Ghost of Yotei Slashes Through Open-World Filler

The Besties were mixed on 2020’s Ghost of Tsushima, but have found a lot to love in its new sequel, Ghost of Yotei. What makes this open-world Sony-exclusive stand out? Plus, Griffin updates the group on the brilliant remake of Final Fantasy Tactics. And we make some time to pick through the mailbag!

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

• 0:00Speaker 00

  I was, uh, I was, uh, cleaning off my porch.

• 0:04Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 0:04Speaker 00

  And I, I, uh, I was sweeping and then I do this, I always do this thing where I start sweeping my porch. I think, God, God, I hate sweeping my porch.

• 0:14Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 0:14Speaker 00

  And I remember, hey, you got that pressure washer.

• 0:17Griffin McElroy?

  Oh, cool.

• 0:17Speaker 00

  That's like, that's like sweeping, now you're sweeping with power, you know, turbo power. So I do that thing I always do where I should be sweeping, but it's that I get the power washer and I just start spraying it off. And then I look at my beautiful Adirondack chairs that I made so many years ago. And I thought, wow, these things have seen brighter days. I'm gonna give them a bit of a spit of polish and get some of this old dust off of there.

• 0:39Griffin McElroy?

  Oh.

• 0:39Speaker 00

  Well, guys, my afternoon project is I'm gonna be refinishing some, uh, some chairs today.

• 0:45Griffin McElroy?

  Oh, no.

• 0:46Speaker 00

  That, that, that decision was made pretty quickly. I was like, wow, this is looking great. Then I was like, wow, this has a splintered, that I made splitters in this.

• 0:52Griffin McElroy?

  Oh, you fucked up your chairs.

• 0:55Speaker 00

  Nah, no, no, no, no, no, Russ, when you know how to work your wood, it's just an opportunity for a craft.

• 1:00Griffin McElroy?

  For more woodwork, yeah.

• 1:02Speaker 00

  More woodwork.

• 1:03Griffin McElroy?

  I mean, they sound clean.

• 1:04Russ Frushtick?

  They sound like.

• 1:05Griffin McElroy?

  Mission, mission accomplished, no bird shit on these for sure.

• 1:09Speaker 00

  No, no, no, it got worse than that, Griffin, because then once I started doing that, then I realized, oh, man, I, I have to do this everywhere. So now it actually looks worse than when I started, cause I really lost interest in it about halfway through.

• 1:22Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 1:23Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 1:23Chris Plante?

  I'm realizing that strategy would mess up the game we are talking about today. The Ghost of Yote Minus bird shit, you would not have a fucking clue where to go in this game.

• 1:34Griffin McElroy?

  True, thank you, birds.

• 1:36Chris Plante?

  It is the, the, the guiding light.

• 1:39Russ Frushtick?

  It is a blight on Japan, all of the bird shit. And Justin, you just need to travel over there and work your magic.

• 1:46Griffin McElroy?

  Work your magic, please don't, you would be, you would be asked to leave the country very, very quickly.

• 1:50Russ Frushtick?

  The bird shit is very holy.

• 1:51Griffin McElroy?

  All of these Tor, all these Torii gates are absolutely lovely. You just missed us some much right there, let me just, uh, whoopsies.

• 2:18Speaker 00

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

• 2:23Chris Plante?

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

• 2:27Russ Frushtick?

  My, it's, uh, Justin, do you have a bug in your house?

• 2:29Speaker 00

  Russ say it, just do it quick.

• 2:31Russ Frushtick?

  It's like the biggest bug in the world is in my office. I don't know. Okay, hold on, just like chill.

• 2:34Speaker 00

  Yeah, I need to say your name.

• 2:35Russ Frushtick?

  Okay, my name is Ross Fruski. I know the best game of the week. Welcome to Greatest and Greatest Home Entertainment.

• 2:40Speaker 00

  Bug, we're the besties. We're talking about the latest and greatest. If I'm not here, I have to trust that you're gonna be able to do this.

• 2:44Russ Frushtick?

  We're crushing it, we're crushing it. Yeah. Greatest and Greatest Home Entertainment, I need to see this bug. So, uh, what, it's a video game club.

• 2:51Chris Plante?

  You've come a long way since Pac-Man.

• 2:53Speaker 00

  Yeah, to be sure.

• 2:54Russ Frushtick?

  Video game club.

• 2:55Speaker 00

  Just like you absolute gumdrop, just like thirty seconds.

• 2:58Chris Plante?

  Oh, well, thank you, Justin. Today we're talking about Ghost of Yote. It is the sequel to Ghost of Tsushima, big open world game. You're doing all sorts of stuff like hunting down the Yote Six, and also you're using bird poop to figure out where you should climb in the mountains, and also there's a horse. But back to you, Justin, and I can't wait to hear more about that big, beautiful bug.

• 3:19Speaker 00

  Check the Slack, Chris. I've got a live image for you coming to you live from the Tissue Box. That's a Dark Souls boss. Holy shit. So what I'm saying is that's why the podcast stopped on my end, guys.

• 3:28Chris Plante?

  How many legs is that? There are, y'all, there are so many legs on this thing. You can't count them.

• 3:35Russ Frushtick?

  That sucks, dude.

• 3:36Speaker 00

  It's the gaping dragon.

• 3:36Chris Plante?

  Get out of there. Get out of there.

• 3:39Russ Frushtick?

  Poor Rachel, who is also in our Slack room, just like getting absolutely no context on this one.

• 3:43Chris Plante?

  Also, it's on a Kleenex box, so like if you didn't know it was there and you went and took out a Kleenex and you tried to blow your nose, you would have a bug going up into your skull, turning into a symbiote.

• 3:55Speaker 00

  Hey, Plant, guess what I used to pick up bugs to take him outside? Tissue, I'm gonna guess tissue. The tissues! Yeah.

• 4:01Russ Frushtick?

  He knows.

• 4:01Speaker 00

  He's like already one step ahead of me.

• 4:05Speaker 00

  Or like 30, look at his legs, like 30 steps ahead of me, just like because of all the feet.

• 4:11Griffin McElroy?

  So Ghost of Yotay.

• 4:12Speaker 00

  I left the picture up on my computer and now it's like the bug is here and there.

• 4:16Griffin McElroy?

  You have two bugs now. We'll talk about Ghost of Yotay right after this break.

• 4:20Russ Frushtick?

  This episode of The Besties is sponsored by Lisa. You know, we are starting to get into the cooler months of the year. And you know what I love in the cool months of the year? An incredibly cozy mattress that you can just cozy up into. You got the blankets and everything. And I will speak from experience, but maybe not my experience because Lisa sent me one of their mattresses. But it was timed as such where actually my son, who was becoming a toddler and needed like an actual bed, needed a mattress. So we had him use the Lisa mattress. And every time that I get into that bed to read him a story at night,

• 5:01Russ Frushtick?

  I am incredibly jealous of his mattress because holy cow, that thing is incredibly comfortable. Lisa was awarded the best hybrid and best memory foam mattress by New York Times Wirecutter and is featured by West Elm as their go-to mattress partner. You can go to lisa.com for 25% off select mattresses plus get an extra $50 off with promo code BESTIES, exclusive to our listeners. That's L-E-E-S-A.com promo code BESTIES for 25% off select mattresses plus an extra $50 off. Let them know we sent you in the survey after checkout. Lisa.com promo code BESTIES.

• 5:42Russ Frushtick?

  We'll put that bad boy bug in the newsletter, won't we?

• 5:45Griffin McElroy?

  Got to.

• 5:45Chris Plante?

  Oh, yeah. I like that shit.

