I Have Skin Now

Wed, Apr 1, 2026 Year 3, Autumn 13

Al and James talk about the map in Pokopia

Timings

00:00:00: Theme Tune
00:00:30: Intro
00:07:22: What Have We Been Up To
00:17:58: Game News
00:35:27: Pokopia Map
01:41:16: Leak Warning
01:56:05: Outro

Links

Grave Seasons Release Date
Loftia Closed Beta
Super Zoo Story Closed Alpha
Overthrown Achievement
Sprout Valley Steam Deck Verified
Coral Island Updated Roadmap

Contact

Al on Mastodon: https://mastodon.scot/@TheScotBot
Email Us: https://harvestseason.club/contact/

Transcript

Theme Tune

(0s) Theme Tune:

[Music]

Intro

(30s) Al:

Hello farmers, and welcome to another episode of the harvest season. My name is Al

(36s) James:

And I’m James.

(36s) Al:

And we’re here today to talk about got to grow games a woo

(42s)

Welcome James James is someone who I have I guess I would say a friend on a friend. We’ve talked for quite a long time online

(53s)

and

(55s)

James is very much

(57s)

a poquopia person, so I thought I would get Jamie.

(1m)

James is there anything you want to, who are you, why are you here, what you, what you

(1m 21s)

do, and think you want to talk about.

(1m 22s) James:

Yeah, starting off with like a presidential that’s how a vice presidential debate started on time that guy was like, who am I, why am I here?

(1m 31s)

So yeah, I’m James Al, we’ve known each other for now for 10 years. We met at a previous, yeah, because I joined the old community in like June or July of 2016, I think, I think like the reveal of sun and moon got me like into it and then yeah, it’s kind of lingered ever since.

(1m 36s) Al:

Oh. There’s a bee now long.

(1m 52s) James:

We’ve known each other for about a decade now. And yeah, I’ve been playing Pokemon games and some cozy games as well. The last one I really dive into the site from Animal Crossing, of course, was the remake of a story of seasons or Harvest Mode in a wonderful life because that was like the farming game of my childhood.

(2m 8s) Al:

wonderful life right yeah fair enough fair enough yeah I never never got into it when it was

(2m 16s)

first day and so never was particularly interested in the remake but Kevin and Michael were it would

(2m 20s) James:

yeah. It’s one of those ones I really like because it kind of started I like it but it overwhelms me

(2m 22s) Al:

played it enough for an episode that’s the important thing

(2m 31s) James:

with choices and the thing that I like about back in particular is it kind of constrained in what it

(2m 38s)

does and there’s not as much like free form you can do anything you can go on like different

(2m 44s)

quest lines there’s like kind of one set storyline and you can kind of do everything if you really

(2m 48s)

put your mind to of it.

(2m 50s)

So honestly, I kind of like that about Pocopeia as well where it is very open ended, but it also is very like set and what you do and it has a nice little gameplay loop.

(3m 1s) Al:

• Yeah, yeah, I think it’s interesting

(3m 3s)

‘cause I find that sometimes people

(3m 5s)

are finding that about Stardew as they’re like,

(3m 7s)

“There’s just too much.”

(3m 9s)

And what I why often respond to that is,

(3m 12s)

“Well, yeah, but you don’t need to.”

(3m 14s)

And I think the choice is what I like

(3m 17s) James:

But I want to out. But I want to do everything.

(3m 17s) Al:

and it’s like, “You can do everything,”

(3m 22s)

or, “You can do just some things,”

(3m 23s)

and you can build up.

(3m 24s)

So like, if you think about Pocopia,

(3m 28s)

you can still do everything if you want,

(3m 31s)

as you say there’s specific things you can focus on.

(3m 34s)

And that thing that people would focus on

(3m 36s)

would be different for different people.

(3m 39s)

So the obvious one is obviously going through the story.

(3m 43s)

But not everyone will do that.

(3m 45s)

There are people who will, for some reason,

(3m 47s)

go and just like design the most insane buildings they can

(3m 51s)

right at the beginning ‘cause that’s what they care about,

(3m 54s)

not realizing that it gets easier as you go on.

(3m 56s)

But that’s a whole other issue.

(3m 59s) James:

I did see someone built a maximum security prison for Mr. Mime on Twitter and, you know,

(4m 1s) Al:

• Yeah, yeah.

(4m 6s) James:

people are very creative.

(4m 8s) Al:

• It’s interesting ‘cause I’ve never been a huge Mr. Mime fan,

(4m 12s)

but I’ve also never been a one for the Mr. Mime hate.

(4m 16s)

And I feel like people hating him so visibly,

(4m 19s)

so publicly makes me want to like him more.

(4m 21s) James:

Oh, yeah. Want to stick up for them?

(4m 22s) Al:

[laughs]

(4m 24s) James:

Yeah, I mean, I haven’t played, I want to use him on like a team and fire and leave green

(4m 28s)

But the issue with that is like you can only get the in-game treat in one and I’m like, I would like my own Mr.

(4m 34s)

Mine instead of what was his name in the English version was like my Mia or something like that

(4m 40s) Al:

I think I’ve only played Fire Red and Leaf Green once.

(4m 44s)

I played the originals, obviously, a billions of times.

(4m 48s)

But the remakes came out during my break period from Pokemon.

(4m 48s) James:

There we go.

(4m 56s) Al:

So I played Gen 1, Gen 2, and then Gen 3 came out and that was when I was like, “Oh,

(5m 4s)

I’m too cool for Pokemon, spoiler alert, I wasn’t, and then came back.”

(5m 8s) James:

[laughs]

(5m 10s) Al:

During Hargold Souls over.

(5m 14s)

So I missed all of Gen 3 and then, basically, all of Gen 4.

(5m 19s) James:

I’m gonna say miss gen five just because that was my

(5m 23s)

Like transition from college to from high school to college and so I just had no time

(5m 29s) Al:

[laughing]

(5m 30s) James:

And so I got back into it. I played those games, but then I got back into it more with x and y

(5m 36s) Al:

Yeah, that probably says a lot more about our the different studies that we did and how

(5m 44s)

not difficult mine was because that was when I found more time to do these things.

(5m 51s) James:

I will put say that mine was not difficult,

(5m 54s)

but I did it extremely quickly.

(5m 56s)

So I went through my four years of college

(5m 58s)

and two and a half years.

(6m 1s)

And I was also doing like three internships

(6m 4s)

and like eight classes at once, just to get out fast.

(6m 9s)

So the amount of the lack of time that I had

(6m 11s)

was mostly self-inflicted.

(6m 13s) Al:

well fair enough all right so this episode we’re going to talk about the the map of

(6m 24s)

PCOPIA the different areas we’re going to talk about what we like about the

(6m 28s)

different areas stuff like that and and then I thought it would be fun to talk

(6m 33s)

about some areas that we think they should add to the game and right at the

(6m 41s)

end, we might, we’re going to talk.

(6m 43s)

But there was a possible leak on some possible future stuff in the game, based on the map.

(6m 52s)

I’m trying not to give too much away at this point that we will talk about right at the end

(6m 56s)

after our spec, what we enjoy and our speculation, and then we’ll talk about the leak at the end.

(7m 3s)

So if you don’t want to hear any leaks on what is coming to the game, you can drop it at that point.

(7m 9s)

won’t be anything after that. I will make it very clear when we get

(7m 13s)

to that point. Before that, we’ve got some game news. It’s not a very busy week for game news. But we have some, as always. But first of all, James, what have you been up to?

What Have We Been Up To

(7m 25s) James:

Well, personally, I’ve been in the peak week of marathon training, which has been not enjoyable. I’m running 50 miles this week in total, which I don’t know what that is in kilometers. I would probably say.

(7m 32s) Al:

Hmm

(7m 43s)

I’m sorry, you play so much Pokemon Go and you don’t know what the mild to kilometer

(7m 47s)

conversions.

(7m 49s) James:

It’s, well, that also counts walking in.

(7m 51s)

And that’s a lot of like my, you know, that sounds right,

(7m 55s)

for 50, yeah, and plus everything on top of it.

(7m 57s)

I think when I ran my marathon in November,

(8m)

my kilometer weekly for Pokemon Go

(8m 3s)

was about like 150 kilometers walked, which was,

(8m 6s) Al:

I was going to say did you not do like the 200 kilometers in just over a week for one of the levels?

(8m 13s) James:

well, yeah, that marathon was a mistake

(8m 15s)

because that was also packs unplugged weekend here

(8m 19s)

in Philadelphia, so other friends of ours were in town

(8m 22s)

and I wound up walking a marathon before I ran one,

(8m 25s) Al:

Oh. Personally, I would say that any marathon is a mistake, but, you know, that’s, yeah.

(8m 26s) James:

which is not smart, you are not supposed to do that.

(8m 29s)

So, I mean, I would not disagree with you.

(8m 33s)

This is very stupid when I’m doing,

(8m 36s)

but I’ve been training over the winter,

(8m 38s)

so this is peak week.

(8m 39s)

I’ve run 30 miles this week,

(8m 41s)

and I will be running 20 tomorrow morning,

(8m 45s)

because there’s a half marathon here in Philadelphia,

(8m 47s)

And I’m going to run this.

(8m 49s)

So I’m going to wake up at like five in the morning.

(8m 51s)

I’m going to start running at 550.

(8m 53s)

I’m going to get to the start line at seven.

(8m 55s)

It takes off at 7.30.

(8m 57s)

And then I’m going to run for another 13 miles.

(8m 59s) Al:

Yeah, I was gonna see cuz you said trying to miles and then you said half marathon. I’m like those are not the same thing

(9m 4s) James:

No, I’m doing bonus miles before the race starts.

(9m 7s)

It’s going to be great.

(9m 9s)

And aside from that, I am playing Pecopia a lot.

(9m 12s)

And I finished the story about a week

(9m 19s)

and a half ago, I think it took me about five or six days

(9m 22s)

to finish the story since it’s released

(9m 24s)

because I was kind of doing one Pokemon Center

(9m 28s)

rebuild a day, basically.

(9m 30s)

That was kind of my benchmark.

(9m 33s)

So I finished it kind of quickly.

(9m 35s)

And then I just kind of got overwhelmed.

(9m 37s)

And I didn’t like how my areas were.

(9m 39s)

And I was like a little bit overwhelmed.

(9m 42s)

So I wound up deleting that save file, which I don’t

(9m 45s)

think I really missed anything.

(9m 46s)

I have to go get the hop-up stuff again.

(9m 49s)

Which I think I can just time skip to eventually and get it back.

(9m 53s) Al:

Certainly, just now, I suspect they’ll release an update soon that removed the event and adds the next event in.

(10m) James:

the hobbit, got it.

(10m 3s)

Because I know someone said, or I saw on social media

(10m 7s)

or something that you can access like the next event,

(10m 11s)

which I think is Sableai or something like that.

(10m 13s)

I’m not sure.

(10m 15s)

But someone was able to access it.

(10m 17s)

Or it’s like in the game already.

(10m 20s)

Kind of like how Animal Crossing was

(10m 21s)

where people could access certain holidays after certain updates.

(10m 26s)

I think I saw that.

(10m 28s)

So I need to go time travel to hop at Braille.

(10m 30s)

And then grab a couple of the dandelion seeds so I can get that family again, or I’ll just do the starpiece recruitment, but so I’m back in the first area, I just finished the Pokemon Center, but I am like building houses and I think I want to get each area up to level 10 before I continue on to the next area. So I’m recruiting Pokemon. There’s a bunch that I’ve like gotten this go around that I didn’t have at my first time.

(11m)

And so that’s been like a fun little experience. So I have like the entire Charmander line. They’re all like mining away building me bricks like they are not they do not get breaks. They need to unionize these poor creatures. And I’m just working on kind of revitalizing the area. What about you?

(11m 9s) Al:

[laughing]

(11m 21s)

Cool cool

(11m 23s)

Yeah, I also finished the story much slower than you, but I finished it

(11m 27s)

I can’t remember it must I wasn’t on last week’s episode so I think it was a maybe someday last week or something

(11m 33s)

I finished the story

(11m 36s)

and

(11m 38s)

Very much enjoyed the story and then my I wasn’t quite sure what to do

(11m 43s)

I didn’t quite get as overwhelmed as you didn’t delete the delete the save file

(11m 47s) James:

[laughing]

(11m 48s) Al:

Because I think if I were to like

(11m 51s)

lose my save file, I would just be like, I can’t deal with this anymore.

(11m 55s)

Too much. That would be my overwhelm.

(11m 58s)

I took a few days of just kind of pottering about here and there,

(12m 3s)

building some things and then decided, notice how quickly I was, oh, yes,

(12m 9s)

that’s what it was. I built a subway system in rocky ridges.

(12m 14s)

And so I think we’ve got three different lines just now.

(12m 19s)

One goes out to the…

(12m 22s)

the museum and background.

(12m 24s)

One goes…

(12m 26s)

One is just like the revitalized one in the mine

(12m 30s)

and then one goes up through the farming area

(12m 35s)

and then round a little bit that I’m using for mining copper.

(12m 41s)

And then I realised how quickly I was

(12m 45s)

increasing the level, the environment level.

(12m 49s)

environment level and I was also

(12m 51s)

like I was putting Pokemon in houses so that I was getting their areas

(12m 55s)

re you know available for another Pokemon to spot into and just yeah it just I was

(13m 2s)

suddenly I was at level eight and I was like oh this is actually really

(13m 5s)

doable to get up to level 10 so I then just pushed it up to level 10 the same

(13m 9s)

day and then I was like okay I feel like this now has to be this is my next goal

(13m 14s)

so I went to weather wasteland and got that up to level 10 the next day and then

(13m 21s)

to bleak beach got that up to level 10 and then that yesterday I ended up

(13m 26s)

getting distracted by digging out the museum more so I didn’t get sparkling

(13m 30s)

skylands up to 10 but that will be my next one probably probably Monday or

(13m 35s)

Tuesday I’ll do that but yeah so I’m building them up to level 10 and then I

(13m 39s)

think my next goal after that will be decks completion for Pokemon because I

(13m 44s)

think I’m I think just kind of doing things here and there I’ve got

(13m 47s)

close to half. So there’s a bite.

(13m 51s)

A bunch of them that will be awkward to get, but it doesn’t feel like it’s going to take me, you know, and insane amount of time to get the decks complete.

(13m 59s) James:

No, and you’ve you’ve seen like the boos and stuff right with I don’t know how spoilery I can be this is not like super spoilery

(14m 6s) Al:

If it’s a mechanics thing, I think where are this point where were we three weeks in on the release?

