroge as well because-

I played like Frank's Adventure or whatever the fuck it was. And there was this section where it's like, you walk into a cinema, but like the cinema is mosaicked and you have to get like a special item from somewhere to like unlock the mosaic. And when you finally did, it was this like gift of this like, or this image. It wasn't even a gift because it was from an era game. It was just this gift or this PNG of just this like really old like nineties era game. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - And my 13 year old brain was like, fuck yeah.

- What is that? Give me the sauce. - I eat the sauce. - And I scroll to the comments and of course there was that one also horny on me in 13 year old who was like, "Hey, at this part of the game,

Where is she from? - Where does this image come from? - And of course there was this culture boy who was like, my mans, I got you. Probably from Reddit or 4chan at the time. I was like, I got you bro. I came from the A board. That's where all the sources. And yeah, and then I would finally look it up. And of course back then, you know, the wild, wild west of the internet, you could get games like that very easily. - You can get it easily. You just took like,

two millennia to download. - Exactly. - 'Cause I remember, like because I could only download it when my parents were out. So I would be- - What is this two gigabyte download, son?

- It was like gigabytes and I'm like, oh, this is gonna take time. So back then, I would have to plan this shit out. This was like scheduled where, okay, you had about- - Motherfucker's doing a special ops operation. - You had about 40 different .rar files and you needed to download them one at a time. 'Cause you couldn't download one massive file.

- That hits too close to home for me. - And I hated it when you would go onto the website and it's like, you can only download, you would download part one of 76 raw file and you finally get, and you realize it's like 200 meg. It's like, all right, that won't take too long. And you download it and you go to download part two and it's like, you have to wait 15 minutes for the next one. I'm just like, God damn it.

- These are struggles I do not identify. - So like when I actually download and sometimes like one of the parts would be missing and it was just the most, it was the most angering moment you can think of. 'Cause you've downloaded 40 files, you just need one more file. You go on WinRAR, you try to extract it, there's an error. What the fuck do you do? - Exactly, because I'm like- - No, no, no, no, 'cause I remember so many times I would just- - Getting so heated about this.

- I remember somebody telling me- - I just wanted that last piece. - Because when you've invested so much time downloading this and there's just one file, there are so many hentai games I've never played 'cause there's just one file missing and I couldn't find another link. - Because that's the problem. It's like, unlike, you know, previously we talked about like how part three out of eight of this anime movie was missing. You could still watch the other seven parts, but with-

- AeroGaze with WinRar, you're missing one part, you can't play any of it. - This sounds like fucking Harry Potter hunting down the hole. - I just realized how close that story was to the YouTube story that we told a few weeks ago about watching anime in parts. Imagine if you're missing one part, you just don't watch the entire series. - You can't watch the entire movie.

It's like you're missing part three, you can't open part one. - Sounds like a message from God to be a good Christian boy. - And that's why when all those parts did successfully download and did successfully extract and you booted it up, the moment a window popped up and it wasn't like spyware, it was just like, yes, now I can finally put in the time that I'd spent so long trying to get.

And I did put in the time, no matter how shitty the era game was. 'Cause I remember my first couple of era, I didn't know what a good era game was at the time. I just downloaded whatever the fuck I saw on you guys at the time. - It was a victory. The fact that you got it working and you were like, I'm gonna play this and I'm gonna fucking enjoy it. And it was amazing. - I'm gonna 100% complete this shit if it kills me. - Damn, I was just playing RuneScape this time.

- You guys sound like you're going through a fucking mission just to get something working. - Yeah, but it was so worth it. - Just to see like what, one third of a 2D tit, is it? - That's what it was, man. - No, 'cause that was like how hard it was to get porn back in the day. - Like go RuneScape, selling GF, buying GF. - Actually, I have a funny story about that. - Oh shit, okay. - No, no, because like, because,

- Okay, this was like when I was a kid, right? And you know, like when you first discover like the concept of like sex and porn and like, I didn't like, we had dial up internet back then. - Yeah, same, same. - Yeah, but like this was going back when I was like nine, 10, you know, yeah. Before I could really like have time to work on a computer and everything like that. So,

The only way I could get anything close to that was by watching late night TV shows in the UK. So what I tried to do as a kid was I would record shows on my VHS. - I did that as well. - Okay, but there was this one show 'cause I looked at the TV guide. There was this one show.

There was this one show that was like, "Ooh, this sounds spicy." As a kid, I'm like, "Ooh, this sounds exactly what I'm looking for." It was a late night TV show, aired at like 12. - Can I say the title? Is it called "Babe Station"? - No, no, no, no. - That was the one. - "Babe Station." - That was the one for the UK. - Okay, we gotta talk about that one. - I probably would have enjoyed "Babe Station," no. "Babe Station" more. No, the show was called "Sex and the City."

So me being a nine year old kid thinking I'm about to get porn right now. And then I set my VHS up, I go to sleep, the VHS records and I've never been more disappointed as a kid. Like imagine it as a kid,

- You think you're about to get full on sex for the first time. - In the city. - In the city. - In the city, right? And you just get a bunch of girls talking about dick and shoes. Like I was like, what is this? This is false ass.

- Advertising. Do you know how much effort I had to put in to record this show and this is what I get? I remember as well as like a 12 year old, 13 year old and just hearing that like my mom's friend's favorite show was "Sex and the Sea". I was like, that's not very Christian of you. What the fuck? Man, adults are scary.

- Hold on, we gotta hear about what the fuck Babe Station is. - So Babe Station was this channel in the UK, right? And it would air at like, what, like 11:30? - Yeah, yeah, something like that. - It was literally just like girls on a couch, like half naked, and then they would occasionally take off their bra, but the whole time you wouldn't hear anything. You would just hear like porn music, but they were calling someone. You could call in and talk to them. - Right. - And there's some good videos on YouTube of people trolling them. That's really funny. But as like a 14 year old, I was like,

- It's basically chatter bait before chatter bait. - On TV. - On TV, basically. - But you can't hear what they're saying because they're talking to someone. Occasionally they would let you hear the audio.

This is what you could be having. But obviously 12 year old me, I'm never gonna call them. But oh my God, yeah. 'Cause I remember after Family Guy would air, so I would like to take a Family Guy episode, just to leave it running. - Just nonchalantly. - I noticed actually that like UK TV at night really like holds no bars. - Oh, that was like porn on so many channels. - Because Aki and I only recently discovered thanks to Marzia.

about the show "Naked Attraction."

- Wait, what's that? - Yeah, you showed that to me. - Yeah. - "Naked Attraction" is basically this- - Seamless? - It's this show on UK television. I don't know what time it aired. I assume it was late. - It's on Channel 4 about like 9:00 PM. - But basically it's this game show where a guy or a girl would come onto the show looking for a boyfriend or a girlfriend. And in the case with like, say a boy coming on looking for a girlfriend, what they would do is they would show five different girls, but they would be butt naked.

- Completely naked. - No mosaic, completely naked. And what they would do is they would start from the down up. So what they would do is they would first show below the belt. - Right. - And then the guy was- - You could see everything. - You could see everything. - Oh, okay. - And the girl would be like, "Okay, I like that genitalia. I don't like that genitalia." And then at that point, just from looking at like the genitalia, they have to be like, "No, to this person." And then they would go up to the tits and then they would show the face and then they would reveal the voice. And at the end,

- When there's the last two people remaining, like last two contestants remaining, the guy or girl who like originally came onto the show, they have to also come out naked. - Oh. - And then as they're naked, they have to pick one of the two and then they go on a date. - It's really awful. - And I watched it and Aki and I were like,

- This is the most amazing show I've ever seen. - Yeah, it's called "Naked Attraction" I think. - "Naked Attraction", yeah. And there's clips of it on YouTube. - Yeah, yeah. - How are they getting away with this? - There's entire seasons of it on YouTube and I don't understand how they're getting away with it.

I guarantee this episode is gonna get demonetized. And yet whole episodes of "Naked Attraction" can be on YouTube and YouTube's like, "Well, it's a TV show, so I guess it's okay." But I don't know. I thought I was gonna hate it at first because just from the concept, it sounds absolutely trashy. - But it makes you like the worst person ever.

'cause you're like, "Wow, their feet are slightly disformed." - It's not even their feet, it's like, "Oh, their pussy's a little mangled up." - Oh God. - Oh my God. - And you have to say that in front of the person. I'm like, "I would never be able to be on the show." - I don't think I have the self-confidence to go on that show. - But these are like just chill people, normal people, and they go on and they're just like, "Yeah, I just wanted to spice it up a little bit."

I'm like, "They're spicing it up, love, "and then there's getting naked "in front of the entire country." So there's an in-between. - I'm like, "Is it really worth it for the 15 minutes of fame "if you have to show your naked body on TV?" - And then they show you a little bit of the date afterwards and they're always fucking awful dates. - It's so awkward. It's like, "Hi, hi."

