Geek to Geek Podcast

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Games & Hobbies
**Geek to Geek Podcast**

Not your typical “2 geeks talking”, Geek to Geek has weekly discussions on gaming and geek culture. We don’t do toxic, salt, or nerdrage because we want to be a safe, positive online geek space.

We want to talk about being adults with families, jobs, and responsibilities while still making time for the things we love. We respect your time, so our show is structured and topical. No 3-hour rants here!

So whether you love Nintendo, Final Fantasy, the MCU, Star Wars, Pokemon, Magic the Gathering, Dragon Quest, Spider-Man, jRPGs, or something else entirely…come geek out with us.

Latest Episodes:

S4E30 - Fire Emblem Three Houses Initial Impressions - "No one believes in democracy here" Aug 01, 2019

Show notes

In This Episode:

Fire Emblem: Three Houses is a turn-based strategy RPG, but it's also totally a game like Persona where it's just as much about relationships on a one to one level as it is about the battles
First time I've played FE not on a handheld system
- Radiant Dawn?
- There hasn't been one since the Fire Emblem on the Nintendo Wii
Premise
- Kingdom of Fargus?
- Lester Alliance?
- Something Empire?
- Edelgard
- Dimitri
- Claude
- Three countries on this continent
- There's a monastery in neutral ground in the middle of the continent that happens to be the seat of the church and also the training ground for officers from all the different countries
- The 3 houses in the school correspond to the 3 countries on the continent
- This year is special because future leaders from each country are all studying at the monastery at the same time
- You end up there kind of by accident but they make you a professor and you have to pick a house to instruct
Houses
- Blue Lions - Kingdom
- Golden Deer - Alliance of Nobles
- Black Eagles - Empire
- No, they don't believe in democracy here
No weapon triangle (sword, lance, axe)
- This is probably the biggest initial change to adjust to
Quality of Life improvements in battles
- It's so much easier to make sure your characters don't end up somewhere that they'll get killed because you misjudged distance by one square on the grid
- It's limited to only a few times per battle
- But, you can rewind time to any point in the battle
- - Most of the time I've used it I only rewind one turn but you could rewind multiple turns if you realized you made a critical mistake 3 or 5 or 10 turns ago
  - Saves you from replaying entire battles
- It's much more clear about which enemies will attack which ones of your characters before you commit to a movement
- Battle forecasts are a little more clear but there's still room for variance with hit % and crit %
- Divine pulse lets you rewind time
Characters are much more customizable than in past games
- Beginner classes you need to be level 5 and then maybe have a "D" rank in a weapon type related to that class
- Intermediate classes you generally need level 10 and then maybe a "C" rank in something related to that class
- Etc
- "Focus area" pick two abilities for each character for when you're auto progressing through the week.
- Individual instruction
- - Manually pick from abilities but you can get bonuses if you (as the instructor) are skilled in that skill or if the student has natural talent for that skill.
- Group Projects
  - Flying, heavy armour, etc
- - Can focus on a few things that are hard to level up otherwise
  - Also makes their support levels go up for anyone in the group
- Classes, skills battalions, training focus
- Class system is all about taking exams based on the skills a character has + their level
- Characters are super customizable because you are their professor and get to have them focus in whatever area you want
Game structure / school
- Monthly - main mission
- Weekly
  - Explore
  - Seminar
  - Battle
  - Rest
- - Lesson planning
  - One day each week you get to pick what to do completely
- Daily
- - Random events
- So much Persona DNA and I love it
- School / class / calendar structure
So much to do in "Explore" mode
- Have tea
- Have a meal
- Cook
- Choir Practice
- Tournaments
- Wander around the monastery
- Talk to everyone
- Find lost items and return them
- Answer mystery letters
- Give gifts
- One on one time with characters
- Do one on one training with instructors
- Essentially, you're building up your relationship ranks and having meaningful interactions with people from all three houses plus the instructors and church leaders
Things I've barely scratched the surface of but will report back on
- Unique back half of the game for each house / political entity
- If you have the stats? Or the support level? Or both?
- Battalions
- Blacksmith
- Relics
- Time Jump
- Recruiting non-house characters
- Advanced classes
- I don't think I have any one on one relationships above a C rank yet, so there's a ton more there to dig into as well
I like this game a lot already. I'm only ~9 hours in and I barely have scratched the surface but I also wouldn't be surprised if this ends up as one of my top games of the year.
- This game is so much of what I like in so many ways