(14m 8s) James:

Okay

(14m 10s)

Yeah, and this is like in the second area. I don’t know if a bleak beaches a second area or the third area. I guess it’s up to you really

(14m 17s) Al:

So yeah, so it is an optional one, but I think oblique beach is being the second one because it feels like it’s like if you once

(14m 25s)

You’ve got them all on you’ve got your homes and you go to transfer. It’s not the second one in the list

(14m 30s)

So I think it’s kind of like getting really the second one even though you can go to either one

(14m 31s) James:

• Yeah.

(14m 34s)

• So, yeah.

(14m 35s)

So once you free Mosslax,

(14m 38s)

I think you build him an environment

(14m 40s)

and you can start befriending him.

(14m 41s)

And if you give him certain foods,

(14m 43s) Al:

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

(14m 44s) James:

he will boost things up for you.

(14m 45s)

So you can get like an encounter boost basically

(14m 48s)

for monitoring and habitat.

(14m 50s)

So I think with that and like a list

(14m 54s)

of something about the habitat you can build,

(14m 56s)

like it would probably take not that long

(14m 58s)

to finish like, grinding out.

(15m 1s)

This deck switches a very manageable one, all the bigger than I expected it to be.

(15m 7s) Al:

Yeah, I think I was pretty aware that it was 300 before release because there was like in the tree house

(15m 16s)

I think they showed one of the evolutions as like 280 something or something like that and so it was like

(15m 17s) James:

Mm-hmm.

(15m 20s)

Yeah.

(15m 22s) Al:

Oh, well, it’s it’s obviously going to be about 300 or at least 300 me

(15m 26s)

I don’t I wouldn’t imagine to be much more than that, but yeah, that was kind of clear based on that but yeah

(15m 33s)

A good size certainly so yeah, we’ll see how that goes

(15m 37s)

who knows how I’ll be in a week but that is where we are I think just in

(15m 41s) James:

What’s been your favorite area to complete?

(15m 45s) Al:

general I’ve been enjoying rocky ridges because of just a sheer amount of space

(15m 53s)

that that one has because obviously it doesn’t have any watery areas so it’s

(16m)

all land and yeah sure you can build out more land in in bleak beach or in

(16m 7s)

Skylands if you want it but it also feels like you’re then fundamentally

(16m 11s)

changing the what it is right and that’s I think there are two two kinds of

(16m 18s)

pocopia players and there’s the ones that want to rebuild what was

(16m 21s)

Canto and then there’s ones that want to just build whatever I like I think I saw

(16m 23s) James:

Yeah. Oh, yes. Oh, yeah.

(16m 26s) Al:

someone building Hoenn in the game which just feels dreadful to do right

(16m 31s)

like come on what are you doing this is Ganto this isn’t Hoenn just wait for the

(16m 35s)

I hope you enjoyed it.

(16m 37s)

I’m not wanting to completely dig out rocky ridges and turn it back into

(16m 52s)

Peter City because I feel like there’s an aspect of the world changes and if we

(16m 59s)

keep trying to change it back to what it was then it will keep trying to change

(17m 4s)

itself back again. Like it’s it’s the sort of

(17m 7s)

thing humans do a lot. And right. Yes, I know it doesn’t need to be this deep. It’s a game, but it’s also a game about climate change, right?

(17m 15s) James:

And I would say, where I look at like, what is it, the Skylands, basically.

(17m 21s)

And I’m like, how would I even make this back in a saffron city?

(17m 26s)

Like, like, there is that one bridge that kind of connects to the underside of like the

(17m 31s)

silt coat tower, but the rest of it is just so broken.

(17m 34s) Al:

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, that, that, that would be a lot.

(17m 35s) James:

And I’m just like, how, how would I go about putting this thing back together?

(17m 39s)

I’m like, it’s impossible.

(17m 48s) Al:

Uh, yeah. Okay. Cool. So before we keep going down the, the

(17m 53s)

Pocopia thing, let’s, let’s talk about some news. First up, we have grave

Game News

Grave Seasons

(17m 59s) Al:

seasons. I’ve announced their release date is the 14th of August. So

(18m 4s)

not having all these games in your head all the time. grave seasons is the, it’s

(18m 9s)

stargy, but one of the people in the villages are murderer game. Yeah.

(18m 18s)

I, I can’t tell whether this would actually be fun or whether it will just be weird.

(18m 25s)

And I think it could be really good and add a different dimension to these kinds of games,

(18m 32s)

but also it could be like a

(18m 34s)

I don’t want to a mystery game in my farming game. Maybe. I’m unsure.

(18m 41s) James:

I’m happy for the people who’s like brain like the itch the scratches for them because I’m sure there is a group of people who want like a murder mystery slash like cottage board game.

(18m 50s)

I don’t know how prevalent of a community that is, but I think hopefully this, you know, works for them.

(18m 58s)

I guess like that’s kind of the thing about super successful games like Stardew is they have so many of these copycats and I’m wondering like as the host of this podcast who’s done this for years now.

(19m 8s)

like about what’s the what’s the hit

(19m 11s)

rate on these like kind of copycat games and like being really good.

(19m 14s) Al:

Oh, yeah, most of them are terrible.

(19m 16s) James:

Yeah.

(19m 16s) Al:

So there’s two kinds of stardew clones.

(19m 18s) James:

Oh.

(19m 20s) Al:

There’s the stardew clones where they are just trying to be stardew, but maybe trying

(19m 26s)

to do it in a way that they prefer how it would work, which is why stardew exists.

(19m 30s)

Stardew exists, because our abysmoon were not making games that Eric wanted to play,

(19m 35s)

and therefore he made the one that he wanted to make.

(19m 38s)

And that’s fine, but the problem with that is that has been done many, many a time.

(19m 44s)

that’s not interesting.

(19m 45s)

And the other one is, it’s stardew, but, right?

(19m 50s)

So like you have the, it’s stardew, but you’re in space.

(19m 53s)

You have, it’s stardew, but it’s in the past.

(19m 55s)

And this one is, it’s stardew, but one of the players is a murderer.

(20m)

And it’s certainly an interesting hook.

(20m 4s)

I just don’t know how it’s going to work, how it’s going to feel actually playing it, right?

(20m 11s)

It’s the same thing with like film and TV, this question.

(20m 14s)

I often think which is like that’s an interesting idea, but how do you turn that into something that’s actually enjoyable to watch?

(20m 17s) James:

Mm-hmm

(20m 20s)

Yeah, especially because like I’m guessing it’s going to be it’s a game of small scope

(20m 26s)

So it’s probably going to be the same storyline for everyone so it even kind of lacks

(20m 32s)

replayability in a way

(20m 34s) Al:

Yeah, I don’t know about that. That’s a good question, because I had been assuming that it was

(20m 40s)

randomly generated, but it does talk about it being a narrative based game as well. And so that

(20m 46s)

we’d imply that it’s the same because you’re not going to make a whole story for every single

(20m 50s)

individual in the game. That’s a lot of work. But it’s also not so it’s bloomhouse that are making

(20m 59s)

game. Yeah, they have a

(21m) James:

like the movie, movie studio.

(21m 3s)

Oh.

(21m 4s) Al:

Blue House games division. Let’s see if they’d what if they’d done before nothing I’ve heard of.

(21m 7s) James:

Cool.

(21m 12s)

We did Meghan too.

(21m 14s)

Hell.

(21m 15s)

And Meghan.

(21m 17s) Al:

Look, look, look Megan. Megan was fine.

(21m 17s) James:

The only movie I’ve seen in two years.

(21m 23s)

So I pull, it was fun.

(21m 26s) Al:

Blue House have an interesting hit rate just in general, right? Like some stuff I really like and then some stuff is not great.

(21m 34s)

Looks like Blue House games has been around since 2023 and they’ve made like five games so far,

(21m 37s) James:

How nice.

(21m 41s)

Oh wow.

(21m 42s) Al:

but I’m not heard of any of the others before, and so I have no idea if they’re any good.

(21m 47s) James:

I do hope that great Jesus has a Meghan cameo.

(21m 51s)

I will not hold that help.

(21m 53s) Al:

I highly doubt it. All right, so yes, that comes out on I’ve lost my tab the 14th logust on

(22m)

PC, Xbox, PlayStation, and Switch.

(22m 4s)

always good when you’ve got a similar to an AI release like that.

(22m 7s) James:

Yep, and it’s day one for Xbox game pass players yes

(22m 11s) Al:

Well, all five of them.

Loftia

(22m 15s) Al:

Loftea have announced that they’re closed beta.

(22m 18s)

I hope you heard the air quotes there is releasing on the 22nd of April.

(22m 25s)

I always love the different names, the different people decide their game releases are going to be in.

(22m 32s)

whether it’s alpha, beta,

(22m 35s)

closed alpha or the next one closed beta or the next one closed alpha.

(22m 40s)

We just like everything’s got a closed beta is just an alpha, right?

(22m 46s)

What are you doing?

(22m 48s)

Just just call it what it is like why why do you need to complicate these things?

(22m 52s)

Whatever.

(22m 53s)

Yes, so that’s coming out in the 22nd of April.

(22m 56s)

So if you are if you backed, I presume it’s a Kickstarter reward the closed beta.

(23m 2s)

Yeah, Kickstarter backers.

(23m 4s)

I’m still not sure whether this game is real or not.

(23m 20s) James:

It does look really cute!

(23m 26s) Al:

This is one of those ones that it feels like.

(23m 30s)

I’m not sure whether you were aware of this.

(23m 34s)

What was the one artopia?

(23m 36s) James:

Oh, the trailer is 18 seconds. That’s great.

(23m 41s) Al:

There’s a longer one. I see a longer one on their Steam page.

(23m 44s)

But yeah, this is this game’s like a heartopia and stuff like that,

(23m 48s)

which are all these like technically they are games,

(23m 51s)

but I don’t know who would play these because they’re just such terrible versions of games.

(23m 58s)

And this has always run alarm bells for me in loftopia.

(24m 2s)

a lot not lost to be a loftier see that’s

(24m 4s)

the thing it’s another game that ends in i_a_ that’s probably why i’m suspicious of it because all of the the scammy games end in i_a_

(24m 13s)

it’s also a multiplayer one so that’s always another red red flag so we’ll see

(24m 19s) James:

Yeah, massively multiplayer even.

(24m 27s)

Having mostly stuck with traditionally published

(24m 29s)

cottagecore games like PCOPIA and like the harvest moon a wonderful life or story of seasons

(24m 36s)

or whatever they’re calling themselves these days. It’s kind of interesting to see

(24m 41s)

like just how big this industry is and I think like obviously this kind of thing exists in

(24m 49s)

AAA space to rate like with games like what was that one that just closed down that

(24m 56s)

was like massive. I think of course of a concord which was like an overwatch ripoff

(25m 2s)

but there was another one recently that was like yeah the slightly more successful concord.

(25m 2s) Al:

Oh, yeah, I know the one it was that was up for like three weeks and then they they shut it down. Yeah, I can’t remember what it was

(25m 11s)

There’s so many of these that it’s hard to keep track of them, but I know that I know of the one you’re you’re talking about

(25m 13s) James:

I know what and it was like the big reveal of the game.

(25m 19s)

And everyone’s like this looks really boring and the game was functionally fine and just no

(25m 19s) Al:

Yes, yeah, yeah

(25m 25s) James:

one cared because like overwatch exists and this is kind of like that but at a smaller scale.

(25m 28s) Al:

Yeah

(25m 33s)

Yeah, no, I think you’re you’re definitely right, and I think it has the same sort of problem as you know overwatch clones and stuff like that because

(25m 41s)

contest core games and

(25m 43s)

overwatch clones and stuff like that. They are games that are designed to be

(25m 49s)

You’re always game. You’re all the time game

(25m 52s)

You’re forever game, right? Like they’re designed to be you will sink in hundreds if not thousands of hours into these games

(25m 59s) James:

Yeah

(25m 59s) Al:

and so you can’t play everyone. Trust me.

(26m 2s)

I have tried.

(26m 6s)

Yeah, no, you’re definitely right. Like…

(26m 8s) James:

And I think the biggest issue with games like this is like the only successful

(26m 14s)

Triple-A titles that we’ve seen are kind of just like

(26m 17s)

games that have a massive IP attached to them kind of like Pokemon Unite being

(26m 22s)

like a League of Legends and

(26m 23s) Al:

Yeah. Yeah.

(26m 25s) James:

Marvel heroes being an Overwatch like, right?

(26m 29s)

It’s pretty successful, but they’re also Pokemon and Marvel’s and it’s just kind of like I don’t know how a game without a massive IP attached

(26m 38s)

Doing this kind of like always game strategy is ever going to work

(26m 43s) Al:

Yeah, yeah, it can happen, but it’s so rare that it basically won’t, right?

(26m 49s) James:

Yeah

(26m 49s) Al:

So like, start you doing it incredibly successful, uh,

(26m 52s) James:

Yes

(26m 54s) Al:

not going to happen again.

(26m 56s)

And then you have things like, uh, power world, power world made it,

(27m 1s)

but also did it make it because of the Pokemon comparisons or did it make it

(27m 7s)

because people were intrigued by it based on that or did it actually do it?

(27m 11s)

because people like it as a game.

(27m 13s)

It’s hard to know, yeah, not sure.

(27m 14s) James:

Yeah.

Super Zoo Story

(27m 17s) Al:

Well, speaking of Stardew clones, next we have Super Zoo Story, which is Stardew Bot Zoo,

(27m 26s) James:

Yes.

(27m 26s) Al:

which I mean, honestly sold me the moment I first learned about it.

(27m 30s) James:

Yeah.

(27m 31s)

And looking at like the images and screenshots,

(27m 37s)

it is, it is starting.

(27m 41s)

But as someone who sunk hundreds of hours

(27m 44s)

as a child at his U-Tikum, I’m actually intrigued.

(27m 47s) Al:

Yeah, yeah. Well, that’s my thing is for people who aren’t aware, I’m not a big management style

(27m 53s)

game person. I used to be when I was younger and I had more time to like just sit on my computer

(27m 58s)

and play games because I didn’t have any responsibilities. But now as a 35 year old

(28m 5s)

parent, I just want to sit on the sofa when I’m not doing stuff and so I, that’s not a fun way

(28m 11s)

to play management style games. So the idea of being able to do a zoo game that is uh,

(28m 18s)

I have a character and I’m walking around and doing stuff. You know, it’s much easier to play

(28m 24s)

with a controller and on a steam deck or whatever. The news for this is that they’ve released,

(28m 31s)

they’re releasing their closed alpha on the 9th of April and that goes out to all backers

(28m 37s)

on Kickstarter who supported the alpha access tier. So yes, yeah, that’s pushed back a bit from

(28m 40s) James:

and a first half of 2027 release.

