00;00;00;13 - 00;00;02;08 Phil So it's like he's getting away with something. 00;00;02;25 - 00;00;07;18 Kevin He's like, is like it's it's it's so important that you let me out of this room right now. 00;00;07;18 - 00;00;10;26 Phil Right now, right now. Don't you understand? 00;00;11;27 - 00;00;17;06 Kevin Don't I understand? You know what? I don't understand. 00;00;17;15 - 00;00;18;03 Phil What's that? 00;00;18;25 - 00;00;46;29 Kevin Hey there, buddy. Welcome back to Pixelate. My name is Kevin. With me, as always, is Phil. Hello. And today we're starting on a brand new show and brand new, brand new book. Uh, we're talking about Eco Castle in the Mist, which is an adaptation of the 2001 teen eco game titled Eco Eco. 00;00;47;13 - 00;00;50;00 Phil Appropriately enough, titled Eco. 00;00;50;15 - 00;01;23;27 Kevin So is developed game is developed by Japan Studio and Team Eco, and it was published by Sony and released for the PlayStation two. It is a wildly popular game among game designers. Yes, Eco is a very influential game, not. It's one of those games where it's like, oh, not a lot of people have played it, but the influence of Eco is felt far and wide, most notably in the other games that team Eco has made, which are shadow of the classes and The Last Guardian. 00;01;24;17 - 00;01;26;21 Phil Did this come before Shadow of the Colossus? 00;01;26;21 - 00;01;38;00 Kevin It sure did. Okay. It sure did. It was their first. It was their first game. Yeah. Okay. Okay. So, yeah, Shadow the classes is a spiritual successor to Eco, so to speak. 00;01;38;00 - 00;01;40;03 Phil Kind of an unofficial prequel, isn't it? 00;01;40;22 - 00;02;05;11 Kevin Yeah, I guess you could. You could, uh, tie them together. I feel like there has been, like, plot stuff that ties them together. That's the thing about eco and shout of the classes. And and the last guardian is that they're all very. And they. I haven't played The Last Guardian. I've watch playthroughs of it. They're all very spartan and sparse. 00;02;05;11 - 00;02;49;16 Kevin They're they're very minimalistic. And they have this, like, melancholy that kind of surrounds them. But yeah, eco is, it's, it's classic. And it was I believe it was rereleased. Yes. In 2011, there was a rerelease of it and Shadow of the Colossus for the PlayStation three. And then Shadow of the Colossus, Shadow Glasses eventually had a full on remake in 2018, but Eco does not did not have the same treatment applied to it, so to speak. 00;02;49;28 - 00;03;15;17 Kevin But yeah, that's that's the game. Eco and and eco. Your controlling a boy named eco and trying to escape this like castle with a with a girl who will not, we won't get into her name or anything like that in the book. So yet in the parts of the book that we're covering in the game she's referred to as your to. 00;03;16;27 - 00;03;38;07 Kevin So it's it's kind of like a you control eco and you tell you order to stop go like you're trying to to get her to do solve puzzles with you right so yeah that's that's eco film tell me a little bit about the author of this book. 00;03;38;22 - 00;04;05;27 Phil Yeah, this one was written by Miyuki McGarvie, who is a wildly popular and successful Japanese author. She has written kind of a little bit of everything. It's fascinating. She's really well known in some circles for her children's books and in other circles she's known for like her mystery novels, her fantasy stuff. She's done a lot of short stories. 00;04;05;27 - 00;04;34;12 Phil She's had she's written films and a lot of films have been adapted. She's even done a little manga here and there, like she is all over the place and is very, very well-respected. She's won a ton of awards. She has a long list of books. None of which I'm going to attempt to pronounce, because, you know, I want to you know, I want to be respectful as I possibly can be. 00;04;34;12 - 00;04;54;15 Phil But she's had several books that were translated into English, including this one. All she was worth is apparently that one came out in 1996 and that's one that keeps popping up. It's a mystery thriller, kind of novel that that keeps getting brought up by her in English speaking fans. 00;04;55;17 - 00;04;57;02 Kevin And that one has been translated. 00;04;57;16 - 00;05;29;04 Phil Yes, that one was translated. And she's got a handful of translated stuff. All She Was Worth CROSSFIRE Shadow Family, The Devil's Whisper, The Sleeping Dragon Puppet Master. Those are crime and thriller novels. And then some fancy stuff, including Eco Castle in the Mist. And I'm glad you said the dates there because it did. The original book came out in 2004 and it was translated into English in 2011 when the PS3 rerelease. 00;05;29;09 - 00;05;49;03 Kevin Yes, the PS3 remaster, so to speak, of it was release. And it I assume it seems like so. Shadow of the Colossus was originally released in 2005. I was just wondering if they released the novelization of Ego to coincide with shadow clauses, but it does not take place. 00;05;49;07 - 00;06;16;02 Phil Right before it. We also actually, for the first time and I did a little more digging here. We have a translator. Yes, Alexandre O. Smith. And this guy is actually a very well known and well-respected translator of Japanese. He went to Harvard and and he kind of cut his teeth on translating video games. And that seems to be his major thing. 00;06;16;08 - 00;06;24;09 Phil But he's won awards for best localization and that sort of thing. He's done Phenix right. I think the first thing he did was Final Fantasy eight. 00;06;25;18 - 00;06;26;22 Kevin Yeah, it looks like it. 00;06;26;22 - 00;06;51;16 Phil Yeah, he's done a ton of Final Fantasy, which I mean, if you're if you're translating Japanese games, you're probably going to be involved in some way, shape or form. He did translation for, you know, is it. Yeah, Ogre Tactics and Star Ocean and like a lot of classics and he was a writer for Ori and the will wisps. 00;06;51;16 - 00;07;12;21 Phil Yeah. Which is the translation. Translation. The sequel to Ori and the Black Forest. So this guy's all over the place, too. And he's he's worked with Ms.. Miyazaki on A Brave Story, which was her children's book, which was huge. And so I guess I don't know if they just work well together and she requested them again or something like that. 00;07;13;20 - 00;07;32;23 Phil But this guy is kind of the perfect person to do your translating because he's he's worked in the video game industry specifically. So the context, you know, is is important to him and I don't know, it just seems like it seems like a good fit. 00;07;33;23 - 00;08;11;25 Kevin Yeah. Yeah. It's a that's it's interesting because you you wonder about when you're reading a translated novel. Okay, how much of this is the original author's writing versus how much of it is is created through the translation? Right. And it seems like Alexander Smith there was a was just on his Wikipedia page. Part of his process is retaining as much of the very distinct style of the author in the translation. 00;08;11;25 - 00;08;32;07 Kevin Yeah. So I think that's, that's kind of cool that we, we can kind of look at this now like, all right, well, it is a work it's a work of hers. And in a lesser extent, but no less notable, it's a work of his as well. And in the translation, in the way that we're reading it. 00;08;32;14 - 00;09;06;10 Phil Absolutely, yeah. With translation it doesn't it will not do you know, just run a book through Google Translate or something like that. Context needs to be added. Things that a great example I always think about and we maybe talked about this on the show before when I lived in Pittsburgh, I lived next door to a young Japanese couple and he would show me anime and I was not really outside of like Akira, you know, I sure didn't know much about anime and he would and we would watch different shows. 00;09;06;10 - 00;09;42;06 Phil And I remember one of them, what was it called, Asian Manga Deo, which is this weird, funny comedy anime about Japanese schoolgirls and stuff like that. And one of the characters, I think she was from Osaka and by the end the, we were watching the dub version and she spoke with like a country Texas kind of accent and he and he explained it because that's really clever because, you know, over in Japan, like traditionally, people see people from Osaka as being kind of hayseed or bumpkins or so. 00;09;43;05 - 00;09;49;26 Phil So that choice, although it isn't a direct translation, there, it makes it makes you understand, it. 00;09;49;26 - 00;09;58;16 Kevin Gives the context. It retains some sort of the context of the character, right? Where she would have had an Osaka accent, probably. 