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Easy Allies |EZOT2| Love & Respect

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K

Karu

Member
Listened to Friend Code

Happy with Damiani's moderation, very solid performance. The podcast has a basic structure with is good especially for the first episodes. The first segment is fantastic, love stuff like that.

Contentwise I wasn't too excited personally. Usually dread this My Fav Memories-type of drivel. So glad the podcast will mix is up going forward (except next week, ofc). Evergreen podcasts rarely go over well for me.

Having a podcast for the Frame Trap break is awesome, though.
 
A

Axass

Member
Friend Code is off to a good start.

The 3 people panel is interesting, feels cozier and more inclusive towards everybody. The "Dear Nintendo" segment is funny and offers an insight in the minds of gamers from other times. Damiani moderated the discussion nicely. The footage clarifies what people are talking about without overstaying its welcome.

Now onto the criticism. Besides the opening and title, which they addressed already, I think that the ending needs an outro: a music, something like Ben's Hottake, or some sort of formula. Damiani sometimes gets excited and talks very quickly, ending up being a little hard to follow for a non-native speaker like myself. I'd like the show to be even more segmented, but I guess this is all due to the first episode's theme being memories.

Finally some suggestions for future episodes. I agree with whoever said to try and give the show more of an identity location-wise, with FT already being around the table, while the Podcast is on the couch. I did like the content of the episode, I'll gladly take the second part and the possible "top tens" episode, but I'd like the non-topical episodes to be in general less "personal discussion" type and more researched. Like episodes about Miyamoto (which I know Damiani said will come), Kondo, etc. where Damiani, who's excellent at this, could reasearch their background in the company, bringing up interesting facts to discuss, or structuring the podcast around their path through Nintendo's history. Otherwise, episodes where the panel talks about particular things related to Nintendo, such as the Virtual Boy failure and Yokoi subsequently leaving the company, or Nintendo's approach to online though the years, or Iwata and the "blue ocean strategy" and whether Nintendo could still succeed with it today. Just throwing some ideas out there.
 
P

Pie and Beans

Look for me on the local news, I'll be the guy arrested for trying to burn down a Nintendo exec's house.
Is the point of Dear Nintendo to be the polar opposite to Love & Respect?

"Gather round viewers as I poorly orate random letters from children 30 years ago and laugh at their foolishness on my Nintendo branded podcast."
 
A

Axass

Member
Pie and Beans said:
Is the point of Dear Nintendo to be the polar opposite to Love & Respect?

"Gather round viewers as I poorly orate random letters from children 30 years ago and laugh at their foolishness on my Nintendo branded podcast."
Click to expand...

Did you honestly see malice in the segment? Ii seemed more in line with "look how innocent we were back in the day" and just harmless fun.
 
K

Karu

Member
Pie and Beans said:
Is the point of Dear Nintendo to be the polar opposite to Love & Respect?

"Gather round viewers as I poorly orate random letters from children 30 years ago and laugh at their foolishness on my Nintendo branded podcast."
Click to expand...
They read one of your letters, didnt they? ;-)

Thought it was in good fun, hindsight's 20/20 and all that.
 
M

Mista Koo

Member
That was enjoyable. However it could've easily been a retro gaming episode, so still not making a case for a Nintendo focused podcast.

Also it's weird that it's early for $1 patrons especially when they can't even send in. As a $1 patron I'd say make just make it early for $5 patron.
 
P

Pie and Beans

Look for me on the local news, I'll be the guy arrested for trying to burn down a Nintendo exec's house.
Axass said:
Did you honestly see malice in the segment? Ii seemed more in line with "look how innocent we were back in the day" and just harmless fun.
Click to expand...

I kept expecting it to spiral out into a guessing game or analysing the written response from the editor or something. Reading kids letters out loud to a panel while laughing is just a very weird way to open a show or as a segment at all. What purpose does it serve? You might as well have had a "Read dumb Miiverse posts out loud" segment if this show started a year ago, then maybe finally catch your own tone and wonder "oh, are we making fun of 10 year olds right now as our Patreon funded content?"

If the panel was reading out dumb fanmail they themselves had sent out or were showing their old crappy kid drawings it'd make more sense.

Mista Koo said:
That was enjoyable. However it could've easily been a retro gaming episode, so still not making a case for a Nintendo focused podcast.
Click to expand...

Yep, spot on. I honestly didn't mind this first episode at all once it got going because it felt broad and spiralled out into a lot of other topics like Final Fantasy and Mega Man. In the future when it just starts becoming a full on Nintendo Podcast, it just gets more cringeworthy. Reinforcing that "but Nintendo's special mannnnn" treatment just feels like bad material. They're a corporation thats made games alongside all the others and just focussing on them solo because a member has a huge predilection for them doesn't feel even handed like all the other content EZA produces.

