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It's true: Episode 458 of Sacred Symbols+, launched late this past May, already provided an Expedition 33-dedicated review and spoiler episode for our audience. But with an unusual number of people having played the game here at Last Stand -- and with it nearing four million copies sold out in the wild, an extraordinary number -- we wanted to make sure everyone's voices were here. Therefore, please welcome Summon Sign's Brad and Defining Duke's Matty to Sacred+, who both join me (Colin!) for another robust and rousing discussion surrounding Sandfall Interactive's maiden game. In short: We all loved it. But we certainly don't all love it the same. Let's get into the combat, the lore, the characters, the world, and so much more... and perhaps reminisce about the possibilities for the future, too. Because if this is Sandfall Interactive's first foray, well... the future is mighty bright, indeed.

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Comments

KZ_Eikon

Yes, the 3 heads of each show coming together, I wish it happened more often but I’ll take them when I can. Let’s go

Daddy T

Goated lineup

Winston G McDaniel

Really excited to give this a listen. Was let down by the other one, despite how much I normally love all of the Hosts on that show.

Griffin Karr

It’s a shame Micah wasn’t on this since she wasn’t on the first one

Diddy’s Lube Guy

Colin needs to step up to the plate and create the ASCII walkthrough. It’s time to come home.

Honorio Colipano

Matty not knowing about Expedition 60 is crazy

Shadi Haddad

Missed opportunity to call this "Painted Version"

zepplinmike

Yea, and Gene, too, but if you didn’t already you can hear their thoughts on the latest Punching Up. I actually agreed by far the most with Gene’s take on the story, but Micah made excellent points as well, so I would check it out if you haven’t!

Cai

Thought Matty did an excellent job explaining why the direction the story went was so impactful for some people!

Zixten Larsson

Really nice to hear Colin bring up the whole AI/simulated conciousness-aspect because that was pretty much the first thing I came to think about after finishing the main story. I was a little bit surprised it hasn't been brought up more because the director said the game wasn't really about grief but "about a painter and his/her creations" or something along those lines. I can understand people finding the plot twist a bit underwhelming because it's not "real" but I think that thematic aspect works if you view it as an analogy for simulated conciousness and the ethical implications that comes creating it.

zepplinmike

I’m certain that this is the type of story where there’s no single correct interpretation. I do think it was 100% intended for players to contend with moral dilemmas about the nature of reality and consciousness that Colin brought up as well as the relationship between Gods and mortals that Gene explained on Punching Up. It’s unfortunate that so many, including several Last Stand hosts, seemed to fall into the “oh well, it’s not real anyway” trap and mostly bypass all of that, but I suppose at a certain point you then have to fault the game itself for not getting the intention clearly enough across.

Monkey D Luffy

Really glad they did a second one of these.

SoulCracker#1

But the characters ARE real. Different religions don't consider themselves any less real because they are creations of God. The people in the game are capable of having children and leading lives and thinking about those lives. That's what makes the reveal of their creation so intense

Derek Hart

I immediately chose Verso's ending. To me, his character was the most tragic. A man who is supposed to to be the dead son/ brother, but isn't really him. He feels a sense of guilt for a world that his real self painted, and now his real family toils away inside of it fighting over how to deal with grief. The Maelle ending is horrifying for him. It's very comparable to the black mirror episode that Colin mentioned.

Gene Park

Def go check it out. I think Micah and i had the best chat and it’s quicker lol thanks for listening bud - g

Casey Cieslikowski

Is it really he didn’t even do the the campfire conversations till after he beat the game?

Casey Cieslikowski

It was good to see two other people that feel like I do with the world being fake without being as extreme and taking over the whole show line Hoag did.

Matt Llewellyn

For Brad: The game does indirectly address why you can’t necessarily just repaint everyone on a new canvas. The mission with Monocco to resurrect his son, Noco reveals that even though gestrals can be resurrected, they’re a little bit different each time. In theory, you could repaint Lumiere and its residents but like when erasing and redrawing a line in pencil art, it’s slightly different. Also, I wish more people understood the creators vs created aspect of the story. Gene and Matty seem to get it more. The people in the painting are real to themselves and shouldn’t that be what matters? If God exists aren’t we just a painting on his canvas? Not to get religious but I think that’s a philosophical tone that permeates the story.

Trill Spencer

I’m going to disagree with the notion that the game needs a quest log or mini maps. There aren’t really quests in the game, at least not in the traditional sense, so it wouldn’t really make sense to have a log. It just isn’t needed at all and I don’t know how the game would change if it was added. And on that note, I can understand why people want mini maps but I just don’t think it was needed. I just followed every path I found and I would’ve done the exact same thing if there was a mini map, except I probably would have been staring at the map, which is exactly what the devs didn’t want which I think it justified. The only thing I’ll concede is that the “golden path” isn’t as obvious as it should be.

