Creepy Geppetto, dying over and over and over, and a game that puts the fun back into lying. Join us for a conversation about Lies of P, a soulslike game inspired by The Adventures of Pinocchio.
Creepy Geppetto, dying over and over and over, and a game that puts the fun back into lying. Join us for a conversation about Lies of P, a soulslike game inspired by The Adventures of Pinocchio.
In this episode, we share our thoughts and experiences about Lies of P. We 100% confirmed our speculation that this game could be the Game of the Year. Seriously, it's that good, and if you enjoy playing soulslike games, we strongly recommend you play Lies of P. From great game mechanics and fantastic weapons to a solid main storyline—Lies of P feels like the total package. Joseph thinks this game is the master of delayed and mix-up attacks, Taylor is still getting his P-Organ stretched by the final boss, and Willie digs through the end credits for clues about the upcoming DLC. All three of us loved playing this game, and we can't wait for more. Until then, we'll continue our theories about Paracelsus, the Arm of God, and the single stargazer that can't used in the game. HINT: you can cheese enemies through walls with the Puppet Ripper's charged attack.
Here's the full transcript for this episode.
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[Alienated by ELFL plays in background]
Taylor: Oh, one thing we haven't touched on as well, uh, Geppetto, and such a creep. [Joseph and Willie laugh] Such a creep throughout this entire thing.
Willie: Throughout the entire game he felt like a creep.
Taylor: I mean the whole, I knew it-
Joseph: You knew something sketch was going on.
Taylor: -I knew it was gonna happen and I still did the wrong thing at the end, he was... [as Gepetto] "Carlo, my boy, I can't tell you how much of a good boy you are. Please be a good boy for me. Come back, good boy." What the fuck are you talking about? I'm like 15, man. [all laughing]
Joseph: Oh, so was it all the good, the good boy talk that felt creepy?
Taylor: Yeah, like it was too much, it was way too much.
Willie: Yeah, it did. It did feel real fucking weird.
Joseph: It was part... the delivery too.
Taylor: Yes. Yeah. Nice and slow. And like, I've never had such a good boy.
Joseph: Good, good boy.
Taylor: Yeah. Good, good boy.
[Alienated by ELFL fades out]
[Intro theme plays - Tiger Tracks by Lexica]
00:01:03
Joseph: What's up? Welcome to Berries and Blades. Thanks for tuning in for a casual conversation about video games. My name is Joseph and I'm here with my friends, Willie and Taylor. And we're just three regular guys wondering how many of us had to do pointless chores as a kid. But, I digress. So, how are y'all doing?
Taylor: Doing good, man. I didn't have any pointless chores, bro.
Joseph: Really?
Taylor: I grew up on a ranch, so I had to do all these crazy chores. I had to clean up the horse poops.
Joseph: Oh, they weren't pointless. [laughs] They had a point.
Taylor: Yeah, yeah. Cleaning up horse poops and, um, all that kind of stuff. Taking out the trash. Major point there. If you don't, then you get, uh, nasty little worms in there, from what I understand.
Joseph: Did you get demerits? Not taking out the trash?
Taylor: Uh, demerits back then were more like, uh, given out in the form of a belt.
Joseph: Lashings?
Taylor: Yeah, so, so, I tried not to get those.
Joseph: Willie, did you have any pointless chores that you were responsible for?
Willie: I think I've alluded to this before, but I was pretty spoiled as a kid, so I didn't have too many chores actually at all. I remember sweeping and mopping a lot, for sure.
Joseph: Mm.
Willie: I did that, but there was no other, here's your list of things you have to do around the house every week or anything like that.
Joseph: Yeah, yeah.
Willie: For me, I didn't know many kids who had lists like that either. Taylor, it sounds like you sort of did, because there's too much shit to do on a ranch.
Taylor: Yeah.
Willie: I didn't have many friends that had that, and I always wondered as a kid, I saw my friends who didn't have chore lists, but also had like, um, still got allowances, you know, at some point and I was like-
Joseph: Just got money to get money.
Willie: -Yeah. Yeah. And I'm like, how did that happen? How do you, how do you swing that?
Taylor: Yeah. What do I say? [Joseph and Willie laugh] Please give me that exact, uh, wording that I can say to my parents.
Joseph: Yes, please. Give me the blueprint.
Taylor: There'll be a lot of GPT questions, I feel like from kids in the, in the near future. [Joseph laughs] What is the perfect argument to not have to wash the dishes?
Joseph: Oh.
Taylor: Thank you.
Joseph: Solid use of GPT. [Taylor laughs]
Taylor: That's what AI exists for.
Joseph: I feel like you could use it in reasons like that for school too.
Taylor: Absolutely. Imagine debate. Debate's going to be a complete different thing.
Joseph: Oh, gosh.
Taylor: Yeah. That's going to be an absolutely... basically it's going to be people, kids acting as puppets of the, of the AI against each other.
Joseph: Mm, puppets, huh?
Taylor: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Puppets. Yeah. Will they lie? Will they-
Willie: And they'll just, uh, for, you know, two paragraphs, they'll say something that's completely useless and irrelevant to the point. [Joseph and Taylor laugh] And then they'll get to the point.
Taylor: And because they're kids, it'll sound exactly like an AI wrote it.
Joseph: Right, right. [Taylor laughs] I wonder how they would regulate it.
Taylor: You got me, man. I don't know, especially when we're about to move into, um, things like Meta Glasses. People are about to have this stuff on their eyes.
Joseph: Mm.
Taylor: And at that point, doesn't it get real hairy?
Joseph: Well, that's easy. You just don't have those on, right? Those are banned.
Taylor: Maybe, but what if they're prescription?
Joseph: Oh, well that's different.
Taylor: What if you're wearing your prescription glasses at school and the teacher's like, Oh, you can't have AI glasses. Okay, we'll take them. And I can't see anything.
Joseph: Mm-hmm.
Taylor: So good luck on you. And these cost 300 bucks. So I don't know, buy me a new pair or something. It's going to get interesting.
Joseph: Contacts, man. Wicked, right?
Taylor: That'll be crazy. Yeah, that'll be real crazy.
00:04:11
Willie: I do want to go back for a second. You definitely phrased this question in a way that was like pointless chores as a kid. So what were yours, Joey-
Joseph: Dude.
Willie: -that you feel like were pointless? [Taylor and Willie chuckle]
Joseph: All of them, mostly. So there was no list. That's why I know it was pointless, 'cause it wasn't scheduled, it wasn't organized. It was just like, here's the thing you're going to do today.-
Taylor: Organ-ized.
Joseph: -Go pick up those rocks-
Taylor: Hmm.
Joseph: -maybe like put all those rocks in this wheelbarrow [Taylor laughs] and then wheel them to the backyard and then unload them in the back in this particular spot.
Or-
Taylor: Did you grow up in a coal mine?
Joseph: No, but it is partly in where we grew up.
Taylor: Okay.
Joseph: So we didn't have like, um, I don't know if you go all the way to back to, man, I don't know, it might be like episode two of this podcast, but I talked about growing up in a trailer park.
Taylor: Oh yeah.
Joseph: So we didn't have grass in the front yard. So there were rocks and sticks. Well. I was responsible for like picking up these sticks, [laughs] like sticks one by one.
Taylor: That's kind of a big job, dude.-
Joseph: -Pick up all these sticks.
Taylor: -Have you ever had a stick through the foot?
Joseph: Not yet. Not yet-
Taylor: Well-
Joseph: -and we had a lot of fucking sticks, so-
Taylor: -See.
Joseph: -not buying it.
Taylor: Oh.
Joseph: I like to crunch on sticks.
Taylor: Well, I mean, I thought you were doing such a good job that [Joseph and Taylor laugh] you...nobody was getting sticks in their foot.
Joseph: It'd be like that, man. It'd like... to pick up these rocks, or it'd be... So my, my stepdad, he used to, he used to get me to rake the yard. But he would want to see the lines from the rake in the yard.
Taylor: Oh, he wanted a zen garden.
Joseph: Yes.
Taylor: Damn.
Joseph: He would want to see that. I don't know if it was just this kind of weird discipline thing, OCD thing, or if he just wanted proof that I had actually raked the yard.
Taylor: Stepdads. [laughs]
Joseph: So like, being able to visibly see those lines was visual proof that I had done it? I don't know.
Willie: If you were raking the yard, like, with an actual point...
Joseph: Mm-hmm.
Willie: The proof would be that there are no more leaves-
Joseph: Well, there were no leaves.
Willie: -in the yard, or there were sticks in the yard.
Joseph: Yeah, the sticks, sure, yeah, but there were no leaves in the yard. I guess there was in the fall, but sometimes it was just like raking across dirt.
Taylor: Wow.
Joseph: And maybe the sticks were kind of like gathered and there were no sticks, but.
Taylor: That murders me inside. Just the sound of raking rocks is the [Willie chuckles] worst sound-
Joseph: Yeah.
Taylor: -and feeling in the world.
Joseph: Yeah, it was stuff like that. It was just like-
Taylor: Oof.
Joseph: -just weird, pointless chores. I guess they weren't completely pointless, but it was really like busy work.
Taylor: Hmm.
Joseph: Or like, Hey, you need to do something before you go out and play with like the neighbors or your friends down the street. So that kind of stuff.
Taylor: Parenting 101.
00:06:28
Joseph: It honestly reminds me of some of the punishment in the military.
Taylor: Oh yeah.
Joseph: In the Army, basic training. Like they would have us do, like we'd be on this concrete platform and there's rocks on both sides. They would make us go to one side, pick up a rock, walk it over to the other side and put it down. [Willie chuckles] Then pick up a new rock on that side and take it to the other side. [Taylor laughs]
Taylor: And the same thing tomorrow.
Joseph: You know, and that was just like the kind of, the punishment they would give us. So like-
Taylor: After about two months, you're like, uh...
Joseph: -I got this weird history of like chores involving rocks in my life [Willie chuckles] that I'll probably never forget about, but they did that to us.
Taylor: Also back pain. [all laughing]
Joseph: Yeah.
