Onimusha: Or, Capcom Refuses to Make Bad Games

The last time Capcom made a new Onimusha game, George W. Bush was President. But Onimusha: The Way of the Sword would have you believe the series never missed a beat. This week, Ron Funches joins the guys to talk about the ways this new entry blends Devil May Cry and Dark Souls tropes into something fresh and surprisingly welcoming!

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

• 0:00Chris Plante?

  Y'all, did you know that every Onimusha game has a actor in it? Like, they put some actor's face in the game.

• 0:07Speaker 01

  Oh, really?

• 0:08Chris Plante?

  Like, everyone but one. But we're not gonna talk about that one.

• 0:10Speaker 01

  Oh, wow. I didn't know that. I'm gonna grab a soda.

• 0:12Griffin McElroy?

  One sec.

• 0:17Griffin McElroy?

  It's good stuff. I mean, it was a great topic of conversation, Chris, I thought.

• 0:22Chris Plante?

  I was ready to chat. You know, I was gonna chop it up. I was like, who could we put in an Onimusha game?

• 0:30Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 0:30Chris Plante?

  Could we put Ernest in it, you know? Like, who would fit? But I'm just glad that Ron's thirst is quenched.

• 0:39Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, that's the most... That is important.

• 0:41Speaker 01

  I didn't know. Had we started?

• 0:44Griffin McElroy?

  I mean, that had a huge cold open energy. Ron, you've done this enough times to be able to detect a cold open vibe.

• 0:52Speaker 01

  I was... I mean, I did feel that when it was like, oh, we're talking about the game. But I was like, I really need this Coke Zero.

• 0:58Griffin McElroy?

  You know, before we... Ooh, grip that, rip that.

• 1:00Speaker 01

  You hear it? You hear it?

• 1:02Griffin McElroy?

  It's so refreshing. I'm just saying, before we start recording, we're all a bunch of mumble mouths. And then, once we're putting tape down, there's a, I don't know, an improvement to our addiction in general. And I think Chris had his big boy radio voice on.

• 1:20Chris Plante?

  No, I'm sorry. I was kind of ready, you know, I was like, are we gonna put like Colonel Sanders in Onimusha? You know, like, I was like, a real... Like, a funny, kinda like, are we gonna put the Three Stooges in Onimusha? And people were gonna... You, Ron, you were gonna be like, that's... No, that's funny.

• 1:37Speaker 01

  I liked that. I did. I did think, because it made me... Sylvester Stallone as Onimusha.

• 1:42Griffin McElroy?

  He'd be great.

• 1:43Speaker 01

  He'd be terrible.

• 1:45Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, well, he wouldn't be the lead. I was assuming he'd be like one of the demons at his thing. Because I could see him talking about how he wants to like gush up a bunch of people and turn them into wine he can drink with his demon buddies or whatever.

• 1:59Speaker 01

  That does sound like Sylvester Stallone.

• 2:01Griffin McElroy?

  That does sound like my sly.

• 2:21Griffin McElroy?

  My name is Griffin McElroy. I know the best game of the week.

• 2:24Chris Plante?

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

• 2:27Speaker 01

  My name's Ronald Kyle Funches, and I also know the best game of the week.

• 2:32Griffin McElroy?

  Welcome to The Besties, where we talk about the latest and greatest in home interactive entertainment. It's a game of the year club. Just by listening, you've become a member. We are joined this week. So excited to have Ron back on the show. We subbed out Russ. There's a button you can press, and it will change, it will swap Russ for Ron. And that's exactly what we, that's exactly what we've done here today. Because Ron is, from what I understand, an Onimusha expert. Someone well-versed in this series.

• 3:03Speaker 01

  Not at all.

• 3:04Chris Plante?

  An originalist?

• 3:05Griffin McElroy?

  Not at all. Amazing. I just assumed, since you wanted to do the Onimusha Way of the Sword episode. Hell, yeah, though. I love, we're all coming at this fresh, it sounds like.

• 3:16Speaker 01

  No, I have played, I have played the older games, but they were always just something kinda in the background for me. They were, to me, a lesser of the, like, I would be like, oh, I'd rather play Devil May Cry. Or I'd rather play another action game. And Onimusha was always like this thing that seemed fun, but also a little bit more daunting with the controls and some of the cameras. But what I am is a fan of stylish action games. That is my favorite genre of games. I love a game with a good story that makes me feel like a badass, whether I'm holding a sword or a gun, like Nathan Drake. Ninja Gaiden Black is one of my favorite games of all time, so I was very excited for this game.

• 4:01Griffin McElroy?

  Hell, yeah. I can't wait to hear how it compares against all those things. I was brushing up on the Onimusha franchise on Wikipedia, where I learned that it is the 10th best-selling Capcom video game franchise. It lists the nine other ones. I mean, Capcom makes a lot of game franchises. I think it placing 10th on the list is not bad.

• 4:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, probably beating rival schools.

• 4:26Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, definitely. All right, let's take a quick break, and then we'll come back. We'll talk about this new Onimusha Way of the Sword, the first Onimusha game in two decades.

• 4:34Russ Frushtick?

  This episode of The Besties is sponsored by Alienware. You know, gaming today isn't one thing. It moves between cozy, chaotic, and everything in between. One minute, you're exploring something slow and immersive, the next, you're in a fast-paced match. And somewhere in there, you might be creating, streaming, or seeing where the session goes. That's why Alienware systems are built with the performance to handle it all. With Nvidia GeForce RTX, it delivers powerful graphics that bring every world to life while optimizing battery life. So whether you're playing, creating, or jumping between both, everything runs the way it should. No interruptions, no slowing down. You don't have to adjust the way you play. You just keep gaming your way, however that looks in the moment. Be more Alien at alienware.com/gameyourway.

• 5:22Chris Plante?

  Okay, I'm gonna kick things off with like the basics. I'm gonna lay down the basics here. Like Ron said, action-adventure series, but it's really unusual, because it's not full action, like Devil May Cry. And it's not full adventure, as weird as that is to say, as Resident Evil. It's somewhere in between those games, which might be why it's always been kind of the odd one out. It is set in real places in Japan. It is set against real Japanese history. It often stars real figures from Japanese history. But it has demons in it and fantasy elements and like gauntlets that can like suck up souls.

• 6:03Chris Plante?

  So it's different in that way, because that didn't happen in real Japanese history.

• 6:08Griffin McElroy?

  I've been to Kyomitodera Temple before. It's beautiful. It's gorgeous. It's one of the most beautiful places I've ever visited. There were not big guys going around gobbling up kids hither and yon. There weren't dark orbs suspended in the air, turning people into demon servants and stuff. So that part was fictionalized, from what I can tell.

• 6:30Chris Plante?

  Yes, and this is basically a reboot of the series. I mean, it might technically fit into the fiction, whatever. But you do not need to have played those old games that Ron was talking about. Like, did either of you have a love for that series that while you were playing this, you're like, oh, yeah, who could forget?

• 6:49Griffin McElroy?

  I've never played an Onimusha game in my life, no. I know that there was one that Jean Reno was in, and that's cool. But that's pretty much the extent of my knowledge of the franchise.

