With Fire Emblem, Is It Finally Time to Buy a Switch 2?

Fire Emblem: Fortune’s Weave is the biggest exclusive for the Nintendo Switch 2 — quite literally. A completionist run of the new tactics RPG could take you 200 hours. For some fans, the epic length will be a decadent pleasure. For others, like Plante, it’s a threat. To guide us through the huge adventure, longtime Fire Emblem-lovers Griffin and Frush share what works and doesn’t. Meanwhile, Plante wonders if the current list of exclusives has made the Switch 2 a worthwhile upgrade.

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

• 0:00Griffin McElroy?

  I don't care about winning the war and having the biggest, strongest army and winning the tournament so I can make my wish to the emperor and save my dad. I don't give a shit about any of that stuff. All I care about is perfect bird time. This game includes an exciting new feature I've never seen in a video game before, which is you make your character and he does look like a handsome anime guy or gal. And then, but you're gonna spend most of the game in the guise of a little bird.

• 0:31Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, you do become a bird. That's true.

• 0:33Griffin McElroy?

  And sometimes people will come to you and they'll give you little treats and then you become the bird and the people will say things to you like, "I'm thinking about leaving my wife." And then you have to do some bird shit. You get a choice of bird shit, but they're only gonna like one of the bird shit.

• 0:47Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, you gotta be really careful.

• 0:49Griffin McElroy?

  If someone says, "I'm thinking about leaving my wife," and then you do a little dance, they are not going to like it.

• 0:55Russ Frushtick?

  Big mistake.

• 0:56Griffin McElroy?

  But if you, if they do like it and you get it right three times in a row, you get perfect bird time, which it says on the screen in big letters and it feels so-

• 1:04Russ Frushtick?

  And they're so happy.

• 1:06Griffin McElroy?

  They're so happy. And then you can perv on them a little bit if you want to. If you get, you can do it even if you don't get perfect bird time. But if you get perfect bird time, it's like-

• 1:16Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, you could, you could do like a B-movie situation where you're just gonna like work your magic as a bird.

• 1:22Griffin McElroy?

  A little bit. Perfect. Guys, the first fucking time, I just finished a chapter that was pretty gnarly from a content and gruesomeness perspective. And then the very next thing I did with my free time is get perfect bird time.

• 1:36Russ Frushtick?

  Fuck, yes.

• 1:37Griffin McElroy?

  And I busted out fucking laughing. It's so good. Give me perfect bird time in every video game, please.

• 1:42Chris Plante?

  Can I give you a recommendation, though? Just a recommendation. It's not that I've been like chatting with your wife over text or anything. But like, let's say that she's trying to enjoy just a nice lunch and she's had a long day. It's like her one moment to herself. And you keep maybe leering and like, kind of like peeking into the room and then you're like, maybe like yelling, "Perfect bird time."

• 2:04Griffin McElroy?

  Perfect bird time. Yeah. Sometimes I dress up like a big bird and I'll come in where she's eating lunch and I'll, I'll be like, "Hard day at the office, huh?" And she'll tell me about it and then I'll tilt my head and flap my wings. She hates that. I can't have perfect bird time.

• 2:17Russ Frushtick?

  You're crazy?

• 2:19Chris Plante?

  I was talking about a theoretical. I wasn't trying to confirm anything here, but if you-

• 2:24Griffin McElroy?

  Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 2:25Chris Plante?

  Sure, sure, sure, sure, sure.

• 2:26Griffin McElroy?

  It's just a theory.

• 2:27Chris Plante?

  I just think like she like, I think maybe she would like you to stop doing it.

• 2:33Russ Frushtick?

  Well, just do the right thing, Griffin. That's all you have to do is do the right thing.

• 2:36Griffin McElroy?

  That's it. If she doesn't like when I do perfect bird time.

• 2:38Russ Frushtick?

  You don't fucking tilt your head in that situation. You crazy?

• 2:41Griffin McElroy?

  That must be it.

• 3:00Griffin McElroy?

  My name is Griffin McRoy and I know the perfect bird time of the week.

• 3:03Chris Plante?

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

• 3:07Russ Frushtick?

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

• 3:11Griffin McElroy?

  Welcome to the besties where we talk about the latest and greatest in home interactive entertainment. By listening to this show legally, you've become a member of the club. This week, we're going to be discussing Fire Emblem Fortunes: Weave on the Nintendo Switch 2 console. Mario's home, you may be thinking. No, there's so much more to it than that. And also, it's not just Pac-Man anymore. Chris, what the fuck is Fire Emblem Fortunes: Weave?

• 3:35Chris Plante?

  How do I even begin to capture all the things that this game is, including perfect bird time? It is a tactics game from Nintendo, the continuation of a series that has actually been going on since the Famicom days, but so much has changed. Now it's got story, now it's got weeb's, now it's got anime cinematics, now it's got four and a half protagonists. It's huge and we're gonna talk about it right after the break.

• 4:02Russ 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.

• 4:51Griffin McElroy?

  Is Fire Emblem Fortunes: Weeb's anything? Hmm. I like that. That's good.

• 4:55Russ Frushtick?

  I don't thi- I don't think it's anything.

• 4:57Griffin McElroy?

  No? Okay, thank you, Russ. Can we start things out by just checking in on everyone's feelings about Fire Emblem?

• 5:06Russ Frushtick?

  The franchise.

• 5:07Griffin McElroy?

  And the, I guess the franchise and specifically, I guess-

• 5:10Russ Frushtick?

  Our level of experience.

• 5:12Griffin McElroy?

  Three Houses was not the most recent one. Fire Emblem Engage was the most recent one, which I bounced off of pretty fucking hard. This one is a direct continuation of Fire Emblem Three Houses.

• 5:22Russ Frushtick?

  Sort of.

• 5:24Griffin McElroy?

  Ah, sort of. Yeah.

• 5:26Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, so I have adored Fire Emblem basically since the Game Boy Advance days, which was the first time that they, it came to the United States. Before that, it was a long-running Japanese turn-based strategy game. Came to the United States, first game, Fire Emblem, I think it was just called Fire Emblem. That was the one with Lin. And loved it. It's basically, you know, turn-based strategy like chess, but all the chess characters have like little crushes on the other characters and special abilities. And so that's really the core of the franchise.

• 6:00Griffin McElroy?

  You also played about 50 million hours of Fire Emblem Heroes on the mobile devices.

• 6:06Russ Frushtick?

  I did. Yeah, to some extent, they do share some similarities, but largely they're, they feel like kind of different things. I think for me, if it's helpful, I think Fire Emblem Three Houses, which was the, you're right, not the last one, but the first Switch one, I think probably my favorite of the lot. Before this one, we'll, we'll talk about this one in a second. And I think that really mastered a very careful balance between what I think is pretty excellent turn-based strategy and character development with fun narrative, how am I gonna spend my time, Persona-esque shenanigans.

• 6:44Griffin McElroy?

  I would agree with that. I think that that game did the best with that half of the, of the experience. I think the combat in these games is always like, fun. I will always, always, always enjoy just the kind of tactics of it. And especially since they got rid of the weapon triangle thing of, I can never remember it off the top of my head. I probably should-

• 7:03Russ Frushtick?

  Swords beat axes, axes beat lances, lances beat swords.

• 7:06Griffin McElroy?

  Swords, yeah. Easy. They've, that is not a thing anymore. Now it is much more-

• 7:10Russ Frushtick?

  There is, it is a little bit of a thing. We could talk about it later.

• 7:13Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, it's contextual and like, I don't know, spears are good against mounted units. That makes sense. You don't want to get stabbed by a spear when you're on a horse. That would suck. You're up so high. No thanks. So like, I, I find that that stuff is really, really, really solid and really great. And this game adds a lot of fun stuff into that mix.

• 7:32Russ Frushtick?

  I do want to hear from Plant. Plant, have you ever spent more than five hours in any Fire Emblem game?

