Ep.17 | Elden Ring Schmelden Ring

Overview: A lot of people are raving about Elden Ring. Is it really as good as people say? Listen for the official Yondercast verdict. We also discuss the worst leftover foods, Ian’s band Space Club’s debut EP, several shows and movies, and debut Josh’s trivia section with some questions about Pokemon!

Click Here for Space Club’s website - listen and let us know what you think!

Link to Topic Submission Form

Contact us at yondercast@gmail.com

Episode Agenda with Time Stamps:

• 00:00:00 - Cold Open - What is the worst leftover food?
• 00:08:18 - Intro
• 00:09:17 - Banter - Space Club released a debut EP!, Playstation 5 drama, Better Call Saul, Fantastic Beasts: Secrets of Dumbledore, Spider Man: No Way Home
• 00:34:13 - The News! - Pokemon Scarlet & Violet
• 00:40:33 - Trivia - Pokemon Trivia!
• 00:47:33 - Games - Elden Ring
• 01:06:48 - Outro - Alfredo isn’t Italian

Credits:

• Cover Art Photo: Mosby Lake - follow this dog on instagram at regular_mo.
• Cover Art Font: Paper Cuts 2 by Empire of Dust (Daniel Werneck) is Public Domain.
• Intro Music: Shortened version of “Sweat Time” by Loyalty Freak Music is licensed under a CC0 1.0 Universal License.
• Outro Music: Shortened version of “Alethia” by Nihilore is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
• Intro News Music: News Opening 2 by David Fesliyan - https://www.FesliyanStudios.com

Outro News Music: News Opening 5 by David Fesliyan - https://www.FesliyanStudios.com

Transcript

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Ep.17 | Elden Ring Schmelden Ring

[00:00:00] Ian: Here is the opening question for today. What is the worst leftover food?

[00:00:06] Patrick: Oh,

[00:00:07] Josh: Any pasta?

[00:00:08] Ian: Are you kidding me? Josh pastas. Like the best leftover food.

[00:00:13] Josh: Oh,

what? No, it doesn't. It's like Play-Doh.

[00:00:18] Patrick: oh

[00:00:19] Ian: Oh, you're like the noodles,

[00:00:22] Josh: Oh yeah. Oh yeah, no, you reheat it. You either get like a clump of dried out. I don't even know it like turns into

[00:00:32] Ian: interesting.

[00:00:37] Patrick: ask what that is?

[00:00:38] Josh: to

[00:00:39] Patrick: Gotcha. man. That's funny.

[00:00:42] Ian: It is so interesting to hear you say that is like the last thing I expected anybody to say.

[00:00:48] Josh: Wow. That's so funny because when you asked that question, I knew my answer immediately. Well, I hate leftovers, so I'm not the right person to answer. I will never reheat food.

[00:00:57] Patrick: Well, like, do you, is it the fact of the reheating of the food or is it the fact that you don't like eating something again the next day?

[00:01:06] Josh: It's a mix of both. It's like, I already cooked this once. I don't want to do it again. And to make matters worse. It never tastes as good as like the first night, unless it's something like Curry or

[00:01:20] Patrick: Oh yeah.

[00:01:21] Josh: but like, even then,

[00:01:23] Patrick: I think to me it's like a sandwich, like a sandwich that you've like left over and the bread just gets super soggy. That would probably be the worst leftover food.

[00:01:35] Ian: I think,

[00:01:37] Patrick: Like if you put like that.

[00:01:38] Ian: you're right. Except I think that a sandwich is beaten by a salad, like an already dressed. It's just a, like a sloppy mess, you know, I

[00:01:52] Patrick: When it goes from high volume to no volume, because it's just literally wilted leaves.

[00:01:58] Ian: That's why you only dress what you're going to eat. Cause like any, anything it's stressed and you can't eat it, it's just, it's gone.

[00:02:04] Josh: Okay. I feel like I'm receiving a lot of judgment, but I disagree with both of you because I think that sandwich and salad is like the perfect leftover, because it's already cold. Like you don't have to reheat it. I don't understand your answers. I disagree with you both.

[00:02:22] Ian: So it's wait a second. So it's like a, it's like a temperature thing for you, Josh. seems like it's the reheating of things that bothers you.

[00:02:33] Josh: It's everything. It's that it's, it's the wrong temperature. It's the wrong texture. Everything's gone. Wrong. Leftovers are wrong. I'm sorry. We evolved as a species to not have to reheat our food. We just go kill another antelope. That's why scavengers and decomposers exist.

[00:02:57] Ian: I'm not sure if that tracks

[00:03:01] Josh: You guys are sitting there like Josh, you teach biology like,

[00:03:05] Patrick: I think the, some of the worst ones too, or like broccoli and fish, like salmon. Like if you were to like go nuke, broccoli and fish and like the,

[00:03:15] Ian: the smell. Yeah,

[00:03:17] Patrick: you open it up like, oh God rice to like rice, when you leave it over, it like dries out a little bit. And when you go to microwave, it, it kind of stays a little hard.

You kind of have to put like a little bit of water in there and let it steam as you're microwaving it.

[00:03:29] Ian: if you're, if you like make rice, you kind of have to be. You have to put it in an airtight Tupperware, right after it. Cool. So that it doesn't get all dried out. Yeah.

[00:03:37] Josh: Actually, again, I feel like I'm being

[00:03:41] Ian: Josh likes his crunchy rice.

[00:03:43] Josh: I do. I use it every time I have rice the next day I have fried rice. Cause you're supposed to

use day old rice. It's dried

[00:03:51] Ian: yeah. That's something that's different.

[00:03:54] Patrick: that's just being

[00:03:54] Ian: taking advantage of the staleness. It's like crew

[00:03:57] Josh: true. That's fair. It's like curtains.

[00:04:00] Patrick: What about oh, I totally, it totally left me off to wait for it to come back out a good one that I was, oh, I got it. What about like day old guacamole, Josh? Is that a good leftover, a bad leftover,

[00:04:14] Josh: Depends. Did you add lemon juice?

let's say no.

[00:04:18] Josh: Oh, no, that's gross. That's just rotten avocados.

[00:04:22] Patrick: Okay. I was trying to pick out something that I really would dislike, trying to choke down and see if you were willing to eat that. And it would be really tasty.

[00:04:31] Josh: face that Ian made tells me that we were on the same page with that

[00:04:35] Ian: yeah, guacamole is a fresh food, for sure. Like, I love guacamole, but it gets all like brown and like the liquid like kind of separates out of it. And you're just like, oh no, I don't want to eat that.

[00:04:51] Patrick: I will say

[00:04:52] Josh: color it makes it look like it's already grown mold. So it's hard to tell if it's bad or not. Cause it just already looks like mold.

[00:04:59] Ian: And some people just like mix it in, you know, like mix. Cause it's just the, it's just the surface that this color. So if you mix it in there, like goodness new and I'm like, it's still there. I know it in my mind.

[00:05:11] Josh: Yeah. Not to be dramatic, but.

[00:05:17] Ian: Okay. Here's a followup question, Josh. I think your answer is going to be like 10 minutes, but how long does leftover food last? at what point should, even if it's still there, should you say no, it's too old. I'm not eating it anymore.

[00:05:31] Josh: Honestly, I think that it's like a Cinderella thing. I think that when it hits midnight, it's too late, the food is gone. Food expires at midnight, then it's done. You throw it away.

[00:05:42] Patrick: It's just all pumpkin's in your fridge, that's it?

[00:05:46] Josh: Yeah, no, I do not wait for stuff. I've had bad experiences as a child eating food from the refrigerator that had gone bad, but I grew up with chunky milk. I'm making my parents sound really bad. My parents were pretty awesome. Just say like, yeah, no, I grew up where you'd bite into something and be like, oh, that's three weeks old. Okay. So now I just know it's gone. I don't put stuff in Tupperware.

