Guest: OwlyForest – Mega Man Speedruns: Fast and Friendly!

00:00:00Now it's time for Spelfarsa, my friends, and now we have a new exciting episode of speedrunning and content creation and all megaman. And we have a very special guest today with us, and it's the one and only Oli Forest. So welcome to the show. Hello there. Yeah, well, I'm first. I'm honored that you wanted to have me on here. I'm Oli Forest. I'm a speedrunner. I run a variety of different games, but probably... anybody who's heard my name ever has associated me with megaman x content i love classic megaman as well but x is just the series where my heart is but i've run other things too some double dragon some pilot wings uh offline i've been practicing mario man 2 the the six golden coins i've just i've got a lot of retro content that i love to dabble in

00:00:54And just lately in the past two or three years, I've gotten really interested in doing the games fast. So I'm sort of bringing on all of my audience along with me on this journey. Like, why don't we learn to do all of the fun things in the games that we love? That's sort of how we started our channel. Mostly it was a pandemic project. I think a lot of projects are. And then, you know, it kind of grew its own identity from there. So, yeah, we post, you know, speed run content, challenge content. We host some contests. And occasionally I'll do a live stream here and there. Sounds very intriguing, all that. I'm also super glad that you mentioned how to pronounce your name, because that's always one of the first questions I have. Like, how do you pronounce the gamer tag or the name? But I think you said Owly Forest. Owly Forest. Yeah. Do you also have a short for that? Does anyone ever call you Owly? Yes, they do.

00:01:47Absolutely. All right. So if I happen to do that during the podcast, you won't get super annoyed and leave in a huff. So that's good to know. Awesome. I think Oscar mentioned that we actually have for all of you who are listening in right now, we have usually like a five minute startup. And during that, Oscar mentioned that we have indeed our third world record holder with us today. So I thought we should just... Make that very clear so that we don't forget it when we get further into the episode. We're very honored to have you here, of course. And also, on the day of recording, it's actually a very special day over in the United States as well. It's the 4th of July, and it's not just the 4th of July. It's a very special 4th of July year, which is pretty cool as well. So doubly honored to have you with us here today.

00:02:39Just want to mention that before we get all lost in Mega Man country. Yeah. So, shall we keep to the traditions? Yeah, we were arguing if we shouldn't, but then Owly actually said that he wanted to listen in on one of our classic traditions. So, before we get stuck into gaming, let's get stuck into something else. I mean, we had a little something. Yeah. So, as one, the first part of this tradition is that... Linda, who is the one who's always opening up the beverage first. Her mic usually is too efficient and it cuts out the audio. So I have to describe the thing that's happening. But I think we can all see that we have mission accomplished. We have something. We have something. And I felt like this was very good for tonight's session because for us here in Sweden, it's very late. So I found this beer called Late Night Craving. I don't know if you can see from the glare here. Oh, yeah, you can see it.

00:03:37And it's a pretty gruesome hand, I think, hand. Okay. I thought it was a squid first. I was about to say, yeah, that's an octopus, but no, okay. It has nails and rings. Yeah, I saw that. So it's sort of a gangster octopus slash hand thing. It's one of the coolest octopi. Octopi, yeah. And how would that taste is the follow-up question here. Very hazy. Hazy hands. No jazz hands, but hazy hands. Close. I mean, you can't get everything right. Oskar, what are you swinging? It's the classic, and for one that doesn't know the classic, it's basically cola plus some rum, usually. I'm actually doubling up on the classic as well, and as I usually say, I'm going to Winnie the Pooh the living heck out of it.

00:04:33Make sure it's taste all the way down to the bottom is what I'm going to do throughout the show. I don't think we have anything more of importance from our end before jumping into this. Oskar, do you want to mention anything before we do? No, I don't think so. I think we can get going, so to speak. Yeah, awesome. We had a brief intro from Auli, of course, but my follow-up question to that would be, how did you come up with your name? That's usually... Sometimes there's a story behind it and sometimes not, but I always ask the question when given the chance. Sure, yeah. Well, so originally it wasn't Owly Forest, but Owly Forest was the location where my character persona resided. It was a location originally, the Owly Forest, the Forest of Owly. I had a different owl username before that, and then I just decided, you know, let's make this...