- Oh yeah, you like dates? - So yeah, I hear you think I have a weird tower defense. - I like Blunt's tower defense. - Like how'd you go on a date after you've just commented on their like weirdly shaped penis or something like that? - Yeah, exactly. My favorite though is like when they do finally pick a winner and it's that awkward hug. - Oh, they do an awkward hug. - They do an awkward hug to the person who lost. - Thank you, you chose me. - But it's so funny how like how back both of their like,

- So that the genitalia doesn't touch as they hug each other. And the host is just watching and it's like, all right, fuck off now. - She's the famous host in the UK. It's what's that woman, she does all the Channel 4 shows. She did Big Brother. - Oh, Davina McCool. - Yeah, Davina McCool. - Yeah, yeah. - And she's a really big name in the UK. - I mean, she's a good host. - It's kind of weird that she kind of got relegated to the C team. - I didn't know she did Big Brother, but now I know that, that totally makes sense.

- Yeah, going back to visual novels though, we got very off side tracks. What was like the first visual novel that you played then that you would consider not going through your trashy, eroge, teenager phase, "Oh my God, this is hentai." - I think the first one I played knowing exactly what it was and enjoying the fuck out of it was "Canon." - "Canon?" - Yeah. - Oh, okay.

I think it was weird, right? I kind of discovered the canon visual novel after I watched Air. Right. What is this stuff?

- I have no idea. - It's from the same guys who made "Clan Ad." - I know that, yeah. - So before "Clan Ad," Visual Arts made a number of games, one of them being "Air," which I watched the anime of and I first discovered what Visual Arts is. And I was like, "Oh, I wanna see, oh, this is based off a game." I remember I couldn't find the "Air" visual novel anywhere, but I found "Canon," which is the first game that they ever made.

So I played Canon and of course, if you know the story of Canon, I cry like a bitch, obviously. But I was like, the first time in my life, I was like, wow, visual novels are really fucking long.

- Because Canon not only has like seven different endings, but just to get to one ending, it takes about 30 hours. - Almost like a book. - It is. It's like reading seven different books at once. - That's how they get you, man. I meet people who play the same visual novel over and over again. And I'm like, what's wrong with you? - I mean, I did that.

- Go outside. - Gotta get all the roots. - Go and do something productive. - Dude, I played- - Go and play the eight hours of League of Legends. Be happy, dude. - I played the Clannad visual novel as well. And just to get to the true ending, it takes like 200 hours. - Oh my God. - But- - You did that? - Yeah. - What's wrong with you? - Because I was so invested in the story because once you get in, that's the thing with the secret vision- - How old are you? - When I played Clannad? - Yeah. - 15. - How the fuck do you have the patience for that as a 15 year old? - Because I used to read a lot of books anyway. - Because you find time.

- What do you do as a 15 year old? - As a 15 year old, like $200 means nothing. - Halo just came out I think for me. - I didn't want to be like those normie scum who play Halo. I wanted to be a different boy. I wanted to embrace my weird side. - There was nothing better than pissing your friends off at school by like destroying all their shit, like shooting them in Red Dead. - I mean, I would do that at school, but then I would come home and be like, you know what? I miss you Nagisa.

- I wanna know what happens to you baby. - Okay, I had friends in my friend group who we would always play Xbox together, but there's always that one friend we were great friends with, you never hear from when he goes home. And you were that kid. - I was that kid because I was in my room just like continuously pressing space bars, I'm playing Clannad.

- Because it's so good. - Check out this gameplay. - Yeah. - Click, click, click. - And then halfway through "Clannad" I realized the auto function. So I didn't even have to click anything. I was just sitting, but it was like watching a movie. I was like, oh hell yeah, dude, let's go. - It's just like watching a movie with extra words. - I don't think I'd be able to play a visual novel like that now though. - No, no. - Which is unfortunate. - 'Cause it's like watching anime nowadays, right? You can't watch an anime that's over like 13 episodes without having to fully commit.

- And it's unfortunate because like, especially in the last couple of years, I know there's been some fucking amazing visual novels that have come out, which I know if I put the time in, I would fucking love. But it's just unfortunate now that a lot of these take like a hundred plus hours and I know I would have no time out. - It sounds like hell to me.

- Actually, question to you then, Con, did you not play Doki Doki when that came out? - No. - You missed the Doki Doki, correct? - I just didn't. I saw it and I was like, cool, girl kills herself. Everyone's happy about it. - Doki Doki though, I would recommend because it's only like five or six hours long. - It's the shorter one, right? - Yeah, yeah. It's like a good gateway one. - Which is 'cause when that blew up, I just had Undertale flashbacks on YouTube when that blew up. - Oh, yeah. - 'Cause it was that kind of audience that was getting attracted to it. And I'm like, people are only attracted to this 'cause this is the first time they're seeing anything remotely cool.

- Yeah. - Like that's it. - I guarantee, yeah, exactly. - Like I'm sure there's way better visual novels than Doki Doki, right? - Oh, 100%. - Oh yeah. - Right, right, exactly. - But to them, it was like the first time that they were playing a visual novel that was also like kind of mind trippy. And I'm like, you guys clearly haven't played Sayonara Uta because that would fuck you up. - I was about to say, I think like a good, I don't know, a good gateway or not good gateway visual novel is Sayonara Uta because that's a visual novel that just hits the ground running. You know what I mean? Like it has a really interesting concept, but it is.

- It is fucked up. - So this is a visual novel written by Genna Ribucci, who is the same guy who wrote "Madoka Magica", "Fate/Zero", "Psycho Pass". And the concept is about this guy, I think he wakes up and the- - I think he wakes up.

- I can't remember the exact beginning 'cause the concept is there's just this guy who, all he sees is just this hellish landscape. It's like grotesque. There are like intestines. - America. I'm sorry, I'm gonna get killed for that. - There's just like intestines on the walls and just like veins popping out. - It is very gendered over here. - Yeah, it's like a scene from Silent Hills or something like that. Some of the most hellish scenes from Silent Hills.

And the only thing that's normal is this like one little lolly. That's just like, she's the only normal thing in this hellish landscape. 'Cause every other person is just like, it's just this like also hellish blob that he can't understand. So the only person he can communicate with is this lolly. And then that to me just drew me in immediately. - That sounds cool. - 'Cause it was like, yeah, what's going on? Damn, why is it this way?

- That's what I look for in a vision novel. 'Cause a lot of the problems I see with a lot of vision novels, Doki Doki included, is that the beginning's like very similar where it's just like, "Ah, here's a high school." - Here's a normal setting. - "Here's all the characters." And you know, it takes that time to get invested in the story. Once you do, it's fucking great.

Sayonara Uta, if you can handle a bit, if you're not squeamish then, and you know, you can handle a bit more, you know, your stomach's a bit stronger. - If you can get past the gore, Sayonara Uta is a fantastic visual novel. Great story, great characters, everything about it is awesome.

Hey guys, this episode of the Trash Taste Podcast is proudly sponsored by CD Japan. CD Japan is the best place to order Japanese CDs, DVDs, Blu-rays, and collectibles. They offer the widest variety of major and independent J-rock and J-pop music that you can find anywhere. Not only are they an e-commerce site, they also have a proxy shipping service that is easily their most popular offering.

- So basically to explain proxy shipping, if there's certain items that you can only get if you're in Japan, like for example, we recently bought a lot of JoJo merch that you could only get in Japan. Do you wanna explain what you've bought from Japan? - Oh God, I mean, we have the watch that Joey's wear.

- Hell yeah. - Let's say if you wanted those sweet JoJo suits that I posted on my Twitter, couldn't get that unless you live in Japan. But if there was a proxy service, you'd be able to get ahold of those. - Yeah, so all you need to do is give them the link to whatever product you want and they will buy it and ship it for you straight to wherever you live. - And the good thing is in case you didn't get any of that, then on the website as well, they give you a step-by-step guide on how proxy services work. So you fully understand how to get the necessary equipment and much that you're looking for. - So basically if you see anything

on our shelves that you can find online that might not be available on that website, then you can use the proxy shipping service. - We've also heard that their customer service is extraordinary and it's one of the aspects that they care most about of the service. - And of course, with the recent events that have been going on in the world, they've also done a really good job to keep everything up to date for all of the customers, including all of their social media and of course the aforementioned customer service. So you can be sure that you're in some pretty good hands.

There's tons of different delivery methods on the website, such as DHL, FedEx. So no matter what you order, you can guarantee that you will get it safely and in one piece. And no matter where you live as well, they will make sure your item gets to you. Let's see what JoJo stuff they got. I mean, just on the side. Oh, they have the Giorno pen.

- Oh, they do, look at that. - Me and Connor have this pen. - Yeah, I have this one. I also have like three knockoffs. - Oh wait, no, I have the Bucciarati pen. - I have the Drona one. - Yeah, it's really cool. It works as a figurine and it works as a pen. - You would never have one of these. - You'd never use it as a pen. - It's an awkward pen to use. - Yeah, imagine buying this and being like, "I'm gonna use this pen." - But it is cool, but it is cool. - If you want something like that, it's available on CD Japan. - That's very cool. - Oh, you can get the entirety of the manga in Japanese. - All of "Stardust Crusaders."