[00:06:12] Patrick: Yeah. I'm like, I totally get what you're saying. We kind of, I grew up in like the same way again. I love my parents to death. Awesome. Amazing. but like when we're cutting mold off the cheese and then using the cheese afterwards, like to me, that's like, okay, it's a little dicey. Like when we're making a sandwich and cutting the bread of the little spot of the mold off the bread oven, still making a sandwich with it.

I'm like, ah, okay. Thank you. I think that's a little much, but the midnight thing makes so much sense for you. Like that literally was probably the most apt response I could have ever heard from you after your initial thoughts on leftovers to me, I think it's like a week. I think we do five days, like a, like a business day week.

So if it's, if it's, if it's past five days, it's just gone, but we

[00:07:01] Josh: holiday's count.

[00:07:02] Patrick: Depends. Depends on the holiday. I think for us, like we usually go through leftovers, we'll make enough for two lunches the next day. We're kind of like a meal prep without meal prep type thing. So we'll make enough for the next day lunches and then take it, which has backfired multiple times when we make chili and it's like super spicy.

And then we have like an early release day when I'm eating the spiciest chili ever at 9:00 AM and just sweating for the rest of the day. Yeah, I'd say, I think, I think we usually do like a five day rule. If it's, if it's been in our fridge for about five days, it's gone. If it's leftovers.

[00:07:37] Ian: Hm. I, I want to say two days, like 48 hours, like the day it's cooked the next day and the following day. And then at that point, I think that generally it's too old at that point. for me, like not to say that there aren't some times when we make a big dish and that lasts a long time and I'm eating it on the fourth day or whatever, but I feel like that's, that's about where it starts to feel like it is getting old, you know?

[00:08:05] Josh: so Ian's the most reasonable amongst us with food, Patrick and I are the extremes.

[00:08:12] Patrick: We average out to be the best team ever.

[00:08:15] Ian: Well, you know, what never gets old yonder cast never gets old. Cue the music. Hey, everybody, welcome to yonder cast. This show where we discuss, that's not how that. This week we discuss Elden ring, the famous trend-setting record setting. Very contentious game. I'm doing a great job. Let me introduce your host, Ian lake. Whoo. Hey everybody. My name is Ian lake. I'll be your host today and I'm joined as always by.

He gets knocked down. He gets back up again. You're never going to keep him down. Patrick Leitch

[00:09:07] Patrick: Wow. Thank you. Hi,

[00:09:08] Ian: and I am also of course, joined by. He gets knocked down. Josh Baltzell

[00:09:16] Josh: That's summed up these past two weeks.

[00:09:19] Patrick: for real.

[00:09:20] Ian: guys. It is really good to see you. It's been so long. It's been so long since we. I haven't been at work, so I haven't seen you at work. It feels like I haven't seen your faces in forever.

[00:09:31] Josh: I know I miss you.

[00:09:33] Patrick: Yeah, a lot.

[00:09:34] Ian: I miss you guys. I do. but I have to say I'm doing really well at home. I'm on paternal leave, spending lots of time with my now six month old baby who is like almost crawling and like almost speaking, that'll probably actually take a little while, but definitely making syllable sounds. It's pretty wild.

Things are flying by.

[00:10:00] Josh: You guys have taught me how fast babies grow. It really blows my mind. I didn't think that they grew that fast, but your cumulative three kids, it absolutely baffles me how quickly they grow.

[00:10:12] Patrick: Yeah. It's pretty unreal. They like accelerate through life. Like in the first couple of months, you're like godly there. They're not seeing any change. Then all of a sudden they're like looking at you and smiling, like when, when does that happen? And then all of a sudden they're like babbling. You're like, what the heck is even going on?

Then all of a sudden they're like, like pushing themselves up or like kind of moving around a little bit, rolling over crawling like, oh my gosh, like this is ever slowed down. And I mean, we're at four and two and the answers now, they just keep going faster. So steep, acceleration curve going up.

[00:10:44] Ian: It is crazy. I mean, I think about it and I can completely see when people say time flies and it goes by super fast because the last six months. It's kind of like, well, if I do that three more times than she'll be two years old and that six months felt like extremely fast, so yeah , it's gonna go by so much faster than then.

I really want it to honestly, although it is hard. So it's like, you look forward to things getting easier, but I know that as things get easier, other things get harder. That's just the way that's the way the cookie crumbles.

I have to admit, I feel like I should like go back and rerecord that intro because it was not great, but I don't actually know if I want to spend the time to do that. so I'm just instead going to apologize to both of you and to everyone. I was trying something. And that's how you learn lessons in life.

[00:11:39] Patrick: Never apologize for being yourself or pretending to be someone else. Introducing yourself. Never apologize for that.

[00:11:47] Josh: I was going to say I loved it. I absolutely loved that.

[00:11:51] Patrick: I know that may become the new intro.

[00:11:53] Ian: we'll see. I mean, listen back to it. We'll see what, what feedback we get. And I don't know, maybe, maybe once I have a chance to actually plan that out, instead of just doing it on the spot, maybe that'll work

well. Hey, let's, uh, let's get into the banter. for this week's episode. I I'll actually start, I can't believe that we haven't recorded an episode since this happened, but I've talked a couple of times on the podcast about my band Space Club and we actually.

Put out music, it has been released. If you go on Spotify or apple music or YouTube music or Amazon music, it's everywhere. It's on Snapchat. You could find our music anywhere. if you search for space club and we put out a five song EP, it's called welcome to space club.

we're all super proud of it. I'm extremely pleased with how it all turned out. And, fans of the show know the bass player in the band, drew. He was on, one of our very earliest episodes, our first special guest ever talking about augmented reality and virtual reality. And, he did a ton of work on it.

[00:12:56] Ian: And, Brandon is the guitarist on the album and he did it. Ridiculous amount of work on the editing and mastering and everything that, that whole side, in addition to being the lead vocalist and playing all of the guitar. So, they are definitely the superstars of the production, but, but I was in there too, and I feel proud of it. so yeah, I love for people to, to go and listen to that until tell us what you think. And we hired an artist to do a bunch of custom artwork. we got, a really cool cover art, but also as a custom piece for each song that shows up on Spotify when you listen to it. And, just this last week I put together a merchandise store for

us, it's a red bubble store. So red bubble is a print on demand, website. And if you go on there, you can order t-shirts and I'm actually, my drink is currently resting on a coaster.

That is the album, cover art for our EAP. They turned out well

[00:13:53] Josh: showed that because I just bought the album and I was worried that I like bought the wrong one or something. And then you showed the coaster. I was like, oh good. I got the right one.

[00:14:02] Ian: sweet.

[00:14:03] Patrick: That's awesome. That's so much work going into that stuff. you, you talked about the word going into it, but like that doesn't even like compare to how much effort and time and heartache and headache goes into producing that sort of stuff. It's incredible. Especially in a distance learning model, right?

Like getting, getting a band together that can't get together and putting out an album is like unfathomable in my mind in the last couple of years. So that's like just straight up impressive that you guys were able to do that.

[00:14:33] Ian: I can't honestly tell you how much time cumulatively was put into, I mean, it's just five songs. It's like 22 minutes or something like that. I can't remember the actual runtime, but you know, it's pretty short. but like, hundreds of hours, definitely. Especially if you add up the three of us, like probably thousands because all of those songs were recorded.

Many times all of the parts of them were recorded at many times, as changes were made and certain things had to be rerecorded to realign with the changes that were made in other places like, and then the whole like editing and mastering process, that was like a huge learning curve and tons of work.

So, it will be faster in the future and we plan to put out more in the future. but it's there. And I also, I have a surprise for the two of you, which is that, just before we got on this call, I went, I got permission from the band and I went onto our red mobile store and I added our yonder cast art.