Taylor: It's funny how...I wonder, I wonder, huh? Hmm.
Joseph: That rock thing in the military is going to be part of my VA claim.
Taylor: [laughing] I...yeah. [Willie laughs] Yeah, I thought we were here to like protect the country and get the bad guys. Didn't know that we were doing all this rock hauling.
Joseph: The worst part of that rock thing in basic training is they, they did that to us on the day our families were in for graduation.
Taylor: Aw.
Joseph: It's like really close to us graduating and somebody slipped up and they weren't back like... they weren't back at the battalion in time because they were like, we were all out with our families and family time, but they got back late. So then they punish the entire platoon and the families are just like standing there watching us do this. It doesn't get more humiliating than that.
Taylor: No.
Willie: Yeah.
Taylor: That's definitely one of the reasons I could never do military is because I'd be that guy who constantly got people in trouble because I'm like, this is dumb as shit.
Joseph: Yeah, you would. You would. [Willie laughing]
Taylor: Like, I couldn't, there's no way I could keep my mouth closed and everybody would hate me. So I did the right thing.
Joseph: I know motherfuckers like you, dude.
Taylor: I bet you did. [Joseph laughs] I bet there was a lot of them in there who just, "kick me out. Please kick me out."
Joseph: "Yeah, hit me, kick me."
Taylor: Yeah.
[Joseph and Taylor laughing]
Joseph: Taylor, you would have been that guy that got like a medical chapter out of the basic training or something.
Taylor: Absolutely. Absolutely. Wouldn't have made it. Would not have made it. I thought about it, gave it a lot of thought, but, cause I respect that. I think, I think the military at its core is awesome.
You know, the training and the like accountability, things like that, that people do gain from it. And, uh, whatever that word is, I'm, it's escaping me right now, but [laughs]
Joseph: You know, it's interesting because so many people have had the response that you have, you know, or like that can never do that. Like just being, um, the intensity, you know, of like drill sergeants-
Taylor: Mm-hmm.
Joseph: -Like yelling at you and just kind of being so demanding.
Taylor: Yeah.
Joseph: It's interesting because I can remember people I was in basic training with and they had that, like mentality, right? Like it was, you can tell like it was really difficult for them to deal with on like the very first day and like the first week-
Taylor: Yeah.
Joseph: -but it's amazing how by the end of basic training, like you do fall in line.
Taylor: Just kind of acclimate?
Joseph: Yeah, you just don't realize you can do it until you have to do it, you know-
Taylor: Yeah, I could see that.
Joseph: -or you're in the position where you, or you need to do it.
Taylor: You got a few weeks of I'm quitting, like this is the worst and everything. And then you start getting used to it and realizing, okay, maybe this is a, maybe it's not so bad. And, and then you start to probably see the benefits of it.
And they start out weighing the bad and then, yeah, it's interesting. Maybe I'll, maybe I'll try again at 43 or something.
Joseph: Pfft. Yeah, they're not even-
Taylor: Just go give it a sho...
Joseph: -gonna let you in at that age.
Taylor: Damn it. Oh, well, I tried.
Joseph: Maybe Space Force.
Taylor: Oh, sick. That's a good call, man. I am putting in applications...
Joseph: Hell yeah.
Taylor: ...at uh...some interesting places.
Joseph: Maybe you can be a voice actor for the Space Force.
Taylor: Welcome to Space Force. Yeah, maybe.
Joseph: Dude.
Taylor: I'll give it a shot, man.
Joseph: I can hear you on TV right now.
Taylor: Space Force. We're calling all space pilots. [Joseph chuckles] We've got space suits. [Joseph laughing] We won't force you, Space Force.
Joseph: [laughing] We won't force you, Space Force. [Taylor and Willie laughing]
Ah, that's great.
Taylor: Yeah, send it in. Yeah.
Joseph: Yeah, dude.
Taylor: Chop that up for me Joey, and send that... [laughs]
Joseph: I'll definitely clip this.
Taylor: Send, send that to my guy, the recruiter.
Joseph: Put a little bit of reverb on it.
Taylor: Space Force.
Yeah.
Joseph: Dude.
Taylor: Some echo. Space Force. Force. Force.
Joseph: Force. Force.
Dude, money. Dude, you're, you're set?
Taylor: Yeah. I'm out guys. Sorry. No time for this podcast. [Willie laughs]
I got things to do. I gotta, gotta go put in this, uh, audition.
00:10:24
Joseph: Nice. Alright, today we're revisiting a fantastic game called Lies of P-
Taylor: Mm.
Joseph: -which is a Souls like game inspired by Carlo Collodi's novel The Adventures of Pinocchio. Also, we released an episode about the demo for this game back in July 2023, so if you're interested in listening to that episode first, it's called Hip Fire.
Hip Fire! Lies of P Demo.
Taylor: Hip fire!
Joseph: Hip fire!
Taylor: Lies of P edition.
Joseph: But, back to today and the full release, which is full of robot puppets, haha, P-Organs, gold coin fruit, [Taylor sighs] nasty ass looking monsters, and one cat that you can pet.
Taylor: Kind of.
Joseph: Also, be wary of dog. I mean, be wary of spoilers before continuing to listen. Taylor, do you know what that is? Be wary of dog?
Taylor: No, I don't. I... it doesn't ring a bell.
Joseph: Alright, we'll come back to that.
Taylor: Okay.
Joseph: But anyway, Taylor, it definitely seemed like you cruised through this game much faster than me and Willie.
Taylor: Yeah.
Joseph: Uh, so how do you feel about the full game compared to the demo?
Taylor: I think this is the biggest turnaround I've ever had on a game. Um, I was really annoyed by the demo. I think the, the aesthetic was nice, but there were things about the demo that just didn't catch me. And for whatever reason, once I dove into the actual, like the full game, it really, I just took a one 80 on it. Um, it's phenomenal. So far, it's my game of the year. I mean, it would take a pretty hellacious game to upset that and become the game of the year, so...
I just thought it was amazing, man. Like the, maybe it was just the... sometimes psychologically, if I'm playing a demo, which I don't play many demos for this reason, but I know that it's finite and I know that it's going to end soon. And you're only going to get a certain amount of collectibles or no collectibles in this case.
So in the back of my head, I'm just like, I don't really care for this, but yeah, incredible game. Can't wait to dive into it.
Joseph: Dive into it. What do you mean? Keep diving into it.
Taylor: Oh, yeah. Keep diving into it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, uh, what'd you ask? Sorry. [all laugh]
Joseph: I was just confused because you're like, I can't ready.... I can't, I can't wait to get into it. I was like, dude, you've beat it twice, basically.
Taylor: We're here. We're [Joseph and Taylor laugh] Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Joseph: You did it, you played it.
Taylor: I did beat it twice. Yeah. Yeah. I, I blasted through it. The first time took some time. 'Cause I'm not very good at memorizing boss patterns and all that, but I got through it. It, it just, I was so compelled to see more of the story. And then the second time, yeah, it took maybe a quarter of the time to get to the end.
Joseph: I'm really surprised it was such a big turnaround for you.
Taylor: Hmm.
Joseph: Because I felt like the, the distance between the demo and the full game is like so small for me.
Taylor: Yeah. I think it was mostly psychological. I think it was mostly that because it, I didn't notice too much difference. I, for some reason, I thought the demo didn't look quite as crisp and I don't know if that's, that is actually a thing or if it was again just the psychological, I don't care much for this because it's just a demo.
Show me the full thing.
Willie: Yeah, it feels like the narrative was pulling you forward in most of it, so...
Taylor: It was, yeah, yeah, it was impossible. Like maybe, maybe five, 10 hours in, I had to know what was next and what was coming next. And the, the, everything behind the story.
Joseph: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. So just a little bit of background, I finished the game once. Taylor basically finished the game twice, or almost finished it twice, and then Willie, you finished it twice, and now in New Game Plus Plus?
Willie: I'm about to start New Game Plus Plus, I haven't done it yet.
Joseph: Got it.
00:13:45
Taylor: I'm curious to know what changes through the New Game Pluses, cause I will say that... I think my only disappointment, I mean, I got a couple little things that annoyed me about the game in general. Which some of it comes down to mechanics, but one of the things that annoys me is when you're playing through a new plus plus, or a new game plus, and not much changes.
The enemies have a little more life, and maybe slightly different, faster patterns or something, but that's it. That, to me, is such a wasted opportunity. And I'll give you an example, you know how you're going through the Grand Exhibition and there are those tanks, like there's all those tanks you can break that have-
Joseph: Yeah, the water tanks or...
Willie: Mm-hmm.
Taylor: Yeah, it's got kind of an opaque liquid in it and you can't really see through there. I thought that would be a perfect opportunity to put like some of those little half enemies or something in there. The guys that crawl or-
Joseph: Mm-hmm.
Taylor: -something so that it's like a surprise is like, oh no, I got to this part and I broke this tank or they jump out after you beat some guys. To me, that's an opportunity that I couldn't miss if I was doing a new game plus. Which I'm sure some of it may come down to they can only put so many enemies in this spot or something. Maybe they have limitations, but I just see that as such a wasted opportunity, especially in such a game that has so much detail.
I would love that if Willie's playing New Game Plus Plus, all of a sudden there's, I don't know, something new that he's seeing.
Willie: Yeah.
Taylor: That is, in the future, that's what I want to see. And this, it's not exclusive to Lies of P because every Souls game that does that. But what I found was as the Souls games progressed, you did start seeing new things.
Like at a, at the starting point of either 2 or 3. There were some easy zombie dudes the first round, and the next round, they were actually some badass, um, falconeers, or whatever you call those people, like the, the guys with falcons on them, and the falcons would come at you, and they had hella strength, and, and badass attacks, and that was just how the game started.
Things like that, I would like to see them kind of take something like that in the future, if they make additional games to this, or just make another game in general. Neowiz nailed it otherwise.
Joseph: That would be a great addition to the new game, the new game plus those tanks. Cause I was so tense going through that whole area.
Taylor: Me too. Every time I had to hit them just to know-
Joseph: Yeah.