- Wow, bro. - 20 bucks? - 20 bucks for the entirety of Stardust Crusaders? - Bro, bro, yo, what's up? - This is why you need to learn Japanese. So you can buy manga in Japanese and read it for that cheap. - That's fucking crazy. - You can get the first volume of Steel Ball Run for $6. - $6. - Oh my God, that's so cool. - Let's see what figures they have. - Oh, Dead Alive? - Oh yeah, the Kuromi Tokusaki China dress version.

- That looks fucking nice though. Look at that dude. - That's hot. - That's hot. - That's a lot of damage. - That's hot. That's hot. Look at that. The important part right there. - Hell yeah. What else they got? - Is that Kaguya-sama? - I saw that actually. - Wait, enhance. - Enhance. - Damn it. Where did it go? - We lost it. - We lost her. Where did she go?

- So again, if you want to go and check out some Japan only stuff that you might not be able to get from your country, then CDJapan.com is the best place to get it. So again, thank you to CD Japan for sponsoring today's episode. Back to the video. - Okay, I'm hearing all about these great visual novels and they sound crazy, but-

- I don't know if I'm just a person who's never gonna get into visual novels 'cause of how I am. Is "Danganronpa" a visual novel? 'Cause I felt like it was. - Yeah, okay. - 'Cause that shit dragged on. - "Danganronpa" is kind of half visual novel, half mystery game because-

- It's visual novel in the aspect of when you're going through the story elements of Danganronpa, it's 100% visual novel. Like in the way it looks and the way it presents the story. But when it comes to the actual murder mysteries you have to solve, there's a bit of exploration that happens. And the whole part of when you go to the actual trial, that's a whole game in and of itself. - Yeah, that's true. I mean, I just got, I remember being so frustrated playing that. I don't know why. - Which one did you play though? - First one. - Okay, don't play it.

- Is it bad? - The second one is by far the best. - I thought everyone said like the third one's the worst. - The third one is the worst, but- - First one's not great either. - First one, I didn't, I wasn't a huge fan of the first, I played all three.

- First one was okay. The second one though is by far the most optimized and best in terms of like game plan, in terms of story, in terms of characters, everything. And then the third one, they just- - They dropped the ball. - Dude, I was so disappointed. They bombed that so fucking hard. It was the ending to the third one, which I was just like, you made me sit through three whole games of this shit and that's how you end it?

- Fuck you. - If you had to like pitch it to me to get me into visual novels, as I'm sure there are some viewers at home, how would you do that? 'Cause like as somebody who's never experienced visual novel and doesn't really think that he'll like it. - I mean, do you like books?

- It's been a while since I've read a book. - Well, there's your first stop. There's our first problem. - The problem is with books is that I never seek them out, but every time I've read a book, I've had a great time. - Yeah. - Okay, then that might just be the case with visual novels, right? Maybe all you need is just that one visual novel that you can relate to. And because the pool of visual novels is so deep. - What's like some beginner recommendations for visual novels that like everyone must- - Honestly, "Doki Doki." - Really? - Yeah, "Doki Doki" is a great like,

- It's just a great starter one because it's so short. And if you can get through like the worst part of Doki Doki unfortunately is like the first half where it's just- - It's not normal, is it? - Yeah, it's just setting up the scene and everything. But like the halfway point hits and it's like, oh, this has got a lot of interesting ideas. - In defense of Doki Doki Doki, the reason why the first half is so boring is because

parodying visual novels. - Yeah, yeah. - So knowing that, if you go into Doki Doki with that mindset, then the first half is a little more bearable. But the thing is, if you're not interested in the actual, the problem with visual novels is if you're not invested in the story, you're not gonna enjoy it, no matter how flashy or good it is, right? And that's the unfortunate thing is that so many visual novels get passed under the rug because too many people are just

too lazy to get into the story. - Yeah, yeah, exactly. - This guy. - Yeah, this guy. - I hate story in video games. - Okay, then here's a question to you then. What are like some visual novel adaptations for anime that you've just really enjoyed? - That's a good question. Have you watched a lot? - I think I have. - Maybe you have watched a lot and you just didn't know- - I can't remember at the top of my head which one. - Okay, so some of them might be Steins;Gate. - I like Steins;Gate a lot, but that felt like a visual novel when I was watching that. You know what I mean? There's lots of moments where they weren't afraid to like be boring.

- Yeah. - Okay, not be boring, but they weren't afraid to let you sit with mundane situations. - It's a very slow character development. - Amazing anime though. Like I fucking loved that. - It's an amazing visual. - 'Cause I remember I had the game on 360. I just never played it. - Right, right, right. - I don't know why I never played it. I think I bought, I watched the anime. I thought, "Whoa, I wanna play this." I bought it and never played it. 'Cause I was like, "What a mother dude."

- And there's also like the Fate franchise. - Every Fate series I've watched, I didn't watch the new ones 'cause they were based on the game. - I mean, there's a lot of Fate series. - Heaven's Fuel. - Heaven's Fuel, I don't watch Heaven's Fuel. I watched, I love Fate Stay Night and Fate Zero are some of my favorite, or Unlimited Blade Works, some of my favorite. - Well, that's all just the Fate. - No, I know it is, but then,

you wanna get into fate and you see the fucking chart of like the fate law and you're like, wait, there's how many sabers? I don't want this many sabers. - It was just type moon being like, let's make this universe just so difficult to get into. - So you watch the anime and you think,

this is a little confusing, but it makes sense. I like this. And then you actually go and look what fate is. And you're like, this is a dumpster fire. - I feel like the biggest enemy against people getting into fate is ironically the fate fandom itself. - Oh no, I agree. - Because, okay, here's the thing.

I have one of the most popular fate videos, which is just me parodying how to unlike a newcomer trying to understand the fate series. And like to me, as someone who really likes fate, it's really not that hard to get into. You watch Unlimited Blade Works, you watch Fate/Zero, it doesn't matter which one, you watch either one. - They're both amazing. - Yeah, they can be enjoyed by themselves and then from there you just take it from there. - That's exactly what Nabi told me when I was trying to get into the fate series. He was like, I was like, okay,

- I can trust your opinion because you've been with Fate from the very beginning until now. How do I get into it? And he was just like, watch Fate Zero, watch Unlimited Blade Works and you will understand 95% of the lore and the rest is just a bonus. - Oh really? But like the problem is,

the like click the fake fandom as a collective just can't seem to fucking agree on it because there's like, there's I fucking lost it because there was this Reddit thread recently on like our anime and someone had made, I think the title of the thread was I made an easy to follow guide on how to get into Fates, right? And- - The ultimate clickbait. - And it was, I fucking burst out laughing when I saw like 800 upvotes, 700 comments. And I'm just like,

- Oh boy, here we fucking go again. - That ratio, oh my God. - I'm gonna get the fucking popcorn. And I remember like one of the top comments were just like, "Oh yeah, just watch Fate/Zero. "It doesn't really fucking matter. "Fate/Zero is good." And like the next comment is, "But you're not gonna understand X "if you watch Fate/Zero." And I'm just like,

- Oh my God. Like how this, I can't imagine how it looks for a newcomer. 'Cause it looks like a clusterfuck, right? - Yeah. - It does. I mean, I watched "Fate/Zero" first and I thought it was like a classic, right? I thought it was a great show. I mean, I can rewatch "Fate/Zero" and have a good time.

- I don't know. Do you get put off by shows if the fan base is toxic or shit like that? 'Cause I don't. I'm just like, fuck you. I'm gonna watch the show, make my own opinion. - Yeah, it's weird, right? Because I remember the Fate fandom used to be a lot more toxic, right? - It used to be more toxic?

- Oh no, definitely. There was this phase, right? Where if you recommended people to start Fate with Fate/Zero, when that first came out, then there will be people in the Fate fandom who were just like, "How dare you? How dare you not just recommend the original visual novels?" Like it was like, if you're not willing to sit through a hundred hour visual novel, then why are you even enjoying this franchise? You know what I mean? And now- - God.

Now it's evolved a bit. Now it's like, okay, people just want other people to get into "Fate." But now they just don't know how to agree on one specific way to get into "Fate." And it's the problem because it's a problem of "Fate" being a visual novel adaptation because there is no perfect adaptation of "Fate" state night. 'Cause if you think about it logically, like if you think about something like the "Monogatari" series, easy, you start with release order.

- All right, so you start with "Bakkemonogatari" 'cause that came out first, you know? But the problem with "Fate" is that chronologically the first released adaptation of the "Fate" franchise is just shit, right? 'Cause it was- - The "Studio Dean" one, right? - The "Face Day Night" is the original. - Yeah, "Face Day Night" adapted by "Studio Dean", right?

