Hot Open, Cold Close

Players

Squidge

Jay

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Content Warning

There’s a slight hint of a swear in the beginning of this episode, but it’s played for laughs:

Oh for fu

which then smash cuts to the intro music. If this is offensive to you or anyone you’re listening with, please skip to 40 seconds in.

There’s also a bleeped instance towards the end of the episode (48:30), of Squidgey saying:

Down, bitch!

so feel free to skip this one, too.

Notes

We said it last time

here’s a link

and we weren’t messing you around: we took a little break. Squidgey enjoyed… whatever it was that he got up to, and I went to Japan.

BTW, I love Fukuoka and Hirado, and would recommend that anyone visits those two cities. They are amazing

Speaking of which:

I HAVE RETURNED!

That’s right, I’m back from my two week trip to Japan, and am more than ready to talk about it and just why everyone should go.

We start with a discussion about how this might be the beginning of season 2 - also we’ve been doing this for almost 3 years now - which leads us into a discussion about The Bugle

which is an amazingly absurd, current affairs podcast, by the way

But shortly before that, I forget the name of the radio show On The Hour - which was the progenitor for Brass Eye

it’s not often that those two shows are mentioned on a gaming podcast

We’re going to be producing an episode (the next in this series) which will be consist of the audio recordings I made whilst I was in Japan - which I’m calling “Jay’s Japan Diaries” - and will include snippets of the wonderful track Kokoro no koe o kikasete by veezyn

which reminds me that I should write a post all about the fantastic music that we’ve used in the show and where you can purchase it all from

The most impressive part of these three episodes (this one and the two which will come after it) though, is that they’re being presented to you in reverse chronological order

which is some next level Chrono Trigger stuff, hommie

In that, we recorded this episode last, I recorded the Japan Diaries whilst I was in Japan, and we recorded the third part first.

So, that’s fun. And makes the “What Have You Been Playing” section a bit weird to think about.

Squidgey has been playing Borderlands: Remastered, which is a downloadable add-on for the original Borderlands

at least, it is on the Steam store

but Steam then lists as a separate game, for some reason. I guess that’s in case you want to then play the un-Remastered version?

Anyway, Squidgey then provides me with a perfect chance to mention the big whoopsy-doodle with Kotaku regarding Joker’s song in Persona 5. We don’t usually cover news, but I wanted to bring this one up because of the monumentally stupid lack of editorial over there at Kotaku

which is something they’re quite famous for, actually

Especially since they blamed Nintendo for it, not Atlus. But who cares, right? On with the silliness.

Anyway, Squidgey has an official Nindo wireless controller for his Switch now. Incidentally, I still don’t think that there’s a proper strategy to Smash Bros. games. Like, all anyone seems to do is mash the buttons

Chief calls this type of game a

Squidgey then talks us through what makes Fire Emblem: Heroes different to your average Koei Warriors game, which is mostly the strategy elements of an RTS.

Meanwhile, I’ve been playing Japanese arcade games - like in an arcade… in Japan - and Space Invaders, but not the usual way that you might play it, and a really cool augmented reality Godzilla game.

see later in the show notes for footage of these games

Also, Japanese arcade games are really cheap to play. The majority of them are around 100 yen - which is less than £1 and less than $1 - and most of them have these cool ID card things. You scan the card, and it acts as a sort of memory card, storing how far through the game you were when you last played it.

Also, you get a LOT of game for your 100 yen. The race I played on Initial D was closer to 10 minutes long

I said 8 in the podcast

which is really cheap, in entertainment terms.

I saw the Dissidia Final Fantasy arcade cabinet, which is cool:

I also, poorly, describe an RTS that I saw which is a little like a Total War game which used a touch screen to enable you to control the army on a battlefield. It was great, my description of it is terrible. The TV show that Squidgey discusses as part of this section was called Time Commanders.

I then show Squidgey a photo

in fact, it’s this photo

of a Mech Game with an interesting controller. You can’t see it that well, but you climb into the controller. Also, he got super jealous that I got to play this game

it wasn’t easy to play, but it was lots of fun

Squidgey mentions The House of The Dead Crimson, but he meant The House of the Dead: Scarlet Dawn.

And for those who don’t know

because not everyone has seen Martian Successor Nadesico, although you totally should

this is an Aestivalis.

Which leads Squidgey to let out an open challenge to the city of Skegness

folks from the North of the UK will understand why

I hint at some of the content in Jay’s Japan Diaries, and Squidgey makes a joke about Link.