00:05:33a little more approachable. So I changed it to Alley Forest. Maybe it's not the most exciting story, but... I mean, not all origin stories has to be like a Marvel-esque adventure. It could just be a cool little happenstance. That's probably how most of those stories go. Super glad that at least there was something attached to how that all happened. Also, attachment to the name, is that how... I know that you have both a Twitch channel and a YouTube channel. Is that the name of both of those as well? Yes. So I've got Owly Forest on Twitch, on Kik, on YouTube, on all the socials that's Owly Forest. On Twitch, I also have a second alias that I will sometimes show up and be social on. I really just reserve that for just when I don't want to be the streaming persona. I want to be, you know, my other alter ego. I guess I have a lot of alter egos. I mean, who doesn't, right? Right.

00:06:32But how roughly, how often do you stream on Twitch or stream at all? Is it like once a week or what? Yeah, I've been trying to aim for once a week, especially during this most recent grind. I was trying to get on at least once a week to share, you know, the progress, the different things I was trying out. It's become a little bit, I needed a little bit of break after the last grind. So it's been a little bit less lately, but I'm going to get back into it again. Because there are a couple more projects that I would like to finish up on. So how did you get into Mega Man? Did you pick it up as a child or as a later thing? Oh, yeah. I honestly can't remember which it was. But either I got Mega Man 2 as a birthday gift or I watched Captain N, the Game Master.

00:07:25And there was a character, Mega Man, on there that I got curious about. It was one of those two things that got me interested. And certainly I did play a lot of Mega Man 2 once I did get that as a birthday gift. Wonderful game. I never played the original up until like 1991 or 92. So I was late getting around to the original, but Mega Man 2 just really rocked my socks. There's usually a favorite in every series. I guess, is that still the favorite one for you? Or have you moved on to other entries in the series by this point? Oh, there are so many that I really liked. I liked three a whole lot. I loved four. I think five is where I sort of kind of fell off a little bit. But then Mega Man X came out. And that was the bright spot in my childhood. So I was, you know, I was a young preteen by that point.

00:08:13This new edgy Mega Man and his futuristic world shows up and it's you and X against everybody. And I thought this is everything to me. So that became my favorite series. Yeah, I can agree with that. I have a similar story of growing up with the NES era and then picking up X was amazing. So having said that, we have at least... I think Mega Man has been semi-good at keeping it old school, but a lot of these older classic series have dabbled into the 3D world at this point. Do you have any preference still on the 2D platforming or the 3DS? Like if you put them against each other, would you still say that the old school is the true form, if you want to call it that? Or are you open to like new interpretations of Mega Man? Yeah, you know, I've always been really curious about what a 3D...

00:09:04world Mega Man would be like. And I know about Legends. I know about Legends, but it's not... I think they could do it better. I think it was a wonderful game. But I think, you know, there's territory to be explored. So I think the 2D platform is where my heart is, but I'm very curious if we can turn that corner and sort of see what would a more open world concept be like. And I'm really curious if anybody's going to do that one day. Yeah, especially if you had creators like the ones that are making Sly or maybe Ratchet & Clank, and you could go with good controls, especially, and a knock-on system and so on, then you could probably get a decent action platform Mega Man in three dimensions. Yeah, I would even go so far as to say a little RPG within the Mega Man world would be kind of cool, given the right circumstances. But then, you know, that is kind of key to having a good game.

00:10:00in any type of game. You have to have the right people on it. But super cool. Oskar, do you have any sort of, seeing as you are dabbling within the same Mega Man speedrunning venue, do you have any sort of story on how you came across Owling, which could be interesting for the listeners? Yeah, I would say that first, when I started out, I was trying to get guidance. glitch hunting or tutorial videos or anything and i think it was when basically finding your content on youtube and from there i think it was just that i was starting to ask questions especially like how to perform certain glitches and so on so that's basically the story for for how we got in contact. And then you were going to invite me to the community, so to speak, around this game. Which is exactly where I hoped you would end up, because talking about community is often super interesting when talking about any game that's particular speedrunning. I guess this is a dual question to both of you, but how would you, and I'm guessing we're starting with you, Ali, how would you describe the community surrounding

00:11:20this particular game, or perhaps the Mega Man franchise, if you have any experience of the larger brand? Yeah, there are different, I think, camps? Maybe that's the wrong word for it, but there are some different groups, and I think that Mega Man X8 Demake was one that picked up a good number of people in that larger community, but it didn't reach everybody yet. I say yet, because I'm still working on them. The larger X community surrounds that. And then I think there's another band even outside of that is the general Mega Man lovers. So three major layers there. I can really relate, I think, strongest to the X community. They, I think, were really big about 10 years ago. And over the years, I think a lot of them gained new responsibilities, new jobs, new... Yeah.

