For those playing through the game for the first time, be careful of catching spoilers in the comments section here. Mike and Casen are being mindful of spoilers in the vidoes, but people in the comments are already discussing stuff that comes much later.

If you are playing along book club style and don't want future reveals spoiler it's probably best to avoid the comments section from here on out. (Mike and Casen don't remove comments for spoilers).

Book clubbing this one at the moment. Just want to tell you guys I appreciate you sticking to and standing by that format! Even with games I've played your respect for spoilers is something I enjoy. Trying to discuss a game without following the narrative journey would just make for a mess of a discussion

I just finished Act 1 last night. Man, when I got to "that" moment, my jaw dropped to the floor.

Ugh, catch me fighting the urge to ugly cry. The way he shakes his head kills me. It's such an emotional scene. I honestly think Gustave is in the running for my favorite protagonist.

One interesting thing i noticed during Gustave's death - up to this point Renoir does not even acknowledge any expeditioner other than Maelle. When she screams "Gustave" and breaks the paint cage, he stops and looks back at him.

I really thought you guys were going to mention how the cane sounds like a clock. Always felt like a sign of time running out everytime Renoir targets someone

One thing that really made the death of Gustave shocking for me from a gameplay perspective is that half of his skill tree was locked. During the fight with Renoir, he used a powered up version of his special attack which actually gets a good hit in on Renoir. In that moment I thought to myself, “Okay Gustave is going to survive this and this new ability he just used is going to unlock the rest of his gameplay.” I don’t know if other people felt that way but it really put a sense in me that he was going to survive this encounter somehow, even though ultimately he does not.

You guys announcing your coverage of the game got me to play it! Thank you! I loved it and love the convos

A really important note missed imo is that Verso told Renoir, and by extension the players, "she'll never paint again." So we know, as suspect as verso may rightfully seem, we have SOLID reason to believe that Verso wants the same thing we want, and what the expedition wants. Telling that to Renoir has much more weight than when he just tells that to our party, as he is presumably withholding a lot of info from us. I.e. the writers have told us verso's motivation upfront, tho presumably to a limited extent.

I'm really happy that I found this channel. I love long format talking about RPGs, even those I don't know yet. Thank you for all the videos so far.

As someone that has already played through the game, I appreciate that the narrative is being covered as it was experienced the first time. In addition to how this benefits new/current players, I think that this approach really highlights just how expertly everything was foreshadowed.

It's very meta for the game to let the players experience sudden loss the way the characters do at a point that we've experience levity coming from the Gestral village and Esquie. That sets the players and the characters up in the stage of denial and then go through the different stages of grief

Just a correction...you CAN defeat Grosse Tete the conventional way

39:05 You know a character is written well when you're spamming Recovery to stop the plot from getting its own way.

33:56 noooo mike!

I kinda feel like this is where the game definitively starts dropping its original conceit in favour of sonething entirely different. You can almost cut the game in half at this point, a very narratively significant turning point.

I always saw the Gustav scene as an homage to the FFVII death scene.

I was honestly shocked when this happened. I loved Gustav

I love how Expedition33 won the game of the year and 8 award  videogame award

It was nice to hear hellblade mentioned. By random chance, after I played expedition 33 for the first time (and did 2 more playthroughs right afterwards), I played hellblade for the first time and was dumbfounded to see how it tackled similar themes. Expedition 33 is one of my favorite games of all time now, but hellblade had a more visceral impact on me. I would highly recommend it for anyone who enjoyed this game!

This series has become my relax and safe place. Relieving it through your eyes has been nd is a wonderful experience!!! 🎉