Robots Radio, Games, Lore, Stories, Community, Just Press Play. Welcome to the Cyberpunk Lorecast, where style is just as important as substance. Welcome to the podcast where we explore the lore, news, and gameplay of the Cyberpunk games, and other dystopian worlds. I'm your host, Roblox.
Cyberpunk City's Sunday Night at 9pm Eastern, 6pm Pacific. It is time again for the Cyberpunk Lorecast. I'm your host, Tom, or Roblox, and I'm here with my co-host, Captain Logan. Captain Skelly Logan, as you know this week, we have my son and I, we're playing Sea of Thieves, and we found his pirate on an island and his, uh, Scaly Pirate, and murdered him.
So, I'm glad you're back from the dead, and I have the rest of the flesh and bones, you know, the rest of your body all assembled. I can't believe how nonchalantly you murdered me, too. Like, your son was calling you to come back, and you're like, yeah, but Captain Logan, he's like, I need you to come back, and you're like, okay, boom. And you just grab my skull and the note, and just walk off, and I was like, do I not get any kind of ceremony?
Like, what kind of, like, I feel like there should be some sort of, like, Japanese ritual performed to take care of my skeleton, to cleanse my spirit of the dark enold that has encompassed my skeleton in Sea of Thieves. Yeah, that's the creepy ladies job. I just bring your skull and she does the rest of that stuff. That's what she pays me for.
Wait a minute. How does this even work? I don't know. Yeah.
Yeah. It's interesting how that all works out, too. I don't know if you know the little bit of lore, but the skulls that you take to the Order of Souls, they listen to the memories of the skeleton captains, and they jot down all of the riddles and all of the X marks the spot maps. They create the maps and then it goes to the gold order, and then the gold order still sells them to you.
Yeah, I was thinking, like, you can turn in all that gold and stuff, he gets to the gold order. He must have a crazy mark up on whoever he's selling that stuff to in order for you to make it much as you make. All of that goes to the gold order. They actually don't get much of any of it, but yeah, it's very interesting.
But I got to say, it was really exciting to see you playing Sea of Thieves and enjoying it and killing my skeleton captain and whatnot. Of course. It was a really, really fun event, but I wanted to, I mean, I feel like I wanted to jump into, we got so much to talk about, and I've been playing a lot of Ghost of Tsushima, and we talked a little bit before we started recording, but I jumped into Ghost of Tsushima, and I've been loving that Japanese lifestyle right now. And I hit you up and I was like, look, we have not touched on Takamura, and he is one of the coolest characters in the game.
Can we please dive into some lore with him? Yeah, about him. Let's do it. Yeah.
So I don't know how you went through your first run through with him, but my first run through, I went through with Arasaka, and I sided with them. So I got to see kind of like the full run through with him. Overall, just to kind of start, I'm kind of curious, how did you feel about running into him in the first encounter in the junk yard? The first encounter in the junk, when he comes and picks you up.
Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah.
That's it. I'm trying to remember back now, multiple months, it's been months since I first jumped into this game. Yeah, and it played multiple times through that intro section and got into that part. First time, when, yeah, after, after Dexter has kind of offed you and you wake up in the junk yard and Dexter's like escorting, he's leading Takamura who's got him kind of at gunpoint to your body because Takamura is trying to get that ship back.
Yeah. Same thing. He keeps saying his name because you do the Japanese thing better than I do. Takamura.
There you go. Yeah. That's it. Yeah.
I'm just going to use pronouns. You can actually say his name. Okay. Okay.
I'll say he can't borrow. Okay. All right. Well, yeah.
So I'm thinking about. Yeah. This is the actual car scene. The assassins.
Oh, yeah. No, that scene was great. I took screenshots the very first time. I was like, this is great.
screenshot screenshot screenshot. Like, like, jump through the air and like, yeah, all that stuff. And he was driving and he's like, I need your help and hands you a gun. Yeah.
So that was. Okay. So in that scene in the beginning of the beginning of the game, that was the scene where you know that he gets blamed. Like, okay, so let's go back to the back to the tower, right?
You know that like he didn't do his job well enough to keep. What's the space safe? Subaru. Subaru.
Right. Yeah. And so like, like I very quickly put together the okay, he's he's now the fall guy. This is what's going on.
He needs my help because I'm not going to be able to get out of the way. He needs my help because I know the truth of the situation. Like, I added that up pretty quick because that's a pretty solid. Kind of kind of point.
There's a lot of violence where that kind of stuff happens, right? Where it's like, oh, this is bad. That guy, but now he's not really bad guy. So we have to, you know, I have to put down our past and work together in order to achieve a similar goal, even though we're different.
We have different ultimate goals. Like I totally got that. And I like that kind of stuff in TV shows and movies and things. In fact, this is one of those themes that I first noticed.
Let's go back in time. Let's talk about movies and TV shows. This is one of the things that I noticed in shows like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, where it's very comic bookie too. And I think that's where they draw that from.
This person is traditionally a bad guy and this person is traditionally a good guy. But this other situation happens with other bad guys who's even worse. And now bad guys needs to team up with good guys in order to stop even worse bad guys because of X, Y, and Z. Right?
So that uncomfortable partnership that like in any other situation, both of these people would be trying to murder each other, but they're not going to. And they're just, I mean, there's this like, we're just putting down our weapons. We will not be murdering each other. And there's that like uncomfortable tension between them that like at any moment, either person could just change the rules of engagement here and flip it.
And then this is something that's been very common in that kind of contents for a long time now. You see a lot in the last 20 years in TV shows, right? And things like that. Very much the enemy of my enemy is my friend scenario.