00;09;58;17 - 00;10;22;00 Phil Exactly. And it isn't exactly the same, but it's, you know, sure. The best translators are able to know when to leave the words as they are alone and when to, you know, get creative with it so that you can sure appreciate, you know, what you're looking at because otherwise you end up with, you know, books like the Bible that are just terribly tracks. 00;10;22;15 - 00;10;23;06 Kevin Then of course. 00;10;23;12 - 00;10;24;28 Phil Of course, we wouldn't want that to happen. 00;10;26;04 - 00;10;28;15 Kevin So they there's a munchkin. 00;10;28;15 - 00;10;30;27 Phil On the loose is a munchkin. Right? 00;10;30;27 - 00;10;31;24 Kevin Close the door, please. 00;10;32;02 - 00;10;39;24 Phil I love it. It's our it's our evening wave. I've grown to look forward to it. I'm not going to lie. 00;10;39;24 - 00;10;41;24 Kevin She has to go finish her homework. 00;10;42;22 - 00;10;47;17 Phil This guys at home, the kids love pixelate. They can't get enough. 00;10;47;17 - 00;10;48;03 Kevin Can't get it. 00;10;48;03 - 00;10;57;27 Phil Out. They hop in to wave we are this is I think I think what's important for anyone to take away from all this is that we're a family show. 00;10;58;05 - 00;10;59;04 Kevin We are a family show. 00;10;59;04 - 00;11;03;10 Phil We've always it's the aristocrats. 00;11;03;22 - 00;11;12;00 Kevin Your so we're going to get right into it. 00;11;12;05 - 00;11;12;18 Phil We're going to get. 00;11;12;18 - 00;11;19;19 Kevin We're going to get right into eco. And you actually have a copy. I did not I did not try to. Oh, I love that cover. 00;11;19;29 - 00;11;21;04 Phil It's this, isn't it? 00;11;21;16 - 00;11;29;19 Kevin I love it so much. It was the it's the art for I think the Japanese and European version of the game. 00;11;29;29 - 00;11;32;22 Phil Yeah. It's way better than the band. 00;11;32;22 - 00;11;37;18 Kevin The North American. We always get the shitty covers that, that, that covers sand. 00;11;37;23 - 00;11;42;02 Phil Does the cover have like it's like a close up of eco with like a club or something. Yeah. 00;11;42;03 - 00;11;44;25 Kevin Right, exactly. 00;11;44;25 - 00;11;47;27 Phil Well, look, it's a guy with horns in a club. You'll like this. 00;11;48;03 - 00;11;50;14 Kevin Going like this. He's a Viking, maybe. 00;11;50;18 - 00;12;02;02 Phil Yeah, baby. Herschel, buy the game and go, what the fuck? If that's what you're hoping for, but we'll have your money so it won't matter haha. 00;12;02;02 - 00;12;05;23 Kevin Yeah. Sony of America was not doing anybody any favors. No. 00;12;06;06 - 00;12;09;24 Phil But have they. 00;12;09;24 - 00;12;38;24 Kevin So we start out and this book is divided into four chapters in each chapter is divided into uh, the number of parts. So we're in chapter 1.1, chapter one, part one. Yeah. And, and in this chapter we're introduced to a few characters, the elder of the village of Tosca, and the elder is not actually ever given a name. 00;12;38;24 - 00;13;01;05 Kevin He's just really known by his title. He is the Elder. And we learn about the time of sacrifice, which is the time that they are currently in. And we get some backstory about when he was he became the elder. He was 57 years old. He just turned 70. So it's a flashback. He was 57 years old and his dad was on his deathbed. 00;13;01;05 - 00;13;27;19 Kevin His dad was the elder and his dad was was basically dying and saying, like, I didn't want to have to hand this over to you and you have to deal with the sacrifice. And just then, like the sacrifice had been born, they had discovered the sacrifice being born into. And the his dad was like, I've never I never had to deal with the sacrifice. 00;13;27;19 - 00;13;55;05 Kevin The last sacrifice was when I was a child. So his dad had held on for as long as possible before bequeathing him the title of Elder so that he didn't have to deal with the time of sacrifice. Um, so basically what it is, is the sacrifice is a child who is strong, he's healthy, and when he comes of age, he's going to grow some horns. 00;13;55;13 - 00;14;06;01 Phil Yeah, I was going to say and I think I love that. It's like it's like, how do you how do you know, etc.? Is he is he born under a certain constellation service? Like, no, he's born with horns. 00;14;06;08 - 00;14;13;26 Kevin He's got he's got a couple of bumps on his head. And eventually those bumps were will become. What's up, munchkin? 00;14;15;12 - 00;14;18;29 Phil Human babies. Yes, but it's it's like. 00;14;19;21 - 00;14;28;12 Kevin She's is she like looked in and said sacrifice to human babies. 00;14;28;12 - 00;14;32;25 Phil Oh, Kevin, you're raising her, right? She's like, she's a good kid. The kids are all right. 00;14;33;26 - 00;14;34;21 Kevin It's all right. 00;14;35;01 - 00;14;42;22 Phil All right. So that's it's it's not. 00;14;42;22 - 00;14;45;00 Kevin I guess I'm going to leave that and. 00;14;45;10 - 00;14;53;00 Phil Yeah, no, that's not. God damn right you are. You're not putting that anywhere. That's got to stay. 00;14;53;00 - 00;14;55;08 Kevin So the sacrifice of born with two bumps on. 00;14;56;03 - 00;15;23;14 Phil Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was to say you got to love you got to because in so many ways this book and and and you know, and frankly, a lot of Japanese media in general I found to be very elegant with the way that they write, you know, prophecies and like the the chosen one thing, which is which is a trope you see, you know, all over media, all over the world. 00;15;24;04 - 00;15;39;12 Phil But I've always found that in anime and manga and Japanese media in general, there's a certain level of elegance with with the way they write that stuff. And I love I love this one. It was just like horns, you're going by the horns. 00;15;39;19 - 00;15;41;19 Kevin Get as fucking horns on his side. Can't miss. 00;15;41;19 - 00;15;43;16 Phil It. It's like that's the one, man. 00;15;43;16 - 00;15;50;09 Kevin What if. What if you miss the star sign or whatever? No, we're not. No, we're not. We're you know, the kid is going to have horns. It's going to be only kid with. 00;15;50;09 - 00;16;01;17 Phil Horns, right? Yeah. Don't worry about it. Yeah, you'll see them in a lineup. That's the one. See the one? You know what? I'm not going to tell you what it is. Look at the kids. Which one of these is not like the other? That's the one. 00;16;01;28 - 00;16;02;23 Kevin There it is. That's the. 00;16;02;23 - 00;16;03;20 Phil One. That's the one. 00;16;04;08 - 00;16;29;25 Kevin Pick. Pick that kid right out, you know. Right. So the elder the job of the elder is to raise the sacrifice as basically as their own kid. And the elder in this case is pretty darn old. And he's like, well, what am I supposed to do? You're like, Well, raise him like he's a grandkid. Like, okay, yeah. And the sacrifice, his biological parents are sent away from the village. 00;16;29;25 - 00;16;39;24 Kevin They're given a hefty payout like you gave birth to the sacrifice. Now you're going to go relocate to the capital or something like that where we'll take care of you. 00;16;39;24 - 00;16;44;23 Phil It's just we're sending you to Orlando. You pretty much learned to retire. 00;16;45;10 - 00;17;04;00 Kevin You're going to go to the villages and you're going to you're going to retire up by Orlando. So we are also introduced to only who is the wife of the elder and that she's she's not taken this whole thing very well. 00;17;04;03 - 00;17;05;12 Phil Oh, I think. 00;17;05;14 - 00;17;05;28 Kevin She's. 00;17;06;13 - 00;17;07;00 Phil She's just. 00;17;07;04 - 00;17;30;27 Kevin Wailing and crying and she's supposed to be working the loom that is designed to weave the clothes, set the sacrifices supposed to wear. So we now we're in chapter 1.2 and we're introduced to everybody's favorite character, Toto, just oh. 00;17;31;17 - 00;17;32;09 Phil For Toto. 00;17;32;19 - 00;18;01;12 Kevin For Toto. Toto is just a sweet boy. He is Eco's best friend. So Eco is basically being kept in a cave until a two things happened to the mark, which is the clothing item that his his mom, so to speak, is working on On the Loom is complete. And B, the priest from the capital arrives to like guide him away toto around. 00;18;01;12 - 00;18;03;23 Phil He's he hasn't been raised in the cave. 00;18;03;23 - 00;18;34;22 Kevin He's been raised in the cave. He's just been in the cave for the past few days. Yeah. Since the morning train. Basically. Basically what happens is the horns just fully sprout out and grow in one night. And that's the sign that things need to start happening. Right? So Toto, his best friend, sneaks behind the guards and brings eco baked goods and is basically like, Come on, let's just run away. 00;18;34;22 - 00;18;49;15 Kevin Let's just get out of here. This is dumb. And Eco is very steadfast in his resolve. He's like, No, I cannot. I can't because of what'll happen to the town. And Toto doesn't believe basically a lick of anything like nothing's going to happen. 