So that basically adapted the first route of the Fate visual novel, the Fate/State Night visual novel, right? But it's also like a really hard starting point for newbies to get into Fate because it's just shit. - It's just shit. - You can't recommend it in this day and age. So what you would have to recommend is probably Unlimited Blade Works, which is the second route, but then, you know, but then,

people skip over the entire first route, which is the "Fate/Stay/Night" route. So it's complicated because of the way the visual novel is laid out. - I genuinely thought "Fate/Stay/Night" and "Fate/Stay/Unlimited Blade Works" was just a remake of "Fate/Stay/Night." - Yeah, you'd think so, right? - Is it not? - No, no, no. - It's completely different? - "Fate/Stay/Night," I think from my understanding, correct me if I'm wrong, "Fate/Stay/Night"

- Unlimited Blade Works and Heaven's Feel are just different endings to Fate/Stay Night. - Yeah, okay so- - Dude, I feel like this is how like NASA must feel trying to fucking program their rockets. - And people keep saying that the Monogatari series is complicated. - No, no, it's okay. So yeah, there were like three routes in the original Fate, oh my God.

- I'm doing the fucking meme. - I'm doing the meme now. - This is the short version. - What happened to numbers? What happened to numbers? We're not number shit anymore. - It's because of the ways visual novels are laid out with different routes, right? So you think of something like "Clan Ad" or something where like a different route, you get a different girl or like, you know, that's- - Like a Pokemon, women are like Pokemon, just collect them. - So in "Fate", it's like every route is completely different, but it starts at the same starting point. - Okay. - If that makes sense. So-

- Do I need a notepad? Like, do I need to like write this shit down? - They all start at the same starting point, but that's not made apparent in the anime adaptations. - No, no. - I fucking hate Fate. - Which is why you would think that Unlimited Blade Works and Fate Stay Night and Fate Zero and Heaven's Feel are completely different games. But in retrospect, they all are the same. - Dude, sometimes I feel like I'm the only asshole who just doesn't give a fuck about half this shit.

- Everyone seems to know and then I'm sitting there like, I just wanna just click play. - Oh, trust me, it took me fucking forever to understand 1% of the Fate franchise. - Are most people like me or like you guys? I don't know. I feel like I'm in the minority. - I've been here since the beginning. So you guys probably don't remember that there's been two Unlimited Blade Works adaptations. - I did not know that.

- Wait, wait, both by Ufotable or? - No, one like Studio D did "Fade Stay Night" then I think they did "Unlimited Blade Works Movie" as well. - Are you serious? - Yeah, yeah. And then Ufotable came along and was like, "Fuck that shit, we're starting over at Fade Zero." And then they were like, "Okay, fuck, okay, we've done Fade Zero,

- Fuck Fates Day Night, let's go to Unlimited Blade Works and then adapt Heaven's Field. - 'Cause I only remember that there was two Fates Day Nights. And then it was the Studio Dean Fates Day Night. - This is too much. - And then UFO Table was like, hold my beer, let's do a better adaptation. And then it was just all from there. But I didn't know about the second Unlimited Blade Works. - And this is just the,

I'm making Fate look so fucking bad now. - It is. - And we're not even mentioning all the fucking spin-offs like Fate, Caledonia and stuff like that. - This is just the main timeline canon as well. - Just watch Fate/Zero and then if you like it, go and watch Unlimited Blade Works. - Honestly, from what I've heard, if you wanna get into Fate, just watch Fate/Zero and Unlimited Blade Works. - Fate/Zero is a great fucking show and you can just watch it on its own. You don't need to have a college degree or a PhD to understand what the fuck is going on. Just watch it. If you like all the characters, it's fucking great.

Hey, watch Monogatari, it's less complicated. - Yeah, so is Pokemon. What are we recommending there? - Fade's a lot of fun. I mean, you get into it for the good story and then you're like, man. - I got into it 'cause I was doing a fan dub. - Oh, seriously? - I was in someone else's fan dub of it. - Oh, okay. - I think I was playing like- - How the hell do you do an abridged of the Fade series?

- It wasn't a bridge, it was a handout. - I know, but like just the hypothetical question, has anyone done an abridged of the series? - Yeah, people have done an abridged of the series. - People have done an abridged of everything. - How do you abridge something that complicated? - I mean, you can just abridge a certain show, but like having to explain the entire franchise, I mean,

- That's an undertaking. - I want a fate abridged where the entire bridge is just them explaining the fate law. - I'm actually doing a video on that, spoilers. - Oh really? - Look at that, so see great minds think alike, big brain boys think alike. - I've actually been working on that for like over a month. - Of course you have. - That was not a scripted bit, I'm just letting you know.

- God promoting his future content. - Yeah, it's probably not gonna be out by the time this episode comes out. But I don't know, there's different, 'cause the Fate franchise is so wide, right? But it's like just this rabbit hole that you can just sink in and there will always be something else. - I feel like we found a trap talking about it here. - Yeah, yeah, exactly. - Just fell into it.

- But that's the thing, like if you just wanna enjoy "Fate/Zero" and "Unlimited Blade Works," you can just- - That's what I did. - Yeah, yeah. What did you think of them? - I loved them both. Individually, I felt very satisfied and I felt that I'm okay not having more. I'm like, I was, I saw the, you know, it's like you finish it and then you walk outside and you see the rest of the world on fire and you're like, no, not today. - Are you gonna watch "Heaven's Feel" then?

- Someone told me that that was just based on the Gacha game. - No, that's fake Grand Order. - That's fake Grand Order. - Oh, is that an anime series as well? - Yeah, there's a fake Grand Order anime. - I see what you mean. - And then there's also- - To make it more confusing, the fake Grand Order anime adapts the, I think like one of the later chapters in the fake Grand Order Gacha game. So it doesn't even start at the beginning. - Why? Why are they doing this? - Ask Type Moon, dude.

I wanna watch more 'cause I enjoyed what I watched, but at the same time, it just seems like I'm gonna be watching it thinking- - That's the thing, it's like I'm scared to start watching the "Heaven's Feel" movies as much as I want to because I'm just like, oh God, do I have to like fucking revise "Fate/Zero" and- - I'm gonna be watching thinking like, fuck, did I have to do research before I watch this? Fuck, I just wanted to like watch something, you know? - It's very daunting, but it's really not that complicated because- - Says the guy. - You say that. - You literally went on a 10 minute

- You say that. - You say that. - What do you mean it's not that complicated? - Look, you can enjoy Heaven's Feel if you've like watched Fate/Zero and UBW. That's the end all be all. - You can enjoy a lot of things if you torture yourself, Garnt. - You know he's a veteran when he calls Unlimited Blade Works UBW. It's like, it's too long, UBW. You know what I mean, right? - He comes up so much in his daily vocabulary that he has to shorten Unlimited Blade Works to UBW.

- Fellow fate fans, I tried, okay? I tried my fucking hardest. - If I find the time. - I'm not falling for your trap today, Garnt, not today. I'm happy not having to. - I will sink that time into a visual novel before I try and get into the fate scene. - Look, look.

- Do people just like not watch shows and then just think, okay, I'm done. I've had enough of this show. That's how I felt with "Fake." - Well, yeah, but I mean, some people just get so invested in the characters that they just wanna go further beyond, right? - Who liked Saber so much that we had this many Sabers? Wasn't one Saber okay? Am I mistaken with being happy with one? - I don't know, man. You should ask his people. - What's wrong with one Saber? That's what I want.

- Why is one Saber not enough? - Okay, okay. Here's the thing, I didn't get it until I started playing "Fate/Grand Order." And then I totally get it 'cause I don't care too much about Saber, but Rin, Rin's my girl. - Oh, I know her. - From "Fate/Saber." - Yeah, from "Fate/Saber Night." Yeah, yeah. So whenever there's a Rin- - How many Rins are there?

- I mean, there's not- - The fact that there's not a clear answer to this question is fucked up. - There's not as many Rinns as there are Sabers. - What do you mean? There shouldn't be more than one? - But for example, like getting Ishtar, for example, I'm like, I need to get, every time there's a character that kind of resembles Rin, I'm like, well, time to think. - I'm not gonna lie, the first time I saw Ishtar, I was like, oh, is that Rin?

- You know, I hear this shit and all I think of like, man, this sounds like it's nearing Kingdom Hearts level of bullshit. - Oh no, I totally think- - Kingdom Hearts wishes it could be that- - 'Cause we're just talking about the series. We haven't gotten into fate law itself. - We're not getting into that.

- All the spin-offs like Apocrypha and like Khalid Ilya and stuff like that. - You know being around anime fans here, you just hear these words like Apocrypha or whatever. I hear that shit so much. I don't know what it means. I don't wanna know what it means. - I don't know what it means either, but I know it's just a spin-off. - You hear it so much, right? - All I know is that Apocrypha and Khalid Ilya are spin-offs, but they're spin-offs that also add to the lore. - It's time to stop. - I mean, okay, so.