Trill Spencer

Also yeah it seems like the boys didn’t realize how strong Maelle is. Afaik she is the highest damage dealer, and the only one who can one shot Simon (60mil health)

Trill Spencer

Also one more thing. I agree that there is some bloat when it comes to the skills. However, what the boys didn’t seem to really understand is that all of the individual weapons have a perk that completely changes how the character plays, and that many if not most of the skills can come into play based on weapon-specific builds. This is the true end-game combat system.

Jacob Lesperance

Imagine you found out your whole existence was just somebody's grief. I don't understand how that's the part of the story that made people less emotionally invested. That's the part that hit me the hardest. Made everything so much sadder. Saying they weren't real, so the story didn't matter is wild to me.

Kinothas

Spoiler for 20 year old game... Pretty sure he was referencing Star Ocean til the end of time where it's revealed the franchise is set inside a video game

Dead Tired

Expedition 33 is an Isekai. That time I became a burn victim so I painted myself like one of those French girls in another world.

Titan

Just want to write that it’s nice to have an actual discussion where no one is interrupting one another.

Tiger Castle

I feel like Colin’s issue with the game not communicating is wild! I feel like if he was paying a little more attention he’d get what he was missing. The entrances to every area tells you if you’ve been in there or not by the color. The areas are so small the maps would be comical. I platinums the game and the only thing I had to look up was a couple picto & journal locations which seem pretty much business as usual for a game like this. I’m also not sure what a quest log would really accomplish. Almost all side quests are relegated to the relationship level and even the end level ones have map markers. It seems like he decided he didn’t like these things in the beginning of the game and then just stubbornly didnt want to grow with the game.

Ventriloquist

Definitely seems like there's a disconnect between people who played the endgame and beat Simon, and those who didn't. Once you get to a certain point of the endgame, healing becomes almost pointless and a lot more strategy is needed unless you are exceptional at dodging/parrying.

Trill Spencer

Yeah agreed. In Act 3 the combat completely changes because many skills that were never relevant pre-painted power suddenly become extremely powerful to compensate for the difficulty/enemy level spike. Notice how the only people at LSM who think most of the skills were useless are the ones who didn’t do all the option content.

Alex

Agreed.

Girth Brooks

Colin’s never really reviewing a game. He’s reviewing how well it matches his narrow preferences. In his world, if something works for the game but not for him, it’s a bad decision.

Daddy Dilkers

Love Colin to death, always respect his opinions and takes, but how insistent he is that this game needs maps is groan worthy to me

Tortilla_the_Hun

Yeah, I don't really understand the "it's not real" stance. It's fascinating to hear people say. It's very real to Lune, Sciel, etc. And to Maelle even after she realizes what's going on. The painting itself is literally real, so wouldn't that make the creations within it real by some some transitive property? Especially, when we're shown that painters have the ability to enter those paintings and interact with their creations themselves?

Tiger Castle

For some reason people really didn't like that the world was just a painting and therefore not "real"... the whole thing is a video game and not real! E33 does a great job making these characters feel and act like real people with emotions and fears. But then "Oh, it's in a painting so that's now dumb" This wasn't some dumb St. Elsewhere snowglobe throwaway ending. It was built to make you feel awful for these real people you've started to care for now find out their reality isn't what they thought it was. Not....they're not real so who cares.

Lippy

I respect that everyone is entitled to their opinion, and everyone comes from a unique perspective that will color how they interact with a game like this, but as I was listening to their discussion I kept thinking ‘these guys completely missed what makes this game special to so many’. It’s a remarkable game, but beyond that it is a remarkable piece of art. If it was just the game without the world building and story, emotionally charged music, and amazing performances, I would have forgotten about it already. Personally, I don’t think this game will ever leave me. That level of impact is something that is rarely encountered in any medium.

twodaydrunk

Matty at least presented a version of this, but I find it surprising that no one else in five hours across two spoilercasts entertained the idea that their world *is* real. I mean, what’s to say our world is? Imagine if our creator came to us and said that our reality is one of thousands and that they needed to destroy ours. Does that revelation make our lives any less significant? Or our world any less real? Definitely not to us, and it would be something to fight for. I think they are hyper-focusing on the painting/canvas being where the world exists. The world could’ve been presented as a creation in a separate reality in a different form, but putting it into a canvas is just the way they decided to present/create the world. It doesn’t make it fake or any less real. I don’t understand how you can’t make a connection with our reality. It’s far from, “What? It’s in a painting? Dumb! Fake!"