• 7:01Chris Plante?

  So how did this work for y'all, then? Ron, like, Ron, you like action... Does this hit the action game sweet spot for you?

• 7:09Speaker 01

  Well, I always feel that, and we talked about a little bit of this when we were talking about Beasts of Incarnation, where these are usually a style where a game is overly punishing, souls-like, or goes for the reverse, where they're like, you are the badass, and you're slicing through people, like, maybe like that Metal Gear. All right, was it... Revenge...

• 7:33Griffin McElroy?

  Revenge.

• 7:34Speaker 01

  That's it. That's why I couldn't remember it. It's not a word that you would...

• 7:37Griffin McElroy?

  Because it's not a word at all.

• 7:41Speaker 01

  And what I felt about Beasts of Incarnation was that it really held on to just being too simple and too button-mashy and didn't have its own unique style. And I would say that's where Onimusha very much differs, is that this game, I think, while it does not feel like a souls-like, and it doesn't always make you feel like a badass, what it does is really find this nice blend of like, you can just get by with like regular moves of just hacking, slashing, and doing your light and heavy attack. Or you can learn and really be stylish with this game, where they're using the Ishaan attacks or the environmental attacks.

• 8:26Speaker 01

  I love being able to pick up the wood off the ground to stun my enemies into the chain finishers. I really, really like this game a lot. What I love about it is that it really feels like it's found its own take of the action genre, which is very rare. And this engine, I mean, from Resident, the latest Resident Evil game to Pragmata to this, like, this engine that they're using this generation is kicking Unreal's ass. I love it.

• 8:57Griffin McElroy?

  It's fucking great. The hit rate of Capcom in the last 12 months, like, it's crazy. They released a Resident Evil game and Pragmata and this one. And probably, I feel like I'm forgetting something else, and they're all like, good, like, they're all good games, and they all look fantastic. The facial animation in this game is unlike anything I've ever really seen.

• 9:18Chris Plante?

  It's unbelievable.

• 9:19Griffin McElroy?

  I really, I'm gonna struggle to, I am not familiar with Toshiro Minifune, who is a, you know, iconic sort of Japanese actor who was in some Kurosawa films, probably, Chris. I don't know why I'm the one doing this bit and not you, since this is more your...

• 9:37Chris Plante?

  I'll do like a little bit here. Toshiro Minifune, the appeal of him is he has this very hard jaw. And his face can like look very like solid and rigid, like a statue almost. And it makes these like square, almost rectangular mouth movements. And yet, the skin around his eyes, around his cheeks, everywhere else, is so expressive.

• 10:01Griffin McElroy?

  I didn't want a review of his face.

• 10:03Chris Plante?

  No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. This, this is important.

• 10:07Speaker 01

  You sound terrifying right now.

• 10:08Griffin McElroy?

  This is fucking wild, man.

• 10:09Chris Plante?

  I'm saying that if I put his skin on my skin, what I'm saying is, the reason that matters is, he is famous for having one of the most expressive faces in cinema. And if you're gonna put that into a game, I was extremely skeptical when I heard they wanted to do this, because this isn't Jean Reno, who mostly just looks disappointed in you. This is somebody who's all over the place. He can play like a very stern figure to a comedic figure and everything in between. And what they have to do with the facial animation in this game is, I don't know, it looks like skin overlaid onto a... Skeleton, rather than-

• 10:50Griffin McElroy?

  It's super expressive.

• 10:52Chris Plante?

  Rather than in most games where it's like, the face looks like it's all just one lump of clay.

• 10:58Griffin McElroy?

  It's, it's really, really incredible. It's, the game, I was not really prepared for the tone of the game, which I think Hughes, him's a lot closer to Devil May Cry. In that, I don't think that the combat feels like it, like, basically at all, but the kind of like, almost campy nature of the dialogue. Musashi is just a, he is, in this game, he is just a swordsman who wants to be the world's greatest swordsman, who then gets these demon powers through this magic gauntlet that he's annoyed by, because he doesn't want it to discredit how good he is at the sword. Uh, that's a really fun setup for a game, is like, a man who's been bestowed with this incredible power, and is like, "Well, that fucking sucks. Like, I was already good at the other thing.

• 11:42Griffin McElroy?

  Now, people are just gonna think I'm full of shit." Uh, I was not prepared for the horror of this game. Uh, I referenced turning, uh, Sly Stallone, turning people into wine, which is a sort of thing that does happen in this game, not with Sly Stallone in it. Really, truly grotesque, like shit, happening to people, uh, in, in the game, and some truly kind of like scary depictions of demons, who you then have to get into these fucking rad, super difficult boss fights with, uh, which to me is the, is the highlight of the game. I don't know that I've enjoyed, like hardcore, super difficult, super, like, uh, uh,

• 12:23Griffin McElroy?

  boss fights that you have to practice over and over again. I don't think I've enjoyed this much since, like, Sekiro, which is, for me, the, the gold standard of, of this exact thing.

• 12:32Chris Plante?

  I'm, I'm guessing that you played on, like, the, like, normal mode and not the-

• 12:36Griffin McElroy?

  Action mode, yes.

• 12:37Chris Plante?

  Action mode, yes. This game, it proves it. We can, we never need to have the discourse ever again. You can have an easy mode, and Souls likes games, and it does it in a way that I, I, I had never considered, which is it puts button prompts on the screen, almost like, like a Punch-Out, or, or some sort of thing where it's telling you exactly what you need to hit, right when you need to hit it. I think of, um, fighting game, uh, training modes, stuff like that. So, Ron, did you play the, the story mode, or did you do action mode?

• 13:10Speaker 01

  I did action mode.

• 13:13Griffin McElroy?

  I actually did action mode with those button prompts turned on. You can, you can, uh, enable those, but still play the much more, uh, higher difficulty, which I appreciate.

• 13:21Chris Plante?

  I-

• 13:22Griffin McElroy?

  Because I, I think the flowchart of options given to you, if an enemy is coming at you with a sword, is fucking bonkers. Because you can either dodge out of the way, or you can hold down the block, or you can try and block last second to get the parry off, but don't miss the timing, or you can hold block and then hit A to get a deflect off, which won't give you a counterattack opening, but it will reduce their stamina further. Or you can wait until the last second and try to attack right before they attack, so you can hit them with an Eason Strike, which looks and feels so fucking cool, so rad, especially once you start chaining those together, but the timing on them is like, the tightest thing that you can do in the game. Or you can try and hit them with your, you know, your, uh, YB combo melee. Like, you have so many options,

• 14:07Griffin McElroy?

  and there's different ways to respond to different things, like a melee attack, you gotta dodge out of the way of, you can't parry those, uh, or I should say, an unarmed attack. There's just like, a lot of stuff. So I, I found that turning those on actually did help, while still making the game, like, it's super punishing, super difficult, it does not get the timing right for you, it just tells you like, "Hey, this is gonna be a B-button situation, whatever it does, uh, finally arrive."

• 14:32Chris Plante?

  Ron, what did you think of the boss fights? Like, did they, any stick out to you?