(28m 46s) Al:

from where they’re original one.

(28m 47s)

And I think it was originally meant to be the end of this year that their full release was, so it’s now next year, which is probably when I’ll play it.

(28m 55s) James:

• Yep, it looks really cute.

(28m 57s) Al:

Yeah, I’m looking forward to this one. I’m looking forward to and next we have overthrown have released a new a very small update and I don’t normally talk about small updates like this, but there wasn’t a lot of news so I felt like I would talk about it.

Overthrown

(29m 12s) Al:

have released steam achievements. That’s it. That’s the update.

(29m 18s)

If you’ve not seen this one before, James, the fun thing about this one is that you are, like,

(29m 24s)

Naruto running around and throw, like, you can throw trees into your, like, your, your log maker.

(29m 35s)

And then it will make logs, or you could even, like, pick up your log maker and run into trees.

(29m 41s)

And like, there’s just lots of silly physics type stuff with it, which is fun.

(29m 47s) James:

Yeah, I’m looking at it. It seems really cute

(29m 47s) Al:

It’s also definitely not Zelda Breath of the World at all.

(29m 55s) James:

No, I could just say that out

(29m 57s) Al:

And it definitely isn’t meant to, you know, your clothes definitely aren’t meant to look like Link. Not at all.

(30m 5s) James:

I did see the main character just sprint over water.

(30m 8s) Al:

Yeah.

(30m 9s) James:

The zany, like, I don’t know how to describe it, but like the art style or art direction.

(30m 15s)

It kind of reminds me of like, spiral in a way where it’s like super exaggerated.

(30m 19s) Al:

Yeah, I can see that. Yeah, yeah next we have the Sprout Valley have announced that they are finally steam deck verified

Sprout Valley

(30m 26s) Al:

I don’t know what’s changed here because I played this game on the steam deck like a year ago, and it worked

(30m 31s)

I didn’t notice any issues

(30m 33s)

So I don’t know why they weren’t steam verified before, but no, they are

(30m 40s) James:

It’s cute. I like the little, uh, the little pixel art

(30m 44s) Al:

Yeah, it’s nice. I will say it’s quite low in terms of features

(30m 49s)

If I remember playing it, it was fine and enjoyable for a few hours, but then you very quickly run out of stuff.

(30m 59s)

It’s very heavy. There is our story, but it’s very short.

(31m) James:

uh

(31m 5s) Al:

And then you’re just kind of like, I’m just farming really, does not match your doing after that.

(31m 11s)

True, true. But they probably have a game they’re already playing for that is the problem.

(31m 11s) James:

and for some people, that’s all they need.

(31m 19s) Al:

We were talking about it before.

Coral Island

(31m 22s) Al:

And our final piece of news is Carl Island have updated their roadmap.

(31m 26s)

Their 1.3 update is no longer going to include kids grow up.

(31m 32s)

That is going to be in a 1.4 update.

(31m 35s)

I am okay with this except with one thing.

(31m 39s)

For those who aren’t aware, this is the second time they’ve done that.

(31m 43s)

They’ve moved the kids grow up into a future update.

(31m 47s)

The problem is when they did it last time.

(31m 49s)

They didn’t move it out of the 1.3 update.

(31m 52s)

They added a 1.2B update after 1.2 that had some things in and didn’t add the kids grow up.

(31m 59s)

And the problem I have here is this is the sensible thing to do is moving something out of the update into a future update and keeping the version number.

(32m 8s)

But why didn’t they do that before? Why did we get the 1.2B?

(32m 12s)

And now we’re getting the 1.3 that doesn’t even have the stuff that they wanted to put in the 1.3.

(32m 17s)

So we still get the stupid neck.

(32m 19s)

I don’t know what this means. So they’ve said that there’s two new, there’s two.

(32m 20s) James:

Ocean and kisses.

(32m 27s)

Also, the image is hysterical.

(32m 31s)

It’s just like this ombre colored woman,

(32m 33s) Al:

It’s a silhouette.

(32m 35s) James:

except for her lips, which are bright red.

(32m 38s) Al:

Well, for that’s the kisses.

(32m 38s) James:

And also, there’s a puffer fish behind her.

(32m 42s)

And its lips are also big and red.

(32m 46s) Al:

So, it.

(32m 46s) James:

But the man has normal.

(32m 47s)

He does not have super bright lips.

(32m 50s) Al:

Of course he doesn’t kiss you. So it seems that so they’re adding two new data balls that’s presumably the kisses.

(32m 58s)

And they’re adding a mere folk festival and then some quality for life improvements.

(33m 6s)

It feels really much like they were struggling to figure out a name for this update and they were like, oh, ocean and kisses, why not?

(33m 10s) James:

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

(33m 12s) Al:

It’s like just you don’t need to give your updates names. You can just give them the numbers, right? You have they have a name. It’s the one

(33m 19s)

1.3 update. There you go. There’s your update. They must be really struggling with this. The kids grow up feature now that because it’s been I think the 1.2 B update was last October or something. So like they keep pushing it. It’s obviously bigger than they were expecting.

(33m 35s) James:

Yeah. I mean, I guess if you age up these characters, you have to rewrite dialogue for them.

(33m 41s)

I might do a bunch of stuff. I’m sure the kids, I mean, I can see like a young girl here in this

(33m 48s)

like little update photo thing, but I’m sure there’s like a young boy version of their options as

(33m 54s)

well. And I’m sure like, because I remember in, um, I know I keep going back to this game,

(33m 58s)

but like a wonderful life, you could like give your kids like little career or hobbies or

(34m 3s)

and stuff, and that would impact the dialogue as well.

(34m 5s)

So, I could see how this could easily spiral into something much bigger than anticipated, which is why you had the 1.2B and that 1.3 and that 1.4 kind of cables.

(34m 16s) Al:

Yep

(34m 18s) James:

Also, do you have a goat? There’s a goat in this picture.

(34m 18s) Al:

Having a kid is one of the few things I haven’t done in this game, but I haven’t played it for ages either so

(34m 26s)

I don’t think I got a goat. I got most of the animals. I don’t remember there being goats. Maybe that’s new. I’m not sure

(34m 34s) James:

You get your children grew up and you also can get a goat.

(34m 37s) Al:

Why not

(34m 39s)

Everybody loves a goat, right?

(34m 41s)

And then they’re teasing another update 1.5 and it’s called the poke.

(34m 46s)

If I remember correctly, poke you always the city you move out of, so why why are we going back there?

(34m 54s) James:

that would be interesting. Maybe it’s going to be like a commerce area or something

(35m 1s)

kind of like Animal Crossing City folk or something.

(35m 4s) Al:

So we’re going back to our capitalist life

(35m 6s)

that we ran away from.

(35m 7s) James:

Yes, or at least just to visit and chop.

(35m 9s) Al:

Although important to remember that Stardew

(35m 12s)

is still a capitalist game because you are making stuff

(35m 16s)

and selling it to make money.

(35m 17s)

And you own a farm, you own the capital, literally.

(35m 21s)

You are the capitalist.

(35m 24s)

All right, that’s the news.

(35m 26s)

Woo.

Pokopia Map

(35m 29s) Al:

All right, so we’re gonna talk about the Pocopia map

(35m 32s)

Specifically.

(35m 35s)

I haven’t written in the phone bill point overall, I’m not really sure what my overall point is, we’re going to talk about the map. There we go. Shall we talk about some areas?

(35m 41s) James:

[clears throat]

(35m 45s) Al:

So, first up we have weathered wasteland that is, let me just, let me just get my list up here so because I always find it hard to remember exactly which one is meant to be which.

Withered Wasteland

(36m) James:

Earth’s one is fuchsia.

(36m 1s) Al:

There we go, yes.

(36m 5s)

As someone who started on Gen 1, I should be better with Gen 1 areas.

(36m 9s) James:

Yeah, I kind of started with gen one. I watched the anime when I was a kid

(36m 14s)

But I didn’t have my own game boy until gen two so silver was my first game, but I like experienced gen one without ever playing it

(36m 22s) Al:

Yeah fair enough It feels like it feels like the least recognizable of them to me

(36m 23s) James:

So yeah, with their way slans sure is fuchsia city

(36m 28s)

from kind of

(36m 34s) Al:

because as it’s the starting tutorial area you basically are like here’s area and you’re like okay

(36m 43s)

how is it meant to be future other than just like the topology of the land I guess and also the

(36m 50s)

direction of a…

(36m 52s)

the other areas, right? Like, oh, rocky ridges is vaguely in the direction the future city was and stuff like that. That’s… that’s… that’s about it. It’s just like the land is vaguely shaped like future city was.

(37m 6s) James:

I mean, you also find the Koga costume in one of the houses, and I think the bigger thing

(37m 13s)

is, and I think let’s go Pikachu Eevee. I can’t remember if I was on Harkel and Silver as well,

(37m 18s)

but the road path is also very similar, so that kind of like arched red brick

(37m 26s)

pathing is very similar. So even before we really got into the game and the trailer and

(37m 32s)

to figure out this was like a post-apocalyptic conto region.

(37m 36s)

People were kind of assuming this might be a few should, just because of the road tile, because it was so distinctive.

(37m 43s)

And I think both HeartGold’s social over and let’s go peek at you.

(37m 47s) Al:

This is going to be one of my problems in general with this game is having no visual memory.

(37m 53s)

I can’t like compare it without physically looking at pictures of them next to each other.

(37m 58s) James:

• Here, I found a picture of Fuchsia

(38m 1s)

from Let’s Good Pikachu Eevee.

(38m 5s) Al:

I see what you mean.

(38m 6s)

Yeah, okay, with the like, the arched bricks.

(38m 9s) James:

Yeah, there are Tred bricks with the borders.

(38m 9s) Al:

Yeah, that is quite similar.

(38m 12s) James:

I’m even found a picture of the little character exploring

(38m 16s)

like by the houses and the house is actually kind of look

(38m 19s)

a little bit similar to, sorry, similar to the houses

(38m 26s)

that we’re like in brew ends.

(38m 28s)

Around the way, around the way, slams. I mean, they do have pink, um, the pink placer. Yeah. Yeah.

(38m 31s) Al:

Sure. Sure. Okay. The pink. Fine. That’s that’s about the extent of it, right? It’s like there’s pink. Okay, fine. I’m not I’m not trying to say it isn’t and I’m not trying to say it is like I get why people are like it’s so obvious. It’s just to me it was the least recognizable of of them.

(38m 51s) James:

Yeah, yeah, I mean also it was completely like dried out

(38m 57s)

When you first get to it, and I’m like currently waiting I like watered so much of it myself in my new playthrough

(39m 2s) Al:

[laughter]

(39m 2s) James:

And I’m like waiting for more rain to come so I can stop

(39m 11s) Al:

The other thing, I guess, is that it’s very clearly

(39m 15s)

tutorial area, where it has a little bit of everything,

(39m 20s)

so you can be taught about basically everything.

(39m 23s)

It’s a pretty well designed, I think, tutorial area as well.

(39m 28s)

I don’t know if, if you, if you say to me, choose a tone in cantal.

(39m 32s)

that would be a tutorial area for, you know, a game like this. I’m not sure I would have chosen fuchsia, but it was designed pretty well because you’ve got the C area. You’ve got a lot of different blocks and different types of materials and stuff like that.

(39m 52s)

And obviously because of where it is in the world, it allows them to have the three connections to different places in.

(40m 2s)

Which feels relatively sensible, right? Like, because we’re at that we’re vaguely in the south, but also those three areas are in three different directions.

(40m 16s) James:

you even have the road to pallet as well. So you have access to all the other areas. And I mean,

(40m 22s)

I guess it is kind of weird to start in fuchsia, but I guess the other option, which I’m

(40m 27s)

surprised you didn’t go with was just sticking us in pallet town again. So you know, I’m perfectly

(40m 32s)

fine with them kind of mixing up conto for the first time and forever.

(40m 37s) Al:

Yeah, I guess the thing with putting us in Palatone is that you wouldn’t be able to realistically

(40m 40s)

have the connections to all the other areas from there, right? And I think that’s the advantage of

(40m 44s) James:

Oh, yeah. Yeah.

(40m 47s) Al:

here. You could have done the same for, you could have made sparkling Skylands with, you know,

(40m 55s) James:

• Yeah.

(40m 55s) Al:

Saffron or sell or if you’d done a sell or don’t or something, you could have done it there.

(41m) James:

That would have been a while there to start it.

(41m 1s) Al:

It would have been. That’s I think it doesn’t work because of how they decided they wanted the work that

(41m 6s) James:

• Yeah.

(41m 7s) Al:

you couldn’t have done that. But if you’d wanted to design it differently, right,

(41m 9s) James:

• Yeah.

(41m 13s) Al:

then you could have done that, but obviously wouldn’t have worked this way. So I think it makes sense.

(41m 18s)

I do find, I have a, I have a, a lower, a head cannon, that’s what people call it,

(41m 26s)

about why cycling road takes you to Palatone, if you want to hear it, because I’ve heard people

(41m 31s)

complaining, they’re like, why is cycling road taking you to Palatone? That doesn’t make any sense.

(41m 35s)

I…

(41m 37s)

my theory is because obviously this is a long time in the future from the games we’ve played. I can’t remember if we’ve got an exact time, but like we’re talking decades after.

(41m 50s)

And so my theory is just that they just cycling road just gets extended to multiple places.

(41m 56s) James:

Yeah, which it could easily go to.

(41m 57s) Al:

And one of those is pallet town. And absolutely because you’ve got that you’ve got that there. So you just need to when you go from future.

(42m 7s)

instead of then turning up to go up the way you just keep going straight you could absolutely add an extension on there. And of course the it’s just narrow straight line because that the other area of the map is just lifted into the sky now.

(42m 22s)

So there is no other part of cycling road. So it’s the extension is now the only the only cycling road.

(42m 30s)

So I like the idea of one of the things they start trying to do too late to save the planet is cycling more so they extend cycling.

(42m 36s) James:

Yeah, I can’t figure out time frame wise when this is set and the Pokemon timeline is just something that I to be quite frank and never really been able to bring myself to care about that much.

(42m 45s) Al:

Yeah. Yeah.

(42m 49s) James:

But it’s interesting seeing the lore bits in this game, especially around clearly what is like notes about Professor Tangrove being like caught as a tangle and like it seems to be implied that that is oak.

(43m 7s)

Okay, so how does this work time when that’s because oak was already old.

(43m 12s)

Even with your presumably at the end of the game, the final scene is like your train are seeing the photo of you as the ditto.

(43m 21s) Al:

Well, we’re assuming that it’s your trainer, right?