Taylor: -so that something didn't come out, especially the little half guys that would shoot a, get over here, claw at you out of nowhere.
Joseph: Mm-hmm. Little assholes.
Willie: Yeah.
Taylor: Man. Cause you're sitting there, you're working on other guys and then suddenly this little halfling is just [makes a laser like sound]
Joseph: Mm-hmm.
Taylor: -right over to you and chomping you. And their attacks were so ridiculous, how they lay it on the ground. They would roll over and just go, [more strange mouth sounds-mimicking a creature reaching out with tentacles]
Willie: Yeah.
Joseph: Yeah, if you get caught in that, you're going to get, you're going to get whipped up.
Taylor: Yup.
Willie: Yup.
Joseph: They were easy to avoid though. Like as long as you were far enough away from them, they wouldn't even like flail out.
Taylor: Yeah, I used walls a lot to cheese like I...the Puppet Ripper was my main weapon through basically the entirety of it.
Joseph: Mm.
Taylor: And that was that was the best cheese weapon that I've ever encountered. Because you could just put something between you and anybody you're fighting, if there's anything there and...
Joseph: Did you do the charged attack the spinning attack and it would go through things?
Taylor: Yes. Yup. Yup.
Joseph: Oh shit.
Taylor: That was it. Yeah, it goes straight through instead of just ting on, on a wall or something.
Joseph: Oh!
Taylor: You can just do that over and over. So I just got that timing really well and the distance of it really well. So you just back up through their attack and then do the double and then rinse and repeat.
Joseph: I mean, I haven't played a new game plus, but I don't think I can hate on it because it seems pretty in line with like, whatever, what other games do for new game plus.
Taylor: Exactly. It's a classic. And like I say, it's a super splitting hairs complaint. And it's just one where if I have to look for a complaint or two, that's probably one of the biggest ones is, I just wanted more. I just wanted them to see more, um, innovation out of them and more ingenuity, more like clever, just because the game is so damn clever in so many spots.
Joseph: Mm-hmm.
Taylor: It was something that I was almost expecting. So I may have just built up expectations.
00:17:40
Joseph: Willie, I'm curious. What was the most disappointing thing about the game for you?
Willie: Disappointing thing about the game?
Joseph: Yeah, and... and while you're thinking about that, Taylor pull up a list of all the bosses, like Google the list of bosses so that I want to get your opinion on some of the bosses.
Taylor: Okay. All right.
Willie: Man, most disappointing thing. I think there are, I don't know if this is a disappointing thing and maybe we just, we aren't supposed to know this yet, but I think there are some unanswered questions in the story that I want to know.
Joseph: Sure.
Willie: Some like motivation stuff that I kind of want to like figure out and understand why it had to be that way.
Joseph: Is it why the puppet frenzy was started in the first place?
Willie: No, because I think I, I know why that happened. I don't know if we're going straight into spoilers now, because I feel like, you know, there's a lot to talk about.
Taylor: SPOILER ALERT!
Joseph: Yeah, at this point, definitely spoiler alert, because I feel like we want to talk about the story, because we haven't had an opportunity to talk about the story.
Taylor: Yeah, absolutely.
Willie: Yeah.
Joseph: So if you haven't played the game and you don't want to be spoiled, please shut us off. Shut us up.
Willie: I will say before, before you shut it off, you should definitely check out this game. It is really fucking good. [chuckles]
Joseph: Yeah, it's great.
Taylor: It is.
Willie: Like, I, I enjoy it. And I, you know, it is a Souls like game, right? It's a Souls like game that is difficult at times and frustrating at times. But, uh, there's definitely tools in the game to help you get past those frustrations, in most cases.
Taylor: Yeah, most cases. [all laughing]
Willie: I will say...
Taylor: That end boss, there was no ifs, ands, or buts.
Willie: What I will say is there is one boss, like halfway through, not halfway, like three quarters through the game that if you have been using like throwables and stuff to like help you, there is one moment where you could run out and not have any, and it's just on you to figure out how to beat this person.
And if you don't know how to parry, you don't know how to dodge, you haven't figured that out yet for yourself, and you've been leaning on-
Taylor: Mm.
Willie: -throwables, sort of like I was, it can be difficult, because there's one boss where you just can't get away. Like, you have to have this fight.
Joseph: Mm.
Willie: There's no going away to get more throwables. There's no... You can't do it. You're there. You have to play this boss as it is. Unless, I don't know if there would be a way to like completely backtrack through the game back to a place.
Joseph: Now I'm curious who this boss is.
Willie: Yeah, so we'll get to that in a second.
Taylor: Yeah.
Willie: And I will say, I will say that overall though, I really enjoyed it. I really enjoyed the story. It does look visually beautiful. The music is fucking amazing.
Joseph: Yeah.
Taylor: Yep.
Willie: You should play this game.
Joseph: Yes.
Willie: You should give it like, you know, five, 10 hours at least just to feel, uh, what it's like to be in that world for a little bit and see if that pushes you forward. And if, if it's not for you, that's fine. I would suggest going to watch somebody play it then.
Joseph: Sure, sure.
Taylor: I would say anybody who has ever played a Souls game and enjoyed it, absolutely should be playing this.
Willie: Yeah, if you do like Souls like games, you should definitely play this game.
Joseph: Yes, for sure.
Willie: For some reason you didn't hear about it, you should check it out.
Taylor: Especially being on the Game Pass. Man, it ticked all the boxes for something you need to check out.
Willie: Yeah.
Joseph: I mean, it is definitely game of the year quality and going to be a part of that conversation. And if it isn't, I'm fucking... We're going to, we're going to, starty a frenzy ourselves.
Taylor: If it isn't a lot has come out [laughs] that has blows us away.
Willie: [laughing] Yeah, something has gone terribly wrong, or there are lots of other games that suddenly came out that we didn't know about.
Joseph: Yeah.
Taylor: Yeah, I think it's going to take an absolute banger to, to knock this one off the top, really.
00:21:06
Willie: Yeah, and there have been some good games this year, but I think with all that being said, yeah, let's, let's dive into some spoilers then.
Joseph: Okay. Willie, straight away. I want to know who this boss is. Cause I can't think of when I was trapped in a way where I, where if I wanted to, I couldn't leave.
Willie: The Corrupted Puppet Master.
Joseph: Oh!
Taylor: RIght, Right.
Willie: If you run out of throwables there, or anything, you can't teleport away. The teleporter closest to you is broken.
Joseph: Oh. Okay, okay.
Willie: The Stargazer's broken, so you can't leave. I assu... you could go back a little bit, but I don't know that that gets you anywhere where you could actually, like, go buy throwables.
Joseph: Yeah, because you can't travel because of the state of ruin that the city is in and the hotel is in.
Taylor: Mm-hmm.
Willie: Yeah, and you could go back through Krat Central Station. I like, I don't know. I don't know if the game would block you from just like walking all the way back through Krat Central Station back into the underground area.
Joseph: Yeah, that doesn't seem worth it though.
Willie: Right.
Taylor: Yeah, I feel like it was blocked. I think you, I think you drop in to the area.
Joseph: I think it is blocked at some point too. Like you could backtrack, but you would hit a wall.
Taylor: Yeah, exactly. I was looking around because I, that was the exact thing. It took me like 10 times to beat him. So there did come a point that I was looking around trying to figure out an alternative way. But all you could do was go back another direction, kill several enemies, and then you were blocked.
Willie: Yeah. And then there's nothing, I don't think there's anything you can do. There's one merchant there, and I don't know what they have, and they might have been prior to, yeah, they were prior to that block, because that block, I think, is an elevator that you go down, and I don't think that elevator works in the opposite direction, so that's, like, you're, that's just it, you're just in that fight, if-
Joseph: Mm hmm.
Willie: -You'd run out of throwables and you were leaning on him for, for fights like that.
Taylor: Crazy. Yeah, that was.
Joseph: I guess it didn't affect me as much because I was like, when I died, I immediately just ran back in.
Willie: Yeah, yeah..
Joseph: 20 times in a row. Like, I wasn't even trying to like, leave and go buy something. So I didn't even know that was the case.
Willie: At some point, I think I checked the, the Stargazer and it was immediately just like.
Joseph: Nah, you can't use me.
Willie: Can't use it. So. It's like, okay, well, then I just kept going back in.
Joseph: Right, right. I think I got through that one pretty easily, so I, yeah, I didn't even think about that.
Willie: That one took not a long time, but it definitely was, I had been playing for a long time at that point, and so I like stopped during that fight, and then had to come back the next day, and that was like the first hour was me remembering how to fight-
Joseph: Oh, yeah.
Willie: -and figure the patterns out and then do it.
Joseph: Right.
Taylor: Yeah, that, some of the bosses on here took me a lot of time to expose all of their, all of their different move sets and then remember those and especially because I was using the Puppet, um, Puppet Slasher.
Joseph: Ripper.
Taylor: Yeah, Puppet Ripper. [Joseph chuckles] I was using that and, and the problem was that the charge move, the swing around would work, it would go through any walls or anything, but there were certain bosses that it would not go through, it wouldn't go through the shield, the big shield guys that would, uh, charge you with the shields, it wouldn't go through there and so it became a little bit worthless on those areas and I had to get a little more inventive and, or get behind them and use it so...
00:24:18
Joseph: Taylor, um, looking at that list, what was your overall favorite boss to fight?
Taylor: Favorite?
Joseph: For whatever reasons.
Taylor: The King of Puppets was a really fun, I, I would say, uh, Simon Manis just because of the, I like a good wide open fight and it, that one also allowed you to call in a companion and it was just a really good two phase boss. Whenever the hand of God comes down and touches him and it's like, one of the most epic moments in the game, I think, is him becoming his evolved self and then really going the fuck off.
Joseph: Yeah. That second phase was pretty hard.
Taylor: Yeah.
Joseph: I struggled with that second phase because it was really hard to close the distance with like those wide sweeping swings-
Taylor: Yep.
Joseph: -and the hand coming down in the area of effect blast. And that was like, what the hell?