00:12:14kinds of things. And you lose contact with your favorite games. You sort of go offline for a while. But I know that they're still out there. And I'm really excited when they pop back in and, you know, they show up. Have you ever had contact with these really old-school veterans like Tiki and Walrus Prime and these type of guys? Oh, yeah. So I never really got to talk with Walrus very much, but Tiki... So earlier this year, I don't know if you're familiar or a giant fan of Mega Man X2, but a giant glitch was discovered with that. That brought Tiki back out. So Tiki was in the Discord. We were labbing strats together. I got to feel like I was big and important. I was like, yeah, I'm talking to Tiki. Yeah, he's like the grandfather of Mega Man X speedrunning. Getting OJs back into the mix of things is always a very special feeling.

00:13:08regardless of what game we're talking about. But it's always one of those fangirl moments where it's like, yeah, we're talking to this person now. That is so cool. Basically, you mentioned like life happens. But if I understood you correctly, there's still a lot of OGs like adjacent or at least still connected in some way to the ongoings of the speedrunning community. If so, that is... Very cool, I would say. Oh, for sure. They're still out there. I think they're all kind of keeping eyes on what the latest thing is. And, you know, if there's a big new glitch, they have to take advantage of, you know, what's hot, what's happening, that kind of stuff. They're all kind of keeping the pulse on it. But yeah, I think that as for people who are active online and running the games and sharing it with people, it's not as big a number. If I, let's hypothetically say that because Oscar's recently done it, but if I was an

00:14:04and budding wannabe speedrunner and this game caught my fancy. Would it be easy to break into the community or what's the easiest way to get into it and getting up and starting with it? I think you'd have a great time meeting this community. It's one of these groups that it's not cutthroat at all. We're not trying to outdo each other. We're one of the groups that if we set... a bar someplace, we're more than happy to have somebody else pass it. You know, we actually want to help you do that if that's what you want to do. So a very welcoming community then, which sounds really nice. And that's, I think, of course, there are always exceptions. But in general, many speedrun communities are friendly. And then, of course, there are some super competitive ones also. But it is, from a hobby perspective, it's usually quite a nice experience.

00:15:00So when it comes to Mega Man X8D, is that how you say the short form of it, or do you say the long form of it? And that's for both of you, because you're the ones actually running the speedrun. I'm just one of those happy little fans watching it. What is the good thing about the game, both from a general perspective, but also from a speedrunning perspective? Because to me, speedrunning is always something that I've enjoyed watching a lot, but... to actually get into it and do the daily grind and keep the enthusiasm level up for a prolonged period of time. All of those are very interesting ingredients, I guess, that in some way, at least to my understanding, that would have to tie back to the general enjoyment of the base game. Or am I just totally lost on that? That's why I'm hoping that both of you could expand a little bit about that. What's the draw of this game?

00:15:53I think it reaches a lot of really interesting audiences. So I say Mega Man X8 16-bit demake if I'm submitting it someplace and they've never heard of the game before. But otherwise, I'm going to call it X8 demake. Okay, cool. Yeah, and I think it pulled in a lot of people who had never played an X game before, or at least had never speedrun one, because it's just so good as a speedrun game. And so you wouldn't have even had to enjoy the classics first. You'd maybe just have to have an interest in platformers, in my opinion. But what would you say? No, but I would say that for me, I have played, and I'm not really speedrun the original X series. And for me, the original X series is the SNES ones. I'm not really that much into the PlayStation versions. But I...

00:16:48For me, I thought that the original X series has been had, I have seen it so much so and for me it was really a fresh thing to find a new X game. So that was the kind of the draw why I started it and then To be frank, I was trying to find a game to actually try out Speedrun. It's a thing that I've fought for a long time. And for me, it was nice to find something where you don't have like 300 names on the leaderboard and you don't have like, it's a bit more niche and you have a little something special. And it's a freaking good game, basically. No, I agree with all of that. How would you... I do appreciate that it's not as daunting to get into the community when it's a bit smaller and it's easier to grasp. But on a difficulty level, I mean, a lot of the old school Mega Man games are notoriously hard. I mean, before even attempting to speedrun them. Where would you put this game on the difficulty scale when it comes to just the game itself? Okay, so if you're starting from a solid platforming base, you know how to...

