A Nostalgic Journey through Fighting Games and Life Lessons

This episode explores the intersection of fighting games and personal growth, delving into the nostalgic experiences that shaped our understanding of skill and competition. Through discussions of iconic games like Mortal Kombat and Street Fighter, we reflect on the valuable life lessons learned through gameplay and the significance of the growth mindset in our lives.

• Examining personal connections to fighting games 
• Discussing nostalgic childhood experiences with Mortal Kombat 
• The impact of console wars: Genesis vs. Super Nintendo 
• Journeying toward mastery and skill development in gaming 
• How fighting games fostered resilience and personal growth 
• The evolution of online gaming and community interaction 
• The importance of adopting a growth mindset in gaming and life

Chapters

• 0:00 Exploring the World of Fighting Games
• 14:09 Comparing and Reflecting on Fighting Games
• 20:00 Philosophy of Fighting Games and Memories
• 28:21 Challenges of Online Fighting Games
• 34:30 Growth Mindset in Video Games
• 41:19 Elden Ring and Psychology of Endings

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Welcome to the Gaming Persona podcast. This is the show that explores who we become when we play games, whether you're saving kingdoms, leading epic raids or just vibing in cozy indie worlds. Join me, dr Gamology and my good friend Marcus as we search for all the ways gaming and personal growth collide. Grab your controllers and let's continue the journey Now.

Speaker 2: 0:24

So not only am I wearing my bro hockey hat, right, I've been thinking a lot, since we're going to be talking about fighting games today. So, off the cuff, if you were a ninja, what kind of ninja would you be?

Speaker 1: 0:41

A cold one, a cold one.

Speaker 2: 0:49

I did not expect that answer. That was, I thought of a hundred different answers. It was not that one.

Speaker 1: 0:56

No, Sub-Zero is my favorite ninja forever. I just think that's my answer.

Speaker 2: 1:02

Oh, okay, well, yeah, but I didn't expect that answer. Well, that's a good one. So if I was a ninja, I would be the Beverly Hills ninja.

Speaker 1: 1:16

Wow, okay, I would never have guessed that either. This is going to be amazing. So we're talking about fighting games for real this time.

Speaker 2: 1:26

Yes, but we had to start off with what type of ninja we would be right because, like that, that that sets precedent. So you're basically saying you want to be in the most brutal fighting world ever listen, I'm a fan of the first mortal combatant to have their fatality censored.

Speaker 1: 1:48

Okay, Like that. That to me made Sub-Zero the guy that you want to master all his moves and the fade to black Cause you can't see the fatality of him taking the head with the spine attached and ripping it out of the person's back. I just that's brutal, it's very violent, but in the early 90s it didn't exactly look real. I mean the OK. There's a lot we could talk about just with Mortal Kombat.

Speaker 2: 2:23

I know, but I want to hear this. So what do you mean? It didn't look real because I remember playing. Listen, I had a sega genesis, I remember. So people remember contra's code.

Speaker 1: 2:33

That is not the code to me blood code abac abb yeah, that's it because sega didn't allow blood on launch day.

Speaker 2: 2:45

You needed to cut in order to unlock it.

Speaker 1: 2:48

And also on Super Nintendo, there was no blood at all. It was just like spit getting knocked out of their face. Also, they had different fatalities in the Super Nintendo version of Mortal Kombat 1. Really, really, yeah. So there were four people that were affected by this change. On the Super Nintendo, which is a console I owned, you had a Sega Genesis, didn't you? Yeah, yeah, yeah. That says everything about our friendship. Sub-zero did not have the fade to black rip your spine out. Fatality. On the super nintendo, he had this completely different thing where he, like, freezes you and shatters you, and just your legs are left. Oh the uppercut.

Speaker 2: 3:35

Yeah, wow, because, okay, I can see that well, I'm just gonna bring a little console war into this. I can see that. Well, I'm just going to bring a little console war into this. Just remember, yeah, the Super Nintendo was great, but the Super Nintendo did not have Sega CD or the 32X.