• 14:36Speaker 01

  Uh, I mean, I just really loved the character designs that you deal with throughout the game, and how the, the use of the Japanese folklore to kinda have these grotesque monsters that really feel at home in the, in the world that you're in, but it, it also just makes it to these badass fights that you're having. I can't say that there was one where I was like, "Oh, that really hit particular," but they've all, I mean, I mean, I, I really enjoyed the one where the guy had the little tentacle arms, and he went to grab a house and drop it on your head, and you gotta bow him up before you, like, they were all, they're really fun, and I think that's what I like about the game, is that it does this nice mix where you're fighting, for the most part, the regular enemies

• 15:19Speaker 01

  don't really involve too much of a challenge. Um, and you feel really badass, and then you get these skill checks, like, constantly, over and over, but when it does work, you really, I mean, like you said, when you hit the dodge right, and then you, he dodges out of the way, and then kicks the guy right in the face, in this beautiful, uh, just kung fu movie style, like, it's one of the best action games I've ever played. And one of the things I wanna bring up is that, again, since I've been on the road, um, most of the time I've been playing this, that I've been playing this entirely on Steam Deck, and it still looks beautiful, and it runs well.

• 15:55Chris Plante?

  Really?

• 15:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's been great.

• 15:57Griffin McElroy?

  I've been doing it on Rogue Alliance, and it's the same thing. It's, it is buttery smooth. It, it is, uh, it is fantastic. Much better than, uh, Dawn, Dawn Walker, uh, which was pretty chunky but playable. This, this one works just great. That's the only thing I've been playing it on.

• 16:12Chris Plante?

  Yeah, the, the, the character designs for me, uh,

• 16:18Chris Plante?

  there's a guy that's just fingers, basically.

• 16:21Griffin McElroy?

  The fingers dude is so good.

• 16:22Chris Plante?

  And it was such a good reveal, because you meet this dude, before you even see him, you, you hear about, uh, this, this demon who's granting wishes for everybody, and they're always like, uh, kinda Gift of the Magi, uh, wishes, where it's like, "Oh, I, I don't wanna have to comb my hair anymore," and he's like, "I know what to do, I'll cut off your hands." Like, "Oh, I don't wanna, like, sow seeds anymore."

• 16:44Griffin McElroy?

  You know that's not what happens in Gift of the Magi, right?

• 16:46Chris Plante?

  Yeah, no, it's a little different. It's a little different, but I-

• 16:50Griffin McElroy?

  I traded my fingers to get you a nice new chain for your pretty watch.

• 16:54Chris Plante?

  I was just like, it seems like this guy just really likes chopping off hands.

• 16:59Griffin McElroy?

  His answer to everything is finger, finger related, yes.

• 17:02Chris Plante?

  And then for, for you to find out, "Oh..." He took some knees, he took a leg, too.

• 17:06Griffin McElroy?

  He took a-

• 17:07Chris Plante?

  Yeah, there's some eyeballs, too, you know, but just some great character design.

• 17:12Griffin McElroy?

  I love Ganryu, who is your, uh, self-appointed rival.

• 17:16Speaker 01

  Oh, he's the best.

• 17:17Griffin McElroy?

  He is a, he's a fuckboy piece of shit, who, like, gets absolutely slimed, uh, the first time you meet him, in a hysterical cutscene, but then comes back, uh, with his own gauntlet, and is sort of your foil, where he is basically being, uh, corrupted by this, like, demonic power and his hunger for it. Uh, but the first boss fight you have with him is, for, for my money, like, the first boss fight, that was a, you can't play the game any further until you, like, get good at the stuff we've taught you so far, because this guy's gonna kick your ass up and down the street, which I really appreciated, because up to that point, I was not vibing with the combat, because all the enemies are like, pretty easy to take out.

• 18:01Griffin McElroy?

  Like, it was not that difficult, and I was like, "If this is the whole thing, man, this is gonna be a snooze." I thought it was gonna be like Sekiro, which is one of my favorite games of all time, and then you get in that boss fight with him, and it's so good, like, the things you have to do, and the shit that he throws out at you, and the dirty tricks he's like, throwing your way. For a first boss fight, I, is so bold, and beating him feels so good, because he's such a fucking creep, too.

• 18:25Speaker 01

  I really liked that trick, because when, in Souls like, and I've been watching a lot of videos about Sekiro recently, which makes me, um, wanna go back and give it a shot, but I, I didn't make it must-pass, uh, when you get introduced to that snake, because every single fight was a challenge from the get-go. Like, from the moment one, every single fight is a challenge. What I like about this game is that it takes a moment to, since it does give you so many options for fighting, it gives a moment to also build your confidence, to make you look like a badass, to make you feel like Musashi, where you're just like, "Oh, I am one of the best fighters alive. I love fighting, let's bring, bring more people, I'll slice you in half, too," before actually being like, "Well, these guys are cannon fodder,

• 19:10Speaker 01

  and here's the real enemies."

• 19:13Griffin McElroy?

  Right. Um, there's a, there's a sort of, uh, stamina break, uh, system in the game, very much like Sekiro, where if you can wear down an enemy's stamina, you get to do a, like, a killing blow on them. For bosses, you get a choice, so whenever you get them drained of all their stamina, which you usually do by blocking their attacks, parrying their attacks, not relenting on your own sort of like offensive output, which I really, really dig, uh, it freezes them, and you get to choose where you attack with your, like, killer strike, and it gives you some options. Some of the different, like, areas you can target will just do, like, additional damage. Some will create more souls, which are things that you can swallow up in combat

• 19:54Griffin McElroy?

  to charge your special abilities, or to heal, or to gain resources that you'll spend to upgrade shit later. Um, but the really cool thing in boss fights is you can choose certain body parts that you will essentially go hack off, and if you're fighting a boss with, say, for instance, a big snake on the back of it that shoots lightning at you that you hate, you get him frozen in that point, you cut off that snake tail, they can't hit you with that shit anymore. So there's also like, this strategic layer to it, where it's like, "Ooh, I need, I need healing, and I'd love to charge up my special weapon here, uh, but if I can break his axe, like, awesome, because then I don't have to fuck with that axe anymore." Uh, it's really, really, really deep.

• 20:35Chris Plante?

  I need to go back to the little baby's way of playing this game, uh, which I, I just love.

• 20:42Chris Plante?

  We had a lot of issues with games. I think it was like Wo Long, Apollo Dynasty. These, these games where you get to that first big boss battle and it's basically is like, do you want to keep playing? We're going to make your life hell for the next two hours. You need to get good at this. And I respect it for what it is, but it's not my thing. Here, in that the easier mode, I still felt like it was a challenge for me, but the health was basically like one-ups, basically like continue buttons while fighting each boss. So the question wasn't like, could I beat them or could I not beat them? It's can I beat them without having to recharge my health?

• 21:25Chris Plante?

  And then I had those four fill-ups that were effectively like an entire session worth of play against them. Your, your health is, I don't know if it's like two or four times multiplied, but it's significantly higher whenever you're playing in this mode. But because of that, and then also the prompts on screen, it felt like I was still learning how to actually play the bosses without having to just restart over and over and over again and bash my head against it. I was actually seeing the different phases. And then you pretty early get the opportunity to go back and replay bosses and on any difficulty that you want. And you can switch the difficulty at any time in the game on top of that.