Taylor: Oh, that blast, if you got caught in it, was insane.
Joseph: It's like a one shot, man.
Taylor: Yeah, and it would almost always inevitably catch my companion, too, so it was one that was hard for both of us to avoid.
Joseph: Mm hmm.
Taylor: Throwables were key in that one for me.
Joseph: What about you, Willie?
Willie: I was gonna say, I do think that that one is, uh, that one was fun, and that second phase is hard to close the distance, for sure, just cause the stage is big and open, and if, even if you're trying to keep distance for a little bit to, like, heal up or anything, it can be difficult to have to do.
Like, it's definitely possible.
Joseph: It had ranged attacks, too.
Willie: Yeah.
Joseph: The ranged attacks are super effective.
Willie: They kept you from like taking a second to heal. Like there was the ones that would just drop blue shit from the sky or it would come up from the ground.
Taylor: Oh, yep.
Willie: And it's just like, man, I'm just trying to fucking heal, just like give me a second.
Joseph: Yeah, I'm trying to grind my fucking blade, dude.
Taylor: Yep.
Willie: I just need a second. [Joseph laughs]
Taylor: He had that one where he would dodge to the side and then shoot out the gold balls at you and...oh, man.
Willie: Exactly those, those things that did disruption were bad too. Like they would, if they caught you, you'd be fucked.
Taylor: Oh yeah.
Joseph: Yeah, yeah.
Taylor: If you didn't notice that he threw up, like if you were not locked onto him-
Willie: Yeah.
Taylor: -and he throws them up in the air and they do the heat, oh man, you're doomed.
Joseph: Mm-hmm.
Taylor: You are dead.
Willie: I think, uh, favorite might be the King of Puppets. I like both of those.
Taylor: Dude, that one's beautiful.
Willie: Yeah.
Taylor: Just the, the setting you're in, the opera house and, and him, himself was-
Willie: Yeah.
Taylor: -and what a metamorphosis to go from the, is that the one that goes from the King of Puppets? Like the big version of him down to...
Joseph: To Romeo.
Taylor: Okay, yeah. That was...
Willie: Yeah, the guy who's in it to like, yeah, Romeo's like piloting him.
Taylor: Oh yeah, the, that's where you get the Puppet Ripper too.
Joseph: Mm-hmm.
Willie: Yeah, yeah. Yeah..
Taylor: That weapon was super effective against him, incredibly effective against himself. [Joseph laughs]
Willie: I think, I will say, I don't know how much you care about spoilers, Joey, and this is not too, I won't say too much of a spoiler, and you sort of know it anyway, but that fight is just more interesting or emotionally impactful the second round, when you have the decoder-
Joseph: When you have the puppet language.
Willie: -Yeah, when you have the puppet language and you're just like hearing him, like plead with you and tell you like, what's going on. That's an interesting fight too.
Taylor: Yep.
Joseph: Yeah, I think that makes it like 1 of the better fights. What's also happening in the narrative and the story. I think it's just the design was incredible-
Willie: Yeah.
Joseph: -and was not expecting like somebody to be piling it... like piloting it. And, for Romeo to come in, and Romeo looked fucking badass.
Taylor: Yeah.
Joseph: For me, that's my favorite boss fight too.
Willie: Yeah.
Taylor: Yeah.
Joseph: Just the scale of it, and the moveset, and, you know, like it wasn't too difficult.
Willie: But when he comes out in the second half, you know, in the second phase, and it's Romeo and he's fucking dashing around, if you like, if you let him get to a place where he sets his blade on fire and starts fucking you up, like it's easy to get fucked up quick too.
Joseph: Yeah.
Taylor: He's got a dash, man that is insane.
Joseph: Mm-hmm.
Taylor: And it was, if I remember correctly, it was a long one. Like there are a few characters, a few bosses in this game that [Joseph chuckles] they gave, you can dash across the entire map-
Joseph: Yep.
Taylor: -if you want to, and go over to them. And those are scary.
Joseph: Including the Nameless Puppet dude in phase two.
00:28:06
Taylor: Yes. Yeah. That one was the worst. Um, I. I forgot that, to mention that exact thing, that that was one of the things that kept me going on the second time was I was, I was really just going to put the controller down and be done with it. But then I remembered that you can de scramble all of the, all of the things that all the bosses were saying.
And that definitely added a new element of, of like compulsion that I need to get through this and see what everybody is saying. And it was incredibly interesting, even though it is funny because it was hard to read them because you're in the middle of a boss battle and a lot of them were really difficult, but.
Usually you're doing those boss battles three, four, 10 times. And so it gave you enough time to, not only read them, but start being annoyed by them, [Joseph and Willie chuckle]
Willie: Yeah.
Joseph: Yes.
Taylor: Especially if you were getting you're ass kicked. Cause they were talking shit big time.
Joseph: I got so annoyed by the first Black Rabbit Brotherhood fight
Taylor: Aw, yeah. [Willie chuckles]
Joseph: And the little brother, the little brother, [Willie chuckles] man, I just wanted to punch the monitor and-
Taylor: Yeah.
Joseph: -just like shut it up because [Taylor and Willie laugh] he had to hear the lines over and over and over again.
Taylor: Yep. And then when you finally take him down, they try to make you feel bad for it. He's like, [in a frail voice] all I wanted was a piece of bread. [Joseph laughs] Oh, why? And you're like-
Joseph: Yeah, yeah.
Taylor: -Oh God, I killed this killed kid and he was hungry. He was just hungry, but nah, he was a dick. He was Dick. I don't feel bad.
Joseph: That kind of sounds like what the robber weasel said.
Taylor: Oh, maybe that was it.
Willie: Yeah, that was...
Taylor: Okay it might've been the weasel then.
Willie: That's the robber weasel that says that.
Taylor: Okay.
Willie: Like you just wanted food or just wanted, yeah something to eat.
Joseph: Like starving
Taylor: Yeah. And I felt bad for a split second. That was like, no, you asshole-
Joseph: Yeah, yeah.
Taylor: -took me a bunch of times to beat you. You're a little jerk. You deserve it.
Joseph: So when you're talking about the puppet language being decoded and stuff like that, like I do know what all of those scenes say-
Willie: Yeah.
Joseph: -I think it's pretty incredible that you just fight through all the bosses and the whole time, the whole time they're just trying to recruit you and get a message to you, dude.
Willie: Mm-hmm.
Taylor: Yeah.
Joseph: I'm like, yeah, they really fucking did this to us, dude.
Willie: Mm-hmm.
Taylor: Yeah.
Joseph: Like, and then after the fact, they're like, oh, this was like the whole time we were fighting for the humans.
Taylor: Yep.
Willie: That's the one thing I, I, my least favorite thing about the game is that especially after you've played the game a second time and you know what they all say, but it's weird that you still have to fight them.
Right? The most interesting, incredible thing that could have happened that I don't actually expect from anybody is to like completely change the game up the second time to where it's like, Oh, none of these fights matter anymore.
Joseph: Yeah.
Willie: Right? I wouldn't do this if I was, if this was me and I learned this information, I would stop fighting them.
Joseph: Mm-hmm.
Willie: If I could stop fighting them and do something else different, that would be.
Joseph: That'd be incredible.
Willie: That'd be incredible, right? But that also would add like so much to the game.
Taylor: Yeah.
Willie: And I've never seen anyone do something like that, where it's just completely different the second game.
Taylor: Imagine if it became dialogue driven, just became like, [all laugh] like a dialogue RPG style, you're just trying to, and then if you get the dialogue wrong, then you piss them off and you have to fight. And...
Willie: Yeah, well I mean there's...
Joseph: That would still be really fucking cool.
Willie: Yeah, it would be. And there's still other enemies to fight, right? There's just different bosses. Like certain bosses wouldn't go away in that scenario. Right?
Joseph: Right.
Willie: Like the main bosses wouldn't. And the, like, Swamp Monster wouldn't go away, the, like,
Taylor: Yeah.
Willie: I don't even think the Blackrabbit Brotherhood would go away, like, they'd still be doing their thing, but at least you wouldn't fight all the puppets in the game anymore. And now they're replaced with something completely different?
Joseph: Mm hmm.
Willie: That would be legit. But like, that's asking a lot, and I realize that is.
Taylor: Yeah.
Joseph: It's not many, dude. It's only Scrapped Watchmen, maybe Parade Master, Scrapped Watchmen, King's Flame, and King of Puppets. Those are the only ones that, I think, have the puppet language.
Willie: Mm-hmm.
00:31:41
Taylor: Can we talk about how ridiculous, uh, LaChassa, what's her name?
Joseph: Laxasia. [prounced correctly]
Taylor: Laxasia. [prounced incorrectly]
Joseph: Laxasia, [repeating Taylor's mispronciation] yeah.
Taylor: Laxasia, [mispronced in the same way] the complete laxative. Because she's so fast and throws so much lightning that she's terrifying. So...
Joseph: Mm-hmm. Dude, definitely, definitely the best armor, best armor design in whole game for sure.
Taylor: Oh, so cool. Yeah. She was like, she was like every Dark Souls encapsulated into one character. [Joseph laughs] Like her armor was so sick and that was a terrifying battle.
I'm gonna be honest with you. [Willie chuckles] Like the, her ability to just single you out and throw a bunch of lightning at you and then immediately she's like, charge, charge, and she's right at your doorstep swinging at you.
Joseph: Mm-hmm.
Willie: The coolest mechanic in that fight is the ability to deflect that back at her.
Joseph: I didn't even know you could do that, dude.
Taylor: Oh, I didn't know that.
Willie: Yeah, if you just perfect block those things, it throws them back.
Taylor: Wow.
Willie: They change colors, they go to the orange color, I think, and hit them back at, at her and then she like, will eventually like, that'll stop, that'll pause her for a second. But it doesn't... I guess I never got a full run of those so I don't know if that stops the like dash attack that she does after.
Taylor: Hmm.
Joseph: Mm, that's a good question.
Willie: But it definitely, it definitely does a lot of damage.
Taylor: Damn.