Speaker 1: 3:53

Okay, I never got to play anything on any of those things.

Speaker 2: 3:58

That's a shame.

Speaker 1: 3:59

I know it really is. There was a day where I visited a friend's house and we played Sonic and Knuckles all afternoon and I asked my mom if I could get Sonic and Knuckles and she said yes, but she didn't understand the different consoles. So I was super excited because I was like, oh my gosh, my mom's going to get me a Sega Genesis. And then, as soon as she found out that it doesn't work on my Super Nintendo, that yes became a no.

Speaker 2: 4:31

Which I understand. Understand, yes, of course. What was cool too is if you plugged your Sonic the Hedgehog 2 on top of the Sonic and Knuckles, you could be with Tails too yeah, so that's the original DLC, isn't it?

Speaker 1: 4:41

yeah one of the one of the original approaches.

Speaker 2: 4:44

Yeah, that's so cool I miss the game genie too, marcus so back to fighting games, right, all right. So the I was a sega guy because that's just what was available at christmas, and I tell this joke all the time the only way I got the sega because it was all violent games was I told my grandma that I wanted echo the dolphin, and that's my first game.

Speaker 2: 5:09

Yeah, smart but then that moved on to doom real quick, but anyway. So I was introduced to fighting games. Um, actually, on the panasonic 3do there was two fighting games it. It was called the King of Fighters and then I still to this day don't know the other name of the game and it's going to kill me.

Speaker 1: 5:33

King of Fighters is still there. It's really big People love it.

Speaker 2: 5:39

Oh, it was Way of the Warrior and it was Samurai Showdown, but I think that came after yeah, that might have came after sega genesis. I can't remember 3do and the sega genesis were around the same time so that's your first time playing a fighting game well, that's what I remember, other than Mortal Kombat on the Sega Genesis. Yeah, do you?

Speaker 1: 6:07

remember Book it, no, marcus. Okay, it was a school program that gave you a little button that you could wear and you had to read a book every month in school and when the teacher verified that you finished a book you'd get a little sticker. And when you get enough stickers you take the button to Pizza Hut. You get a free personal pan pizza. So this was the way schools in the early 90s rewarded kids for reading is they had this pizza connection with Pizza Hut and reading books. And I remember one of the first times my parents took me to actually cash in my button and get the pizza.

Speaker 1: 6:57

There was a Mortal Kombat 1 cabinet in the Pizza Hut and I wanted to play it because I was also a really big fan of Terminator at the time the movies and Kano had the metal eye and I saw Kano doing a demo fight against Raiden and Raiden has the hat and he has the lightning abilities God of Thunder and lightning and I saw that fight and I was just like I want to play as Kano, I want to fight Raiden.

Speaker 1: 7:29

And then I got to put quarters in the machine and I lost and but I really enjoyed it and then every time I would see an arcade cabinet, I'd ask if I could play, and eventually I got better. And then I got a Super Nintendo so I could play Mortal Kombat 1 and 2 at home, and that's really how fighting games became the beginning of me playing really playing video games. In a way, that was more about remembering stuff, because when you're playing Mario on the NES like the first Mario with Duck Hunt, I don't remember trying to learn every little thing about that game. I tried to beat the game and I tried not to die in the levels, but what I got from Mortal Kombat was a different level of aiming for mastery.

Speaker 2: 8:18

Yeah, for sure it was hard, right Like I never did anything. And just so you know, hard right like I never did anything. And just so you know, I my first fighting game was street fighter 2 and mortal combat, but the way of the warrior, I just sent you the the trailer for it and discord it came. That's the one where it really cemented. I like fighting games, but what did me versus street fighter 2, turbo and mortal combat was mortal combat was more realistic, like the move set was real, like yeah, they still have their special moves, but like it felt real and that was the art style that they chose to do. Everything was based off of real people and like all the little cameras on them Back in motion capture back then, where Street Fighter is all animation.