Right. Like this is an evil bad guy and he's an evil bad guy because he wants to take over all of these corporations and steal money from everybody. But the other bag I wants to destroy the world. So, okay, we can we'll fight the destroyed the world guy because we both agree that it's even worse.
Okay, here we go. So it's that kind of thing. I think that there were some still some like lingering feelings of like, is this is this manipulation in order to get to me because I'm not actually dead? But that went away pretty quickly in that in that situation.
I think that was also the first situation that I realized that I was going to get to know that character a little bit more and comes to understand the why that character is such a badass. Yeah, because like you don't become like leader of the personal guard of the most powerful man in the world without being a freakin bad ass yourself, right? Like you don't get that job just for nothing. So yeah, so yeah, that was my feeling.
What were your thoughts on that? This was really kind of cool for me because I felt like your story ends so abruptly. Obviously Dexter put you in the head and you die and you wake up in a junk yard and you're not sure how or why because you should be dead. And quickly drew me back into what was going on with the heist.
I had just lost Jackie. The bug was nowhere to be found and Dexter was reneging on his on his deal because of the heat that we caused. So having Goror, talking about a show up, it was really kind of comforting to know that even though this guy was trying to use me to clear his name to get the truth out about what happened to Suburo Arasaka, it felt like he was the ally that I was going to have to deal with because he was the only one that seemed to care that I was even in existence. And when the assassins came and he's driving and he's relying on you to kill the assassins while he drives, it was a sense of blind trust, a sense of...
Right, I'm going to give you the code and you're not going to shoot me because we both have to deal with this other thing. And it showed that they were after him too, which means he wasn't just as much injured as you were. It's a little bit of a situation. Yeah, it feels a lot like that first instance, especially in the nomad playthrough when you're meeting up with Jackie, both of you are in it together.
You don't have much background on each other, but there's a trust because there's a common goal. And they build that really well with Takamoto, and I think that that was the thing that really made me appreciate just how well crafted that initial introduction with him was. And I don't think if it didn't feel like both of you were in Mortal Danger, I don't think that you would be able to trust him so well from the get-go because he saves your life, but you also save his. And it means a lot that he's willing to give up his own life, let alone his job.
He's already kind of failed at that, but it was such an interesting experience to go through something so harrowing that for the most part, you felt like you'd really kind of hit that corner. With the heist, the heist felt like you were moving into Chapter 3, but it ramps up really quickly right after that. And having Takamoto kind of be the linchpin for the entire game is so interesting because without him, you wouldn't have a reason to go back to Arasaka. You'd have the chip, but you wouldn't have an idea of who might be able to help you get it taken out.
That personal connection to the big bad organization would be missing. Yeah, you'd be stuck trying to find a way to get back inside and sure maybe you could do that with Rogue or some other help, but Takamoto really does kind of pull you in. And that was the really interesting thing because he is so driven to protect that company, but not to protect the company because if it was the company, he would just side with Suburo's son. And he didn't go with your...
No, your noble was his name. He didn't go with him. He went with Suburo. It was so interesting, like the loyalty.
So I wanted to dive into his past. Yeah, totally. And to kind of come back around to what you're saying here, when you look at character, there are usually two or three words that define that character. You can boil the character down to.
And two of his words would be loyalty, honor, and maybe drive, or mercilessness. I think justice is one of my thoughts. Yeah, but that's part of why he's trustworthy is because even if he has different goals, even if his loities are to somebody who you think is an enemy, you know where you stand with him. He is the kind of person who you know what the boundaries are.
You know what he's trying to do. You know where you stand and you know what his goal is. And as long as you are in line with that temporarily, that's fine. And at some point, you may diverge in the future, but then you will know you are clearly on a different path and that this person is no longer an ally.
And that's what makes that kind of character appealing is because there's respect, like somebody who is honorable and loyal. Those are good traits, even if they're for the bad guy. They're still like, what's the word? They're still, I don't know, not just good, but like, well received, they're respectable traits in a person or character.
So anyway, I just wanted to sum that up in a way that just kind of defined that. Yeah, yeah, you definitely nailed it. I wanted to kind of touch on that too, because I think the reason why he's okay with you kind of deals a lot with the kind of balls for lack of a better phrase that you kind of showed for the highest. Like he, I feel like based on how he grew up, where he grew up and what his life was like before he became the bodyguard of Subaru, or Saka, the leader of their Saka company and family.
He kind of sees you and he sees like that same ambition, because I think he relates directly to knowing what you're going through and sure you may be going through it through a means that is much, much more kind of unlawful. But you know, what's lawful and unlawful is dictated by governments and corporations. I think some of the stuff that Arasaka does is probably considered unlawful until they decide to make it lawful for whatever they're doing or justify it. So, but I was, I don't know if you do want to go into it, or do you want me to go into his childhood and kind of how he was raised?
Go forward. This is a pet project for you. So feel free to take on a lot of the stuff. You did the, you grabbed a lot of the actual notes here.
So you did a lot of the hard work for me, but Goro Takumuro was born in Chibi 11, which is a dangerous district in Japan with the highest murder rate. While bathing in a river like all the other boys in Chibi 11, Arasaka recruiters came by and recruited the cleanest boys as they often do. Kind of weird. That sounds like recruitment.
That sounds like abduction. Yeah. And if it wasn't for the fact that these, these, I don't know, that the majority of these boys were going to grow up in terrible, terrible environments and they were in some way being saved from that future. It would be abduction, right?
But the idea is that they're being recruited. Like if you go from bad situation to not as bad situation, then it's a recruitment, right? If you're going from whatever situation to worse situation, then that's kidnapping. Yeah.
And I've seen the storyline in a couple other stories. I think Altered Carbon did a really interesting take on it where some of the characters in there were kind of recruited by a company has entrained up to be bodyguards or military leaders and things like that. So this is the same storyline that you get in Star Wars with the thin. Yeah.
