Sword of the Sea is Like Journey on a Hoverboard

Sword of the Sea is the closest game yet to a Journey sequel. The new game from Giant Squid sends a silent, heroic character through a desert on a magical sword that fills the world with life-giving waters. It’s fun! It’s beautiful! It’s… sensual? In the back half, the Besties discuss the big news from Gamescom, including updates on Silksong and Bubsy 4D.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Griffin McElroy?

  I am so excited to talk about Sword of the Sea. It is, I think, kinda messed up to expect me, or frankly, any of us, to have to talk about a game other than Bubsy 4D. Like, it feels fucked up that this... I see the rundown of the show, I know that we're gonna get to it later, but it seems weird to me to, like, suspend that conversation.

• 0:24Russ Frushtick?

  Sure.

• 0:24Griffin McElroy?

  Until we have talked about another, another game, which is great, it's a great game, excited to talk about it.

• 0:29Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Let me propose this. Here's the deal. As we all know, time is the fourth dimension. And so, in a way, we are actually talking about Bubsy 4D, both now and later.

• 0:42Griffin McElroy?

  That's cool. That's cool, I like that, I like that idea.

• 0:46Chris Plante?

  There's a, there's a missing, um, piece here. Uh, people can't see it. But Justin's face right now, I would describe it as ecstasy. I would say, hey...

• 0:56Griffin McElroy?

  Bliss.

• 0:57Chris Plante?

  Bliss, looking into the eyes of the divine.

• 1:00Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 1:01Chris Plante?

  Um...

• 1:01Griffin McElroy?

  No?

• 1:02Chris Plante?

  Never been, no, no, no.

• 1:03Griffin McElroy?

  Oh shit, what's wrong?

• 1:04Russ Frushtick?

  Why?

• 1:06Griffin McElroy?

  I watched Song of the South. I was so confused when I said, I was so confused. Oh my god. Fuck.

• 1:18Russ Frushtick?

  You got that on 4K Blu-ray, do you?

• 1:22Griffin McElroy?

  It's on my Plex. It's the only thing on my Plex!

• 1:44Griffin McElroy?

  My name is Justin McRae and I know the best game of the week. My name is Griffin McRae and I know the best game of the week, it's Bubsy 4D.

• 1:51Chris Plante?

  My name is Christopher Thomas Plant and I know the best game of the week.

• 1:54Russ Frushtick?

  My name is Russ Fraschik, I know the best game of the week.

• 1:58Griffin McElroy?

  Welcome to the Besties, where we talk about the latest and greatest in home interactive entertainment. It's a video game club, my friend, and just by listening, you have joined our illustrious ranks. Hello! What a pleasure it is to have you. This week, we're gonna be talking about a little game I like to call Sword of the Sea. Uh, Chris Plant, what is that?

• 2:15Russ Frushtick?

  Chris Plant, I don't care. We have more towels to sell, they're almost out. If you want a towel...

• 2:22Speaker 03

  I love it.

• 2:23Russ Frushtick?

  If you want a towel that says you dried, instead of you died, like in Dark Souls font, now is the time to do it. Fill your stuffing stuffers, is that what people do?

• 2:33Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, dude.

• 2:34Russ Frushtick?

  Cause who knows if you're gonna be able to get one for Christmas.

• 2:37Griffin McElroy?

  If you do have one of these towels, that's gonna fill up a lot of stocking.

• 2:40Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, that's basically the whole stocking in one towel, so you're good.

• 2:43Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah. Also, what is Sword of the Sea, Chris Plant?

• 2:46Chris Plante?

  Uh, just journey, but you're surfing on a sword.

• 2:48Speaker 03

  Perfect, we'll talk about that right after this. I can't believe there's more to say, but...

• 2:55Chris Plante?

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• 3:39Chris Plante?

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• 4:24Chris Plante?

  That's protonvpn.com slash besties.

• 4:31Russ Frushtick?

  So this is basically Journey 2, right?

• 4:34Chris Plante?

  Okay, okay, okay, okay, okay. I want to pop in here and clarify.

• 4:38Russ Frushtick?

  Yourself.

• 4:39Chris Plante?

  Giant Squid.

• 4:41Russ Frushtick?

  Yes.

• 4:41Chris Plante?

  No, somebody else. Giant Squid makes this game, right? And I feel like they've been chasing the Journey 2 dream day one, right? They, there are some people, I guess, involved who made Journey. And then Giant Squid forms, and then they make Abzu, right? Remember that one?

• 4:57Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, very Journey, yes.

• 4:59Chris Plante?

  We didn't play as much with the birds.

• 5:03Russ Frushtick?

  Yes.

• 5:03Chris Plante?

  Right?

• 5:04Russ Frushtick?

  I think it was called Bird Party.

• 5:06Chris Plante?

  I think it was called Bird Party 2.0.

• 5:08Russ Frushtick?

  Or the Pathless, but it may have been Bird Party.

• 5:11Chris Plante?

  Yes, they were like, no, no, no, no. What we're gonna do this time is we're gonna make a perfect game. And like, I just think they should have tried that from the beginning, but hey, take the time.

• 5:21Russ Frushtick?

  Hey, listen.

• 5:22Chris Plante?

  Um, and, and that is, yes, I think that is how we get to what feels deeply like Journey 2 unofficial edition.

• 5:30Griffin McElroy?

  Um, yeah, if you're familiar with the, it was that game company, right? Was the name of the, the desk.

• 5:34Russ Frushtick?

  Yes, the original.

• 5:35Chris Plante?

  And they still make stuff. They made Sky, which is great.

• 5:38Griffin McElroy?

  Yes, of course. It's, it's all very, uh, contemplative, beautiful, uh, I don't know how to categorize it. It's not quite an adventure game. It's an experience.

• 5:50Speaker 03

  Yeah, I, I mean, I, it, it's interesting because it kind of, uh, if you think about what, what you would normally get from a video game, and you think about like different sliders, right? In terms of like the, the visual inputs of the game and the, the like, the challenge or the difficulty that you're getting and, uh, that sort of thing. It's sort of like backing off of challenge. It's reducing that, I think, so that you are never, it wants to be, I think it never wants to put you in a place where you're like doing the same thing over and over again. It's very much not about frustration. I think it's very much just about keeping you moving.

• 6:25Russ Frushtick?

  But it's, but it's not like fully, it's not so hands off that it like feels like a roller coaster. There are moments where it is that, but for the most part, you are interacting with the thing, but it is propelling you forward at all times. You're not gonna get like stumped on.

• 6:39Speaker 03

  I this is the biggest difference.

• 6:42Chris Plante?

  Are we talking about Journey or are we talking about Sword of the Sea right now? Which one are we talking about?

• 6:45Griffin McElroy?

  We're talking about Sword of the Sea. I wanted to bring that up because I this game does definitely slot into that archetype a lot. If you're familiar with that game company stuff, I think this has much bigger flower vibes in that you are going around a world. And instead of turning everything from ruined cityscapes into flowers, now you're turning the desert into the ocean. And you're doing it on a fucking hoverboard.

• 7:08Russ Frushtick?

  That's true. You're turning things into things. So in that way, I do agree. It was like flower.

• 7:13Griffin McElroy?

  I think the Journey comparisons are unfair. This is wet flower.

• 7:16Speaker 03

  Yeah. Also, it's kind of like Burger Time because you're taking the parts of the burger and you're turning it into a burger. So you're taking things and you're making them into a different thing. So it's not unlike Burger Time.