Speaker 1: 9:10

Yeah, it's like a cartoon animation versus. They actually did soundstage recording and having the pads and stuff and have the actors actually do the jumping moves, land on the pads so they don't get injured. Do the jumping moves land on the pads so they don't get injured and then take the best shots and then string those together on the frame of the characters in game. Right.

Speaker 2: 9:32

Yeah, and then the genre just grew from there and I'm sure there's people out there screaming at us saying there was this game and that game, but really for me it was Mortal Kombat, street street fighter 2, turbo, and then this way of the warrior.

Speaker 1: 9:48

Then also there were all of the kind of clones of mortal kombat 3. You get killer instinct, you get primal rage you got. Then you got other remixing what fighting games are like Virtua Fighter and Soul Calibur and Tekken Soul Calibur. I love Soul Calibur so much. In fact, my favorite Soul Calibur I can't play right now no, it's four because it has Darth Vader in it and his throw is the Emperor throw, where you make it so your back is to the edge of the arena, hit them with a throw and he just picks them up and throws them like emperor palpatine in return of the jedi spoilers.

Speaker 2: 10:37

Wait, so you can't you can't play soul caliber.

Speaker 1: 10:42

No, because it's a PS3 game and because of licensing, it has Starkiller, yoda and Darth Vader in it and whenever fighting games have a license like that's time limited, it becomes really hard for the game to ever get re-released or played on a new console.

Speaker 2: 11:04

Oh, so it's not backwards compatible, correct?

Speaker 1: 11:11

And do you still have your PS3? If I wanted to go try to dig out the PS3 and hook it up just to play Soul Calibur 4, then, yes, I could play Soul Calibur 4.

Speaker 2: 11:18

All right, because sometimes just saying that that's what you gotta do yeah, just sometimes you gotta turn it on, let it update for 17 hours and just play it because just for the nostalgia.

Speaker 2: 11:30

But you know, updates are the worst but you could come oh, it's the truth. You could come back also and say that mortal kombat and street fighter paved the way where Street Fighter was there before Mortal Kombat. But I feel like Mortal Kombat got so much publicity because of the blood and the gore that it skyrocketed the fighting game industry, because I remember playing Mortal Kombat 2 in the arcade like my mom would go to the mall and say here's 10 bucks, I'll be back in an hour. And I was at an arcade and I would play Mortal Kombat two and I got so good that I wouldn't lose. Come back and I'd still have 10 bucks or $9 and 75, actually $9 because I would get a dollar's worth of quarters but that it really skyrocketed, like all of those games. Like you said, primal Rage I forgot about that game until you mentioned it.

Speaker 2: 12:28

And it was good.

Speaker 1: 12:29

It really was. All these games had things about them that were unique twists, but Mortal Kombat has finishers right, the fatalities, friendships, babalities, animalities, just all the different ways that you can really stick it to the person that I just beat you, and that was a big thing. I remember still the emotional energy of I've only publicly done fatalities in arcades to like five people in my life because most of the time I wasn't playing multiplayer, I was trying to climb the ladder against the game. But these arcade cabinets have two sets of control sticks and buttons and you can both put your quarters in at the same time, fight each other, and when you fatality somebody and do these like mythological power moves to blow them up, it's. It's like the biggest show of trash talk in gamer life that I can even imagine you do?

Speaker 2: 13:37

you have you ever watched break dancers dance? Yeah, and they like battle and when they're done with their battle, they cross their arms. Yeah, that's what I feel like. If you're in an arcade or you get to do a fatality at somebody, or even if, like I was at your house and and I did a fatality to you, I would be like cross my arms, be like sup. Doc, how you feeling right now?

Speaker 1: 13:59

you just got eaten. Yeah, shut up, marcus.

Speaker 2: 14:03

I'm talking about? Yeah, but you're right though, because I'm looking at the. I typed in Google 1990s fighting games. Do you remember Clay Fighter? I?

Speaker 1: 14:14

don't.