- No, no, no. - We're not getting into this. - Okay, so to start off my lecture today on "Fate/Law". - You know what we were talking about, J things that I didn't get before, let's go back to that.

- Oh my God. - You have two minutes, Garnt. Say your piece. - Okay, just watch "Fate/Zero", watch "Unlimited Blade Works", and then that's like the mainline timeline so you can enjoy heaven's feel. And then if you wanna enjoy more of the "Fate" franchise, you can because none of it's technically canon, even though it is, but I'm not gonna get into that. Just watch the main timeline shows and that's me, that's it. - You say watch the main timeline shows, but at this point we don't know what they are.

the main timeline shows are. - I'm convinced people who like "Fate" also like cock and ball torture. They wanna die. - The one thing about "Fate" that I wanna say is that I couldn't fucking believe when I asked the same question to Nabi, my friend, who's like heavily into "Fate" about Saber. I was like, why are there so many Sabers? And you know what he said to me? He's like, "Saber the class or Saber the character?"

And I mean, I went, what do you mean? I mean, like, I mean, I mean, Saber. And he's like, yeah, which one? I'm like, what do you mean? What do you mean which one? He's like, cause there's Saber the class. And then there's the character Saber. - I know that. I know that. Cause like there's, she is the Saber class. They say that like the rider, right? Like the assassin. - Yeah. - Saber class. - But then he, yeah. But then he was like Saber class, Saber character. I'm like, what?

"Saber, the one called Saber, which one is it?" And at that point I was like, okay, I don't think I'll ever be able to get into this series or this franchise. So bottom line, when it comes to visual novels, skip out on fate unless you're like very committed. - I'm convinced, right? If fate didn't exist, the world would be 100% more productive. We would have cured every known disease

on the planet. These people are too busy making fucking timeline charts. - Yeah, a tight moon would actually be like a cancer institute, right? - Honestly, if we redirected that mental resource into doing something productive, there would be no poverty. Poverty would be ended.

But instead we wanted a hundred sabers. That's what we went for. - It's because we just wanna collect the waifus, okay? We just want a slightly different variation of the same character so they could like sell us to like roll another like 10 hundred rolls on the gacha. And then we can be like, yeah, I have another saber. I have everything I want. Oh wait, they released another saber? Oh, okay, okay, I see. - This is just like that, you know, like those memes where it's like the fucking,

the business meeting with the executives and they're like, "What do the people want?" They really like, it seems like gentlemen, they really enjoy Saber. And then someone's like, "Saber 2, Saber 2." And it's like- - Three Sabers. - Saber 2, but it's not the Saber. - If Saber's so good, why isn't there a Saber 2? And the executives are like, "We got your back."

- Super Saber, we want a Super Saber. - Saber black. - Saber pink. - There's actually like a red saber. - Oh no, I'm done. - Oh yeah, red saber and then the saber red. - No, no, there's a red saber and saber of red. - Saber of red, that's it. - Those are two different characters.

- At this point, Type Moon has to be fucking with us, right? Like I'm ready for them. I'm ready for Type Moon to just come out and just like pull an under Hideaki. Just being like, yeah, all of that has no meaning. We just want it to fuck with you. - I'm going insane listening to Garnt try and explain this shit to me. - I wanna have an episode where I just like spend an hour explaining fate law to you guys. - I hate this so much.

- But going back to visual novels, right? That we would recommend to beginners, AKA not fucking- - It's like one pain to another. - Other than "Doki Doki Literature Club", what's like another visual novel that you would recommend to Connor? - "Undertale". - I'm kidding. - You don't like "Undertale"? - No, because there are none, psych. - Okay, question. Would you recommend "Karawa Shoujo"?

- "Karawa Shoujo" also has like act one is, it takes reading through act one to get really invested into "Karawa Shoujo". "Karawa Shoujo" is great by the way. - Yeah. - But- - Is it like a 10 million sabers and that as well? - No, there isn't 70 "Karawas" unfortunately. - "Karawa Shoujo" actually has a very, very interesting backstory.

- Okay, tell me on it. - No, because I mean, I feel like the backstory is almost as interesting as the visual novel itself. I don't wanna say too much 'cause I'm also working on a video on it, but it's a visual novel that basically originated from 4chan. - Can you believe something good actually came out of 4chan for once? - No, no, no, no, no. So it's like a dating simulator with crippled girls from 4chan. And you say that and you're like,

- I don't know about that one, chief. - SJWs be quaking. - But like it's one of the most like wholesome kind of inspirational stories about how these disabled girls like really just are just normal people and just like how they deal with their disabilities. - That sounds good. - Yeah, it's great. - I'd read that. - It's fantastic. - It's actually a really, really good visual novel.

- How much patience do you have though? 'Cause I've seen you gaming, right? If you're not doing something within the first five seconds, if you're not like headshotting the- - If you're not 360 no-scoping the first 10 seconds. - I can't, I have an amount that I can like power up in myself. - But is it enough to go through the first chapter of "Katala Shoujo"? - Why, is it that bad? - It's a bit of a- - It's not bad, but it's a bit of a reaper. - How long is the first chapter?

- Oh, that's a good question. I can't remember. - An hour? - Depends how fast you read. - An hour or more? - I'd say like an hour or two. - That's a lot of time. - Hour or two maybe? - Yeah. - Holy shit. - That's the same with Doki Doki. 'Cause it takes an hour or two to get through the first half. - But mind you, unlike Doki Doki, which is about a six to seven hour game, Cutter with Shojo is about 30 to 40 hours.

- That's fine. - So compared to that, an hour is not too bad until it starts. - Honestly, I do think Sayonara Uta would be really, really good for someone like you. 'Cause I know you can handle that shit. And that was something that hooked me instantly. - Maybe I'll stream. Am I allowed to stream it? Is it a game I can stream? - No, it's banned on Twitch. - Oh, geez. God damn it. - It was the first visual novel that was banned on Twitch because of course, Gen Urobuchi be out here just being like, "I'm not making anything

I'm here to traumatize everybody that plays my shit. - No, 'cause it's a story, it's a vision novel that doesn't have that entry period. It has a very interesting concept and it just kind of hooks you right away. And for me, I remember just reading "Sai no Uta" and I read it all in like one sitting 'cause I just wanted to know immediately what happens next. There was no break from me starting it to finishing it.

In terms of like visual novel type games, I don't know. Like, okay, here's the thing. Would you count the "Persona" series as like a visual novel with a lot of gameplay in it? - Oh, that seems like an RPG to me. - Okay, the thing with the "Persona" series is that it's really interesting because yes, it is a JRPG, but-

a whole lot of the JRPG element and like how you play the JRPG element of that game is dependent on the visual novel side of the game. Because what the "Persona" series did, which I think is fucking genius is that they made you, the way that they made you sit through the story

and it's a long story if you've played any Persona game, right? The genius way that the made you sit through is that by sitting through it and physically interacting with certain characters in certain ways, it changes how strong you become in the JRPG element. So what you do is you form, at least in Persona 5,

what you do is you, by talking to certain characters and befriending them and like going out to do these like normal everyday things, you would level up your different abilities. And those abilities then get directly reflected in the JRPG element. So the more you're involved in the story, the easier time you will have in the JRPG elements.

And what that forces you to do is that not only is it interesting because it's like you're playing two different games at once, but you are literally forced to sit through the story. So everybody that plays it enjoys the story. - So like if you imagine like a gacha game, right? So in every gacha game, there's like the gameplay element and then there's the gacha element. - Well, I played Fire Emblem Three Houses. - Right. - And that had a lot of-

which I found so boring. - Oh, you found that boring? - Yeah, I found it really boring. I would just skip whenever they start talking, I'm like, "Beep, beep, beep, beep, beep." - But the thing is Fire Emblem Three Houses kind of did the same thing where you doing everyday things around the campus would affect you in battle. - I mean, I liked Fire Emblem Three Houses, right? I enjoyed what I did, but-

for whatever reason, man, the moment I see text pop up on my screen, I'm like, you are in the way of my game. - You are so monkey brain. - I was gonna say, you got that fucking monkey brain. - I don't know what happened to me in the womb, but like, I can't pay attention to story in games. And I'm sure there's one or two people out there who can sympathize with me, but the moment story comes on any video game, I'm like, where's the skip button? Where is it? - Really? - I can't, I can't pay attention. - What's your favorite story in a video game then?

- Trick question. - Has there ever been one? - Bro, I need to like really go deep in my memory. I remember the only game that I think I watched the cut scenes and I think I was like 15. I don't even know why I played this game. It's called Blue Dragon. It was a JRPG. We had games for like two people in the comments

- Comment below if you've played Blue Dragon. - It was just seemed like a Dragon Quest knockoff, but I didn't know what Dragon Quest was at the time, but I watched Dragon Quest afterwards and I was like, wait a second, this looks awfully like that game I used to like. And you know, it pains me every time when I go to press that skip button. I don't know what it is. Like, is there something wrong with me that I can't enjoy story in video games? - I'm sure there's a bunch of people who aren't into it, right?