Yeah. That's true. The stormtroopers. Like what's the word?
The stormtroopers. Like this is exactly the same kind of thing. This idea of like the big, bad empire, whatever that is, comes in and whisks away the poor children that have no future into service for them because they know they can. Yeah.
Even I would argue, you know, it even goes into some big franchises and gaming as far as like Halo, you know, what is Master Chief if not a child who was raised and tested on and cloned and had no life or had no freedom to speak of and has been born into this weapon. So seeing Goro talk him grow up in Japan and have to live this life. It was kind of clear that it was going to be kind of death or recruitment for him, not death by the air socket hands, but just through natural order of things. You know, there's only so much food and water for them to kind of go around in that situation.
So talking where I was chosen and felt like he had won the lottery, which as a kid being whisked away to a land where there's plenty of food and water, clothing, you know, places, sleep, safe environment. I can understand where they're coming from. He was conscripted into Airsaka's corporate army and eventually joined to their special forces divisions. So he's already pretty, pretty talented just based on that.
One day, Saburo Arasaka came to recruit one of the special forces operators to be his personal bodyguard and shows Takamoto out of hundreds of candidates. He idolized Saburo and developed Undying Loyalty to the Arasaka family, which is an interesting note. As Saburo's Arasaka's bodyguard, he received elite cyberware, including endoskeleton, reinforcing his neck and spine. Takamura even personally trained Sandeo Oda to be a cyber ninja in bodyguard to Hanaka Arasaka.
This was the thing that to me feels like the Ronin Samurai Warrior, the kid that grows up is conscripted by a samurai lord, raised in the ranks, taught how to fight, and then finds out that someone has killed his master. And he is seeking revenge for that. He is also seeking for justice for those that have been wronged and the honor that has been stained upon his name. It is such an amazing story in a lot of Japanese samurai films and to have it represented in cyberpunk in this way.
It was such a cool experience for me to go through because I've always idolized those kind of films in those kind of stories. I always loved that idea of tradition and honor. It's so beautiful to see it executed. And it was really interesting to kind of go through as V to be this kind of street kid and see all of this stuff without any kind of personal connection, but still feel that there was a way to kind of relate to Goro because he had been screwed over so much because of what you did, but also because of what Saburo's son was doing.
And if not for your noble, I feel like Goro probably would have killed you on site just for the dishonor that you tried to come in and steal his family's, or his master's relics and stuff like that. But because of the... You're basically a thief of the highest order sneaking into the home of his master to steal his most prized possession. Yeah.
And the interesting thing to go into, to dive a little bit into 2077 where we deal with him the most of the time is the fact that he actually trained Sudeo Oda, who we come in contact with pretty early into the story with Goro. And it was really interesting to kind of watch this kind of trust between two people. Imagine if you had trained someone to be a personal bar to guard and they looked up to you and then to call them and be like, I've been wronged. You don't understand what's going on.
I know you're loyal to Saburo's daughter, but you have to believe me when I say that Saburo's son is the one that killed Saburo. You have to have to put on the line loyalty to your master versus loyalty to your bodyguard. It's so crazy to watch this back alley thing. So I would love to hear your feelings on what did you end up doing or how did you approach that meeting with Oda down on the docks in the middle of the night with Goro?
Yeah, I remember that. I don't think I was too surprised. I think it was one of those things where it was like, they're not going to take his side on it because air sockets too powerful. It's the kind of thing where everybody who works for them knows that if they step out of line, that they are as good as they were worse than dead, that organization is so powerful and can hold the lives of the people around them hostage that there is no stepping out of line.
And Takamura himself would not have stopped that of line if it wasn't for himself even being put in such danger, personally. I also, as honorable and as loyal as he is, had he not been called out and blamed for the death of his name again, sorry, where's your response to my head? Saburo's death. Then I don't know that he would have openly pushed back against it as hard.
He probably would have been very grumpy. But being that he was an honorable person who served the company, he would have moved forward with it and maybe had retired early and worked behind the scenes. But I don't think he would have openly rebelled because he understood that the dangers of doing so. I don't know that he would have done that.
But he was dishonored as well in that. And you dishonored my master. You dishonored me. I'm going to stand against this.
Yeah, I don't know. It's one of those questions that comes about all the time. Had you lived in a different time, would you have sided with, let's say, if you had you lived in Nazi Germany in the 1930s, would you have helped the rise of Hitler? And most people will say, oh, no, I would have stood against that.
No, most of us would have been complacent with it. That's the nature of the situation. That's the nature of humans. That's the nature of evil.
It is only the rare people who had the foresight and the bravery or the lack of things to lose that were able to stand up against that. Because for the most part, until all of a sudden that situation turns bad and turns against you, it looks like it's to your own benefit. And then once it does turn bad and the situation becomes out of hand, then everyone starts realizing, oh my God, that the government is doing terrible things. Everyone's too afraid to speak up.
It grows out of hands too quickly. You're 100% right. And that's exactly what happens to talking about it. He has nothing left.
He has no one to protect. He has no connection outside of the few people that he has. He's just trying to reclaim some honor and some truth and get some justice out of what's going on. Right.
Hindsight is 20-20. And that's the thing. Like any group of people who consider themselves good people will look back on any terrible situation in the past and say, oh, no, I would have stood against that. But most human beings, as history shows, have been the same throughout history and in any situation will the average human will still make the same basic decisions.
The breakdown of people who stand against those things versus people who don't will always be about the same ratio. And it's because oftentimes we're blind to it or we value the things in the immediacy around us and our basic needs over the things in the long term or that are greater for the community. I mean, look at how many people still don't recycle or still don't believe in global warming or, you know, like, and let's not I don't want to get into the politics of all this. But it's because we put our immediate needs ahead of the things beyond ourselves because we on an evolutionary standpoint don't balance that yet.