So yonder cast is also in this space club, red bubble store. I'll send you guys a link, and it's a. So, if you want to order some, some yonder cast coasters or a yonder cast, tote bag, or a yonder cast, t-shirt,

[00:15:44] Patrick: The

[00:15:45] Ian: you know, where, and I'll put the link in the episode description for all of you listening as well. So that was a huge thing. Thing for me was, was getting all of that put together. That's, you know, something that we've been working up to for years and, it feels really good.

[00:15:59] Patrick: yeah,

[00:16:00] Ian: What's been going on with you guys, Patrick. I see that, you've been dealing with some drama.

[00:16:06] Patrick: Oh, to two aspects of my life, I've been dealing with a lot of drama. I'll start with the first one, which is PlayStation five drama, and I'm very upset and let down that this happened because I was so excited that hopefully maybe by the time we recorded our next podcast, I would have been playing a PlayStation five.

I would have been playing horizon, forbid and wet. Or something else. So I had signed up on PlayStation direct to get an email and I got one, I had won the proverbial lottery to buy a PlayStation five. So the day came and I waited until the exact time I clicked join the queue. I waited 45 minutes in the queue and with one minute remaining, they sold out one minute remaining.

And so I was dumbfounded. I couldn't believe it. Like I was literally sitting there with my credit card out, have my lunch, getting ready to do this. And then literally just one minute. Possibly making it happen, which I don't think I would've been able to check out in time regardless, but literally one minute from being able to log in, I was there like, Nope, sold out, try next time.

So, I mean, I, I'm going to say I got relatively lucky to get the email and the time that I did, cause I would say I've only been waiting a month or two, and I know some people have been waiting a lot longer than that. So I started doing some research. Apparently even if you click in at the time, you're supposed to, you get shoved into queue randomly.

So apparently it's a lottery on a lottery. So you could have someone who logs in two minutes early, right on the time, all that sort of stuff. And then you just get put into a queue and a random position and just hope for the best. So I, I lost the ability to buy a PlayStation five, which I was very excited for, but it didn't happen.

[00:18:04] Ian: So they don't even have the inventory to support the people who they invite specifically saying we have one for you.

[00:18:14] Patrick: Yep. And one per person, like one per household, like who knows, maybe they get in, they buy more, but yeah, so I was strung along for 45 minutes. I'll never be let down in the final minute. It was brutal. It was a, it was a roller coaster of emotions. I'm going to say that, like I literally, from the night before I was like getting giddy, like I was like, oh my gosh, it finally happened.

This is it. And then it was ripped away from me.

[00:18:39] Ian: That's horrible. I can't believe that they do that.

[00:18:43] Patrick: I don't, I don't know if it's a marketing technique or if it's just there's really that much of a shortage going on, but yeah, it's, it's brutal.

[00:18:53] Josh: I've heard that the shortage really is that bad. Like they just don't have enough to sell.

[00:18:58] Patrick: Yeah, it's crazy. And well, the next piece of drama is, a show called better call Saul. It's the prequel to breaking bad. It is so good that it's the final season right now. And they're three seasons in and I'm like, I'm not going to give any spoilers whatsoever. just because in case you guys watch it or listeners watch it or anything.

But this last episode, episode three, Unreal. Absolutely unreal. And I think, Vince Gilligan does such a good job with the cinematography, the story like symbolism. Like I, it was absolutely incredible. This last one. And one of the, one of the characters on there who is like kind of my favorite over better call Saul had like a super meaningful episode and there's a lot of buzz about it and everything else.

So it's oh my gosh. It, it was so good and it was high. It was low. It was up and down. I think my I've lost three years of my life between the PlayStation five drama and these episodes of better call Saul. So, oh, it's so good. ' cause it's like the show started off as like just a quirky lawyer. Like if you've seen breaking bad, you know, who saw Goodman is like a quirky lawyer who like, is this goofball, like, how is this even going to be like a serious show?

And it is just like, phenomenal. Like it's like heartfelt, it's scary. It's intense. It's funny. It's got all of it. So that's, that's what I've been doing. Just waiting every week for a new episode. Like we're so used to the, the binge watch or the whole season flying out at once. Like, it's, it's fun to wait for the episode to release on Monday night and then watch it.

And I've got a couple of students that are watching it too. And we, they kind of talk about it. It's create some good buzz. It's a lot of fun

[00:20:41] Josh: So because it's a prequel, that means that Skyler isn't in it. Right.

[00:20:46] Patrick: as of right now. I don't know if there's any things going to happen in the last. Season or anything else, but yeah, as of right now, there are rumors around that people from the breaking bad show, even though it's all within the breaking bad universe may make an appearance. And there's a lot of characters that do continue into the actual show that are currently in it.

But yeah, any, anything around Walt and his family, as of right now, hasn't really shown up too much, but a lot of reoccurring characters that you get good development.

[00:21:17] Josh: cause she was awful. I can't, I will watch it if she's not in it, I get that. She played her part so well, because she was a phenomenal actress to make me hate her that much. I can't stand her.

[00:21:34] Patrick: I want you to watch, I want you to watch better call Saul than, and I wanna know what you think of Kim Wexler. Like

[00:21:39] Josh: Oh no.

[00:21:40] Patrick: like Saul, Goodmans counterpart.

So yeah, I would say they're kind of different, but I think they have kind of a similar vibe of what you're talking about.

[00:21:50] Ian: That makes me really happy, Patrick, because I feel like it's been a long time since I've discovered a good show that is done being made. And that's one of my favorite things, right? When you know that like at your own pace, you can, you can watch an entire series start to finish. You can take as long as you want.

And like, you're not going to be left, hanging at any point because you're not going to like get to the end of the most recent season and be like, oh man, there's another one.

This is awesome.

[00:22:21] Josh: important information for you both then, like, this is, this is life-changing, you both like the office, correct?

[00:22:29] Patrick: correct?

[00:22:30] Josh: So have you seen the good place?

[00:22:33] Patrick: Yes.

[00:22:34] Ian: Yes.

[00:22:35] Josh: Oh, okay then. Nevermind. because that, that is my absolute favorite TV show of all time. I've actually watched it five times. And I'm about to watch it for the sixth time through I own the DVD and I own the books written by the producers.

I am obsessed with that show and I think that it is one of the best written shows ever made. And if you're looking for a TV show, dare you go.

[00:23:03] Patrick: it's so good that the first couple of episodes took me a little, a little bit to get past because of some goofy CGI. But I think that was like the point, the point of it. But like when you get to the later seasons, it's like, it's deep. It's, it's heartfelt, it's hard hitting at times. And you're like, there's a couple of times you finished the episodes.

You're like, okay, I need to take a break for a second. This was like a little much, but so good at the same time gets you thinking.

[00:23:29] Josh: yeah. I just had to drop that. And if anybody's listening that hasn't watched it. Yeah. I just needed to spread, spread the good word of the good place.

[00:23:38] Patrick: My favorite was when that bad thing happened. And you were like, I think we're in the bad place.

[00:23:43] Josh: I say that way too often,

[00:23:45] Patrick: so good.

[00:23:46] Josh: whenever something bad happens in my life, I'm like, this is the bad place.

[00:23:53] Ian: Well, Josh, since you just gave us your review, a very shining review of one of your favorite properties you put on the schedule for this week, you put it on the agenda for this week's episode. Another thing. Wow. I'm doing just a great job. You put on the agenda for this week's episode. Another movie that I'm excited to hear what you think about it.