- Maybe, but like for me, it's like I look for a gameplay loop, not a story. - I'm like the complete opposite of you. - Well, no, 'cause you've played League of Legends, you've played it a fair amount. You're playing Valorant right now with me. - In terms of like single player games, like I need a story. - I don't play single player games.

- I mean, you played for example, Cuphead or something like that. - Yeah, I used to speed on Cuphead, that was fun. But that was for the gameplay loop. That wasn't for- - Yeah, exactly. Like I tried playing Cuphead, I'm like, why am I playing Cuphead? What is the narrative reason for me to complete this game? - I just love running gun games. - I need a narrative reason. And if you need me to sit through like a two hour cut scene, I'll fucking do it.

- I'll fucking do it. If it's a good story, I'll fucking do it. - The reason I loved Doom 2016 so much is you literally start that game, you smash a skull open and you start shooting. That was like, oh my God. - Doom 2016 is the epitome of like- - They made the game. They made the game. They made a game for me. - It's like gun, enemy.

- Oh, shoot, let's go. - That was like exactly what I wanted. I just wanted a game that was like, fuck the story. Let's just make a like gameplay that is addictive, right? And so when I play like,

- You know what pisses me off to death about JRPGs? I love JRPGs, but the moment they start making the menu a fucking challenge is when I start, I'm like, this is too much. Like I love Fire Emblem Three Houses, right? But there was times when the menuing was like half the gameplay. And I'm like, I'm the opposite, man. When there's a complex menu, I was like, oh man, look at all the different things I can do. - And again, I'm like, let me play the game.

- You are playing the game on the main menu. - But like, okay, you know, like I go from, I jumped from multiplayer as a game to multiplayer games. Like I've been like diamond in League of Legends like five years in a row. I started playing TFT recently, got to diamond one in that, nearly mastered TFT. If you play these games, you know it's good shit. I'm big brain essentially.

- Playing Valorant now with Garnt sometimes. Valorant's a good game to CS:GO. I played Overwatch, got to master in that. - I mean, okay, what's like your opinion on like something like the Metal Gear Solid series then? Did you ever play Metal Gear Solid? - I love those games. Yeah, I played Metal Gear Solid. I liked that. - Well, because that's like very heavily story oriented as well. - That's like, that's not vision novel, that's just cut scene after cut scene. - Just paying attention to those.

- Like Halo, right? Halo. I love Halo. I have no idea what any of the stories are about. The moment I remember like- - The Halo story is great. - Yeah, I remember there was a scene where- - Did you play Mass Effect?

- That's too much story for me. I remember Halo, right? I remember they like hyped it up, the sat-editing work. I mean, if you don't know that Cortana, you know, but she comes back, sort of. So does it, Cortana dies, right? I remember everyone was hyping up Duke, so sad, so sad. And I was playing my friend and we were doing it together. And the moment the cut scene happened, I fucking skipped it. You went, "No, no, what are you doing? We need to find out what happens." I'm like, "Why? We gotta shoot things."

- Oh, this is hurting me so much. - I don't know, man. I just, I'm sure there's one or two. Am I in the minority here? - I don't know. - I feel like it's 50/50, right? Maybe you're like 70/30. - Maybe. - Maybe.

- No, because there must be a reason why the most popular games are like multiplayer games, right? - Yeah, because they're played by 11 year olds, you know, that monkey brain. - Monkey brain is fun. - I mean, the reason I got into games like League and Valiant is just 'cause I could just get into it. It was like a stress relief. - It's a 40 minute thing that you do and it's no more. - It's like a different kind of stress relief than like Animal Crossing, for example. But you just get in a quick session, you get out, you play as long as you want,

- It's a closed loop. You don't feel like there's anything else. - For single player experiences, I like to get invested in a game in the same way that I like to get invested in an anime. I love that feeling of just marathoning a show and just getting super close. - Just putting yourself into a story and being able to physically interact with the story is so fucking cool. - I think I ruined games for myself.

during the Xbox days. - So is there literally not a single game that you enjoyed the story of? - I cannot, like I enjoyed Zelda Breath of the Wild a fuck ton, but I don't know like what I was doing. - Did you?

I just remember, 'cause when I, the moment- - Breath of the Wild is such a good story too. - Is it? The moment we started talking to NPCs, I'm like, give me the bomb, give me the items, shut the fuck up, I need to blow shit up. 'Cause, dude, Breath of the Wild was the last game I played where I got like, no matter what other game was out there that I wanted to play, like you said, it sucked me in. I loved that game.

But that was because I felt like the way they built the world didn't require a story. 'Cause the story was the same shit we used to. It was bad, going to be bad. - But in my opinion, the most genius thing about Breath of the Wild is that yes, you could skip all of the dialogue and still really fucking enjoy it purely for the gameplay. - That's why I loved it. 'Cause it was like, do your own thing, man. - It's even more enjoyable when you actually talk to the NPCs, especially the ones that are kind of just out in the open, not the ones that are in the towns and just hearing what they say, it does so much.

such a good job at world building. I'm serious, you're laughing, you're laughing, but the NPCs, like I listened to all the NPCs and I'm like, okay, I have so much of a better understanding of this world now. - Joey's like, I'm on the visual novel playthrough. - Yeah, exactly. - I'm hearing this and I'm like, wait, you spoke to the NPCs? - Yeah. - Wait, when, like, okay.

- The thing I hate the most, right? Is when games make you speak to NPCs. I hate that so much. - It depends on like the game for me, because if it's a world I'm not invested in, then I'm like, whatever, this is shitty. But if it's like a world I'm super invested in, I'm that kind of person who just speaks to everyone. 'Cause I wanna get as much content as I can out of this game. - Yeah, exactly. - And I remember speaking to you and you're like, I can't enjoy a game if I'm not making someone else's day be worth it.

- Okay, okay, I said that to you as a joke, but that's kind of true. Like there's just something that like to me, and maybe this is again, coming back to the episode where we spoke about chess, right? Like to me, gaming has always been a thing of like, it's like a thing where I can learn a skill, I can get better at that skill and then I can beat others, right?

- You know, sometimes you play a game of League of Legends and it feels like you're playing the piano. Like it feels like you're just crushing them.

But then when you lose, it's not a good feeling. I wanna play a game and I wanna beat other people half the time. - He wants to make someone else's day worse. That's how he gets enjoyment. - Exactly. - Like as well, if I play League of Legends, I can't play normal games. I need to play a ranked game because I know that people will give a shit.

'Cause if people aren't giving a shit, no one's invested, right? If I fucking die a ton, no one gives a shit in a normal, I mean they do, but I don't give a shit. But if I die in a ranked game, I'm like fuck. - I think that's why I'd never gone into PVP games. - Really? - Just because I've never given a shit. - Really? Yeah, that's pretty why. - I can't like, I don't give a fuck if I'm playing. - Do you not like refining a skill? Like getting good at something and like- - That's not what I play games for.

I mean, that's what I do. - I play games for fucking escapism. - Right, but then I guess my form of escapism is learning the skill and having that gameplay loop of doing it over and over again and then going against other people. - No, I don't have that because I don't give it, 'cause like in my opinion, the reason why I love JRPGs is because there are no bragging rights with JRPGs. By finishing a JRPG, it's not like,

- Yeah, I beat this game. That's why I beat "Persona 5" like five times. It's not because I wanted to brag to people that I beat it five times, but because I wanted to see the route of all the waifus. - But you just bragged about, I'm joking. - Yeah, I just did it, but. - No, it's not for bragging rights. I don't do it for that. And I don't do it to feel superior or anything. I just do it 'cause to me,

I guess gaming for me, the way that it's been an escape is that I get to sync myself. 'Cause I need to be challenged constantly. And when a game doesn't challenge me in like either mechanical skill or like mentally, like I'm just not invested. 'Cause I'm like, it's not challenging me. I need something to challenge me. - I mean, this is why I like play instruments, right? So that I could get that side of my brain focused on something else. - But then I guess we're all different, right?

- For me, I think maybe escapism and you do have that part of you wanna challenge yourself, but it's satisfied by just learning an instrument or playing an instrument. But for me, it's like, I think it's way too consuming for me. Like I'm way too competitive.

Like I was that one asshole in school who turned everything into the Olympics. I was like, oh, we're doing a light jog. Oh, we're doing a light jog. And then I would fucking sprint. Right? I remember like, if this doesn't explain how like competitive I am, I don't know what will. In school when we used to do long distance running, I was terrible at long distance running. But you bet every single time we did it, I made myself throw up. I was so desperate.

I was so desperate to win the long distance running that I would literally, every single time we ran, I would push myself into the point of throwing up.