• 7:37Chris Plante?

  Oh, that's a good question. I might've spent more than that in Engage, which I enjoyed the combat and I found it very strange how I was walking around this. I don't, was it a floating island or something? And I looked like I was like in a toothpaste commercial.

• 7:52Russ Frushtick?

  Terrible. Well, her hair was toothpaste. Yeah, the narrative in that game was awful, but yeah, the combat was really good.

• 7:58Chris Plante?

  This game is so weird because people have been recommending Three Houses, including both of y'all, to me forever. It's like, oh, you like Persona. You're gonna like the, the people are dating and making children and this. You're gonna love it. And I was like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Got really excited for this one. Did an episode of post games, learning all about the history of the series. Got really into that, that Star Wars tactics game. Was like, this is gonna be it. I'm, I'm, I've got my anime tattoos now. That's changed since Three Houses. Like, this is my time to shine. So that, that's kind of where I was before starting the game.

• 8:31Griffin McElroy?

  That's good setup. Let's, let's talk about the structure of the game. Cause I think people probably know what Fire Emblem is at this point. The real question mark is like, what is the, what are the trappings of the game?

• 8:43Russ Frushtick?

  This game has more trappings than I think I've ever experienced in any video game.

• 8:47Griffin McElroy?

  It has the most fucking trappings. But this is not a new Fire Emblem concept, right? Three Houses, you were picking your house at the start of the game and then you would play through that campaign. And it was a different campaign. They were separate. There were three. And then I think they added a fourth one through DLC. This game- Instead, you start out by creating this character called the Pale Raven. Not a ton of character creation options, but that's fine because you'll spend most of the game as a pudgy little bird. And that's fucking great also, who is at basically the apocalypse. And you learn that in order to, to defeat the demon king who is destroying the world, you have to go back in time, five years to a tournament that happened at the heart of the empire of Dagda. Dagden?

• 9:29Russ Frushtick?

  Dagden?

• 9:30Griffin McElroy?

  Dagden and the city is called Dagzian.

• 9:32Russ Frushtick?

  Yep.

• 9:33Griffin McElroy?

  Which is awesome. Really fun naming conventions for the world in this one. And you have to interfere-

• 9:40Russ Frushtick?

  And just to, sorry, to clarify, for people that are fans of Three Houses, this is set in the same world as Three Houses.

• 9:45Griffin McElroy?

  Yes.

• 9:46Russ Frushtick?

  But on a different-

• 9:47Griffin McElroy?

  Eric Mock and-

• 9:47Russ Frushtick?

  Country.

• 9:48Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, it's, I mean, it's like two whole continents of, it's a huge fucking world. So there's four characters called the Flame Lords, who were sort of competing in this tournament and you choose one to go back and relive their story as they enter the tournament.

• 10:04Russ Frushtick?

  Well, first you kill them all in the, in the future.

• 10:07Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 10:07Russ Frushtick?

  There's like a nasty future and you kill all of them.

• 10:10Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, it's a pretty sick prologue. There's like space lasers and shit. You're like, what's going on?

• 10:14Russ Frushtick?

  You fucking murk a guy at close range with like a shot to the head with a handgun.

• 10:19Griffin McElroy?

  Pretty gnarly stuff. And then you go back in time and you play as one of these four characters. As you see what happens in their tournament and occasionally dip into interfere with the proceedings to try and save them, to bring them to the present, where you will then play sort of the rest of, the rest of the campaign, like two acts worth left of stuff.

• 10:39Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 10:39Griffin McElroy?

  Once you have done the kind of core narrative conceit of traveling back in time to save these four heroes. Those are the four campaigns of Fire Emblem Fortune's Weave. What it does differently is after you've gone back in time and done act one essentially as those four characters, then all the paths combine into one turbo story for the remainder of the game.

• 10:59Russ Frushtick?

  You could theoretically, and correct me if I'm wrong, you could theoretically just play as one and move directly to part two.

• 11:06Griffin McElroy?

  You can actually just skip all of them and just run right up on it as the Pale Raven. From what I understand, you don't have to do any, I, I do believe that there is a way to end the game just by like saying, you know what? I think I got it. And I like the, the certainty of that. I think it's cool how they are combining the storylines.

• 11:25Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 11:25Griffin McElroy?

  I loved Fire Emblem Three Houses. I played through, I think Dimitri's campaign first. That was the blue team. And then I played the yellow team storyline. I don't think I ever did the DLC or the red, the red class storyline. So like, I think it is cool how the storylines combine because that makes me feel like, well, I'm not going to have to replay the same game a bunch of times.

• 11:47Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, it's very ambitious because my understanding is if you do do multiple of the part one, you can pick and choose like which version of this character are you going to carry forward to part two? Which is like pretty fucking ambitious.

• 12:00Griffin McElroy?

  Really super ambitious, but it's super wise, I think. I have not reached that point yet. I am nearing completion of one of the act one arcs of one of the characters. And I've been playing for around 20 hours.

• 12:13Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 12:14Griffin McElroy?

  So that's a big old game, isn't it? That's a big old game. Are we talking about like, it'll probably take me about 25 hours, I'm guessing, just to finish this one act one storyline up with? Am I going to be playing this shit for a hundred hours before I reach act two? Probably not, because I imagine I'll move through the other storylines quite a bit faster and not being quite as like, I don't know. I'm trying to do everything on Kai, who is the little boy Flame Lord.

• 12:39Russ Frushtick?

  Okay, okay. Now I've got, I've got an update on timing. This is, according to this, the internet, the internet says if you're doing a single path directly, more or less just focusing on critical, critical story stuff, 20 hours. If you're doing a thorough single path, 40 to 50 hours of gameplay.

• 12:59Griffin McElroy?

  Just for one of the characters, act one.

• 13:01Russ Frushtick?

  Character.

• 13:02Griffin McElroy?

  So like, I don't know, gang.

• 13:04Russ Frushtick?

  But, but I will say that way, I do want to mention, when you go and switch characters to other characters, if you're doing side stuff in one of them, you don't have to do it again. It automatically completes.

• 13:14Griffin McElroy?

  That's great. I love that.

• 13:15Russ Frushtick?

  Other subsequent playthroughs will be faster.

• 13:17Griffin McElroy?

  I am very glad to hear that. Right? I am playing in hard casual. So the difficulty settings are normal, which is pretty easy from what I understand, or hard, which just affects like how much damage enemies do and their stats and stuff. And then there is classic where characters are permited and then casual where they, if you die in battle, they just come back in the next one. I am playing hard casual. That is the sort of way I'm playing it. And so I want to make sure like my dudes are strong. I'm doing a lot of the stuff between the big set piece battles, which are all very cool as you're going through this tournament. And like each of the matches is based on some historical or mythological event from like the history of the Dagden Empire. Like, and it really gets into it. I'm loving all that shit.

• 13:58Griffin McElroy?

  The time you're spending between those things is kind of insane because it'll be like, it breaks each day down into four, six hour turns. And so like one break time between set piece battles will be like, you have 170 turns to spend before you get back. That's like, holy shit, man. At first I was being very careful about how I was spending my time and not wasting movement on the world map and wasting time there as I went and did side quests and, you know, farmed for shit or whatever. And now I'm like, I'm actually pretty set. I've got a really good team. I'm not going to really stress out about it. You can automate the process in a bunch of different ways. So I think I'll probably do it that way more with the other branches. But still, man, like as much fun as I'm having with this game, but I've been enjoying it a lot.

• 14:42Griffin McElroy?

  I feel weird about moving on and beating the rest of the game with only one quarter of the like act ones done. But the thought of, the thought of like a hundred hours before I even get to the next part of the game is like a, a very off putting, I think, sort of time commitment.

• 15:00Chris Plante?

  I got a question for y'all of people who've been playing the series for a while. I remember the series having multiple versions, like you could buy two different versions of, I think it was Fates or something, right?