00;18;49;16 - 00;18;58;27 Phil By the way, how does how does the sacrifice work with eco with the what happens when it gets sacrificed, uh. 00;18;59;06 - 00;19;09;16 Kevin In stick they don't say anything as to he is just taken to the castle. Yeah. In the beyond the Forbidden Mountain. 00;19;09;27 - 00;19;11;16 Phil I love the way they wrote the castle. 00;19;11;16 - 00;19;16;04 Kevin I just. That's, that's it. That's there's, there's the master of the castle demands a sacrifice. 00;19;16;04 - 00;19;24;25 Phil Yeah. We don't like. I ask because I love that aspect of it's like you be truly they just and none of these kids have ever come back. 00;19;25;04 - 00;19;29;24 Kevin Every kids set sacrifice doesn't come back. But we got to make it. 00;19;29;26 - 00;19;31;02 Phil Oh, man. 00;19;31;02 - 00;19;36;22 Kevin And it's a big old shrug, you know, it's like moving on. You know. 00;19;37;15 - 00;19;38;24 Phil We had like we. 00;19;38;28 - 00;19;39;24 Kevin We said next. 00;19;40;06 - 00;19;41;03 Phil Winter or. 00;19;44;17 - 00;20;23;27 Kevin And there's a moment where eco recalls to himself that there is basically a like a he was shown something by the elder that was terrifying. Like this is why you need to do follow through on it. Yeah. And they, it's not explicitly stated what it is yet, but Toto is Toto he wants to go with eco. He's like, you know my but I want to go with my bird and we're so we're in chapter 1.3 and ODA is just she's so sad. 00;20;24;03 - 00;20;45;00 Kevin She's she is the saddest person. There is a quote actually. I need to find it now. Come on Kindle. I don't know if you know the quote that I'm referring to. It's it's the it's a it's about like the humanity of the the sacrifice. 00;20;45;00 - 00;20;49;12 Phil Uh oh, yeah. They talk about that a lot when she's talking to her brother. 00;20;50;18 - 00;21;21;24 Kevin Yeah. Oh, wait, I can just pull up the my notes and highlights. There we go. It's something that's, um, uh, her brother had said to her. Yeah, so let me back up a little bit on a was born and raised in the capital, the big city and her brother, her older brother was had been sent off to the seminary for training. 00;21;21;24 - 00;21;43;24 Kevin He was top of his class. And right before he was going to be ordained as a priest, he drops out. He's like, You know what? I'm out. He goes and he moves some small, you know, he sucks after the summer, some small little town. When Owen gets married to the elder, the man who will become the elder, they start corresponding with letters, talking about like what? 00;21;44;01 - 00;22;10;08 Kevin What it means to be the elder and what her responsibilities are and all that stuff. And they talk through like a little bit about what the sacrifices and the more specific she asks the questions, the more her her brother starts to obfuscate and talk about, like the light of God, the sun, God, stuff like that. 00;22;10;10 - 00;22;13;24 Phil Yeah. The more specific she gets, the vaguer he gets. 00;22;13;24 - 00;22;40;24 Kevin There's one quote here from from one of the letters, though, where the boy where he says the boy has you enchanted hasn't he. Don't forget on a why he is so pure and kind and without fault he is not human. His soul is empty and evil cannot cling to avoid as it does to our tangled hearts. Emptiness absorbs only love and light and reflects it back. 00;22;41;10 - 00;22;51;29 Kevin No wonder it's so easy for the one who must raise the horned child to love him. They see their own love reflected in his eyes. And I was like, Dan, that's fine writing. 00;22;53;00 - 00;22;53;16 Phil Yeah. 00;22;53;18 - 00;23;29;27 Kevin A That's fine writing. It's. B It's also of a wildly fascinating take on the nature of the soul, where normally it's like, Oh, soul, this is like the evil, you know, or the or whatever. Michael Myers from Halloween. He's just a soulless monster who who can't be stopped and be like and this takes the opposite take. We're like, no, he if he doesn't have a soul, therefore he's pure like his his ability to reflect love is is 100% he it is right. 00;23;30;15 - 00;23;33;08 Kevin Yeah that's was like that's interesting. 00;23;33;08 - 00;23;58;24 Phil That's interesting soul is what actually Maurice us a little bit it's what or at very least it complicates us. It takes right. It makes it tougher for us to be pure. I totally agree. I honestly, you know, the first, you know, pieces of this book where we get into the elder and all that stuff was really interesting. I knew right off the bat we had something interesting, our hands. 00;23;59;02 - 00;24;22;29 Phil But it was this part where we talk about her long lost brother and and the the nature of a soul. And basically, you know, it's impossible to miss the symbolism of him growing horns and being a sacrificial calf, you know, basically, it that that was when this was the clincher for me. It was like, oh, this is going to be good. 00;24;23;12 - 00;24;43;28 Kevin Yeah. Like, Oh, I'm in, I'm in, I am in like Flint. So we're interrupted a bit. We get steered away from this back story of Owner's and her brother to Toto. Toto. He interrupts Toto and he's like, Uh, hey, there. 00;24;43;28 - 00;24;44;28 Phil You get happens to him. 00;24;45;10 - 00;24;53;03 Kevin Hey, hey. The help. Nothing bad happens to Toto. Hey, there he goes. Mom. Uh, Jesus. 00;24;53;11 - 00;24;54;08 Phil That's what she is. 00;24;54;26 - 00;25;16;28 Kevin Do you know where the priest is? The priest that specific go away? And she's like, No, I don't. And he's like, Well, if I ask the priest something and the priest says, it's okay, that means the elder can't stop me from doing it right, because the priest outranks the elder. And Yoda is like, I don't what do you what? 00;25;17;10 - 00;25;28;11 Kevin Uh, and, and, but then she's also there's then a guard arrives and Toto has to flee and it's like, well, I'm pretty happy though that he did go and visit ego. 00;25;28;11 - 00;25;30;04 Phil Like, yeah, the kid. 00;25;30;10 - 00;25;39;01 Kevin The kid is all like gusto and moxie, you know, he's 100% charisma. Charisma rolls. 00;25;40;07 - 00;25;41;19 Phil Out all his social skills. 00;25;41;22 - 00;25;46;00 Kevin Maxed out all the social skills. So she was happy that, you know, ego was okay. 00;25;46;01 - 00;25;59;05 Phil She's I mean, and that's the thing. She she has fully fallen into what the elder would believe is kind of a trap of like like he's yeah, he's because all their other kids, their actual kids are all grown and yeah. 00;25;59;05 - 00;26;12;20 Kevin They're all, all the other kids have grown up, moved out, you know but she grandkids this boy and that's the thing is they talk about how like the grandkids are not like the ego she loves ego even more than their grandchildren. 00;26;12;20 - 00;26;42;17 Phil Yeah, totally. Yeah. Yeah. She's pretty honest about it. Like, they're like, why do you love him? What he's like, because he listens to you. It's it's also it's also like it makes perfect sense that the woman who wrote this is a children's book author. I didn't dig too deep into it, but like, I have to believe she's a mother because the way she writes Toto, for example, of that, that little that he thinks he's being clever and he thinks that, oh, I'm slick, she's not picking up on what I'm saying. 00;26;42;21 - 00;27;01;14 Phil Well, if I if if if he said I could do something, then he outranks the elder and I can do it right. It's just like ever anyone who's even seen a child for more than 5 minutes has heard those conversations. Yep. It's just like, oh, you are? Oh, what are you getting at? What? I don't know what you're doing yet, but I. 00;27;01;16 - 00;27;06;03 Phil But I'm going to find out. Why do I smell smoke? Why? 00;27;06;12 - 00;27;12;03 Kevin Why? Why do you ask? Why are you asking? Why are you asking me this? What's going on? What are you doing? What do you thinking? 00;27;12;08 - 00;27;13;12 Phil Answer me first. You answer me. 00;27;13;12 - 00;27;18;25 Kevin First. Just wander, ring like. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. We don't go under it. We don't wander in this house. 00;27;22;10 - 00;27;23;22 Phil Raised you came for a reason. 00;27;24;05 - 00;27;29;01 Kevin What are you doing? 00;27;29;01 - 00;27;48;26 Phil Oh, yeah. Know. All right, I'm just going to say it again and I'm going to keep saying it. She just our author is creating such wonderfully crafted characters. They're so warm and. And just you love them. You love them right off the bat. And she got this. 00;27;48;28 - 00;28;09;03 Kevin It's really good. It's brilliant. It's warm, loving characters where we're barely into the book. And we the characters have a rich tapestry and, you know, they, uh. They're not the characters from Dark Souls. 