'Cause I wouldn't stop. I wouldn't stop. - Right. - You don't miss. - And I remember it literally became a joke at some point that every like, 'cause every year you would do a school thing. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - And I remember I would do the 400 meters and I would not stop sprinting the whole time. And I would let you get to the, I would sprint the whole 400 meters to win. I would stop and I would just go.

'Cause I was pushing myself way beyond what was needed. 'Cause in my head it was embarrassing to lose. - I mean, I get people like that. - And before anyone thinks, "Wow, man, Connor, your parents must've raised you in a way that made you think." But no, dude, my parents were like, "Yo, Connor, calm the fuck down." My parents were like, "Where did this come from? 'Cause we're not like- - That's interesting you say that though, because then now I'm wondering why you're so heavily into "Arknights."

because "Ark Knights" is a PVE game, not a PVP game. - But it's still got, I think I know, 'cause it's still got like challenges in there. And "Ark Knights" is the worst fucking like combo for you, 'cause it's a game that you can't win unless you spend more money. And then even if you spend more money, you still can't win. - And there's a whole bit of enjoyment by following the story. - I didn't follow the story. I mean, you know, I've,

- You know, I've level 95 in "Ark Knights", but now that I've beaten all of episode six and done all the challenge modes, I kind of woke up the other day and I'm like, "What have I got to do to do?" I've done it. I've done everything. - I've done it. - I'm in the end game. - I've completed the "Ark Knight". But like, that's the thing, right? And then I think I also destroyed any chance I had of liking story games 'cause when achievements were a thing on Xbox 360, you bet I was that asshole who was like, "I'm gonna want 100."

- You're the achievement hunter. - Yeah, I was. - 100% a game. - And I got way too into some games and I remember I got so frustrated with JRPGs 'cause I would just buy any game, but it was due to research which games were easiest to get achievements on. I didn't do that. I just bought a game and I would complete it.

fuck JRPGs, man. They had the worst achievements. They were like, collect every one of this item. And then you would go to the guide and it'd be like, oh, well seven of these items you can only get at that time. And if you didn't get it at that time, sorry kid, you got to restart the game. And I'm like, I hate you. Who did this? I hate you so, so much. - I think that was a saving grace for me that I never owned like an Xbox 360 or a PlayStation. Like I never played on a console that had achievements. I was always just a Nintendo kid. So it was literally just you versus the game.

- I wish I did that because I remember I got an Xbox One and one day I was like, why am I getting these achievements? Like what am I, what am I, what are we doing? - That's not a realization. - Like he had the feeling like, there's an achievement to be gotten here. I can perfect this skill to get all of the achievements. Oh, okay, now it's on, it's challenging me. This is a challenge. - And then I look back at all the shit I did. Like I beat the lost video game.

the fucking lost video game. And I remember that even my- - I didn't even know there was a lost video game. - Even my 15 year old self could tell this video game was not a video game. Like this was garbage, dude.

And I beat it just to get that 1000 and cheat. I hated that game. - Actually question to you then, do you kind of like gamify life sometimes? - You know what's weird? Okay, that's a good question. Do you want to explain what you're going to go with the rest of the certified? - No, because like basically, you know, sometimes I do see our job YouTube as it's kind of like a game.

'Cause they fucking gamified this. You get achievements, you get numbers, you got your rivals, you do a good video, it gives you a pat on the back, it gives you like a green tick mark to be like, you did well, you did well. - It's weird, right? Because,

and I read about this and it's called a maximizer and a satisfier, right? Some people will take the first option that satisfies them and they're okay with that. There are other people who maximize the shit out of everything. And I don't know what happened, but somewhere around the age of 18 to 20, I swapped from being a maximizer and literally everything in my life to just being satisfied. And like, I remember when I was buying a vacuum for the first time,

Holy shit, dude. I like spreadsheets on spreadsheets. I was like, yo, but the suction power of this one is 50 Watts extra and shit. This is bristles, extra firm ones. But the reviews of this one, oh my, you know what I mean? Like I would get stressed out about everything. And that happened with YouTube and stuff. But somewhere along the line, I just stopped giving a shit about everything. And I'm like now, you know, even when I remember I used to book hotels, I used to,

I would search every hotel in like a 10 mile radius. I would have a spreadsheet and I just got to the point where I realized, I don't think this matters. I don't think I need to do this. And now I just take the first thing that makes me remotely happy. - I mean, it's just kind of like decision fatigue, right? - Yeah, yeah, yeah, I do. - There's only so many decisions that you can make in a day. And there are some points when I'm exactly the same, especially when I'm like booking a holiday or finding like, even just like choosing what you want to eat today.

- Yeah, I'd say the only thing I still do it in my life is for video games. Like I still do that for video games, but everything else, even YouTube, I just do what I do and I'm satisfied with that. Like I check the analytics, you know, like roughly, but I don't go deep into them. Like I just see,

- You're not like, oh my God, I'm down 1% from yesterday. - If I gain less subscribers than the previous day, I don't care. I'm like, I'm still gaining subscribers. - Yeah, exactly. - I actually found like a huge problem for me recently is that I've found it really hard just to get into new anime and games just because like there's so much choice. And I don't know, I have this thing where I'm so scared of wasting my time.

- See that's something you need to let go. Like I had that, I had that. I just stopped giving a shit. - 'Cause like recently, okay. So the most recent anime I finished was one that I had last season. It was called "Sing Yesterday For Me." And like the first beginning of that was fucking great. I was like, this is gonna be a show. This is like anime of the season kind of territory. And then I watched it and the first half was great. And then the second half was just kind of like,

nothing's really happening and then it ended and then it just kind of just ended very fast. It was obviously like a very rushed ending. It was like the most seven out of 10 overall. - I remember your tweet where you were like, guys, what you seen yesterday for me, anime of the season. Take it from me, the anime zone.

- Like, yes, you have that story. - And I just, I finished it and I knew this was an anime I'm going to forget in like a month. - But that's okay. - Is it though? - I think it's okay. 'Cause the way I see things, right, is like, no matter what happens, if I get something I can talk about, that's a win. - It's all about the experience. - You had something. - It was the friends we made along the way. - We are Nakama.

At the end of the day, we're all Nakama, baby. - If I have something that I can take away like that that's painfully mediocre, something I can talk about. I can't be mad at that. - But imagine if I didn't have a podcast where I could just talk about it. - You can talk about it with your friends. - You can talk about it to your friends. You could have said this. - If it had been good, would you have been happy?

- Yes. - No, you wouldn't have. You'd have been like satisfied with the choice you made. You wouldn't have been happy. - No, I wouldn't like- - What do you mean? He would have. - Oh no. - He just watched a good anime. - 'Cause he wanted it to be an amazing anime. And if it lived up to his expectations, he'd be like, "Good." He wouldn't be like, "Oh my God, yes." - No, I mean like- - I know this guy. - No, no, I would be happy. - Fuck off. - Fuck you. I would be happy. I'm happy watching good anime. - No, no. - Just don't show me like, okay, like, okay.

- The one thing that's even worse than being a bad anime is just being a meh anime. Like I remember like when I finished Domestic Girlfriend, like the manga, okay? So I finished it like a few weeks ago. - We're going back to this again. - We're going back to Domestic Girlfriend. - He always finds a way to bring it back up. He always finds a fucking way. - It's like that ex-girlfriend that he just can't let go, you know? - I can't let it go, but like it was an awful ending. Like it was absolutely...

- It's absolutely like one of the worst endings to like a harem. - This is the worst trade deal. - You're really selling us on this. - Okay, no, no, no, no. Like, okay, just imagine it, right? This is what it was like. Okay, imagine, okay, it's the World Cup final. Okay? - All right. - Okay. - Okay, no, okay. In terms of like which girl is gonna win. - Oh, right, right, right. - So it's the World Cup final. You're in the 90th minute. It's in stoppage time. You're like 10, one up.

And then for no, like the other team is like completely incapacitated. And then for no reason you decide to play golden goal and then score an own goal. That was the ending of domestic girlfriends. - Well, that's fun. You can talk about that. - No, no, no. But that's the thing, right? Is that because it was so bad,

I had a great time like experiencing just the dumpster fire and like the nuclear fallout that it caused. - That's fun, right? - Yeah, like I had more fun with, I'm gonna remember "Domestic Girlfriend" for way, way fucking longer than seeing "Yesterday" for me. Because what I'm so scared of is just, I'm gonna watch a show and I'm gonna be like, I'm gonna, and I'm gonna forget the show within a month. - But that happens a lot. - It does, it does.

as somebody who watches so many fucking documentaries, like I watched a lot of documentaries. It's probably the only thing I really watched on Netflix. - Right. - Kind of come to accept that real life doesn't have good endings. Unfortunately, like life just doesn't have- - It just kind of ends. - It just doesn't have good endings, right? And you know, if you make documentaries about people who are still alive, sometimes they keep doing shit after the documentary comes out and it's like, it's not a complete documentary, right? But I don't know, I just kind of get like,

like satisfied with what I get if it's a good journey. And if it's a meh ending, that's something I would talk about. That's the way I see it. Like, and if the shitty documentary, great. I have something to talk about. If it's a good documentary, cool, I can talk about it. Like I've just come to accept that life just doesn't have good endings. It rarely lives up to the first act. - Put that on a t-shirt. - You know, like, come on, "Tiger King", first part was way better than the last part. I mean, come on. - Yeah, of course. - You know what I mean? Like it's, I don't know. I just come to accept that it was good when it was good and I'm not gonna get too fussed about it.