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Weekly Geekery

Beej
- DQB2
  - Finished the game, took about 55 hours to finish the main story, I think.
  - The third island is...ew. Far too long, too much combat (and I tend to enjoy the battles), the environment is bleak and not even fun to explore, and the characters are kind of meh.
- - All in all, it drags an amazing game down a notch, but I powered through it.
  - Still haven't done co-op. Can't wait to.
  - Main goal: reconstruct my Ultima Online houses
- Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3
- - Had no camera issues in co-op. Was it because I already had it on Heroic?
  - Jennifer likes it, but it's a small-bursts game for her, understandably.
Void
- Sky
- - Basically a spiritual successor to Journey but on smartphones
  - Feels a lot more directionless than Journey

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Music by CarboHydroM

S4E29 - Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3 & SDCC MCU Reveals - "Yes, we are recommending a bad game because it's great" Jul 25, 2019

Show notes

In This Episode:

We go in-depth on Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3, covering the good and the bad and recommending it all the same. But here's the thing: it's not a very good game, mechanically. But it's a lot of fun and we are loving it, and we think you should play it.

It's junk food. It's like eating movie theater candy. You know it's not great, but you are absolutely loving the experience.

It's a great low key co-op couch game, but neither of us have played it online co-op. We want to. It just hasn't happened yet. Beej loves it on single-player, but despite having a ton of replayability, a NG+ (and NG++), and more, the real replayability comes in with being able to sit down beside someone and smash stuff.

The Marvel skin goes a long way toward enjoying the game. While it's a fun game on its own, the Marvel skin really ups the appeal. If this were a traditional beat-em-up, it'd be a quick bounce. With the built-in investment, it is a complete and total blast to play.

The gameplay itself is a pretty unpolished, which surprises us because of the press and hype prior to the launch. Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3 is a solid game in many ways, but we do have nits to pick.

Here's a quick list:

Shared xp between characters not in your party
Better difficulty ramps with less spikes. It gets absurdly hard with no warning.
Better camera. Just...better. Please.
Clearer identification of what's happening on the screen. It gets so chaotic at times, you have no choice but to button mash and pray.
Save character progress when you fail (you have to replay entire sections, and lose XP)
More seamlessly integrated challenge mode. The Infinity Rifts and Infinity Challenges reset the game when you enter/exit.
Better UI all around. Make the buttons do what you think they're going to do.
More interesting upgrades. Right now, it's straight-up stat upgrades.

We do feel that a lot of these issues can be addressed in patches or DLC. Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3 is under a week old as of this episode, and a lot can change.

While MUA3 falls solidly into the trop of "we're paying to beta test a game," we are both still playing the game despite all this, and really having a great time.

Heck, Beej even went out and paid for the DLC season pass within an hour or two despite all this because he likes it so much.

Take that for what you will.

Both of us fall on the side of having similar tastes in heroes, too. Void runsSpider-Gwen, Scarlet Witch, Ms. Marvel, and Venom, abd Beej loves Spider-Gwen, Captain Marvel, and Deadpool, with Ms. Marvel, Spider-Man, and Venom alternating in for the fourth sloth.

MCU Roadmap from SDCC 2019

We also recap all the MCU announcements from SDCC and discuss the parts we're geeking out about the most!

May 1, 2020 – Black Widow (theaters)
Fall 2020 – The Falcon and the Winter Soldier (Disney+)
November 6, 2020 – The Eternals (theaters)
February 21, 2021 – Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (theaters)
Spring 2021 – WandaVision (Disney+)
Spring 2021 – Loki (Disney+)
May 7, 2021 – Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (theaters)
Summer 2021 – What If...? (Disney+)
Fall 2021 – Hawkeye (Disney+)
November 5, 2021 – Thor: Love and Thunder (theaters)
February 18, 2022 – Untitled Project
May 6, 2022 – Untitled Project
July 29, 2022 – Untitled Project

Thor 4 with Taika Waititi & Natalie Portman

Black Widow movie villain will be Taskmaster

Although they don't have dates yet, Feige revealed Marvel is working on sequels to Captain Marvel, Black Panther, and Guardians of the Galaxy.

A Fantastic Four film will be introduced in phase four, and so will Blade

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We are always looking to add new tiers for patrons, so if there's something you would like to see, let us know!

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Music by CarboHydroM

S4E28 - Tabletop RPGs in 2019 - "The Final Boss is… Scheduling!" Jul 18, 2019

Show notes

In This Episode:

In the beforetime, the long, long ago (season 3), we covered tabletop RPGs. It's 2019, things have changed somewhat, and we wanted to revisit the topic.

Beej has taken up playing Dungeons & Dragons with a local group, mainly with the Adventurer's League. Basically, the AL is the Wizard's sanctioned D&D league where rewards travel over between everywhere, and no matter where you go, you can find a table to play at.

It's a really interesting idea, and it lets newcomers to the game find a game immediately and anywhere. It sure helped Beej.