• 15:12Griffin McElroy?

  It was Fire Emblem, yeah. Fire Emblem Fates had like for each of the fam, that was the 3DS one.

• 15:17Russ Frushtick?

  That was like awaken, or, yeah.

• 15:19Griffin McElroy?

  There were three versions. There was like the, you go with this family version or you go with this family version. And then there was like the, the authoritative Pokemon Platinum, if you will, version. And then, again, I only played one of those and I was like, I just played this for 60 hours. Like I'm so set. I'm so good. Thank you.

• 15:37Chris Plante?

  Is that kind of like a thing for this series? Because Three Houses also, I know, had the multiple storylines. So is, is this kind of a game known for having multiple games at the same time? And they're being more generous now in that you don't have to buy multiple copies is, is that a way of kind of reading this?

• 15:54Russ Frushtick?

  So Fire Emblem Fates was the first time they did this where they had like the multiple paths that was on 3DS. And then Three Houses, they did it again. Fire Emblem Engage does not have it. So it's not-

• 16:05Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, I think Fates was the only one of these that did like the selling it in separate, separate SKUs.

• 16:10Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, but I, but I think that was the origination of this idea that you can play more or less the same story from multiple perspectives.

• 16:18Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah. And I think that shit's really cool, right? I liked having to make that choice in Three Houses and, and then talking to other people and then playing the second, you know, playthrough, which I did quite a bit later. It was not like a back to back sort of situation. It was cool because it's like, wow, this story is completely different. This is like this one, a completely different route. And I'm enjoying the story of this game and the world building of this game, but I do want to see, I've heard the stuff in act two and three is fucking rad. I want to see that shit really, really bad. I don't know. I guess I am, I know this is like a steak too juicy situation, maybe. But like, I don't want to, I would feel weird. There's a completionist streak in me that would feel weird moving on with the rest of the game.

• 17:01Griffin McElroy?

  And just like not having the other three kind of characters, but like, I, I don't know if I can handle that much Fire Emblem.

• 17:08Chris Plante?

  It sounds like the difference here too is like Fates and Three Houses, if you did a run, you, you did a complete experience. Where knowing that these are all episodic, it's like, no, you, you really didn't-

• 17:22Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 17:22Chris Plante?

  Complete the game until you've done it all.

• 17:24Griffin McElroy?

  That's, that is my sort of concern. What I will say, this game does a lot of stuff right. This game does a lot of stuff with this structure right. One big thing is that your character, the Pale Raven hangs out in this obelisk chamber, where these four obelisks are, which represent the four different paths through act one. And at any time, you can drop back to that chamber and hop over to another path. You do not have to finish one all the way through before you can check out something else. I think that's pretty cool. I know some people are playing it that way because you will run into the other main Flame Lord characters as you go through a route. So you can say like, oh, that was awesome. I teamed up with them in this battle. I wonder what's going on in their story. The thought of doing that to me, like, I don't know, managing a whole army of characters is overwhelming.

• 18:05Griffin McElroy?

  I don't know that I could do four concurrent ones, but-

• 18:10Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, I will say, here's the challenge that I'm facing as hardcore Fire Emblem person that I am. And Griffin, maybe you can like edge me in the right direction.

• 18:20Griffin McElroy?

  Sure.

• 18:21Russ Frushtick?

  Literally nowhere near. This game is way more complicated from a meta game structure standpoint than anything that's come before it, probably by 5X.

• 18:33Griffin McElroy?

  Wow. What do you, what, what is making you feel that way?

• 18:36Russ Frushtick?

  The management of like the items that I'm getting, the, uh, how to spend my time, which granted was in three houses, the like open world map, the multiple characters at once, the whole thing where, you know, in, in three houses largely, like the group that you hang with, you kind of start with, like they're in your house. And then there are a couple of other characters you can recruit if you give them gifts, whatever it is.

• 19:01Griffin McElroy?

  You can recruit every, I, when I played three houses, I, I yoinked every single like person from the other two houses that I possibly.

• 19:08Russ Frushtick?

  That's right. I, I did forget that point, but largely like it, it feels like there's a lot of systems in here that I'm not fully understanding. And maybe it's because I went in without like reading anything about this game.

• 19:19Griffin McElroy?

  Sure.

• 19:19Russ Frushtick?

  But I feel like I'm drowning.

• 19:21Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah. It's, it really for me, I preferred the way that three houses did free time, which was much more focused, I'll say.

• 19:30Russ Frushtick?

  I mean, you were just in the castle for the most part.

• 19:32Griffin McElroy?

  You were in Garrick Mok and you were like running around and there's a ton of shit that you could do, but there's not a joke, 10 times as much stuff to do with your free time here. And if you agonize over it, you will become very strong, right? If you think very hard about how you want to spend all 170 turns until the next like big Keystone battle, like you're going to get pretty buff, but it's like, I, I think it's way too much. I did not enjoy the act of going over the world map, which is fucking sprawling and you can only move a few pips on at a time. And you're going from point A to point B. Maybe you're trying to like knock out some quests to earn renown, which is like a huge leveling mechanic of the game that unlocks new characters and mechanics and things like

• 20:17Griffin McElroy?

  that in the game. Maybe you are trying to, uh, find rare resources at this one specific node, uh, way down the map. Maybe you want to go do a turn-based RPG dungeon, because there's those in the game where you go through and it's all of a sudden sort of a, a turn-based RPG and not a strategy game. Um, like figuring out like, am I going to be fine spending 14 turns running down to this lake? So I can find this rare fish for this guy that I could spend going around and leveling up in dungeon. Like if you meta game it to a point that I feel like three houses kind of invited and games like Persona really kind of encourage of like, you gotta be so careful of how you're, if you do that, I, it's fucking miserable. It's not fun

• 21:01Griffin McElroy?

  to have 170 decisions that you're making before you do the next sort of like big, uh, rad battle. So like that, that, that feels way too unfocused. And I've found myself now like automating that process. And like, once I knock out, you know, the quests I care about and recruit the characters I care about, and I have a hundred turns left over, I'll like, I'll do some shit on the week, like weekly activities and then I'll automate the rest of it. The game lets you automate quite a lot of the pain points that you brought up, Russ. I only recently discovered the equip best, uh, option whenever you're looking at inventory. It's tiny little text at the bottom. I think right trigger, uh, opens up a menu where you can remove everyone's items, automatically put on the best items, automatically put on

• 21:46Griffin McElroy?

  the best abilities, automatically put on the best combat arts, uh, automatically assign the best mounts. You're going out and capturing mounts for your mounted units and like managing their relationships. Like it's too much to not automate. And so like, I have been enjoying my route through Kai's story a lot better over the last few chapters where I've been like, okay, I know how much time I actually need to do this. Uh, and, and, and the rest of this time I can use these automated systems to kind of get through it to a degree that is, you know, more, more enjoyable. You can automate tactics battles if you want to. You can just turn it on auto battle mode and choose like advance. I want you to move up and stay together and be sort of conservative. Like you can do that for the like random encounter battles

• 22:30Griffin McElroy?

  that you run into on the map, which I've done a few times because I fought the same group of seven wolves quite a few times at this point. So like, I don't know, that, that part of the game, it for me goes along with the, there's so many routes and so much time that is asking you to spend that like, I find myself pretty eager to get back into the big story fights, the big narrative fights, because those have all hit for me and I'm finding it really, really, really compelling. Uh, it's just, I don't know, man, 170 turns? Are you sure, man? That's so many turns.

• 23:04Russ Frushtick?

  And, and I'm also remembering like in old school fire room games, like to recruit someone in a fire room game in days of yore, you would see them on the map. Maybe they were like a nasty thief and they were stealing gold around the map. But if you talk to them, turns out they're stealing gold because their mom is sick. So now they're going to join you because you're nice.

• 23:23Griffin McElroy?