• 22:06Chris Plante?

  And after beating the characters in the easy mode, I could go into the normal mode and just clean the floor with them just as well.

• 22:14Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 22:15Chris Plante?

  Because I knew how to do it. I just wasn't stressed out during the process. And like, that is so good. It is so cool to have a game like this where I still feel like I am not button matching, like I am in control of doing well here, that I am learning the patterns. Uh, but at the same time, I'm not like completely pulling my hair out because I'm frustrated and don't want to play it anymore.

• 22:42Griffin McElroy?

  That's great. It really is a, I, I, I didn't really think of it that way. The offering of a difficulty choice. This game is not a Souls-like. I would not call it that. You go down in a boss fight and you get like a game over screen. Do you want to retry it immediately? Like a lot of the Souls sort of trappings are not present here. I keep comparing it to Sekiro, but there are some pretty big kind of, uh, structural differences. But it is, it is, I do think it changes that conversation to have a game that is very, very difficult in the fashion of a Souls-like. That also gives you an easier difficulty setting. Because like, I didn't change it, even though I was getting my ass handed to me by a few, a few bosses. And I felt, you know, like I, I wanted to get farther in the game so I could talk about it here on the show and it would be easier to do so if I wasn't getting

• 23:27Griffin McElroy?

  killed so much. But I found that just the, the harder, the action mode felt better and I didn't want to like stop doing that. I loved fighting so much while playing this game. My only issue really with it is the times where you're, you don't fight as much because you are exploring, uh, open world Kyoto.

• 23:50Chris Plante?

  The open world's strange.

• 23:51Griffin McElroy?

  The open world is, the fact that it has an open world is kind of strange. It is like a, it's like a weird sort of, uh, not very exciting playground where you go around and there's NPCs that can give you side quests, but you're fighting the same enemies that you're fighting sort of in the other more, I guess, uh, linear parts of the game. And then the linear parts of the game are so rad. Uh, I just finished the, the terrible castle with all the horrible animal, human hybrid monsters. Uh, so, so, so cool. So rad. And then you go back to Kyoto and you have to kind of just putter around for an hour or so until you get to the next totally rad linear part. It, uh, the good news is you

• 24:33Griffin McElroy?

  don't really have to engage with the open world stuff. I did a few of the side quests and like, you get some like charms that you can equip, but they are not that like impactful. I don't think the game has like super great like itemization and, and

• 24:48Chris Plante?

  Yeah.

• 24:48Griffin McElroy?

  meaningful customization and stuff, which is kind of a bummer, but also it just means you don't have to play the parts of the game you don't want to play. Uh, which is great because the parts of the game I do want to play, I can't stop playing because they are so fun and so good.

• 25:02Speaker 01

  Yeah. I would say that the, yeah, I'd have the same agreement that the open world of it almost feels like just kind of this thing of, well, every game has some type of hub world and we need to have some type of hub so that you're going around and you can talk to these characters and get little side missions where it really does feel that the pace of just following along with the story and just doing the linear missions is where it's at in this game. And, uh, it's what I enjoyed. And I feel like it's for me like, as you know, I have a four-year-old now and I have my, my older son, but like I have so much less time to play, um, that this is a perfect dad game where I just don't

• 25:43Speaker 01

  have to like worry so much about that side stuff. And if I miss something, I miss something, but the action keeps me hooked. The story keeps me hooked. It looks great. It's just, um, it's really what I love in a game. It might be one of, um, surprisingly, because I was not, I thought I'd like it, but I'm really surprised with how much I love this game.

• 26:01Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 26:01Chris Plante?

  Yeah. It, it, it wants to be a linear game so badly to the point that even when you're in the open world, there are basically gates that act as just these giant doors that will close and shut depending on where it wants you to go at any time. So it's kind of creating corridors. There's also ways in which the Kyoto changes as demons take over where quite literally you will get hemmed into certain streets. It really wants you to go where it wants to take you from action set piece to action set piece. And it does feel like a, this minor concession to what people expect. It does remind me a little bit of Pragmata, which came out earlier this year too. And just kind of a recurring thing

• 26:46Chris Plante?

  with Capcom where they seem to be balancing the games that they like to make with maybe what they think Western audiences like. I think of the open world sequence in the new Resident Evil 2.

• 26:58Griffin McElroy?

  I mean, Monster Hunter Wilds, I think, I can't remember which was the first Monster Hunter game. It was a recent one that had a sort of more open world structure. I think it was Wilds, which I didn't love. It was my

• 27:08Chris Plante?

  Yeah. And they're all kind of different experiments.

• 27:10Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah. I, I, it's the, the tailored stuff is so good and so tight. It does, it does make me wish that, I don't know, it had just sort of been that. But I, I don't, again, I don't think the open world stuff is so, it's pretty inoffensive for the, for the most part.

• 27:27Speaker 01

  Can we take a second and just talk about the course adjustment that Capcom has done in the past few years from being pretty much a publisher that people were making fun of for a while and us being like, oh, they don't take care of their IPs. They don't put their IPs back out. People were begging for a new Mega Man. Now we know we're going to have new Mega Man coming. We got new IP like Pragmata and a, and a generation where we do not get much new IP at all.

• 27:56Griffin McElroy?

  Right.

• 27:57Speaker 01

  And for a triple A publisher, definitely. Then that game was very enjoyable. Another great, I mean, let's talk about a dad game. That game, I was like, man, I wish I had a daughter.

• 28:11Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah. I guess that is about his peak dad game.

• 28:13Speaker 01

  But also it's like, we're gonna put some pants on you.

• 28:19Griffin McElroy?

  It, it is why, like, I think about the Xbox 360 era of Capcom was so rough, man. You had, uh, Lost Planet and Lost Planet 2, which were like interesting ideas, but not great games. And then you had Resident Evil 5 and 6, which is not the, the low points of the whole franchise. And, uh, I don't know.

• 28:41Chris Plante?

  Dead Rising.

• 28:42Griffin McElroy?

  Dead Rising, they were doing weird shit with, uh, it, it seems like, but I don't know. RE7 really started to pull things around. And then once RE Engine was like, uh, you know, the backbone of all of their stuff and they started to put out all the really incredible Resident Evil remakes and all these other, you know, original IP with it. It's really been, it's, it's, it is a level of output that is, uh, unparalleled, I don't think in the industry today. And I don't know the reason for it. I don't know like what, what is happening behind the scenes at Capcom that sort of brought this about, but that, that name carries a seal of quality, I feel like now, uh, that it definitely did not in, you know, the, uh, the, the 2010s era.

• 29:25Chris Plante?

  I mean, I do think they focused things.

• 29:27Speaker 01

  Yeah. The Bionic Commando. Remember when they did Bionic Commando?

• 29:30Griffin McElroy?

  Oh, hell yeah.

• 29:31Chris Plante?