Speaker 2: 14:15

Okay, google that. Clay Fighter, the most well-known game, that fighting game that pushed the boundaries of teenage boys. What was that fighting game, doc, dead or alive yes, where they introduced the what would you call that jiggle physics? The jiggle physics, yeah, and there was so much hype around it. And then they, but it was just for the jiggle.

Speaker 1: 14:45

Yeah, but actually Dead or Alive is a good fighting game. It has a very different take on how buttons and throws cancel each other out like paper scissors, rock Whereas the other ones, like Mortal Kombat and Street Fighter, are very combo-based and you don't really cancel as much. So when I say cancel for people who maybe don't play as many fighting games, a cancel is where you start moving into one move and then do a button sequence that changes what you're doing in the middle of the animation. And Dead or Alive does this too, but they do it in terms of if someone's hitting you with a triangle and you hit circle, that'll cancel, but if you hit square, their triangle will beat your square. So it's like rock, paper scissors shoot yeah.

Speaker 1: 15:39

Street Fighter is more about managing meters and using moves and super moves to support your combos and control where your opponent is on the stage, so they can't move. Basically Like that, all they can do is get hit by you. And Mortal Kombat is very much about combos and special moves and juggles. So you want to keep the person popping through the air, getting hit by your fists and kicks, and so they all have the same setup one versus one, left person facing right person health bars at the top. But then once it says fight, they're all completely different games.

Speaker 2: 16:23

Right, it says fight they're all completely different games, right? Yeah, it's, and then. And then you throw in when they added blocking blocking's been. Oh yeah but I mean, when it really became like mortal combat 3 for me changed it because you could start doing combos. It wasn't just punch punch kick, it was punch punch, kick, sweep. And you had to learn how to use that block button in order to be victorious and run.

Speaker 1: 16:56

Mortal kombat 3 added run. That's true. That was a really big change to the speed of the matches and the speed of how much you needed to think fast Because Mortal Kombat 2 had a slow flow to it that you could watch and predict and execute. Mortal Kombat 3 was so much more chaotic because of the run button.

Speaker 2: 17:22

And then you could uppercut somebody through the ceilings.

Speaker 1: 17:25

That's true too, but that was just flashy fun. Yeah, the Mortal Kombat innovations over the years. I think that is easily my favorite fighting franchise. And then Soul Calibur and then Street Fighter.

Speaker 2: 17:43

Yeah, it's hard for me not to pick Mortal Kombat just because I feel like I'm the most attached to that, because I spent so much time playing it, and I think it's because of the finishing move. Like you fight in Street Fighter and you just fight until the meter's gone, but in Mortal Kombat you fight and then you see finish him and you're like, oh shit, I won. I'm ending this right now. Yeah, it's over when in Street Fighter or these other games, you're just you fight and then you hit them and they're down and they say round one. You don't feel it doesn't feel like a final fight.

Speaker 1: 18:28

I was.

Speaker 2: 18:29

Well, that's another fighting game.

Speaker 1: 18:31

Final fight. Yeah, while you were describing that, marcus, I was thinking about all the times I fatality to another player in public. And there's one that I have to tell you, live microphones recording, because it's probably not my proudest moment as a counselor.

Speaker 2: 18:50

It's got to be good.

Speaker 1: 18:51

Oh no, it's so good. It also is my proudest moment as a counselor. There was a field trip at my first counseling agency counseling agency. We took the clients out to get Golden Corral for a special lunch. Sure, you know, being in the program for a certain amount of time, you get to go get lunch. Three clinicians field trip. That Golden Corral had Mortal Kombat 4.

Speaker 1: 19:20

And I remember playing and one of the clients being like, oh Daniel, you play Mortal Kombat. No way, I love this game. I was like, yeah, mortal Kombat's my favorite and I was playing as Raiden Uh-huh. And so he put in quarters too and interrupted my attempt to climb the ladder and defeat Goro and Shinnok and become Mortal Kombat champion. He wanted the smoke and we. We fought. I won round one, I flawless victory round two and I fatality. The client blew him up with the lightning. Uh, picked him up with lightning and zapped him until he exploded. Nice, and I guess, looking back on it, if I would have been more mature as a counselor, I would have thought about the treatment efficacy of if I let them win or make it a little bit competitive, but allow them to win, then they get like a life lesson of how good it feels to put yourself out there and be social and game with people, but on the other hand he put those quarters into that machine in the middle of my game.