00;28;09;15 - 00;28;17;22 Phil Right? Right. I was going to say, you know, this is this is, you know, I haven't seen characters this well out and developed since Snap to the Silver. 00;28;17;23 - 00;28;23;20 Kevin Yes. No, it was. Yes. F is the best book we've read up until now. 00;28;24;02 - 00;28;26;23 Phil This, uh, up until Dark Souls. 00;28;27;19 - 00;28;56;18 Kevin Backslash s and this post. Yes. Stands for sarcasm. Um, one of the guards, basically, the guard is there to escort Owen back into the town because the loom that she's working on is in a building that's just sequestered out in the woods. Yeah. So she is, like, totally alone in her feelings about the impending death, basically, of her child. 00;28;56;22 - 00;29;21;26 Kevin Right. And she's like, but you got to work the loom and weave the thing. So this guard shows up to ask quarterback down because it's nighttime and Darby, you know, wolves or whatever. And the guard's like, sorry, I was a little bit late, but one of the one of my men got injured out on a hunt because he looks north towards the north forbidden mountain and fell and, and got really injured. 00;29;22;07 - 00;29;45;10 Kevin Um, so you get this idea of like even witnessing, like looking out in that direction is enough to spook people. Uh, meanwhile, Toto is like, hmm. Well, if they won't let me go with him, what if I go ahead of him? 00;29;45;10 - 00;29;47;01 Phil I'm sure this will work out fine, Toto. 00;29;47;06 - 00;30;07;26 Kevin So this is all great. And then we. We're in chapter 1.4 now, and we get into the cave where Echo hears from one of the guards that Toto has gone missing and has taken the fastest horse arrow wind. That's a that's a god damn fast horse name, you know, that's. 00;30;08;09 - 00;30;09;01 Phil Fast horse name. 00;30;09;01 - 00;30;10;16 Kevin I am betting on arrow and. 00;30;11;12 - 00;30;12;04 Phil Every time. 00;30;12;11 - 00;30;42;22 Kevin And there is one of the most, I want to say, harrowing conversations between an adult and a child ever like that I've seen put on page. Oh between between the elder. The elder and an ego. Basically the elder shows up and I was I was I was like almost about to cry for you go in this case. 00;30;42;22 - 00;30;44;13 Phil It's my heart. 00;30;44;13 - 00;31;10;27 Kevin So basically the elder is like, This is all your fault, and how can you be so cowardly? This is all part of some plan that you're going to do to to run away. And ego is like through tears, telling this man, the elder, his father, basically, for all intents and purposes, that he's he's telling him the truth. He's not lying. 00;31;11;09 - 00;31;30;02 Kevin He's he didn't tell Toto to do anything. And the elder at some point is like, you know, I should have never said like, even, like, treated you like my son. Your it's like this. It is so cutting. 00;31;30;11 - 00;31;34;13 Phil It is, it is, it is. And he hits him at one point. I think. 00;31;34;22 - 00;31;38;27 Kevin He does. Yeah. He's ego. Ego goes up and tries to hug him. 00;31;39;07 - 00;31;39;18 Phil And the. 00;31;39;23 - 00;31;41;28 Kevin Elder slaps him away. 00;31;42;00 - 00;32;02;27 Phil Oh it's it's hard, right. Because an a no point. Do you not do you stop sympathizing with the elder like like that's that's the best part. It's like it's like you you understand why he's so angry and why he assumes these things. You want to shake them and, you know, and, like, go listen. Don't listen to the boy. 00;32;02;28 - 00;32;28;19 Phil Listen to the boy. But he's but but that's the thing. It's what he's raised to do. He has to he has to hold the boy at arm's length when he can. And this is just another example of that. And it's like, you know, you've got it's like, you know, Kevin and I were literally talking about before we got started, we're talking about the prospect of I've been I've been working on homesteading skills and that sort of thing, and I've learned recently how to kill and process chickens. 00;32;28;19 - 00;32;59;07 Phil And we were, you know, Kevin pointed out that that, you know, starting with chicken, that's probably easier than doing, for example, a pig, which could also be a pet. Right. And and yeah, like it's that kind of thing where you have to ego is a sacrificial lamb. He is a sacrificial calf. He is not meant. But you it's like it's like, well, we're going to buy this dozen chickens so that in three months they'll be fully grown and we can kill them and eat them over the winter. 00;32;59;07 - 00;33;11;28 Phil And your kid walks in and says, I've given them all names, and you go, That's essentially what's happened here. He gave Eco a name. 00;33;11;28 - 00;33;44;03 Kevin So it's it it really broke my heart. Reading that reading that segment, we we cut to Toto and the horse and it the way this section is written is like I loved the way this initial approach of the mountain like were because the narration says something like, were Toto a trained hunter, he would have known something was amiss immediately, but he wasn't. 00;33;44;14 - 00;33;47;08 Kevin And it was you're like, Oh, no, something. 00;33;47;09 - 00;34;16;26 Phil Oh, it's good. But Toto, buddy. Yeah, absolutely. And I and I and we've talked about this with Dark Souls most recently, I think, where we were talking about one of the problems with Dark Souls was that it missed the tone and the atmosphere in many ways. And this is the first time that I was like, Oh yeah, because while I haven't played Echo, I have played Shadow The Colossus, and they both have a similar atmosphere to them. 00;34;16;26 - 00;34;28;13 Phil This lonely, strange world kind of atmosphere. And this is where with Toto alone we start getting into that. And it felt very correct for the source, right? 00;34;29;02 - 00;34;40;29 Kevin Yeah. Basically it's like he would have noticed that there's no wildlife making any sort of noise as he crosses through. Yeah, it goes up the road and I was like, Yeah, that's oh boy. 00;34;41;15 - 00;34;44;01 Phil Oh yeah. 00;34;44;01 - 00;35;13;20 Kevin So we and this segment ends with him coming up to the walls of the city and it's like, Oh, that's weird. Everything is gray. The walls are gray from corner to corner. And also the it looks like the people are not moving at all. And also the flag is not moving. And I guess it must not be very he's like, but he's feeling winds, you know, on his face. 00;35;13;20 - 00;35;36;19 Kevin It's like, well, I guess it must not be windy up there. It's like the flag is it's not like the flag is down. The flag is not moving, but it is made like a snap of. Yeah, it looks like it is being perpetually blown. Like perpetually blown. I heard it as soon as I said it. 00;35;36;19 - 00;35;37;27 Phil I think we need a new T-shirt. 00;35;40;08 - 00;35;42;14 Kevin And it's just a frozen flag on it. It's it's. 00;35;42;14 - 00;35;44;00 Phil Supposed to be blown. 00;35;45;20 - 00;35;52;13 Kevin Perpetually blowing in a direction, right? Yeah. Right. Very good. Right. 00;35;52;25 - 00;35;53;21 Phil The aristocrats. 00;35;54;03 - 00;35;55;00 Kevin The aristocrats. 00;35;56;15 - 00;35;57;07 Phil Aristocrats. 00;35;57;23 - 00;36;08;19 Kevin Um, so in section 1.5, Chapter one, Section five. Uh, the elder not in great shape, feels like losing control of the situation. 00;36;08;19 - 00;36;11;15 Phil Yeah, it might be getting away from him. It might. 00;36;11;21 - 00;36;12;16 Kevin Be getting away from. 00;36;13;07 - 00;36;16;00 Phil Getting away from him. Yeah, a little bit. A little bit. 00;36;17;17 - 00;36;34;05 Kevin But we get back to Toto pretty quickly and he's walking through the city and everybody has been turned to stone. Good, great, great. At one point, he accidentally bumps into one of the stone people, and the they collapse. They fall. 00;36;34;05 - 00;36;37;18 Phil Apart. Yeah, just great job. Done a. 00;36;38;00 - 00;36;40;07 Kevin Great job. This is a good idea, Toto. Yeah. 00;36;40;07 - 00;36;42;07 Phil You you really thought this one through. 00;36;42;29 - 00;37;08;06 Kevin So as he's walking through the city, this black smoke, he thinks it's like a bats or birds or something like that erupting from the castle. He can see the castle off in the distance, comes out and this is terrifying to imagine. Basically, this black smoke turns itself into a giant like smiling face in the sky. 00;37;08;28 - 00;37;10;00 Phil At the moment. 00;37;11;14 - 00;37;49;12 Kevin So Arrow wins the good boy horse that we had already been semi-detached to freak out and runs away. The face blows a little gust of wind down and arrow wind turns into a statue and that's that's like mid whinny just just petrified by this smoke face, giant smoke face in the sky. So, Toto, he's running. He gets he makes his way inside of the houses. 