00:18:07used controls, you know how to, you know, you've studied what the upgrades mean. I think this offers you a really nice on-ramp. I think that once you reach a certain level of upgradedness, that this game can't stop you anymore. It just can't win. You will win the game if you reach past a certain point. But doing it fast, I think, is a whole other question. Yeah, that was my follow-up, like, because... Just getting through the game, I had the good fortune to actually be with Oscar the first time we went through the game. So I could see the first run where we just tried to work out which levels and how to get to them and in which order. And then we managed to muddle through, but it wasn't pretty. And then just, I think, within a month, you came back and you already had a totally different feel for the game and routing and a lot of other stuff.

00:19:05It was kind of a cool way to see you breaking into the game and then just starting to grow into the speedrunning venue as well. Yeah, and I think as someone that picks up this game from the first time, the most daunting thing would be after you have finished the first intro stage is that you are quite weak, so to speak. And what level you choose can severely affect what your feelings will be about the... the game depending on what boss you start to try on so i would recommend maybe to at least if you don't want to go completely blind to just take a short youtube video or something just that you would have a much more comfortable ride so to speak yeah yeah and why not check out all these videos for that you know

00:19:59It's not every day we can plug a world champion, so I'm going to take every opportunity to do that. Following up on getting into it and then getting into it in such a level that you're now very high up on the lists, is that a driving force for you now? Just trying to tie that into, do you have any general goals with this at this point, seeing as you've already come so far with it? Yeah, so just recently I found out I'm going to have to grind the game some more. So I don't know how far I'm going to go with it, but I got accepted to go to Montreal and do this at No Reset 9. So I'm going to go and attend that event, and I want to be in good shape for it. I left things off with a 33.56, and I think I could maybe get 20 more seconds back.

00:20:56For those out there who aren't familiar with, is that the current record for now, or where are the good times at the present? Well, I think anybody who finishes it can call it a good time, right? But if you want to talk about optimized routes and really no wasted frames and that kind of thing, I think theoretically it is even possible to get a 30-minute finish time. Oh, wow. do not know how close a human is going to get to that. Yeah, that's good to point out that there are vast differences between routing something like automatically and someone actually talks 100% also. Yeah, that's also good to mention. If you wanted to have a really competitive time, I think you're talking probably about the 40-minute barrier. I think this doesn't necessarily speak to any...

00:21:53particular suite of strats that you're pulling on but it does kind of speak to a familiarity with the game and you kind of see a wall in the leaderboard develop around around the 40 minute line where where folks are like really deciding if they're going to be super serious about speed running this and grind it for a while or if they were you know just trying to get to a level of proficiency and 298 tries to pass the 40 minute mark so that is ballparking a bit at least like what kind of effort it takes. And then of course it depends on how much you have an inkling of what the history have and other games you played and so on and so forth of course. I mean obviously if you're a god of gaming then everything will be easier but it's still a very cool little tidbit to know like ballparking it always helps.

00:22:46You mentioned that you were on your way to an event of sorts. And could you say a little bit more about that for people who aren't in the know of what that event would be? Sure. So I learned about it this year. I started getting interested in going to different in-person events that you can perform live on stage. And they'll stream it too. So there's a virtual component as well to a lot of these events. And the No Reset series, this is the ninth one, is held in Montreal. And it's a variety of different games. It's not all just Mega Man stuff. But this year, they happened to be interested in some Mega Man stuff. So Mega Man X8 Demake is one that they invited to join. And there's a backup as well if they need it. So there's potentially even two things that I'm going to run while I'm there. And that is held in September. Well, it's just before Labor Day. All right.

00:23:38I think, for me at least, that was a new one. I hadn't heard about that one before. Maybe I've heard the name. I did know that you have been on other things like, what was it, GDQ visiting PAX, if I was remembering correctly, or what? Yeah, at PAX East one year ago in April or some such, GDQ had a stage at PAX East. I did a Mega Man X run there. There was the... The VGM con most recently up here in Minnesota. And I attended that for Midwest Speed Fest. There was also the MAGFest, which is the Music and Gaming Festival's speed run thing. That was in January. So I've been doing kind of a, I guess that's kind of a lot of in-person events, but I really do like them. Yeah. Just about to mention that, like from what you're saying, is that something that you've grown to like more as you...