• 7:26Griffin McElroy?

  I didn't vibe with Abzu a lot, and I also didn't play Bird Party, but this one I think succeeds. Where a lot of those games kind of leave me a little bit cold in that it's also a kick ass hoverboarding game. It is also like, it's like flower by way of SSX tricky.

• 7:47Speaker 03

  Yeah, there's definitely a like you're, I think in comparison to a lot of these games that feel like you're kind of like proceeding through a three dimensional painting. This feels much more like a playground, like a big expanse. They want you to sort of zip through and like experience, but not spend too much time in. But you are like, the tricks that you're doing and the sliding and the momentum, it feels much more like kinetic, like you're much more in touch with the, the things that you are seeing around you. You're not just kind of like on rails, I guess. It feels, it feels more connected.

• 8:24Russ Frushtick?

  And it also, like, I think when you're playing through games like Journey and Abzu, exploration is not really, I mean, there's a little bit of it, a tiny bit of it, but largely speaking, you're like moving from area to area very quickly. And here, what I found like, and even in the first few areas, but this continues later on. If you go off the beaten path, there are like extra things to find, whether it's the currency that you're finding or.

• 8:49Speaker 03

  Found like a fucking Tony Hawk score challenge for doing like tricks. There's like genuinely side side things. I wouldn't say there's a ton of them.

• 8:58Griffin McElroy?

  There's not very many. I only found one of those Tony Hawk. I didn't like dive in, I think 100% to explore every nook and cranny of the map. I only found one of those Tony Hawk score challenge areas, but it did crack me up because I it it's so unexpected of the genre to have an area where it's like, fuck yeah, man. I chained together Ollie kickflip into a Christ air.

• 9:19Chris Plante?

  If it if it sounds like we have not explained what the campaign or like the overarching goal of this game is, it is because there it's very thin in a great way, in a way that I like, but it really is a go from point A to point B. And there are different areas where you have a locked door, where you're going to have to solve the slightest puzzles to get that door open and then continue to move from point A to point B. We're talking about all this like tricks and stuff like Tony Hawk. There is a scorekeeper. It's in the pause menu. It doesn't show up on the main screen except for in very specific times. So like,

• 9:56Speaker 03

  Right.

• 9:56Chris Plante?

  It is truly just a, we have given you the lightest amount of of an objective and then we just want you to feel good in the meantime.

• 10:06Griffin McElroy?

  Puzzle isn't the word I would even use to kind of describe it. It is like you're going to surf. You need to follow this chain, follow these subtle environmental clues to go to this place where you will press the interaction button after, you know, surfing over a bunch of rad sand waves to turn this area into water and then some fish will appear. Sometimes you'll climb on the fish and you'll ride them around and there's a level where you're, now you're a shark. It's it's it is it's not brain teasers. It's not puzzles in this sort of three versions.

• 10:39Chris Plante?

  Yeah. If you can guide a cat to its food bowl using a laser pointer, that's kind of means that you're ready for this game.

• 10:46Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 10:47Speaker 03

  It's cool too, because the the the lack of story, it's almost like anti narrative or anti-real. Like buildings and other structures like that are used in this game as geometry. But they're very clearly not meant to represent like buildings that people are living in, right? It's a very abstract sort of idea.

• 11:05Russ Frushtick?

  I mean, I got the impression that like people lived in them at one time. Here's, here's my read of the story. And again, it's very light. There is dialogue. You can find like tablets and things that kind of like give you poems about whatever the fuck happened. I didn't fully absorb it, but my read of is like, you play as this being who is basically revived by the last drop of water in the world or something. And you are trying to bring life back to this valley that has turned into a giant desert. And to that end, you basically find these points around the world and create oceans and then the fish come back and then you're riding fucking dolphins and stuff. And it's like, turns into a paradise. So like,

• 11:43Chris Plante?

  Fantasia short. It's about as much story as you would find in a Fantasia.

• 11:47Russ Frushtick?

  Sure. Which honestly is not far off. That's more, it's more story that was in Journey, which had no language whatsoever, and really just a few pictures. So it is interesting that they're slightly moving in that direction, but I prefer it because it just simplifies. And directs what they're trying to do, which is again, having this very cool feeling experiential thing. That isn't mired by, we're going to send you down dialogue crazy and shit like that.

• 12:10Speaker 03

  It's also the thing that I really dug about this as compared to other games that like, I think experiential, like this is a genre at this, right? Like it's a small sub, subgenre, but like, there's other things like this. I think there, it's in other perspectives or whatever, but what I think is, makes this work for me is that I've never feel like I am being forced to slow down and look at everything around me at a pace where it's being dictated to me, right? Like, it's like, I'm, I, I feel like in a lot of games like this, it's like, you have to slow down and really appreciate all of the work that we put into this art, because we made all this art for you. We're going to say, and this game will just let you.

• 12:53Speaker 03

  Freaking truck through the art in a way that feels, it feels magical. Like it doesn't feel like someone made it. It feels like, holy shit, this is all happening around me. And I don't even need to slow down to, to look at it because I know something else awesome is gonna happen around the corner.

• 13:08Russ Frushtick?

  And there are moments where like they will take control of the camera and like make sure you see the dope ass thing, whether it's the giant tower that you're going towards or the fucking dolphin, whatever. Dolphins showing up, whatever the dope thing is, they'll let you see it.

• 13:21Griffin McElroy?

  I got so excited every time I saw that dolphin. I knew I was in for a good time whenever that, that rascal showed up. It's, it's so like, it's really, really sidesteps and this is gonna sound really dismissive and I, I genuinely don't mean it that way, but. I struggle with games, even at the height of the genre, even at a journey where it feels like plotting. It feels like, oh, okay, I, I'm really. Having to work to get through this beautiful experience that they, and in this game, I mean, shit, man, you hit a point where you unlock like a boost button. And then you also learn how to dive straight down into a, into a ramp or a half pipe.

• 14:02Griffin McElroy?

  And it becomes like wipeout. Like you are going through it so, I, I think I finished the game in a few hours. Uh, and I even went around and collected some of this stuff because there is like a currency you can find that you spend to unlock abilities like tricks or grabs or. You know, dives or completely optional, uh, not particularly, uh, you know, game assisting abilities. Uh, and I got through it real, real fast and I never felt a moment of like boredom or. Uh, frustration with the pacing of the game.

• 14:35Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah. Usually in these games, they'll have the moment where it's like, you've been sapped of your powers and you're gonna walk slowly for five minutes and then. You're gonna feel really fucking good when they give them back to you. And here you just basically start with the dope ass powers.

• 14:48Griffin McElroy?

  Right.

• 14:49Speaker 03

  Yeah. Something that probably bears mentioning because of the name of the game, you're not actually like hitting much stuff. There's not much hitting going on if it like from the name Sword of the Sea, you might expect it to be sort of.

• 15:00Russ Frushtick?

  There's no combat.

• 15:01Speaker 03

  There's no combat, which maybe we should kind of clarify it up top. Cause it's, the sword is very prominent. As soon as you get the sword, dude steps right on it. And he's like.

• 15:09Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah. The sword is a skateboard.

• 15:10Speaker 03

  It's like this idiot's never seen a sword before. Every time a big monster comes, this guy's looking at the sword like, "Help me, sword." It's like, "Uh, dude, you have a sword."

• 15:20Chris Plante?

  Let's go ring some bells.