• 5:48Griffin McElroy?

  Spooky season.

• 5:48Speaker 00

  We'll get that identified.

• 5:49Griffin McElroy?

  And then someone will say, Justin, you have to move.

• 5:53Chris Plante?

  Burn the whole house down. Get that power washer. Just start spraying.

• 5:56Speaker 00

  That power washer, blast that bug to hell. Like in the unreleased Sega City game Bug Blasters. Shoot the tubes, dog meat. That's the re-re-release. Sewer shark.

• 6:08Griffin McElroy?

  Hey, what do you guys think about Ghost of Yote?

• 6:11Speaker 00

  Can I say, well, okay, can I, can I ask real quick 30 second Ghost of Tsushima? How did you feel about that one? My very quick take is that I thought it was really cool and I liked it a lot. I thought, but then I kind of lost interest in it. It got kind of samey for me and I kind of, I kind of bailed on it halfway through. But I thought it was really gorgeous and everything. I just didn't have staying power with me.

• 6:34Griffin McElroy?

  Same, same for me. I love Sucker Punch and, and their games. I have lost my taste for open world games almost entirely. So like, I kind of knew it wasn't going to be my bag, but it seemed very polished and the combat I thought was, was pretty fun. But yeah, I bounced off Ghost of Tsushima pretty, pretty quickly.

• 6:51Chris Plante?

  I love Sucker Punch, love open world games, love beautiful spaces, love visiting Japan. Did not like that game whatsoever. I found it dull. I found it slow to start and I didn't even find it that pretty. I didn't like it that much, but this game, hmm, yummy yummy.

• 7:06Griffin McElroy?

  What about you, Russ?

• 7:06Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, that I pretty much feel the same way as Plant. Yeah, very slow guided start in the first game. This definitely remedied that. This one gets going almost immediately, which is so much better.

• 7:19Griffin McElroy?

  Really strong start, really strong, like Kill Bill style start of just like, I'm going to kill these fucking six dudes. The game's going to start with me killing one of those six dudes.

• 7:27Russ Frushtick?

  They say Yote six, but there's really just five. Cause in the first 30 seconds, you're killing one of them.

• 7:32Speaker 00

  The tutorial is one of them and so you get smoked this cat. Yeah, it's about, uh, you see a family attacked by a group of warriors. You have very little context for what's happening except that this girl's family has been killed. And they thought that they had killed her as well, but they didn't kill her good enough because she's coming back to kill all of them. And that's for a video game, I think, one of the best premises.

• 7:58Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, yes. And it really, it hits it really well too, because the first like bit of interactivity you have in the game is you, you know, flash forward and you are Atsu. The the main character in the game and you are um painting the names of the Yotei six on this sash that you're going to wear and you use the like the dual sense. What are you? What is the controller even called now? You use the touchpad, use the touchpad to like form the Kanji for these uh six villains names and it's really a really solid way to like.

• 8:30Griffin McElroy?

  Do you guys like that shit? I did. I like it sparingly. I think it's used. I think in a lot of first party Zodi games, they do go a little bit too hard. Fortunately, you can skip most of it in this game, which I appreciate. But I think that's a really, really, really very strong start of like, here's the game, you're gonna kill these six guys and you're you're painting your hit list and now it's time to get going.

• 8:50Chris Plante?

  And the thing is, this is not an original idea. One, it's not an original idea. It's like so many Japanese movies, especially in the sixties and seventies. Uh, but also games have done this. I feel like the most recent Assassin's Creed was doing a version of this, right?

• 9:03Russ Frushtick?

  The most recent Assassin's Creed starts with you as a younger protagonist getting attacked and by like a bunch of masked guys that you then have to go out and kill.

• 9:12Chris Plante?

  I'm really glad to hear you say that because I thought I was like losing it a little bit.

• 9:16Chris Plante?

  The difference is this moves fast. That's the hook here, right? It moves boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. You are zipping through it and it does a number of things that that Assassin's Creed game did. You are also going back and forth in time and kind of reliving experiences, but here, again, all of these quality of life improvements. So when you want to go back in time and experience life before everything bad happened to your family, you will find a kind of like a ghost of a memory and you will press, I think it's the faceplate button and you just instantly zip to it. They're finally using that technology from when they announced the PS5 where they were like, you're gonna zip. There's no more loads. You just zip everywhere.

• 9:57Speaker 00

  The I will say this is the I'm playing on a PS5 uh professional.

• 10:02Chris Plante?

  Nice.

• 10:02Speaker 00

  And I uh for professionals.

• 10:05Griffin McElroy?

  I don't know what you're talking about, man.

• 10:07Speaker 00

  The PS5 Pro.

• 10:09Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 10:10Speaker 00

  For professionals and.

• 10:11Griffin McElroy?

  Griffin didn't remember that a PS5 Pro happened.

• 10:14Chris Plante?

  Oh, existed. Yeah. It is a it. The loading times are, I will say that notably fat like. Yeah. I feel it not being.

• 10:22Russ Frushtick?

  Wait, wait, wait. Faster than what?

• 10:25Speaker 00

  Like it feels fast. I don't know how to say it other than when I start the game, I'm playing the game quickly.

• 10:32Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, I think it's comparable for what it's worth to the normal PS5 because I also like did not.

• 10:38Speaker 00

  Right. I was just specif- in case that is a factor.

• 10:41Russ Frushtick?

  Sure.

• 10:41Speaker 00

  I was specifying my, what I played.

• 10:43Griffin McElroy?

  You're on the professional.

• 10:43Speaker 00

  It was, if I felt it, like on the PS5 professional, for professional edition. PS5 PE, as I call it, the, the, the interesting thing, the, the thing that it is doing with the timelines that I think is cool is that,

• 10:59Speaker 00

  the flashbacks are used, they're very brief. You're not usually stuck in them for a very long time and you're jumping back and forth to just when it makes sense, right? So you're not, so they use it for tutorials a lot, which I think is very cool. Like if you, if it needs to teach you a skill, it will have you learn that skill as a child. And then it's immediately applied in your adult. So you don't get that like kind of nonsensical like learning. You already know it, right? It's, it's more framed like a refresher.

• 11:29Griffin McElroy?

  They also do smart stuff with like, in, in one of the early flashback missions, you're like trying to find this runaway horse. And you're running around with your dad and at one point he places a charm in this like hollow tree stump. And it's like supposed to help the flowers grow nearby. And then you go on and you do the rest of this little tutorial thing. You can come back there later when you're playing as an adult. And I was like, oh, I wonder what's up. And if you get close to the tree stump, that's who says like, I wonder if that charm's still there. And it, and it is. So there's things where it's like, you're hiding things in the past and you can find them in the present, which is really neat.

• 12:01Speaker 00

  So the, but the game.

• 12:03Griffin McElroy?

  The game.

• 12:03Speaker 00

  So the game part though, um, it's, I remembered the last one being more stealth focused, I think. And for me, I really feel like this even more than the, the last one was more of like a balance. This feels very like heavily in, into combat. Like for, for example, when you are in a base and trying to like stealthily kill. The different soldiers and you pick them off one by one. You almost immediately have a prompt that's like, hey, do you want to start a standoff and just kick this off? And like, fight them all? Like, no, I don't. Like, clearly I don't. Why are you giving me both the assassinate prompt and the sword fight prompt? Like, no, I don't.

• 12:47Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, there's, there's skill trees where you can go down either, either way. Ghost of Tsushima made such a big deal out of, uh, the main character. I think his name, his name is Jin, I want to say.

• 12:56Speaker 00

  It was about the duality of like him.

• 12:58Griffin McElroy?