  I think that's like a big part of it is this focusing on, they used to have like just a bunch of studios all over the place. They were trying to do a little bit of everything. It was really unclear whatever they wanted to do. Just all mixed up. And it does feel like since Resident Evil, it was a real focus on, okay, here's where we're going to invest. We're going to get Resident Evil figured out. We're going to make an engine that we can actually build everything on. Monster Hunter, we know is going to sell no matter what in Japan. Let's like build that out. And it, I don't know, it feels like a very patient process when you think about it and very like always making the bold bet tied to a safe bet. Yeah. We're going to make new Resident Evil games or in first person.

• 30:13Chris Plante?

  We're also going to remake those games. Yeah. We're going to make Monster Hunter, but we're going to make Monster Hunter stories to try to like cushion that. There, I don't know. It, it, it's so practical. And then the things that weren't practical, like Dragon's Dogma, they still stuck with because they believed in it, right? Well, and, and now it seems like it's going to work. Like they have the new, I guess pseudo update slash remake. I don't know what we call this. The new version of Dragon's Dogma 2, but like. They they're they have a patience that I don't think you see from pretty much any other publisher. Pragmata gets cancelled by anybody else, right?

• 30:54Griffin McElroy?

  Like, yeah.

• 30:54Chris Plante?

  This stuff just doesn't happen.

• 30:56Griffin McElroy?

  Yep. Um, hey, let's take a quick break. Uh, this game's great. I'm enjoying it. I'm gonna finish it. I think I'll probably stick with it. I'm maybe 10 hours in or so, maybe some more. I don't know how much is, uh, how much is left, but, uh,

• 31:11Chris Plante?

  I think you're about halfway.

• 31:12Griffin McElroy?

  Okay, it's a big game. It's fucking fantastic, man. I just could, I just could do these sword fights all day. Uh, and that's good because the game has so many sword fights in it. Let's take a little break. I want to come back and I want to talk about another brave little swordsman. A little guy pie named Link in this, uh, Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time remake that, uh, we saw a little bit of footage of during the recent Nintendo Direct. So, uh, quick break and then that. This episode of the Besties is sponsored by Alienware. Start your Alienware journey with the streamlined Alienware 15. They designed this machine to refine the essentials, creating a more focused gaming laptop for players who demand quality without the clutter. They engineered a brilliant 15.3 inch, 165 hertz display seamlessly into a portable 15 inch body.

• 31:57Griffin McElroy?

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• 32:30Griffin McElroy?

  Um, I gotta just give a shout out to Nintendo for never disappointing me with how in their Nintendo Directs, they will feature shit, they will announce things that would be relevant news to maybe 11 people currently living on the earth. They started out their Zelda 40th Anniversary Nintendo Direct stream with a new update of a new sign that they're gonna be hanging up at the Nintendo Museum at their headquarters in Kyoto. Fucking rad, man. That's great. You got a new sign? That's awesome. It's got a timeline.

• 33:07Speaker 01

  Have you ever been there?

• 33:09Griffin McElroy?

  I have. It's wonderful. It's a beautiful place. Uh, but I, it's, there was a lot of great stuff in here. Top billing is this, and, uh, there's new collectible trading cards in the Nintendo, uh, iOS app. And there's updated calendar art. Anyway, then you get to see the game for like 30 minutes and, uh, I think it looks pretty great. But I don't know that everyone feels that way, based on just kind of the conversation happening around this Nintendo Direct as it was happening.

• 33:37Chris Plante?

  Here's, here's the thing. Can you show a new Zelda game without at least a third of the audience being pissed, saying that they hate it and they never want to play it? And then, of course, they all like it 10 years later.

• 33:49Griffin McElroy?

  Just based on the aesthetic of the game?

• 33:50Chris Plante?

  Yeah, like, it's like, what, what Zelda game doesn't have a reaction like this from a portion of its fans at reveal?

• 33:58Griffin McElroy?

  I guess that's true. I guess that's true. Dating back to Wind Waker, uh, first being announced and people saying like, well, wait a minute. Where's our photorealistic Link? I don't want this cartoon shit. And now here's a photorealistic Link and everyone's like, where's all the cartoon shit, though?

• 34:13Chris Plante?

  Also, like, look at this. I, I grabbed the, the manga for Legend of Zelda Majora's Mask and Ocarina of Time. That's just the character.

• 34:23Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, it's a lot like it.

• 34:24Chris Plante?

  They just made a 3D version of what they liked to do. Like, I, I think, I think there's this, like, weird disconnect between what people expect from a remake in 2026, which is, I don't know, uh, stylized and surprising versus what Nintendo is doing with its remakes, which is, what if we made the promo art playable from the original game? What if you could play Star Fox as those weird puppets? What if you could play Ocarina of Time as like the sort of CG that you would see in your Prima Strategy Guide? And I personally love that. I think that's really cool. I think that's probably what the people who were making the games wanted to make back then.

• 35:09Chris Plante?

  And they just like, couldn't, but you're right. People seem, some people seem very grumpy about it.

• 35:16Griffin McElroy?

  Uh, I, a lot of people have said that the faces are creepy. Go play the Nintendo 64 era Zelda games. They're creepy ass games, man. Like, I, I just played through Majora's Mask for, for a stream and the, the weird little soulless puppet golems that you create, uh, to like solve puzzles and shit. Like, it's, it's distressing to see. And so having a, uh, I don't know, a protagonist, uh, who is a child, uh, throughout half of the game and also has a creepy, creepy creepy face, a smooth and creepy face, like some sort of haunted, like Bunraku puppet, uh, with, he looks pissed.

• 35:57Griffin McElroy?

  Child Link looks angry all, pretty much constantly with, I get it. It's weird, but also those games were weird. Go back and play them. Everyone looks crazy.

• 36:06Speaker 01

  I got no problem with it. Child Link looks like he's look maxing all, uh, to, uh, all over the place. He's using oil all day. His peptide stack is strong. Uh, the skin is flawless. Really, what more could you ask for? Um, I, I can understand it because when I looked at it, I wasn't blown away by it by any means. It wasn't like, I was like, oh yeah, that's, that's what, yeah. If you were to update it, that's what it would look like to me. And I, I'm more interested in the camera controls and being able to jump whenever I want. I think that'll be interesting and fun.

• 36:44Speaker 01

  And I'm wondering if any ways that could be somewhat game breaking because to not have to account for people jumping all over the place. And now you can is gonna be wild to me, but I think with this game, it's, um, we gotta look at the fact that this is just merely additive. Is it gonna be $60 more, more, most likely for sure? Uh, but

• 37:05Chris Plante?

  At minimum.

• 37:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, at minimum. Um, but this isn't a game that's hard to find. Like, you, you can play this game anywhere, whether it's on the, you know, analog 3D or old Nintendo 64. Or is it on like the online? You can, it's on 3DS. You, you can find it in many different ways and still keep the charm of the original version. It's one of the things that I've been loving is going back and playing old Nintendo 64 games with my, with my youngest and just seeing how it's still magical to him and how the little Pokemon, like, he doesn't need them to be photorealistic to be like, oh, that squirrel. Like, it's really cool to me, but I also imagine like playing this version with him will also be, I mean, that's pretty much my plan is to get this game and play through it with my son.