• 15:21Speaker 03

  Why don't you go to the heroic Zelda and ask, ask that guy like, what, you know, what a sword's for.

• 15:27Russ Frushtick?

  He jams it into the ground a lot.

• 15:28Griffin McElroy?

  There's a lot of jamming, a lot.

• 15:30Speaker 03

  That's out of frustration, like, because he can't figure out what to do with it.

• 15:33Griffin McElroy?

  And it's to make stuff.

• 15:34Speaker 03

  Put the business in him, man.

• 15:36Griffin McElroy?

  And it's to make things wet, um, and when it's wet, when the ground is water, it goes faster and that's really nice.

• 15:44Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah, that's very satisfying to open up.

• 15:46Russ Frushtick?

  It's fun that we focus so much on not the art and music and, uh,

• 15:50Speaker 03

  That feels so, I hate that. It's pretty. I don't have any vocabulary to describe it.

• 15:55Russ Frushtick?

  We can do it. I'm gonna, I'm gonna try it.

• 15:57Griffin McElroy?

  It's so beautiful.

• 15:58Russ Frushtick?

  Okay, so I'm gonna give you.

• 15:59Chris Plante?

  A thousand fish.

• 15:59Speaker 03

  Watch a video of it. Seriously.

• 16:01Russ Frushtick?

  You should watch a video of it, but I'm gonna paint a word picture to you.

• 16:05Chris Plante?

  Why?

• 16:05Russ Frushtick?

  Cause he's good at it. This is our job.

• 16:07Chris Plante?

  I love word pictures.

• 16:08Russ Frushtick?

  You're skateboarding across a desert and you go up a giant dune and jump high into the air and do a kickflip spin. And when you land in the desert, instead of it just going fump, it leaves this ripple of sand around you. And then you zoom off and ride a fucking dolphin.

• 16:26Griffin McElroy?

  It's really good. It also has a dynamic soundtrack like those, you know, the best of that, that game. That as you like bring this world to life and as you, you know, fix, fix the world, the, the music kind of swells and picks up and adds, you know, instruments and.

• 16:42Speaker 03

  I just say, I love an isolated flute.

• 16:46Griffin McElroy?

  Oh, dude.

• 16:46Speaker 03

  I mean, give me an isolated flute. Any of those high pitched woodwinds? I'm right back in third grade, listening to Peter and the Wolf. Boop, boop, boop, boop, boop, boop. Transported him.

• 16:56Chris Plante?

  Austin Wintory is here for you. You know, you found a perfect match.

• 17:00Griffin McElroy?

  I guess, yeah.

• 17:01Russ Frushtick?

  Did he do it?

• 17:02Chris Plante?

  Yeah.

• 17:03Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, he did.

• 17:03Chris Plante?

  Yeah.

• 17:03Speaker 03

  Yeah, I just need more, I, isolated flutes, everybody.

• 17:07Russ Frushtick?

  It's all we need.

• 17:07Speaker 03

  It's all we need.

• 17:08Chris Plante?

  The, the game is very pretty. The music is great. It all comes together for me because it is a sensual game. And not in a bouch, a bow, a way.

• 17:17Russ Frushtick?

  I mean, we did talk about a sort of.

• 17:19Griffin McElroy?

  I feel really betrayed by you.

• 17:21Speaker 03

  They use a different word.

• 17:22Chris Plante?

  What do you want? Sensory? Is that good?

• 17:24Russ Frushtick?

  It depends what you're going for.

• 17:26Speaker 03

  It depends on what you, you can't.

• 17:27Russ Frushtick?

  You can't say sensual, but I don't mean sensual.

• 17:30Speaker 03

  And then be like, not sensual, but wink, like, use a different word, please.

• 17:34Chris Plante?

  Saying it just makes you feel something. It, it, it is.

• 17:39Griffin McElroy?

  Being able to turn hot into cold, being able to like ring a bunch of bells, being able to do all the various spins and everything. It's all these little tiny good feeling things from other video games smashed into one place. And I would say it's sensual.

• 17:55Russ Frushtick?

  Cool.

• 17:56Speaker 03

  I would say if I could attempt, because I kind of get what you're going for. Because I was attempting to summarize this in my head while I was playing. But by getting narrative out of the way and making the game so like obvious, which is to say, you are bringing back the sea. That's what you're always doing, right? You're bringing back the sea. You've got the sea, you're bringing it back to this area. By getting the game stuff out of the way, it's like communicating narrative through gameplay in a way that where it's like the actions that you are taking, because there's not a story, the actions that you're taking, I think are imbued with more meaning. Like, because it's the meaning that you're like laying on top of them.

• 18:37Russ Frushtick?

  But there is a story. I guess my point is there is a story.

• 18:40Griffin McElroy?

  There is a story.

• 18:41Russ Frushtick?

  When I get frustrated by, you know, RPGs that take 15 hours to get going and things like that, like this is what I'm talking about. You can make someone, you know what? Perfect example, we just played Mafia last week. Perfect example, it took five hours of you slowly carrying wine for anything to happen. Here, you can make people feel things in a very short amount of time. I think the Ori games are like an incredible example of this, where they really get going very quickly. That just requires like, I think, precision and careful editing and thought about what you're including versus not. I'm not saying games don't need narrative and dialogue. And of course, a lot of games do need that stuff.

• 19:24Russ Frushtick?

  But you just need to be very selective about what you're doing and making sure those first few hours for people are an incredible experience and not just a preamble for what is going to be an incredible experience.

• 19:36Griffin McElroy?

  I think it's great. I was surprised by how sticky it was. Like, I kept finding myself with time and instead of playing other stuff, I kept, I kept coming back to this one until I finished it. And it is, I think, just the right length, just the right size, and just really, just a really well crafted version of this.

• 19:54Speaker 03

  Sensual, just the right length, just the right size. Hey, can I do a box quote? Let me try a box quote from the besties. This Sword of the Sea is extremely sensual.

• 20:09Speaker 03

  This sort of the sea is extremely sensual.

• 20:12Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 20:13Speaker 03

  Not too hard, not too soft, not too long, not too short.

• 20:17Griffin McElroy?

  Okay.

• 20:17Speaker 03

  One star. Lisa leaves a trail of wetness behind wherever it travels. This sort of the sea.

• 20:27Speaker 03

  Let's get it wet this summer 2022. John Romero is gonna make you his bitch in sort of the sea.

• 20:37Griffin McElroy?

  Um, hey, there's a lot of other stuff to talk about, including but not limited to Bubzy 4D.

• 20:48Russ Frushtick?

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• 21:30Russ Frushtick?

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• 22:10Russ Frushtick?

  Okay, Gamescom's going on. Should we, should we just get into the heart of the matter? The only thing that people care about?

• 22:16Griffin McElroy?

  Um, yeah.

• 22:17Russ Frushtick?

  And it should be noted-

• 22:18Griffin McElroy?

  Jeff looks great.

• 22:19Russ Frushtick?

  That's what I cared about. He had a great suit on. It should be noted, we are recording this a little bit early. So if you're like, why are they not talking about the huge Silk Song announcement that just happened yesterday? It's because we're recording it before that announcement-

• 22:32Griffin McElroy?

  And we asked Jason Schreier, Jason Schreier's like, "I got the scoop, I got the skinny." We're like, "Give it, give it up." And-

• 22:38Russ Frushtick?

  He said, "It's the way until next year."

• 22:40Griffin McElroy?