While Void hasn't really dug into playing tabletop RPGs again, it's been on his mind a lot. He still listens to The Adventure Zone podcast, and it makes him want to play more and more. And since his kids are getting older, they can do more as a family. Which fits directly in with how much he loves TAZ.

He mentions other actual-play podcasts, and he recommends specifically Friends at the Table. Beej has got to try this one sometime.

Scheduling is definitely the hardest part of playing tabletop RPGs like Dungeons & Dragons. Beej wants to play Star Wars: Edge of the Empire more, but the hard part is finding time when everyone's schedules work together.

Void

Void is trying to find the right approach to playing tabletop RPGs with his kids. They've made D&D characters and have all the books needed to get started. The trouble is taking that first step.

Tabletop RPGs Overall?

One word: intimidated. Two words: intimated and overwhelmed. Okay, that's three, but you get it.

Void feels intimidated to start because it requires energy and time that he's not sure he has enough of right now.

For Beej, the whole thing is kind of overwhelming. He has a lot of stuff going on with family and friends this time of year, has a new foster doggo, so even taking that one extra night for a few hours on a weekly basis is hard to do.

The gaming itself is super fun, though, and the state of tabletop RPGs has really never been better. Someday, we'll get a chance to do that Geek to Geek playcast that we've talked about for years.

Someday.

Weekly Geekery

Beej
- Spider-Man: Far From Home
- - Just as good the second time. Less wow, but get to see a lot more of the nuance in characters and hidden things.
- Into the Spider-verse BluRay
- - Still as good as I remember
  - Comparing it to Far From Home is Apples and Oranges
  - The colors, oh the colors!
  - I think my Halloween costume is going to be Janky Old Broke Hobo Spider-Man
- Spider-Man PS4
- - The story is so good. I had forgotten how great the story was until I went back.
  - New costumes from Far From Home
  - Can't wait for DLC
Void
- No FFV FJF update
- - I realized that I'm stalling out because in past years I played a lot over my lunch breaks at work
  - I'm not really taking lunch breaks right now, so… yeah. I'm stalled. I typically work 10 hours without really taking a break.
- Dr. Mario World
- - Very much a mobile game
  - Pills fall up instead of down, but outside of that… it's basically Dr. Mario
  - Dr. Luigi, Dr. Peach, Dr. Bowser, Medical Assistants like Goombas… I'm feeling very suspect of these people being properly credentialed.
  - Stayability? Not really, I'm already done with it
  - - The puzzles feel really punitive after level 20 or so
    - - It feels like they made them in a way that almost requires items so that you have to pay them more money to keep making progress.
    - This is the worst monetization I've ever seen in a Nintendo game.
- FF Remasters
- - FFIX
  - - Started playing FFIX with my kids!
    - The intro is really good and does a lot of interesting things with jumping back and forth between characters while setting the scene and telling an interesting story
    - I definitely will be playing more of this with my kids
    - This is still my favorite FF game
  - FFX-2
  - - Rougher around the edges than I remembered
    - - Maybe because it's an asset reuse game?
      - It also does some things with letting you choose the order you experience the story which is interesting but might actually make a weaker story
    - Wow, we've come a long way with animation and VO since PS2
    - The class & combat system is super interesting.
    - - This is the only reason I'm still playing around with FFX-2 and didn't hard bounce off of the game
      - So many classes!
      - I'm maybe 2 hours into the game and have Gunner, Warrior, Thief, Singer, festivalist?, Black Mage, and White Mage
        
        You're constantly picking up more
      - The dress sphere system for swapping jobs on the fly is so cool
      - Garment grid lets you lay them out in different patterns
        
        Example: think of a square with a node at each corner. You can move along the lines of the square between nodes (jobs) but you can't jump from one corner to the other corner without traveling through the in-between nodes
        
        That's basically how garment grids work but with lots of crazy shapes.
    - I've beaten this game once…
    - - But If I end up playing more of this game right now it will be for the job system and combat system
      - It will not be for the story
  - FFX
  - - I wanted to see if the storytelling, animation, and VO felt as rough in FFX as it does in FFX-2.
    - - It doesn't. FFX feels a lot better all around.
    - I beat this game fairly recently so I'm probably not going to dig in very deep right now, but I'm having fun playing through the intro
- MCU Phase 1 with the kids
- - Finished!
  - Iron Man 1 is one of the least kid-friendly MCU movies (skip the first 20-30 minutes until he's leaving the cave)
  - Thor 1 was better than I remembered
  - The first Avengers movie is still really good
  - My kids are excited to watch all the MCU movies and catch-up!
  - It sounds like my wife might join us once we get past Winter Soldier

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S4E27 - 2019 Summer Games and Movies - "Mario Maker 2, Spider-Man, Shadowbringers, and More" Jul 11, 2019

Show notes

In This Episode:

We discuss a bunch of the games and movies that are finally releasing this summer! We cover things like Mario Maker 2, Spider-Man Far From Home, FFXIV Shadowbringers, Magic The Gathering Arena Core Set 2020, Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night, Stranger Things Season 3, and more. Plus we sneak in some bonus geekery near the end of the show and Beej gets a new furry friend.

