This week on Axe of the Blood God, we're spoiling for a fight. That's why we pushed Kat off her chair this week and offered it to Michael Higham, Fanbyte's fighting game expert extraordinaire. What do fighting games have to do with RPGs? Well heck, a good fighting game character can have a backstory to rival any RPG hero's tale—and anyway, now's a great time to talk about Persona 4 Arena Ultramax. So that's what we do. 

Also in this episode:

• Our hero-themed March Madness continues to be madness.
• We're here to talk about Stranger of Paradise and Chaos. That's our mission.
• Nadia's been fully absorbed by Elden Ring, RIP.
• Nadia also forgot to add music for her segment. It's all Blaidd's fault, somehow.

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The three co-hosts have been reunited after many weeks apart, and just in time to talk about a whole bunch of news! There's a new generation of Pokémon on the horizon, Triangle Strategy is out, and we're all still talking Elden Ring. It's quite a time for RPGs, even if they're all getting swallowed up by FromSoft's latest.  

Also on the show: 

- Eric becomes Wolverine Jesus - Nadia discovers how to work a Nintendo - Kat gears up for some old-school Pokémon catching - We take a look at the first round of March Madness voting! Links mentioned in the show: - Eric's segment "Piplup Step": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bm0nLJuRNbw - Donate to Ukraine: https://www.icrc.org/en/donate/ukraine - Equality Texas: https://www.equalitytexas.org/ - TENT: https://www.transtexas.org/

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Greetings, disciples of the Blood God. Kat is not with us this week; she's going to try her hand at being a pirate on the open seas.

There's an excellent chance she'll be back next week, though. Despite what the Peter Pan song tells you, the pirate's life is not for everyone.

Nadia and Eric manage to scrounge together a great show anyway, because it's Elden Ring week! No worries—there are no spoilers on the show, but we did get Isla Hinck from Easy Allies and Jesse Vitelli of PrimaGames to talk about their reviews for this highly anticipated (and critically acclaimed) open world game from FromSoftware.

Also on this episode:

• No, seriously, Elden Ring's review scores are truly, truly, truly outrageous
• Nadia gives her impressions of Final Fantasy VI: Pixel Remaster
• Valve God Gabe Newell is confirmed Final Fantasy XIV trash
• The story of Ganon, the golden retriever that humped everything

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Greetings, disciples of the Blood God. Kat is not with us this week; she's going to try her hand at being a pirate on the open seas. There's an excellent chance she'll be back next week, though. Despite what the Peter Pan song tells you, the pirate's life is not for everyone.
Nadia and Eric manage to scrounge together a great show anyway, because it's Elden Ring week! No worries—there are no spoilers on the show, but we did get Isla Hinck from Easy Allies and Jesse Vitelli of PrimaGames to talk about their reviews for this highly anticipated (and critically acclaimed) open world game from FromSoftware.

Also on this episode:

• No, seriously, Elden Ring's review scores are truly, truly, truly outrageous
• Nadia gives her impressions of Final Fantasy VI: Pixel Remaster
• Valve God Gabe Newell is confirmed Final Fantasy XIV trash
• The story of Ganon, the golden retriever that humped everything

It's down to a pair this week, as Kat and Eric gather to investigate the state of Cyberpunk 2077 with its brand-new next-gen patch and lament the loss of more eShop content. Make sure you get your Golden Sun downloaded while you still can, as two visions of the cyber-future both seem bleak. They also dive into the overlap of grand strategy and RPGs, thanks to Blood God backer Ruka!   In other happenings: 

• Eric learns to loathe the grind in Monark 
• Kat is figuring out her feelings on Horizon 
• Nadia isn't even here and the Nostalgia Nook still takes a dark turn

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There are people out there who hang onto news about Nintendo Directs the way a religious person might fervently cling to signs of Jesus' return. Humanity is still waiting on the second coming of the Lord, but Nintendo offered a nice stop-gap last week. The February Nintendo Direct was bursting with incredible RPG news—and some of it was simply bananas. A 2D HD remake of Live A Live? Absolutely nobody had that on their Bingo card. Well, it's doubtful anyone had "Kirby inhales objects bigger than your mom in Kirby and the Forgotten Land" either. To reiterate a point made earlier, it was a strange Direct.

In addition to the Nintendo Direct RPG news, we talk about:

• Nadia is bad at Final Fantasy Tactics
• Waddle Dee broke the internet news machine wide open
• Lost Ark is already huge — can it keep up that momentum?
• More RPG nominations for the 25 Best RPGs of All Time Intergrade
• If we get to $8000 per month, Nadia and Eric's dads will fight each other
• $10,000, and we'll make it to the death

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Kat's gone, so Eric and Nadia assemble an Elite 4 to review Pokemon Legends: Arceus. IGN's Rebekah Valentine and Fanbyte's Kenneth Shepard join the show to chat about how the new direction has panned out, its highs and lows, and how it embraces Poke-mythology. Will this be remembered as a trailblazer or an obscure side game? Either way, we never want to see Cherubi again.

Also in this episode: - A Realm Reborn struggle is real - We sing some Phantom of the Opera? - Eric craves curling - Nadia recounts crime - New Top 25 entries and the reveal of a new tactic-ful February special!

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We're in the throes of winter, but Pokemon discourse is hotter than ever. This week, Kat, Nadia, and Eric talk about the opening hours of Pokemon Legends Arceus, Game Freak's attempt to take the Pokemon franchise sort-of open world. Does it succeed? Does it fall flat on its face? We have things to say: We are chatty little Chatots.

Also in this episode:

- Bloodborne is still great.

- It's time to vote for a new Blood God Pantheon game! Here's why Valkyria Chronicles deserves the vote.

- Since voting for list stuff never goes out of style, we also have new picks for the Top 25 RPGs of All Time Integrade list!

- Eric nearly drove a teacher to insanity with a metronome.

- Nadia got hauled away by the Shakespeare Police.

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We're going back to the '90s again here on Axe of the Blood God, but here's a twist: We're going back to '90s Japan. Yes, it's another PC Console Quest, and we've invited our good friend PC98 Audi back to the show for the occasion. We discuss the PC-98's legacy, and how it affected '90s RPG development. Why did the platform have so many visual novels? What's the deal with, ahem, all those hentai games? We have much wisdom contained here, so stay a while and listen.

Also in this episode:

• Oh God, Activision Blizzard and Microsoft. Oh God.
• We have new picks for the Top 25 RPG Remake 2022 Intergrade.
• Nadia plays Bloodborne like a dimwit.
• Space Jam DVD.

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We may be in the dead of winter, but Axe of the Blood God is hotter than ever. So sayeth the show's fans, anyway. It's true! No word of a lie! Ahem. This week, Kat, Nadia, and Eric talk about a hodgepodge of lively topics, including:

• Some interesting new nominees for our new Best 25 RPGs of All Time list. Emphasis on "new"
• Final Fantasy XIV's producer tells the fanbase "Be good. For the love of God, please be good."
• RPGs – and games in general – are too long [INITIATING HUMOUR PROTOCOL: "That is what she said"]
• Square One, Mathman, and the trauma that accompanied them

Weekly episodes are available to both free and premium listeners on Mondays. For lots more bonus content, check out our Patreon: https://patreon.com/bloodgodpod

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