  He's, no, he didn't.

• 22:43Griffin McElroy?

  Uh, yeah, they showed Silk Song at the opening ceremony of Gamescom, uh, by which I mean-

• 22:48Russ Frushtick?

  I feel so bad for Jeff Keighley, by the way.

• 22:50Griffin McElroy?

  Why? I think, I think it's, okay, what they showed of Silk Song was like, of like 30 seconds of new gameplay footage. There's a demo that is playable at Gamescom. That's, that is the big sort of proof of life, I feel like.

• 23:02Russ Frushtick?

  You know Jeff, king that he is of this industry and the power that he wields.

• 23:08Griffin McElroy?

  Bad.

• 23:09Russ Frushtick?

  For sure.

• 23:10Griffin McElroy?

  Wanted it so-

• 23:12Russ Frushtick?

  Flew to Sydney or wherever the fuck they are in Australia.

• 23:14Griffin McElroy?

  He said, "Let, give me a pic. I will go down to the game mines myself. Just let me do the announcement that it's live now." I want to say the words, please.

• 23:25Russ Frushtick?

  They showed up at their office one day and he was prostrate in front of their door with cups of coffee. "What can I do for your Australian gentleman to make this happen?"

• 23:34Griffin McElroy?

  Jeff's outside again, he's whipping himself as the cat of non-sales. That's a British guy who works at the Australian- Yeah, sure.

• 23:41Russ Frushtick?

  And all they gave him was 10 seconds of gameplay and they let him announce that the game was coming out in 2025, even though they had already announced that fact.

• 23:50Griffin McElroy?

  Okay, but it's also playable in some way at Gamescom. And that is a, that is a genuine escalation of evidence that this thing is-

• 23:59Russ Frushtick?

  I mean, it's been playable before. This is not the first time it's been playable.

• 24:02Griffin McElroy?

  Can I ask, can I ask guys seriously? As somebody who like liked Silk Song, and I like, like Hall of Night, not Silk Song, I liked Hall of Night and thought it was really good. At this point-

• 24:13Speaker 03

  Is it more of like a meme or does this just frustrate you? And people who are like actually looking forward to it a lot? I feel like this is, I would be so annoyed if I really were very invested.

• 24:24Griffin McElroy?

  It has reached a sort of ironic level of like I Hollow Knight, I think is can hang with the best metroidvania ever made. Like it's, it is way, way, way, way, way up there. Top three, easy masterpiece. Uh, and I can't wait for Silk Song, but seven years, by the time I hit five years waiting on a game, it, it escalates to a point of I have to distance myself from it to be like, it's not real.

• 24:50Russ Frushtick?

  I mean, there was an edge preview of it like three years ago, maybe four years ago.

• 24:54Griffin McElroy?

  It's been in the works. I am, I, I'm excited to see anything out of this fucking game, man.

• 24:59Russ Frushtick?

  I think what's sad to me, assuming that it actually is coming out, which I assume the listeners know at this point, it will probably mean the death of the Silk Song subreddit, which has been basically dedicated to faking Silk Song news over the course of the last three or four years.

• 25:16Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 25:16Russ Frushtick?

  In increasingly dramatic ways. Most recently, someone created a totally different subreddit that only had one post in it. The subreddit was called Indie Graeme's and the post was Silk Song announced. And then they retweeted it on the Silk Song subreddit as an effort to fool everyone.

• 25:34Griffin McElroy?

  Oh God.

• 25:35Russ Frushtick?

  It's been just this escalating game of.

• 25:38Griffin McElroy?

  That, that community is going to absolutely melt down. I feel like when this game exists, I don't, I don't know how, how we.

• 25:44Russ Frushtick?

  I'm happy for them.

• 25:46Speaker 03

  I, I feel, I don't feel like this situation is their fault, obviously. Like this is not.

• 25:50Russ Frushtick?

  Whose fault?

• 25:51Speaker 03

  The creators of the game, right? I, I don't know who, to an extent.

• 25:54Russ Frushtick?

  It's a little bit, a little bit.

• 25:56Griffin McElroy?

  There's a messaging issue.

• 25:59Speaker 03

  There's a messaging issue. Okay.

• 26:01Griffin McElroy?

  Uh, the Silk Song announcement is coming out after we, uh, the second, I guess, announcement is coming out after we record this podcast. So hopefully by this point, by the time people hear this, we'll know when the game's coming out. I don't want to talk about Silk Song anymore.

• 26:14Chris Plante?

  A scratch? What? Bubsy's back!

• 26:20Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, so that's how the trailer starts. It's so scary.

• 26:23Speaker 03

  Seriously?

• 26:24Griffin McElroy?

  He yells at you like that. He yells, "Bubsy's back." No, the trailer starts with Bubsy, and he looks amazing, and he's looking at all his old games, and he's like, "These fucking stink." But it's better now, and then you see Bubsy 4D. And it's a cool way for a beloved IP to reintroduce itself to the new generation.

• 26:43Speaker 03

  It's so crazy that this is happening two months after the Gex trilogy was released on Steam. Like, what is happening right now?

• 26:49Chris Plante?

  Well, I mean, it's all the same person, right?

• 26:52Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 26:52Chris Plante?

  Wasn't the Gex trilogy also part of Digital Eclipse?

• 26:55Griffin McElroy?

  Well, it's Gex. Gex made all these games.

• 26:58Speaker 03

  Oh, Gex made it. I'm sorry. That was my bad. I don't know if you've seen the logo, but Gex makes the games himself.

• 27:03Chris Plante?

  I just liked it, Wade Rosen, the current CEO of Atari. And let me be clear, Gex trilogy, that was limited run games. There are other sickers in the world. You get really rich, you take over Atari, and then you use all of that power and money to make Bubsy 4D. I just think that is, that's somebody living out their fantasy, living out their dream.

• 27:28Griffin McElroy?

  I am nervous, and perhaps a little skeptical, that this is going to transition cleanly from Bubsy being something we all can have a good laugh about.

• 27:40Chris Plante?

  To a beloved-

• 27:42Griffin McElroy?

  To, "Hey, I'm back and I'm in on the joke too, Bubsy 4D."

• 27:46Speaker 03

  It's meta!

• 27:48Russ Frushtick?

  Hey, just out of curiosity, for your guys, I'm just curious, without looking it up, how many Bubsy games have there been?

• 27:55Griffin McElroy?

  Are we counting like handheld?

• 27:57Chris Plante?

  This is a trick question.

• 27:57Speaker 03

  This is the fifth one.

• 27:59Chris Plante?

  Okay, so-

• 28:01Speaker 03

  3D Bubsy. Isn't there a Bubsy Xbox one?

• 28:05Chris Plante?

  But there are mobile ones that are slightly different, and there's also the art unofficial Bubsy games. Yes, so like, what are you, what are you counting?

• 28:13Russ Frushtick?

  I was talking about the official ones.

• 28:16Chris Plante?

  Probably like six if you count the portable ones as different from the plain ones.

• 28:21Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, it's six. The number is six, which is fucking staggering to me that Bubsy's been in that many games, and now soon to be seven.

• 28:27Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 28:29Russ Frushtick?

  And I guess, like-

• 28:32Russ Frushtick?

  The irony, how far does this go?

• 28:36Chris Plante?

  Okay, so here's, I think this game for it to work has to actually be a fun game.

• 28:41Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, I mean, I would argue that's the case for all games.

• 28:45Chris Plante?