- Yeah, I mean, that's the whole thing, right? It's just this idea of like, you know, nothing in life is pointless. Like you'll always find a way to utilize that in some way. And no matter how fucking mediocre a show is, you're gonna use it somewhere, even if you're not even aware of it, right?

- I realize how fucking weird I am right now. 'Cause I just don't like story in video games, but I'm happy with mediocre stories in other media. - Then you'll love a lot of visual games. - I mean, I don't know. It's hard. This is like a debate that I'm trying to come to terms with myself. Is it okay to watch something mediocre? - But is it okay to play something for the story? - Yeah, exactly. - No, never, never. Everyone's like, "Did you play Last of Us?" No, 'cause it's all stories.

- But you get to shoot things in it. - No, there's no skill involved. - There's nothing I can master. - I loved Halo and I love playing the like legendary roots alone where like it's fucking impossible to shit drives me up the wall. - You sound like every 12 year old I didn't talk to in school. - Yeah, probably. I think we wouldn't get on in school. - If we went to the same school, I would be like, fuck that guy.

- Play Halo Legendary, what a wanker. - I love that shit, it's a good game. - Jesus Christ. - No, but so yeah, is there anything else you guys wanna talk about for this podcast? - Bottom line, I don't think Connor is ever gonna get into visual novels and that's just how it is. - The more I talk to him, the more I'm like, yeah, visual novels, you know what I mean? - It's the natto of anime.

- It's a refined taste. - It's not even a refined taste. - I feel like you're either genetically, what's the word? You're more likely to like it. What's the word? There's a word for it. I don't fucking know. - Built? - Supposed or something. It's something along those lines. It's not that word. - We're a bit drunk right now. - I feel like you're either gonna like visual novels or you're not. And you know, because someone explains a visual novel to you, you're gonna be like,

- Yeah, yeah. - Yeah, I just- - I don't know, but like I've never met someone who just doesn't like story, period. - Yeah, that's a little strange. - Like if you don't like story in games, period, then I'm like- - I like story, not in video games. Get out of my video games.

Broforce, amazing game. Metal Slug, amazing game. No stories in those games. That's what we need. - Wait, are you telling me you never looked up the lore of Metal Slug? - I have played too many hours of Metal Slug. Love that game to death. I have no idea if there's a story. Is there a story in Metal Slug? - Apparently there is. - Is there? Fuck off, no there isn't. - Yeah, there's apparently a story. - Doom 20, the new Doom, I fucking loved, but I was like, wait, wait, there's cut scenes? No, no, no.

- But you don't like care about something like world building for example. - Yeah, but you can do that through gameplay. - Yeah, but it's not as effective in my opinion. - There's so many games that try to do world building through gameplay. - You play the new "Dooms", you know exactly what the world is about. - But aren't you like actually interested in the world? - No.

- And there's your short answer. - Are you interested in how the world got that way? - I say that, right? But every time I hear a piece of like League of Legends, I'm like, that's cool.

- That's cool. And I actually, I'd watch a League of Legends anime. - Yeah. - But I don't want to watch League of Legends cut scenes in game. Imagine you had to watch cut scenes in League of Legends. - Connor has like two modes in his brain. - Yeah. - And there's like no in between. It's just like shut off brain, like absorb anime. It could be shit, you just like absorb it. Or it's like monkey brain mode, engage. I am the greatest primate in the world.

- In this group. - It's like on or off, right? Like I can sit there and watch like,

any anime or whatever you need me to watch, I could sit there and watch it all day and be like, okay, I know what I'm getting into. But when it's games, get that shit out of here. Get that shit off of me. - Jesus Christ. - I literally like, I love watching Tyler Wong, like live streams. 'Cause I feel like he embodies- - He's the definition of monkey brain streamer. - I love Tyler Wong as a streamer because he literally embodies like not only physically how I imagine my gamer side to be, but like-

- Watching him play The Last of Us was so funny. 'Cause he was just like, "What is this story? Get this shit away from me." And I was like, "I love it, I love it, it's so fun."

- He's just such a like Giga Chad brain gamer. It's so fun to watch him. He's my favorite streamer just 'cause like I relate to it. - Oh my God. - Oh God. - I guess though you guys can let us know in the comments below if there is any visual novel that you think Connor's monkey brain can handle. - I've lost all hope that Connor can get into visual novels. - We can't convince him so maybe you guys can help us. - Yeah, okay, you know what? Before we finish this.

People were like, yeah, I've beat Fire Emblem. I was like, oh yeah, me too. And they were like, oh, did you play all the roots? I'm like, why would I play all the roots? - I remember talking to you about this. That hurts me to listen to. - I'm like, why would I play all the roots? - You play Blue Lions, right? - I play Blue Lions, which I, you know, after I heard about all the other roots, I'm like, so I played the right one.

- No, no, no, no. There's no right one. That's just one of three. - Mine sounded like the most. - So we're going back into fate now. - No, no, no. We're not doing this. We were close to ending the episode. All I'm saying is that to me, the point of playing the same gameplay again for a different ending is, it doesn't make any sense to me.

- It's like, the thought of that is insane. - I don't think we'll never be able to understand this monkey brain. - No, no, no. - Science, please dissect my brain. - I need to do like a full on study to be like, okay, story. You like story. Connor's like, yes, yes, I like story. - I like story. - Gameplay, you like gameplay. - No, no, no. - You like gameplay, yes, I like gameplay. Story and gameplay, no. No, story and gameplay, bad. I do not like it.

- Basically, yeah, basically that's pretty accurate. - Jesus Christ. - I think that's why I love arcades 'cause they don't try and give you story. It's great. They don't try and bog me down with this shit. - Apparently the nostalgia, the piano game has a wall. - I can't read Japanese so I wouldn't know anyway.

- You know what game is amazing with fantastic gameplay and no story? - What? - Chess. - No story in chess. That's why I like chess so much, I think. It started from a young age, my displeased. - It's actually funny 'cause the thing I like about chess is the story and lore behind the history of chess. There are two people in the world, two different people in the world right now.

- But saying that, right? If you made a documentary about chess players, I'd fucking love the shit out of that. 'Cause I don't have to, it's not like- - Because it's not interjected with gameplay. - Because it's not like 10 minutes in, move the pawn, pawn two. It's like, okay. 'Cause some of these visual novels have gameplay and I've seen some of the shit and it's like,

you click one dialogue like thing. And it's like, why give me the choice to click one dialogue prompt? - Yeah, except that one piece of gameplay is the most stressful piece of gameplay ever. Because it's like, oh my God, which one do I choose? - Yeah, exactly. - Basically, chess the documentary, I would watch. Chess the game, I play. Chess the visual novel/documentary game, no. Get that out of here. I don't wanna know. - You are like the epitome of someone who can't multitask. - I actually can't multitask whatsoever.

- It shows. - Yeah, maybe I watch anime in the gym. That's about as far as it goes. - Wow. - About as far as it goes. - Giga brain. - Yeah, what an evolved brain you have. - Me crying on the treadmill till you say run. - I think that's a good place to end this podcast before like we're gonna need a whole like study on how Connor's brain works. - Why is my brain so smooth?

- You know people are gonna meme the fuck out of this on the subreddit. - That's fine. - Please give us your meme, your best Connor is monkey brain meme on the subreddit. - Check out our subreddit and our Twitter if you like. Also, thank you very much to all our Patreons. - Hell yeah. - That are on the screen right now. - Those guys. They don't listen to stories. They just want the gameplay.

- If you'd like to support us on the show and also fund the research to try and figure out Connor's monkey brain, the Patreon is gonna help us a lot. So make sure if you enjoy the show to go onto patreon.com/TrashTaste. - Great game. No game, no story. - I kinda wanna get Tyler1 on this podcast now in the future. Just like you and Tyler1. - We can agree.

- Tyler Wong, please come on the podcast and talk about anime and monkey stuff with us. - Oh, that would be awesome. - Yeah. - Definitely. - And also thank you to our sponsor for this episode as well. But yeah, I think that's a good place to end it. So with that said, I've been Giguk and joining me today has been Monkey Brain. - Oh shit, that's gonna be- - No, we got Tyler Two here. - Tyler Two!

- And we got the anime man, Joey. - Hey. - And I've been Guilhac. And I guess we'll see you all next time. - Bye. - Bye. - Janet. - Shut up. - Get this shit off of me!