Willie: Like it, it chips away a lot if you can just perfect dodge those or perfect block those and send'em back.
Taylor: What's the perfect block like on that? Just you do it right before it gets to you?
Willie: Mm-hmm.
Taylor: Okay, huh?
Willie: Same and it just like, yeah, it just shoots it right back.
Taylor: That's crazy.
Joseph: Yeah, I didn't even know.
Taylor: That's a cool mechanic.
Joseph: I didn't know you could do that until I had already finished the entire game. [Willie chuckles] And I was like, oh.
Willie: I think that might be true for me too.
Taylor: Some of the bosses I definitely went to the internet for. So, I would have liked to have found that out.
Willie: I think I only did it on the second fight. The second time I got to her.
Joseph: Mm-hmm.
Willie: I'm pretty sure.
Joseph: Even, and then also Simon Manis, like in the second phase, I didn't realize you could perfect guard the, like, wave attack.
Willie: Mm-hmm.
Taylor: Hmm.
Willie: Yeah, yeah.
Joseph: Like, I didn't know you could perfect guard that. Like, I just never even tried.
Taylor: Oh, that big wave-
Joseph: Yeah.
Taylor: -like the wind wave that he would shoot at you?
Willie: Yeah, yeah.
Joseph: Yeah.
Taylor: Oh, man, that was... Wow.
Joseph: Like, you could perfect guard that, too. And it would go back at him?
Willie: I think I mistakenly... no. It just would definitely just keep it from hitting you, but I...
Joseph: Oh, you accidentally did it.
Willie: I feel like I accidentally perfect guarded stuff all the time. 'cause my natural reaction was to get outta the way of stuff completely, and if that wasn't gonna happen, I would always just hit the button instinctively.
Taylor: Hmm.
Willie: So there was a lot of stuff that I learned just from like, just twitch reactions, just being like, fuck that.
Joseph: Right, right.
Willie: And like I would get a perfect dodge instead, or a perfect block instead.
Hmm.
Joseph: Yeah. That's a good way to learn.
Willie: Yeah.
Joseph: You know, just to kind of stumble into it.
Willie: Yeah.
Taylor: Yeah. I dodged, I very, I rarely parried. I would... every once in a while I would get some good parries and stiffen a boss or something, but 90 percent of the time I dodged everything. And I got the double dodge, I got the dodge off the ground, those additional moves just to help me dodge more, and even the take less damage when you're...
Dodging maybe?
Joseph: Oh, dodging? Yeah, yeah. I did not get the one that let you dodge off the ground. And like, there were so many times where I wish I had it.
Taylor: It was...
Joseph: Like you would get flattened.
Willie: Yeah.
Joseph: And then there would be a secondary attack that would just hit you again before you could get up. And I was just like, oh my gosh, I wish I could dodge.
Taylor: I think that's my other only small complaint is that that thing took a split second too long to kick in for me in a lot of situations.
Willie: Yeah.
Joseph: Mm.
Taylor: But also the, the Legion arm that had the shield on it, that thing would just, I would throw the controller down sometimes because it, if you didn't get it up in time, you didn't nail the timing of it-
Joseph: oh.
Taylor: -it was over. You didn't get a pseudo block, a little bit of a block, anything. You were just completely exposed, exposed to every attack and you could never get it up.
Willie: Yeah.
Joseph: Could never get it up.
Taylor: And that was, that was one thing that really got on my nerves.
Joseph: [singing] Never gonna get it up.
Taylor: Yep, exactly. That was what the boss was saying.
00:35:27
Willie: Joey, what you're saying about having not used that rising dodge, I also, for my first playthrough, didn't get it at all. And the whole time I was like, man, I wish I had that. I should get that. And then it just became like, well, there's these other things that I want, so I never got it.
Joseph: That's what happened to me.
Willie: It wasn't until the second playthrough that I was like, you know what, fuck it, I'm gonna use this because I was trying to... The cool thing about New Game Plus is that you get another phase of your P-Organ slots.
Joseph: Oh.
Willie: If you upgrade everything, it now goes past 5, it goes to 6, or it goes from 6 to 7, I don't remember.
Joseph: It's at 5, it's 5, so it must go to 6.
Taylor: Yeah.
Willie: Yeah, so it goes to 6. So there's 4 new things that you can get.
Taylor: Mm-hmm.
Joseph: Damn.
Willie: And I was trying to get that, and I do know that that continues into New Game Plus Plus as well. Like, there is a 7.
Joseph: Mm.
Taylor: Wow.
Willie: I don't think there's an 8. But, uh, yeah, so I was trying to level that. So I needed something that costed fewer. So I was, I did get the rising dodge kind of right away at the beginning. And similar to what Taylor was saying, I think that is my least favorite thing that the rising dodge, it works sometimes, but it's not as good as you hope-
Joseph: Mm.
Willie: -Because I feel like dodging off the ground sometimes just doesn't work for me. Like he just won't do it.
Taylor: Yeah.
Willie: It feels like I'm pressing the button, but it's not happening, and I press it again, and it didn't happen, and I press it again, and then he get, like, he sort of gets up, like, quicker, and I'm like, why? Why did I pay for that?
Joseph: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Willie: Sometimes it works really well, and sometimes it just feels like it doesn't for some reason.
Joseph: I wonder if it...
Willie: Not even under pressure, just like, I'm just trying to dodge off the ground, and it, it feels like it works better when you're not under pressure, so maybe there is something about timing to it. Like it has to be at the moment that you're like trying to get iframes or something out of a dodge.
Joseph: Mm-hmm.
Willie: But I don't know. I haven't quite figured out how to work that perfectly.
Joseph: Yeah. Yeah. I always liked the sound of it, but I never, never really pulled it, I never pulled the trigger on it. I don't know, I felt like the value wasn't good enough. So maybe that's why I didn't get it-
Willie: Yeah.
Joseph: -but I think it was just other things I was interested in that kind of kept distracting me away from it. And then it was like so early in the, the skill tree-
Willie: Yeah.
Joseph: -that I just kind of was like not really backtracking for anything. I think they did an amazing job with the skill tree.
Willie: Yeah.
Joseph: Giving you a ton of fucking options, but you can't unlock them all, so you're like having to make decisions about what really seems valuable for your play style.
And then I felt they also did a equally great of a job with Alidoro in how you could get an amulet or a weapon. And then you had to make a decision between that boss ergo of like which direction you wanted to go.
Taylor: Yep.
Joseph: There were so many where I just like had the hardest time deciding.
Taylor: That was another thing that pushes you to New Game Plus, is okay, now let me get the weapon version of this, or...
Willie: Yeah.
Joseph: Oh, okay, so you get the boss ergo again, so then you can get the other one?
Willie: Yeah, exactly.
Joseph: Oh, okay. That makes me feel better.
Taylor: Oh yeah. Yeah. And some of the weapons you don't want to miss.
Willie: I am playing the game a third time because I want to get the third ending. And because, because the first game I spent that, those first three bosses ergo, like on just giving ergo.
So I didn't have that to spend. So I still don't have all of the weapons and all of the amulets.
Taylor: Huh.
Willie: I need to get through the first three anyway, to... to get-
Joseph: The three missing things.
Willie: -Yeah, the three missing things. I think two of them are weapons. The other is an amulet, but I need those two weapons because it's the only other achievement I need.
I will have gotten all of the achievements if I finish again and get those three, three weapons.
Joseph: Nice.
Willie: Or two weapons.
00:38:58
Joseph: Nice. Coming back to bosses. Taylor, I think I know the answer to this for you. Who do you think is the hardest boss in the game?
Taylor: Um, I guess if you're, if we're talking about the one I had the most trouble with, I mean, clearly on New Game Plus, I... on the first playthrough, I didn't choose the right thing at the end. I actually gave my heart away. And it just ended the game with a real shitty ending.
[Joseph laughing]
Taylor: And that was another reason I had to start [Joseph still laughing] New Game Plus was because it gives you the worst ending, which is, everybody dies. [Taylor chuckles] And clearly the Nameless Puppet at the end of New Game Plus is just ridiculous. I'm sure he was, I'm sure he was also really hard at the end of the first playthrough.
But aside of him, the, the one that I had the most trouble with was the Door Guardian, because like I mentioned earlier, I, whenever you're swinging the whip around. If it's against certain enemies. You can't get hits. And he was one of those-
Joseph: Mm.
Taylor: -where his arm is ultra armored, uh, because of the crystal on it. And so anytime that you swing the whip and you hit that right arm, which is a lot of the time, it just stops you and it barely does any damage. And that guy is, has a huge health bar. So that one was really difficult.
And I just had trouble grasping his roll, that roll where he would, he would just do something, he would do an attack, and then he would set up for a second, and then he would roll at you across the thing.
Willie: Yeah.
Taylor: And the roll would do massive damage and he did an attack at the end of the role that also did massive damage. So, I think it's a tie between him and Lexasia [mispronouncing Laxasia a different way] because that one was just super hard, especially not knowing that you could-
Joseph: Deflect.
Taylor: -knock the lightning. Yeah, that would have been extremely helpful.
Joseph: Yeah, phase two of that fight was pretty damn hard.
Taylor: Oof. She's brutal.
Joseph: I am super curious now, of how difficult Nameless Puppet is in New Game Plus versus the first playthrough.
Taylor: Yeah. Yeah, I am too. That was a hard fight.
Oh, so hard, like just probably the only fight in the game, except for [mispronouncing Laxasia a different way] Laixasia, where I just had to put it down. I would try it five or six times. Okay. It didn't work. Even towards the end, I was only doing it three times.
And then I would head back to grand exhibition and, and stack up XP. I don't know if y'all did that, but that was a great farming place, in the second part of grand exhibition-
Willie: Uh-uh.
Taylor: -where you were in the crossroads and you can go, and there were the cleaning robots that were terrifying if you let them go off on move sets. [Willie chuckles] But you could just go there and clean out right where you start at the stargazer, you're looking at that giant puppet-
Joseph: Mmm.
Taylor: -whatever those were called. If you went straight behind him.
Joseph: Puppet of the Future.
