Exclusive Podcast Questions!

Ask this one again next time! We'll definitely get to it!

Resonant Arc

Of the cities I lived in, I loved the greater Denver and Phoenix areas the most. It's hard to explain why, they're just nice, pleasant, clean, relatively free of crime, etc. Denver has a very high cost of living right now though.

Resonant Arc

This is such a tough question! I wish I had a good answer right now, but I don't feel like I do. Maybe ask again next time and I'll see if I can come up with a semi-adequate answer!

Resonant Arc

Hey Joshua! Could you copy/paste the question for the next podcast? I've forgotten the context of the question at this point. I'm sorry!

Resonant Arc

Outside of the Witcher: 1. Mass Effect 1 and 2 2. Hellblade Senua's Sacrifice 3. Prince of Persia The Sands of Time 4. Journey 5. Dead Space

Resonant Arc

This is not necessarily question for the podcast but anyway I would love to hear your opinion on this. What are/would be your favorite cities to live in the US? I'm finishing my Engineering studies here in Finland in a couple years and I got recently inspired to come work in the States after my graduation.

Toni Gröndahl

Has there been a video game which after you finished playing it, you were unable to play anything else (in that genre or otherwise) for a while. I've been numbed like this by couple video games like Mother 3 and recently Omori

Toni Gröndahl

If you were in director's seat producing & directing a new IP in RPG genre with a decent budget, what would it be like? Which games would it be inspired by? What kind of gameplay would it have? Any philosophical ideas which you would be interested to explore deeper?

Toni Gröndahl

Have you seen any of the Park Chan-Wook's directed movies? He is South Korean and makes weird and my all time favorite movies like Old Boy (2003) and The Handmaiden, any thoughts?

Toni Gröndahl

Mike and Casen, Really enjoying the deep dive podcasts you've been doing. There is one thing I'm curious about, which is you guys, yourselves. Obviously you've both got really informed and interesting opinions and knowledge when it comes to games, storytelling, writing, film making and music. If you are comfortable sharing, what do you guys do as your day job, and is it related to or completely separate from the content work you guys do for Resonant Arc? Would love to know more about who you guys are and where your unique perspective comes from, without getting too personal obviously! Thanks!

What are some of your favorite creature, environment, etc... designs from games, and some of your least favorite. Why do these certain designs work for you while others fall short? For me, for example, the environment design in FFIX just knocks it out of the ballpark. Thanks for the great videos!

Zack Thornhill

Mike you are jacked! The better shape you are in the less and less I can relate to these videos as the nerdy weeb JRPG fan that I am... my question is: as people who have pretty similar taste in games and movies and whatnot, as an artist I am interested in what you both are attracted to when it comes to design in games and movies. (Probably more specifically games) what do you really like or look for in a creature design, environment design, character design, or prop design?

Zack Thornhill

For sure Squenix COULD have done it, and it certainly would have made people like me happy because I felt the combat in Remake was pretty awful. However it seems like the trend with most titles at Square these days is to do whatever is popular and net as many fish as possible. The only game I have found that defies this is FF XIV which espouses everything I once loved about Final Fantasy and it was heartening to hear Yoshida say recently that the game is his life's work and he plans to continue working on it well into the future.

Hey Way back in january, I asked a question about whether or not art style relates to the type and tone of stories that can be told effectively. You said you'd need to mull over that one. Did you eventually come up with a way to think about how much it does, if at all?

Hi, guys. First, let me just say that your analysis series helps make my month (hopefully it'll make my week, when it reaches that level on Patreon and SubscribeStar). Anyway, just to show that this isn't strictly a "weeb" channel, what are your favorite western games and why (aside from Witcher 3, that is)?

During a recent patreon stream you were replaying Fantasian and pointing out examples of it's visual/technical issues. But at one point during the stream you said, "I wouldn't be talking so much about the backgrounds and the problems with it if I really loved this game's story." You also said something similar in the first episode of the Nier podcast, that you are willing to put up with janky or boring gameplay if the story is really good. Which is kind of a similar sentiment just from the opposite scenario. Another recent example would be Bravely Default II, which has excellent gameplay and a sub-par story. But because the gameplay is so well done, many people are able to forgive or look past the story issues. I think this is actually really common among most gamers (in general). We tend to forgive or overlook shortcomings and flaws more easily if the game executes it's core focus well (be that story or gameplay). But when the core focus of a game doesn't resonate with us, suddenly smaller issues become more apparent and hurt the overall experience more than they would have otherwise. Questions: Do you think the general gaming audience is more objective or less objective when judging games that resonate with us compared to those that don't resonate? And with that in mind, do you think your judgement/critique of Fantasian is more objective or less objective than your judgement/critiques of games that resonated with you like The Witcher 3, Nier, FF7, etc.?

Do you think Square Enix could have found success by keeping turn based combat in FF7 Remake? Games like Persona 5 and Yakuza Like a Dragon have shown that turn based combat is still appealing for players. Instead of dismissing turn based as an old concept Remake could have been that spark to really bring turn based back as a go to idea for current RPG combat.

We often talk about video games movies but how about video games books? Have you guys read any? What are your favorites? And I mean of course books that are based on video games, not the opposite. So the Witcher doesn’t count!