• 37:49Speaker 01

  But also, um, if you were like, oh, I don't like it and I just wanted to replay the original, I think that's, I would completely understand that.

• 37:57Griffin McElroy?

  I wouldn't play the Grezzo Nintendo 3DS remakes. Those are like way fucking better, but I, I understood. It's, first of all, it's $60, uh, digital pre-order now, so it is, it is fully, uh, $70 for that physical version, which, which they made such a big deal out of like, the cover is embossed. Like, that's great. Give me a gold cartridge or don't give me anything at all. I, I'm also excited to play this with Henry because he's like, we read all the manga of the Ocarina of Time thing, but he tried, we tried playing the game and it's like, it was the jumping. The very first time that he had to like just run at an edge and then just trust that, that Jesus Christ would make his character jump across the pit and not just fall immediately like every other video game on earth.

• 38:40Griffin McElroy?

  Uh, I am worried I'm going to just muscle memory, beef it a million times playing this game, just running at an edge and expecting my little guy to do his thing and get over the gap, uh, only to fall and, uh, and, and perish. Uh, but I, I think it looks fantastic and I am, uh, I'm really excited to play it. And I'm very excited that it hasn't been delayed and it's still coming out November 5th.

• 39:02Chris Plante?

  How much do y'all want the game to, uh, be different from the original version versus how much do you think that they'll just keep it the same?

• 39:10Speaker 01

  I don't need it to be different at all, to be honest with you. I saw that they're adding more dialogue and some more voice acting. And I think that's really all I need to flesh out the story and just add a little.

• 39:21Chris Plante?

  You want that original Water Temple? You, you, you're, you're fine with it?

• 39:25Speaker 01

  No, I mean, if they wanna, if they wanna update the Water Temple, that'd be fun, but I just wanna, I honestly wanna just see it. I wanna see what it looks like in this new version. I'm okay with being frustrated by it. But, uh, yeah, I think if you wanna do some, some quality of life improvements on, on the Water Temple, I will accept that. Absolutely.

• 39:44Chris Plante?

  Yeah, I want there to be a fast forward button where literally the game just pulls out and it's Shigeru Miyamoto himself. And he's like, here, let me help you. And then he presses fast forward, we zip through the Water Temple and then we're back in the game. That seems like a great option for me.

• 39:57Speaker 01

  It was such a tough area, but isn't it? I mean, we all remember it. I have fond memories of the Water Temple.

• 40:04Griffin McElroy?

  I get like, I don't know, I've done it so many times. I feel like I could, I feel like Water Temple, you just gotta learn. The annoying thing about Water Temple is if you miss like a cycle of raising and lowering the water, you have to like go through the whole fucking thing again, which is very, very annoying. Uh, but I, yeah, I don't think they're gonna change a lot. I would love it if they would include a Master Quest style sort of option. Uh, if you wanted to do sort of like the rearranged version or just have the, the like, uh, you know, modern Master Quest difficulty of, you know, hearts don't drop. You have to find your healing through like these things. Uh, having like different difficulty options, I think would be great, but, um, based on what they showed of the, of the Deku Tree, uh, dungeon,

• 40:47Griffin McElroy?

  like that looked pretty much exactly how I remember it.

• 40:51Chris Plante?

  Yeah.

• 40:51Griffin McElroy?

  Um, way vainier, like way the, the.

• 40:55Speaker 01

  Who of us isn't?

• 40:57Griffin McElroy?

  The veniness of the Deku Babas is really, really, uh, profane. They are real, and their tongues are huge and I, I don't know, there's, it seems like someone's trying to sneak their kink into, into my, my Zelda game, but I suppose it wouldn't be the first time. Uh, I, I think it looks great. We are missing the other Nintendo Direct that is happening this week. It has not happened as the time we record this, so maybe people are gonna be curious why we didn't talk about fucking Super Duper Smash Brothers and, uh,

• 41:31Chris Plante?

  Can't believe they announced that.

• 41:32Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 41:33Speaker 01

  That was a surprise.

• 41:35Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 41:37Chris Plante?

  That would be amazing if right before Fire Emblem came out, they were like, oh, and also intelligent systems. They've made a new Advanced Wars 2. We just wanna make sure everybody's happy. I would be, I'd be on board with that.

• 41:49Speaker 01

  They gotta make up for that last Advanced Wars, which is not good.

• 41:54Chris Plante?

  Before, before we go to like the, the last bit and give our, our other things we haven't played in, I, I wanna go back to Capcom real quick. If they make more games and they reboot more franchises like they say they're going to, and they almost certainly will, now that Onimusha, it seems like it's gonna be a huge hit. Do you have one franchise that you're like, that's the one, they gotta bring it back?

• 42:16Griffin McElroy?

  Shit, man.

• 42:20Griffin McElroy?

  I, I shit talked Lost Planet earlier.

• 42:23Chris Plante?

  Yeah.

• 42:23Griffin McElroy?

  I did think that there was some shit in Lost Planet 2, which was a much more multiplayer focused affair. Uh, that I do remember enjoying quite a bit.

• 42:35Chris Plante?

  That's not the one where you're, uh, driving a truck, is it?

• 42:38Griffin McElroy?

  No, it's the one where you're on like an icy planet and you're collecting orange goo from aliens to stay warm.

• 42:45Speaker 01

  That game was fun.

• 42:47Griffin McElroy?

  That game was pretty cool. Uh, I think, uh, Okami is kind of crazy. They haven't done more Okami shit, like, I don't know, just, just wild. That game is so fantastic.

• 42:58Chris Plante?

  We have something coming. We know that Jeff Keighley, you shed a tear when they announced it at Game Awards, but I don't know if that's just like a remake or something.

• 43:07Griffin McElroy?

  Oh, okay, maybe, maybe.

• 43:09Speaker 01

  I just would like a silly Dino Crisis. That would be fun. Just, yeah, just a silly, silly Dino Crisis game.

• 43:17Griffin McElroy?

  God, the Dino Crisis timeline is hysterical, cuz it's like 99, Dino Crisis, 2000, Dino Crisis 2, 2002, Dino Stalker, 2003, Dino Crisis 3, nothing. 2025, Dino Crisis Bundle, where you can get one and two on Windows PC. But then again, it was 20 years after Onimusha that we got this one, so maybe, maybe Dino Crisis.

• 43:39Speaker 01

  I'll take another Rival Schools. I know I did the joke earlier, and also again, this is why I like doing this podcast. It's the only place in the world where I can make a joke about Rival Schools slash Project Justice, and other people laughed, and I really, and it made me feel so good.

• 43:53Griffin McElroy?

  They have some, their, their bench is pretty deep. A Power Stone in 2027?

• 43:58Speaker 01

  I've been begging for that forever. I didn't even, oh, I forgot. I, see, I want that so much that I have put that out of my head. I love Power Stone. I don't think there's been another fighting game like it. Do a ballroom brawl like that, come on.

• 44:11Chris Plante?