  Now, in this one, it's like, bring me the meat of three sandworms. And it's like, I don't even know where to fucking get that dude, calm down. Um, I'm mixed about this game.

• 23:33Russ Frushtick?

  That's the thing is like, I want to get to the point where you're at where like I've done Duolingo enough that I know what the fuck the language of this game is. And I know which things I don't need to worry about, which things I do. And I, I need to get over that hump. And unfortunately besties as a structure, like we started playing the game on Friday, uh, and it's just been a few days. So the idea that we would be 50 hours into this thing, uh, to the point where we would understand it. And I'm just not quite there yet. So I, I want to play more. Like I like.

• 24:02Griffin McElroy?

  It could still happen. You might turn around on it.

• 24:06Russ Frushtick?

  Oh yeah. Oh, 100%, especially the combat. I fucking love the combat. Uh, I think it looks gorgeous. The music is fucking stunning. And every time I'm in a fight, I'm having a good time because I feel like I'm min-maxing the like bonds that the people are, uh, making.

• 24:20Griffin McElroy?

  What story did you go with, by the way? Can we?

• 24:21Russ Frushtick?

  Sure. Good question. So.

• 24:23Griffin McElroy?

  What chapter you ended up on?

• 24:24Russ Frushtick?

  Uh, I, I picked Lida, who's the musician with the heart of gold, but actually she's going to kill everyone. Yeah. She, she has a revenge list. So she's going around, she, her goal is to basically kill all the people that like burned her family and killed their family, whatever it is. Um, and she plays the, uh, vuv, vuvuela, I think it's called. It's like a Spanish guitar and it fucking rocks. Like the music in her section has been so, so good. And I like the people that she's rolling with. And so I've been enjoying that part of it. I think the talking can be much, too much, in my opinion. I think it's overwritten. Um, and we can certainly talk about that. But, uh, I think when she's talking about like her quest, I'm down with

• 25:07Russ Frushtick?

  it. Cool. When other people are talking about their personal backstories, down with it. Cool. The second people start throwing like seven or eight pronouns at me that I've never ever heard before, becomes really, really hard.

• 25:18Griffin McElroy?

  Pronouns, proper nouns.

• 25:22Griffin McElroy?

  You just sounded like a fucking shock jock. This became the, uh.

• 25:26Russ Frushtick?

  Enough already, guys.

• 25:28Griffin McElroy?

  All right.

• 25:29Russ Frushtick?

  No, yeah.

• 25:29Griffin McElroy?

  No, the game wants, no, for sure. I will say this. You got a vibe with this shit. Like, yeah, there's so, the storyline I'm doing, uh, which is Kai's storyline is really focused on this pantheon of gods who like exists in this world and you can go hang out with them.

• 25:44Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 25:45Griffin McElroy?

  Right? Like that. And that was such a weird sort of thing. And it seems like the story is very focused on that. So it is a game that demands, I think, investment in this world, in the world that they have built. Uh, and I have enjoyed that stuff. I've found that stuff to be very rich and very interesting. But like, if that does not sound like your cup of tea, I, I feel like the, the parts of the story that are maybe more easily relatable get a bit, get a bit drowned out.

• 26:12Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 26:14Griffin McElroy?

  Um, here's my thing. I'm going to keep playing this game. I want to at least finish Kai's storyline and I would love to be able to go through and finish all the other storylines. If I do that, it'll probably, I don't know that I'll finish the game this year, right? Like that's, that's a lot. I also don't have anything competing for my time presently. Um, but I mean, that's going to change.

• 26:34Russ Frushtick?

  We are doing control next week, so.

• 26:36Griffin McElroy?

  So like, there's lots of, there is lots of stuff coming out. I don't know. It's, I, I think if you like Fire Emblem, if you loved Fire Emblem three houses, I think you're going to really enjoy this one. I think it's huge. It's much bigger. It's way denser. And I think it requires a bit more work to understand these thousand systems that they have tossed in there. Um, and I, I don't know, people have, fans of this series have been like gaga about this game because I, I think if you like a tactics-based RPG, you're looking for a pretty dense sort of experience. But, uh, if you are a casual Fire Emblem fan, you, I want you to know at the front, like some work will be expected of you to like really, really

• 27:19Griffin McElroy?

  get on board with, with the game's structure and vibe.

• 27:22Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah. I would say for casual fans and maybe Chris Plant is one of them, like either three houses, which acts pretty dense, but not cra- not as crazy dense as this one. But I would even recommend like, if you have the ability, go back and play like.

• 27:36Griffin McElroy?

  Fate's ruled, awakening ruled.

• 27:38Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah. All, all the handheld ones are like fucking pretty much great. Like you really can't go wrong. Um, so, uh, I think this franchise has a lot of depth.

• 27:48Chris Plante?

  I did write down like a little review, my, like a little review of, of the game.

• 27:54Griffin McElroy?

  Who did you pick, by the way, Chris?

• 27:55Chris Plante?

  Picked Lida. Um, and, uh, yeah. And my review is, uh, not my thing. Just not my thing.

• 28:02Griffin McElroy?

  All right.

• 28:02Chris Plante?

  You know, sometimes.

• 28:03Griffin McElroy?

  I'm shocked. I'm truly shocked.

• 28:06Chris Plante?

  Hey, hey, you know, the anime?

• 28:09Griffin McElroy?

  Yes.

• 28:11Chris Plante?

  Uh, the, I don't know, man.

• 28:16Russ Frushtick?

  I mean, I talked to Plant about it. I think it's a monster hunter problem to some extent.

• 28:20Chris Plante?

  I think it's a monster hunter problem. I think it's a fantasy problem. I still struggle to get into fantasy and like, oh, in a world of yada, yada, yada with the whoever, whoever who fought however many years ago. It's just for me, not my thing. I think it's also the, the threat of 200 hours. For a lot of people, that's a great deal, right? For me and my situation. And, and part of that is my, our situation doing the show, but also part of it is just any game that is 200 hours, sounds like a non-starter to me. I can barely work my way through a Persona in a year at, you know, like a hundred hours. Um, so it, it

• 29:00Chris Plante?

  just puts me off from, from the drop. But then even the, um, the tactics combat, I was trying to figure out why this doesn't work for me in a win, the, the new Star Wars XCOM really, really works for me. And that game really has you on the ground with these characters. It is very seamless. It feels like a third person combat game in a weird way where you're playing with action figures versus this where, I don't know, something about the, the shifting in and out feels like a menu simulator. And I realize that's a weird thing to say when I'm, yes, do love Persona, but I, I feel like I haven't gotten over the hump to your point, Fresh. I haven't had that moment

• 29:45Chris Plante?

  where it sparked for me. And, and with this game being so big and so dense, I don't think that this will be the one. Like, I almost think I need to go back and play Three Houses if I want to try to get into this series.

• 29:59Russ Frushtick?

  I think, yeah, I would, I would say, yeah, either that or one of the other ones that are a little bit more digestible and a little more linear. When I say Monster Hunter problem, I mean, like, if you've never gotten into a Monster Hunter game,

• 30:11Chris Plante?

  Yeah.

• 30:11Russ Frushtick?

  it's difficult to understand why people like it because the systems are so dense and there's so much going on.

• 30:17Chris Plante?

  Yeah.

• 30:17Russ Frushtick?

  And so I think there's part of that. I mean, the idea that like, when I'm walking through the town and I see like a cool looking character and I start talking to them and they're like, do you have a gift for me? In the back of my head, because I've played 16 of these, I know, oh, if I bring a gift to this person and like take them to the right lunch and say the right thing, they're going to join my team and they're going to be fucking awesome. I'll learn their backstory and maybe I'll take some of their abilities and use them on other people and X, Y, and Z. So that's like, I'm looking into the future of what that means. But if someone's coming into this fresh and some asshole in the street is like, you have a gift for me? They'll be like, fuck you, go away. And then you lose them forever.