00;37;50;13 - 00;38;09;23 Kevin He's kind of like fighting his way through, trying to hide, seeing if you can hide from from the the giant face in the sky. And while he's doing this, he finds a hidden passage in one of the houses. It's basically like he falls down into the basement. Yeah, it's like a library that they had down in the basement. 00;38;09;23 - 00;38;30;22 Kevin And all the books are turned to stone, just like everything else is. Everything else is like stone. And when you touch it, it falls apart. Except one. There's there is a single book that he finds and it's white and it has like a like glow to it. And he takes it and. 00;38;30;25 - 00;38;31;24 Phil The Book of Mormon. 00;38;32;07 - 00;38;33;11 Kevin The book in it. 00;38;33;14 - 00;38;37;07 Phil And it's this is this is how it all starts, people. 00;38;37;17 - 00;38;45;15 Kevin Toto is Joseph Smith. You know, he's he's he's Joseph Smith Brigham Young all rolled into one all. 00;38;45;29 - 00;38;47;08 Phil The metaphors are obvious. 00;38;47;08 - 00;38;48;20 Kevin People obvious. 00;38;48;21 - 00;38;50;01 Phil Keep up. 00;38;50;01 - 00;39;18;23 Kevin So he finds it and he he escapes and he's he's he runs out of the city. He's basically covered in this ash and he just makes it makes a break for it. So we cut to the next segment and the elder is informed that Toto has returned and the elder goes in and and has a conversation with Toto. 00;39;19;01 - 00;39;30;18 Kevin Toto is basically laying down in a bed and he looks like he's is not in great shape. He's like covered in the ash from like the people. He has people on. 00;39;30;18 - 00;39;31;20 Phil He's got people on him. 00;39;31;20 - 00;39;50;20 Kevin Yeah, he's got people on him. Uh, and, uh, he sees the elder sees the book and he's like, Oh, snap. That's is that what I think it is? And Toto gives him the book and the elder like kind of wrestles it away from him. And after that happens, Toto Petrified. 00;39;50;29 - 00;39;58;08 Phil Yeah, yeah, yeah. Probably a wrap on Toto, I think. Probably you read Toto. 00;39;58;08 - 00;40;04;16 Kevin I think we're we're done with Toto because the only thing that was keeping him from not dying was holding on to the book. 00;40;04;23 - 00;40;08;21 Phil Right, right. So thanks, Elder. 00;40;09;03 - 00;40;32;20 Kevin Thanks, Elder. Smooth move. And then the elder like sees the book and he flips through it and he goes back into the town and we're like, All right, people, we got to we got to tighten up this fucking shit. All right, you everybody light the torches. Light the torches. We're going to we're going to pray. We're going to put holy water down everywhere. 00;40;32;25 - 00;40;34;12 Kevin We're going to purify this shit. 00;40;34;18 - 00;40;37;10 Phil All the kids start singing and dancing, singing, dancing. 00;40;37;10 - 00;41;01;08 Kevin Singing and dancing. It's it's, you know, Bible fellowship in here. Yeah. We got to we got to purify and get this place ready for the high. We're going to holy war here, people. And he does. It's actually like we're preparing for war. Yeah. And he, he goes to on a and is like, here, start from scratch. Like, get this shit out of your room. 00;41;01;15 - 00;41;02;03 Kevin Stop it. 00;41;02;05 - 00;41;02;13 Phil Yeah. 00;41;02;29 - 00;41;34;13 Kevin This one is what do this one instead. And there's a different mark. So the Martha and I had been working on, which is the, the cloth tunic that the sacrifice is basically the one that sacrifices his have always worn. And what the elder finds in the book is a diagram for the mark, which is similar but but distinct in the way the pattern the I think they use the worlds of the pattern. 00;41;34;16 - 00;41;34;24 Kevin Yeah. 00;41;34;27 - 00;41;39;01 Phil Are done at a glance. It looks like the same base at a. 00;41;39;01 - 00;42;02;20 Kevin Glance it looks like the scene but it's not. Yeah. So he's like, you got to make it like this. It came from this book, you got to do this. And then so we're on 1.7 and it starts out with Echo having a dream about a switch like a little pons that him and Toto found and how refreshing and fun it was. 00;42;02;20 - 00;42;04;25 Kevin And you know how good it was to be a kid. 00;42;06;04 - 00;42;16;05 Phil Really looking forward to playing with Toto again. One day. That's going to work out great. 00;42;16;05 - 00;42;40;08 Kevin So the elder wakes him up and they, he asks them to try the mark on and, and him and are there and you know, it's like put it on and like the mark, it actually actually glows when it's on him. And he's like, well, the mark recognizes you. Great. This is great. They're, they're like kneeling in front of him and they're they're like, you're going to come back to us like this. 00;42;40;23 - 00;43;05;04 Kevin You have to go there and you're going to come back to us. And it's like this, like, little emotional moment of like, you know, you know, the family kind of re the family unit kind of getting back together. And because they had been kind of they they started the book a little bit fractured. You know, the elder was kind of pissed off ONA because she was not taking her time making the thing. 00;43;05;13 - 00;43;15;15 Kevin Owen was sad because her her baby boy, her sweet baby boy didn't go was going to go off to die. And Echo was, you know, in a cave. 00;43;15;29 - 00;43;35;26 Phil Yeah. Yeah. And I there was. Yeah. There's a brief moment where they echo thinks that the elder, he looks at the way he's talking to them, he said this is he thinks this isn't the same man who hit me earlier. Right. So it's kind of like this quiet, like all is forgiven kind of moment to reassure. 00;43;36;14 - 00;43;47;02 Kevin Yeah. Um, and then they have to basically take the mark back off and be like, All right, now give us the mark and don't, don't tell the priests about. 00;43;47;02 - 00;43;52;12 Phil Yeah, don't. So keep it to yourself. Keep it under your hat, boy. 00;43;52;12 - 00;44;16;15 Kevin So the priest arrives and a lot of this chapter is basically like the priest doing his. His bullshit is like cast in a spell. Ego is the sacrifice, all that stuff. And he, he's like, all right, this kid is acceptable to be sent off to a castle and on the mountain to die. 00;44;18;05 - 00;44;21;21 Phil Two thumbs up, two thumbs up. 00;44;21;21 - 00;44;41;26 Kevin And they put the mark on him, and they they take him onto the carriage. It's the priest and it's two guards and a go and and off they go. And Aeko is going to spend the trip in chains. You know, he's all he's all chained up. Yes. In order to eat his soups, like bend over and lick it up like a dog. 00;44;41;26 - 00;44;44;11 Phil Yeah. Yeah. I guess they're not taking chances with him. 00;44;44;11 - 00;44;51;29 Kevin They're not taking any chances with the with sacrifice. One of the guards is nicer to him than the other, though I liked that again. 00;44;51;29 - 00;44;57;20 Phil It was just this little thing. We never hear this guy's name. We don't see we don't even see his face. He's where his face is never. 00;44;57;20 - 00;45;00;05 Kevin He's wearing a big old helmet that you can't see his face. 00;45;00;05 - 00;45;11;17 Phil Right. And and he has these she writes these moments in where that guard clearly like I think he co like speculates that maybe he has a kid back home or. Yeah, and. 00;45;11;29 - 00;45;14;16 Kevin His he he's that he's a father. 00;45;14;18 - 00;45;28;00 Phil Right. He treats him like, you know, just these little moments of kindness, whereas the priest and the other guard won't or don't talk to him. And they say, don't talk to him. Don't, don't talk to us. Don't acknowledge us. Yeah. 00;45;28;01 - 00;45;32;06 Kevin You know, and they yell at the other guard occasionally for right. You know. 00;45;32;15 - 00;45;34;28 Phil So it's a little moment of human kindness. 00;45;35;01 - 00;45;45;03 Kevin But yeah, she does an amazing job. Yeah. Humanizing random characters. Like even these. Just this guard. 00;45;45;15 - 00;45;45;26 Phil Yeah. 00;45;46;11 - 00;45;49;11 Kevin He's in it for a real brief amount of time. 00;45;49;24 - 00;46;00;04 Phil Very, very little amount of time. And you and you still just feel like. I think I know this guy. I know I know that. Or at least I know this kind of person I've met this crazy kind of person. 00;46;00;15 - 00;46;10;24 Kevin Yeah, yeah. So it's. It's. I liked it. Yeah, it's good stuff. Now we're in chapter two, so that was all chapter one. 00;46;11;12 - 00;46;15;16 Phil Yeah. Yeah. By the way. 00;46;15;24 - 00;46;44;13 Kevin By the way, that was all chapter one. This is actually where the game picks up. This is that chapter two is the opening cut scene of ego for the most part. So they arrive, uh, they arrive at the castle, they go up the winding road to the castle, and they get out of the carriage at the bridge. But the bridge to the front gate of the castle is broken. 