[00:24:18] Josh: Yeah, I saw fantastic beasts, secrets of Dumbledore, and I'm sure that our listeners are aware at this point that I am obsessed with Harry Potter, like is definitely a fandom that I am a fan of. I liked it. I'm going to try and avoid spoilers too. yeah, I thought that it was really good. I saw that it got some bad reviews, but I enjoyed it. one thing that I thought was really funny though, is have you guys ever heard that whole thing about how the movie Indiana Jones, lost Ark, it would have ended the same way whether or not Indiana Jones was in it.

[00:24:56] Patrick: Yeah, I've heard that.

[00:24:58] Josh: Yeah. There's like that whole idea where the movie would have played out the exact same way, regardless of if Indiana Jones was in it or not like he's a completely inconsequential character, like he's useless. And so it's like the Nazis would have found the Ark no matter what, whether Indiana Jones was in the movie or not.

And so it's like, why is he even in the movie? not to give anything away, like avoiding spoilers, but watching fantastic beasts. This one, I feel like they committed the same fallacy. I feel like the movie would have progressed to the exact same whether the main characters were in it or not. Like after we were leaving, I was sitting there thinking to myself, I don't think that the main characters were important for this movie at all.

They were just there to be there and it was like, wow, wizard, Hitler is being a bad guy right now. And then just stuff happens.

[00:25:57] Patrick: so is that Dumbledore secret? Like he has no impact whatsoever on anyone. He's just.

[00:26:03] Josh: Well, shell of himself going through life.

people might disagree with me on this. And again, I'm really trying hard to avoid spoilers, but it's so spoiler warning, if like you're concerned about anything that I'm saying, I feel like the movie is called secrets of Dumbledore and they tell you Dumbledore secret and the first 30 seconds of the movie.

And then it's like, that was it. That was the secret. And then there's no more secrets.

[00:26:29] Patrick: Well, that's why they put the s on secrets. Cause they tell you one and you're hoping you stick around for the others. Cause it's plural, but they leave a cliffhanger and there's,

[00:26:38] Ian: The

secret is there are no secrets.

the secret is that Dumbledore is very outgoing and kind of an open book.

[00:26:49] Ian: But you said you liked it.

[00:26:52] Josh: I did. I loved it. I thought it was a good movie. Like I left it in a good mood. I recommend it. I say, go out and watch it. I disagree with people that are like saying that it's a bad movie. I feel like the fantastic beasts, they actually played a role because the last one, there weren't really any fantastic beasts.

It's like, why was this called beasts? this one, I was like, wow, okay. This center of the story revolves around a magical creature. And so I was like, that's awesome. And everything else I loved about the movie, it told a good story. It was interesting. And wizard, Hitler is scary. Grindelwald I just like calling him wizard Hitler, because it's really funny. But yeah, it was a good movie.

[00:27:39] Patrick: I'll I'll for sure. Watch it.

[00:27:41] Ian: I'll have to watch it. I'll have to watch it now, Josh, a couple of weeks ago, actually, it might've been on the last episode or the one before. I can't remember. You were talking about the most recent spider man movie. No way. Home is the most recent one, right? The third in the trilogy.

[00:27:57] Josh: I think. Yeah,

[00:27:59] Ian: homecoming far from home.

No way home.

[00:28:02] Josh: that's it. Yeah.

and I watched it. I actually, my wife, when I rewatched the whole trilogy, we bought it because it was before it was available for rent. We purchased it and rewatch the first two, which we'd already watched a couple of times and then watched the third one. I don't want to bury the lead.

[00:28:18] Ian: I was disappointed.

[00:28:19] Josh: oh yeah.

[00:28:20] Ian: I didn't like it. And my wife didn't like it. And I hope you'll, indulge me and listen to my review of Spider-Man no way home. Cause I have, I think I have a three pronged critique of Spiderman, no way

[00:28:33] Josh: a scientific argument.

[00:28:35] Patrick: trilogy critique of the trilogy.

prong number one,

[00:28:39] Ian: They kind of took out all the things that I liked about the first one to like, what I liked about the first two was that they were Spiderman movies. They told a story of this character kind of coming to grips with his powers, dealing with adolescents, dealing with his life. There were all of these great side characters that like create so much life and so much, humor and positivity and just like warm I can use that word because of the way that they labeled those movies. and then the third movie to me felt like not a Spider-Man movie. It felt like just the next chapter of the Marvel cinematic universe, endless progression of movies, which I can't be too critical of because I watch all of them and I always enjoy them.

But. I liked that the Spider-Man movies were focused, not so much on that. They were just like a, a specific character story. And then they treated the third movie as like a way to, I think, bring that character into the universe and kind of expand it. But to me it felt like all of those great side characters and friends and everything that were in the first two films, they just didn't, they, they weren't there, or their parts were so small, it was negligible.

[00:29:49] Josh: And it was like very small cast and it was basically just superhero fate of the world story. It wasn't like there wasn't any of that charming adolescent stuff. I think that's valid.

[00:30:00] Ian: yeah, that's, that's basically prong number one and two, wrong. Number two is, that made me feel the same way about the film that rise of Skywalker made me feel. The third film in the most recent, star wars trilogy, which is to say not good. I think that the star, the Spider-Man far from no, Spider-Man no way home is better than star wars rise of Skywalker.

They kind of just treated it as like a big cameo machine. And it felt like that took away from sort of the focus of the film. And that felt like it was a little misguided. And when my, my third prong, the third prong to my three-pronged argument is that it was so sad. It was such a dark movie and it was like multiple bad things happened without making you feel better about them.

And you kind of were left at the end of the movie. I was just. It kind of ruined my day. You know what I mean? Like you just have that sort of like sad, like hopeless, lonely feeling where you're like, well, that didn't turn out very well.

[00:31:02] Josh: Somebody

check on Peter Parker.

[00:31:06] Ian: but I know that you felt differently, Josh.

[00:31:09] Josh: Yeah, no, I, I

enjoyed it.

I, but see, here's the thing I enjoyed it, but everything that you just said, I think is a completely valid critique. Yeah, no, and definitely, I would say when I was crying during the movie, it wasn't just like a, oh, I'm feeling so much nostalgia. It was also like a dang, like he's already dead stopped.

Kicking him, leave him alone.

[00:31:36] Ian: My opinion of it may soften or even get better when there are followups, because they left a lot of light cliffhangers and open Neo storylines and stuff. And so some, when some of that negativity gets resolved in the future, when things get better and stuff like that, and this ends up being just kind of the middle part of the story, it might be a little bit better, but as the current end point of the story, it's kind of a downer.

[00:32:03] Josh: Yeah.

[00:32:04] Ian: So just a warning to anybody who's going to watch it, who hasn't seen it yet.

[00:32:08] Patrick: Well, I feel like that's really weird cause I've, I mean, haven't seen a lot of the newer ones. but I feel like a lot of the spider mans were kind of happy go lucky, kinda just like fun and playful and that sort of thing. Didn't really get super, super dark. is it kind of like to go back to a Harry Potter thing?

Like the goblet of fire? All of a sudden you realize that it's getting real, like this, isn't just a fun fairy tale type story that, that bad things can and will happen. Or did it just seem like out of left field that they're just going to pummel you with negativity and darkness?

[00:32:42] Josh: so hard to have this conversation treading the no spoilers

[00:32:47] Patrick: I haven't seen it. So I'm probably like coaxing spoilers out of you guys, but I'm just curious.

[00:32:53] Josh: kind of piggybacking off of Ian's thoughts though. Cause now I'm like in critique mode, I feel like we, we all know at this point, if, if this is a spoiler for you, like you should be ashamed of yourself, why are you even listening to us? but we all know that Tony stark died and Tony stark was Peter Parker's mentor.

He's already had the, this is real life situation. Like he's already had that, but we, we don't need anymore. So why was there just more depressing things happening to him? Like, so I don't know. I don't think that the, this is real life. You're a superhero, bad things happen was necessary

[00:33:33] Patrick: Hmm.