• 30:53Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah. And do you know what's fucked? You don't lose them forever. But do you know what's fucked? Is that that stuff doesn't even take turns. There's a lot of things you do in this game. Like, I'm gonna have my friends out for a meal to use one of my 170 turns. No, that doesn't even take turns. That's a bonus turns you're taking. It's really daunting. Every free time is pretty daunting. And I think Three Houses did a much cleaner job with it. And again, I struggle a lot with like, I love Persona. I'm really looking forward to Persona 4. I'm probably gonna play it for around 100 hours when it comes out. So how do I justify like, being stoked for that versus feeling threatened by the structure of this game? And I really just think it comes down to like, it feels,

• 31:36Griffin McElroy?

  it feels like a cerebral exercise working through free time. And like, even with a not particularly min-maxy mindset, like, it feels like, uh, gosh, I mean, laborious. Like, it feels like a, like a labor to make those decisions and, and, and run through those. That's, I, I think that's what it comes back to for me is like, 200 hours of that seems kind of, kind of exhausting.

• 32:01Chris Plante?

  Also, 200 versus 100 is substantial.

• 32:08Russ Frushtick?

  It's almost like double. Uh, my, I think my goal, now that I've heard everything, I'm gonna go online and I'm gonna look up how best to basically optimize or at least automate this process between the things that I really, really enjoy and the things that I do not enjoy. Cause it sounds like there is a way to do it. It's just kind of buried in the menus.

• 32:27Griffin McElroy?

  I'm optimistic that, I've done that a lot recently and I'm still, even playing on hard mode, like, really well set up for, for the, I've not struggled. I mean, I've struggled insofar as like, I've gotten to the end of a fight with just a few characters who haven't beefed it, which, good thing I'm playing on casual mode. Uh, so like, I do, I do think you can kind of pick and choose what you like, uh, and, and sort of speed up the rest.

• 32:51Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 32:51Griffin McElroy?

  I will, I will be excited to talk about this game again. Maybe, maybe in a couple months, uh, after I've like, maybe finished an arc or two.

• 33:00Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 33:00Griffin McElroy?

  Uh, because I, I am enjoying it more and more. It put me off huge the first time that I had a free time and it was like, you have a hundred or so turns. Uh, I was like, holy shit. Uh, I don't know if I can rock with this. And, and now I feel like I've learned the game to a point where I can, that stuff is not as off-putting. Um, so.

• 33:18Russ Frushtick?

  I will continue sticking with it. I think Plant probably not, but that's fine. Plant, maybe you, you'll go home and do some homework on a different one eventually.

• 33:25Griffin McElroy?

  There's so many other games.

• 33:26Chris Plante?

  Yeah. I mean, I look forward to listening to, to, to y'all talk about it, you know? Like, it's nice to be like a listener. That's, it's nice.

• 33:34Griffin McElroy?

  Sure. Um, let's take a brief break. And then when we come back, instead of talking about Fire Emblem, Fortunes Weave, where I can't get the document open this fast, guys.

• 33:45Russ Frushtick?

  That's okay.

• 33:46Chris Plante?

  I got it. I got it. We're gonna talk about, uh, is it time to buy a Switch 2? And, and, and what? Is there enough? Is there enough going on there? We'll, we'll talk about all that right after the break.

• 33:58Russ 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.

• 34:46Chris Plante?

  Okay. So we're not gonna tell you like literally, oh, you should go buy a Switch 2. Telling anybody to go buy hardware right now is unhinged. Hardware has never been more expensive. It's ridiculous.

• 34:56Griffin McElroy?

  Unless you have your own ram. Do you have, are you sitting on ram that you can build your own Switch 2, like some sort of Christmas elf?

• 35:04Chris Plante?

  Like Iron Man, just out in the cave making your Switch 2.

• 35:08Griffin McElroy?

  Tony Stark built this Switch 2 in a cave. Um, but yeah, okay. So let's go, let's go over, this is the, the latest, uh, exclusive on Switch 2. And it's a good one. Uh, what other, what's the other big highlights?

• 35:23Russ Frushtick?

  Okay. So for me, I think the answer of the very best Switch 2 exclusive at present is pretty clear. And that answer is Pocopia.

• 35:34Griffin McElroy?

  I, wow. Yeah.

• 35:35Russ Frushtick?

  I think Pocopia is the best Switch 2 exclusive.

• 35:38Griffin McElroy?

  It is the best reason to own a Switch 2. I, yeah, I would agree with that.

• 35:43Russ Frushtick?

  You would need to probably care about Pokemon. That's, that is a stipulation. But if you care about Pokemon, I don't think there is any question that this is one of the best Pokemon games ever made. It's certainly.

• 35:55Griffin McElroy?

  I think it's one of the best, like, cozy game world sim experiences ever made. I think it's fucking fantastic.

• 36:02Chris Plante?

  Even if you don't care about Pokemon and your interest in Pokemon begins and ends with, I, yeah, Pikachu is cute, or Bulbasaur is the best, this is still a great game to play because this is a game that will convert you into a Pokemon sicko, more than any of the other Pokemon games.

• 36:19Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 36:19Griffin McElroy?

  Um, I'll say for me, probably the other big name on this list that I feel like you are missing out on, if you do not have a Switch 2, is Splatoon Raiders, uh, which came out earlier this year. The rogue-like sort of, uh, uh, PVE-focused Splatoon game. I played through all of it, loved it, uh, was texting with Russ the other day about the ending of that game is so fucking buck wild.

• 36:49Russ Frushtick?

  So crazy.

• 36:49Griffin McElroy?

  Um, and then unlocks like a bunch of post-game, super difficult shit. Like, that's one that I kind of have been wanting to go back and play more of, because I finished it, but got to the like, post-game, uh, turbo hard difficulties and moved on to, to something else. But god damn, that is a fun game.

• 37:07Russ Frushtick?

  Really, really good. And I think after that, probably Bonanza?

• 37:11Griffin McElroy?

  Bonanza, yeah.

• 37:12Russ Frushtick?

  Probably makes sense. I, I really like Bonanza. Uh, I don't think, over time, you know, I think there was some discussion of like, is this the like, gonna replace Mario Odyssey in terms of like 3D platform? I think Mario Odyssey is largely the better game. Uh, I think there's no doubt. But this is an excellent installment, uh, which introduces like a really unique mechanic to 3D platforming where you can destroy fucking everything. Feels really good to play as Donkey Kong. He doesn't play like any other character that we've ever really played as, including in Donkey Kong 64. Like, this feels like a new would take on a 3D platformer in a really cool way.

• 37:52Chris Plante?

  I'm trying to figure out like a theme here of all of these games, especially as we head into some of the weirder stuff. Is it that this is the tail end, what would normally be the tail end of a Nintendo console? Where they are really picking up some of the weird stuff? They're making the unusual sequels? There are hidden series that you would normally miss? Or is this, hey, at the beginning of the Switch 2, we want to really? Pander, I guess, to the hardcore base. And even we want to make the things for the real sickos.

• 38:23Russ Frushtick?

  I mean, I don't think the things that we've listed don't feel like pandering per se. I mean, there are certainly franchises highlighted here, but like, all of these games, Pokopia, Splatoon Raiders, DK Bonanza, to some extent, Fortune's Weave, are games that I think are, take like, wild left turns in terms of these franchises.

• 38:43Chris Plante?

  Yeah. Yes, that's what I mean, though, by like, like, this isn't Mario, this isn't Zelda, this isn't the, you know, kind of classic stuff that you start a console with. This is,

• 38:53Russ Frushtick?

  Right.

• 38:54Chris Plante?

  Even Splatoon Raiders is a big change for the Splatoon series. Pokopia is a big change for the Pokemon series. These are unusual games. And then we get into like, the other stuff, which is,

• 39:07Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, so,

• 39:08Chris Plante?

  Yeah, go ahead.

• 39:09Griffin McElroy?