Did you know that it’s 40 years since Space Invaders came out? That’s why they invaded Canal City

some people really don’t like getting old

The footage that I took of both Space Invaders Groovy Invade Canal City didn’t come out well, so here’s a video from YouTube showing it off:

And the same can be said for the footage I took of the Godilla game that we took part in, so here’s someone else’s video from YouTube:

It really was amazing to play live.

Squidgey then gets out a GameBoy that he bought at the most recent Retro Game Fair in Leeds.

We discuss the Godzilla game, my previous adventures in Canal City, and Squidgey’s goal to visit Japan one day

he calls it the

his reasons for wanting to go are pretty cool, too. What would be or are your reasons for visiting Japan? And do they align with visiting the Moomin Cafe in Canal City?

or the Harry Potter Cafe?

Which will become a Fantastic Beasts cafe in November this year

2019, for the readers from the future

I want Niffler

I then get a bee in my bonnet about visiting “real Japan”

as opposed to the touristy, flashy places like Tokyo

and why you shouldn’t go to Tokyo for more than a day or two… unless you’re willing to go off the beaten track, that is. Why? Because it looks like any big city. In fact, if you’ve been to Picadilly Circus in London, then you’ve been to Tokyo.

Also, make sure that you go to Kyoto and visit Kinkaku-ji

you’re welcome

Which is all unsolicited advice, which is not what the show notes are about.

I then drop a lot of knowledge on you all about Japanese-British and Japanese-Dutch relations in the form of a history lesson

which I promise not to do, but then do anyway

about Hirado, William Adams, and the miniseries Shogun. So if you don’t want to hear about Japanese history, feel free to skip from 33 minutes 30 seconds all the way to 38 minutes.

The book that Squidgey was thinking of is called The Tale of Genji.

I then retell the story of how I was able to pick up a, pretty much perfect, copy of Final Fantasy IX for PS1 for 740 yen.

Due to the recent changes at Twitter, we are unable to embed tweets at this time. We apologise for the inconvenience.

That same game would have cost around £30-40 (for a copy in pretty bad condition) at most retro gaming fairs here in the UK. Talk about a bargain.

Being polite to people pays dividends

I will be taking a Japanese language test, and will make a point of bringing up the results in a later episode, once I’ve taken it.

We then talk about Squidgey’s current hair style, which is often compared to the style that 6ix9ine has

I, honestly, had no idea who that was when people started comparing Squidgey’s hair to his

but Squidgey had it first. Like, his current hair style has been like this for over a decade.

Squidgey then drops the bomb that he’d unlocked everything on the Resy 2 Remake, but only through buying some DLC which unlocked it all

to be fair, he’d unlocked most of it before buying the DLC

which leads us to a discussion about how hard the game is on hardcore

remember our discussion of it, back in Grenade to the FACE!

and how much easier the game is when you unlock the rocket launcher. Also, check out, friend of the show, Kritner’s Twtich channel.

Remember: aim at your feet because you can’t blow yourself up.

Which is pretty good life advice, really.

And then Squidgey brings up Sekiro, to which I saw:

Chainsaw?

a few times.

To be fair, his description of the gameplay is pretty good. I’ll have to pick this one up - it landed just as I was packing for Japan, so I hadn’t had much of a chance to look into it.

Squidgey’s Games

• Borderlands: Remastered
• Borderlands Two
• Super Smash Bros. Ultimate
• Fire Emblem: Heroes

Jay’s Games

• Space Invaders Groovy Invades Canal City
• Godzilla
• Initial D: The 6th Stage

Links of Interest

• Some Qs and Some As
• Switch Please - Part 3
• Grenade to the FACE!

External Links of Interest

• Jay & Jay Media
• The Bugle
• On The Hour
• Brass Eye
• Super Smash Bros. Ultimate’s Persona 5 DLC Appears to Include a Disability Slur
• Space Invaders Groovy Invades Canal City
• Time Commanders
• The House of the_Dead: Scarlet Dawn
• Aestivalis Ground Battle Frame
• Niffler
• Kinkaku-ji
• William Adams
• Shogun
• The Tale of Genji
• Kritner’s Twtich channel
• Our Facebook page
• Us on Twitter

Music

Links to the music used in the podcast can be found below. Definitely check them out, because they're amazing tracks by awesome musicians.

• Intro music is Behind the Lines by Ian Sutherland
• Spoiler Break music is Spectrum (Subdiffusion Mix) by Foniqz (BandCamp)
• Pallet Cleanser music is Breath Deep Breath Clear (Wu Chi) by Siobhan Dakay
• Outro Music is I N e e d Y o u 私の側て by G.H (removed from BandCamp)