[00:33:34] Josh: because he already kind of experienced that and learn that lesson by losing his mentor. I don't know. That's interesting. Yeah. Ian you've you've, you've convinced me of at least two of your three prongs. I still like the movie though.

[00:33:51] Ian: That's fine. I never hope that people aren't going to like things because of what I say, that's, you know, that not

[00:33:58] Josh: You're a better person than me. If I don't like something nobody's allowed to like it refrigerated food, nobody can like that.

[00:34:07] Patrick: you have exactly two and a half hours before you don't like leftovers anymore.

[00:34:12] Josh: I know. Right.

[00:34:13] Ian: Well, you know what everybody likes. Everybody likes the news with Josh bald sell let's get into it. Cue the music.

[00:34:22] Josh: Do you hear, do, do do,

[00:34:23] Patrick: I liked the music though. Like, I really listened to one of our last episodes and I, I liked it.

[00:34:51] Josh: oh yeah.

[00:34:52] Patrick: feeling it a little bit.

[00:34:53] Ian: Yeah, I think it worked out.

[00:34:55] Patrick: Oh yeah.

[00:34:56] Josh: well, I, I thought that we take this in a little bit of a different direction. Cause, yeah. I figured that we could focus on one game at a time, like upcoming games. Cause I mean, who doesn't get excited about upcoming games

and,

[00:35:12] Patrick: like that's all I do.

[00:35:13] Josh: I know, right. And I promise not to talk about Hogwarts legacy every single time we do the news.

[00:35:21] Patrick: Yeah. Well,

[00:35:22] Josh: our listeners are like, I wonder what aspect of Hogwarts legacy he's going to get excited about today and talk about, but we're all switched players. We, we had a recent episode talking about Pokemon legends, RCS. what if I told you guys that that was just the practice round for the developers?

[00:35:41] Ian: Isn't that what you said was going to

[00:35:44] Josh: huh. I totally called it. That's actually why this is the news. The news is actually going to be reframed two reasons why Josh is always right.

[00:35:53] Ian: Is it a three-pronged argument?

[00:35:56] Josh: This argument only needs one prong.

[00:35:59] Patrick: If I can't be right. And nobody's right.

[00:36:03] Josh: This podcast makes me sound like a bad person. Um,

[00:36:10] Ian: there's a new Pokemon coming out

[00:36:12] Josh: yeah, they've already announced it and quite frankly, I'm ecstatic for it. And I think that Pokemon fans and switch fans in general should be excited about this. because you know how Pokemon always releases games and twos. There's like a diamond and Pearl, there's a blue and red D go big time throwback.

they always like to release things in pairs. Well, they are going to be releasing Scarlet and violet here pretty soon. this year actually probably the holiday season. Cause you know how they like to do that. I know it's rushed.

[00:36:48] Patrick: That's so fast.

[00:36:50] Josh: We just had legends of our legends of RCS, RCS. And now all of a sudden they're fully prepared to release another double feature.

and the coolest part of it is that they did use sword and shield as well as RCS, as like practice rounds for Scarlet and violet. and this one is just the next step in that evolution of open world, they are doing no borders. Cause you know how an RCS you had like the camp. And then you had to like essentially kind of like, monster hunter where you would go on an expedition and all that stuff.

this is going to be no borders, no loading screens, nothing like that. It is literally just you grab your backpack and you follow a path from the city and there's wild Pokemon running around. Yeah, they're going all the way with this one. so yeah, it's, it's going to be really exciting. And, one of the parts that I think will be most interesting to our listeners is so recently in games, they've been trying to like highlight different cultures around the world, which has been really, really cool.

we've had a region that was centered around French culture, the sword and shield, the gala region that centered around the United Kingdom. They've had Hawaiian culture, Japanese culture. They've just been doing a good job of highlighting different aspects of culture. Well, this most recent one, the one that's coming out Scarlet and violet is going to take place in Spain.

[00:38:28] Josh: So I just think that there's a lot of really cool things to look forward to with this one.

[00:38:33] Ian: That that got me unreasonably excited. I don't know why that, like, I'm not like a Spain fanatic or anything like that, but the idea like, oh, it's going to be, have kind of got a European vibe to it. It's going to be, that's going to give it a really different flavor. That's.

[00:38:50] Josh: Yeah. And one of my favorite parts is that, people might just think very little of the fact that they're doing that representation, but it's just another signal about how important representation is because I actually have friends from Spain and they're not even Pokemon fans, but they were like, yeah, my country is going to be featured in Pokemon.

And it's like, how cool is that? That people can get excited when they get to see their country featured in such a massive franchise. And so, I don't know. I get excited whenever I get to hear what the next region is. because you always think like, oh cool. I get to see this culture get represented and.

Not necessarily learn about it because it's not like, geographically accurate, but at the same time, it's just kind of exciting. Cause you know that there are people that'll be like, oh, I recognize that that's that's part of my culture. I dunno. I think it's really cool.

[00:39:47] Ian: That's cool. So, I mean, is it gonna be. Similar to legends in that, like you can catch Pokemon without entering the like turn-based screen. Like, are they going to kind of pull that in or is it going to go back more to the Pokemon catching and battling traditional system that they've had for forever?

[00:40:07] Josh: You know, I'm not sure about that. My guess would be that they would want to keep it the same way as RC. where you

can catch them by just throwing it because yeah, I absolutely loved that. I thought it was kinda nice and I hope that they do the same thing with the polka decks, where it's like there's tiny side missions.

That way Patrick can invest a thousand hours

into like, I

need to catch 47 piggies.

both before he finishes the tutorial mission.

[00:40:33] Patrick: Yeah.

[00:40:34] Josh: Yes.

I thought in honor of, all this Pokemon news, we could do some Pokemon trivia if you guys were interested.

[00:40:46] Ian: Yes, please.

[00:40:47] Patrick: Yeah, I'm interested for sure.

[00:40:49] Josh: five questions, all centered around Pokemon information and I'm actually kind of curious if you guys can get them.

[00:40:56] Patrick: I have a bad feeling. I'm going to go for five

[00:40:59] Josh: No, I doubt that I'm sure that you guys will do well.

[00:41:03] Patrick: or were you playing as a team?

[00:41:05] Josh: That's actually what I wanted to ask. Do you guys want to play as a team or do you want to compete

[00:41:11] Patrick: I don't know.

[00:41:13] Ian: a big co-op fan.

[00:41:14] Patrick: Yeah. Let's we can do like a, a collaborative, final answer

[00:41:18] Ian: gee. Wow. What an impartial judge,

[00:41:22] Patrick: here we go. As being evil again.

[00:41:24] Josh: You guys have

[00:41:25] Ian: we can, we can compete. Competing is probably a better show our listeners. We can do

[00:41:31] Josh: So we'll do, we'll do pseudo co-op. Where it's like, so long as one of you gets the answer right. Then, then the team has done a good job, but mentally I'm going to keep track of who is the Pokemon master.

[00:41:46] Ian: I see.

[00:41:48] Patrick: fair.

[00:41:48] Josh: Are you guys ready?

[00:41:50] Patrick: Oh yeah.

[00:41:50] Josh: So we'll start off easy with a multiple choice, but it is select all that apply. what move types would be considered super effective against fire? We have water psychic ground and grass.

[00:42:11] Ian: Water for sure.

[00:42:13] Patrick: yeah, I think water and maybe ground.

[00:42:17] Ian: Is ground effective against fire or is it just that fire is not effective against ground? I can't remember. It's not grass because fire is super effective against grass.

[00:42:28] Patrick: feels like it could be super effective against anything, but that has to, I feel like it has to be like a living thing.

[00:42:34] Josh: psychic is so broken in the book of, on

games.

[00:42:37] Ian: something else, right? Psyche like psychic is kind of in that realm of like dark light fairy.