  Yeah, because like, I feel like they don't wanna step on their own toes, like, they don't wanna make games that are gonna compete with Street Fighter. I, I worry about Dino Crisis because I feel like they're like, eh, it's all too close to Resident Evil. But Power Stone, there's nothing else like that that they're working with. They should just do that. That and Steel Battalion, and we're set. We've got everything we need.

• 44:31Speaker 01

  I mean, Power Stone with more destructible environments that we could have with now would be so much fun.

• 44:38Griffin McElroy?

  Be so fun.

• 44:39Chris Plante?

  20 person ballroom, like, bar fights.

• 44:43Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, dude.

• 44:44Chris Plante?

  Throw in and out of the bar. That'd be sick.

• 44:46Griffin McElroy?

  Breath of Fire, I forgot that was Capcom, the whole ass like JRPG world that, uh, is really solid, that they haven't done anything with and.

• 44:54Chris Plante?

  You just do this, right? We just need to let them make some more handheld Zelda games again.

• 44:58Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, I don't know. It's, they're undefeated.

• 45:02Griffin McElroy?

  Uh, maybe they could finally make a good Ghosts and Goblins game. Maybe not, maybe with the RE engine, the power of the RE engine at their disposal. Um, do we wanna do some honorable mentions? Ron, you been playing anything else, uh, on, on the road?

• 45:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, I've been playing a couple of things. Before I went on the road, I don't know if I talked about this last time. I don't think so. Um, but I had the, I, since launch, I had tried to play, well, I'll start the short one first. Sleeping Dogs. I've been, uh, meaning to play that forever. Never had, started it up in between playing Onimusha out here, really enjoying it, really surprised by how good it still looks, so like 12 years later, in the, the story and the voice acting is, is very top notch.

• 45:48Griffin McElroy?

  That was like the John Woo action inspired one, or am I thinking of something else?

• 45:53Chris Plante?

  No, this was, it started out as that True Crime Streets of LA. They were gonna make a sequel. Activision's like, we don't know what to do here. And then it gets turned into kind of like a GTA, but is it, where is it set?

• 46:07Speaker 01

  It's in Hong Kong.

• 46:09Chris Plante?

  Yeah, and it's, and it's a lot of like hand to hand combat and like knives and stuff like that.

• 46:15Speaker 01

  It's a lot of running and chasing people, but I've only just started playing that. Um, but I've been, uh, since launch, I have restarted, uh, Cyberpunk 277 probably five times and made it about two hours in each time, and every time I fell out of love with it. Um, and mostly because I truly, um, A, I was not understanding the story. I thought all the dicks and butts and, and all that stuff was just them being silly and fun. I didn't know it was such a statement on where they feel the world is headed and advertisement and in general. And then the use of the color red and every UI element was terrible for me, and I hated it

• 46:55Speaker 01

  and physically caused me pain, which would probably be another reason why I should've got my autism diagnosis earlier, but.

• 47:04Griffin McElroy?

  This is why we subbed you out for Russ, is he also struggles with the color red.

• 47:07Speaker 01

  I hate it so much. Um, but once someone told me that you can change the UI elements to purple, I went and gave it one more shot. And now I think Cyberpunk is one of my favorite games of all time. I have never had an open world this beautiful, uh, uh, where the city is the main character. The story is so fun. I crucified a man. I didn't think that would ever happen. And I've just done things in this game I've never done anywhere else in any game, and I freaking love it. And to go from it being a game that I truly did not see any, I was like, why do people, I would go online, people would be like, this is why Cyberpunk is one of the best games of all time.

• 47:51Speaker 01

  And I'd be like, this game sucks, but now I see it, just like my, I thought Jacket Potato was terrible, but now I know I was wrong, and I was wrong about Cyberpunk, and now that they're doing the, um, upgrade, I'm gonna give The Witcher 3 one more try.

• 48:06Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, now's the time.

• 48:09Chris Plante?

  Love it. Ron, I think you were the last, hold up, cuz I wasn't here for that first episode. You were, you had hit the swap out me button. And I think every person who was on that episode has come around to this being like.

• 48:24Griffin McElroy?

  Well, okay, that's, that doesn't reflect some great change in our spirit as much as it reflects, like, they made the game actually good with a bunch of, bunch of.

• 48:32Chris Plante?

  I agree. I, um, it's impressive though that they managed to make it good enough to win people over, because it's hard to win. All of us have busy schedules. We're all playing other games.

• 48:42Speaker 01

  No, it really, and I don't mean to interrupt you, but it really struck me truly as like human progress, not even like just video games, just like, how can you, you took something that I truly was like, this sucks, even at a mechanical level was not working well, and

• 48:59Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 49:01Speaker 01

  through hard work and dedication and a shit ton of money and effort, now I go, I, I love, this is one of the best experiences I ever had, and it really, like, it almost made me like, literally started tearing up, being like, man, this is why you don't give up, because you don't know what you can become.

• 49:17Chris Plante?

  Yeah.

• 49:18Griffin McElroy?

  Have you hit the Phantom Liberty stuff yet?

• 49:20Chris Plante?

  Not yet, not yet, I'm getting close.

• 49:21Griffin McElroy?

  Damn. I re, I was just selling my, my barber on, on this, cuz he, he plays a bunch of games and was like talking about how disappointed he was, and I was like, oh man, you gotta go back. Idris Elba is fucking great, so good. Uh, man, I wanna go back and play Cyberpunk, and I think I did like early last year. So, uh, it's probably too soon for a revisit, but.

• 49:42Chris Plante?

  How? We could, I, I think maybe early, early 2027, we all get back together.

• 49:47Griffin McElroy?

  Too much other shit, and Ron's right, I do owe it to Witcher 3 also to try it again with this remake, because Witcher 3 is the one. That I still like had. Yeah.

• 49:56Chris Plante?

  You're the last holdout on that one.

• 49:59Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 49:59Chris Plante?

  It turned around for me relatively recently. I'm ready.

• 50:03Griffin McElroy?

  But I love The Blood of Donwalker. I really, really enjoyed that. So maybe, maybe now I'm primed. Maybe now I'm, I'm set up.

• 50:12Griffin McElroy?

  I'll, I'll, I'll leapfrog from there to my honorable mentions if we're at that point, because I did finish The Blood of Donwalker. Have you played that one at all, Ron?

• 50:19Speaker 01

  No, I've been looking at it, but it just didn't, it didn't look like a full pricer for me. So I was like, let me, let me wait.

• 50:26Griffin McElroy?

  I respect that.

• 50:27Speaker 01

  Let me wait, let me, I heard there's a little bit of jank, a little bit of kink. So I'm like, if I give it a few months, price will come down and it'll be even better, most likely.

• 50:34Griffin McElroy?

  It does this thing that I love, uh, that, that games do of this scale specifically, I feel like is the main offender of, uh, giving you some traversal powers like, uh, vampiric teleportation and walking on walls. And then also allows you to climb on jagged rugged mountains that will not adhere to the rules of, uh, all of these travel abilities you have. So the number of times that I was like trying to get up a hill and I would teleport up it, but I would hit a weird slope and then it would launch me back downwards at like a hundred miles an hour. It, it felt a bit, uh, it did feel a bit rough around the edges. Uh, I really, really liked it. I stand by all the stuff I said in our episode about it. The sword fighting is so cool. The vampire powers are so great. The writing and acting is fantastic.