00:24:35been around the community for a while or is that something that you discovered that you enjoy and therefore you're like attending more of them as you go along i think it's a little bit of both once i found out that there there are groups that want to host events and they're looking for people who run games i thought could i do that and you know so i found out yeah i can it's actually kind of fun you get to meet a lot of nerds who love your game or who just love games in general and yeah i think that's kind of nice i think for me and oscar we have i mean this is the first time this year that we actually have an active participation as oscar will be a part of the esa um later this summer but which is awesome and looking forward to that tremendously but we have been to a lot of like esports venues and gaming focused events throughout the years and i think our experience with it is that it is an entirely

00:25:30It's an entirely thing of its own, so to speak. Even if you enjoy gaming in general, getting to one of these events is, as you mentioned, a great place to just run across people that have the same enthusiasm level for the type of games that you're into or this type of hobby you're into. And I just want to ask, do you feel that, as well as we do, that it's an entirely different thing? It's hard to describe unless you've actually been to one of those to pick up on what it's all about. Yeah, I think it's a very different atmosphere. You certainly meet people with a different type of experience. And sometimes you'll draw some of the people online because they hear there's an in-person event. They like them, too. But you often meet people who you would probably never have met if you had only stuck to the Discord or only on YouTube. And, you know, you meet some very nice people along the way. Make some cool connections if you ever need to collab with people on another outside project. It's really nice.

00:26:27That's actually, I didn't even think about that, but obviously that would be a cool way to run along and then run into people that was like, yeah, we came into the same thing here. Let's make something interesting together. I didn't even think about that, but that sounds like a great spot for chemistry like that to happen. I mean, Oscar and I ran into a dancing, what was it? At the last ESA, we had that cosplaying dancing guy. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Lobster Man? I can't remember which game it was, but he was... Yeah, exactly. I think it was Mario Kart. He had a thing of dressing up as a lobster. Yeah. I think it was something that he used to do with his community, but obviously, seeing as we had never seen him before, that was the first time we ran across Lobster Man. We were just thinking about, like, if I hadn't gone to that specific event, then that would have never happened in my life, and I wouldn't have been the same person, so...

00:27:22For all of you out there, if you have the chance, I mean, obviously, it depends a lot on where you happen to live. But getting to a live event, at least to me, is always a special thing in some way, at least. Then, of course, some of them have been super awesome. Some of them have been good. But I've never been to a bad one. I guess I just jinxed myself there tremendously. All things considered. Do you have a similar experience that most of the events you've been to so far have been good experiences? Yeah, I really do think so. So I've been to three so far for gaming. And they've all been stellar. I think I've always been a little bit wary of getting some sort of flu or virus while I'm there. But so far, nothing like that's happened.

00:28:11I probably just jinxed myself too. Yeah, I was about to say, you picked up my jinxing pattern straight away, so at least now we're double jinxed, so I don't have to go out in the blaze of solo glory here, which feels nice. Do you usually have a companion with you that takes care of the, what do you say? Commentary? Yeah, the commentary for your run, or you do it yourself. So for a couple of them, I've had a commentator. I think I'm going to be doing solo at No Reset, unless I can find somebody who lives probably in Montreal, but I'm not really sure if I do know anybody in that area. Especially somebody who knows X8D Bank. But, you know, we'll see how it goes. I've got some time maybe between now and then. I guess it would almost be...

00:29:03The difference between having to do it all on your own and having someone to take a bit of weight off, I would assume that actually could impact the run itself because you don't have to have as many thoughts in your head at the same time when you're having someone talking for you, so to speak. Do you feel like that actually has some sort of truth to it? Or was I just grasping here, which I could almost certainly be doing? It is such a big deal. It saves your life. It saves your life to have somebody there. So I was watching you, Reggie, and Oscar. I was watching you both on the Speedrun channel. It looked like you made a great team. Thank you. And so I very much like that kind of dynamic myself, where I can really focus on, you know, okay, this is the part that I always choke on. I'm going to just totally zone in on this.