(43m 23s) James:

Yes.

(43m 23s) Al:

There’s no confirmation of that.

(43m 26s)

That’s certainly what would be implied.

(43m 29s) James:

Yeah, I would say that’s a pretty strong implication though, especially with the ditto plush in the window. So I’m kind of curious.

(43m 36s)

How long the humans have actually been gone or like how long the terrible weather has like lasted on the planet because that actually would be really sad if like they’re not they’re not going to come back, but like your human came back and like they were like, you know, 12 or something and they left and other like 82.

(43m 44s) Al:

Yeah, yeah.

(43m 54s)

Yeah, yeah, I mean, it’s probably deliberately left vague because they don’t want to deal with those questions, right?

(43m 57s) James:

Yeah.

(44m 1s)

but they bring them up in the first place. They like raise, they raise these questions and then they

(44m 3s) Al:

They do

(44m 6s) James:

like, well, we can’t really answer these questions in a satisfying way that’s not going to be like,

(44m 12s)

not make sense or just be really, really depressing. So we don’t want to deal with them, but we’re certainly

(44m 15s) Al:

Yeah, yeah, that’s fair

(44m 18s) James:

going to like raise the specter of it, which I guess is like a tradition of Pokemon at this point

(44m 24s) Al:

more breezing questions and I don’t know I’m

(44m 24s) James:

with like the amount of, yeah, like, oh, like all the grave, all the graves and like all the weird stuff

(44m 26s) Al:

answering them. Yeah.

(44m 33s) James:

that happens in these games and you’re just like we’re just never going to enter any of this.

(44m 36s) Al:

Yeah. Yeah, it’s like how Jen won introduces the concept of Pokemon dying. And it’s like,

(44m 43s) James:

yep yep how yeah

(44m 44s) Al:

yeah, that is a thing. Okay, but like, what’s the difference between fainting and dying and

(44m 49s)

it’s like, no, no, no, we’re not going to question that.

(44m 52s) James:

and i’m sure i’m sure there’s some like brand like what they would call like a branding

(44m 57s)

bible or something where it’s like pokemon can be dead but they can never like die in the story

(45m 3s) Al:

Yes. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. And also, and yeah. Yeah. Yes. But, but also our ghost Pokémon,

(45m 4s) James:

line which is so like in congress but like that’s clearly what the the rules are like a pokemon

(45m 11s)

I cannot die on the screen of the game.

(45m 13s)

But they can be dead already.

(45m 15s)

Um, but apparently Scarlett and Violet Pokemon can kill.

(45m 19s)

So that’s also good tonight.

(45m 24s) Al:

the ghosts of Pokémon who died. Or are they separate Pokémon? And that is never really

(45m 27s) James:

• Yep.

(45m 29s)

• Or are they people?

(45m 30s) Al:

answered and it’s kind of hinted at

(45m 33s)

being the case that they are in fact the ghosts of dead Pokemon because of course they’re

(45m 39s)

introduced in Lavender Town which is explicitly a grave town you know is built around the graves of

(45m 48s)

dead Pokemon and what do you find you find the ghost Pokemon and so yeah they could just be that they’re

(45m 54s)

attracted to that area because but I don’t think that’s how it was originally first thought it

(46m 1s)

it might be how they want to.

(46m 4s) James:

Yeah, it’s clearly one of those things where like, the breadcrumbs are there and they just clearly don’t want to like deep with having to answer or figure it out in a way that’s going to be satisfying and still be like PG.

(46m 17s) Al:

Yeah, well, that’s the thing. I think I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s like there are people on the team who want to raise these questions and want to deal with these things

(46m 24s) James:

Mm hmm.

(46m 24s) Al:

But then it’s like yes, but we’re also cater to kids, right? So we can’t truly answer those things

(46m 32s)

Okay, so the other the we’re gonna talk more about

(46m 37s)

Some things here if you care about being spoiled probably

(46m 41s)

Best to wait until you’ve played the game in general before you listen to this because I want to talk about

(46m 47s)

the

(46m 47s) James:

As I have already described at the final scene of the game.

(46m 51s) Al:

Well, true, that’s fine. Whatever. Maybe I’ll put something in and post. I don’t know, but I want to talk about the

(46m 58s)

The the cavern with the or what they called this mysterious slates

(47m 4s) James:

Yes.

(47m 6s) Al:

What is that meant to be?

(47m 9s) James:

Do you want to know where do you now?

(47m 11s) Al:

Well, no, I know what you get from it. I’m aware of that, right?

(47m 13s) James:

Oh, yeah.

(47m 14s) Al:

I know what the purpose is in game.

(47m 17s)

I know what, but like if we’re talking about the map, and we’re talking about this is future city, are we to understand that this has always been under future city?

(47m 28s) James:

possibly

(47m 28s) Al:

Because there’s nothing like this in any future city that I’m aware of.

(47m 31s) James:

Oh, yeah, I mean that is interesting because I remember from like the original game

(47m 37s)

There was that diary intro. It’s like we went to South America, and I’m just like oh, that’s weird

(47m 42s) Al:

[laughs]

(47m 42s) James:

In the game. It’s just like yep South America’s a place that exists in the book one world

(47m 43s) Al:

Yeah.

(47m 48s) James:

So that’s where they found you initially, so I guess maybe this is just like a retcon skip concept

(47m 53s) Al:

Okay, I guess we are spoiling it then.

(47m 56s) James:

• Oh, thanks, sorry.

(47m 58s) Al:

That’s all right.

(47m 58s) James:

I didn’t even think, oops.

(48m) Al:

I’ll decide what to do in the edit whether I keep it in or not, but.

(48m 3s) James:

• Yeah, yeah.

(48m 5s)

So I guess this is a way to retcon it into the contour region,

(48m 9s)

which I guess makes sense.

(48m 12s)

I guess it’s also just like a fun little quest line.

(48m 15s)

There might not be deeper than that,

(48m 17s)

just to like give you some long term.

(48m 18s) Al:

Right, but right, but, but, but the makers as we just discussed, they make us ask these questions,

(48m 23s)

right? And so like, my question is, where did this come from? Has this always been under fuchsia city?

(48m 30s)

Has it, is it maybe, is it under, because it’s obviously further north than most of the area? So,

(48m 31s) James:

So with that, is it under the Safari zone?

(48m 37s) Al:

it’s a, that’s what I’m wondering.

(48m 38s) James:

Yeah, that means, like, fun lore implication in the future.

(48m 43s)

And the future contour remake will, we will obviously get, or something, where the Legends

(48m 46s) Al:

Yeah, I can’t I cannot believe they put this area. Okay. We’re talking about it. Mu. Right. Why they put mu in weathering wastelands rather than in bleep beach. I can’t believe they did that to us. That’s just shocking.

(48m 49s) James:

contour game can never let it go.

(49m 5s)

Yeah, it was weird that it was in the starting area as well because like you reach it and it’s clearly unknown. And it’s just like, Oh, this is something. And then like you get these slayed so sporadically throughout the game.

(49m 14s) Al:

[chuckles]

(49m 15s)

Yeah.

(49m 19s)

Yeah, I’ve had two so far.

(49m 21s) James:

I had about four when I finished the game the last time and I don’t know how I got that many because in my new file, I have two already.

(49m 32s)

But I haven’t kind of going out of my way to break open the glowing spots.

(49m 35s)

So I am curious as to how long it will take and I know I’m curious to see how powerful that MOSLACS boost is with this because you can get more like glowing spots as well as one of the boosts.

(49m 48s)

So I forget what all of them are. One is like get friendship better with Pokemon. One is like Pokemon appear and have it hats more frequently. One is like maybe like more resources from like trees and stuff.

(50m)

and then one, I think, is more treasures appear.

(50m 5s)

So, yeah, I don’t know what.

(50m 10s)

Maybe Legend’s Kanto, we find you, ruins and Fuchsia,

(50m 15s)

and then Professor Oak, who is somehow still alive or whatever in the ancient Kanto.

(50m 21s)

He’s like, “We’re going to build a safari zone here to protect it and low.”

(50m 26s) Al:

That, that would, that would certainly be a fun one to do if it was like a past game where we, we encounter it and then we never see it in any other game again because it’s, it’s not, it’s just not uncovered until yeah, that would be fun.

(50m 34s) James:

Yeah. It’s buried under the safaris now.

(50m 40s)

I do remember as a child watching the Pokemon anime and the safaris on episode was cut because

(50m 46s)

there was a gun on it. And the next week they just kept referencing ashes like 30 tutorials and

(50m 48s) Al:

Yes.

(50m 51s) James:

I’m like, did I miss something? Yep. Yeah, I’m like, there was like, there’s just a stampede

(50m 53s) Al:

It was bizarre.

(50m 55s)

Like, I remember that as well.

(50m 56s)

And it’s like, why are there so many tourists?

(50m 58s)

How did he get these?

(51m 2s) James:

You think these are all ashes.

(51m 2s)

I’m like, “Wend?”

(51m 4s) Al:

[laughing]

(51m 4s) James:

Like eight-year-old me was like, “When did this happen?”

(51m 8s) Al:

‘Cause like, any other, like him getting one Pokemon

(51m 11s)

and you just be like, oh, I just must not remember that.

(51m 11s) James:

Wasn’t a fan.

(51m 13s) Al:

But how do you miss him catching so many tourists?

(51m 14s) James:

Yeah.

(51m 19s) Al:

The only other, so there’s a couple of other things.

(51m 24s)

One is, I was actually watching, there’s an archaeologist

(51m 28s)

I found on TikTok who’s been talking about Pocopia

(51m 33s)

and she’s been treating it, the game like she would

(51m 37s)

an actual archaeological site.

(51m 40s)

And it’s very interesting ‘cause it’s obviously

(51m 42s)

not perfect, nothing about games ever is.

(51m 45s)

but it actually seems to be quite accurate to how

(51m 48s)

like sites would seem like in terms of like things not just being gone they are like broken versions of things like you get the like broken down path and stuff like that.

(51m 59s)

And if you follow the path of fuchsia city towards oblique beach there’s like I can’t remember what she called it but there’s like basically a landslide down onto the path.

(52m 12s) James:

• Yeah.

(52m 12s) Al:

And if you break away you then encounter more path and you can keep.

(52m 17s) James:

• Yep.

(52m 18s) Al:

breaking away the mountain and keep going down that path.

(52m 21s) James:

• I would suggest doing that this morning.

(52m 23s) Al:

It’s fun that they have that, although I’m not sure where that path is actually meant to lead because I don’t remember the being a path in fuchsia city in that direction.

(52m 35s)

But that’s a minor thing.

(52m 38s)

It could be some a path that was built after the games I guess.

(52m 41s) James:

• Yeah.

(52m 43s) Al:

interesting that they’ve done that.

(52m 45s) James:

• Yeah, no, because I remember digging it out

(52m 48s)

this morning, or the first time I played the game.

(52m 50s)

And I was just like, like it’s gonna be ugly

(52m 53s)

because it’s gonna be like the broken,

(52m 55s)

the path’s gonna be broken and then I dug it out.

(52m 57s)

And I was like, oh, never mind.

(52m 58s)

It’s just like a landslide or whatever.

(53m)

Or like, it got buried over time.

(53m 2s)

So that was like kind of fun.

(53m 5s)

And yeah, I just, I like this area a lot.

(53m 9s)

It is so weird.

(53m 11s)

It’s like vertical it is though, especially with kind of the part of the map near Bleak Beach where all the houses and like the farm land is up top that’s kind of like inaccessible, which is interesting.

(53m 23s) Al:

So my

(53m 26s)

So my my again my head cannon to this is that is land from sparkling Skylands as it went up into the air

(53m 35s)

Because sparkling silence isn’t just

(53m 35s) James:

• Hmm.

(53m 37s) Al:

Land in the air there’s gaps between it as well. So that land had to go somewhere

(53m 40s) James:

• Yeah.

(53m 42s)

• Now, I fell on Puchsia.

(53m 43s) Al:

Yeah

(53m 45s)

Because it’s the same with them

(53m 47s)

Bleak beach it has a bunch of extra land as well that you wouldn’t have hadn’t familiar and it

(53m 53s) James:

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

(53m 53s) Al:

Both of those are like south of

(53m 56s)

That area and so it would make sense that some of it would just kind of like fall on to those areas

(54m 1s)

Well, it makes sense doesn’t make sense that landa’s just rising into the sky

(54m 6s)

But if it would it would make sense that it wouldn’t just all go up into this guy

(54m 11s)

So that’s that’s my theory about that

(54m 14s) James:

Yeah, I do like this air and like being able to I’m more thoroughly exploring these areas now that I’m taking the game a little bit more slow.

(54m 23s)

And I was surprised that I completely forgot that there was the squishy clay that was what was surrounding on it. So I’ve been able to like already make bricks for the next area, which is kind of nice.

(54m 33s) Al:

Yeah. Yeah.

(54m 33s) James:

But then I was also digging around somewhere and I ran in the like poke metal and I was just like, Oh, like obviously I can’t do anything with this yet because I don’t have like food, but I’m just like, Oh, I had no idea this stuff.

(54m 44s)

I was even here like this early in the game.

(54m 46s) Al:

Yeah, it’s around the, there’s like a whole tunnel network around the, um, the Mew area,

(54m 54s)

which I, yeah, I was, I was investigating that the other day as well.

(54m 58s)

Uh, the only other thing I think of this area is the, the, the rocket lighthouse was that

(55m 5s)

lighthouse, like built specifically for, because obviously it’s the rocket, the team rocket rocket

(55m 12s)

lighthouse. If you will.

(55m 16s)

And I guess that’s why that didn’t exist in early games as well as because that is built from scratch as like they didn’t retro fit a lighthouse to be a rocket right.

(55m 26s) James:

Yeah, I mean, I like it. It was a cute little, I kind of like how that was the gym, the gym challenge in a way.

(55m 33s)

And being able, it’s kind of funny because you kind of hit a wall, I fare with one item.

(55m 39s)

Um, you kind of hit a wall with it and then like you kind of fly through the last few challenges.

(55m 45s) Al:

Yeah, I was the same until you get to the one where it’s like

(55m 48s) James:

It was, it was the paper. It was the, I couldn’t find how to get paper.

(55m 50s) Al:

Yes, yeah, yeah, cuz I don’t think you can do that to bleak beach, um, but if you’re not by the time I got to

(55m 52s) James:

and…

(55m 56s)

Oh, I didn’t have it until this guy lands.