  These games aren't bad by any stretch of the imagination, but shit like Mario Kart World, man, that one fell off. Like, it's shocking when I look back on how much of Mario Kart, uh, on, on the Switch, what was that, eight?

• 39:22Russ Frushtick?

  Eight Deluxe.

• 39:23Griffin McElroy?

  Mario Kart eight on the Switch, like, I played a fucking lot. And a big part of that was like, you know, living in Austin and having like, more gaming buddies that I, I, I played games with. But like, that was a staple on the Switch, and I, I really fell off of World very, very quickly. Uh, same with Kirby Air Riders, um, and,

• 39:43Russ Frushtick?

  There's some solid games, but I would say like, nothing else that's come out, uh, apart from those four that I think are like, oh, this is like, really special and worth getting immediately.

• 39:53Griffin McElroy?

  Switch one launch year was a hard yes. Like, you have, you, you haven't played Breath of the Wild, you haven't played Mario Odyssey, like, you gotta have one of these fucking things. It is like, these are killer apps. I think that's like, the term that is kind of maybe missing here is like, are, is DK Bonanza and Pokopia and Splatoon Raiders like, killer apps for the Nintendo Switch 2? I don't think by textbook definition they are. Uh, and the best Mario and Zelda games on here are the Switch 2 upgrades of Tears of the Kingdom, which like, no shit is one of the best games on the Switch 2, is the,

• 40:29Russ Frushtick?

  I mean, I'm playing, yeah, you could play both of them, Breath of the Wild, I'm playing Breath of the Wild, Switch 2 version right now.

• 40:35Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 40:35Russ Frushtick?

  Fucking rules. Fantastic. So good.

• 40:39Griffin McElroy?

  Um, but we got, I mean, coming down the pipe, Metroid, Ravenous in January, uh, that looks fantastic, the Ocarina of Time remake here in a couple of months. Uh, what, the Dusk Bloods, is that out this year? Do we have a release date?

• 40:52Russ Frushtick?

  I don't think we have a release date yet. Um, they just did a test of that. That's the From Software, uh,

• 40:57Chris Plante?

  It's this year, right? Like, they've said it's this year.

• 41:00Russ Frushtick?

  Did they say that? It was this year?

• 41:00Chris Plante?

  I'm pretty sure, which is so strange.

• 41:03Russ Frushtick?

  I mean, at this point, if they don't have a date for it, I, I, I have my doubts that it's gonna be this year.

• 41:07Griffin McElroy?

  It's scheduled for release in 2026, but there's no release date. But we're running out of runway, I would say, here from soft. Uh, the Switch Sports Resort is coming out. Like, I'm looking forward to all of these games. It's still like, we don't have our Mario Odyssey or our Breath of the Wild, like, those were such, uh, I don't know,

• 41:27Russ Frushtick?

  New Animal Crossing.

• 41:28Griffin McElroy?

  Kind of games. Like, New Animal Crossing would be amazing, yeah.

• 41:32Russ Frushtick?

  Oh, yeah, that Kirby game, I forgot to mention, the Kirby, uh, open world Kirby game.

• 41:36Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, that's what, next April or something like that? Um, I don't know, I'm not convinced. I, I think that this conversation changed also when they increased the price to 500, 500, half a 1,000 American dollars is like, that's, that's a good chunk of change, man. Um, and as great as those games are, I just don't know that it's like, necessary in the way the Switch one really was.

• 42:00Chris Plante?

  I agree with you with like, general audience, for the type of people who listen to this show, you are a certain type of sicko. You are more into weird video game design choices, and maybe, maybe you are gonna be into this, because games like Yoshi and the Mysterious Book, not a perfect game, kind of like a classic seven out of 10, but a deeply weird game that is unlike anything else that you're going to play, especially if you're playing games with kids. And I would say that about basically everything we've discussed here. In terms of family games, this is a murderer's row of options. Like, these are all,

• 42:43Griffin McElroy?

  Not fucking, not fucking Fortune's Weave, I will say that. I'll say, there's some like, there, Fortune's Weave gets into some body horror shit that I was not expecting.

• 42:53Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, it goes for it.

• 42:54Griffin McElroy?

  It's sick, and I love it, but, uh, yeah.

• 42:57Chris Plante?

  That's a big caveat. That's if you are somebody who really, really wants to either play a lot more new games with the kids, or you are somebody who really wants to see Nintendo kind of unleashed on weird design choices.

• 43:12Griffin McElroy?

  Now, I, I will say this, there's, there is another scenario of like, if you don't have a Steam Deck or a Rogue Ally X, or like, any, any kind of like handheld PC and want to play games on the go, uh, Switch 2 is getting a lot of its shit late, right? Like, the, like, uh, I don't know, Final Fantasy games, uh, seven remakes are, are coming late to it. Final Fantasy 14 just hit Switch 2, I'm very curious about that. So like, that stuff is delayed, but in my experience, and from what I can tell, like, you know, looking at Digital Foundry, uh, reviews of like, here's the new huge, uh, Monster Hunter game, like, it's good for 500 bucks, like, it is a beefy little boy that can handle pretty much anything you, you throw at it.

• 43:55Russ Frushtick?

  My understanding is developers that are making multi-platform games now, consider the Switch 2 to basically be the equivalent of like, an Xbox S, Series S, which is to say, they need to make games that can still run on the Switch 2, because they understand how big of a market it's going to be and already is.

• 44:13Griffin McElroy?

  It is not like the Switch one, which was kind of a generation behind when it was released, and I loved the Switch one, but like, it was not the, it was not the thing that I reached over to when I was like, buying a game that was multi-platform.

• 44:27Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, the fact that, like, there were anybody at Witcher 3 running on it was like a magic trick, like, largely most 3D, like, big AAA, multi-platform stuff did not come there.

• 44:36Griffin McElroy?

  Totally different story with the Switch 2. So I think if you have nothing, like, yeah, it's actually probably not a bad idea, because it, most stuff is coming to it. Uh, and if you don't want to shell out, I think 750 now for the Steam Deck and like, 1,000 for the Rogue Ally X, like,

• 44:50Russ Frushtick?

  It's getting absurd.

• 44:51Griffin McElroy?

  It's getting pretty wild, so like, I don't know, 5, 500 bucks is maybe not the worst kind of proposition.

• 44:57Chris Plante?

  You could also probably count on more games and AAA games coming to the Switch 2 for much longer than they did in the Switch 1's lifecycle, one, because of the power that it has, but two, because of all of these issues with RAM and GPUs.

• 45:12Griffin McElroy?

  We're gonna be here for a minute.

• 45:14Chris Plante?

  We're gonna be here for a while, and developers are gonna probably start anything going backwards in terms of the things that they're aiming for. Um, right now, if you want to buy a Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090, which I think launched at like, 1,099, you can get them for like, I don't know, $6,000 or something on Amazon. So like, that's the world that we're in, RAM that costs $300, now approaching a K, like, it's, it's absolutely absurd. So, this system is gonna be here for a while. The only question that I would have about waiting versus not waiting with the Switch in particular, is we know that Nintendo likes to do sometimes multiple mid-cycle releases.

• 45:58Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 45:58Chris Plante?

  And the OLED screen is not here on the Switch 2 like it is on the Switch 1. Maybe they'll release that eventually, but I don't know, like, all the, all of those kind of precedents are out the window right now, when people are just trying to move the units and not let the prices get totally out of, out of hand.