We're not designed to, you know, I don't know. It's a much bigger issue. But let's go back to the cybercon side of this. I was not surprised to see that like he didn't either didn't believe him or wasn't willing to go along with him or needed to say the company line in order to, you know, go back to work and, you know, turn his head.
There was some mutual respect though. If I remember that situation correctly in that like, like, I'm going to, like, I don't know that he said it, but the understanding was basically I'm going to pretend that we never had this conversation never contact me again. You know, like, there was that like, I'll give you this one here, but don't put me in the situation again because my life and your life and everybody else's lives are a danger here. Like, let's just pretend it didn't happen.
Yeah. Well, so it's funny that you bring up the recycling thing and I won't linger on that, but I do have to, I do have to relate to cyberpunk because it's very apt that if most people are recycling, if most people are being concerned about, you know, whether climate change and things like that, that's when everyone else starts to kind of like stand up and be like, oh, okay, well, this is something that's exactly what goes with you. Yeah. He can't do it alone.
He needs help. That's why he's reaching out to you. That's why he's saving your life. That's why he's reaching out for Oda.
That's why he's trying to get more resistance, more people to try and see his thing. It's the entire reason why he feels like he has to get this meeting with Hanukkah, which is kind of the whole point of meeting up with Oda. He's trying to reach out to the people that he feels like he can trust to try and get this information, to try and get the truth about your Nobu killing Saburo to Hanukkah because Hanukkah is the only one that can stand up to your Nobu at this point. Yes.
Yes. So for Oda, there's nothing that can happen. So when I went into this meeting, I thought it was very interesting to find out that Oda was the one that Goro had trained. So when I went to the meeting, I was desperately hoping that Oda would actually help us, that he would find a way to get us a meeting with Hanukkah.
And, you know, after playing through it, I realized very quickly afterwards that that wasn't going to be the case. I even played through that like three times just to try and dig through the different dialogue options to see if maybe there was something I was missing, but I never found a way. And I'm kind of happy for it because it actually leads you into a really awesome kind of scene where you actually get to go into Little Japan. I think it's Little Japan, the little area that you, yeah.
And once you actually get into that area, that's when after that meeting, Oda's like, no, I can't support you in this. I'm just going to pretend like you never contacted me. Please know that regardless of whatever you do, I will protect Hanukkah with my life. And you're like, this sucks.
I can't believe you don't believe us, but I respect that you were going to do your job. We'll just try and stay out of your way. And that was kind of when I was like, okay, we're on our own. We really don't have anyone at this point.
So if I have any hope of getting this relic ripped out of my head so that I can survive, Goro is going to have to get this meeting with Hanukkah. And I'm going to have to talk to her. And we found out thanks to forgetting her name, but the fixer in that district, the little lady who runs Tiger Claw. Oh my god, I can't remember him.
She's the best. She's one of my favorite fixers. Yeah, she's great. One of those moments where everyone's going to yell at their car stereo.
I feel like so and so. We just want to give it a little bit of a extra cyberpunk. So, but yeah, she helps us get the information that we need about this celebration that's going on because for the most part, Hanukkah has always lived in Japan and stayed away from America and tried to keep away from Night City because she doesn't want to be involved. I'm actually struggling to remember what the reason for her coming was because I'm trying to remember if she was actually coming because she was going to celebrate something or if she was there because of her father's death.
And I'm leaning more towards that it was to have the ceremony for her father's death. Yeah, yeah. I'm going to I would just be guessing at this point because we're still thinking about these things that I hadn't played through a story in a long time. I think it was because of the father's death.
I think it was the whole the company came together in order to deal with the father's death and also the parade. Yeah, they were all in that for that. Yeah, it was such a beautiful moment. So I went into the actual to kind of we're kind of skipping over a little bit of stuff about some of your interactions.
Yeah, I don't know that we need to highlight every detail so much as just some of the things that stand out just because at this point, most people have played through these things. So let's just focus on kind of the most interesting bits. So let's talk about the actual parade and the floats and having to deal with that because that was probably one of the coolest kind of espionage missions that I think I had been on that didn't include the heist. There's the assault on Arasaka Tower with Johnny back in the past.
There's the heist with Jackie. That was really great. There's kind of the ending where you're going into Arasaka Tower however you choose to do that. But this was one of those moments where I really love the atmosphere.
It totally felt like something out of ghost in the shell with the big floating hologram fish and just the overall celebration, the big crowds and kind of moving your way through everyone and getting to different places because the whole goal of it was to try and take out these three snipers and a really strong really strong net runner to be able to get to Hanukkah. But you kind of knew in the back of your head because of that meeting on the talk that you're like, I'm going to have to deal with Oda at some point. Oda is going to be around. I don't know what that fight is going to be like.
But I'll be honest. I think that the Oda fight is better than the Adam Smasher fight. I mean, Adam Smasher is a big, big, brawling, metal dude with all sorts of explosives and guns and things. But in other than the technology that he holds, there's nothing particularly like Arasaka, but organization and the people that you deal with at Arasaka, the leadership, Takamura, Oda is very even the storyline.
Like you're saying, this is a rogue samurai kind of thing. It's very Japanese. I was bad, not Japanese. Like that, like that, like, automatically fits.
I mean, story-wise it fits because he works for the company. But dealing with Oda, like cyber ninja extraordinaire, definitely fit, right? Like that fit into all of it. That made sense from the kind of thing.
And another thing, this reminds me of another thing. In the same way that Star Wars is a space western. This is what makes Cyberpunk 2077 a Japanese samurai. Yes, right?