Do 'Retro Code' episodes on Sega, Capcom. Square, etc once the Nintendo history is exhausted so we don't get into those hot takes mentioned in this thread like "y did N64 fail????"
 
H

Holundrian

Unconfirmed Member
Dear Nintendo is great love that it makes me reminiscence of times of childlike naivete, the fun kind and giving a peek of a different time in gaming.
People need to lighten up a bit I don't even understand how people would take that as a segment to maliciously mock those send ins lol.
As for a specific Nintendo podcast being cringeworthy, guess people like "cringe" then. One of the most popular podcast in the gaming space was Beyond for quite some time and I don't have numbers but PS XOXO was likely quite popular as well.
Also it's not a podcast to give special treatment so much that it's a podcast that leans into Damiani's expertise, you know like Beyond/PSXOXO did for Greg and Colin.
Dunno seems more like a case that it's just not in your wheelhouse. There's just not a whole lot of substantive criticism that I can discern here.
Definitely feels like you're looking at it through a rather biased lens.
I enjoyed it for a first episode don't even any special sentiments towards Nintendo growing up as a primarily PC gamer(although of course I enjoyed various Nintendo things throughout my life like the Gameboy/N64/3ds but I don't think I'm a Nintendo die hard).
Looking forward to how the podcast will evolve and experiment like the other podcasts did.
 
B

Brian_FETO

Banned
I thought Dear Nintendo was great, especially the Metroid one. It's a time capsule and it's fun to see what people might have thought back then. Whether someone is incorrect or just filling in blanks in their head

I get where you're coming from with "retro gaming as a whole" vs. Nintendo but Nintendo is the only company besides Sony that you can really base a podcast on. I'm partial to SEGA but most of their finest work is in arcades

Especially when you're looking from a "retro" perspective, Nintendo stretches back further and is more definitive for the time
 
S

Servbot24

Banned
Pie and Beans said:
I kept expecting it to spiral out into a guessing game or analysing the written response from the editor or something. Reading kids letters out loud to a panel while laughing is just a very weird way to open a show or as a segment at all. What purpose does it serve? You might as well have had a "Read dumb Miiverse posts out loud" segment if this show started a year ago, then maybe finally catch your own tone and wonder "oh, are we making fun of 10 year olds right now as our Patreon funded content?"

If the panel was reading out dumb fanmail they themselves had sent out or were showing their old crappy kid drawings it'd make more sense.



Yep, spot on. I honestly didn't mind this first episode at all once it got going because it felt broad and spiralled out into a lot of other topics like Final Fantasy and Mega Man. In the future when it just starts becoming a full on Nintendo Podcast, it just gets more cringeworthy. Reinforcing that "but Nintendo's special mannnnn" treatment just feels like bad material. They're a corporation thats made games alongside all the others and just focussing on them solo because a member has a huge predilection for them doesn't feel even handed like all the other content EZA produces.

Do 'Retro Code' episodes on Sega, Capcom. Square, etc once the Nintendo history is exhausted so we don't get into those hot takes mentioned in this thread like "y did N64 fail????"
Click to expand...

Dude it's okay if something is not for you, there's plenty of us this does apply to and there's plenty of other EZA content you can enjoy
 
E

ElTorro

I wanted to dominate the living room. Then I took an ESRAM in the knee.
I loved Friend Code.

Especially Blood's story about reading and knowing everything about games he never owned, haha. Did the same back when I was a kid. I usually only got one new game a per year, so I read almost everything about those games I couldn't play.
 
K

Kneefoil

Member
Pie and Beans said:
I kept expecting it to spiral out into a guessing game or analysing the written response from the editor or something. Reading kids letters out loud to a panel while laughing is just a very weird way to open a show or as a segment at all. What purpose does it serve? You might as well have had a "Read dumb Miiverse posts out loud" segment if this show started a year ago, then maybe finally catch your own tone and wonder "oh, are we making fun of 10 year olds right now as our Patreon funded content?"

If the panel was reading out dumb fanmail they themselves had sent out or were showing their old crappy kid drawings it'd make more sense.
Click to expand...
I think there's a fundamental difference between reading kids' letters from the '80s and '90s, and reading Miiverse posts from just a couple of years ago. Whoever sent those letters a few decades ago are probably so detached from who they were back then that they'll likely be able to laugh at those letters themselves without a hint of embarrassment.
 