(55m 58s) Al:

So I had it in bleak beach and because I

(56m 3s)

Wait, no, no, I guess you’re right. It is guidelines. Yeah, that’ll be why

(56m 5s) James:

Yeah, because you get the paper I have to give it to Metacros. I think you can get like

(56m 7s) Al:

No, you’re totally right. You’re totally right. You can’t actually get any waste paper until

(56m 13s)

That point I don’t think unless there’s

(56m 15s)

a Pokemon that will let to it.

(56m 17s) James:

Yeah, you can get like litter or like something but you can’t make clean paper or

(56m 22s)

I think I got papers or something and I’m like, oh, this is the thing I ate and it was not the thing

(56m 27s) Al:

Yeah, I think you can get it earlier, because you can get, you get

(56m 27s) James:

It was like an I it was like a physical like furniture item instead of like the resource

(56m 35s)

I’m sure you and with some other Pokemon, I’m guessing

(56m 41s) Al:

troublesh automatically in bleak beach if you follow the story and troublesh can turn

(56m 45s)

waste paper into paper. But I think, I don’t think you can get the

(56m 46s) James:

Oh, okay.

(56m 51s) Al:

waste paper that way. You’d have to have a book one with litter, which there

(56m 54s)

probably is one.

(56m 56s) James:

• Yeah.

(56m 57s) Al:

But I’m not sure if you get it as automatically.

(57m) James:

And I didn’t know why I just kind of assumed

(57m 2s)

trouble should only take the non,

(57m 5s)

I forget the item name,

(57m 6s)

but like the garbage and turn it into an iron ore.

(57m 7s) Al:

not non-burnable, not non-burnable garbage, and know the, any, the recyclability, all of them can do both of them.

(57m 9s) James:

• Yeah, yeah.

(57m 10s)

• Yeah, and turn that into an iron.

(57m 17s) Al:

Uh, what is it, the, why does Sara be not tell you what a Pokémon litter is? It just says they have litter. Great. Bye.

(57m 24s) James:

Yep, and I I want to like build out my areas to be more like a little bit optimized where the pokemon like gather stuff and like be able to like water the crops kind of by themselves.

(57m 35s)

And that is something that you can do it just takes planning and that’s just like a lot of forethinking for me, I guess I like my palette area.

(57m 38s) Al:

Yeah, I can’t figure out, but I’m pretty sure there is a Pokemon you can get that

(57m 46s)

litters waste paper, but yeah, you have to specifically get that otherwise you can’t

(57m 49s) James:

I’m sure there is.

(57m 56s)

Yeah, because I first got it when I got the tang and then I was like, oh, no, I’m drowning a paper,

(58m 1s)

and then I was able to do like challenge four or five, six and seven and eight immediately.

(58m 6s) Al:

Yeah. All right. Shall we move on to, sorry, what are you going to?

(58m 9s) James:

So yeah, the, I don’t know, I was going to say the rocket, the rocket thing was kind of cute,

(58m 14s)

and I liked how after it took off, you could go underneath and see like their little hideout and

(58m 20s) Al:

Yes. Yeah. All right. Let’s talk about bleed beach. We’ve got, I guess, the biggest

Bleak Beach

(58m 27s) Al:

thing about that is the SSN. That was a fun thing in the map. The rest of, yes.

(58m 32s) James:

And also the lighthouse there that we finally have an answer as to what the Machop was building after all of these years.

(58m 44s) Al:

Did we not get that in? Hargoldt’s old server. Did we not? Was he still building?

(58m 48s) James:

Now he was still just stomping away.

(58m 51s) Al:

I thought he had. Yeah. Well, okay. There you go.

(58m 51s) James:

Yeah, he was still building and everyone was like,

(58m 53s)

‘cause he was still building and golden silver.

(58m 55s)

And everyone was like, “This is the funny

(58m 56s)

“and this thing is never gonna finish building.”

(58m 59s)

It’s been three years and now we finally have a lighthouse.

(59m 4s) Al:

How long does it take to build a lighthouse? That’s a question.

(59m 7s) James:

Apparently, we’re three years.

(59m 9s) Al:

I suspect that it’s an organizational issue and they just kept changing what they wanted.

(59m 17s) James:

Yeah, I also love that the lighthouse in the old games is in the middle of the city

(59m 21s) Al:

Yes. The SSN was to me the most interesting part of this map because obviously it’s quite

(59m 24s) James:

Which like short

(59m 27s)

But yes the SS and as well

(59m 36s) Al:

intimidating. Like you can very much, it’s very clearly there in the background the whole time.

(59m 42s)

But it takes your while to actually get out there because obviously you don’t get

(59m 47s)

Surf straight away. You could, I guess.

(59m 50s)

Rebuild the bridge, but you’re still quite early on in the game at that point and so you’re not,

(59m 56s)

you probably don’t have the recipe for planks and you might not have a lot of stuff.

(1h) James:

Oh, no, you get it pretty early because you have to rebuild the bridge to get to Kyogur.

(1h 8s)

So they give you the plank recipe, so you can just kind of go ahead and build yourself

(1h 14s) Al:

Okay, I’d missed that because I just, I did not rebuild the bridge to get the properly.

(1h 14s) James:

right.

(1h 15s)

And I did.

(1h 16s)

Oh yeah, but they expect, oh nice.

(1h 23s) Al:

I just used dirt.

(1h 26s) James:

But no, they give you the recipe, I think.

(1h 30s)

The recipes in this game are so weird how they give them out.

(1h 36s)

But Kyogur appeared on the waistlamps for me, and then I built the bridge out to Kyogur.

(1h 41s)

So that was yesterday.

(1h 44s)

So I have like a hundred wood piece, wood bridge pieces that I have just kind of saved up.

(1h 52s)

And I’ll probably do that when I first get to bleak each is built out like, like, rat out

(1h 56s)

my area to get to the S&S.

(1h 58s) Al:

Yeah, the the other thing as well though is what certainly I felt when I hit like beat bleak beach

(1h 1m 4s)

I was like oh wow this game is a lot bigger than I was expecting and that was my first overwhelming moment and so that’s what I switched from

(1h 1m 12s)

I’m gonna do everything like in detail to I’m gonna do this story now and

(1h 1m 19s)

So I wasn’t really going out to the SSN, but I was very much aware of it

(1h 1m 24s)

I think you have to go at one point but to do this because I think you have to go

(1h 1m 28s)

get clever but I wasn’t really focusing on that and I certainly wasn’t

(1h 1m 32s)

going out until I had to and by that point you have surf to go over there anyway.

(1h 1m 36s) James:

Yep. Yeah, I did see that someone has fully restored the SSN on social media. It was a video

(1h 1m 43s) Al:

I’m not surprised. I’m not surprised at all.

(1h 1m 44s) James:

right now, which seems fun, but it’s also so like empty inside, even though it was like full,

(1h 1m 49s) Al:

Yeah.

(1h 1m 50s) James:

I was just like this seems not worth it. I thought about what if I tear the entire thing down?

(1h 1m 56s) Al:

Oh, interesting.

(1h 1m 58s) James:

I also saw someone like broke the game by trying to remove the water from under the SSN

(1h 2m 5s)

or they like broke

(1h 2m 6s)

the ocean and the water was doing all kinds of weird stuff because they were like sucking up all the ocean water.

(1h 2m 11s) Al:

Yeah. The ocean does not like when you take water out of it. It goes weird. It’s not like a river.

(1h 2m 16s) James:

Yeah.

(1h 2m 17s) Al:

It gets really weird. You can fix it because I had a little area that I’d mugged up and I fixed it.

(1h 2m 20s) James:

Yeah.

(1h 2m 23s) Al:

I feel like they could have dealt with the water in the sea a bit better.

(1h 2m 24s) James:

I do have.

(1h 2m 28s)

The water is very funny because it just kind of ends at some point.

(1h 2m 31s)

So actually in my withered wasteland area,

(1h 2m 34s)

I dug out a tunnel to water the area,

(1h 2m 38s)

kind of near the Skylands entrance in that big field behind.

(1h 2m 43s)

But, so I have water running through half of that.

(1h 2m 46s)

But it just kind of ends midway through the pond and obviously they they want you to use like the water spit up ability to fill on the other side. So my water just like half not there. It’s kind of sad looking.

(1h 2m 50s) Al:

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I actually didn’t go into that area until just a couple days ago, um, because

(1h 3m 7s) James:

Oh nice. It isn’t so interesting because what’s it called. You briefly mentioned doing like a

(1h 3m 13s)

professor oak challenge or something with this game and as a joke. No, but it’s so funny because

(1h 3m 17s) Al:

Yeah, I said it mostly as a, as a troll. I don’t think I was being serious about it.

(1h 3m 24s) James:

in the sparkling skylands during my first go around, I got print plump and didn’t really think

(1h 3m 29s)

about it, but I just got print plump the other day because I had the water wheel working

(1h 3m 34s)

in that area. And so I’m like,

(1h 3m 37s)

Oh, this is like, you can kind of bust open the game in so many different ways that I haven’t thought about. And I think that’s really interesting.

(1h 3m 43s) Al:

Yeah, yeah, yeah, that’s interesting because I guess by default you would probably get it

(1h 3m 50s) James:

I guess the earliest would probably be bleak beach if you’re lucky because it would appear in the water wheel

(1h 3m 55s) Al:

Yeah. But you’ve also, you’ve also got to set it up. I think there’s a, there’s a task to do it in rocky ridges, which is how which is where I got from plop in that one.

(1h 3m 56s) James:

But I just never got it until

(1h 4m 2s)

Yeah, oh yeah, there is for

(1h 4m 7s)

Oh nice

(1h 4m 8s)

But yeah, I already have like bastio dawn and shield on like I have a bunch of stuff already

(1h 4m 13s)

And I’m kind of having fun like just exploring what I can actually get

(1h 4m 17s) Al:

And we’d end up being very, unless you move Pokémon between the areas,

(1h 4m 21s)

it would end up being quite bottom heavy in terms of like,

(1h 4m 26s)

“Oh, so many of your Pokémon being in that one area.”

(1h 4m 29s) James:

• Yeah, I plan on moving them around.

(1h 4m 31s)

Like I wanna build some houses or like habitats.

(1h 4m 35s)

Not habitats, I’m sorry.

(1h 4m 36s)

Like houses are enclosures to house like entire families.

(1h 4m 39s)

But like it’s super difficult already

(1h 4m 42s)

because they only spawn in 20 Pokemon on the map, right?

(1h 4m 46s)

So they’re like, you need a Pokemon with fly.

(1h 4m 49s)

And I’m like, I know I have hoot hoot.

(1h 4m 51s)

But it’s just not here.

(1h 4m 53s) Al:

[laughing]

(1h 4m 54s) James:

And it’s an habitat.

(1h 4m 55s)

So I think I’d have to use honey to force it to spawn.

(1h 4m 59s)

But I was just like, huh, I need a fly Pokemon to build this like leaf den or something or leaf hut or cottage or whatever.

(1h 5m 8s)

And it’s just I can’t the game is fully like, you do not have a Pokemon with fly.

(1h 5m 13s) Al:

That’s funny. I’d love to know the logic it chooses for which Pokemon it wants. It keeps

(1h 5m 13s) James:

And I was like, this is so I’m like, huh, I know I have like pitchy and hoot hoot, but they’re just not here.

(1h 5m 24s)

Yeah, and I wonder how it makes those decisions like

(1h 5m 24s) Al:

out and which Pokemon it deserves.

(1h 5m 29s) James:

when you’re trying to do tests like that, because I had like six Pokemon out of the seven that I needed to build the structure.

(1h 5m 36s)

And it was just like, there’s no fly Pokemon.

(1h 5m 38s)

And then I like did something where I like went into the Pokemon center or something.

(1h 5m 42s)

And I figured when I came back out, it would have like generated the hoot hoot or the pidgey.

(1h 5m 48s) Al:

Yeah, I ended up losing my shell also one point because I accidentally broke their habitat and they were deep and they were despondent at that point and

(1h 5m 58s)

even like Pokemon with fly or teleport wouldn’t

(1h 6m 2s)

Respawn it

(1h 6m 3s)

So I ended up and it up just waiting and then the next day

(1h 6m 8s)

They respond and actually I had rebuilt their habitat and when they respawned

(1h 6m 13s)

And they moved back into their habitat that I had previously destroyed.

(1h 6m 18s)

Which was interesting, but yeah, they came back the next day, but I was like, oh no, because it was the only Pokemon I hadn’t moved from a habitat into a house.

(1h 6m 23s) James:

Because my doomy and war turtle are very angrily walking around because they don’t have a house right now.

(1h 6m 33s)

And I’m just like, I’m dealing with this later. Like I need to build so much crap.

(1h 6m 39s)

But that’s good to know.

(1h 6m 42s)

But yeah, back to the bleak beach. Yeah, for a million. I really enjoy the area. I think it’s like a really, I think like this is a really fun area that I’m going to have.

(1h 6m 54s)

A good time rebuilding, like making like a beach town.

(1h 6m 57s)

I’ve seen so many images of like row homes, people are building and like kind of creating like almost like a meek-a-nose looking area.

(1h 7m 6s)

So I think that’d be fun to experiment with. And I think it’s just a pretty strongly like, I don’t know, the area is just kind of like themed and structured already really well.

(1h 7m 18s)

I kind of like how it’s already like half a town and half a beach.

(1h 7m 19s) Al:

Yeah, I think that’s my problem with it is I have because it’s so as you say there, I have less

(1h 7m 23s) James:

Yeah. Yeah.

(1h 7m 31s) Al:

of an idea of what I would want to do with it. So all I did with it was just rebuild the houses

(1h 7m 37s)

and then put the Pokemon in there. And I like, but what else would I want to do? Like, I could do

(1h 7m 41s)

some like islands maybe, but like that doesn’t feel like it just, it that like I want to do

(1h 7m 49s)

with skyscrapers in the sparkling silence. And so it kind of feels like I’m just doing the same

(1h 7m 53s)

thing again there. And it’s like, well, I could go like underneath and have like underground,

(1h 7m 58s)

but then I’m doing the same thing as rocky ridges. So I just not sure what I would want to do.

(1h 8m 3s)

I guess maybe the most interesting thing you could do is just house everyone in the SSN,

(1h 8m 8s)

but again, you’re not doing anything new there. You’re just recreating what’s there.

(1h 8m 12s) James:

Going it out. Yeah. And I guess my biggest question for you is like, what are you going to do about because you said you wanted to complete the decks.

(1h 8m 19s) Al:

Yeah.

(1h 8m 20s) James:

The three massive temples, which are physically enormous, like I’m looking at these things and I’m like, where the hell would I even put these

(1h 8m 30s) Al:

I’ll come on, there’s an easy answer, in Palatine, yeah.

(1h 8m 32s) James:

In palette.