Totally. This is the Japarin. This is the space western two Star Wars that is Cyberpunk's Japanese samurai two. Yeah, totally feels like a Kurosawa film where you really have to come up against some of the hardest people that have been trained as your friends for life, only to have to fight them in the name of honor and uncovering.
It was so such a good fight. And I loved the atmosphere about how everything's at night, everything's in dimly lit rooms. The verticality of that, like, I, going through that a second or third time, begins to understand, okay, where are the different floors and where are these different areas and how does the scaffolding work? I gained a sense of like a three-dimensional space.
But, and you play games enough and eventually your brain just kind of does this easily, right? Like we're constantly navigating three-dimensional space in games. And you're able to, you know, take a look at the layout level or whatever and go, okay, I'll probably go around here and then you go around there and then you'll be on this other side. This is where this other thing is.
That's because it was so dark lit. There was a lot of contrast with lights. A lot of moving objects through the middle of two rows of buildings with scaffolding. You're going in and out of buildings.
You are frantically sometimes running from one place to another, trying not to get shot or having to deal with whatever communications coming through the thing. You have to figure out a way to get down to this other sniper without getting seen. There's a lot that you're processing as you go through that section that it took me a few times to get a sense of like the layout of it. The first time I went through it, it felt like I just kind of stumbled my way into wherever the next places I needed to go.
And it just happened to be in the right spot. And I was like, okay, cool. This is where the next thing is I have to kill them. Or there's some guards here I have to take out.
And I kind of like that. Like the fact that it felt dark and confusing. I felt like I could have turned the corner any point and come across the wrong thing or been seen. I don't know.
There are plenty of times where I would come down a step of stairs and there would be these giant drones patrolling right between the buildings. And I'm sitting on these stairs just like holding the handrails like, oh my God, I need to find a place to hide or I need to shortcut these things or do something that's not going to cause a big outcry. Because as soon as I do, everyone on comms is going to be alerted and I'm going to have to deal with everything getting screwed up and Goro's counting on me not to f this up. So I got to be cool about this.
And yeah, that was so good. I absolutely loved getting to the netrunner and taking them out. The question I have for you that I didn't realize was an option. And I feel like this is something that was kind of a fault of the game design because it's not really, it's kind of told you that you can do this with the non-lethal weapons.
But I killed Oda or Oda and I'm pretty sure most people probably ended up killing Oda. So I didn't know this, but if you save Oda, if you use non-lethal weapons on Oda and he lives, he's knocked out, that can actually impact the end of the game. It's kind of crazy because it's not something you think about, especially because you're specking out your character towards one or one specific build. So chances are, I would assume that something like 90% of the people specked out their characters in a lethal build of some sort.
Like they weren't just punching or hitting things with bats. They were shooting them with guns, they were shopping them with swords, or they were hacking them and burning them to death or whatever. Chances are, so it's not like one of those, had it popped up in a sequence where you then had the option, and I don't remember, I don't think it did that. You don't get the last hit on him and then all of a sudden you zoom in and he's like, please let me live and you decide yes or no.
It was more of you just are fighting and all of a sudden now is health bar is dead and the last thing you did was hit him with a sword or shoot him with a gun. Now he's dead. It's hard to know that that's an option because you aren't giving that option for other things. It's not taught to you ahead of time in a clear enough way to say like there's a running benefit to not killing everybody.
And you're 100% right because even with a lot of the cyber-suckos which is kind of where they try to teach you this mechanic of non-lethal combat, even with those, you really, there's no fail-sate for those. If you kill him, she gets mad, you know, fix it, get mad at you, but you're not penalized for it. You might not get as many credits, but they're like, you know what, I understand. Sometimes you just got to put him down and you don't really value that mercy option.
So when we started digging into this and we started looking into more of the actual plot line of Goro and finding out that first off, Oda could be saved, I was like, you know, I didn't realize that that was an option. I would have honestly, I probably would have spared his life just out of respect for him sparing my life back over time. Right. Like, had you had a conversation where he was just like, hold on, please don't kill me.
Remember, I spared your life. You know, would you be so honorable to grant me the same? I would go into hiding. Yeah, whatever.
You know, like, then you'd have the option. Okay. Yes. Or maybe you say, yeah, that's fine.
And then boom, punch him instead and knock him out and then leave, you know, like, or whatever. But yeah, that's a good idea. It's a fault in game design to an extent where a lot of the time when you're given a game where it's an RPG, they take away your agency without knowing that there's an alternative. And this isn't totally one of those instances where I feel like they really, really should have taken that moment and paused it before you killed him and had that dialogue option and said, hey, you know what, I realize you've bested me.
I respect your policies. Right. Yeah. I feel a warrior out of respect.
I yield. Give me that. You know, like, yeah, totally written that and feed it from this. But yeah, and I don't know that.
And you don't even have to say like, you don't even have to notice up there. This is something like this could affect the future of the game. You know, like, this could affect the ending. Like, you don't know when to remember that.
Right. Who would have remembered? You know, yeah, you don't need to add any of that stuff. Yeah, I totally could have seen that working.
But you know what, Logan, we are, we need to take the middle of the show here because we've been going for a while now. And when we do that, and then when we come back and talk about some of the differences in the endings, because I know that you had some thoughts on some things that could happen in the endings that you weren't originally where you were. That you thought were really cool. Right.
So let's do that. Let's go. Let's we got to think our patrons. Here we go.
It's time to thank our patrons. And I'm, it's sexy time too, because I'm taking off my jacket because it's a little warm here. And the computer screens have been lights have all been running. But that's what I do every time.
I just don't tell you guys that on the patron part, I get a little sexier. I can do it in a 64 state. I'll be like, thank you to all of our patrons. You have been the wind beneath our wings.