• 46:20Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, I love, you know me, I'm a sicko for buying Nintendo hardware that like, looks different. Um, I still, the Switch Lite is still my, by far, preferred version of the Switch, uh, to play it. And I would love a small form factor Switch 2, but that seems like, uh, I don't know, it, that is a, an act of compression that I do not know the market is kind of set up to, uh, to, to allow. So like, I don't even think you have to wait, I don't even, I don't know, it seems unlikely that there's gonna be a Switch 2 Pro coming out, like,

• 46:53Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, I would say, certainly not one that's more powerful, maybe an OLED in a couple of years, but again, it's not gonna be a super rush. The other thing I would shout out, just in terms of the Switch 2's like, benefits, you mentioned like, liking that it's smaller. The thing that I like about, because it is bigger, which doesn't make it super easy to hold, um, but it does make it super viable to play on a desk. Like, I have genuinely set it up with the kickstand, something that I almost never did with the Switch one, I do frequently with the Switch 2 because of that increased size. So that is definitely a benefit.

• 47:26Griffin McElroy?

  I set it up on the panel, the front panel of my, like, uh, exercise bike.

• 47:30Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 47:30Griffin McElroy?

  And just like, pop it there, it fits perfectly, and you can rock with the, the joysticks. Oh, did you guys fuck with the mouse controls at all in Fire and Fortune's Weave?

• 47:37Russ Frushtick?

  I instantly rejected that offer to do mouse controls.

• 47:40Griffin McElroy?

  It's pretty, it works pretty good. I mean, I'll say this, not my thing, not my cup of tea, but credit where credit's due, it works pretty fucking good.

• 47:47Russ Frushtick?

  I mean, the problem is the mouse, if you're using mouse mode with the Joy-Cons, it's not comfortable. Like, it's not a comfortable mouse.

• 47:53Griffin McElroy?

  Not a good mouse to hold, no. You don't want to hold a mouse that's this, that's this skinny, that's,

• 47:57Russ Frushtick?

  I mean, maybe if it was like a laser pointer, I'd be like, more down, but yeah, I'm not gonna hold that.

• 48:01Griffin McElroy?

  You're describing the Wii mode.

• 48:02Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, basically. I mean, it can do that, it has that capability, but,

• 48:05Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah. Uh, do we want to do some emails?

• 48:09Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, we have, we have one message, uh, that I wanted to call out, this one comes from Zombra. Um, "I was hoping that Russ would have gone a little bit deeper on the Steam Frame, but the one big question I would have, hopefully this gets answered, how is the clarity? He referenced it to, uh, an IMAX screen in your living room, but, uh, is this just a reference to the size, or is it like, 1080p 4K clarity? I'm so excited to get one, but who knows when that'll happen?" Okay, I'm probably not the person to ask. My general opinion, I think it, it certainly looks nicer than Quest 3, just in terms of like, screen clarity. Maybe that's my imagination, but it does look nicer to me. They also do, sorry, I'm gonna throw some VR nerd terms at you, foveated, foveated rendering, which means that,

• 48:54Russ Frushtick?

  What you're looking at will be sharper than what you're not looking at as a way to save compute power. So to me, it looks a lot sharper because my eyes are basically deciding what to make super sharp. That being said, I have, I am of the opinion that if you're in VR for three minutes, the shittiest VR experience and the best VR experience are pretty fucking close. They're pretty fucking close. You kind of forget. It's like a brain thing where you just kind of forget. Um, so if you're just in it for like increasing clarity over whatever, I wouldn't necessarily do it for that.

• 49:27Griffin McElroy?

  I think that's true now. I think like the upgrade from like the original Oculus Rift to like the Quest or Quest 2, like

• 49:35Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, you can see the like pixels in the

• 49:37Chris Plante?

  As long as the frame rate is there, yes.

• 49:39Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 49:40Chris Plante?

  The second frame rate gets goofy is when you start to feel like you're gonna throw up.

• 49:44Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah. Yeah. So I haven't had that issue, but again, I can run it wirelessly through the, my gaming PC and because it's running like on a beefy machine, like incredibly stable. So, yeah, I mean,

• 49:58Griffin McElroy?

  I got the, I got the email that I had been chosen to buy the

• 50:03Russ Frushtick?

  You've been blessed by Gabe.

• 50:05Griffin McElroy?

  But I didn't do it.

• 50:06Russ Frushtick?

  Okay.

• 50:06Griffin McElroy?

  So I think I may have missed it actually.

• 50:08Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, probably.

• 50:08Griffin McElroy?

  This email came in, oh, 14 hours ago.

• 50:11Russ Frushtick?

  Still have a chance.

• 50:12Griffin McElroy?

  But I don't want to because it's so expensive and I don't play with my current toys.

• 50:16Russ Frushtick?

  Okay. So maybe don't.

• 50:17Griffin McElroy?

  Papa won't let me buy new toys if I don't play with my current toys.

• 50:20Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, maybe don't. It's okay. It's okay. Griffin, you don't need to play with all

• 50:24Chris Plante?

  You don't need to do it. I see what you're doing right now. Pulling your hands away from the mouse.

• 50:30Griffin McElroy?

  I got picked. Papa Game chose me. He chose me to buy it.

• 50:34Russ Frushtick?

  You can make it. He'll make a knife for you. How about that?

• 50:36Chris Plante?

  This is not perfect birth time.

• 50:38Griffin McElroy?

  This is so far, well, guys, we are so far from perfect birth time that we don't even remember what perfect birth time was.

• 50:45Russ Frushtick?

  Um, do we have any honorable mentions?

• 50:47Griffin McElroy?

  I just finished the, uh, third book in the Shadow of the Leviathan book series by Robert Jackson Bennett called A Trade of Blood. These are also known as the Anna and Din mysteries, uh, which I've talked about on this show before. It's set in this like world where Kaiju came up out of the ocean and challenged the Roman Empire. And then from their corpses, the empire learned how to do all kinds of crazy shit, like enhance their own, uh, mental capabilities

• 51:18Russ Frushtick?

  Wait, wait, wait.

• 51:18Griffin McElroy?

  Or build crazy bio weapons.

• 51:20Russ Frushtick?

  How would the Roman Empire kill a Kaiju?

• 51:23Griffin McElroy?

  It's not an actual Roman Empire, but they kill the Kaiju with the stuff they learned from the Kaiju. So it's like this, this world of, uh, very kind of like plant and mutation based sort of, uh, magic and stuff like that, which is a very, very, very novel kind of structure for a fantasy world. I've been very into it since the, uh, the first book, which I think was called The Tainted Cup or A Drop of Corruption. Those are the other two, but they are fantastic mysteries. Uh, the two main characters, Anna is this just really kind of psychopathic Sherlock style, uh, detective with all of these like sensory powers that require her to like wear a blindfold so as not to get, uh, kind of, uh, overrun,

• 52:07Griffin McElroy?

  uh, by the rest of the world. And Din, who is like her apprentice who can remember everything that he sees and hears. So the structure of these books is Din will go and do the legwork and like interview the people and with his perfect kind of mutated memory comes back and relays the information back to, uh, Anna, who is just like such a, such a crackpot, such a great character. The books are so fun. The stories are so, the mysteries are kick ass. And it really is just such a, such a strange kind of setting for, for, uh, for a story. Uh, this is the third one in the series. I just, Robert Jackson Bennett's my favorite fantasy author. Has done a bunch of shit. Did the Divine Cities trilogy and

• 52:50Griffin McElroy?

  a bunch of other great books, but this is the most recent one. It just came out in August and I tore through it as I have done all these books.

• 52:57Russ Frushtick?

  Plant, you have anything?

• 52:58Chris Plante?

  Uh, I saw the new Resident Evil movie.

• 53:02Griffin McElroy?

  Oh, man, I want to see that so bad.

• 53:03Russ Frushtick?

  I so want to see it. Don't tell me anything about it.

• 53:06Chris Plante?

  I will not say anything other than it is fantastic. Uh, Frushtick, I am talking with our mutual friend, Jordan Hoffman for post games this week to do a bit of a spoiler chat. It is, once you both have seen it, we should talk about it. It does something that is so fucking clever, so clever that you are

• 53:31Griffin McElroy?

  We should do a spoiler episode of it in a month or so.

• 53:33Chris Plante?

  Yes, I'd be very happy to. You are going to

• 53:36Griffin McElroy?