(1h 8m 34s)

I don’t know if I want to put them there though.

(1h 8m 36s) Al:

Well, the other option is there is…

(1h 8m 37s) James:

I kind of want to I feel like I kind of want to put them thematically where they’d make a little bit of sense.

(1h 8m 42s)

And then at the same time, I mean.

(1h 8m 42s) Al:

That’s a possibility, but the other thing I can think is

(1h 8m 46s)

there is so much land in rocky bridges that is just unused.

(1h 8m 51s) James:

Yeah, so you could just stick them on top of the right of the mountain basically. Yeah.

(1h 8m 53s) Al:

Yeah. Hollow out a bunch, because there’s a whole bunch of stuff you can get rid of,

(1h 8m 58s)

And then just put them over there.

(1h 9m)

You go from the Pokémon Center up to the area where you find the farming stuff.

(1h 9m 6s) James:

• Yeah.

(1h 9m 6s) Al:

And then you go up that cliff.

(1h 9m 8s)

All of that area to the end and then right to the end as well is just mine.

(1h 9m 17s)

There’s nothing else there.

(1h 9m 18s)

So you can mine like 10 layers down before you start even getting close to hitting anything.

(1h 9m 24s) James:

Yeah, I guess it would be thematic to stick Moltress into a cave for no

(1h 9m 25s) Al:

And then you’ve got the entire width of the map that you can use.

(1h 9m 30s)

Okay, so you could, yes, so you could put mulch res in rocky ridges and then you could

(1h 9m 34s) James:

discernible reason, but yeah, underground.

(1h 9m 42s) Al:

put and think and make a sky island for Zapdos because although yeah, yeah, because it’s

(1h 9m 47s) James:

to power the city.

(1h 9m 48s)

Yeah, that makes sense.

(1h 9m 50s)

And then I guess you could put Articuno

(1h 9m 51s) Al:

like, that’s not what I was thinking but that would be an option I was thinking make an island

(1h 9m 53s) James:

in the wither wastelands, I guess, in the war.

(1h 9m 58s)

Oh.

(1h 10m) Al:

off-bleek beach for Articano.

(1h 10m 1s) James:

Oh, that makes that work too.

(1h 10m 3s)

Yeah, Articuno is just like they’re all just so mad.

(1h 10m 7s) Al:

Your other option is hope that the DLC brings the other areas that would make more

(1h 10m 11s)

thematic sense for the three of them into them there, but.

(1h 10m 13s) James:

I don’t know if I want to wait that long to get the samples or maybe I can just build

(1h 10m 17s)

them in the tear them down, uh, turn them down foundations.

(1h 10m 22s) Al:

I will also say that this is the area that for me felt the most like the area that it was

(1h 10m 31s)

originally, even more so than sparkling Skylands, which obviously is much is, is quite obvious

(1h 10m 38s)

as well, but has, because of the like the broken apart part of it feels more like you’re

(1h 10m 44s)

piecing together clues to figure it out rather than like, because it’s basically fact

(1h 10m 49s)

that there were lots of debates about whether it’s settled on our saffron, right?

(1h 10m 54s) James:

Yeah, and I think

(1h 10m 54s) Al:

Like there was a lot of that, whereas this was like very clearly this is vermilion.

(1h 10m 59s)

It’s so clear.

(1h 11m) James:

Yeah

(1h 11m) Al:

It’s what it is. There’s the SSN for crying out loud. Right. Yeah. Well, that was, yeah, exactly.

(1h 11m 3s) James:

Because even when I saw a self-coe, I was like, oh, there might be the department store

(1h 11m 9s)

Because I hadn’t gotten into it yet when I got into it, I’m like, oh, this is self-coe

(1h 11m 12s)

I was like when I was just seeing it from a farm like that might be the department store that’d be weird that for

(1h 11m 15s) Al:

I was convinced it was the department store even after we rebuilt it as self-core. I was still

(1h 11m 20s)

convinced we were just rebuilding it differently. But when people explained to me that I was like,

(1h 11m 24s) James:

You

(1h 11m 29s)

Yeah, but yeah, when I got to bleak beach, I’m like, oh, yep

(1h 11m 32s)

This is a million from the from the tie line to the S. M. San to just like the way that the city looks

(1h 11m 37s)

I’m honestly surprised they did do some kind of reference to like surges gem with like a broken building with like a bunch of trash cans

(1h 11m 44s) Al:

Uh, I mean, is that not what the, um, the area with the, the, uh, what’s it called?

(1h 11m 51s) James:

I think that’s supposed to be the gym, but it’s clearly just kind of not at this point.

(1h 11m 51s) Al:

The furnace, yeah, is that not meant to be the, the gym?

(1h 11m 57s) James:

Yeah, yeah.

(1h 11m 57s) Al:

Yeah, it’s, I mean, it’s broken down so much that it’s not clear, it’s anything, but I think that’s, yeah.

(1h 11m 59s) James:

Yeah, I guess that would be the gym, I’m a surprise or the warm or trash cans just because that was so.

(1h 12m 7s)

Especially because I remember in.

(1h 12m 7s) Al:

I would love the idea of like, it was, it was such a terrible situation that it’s all,

(1h 12m 11s) James:

Yes, well remember when it was like in sun and moon, I think whether it’s like we have lieutenant surgeons.

(1h 12m 12s) Al:

The building is gone but there’s still the

(1h 12m 14s)

trash cans, they’re still there!

(1h 12m 21s) James:

The gym in here for no reason and I was just like, I guess sure.

(1h 12m 24s) Al:

Why not? Why not?

(1h 12m 26s) James:

The clearly game freak is enamored with the stupid thing.

(1h 12m 28s) Al:

I hated that so much.

(1h 12m 32s) James:

Oh yeah, it’s an awful gym.

(1h 12m 35s)

But ever since sun and moon, I’m like, well, they clearly love it.

(1h 12m 38s)

So I just assume it’s going to be here.

(1h 12m 38s) Al:

Yeah well.

(1h 12m 42s)

Anything else to talk about would be be.

(1h 12m 45s) James:

Honestly not too much.

(1h 12m 46s)

I did enjoy the little resort island kind of off to the side of the big lighthouse.

(1h 12m 49s)

stuff’s just kind of there for, you know, to turn it over.

(1h 12m 50s) Al:

Yeah, yeah.

(1h 12m 51s) James:

And I was like, oh, this is cute.

(1h 12m 53s)

But yeah, I guess we can move on to rocky ridges, which we’ve kind of got over.

Rocky Ridges

(1h 12m 58s) Al:

• Yeah, I guess it’s the least kind of stuff there

(1h 13m 4s)

in terms of stuff that you would recognize

(1h 13m 6s)

from the previous game, which probably partly to do

(1h 13m 9s)

with the Vataputaton is such a small town, right?

(1h 13m 11s) James:

Until…

(1h 13m 13s) Al:

But, well, okay, we’ll get there, we’ll get there.

(1h 13m 15s)

But in terms of the things that you would recognize

(1h 13m 19s)

is basically just the museum, right?

(1h 13m 22s)

Like there’s nothing else there that is something

(1h 13m 24s)

you would recognize from the existing game.

(1h 13m 28s)

There is a lot to the map as a whole,

(1h 13m 30s)

but it’s mostly things that exist

(1h 13m 31s) James:

• Yeah.

(1h 13m 33s) Al:

because of the clear eruption, right?

(1h 13m 36s) James:

• Yep.

(1h 13m 38s)

And it is one of those,

(1h 13m 38s)

I guess it’s a mountain moon,

(1h 13m 39s)

pure city kind of thing.

(1h 13m 43s)

And mountain moon is now active, which is cool.

(1h 13m 47s)

But yeah, it’s a massive map.

(1h 13m 48s) Al:

Well, cool, cool, cool in concept, not so cool if you were living there before.

(1h 13m 52s) James:

• Well, no, but they’re all gone.

(1h 13m 55s)

But yeah, it’s an absolutely massive map.

(1h 13m 57s)

I think I was like you,

(1h 13m 59s)

‘Cause I think I went too.

(1h 14m 1s)

Rocky Bridges first, and I was just so surprised about how big it was.

(1h 14m 6s)

And I was like, “Oh, I kind of assumed whether Wasteland’s would be kind of be like one of the bigger areas.”

(1h 14m 11s)

And then when I saw that they were all kind of the same size, I was like, “Oh, this game is bigger than I thought it was going to be.”

(1h 14m 16s) Al:

Yeah, it’s funny though because like Rocky Ridge is felt really small to me first because you just walk in and it’s just this little kind of tunnel essentially to the main area and then you’ve got this really small area, but then you you pop into the mine and you’re like, oh, no, okay, right, and then if you

(1h 14m 32s) James:

I think I started following the mine tracks and I was just like, oh, this is, and I found

(1h 14m 34s) Al:

Yeah, yeah exactly and then you find the museum and you’re like, it’s massive. It took me ages to realize the museum isn’t actually underground.

(1h 14m 37s) James:

the museum and I was like, oh, this is a lot.

(1h 14m 40s)

Yeah.

(1h 14m 45s)

Yeah.

(1h 14m 46s) Al:

You can see the sky from the museum

(1h 14m 48s) James:

Oh, yeah.

(1h 14m 50s)

I think when I approached it first, I found the, um, like outside exit to get to the museum

(1h 14m 56s)

and not like the tunnel under.

(1h 14m 59s) Al:

Yeah, okay, and then I also I mined all the way around the outside of the map and I was it just kept going

(1h 15m 7s)

I was like this thing is it’s huge. It’s just interesting because most of it is just nothing

(1h 15m 8s) James:

Yeah. Yeah.

(1h 15m 13s) Al:

Which I guess makes sense because future city is mostly nothing

(1h 15m 21s)

Because it’s an early game thing, but I love the museum the museum great though

(1h 15m 26s) James:

It really is. It’s so much more detailed than I would have thought. And the fact that

(1h 15m 30s)

gave me gold was terrible things, I was like, oh, and I first saw giving gold, I was like, oh no.

(1h 15m 32s) Al:

You can always tell whether someone’s playing Pokemon games now or not because I heard someone say like this little dude who’s looking for museum stuff and I’m like what do you mean this little dude he’s going to go what are you talking about how did you not know get me go?

(1h 15m 36s) James:

I was like,

(1h 15m 49s)

• Yeah, and I just thought I’m just like,

(1h 15m 52s)

they’re better not be coined in this game.

(1h 15m 55s)

Like, I will have a mental breakdown

(1h 15m 58s)

if I have to find 999 coins on top of everything else

(1h 16m 1s)

there’s to do it.

(1h 16m 2s) Al:

I’m enjoying rebuilding the skeletons as well, which is fun. Oh, there’s a little bit weird that you rebuild the skeleton and the Pokemon’s like yeah, I want to live here next to my carbs.

(1h 16m 5s) James:

• Yes.

(1h 16m 10s)

I know, next to my skin, I have skin now.

(1h 16m 16s)

I do wanna build a house and just stick all

(1h 16m 19s)

with the four synophosels

(1h 16m 22s)

with their like their skeletal hormones

(1h 16m 23s) Al:

Well, they are decorations, so…

(1h 16m 24s) James:

and like a bed at the table.

(1h 16m 27s)

And be like, here you go.

(1h 16m 30s)

Yep.

(1h 16m 33s)

But now, I like that area a lot.

(1h 16m 35s)

It really, finding out the cooking system

(1h 16m 40s)

of the game was also very interesting as well

(1h 16m 42s)

and finding the chef Charlotte.

(1h 16m 42s) Al:

Yes, for a foreign area that has so little in terms of buildings, it gave you a lot of

(1h 16m 53s) James:

• Mm-hmm, mechanical stuff.

(1h 16m 55s) Al:

mechanic. Yeah, so you’ve got the cooking and you’ve got the graveler and you’ve got the farming,

(1h 17m 2s) James:

and the Rotom.

(1h 17m 2s) Al:

I feel like there was the road time as well. Yeah, it’s a lot. Yeah, yeah, that too.

(1h 17m 7s) James:

And the mine cart.

(1h 17m 10s)

Which is a whole system because I think we’ve also seen the social media videos of people building like music tracks and using the mine cart to like activate the the sounds.

(1h 17m 20s) Al:

I got my first musical note thing today.

(1h 17m 23s)

It was in my daily shop.

(1h 17m 24s) James:

Oh nice, but yeah, it is a massive like a massive map.

(1h 17m 32s)

And I can’t wait to hollow out part of the mountain to stick moderate bone.

(1h 17m 34s) Al:

Yeah, just how, how much can you do before you get bored?

(1h 17m 41s)

It’s like 30 seconds of going forwards and then eating a, eating a steak and then another

(1h 17m 41s) James:

I mean, what’s that get the

(1h 17m 46s)

a beam burger?

(1h 17m 47s) Al:

30 seconds.

(1h 17m 48s)

It’s just so much.

(1h 17m 49s) James:

Yeah, I’ll have Graveler and food by then, so I’ll be fine.

(1h 17m 49s) Al:

All right, let’s talk about sparkling Skylands then.

Sparkling Skylands

(1h 17m 57s) James:

Yes, the big one.

(1h 17m 59s) Al:

I think it’s the most interesting

(1h 18m 4s)

to me because of the different the islands being so visible like you can see a lot of the secrets whereas with the other areas you got to dig down to find the secrets you got to explore whereas here is like the secrets are almost like in your face you know it’s it’s stuff like you see very quickly when you’re moving from one island to another you can see like the holes in the central island and the track going through it.

(1h 18m 34s)

And you’re like okay I see there’s a lot here I like that and all of there’s so many buildings with so many secrets in them as well that you can just like walk around and see what they are.

(1h 18m 34s) James:

Now I can.

(1h 18m 46s)

Yeah. And I, even when I was playing this, like that entire South area with the gate back

(1h 18m 53s)

to the wastelands with all of those buildings, I barely explored any of them. And I could

(1h 18m 58s)

see that in my pokedex or whatever, like all of the lore stuff I was missing was like

(1h 19m 3s)

kind of buried around in the skylands. And I knew it was kind of going to be in that area

(1h 19m 9s)

where all of the buildings were where you found them. I think art of war. Yeah. But I really

(1h 19m 10s) Al:

Yeah. Yes.

(1h 19m 16s) James:

liked this area. It’s really pretty. It’s kind of constructing just how small it is.

(1h 19m 21s)

And you have to, like, kind of get the ability to kind of travel between them easily through

(1h 19m 26s)

Dragonite. So it was, like, difficult to manage, like the Pokemon on the space while the habitat

(1h 19m 33s)

I needed when I first initially did it. And I can’t wait to get back here again just

(1h 19m 39s)

because I don’t know if I’m kind of, like, taking some Pokemon from, like, place to place

(1h 19m 44s)

with me. I’m just sticking them in like little grass patch.