Speaker 2: 20:30

Yes, he said I want it, yeah, and you got it. No, you don't, yeah. Yeah, you said no, you don't.

Speaker 1: 20:37

Hey, I'm too competitive everybody.

Speaker 2: 20:40

Dude, what are you wearing on your head? So sidebar for everybody. I had to run upstairs. I had a little bit of kid drama going on. So I come back and doc is wearing a raiden hat for the people listening on all the podcast stuff. But anyway, but I've been thinking while I ran upstairs consciously, subconsciously, whatever that when you put a quarter into an arcade machine, you're saying it's go time, mofo. You need to know that person on the other end, whether it's your mom, your uncle, your dad, your brother or a client, there's a 50 percent chance you're going to get your ass whooped.

Speaker 1: 21:26

Yeah, that's true, it is 50 50 cause it's one versus one. Mortal combat is quite possibly one of the reasons that I think about video games so philosophically as well, and it all has to do with one black screen with white letters. Marcus, do you know what those white letters said? No, there is no knowledge. That is not power. Ooh, that is how Mortal Kombat 3 starts, and I was all about Mortal Kombat 3. I was doing Taekwondo because of Mortal Kombat for the entire elementary school of my life, and so when that came out, I was starting to get into learning some really fun moves and learning Like it was part of my lifestyle. Yeah, for it to have the basic traits of Taekwondo, yeah, yeah, eight, nine, 10 years old somewhere in there.

Speaker 1: 22:43

And so for me to pick up on a philosophical life lesson and connect it to my love of martial arts and like all the other things I liked that were martial arts like three ninjas and power rangers and teenage mutant ninja turtles and for it to say there is no knowledge that is not power. It really explains parts of me that still help me get through stuff, that help me earn a PhD and be very good at school, where you acquire knowledge and you develop them into skills, and fighting games are about seeking out knowledge and turning them into skill. Unfortunately, a lot of very powerful and influential people going back 30 and 40 years have been distracted by the violence of fighting games and that's all they see. And that's why we have the esrb uh rating system, because we have to be able to identify that Mortal Kombat is rated M for mature Right and so it was very polarizing in the early 90s, this video game with this violence and these actors and their heads getting popped off and bodies exploded and there's red pixels on the screen that's supposed to be blood, and how can kids be into this?

Speaker 1: 24:01

This is the end of society, I tell you. Till grand theft auto three, that was about 10 more years in the future. But yeah, so you get past all of that violent coat of paint and what you actually have are get your person in fist range and hit square, square, triangle, circle, and then down in triangle and then down towards X, and then it'll say finish him. And then it's down down toward back circle and you turn to a dragon and you bite them and that's the end. Right? But it's all about memorization in sequences that you can call up in real time as reactions to what's attacking you and then, if you have memorized enough things and you apply them correctly, and you apply them correctly, you win. And actually that right there, I was actually describing how I got through college, not how I play fighting games.

Speaker 2: 25:11

Ha, but the distinct thing about fighting games is each one is a little different, right? Do you remember King of the Monsters? I do not remember King of the Monsters, Okay that was like you were monsters fighting in cities and you're walking through streets stepping on cars. I think that was Super Nintendo or Sega, maybe Sega Genesis, I can't remember. But then do you remember Bushido Blade? Nope For the PlayStation 1?.

Speaker 1: 25:40

Nope.

Speaker 2: 25:40

Okay.

Speaker 1: 25:41

I never had a PlayStation 1. That whole thing. Right there I was playing N64. And so there's so many very popular games for PS1 that I just missed.

Speaker 2: 25:52

You should get a PS1.

Speaker 1: 25:56

Can't you just play most of those games as PS Classics?