Things are finally releasing again! The late spring / early summer slump looks like it's over.
Mario Maker 2
- BJ - Making levels is a lot more fun than I thought it would be
- New components
- Void likes infinite Mario levels with more variety, but I don't really do the level building
- We have an awesome Mario Maker 2 channel on our Discord server that you should totally join and share your creations!
- Mario has always been Void's favorite platformer
- The story mode is fun since you get ~100 levels designed by nintendo in the mario maker engine
- BJ - I love just taking some time and seeing what the "Newest" ones that have been uploaded are. I think that's the most fun to me. I'm not generally a fan of the most popular ones
Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night
- Void forgot that he never really liked the PS1 era of Castlevania games. He is having a decent time with it but thinks he had more fun with the 8-bit version, Curse of the Moon.
- This feels like a modern iteration of the PS1 era of Castlevania games, so if you really enjoyed Symphony of the Night and want a modern version of that, then you really can't go wrong here.
Magic: The Gathering Arena - Core Set 2020
- Core cards and concepts that relaunch for the year
- They only use evergreen keywords
- It's made to be much more approachable for new players
- Not as strong of a theme, which made more of an impact on Void than hethought. He didn't realize how much the theme worked for him in the last few sets until he saw this core set that is basically theme-less.
- Mastery pass is like a season pass for the mastery tree and gives you bonus rewards
- Void is a bit less excited now that he sees what the Core Set 2020 is.
  - He was most excited for premade decks because he loves piloting a good deck
  - You earn stuff at every level if you have the season pass
  - The free tier gets you things every few levels
- - No unlocking premade decks
  - It's a new way to unlock card packs and cosmetics by leveling up
  - XP is capped per day
  - This replaces the 3 packs per week you could win before…(boo, hiss)
  - The actual mastery orb tree is an offshoot of the leveling ideas… but it only unlocks cosmetic card looks
  - The core of the system isn't the mastery tree, it's just the Fornite-like level up system
- No more collection resets even though it's still technically beta
- Historic is any card currently in MTGA. Think Type 1 for physical cards.
FFXIV Shadowbringers
- Character stories are as strong as ever. Expansion by expansion they keep getting better and better at writing really good emotional moments for characters
- Political stories are less interesting than normal since this is set on a new world that we are not nearly as invested in
- Threads don't get dropped, though. They're paying off things they set up years and years ago in previous expansions.
- Villains are much much sympathetic and understandable (for the most part).World consumed by light and they need to bring darkness back
  - They have legends about the warrior of darkness
  - It's doing a great job of tying into past events and characters while still being a completely new setting
  - Kind of the Outland of FFXIV in a way… but executed a lot better. They mostly get away from the politics we know and it lets them tell more compelling character stories
  - Duties (dungeons) pull no punches, even right from the beginning. Everyone who has gotten to this point has made it through so many complicated mechanics in past duties that they know they can challenge us
  - Queue times are short because of the new tank class, Gunbreaker, which people are super excited to play.
Stranger Things 3
- No Spoilers, but many feels and better than Season 2
- The story is tying up to where the final season (Season 4) should be pretty satisfying unless they really drop the ball.
- Hopper is awesome this season.
- Eleven is Eleven, which is great.
- Beej actually felt for Will this time around, which made him amazed.
- And Dustin and Steve's relationship continues to be the most delightful part of the show.
Spider-Man: Far From Home
- Beej loved this movie, and he thinks it is better than Homecoming, and part of the reason is that it's so character centered.
- The villain(s) don't matter so much as the relationships and how they impact the characters
- NIGHT MONKEY
- Such good discussions on Slack and Discord
- Spoilers in the cast for this one that we couldn't put in the notes.

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S4E26 - Best of 2019 (So Far) - "I love how you say July" Jul 03, 2019

Show notes

Support Geek to Geek on Glow.FM/geektogeekcast

In This Episode:

Void and Beej recap the best of… basically everything from the first half of the year. If you want a condensed list of awesome (or intriguing) recommendations then this is the episode for you.

At the end of every year, we go through the best stuff we experienced that year so that you folks can have the best recommendations and experiences possible. Unfortunately, those recommendations have to be boiled down, so we do a mid-year list of awesomeness, so that we don't miss anything that you might have missed.

Ain't that just the nicest thing?

Topics range from podcasts, apps, books, movies, TV shows, games, and the way Beej pronouncing July.

The List of The Best of 2019 (So Far)

Odds and Ends
- Insight and Headspace
- New House!
- Meditation Apps
Podcasts
- Magic The Gathering Drive to Work Podcast
- 13 Minutes to the Moon
- The Adventure Zone
Books
- Fall by Neal Stephenson
- The Consuming Fire by John Scalzi
- Skyward
- Final Fantasy Lost Stranger
Movies
- Captain Marvel
- Endgame
- Get Out
- Always Be My Maybe
- John Wick 1 & 2
- Spider-Man: Far From Home
- Crazy Rich Asians
- Avengers Endgame
- Into the Spider-Verse
TV
- Jessica Jones S3
- Grace and Frankie
- Kim's Convenience
- Game of Thrones
- Love, death, and robots
- Restaurant to Another World
Games
- Persona 5
- Dragon Quest IX
- Kingdom Hearts 3
- CatQuest
- Trails in the Sky
- Overwatch
- Hades Early Access
- Spaceplan
- Arboretum
- Cadence of Hyrule
- Magic: The Gathering (MTG Arena, specifically)

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S4E25 - Unplanned Geekery - "Not surprisingly, about the moon landing" Jun 27, 2019

Show notes

Support this podcast on Glow.fm in 3 clicks!

In This Episode:

BJ's voice has rebelled and overthrown his tyrannical rule! His dulcet tones are sadly absent. Void does his best to fill in with some geekery catch-up and excellent recommendations.

He catches up on geekery with topics like 13 Minutes to the Moon, Anime, Rumble Stars, Contest of Champions (Arcade), Final Fantasy V Four Job Fiesta, and some other upcoming games.

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S4E24 - Cadence of Hyrule and Rhythm Games - "Two participation points" Jun 20, 2019

Show notes

Support this Podcast in 3 Clicks!

In This Episode:

We discuss Cadence of Hyrule and our feelings about rhythm games in general! One of us loves them and one of us apparently has no rhythm. Can you guess which one is which? Go ahead. Guess! Tweet us @geektogeekcast before you listen with your guess! 50 points* if you get it right.

*points are redeemable for a hug from Beej IRL if you ever get to meet up in person

Between DDR, Just Dance, Amplitude, Guitar Hero, Rock Band and so many more, we've played our share. We talk about how it's possible to internalize the beat in the games to the point where you don't even think about what you're doing when following them.

Cadence of Hyrule

Specifically, though, we wanted to talk about the new Crypt of the Necrodancer game, Cadence of Hyrule. Amazingly, this has made Void's top Zelda games ever list, and he places it somewhere around 2 or 3.

Yes, it's that good.

Even Beej loves this one, and he bounced off Necrodancer hard. The ability to move not to the beat makes this almost a turn-based strategy Legend of Zelda title, and that's amazing.

The boss fights are fun, the puzzle areas are superb, and the procedural generation of dungeons (as well as the layout of the overworld) make this a fairly short Zelda, but one that you actually want to keep playing.

It ditches a lot of the more unforgiving aspects of its predecessor's Roguelike heritage and makes it so that if you die, you're not punished as harshly. It's easy to start right back in and hopping to the beat, digging through some dirt, and smashing Moblins with glass flails.

This game is definitely worth the $25 bucks on the Switch eShop.

Weekly Geekery

BJ's Geekery this week includes winning a scholarship to Podcast Movement in Orlando this year. He can't wait to meet all the fantastic people at the conference and learn a lot more about the podcasting industry. He played D&D IRL with a group of people he didn't know and learned that local Discord servers help a lot, he and Void both checked out Warrior's of Waterdeep, and got his first job in the FFV Four Job Fiesta (thief).

Void watched the HBO Chernobyl Miniseries and Gourmet makes from America's Test Kitchen. He learned that re-making Twinkies is harder than you expect, and that their mere existence brings up existential questions about snack cakes that you weren't aware that you had. He also played Outer Wilds which is a physics-based exploration game that gave him a bit of vertigo. He then went to an actual in-person Magic The Gathering sealed event even though it was accidentally for the wrong set! He still had fun, played 9 games, won some, lost some, and realized that Modern Horizons is just not his set.

Support the Podcast on Patreon

In addition to Glow.fm, you can always support the Podcast on Patreon.

You can go to https://patreon.com/geektogeekcast to support the podcast, and you can get some cool stuff, too. You can be a Patron Saint of Geekery and get some neato Reddit flair.

We are always looking to add new tiers for patrons, so if there's something you would like to see, let us know!

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Music by CarboHydroM

Episode thumbnail image courtesy of NintendoLife.com

S4E23 - E3 2019 - "Something About Keanu" Jun 12, 2019

Show notes

In This Episode:

EA - June 8
- Jedi Fallen Order
- - Metroidvania-ish (Metroid Prime)
  - Not hack and slash combat. More measured. Looks like an approachable dark souls combat style (minus the frustration?)
  - After order 66 and before Rogue One
Microsoft - June 9, 3pm CST
- The Outer worlds
- - The interesting parts of fallout in a sci-fi setting
  - On game pass
  - October 2019
- Bleeding Edge
- - 4v4 Online melee combat
  - Game pass
- Minecraft Dungeons
- - Minecraft Diablo
  - My kids want this
- Spiritfarer
- Way to the Woods
- Cyberpunk 2077
- - Keanu Reeves
  - Spring 2020
- Battletoads
- Microsoft bought Doublefine
- Psychonauts 2
- LEGO Star Wars Skywalker Saga
- Gears of War 5
- Phantasy Star Online 2
- Tales of Arise
- Elden Ring
- Next Xbox "Project Scarlett" - Holiday 2020
- - 4 generations of content
  - Connect across devices
  - Launching project Scarlett with Halo Infinite
- Xbox Game Pass on PC ($5/month) Xbox ($10/month) and Ultimate on Xbox/PC ($15/month including Xbox live gold)
- - Basically, if you're going to buy 2+ games during the year that are exclusive to Microsoft game studios then this is a good deal
- Phil spencer seems like an executive that actually gets video games. It feels like he wants all games on all platforms.
- - Cross play
  - Play wherever you want
- Game pass seems like a better and better deal all the time
- - 34 games premiering on game pass from the press conference alone
- Xcloud streaming
- - From the cloud or from your own Xbox
  - I hope PS5 does something similar
- Xbox Game Pass is the only thing getting me to actually consider Xbox for the next gen system. I still wouldn't get it as my primary console. I think I'm pretty set on PS ecosystem at the moment for my main console.
Bethesda - June 9, 7:30pm CST
- Boring updates on Fallout 76 and Elder Scrolls Blades
- - Battle Royale, bleh
- Ghostwire Tokyo
- ESO more season of the dragon content
- Commander Keen Mobile game
- Boring updates on elder scrolls legends, rage 2, wolfenstein
- Deathloop
- - Arkane game with time loop
  - No actual gameplay though, but an interesting premise
- Orion game streaming
- Doom Eternal
Devolver Digital - June 9, 9pm CST
- Direct ripping off Nintendo… I love it
- - Stole the whole graphics package. Wow, well done.
- Fall Guys was the only real game worth mentioning
- - https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=2OAVHWmeV0c
PC Gaming - June 10, Noon CST
- Vampire the Masquerade 2
Ubisoft - June 10, 3pm CST
- Watchdogs Legion
- - London, lots of playable characters and the ability to recruit everyone
  - No main character, you gather a ton of characters. Individual characters can die but you can recruit more.
  - Lots of interesting systemic things going on
  - I'm more interested in this than any of the past Watchdogs games
  - - I want to see a systemic game without a central hero
- Mythic Quest TV show
- Rainbow six siege new season
- Ghost Recon
- Elite Squad (Mobile)
- Uplay+ $14.99 for all their games
- - Stadia too
- Roller Champions
- - Free alpha e3 demo now
  - Free to play
- Gods and monsters
- - Mythology game
  - AC team
  - Trailer hints at mix of assassin's creed and breath of the wild
Square Enix - June 10, 8pm CST
- FFVII Remake
- - March 2020
  - First game is midgar but an expanded Midgar
  - 2 BluRay discs
  - Real time action RPG
  - ATB bars that fill up when you land standard attack
  - - Use them for tactical mode (slow mo almost turn based abilities)
    - Spells and special abilities
  - They must be stretching out the story. This first game is only Midgar. Midgar in FFVII is only like 5-6 hours if you're going slow and taking your time. This game is 2 Blu Rays worth of game. They have to flesh it out.
  - - Sephiroth is here and talking to Cloud in Midgar, so there are definitely changes.
    - FFVII isn't actually that deep of a story. It was for the time for a video game… but it's really not overall.
    - What if they never make part 2? Or 3? Or however many parts it will be. Most of the main characters aren't even in Midgar. Cloud, Tifa, Barret, Aeris, and (barely) Red XIII.
- Life is strange 2
- Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles Remaster
- - PS4, Switch, Mobile
- Last remnant Remaster
- - Available immediately
- Dragon Quest Builders 2
- DQXI on Switch - Fall
- Circuit superstars
- KH3 DLC
- FFXIV Shadowbringers new trailer
- Romancing Saga 3
- Saga Scarlett Grace
- War of the visions FFBE
- - Looks like a FF Tactics game
- Outriders
- Oninaki
- FFVIII Remaster 2019 Out on everything including Switch