(1h 19m 47s) Al:

Yeah, yeah, this is the one this is the one of the main areas that I’ve not got to level 10

(1h 19m 52s)

Yeah, and I’m still not quite sure exactly what I want to do, but I think I want to like rebuild some skyscrapers and and house them in there

(1h 20m 1s)

But

(1h 20m 2s)

This like one of the sky islands. I’ve basically not done anything on the top left one

(1h 20m 7s) James:

Yeah, it’s a thought of Gyarados with a Gyarados one. Yeah.

(1h 20m 8s) Al:

Yeah, I think so I think so I’ve not even been there so I couldn’t tell you

(1h 20m 13s) James:

Uh, that’s how you get waterfall to go up waterfalls with lappers.

(1h 20m 17s) Al:

Oh, I was I keep seeing videos of people doing that. I’m like I can’t figure out how to make it work

(1h 20m 18s) James:

Yeah.

(1h 20m 22s) Al:

So it’s another ability that I’ve just not got right

(1h 20m 22s) James:

Yeah. Yep. Gyarados teaches you how to get waterfall.

(1h 20m 25s) Al:

Well, I know what I’m doing tomorrow then

(1h 20m 28s) James:

You know, I don’t know learn how to go up waterfalls. I can’t remember what it’s a small

(1h 20m 32s)

little question you could do, but it was pretty manageable.

(1h 20m 37s)

It’s the most annoying thing about this guy, and I was trying to take Pokemon from

(1h 20m 40s)

Island Island.

(1h 20m 42s)

I remember I was trying to rebuild Southko and I’m like, okay, I have Gyarados, and I needed

(1h 20m 49s)

it for the flyability, maybe a camera boy I needed it for.

(1h 20m 52s)

Or I just needed, basically, a body to help build the tower, and I’m like, well, I know Gyarados

(1h 20m 58s)

is there.

(1h 20m 59s)

So I went to grab it, and I would not travel with me because it couldn’t fly, which

(1h 21m 4s)

It’s just funny.

(1h 21m 5s) Al:

Yeah, you have to rebuild like the… Yeah.

(1h 21m 7s) James:

fly from Ireland, the garris one like fly from Ireland Island, which is funny since it’s in Pokemon

(1h 21m 14s)

like the darkest flying in a circle. I’m like, it flies. It’s fine. It just like, Garrett is

(1h 21m 20s)

can’t follow you. And I was like, oh, but it fast travel kind of breaks. That’s how I just travel

(1h 21m 26s)

back to my house and get your garris with me. And then I just stuck it in four patches of grass.

(1h 21m 28s) Al:

Uh right. Fair enough. Yeah, I’ve also, I’ve also been considering moving the Pokemon

(1h 21m 32s) James:

I said, I’m like, “This is your home now.”

(1h 21m 34s)

You live next to the pond.

(1h 21m 37s)

Yeah. Yeah.

(1h 21m 38s) Al:

Center to the mental island. I feel like that, because if people don’t know you can, uh,

(1h 21m 45s)

you can get like, uh, you can move buildings and that includes the Pokemon Center. You can,

(1h 21m 50s)

you can move that, which is, is nice. And I’ve not moved any of them yet, but I’m,

(1h 21m 53s) James:

Animal Animal Crossing could never.

(1h 21m 55s) Al:

But that one in particular I am considered.

(1h 21m 58s)

Yes, well the advantage of the middle island is that if you if you if that’s your central area, if you have your home there and obviously you got to have your home next to the Pokémon centers so you got to build that there as well, then you can you can glide to any of the other islands because I think it’s the highest up one.

(1h 22m 1s) James:

Yeah, it’s in a particularly like weird spot.

(1h 22m 21s)

• Yeah.

(1h 22m 24s) Al:

Not that they’re matches, no, because I have the magnum ability, but…

(1h 22m 28s)

Still, still.

(1h 22m 30s) James:

I love that little best of the ability when I was doing some,

(1h 22m 32s) Al:

Well, as a reason is post-game.

(1h 22m 34s) James:

I know. I saw people making insane stuff and I saw the magnimatability and I’m like,

(1h 22m 39s)

I’m going to wait until I get this magnimat thing. And now I’m like, I’m going to do a slow and deliberate.

(1h 22m 41s) Al:

Yeah.

(1h 22m 45s)

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

(1h 22m 46s) James:

So yes, having like break a block and then

(1h 22m 47s) Al:

I’m enjoying it for, like, replacing blocks.

(1h 22m 50s)

It’s very useful for that, which Kevin did not know was a thing you could do until yes,

(1h 22m 55s)

until the other day when I told him.

(1h 22m 57s) James:

But having to break a block and then suck up the

(1h 22m 58s) Al:

It means you can change what our Pokemon’s house is made of without making them homeless.

(1h 23m) James:

block, you just broke and then like put the new block down into

(1h 23m 10s)

• Yes, yeah.

(1h 23m 10s) Al:

I think for being the biggest and most interesting area, we don’t have a lot to talk about here.

(1h 23m 18s) James:

Yeah, I mean, it’s saffron city, um, so it is the biggest and just kind of most interesting, like it’s very expansive, I guess the interesting thing is like the Pokemon buddies, because I don’t think I knew that, um,

(1h 23m 31s)

take a ton had like a special form or whatever, going into it and the fact that she’s kind of just like this engineer who’s building these towers of trash was fun and I don’t exactly know everything her ability does the engineer skill.

(1h 23m 41s) Al:

Yeah, that was fun.

(1h 23m 46s)

So basically it reduces the building time to an hour.

(1h 23m 48s) James:

Uh, oh, do I have much? Oh, wow.

(1h 23m 52s) Al:

So instead of a day to build something, it down to an hour.

(1h 23m 56s)

So instead of it being ready the next day, it’s ready in an hour.

(1h 23m 57s) James:

Oh, so that’s why because I thought that was really interesting how the saffron tower was like an hour for each, Lord, because of tank of time. So if I didn’t have tank of, well, I think you had to have tank of time build that then. Yeah.

(1h 24m 8s) Al:

Yeah, it’s because it’s because you’ve got tingkatong. Yeah

(1h 24m 13s)

You have to yeah, it doesn’t let you do it without it, but yeah

(1h 24m 16s) James:

but I figured

(1h 24m 17s) Al:

Theoretically theoretically if you were able to do that quest without tingkatong it would take you four days to do it

(1h 24m 18s) James:

I thought I’d take a date regardless of even two days because I thought we were rebuilding the entire thing at once.

(1h 24m 31s)

I kind of, like, just abused myself of that notion very quickly because it was so few resources at first.

(1h 24m 38s) Al:

Yeah

(1h 24m 39s) James:

And then I was like, I will leave it the first floor. Cool. Three more to go.

(1h 24m 42s) Al:

Yeah

(1h 24m 44s)

I think if you pay attention to the dialogue, I think it does make it clear that you’re just building the first level book who actually reads dialogue, right?

(1h 24m 50s) James:

Okay, you know and at that point I’m like yeah, I’m building something new

(1h 24m 55s) Al:

Yeah, yeah, because this is the last area here like let’s just get through this. I want to finish the story now

(1h 24m 59s) James:

Yep, yep, and then I guess the other interesting thing was finding the karate dojo kind of buried in the middle of the

(1h 25m 7s) Al:

Yeah

(1h 25m 8s) James:

In the middle of the mountain or one of the islands

(1h 25m 11s)

It is kind of funny how I do want to know what happened to saffron like the most where I’m just like how did we go from like

(1h 25m 19s) Al:

it’s just rising. It’s just rising in the air. You know, it’s just rising. That’s all

(1h 25m 20s) James:

City to floating islands I know

(1h 25m 23s) Al:

why do you need an answer? It’s just rising. It was rising in the air. My question is, is it still

(1h 25m 29s)

going up? Because the records imply that it’s very slow, but it was taking hundreds of years.

(1h 25m 30s) James:

Yeah, I mean

(1h 25m 36s)

Yeah, so it’s like a rocket

(1h 25m 40s) Al:

I think because I think that’s the biggest indication we get of how long it’s been because

(1h 25m 44s)

they talk about a time frame that it would take to get into the sky.

(1h 25m 48s) James:

Good high.

(1h 25m 49s) Al:

And so the implication is that it’s being that at least that long and I can’t remember what it was that it said

(1h 25m 55s) James:

Raising questions, they don’t want to answer.

(1h 25m 59s)

Because presumably, your trainer is still alive at the end.

(1h 26m 2s) Al:

Maybe who knows who knows

(1h 26m 4s) James:

Maybe implied.

(1h 26m 6s)

But yeah, I enjoy the area. I enjoy this area the most.

(1h 26m 8s) Al:

Infared

(1h 26m 10s) James:

And I really like, I just personally found like the color of like the grass, like the most pleasant,

(1h 26m 15s)

which I know is stupid, but I’m just like, oh, I really like this.

(1h 26m 19s) Al:

Yeah, yeah, okay, so we’ve also got palette time

Palette Town

(1h 26m 23s) Al:

But there’s probably not much to talk about that right like because it’s it’s basically just sandbox, right? There’s nothing else really do it

(1h 26m 26s) James:

Yep, hit the sandbox

(1h 26m 30s)

And the three birds

(1h 26m 32s) Al:

The three birds. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, you get the the plans for the the altars

(1h 26m 37s) James:

Absolutely massive massive buildings

(1h 26m 40s) Al:

But he moths

(1h 26m 42s)

But in terms of like the actual area it’s not meant to be interesting is meant to be just your sandbox

(1h 26m 48s) James:

I guess it is interesting that this is where the EV, the stock EV and the evolutions.

(1h 26m 49s) Al:

You

(1h 26m 54s)

Yeah, yeah, um, what I think it would be fun to do though is just go through some areas that I think might be fun to

Areas We Want Added

(1h 27m 3s) Al:

To talk about um, I’ve just noticed your your addition to one of my points is yeah, I forgot about the name of that place

(1h 27m 9s)

And I was just kind of we’ll get to that

(1h 27m 12s)

So one of the areas that I think would be fun would be lavender tone

(1h 27m 17s)

There’s no other

(1h 27m 19s)

I’ve tried to think if there’s many ghost Pokemon at all.

(1h 27m 23s) James:

I know Mr. Viz Litwick, Gaslyline, so those are the main ones.

(1h 27m 28s) Al:

Okay, I’ve not encountered any of them. So I was kind of like I’m trying to remember if I’ve encountered any ghosts. I don’t think I have

(1h 27m 35s) James:

I got Litwick in the first area with the gravestone.

(1h 27m 40s) Al:

Okay, see I just got cube on a matter of work. I’ve not had anything

(1h 27m 42s) James:

So the interesting thing is, if you actually like,

(1h 27m 46s)

the gravestone is like two habitats.

(1h 27m 49s)

So if you put flowers behind the gravestone,

(1h 27m 52s)

Cubone and Meracle appear.

(1h 27m 53s)

But if you actually do the candles in the food offering,

(1h 27m 56s)

Litwick and I think probably Lampin or Shandler appear–

(1h 28m) Al:

You have to light the candle. Right, see that’s, see I put food on the plate, but I didn’t,

(1h 28m 1s) James:

yes, which one I made or is someone?

(1h 28m 5s) Al:

I didn’t light the candle. Makes sense. But yeah, I think lavender tone could be fun,

(1h 28m 6s) James:

Oh yeah, you got to light the things for the habitats.

(1h 28m 13s) Al:

you could have a bunch more ghost book mon. Having, I think it would be fun if they had the

(1h 28m 20s)

the tower there, but of course in, well, here’s the problem. It was replaced by radio tower in

(1h 28m 27s)

Golden server, wasn’t it? So maybe

(1h 28m 27s) James:

Gold’s over, yep.

(1h 28m 30s) Al:

we find out that there was like that we still had like it was hot. I don’t know. There’s this there’s some interesting stuff they could do there. I think

(1h 28m 38s) James:

Yeah, or they could have filled it with more corpses in the radio tower the graveyard and radio tower

(1h 28m 43s) Al:

Yeah, sure

(1h 28m 47s)

Yes, it could be an it. Well, yeah, it could be an interesting combination of the two, right? Because like maybe there was an earthquake quake in the ground broke open and now you’ve got both of them merged together or something

(1h 28m 53s) James:

Yes

(1h 28m 58s)

Or they could be like radio died its podcast now

(1h 29m) Al:

You

(1h 29m 4s)

Cinnabar I also think could be interesting. I think it’s interesting that we didn’t get that because obviously that was one of the theories that people were having that the

(1h 29m 13s)

initial area was Cinnabar

(1h 29m 15s) James:

Yeah, I mean, it was destroyed. I know. Yeah.

(1h 29m 15s) Al:

Yeah

(1h 29m 19s)

Sure, but like that doesn’t mean that we couldn’t have it as an area, right? It was destroyed, but it was still there

(1h 29m 25s)

Like the the it’s already post-apocalyptic, but

(1h 29m 29s) James:

I know. I mean, even before that, though, even before the post apocalypse, it was like reduced

(1h 29m 30s) Al:

The land was still there

(1h 29m 35s) James:

I think a Pokemon Center? So.

(1h 29m 36s) Al:

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, but like that that I guess maybe it would be too similar to rocky ridges

(1h 29m 42s)

But you know having the being able to like excavate it would have been fun

(1h 29m 45s) James:

I’m walking now. Yeah.

(1h 29m 48s) Al:

But yeah, maybe maybe you’re maybe it maybe it’s just similar to rocky ridges

(1h 29m 52s) James:

It would be something interesting to do something with the

(1h 29m 55s)

open mind management as well. I don’t know what they would do with it, but

(1h 29m 57s) Al:

Yeah, I don’t know. Yeah, look, we’re not we’re not here to write the story. We’re just here to go. This would be fun

(1h 30m) James:

it was already kind of a it was already kind of a ruin.

(1h 30m 6s)

Yeah.

(1h 30m 8s) Al:

So really in his office a very obvious one

(1h 30m 12s) James:

Yeah, that’d be really nice.

(1h 30m 15s)

I don’t know how to incorporate like the cape.

(1h 30m 17s)

So really in Cape area and probably the, uh, the end of dungeon or like so we’re

(1h 30m 18s) Al:

Yeah, and you know there’s going to be a nugget bridge joke reference you like rebuild

(1h 30m 21s) James:

link here, or whatever somehow, which would be really interesting.

(1h 30m 29s)

Oh, absolutely.