Speaker 2: 26:01

I don't know.

Speaker 1: 26:01

PlayStation Plus. Now, I don't know, it's all about me having a title and going and seeking it out.

Speaker 2: 26:07

Yeah, so, but then the next, I would say for me, another game that shaped fighting games in a new way and brought a new flair to it was the Tekken series, because that was basically, you know, karate I'm going to say martial arts, I shouldn't just say karate, but there was different styles of martial arts and it was a martial arts game. Right, it wasn't like fantasy fighting, it was actual, like Kung Fu versus Taekwondo, and it took it for me, it took me by storm, I actually fell in love with it. Out of all the fighting games, I would say street fighter is probably my least out of the big ones, my least favorite, okay, but tekken is my solid two. That and soul caliber, but really tekken, because the fighting styles were so smooth and it felt natural Like you're going into a fighting tournament or you're fighting somebody, like there's a good chance you're in, like I do boxing, but I come up against you who does Kung Fu, like you don't know.

Speaker 1: 27:16

Probably come up on me playing as the kangaroo. Yeah, that's all. While you were going through some of those other games, you peaked a curiosity in me that I was wondering did these games make it into the gamer's journey? And because I know mortal kombat did, because I talked about there is no knowledge, that is not power yes street fighter.

Speaker 1: 27:40

I did evo moment number number it is 42 or 37 or something. That moment lives on in my mind forever, even though I don't remember the number. That was Justin Wong versus Daigo Umehara and that was Chun-Li versus Ken in the perfect and that was Chun-Li versus Ken in the perfect block of the ultra move. That's just such intense practice. To be able to pull that off live in a match with all those people in the room that's insane.

Speaker 2: 28:19

Yeah it. And then moving past the basics of the fighting games, not the basics like the originals, right when the playstation 3 and the xbox 360 came out, and when the xbox 360 had xbox live, it changed it because now you could do your fighting favorite fighting games against the internet.

Speaker 1: 28:48

I hate playing fighting games with the internet, marcus.

Speaker 2: 28:53

We'll get good.

Speaker 1: 28:55

No, I don't want to get good at an internet level. Okay, so here's the thing I have had to wrestle with the realization, since the internet became part of every fighting game, that I have never been good at fighting games. My entire life I've never actually been good at them, even the ones I love, like mortal kombat 2 yeah, I was never good. I was just better than everyone that I came across in illinois and iowa. As a kid problem is, I never played against kids that played like nine hours a day and lived in new york, right like I never played against people in japan that just understand this stuff perfectly because it's part of their DNA, sure, right.

Speaker 1: 29:54

And so I remember the first game that was a fighting game that had all this internet stuff and trophies connected to online play. Trophies are achievements that you earn that force you to do things that maybe you wouldn't normally do, but because it's on the list, you want to try it. It was a Mortal Kombat game and it was on PS 3 or 4, so it might have been Mortal Kombat 9. I don't remember I lost so bad all afternoon trying to get one victory the very easiest trophy to get for online play and it was very hard for me to find one person that I could beat, and then I realized, oh my gosh, I've never been good at this. I just was better than people who are worse than me. And it changed. I still enjoy playing fighting games, but when I buy them, there is no part of me that is looking at actually playing the online content.

Speaker 2: 30:54

Sure, oh, I agree I was the same way, but for me it was. I got to play mortal combat with my friends, or a fighting game tech and or whatever with friends that weren't at my house Right. Oh, now you like I'll scroll through like tick tock or well, that like Twitter or whatever wherever, and they have these people playing like Mortal Kombat 1. And the way they're moving and like their move sets and how fluid it is, I would be like dead in one second.

Speaker 1: 31:36

That's what I kept being up against is just people that knew their character already. I just turned the game on for the first time 15 minutes ago. Right, and that's a tough thing too. And even if you have a game that has skill-based matchmaking, it doesn't usually work, because by adding a game to your lifestyle lifestyle you will inevitably be better than any game that I pick up my controller and dabble in.