  Yeah, well, I checked out, you can, you can see the, the developer, I think their name is Fabraz. They're on Steam and they've made a number of games that are quite well rated. I've not played any of these. They're called Demon Turf, Slime Son, Planet Diver, but they have-

• 29:05Speaker 03

  Oh, I've played Slime Son. That is a great game.

• 29:08Chris Plante?

  It seems like these people know how to make a game, so they are trusting it with people who know how to make a game.

• 29:15Speaker 03

  Right. And you can't go wrong with Bubzy.

• 29:20Chris Plante?

  Can we talk about the design? Like his actual look?

• 29:24Speaker 03

  I mean, he's grown up. He's more mature. He's wearing a suit now. This is an adults Bubzy game for adults.

• 29:29Chris Plante?

  This is like, yeah, second divorce Bubzy.

• 29:33Speaker 03

  Yeah, now I have to look at it.

• 29:35Russ Frushtick?

  It's Bubzy Adults Only is the original working title.

• 29:38Speaker 03

  Now I have to watch the trailer to participate in the discussion. This seems like such a betrayal, guys. I don't know. Yeah. Um, Bubzy, Bubs. I don't know, Atari's been doing interesting stuff. Speaking of Atari doing interesting stuff, did you see that Pac-Man Atari they did?

• 29:54Chris Plante?

  Yeah, dude.

• 29:55Russ Frushtick?

  Which, which was good.

• 29:57Speaker 03

  Look at that. Look, just look up the Pac-Man Atari 2600. They have a Pac-Man themed Atari 2600 that has uh, controllers in four different colorways that represent the ghosts. Uh, and it's like, there's, it's gorgeous. I mean, it is gorgeous, but they're doing more, I don't know. Atari's doing interesting stuff like that. They were in a weird place earlier where they were trying to do a hotel and Bitcoins and stuff or whatever. But, I don't know, they're a little more, a little more interesting.

• 30:28Chris Plante?

  You could listen to a little show called Post Games, listen to an interview between me and the CEO, and you'll find out that, that hotel? Still happening, baby. The hotel is still happening.

• 30:40Russ Frushtick?

  Um, what other big announcements did we, oh, the Kirby Air Riders, uh, direct? Yeah, this, this wasn't really officially part of Gamescom, but they did spend 45 minutes uh, of Sakurai talking about what Kirby Air Riders is. And at one point, he's like- You know, people might be saying that this is like Mario Kart and it kinda is, but they still let me do it.

• 31:04Griffin McElroy?

  I could watch that dude talk about any game he's making fucking forever. There's a bit where he's talking about how great the original Kirby Air Riders was because it only used a single button for all the interactions. He was like, unfortunately, we've added a second button. It looks so fucking fun. I did not play the original at all, and I know it's a game a lot of people have a lot of nostalgia for. But just the movement, like it's not a kart racer.

• 31:27Russ Frushtick?

  Right.

• 31:28Griffin McElroy?

  Like it is.

• 31:28Russ Frushtick?

  I mean, it has elements of it, but it seems more kinetic, like almost like a bayonetta.

• 31:33Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, it's more about like charging up and dashing, like chart chaining together these like charged dashes and using special Kirby abilities and stuff. It looks like a fucking blast. I cannot wait for this one. Hey, I haven't played the last few Call of Duty Black Ops games. Have they always been kind of completely fucking unhinged? Or is the trailer for Black Ops 7?

• 31:54Russ Frushtick?

  We played one, what was the one we played, what was it last year? That was quite good.

• 31:58Griffin McElroy?

  Just play Black Ops 6. When did that come? Yeah, that came out last year. Okay, so I'm not.

• 32:03Russ Frushtick?

  We're not.

• 32:03Griffin McElroy?

  They are wild and y'all, there are a million reasons that you might not want to play a Call of Duty game over the last 20 years.

• 32:14Griffin McElroy?

  But I can't believe these games exist. They have gone so far off the plot. Every mission now is just a different type of game. I don't know if that's what they're doing this time around.

• 32:26Russ Frushtick?

  I mean, based on the trailer, it's like you get super jumps and the world looks like how it did at the end of Inception.

• 32:33Griffin McElroy?

  You get hit with the fucking scarecrow gas and you and your squad all of a sudden are like in Venezuela, but all the streets go straight up into the sky. It looks insane.

• 32:43Russ Frushtick?

  I think they've rightly realized that from a design standpoint, you can't make a grounded Call of Duty game for every single mission and have it really keep it compelling. So they've figured out, as Plant said, new ways to sort of refresh it. The last game we played had like a big open world mission, which was incredible. In addition to like fucking grappling hooks and shit. And this one seems to be going even more in that direction where you get fucking superpowers for some reason. Eventually. There's like an end game to the campaign where it's like a PVE co-op centric experience. That's like very involved. Actually, this whole game can be played in co-op, which is pretty cool.

• 33:19Griffin McElroy?

  I don't know. It feels, I don't know if it's enough to get me back in the, in the ecosystem, but it's always fun to, specifically Black Ops, to see a trailer for Black Ops where it's like, we're on dinosaurs. And it's like, what the fuck you are? Cool.

• 33:33Russ Frushtick?

  It feels like the sort of game that like for people don't, that don't give a shit about the militaristic stuff, like it's designed for them.

• 33:40Griffin McElroy?

  It almost feels like they should call it a different, like make it a different thing. Call it a different, like just call it Mind Wars or something like.

• 33:47Russ Frushtick?

  Well, but then the multiplayer is the militaristic stuff and the like free to play, whatever it is. The battle royale mode is like all the basic militaristic stuff. So you're getting everything in that package. It's how they've done Call of Duty forever, basically.

• 33:59Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 33:59Speaker 03

  Sorry, are we just gonna ignore the fact that Griffin came up with Mind Wars for free?

• 34:04Griffin McElroy?

  I thought it was really, really good.

• 34:06Russ Frushtick?

  Is it end with a Z?

• 34:07Griffin McElroy?

  Milo Ventimiglia in Mind Wars.

• 34:10Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah. So, so the bad boyfriend from Gilmore Girls is the star of this.

• 34:15Griffin McElroy?

  Or the good boy from This Is Us.

• 34:18Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 34:19Griffin McElroy?

  Depending on how you look at him. Um, yeah, I, I, it's crazy, crazy.

• 34:24Chris Plante?

  How, how y'all feel about the new Batman game? You see this?

• 34:29Russ Frushtick?

  Lego Batman.

• 34:30Chris Plante?

  Lego Batman Legacy of the Dark Knight, which seems to be a combination of every Batman thing, like Batman TV shows, the Batman movies. You got Nolan movies. You got Burton movies. You got the Reeves movie, uh, but also it looks kinda like it plays like a rock steady Batman.

• 34:49Russ Frushtick?

  It does. Yeah. The, the combat looks like a rock steady game. It looks like what they're doing here is what they did with the Star Wars Rise of the Skywalker Lego game.

• 34:59Speaker 03

  Just mushing it on.

• 35:01Russ Frushtick?

  Fucking all the hits.

• 35:02Speaker 03

  Hey, listen, I'll just say, I'll just say this, okay? Lego. I don't think we need anybody else taking all of popular culture and smoosh it into a big mushy slurry. You know, we get it. You know, I don't think we need to just mush everything up into one big gloopy pile and slurp it down in Lego form. I don't think that's necessary.

• 35:23Russ Frushtick?

  I mean, I gotta be honest, they were kind of doing that long before Disney was.