00:29:59and not have to worry about any kind of thing that's being said in the back of that. That's amazing. So I don't know what your speedrun background is right now, but if there are games that you know that you have trouble spots in, like there are probably tons of trouble spots. It's like just a big long list of trouble spots. The spikes are hungry. The spikes. And it just makes all of those go so much smoother. It's interesting that you mentioned that it takes a load off because when we were prepping for the event that we did recently, Oskar basically mentioned like, this is a place where I usually have to do a lot of focusing. So please fill out that. awkward silence with this and that. And this could be an interesting general note to pitch in at this point, because then I don't have to say anything. So I think it's very nice to hear that the total package was, at least for you, it went smoothly and it was received as not forced, which was what we were aiming for, obviously. Oh, it was a great dynamic. And it seemed like it, at least from where I sat, it seemed like it helped too.

00:31:12A great capsule skip, by the way. I just need to say that. Yeah, that was a good one. Actually, because I know for Linda, this is like an away game sort of theme, speed running. And also, I'm not so sure if you played a lot of Mega Man, at least in recent years. Not at all, really. I mean, I did. I did, like back in the day, but not in many, many years. So this is like one of those cool... Chances we get to say, like, from what we've been talking about so far, what's your opinion of the game? Is this something that have enticed you even a little bit? Or is it still an alien world? It's still very much an alien world, I'd say. But I mean, I also, I watched your speed running when you did it, Oskar. And I was like, this is the first time in, I don't know, 20 years that I've even seen this happen. Anyone playing.

00:32:10Mega Man. And I was kind of fascinated because I didn't really understand what was happening. Because everything is so fast, obviously, because it's a speedrun. But I was thinking, if you have this one game, or maybe more than one game, but if you're locked into this one game where this is the game that I'm doing speedrunning on, can you play that still for fun? Oh, great question. That is a good question. I think so. I personally love challenge runs in addition to speed runs. So sometimes I'll just kick the game on and see what silly, ridiculous thing can I try to do that I've never done before. And then sometimes I record those and people say, this is unhealthy, sir. You must stop doing this. Yeah. Taking it too far can always happen, I guess.

00:33:06And for me, I would say that, of course, if I want to have, let's say, a bit of fun with the game, I usually branch out and go for other mods that are around this game. For example, there's an excellent mod called the Touch Mod, which has so much more shenanigans when it comes to... I know that you did an amazing video together with G-Fitness and Uber Famicom for the... It was a showcase for the expo, Mega Man Expo. That's right. They did the Mega Man event and Touch Mod was all over that. Yeah. So just to give a short thing what it is, it is the remake. So it's the same base, but it has been modded. So you introduced the characters that was originally in the PlayStation version. So you have Zero and Axel and the Weather Girl and so on. And then you have added a ton of extra bosses and extra weapons and loadouts and yeah.

00:34:09It's something special, to say the least. So from that, my interpretation is that this is still a community where things get added, not just like new ways to play the game, but people are actually still actively creating mods for the game as well. Yes, that is accurate. In fact, JFET, who you just mentioned, is still working on a new mod. for Mega Man X AD make. I think that's another fascinating thing about this game is that it's become sort of the Mario maker of Mega Man X. It's given rise to all of these different groups that, you know, they want to see their favorite character or they want to see this new dynamic or this new quality of life enhancement. And it's given rise to a lot of things. That is very cool. I would assume that in the long run, you kind of need those type of people to pitch in with new tidbits of, I don't know.

00:35:02content along the way to keep it fresh for everyone or entice new people into the community. So it's very nice to hear that people are actively still building things for the game. To me, that seems like it would add to the longevity of the actual gaming experience as well. So do you have any knowledge of future mods that you are anticipating or waiting for in any way? Oh, yes. There are so many. I think all of us, if we've ever loved Mega Man X, we've in some way come across Mega Man X Corrupted. And that is the project that everybody wants to come out. And I think it's been in development for over 10 years. But we still believe. Keep it strong. Right. We still want it. There's another really good one coming out. It's like The Life of Green Biker Dude, if that name means anything to you. The Green Biker Dude mod is going to be...

00:35:59hopefully coming out soon. That's a project done by a guy named Skyro. And if you search that up on YouTube, you'll see just some amazing level design. And he's re-scanned all of the bosses, and it's based on the original Mega Man X in the 4-3 aspect ratio. Wow, that sounds impressive. That's an exhaustive project. There's, you know, there are, I think, a couple other groups making demakes. One of them might be for X7, so maybe more to come on that. I heard whispers about the 7, but that's in making at least, but not really the status of it. That's very interesting to hear. That's a lot of stuff bubbling under the surface here. Also, you have to give props to a lot of these people that are just plugging away for years and years. Non-profit, almost certainly, because these are obviously franchises that are owned by big corporations.