Taylor: Yeah, Puppet of the Future, if you went right behind him, there were two long sword gentlemen-
Joseph: Mm-hmm.
Taylor: And then there was also one cleaning bot and you could go with the Puppet String fully upgraded. You could take the two sword guys down with one puppet string each by flying up in the air and coming down on them.
That would just destroy them and then you could, if you had, you know, just a move set up, you could Puppet String that cleaning bot twice and it took them both out or took it out, um, in two and then just run, rinse and repeat. On New Game Plus, I think it was nine or 10, 000 ergo for that run-
Joseph: Damn.
Taylor: -and you can do it in about, yeah, you can do it about 45 seconds.
Joseph: Gosh.
Taylor: Yeah, that was, that was where, I mean, I, right now my level is 170, I think, or 170 something.
Joseph: Do you know what your level is, Willie?
Willie: Yeah, yeah. Let me see. It is 179.
Joseph: Dang.
Taylor: Nice.
Joseph: Mine is 91.
Willie: So I tried looking up, I don't know what my actual play time was for the first game because I thought I had a screenshot of it somewhere, and I don't, but I know it was like 72 hours or something like that. It was pretty long.
Joseph: I think that's like, right what mine was.
Willie: I was a level, I was level 94, uh, at the end of the game.
Taylor: Sounds about right.
Willie: And it was like 72 hours, I'm pretty sure.
Joseph: Mine says 74 hours and I was level 91. And then, um, yeah, what did I say? I was sitting on like 117, 000 ergo in my inventory.
Willie: Yeah.
Taylor: Eesh.
[Joseph laughs]
Joseph: I considered spending it all like on the Nameless Puppet fight. I'm just like, I'm just going to level up-
Yeah.
Yeah.
Willie: The ridiculous thing is, that's only like 10 levels.
Joseph: I know. That's why I wasn't like all that [Willie chuckles] concerned about spending it all in one go.
Taylor: Why are you hoarding that ergo?
Joseph: What's up?
Taylor: Ergo. I said, why are you hoarding your ergo?
Joseph: I was using it to top off. Like, when I was close to leveling up and I needed like 3000.
Taylor: Ah.
Joseph: I would use it to top off.
Taylor: Yeah, that makes sense.
Joseph: Cause I wasn't really farming. I was just using that ergo to kind of make up the difference. Like when I was either at the hotel or I was somewhere I could level up, or it made sense to go back and level up before losing the ergo.
Taylor: It ain't much.
Joseph: I would just use it to top off or for upgrading weapons or, you know, buying grindstones and stuff like that.
00:43:58
Taylor: Yep, yep. Yeah, it did feel good to have 50, 50k and not really need to level up and just go spend it all on, uh, firebombs or whatever you might need for whatever boss fight.
Joseph: And that's the thing, like, I think that's why I had so much ergo is because I wasn't buying consumables.
Taylor: Mm.
Joseph: Like, I wasn't using them, like-
Willie: Yeah.
Taylor: That'd do it.
Joseph: -I used two saw blades, two saw blades. And I think it's the only thing I used in a boss fight as a consumable or throwable.
Taylor: Hmm. Those were nice.
Joseph: Dude.
Taylor: The throwables were all super helpful.
Joseph: I didn't know.
Taylor: Incredibly helpful.
Joseph: I didn't know the saw blades did that kind of like repetitive damage.
Taylor: Yeah.
Willie: Yeah.
Taylor: If you do, if you use the, my favorite combo of throwables was the saw blades, the pipe and the, um, and the shot put.
Joseph: What did the pipe do? The pipe seemed useless.
Willie: It's just quick throw and like...
Joseph: Yeah, okay.
Taylor: Yeah, it was just a quick throw. And it was, you could catch them if you needed to put distance between you and somebody, um, like Manus-
Joseph: Mm.
Taylor: You could go over there and it had a really good range on it, uh, further than the-
Joseph: Oh.
Taylor: -Falcon Eyes, I believe. So it was like full range. You didn't, you know, the Falcon Eyes, you would shoot it from too far-
Willie: Yeah.
Taylor: -and it would just explode and nothing would happen.
Willie: Yeah.
Taylor: That was, that was definitely annoying.
Joseph: Oh, that sucks.
Taylor: That was...
Willie: That, I wish, was one of the upgrades for that arm-
Taylor: Yeah.
Willie: -Would have been nice to have a range on that.
Taylor: Yeah, because, like, it doesn't make any sense that I can throw the saw blade or the pipe across the map and hit somebody and it works-
Willie: But this projectile doesn't. [chuckles]
Taylor: But not the Falcon Eyes. Yeah, I appreciate What they could have done in my opinion only is that if it hit them and exploded, maybe just do less damage. And if they're closer and it does the hit explode, it does more damage. And then closest that sticks to them and does the normal thing. There must've been some reason, maybe you could just cheese people too much like that-
Willie: Yeah.
Taylor: -or something, but I don't know.
Willie: That reminded me, I've seen someone doing the boss fights with nothing but the, the arms, [Joseph chuckles] they got the upgrade. I think they were on New Game Plus Plus because I think they had three arms equipped-
Taylor: Oh, man.
Willie: Which means I think that phase seven is probably going to add a new-
Joseph: Oh.
Willie: -Legion arm slot because that's in six...
In phase six of the P-Organ upgrades, there's a like, add an additional weapon. So you can have three weapons equipped instead of just two,
Joseph: Hmm.
Willie: Which I would never do-
Taylor: No. Never use more than one. [laughs]
Willie: -because I never use more than one- [laughs]
Joseph: Hell no, dude. [laughs]
Willie: I never use more than one weapon.
Taylor: Who's doing that?
Willie: But, uh, I saw someone playing with, I'm pretty sure it was three legion arms and they were-
Joseph: Damn.
Willie: -just doing boss fights with nothing but legion arms.
Joseph: Just swapping between'em?
Yeah,
Willie: and swapping between...
Taylor: And when you swap though, you, it doesn't, it's not like each one has its amount of legion, right?
Willie: No.
Taylor: You're still all...
How?!
Willie: I assume that there's also more upgrades for the like, either, so you can upgrade your consumables to be more effective, right, so that the legion magazine would add more to your legion bar, but also you can just level your legion bar so it's really big, right, you can just, if you up your capacity it also upgrades how much legion you have, and Advanced also affects that.
Joseph: Mm-hmm.
Willie: I assume they just put a bunch of points into their... -
Joseph: In Advanced probably.
Willie: -In Advanced or Capacity. Cause it will, both upgrade the Legion arm.
Joseph: Right, right.
Taylor: You just reminded me of my other annoyance in there. And that is that on the New Game Plus some things have a plus by them, right? Like, uh, like it's a newer version. Okay.
I got a, I think it was the poison staff, like the poison pokey staff that you get. That one for whatever reason had plus zero on it. A lot of the other weapons did not. And so I got that and I said, Oh, this must be the new game plus version of it. Let me go ahead and upgrade it. See what it does. Fully upgraded it all the way to 10 and it was the exact same fucking weapon, exact same, same stats everywhere.
That really annoyed me because I used a full moonstone to do that and those things are precious
Willie: [chuckles] Yeah.
Taylor: And those are super valuable. [Joseph chuckles] And uh, I was just pissed, man. And it made me, it suddenly made me realize that I was mad that one, that they were so like, just kind of hit and miss on the plus things. Um, so you really had to pay attention to what you're doing and two, it took me back to the not having an information...
You know what I mean? Like, uh, in the Dark Souls, you have a press Y and it breaks down and shows you every bit of information about every single aspect of the, of the character page. And this one didn't have anything like that, which I really wish. That was a moment that I get super pissed that they didn't have that because that maybe it would have saved me.
And I don't know if that was a bug or what, because I didn't get a lot of, or any weapons that had a plus on them whenever I went to Eugenie-
Willie: Yeah.
Taylor: -And that one did for some reason-
Joseph: Hmm?
Taylor: -But man, it pissed me off. [chuckles] I mean, those, those Full Moonstones, you basically get a certain amount of them and then you have to go to New Game Plus to start getting more of them so, I don't know, that would be one thing I would love to see them add in in the future is have an information guide.
Willie: What I will say about New Game Plus that is a little disappointing is that I didn't need to use many of the, any of the plus items like any of the like amulets that drop that are plus I used but the like the frame, or the the cartridges, or the converters, or anything. Like they're almost not worth it at all, until the very very end of the game they might be but like if you just have the most leveled version of the shock cartridge or the whatever converter-
Taylor: Yeah.
Willie: -or resistance thing, like or the best frame that you can have for the from the first round.
Taylor: Yeah.
Willie: You don't ever need to upgrade, ever-
Taylor: Naw.
Willie: -until you get to the end of the game and get that same one again, that's plus one.
Taylor: And usually they would just add a little weight is what I noticed.
Willie: Exactly.
Taylor: Like, okay, here's a little more protection, but also you're heavier. Well, crap. I, my whole capacity is set-
Willie: Yeah.
Taylor: -You know, to my current build. Yeah.
Willie: None of the like armor upgrades felt important until the very end of the game, in New Game Plus.
Taylor: Agreed.
Willie: I just ran the entire setup that I had at the end of the first game.
Joseph: Mm-hmm.
Taylor: If it makes you feel any better by the end of New Game Plus I, um, I used all those,
Willie: Yeah, no. I did too. I did too.
Taylor: I used the plus ones and it still didn't help me enough.
You know I had to...
[Joseph and Willie laugh] Because then I was like, oh, well now I gotta, I gotta farm more so that I could raise my capacity more and-
Willie: Yeah.
Taylor: Nah, I would like to see a lot more out of that. So unless you guys have anything else to talk about or whatever you think we could talk about [dog barking in background] that ending. Oh. Let me turn...go....
Joseph: Woof, woof, woof, woof, woof.
Taylor: Yeah. Yep. Hang tight.
00:50:25
Joseph: So, Willie, I don't think, um, you talked about what you thought was the hardest boss in the game.