• 35:26Speaker 03

  Yeah, way, way, way, way, way. How many of those beauties are sitting on yourself right now, Russ?

• 35:31Russ Frushtick?

  You know, I'm not.

• 35:31Speaker 03

  None, none? Is that right?

• 35:33Russ Frushtick?

  None. The answer is none. I don't have any Legos.

• 35:35Speaker 03

  The answer is none. None of those beauties. Um, I. Kids get bored of those games. Every, every game journalist alive has recommended a Lego game to anybody looking for games to play with their kids. And then without fail, after 15 minutes, every kid on the planet's like, this is boring. I don't.

• 35:53Russ Frushtick?

  I think Lego's, the last one genuinely is like a genuinely great game.

• 35:58Speaker 03

  Their hit rate is so bad, I cannot get the kids to try them anymore because they are so fucking.

• 36:03Russ Frushtick?

  I think there was a time where they were pumping them out like every six months. And at that point, I agree with you. And I think what they've focused on instead, like it's been two years since that Star Wars game at least. I think they are now spending more time on them.

• 36:16Speaker 03

  I think they would need to do something for me to like separate it a bit more because in my head, that's like a big, just a big glump that doesn't really like.

• 36:25Griffin McElroy?

  An oversaturation sort of situation. Uh, I feel like the Lego Fortnite stuff has been more successful at like kind of capturing.

• 36:34Speaker 03

  Well, it's like a separate brand, you know what I mean?

• 36:36Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, for sure.

• 36:37Speaker 03

  That Lego thing, this is not to shit on all Lego because that, uh, the Lego thing that Jeff shared with us last time, that Jeff on all of his special parties. Um, the, uh, the one where you're a Lego brick and you're rolling around and you know, interacting. Yeah, the cowboy, that Lego journey, something like that. Yeah, like I can't remember the title. Maybe they do need Batman.

• 36:59Griffin McElroy?

  I did not, I was not paying super close attention to the Gamescom stuff as it was being announced. And so I got a Slack message from Russ in the middle of the day that just said Sekiro anime. And it felt like a prank at first, but now they're, they're doing, they're doing one up on Crunchyroll. Sekiro anime, adaptation of the plot of the game. And I'm, one, wanting to play Sekiro again, thanks to that. Two, excited for this anime. Three, wondering if this is any kind of fuel for the fire for the, for the Sekiro to, uh, to, to finally come to me, cause I'm ready, I've been ready.

• 37:33Chris Plante?

  Do you think that Activision can get that to happen?

• 37:36Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, yeah, no, I prayed really hard to the Lord. I said, give me more Sekiro, give me Sekiro anime, give me more Bubsy. And the Lord was like, you got it, man.

• 37:44Russ Frushtick?

  What if it's kind of both?

• 37:46Speaker 03

  I just want to say, Griffin, what if it's both?

• 37:49Griffin McElroy?

  What if it's both?

• 37:50Speaker 03

  And the game where when it gets to a hard part in the anime, they turn to you and they say, Griffin, please help with your skills. I want you to take over in this scene.

• 38:00Russ Frushtick?

  You fought this monkey man 60 times.

• 38:03Speaker 03

  The adventure. Travis, Griffin, Travis in here, Griffin, listen, uh, I'm saying you could play the adventure. Like you could play the anime.

• 38:12Griffin McElroy?

  That sounds cool, man. Yeah.

• 38:13Russ Frushtick?

  Okay. Do you think they're, they're gonna render the poop?

• 38:16Griffin McElroy?

  I think they'll render the poop for sure. I think you try to start, episode 10 is just called Sword Saint Ishin. And you try to start it and a prompt comes up on Netflix, that odd Crunchyroll is like, nope. You're not fucking ready, man. You're not good enough.

• 38:29Russ Frushtick?

  Watch the first nine episodes again and again.

• 38:31Griffin McElroy?

  A hundred thousand times and then you can come and watch the finale. Um, yeah, a weird batch, a weird batch of stuff out of, out of Gamescom. But this is sort of the nature of the decentralized, uh, news, uh, state of the gaming industry. Where everyone, I feel like, I don't know, you don't get any huge fucking pressers anymore. Where it's like, and here's, uh, here's the new Zelda, uh, cause that's controlled entirely by Nintendo. Or here's the new, you know, uh, PlayStation joint, cause that's gonna be on their state of plays. It's just left, uh, it's, it's left press conferences in kind of a strange spot. There's some good stuff.

• 39:13Russ Frushtick?

  Ghost of Yotei stuff, but yeah.

• 39:15Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, they announced the DLC for Ghost of Yotei. Uh, when is that, is that game out soon?

• 39:20Russ Frushtick?

  It's this fall.

• 39:21Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 39:22Russ Frushtick?

  Weird, weird to announce DLC for a game that's not out. I agree.

• 39:25Griffin McElroy?

  I mean, I'm excited. I'm excited for the game.

• 39:27Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 39:29Russ Frushtick?

  Okay, honorable mentions time. Anyone got anything they want to talk about?

• 39:35Griffin McElroy?

  I, Justin kindly gave me a handheld, the Ioneo Pocket Ace, which has really become my off-court buddy over here. It is a-

• 39:49Russ Frushtick?

  Your new off-court buddy? Where is the old off-court buddy that we-

• 39:52Griffin McElroy?

  So I have a, now, I was adopting a sort of two-hand held system where I would have one for the big fancy stuff, and then I have the Pocket Micro Classic for, you know, I just finished FF6 Game Boy Advance Audio Remaster Edition on that one. But this is more of a mid-size guy. This still fits in the old Pocket and it can run like fucking anything. I got Final Fantasy XII up and running. I got Celeste up and running on it. And it's fun to have a little guy that I can take around and, I don't know, I just really, really, really like the form factor. I also bought one of the Retroid second-screen attachments that just came out, because it's supposed to fit really nicely on the Ace, so I'm looking for it to-

• 40:37Speaker 03

  Cool thing about the Ace that is kind of different at this price point for a lot of these higher-end Android consoles is that it's a 3x2 aspect ratio screen.

• 40:48Griffin McElroy?

  Yes.

• 40:49Speaker 03

  Which is not the best if you want to like, play a bunch of like, high-end stuff that's already in widescreen, but if you want to play anything that is at that like, old-school ratio, like, it's gonna look a lot better. It's gonna take up more of the real estate on the screen. And that's not super common in the vertical form factor to have this 3x2 screen. It's kind of a neat, neat place the Ace slides in.

• 41:14Griffin McElroy?

  Hoops, hoops, hoops.

• 41:15Chris Plante?

  Can you tell people about your sneaker head theory about these things?

• 41:20Speaker 03

  Yeah, I don't, I don't know, it's, when you follow this space, it's like very iterative, right? It's a lot about like latest and greatest and what is the newest hottest thing, to a point where like- People joke about the one feature that is missing from this year's thing or this year, this month's thing that'll be in the next month's thing. But you can, a lot of these are funded through Indiegogo. It's kind of wild. Like if you look at when the Pocket Ace or the Pocket Pro, a lot of these I N E O products, you do this, Amber Nick does it sometimes, I believe. But they start on an indie crowdfunding platform. So like if you go to Indiegogo right now for I N E O, I think is, is doing one for a flip console at clamshell sort of DS form factor that they are.

• 42:01Griffin McElroy?

  Which has really become the battlefront of this.

• 42:03Speaker 03

  That is where the war is right now.