00;46;45;06 - 00;47;18;00 Kevin And there's a nice little poetic line of like, no entry, no exit. Like, you can't get in and you also can't get out, right? The only way to get into the castle, they have to go down to the water and take a boat across the waterway, underneath the castle, into the lake, into the cliffs under the castle. And then there's this moment where the guard, one of the guards, has to use a sword that he's that is clearly too heavy for him to wield. 00;47;18;09 - 00;47;45;24 Kevin But he has the sword is like casts a spell on himself, the two guards, the priest, and like the icons in the the iconography in the area, it like gives them all this like white glow or something like that. And I don't think it's, it's not explained yet. I don't think as to what that does. I think given what we find out later, that it's like a protection spell or something like that. 00;47;46;06 - 00;47;53;10 Kevin So word or something award for for whatever is in the castle does go on ego he's you know. No. 00;47;54;09 - 00;47;58;05 Phil No fuck that kid. Right. You go to my right. 00;47;58;05 - 00;47;59;10 Kevin People everything else glow. 00;48;00;06 - 00;48;04;05 Phil Yeah. 00;48;04;05 - 00;48;26;00 Kevin And then they go up, basically up an elevator. It's still like a round stone platform that raises them up into a room filled with sarcophagi. And they. They choose one of the sarcophagus that looks pretty much the same as all the others. And the guards take the lid off and they're like, Get in. 00;48;26;23 - 00;48;27;03 Phil Yeah. 00;48;28;02 - 00;48;29;27 Kevin And they put them in. 00;48;30;09 - 00;48;33;22 Phil Okay. Yeah. You ever seen Kill Bill, Kid? 00;48;34;21 - 00;48;42;12 Kevin And it's like, oh, so this is what the the sacrifices you just for the kid in the sarcophagus and leave him there. 00;48;42;22 - 00;48;46;07 Phil Cool, cool. That's very cool. And good of you. 00;48;46;08 - 00;49;30;24 Kevin Yeah, that's great. Good, good, good, good, good. Yeah. So, so echo or in 22.2. Now Echo is sitting in the sarcophagus. Just wondering, I don't know what's going to happen next. And eventually the sarcophagus starts to like rock a little bit and it tips over breaking open, sending him flying, and he hits his head on the floor and it knocks him out and he goes into basically like a dreamlike state where he wakes up in another part of the castle and it's dark and it's raining and he's in a tower and he has to he sees a cage up in the ceiling and he's got nothing to do but climb the tower. 00;49;30;24 - 00;50;01;03 Kevin And he he climbs all the way up to the tower. And what he finds in the cage is like a an inky black this like that. It's like a void that doesn't really have a form. It seems like it's it seems maybe like a person at times, but it doesn't. And eventually it starts to like consume everything. And then he wakes up and he's where he hit his head. 00;50;01;03 - 00;50;05;08 Kevin You know, not that long has passed since his sarcophagus. 00;50;05;16 - 00;50;06;09 Phil Yeah. Yeah. 00;50;08;08 - 00;50;32;13 Kevin So he starts exploring the castle, jumping around, doing his sacrifice, stuff of being able to jump and climb and all that. And he finds a window that he can jump into and he jumps through the window and now he is actually in the room that he just dreamed about. But it's daytime. Yeah, but it's the same situation. There's a cage all the way at the top of the room. 00;50;33;00 - 00;51;15;17 Kevin So he begins climbing up, climbing up to the top of the cage. He sees that there is a girl, there's a there's a person in it, and he finds a lever to start, like lowering the cage down to the dyas on the on the floor and it gets stuck. He jumps on the top of the cage because maybe that'll do something and it does, it's the end of the chains or the chains are broken, knocks the cage all the way down, and when they get down to the bottom, these smoke monsters basically appear and start attacking and dragging the girl away and trying to pull her into the the smoke puddle that they emerge from 00;51;17;01 - 00;51;44;00 Kevin eco grabs a torch from the wall and I forget it goes out. I think he like swings it at one of the monsters and it immediately extinguishes but he can still make contact with that like kind of back them. Back then the f up, he fights his way to the girl. He grabs the girl and he gets sent into another similar dream, like the one that he had a dream like state. 00;51;44;16 - 00;52;12;08 Kevin It seems like he's sent back in time. Yeah, because it's like he's in that room again, but it's clearly at it. Like it's it's looks better. It looks like newer, fresher. And he sees it. He sees the cage, but it's not damaged like he had just damaged it. And he sees an old man kind of muttering to himself, it's talking about how this how the castle is walking towards its destruction. 00;52;13;26 - 00;52;37;27 Kevin And then we're back. We're back in present day. He wakes up, he snaps out of it. He's able to pull the girl away from the smoke monsters. And she goes up to these these these idols that are blocking the doorway. She's able to, like, say something to the idols and it casts that light spell. It's I think it's similar to that light spell that the guards cast. 00;52;38;10 - 00;53;04;28 Kevin Yeah. And, and it kind of like bounces around and it just like knocks away all the smoke monsters and like the pool and that they were emerging from and everything. And then the idols slide out of the way and they can, they can leave now and it's like it's like we're we're in a very interesting spot in the book because like it's the action really picks up here in this in, in chapter two. 00;53;05;07 - 00;53;17;14 Kevin Yeah. All this time Echo is kind of talking to himself and to the girl and he's like always reminding himself, like, you understand anything that I'm saying. 00;53;17;14 - 00;53;22;02 Phil Yeah, right. Yeah. Becomes very clear that she doesn't speak the same language as he does. 00;53;23;20 - 00;53;30;05 Kevin He's like he's like, you want to come? You're like, you don't get what I'm saying. You don't understand what I'm doing here. 00;53;30;05 - 00;53;45;07 Phil Yeah. Much of what he says to her could be directly transcribed from the things that I say to my cat when I'm alone and cleaning the house or something like that. So it's a very similar vibe. What are we doing now? All right, all right. 00;53;45;16 - 00;53;47;00 Kevin We're clean, huh? You don't. 00;53;47;03 - 00;53;51;08 Phil You don't understand me, okay? 00;53;51;08 - 00;53;53;00 Kevin It's basically ego, and it's just like. 00;53;53;08 - 00;53;53;17 Phil Yeah. 00;53;53;27 - 00;54;11;07 Kevin Frustrated. And also he just starts. It gives. I think it's good because it gives the narrator or the the author an excuse for ego to just kind of continue talking to himself. Yeah, like, yeah. He's like, whatever. You don't understand. I'm just going to. Keep talking. 00;54;11;16 - 00;54;17;23 Phil Yeah, I'm going to keep. It doesn't matter. Just it doesn't matter. I'm going to keep talking. It does matter. 00;54;17;26 - 00;54;49;00 Kevin They find so they they they get to like a bridge and they find another statue. Except this statue starts telepathically talking to ego. Like the statue's hand comes down and it puts it's his hand on Eco's shoulder and it starts talking about the history of the sacrifice and how the statue is probably of the guy who was the original sacrifice. 00;54;49;00 - 00;55;05;05 Kevin And he refers to the sacrifices as his children. Not necessarily. He's not like the his literal like biological father, I don't think. But that the it's. 00;55;05;05 - 00;55;06;05 Phil Like, yeah, so far I. 00;55;06;05 - 00;55;28;09 Kevin Don't, I don't think as far as we know, but that the sacrifices are generally his children and he had this kind of I get to pull it up here give me 1/2. Because he had this like list of things that he mentions. 00;55;28;09 - 00;55;29;25 Phil Doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo. 00;55;30;00 - 00;55;47;28 Kevin Doo doo doo doo doo doo doo. See, that's the problem with the the Kindle version is that the that I can, I can only jump to the start of the chapters. Yeah. Like chapter one. Chapter two. So yeah. 00;55;47;28 - 00;56;03;26 Phil Yeah. So that's oh I think that's a, I think I'm there. 00;56;05;11 - 00;56;29;07 Kevin Oh there we go. Here we go. So, um, basically the, the, this night speaks to him in these very short sentences like, and they're coming right into his head, says Castle in the mist, resentment, this strong sin, this deep, long years of atonement, this cruel 1000 years of time, did not erase my sentence, bearing years spent imprisoned here. 00;56;29;17 - 00;56;46;08 Kevin Even now it tortures my body, binding me to this place. But my son and I just imagine that as the from the Superman. What's his name? Jor-El, who played Jor-El in the original Superman movies or Marlon Brando? 