Willie: I think it might have been the Nameless Puppet, uh, and maybe, [chuckles] maybe it's pre patch Andreus, but I don't know.
Joseph: Mm.
Willie: I don't know how to say that, cause that was the, that was definitely, that was the first boss that kept me held up for a long time.
Joseph: Mm hmm.
Willie: And then the patch came out within that timeframe and I beat it like, relatively quickly after that.
Joseph: Right, right. Yeah, I remember.
Willie: It still wasn't like first try, or second try-
Joseph: Mm-hmm.
Willie: -or even third try, probably like it was, it still took some time. That might have been the hardest boss just because it was like the first one that stepped up in difficulty.
Joseph: Right.
Willie: And maybe because it was the first one that had a second phase, you know,
Joseph: Hmm.
Willie: So there was just so much more health.
Joseph: Mm-hmm. A pretty difficult perfect guard-
Willie: Yeah.
Joseph: -when then, when it drops down on top of you.
Willie: Yeah.
Joseph: I had so much trouble timing that correctly. Like, and I got hit by it so many times.
Willie: I didn't have trouble with that. I always felt like I got fucked up in the Andreus fight because of the, in the second phase when he would do the, like, blast. I would never be far enough away or know what to do, or the camera would fuck up.
Joseph: Mm.
Willie: Like, I would be locked on and try to run away, but I would be running under his legs instead or something.
Joseph: Yeah, like go in a circle.
Willie: Yeah, and it was like, I would just get fucked up by that, because there's... I also wasn't trying to perfect guard that one and I should have been.
Joseph: Mm.
Taylor: Yeah, perfect guard was way more of a tool than I ever expected, especially hearing about the stuff that I missed on it.
Willie: Yeah.
Taylor: I feel like that's one of the main hidden aspects of the game, is how powerful that thing is.
Willie: I think the coolest thing about the perfect guard is just like when you break people's weapons, like the, now I'm going to try to think of how you actually say her name.
Is it-
Taylor: Luxasia? [mispronouncing Laxasia a new way]
Willie: Laxasia, [mispronouncing Laxasia in a different way] I think is what it actually is. I can't remember. I heard her say it-
Taylor: So you can break boss weapons?
Willie: So yeah, but on her-
Taylor: Woah.
Willie: -you can break her shield. So in the second phase, her shield is not as effective and it's different looking
Taylor: Woah.
Willie: The sides of the shield, just like break off. And so she's just holding like a thin gold plate of metal.
Joseph: Mm-hmm.
Taylor: Wow. Huh.
Joseph: A lot of the boss weapons you can break, it just takes a lot of perfect guards.
Willie: Mm hmm.
Taylor: Wow.
Joseph: Or if you want to reduce the number, you need that like, destructive,-
Taylor: Right.
Joseph: -Enhanced perfect guard destruction from the skill tree.
Taylor: Yeah, and if you combine that with the stiffness, that was really good. Cause I did notice the stiffness-
Joseph: Oh, damn. I wanted...
Taylor: -would slow them down for just a moment and a lot of times, that was exactly what you needed, was that one moment where they hit. And they still are going their, their normal routine, but it's just a slight bit slower-
Joseph: Mmm.
Taylor: For like a second or two. It's not, it's not much.
Joseph: I was wondering how that worked out. I wanted that one, but I never got it.
Willie: I did. I got it. And I wasn't as impressed with the first time around, but I did, I did notice it. And even in that Nameless Puppet fight, it does give you some like moments where he's like stops and pauses for a second that gives you a chance to heal or gives you a chance to like-
Taylor: Mm-hmm.
Willie: -do anything else you need to do before you start attacking again or before you start getting attacked again.
Joseph: Mm-hmm.
Taylor: His timing is insane. That's what gets me. That's why I have a lot of trouble with him is, the delay on all of his, he's like the ultimate puppet. We had talked about that in our first episode on this, how basically the puppet aspect of them, it made them slower. Like it, it was like a automaton would be, Hey, I'm going to swing this thing.
Ooh, I got to build up the swing. And here it comes. And instead of just your typical skeleton from souls or something, they're just hitting, they're swinging. It's, it's... I don't know, his timing really got me.
Willie: Yeah.
Joseph: Dude, this game is the master of fucking mixing it up, man.
Taylor: Yeah. Yes it is.
Joseph: The delays and the... So good.
Willie: Yeah. The delays are really good and I think it's funny how much they fit, especially even on just some of the random enemies that have... That are puppets-
Joseph: Mm-hmm.
Willie: -and they just move in weird ways and I said this during that other episode. It feels like, yeah that's exactly how they would swing-
Taylor: Yeah.
Willie: -because they're like trying to move their parts that are like not quite connected to their body. Or they're, like, you know, they feel like they're falling apart and they're just trying to build up enough energy to like make this attack at you.
Taylor: I can't imagine how much work it took to make them like that. And the style, I don't know if we touched on that, but the style, um, Joey shared a, a video, a 50 minute movie of Pinocchio [Joseph laughs] from when 1911?
Joseph: 1911.
Taylor: And it was wild. It blew my mind. I only watched maybe five or 10 minutes of it. But still, the styles and everything, that is clearly where they drew the aesthetics from on this, right?
Joseph: Who knows, man.
Willie: It's definitely early 1900s for sure, because I think they s... say somewhere that it's, what's it called?
Joseph: I think the game is 1800s.
Willie: I think it's the... Belle Epoch era, which is considered like late 1800s.
Taylor: Okay, and into the early 1900s basically. So, well, style wise anyways, like what people are wearing, I'm guessing.
Willie: Where does it end?
Taylor: Cause like the, the light flowy white shirt that, that was in the movie, um, very much like the one that Carlo wears.
Willie: Yeah, I'm looking at, um, that real fast just on Wikipedia, of course, but, uh, considered to begin around 1871 to 1880. So anywhere in that time frame is the beginning, but it ends with the outbreak of World War I in 1914.
Taylor: That makes sense.
Joseph: Mm.
Willie: It's that entire time frame.
Taylor: Well, I, I just thought it was so cool to see, wow, this is a, this is a movie that really encapsulates [Joseph chuckles] exactly the aesthetic that they were doing with all of this, and...
00:55:55
Taylor: Oh, one thing we haven't touched on as well, uh, Geppetto, and such a creep. [Joseph and Willie laugh] Such a creep throughout this entire thing.
Willie: Throughout the entire game he felt like a creep.
Taylor: I mean the whole, I knew it-
Joseph: You knew something sketch was going on.
Taylor: -I knew it was gonna happen and I still did the wrong thing at the end, he was... [as Geppetto] "Carlo, my boy, I can't tell you how much of a good boy you are. Please be a good boy for me. Come back, good boy." What the fuck are you talking about? I'm like 15, man. [all laughing]
Joseph: Oh, so was it all the good, the good boy talk that felt creepy?
Taylor: Yeah, like it was too much, it was way too much.
Willie: Yeah, it did. It did feel real fucking weird.
Joseph: It was part... the delivery too.
Taylor: Yes. Yeah. Nice and slow. And like, I've never had such a good boy.
Joseph: Good, good boy.
Taylor: Yeah. Good, good boy.
Willie: Dude, there's a line that's real fucked up after that King of Puppets fight, knowing what's going on the second time around, where he says, I'm glad you're safe. I was so scared I would lose my precious son, right after you fight the King of Puppets, and he's just standing behind that. And it's like, oh, you were afraid that I was going to die and you wouldn't get to resurrect your son.
Joseph: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Taylor: Right.
Willie: That's real fucked up. [chuckles]
Taylor: The worst of it comes when you're fighting Nameless Puppet and like the, you know. I, I've obviously have faced him so many times now trying to, [Joseph laughs] trying to topple that. [Willie laughs]
Joseph: You got it memorized.
Taylor: Dude, there were a lot. And sometimes you would die. The puppet would just crouch over you and he'd be like-
Joseph: Yeah.
Taylor: Oh good. I thought I was losing you, my precious Carlo and all these different.
Joseph: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Taylor: Real creepy, real creepy stuff.
Joseph: Yeah, dude this...
00:57:27
Taylor: But I wanted to ask you guys about the ending because I, I just am wondering, like, we're getting towards the end of this. I want to hear what y'all think about what may be to come or what, what's next.
Willie: The part that sucks about this is I don't have enough time to go into all of-
Taylor: Right.
Willie: -the lore and stuff that I like, actually want to talk about too. So I don't know if that's a whole nother episode, but I-
Taylor: I think it could be.
Willie: -I have been collecting a bunch of stuff from my play through and recording. So like I literally might be making videos on this shit because-
Taylor: I think we should do a whole nother episode
Willie: -I'm so into the story.
Joseph: Mm-hmm.
Taylor: Yeah.
Willie: It's very convoluted in some ways. And there's some stuff that I still don't quite understand the timeline of, but regarding the ending, what was your actual question?
Taylor: So, I'm just wondering, cause, so we, uh, Joey, I mean, you don't mind us talking about this, or have you finished it completely?
Joseph: I, I know it all.
Taylor: Okay, okay, just, uh, Dorothy, like, I wanna know...
Willie: Sure.
Taylor: What we're thinking, like...
Joseph: Yeah, I got to the game, dude, so I saw that.
Taylor: Okay, okay, so you, do you think that she is going to... Are we going to play as her?
Joseph: I fucking hope so.
Willie: Yeah, I think so, for sure.
Taylor: I do to. Oh my god, I hope so.
Willie: I'm pretty sure we will. And I don't know if that's going to be DLC or if that's going to be a whole new game. Like, obviously I think there's room for a whole new game.
Taylor: Man.
Willie: But I also know, not even from leaks and stuff, but like there were job postings when this game was like being worked on that like included DLC for this game.
Joseph: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Willie: And moreover, I think. The, what makes me think is there's going to be DLC is literally just one stargazer in the game that you can't use.
Joseph: Oh right.
Willie: That I feel like belongs to Dorothy.
Taylor: Oh yeah.
Willie: Like, I feel like that's her way of traveling around.
Joseph: Mm-hmm.
Yeah, yeah.