Some

[00:42:44] Patrick: Very.

[00:42:44] Josh: Yeah. I thought that ferry was a joke when it first came out, I was like, yeah, sure. Okay. And then they were like, jiggly puff is a fairy type now. And I was like, what?

[00:42:54] Ian: I want to go with just water.

[00:42:56] Josh: Okay, Patrick,

[00:42:59] Patrick: Do I have to go as well? Or are we just going to wait until we hear the results of that one? And then I can get,

[00:43:03] Josh: are you going to be cheap and be like, yeah. I said that after you hear the answer,

[00:43:08] Patrick: I'm going to go with what I originally said to be different. So then whatever happens, someone will either win or lose, or we both lose. I'm going to go with fire and earth

or no, sorry. Water, water in earth, or a super effective against fire.

[00:43:23] Josh: so it is actually both water and ground tight

[00:43:27] Patrick: Wow.

[00:43:28] Josh: because actually when you think about it, if you throw dirt on fire, it puts out the fire.

[00:43:34] Patrick: Yeah.

[00:43:34] Josh: At least that's what I, that's how I remember that.

[00:43:37] Ian: Well, I don't think about things, so,

[00:43:41] Josh: Okay. So you guys have 1.1 for one C a hundred percent.

[00:43:46] Ian: but we all know who the real winner is.

[00:43:48] Patrick: Josh.

[00:43:52] Josh: Okay. Question number two, who was the first Pokemon professor?

[00:43:57] Ian: Professor Oak, right?

[00:44:00] Patrick: I think it has to be, I think it has to be.

[00:44:02] Josh: lack of confirming you made you nervous.

[00:44:07] Patrick: I

[00:44:07] Josh: are correct though. It is professor Oak. Yes.

[00:44:10] Ian: Yeah,

[00:44:11] Patrick: Because I don't think there is, that's

always the first person.

[00:44:14] Ian: with Ash Ketchum. That was his Pokemon professor, for sure. Yeah.

[00:44:19] Josh: Wonderful. of you that ever played Pokemon snap, that was my best impression of professor Oak that I could do. uh, which Pokemon is considered the oldest Pokemon and is essentially the God of Pokemon.

I have no idea. I'm going to be honest. Anything I say is a literal shot in the dark.

[00:44:43] Ian: I was going to say it like Mujer mute. That was my original thing was like Mujer, MuTu, but they're like laboratory, they were like creating a lab or something. I know MuTu was so that's definitely not it. It's not RCS. Is it

[00:44:58] Josh: It is RCS. I was going to say, Patrick, you invested almost a hundred hours into that game.

[00:45:05] Ian: like.

[00:45:06] Patrick: thought I would've thought it was too new. I understand like the storyline kind of makes sense as like, you were kind of like the time traveler in a way,

[00:45:15] Josh: Yeah. Or depending on, depending on who you talk to, but duke is the God of Pokemon and it's just, it kind of depends. Okay. Question

for

[00:45:25] Patrick: but,

[00:45:26] Josh: Badu. So what type of Pokemon is Gira? Dos?

what element type

[00:45:31] Josh: Yeah. Yeah.

[00:45:33] Ian: water

[00:45:33] Patrick: water.

[00:45:34] Ian: and he's the big dragon dragon thing.

Evolution of magic carp

[00:45:40] Josh: Yeah, it's actually a trick question because, gear dose is both water and

flying wind.

[00:45:47] Ian: not sorry.

[00:45:49] Josh: Then the fire nation attacked.

[00:45:51] Patrick: Yeah.

[00:45:53] Ian: Well, cause I remembered, I was like, wait, no, he does the hurricane thing.

[00:45:59] Josh: Okay. Last one's dark. Are you ready?

[00:46:02] Patrick: Oh, gosh. Dang Gar. Oh.

[00:46:08] Josh: Where does Cubone get its skull from?

[00:46:13] Patrick: It's mother

[00:46:14] Ian: It is something crazy like that. I I've heard this before. It's like another queue. And it may be it's mother,

[00:46:23] Patrick: I think it's it's mother's skull.

[00:46:25] Josh: That is the answer. When Marowack dies, Cubone wears it. Score. As a helmet.

[00:46:32] Patrick: Yeah.

[00:46:34] Josh: That is why Cubone is classified as the lonely Pokemon.

[00:46:38] Patrick: It's dark, but

[00:46:39] Ian: the lonely Pokemon, the only one.

[00:46:41] Patrick: in a way.

[00:46:44] Josh: So you guys did really well. You got like four out of five. I would say five out of five. If you didn't count the trick question where it was a dual type.

[00:46:52] Patrick: Ian

[00:46:52] Ian: And I said wind.

[00:46:53] Patrick: Yeah.

Yeah. You got wind. actually surprised. I did that. Well.

[00:46:58] Josh: you guys did fine. You did

really well.

[00:47:00] Patrick: get, get

a

[00:47:01] Ian: asked a lot of trivia about, the original Pokemon,

[00:47:06] Josh: What can I say? I'm a nineties kid.

[00:47:08] Ian: yeah. Well, me

[00:47:09] Josh: I asked.

[00:47:11] Ian: Like at one point, I knew everything about the first 150 Pokemon. If you ask me about Pokemon number 862, I would have absolutely no idea about anything

that was fun. Josh.

[00:47:23] Patrick: Yeah. That was

[00:47:23] Josh: I'm glad.

[00:47:24] Ian: I enjoyed that whole section and I think that wraps it up for news with Josh

[00:47:30] Josh: Yeah, that was it. I know. We need outro music.

[00:47:35] Ian: we do have out your music, cue

the sting. Okay. Well that brings us to our feature discussion for this episode, which we're just going to get right into it. Cause we've already been recording for a little while. So. there's one game that we're going to discuss and I have not played it for reasons, which I'm sure I'll I'll get into, but so you guys are definitely going to be the feature speakers for this.

And I will try my best to be the moderator, if you will. So the game we're talking about is Elden ring, which Josh you're the news guy. Maybe you can help fill us in, but I know that Elvin ring set, like some sales records, it's been incredibly popular. It's gotten some like really amazing feedback reviews.

People have said, it's the best game ever. It's also very controversial and very divisive. There's a lot of people who think it is completely overrated and don't get it and don't understand why it is getting all of the hype that it's getting. So I thought it would be a great thing for us to focus our discussion on.

So, You know what I actually kind of want to do what we've usually done with, reviewing TV shows and stuff. I want both of you to commit to a rating

[00:48:49] Patrick: Hm

[00:48:50] Ian: from zero to 10 and you can go to the tenths place if you want to. What is your rating of Elden ring? Josh, Josh. Isn't allowed to play it anymore because Josh damages controllers and shouts inappropriate things. When he plays it,

[00:49:04] Josh: Josh gets killed by the bats.

[00:49:08] Ian: and what would Josh rate.

I'm going to give it a one out of 10 Rees. I'm going to give it 10 out of 10 reas. Cause it's just me screaming and freaking out. probably just, I'm going to give it away. It's a good game. I can't play it. Playability for me is very low.

[00:49:32] Ian: You're going to give it a one out of 10,

But say it's a good game.

[00:49:37] Josh: It's not a bad game. It's a good game. It's got an interesting story. It's visually stunning. and Jack septic guy is really good at it. I am not.

[00:49:48] Ian: Gotcha. Okay. Patrick, what did you

[00:49:52] Patrick: All right. Well, let's see. Well, so first I have to do a shout out to, some students who also play the game. And I told him, I'd give him a shout out. They have a company called Rogers and Rieger and co so I just had to say that really quick. So that's what my review is brought to you by. They actually put together a yonder cast Wikipedia.