The things that keep us afloat and maybe even erect. But I'm not going to do that. So I won't, I won't do that. But thank you to our patrons.
You guys are amazing. Every, every week. I'm very, very thankful for you being here. Helping to support the show and keeping this going.
If you aren't a patron, then you are missing out because you can get every episode. You get episodes a day early. You get the ability to, depending on the tier you're at to join us at the end of the month and talk cyberpunk with us, which has been awesome. We've been doing this for the last few months and that group is growing and we always have such an awesome time.
You guys, I'm sure have been listening to some of those episodes as well. All sorts of fun stuff. So thank you to all of our patrons for helping us out. And it's being that this is the beginning of the month.
You've got a few weeks to consider signing up before the next patron episode where we chat with our patrons. So take a look at that. Patreon.com slash cyberpunk lore, I believe. I always forget the name of the different patrons.
I need to make shows Logan. But I'm sure if you go to the website, look in the show notes or Google it, it will show up. So thanks everybody. Let's move on with the show.
Oh, there you land lovers. A vast. My name is Captain Logan and I'll be your guide out on the Sea of the Thieves. If you love the idea of stealing treasure, cutting down curse skeletons, fighting off crackins and raiding forts, filled to the brim with shinies.
Then Sea of Thieves is the game for you. Join me each week as I dive into the news and bring back the nuggets of information. That any sailor worth their weight and salt would desire. You don't have to be a pyrelegant gain access to my podcast.
Just search for Kielhalt, a Sea of Thieves podcast, in your podcast app of choice. Or head over to robotsradio.net or captainlogan.podbean.com and get ready to set sail for adventure. Arrr. Twizzlers keep the fun going.
Yeah, I know. I just stopped whenever you were listening to you to tell you that Twizzlers keep the fun going. Well, irony is it my forte. But Twisty Chewy Yummy Twizzlers sure is.
So think of Twizzlers as a little palette cleanser for whatever's queued up. Which, by the way, should be coming very soon. Like any second now, okay Twizzlers, time to keep the fun going. Turtle Fallout 76 and Chat says, please never use your Husky Breathies late night radio announcer voice again.
I think I'm going to start a podcast that's just me talking like that. I have sleepy time stories which I haven't kept up with, which is me reading stories from Melbourne Scrolls in a like tone and people still listen to it. They use it to get sleep. There's only like, I don't know, 12 or 15 episodes or something.
But yeah, I could do a late night 70s announcer voice. It could be like an ASMR thing. Oh my God. I just I'm writing this out.
I just want to see how far it's going to go. So yeah, that's that. Please do not. Hey, baby.
Turtle Fallout 76. I want you to know that he's not the only one that can do something like this. We're all here for you nightmares. Maybe there's already.
Thanks for tuning in to the Cyberpunk Lorecast bringing you all the best from the Dark Future. These are the things that you two could find if you join us for the live episodes here on Twitch.tv forward slash robots radio. Yeah, we should do a camera. Add like that.
Anyway, so yeah, so you do or don't kill Oda and that can change the future of the game. And then there are some endings where you, I mean, there are many of the endings you coordinate with talking about in order to carry out the ending unless you've forced yourself. But then you were surprised by something. What were you surprised by at the end of the game?
So this was really crazy. We've kind of hit that no return point with his story. Oda is kind of the capping up point because once you deal with Oda and whatever fashion you deal with, you then get to have that meeting with Hanukkah to bring the light, the truth about your newbo killing Subaru and bringing dishonor to to Goro. And at that point, it's kind of one of those moments where she kind of blows you off and that's it's kind of a killing point in the story because it's just like, wait, what?
Did you not hear the part about how your brother killed your father? Like that's kind of a big deal and she just she kind of blows you off. But you end up kidnapping her. Goro actually is just like, all right, we're taking you with us and he knocks her out.
I think it sleeps dark or something. And you kidnap the heres to the Eresaka family fortune and it's kind of nuts. But that's where the point takes you to this meeting in a hotel room where you're pretty certain that you're just going to be having this sit down chat with Hanukkah to try to explain like, this is what's going to happen. This is what I need you to do.
This is how we're going to wrestle control away from your newbo and also help V get this relic out of his head. And it's at that point that after you have this conversation, you really start to kind of realize like, there's, there's, and I went through all of this and it was kind of the point where I was like, okay, I'm going to have to get Eresaka's help with this. I don't want to get Eresaka's help with this relic, but it feels like the way the game is pushing me. This is my, this is my through line to surviving.
Yeah, no other choice. I'm going to die. Right? Yeah.
It's like you don't have to, again, you have to deal with the evil empire because it's your only choice. Right. And it was, it was kind of nuts. So this was, this was kind of crazy.
So if you go through this, what ends up happening is the kidnapping is attempted, you know, after you kidnap her, you take her out and not take her out, not take her out, but Eresaka forces basically descend upon you at the apartment complex. They bust in smashers there. They got a whole bunch of really well armored troops, really heavy, like apple seed looking boys, which you don't understand, anime reference. I apologize.
Just look at apple seed. You'll totally understand it when you play through it. And they kind of come in and knock everyone to the ground. They, they grab Hanukkah and take her out in an AV and you fall through the floor.
And Johnny at that point is just like, get up, get the F out of here. We're, the building is going to collapse or you're going to get killed. And I'm in your, I'm in your brain and I don't want to be there for that. And you know, it's Johnny.
Johnny's been with you this whole time. He's been that voice in the back of your head telling you what's best for yourself or both of you. So I trusted him. I just ran there, but I found out today when we're doing research, you can actually go save Takamura, who I just assumed died.
And I was just like, well, that's the end of that storyline. That sucks. I guess I'll have to do whatever I've got to do with the rest of my life. Yeah, I had the same assumption.