Taylor: Oh, I forgot about that.
Willie: I tried using the Flamberge and like, burning off the vines [Joseph laughs] and shit off of it.
Taylor: Yeah.
Willie: Trying to like figure out if I could use it.
Taylor: How weird was that? Did you ever look it up or anything? Did anybody have any info?
Joseph: No, I went back to it multiple times and was never able to use it.
Taylor: Huh.
Joseph: But I never tried looking anything up about it.
Willie: Yeah.
Taylor: So weird.
Joseph: But I assume if it still doesn't work in like New Game Plus and Plus Plus that it's probably something to come in the future.
Willie: Yeah.
Taylor: I thought it was going to be a challenge portal. Like I figured it was going to be something where, hey if-
Willie: That would be cool.
Taylor: Yeah, you go through it. And now, so maybe, we'll speculate right now, I think that that is going to be a challenge portal where they're going to add in some DLC that is challenges and stuff, because the story with Carlo seems like it's over, to me.
That seems like it's done, which one thing I was expecting and hoping to see is a whale, either you going inside a whale or something like that. And maybe that's just not part of that story.
Joseph: The submarine, bro.
Taylor: Oh, yeah, I guess the submarine, but eh, I don't know.
Joseph: Are you saying that from like the original Adventures of Pinocchio, like you wanted to see a shark?
Taylor: Yeah, something like that. Isn't that what happened, like he gets eaten by a whale?
Joseph: Mm hmm.
Taylor: Okay.
Joseph: It's a shark.
Taylor: Oh, it's a shark? I remember that as a whale.
Willie: That's the, the-
Joseph: Naw, it might be a dogfish.
Willie: -Disney cartoon. It's a dogfish head-
Taylor: That's the Disney. Oh, okay. -
Willie: Is the thing, is what it is, but-
Taylor: Huh.
Willie: I think the whale might be in the Disney one, but it is a dogfish for sure.
Taylor: Okay. All right, well...
Joseph: He gets swallowed up and that's where he finds fucking Geppetto, dude.
Taylor: Okay.
Joseph: [chuckles] Geppetto's been living in there for two years.
[all laugh]
01:00:38
Taylor: I got to go back to that movie I guess with the kiddo at some point, but I think Dorothy is amazing. I, it would suck because of the wait, but it'd be worth it. I think it'd be cool if that is its own game-
Joseph: Yeah.
Willie: Yeah.
Taylor: -and it's now Dorothy, Yellow Brick Road because that, as everybody knows, that's watched the second Wizard of Oz. [Willie chuckles] Oh my God. Return to Oz. That's ripe with amazing stuff going on in there that could be creepy and.
Joseph: I saw some interesting stuff about somebody, there's somebody with the channel that's been doing videos just about this game, and has made a connection between Paracelsus and the Mad Hatter-
Willie: Nice.
Joseph: -and if they make a connection to Alice in Wonderland,
Willie: Yeah.
Joseph: Dude, this, that is fucking ripe.
Taylor: Amazing.
Willie: I mean, we said that in the beginning, I think of the like demo or in the demo conversation-
Joseph: Oh, right.
Willie: -We're talking about what other things would be so cool to see.
Joseph: Yeah.
Willie: And I think Alice in Wonderland was like the thing that would be-
Taylor: Oh, man.
Joseph: Yeah.
Willie: -that obviously makes the most sense.
Taylor: Oh, I can already see it.
Willie: 'Cause the enemies are just like.
Taylor: Oh, Queen of Hearts and like-
Willie: Yeah, yeah.
Taylor: Oh, man, that would be...
Joseph: That's what this person was speculating is, that that's who Paracelsus was on the phone with was the Queen of Hearts.
Taylor: Woah.
Willie: I don't have a theory about that, but I did notice in the credits-
Taylor: Woah.
Willie: -that there's someone who's credited as the Eternals, I think. Their name is called Eternals
Joseph: Eternals?
Taylor: Huh.
Willie: And it's a woman's voice... actor-
Joseph: Mm.
Taylor: Hmm.
Willie: -As far as I know, just by the name alone, but I would describe the person who was on the phone with Paracelsus, I think is his name, was a woman's voice, sounded, sounded like a feminine voice, and I think that might-
Taylor: Oh.
Willie: -be that voice actor, but I'm not sure,
Joseph: Hmm.
Willie: But they were just labeled in the credits as Eternals.
Taylor: Whoa, maybe there's a vision beyond-
Willie: And I was like, Damn.
Taylor: -Maybe somebody is behind each of these fairytale type stories. That's like a fourth wall or something beyond all of them.
Willie: Yeah.
Taylor: Because you think Eternals, like I don't think of anything from Wizard of Oz that you would consider an Eternal, right?
Joseph: I don't know. I have not seen that enough times.
Willie: No, and that's the thing about this game that does, it's like, it has a lot of characters. It has so many characters from the adventures of Pinocchio, from the original story. Like there's so many parallels or analogs, but they do so much with the lore that makes it so different and so weird.
Joseph: Mm-hmm.
Willie: That it's like, it could be anything, man.
Joseph: Yeah.
Willie: It's really cool what they've done with that.
Joseph: For the most part, it almost seems like they're just using names.
Willie: Right.
Joseph: They're just using names from the story and then it's like...
Willie: But there are really cool parallels, right?
Joseph: Yeah, that's true.
Willie: Like the Black Cat and The Fox are in the story. They are disabled, right? Like the... Cat-
Joseph: Is going blind, yeah.
Willie: Is going blind, right? And that is the thing and they are trying to trick Pinocchio out of his money, right?
Joseph: Mm-hmm.
Taylor: Huh.
Willie: And that's what they're doing in the game, right? They're asking you for gold coin fruit and it's to heal him because he's like going blind and he's-
Joseph: Going blind, yup.
Taylor: Huh.
Willie: -There are a lot of cool parallels with the original story.
Taylor: That was a cool beat by the way, like when you go to that kid, the first time I didn't have any coin fruit, I didn't know that I was coming up on that-
Willie: Yeah.
Taylor: -didn't know what the deal was, and I didn't have any, so I had to fight him, and kill him, and then the second time, I knew, always keep some coin fruit, [Joseph chuckles] because as soon as that part hits. I got to have some, and it was only one, it's just one coin fruit to completely.
Willie: Yeah. Here's a thing I need to say before we have to wrap this up, and I know we have to go, but like, in like, thinking about this game a lot, I did end up reading something on Reddit that I thought was super interesting. I'm gonna credit this person, their name is, their username is Hexcellent.
Taylor: Nice.
Willie: And they were talking about the whole, the meaning, the story, the name of the game being Lies of P. Someone was like, this is a play on words, like on the Korean, on the Korean language. They were like, the Korean word for blood is this character. And they like wrote it out. I can't describe it, but they said it's pronounced exactly like the Latin letter P.
Taylor: Huh.
Willie: So like the game can be interpreted as Lies of Blood. And it also makes it make sense that the P-Organ is the Blood Organ, which is your heart. [chuckles]
Taylor: Oh, right.
Willie: So like, it's very possible that it was a pun all along too.
Joseph: Mm-hmm.
Willie: Like it not does it, it only doesn't represent like Puppet or Pinocchio. It could be, blood. It could be, you know, for all we know, it could be Paracelsus, right?
Joseph: Mm-hmm.
Taylor: Wow.
Willie: It could even be, I'm pretty sure his name is Pistris.
Joseph: Yeah, Simon..
Willie: Uh, Simon Pistris. Yeah, Simon's...
Joseph: Yeah, yeah.
Willie: It could be Lies of Pistris or Pistris, however you say it, actually.
Joseph: Mm-hmm.
Willie: The fact that it also has that Lies of Blood possibility-
Joseph: That's pretty sick.
Willie: -in there is pretty cool.
Taylor: It's amazing. I want more. [laughing]
Joseph: Yeah, dude. [laughs]
Willie: Yeah.
Taylor: That's the main thing I've got to say about this is, I want more.
Willie: Yeah.
Taylor: Like that was my biggest complaints is, more.
Joseph: Uh-huh..
Taylor: I just want more of this. It's a fantastic game.
[Outro theme begins to fade in - Caribbean Arcade by Christian Nanzell]
Willie: I know we need to wrap up. So do we come back to this later at some point?
Joseph: I think so, I think so.
Willie: I feel like there's so much lore here that we haven't talked about and so many connections, to talk about.
Taylor: Yeah.
Joseph: Mm-hmm.
Willie: But, um, yeah, I think that says it. We'll come back to this for sure in the future real soon.
Taylor: Yeah.
Willie: We do appreciate you listening to all of this and, uh, definitely be ready for more. Go play yourself, and then be ready to join this conversation, and figure out what's going on in this story.
Joseph: Heck yeah.
Taylor: That's right. Get your hands on your P-Organ, ASAP.
Joseph: Yeah, stretch it out, stretch it out.
Taylor: Yeah, stretch out your P-Organ as much as you can.
[Outro theme continues - Caribbean Arcade by Christian Nanzell]
01:05:44
Joseph: Berries and Blades is an independent podcast created by Joseph Bullard, Willie Garza and Taylor Garratt. Thanks for tuning in, and consider subscribing if you enjoyed listening to this episode. You can also support us by telling your friends about the show, and we hope to see you in the next episode of Berries and Blades. Until then, thanks again.
[Outro theme fades out - Caribbean Arcade by Christian Nanzell]
Taylor: [singing in the style of Michael Jackson's Thriller] Signal, signal, signal.
Just a signal.
A signal if you know it's just a better, better signal than you.
Joseph: Wait, what was that? What was that in the rhythm of [whistles] Michael Jackson?
Taylor: Yeah.
[Joseph whistles melody]
Joseph: Yeah. [Joseph whistles melody again]
Taylor: [singing in the style of Michael Jackson's thriller] It's a thriller.
Joseph: [Singing in the style of Michael Jackson's thriller] It's the signal. Signal. [humming]
Taylor: [singing in the style of Michael Jackson's Thriller] Think I hear the AC in the background, background, background. [Joseph and Willie laughing]