Speaker 2: 32:10

Skill-based matchmaking is if you log in and you win your first match and you win your second match, they're like this guy's good and now we're going to put him against the next tier of people when, believe it or not. Okay, so now it's a challenge. And you lose a couple, win a couple, then you go on a hot streak and you win three in a row. Then they move you to the next level and you're just getting destroyed and it becomes meh, at some point you have to start practicing your craft.

Speaker 1: 32:37

And if you don't want to get kicked down to that lower tier and if you want to have an afternoon where you don't want to get kicked down to that lower tier, and if you want to have an afternoon where you don't have to deal with losing 20 matches in a row, you have to learn how to play better. And there's two things from fighting games that I have learned. That I actually experienced on my stream today, where I was not playing a fighting game. But that first thing is bosses have the advantage because you do not damage them with one of your hits as much as they damage you with one of their hits, okay. And then the other thing is you just need to get a little bit lucky in order to beat them, because they can read your moves, it seems, and you are not meant to beat them on the first try, right, right. So those boss characters like in Mortal Kombat, shang Tsung or Shao Kahn, in Street Fighter it's M Bison.

Speaker 1: 33:47

I think all the early ones was m bison, maybe sagat in street fighter one he was like the number two, okay, and then, yeah, like the bosses are iconic characters and you get hit by them once 20% of your health bar is gone. You hit them once with a punch, they still have 99.2% of their health left. You have to really be careful. You have to master your character. You have to avoid all damage and you have to expect that this is meant to be a long fight for you to inch them towards their own defeat. They can blast you right into your defeat.

Speaker 1: 34:30

Right and I was doing a boss fight in final fantasy 7 rebirth. That was a one-on-one fight. It's just me playing cloud versus president rufus and you can't take on any time a video game has you take on a president or a god. You know that there's going to be some cheating game programming shenanigans built into the fight because they're trying to teach you a lesson. And President Rufus is invulnerable to all the things. He hits you. You lose a thousand health when you only have 6,000. You hit him, he's invulnerable. You have to break his block gauge and stagger him just so that he takes some damage. And I was not successful on my stream, Marcus, so two hours stream, I did not beat him. I'm playing on dynamic difficulty and that boss feels like a fighting game boss from or a boss from Elden Ring. My chat was commenting like when did Final Fantasy VII Rebirth become Elden Ring?

Speaker 2: 35:35

But you're playing it on the hardest setting and you should have a boss. That is that hard, but that was going to be. My next question is talking about bosses. That is that hard, but that was going to be. My next question is talking about bosses. I actually think that Elden Ring is a form of a fighting game.

Speaker 1: 35:51

That's what I was saying with the transition to rebirth. Yes, absolutely. It's not left and right, it's not a 2D battlefield, but it is a fighting game. You have two characters with health bars and you fight until you live or you die, and I think actually Elden Ring, because it has so many different bosses and so many different mechanics.

Speaker 1: 36:23

It's actually a really fascinating game if you can start thinking about it like it's a fighting game yeah but you know what Research has actually commented on, why video games might actually be good things for people to study and get into.

Speaker 1: 36:45

I got to hear this yeah, so one of the things I'm really big about is shifting people out of a problem focused mindset, and I make this mistake myself all the time. It is so easy to look at the last five things that you came up short and then only remember those things and you have been wasting years and years of your life and you'll never amount to anything and sad blah, blah, blah. But actually you want to switch to a mindset that is much better suited for video games and actually works much better in life too, and that's called growth mindset. Gamers might call this progression. Ok, it's this idea that my story about President Rufus.