(1h 30m 33s) Al:

it and then you get something from that or something like that yeah maybe because maybe

(1h 30m 35s) James:

It’s going to be the team rocket grant who can’t speak English joke or something.

(1h 30m 42s) Al:

there’s something else to do with the the rocket stuff that you find there.

(1h 30m 46s) James:

Oh yeah, that’d be fun. I do like to knock its inclusion in this game.

(1h 30m 48s) Al:

Yeah, it’s interesting how they dealt with that for more of that Kevin and

(1h 30m 57s)

Johnny talk about that in the in the previous episode the lower discussion

(1h 31m 10s)

[laughing]

(1h 31m 17s)

Um, I can’t decide whether, so I, I, I also wrote down Victory Road. Um, I, I do worry that we would also just end up being quite like rocky ridges because it’s like a cave system, but I don’t know.

(1h 31m 45s)

And my last one was Orange Islands and you’ve written Sevi Islands next to it because of course I forget that the Sevi Islands even existed.

(1h 31m 57s)

Well see that’s a thing. Are they meant to be the same thing? Is it just like the Sevi Islands is just the game version of the Orange Islands because of course the Orange Islands is only in the anime.

(1h 32m 47s)

• Mm-hmm.

(1h 33m 8s)

Yeah, but that’s not the same as actually having unknown, right?

(1h 33m 14s)

Why not?

(1h 33m 18s)

[laughs]

(1h 33m 20s)

But if they’re all on their own island.

(1h 33m 24s)

[laughs]

(1h 33m 28s)

Yeah, possibly.

(1h 33m 30s)

I don’t, well, the one thing I’m thinking of

(1h 33m 33s)

with the orange island is it would be fun

(1h 33m 35s)

if they had crystallonics.

(1h 33m 38s)

If we’re adding in weird versions of Pokemon,

(1h 33m 40s)

that would be a fun one to have in there.

(1h 33m 43s)

Just as a reference.

(1h 33m 44s)

It doesn’t even need to have a big story, right?

(1h 34m)

I mean that would say they love their synchronicity that would fit in with the anime just now

(1h 34m 11s)

Yeah

(1h 34m 20s)

Yeah, and you had a couple of things as well

(1h 34m 32s)

[laughter]

(1h 34m 47s)

Good.

(1h 35m 1s)

Yeah, yeah.

(1h 35m 3s)

And doing the, you know,

(1h 35m 4s)

doing Victory Road would give you that physical connection.

(1h 35m 20s)

[laughing]

(1h 35m 31s)

That’s their problem to figure out.

(1h 35m 38s)

• Well, I was gonna, that’s exactly what I was gonna say.

(1h 35m 42s)

I initially thought that, but then thought it wouldn’t,

(1h 35m 45s)

I don’t know if it would work.

(1h 35m 48s)

I feel like, give me two seconds.

(1h 35m 51s)

Yeah, I feel like you could do a lake of rage thing, maybe.

(1h 36m 9s)

[laughing]

(1h 36m 11s)

• Yes, give me two block jump.

(1h 36m 13s)

[laughing]

(1h 36m 39s)

I’m scanning the list of Jotori areas just to see if there’s anything else that would work well and a lot of them at the problem with the problem is that a lot of them are just the same as kanto areas just different, right, because I was thinking, or maybe golden rod, but then I’m like, but then you’ve already got saffron,

(1h 37m 7s)

To be fair, they can add the soundtrack in without adding in the area, but yeah.

(1h 37m 23s)

Yeah, no, that could be interesting. Anyway, yeah, I mean, I guess part of the thing is we just

(1h 37m 29s)

we’re one more, right? Like we’ve enjoyed this game so much and it feels like there’s a lot of

(1h 37m 34s)

possibilities that they could be doing and we would like

(1h 37m 54s)

You certainly

(1h 37m 57s)

It’s gonna be November

(1h 37m 59s)

No, it’s gonna be November like they’re not gonna give up that that

(1h 38m 4s)

Release time

(1h 38m 6s)

Especially as like I am still very strongly believing that GTA 6 is not coming out this year

(1h 38m 12s)

And I think it’ll come out in spring next year and so being in November means they’ve got a good gap between them and that when it eventually releases

(1h 38m 24s)

No, I think no, I think I think though. I think it will come out in spring 2027. It will be buggy

(1h 38m 32s)

It will be terrible and they’ll spend a year trying to get it right, but I think they will be eventually pushed because like

(1h 38m 42s)

Rockstar are not immune to the issues that every game development company is having and

(1h 38m 48s)

What have they released recently?

(1h 38m 54s)

You

(1h 39m)

Yes, the question is what’s the real question is what’s coming out first GTA 6 or the PS6

(1h 39m 15s)

Look just because it just because it will be stupidly expensive does not mean that they won’t do it because they are tone deaf

(1h 39m 28s)

I would just love the idea that the GTA V comes out on PS3 and GTA 6, I’m sorry, on PS6.

(1h 39m 37s)

Like, it was PS3 and also came out in PS4 but that was later, it was initially PS3.

(1h 39m 50s)

There will never be a GTA 7.

(1h 39m 53s)

Let’s let’s get out.

(1h 39m 54s)

Let’s get out right now.

(1h 39m 55s)

will never be one.

(1h 39m 58s)

Well, yes, yes, because that is in development.

(1h 40m 11s)

We are making it, okay, sure, I believe you, yeah, well, yeah, and that’s the thing.

(1h 40m 25s)

them announcing, well, and them announce it while we get away.

(1h 40m 28s)

I wonder how long it was after that they regretted it and I was thinking about it.

(1h 40m 35s)

But yeah, like, when did waves being announced more than a year before release was unheard of?

(1h 40m 43s)

Not a thing they do.

(1h 40m 52s)

Well, I mean, those two things are probably linked, right?

(1h 41m)

It- It- It- It’ll- It’ll be worth it.

(1h 41m 11s)

Yeah, but you you’ve got Pocopia, so you know

Leak Warning

(1h 41m 16s) Al:

All right, so just before we finish

(1h 41m 19s)

We’re gonna talk about some leaks possible leaks

(1h 41m 24s)

So if you don’t want to hear a bit leaking stuff you don’t want to be leaky

(1h 41m 28s)

This is where you can drop off there’s not gonna be anything else after this

Leaks

(1h 41m 32s) Al:

So there was our leak as part of the game freak

(1h 41m 38s)

leak that was was it last year or was it 25?

(1h 41m 56s)

Well, the Giggly, the Giggly was apparently 2020.

(1h 42m 3s)

Yes, the terror leak was, so the Giggly was Nintendo as a whole.

(1h 42m 9s)

The terror leak was game freak and that was, that was October 2024.

(1h 42m 15s)

So yeah, as part of that, there was a map that it has now pretty much like I

(1h 42m 24s)

It’s just I’m presuming when there was so far.

(1h 42m 26s)

First release that it wasn’t clear what this was because there’s just it’s it’s a map with just some area names and some descriptions of the areas, but now based on what we know about the game is very clearly description of the areas for what as now Pocopia.

(1h 43m 36s)

I noticed as well that that’s quite a dramatic difference.

(1h 43m 46s)

Yeah, I wish we got more stuff like this officially, right?

(1h 43m 56s)

Like they would even like after a few years, right?

(1h 43m 58s)

Like I’m not asking before release or even after shortly after release.

(1h 44m 2s)

I feel like, you know, five years later, give us some information about how you decided certain things.

(1h 44m 6s)

I think that would be really fun.

(1h 44m 28s)

Yeah, so again, if you don’t want to know these, then tap out now.

(1h 44m 38s)

Yes, well, that’s true also you say scrapped. It’s possible that that ended up being pushed to DLC that that’s a possibility

(1h 44m 46s)

You’re right in the description does sound kind of similar to the parts of

(1h 44m 53s)

rocky ridges, but also

(1h 44m 55s)

Like you wouldn’t really consider it burning like yet as lava, but it’s not the same thing as fire, right?

(1h 45m 8s)

maybe yeah maybe maybe maybe um and just before we talk about these areas I would

(1h 45m 14s)

like to point out the areas that I asked for I wrote before I said I read this

(1h 45m 20s)

sure sure but like it’s almost exactly the same list and it’s not like there

(1h 45m 26s)

aren’t areas on the map that do exist as well but

(1h 45m 38s)

or takelet or takelet tunnel another cave but it’s just takelet and dug

(1h 45m 48s)

trio uh yes yeah

(1h 45m 57s)

Is it half you interesting? No, I yeah, I have I have Digglet and in my in rocky bridges

(1h 46m 4s)

It’s funny because he just he does just disappear underground and then just pop up

(1h 46m 24s)

Mm-hmm. The hidden treasure is obviously going to be a reference to nugget, right?

(1h 46m 34s)

Yeah, but we’ve already had Mewtwo, that’s the thing.

(1h 46m 42s)

Still, well he was trapped in the PC, I call it the other prokopon.

(1h 46m 49s)

Oh no, they only, the only human you ever encountered in the game.

(1h 46m 54s)

I love it, I love it.

(1h 47m 6s)

how sealed can it be considered if you’re there?

(1h 47m 33s)

Maybe I can yeah, I don’t know. I feel like I could

(1h 47m 38s)

Maybe yeah

(1h 47m 46s)

Yeah. Definitely, I mean, oh, well, that was the reason it was the first one on my list.

(1h 48m 2s)

Maybe that would be how the easiest way to get all of the berries.

(1h 48m 21s)

Possibly or I’m just wondering, like, is it the leftover area that Safron pulls out as it rises up into this guy, you just end up with this.

(1h 48m 32s)

I know, but they’re next to each other. Like, you could see it being like the two of them quite connected. I’ve always considered them quite connected.

(1h 48m 46s)

uh yeah I mean there’s the gym as well but um there’s also they have to have um the the games the

(1h 48m 56s)

game studio as well because they’re in one studio it will be the one area that’s like

(1h 49m 10s)

perfectly preserved everything’s in ruins except this

(1h 49m 16s)

and plushies that’s where that’s where you can get all you can get another version of all

(1h 49m 24s)

of the the um the toys the plush toys that you get wherever they’re called well some of them but like

(1h 49m 35s)

or maybe maybe there’s gonna be uh yeah i’ve got multiple eevee but maybe there’s uh maybe there’s

(1h 49m 39s)

a new mew one or something like that that you can get in there that gets you some crazy dream island

(1h 50m 11s)

Yeah, with it with the gates I

(1h 50m 17s)

Could see them theoretically doing some like end game like challenge type thing in there

(1h 50m 25s)

That like it is the final DLC and therefore there is a like a final actual difficult challenge

(1h 50m 31s)

I don’t know what that would look like, but I could just like thematically

(1h 50m 34s)

I could see them doing something like that like there’s a reason there is listed as the final one

(1h 50m 46s)

Yeah. (laughs)

(1h 50m 59s)

We already have one of those

(1h 51m 7s)

Yeah, maybe. Yeah. I just feel like the can’t do Indigo Plateau as the final DLC area and not do

(1h 51m 18s)

something end gaming. And you can use all of the like how easy the battle it depends on how

(1h 51m 33s)

have any Pokemon you’ve encountered up to that point and the more

(1h 51m 37s)

Pokemon you have, the more moves you have.

(1h 51m 44s)

Yeah, well, I mean, I guess there’s not a huge amount we can talk about them, but I’m intrigued

(1h 51m 50s)

to see what they are and I think the thought they’ve put into things before and the fact

(1h 51m 56s)

that obviously they had initial thoughts for these and then changed them and, you know,

(1h 52m 2s)

improved them in many cases makes me intrigued for what they will eventually have if this

(1h 52m 8s)

is in case what they actually end up doing.

(1h 52m 21s)

Hmm. No. Yeah.

(1h 52m 31s)

Yeah, I could see them doing two videos in the first two videos in the second, and then I need to go in the third.

(1h 52m 48s)

Ooh, that could be fun, yeah, yeah, and then, and then that’s where we start getting the

(1h 52m 55s)

actual news about wind and waves.

(1h 53m 17s)

No… disaster. Yeah.

(1h 53m 46s)

Oh, so you’re suggesting they could they could add like a brand new Pokemon in the final DLC of

(1h 54m 7s)

[laughing]

(1h 54m 19s)

I think that would be fun, I don’t think that capable of doing that anymore, and so much as like, I think they could do that, but I think they would over explain it and on social media and stuff like that.

(1h 54m 40s)

Yeah, exactly. It’s that sort of thing. I just don’t think the capable of letting that be a case.

(1h 54m 57s)

Maybe, maybe. That’s the best case scenario for what they could still be capable of doing.

(1h 55m 5s)

But even that I think is unlikely.

(1h 55m 37s)

Yeah, no, I mean, I don’t disagree with you that it would be fun. Just not sure whether they would manage it in a fun way

(1h 55m 44s)

That’s always the problem with them

(1h 55m 46s)

But I mean, I guess they’ve done things in this game that I wouldn’t have thought they would have done, right?

(1h 55m 52s)

Like when we thought oh, maybe this is post-apocalyptic canto. I was like ha ha there’s no way they’d do that and they did so

(1h 55m 59s)

Yeah, I guess we’ll we’ll see lots to lots to know and see all right. Well

Outro

(1h 56m 7s) Al:

Wrap up there. Thank you. James for joining me

(1h 56m 9s)

And is there anything you would like to share with the audience is there anything you you want to to point them towards or?

(1h 56m 22s)

All right, you can follow the podcast on tumblr and blue sky at THS pod.

(1h 56m 32s)

You can send us feedback there or on the website harvestseason.club where you can also find

(1h 56m 36s)

links to everything to do with the podcast including a link to our patreon patreon patreon.com

(1h 56m 41s)

slash ths pod where you can get access to bonus episodes of the podcast and also access

(1h 56m 48s)

to the podcast Slack.

(1h 56m 52s)

I think that’s everything.

(1h 56m 54s)

Thank you again for joining me, James.

(1h 56m 56s)

Thank you, listeners for listening.

(1h 56m 58s)

And until next time, have a good harvest.

(1h 57m) Theme Tune:

The Harvest Season is created by Al McHenry with support from our patrons, including our

(1h 57m 11s)

pro-farmers Kevin Stewart and Alisa.

(1h 57m 15s)

Our art is done by Micah the Brave and our music is done by Nick Brutus.

(1h 57m 19s)

Feel free to visit our website harvestseason.club for show notes and links to things we discussed

(1h 57m 25s)

in this episode.

(1h 57m 39s) Al:

Mm hmm.

(1h 57m 55s)

Yeah.

(1h 58m 4s)

Oh no, yeah, yeah, this game yeah I wanted some mindless gaming I didn’t want to feel

(1h 58m 19s)

things right now. Oh dear.

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