M

Maligna

Banned
So now that there is a Nintendo podcast, does that mean there will be less Nintendo talk in the other podcasts? I love the whole crew but their collective love of Nintendo/Final Fantasy/Metal Gear and Souls is something I don't have in common with them, which is a shame because it's most of what they talk about. Haha.
 
M

Mista Koo

Member
Brian_FETO said:
II get where you're coming from with "retro gaming as a whole" vs. Nintendo but Nintendo is the only company besides Sony that you can really base a podcast on. I'm partial to SEGA but most of their finest work is in arcades

Especially when you're looking from a "retro" perspective, Nintendo stretches back further and is more definitive for the time
Click to expand...
You can base a podcast on any company if you wanna get specific enough. It's the specificity itself that I think is unnecessary. It's not like Nintendo is a niche thing that the rest of their content doesn't cover.
I had a similar issue with Zelda Talk. I listened to the first-ish video and enjoyed it, but thought all the others were a bit too much for a general non-Zelda/Nintendo specific channel. And I consumed hours and hours of BotW discussions but not from a singular source.

And I'm not saying I want a specific retro thing, I'm saying I would've liked to listen to non-Nintendo stuff in that discussion. Like the Commodore or whatever other things Blood had that aren't part of popular culture like the NES and Gameboy are.
 
V

Vinc

Member
Loved Friend Code, a great first episode.

One small nitpick I have is that the intro music didn't flow into the podcast itself. The jingle should finish playing a bit into the intro and fade out. Feels a bit jarring otherwise! :p
 
H

Holundrian

Unconfirmed Member
Mista Koo said:
You can base a podcast on any company if you wanna get specific enough. It's the specificity itself that I think is unnecessary. It's not like Nintendo is a niche thing that the rest of their content doesn't cover.
I had a similar issue with Zelda Talk. I listened to the first-ish video and enjoyed it, but thought all the others were a bit too much for a general non-Zelda/Nintendo specific channel. And I consumed hours and hours of BotW discussions but not from a singular source.

And I'm not saying I want a specific retro thing, I'm saying I would've liked to listen to non-Nintendo stuff in that discussion. Like the Commodore or whatever other things Blood had that aren't part of popular culture like the NES and Gameboy are.
Click to expand...

I think this is fair in the sense that maybe Damiani can consider being lax on tangents when appropriate to allow for such discussions. But I don't think it makes sense for him to suddenly throw away his chosen focus and open to floodgates to everything and move away from his expertise just so he's not Nintendo specific. But I'm biased on my experience with years of Beyond which despite being playstation centric had a lot of great discussions that weren't just about playstation.

As for the too much for a non general specific channel I feel like we kind of already had that disagreement given that it does relate to them having a wide content identity within gaming/entertainment.
 
A

Auctopus

Member
I know it's been mentioned in this thread already but just a heads up that the Persona 5 OT is pretty dangerous territory right now. It's meant to be largely spoiler tagged but most people aren't bothering anymore.

Edit: Also, Dark Game Mondays, Kyle plays Dark Souls 3? I was not expecting that. Very interested to see how he plays Souls games.
 
cm osi

cm osi

Member
Auctopus said:
I know it's been mentioned in this thread already but just a heads up that the Persona 5 OT is pretty dangerous territory right now. It's meant to be largely spoiler tagged but most people aren't bothering anymore.

Edit: Also, Dark Game Mondays, Kyle plays Dark Souls 3? I was not expecting that. Very interested to see how he plays Souls games.
Click to expand...

he's 75% through it, he just want to finish it and since he finished tails of sun he want to go back to Fun Game Monday

also if you're on ps4 he said he will summon players
 
K

Kneefoil

Member
I miss when DGM started 7am my time. I could watch it live, and it'd usually end not too long before I needed to head out. Getting up at 5am to watch a stream is a bit too hardcore for me.
 
E

Elfforkusu

Member
Maligna said:
So now that there is a Nintendo podcast, does that mean there will be less Nintendo talk in the other podcasts? I love the whole crew but their collective love of Nintendo/Final Fantasy/Metal Gear and Souls is something I don't have in common with them, which is a shame because it's most of what they talk about. Haha.
Click to expand...
I hope not. I may not have 100% the same interests as the allies (racing sims WHERE?!?!), but they shouldn't try to suppress their enthusiasm for the genres and devs they care about. IMO obvs
 
P

Primethius

Banned
Elfforkusu said:
I hope not. I may not have 100% the same interests as the allies (racing sims WHERE?!?!), but they shouldn't try to suppress their enthusiasm for the genres and devs they care about. IMO obvs
Click to expand...