• 42:05Griffin McElroy?

  Who can make the best double screen clamshell?

• 42:07Speaker 03

  Right. So you had the Retroid Flip 2, which is widely beloved. A lot of people like that thing. It's a really solid option. But it does not have the bottom screen. And then you have Retroid releasing that second screen attachment that Griffin just mentioned. And then we've got the I N E O Flip DS that just like got announced, uh, I think this week. And that is a, started with a, like a crowdfunding campaign. And then you can see on the crowdfunding campaign, like exactly how many people have like pre-ordered these things. And it's like, like the I N E O Pocket actually is the one. The Flip is the higher end Windows based thing that is over a thousand dollars.

• 42:48Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, that's a little much. That's, that's.

• 42:50Speaker 03

  A lot, guys. It's a lot. It's kind of wild, guys.

• 42:53Griffin McElroy?

  And then I just announced the Thor, which.

• 42:55Speaker 03

  They, they teased the Thor. They have not told us what Thor, what the Thor will be yet. But yeah, it is.

• 43:01Griffin McElroy?

  Just wild.

• 43:02Speaker 03

  It is wild. It is a wild space, but you can see how many people have crowdfunded each of these things. It's crazy. Like you can see the exact number of people that are purchasing each of these. And I have heard people like on some channels, like kind of bragging about like being number two or number three, or even number one, you know.

• 43:22Russ Frushtick?

  How, how do they have the time between all the fucking to brag about that stuff?

• 43:27Speaker 03

  Russ Frushtick of all of the people.

• 43:30Griffin McElroy?

  What are we doing right now?

• 43:31Speaker 03

  You are.

• 43:32Griffin McElroy?

  What are we? What are we doing right now?

• 43:34Speaker 03

  A glass house. You, you couldn't even dream of being in a glass house, right? You wish you're, you're in Wonder Woman. invisible jet. It's like nothing.

• 43:42Griffin McElroy?

  Your house is made of candy floss and you're you're spraying the fucking hose all around.

• 43:49Speaker 03

  So they've raised a half million, six hundred thousand dollars, pretty much on the pocket, the pocket DS. Which is the world's first dual screen Android handheld. And that that one they have, you can see they have done like, for example, at the early bird level, which is like four hundred for your base model. That's the cheapest one. They have fifty four of those have sold. The step up from that, two hundred and fifty seven. You can see exactly how many of each of these models have sold and how many are unclaimed. And it's kind of a wild way of doing business. Cause it's like, if the market's there, people will just keep like releasing it and um.

• 44:30Griffin McElroy?

  I guess from.

• 44:31Russ Frushtick?

  I guess from my perspective, the games that I loved on both the three DS. And the DS, which I guess this is these devices are designed for. Of the ones that haven't been like re-released in some format. So the examples being like the Castlevania. Those GBA and DS games.

• 44:52Russ Frushtick?

  I think there's like ten of those DS slash three DS games that I like really would want to play. Which makes the justification kind of hard for me.

• 45:01Griffin McElroy?

  That's it. Can I say that's crazy?

• 45:03Speaker 03

  It's a crazy thing to say.

• 45:04Griffin McElroy?

  Speaking, that's crazy. The DS and three DS is.

• 45:07Russ Frushtick?

  They have a lot of games on there, a lot of great games on there, but like.

• 45:10Speaker 03

  So to say you have ten you'd want to play is.

• 45:12Griffin McElroy?

  I feel like there's a a lot of games that can't be adapted because of the dual screen format. Right. This is, this is, uh, I don't know. I don't know if one of these is going to become like my, I think the dream is always having like the one. The one true handheld that I can play everything on and like this.

• 45:32Speaker 03

  The you really, if you look at this space, there are some consoles where like. The best way to play it is still on original hardware, right?

• 45:39Griffin McElroy?

  Right.

• 45:39Speaker 03

  The DS is like that, the Vita's like that, three DS is like that. Certainly, certainly, oh, well, home consoles, forget about it. But yeah, like even those old ones.

• 45:50Speaker 03

  Still the best way of playing it and that's

• 45:51Griffin McElroy?

  Easy to hack too.

• 45:52Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 45:53Speaker 03

  Yes, they are. Oh, that's like well settled because nobody cares, right? It's like, but from a preservation perspective, a lot of these games, you will not be able to have this experience. Like without some sort of hardware that can emulate it, right? Like even like in retro arc, you can do a in the like MGBA emulator, you can do a amount of solar radiation that you are receiving.

• 46:21Griffin McElroy?

  Oh.

• 46:21Speaker 03

  On your thing. Yeah. For bokkai, right? So like that stuff can be emulated, but that's the level like to be able, but if you want to play bokkai, that's those are your options.

• 46:31Griffin McElroy?

  Play WarioWare, WarioWare twisted on the GBA with the motion sensor. Like there's weird edge cases that are.

• 46:37Speaker 03

  My kids are obsessed with iCarly. They've watched every episode of iCarly and the only iCarly games are on Nintendo DS. So I have to like go dig out my pink Nintendo DS, charge it up, go find the iCarly games.

• 46:52Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 46:52Speaker 03

  And get, and so it's like, I, I understand the edge case thing, but like, especially as like your kids get older. The ability to say like, hey, there's 30, 40, 50 games on this thing that I gotta show you because it's wild. There's a real value to that.

• 47:06Griffin McElroy?

  Personally speaking, Henry is really wanting to play Ocarina of Time and I don't want him to play any version but the 3DS version because the game is not, um.

• 47:16Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 47:17Griffin McElroy?

  Especially approachable to a, to an eight year old and it's in 64 fashion.

• 47:22Russ Frushtick?

  What about Ship of Harkonnen?

• 47:24Speaker 03

  What about Ship of Harkonnen? Quick plug, actually for Sword of the Sea. Again, I meant to mention this in the earlier discussion, but I played with Cooper, who is seven and does not play, uh, almost nothing with like dual sticks and she loved Sword of the Sea.

• 47:39Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 47:39Speaker 03

  She loved it and it was just enough of a challenge to make her feel like she was leading the experience, but like.

• 47:46Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 47:47Speaker 03

  She really got it. Only thing that I thought was interesting, I thought you guys would think was interesting. She was over manipulating the right stick because she's so used to Roblox where there is no camera, third person camera support. And you are completely manipulating the camera on the right thumb stick. And she was getting frustrated with the game because she was wanting to control.

• 48:07Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 48:08Speaker 03

  Instinctually, she was wanting to control the camera constantly. She was like fighting the game until I told her like, "Honey, in a good game, there's a camera and they're trying to help you. You don't have to do it all on your own, hon. The game will, will help. It'll work with you. I know you're used to having to fight Roblox tooth and nail to get any pleasure out of it."

• 48:25Griffin McElroy?

  Right. Um, I also wanted to shout out a show I've been watching on Netflix. Big shout out to David Weiner, my, my father-in-law for the recommendation. It's called Final Draft. It is a Japanese competition reality athleticism show where like 30 retired athletes compete in a physical 100 style, athletic challenges. And it's really great because the, I don't know, it's an older base of competitors who all have quite a bit to prove. Uh, and most of which have reached the end of their careers. And this is sort of like their last way of using these skills to try and win a big prize pool. Uh, and it's, it's, that is a, a cool concept for a show.