[00:50:08] Josh: Oh

[00:50:08] Patrick: Um, it's not on Wikipedia itself. But, how did has say that my review is sponsored by them? To give them a shout out. But anyways, I give the game probably about a, at this point, I'm not very far into it.

I'm going to be honest. I probably spent more time in the character creation than the actual game itself, but probably about a 7.5 is what I'm going to give it. like Josh said, I think the game is extremely visually stunning. I think you open up the world and you're seeing like massive things walking past you.

And it's one of those that, you know, right away, you will lose to that thing. Like that thing is going to demolish you in one hit and it will, and you try, like, I was like, just messing around, like I'm over there, like, oh, I'm going to go try and hit that thing. Just boom, dead, just done. You're you're done restart over.

[00:50:57] Josh: If it moves, it'll kill me.

that's that's my level.

[00:51:01] Patrick: everything like the only thing that didn't kill me, it was an Eagle that flew away. Like that's about the only thing I haven't died too. but I would say. The thing that got me a little bit, I'm playing on PC, which is like, it, it plays pretty well on the PC. I think there's some really cool aspects of like switching back and forth, like between like my sword, my shield, and like a, a magic type weapon, but there's like a lag going on with it.

Like for some reason there's like a frame rate issue on the PC that like, I kind of can't get around a little bit. It's kind of bothersome. I'm like, what is even happening? Like, why am I kind of glitchy a little bit? But I think the game plays really like fluid and smooth in my mind. but it is so hard.

It is so hard. I'm going to send you guys a little video though. Like I saw it on Reddit. I'm gonna send it in the chat here and I want you guys to just watch this raccoon. Yeah.

[00:51:52] Josh: okay.

[00:51:53] Patrick: And I want

[00:51:54] Josh: told

[00:51:54] Patrick: and yeah, I'm gonna have you guys try and explain it. Cause this has been my. Entire Elden ring experience.

it's always been like a meme in blood-borne and Elden ring of like, what is the only thing you do in this game?

[00:52:12] Ian: It's a video of a raccoon, par core rolling over and over again, you know, like, oh, kind of over the shoulder, like burying its shoulder in the ground and rolling over its shoulder, which is what you do in fighting games, right. To like get away from enemies. You've rolled out of the way.

[00:52:30] Patrick: And then there's like one little snippet at the very end where it kind of like goes in for a little bite on the foot and rolls back away. That was legit. My experience. That's been my experience in this game and I thought, like, I see all the videos on it on online. Like there's no way you actually just roll around and Dodge things the entire time.

There's no way that that's a real. Sure enough, that is my play style. You roll around and roll around and roll around and back away and roll around till you finally learn the strategy of whatever you're fighting and just know when to hit. And that's it. You just wait for the opportunity and go. And I personally like that, like I'm the type of person that wants to learn a strategy and then beat the strategy.

But it is so time consuming when you can get stunned, locked and die, just gone in one, one, foul wrong move. You're just done. And so I spent two hours, one day trying to beat a boss and it was like not a real tough boss. and I'm sitting there for two hours just responding, retrying, responding. And basically my entire time was spent dodging this dude for five minutes, waiting for the right time to slowly pick away at him and then Dodge again.

Okay. I'm not going to lie when I beat it. Finally, after two hours, it felt really, really good, but I was like, oh my gosh, I just spent two hours beating one thing. And that was my gaming for the day. Like that. That's all I could do. so I think at like, kind of like at this point in my life, it's really tough to justify sitting down for two hours and potentially not making progress in a way, like, as a lot of the games I play are like five minutes in and out, find a couple of items, feel pretty good about it.

Set the switch down and move on. Whereas this is a lot of like, you got to get in the mood. I might sit down with like food beverage and put some like mood music on. So I don't rage quit in the middle of everything because it is one of those things that is infuriating. If you just get stunned, locked and die after you've spent 15 minutes on a single battle.

And then all of a sudden you're just done.

[00:54:43] Josh: Yeah, I can't play games like that. I get tilted so easily. I will, I am a different person when I play games like that. You, you all know me very, very differently from what I'm like. If I play a game like that. I have maybe spent a half an hour playing Elden ring. And then finally that's when Chris was like, Hey, you should switch to like, I don't

know, try cooking mama.

Like that's a level of stress that you can handle.

[00:55:19] Patrick: It's it's so high stakes, like it is so incredibly high stakes and it's like one wrong move. Or like you aggro one person, they call over 15 others and then you're just running. You're just running away from everything. And. I, I, I like the idea of being strategic and I like the idea of like having a plan going in, but I feel like I don't have that much time to put into learning a strategy for every single person I'm going to go against.

And then you like, hear these things online. Like the world record time beating the game right now is like eight minutes, eight and a half minutes. And I'm like, yo, I died like 15 times in the tutorial area accidentally falling off a cliff. How did you beat this game in eight minutes? Like what do you even do to beat the game in eight minutes?

I think it's like eight and a half or nine right now.

[00:56:11] Josh: I still don't understand what the game is.

[00:56:13] Patrick: yeah, I haven't,

[00:56:14] Ian: Like, do they just run to the final boss and beat it? Like, how can you beat a game like that in eight minutes? Don't you have to like complete a S a series of levels.

[00:56:24] Patrick: well, I'm wondering if you can summon people to help you. So I'm wondering if like they, someone, a person to the final boss and then they. Dodge the final boss for nine years till they get it. Cause there's a player called, let me solo her. And basically he like has this like big pot or vase over his head and just two Katana's and nothing else.

He's just naked. Otherwise, obviously like a loincloth, but, he just goes in and fights the final boss and just like destroys it with like three other people in the group, which is like increased difficulty. And doesn't get touched once it's some people are just so incredibly good at this stuff.

[00:57:02] Josh: Controversial statement, you didn't beat the game. You had your friends come in and be it for, you know, like I'm saying, like you didn't beat the game in eight minutes, you invited your friend over to beat the game for you. Like, I'm sorry. Maybe I just don't understand the game, but I disagree. You didn't beat it.

You stood there and watched.

[00:57:24] Patrick: I wonder if that's why some people are so like, saying it's not a game, right? Like if, if you can beat a game in eight minutes with like minimal effort, no, one's gonna love being like, okay, I'm going to spend three hours on grinding through the starting area to get enough experience to level twice when someone else can just beat it.

I'm done with this. Like, I'm just not good at this. It's almost like a, I want to say like a self depreciation sort of thing. I kind of think of it that way. Like it kind of, someone could beat this game in eight minutes and I can't even survive the first tutorial area. Like I must be so bad at this stuff.

[00:57:58] Josh: That's like playing solitaire and saying, yeah, I beat it by digging through the deck and pulling out all the ACEs. It's like, okay, well, you didn't play it. That's not how that works.

[00:58:10] Ian: these souls games. And I will qualify what I'm going to say by saying, I have never played one starting with the very first dark souls. I have like heard the announcements of all of them, you know, blood born, the, the other spin-offs, you know, that are liked by the same people, but with different themes, like, and every single time, it's just a reminder to me that humans are just different than each other.

Because when I see these games, nothing about the game makes me want to play it at all. the only like tiny inkling of desire that I have to play the game is just curiosity about what everybody's talking about, but then I just go and watch a video and I'm like that doesn't look fun at all. Like, I don't want to do. it's so strange to think that there's so many people out there who are like, this is exactly what I've been booking for. Like, this is what I want video games to be like, it's so weird.

[00:59:07] Josh: that is a valid statement.

[00:59:09] Patrick: I just don't have the time to invest into getting to that point, to want to play it. But I think a lot of the systems in the game are sweet. Like I think a lot of the things they did are pretty cool. but ultimately I think. I can't see myself putting hours and hours and hours and hours and hours into the game, because I know a I'm not going to get that far and be, I think I'll just get, let down when something one shots me.