00;56;46;16 - 00;56;55;20 Phil Yeah, my. My son. Yeah, yeah, my son. Brando. 00;56;55;20 - 00;57;27;29 Kevin So he says that to him and then he basically the night just, like, fucks off, like, disappears down the down the bridgeway and they follow him and they find him. They find the statue now is like up on the wall or something like that in a completely different position. And the, uh, he's, he starts talking to the girl, going to be like, will the castle curse this guy to be like, do you, do you know anything? 00;57;28;11 - 00;57;44;20 Kevin You know what's going on? Do you know his name? Yeah. And she she just, like, shakes her head and she's got this, like, every time they describe her, she's like, she's the most pure, innocent, doe eyed creature you've ever imagined. 00;57;44;20 - 00;57;53;04 Phil Like, okay, but just keep, keep, keep it. Keep it calm here. 00;57;53;04 - 00;58;18;01 Kevin But, um, so they, they continue on part of the bridge, then collapses. They kind of like save each other and then they, they just continue on deeper into the castle. And that's, that's where our leaving off. Yeah. A lot of stuff happens. Oh that's a lot of stuff. 00;58;18;02 - 00;58;42;03 Phil This is easily one of our most involved. Like this is more involved like this is, this is right up there with, like the Halo books we've read in terms of like how intricate and multifaceted of a story this is. Now I feel like now that we're in the castle, it's going to be a little more straightforward. Yeah, but she's like, Yeah, there's a lot of mythology building here. 00;58;42;22 - 00;58;58;23 Kevin Yeah. And I think it's, it's amazing because yeah, it's all the first chapter, the bulk of what we talked about tonight, all added stuff. Yeah. It was like it was all added by the author as like that is, that is some good shit right there. 00;58;59;01 - 00;59;31;14 Phil Yeah. It's, it's well-developed, it's charming, but it's got a lot of drama and, and danger behind it. Like, you know, we've got, you've got everything from like you know, parent and child relationships being tender and tragic and beautiful to being chased by a weird face and being turned into stone where we've killed a teenager, you know, and it's it's and at no point is it jarring. 00;59;31;24 - 00;59;37;29 Phil It all flows. So beautifully. I can't tell you how excited I am about this book so far. Yeah, yeah. 00;59;38;21 - 01;00;08;10 Kevin I, I, I dig it so far. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that's, that's about one third of the book that we cover tonight. So we'll be on through three episodes on this. And I think episode two, if it gives any indication as to like what the rest of chapter with the first part of chapter two is like, I feel like it's probably going to be a bit quicker paced in terms of of the intricacies and stuff like that. 01;00;08;10 - 01;00;16;21 Kevin It's going to be more now. There was an author's note at the beginning saying like, this is not going to follow the game directly. This is not a walk through of the game. 01;00;16;21 - 01;00;26;20 Phil So yeah, she makes a point of saying some of the solutions to the puzzle that are different and you know, she she's pretty open about like I, I swapped some stuff around change some stuff. 01;00;26;27 - 01;00;44;16 Kevin Which is which is great. I think that's I think that, you know, whatever you got to do to make it fit better as a cohesive story and theme and all that stuff, go for it. And that's something that Steve Perry did. If you recall all the way back to our very first series. 01;00;44;16 - 01;00;46;02 Phil All the way back, all. 01;00;46;02 - 01;01;03;22 Kevin The way back, uh, 80 some episodes ago, Steve Perry did that with some of the solutions for the puzzles in, in the umbrella conspiracy, where, you know, it was just like, Oh yeah, Jill just smashed the glass open. 01;01;03;22 - 01;01;09;06 Phil Yeah, yeah. It's good adaptation then it's good up to adaptation now. 01;01;09;09 - 01;01;16;17 Kevin Exactly. Yeah. Um, so yeah, I guess that really only leaves one question. 01;01;16;24 - 01;01;17;12 Phil What's that? 01;01;18;12 - 01;01;19;14 Kevin What do you play in? 01;01;19;25 - 01;01;40;14 Phil Oh, okay. Well, I've been I've been all over the board a little bit lately. Like I wrapped up a little bit. I think I'm done with tiny folks for the time being. I've been playing a lot of Marvel snap. I even I popped back in on the card shark a little more played sex chess. I've also been looking into. 01;01;40;14 - 01;01;41;20 Kevin What hmm. 01;01;42;16 - 01;01;44;27 Phil Which marvel snap. 01;01;44;27 - 01;01;46;23 Kevin You know, after that. 01;01;47;03 - 01;01;49;12 Phil Oh, oh, oh. You mean sex? 01;01;49;12 - 01;01;54;24 Kevin Chess, sex? Yes. I would like to hear more about this game root. 01;01;55;04 - 01;02;22;25 Phil It came out this week and when I was young, one of the first any games I ever played was battle chess. And for those of you for those of you playing the home game, battle chess basically took it's just chess. But when you killed a figure, when you took took their night or a pawn or something like that, there would be a fight scene. 01;02;22;25 - 01;02;52;01 Phil And it very depending on who was killing who. And it was very entertaining. It was actually a really smart, only quasi manipulative way in to getting young kids into learning about chess and keeping them interested. And based on what this game looked like, I was expecting it would be the same thing with but with over-the-top silly, naughty sex scenes. 01;02;52;10 - 01;03;21;08 Phil Sure. Because while I wasn't looking, steam just said, yeah, fine, fuck it, put your porn game in here. And and so I was like, okay, this looks silly it clearly has a sense of humor about it. It doesn't look amazing in terms of like the graphics, all that stuff. But there's some creativity here. I'm interested and it was released last week and it was five bucks or something like that, and I was like, Yeah, fine, fuck it, I'll try it. 01;03;21;22 - 01;03;34;26 Phil I have the unfortunate duty to inform you that it turns out sex, chess. Not very good, but I know, I know. This news comes as a blow, but. 01;03;35;21 - 01;03;36;00 Kevin Hey. 01;03;36;00 - 01;03;56;23 Phil Oh, hey. It's so unfortunate because it's one of those things where you really could have had a lot of I have no problem with sex games. When Hannibal came out, it was one of my top games of the year. I think if you come at it. Ledger Shoot. Larry was one of the most one of my favorite franchises of all time. 01;03;57;15 - 01;04;04;19 Phil There is room for fun, sexy games if you know what you're doing and you're having fun with it. 01;04;04;20 - 01;04;06;03 Kevin Sure. You know, you. 01;04;06;03 - 01;04;27;01 Phil Give it the proper respect. And by proper respect, I don't mean watering things down. I mean crying. Just because there's a pair of tits doesn't make it awesome. Right? And so basically in the game, the storyline such as it were, is there's a. 01;04;27;01 - 01;04;27;22 Kevin Storyline. 01;04;27;22 - 01;04;53;19 Phil Yeah, believe it or not, it's heaven versus hell. And you are I they surprised me. I thought I was playing heaven. I'm. You're playing the devil, at least in the level I played. And you're playing an angel trying to defeat the angel. And all of the different figures are very elaborate and strange. And it was part of what gave me like I was like, this could be fun. 01;04;53;24 - 01;05;37;14 Phil Like the, the angelic knight. It's so weird because the angel side, the heaven side, they make a big point of him, like being like talking about how I like basically sex in kind of like it's impure and you're being impure. But meanwhile, the angel speaking about impurities itself is wearing four cock rings made out of solid gold with a dick hanging halfway to his knee and and then when you're playing the actual game, the knight on the angelic side is this woman riding a levitating butt plug and and the the king on the devil side is a guy with a scepter that's just a pink dildo. 01;05;38;03 - 01;06;04;29 Phil And it's just absolute craziness just to look at it. And then you get to the battle mode, like where, you know, would you take someone's rook or whatever. And it's some of the most uncreative, boring. It's not even a scene like, like I said, with battle chests. Like, for example, if you took the queen with the rook in battle chess the way picks up the queen and swallows her whole and you know, and belches out a shoe. 01;06;04;29 - 01;06;07;24 Phil I right, right, right. True. I might be. 01;06;08;03 - 01;06;09;04 Kevin Something along those lines. 