I have not particularly felt they talk about any one thing more than they should so far. But I do appreciate that they are knowledgeable and talk about stuff that I honestly didn't expect going in (like fighting game community stuff).
 
F

farisr

Member
Primethius said:
I have not particularly felt they talk about any one thing more than they should so far. But I do appreciate that they are knowledgeable and talk about stuff that I honestly didn't expect going in (like fighting game community stuff).
Click to expand...
I was surprised that Kyle even mentioned the April 1st, Arika EX stuff.
 
T

TheDarkKnight774

Member
Friend code was awesome

Love the name, great crew. Dear Nintendo is an awesome segment. And hearing more of the crew origins is always interesting. It even helped spark my next Q&A question

I'm interested to see how the show changes over time. I've never been a mega Nintendo fan but have played them since NES and owned systems since the SNES but regardless of the topics I alway find worthwhile content from this crew. Keep it up!
 
I

IdreamofHIME

Member
Friend code is refreshingly good. Damiani come across a tad nervous but the show was good. Interesting to see where it goes, but it's near future is pretty interesting.
 
M

Maligna

Banned
Elfforkusu said:
I hope not. I may not have 100% the same interests as the allies (racing sims WHERE?!?!), but they shouldn't try to suppress their enthusiasm for the genres and devs they care about. IMO obvs
Click to expand...

Oh, I agree. They shouldn't have to. I want them to talk about whatever they want. I just wondered if having a Nintendo podcast would result in less Zelda talk on other podcasts just by happenstance. Haha.
 
H

Hasney

Member
Maligna said:
Oh, I agree. They shouldn't have to. I want them to talk about whatever they want. I just wondered if having a Nintendo podcast would result in less Zelda talk on other podcasts just by happenstance. Haha.
Click to expand...

I think from what they said around the time that the Nintendo-focused one wouldn't be that news based as that would be picked up by the EZA Podcast, but it would depend on timing of the news.

If people are still playing Zelda and are on a Frame Trap, it'll still be talked about I'm sure.
 
L

LiquidSolid

Member
I watched Friend Code and while I'm not much of a Nintendo fan, I thought it was great. Great format, topics and discussion.

My criticisms resemble a lot of others, it needs an outro and a more unique look (might be a good idea to copy the Brandon Plays Pokemon setup). But the one other thing that stuck out to me while watching it is what's the point of Zelda Talk any more? I was admittedly never a fan of EZA having a show that was specifically on one franchise but now that there's a Nintendo podcast that can talk about things like Amiibos, fandom and so on, I feel like they could be merged together and we wouldn't be missing anything.
 
M

Maiar_m

Member
Friend Code is very nice. Nintendo focus serves as a good entry-point to the nostalgia trip with the allies. I don't know it the show has legs but it's still a very good idea. Actually, to echo LiquidSolid's sentiment on Zelda Talk somewhat, I'm more than fine with shows that DON'T have legs and come or go as needed. Zelda Talk is fairly easy to shelve if there's just not much more to talk about BotW for instance, then make a come back when the DLCs or sequel news come in.
 
M

Mista Koo

Member
Since I still had the Wii U hooked up after my over 140 hours playthrough of Zelda, I decided to go back to 3D World and finally beat Champion's Road. I completely disagree that there is no challenge in this game besides this level as they claimed in the last Frame Trap. Even if we ignore the main game, all the worlds beyond Bowser are pretty challenging.
Similarly with other modern games although to a much lesser extent. The main thing that got easier is not losing progress after game overs which made lives more or less antiquated.

Unless we have different definitions of challenging.
 
B

Brandon F

Well congratulations! You got yourself caught!
Listened to the most recent EZA podcast and was super bummed out when none of the Allies seemed to know what The Longest Journey was. Not even have heard of it, outside of Bloodworth whom was correct in guessing it was related to Dreamfall Chapters. :(
 
D

Don Draper's Hat

Member
Been watching Brad's Kingdom Hearts full playthroughs and really enjoying them. One thing I wish he'd do though is when he's engaging with chat to read out loud whatever it is he's responding to. A lot of times he'll burst out laughing and then say "That's really funny, TwitchUser47".

What's funny, Brad? I'd like to know.

Or he'll just answer some random question. "No, I won't be doing that, TwitchUser6485".

What?

I think Kyle relays the chat's messages really well during his Tetris streams.
 
A

abrack08

Member
Yeah Ben is also pretty good about reading chat out loud, or responding in a way that still makes sense when watching the archive later. It does make Brad's streams a little tougher to watch later.
 
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