Chamberlain and Chance

Please be patient with Chamberlain, he has been tasked with relaying Overwatch information via this week’s headline that he does not really understand. He also gets frustrated with a game that does not understand how gravity works before settling in with another remake. Alex, not content with playing two RPGs at the same time, starts up Final Fantasy 9 for the trifecta or time killing.

Chamberlain desperately wants to spoil the end of Final Fantasy 7 Remake, and he does, but there is only so much he can say when no one else finished it. Alex finished Persona 4 Royal, proving that his heart, soul and wallet belong to Atlus as opposed to Square. And Chance’s time traveling has granted him an impossibly flowery island, for which he feels no remorse or regret.

Final Fantasy 7 Remake is not the game you remember. Well, Tifa is still dressed like Tifa and Cloud has spikey hair, but the combat is (for the most part) fun, the characters are well written and interesting things happen to them. Three out of three podcasters agree, just what a good boy or girl needs when stuck inside for weeks on end! No spoilers yet, that comes next week.

Chamberlain learns that the Resident Evil 3 remake minus any nostalgia for the original is just okay. Better than nothing but gladly not purchased. Alex learns that Atlus always gets his money twice and that Persona 5 Royal is also good but also not quite worth the asking price. And Chance learns that Chamberlain is right once in a while. Below is not good and Mortal Kombat 11 is a good time at all levels.

Chance no longer plays video games. He has left them behind for high stakes turnip trading, hard core gardening and the precision organization of a cute digital zen garden. Chamberlain hasn’t play much either, but not for lack of trying. After Doom Eternal, what else is there. And Alex reaches peak Borderlands 3 with it second expansion.

At long last, Doom Eternal has arrived. Chance celebrated this dark emergence by plating pear trees and visiting other people’s islands in Animal Crossing New Horizons. Disgusted, Chamber lain ripped and teared through all comers until running in into an enemy so out of place he nearly walked away. Alex had the sense to stop playing when it got to sweaty, returning to old friends with remastered textures.

Three men started Ori and the Will of the Wisps. One finished it. No spoilers yet, but Chamberlain liked it a lot while Alex and Chance decided that bugs were better than deadly furry things and got distracted by Hades (again) and X-Com 2 (again). By the time you listen to this Doom Eternal will be out. You have no reason to leave the house, you can live on demon murder.

Chance and Alex have a wonderful surprise for Chamberlain: they are playing Ori and the Will of the Wisps, too! And all three agree that it’s pretty good. More than a little derivative of a certain game about bugs, but certainly a shining bit of fun in these strange times. Alex continues to try and shame Chance into playing X-Com 2 and Chance continues his march through Hades with a new, very personal weapon.

The remake of Final Fantasy 7 is a real game, a real demo anyway, that you can, and should, download and play right now. It hit the appropriate nostalgia buttons for Chamberlain and even managed to amuse Chance, in spite of some adolescent trauma involving a party and being separated from Resident Evil. And Alex has decided that Darksiders 3 is not quite as bad as he has been told. Barely. Fury is really cool, at least.

Caution, despite out best efforts to avoid it, discussion of the real word sneaks into the final few minutes. There are also Darksiders Genesis spoilers, fresh opinions about Borderlands 3, a well thought out defense of the 2-2-2 mechanic in Overwatch and a very, very serious analogy involving unsatisfying manual sexual stimulation and Hugh Laurie. Don’t say we didn’t warn you.