00:36:55don't usually share their wealth. So these are like really passionate people. And that is something that is so cool within gaming. Like people that do this for such a long time just for the enjoyment of it. And for anyone that has not been around, I would say that why also Corrupted is such a golden ghost is because it's the first true Metroidvania featuring Mega Man. Okay. To my knowledge, at least. It's a special one in many ways then. Yeah. Oskar, I'm not sure if you've had an inkling of the time, but I think we're actually coming up on, you know, at least the last gasping minutes. So do you have any questions that you had as a, this must be asked before we're done? Now's the time, I think. Well...

00:37:47More of curiosity, what do you see in your future? What is your plan for branching out your content creation, your streaming? What do you see the next year or so? Well, the biggest thing is something I've had on my mind for a long time. I'm going to head back to the original Mega Man X and eventually grind out a 35-minute finish. I know a lot of the tricks that I would need to do, but I'd never put everything together and I never studied the route to optimize it. So we're going to do that. And so before this year is out, I hope to have a 35 in that. That's one project. But I also want to continue making some tutorial videos because I think to the extent that we can keep Mega Man X coming out of people's lips, that game still will have a future in front of it. It's got a lot of, you know, this is a big year in gaming and I don't want...

00:38:42my favorite hobby to fall by the wayside because there are some so many great things coming out you know you've got gta6 you've got ocarina of time remake you've got final fantasy resurrection uh all these amazing titles coming out it's uh almost shockingly how stacked september is right yeah it's it's a lot out there just a quick question as a fellow youtuber do you enjoy the the actual workmanship around creating video content for any game, but particularly for this game. I very much do. I like to make it as, you know, to the extent that I have time and I know what I want to make, I love to make it like a little movie. I like to make it play like you're watching something, even if you don't know that you want to do anything that you're seeing, that you could still watch it and kind of appreciate it. I think that that's kind of where I like to aim, and I really enjoy making that. I'm glad to hear that, because for me, that's...

00:39:39Obviously, my aim with my videos is for someone else to enjoy them as well. But I certainly get enjoyment out of creating them as well. So it's always good to hear that other people have that creative happiness in the process. Not only trying to get as many to look at it as possible, but also you get some enjoyment out of creation, which is very cool. All right. Do we have anything more? If not, then I think, firstly, Ali, do you want to have... Anything to add before we're closing the lid here? Well, you got me very curious. So are you going to be speedrunning this? And you don't have to, you know, I'm not going to twist your arm, but I am curious because you mentioned it a couple of times. I am probably always going to be the sidekick to Oscar speedrunning things, I would imagine. I will, and I have played the game, and I really enjoy the actual game. But to me, I have so many...

00:40:36Seeing as I'm like a variety content creator, I always have like a couple of games going. And as I think we mentioned briefly, going focus mode on one of them makes it tough to get time in for others. But Oscar, I mean. Yeah, but I would say that if you picked when the updated Rayman is coming out this year, if you go back, you had some very, very good times on the weekly challenges. I used to be too much into that to keep it on a sane level. But yeah, true, true. So I'm not going to say I'm never going to do it. I'm just saying that. I love gaming. And it's hard to pick one sherry of that three. Well said. Yeah. Well, at least I tried. I just want to say, before we end things off here, it's been super, super nice having you on as a guest and super fascinating to get to know more about the community and the game and what you are aiming to do with your channel and your content creation. And yeah, for all of you out there listening,

00:41:49If you aren't already a part of Owly's community, then do check out those channels, both on Twitch and on YouTube. And you know, why not try the game out for yourself? It's out there and it's begging to be played. And it's free. And it's free. I mean, as we all know, free is the best kind of entertainment. So, you know, what's stopping you? Want to be world record holder out there listening right now. Yeah. oscar as always you have the great responsibility to get things up and then also to get them closed down so i think we are at that time now yeah so and with that said we will we will post thank our prestige guest only for this fantastic dive into the megaman country and with that said i just

00:42:43So, as I used to, take care and we will see you next week. Bye bye. See you out in gaming country. Bye for now. Bye bye.