• 51:19Griffin McElroy?

  I did not enjoy the ending of the game, which I was sort of nervous would be the case because it has a lot of endings because the structure of the game is you've got a month and you're not going to be able to do everything. And so the choices you make are going to inform the ending that you get. And I always worry about games when they're like, we have 30 endings. And it's like, I bet you don't have 30 great endings because that's a lot of ways to end a story, uh, for them all to hit.

• 51:47Griffin McElroy?

  It just, but I, I don't know. I feel like I feel that way about a lot of open world sort of RPG games, uh, where I invest so much time in all the little stories that happen along the way that the conclusion rarely kind of hits, hits for me. So that was unfortunate, but I really, really liked, you know, the actual game part of it. An ending I did enjoy is after putting it off for a while, because I was worried, uh, it would be bad and it would make me sad from it being bad. Rachel and I just watched all of, uh, the final season of The Bear, which, uh, came out, I think now like a month or two, it's been out for a little bit. And I have, I loved the first two seasons of that show, and then the third and fourth were a little bit rocky to me.

• 52:32Griffin McElroy?

  And then I think this last season kicks ass. And it did not sound like it was going to kick ass because it's set during one day, basically one fateful day, uh, at the restaurant where everything is going wrong. Uh, I always get very nervous about sort of bottle seasons like that, but, uh, I think, I think it really, really ties the story up with a, a lovely bow. Uh, and I was so happy for it because when that show hits, man, I still think about that Forks episode in season two, where Cousin Richie has to stodge at the restaurant and like learns to be confident in himself. It's like one of my favorite TV episodes ever. I, I think that, I think this last season does a good job of, of kind of getting back

• 53:15Griffin McElroy?

  to, to that show when it's working best.

• 53:18Chris Plante?

  That rocks. Uh, mine is Star Wars Zero Company. I can't get away from this game. Are either of you playing this?

• 53:25Griffin McElroy?

  No.

• 53:27Chris Plante?

  Y'all.

• 53:27Griffin McElroy?

  No, it's just because I don't like the genre, but I like the, everything about the game that I've heard.

• 53:33Chris Plante?

  I don't really like the genre that much either. I like, I liked XCOM when I was a little kid before even the reboots. I don't usually play these sorts of games, but we talked about it on Resties and that kind of helped me figure out what is going on. Being third person pretty regularly, actually walking through these worlds, even if it's not like the most impressive, like your animation is, looks like you're kind of like walking on a slip and slide.

• 54:01Chris Plante?

  It puts you in it just enough that you don't feel like you're just managing a spreadsheet. And you feel like you are like in this world. And the way that it gets you into the Star Wars lore is so good because you get to have fights with characters that are names that you know, and they feel for maybe the first time as powerful as they are in the movies. Because they're not the main characters. They just show up now and then. So you can basically break the game whenever you put these people into it and it feels so, so awesome. Also, it's much, like the world itself is much smaller than XCOM. Uh, the battlefields are and the fights are just faster and they're a lot more hand to hand.

• 54:47Chris Plante?

  And the way that they use the force, they don't do a good job of communicating it early in the game, but it's a lot about pushing people around the map, like knocking them off of platforms, throwing, literally throwing them off of the map and really roughing them up versus just, you know, like spamming them with bullets that 70% of the time may or may not hit.

• 55:07Griffin McElroy?

  It's, I mean, it's Star Wars. They don't have, they haven't invented bullets in that. And you would know that if you were like a bigger Star Wars guy.

• 55:13Chris Plante?

  That's true. Um, laser ions?

• 55:16Griffin McElroy?

  Yes.

• 55:17Chris Plante?

  Oh, thank you.

• 55:18Griffin McElroy?

  That's exactly right. Laser ions.

• 55:19Chris Plante?

  Also, the writing is just super fun. It is very boots on the ground, the fight, like the combat itself, but also the sort of conversations that they have, the number of times they just like shoot the shit about their opinions of different pod racer, uh, racers. It's good. It's good stuff.

• 55:37Griffin McElroy?

  Great. Ron, were you playing anything else other than Sleeping Dogs?

• 55:41Speaker 01

  Hmm, Cyberpunk and then watching Cyberpunk, the anime.

• 55:44Griffin McElroy?

  Oh, it's great.

• 55:45Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 55:45Griffin McElroy?

  It's really good. Uh, okay. That is going to do it for us this week, uh, here on The Besties. A few quick announcements. First, we got a live show coming up, October 9th, uh, at, at Town Hall in New York City. Uh, you can get tickets at bit.ly slash besties on Broadway. Please come see us. We've never done a live show before and it's going to be fun. We've got some fun stuff planned. We also have a Patreon where you can get access to, uh, episodes of The Resties, where Russ and Chris, uh, talk about other games that we don't talk about here on, on The Besties. Uh, we also do a monthly bracket battle episode, uh, where we get a special guest on and we decide things like, uh, who would be the best roommate from a video game.

• 56:26Speaker 01

  You remember.

• 56:27Griffin McElroy?

  Of course, of course. Uh, uh, so, so much fun in those, uh, episodes. Do you want to read off some of these new backers here, Chris?

• 56:35Chris Plante?

  Yeah, we've got Austin B, we got M Bo, we got Northwest North, and we got Papa Squat.

• 56:43Griffin McElroy?

  Amazing. All that at patreon.com slash The Besties. Ron, do you have anything, uh, any, any shows coming up anyway?

• 56:50Speaker 01

  Oh, of course, I always do. Um, I'm going to be in Louisville at the Louisville Comedy Club in Louisville, Kentucky. Jim Cornette, come on by, your ticket's free. September 2050th, 26th. I will be in Eugene, October 1st through 3rd. If you are in Oregon at all, I'm going to be taping something, um, celebrate my 20 year anniversary in comedy that weekend. So I would love it if anyone can come out and support. That's October 1st through 3rd, again in Eugene, Oregon. And then October 9th and 10th, I'll be in Spokane, Washington. But I'm going all over the place, October and November and December. So just go to ronfunchess.com. Come see me.

• 57:27Griffin McElroy?

  Keep an eye out. Uh, Ron, thank you so much for joining us and thank you at home for joining us. Next week, we're going to be talking about that nasty bladed Canadian hero known as Wolverine. He's back and he's, he's got, guys, I went months of playing games without dismembering people. And then the last like four games that we've played have been so dismemberment focused, so heavy on the dismemberment that it's starting, I'm starting to get like Tetris effect, but for dismemberment because of how many people I've dismembered in games.

• 58:05Speaker 01

  Well, it's almost October.

• 58:08Griffin McElroy?

  Uh, it's, that's it. It's not even seasonal yet, right? Like I'm, I'm chopping up people left, right and center. It's not even spooky month yet, but anyway, Wolverine, you, I don't know if I'm breaking embargo, but you chop people up a bunch. So we'll have probably more erudite thoughts to share on Wolverine when we discuss it next week here on The Besties. So join us next week and every week here on The Besties because shouldn't the world's best friends play the world's best games?