I had the same assumption that like, okay, this is, this is the end of his story. Period. Like there's no other option for this. This is just it.
Yeah. So this was, this was the crazy part. I, upon finding out that you can totally ignore Johnny and you can find your way back up to the, the third floor, the upper floors from where you fell down. You can actually murder a whole bunch of really armored guys.
And just, you know, blast your way through the hallways. It's, it feels like a matrix. It's so nuts. That's crazy.
I have to go back and do that. Yeah. Yeah. I'm totally doing.
And whether you trust Johnny or not as you as V trusting Johnny in the character as a role play decision, or you are playing it like a video game and you're already going through this intense stuff and you trust him as if it's the game telling you this is where you go next. Doesn't make sense? Like that's what it feels like. It feels like a, okay, you did a thing.
Here's where you go next. Just so it's clear. You don't have any options. Go there.
Do it. Right. Like that's kind of what I felt like. This, this is where I think that the game design really stepped up for me because upon reading this and finding out and watching videos about it, this was where I realized like the, the story that they've written here is, is like another level because they're doing the game thing.
They're doing exactly what games do. They guide you along to tell you what your next step in the progress of the quest is. But what they're not, what, what gamers are not realizing is that the game is treating the characters as if they're real. Johnny has the same amount of information as you do and is only basing his logic off of what he knows that you've seen.
So his assumption that Goro is dead is based solely on your perspective and it's only through your loyalty to Goro that you would break away from that game guiding aspect and go try to find his body. Yeah, that's interesting. You know, like you would have to want it enough to test the boundaries. Yeah.
Like the game design boundary of, no, let me just go see. Let me just try this. It's like, it's like when you enter up and when you're playing puzzle game and there's clearly a light on the door that you're supposed to exit. But you decide to go, I don't know if I fully trust that as the only exit of the room and then you check all the dark corners.
That's the same kind of thing. We all know the door is the place you go to next. You just follow the doors and 90% of the time, 99% of the time. That's the next door you open and you just keep going to the next doors.
But, you know, but it's almost like, um, it's almost harkens back to Super Mario Brothers. Yeah. In that sense that like, you know, and maybe I'm wrong, but until I played Super Mario Brothers, you would start on the level. You would continue through the level.
You get to the end of the level. You start the next level. You continue through the level. You get to the end of the level.
But all of a sudden you have to start testing pipes to see if you can go into a secondary level in the level or you have to hit all the boxes to see if there's an invisible box that has a vine that you can climb into the clouds and do a secondary level. Like, we're adored that idea of like breaking the expectation of the gamer is something that's happened before. And I don't know that we've seen it happen in this way. We definitely have an RPG, but in the same sense that it feels like we're in a guided section of the game and then all of a sudden there's a storyline thing that affects the end of the game and a character survives.
Not to this extent, definitely. I don't know. I don't know. This is definitely one of those moments where they've really excelled at the design of the game because of how it impacts the rest of the game with that character.
You could totally argue that some of the hidden rooms in Portal or Portal 2 can totally be analogous to breaking the expectation and rewarding the curiosity or the disregard for the guided path of the game design. I still get out at the end, but you still complete the story the same way. It's not like had you found one of those side things that all of a sudden you realize at the end that your parents are alive. True.
Yeah. That's part of it that makes it different. Yeah, it does just kind of add flavor in Portal and stuff. This ultimately does impact the ending of the game, which is that was the crazy thing to me.
First off, that you actually save Goro and two that it actually impacts the end of the game because I went through the end of the game the way that you have to see this ending to see this play out. It was totally different. It was interesting because after going through this, if you save Goro and you choose the path of going down with Arasaka, you agree to have Arasaka do the removal and to save your life or potentially save your life. However, it ends up then that's when you actually have Takamoto join you in your quest to go to Arasaka Tower.
That's where you actually run into the situation where he's with you most of the time. He's actually there. This is kind of skipping forward a little bit, but this is the point where you actually get to the Adam Smasher fight. We've talked in the past about the endings of the games and kind of diving into those and how it feels like each person has a set type of ending for that game.
Someone gets killed, someone survives, or someone's with you, or maybe you're alone in certain instances. This was a path that I didn't expect. To have Goro at the end of this fight, I got to watch the video and I'll actually give credit to the video that actually did it. Yes, so video was covering the Takamoto storyline and thanks to his video, I got to watch it from that perspective instead of having to play through the game an entire time.
This saved me a lot of trouble, so thanks to him for that. But watching it, the dialogue between Goro and Adam Smasher was very interesting. At the very end here, I wanted to pose a question to you before I kind of talk about what I noticed in the video was how much different is Takamoto to Adam Smasher from your perspective. Because from my perspective, most of them are pretty close to full on Borg, and both of them are bodyguards to Arasaka Eirs or owners.
They're both trying to do the same thing. So I'm curious, do you see much difference between Takamoto and Smasher? They both want the same thing. Yeah, my first thought is on a D&D grid since I feel like Takamura is lawful, neutral.
He's doing what's best for him. He's doing what's best for whatever situation he's in, but he's following. This is the situation that was presented to him. These are the boundaries and he's being loyal and honorable and everything he does.
I think Adam Smasher is probably more chaotic neutral, or not lawful. In fact, he may even just be evil. He clearly can hold a job and works for an organization. So he's not chaotic evil.
He's not trying to destroy or everything, but he's also not the kind of person who cares what anyone thinks or obeys traffic lights, I'm sure. He's got to be neutral evil. He just does what's best for him no matter what. And as long as you pay him, he'll stay on the payroll because that's just what he does.
I think that's the difference is that if you would have a conversation with Adam Smasher and he said, I promise I will do this, he would never believe it. I don't know. I actually think if he said something like that, but it was what he was told to do, I think he would. I think the difference is that there's a, because I feel like they're on the same level.