• 49:07Speaker 03

  My father-in-law sending that to me would be the most fucking loaded thing possible. You know what I mean? Think about it. Just a bunch of old dogs with one last fight left in them, just in case they got one less scrap in there. In case you think they don't have it anymore, Griffin.

• 49:23Griffin McElroy?

  It hits different from a David Weiner than it does from a Tommy Smurl, but I concede the point.

• 49:29Speaker 03

  Not fighting for physical dominance as much, I understand.

• 49:33Russ Frushtick?

  Uh, I played a game called Super Mario 64 on the Nintendo 64.

• 49:41Russ Frushtick?

  I played it because I owned, uh, that, uh, version that came out on Switch that they stopped selling for some reason. I forget what they called it. But, uh, I was looking for games because I beat Mario Wonder with my son, more or less sitting alongside me. And he was super, super into it. And I was looking for games that we could play next and. Went there and he loved it. He was incredibly into it, not afraid of the eel remarkably. Uh, loved all the swimming. We ended up beating that. And then I was like, what could I play next? And I tried booting up, um, Odyssey, which is also in that game pack. It's Odyssey Sunshine, which I skipped because it's dog shit. And then, uh, straight to Galaxy. Galaxy was way too overwhelming.

• 50:22Speaker 03

  Yeah, man.

• 50:23Russ Frushtick?

  I think he was just like, it was too much for him. Scare. It starts with the scary like Bowser fucking mortaring the prince's peach's castle. And then suddenly you're in space and it's just, there's just a lot going on.

• 50:33Speaker 03

  He doesn't mean that metaphorically, kids. Uh, he means that literally. Sorry.

• 50:37Russ Frushtick?

  Literally, yeah. Yeah, it's a shame. Um, and then, so I jumped over to Yoshi's Island, which he was into. But then now he just wants to keep going back to Mario Wonder, which I guess is not a failing. But not ideal is the fact that all, the only levels he wants to see are the Wiggler races. Wiggler, as we all know, is the caterpillar that runs along, uh, and is very friendly. There are only two Wiggler races the entire game. And he just wants to replay those over and over again. And it's fucking boring as hell. So, uh, I just want to play Yoshi's Island with him because it rules.

• 51:08Speaker 03

  Yeah. He said have kids be easy.

• 51:10Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah. Yeah. That's true.

• 51:11Speaker 03

  Uh, Chris?

• 51:12Chris Plante?

  Yeah, I'm just gonna use this as a chance to plug something related to that, which is I guested on The Ringer verse over at The Ringer. They have a game show called Button Mash and, uh, with Joshua Rivera and Matty Myers. Uh, and the host Bin Lindberg, we picked the best Mario games of all time and it's a really fun episode. I did research ahead of time and let me tell you, I learned so much about Mario sewing games.

• 51:40Russ Frushtick?

  Oh, yeah.

• 51:41Chris Plante?

  So much. They made two of them over, over a decade apart and you can learn all about it on that episode.

• 51:48Russ Frushtick?

  Did you do every single Mario game or just like the key core?

• 51:52Chris Plante?

  It, it was a draft. So there were like categories. It was very Ringer, very sports, you know, focused. You know, we talked a lot about baseball.

• 52:00Russ Frushtick?

  They do love sports, although we do do a bracket as well.

• 52:03Speaker 03

  We know about sports. Sports guys about sports.

• 52:05Chris Plante?

  That's true.

• 52:07Russ Frushtick?

  Justin, you got anything besides your, uh, nerd ass handheld shit?

• 52:11Speaker 03

  Um, uh, no, no, I don't think. I want to hear about your nerd ass. No, no, no, no. We've talked, we had a good segment about that. I think.

• 52:18Russ Frushtick?

  We did, we did.

• 52:19Speaker 03

  We've done our due diligence. Let me scoot away some of the things that I had within reach to.

• 52:26Speaker 03

  Just got to scoot away some of these handhelds that I had within reach to.

• 52:30Griffin McElroy?

  This is actually a fun game. How many within reach?

• 52:32Russ Frushtick?

  Right now?

• 52:34Griffin McElroy?

  I've got.

• 52:34Speaker 03

  How many? How long will you give me?

• 52:36Griffin McElroy?

  I've got two.

• 52:37Speaker 03

  I legitimately don't have any within reach of the studio because I need to.

• 52:43Griffin McElroy?

  It's a workspace.

• 52:43Speaker 03

  Cause it's a workspace, right? All I have is my Marvel stickers for when you guys do a good job. That's it. That's all I have within reach.

• 52:50Griffin McElroy?

  No stickers handed out today, I noticed.

• 52:52Speaker 03

  What?

• 52:53Griffin McElroy?

  No stickers today, I noticed.

• 52:55Speaker 03

  Been a while, Griff, actually.

• 52:57Russ Frushtick?

  Stingy gentleman when it comes to stickers.

• 52:58Griffin McElroy?

  It's gotta mean something when he does it.

• 53:00Russ Frushtick?

  It does.

• 53:02Griffin McElroy?

  That's the show, I think.

• 53:04Russ Frushtick?

  I think we did it. Point, you want to recap games we talked about?

• 53:07Chris Plante?

  We talked about so much good stuff today. We talked about Sword of the Sea, but we also talked about Hollow Knight, Silk Song, Kirby Air Riders, Call of Duty, Black Ops 7, Bubsy 4D, Lego Batman, Legacy of the Dark Knight. And we talked about stuff that isn't video games too. We talked about Atari 2600 Pac-Man Edition, the Sekiro anime, I and you Pocket Ace, TV shows like Final Draft. And then there was a bunch of retro Mario games thrown in there and Lego Voyagers. It was just a full wonderful episode.

• 53:38Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, Lego Voyager is the name of that co-op game we were trying to remember.

• 53:41Speaker 03

  Lego Voyager, there we go.

• 53:43Chris Plante?

  All of the details, all of the links and so much more are available to you at besties.fan. Subscribe for free.

• 53:52Russ Frushtick?

  Not to mention, there's a towel for sale.

• 53:54Griffin McElroy?

  There is a great towel.

• 53:58Russ Frushtick?

  We also have a Patreon. You can go to patreon.com/thebesties. You can buy a gift to the Patreon for a good buddy of yours. If you have money left over after the towel, that's patreon.com/thebesties/gift. We have some new members to shout out. We have Kelly, we have Brian, we have Steven, and we have NJ. Thank you for being members. We have a new episode of The Resties coming at you on Tuesday. We're talking about Stick It to the Stick Man, which will be a fun one. And we also have a game that we're talking about next week, which is Hurdling, a very cool game from the makers of Far. The, that's, it was called Far.

• 54:40Chris Plante?

  And from the publisher Panic, who you know for Untitled Goose Game and Despilote.

• 54:46Russ Frushtick?

  This one is like, imagine Babe.

• 54:50Russ Frushtick?

  But it's with like.

• 54:51Griffin McElroy?

  Babe or babe picking the city, which one?

• 54:53Russ Frushtick?

  No, more babe, more original babe, because it's about hurting creatures.

• 54:58Griffin McElroy?

  Is it about hurting though?

• 54:59Russ Frushtick?

  Hurt, hurting, hurting. I hurt, I don't want to hurt them. I want to herd them.

• 55:03Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 55:03Russ Frushtick?

  But the game is called Herdling, which I think is that's what you are.

• 55:07Speaker 03

  That's gonna do it for us for this week. Until next time. My name is Justin McElroy. Be sure to join Skin next week for the besties. Because shouldn't the world's best friends pick the world's best games?