  He was a samurai, an honor bound samurai who had to learn to basically fight dirty. So that he, you know, could, could make a dent in the opposition, uh, which so heavily outnumbered him. So it was about like, how does he, uh, you know, integrate these stealth maneuvers? Or, uh, you know, dirty tricks or whatever into his, his, uh, honor, honor bound samurai ways. And this game does not fucking care at all, dude.

• 13:26Russ Frushtick?

  Not concerned about dirty ways. She just wants to fucking kill these guys.

• 13:29Griffin McElroy?

  I love that shit. I really, really do appreciate that a lot.

• 13:33Speaker 00

  And it's a really good char- it's a fun character who has, you know, obviously is, is, is had a lot of stuff go bad. But is really seems to enjoy what she does. Like, like it, like it in a weird way is like taking joy in this journey. Like she doesn't really have much of a plan. She's just kind of letting the wind guide her towards whatever person she wants to murder next. But like, there does seem to be like a savoring of it because there, she's not getting her family back. And I think that there is a, a realization on her part that this is it for her. Like this, the vengeance is what she is getting out of this and she seems to enjoy it more than some characters do.

• 14:17Russ Frushtick?

  Tell you how many dialogue sequences I've had where she is fucking drenched in blood, head to toe.

• 14:23Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 14:24Russ Frushtick?

  Drenched in the viscera of others. And she's like, hey, do you have any hats?

• 14:28Griffin McElroy?

  This raises a question. There are a number of modes in this game inspired by Japanese filmmakers and artists. One of them being Mike mode, named after Takashi Mike.

• 14:40Chris Plante?

  Did you pick that mode? Did you turn that on?

• 14:42Russ Frushtick?

  No, I was playing without that. I tried it a little bit just to see what it was like, but I'm sure it's even more absurd.

• 14:48Chris Plante?

  You are just, everything is covered in mud and blood. It is Goop, the video game. Really quickly, on those modes, such a great idea because open world games, you spend so much time just being in the space.

• 15:07Chris Plante?

  And it kinda can wear at its welcome. It can get dull. I think that's why a lot of people listen to podcasts when they play open world games, right? And it gives you these different options to change the vibe for whatever you're feeling in that moment. And most impressively, they actually work. Like, the layers are not entirely artificial, in my opinion. So there's a Kurosawa mode that makes things black and white. It's a hard way to play because you can't spot items as well, but it looks great.

• 15:34Russ Frushtick?

  I would add, not just black and white, it also adds like a film grain filter to it and also crunches the audio, such that it sounds like you're listening to an old fucking movie, which is really cool.

• 15:45Chris Plante?

  Yes, that's pretty rad.

• 15:45Speaker 00

  Hey Russ, did you have any problems with the colors and the parrying?

• 15:48Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, yeah. There's some colorblind issues in this game. There are accessibility features that make the game easier for people, but there's like, I think there's a yellow and orange that I like, yes, every single time on.

• 16:01Chris Plante?

  Yeah, yellow attacks are like, you have to parry them exactly, and red attacks, you have to dodge out of the way of.

• 16:07Speaker 00

  Sort of. Yellow attacks are disarm attacks.

• 16:09Chris Plante?

  That's right, yeah.

• 16:10Speaker 00

  You have to hold the...

• 16:13Russ Frushtick?

  I just dodge.

• 16:16Speaker 00

  You wanna know how to counter the boss at level three?

• 16:19Chris Plante?

  I really like the combat in this game a lot. I tend to, you know, try to play it stealthy once I get into a place, but after I pick off a few people, I'll do that like standoff, which is very stylish and it helps you take out, you know, one or two guys. But then the fighting feels very, I would say it's sort of more in the kind of like Arkham Asylum style, like you point one stick to sort of aim your attack at the enemy you wanna attack, and then it's a question of like, either breaking their

• 16:50Griffin McElroy?

  Stance or doing a perfect parry or it's it's less about sort of chipping away at health bars. Unless you're in a boss fight, in which case it's very much about chipping away at health bars. And but the rest of the time, it's very much like if you get a few hits off on a guy, you're gonna kill him.

• 17:05Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, there's also some, it feels like a lot of dynamism in the combat because you are doing a lot of like, oh, that guy just died. He dropped his sword on the ground. I'm gonna pick up the sword and throw it at this guy for an instant kill.

• 17:16Speaker 00

  That's such a cool, that's such a cool.

• 17:18Griffin McElroy?

  Throw some sand in this guy's face and get in there while he's not, yeah.

• 17:21Chris Plante?

  It's the closest yet to Bushido blade as an open world combat system and that is what I love.

• 17:27Griffin McElroy?

  I'd agree with that, yeah.

• 17:28Speaker 00

  I I hope as you get advanced, you're able to go back to these places and just mow through. I really want to, I want more of like a tap, tap, tap where I'm just like, love the place. Let me just say one other thing about the, that's really important to the base combat that we didn't touch on. You have to match weapon types. So as you go through, one of the smartest things that it does is that it ties weapons to characters in the game, right? So it really quickly establishes these characters and forces you to care about them because they are also the one with the gun. Or like they'll only talk about like, there's this crazy guy. He lives out on this mountain and he has two swords. If you can believe that. And then everyone's like, no way. How's he not cutting his balls off every day?

• 18:11Speaker 00

  Yeah, I'm gonna go find that guy. Like, do you know about the guy who fights with a long staff on an island? It's like, okay, I'll go check him out.

• 18:17Griffin McElroy?

  Training montages too. They really make you feel like you're you're earning it. It's not like you talk to a guy and it's like a little, you know, badge appears and it's like, you can use two swords now. Like you've got to train.

• 18:28Speaker 00

  Did you do the two sword?

• 18:31Speaker 00

  I don't want to, it's really good.

• 18:33Chris Plante?

  I think it's worth talking about just that one. It's it's early enough in the game and I think it's useful. So I want to talk about the two swords thing because a thing this game does incredibly is. Use your actual senses. So Griffin already talked about the writing the kanji with it, right? And you can feel it there. When you are making, you're cooking fish, you're flipping the, the controller kind of up and down to like move the fish around, using the gyroscope. This isn't new, but it's just using them in all the right places. And then for the two swords, it is giving you QTEs that are basically impossible. So you're learning to use the

• 19:12Chris Plante?

  left hand for the sword. So it's like, okay, you need to QTE within a second, L1, L3, up, down, right, left on the, the pad. And it's just not doable. And it feels terrible. It is a game that actually just turns how miserable using the L3 button is into an idea inside of the game. And then as you progress, you get easier and easier QTEs to the point that it starts to feel natural. It's so-

• 19:43Speaker 00

  It's some Indigo prophecy shit. We can call what we want, but it is Quantic Dream as hell.

• 19:48Griffin McElroy?

  But it's the good- Quantic Dream shit. Yeah.

• 19:51Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 19:51Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 19:52Chris Plante?

  I think it's great.

• 19:53Griffin McElroy?

  Really tickled. Um, how do you guys feel about, I, I really do appreciate how, uh, quick everything kind of feels like you figure out, you, you get a mission. It's like, oh, go to this cave. There's a shrine there. You go to the shrine and it's like, you got a skill point. Now you can unlock one of these things for the tree. There's not a ton of shit that it makes you do in order to like, learn that idea. And then it's like, oh, you find maps and you sort of lay those maps over your map and that helps you find the other shrines. You go there and you get a skill point. That is streamlined in a way that I do appreciate quite a bit. I know when I see a hot spring in the distance, like I can run to that. If I see smoke in the distance, that's probably a camp with some characters or a vendor or something like, I appreciate how the game stays out of its own way for the most part.

• 20:36Griffin McElroy?

  Uh, so, so you just kind of know like, okay, if I go there. And I think that's a- Staple of Sucker Punch's games. I think Sucker Punch makes great open worlds where you know, if I go here, this will happen and I'll get this sort of like boost. I'll get this upgrade. I, I find the running from point A to point B to be a bit, a bit long in the tooth. You have a horse who is pretty fast, but anytime I look at my map and I'm like, I want to go there so I can like get this new thing, but it's gonna ta- it's gonna be quite a bit of running through fields. That is like my own personal gripe. That's sort of, if I feel like my time is being wasted in an open world game, I feel it. I feel like a bit more intensely.

• 21:18Speaker 00

  But there's such, there's like an instant fast travel. Like you only have to do that really once. Like, once you get to a location, like you are basically-

• 21:25Griffin McElroy?

  No, I know for sure. There-

• 21:26Speaker 00

  And it's like beautifully rendered, like, and you only have to go through it once. I don't think that that, I don't know.

• 21:31Russ Frushtick?

  It didn't feel slow to me. There are, I think there are pacing issues to this game that aren't that, because Justin's right. Like, you really just have to go once. And I know you didn't do as much of the main story stuff, Griffin, but I think that's where this game wears a little bit two hats at, at points, because the, I think the open world side mission stuff, you're right, goes incredibly quickly. You're doing side missions, you're killing guys, you get the skill point, blah, blah, blah. Once you start doing mission missions, like story missions, this is not a knock per se, but like, that's where the bulk of the time was spent in narrative and cutscenes, none of which are skippable, it should be noticed, it should be noted. So you are watching

• 22:12Russ Frushtick?

  those cutscenes, and if you decide, as I did at one point, I was like, oh, I'm in this new area, I'm just gonna like see through to the end of this storyline to see what happens. It's a lot of start and stop. Like, I wouldn't say Kojima level, but in the ballpark of Kojima level in terms of start and stop, when you're doing the main story stuff, which to me, I gotta be real, there are definitely times, even though I like a lot of the cutscenes, there are definitely times where I was like, I should be able to skip these cutscenes.

• 22:41Griffin McElroy?

  Some, some you can skip. You can skip some-

• 22:44Russ Frushtick?

  Just the like cooking food stuff you can skip. I don't-

• 22:46Griffin McElroy?

  No, I mean, sometimes if you're like in a conversation, you pause, sometimes it'll say like, hold X to pause, but it's like, almost, it's very, very, very rare.

• 22:55Speaker 00

  Yeah, you you can. Yeah. And there's some you just can't. But yeah, there's a lot you can pause. It's like less essential, usually side quest data stuff.

• 23:02Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 23:03Speaker 00

  It is interesting because you have a lot of freedom in the order in which you do stuff, right? We kind of talked beforehand about sort of which of the Yotei six we were going to push towards because you really get yourself in a pretty long quest chain. You know, for for a mission that I will say does start to feel like even though you could stop in the middle of one of those, those, they don't really feel like they want you to.

• 23:28Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, they feel like they roll into each other, each mission after mission.

• 23:31Speaker 00

  Very much does. Once you're on one of those trails and it and that does start to feel like it starts to feel a little itchy. You know what I mean? Like, I'd like to do something else and I want to go. I want to go play the game and it's so enjoyable. I feel like that is the one I sort of struggled with that like. Why can't I skip the I'm 44? Why can't I skip?

• 23:51Russ Frushtick?

  In the first game, they added a new game plus mode that let you skip the cutscenes in new game plus, which honestly makes me even more aggravated because they knew it was something that people might have wanted to do. So just let me do it. The cutscenes are good. They're well directed. They're well acted. The writing is quite good. But it's just like, yeah, I want to see more of the game and maybe I have 20 minutes and maybe I don't want to spend that watching. So having that option.

• 24:15Speaker 00

  That's the thing. It's like I realistically, I don't know if I'm going to get to the end of this or not, but I'd like to experience more of it.

• 24:21Russ Frushtick?

  Right.

• 24:22Speaker 00

  And and you know, I've been watching movies and TV shows a lot. I think the sucker punch folks are really talented. They're not exactly reinventing the wheel narratively. You know what I mean? Like, I get it. Some of these tales, I've maybe heard some form of them before.

• 24:35Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 24:36Chris Plante?

  But yeah, the linearity of it too is just of a different style and maybe even a different era. The game looks very open world. It does a good job of tricking it, especially without many load times. It can pull this off. But there are a lot of times where you are shimmying between rocks and you're entering a level. Or especially when you start to chase on the Yotei six. You you it's like, oh, I'm going to climb in the mountain and then like a cutscene happens and suddenly you're in the mountain and you're in the mountain level. This isn't, it's not bad or good. It's just a a style, but the.

• 25:13Chris Plante?

  It feels so seamless. I mean, I, I want to be careful that I'm not knocking it because in the moment, I felt like I was all in the same world. They do a good job of conveying that. But once you go down a path, you can get kind of locked into it.

• 25:26Griffin McElroy?

  My, my hang up with open world games is almost always like, if I feel like this would be better served as a more, a more linear experience, not completely linear. It doesn't have to be like a, you know, ninja guide and game where it's like you're going from level one to level two to level three. Uh, I really like playing the game. I like the combat. I like the cut scenes. I like the acting. I like the writing. It is the, and there is fast travel to places that you have been before. But I don't, I don't know. I, it always kind of felt like a drag to me, the moments where I wasn't doing that stuff. And, um, that is

• 26:00Russ Frushtick?

  Wasn't doing which stuff?

• 26:00Griffin McElroy?

  Very much a personal, a personal gripe. For me, an open world

• 26:04Speaker 00

  Would you like there to be a radio on the horse that you

• 26:06Griffin McElroy?

  A radio on the horse would be nice.

• 26:07Speaker 00

  A station or something?

• 26:08Griffin McElroy?

  A, uh, I think that the game, it gets out of its own way in terms of like, not over complicating its systems or over complicating its exploration, but like, I'm not having that, uh, you know, Tears of the Kingdom moment where I'm like, I'm gonna go there and on my way, I get distracted by 50 things and I discover so many things and I get waylaid and I'm, now I'm doing this dungeon. Now I'm doing this cool thing. Now I'm doing this cool thing. Like it's, it's a beautiful open world, but it doesn't have that sort of like vibrant, uh, density of like experiences that

• 26:41Russ Frushtick?

  It does have

• 26:42Griffin McElroy?

  That maybe I, I want out of this.

• 26:43Russ Frushtick?

  I've had that moment for what it's worth. I've had the like, I'm riding to this mission and like, three other things happen on the way that I like chase down. So it's

• 26:51Speaker 00

  They do it pretty organically too. You'll see like some wildlife. The birds are cool. Like, so a bird will like hove in your field of view and like, where are you going pal? If you follow him, he will usually lead you to, towards something interesting.

• 27:01Chris Plante?

  Yes. I think the difference between what Griffin's talking about and what happens in this game is you're in Zelda and you come across a camp and then you just can fight in the camp where you can walk away. Here you'll find people, uh, at a camp and you will consciously decide to talk with them and initiate a new like mission sequence. You kind of like-

• 27:22Speaker 00

  I think Griffin may want more like arrows, maybe? Is it maybe an arrows? Maybe you have more arrows that were sort of like- That's it, yeah, if I had fire arrows or freeze arrows.

• 27:31Griffin McElroy?

  No, I mean, Chris actually hit on it. It's like, if I come across a camp with like, three dudes chilling around a fire, it's like, I guess I could hang with you guys. I'm going to kill the people who killed my parents, but like, I guess I could grill fish with you and, and play, play some tunes around the campfire.

• 27:45Speaker 00

  Yeah, man, it kicks ass, yeah. Like, why, do you not like video games? Like-

• 27:50Griffin McElroy?

  I do like, I do like video games. I like a lot of parts of this video game.

• 27:52Speaker 00

  You rest at camp sometimes, and characters that you know in the game will just come up and be like, "Hey, so good to see you. Do you want to buy a map?"

• 27:59Griffin McElroy?

  But if I hit a camp right after I camped with a young boy who's like, "Let me teach you how to cook mushrooms." And then I run 100 feet and I run into a camp of traitors, I can't be like, "Sorry, guys, I just camped. I can't fucking camp with you guys. I literally just camped a few minutes ago."

• 28:14Chris Plante?

  Uh, I want to hear more about Final Fantasy from Griffin, but one last thing on this game. I just hope that more open world designers follow the lead here of, "UIs are gross in open world games. You're there because the world is beautiful, and I want to spend less time in the maps." And this game does all of that so well.

• 28:32Russ Frushtick?

  And a fast start, y'all. A fast start. Make people have fun in the first hour of the game. Don't start your game in a mine. Come on.

• 28:47Chris Plante?

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• 29:31Chris Plante?

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• 30:06Chris Plante?

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• 30:24Chris Plante?

  Uh, hey, we're back, and I'm very excited because Final Fantasy Tactics is a game that I have always wanted to get into. I've tried a few times. I bounced off every one of those times, and I've been hearing word that this is my opportunity to get into it.

• 30:39Speaker 00

  Can I ask you an embarrassing question? Is Tactics one game? Is Final Fantasy Tactics one game, or is that a franchise?

• 30:48Griffin McElroy?

  So there's Final Fantasy Tactics Advance was the other big one, and then Final Fantasy Tactics, uh, basically Advance 2 on the DS, I want to say. Uh, but those are sort of like standalone. Where it gets a little bit weird is the world of Final Fantasy Tactics is Evil East, which is also the world of Final Fantasy XII and Vagrant Story, if you remember that little PS1 gem. But you don't need to know any of that shit. It's completely its own source.

• 31:13Russ Frushtick?

  But this is a remake. We're talking about a remake of the original game that came out on PS1.

• 31:18Griffin McElroy?

  Yes. So, bit of backstory. Final Fantasy Tactics came out in 1997, uh, on the PS1, uh, and was beloved. Uh, big, dense story. It was the first Final Fantasy game that came to the States that had like a job system, where you could like pick the different jobs that and abilities of all of your different characters on your, on your team. Um, this was before like Final Fantasy V and III and the other sort of ones that had those systems finally came stateside. So it was like, it was a big deal, and, uh, I would say in so much that a Final Fantasy game can be a cult classic, like was a cult classic on the PS1. Then in 2000 and something, maybe 2007, they remade it for the PSP called Final Fantasy

• 32:02Griffin McElroy?

  Tactics: War of the Lions. There was also a iOS version that I think was based on War of the Lions that just added some extra content, but most importantly, had a retranslation because the PS1 translation had some issues. This was much more Shakespearean sort of text.

• 32:21Russ Frushtick?

  The original was or the remake?

• 32:23Griffin McElroy?

  The retranslation for War of the Lions. It is a very, very dense story about a sort of war of succession following this like 50-year conflict between these kind of like rival princes. And there's a lot of castle intrigue and there's a lot to follow. This game, Final Fantasy Tactics: The Evil East Chronicles is what this new version is called, very wisely provides a lot of like memos and charts to help you like keep track of like, you know, who is Duke Larg and Duke Goltana? And I actually think that that stuff is pretty valuable.

• 32:58Russ Frushtick?

  It seems like they're doing more of that after, what was it, Final Fantasy 16 where they have like wikis as you're playing the game to like keep you up to speed.

• 33:06Griffin McElroy?

  And it's, I think that is really, really valuable in a game like this because it is...

• 33:11Speaker 00

  I just need a clip. I want a clip.

• 33:13Griffin McElroy?

  Right.

• 33:13Speaker 00

  It's created all the time. It's like, oh, you want to know about Zinni?

• 33:16Griffin McElroy?

  It is a way more ambitious story than I think any of, certainly any of the Final Fantasy games that came before Tactics, right? Final Fantasy VII and before, which were very much like, you know, there's a world of espers and it's leaking into our world and people want to take control and use them for magic to take over the world. This is like, hey, there's this, there's a war of succession. Like, it's going to be fucking kind of complicated keeping track of who's doing what. And I really think that this game does a, this version of the game does a great job of helping you follow all that stuff. It is a tactical RPG. You have different units that you are customizing, picking their jobs. As you play and do stuff with those units, they get job points that you use and

• 33:59Griffin McElroy?

  you go through and say like, oh, I want this white mage ability and this white mage ability, and then I'm going to switch over to black mage. Unlock some abilities and match, mix and match the two.

• 34:07Russ Frushtick?

  And it's like a fireball thing where like this class is strong against this other class. Is it stuff?

• 34:12Griffin McElroy?

  No, no, it's, it's more of a Final Fantasy type thing where it's like, uh, this unit is weak to, uh, uh, Blizzard. Uh, this, this, there's like elemental weaknesses and, but there isn't that like spear type units beat, uh, this type units. It's more like you have, uh, attack and defense stats, like more traditional sort of Final Fantasy RPG sort of, uh, uh, fundamentals. And all of the customization stuff is really fantastic. It's really one of the best things about the game because you really can customize your units to make them, uh, whatever you want them to be. If you are noticing like, hey, I'm actually lacking in some like raged combat, uh, capabilities. Like you can make one of your units like specialized directly in that and experimenting with that stuff is, is really fun and really rewarding.

• 34:58Griffin McElroy?

  The writing is, and, and they've done some expansion of, they used the War of the Lions translation for this version of the game. The writing is really, I think, heads and shoulders beyond any Final Fantasy, uh, that has, that certainly came before tactics and maybe since. It is a story about after this 50 years war came to this kind of like brutal stalemate, very costly war. And after the war ended, all of the rich people and royals are like, fine. They're like, okay, they came out of it pretty well. And they're like, let's just get back to work. Let's figure out who's going to be the next king.

• 35:38Griffin McElroy?

  Whereas all of the commoners and people who like fought and died and sacrificed in the war are treated like garbage. They are not, they are, they are, uh, a lot of them become these like roving bands of thieves and, uh, scoundrels. Because like they weren't catered to, they weren't seen to after they gave all of this like bloodshed for the, the, the, you know, kingdoms in which they lived. Uh, and so the story is set in that backdrop of you are a, you are a royal heir. Basically you are a, this, uh, member of this noble house bales and you have a friend, your best buddy who is like a Commoner and like pretty much right away, you guys are sort of thrown into the thick of this,

• 36:20Griffin McElroy?

  this class conflict and it's really interesting, really fast and it makes you care about the characters in the game very, very quickly and also has a fucking lot to say, man, about class and about fascism and about how we sort of, uh, how, how people are treated who go above and beyond and give the most for their, you know, society and the people who are in charge of them. I think that shit is great.

• 36:47Chris Plante?

  Really quick, would you mind if I read the letter from the, uh, original script scenario writer, Yasumi Matsuno on the

• 36:55Griffin McElroy?

  I would love nothing more.

• 36:57Speaker 00

  I'd mind. It sounds boring, but okay.

• 36:59Chris Plante?

  It's not gonna be. It's so good. So this is the writer from the original game, right? Uh, nearly 30 years ago, this is a press statement. Nearly 30 years ago, the collapse of Japan's bubble economy engulfed the nation's financial institutions in mountains of bad debt, triggering a wave of corporate bankruptcies, a sudden extreme rise in unemployment rates and stagnation of Japanese society as a whole. It was an era when many were robbed of hope, when dreams were measured by their price tag. I'll fast forward down the statement to the end. And now in 2025, a time when inequality and division are still deeply rooted in our society, I offer the story once again. The will to resist is in your hands.

• 37:39Griffin McElroy?

  Wow.

• 37:40Chris Plante?

  Maybe the best press statement I've ever

• 37:43Speaker 00

  That's pretty good.

• 37:43Griffin McElroy?

  It's good shit and it really, truly, not an exaggeration, so relevant and so prescient and so effective. It is an effect, it is an effective thing to play a game that has a story that resonates with the, with the current situation so clearly and so well.

• 38:01Speaker 00

  I, there's a lot of these stories that sound like things I'd like to experience, but I never, I'm sure what time commitment I'm looking at here. What are we, what are we talking about for this?

• 38:09Griffin McElroy?

  I mean, it depends on how much you want to like get lost in the systems of, uh, you know, customization and shit like.

• 38:16Chris Plante?

  Yeah, let's assume it's you. Um, I, can I tell you the truth? I don't know. I've never finished the game because it has been kind of

• 38:21Speaker 00

  Hell yeah.

• 38:22Chris Plante?

  There have been

• 38:23Griffin McElroy?

  Infinite. There have been a lot of, I've had a lot of issues with the games like opening difficulty curve is quite, quite steep because you don't have all these things unlocked. You don't have your team of like specialists. You don't, you're pretty weak when you start out. This game offers you difficulty settings for the first time. If you want to play on easy mode until you get like more of your footing and then you can switch it, you can do that. I do appreciate that a whole lot. So you can minimize some of the grinding and farming that you might need to do. So yeah, you might have to Google to see like how long a time commitment you are talking about. There are a lot of ways to automate combat. If you do want to just kind of like farm, farm shit out and get stronger, you can totally do that if you so choose. How long?

• 39:02Speaker 00

  What do you think? Can we talk about graphics?

• 39:04Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, sure.

• 39:05Speaker 00

  What do you, I always think this is interesting because I think that anytime you're doing a remaster or reissue or whatever.

• 39:10Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 39:11Speaker 00

  There's a balance you're striking between preservation and, you know, right, modernity. But what do you think?

• 39:15Griffin McElroy?

  Uh, I think they did a pretty good job, actually. I think it is, they have done a lot of work with the sprites to kind of like soften them and make them look good on like an HD screen. It almost looks like CRT. It almost looks like CRT. There's some CRT effect. Yeah, it's a little grainy, but in like a purposeful way. It looks cool. It is not on the level of like 2D, 3D remake Octopath Traveler, anything along those lines, which I think is like gorgeous and would have been a cool way to do this, but it would have been a, that would have been a full like skeleton, like remaster of the thing. That would be a much more ambitious deal. I think, I think it looks great. I think I do enjoy the way the game works. Unfortunately, if you want to play it with

• 40:00Griffin McElroy?

  the original visuals, you can do that, but you lose all of the quality of life stuff. Like the difficulty settings, there is a option to switch into a top-down camera for the first time, like, which is kind of important because this is a game where like you're going through these sort of, uh, what's, it's an isometric view and you know, sometimes there'll be a building in the way that you have to kind of like adjust the camera to get around. Being able to switch to this bird's eye view really does help with that. There's, there's a lot of little stuff like that, that makes it a much more, I don't know, enjoyable experience to.

• 40:33Russ Frushtick?

  A lot of the pixels, looks like these aliases have been anti.

• 40:37Griffin McElroy?

  I think it looks fan, I think it looks really, really good. I do enjoy it. I do kind of wish that it had that level of polish that like Octopath and those more recent 2D, 3D games have had, but um, I've gotten the furthest in it in this version of it than I ever have. Because I find that the stuff that has always been really great about the game is, is, is, you know, as good as it's ever been. And a lot of the things that have, you know, scared me off of the game are, have been smoothed out.

• 41:06Russ Frushtick?

  There's dragons, the spiders.

• 41:08Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, the dragon, the skeletons.

• 41:09Russ Frushtick?

  The skeletons.

• 41:11Griffin McElroy?

  There's a fast, there's a fast forward button.

• 41:13Russ Frushtick?

  There's masks in there.

• 41:16Griffin McElroy?

  There's like a vacuum cleaner, weirdly, is one. There is a fast forward button. You can sort of like hold to toggle whenever you are like going through fights and it's the enemy's turn and you don't want that to take fucking forever. Like, I don't know, it's, it's, they've done a lot of really smart stuff and I think it's great. There is some content from the War of the Lions that is missing, like a few additional classes. A few like guest characters like Baltier from Final Fantasy 12 stopped in and could like join your team in, uh, in War of the Lions and he's not in this one.

• 41:45Russ Frushtick?

  What about Spawn?

• 41:47Griffin McElroy?

  Spawn, Link, Master Chief, Yoda. So like, that's kind of disappointing. I think that, you know, you want it to be the definitive authoritative version of the thing. But I, I do think it's the most approachable version of a game that is truly timeless. And I don't use that word lightly. I, I think that the story is, is important and I think that the gameplay, if you like tactics games, like Russ, I think this would hit.

• 42:11Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, I mean, that's.

• 42:12Griffin McElroy?

  As much as you like Fire Emblem, I genuinely think this would be the version of the game that you could sink your teeth in.

• 42:16Russ Frushtick?

  That's really the big question for me is like, can that Fire Emblem interest translate? Cause I've always had trouble like keeping in my head the like Final Fantasy magic strength weakness thing. Whereas like Fire Emblem was always so linear of like, oh, bow guys are always great against these guys and that's.

• 42:32Griffin McElroy?

  No.

• 42:32Russ Frushtick?

  But.

• 42:32Griffin McElroy?

  It, it does actually keep the battles like on, uh, using Fire Emblem as a comparison, like most of the time you're going to be working with like four, five, six units on your team.

• 42:41Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, okay.

• 42:42Griffin McElroy?

  And like, you will know them. Very well, because you have customized them and and managed them.

• 42:46Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, that's cool.

• 42:47Griffin McElroy?

  There's there's permadeath in the game. If one of your units falls, you have three rounds to revive them. And if you don't, they're fucking gone.

• 42:53Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 42:54Griffin McElroy?

  And so that's sort of like adds adds a little bit of pressure, but it's like a very manageable pressure as long as you are careful and and. I I I think it's great. I think it's really, really great. I was fully expecting to dip into this and be like, yeah, they've made these changes and it's cool. Uh, but I keep coming back to it and I keep keep playing it and I think it'll probably be the first time I have finished this game and it's cool to.

• 43:15Speaker 00

  Hell, yeah.

• 43:16Griffin McElroy?

  I'm such a huge Final Fantasy fan and now I feel like I have finally unlocked this like big piece of the puzzle.

• 43:22Speaker 00

  The final.

• 43:23Griffin McElroy?

  The final final. I don't know.

• 43:24Russ Frushtick?

  It just kills me that this fucking thing came out now when it's like, oh, we're spending a ton of time on Yotei and. By the steps and so it's just like.

• 43:33Speaker 00

  It feels like it would have been the perfect January mid.

• 43:37Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 43:37Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, it would be a great January game for sure. Yeah, that's that's Final Fantasy Tactics, the Evil East Chronicles. Uh, we want to do some honorable mentions or mailbag? What we got?

• 43:48Russ Frushtick?

  We could do a couple of mailbags and then.

• 43:49Griffin McElroy?

  Oh, fuck. I just opened up Slack to find our document working out of and the bug pick was picked up and it was pulled up and scared me.

• 43:56Russ Frushtick?

  Uh, we have a couple, uh, reader mails. Um, this is from a little while ago, but, uh, Bass Toad was calling out Pokopia as the only thing that they will think about until its release. I am incredibly excited about Pokopia. It will dominate my entire life. That is the, for those that don't remember, the Minecraft Pokemon thing.

• 44:17Griffin McElroy?

  Oh, yeah, it's gonna fuck up this household in a major way.

• 44:20Russ Frushtick?

  I'm incredibly excited for that. Um, Josh wrote in to say, you guys got to try Clover Pit. Uh, it's been described as Bellatro like, which was an instant buy for me. Have you guys heard about this game?

• 44:30Griffin McElroy?

  I watched a a Northern Lion gameplay, uh, video of it yesterday. It's like a slot machine. Uh, I I believe buckshot roulette sort of lightly inspired kind of hell.

• 44:43Russ Frushtick?

  Funny, I would have guessed.

• 44:44Griffin McElroy?

  Hell, rogue like.

• 44:45Russ Frushtick?

  I would have guessed, uh, luck be a landlord.

• 44:48Griffin McElroy?

  Uh, no, it's much more gritty and, uh, it it it looks like there is a sort of constant threat of death. And a lot of, you know, Satan stuff, which you don't, I don't love.

• 44:59Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, Satan's okay.

• 45:01Griffin McElroy?

  But, um, yeah, no, it it looks.

• 45:03Speaker 00

  You don't love Satan?

• 45:03Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 45:04Speaker 00

  You don't love the Dark Lord?

• 45:04Griffin McElroy?

  Scary, scary, scary stuff, man.

• 45:07Speaker 00

  You're gonna be, you're gonna be mad when you just hear how much of Capcom he just bought.

• 45:15Russ Frushtick?

  Uh, this letter comes from James. Uh, watching Travis and Griffin play baby steps was an absolutely surreal experience. Very funny. Probably won't pick it up myself, but look forward to watching other streamers suffer.

• 45:27Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, I think our plan is to do it next, next week. Me, Justin and Travis trying to like split up the controls of them.

• 45:34Russ Frushtick?

  I mean, the game is hard and entertaining with one human being. You don't necessarily need to add more variables to it.

• 45:40Griffin McElroy?

  But dudes, listen, Justin can speak to this too. Something really interesting. This, this series we do, uh, I call it a series, but it's like a thing we do on Clubhouse sometimes called Six Thumbs One Heart. Uh, playing games like that has been such a transformative type of like playing Super Mario World, I think is when it was like kind of firing at all cylinders where one of us was jumping, one of us was moving with the D-pad and one of us was like doing the other button. It really, playing a game with that kind of multiplayer experience is really fascinating. It really is pretty interesting to see.

• 46:15Speaker 00

  There's some things that you, that get easier because you're only thinking about one thing, right? So you're not actually having to multitask. What's weird is like the only way it actually works is if, you know, if you play, if you were to play Super Mario Brothers one right now, you wouldn't think about how to play it, right? You would pick it up and just do the buttons. The only way this works is if the other people's hands are doing what you assume your own hands would be doing. Like you have to trust that they are doing what you would be doing, right? But with a game like, and that's a game that's designed to be done by one person. Baby steps is designed to be hard when it's done by one person. It's like too much to think about. When you're just like one leg, like I know how to keep one leg up, maybe.

• 46:55Griffin McElroy?

  But it's fun. It is truly fun to play a game. Like Travis and I got into some, some grooves where like I was controlling the, the pitch and yaw of the body and he was doing the feet. And like, we would get into a pretty stable groove and like, it feels great. Like it feels really, really good when you can pull that off. I think it's a fun way to, to play games that like, if you set your shit up with, you know, whatever remote play software, uh, is, is available to use, it's not that hard to set up.

• 47:21Speaker 00

  And I think even if Russ doesn't think our video sounds very good, we'll still do our best.

• 47:25Russ Frushtick?

  I wasn't saying that, Justin. I was thinking that. I wasn't saying it.

• 47:31Russ Frushtick?

  We have some honorable mentions. Anyone have anything off the top of their heads?

• 47:37Russ Frushtick?

  Yes, but come back. Okay, I'll go. I beat Baby Steps. Good segue. I finished that game. Wow, nice. It was- Still feel strongly about it? Unquestionably in probably my top three of the year right now. Wow, okay. I fucking love that game. Just like player agency and exploration stuff is just scratching every a true me. I hope more people do try it. I think the demo is still live if you wanted to like try a free version, but I've just been totally blown away by the whole experience. Lot of dicks, though, just a heads up. The other thing I've been playing a little bit more of, Everybody's Golf Hotshots, which has been patched a few times and now runs not perfect,

• 48:22Russ Frushtick?

  but pretty okay on Steam Deck. I know it runs a lot better on a more powerful device, but they are getting closer to like getting the bar to run smoothly to the point where I can actually play it. And so I've been enjoying that quite a bit. The other thing I wanted to call out was this video on YouTube. The creator is Annie Austin, and the premise of the video is do Red Dead Redemption 2's power lines connect to anything? Oh, I saw that thumbnail. Really good. I didn't watch it, but I- Annie Austin has been doing these like, basically like land management videos about large scale open world games. And this was one of the more recent ones. And what is totally insane is every single fucking house

• 49:06Russ Frushtick?

  in Red Dead Redemption 2 that has electricity is connected to an electric wire that if you follow the electric wire all over the landscape, it will eventually lead into Saint Denis, which is the like big Louisiana city, New Orleans city. And in Saint Denis, it leads to a fucking power station. That's cool. That's cool. I like that. So he did a really good job. A lot of his other videos are excellent. So I definitely recommend checking that. That's Annie Austin on YouTube.

• 49:37Griffin McElroy?

  I've played a bit more Hades 2.

• 49:39Speaker 00

  Yeah. Yeah.

• 49:41Griffin McElroy?

  Have you been dipping back in, Juice?

• 49:44Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah.

• 49:45Griffin McElroy?

  Um, yeah.

• 49:47Speaker 00

  Yeah, it's really good.

• 49:48Griffin McElroy?

  It's good. I feel like I still am not hitting the stuff that feels so obviously new. And maybe I need to put more time into it to get to that shit. I know there's whole areas and stuff.

• 50:01Speaker 00

  Do you think that's a mental thing, though? Do you think that's a result of you having played it previously?

• 50:05Griffin McElroy?

  It's possible, yeah.

• 50:06Speaker 00

  And it's so long ago, you don't remember?

• 50:07Griffin McElroy?

  It was a really long time ago. I tell you what I struggle with is that I feel like it is kind of hitting the same pleasure centers of my brain as Megabank. And Megabank is all new, baby, and it's all fast and it's all, it's all good.

• 50:20Russ Frushtick?

  I played the fucking demo of Megabank and I was like, I cannot play this game. This is gonna ruin my fucking life. It looks-

• 50:25Griffin McElroy?

  Megabank will fuck you up.

• 50:26Russ Frushtick?

  It looks so fucking good. I loved what I played, but it was just like, this is not the right time of year for this game.

• 50:32Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, I've hit a wall in Megabank where it's too, like, the further levels are too hard and I can't make much progress in it.

• 50:40Russ Frushtick?

  Just to refresh your, Megabank was the 3D Vampire Survivors.

• 50:44Griffin McElroy?

  Vampire Survivors game, yeah. But it is very, like, it is very much a, you pick it up once and play it and you're like, oh, I get it, it kicks ass. Travis has gotten into Megabank, which is, it's not typically his style of game to dip into. I also want to shout out, I've been watching Only Murders in the Building this season. It's been a really good season. I don't know if you guys, you know, still fuck with that show, but it's so fun. The swings they take with the mysteries are so big and it moves at like a really nice clip, which I appreciate. There's no episodes that feel like, ah, they're just kind of spinning their wheels. Like, they are constantly kind of like, you know, raising the stakes and putting the three main characters into increasingly, you know, sort of outrageous situations. So, yeah, been liking that.

• 51:29Speaker 00

  Nice.

• 51:31Russ Frushtick?

  Anyone else?

• 51:32Speaker 00

  You know?

• 51:34Speaker 00

  Not really. Should I get a power washer, Justin? What? I mean, power wash simulator, for real. Should I get one? Seems like, seems like fun.

• 51:44Chris Plante?

  You live in like an apartment.

• 51:45Speaker 00

  It's a lot of fun, but you gotta have a hose to plug into it and generates a lot of water. I have a balcony. Someone for that water to go.

• 51:50Chris Plante?

  I think this would be a good idea. I think your neighbors would be wicked pissed.

• 51:54Speaker 00

  No. I, I want, can I, I'll, I'll use my time here to say, there are a lot of YouTube channels that I've been enjoying lately that are not focused on consumption of games, but rather on like creation or like not consumption of new stuff, I'll say. Uh, so I just wanted to mention a few of those channels I've really enjoyed lately. Uh, one that me and my kids have liked a lot is Sayaka's Digital Attic. Uh, it's a, a woman who restores like old consoles and old games, like cartridges themselves. It's very relaxing and soothing and you learn so much about how these things are like assembled and you see her process for going through.

• 52:36Speaker 00

  It's very satisfying. The girls, even though they have no awareness of these old consoles, find it really interesting and, and enjoy watching it. So that channel has been great. Of course, Retro Game Core, we love, uh, our friend Good Russ over there. Uh, he's always doing great stuff. If you want to get into that. I have also been enjoying a channel called Tech Dweeb, as embarrassing as that name might sound. Talk to me. And initiated, but, uh, one thing I, he does a lot of retro game coverage, like Android game consoles and things like that, but

• 53:07Speaker 00

  like every other video, uh, on the channel is something about like a creative project. Like he put out that like just this week, the, while, you know, a lot of channels that are in the retro game space are in, in, in the tech space, I would say writ large, uses in a lot of technology, people seem to just be looking for an excuse to put out affiliate links. So it's very biased towards like the new, the latest and greatest, because if you click through. Their video to buy the thing, then they get a little bit off the top. So that you're not really incentivized to not make videos about new products, but like half of TechToBe's videos are are creative things like the newest one is make your own retro style four by three monitor. And it's like a

• 53:53Speaker 00

  absolute step by step, bare bones from the beginning, like DIY process of making like a cool repainted monitor yourself for very cheap. He made a a practical version of Bellatro that you may play with physical cards. And that's one of the videos. It's not like three videos a week. It's wild. This guy's output. They're all a joy to watch. But those are a few, I, when those channels pop up, I really, I find it very relaxing. It's something I really look forward to. So, yeah, what I know the last one mentioned is cultured vultures. They do a lot of like console based like things you may have missed on certain consoles, hidden gems videos.

• 54:34Speaker 00

  And there's some of like the best produced and really fascinating. I always find a lot of great recommendations to stuff. I should go back and check out. So those are some, if you wanna just experience games rather than buy games, that's a fun way of doing it.

• 54:50Chris Plante?

  Cool. Very quickly, Frank Lance, friend of the show, has a new video game coming out and you can play a demo of it right now. And let me tell you, you all are gonna wanna play the shit out of this. It is called Cue Up, the letter Q up. And it is the future of esports. I'm serious, y'all. Coin flipping, heads or tails, esports, it's coming at you. And let me tell you, this game is committed to 50 50 fairness every time. And can you also get upgrades that make it, you know, a little bit easier for you? Yes, you can. But does the game also evolve to guarantee it all times 50 50, 100% fairness?

• 55:34Chris Plante?

  Yes, it does.

• 55:36Russ Frushtick?

  Okay, Frank's gonna be really pissed at how terrible that pitch was.

• 55:40Chris Plante?

  No, I don't think he will, man. I think that's what the game is. It's about 50/50 fairness 100% of the time, 100% randomness, 100% of the time.

• 55:50Russ Frushtick?

  So is it a joke?

• 55:51Chris Plante?

  This looks fucking insane. It's about, it's the future of esports. What do you mean, is it a joke? It's coin flipping. It's the future of esports.

• 56:00Russ Frushtick?

  Q up. It says it's part clicker. In what way would it be a clicker?

• 56:05Chris Plante?

  It's about having 100% fairness and 100% randomness 100% of the time. I don't know what else you want me to tell you about this game. It seems like you're trying to figure out if there's maybe something else going on, and I don't know what.

• 56:19Russ Frushtick?

  I mean, you've always gotta try to break this shit. Is it Frog Fractions 3? Like, is that what's going on?

• 56:24Chris Plante?

  Aw dang, is there Frog Fractions 3 now?

• 56:26Russ Frushtick?

  Maybe.

• 56:28Chris Plante?

  It's a coin flipping esport video game, and I think you should play.

• 56:32Russ Frushtick?

  Is there actually multiplayer in this, or is it like a meta first?

• 56:36Chris Plante?

  I'll be honest with you about that part. I'm still not sure. It both has told me that there is and there isn't. The, here, okay, I don't want to spoil much of this game. I'll just say, read the full terms of service when you're playing the game, and that'll give you a very clear idea of what you're getting into.

• 56:55Russ Frushtick?

  It's from Universal, yeah, right. Yeah, I forgot Frank worked on Universal Paperclips. That's right. So yeah, it's from that team. I think they are not allowed to say multiplayer on the Steam page if it doesn't have multiplayer, so it probably does.

• 57:09Chris Plante?

  Ah.

• 57:12Russ Frushtick?

  I don't think they're allowed to fuck around with that. Gabe would get so pissed with his knives.

• 57:17Chris Plante?

  I would say there is a point in the game where it tells me that it is a single player, but then also at a point where it tells me it is actually multiplayer.

• 57:24Russ Frushtick?

  It just says coming soon.

• 57:25Chris Plante?

  I don't know, man.

• 57:26Speaker 00

  It's always been out, man. Or it's not out. It's never gonna come out, or it's always been out.

• 57:30Chris Plante?

  It's one of those sort of games.

• 57:32Russ Frushtick?

  Wild. Okay.

• 57:35Russ Frushtick?

  I think we did it. I wanted to thank some members of the Patreon over at patreon.com/thebesties. We have Paul S., we have Benjamin W., we have David D., and we have Teresa S. Thank you for being patrons of the besties. Just as a reminder, we have a new $10 tier. If you wanted to have ad-free episodes of the main feed, in addition to all the bonus content that you were getting on the $5 tier, you can definitely do that as well. Throw us some extra bucks. We really greatly appreciate it. And I think next week, we're doing a very scary game that I'm scared of: Silent Hill F.

• 58:10Speaker 00

  Just say fuck.

• 58:13Griffin McElroy?

  It's actually pronounced Silent Hill.

• 58:16Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 58:18Speaker 00

  I'm looking forward to that. Be sure to join us again next time for the besties, because shouldn't the world's best friends pick the world's best games?