They're almost exactly the same person. But I think that the difference there is comes down to empathy. And I think Takamuro is better as a person because of his ability to empathize. And I think that that's the thing that's masking.
So that's where I wonder. If that is just, is the narcissism, is the lack of empathy, that's just something that is inherent to Adam and you can kind of explain it away because of the Borg status of him. Or is that just something that was, did him turning more Borg push him to that? And if pushed, would Takamuro lose that empathy as well if he started becoming more and more Borg?
And I wanted to ask that question. The whole game we're dealing with is concept of cyberpsychosis. It's constantly threaded throughout the game. And all the different zones you have to deal with people who are suffering cyberpsychosis, where psychosis has struck a person and they've lost control.
And with Adam Smasher being on the brink of full Borg, it makes me wonder if empathy was one of those casualties to his change and how far off is Takamuro from just often you, the way Smasher would, if you would just a hair further pass that line of human and Borg. I think that what I know about Adam Smasher is that he's always been a terrible person. He was always a mercenary. He was always someone out for himself.
And on some levels enjoy his work. It gets off on killing other people or just dominating them. That kind of thing. So he was already close to, he was already non-empathetic at the beginning.
So there wasn't that much further that the technology would have to push him to get to the point where he was just not human because he just really wasn't even that human to begin with. Takamuro is a very human person. He may be less human than he was once at one point because of the technology, but I think that fundamentally he holds two ideals. I don't think Adam Smasher holds to any ideals.
I think that might be the difference. Is that Adam Smasher does what's in his own interests and what's best for him. And like I said, if the corporation can't even use pay him and he gets what he wants, he gets what he wants. He does his job because that's all he's ever known.
He's a mercenary. He gets paid to do his thing. He does this thing. Takamuro is about his idealistic.
There are ideals. It is about honor. It is about tradition. It is about trust.
It is about, you know, like these are the things. And he may rearrange the way he believes the way the world to work so that they fit into those ideals. He may justify some things on occasion in order to continue doing the things that he does. But deep down, he still holds to those things.
I think that's the difference. So here's a really interesting thing that thanks to watching the video, I probably would have had to play through this entire storyline to be able to get to this point. And it's not something that I've seen in any of the dialogue that I've or any of the actual stuff that you see going into looking up research about him. But in that fight, Smasher refers to Takamuro as a traitor, which I think is very interesting for a bodyguard, a mercenary, a murderer who cares not for other people to have that sense of a traitor.
Yeah, but is that because he cares about traitors or is that because he will use any because he knows that that is biting to his adversary? Who? Right? Like, I hadn't considered that.
Right. Like, I don't have to believe you're a traitor in order to use that as a word that will manipulate you emotionally because I know who you are and I know what you believe. That would be head games right there. That's the more that's the more sinister, like, uh, scene like a kind of thing of it doesn't matter what I think like what I think doesn't matter at all.
What matters is what manipulates you. And I know that that would burn him by saying your traitor. Yeah. And I see it's a try and draw a Star Wars parallel.
It's that difference between Emperor Palpatine goading Luke to striking down versus Finn coming across that comrade in arms, that other stormtrooper and the stormtrooper being so disgusted with what Finn has become that he screams out the word traitor and starts attacking Finn. It's it makes me wonder, like, is this a mind game from Smasher? Because I hadn't considered that. I had always been kind of leaning on that.
They're on the same lines. They're both bodyguards to Arasaka family members. One of them died and one of them failed at their job and is now fighting against the family. And it makes me wonder is Smasher loyal to your Nobu?
What happens with with Goro at the end of this when you kill Smasher? Because eventually you end up taking out your Nobus, your Nobus bodyguard. And that's that's kind of when that pushes us into the last bit of the story, which I thought was very interesting because this was a discussion that we had in one of the previous episodes to give a quick recap. You end up meeting up with your Nobu in his room.
Hanukkos know where to be found and Smasher is dead. And as you're approaching the room where your Nobu is at, Goro says he can't move go on. Because at that point, I was watching the video and I'm like, what's gonna happen? What is Goro gonna do to this guy that killed his master?
The man who picked him out of the Special Forces group and brought him up to the personal bodyguard to the family corporation. What is he gonna do to his son? How do you get away with that? And he holds himself back.
He actually has self control and Goro says, no, I can't go into that room. I will kill that man. And I'm like, oh, that's crazy. He goes all the way to the very end of this revenge plotline.
And he stays his hand. And he lets you take the choice. And I'm just like, phew, I'm loving. Wow, I wish I'd gotten to play through this.
So you go in, you talk to your Nobu. He says, you don't know what you've done. You don't know what's going on. And you're like, I hate you.
You suck. You're an idiot. You've lost everything. And Hanoko comes in and is like, I love you.
I'll take care of you. Don't worry about it. And then you find out later on when you go up to space. Hanoko's like, yeah, go with Hellman, who is the dude who invented the relic and he's the one that's gonna help you get it all taken out.
He's like, go with Hellman. He'll get the relic taken out. And then, well, thank you for helping me on my end. Helping Hanoko take control of the Arasaka Corporation.
It's not what happens. You go up into the space station. Hellman hands you off to the Arasaka Corporation. The Corporation removes the relic and the tumors.
You no longer have Johnny, but you wake up in the space station. You're going through all these cognitive tests and response tests and stuff. It's a whole new thing. But that's where you find out that.
So Burro has now inserted himself via relic engram into your Nobu's body. And the whole world is just blown away. Like the leader of the company is now in a mortal God at this point, who has taken his son's body is consentually. Maybe we don't really know how how concerned that was.
I think knowing him, probably not. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah.