Video Games: Endings and Story
In this episode, Sarah contemplates her destiny, Molly takes a nap on the ground, and Dean realizes there is no hope for his body.
Cast
Hosted by Dean Karpowicz, with Sarah Willis and Molly Krasel.
Content Discussed
What should a great ending accomplish?
Sarah: “Satisfaction!”
Dean: “Says the woman who has never saved Zelda!”
Okami: Set in classical Japan, Ōkami combines Japanese mythology and folklore to tell the story of how the land was saved from darkness by the Shinto sun goddess, named Amaterasu, who took the form of a white wolf. It features a sumi-e-inspired cel-shaded visual style and the Celestial Brush, a gesture-system to perform miracles. The game was planned to use more traditional realistic rendering, but this had put a strain on the graphics processing of the PlayStation 2. Clover Studio switched to a cel-shaded style to reduce the processing, which led to the Celestial Brush concept. The gameplay is modeled on The Legend of Zelda, one of director Hideki Kamiya’s favorite series.
Undertale: In this RPG, you don’t have to kill anyone.
Each enemy can be “defeated” nonviolently.
Dance with a slime. Pet a dog. Whisper your favorite secret to a knight.
Or, ignore this choice and rain destruction upon your foes.
TellTale’s The Walking Dead: The Walking Dead is a five-part game series set in the same universe as Robert Kirkman’s award-winning comic book series. Play as Lee Everett, a convicted criminal, who has been given a second chance at life in a world devastated by the undead. With corpses returning to life and survivors stopping at nothing to maintain their own safety, protecting an orphaned girl named Clementine may offer him redemption in a world gone to hell.
Soma: From the creators of Amnesia: The Dark Descent comes SOMA, a sci-fi horror game set below the waves of the Atlantic ocean. Struggle to survive a hostile world that will make you question your very existence.
11:05: Terrible Endings
Dean (in the “Carl” voice): “You Just didn’t understand it!”
Sarah: “I did. I did understand it. It was garbage!”
Final Fantasy X: Set in the fantasy world of Spira, a setting influenced by the South Pacific, Thailand and Japan, the game’s story revolves around a group of adventurers and their quest to defeat a rampaging monster known as Sin. The player character is Tidus, a star athlete in the fictional sport of blitzball, who finds himself in Spira after Sin destroyed his home city of Zanarkand. Shortly after arriving to Spira, Tidus joins the summoner Yuna on her pilgrimage to destroy Sin.
12:11: Final Bosses
“There are better places to take a nap than on the ground, you know.”
–Molly
Fire Emblem Awakening: The story of Awakening takes place 2000 years after the events of the original Fire Emblem and Fire Emblem Gaiden, focusing on Chrom, the prince of Ylisse, and his personal army, the “Shepherds”. They rescue the player character, or Avatar, who is suffering from amnesia. Over the course of the story, the Avatar aids Chrom’s army in defending Ylisse from undead monsters – the Risen – and attacks from the hostile nation of Plegia.
Dark Souls: Souls (ソウル, Sōru) is a series of action role-playing games developed by FromSoftware. The series began with the release of Demon’s Souls for the PlayStation 3 in 2009, and was followed by Dark Souls and its sequels, Dark Souls II and Dark Souls III, in the 2010s. The series’ creator, Hidetaka Miyazaki, served as director for each of them with the exception of Dark Souls II.
The Souls games are played in a third-person perspective, and focus on exploring interconnected environments while fighting enemies with weapons and magic. Players battle bosses to progress through the story, while interacting with strange non-playable characters. The series has been both praised and criticized for its high level of game difficulty, and is considered a spiritual successor to King’s Field. Other FromSoftware games, such as Bloodborne, Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, and Elden Ring, share many related concepts with the series.
Diablo: is a hack-and-slash action role-playing game developed and published by Blizzard Entertainment as the third installment in the Diablo franchise. It was released for Microsoft Windows and OS X in May 2012, the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 in September 2013, the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One in August 2014, and the Nintendo Switch in November 2018. Players choose to play as one of seven character classes – Barbarian, Crusader, Demon Hunter, Monk, Necromancer, Witch Doctor, or Wizard – and are tasked with defeating the Lord of Terror, Diablo, as in previous games in the series.
Mentions: Shadow of the Collosus, Monster Hunter, Neir Automota
17:46: Double Epic Fails
“You don’t tell me what my destiny is. You’re a robot!”
–Sarah
Fallout 3: Fallout 3 is a post-apocalyptic action role-playing open world video game developed by Bethesda Game Studios and published by Bethesda Softworks. The third major installment in the Fallout series, it is the first game to be created by Bethesda since it bought the franchise from Interplay Entertainment
20:24: Game Without End, Amen
Final Fantasy XIV: Final Fantasy XIV was a massively multiplayer online role-playing game for Microsoft Windows personal computers, developed and published by Square Enix in 2010. It is the fourteenth entry in the main Final Fantasy series and the second MMORPG in the series after Final Fantasy XI
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