01;06;09;04 - 01;06;32;23 Phil Though. Yeah. Something along those lines and, and it was like, oh that's funny. And it just takes a few seconds. It's funny, it's fun and you know, and it makes it neat with this. It's just the same. Like, they all have different sexual animations, but it's the same thing over and over and over again on a loop. And it's very dull. 01;06;33;05 - 01;06;36;13 Phil Sure. It's if there's anything that you're. 01;06;36;17 - 01;06;38;20 Kevin The worst crime a game like I mean. 01;06;38;23 - 01;06;53;24 Phil Yeah. If your sex game can avoid anything it is being dull. And I actually I couldn't play it further than that it was. Sure. And I know that this news is shaking. 01;06;54;03 - 01;06;54;23 Kevin Heartbreaking. 01;06;55;06 - 01;07;26;10 Phil Yeah, it does have, as I recall, it has a very good score on Steam. Don't listen to it. It's just people wanting to make funny reviews and stuff like that. It is. It's actually not good. Okay. And just just play chess. Just play chess. After I got over the disappointment and the shock that I was feeling at the at sex chess not being a good game, I did end up playing the Resident Evil Village DLC. 01;07;26;24 - 01;07;27;24 Phil This was, what, last week? 01;07;27;28 - 01;07;31;29 Kevin Yeah, I'm really enjoying it. Oh, yeah, it's great. 01;07;31;29 - 01;07;34;15 Phil Yeah, I. I love that game so much, Kevin. 01;07;34;21 - 01;07;35;16 Kevin It's such a good game. 01;07;35;16 - 01;08;06;00 Phil It's such a great game. And I'm not finished with it yet, but it's just, it's a terrific excuse to, you know, get back into that world with some new mechanics and some new takes on things. And it's not it got me to thinking it's funny because, you know, I'm not a huge Metroid mania guy. Sure. But when think about it, Resident Evil, which is one of my favorite franchises ever, has a heavy Metroid mania aspect to it. 01;08;06;09 - 01;08;30;26 Phil Oh yeah, totally. You know, the puzzles aren't terribly complex. You're just kind of running from one end of the the map to another as you collect things and other things become unlocked and I love it. I'm always here for it and it always makes me happy. And maybe it's just because Metroidvania is are so sprawling and my ADHD shuts me down for I can get too deep into it. 01;08;31;04 - 01;08;51;29 Phil Right? With some exceptions. Blasphemous being one of them, but yeah, I'm really enjoying it. I haven't gotten into like the shooting modes and stuff like that that they have. That was never really my, my cup of tea, but I'm like, it's enough that, you know, I paid 20 bucks for this thing. I might as well get the most out. 01;08;51;29 - 01;08;53;16 Kevin Of it as well, you know. Yeah. 01;08;53;16 - 01;08;56;08 Phil Yeah. So, yeah, that's right. Matt. What? Kevin, what are you. 01;08;56;08 - 01;09;10;02 Kevin Playing all right? What am I playing? I am playing God of War Ragnarok. Oh, okay. Which is pretty darn good so far. 01;09;10;10 - 01;09;11;28 Phil Did you get that on your ps5? 01;09;12;11 - 01;09;51;22 Kevin Yes. Yes, I did. It's available for PS4 and PS5, and I think next year they're planning on doing the PC release because it's one of the Sony exclusives. But Sony has been doing more with with getting the PC version of games out there. Yeah. God of War Ragnarok. Really interesting game so far I feel like I'm about 10 hours into it and it's it's got a really strong narrative and I'd say that's probably one of the things that separates it from, let's say Elden Ring, right. 01;09;51;22 - 01;10;23;18 Kevin Which is then the Elden rings narrative is, is very understated and much like a lot of the fronts are soft stuff really focus on the world you're exploring god of war is is a very strong on character character and the plot and all that stuff and doing a hell of a job with, with the writing on this one so I yeah so far I'm really digging it. 01;10;24;08 - 01;10;46;12 Kevin We'll, we'll see how I feel when I get all the way through it. But yeah, God of War Ragnarok has been my main the main thing I've been playing recently announced. I started as I installed a power wash simulator on my AH on my Xbox series s and. 01;10;46;20 - 01;10;47;08 Phil It's. 01;10;47;27 - 01;10;49;09 Kevin Nice. Yeah. 01;10;50;03 - 01;10;50;26 Phil Scratching it. 01;10;50;26 - 01;11;12;08 Kevin Sure. Yeah. I mean I power wash like our back patio off and allow us to be like, you know, I'll just do it with my headphones on and be like, Yeah, it's actually kind of satisfying to, to watch it get clean. So yeah, I think I might spend a little bit more time, you know, with that. 01;11;12;26 - 01;11;16;22 Phil That's yeah, I Can't think of two games that it's like. 01;11;16;29 - 01;11;18;19 Kevin They're diametrically opposed. 01;11;19;01 - 01;11;27;15 Phil But just makes perfect sense when you think about it though, because you're not going to put down God of war and then go, All right, on to Elden Ring or something like that. 01;11;27;15 - 01;11;34;22 Kevin Yeah, you're like, God, I'm like, I'm going to put down God of war in favor of, like, Last of US. Part two. 01;11;34;22 - 01;11;35;04 Phil Something. 01;11;35;04 - 01;11;58;22 Kevin Like that, you know, some, some very narrative driven game. Yeah. No, it's like God of War into Paradise Simulator. I think those do go together like I need to. I need to just, like, chill and throw on a podcast was know what's going on the bastards this week. Yeah. And see what's up. Great show. Great show. 01;11;58;24 - 01;11;59;03 Phil Show. 01;12;00;23 - 01;12;05;03 Kevin But speaking of great shows, do it for this great show. 01;12;05;03 - 01;12;06;23 Phil This great show is end of this. 01;12;07;11 - 01;12;34;11 Kevin Yeah, that's that's that's all we got for you for now. So please, please follow us on social media. Twitter is still active so far, but it might not be by the time this episode comes out. I gave that warning last week, but it's even more dire now because the bankruptcy stuff and all that. So follow us on Twitter at Pixelate Pod for as long as that is relevant and also on Instagram at Pixel Upon. 01;12;35;05 - 01;12;49;19 Kevin Better yet, go to our website Pixelate podcast and sign up for the newsletter which we can send you newsletter email straight into your inbox so you'll never miss an episode. Or when we post other stuff. 01;12;50;20 - 01;12;52;22 Phil And we're going to we're trying to expand. 01;12;52;23 - 01;12;53;23 Kevin And try to expand. 01;12;54;03 - 01;13;02;11 Phil Buy some new stuff out. And this is going to be probably the primary way that we get a lot of that stuff out to you. So exactly that newsletters join up. 01;13;02;22 - 01;13;12;22 Kevin Get in there, put all your courses, your email address, you just drop it in there. Listen, you got a lot of shit in your inbox anyway. You know why not sign up. 01;13;12;22 - 01;13;13;23 Phil For see in there too? 01;13;13;26 - 01;13;20;07 Kevin We might as well be in there too. And guess what? We're actually giving you something. We're giving you our love. 01;13;20;22 - 01;13;22;13 Phil Lots and lots. 01;13;22;13 - 01;13;34;27 Kevin And lots of it. So Pixelate podcast, go ahead, hit sign up for the newsletter. Yes, the subscribe button is spelled wrong. Yes, that's my fault. Yeah, I'll get to it. Probably by the time this. 01;13;34;27 - 01;13;36;08 Phil Oh my god, did I miss that. 01;13;36;20 - 01;13;56;04 Kevin By the time the episode comes out, I'll probably get to it, you know? Does it only take me 2 seconds to change it? To fix that? Yes. Is there an autocorrect on the thing? No, there isn't. It's just. Just me. Just me, baby. And. And just misspell. You know, I might leave it there just to show you how much I love that. 01;13;56;08 - 01;14;18;06 Kevin But if it's if it's there, if it's fixed, by the time you get around to it on this episode, then Phuket. Phuket, who knows. So yeah, subscribe to our newsletter Pixelate Podcast. Also from our website, you can join our discord and our steam group where we drop reviews of the of the games that we talk about. And what are you playing? 01;14;18;13 - 01;14;21;10 Phil Hey, I've even been popping into the discord now and then. 01;14;21;13 - 01;14;35;23 Kevin Phil has actually been he is positively active on discord recently. And when I say that, that's like you said, ten things the course of three weeks. Right. But but that's a large that's up from zero. Yeah. 01;14;37;00 - 01;14;41;15 Phil Yeah. Something like well yeah yeah. 01;14;42;00 - 01;14;52;10 Kevin Yeah. Um but yeah that'll do it for tonight's episode. Yeah, you're wrong. You know, I'll tell you what, I'll tell you what, that's, that's, that's an even deeper cut than. 01;14;52;11 - 01;14;56;22 Phil Yeah, that's a well well. 01;14;56;22 - 01;15;02;22 Kevin It's all right. Yes. Anyway, uh, that'll do it for tonight's episode. Have a good night, everybody. Good. 01;15;02;22 - 01;15;10;29 Phil I like.