  Is it, is it the same kind of tone as, as Barbarian and Weapons?

• 53:40Chris Plante?

  It is slapstick comedy horror.

• 53:44Griffin McElroy?

  Okay. Scary? What's the scare factor? Fear factor?

• 53:48Chris Plante?

  Quite scary, extremely gory, extremely gory.

• 53:52Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah. Fuck yeah. Absolutely. Here for it.

• 53:55Chris Plante?

  It rocks.

• 53:56Griffin McElroy?

  I love it. I hope, I hope Zach's doing okay. I hope people aren't being too mean to him about his movie.

• 54:02Chris Plante?

  I don't think you need to worry about it. Once you'll have seen the movie, it's, I think people's tunes change.

• 54:08Griffin McElroy?

  I'm talking about the people who are so fiercely, uh, embroiled in the, in the culture battles that they are now saying like, actually the Mila Jovovich Resident Evils, those are my Resident Evils. Are you guys fucking sure? Do you not, are you so not self-aware that you can't take a look, listen to the things that you're saying and be like, wait, that was fucked up? Like what? I'm so deep in the paint that I'm like defending the Mila Jovovich Resident Evil movies and talking about how that's my era. Am I okay? No, I've gone too far.

• 54:40Chris Plante?

  I will say as somebody who enjoys the, the WS Anderson Resident Evil movies, this is actually a more loyal adaptation of the series than those movies are. And not like, okay, hyper, like, I don't, so everybody was acting like they were so worried about. This is a, I think fiercely loyal, um, adaptation of the series, just not in the ways that people thought it would be.

• 55:04Griffin McElroy?

  I am stoked.

• 55:04Russ Frushtick?

  I'm really excited. Um, I've continued to play Breath of the Wild with my kid. Um, he is, this will be the first game that like really introduces him in a serious way to Zelda in general.

• 55:18Griffin McElroy?

  Cool.

• 55:18Russ Frushtick?

  And it has been fucking perfect. Delight. There's just so many approaches that you can take with a young kid while you're, I mean, I'm mostly playing, but he sometimes takes the controller and jumps in the lava. He likes that. But the idea that you're taking pictures of everything you find, you're reading about it. They all have descriptions you can read about. There's just so much that's not just push blocks around or fight things. Look, I love Zelda to death, but because of the variety and activities, you can really just maintain a kid's level of interest for much longer than you would, I think in a traditional Zelda game. It's been such a huge hit to the point where we continued our annual, we do it once a year, annual pilgrimage to the Nintendo store in Manhattan.

• 56:03Griffin McElroy?

  Ooh.

• 56:04Russ Frushtick?

  Uh, and, uh, he got to pick out something and he got very overwhelmed. There's a lot of choice there, but he left carrying a plush bockoblin with a skull necklace and a big stick. And it was just like, perfect.

• 56:19Griffin McElroy?

  We have this, we have the same bockoblin in our household.

• 56:22Russ Frushtick?

  Such a good bockoblin.

• 56:23Griffin McElroy?

  He gets a lot of playtime.

• 56:24Russ Frushtick?

  Uh, we did have, we did have to explain to him, he had some homework last night. It's like his first homework he's ever gotten. And it was name things that start with B. And we had to explain to him that the teacher might not know what a bockoblin is.

• 56:37Griffin McElroy?

  Or maybe they do. Maybe they're cool.

• 56:38Russ Frushtick?

  Maybe they do.

• 56:38Chris Plante?

  I got a question. I got a question for you, Frushtick.

• 56:40Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 56:41Chris Plante?

  And the nature versus nurture here. You sent me a video of your child and I hope you don't mind me sharing this on the show.

• 56:50Russ Frushtick?

  And I don't actually even remember what the video was.

• 56:52Chris Plante?

  I think your child might be at Target or somewhere.

• 56:54Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, that was in a Target. Yeah, that was in a Target. I was buying slime supplies and he found the video game shelf.

• 56:59Chris Plante?

  Standing in front of the Switch section and he starts at the first game and he goes, I need this one. And then just kind of waves his hand down the entire aisle, then goes back to the beginning, waves his hand over the rest of the games, one by one, the entire row, then just goes, I think I'm going to need all of these games. And I'm wondering, is that just part of like, is that a DNA thing? Or do you think that you've just kind of really raised your kid well?

• 57:25Russ Frushtick?

  I think I must have raised him well. I did have to, I kept saying, we have all these games because of my job. And he was like, I want the games. So he wants his own copy. And I said, I tried to explain to him that like, look, when I die, all of these will pass on to you. And then he cried and got really, you know.

• 57:45Griffin McElroy?

  Why would you do that?

• 57:46Chris Plante?

  Yeah, that's, that was, that was tough.

• 57:48Griffin McElroy?

  I get that instinct though, at this, at the Target or at the video game store. I think every kid wants to live that. Do you guys remember video power?

• 57:57Russ Frushtick?

  No.

• 57:57Griffin McElroy?

  Do you guys remember the game show video power? Do you really not?

• 58:00Chris Plante?

  I don't think so.

• 58:01Russ Frushtick?

  I remember Nick Arcade. Was it like Nick Arcade?

• 58:04Griffin McElroy?

  It was like Nick Arcade, but it ended with, um, kids running through like an obstacle course covered in NES cartridges and they would have to stick them to their body where they were wearing a Velcro suit and then go down a slide at the end.

• 58:15Russ Frushtick?

  That sounds amazing.

• 58:16Griffin McElroy?

  And get to keep all the, I, man, did I dream this? Hold on. No, this existed.

• 58:22Chris Plante?

  Power.

• 58:24Russ Frushtick?

  Uh, yeah, no, I don't remember that at all.

• 58:25Chris Plante?

  Oh, weird.

• 58:27Griffin McElroy?

  It was sick.

• 58:28Chris Plante?

  How did I just not know about this?

• 58:31Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah. He picked up one of the demo boxes and opened it and it was empty. And I was like, yeah, they're all empty. And then we left.

• 58:38Griffin McElroy?

  Close call.

• 58:41Griffin McElroy?

  That is going to do it for us this week on the Besties. Thank you all so much for listening. Chris, can you give us a quick recap of what we discussed today?

• 58:48Chris Plante?

  Oh my gosh, we talked about so much. We talked about Fire Emblem, Fortune's Weave. We talked about all of the exclusives on the Nintendo Switch 2, which you will be able to find a list of on the newsletter at besties.fan. We also talked about the new Resident Evil movie, Shadow of the Leviathan book series. Specifically, I believe the book is A Trade of Blood. And then, uh, The Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild in the Nintendo store in New York City.

• 59:16Russ Frushtick?

  I wanted to call out, uh, the folks over at the Patreon. That's patreon.com/thewesties. We have a new episode of Resties. We talked about, in my opinion, the excellent Silent Hill Town Fall, which I thought was a really, really good game. Uh, Plant also talked about, Metal Gear Solid 4 and a number of other things, which is really good. Uh, that episode's live now. We also have a new Bracket Battles coming at you in early October. Uh, some backers from our Patreon, we have Jacob D., we have Janet, we have Kenneth H. and account name NothingVentured. Thank you for being supporters. And thank you to everyone else. Uh, keep in mind, we have a live show coming up October 9th. Get your tickets if, last, last shot. It's getting there. We're, we're just a couple of weeks away. So if you want to join us, please get your tickets ASAP.

• 1:00:01Griffin McElroy?

  It's bit.ly/bestiesonbroadway.

• 1:00:03Russ Frushtick?

  Yes.

• 1:00:03Griffin McElroy?

  We're going to be in New York City at Town Hall, October 9th. Come see us. It's gonna be fun. Next week, we're going to be talking about Control Resonant, which means I'm finally going to have to learn what Control Resonant is. I'm excited to do so with you and everyone listening next week. So please join us because shouldn't the world's best friends play the world's best games?