Speaker 1: 37:28

I did not defeat him today. I did not get his health bar to zero, I did not get the next scene of the story and I did not get to take Cloud, tifa and Aerith closer to the endgame goal, but I did get him down to 50% without using my limit break, and I did get his dog down to 75% before I got shotgun blasted in the back one too many times and lost. I got shotgun blasted in the back one too many times and lost, and even though I didn't succeed at the fight, to where I can move on? I have a strategy that I'm building in my head. I understand where my reaction time needs to get better. I understand where to be cautious and really when to turn the aggression on, to try to punish the boss for making mistakes against me, and that also is a fighting game. Term is punishing is when you have an opening and you can go in and just blast your opponent with damage. That's a punish, at least as much as I understand it. There are people who master this stuff and they're rolling their eyes at me. I'm trying, though, because I really do love these in a casual way, because I really do love these in a casual way.

Speaker 1: 38:36

So growth mindset is this idea that failures do not define you. They are a means to improvement, and when you have improved across certain thresholds, you do get to move on because you have grown. And this is the opposite of a lot of society-based situations, where we're expected to succeed on the first try, and if we don't, then there's some stigma attached to this Like you were lazy, you didn't study, you didn't take the challenge seriously, and that's not actually true. This is what we're afraid of inside and what we're taught to believe, but video games are more about growth mindset. They are more about. We made this challenge deliberately hard. You're not supposed to win it at the first 10 times. You try even a hundred times. Millennia blade of mickela in elden ring is a fighting game, boss fight encounter. It's one-on-one. How many people have lost to her a hundred times before they claim victory? 500, a thousand? Any people that have lost a thousand times to Millennia?

Speaker 2: 39:42

I haven't gotten to her yet.

Speaker 1: 39:45

Well, I hope, when you do, I get to watch.

Speaker 2: 39:49

I'm really like I'm enjoying Final Fantasy VII Remake.

Speaker 1: 39:54

Oh, you started it.

Speaker 2: 39:56

Oh, that's so good I think I'm like three and a half hours in three and a half yeah, so that's like chapter one, chapter two. Oh yeah, for sure, yeah, yeah like I'm in, like that first factory, like that's done, and then I'm in the streets that's cool.

Speaker 1: 40:14

How are you liking cloud? It's good it's.

Speaker 2: 40:17

It is a lot like elden ring I gotta do, show and tell marcus for everybody at home.

Speaker 1: 40:25

He's grabbing his big cloud sword wow, thanks for pausing on the word big marcus it is.

Speaker 2: 40:33

He's grabbing his big sword. Context.

Speaker 1: 40:37

Yeah, if you watched my stream the other day, you saw this and we did the whole thing. I went to Megacon last week but this is the first Megacon that I didn't present at. In the last five I had a four year streak. I went laps because I forgot to turn in an application, but I did go ahead and get a buster sword for my office. But I did go ahead and get a Buster Sword for my office. And it is comical when I try to show my stream because it just keeps. It's like the Star Destroyer at the beginning of A New Hope, marcus. It just keeps going.

Speaker 2: 41:09

See my mind went. It's the Ron Jeremy of swords.

Speaker 1: 41:13

Oh my gosh, marcus, what kind of you needed that M for mature label, as a kid, of course.

Speaker 2: 41:19

I did, yeah, so I think we have tackled fighting games and my question is can I pick the topic for next week? Yeah, go ahead.

Speaker 1: 41:36

Elden Ring. All right, let's talk about Elden Ring. I'll have to see if we can get someone who wrote a chapter in psychology of Elden Ring to be on the show.

Speaker 2: 41:45

Oh, I can research one of the first authors and ask them why they all. I should message them all and ask them. The question would be why would you start it off the same way every chapter?

Speaker 1: 41:56

oh man, I can't talk about that. I only can talk about what my chapter was about. What?

Speaker 2: 42:01

it was the final chapter in the book. It was the ultimate climax I'm the final boss.

Speaker 1: 42:07

oh god, yeah, I'm the final boss in my counseling program and I'm the final boss in four of the five books that I'm affiliated with. It's fun. I like being the end If you're on a baseball team, which I never have been, but if you're the closer and they bring you out, it's because your team has the lead and you're just expected to crush the hopes and dreams of the other team right now. Finish them. It's like fighting game mentality to be the closer.

Speaker 2: 42:43

And with that everybody continue the journey.