Cause I lagged a little bit or wasn't quick enough with reaction time. So

[00:59:37] Josh: will never be the kind of person that's like, Ooh, I can't wait to invest all this time. And to being mediocre at this game. No, I, I, I don't know why I even entertained buying the game. Like, honestly, I feel like I just sent $60 to the makers of Elden ring as like a, Hey, good job making a game because I don't know what I was thinking.

I, that is not my kind of game. I like to feel like a God in a video game. I like to be like this, this took no effort. And I destroyed all of my enemies when something says PVP, I'm like, Hmm, that's nice. I'm not going to play that. Humans are better than me.

[01:00:21] Ian: That's what you just said, Josh is exactly what I always say. When I talk about what I want from a video game is like, I want, I want it to make me feel powerful. Right. In some way, it doesn't always have to be like, you're the most amazing warrior, whatever, but like, you want to feel bigger than yourself when you play a video game.

And that's it's interesting to think, all of these people who, you know, like, are their brains just wired differently or is there con is their situation different than mine? Cause I mean, the time thing is huge for me right now as a new parent. I'm like, I just don't have, I don't have time for any games, but like let alone a game that is that punishing and that time consuming.

but it's more that like, just life is hard. there's a lot of things in life that I pour all my creative energy into that I have to invest a lot of energy into, in order to be successful at. And so when I go and I do a recreational activity, like playing a video game, I kind of want it to be the opposite of that.

[01:01:20] Ian: I don't want my video games to just be like draining. Hard. I want my video games to make me feel powerful and, and to be fast and to deliver entertainment at like a fast pace and at, you know, and, and to be uplifting in that way.

[01:01:37] Josh: I just started retrying dying light too, because I rage quit because they were like, Ooh, we made it so that it's more realistic parkour. So you can't like run up walls as far and you can't jump as far. And I'm like, guys, I already can't jump that far. Like I like to play this game to feel like maybe I can jump more than one foot into the air. Why, why you gotta make it realistic. I live in the real world in case you didn't know.

[01:02:03] Patrick: I mean, that's why I've always been so drawn to like the Diablo games. Like you get to a point where you just demolished stuff and it just feels so good to just run through everything. Hordes and hordes of monsters, just run through everything and like, yeah, got it. But Elden,

ring's not that it is

[01:02:23] Ian: that experience with, with the doom games,

[01:02:26] Josh: yeah.

[01:02:26] Ian: are really great, like the new doom shooters and do maternal, I'm actually on the final boss and I just haven't gotten to beating it, but you know, you listened to our reviewers and they talk about the difficulty and like, you know, how they, they kinda like, like to creep the difficulty up.

And I don't know if it's like a pride thing or if it's just that, you know, some people really like the challenge, but. And I think a lot of people find lower difficulties to just be unengaging in some way, but I'm like the total opposite. I'm like, no, I lower the difficulty all the way so that I just rip through everything and all of the levels.

And it's just like, I don't have to worry about anything. I just like, enjoy the carnage, you know?

[01:03:07] Josh: But don't you want the game to be a challenge? No, my life is a challenge. I want something. That's not a challenge.

[01:03:14] Patrick: Yeah, I think to me, like if I'm trying to enjoy it for the story, which I'm really at that point in my life and I've had been for a little bit, which is why I think I made that switch to PlayStation because they focus a lot on like the story and this cinematic and like the feel vibe of the game. Like, I want that to be.

Easy enough to enjoy the experience and not determined from determined from wanting to play, because if I keep dying, it's interjecting in the story and it just like, I don't, the story should be over if I die, like, right. Like that should be just like the end of the story. If I do it too many times, I've like lost connection to the, the, the feel of what's going on.

But I do feel like in a multiplayer aspect, like, God, I know you guys, aren't the biggest PVP people, but, to me, like I want that to be hard. So there is that skill level that I feel like I'm progressing where I can like work on something like an Elden ring. I can Dodge, I can roll. I can block at the perfect time to Perry or I can like predict what the other person is going to do.

I just don't want to do that in PVE. I don't want my bosses to be destroying me over and over and over. And then just have to learn a predictable pattern to me, the excitement comes from predicting an unpredictable pattern and then overcoming that, right? Like if you're against someone else, who's making decisions and you're making decisions that way.

If I lose, I know it was because they made a better decision than me and I'm, it's not just because I'm slow and I didn't quite get the AI down yet. So to me, and like, that's why I think the Elden ring could allure me in a little bit, if that aspect of the PVP was there. Right. Where all of a sudden, like I'm going against somebody else.

And then we have this interplay going on with each other versus just like, okay, I'm going to go after this same boss for the next three hours. Like, okay, I'd rather just play someone and be like, yeah, I'm done with you. Go somewhere else and play someone with a different skill level. But I totally understand the, the wanting of just running for stuff just to enjoy the experience, which I will say Elden rink kind of had that a little bit.

Like I was, I was reading about it a little bit before I started, but apparently like there's no scaling monsters. Like the monsters in every area are as hard as they're going to be. So you can creep into an area that's going to destroy you, or you could stay in an earlier level or earlier area and just level up to be really, really strong.

And so later in the game, you can actually feel a little bit more powerful. Should you want to, so if you just put that time early to level up and get the skills and get the items that you needed, it could make it a better experience going forward and make those harder monsters technically easy. but I haven't had experienced myself.

I'm still getting destroyed by everything. I don't know if I'm going to try and figure that out, but it was a nice little, like easy, I won't say easy mode, but a little way to help people out if they needed it.

[01:05:54] Ian: yeah, I'm not a huge grinding fan either. Like I just. Like I, I get what you're saying, but I'm kinda like, I don't want to put the time. I don't want to like, invest a bunch of time to make something fun. I just want it to be fun right away.

[01:06:12] Patrick: that's why I bought this to have fun now,

[01:06:15] Josh: I like the option of grinding. So like the difficulty scales based on if I've GRA grind, ground grind. Groomed dirt. If I've groomed heard enough,

[01:06:33] Patrick: Swedish chef from the Muppets

[01:06:36] Josh: when you in your,

[01:06:39] Patrick: and gardening garden,

[01:06:41] Josh: yeah. Like I want to grind and then I become super powerful, but I don't want to have to, I don't know. I don't know.

[01:06:51] Patrick: I feel that.

[01:06:52] Ian: Well, are there any parting thoughts that you want to leave our listeners with regarding.

[01:06:59] Josh: Alfredo isn't Italian.

[01:07:03] Patrick: Oh,

[01:07:04] Josh: Oh, regarding Elden ring. Okay. Sorry.

[01:07:12] Patrick: I was like, I haven't gotten there in the game yet.

[01:07:16] Josh: Sorry, just, I thought you said

just

[01:07:19] Patrick: yet.

[01:07:20] Josh: parting thoughts. I recently learned that Alfredo is not an Italian dish. It's American. And so,

[01:07:28] Patrick: My,

[01:07:29] Ian: Yeah. I think that is a signal that we need to end the show, but Patrick, is there anything else that you want to say maybe

about rigatoni orlasagna?

[01:07:40] Patrick: If you're going to play Elden Ring, use a max block shield and then it gets a little bit easier. That's my only advice.

[01:07:46] Josh: huh.

[01:07:47] Ian: Okay. That's useful.

[01:07:49] Josh: Yeah, that was useful. Are you saying that Alfredo is not Italian? Isn't a useful piece of information.

[01:07:56] Ian: Well, thank you all so much for listening to this episode of Yondercast. If you enjoyed what you heard, please rate and review us on whatever you listen to podcasts on and submit your questions and discussion topics to us using the form that is linked in our show notes, and you can always contact us at yondercast@gmail.com.

Take care everybody.

[01:08:16] Josh: bye.

[01:08:17] Patrick: See you later.