- Avengers
- - Looks like it could be good, but it was hard to tell gameplay from cutscenes
  - Hawkeye gets left out
  - Single player and co op
  - Separate from all existing Avengers stuff
  - Multiple year content release schedule?
  - - New super heroes and regions at no extra cost.
    - No loot boxes or P2W
  - I come out of this more skeptical than I was going in
  - Out on everything except Switch
  - May 2020
Nintendo - June 11, 11am CST
- Early E3 - Pokemon Sword/Shield Legendaries and release date (Nov 15)
- - Dynamax
  - Wild Areas!
  - Raids
  - E3:
  - - Pokeball+ lets you take it away from the game, but you can't use it as a controller.
    - Floor demo has Water gym, Nessa as trainer, and uses dynamax
    - Treehouse has live gameplay, so go watch archives
- ALL the DQ heroes in Smash. Not just Erdrick, but from all the other games, too.
- DQXI S
- - Looks like we get the Spirits of Lost Time village? Maybe?
  - Last week of September (thanks Data_Error for pointing it out)
- Luigi's Mansion 3
- - Gooigi, lolz
- Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance
- - Tactical RPG
  - Tie-in to new Netflix show
- Link's Awakening
- - Create your own dungeon by placing rooms and tiles you gather.
  - Sept 20, 2019
- Trials of Mana
- - Global release
  - Action RPG, obvs
  - Very pretty
  - Early 2020
  - Remake of Seiken Densetsu 3?
- Collection of Mana
- - Available TODAY
  - 3 games
  - - Adventure, Secret, and Trials
- Witcher 3 Complete
- - Beej buys it finally
- Fire Emblem: Three Houses
- - Anime cutscenes look pretty rad
  - July 26.
- Resident Evil
- - Remake of the first game
  - Looks like the old style, not new
  - RE5 and RE6 are coming as well
  - - Zero, RE and 2 are available now
- No More Heroes 3
- - Action? Interesting combat from the look of it.
  - Travis Touchdown
  - Never played the others, but that one looks cool. Very pretty
  - 2020
- Contra Rogue Corps
- - Action shooter
  - Bug, panda, alien stuff, big ole booms
  - Sept 24
  - Online Multiplayer
- Contra collection
- - 10 games, available now
- Daemon X Machina
- - Beej tried Demo. wasn't for him.
  - Looks a lot more interesting than before when they announced it
  - Mech battles
  - Shows out of suit battles, too
  - Kind of bullet-hell and dogfighting together. Armored Core? Is that what I am thinking of
  - Sept 13, 2019
- Panzer Dragoon
- - HD remake of Saturn games which were superb
  - Rails shooter
  - Hope this leads to a Panzer Dragoon Saga release for Switch eventually
  - Winter 2019
- Astral Chain
- - Earth is under extra dimensional attack
  - Canaris dimension? People are being stolen. Ir maybe Chimaeras
  - The Legions are what you're partnering with
  - - Connected by a chain, can ride them like mounts
  - Reminds me of something I can't quite place.
  - August 30, 2019
- Empire of Sin
- - Old-school gangster
  - Top-down shooter
  - Spring 2020
- Marvel Ultimate Alliance
- - Surtur, Magneto, Guardians, Miles Morales, Kamala, Spider Gwen, Psylocke, Ghost rider, Luke Cage, Elektra, Nova, Thor, Beast, Hawkeye, Gamora, Captain Marvel, Beast, Drax,(Expansion Pass: Fantastic Four, Marvel Knights, X-Men)
- Cadence of Hyrule
- - June 13
- Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games
- - November
  - Online
  - Rock Climbing, Skateboarding, Boxing, Martial arts, swimming, boxing, fencing, tennis, gymnastics,
- Animal Crossing: New Horizons
- - Deserted Island
  - It is...Animal Crossing. BJ doesn't play them, so he can't really comment. But it's an HD Animal Crossing game, so I am happy for you guys
  - March 20, 2020
  - - Delayed, sorry
  - Director and designer are on Treehouse
- Spyro Reignited Trilogy
- Hollow Knight SIlksong
- Ni No Kuni 1 remaster
- Minecraft Dungeons
- Elder Scrolls Blades
- My Friend Pedro
- Doom Eternal
- The Sinking City
- Wolfenstein youngblood
- Dead by Daylight
- Alien Isolation
- FF Crystal Chronicles
- DQ Builders 2
- 3 the game
- Just Dance 2020
- - Also Wii
- Catan
- Super Lucky's Tale
- - 3d Platformer
- Dauntless
- Mario Maker 2
- More Smash Stuff
- - Banjo Kazooie
  - - Fall 2019
- Breath of the Wild 2 is teased
- - NOT DLC
  - Ended the show with a new trailer
  - - Link and Zelda find an ancient evil, and it awakens
    - Hyrule castle kind of smokes and explodes
    - Green tentacles and grossness floating all around

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S4E22 - Spoiler Culture - "Shouting Spoilers Out Of Car Windows" Jun 06, 2019

Show notes

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In This Episode:

We discuss... spoilers! No, we're not trying to keep the topic from you. We are talking about how spoiler culture exists today and how radically different people can be when it comes to their reaction to spoilers.

In terms of when we were first introduced to the idea of spoilers and keeping things sacred, so to speak, differed for both of us.

For Void, it was when Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince was released. People would drive around at the book releases yelling what happened out of car windows and trying to ruin everyone else's fun.

For Beej, it was the movie The Sixth Sense when people wouldn't even discuss the movie before asking, "wait, have you seen it yet?" because the twist was such a big deal.

And then there's the idea of not watching trailers or partaking in reviews for fear of spoilers ruining the media for you, whether it's a movie or a book or a video game. While for others, those are the sneak peeks and sometimes extra content that makes the wait for the new thing more enjoyable and great.

Plus, we can't not talk about cultural movements like Game of Thrones or Avengers: Endgame because of the ridiculous way that we all reacted to spoilers. Even Disney was putting out a spoiler embargo until the first two weekends were finished to give people a chance to see it if they were really into the franchise. But then there's GoT where people would spoil the events of the episode while the episode was still airing with the idea that if you weren't watching it when it was on, you didn't care enough not to be spoiled.

Just the idea of spoiler culture in general is interesting to us, and we wanted to give it a deeper dive than would have been possible otherwise. It came up during our Avengers: Endgame spoilercast, but amazingly, we didn't have enough time to talk about spoilers while we were talking spoilers. So here we are.

Let us know what your thoughts on spoilers are!

Weekly Geekery

For Geekery Beej got Persona Q2, which might be the swan song of the Nintendo 3DS. It might be the last major 3DS release, but it has all the style of P5 on the PS4. He also (finally) started listening to The Adventure Zone and had a ton of questions for Void about the show. He also watched Always be My Maybe and John Wick (both of which are awesome) and got back into FFXIV Stormblood.

Speaking of Stormblood, Void wrapped up all the Stormblood patch content to prep for FFXIV Shadowbringers, and he talks about how well the politics and different storylines are brought together to lead into the new expansion. And in more Final Fantasy news, Void has started up another FF series playthrough, and he bounced off of 1-4 for various reasons. Not that they aren't good, but he thinks FFV is the place he will have the most enjoyment as he begins going back through the series chronologically.

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S4E21 - Returning to Final Fantasy XIV (and other MMOs) - "I don't know why she didn't dump me" May 30, 2019

Show notes

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In This Episode:

We discuss returning to MMOs, especially through the lens of Final Fantasy XIV in prep for the upcoming expansion Shadowbringers (it launches July 2).

What in particular makes us start back into games like this that we know tend to be major time sucks? For Beej, it's mainly friends. Having a social group to be a part of means a lot to him. And so does being able to find hella cool gear that makes his Red Mage look amazeballs.

For Void, it's content, content, and more content. He dives in and becomes a game designer's worst nightmare. He consumes and devours the content as quickly as possible, then moves on to the next meal. Err, we mean game. He comes back to MMOs like FFXIV when many patches of content are released, and he can power through it all without having to wait on most releases. He basically plays MMOs at the beginnings and ends of expansions -- that's when there's the most content available.

He has a game dev friend who says he's a Content Locust, and that's the most perfect description of how he plays games that we've ever heard. It's dead-on, 100% accurate.

We discuss what it is about FFXIV that keeps us coming back, as well as things that keep us going back to other MMOs like World of Warcraft. Or in Beej's case...not going back to WoW Classic. It's a cycle for both of us, and we decided to dig into what makes it that way. Let us know what the MMO cycle looks like for you!

Weekly Geekery

For geekery this week started a new Dragon Quest podcast called DragonQuest.FM that you can listen to right now. Can you guess what it's about? He beat Dragon Quest IX, watched Dead to Me and Kim's Convenience on Netflix and got over one heck of a stomach bug.

Void has some lawn mower stories, he puts his dad on blast (heh heh heh), and goes through the prep for the Final Fantasy V Four Job Fiesta that's coming up. If you haven't done it before or heard us talk about it, he gives a great rundown in this episode. And most importantly, he found like 6 anime series that he really and truly enjoys! The main one being Restaurant to Another World.

Support the Podcast on Patreon

You can go to https://patreon.com/geektogeekcast to support the podcast, and you can get some cool stuff, too. You can be a Patron Saint of Geekery and get some neato Reddit flair.

We are always looking to add new tiers for patrons, so if there's something you would like to see, let us know!

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