Pokopia Will Teach You to Love Pokémon Again

Plenty of companies have torched their fortunes trying to smelt together a collection of hit games and genres, hoping to recreate others’ success. Understandably, many folks (ourselves included) approached Pokopia with a cold skepticism. A Pokémon, Animal Crossing, Minecraft, and Viva Piñata combination? It sounded too good to be true. Friends… they did it. Pokopia isn’t just a collection of great ideas; it’s also a wholly interesting and original thing. We can’t wait to tell you about this wonderful game. Plus, we look at Nintendo’s peculiar plan for the rest of 2026.

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

• 0:00Russ Frushtick?

  Do you think Pikachu is a leader in the Mad Bax rebellion? Do you think he is ripping skulls out of necks? What is this Pikachu that we are now meeting?

• 0:10Speaker 01

  He has been thrown into a sphere that is used to power some of the bigger war machines. So he's basically just a big battery.

• 0:20Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 0:21Speaker 01

  They fight for, you vie for like control of the chew.

• 0:24Russ Frushtick?

  Of the Pikachu.

• 0:25Speaker 01

  Cause whoever has the chew has the power.

• 0:28Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 0:28Griffin McElroy?

  The chew is life.

• 0:30Russ Frushtick?

  And how does Wabuffett fit in?

• 0:32Speaker 01

  I just want to invite all the listeners and we are in a post apocalyptic scenario. There was a big assumption from the top.

• 0:41Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 0:41Speaker 01

  That Pikachu is in the post apocalypse now. Yes.

• 0:45Griffin McElroy?

  And so, and so Wabuffett is chairman of the Federal Reserve.

• 0:49Russ Frushtick?

  Oh, good for him.

• 0:51Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah. He's the chairperson of Berkshire Hathaway. And he's still out there doing his thing, wobbling around.

• 1:00Speaker 01

  Shaking it.

• 1:01Griffin McElroy?

  Shaking it, shaking it, shaking that dirty thing and.

• 1:05Speaker 01

  Editorializing with the dirtiness.

• 1:07Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 1:08Russ Frushtick?

  And Coffing is the head of the EPA.

• 1:11Griffin McElroy?

  Coffing is head of EPA and I've got salad for everybody. So it's like really on this kind of like sliding scale of apocalypses. I do think this one's not bad.

• 1:23Russ Frushtick?

  It's kind of going okay, right?

• 1:24Griffin McElroy?

  It's kind of going all right because you can get salad so fucking fast and easy. It's like not an issue.

• 1:29Speaker 01

  Salad's not a problem.

• 1:48Speaker 01

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

• 1:52Griffin McElroy?

  My name is Griffin McElroy and Warren Buffett is still alive. He's 95 years old. My name is- I just have his shit pulled up here, cuz I made a Boba Fett joke earlier and it's just pulled up. This man's worth 147 billion dollars. What are we fucking doing, man?

• 2:09Speaker 01

  Dude, are you just not finding out about this disparity? It's been an issue.

• 2:12Griffin McElroy?

  It's so crazy.

• 2:14Russ Frushtick?

  Half of those are pogs.

• 2:16Griffin McElroy?

  I'm really sorry.

• 2:17Russ Frushtick?

  So, Chris.

• 2:18Griffin McElroy?

  So sorry.

• 2:18Chris Plante?

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

• 2:21Russ Frushtick?

  My name is Ross Fraschek. I know the best game of the week.

• 2:25Speaker 01

  This week, we're talking about the first ever Pokemon game that doesn't have Pokemon in the title. Pocopia. What's Pocopia?

• 2:34Griffin McElroy?

  Is that tr- yeah. No, yeah, I think you're right. I can't think of another one.

• 2:40Chris Plante?

  Pocopia is a mashup of like Animal Crossing and Minecraft and all sorts of Dragon Quest builders. We got it all here. And also, apparently it's common knowledge that this game is set in the post-apocalypse. Did everybody know this before playing this game?

• 2:55Russ Frushtick?

  Um, no. There were some indications, uh, from the community, but here we are.

• 3:00Speaker 01

  Here we are. And we'll talk about that right after this.

• 3:06Russ 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,

• 3:47Russ 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.

• 4:28Speaker 01

  There are no gods anymore.

• 4:32Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 4:32Speaker 01

  There are no trainers anymore. There is only Pokemon and man-shaped Pokemon.

• 4:38Chris Plante?

  I thought that was a weird intro screen, but it did kinda set the mood.

• 4:43Speaker 01

  It's not far off. I'm not even editorializing that much. You, you walk, you visit upon this nightmare man who's like, "I thought everything was dead." "You're the first living thing I've seen."

• 4:56Griffin McElroy?

  And he's a tank, he's not a man. He's not a man. There's no man. There's only, there is only Pokemon.

• 5:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 5:02Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, everyone is... That's true. He could be a man carrying a bunch of cables around his body.

• 5:09Griffin McElroy?

  You play as Ditto in this game and you, you are sort of transformed into the shape of your missing trainer, who you love and miss very much. And when other Pokemon see you, they're always like, "Whoa, a person." But then they're immediately like, "Oh, that's Ditto. That's cool." They're not like, "How dare you, how dare you dress up in the guise of our, of our subjugators." Can I, can I take a swing at explaining kind of what is going on in this game? Because I think it's kind of a tough sell. In this game, you are playing as Ditto. You are in an open sort of sandbox world. There's like a handful of areas in the kind of Dragon Quest Builders fashion that you are unlocking and jumping between, but they're all huge and open

• 5:54Griffin McElroy?

  and full of resources for you to smash up and gather and craft into different things.

• 5:59Speaker 01

  Think of them like Minecraft. If you haven't played Builders, which I don't know that a lot of people have necessarily, but it's Minecraft maps.

• 6:04Griffin McElroy?

  It's Minecraft, sort of. Yeah. And so between, you know, crafting things and using these different Pokemon transform powers that you will unlock by meeting new Pokemon, you have to rebuild habitats for different Pokemon. In addition to a Pokédex, which exists in this game, there's also a Habitat Dex that will give you clues. Sometimes you'll find little traces of Pokemon on the ground. It'll be like, "Hey, if you build, uh, if you grow four flowers under a tree, maybe this type of Pokemon will show up and it'll show you a silhouette." But like, that's a combi. Like, that's definitely... Definitely a Vespertine in there like I know my shapes. Thank you so much. And so you do that and you make friends with them. You help them build their house or you know, little habitat how they want it.

• 6:48Griffin McElroy?

  And they get happier and the environment of the area changes and improves and you unlock new, new recipes and items and new skills and uh, you just keep on, keep on going, building new habitats, improving their homes and.

• 7:02Speaker 01

  You're kind of building like where a lot of games are more like Pokemon are pets and you're traveling city to city and finding them in the wilderness. This is more like you're building a Pokemon uh, reserve and you're building it hand in hand with the Pokemon, right? It's kind of like you're building the, the animal kingdom park where you're like creating all these habitats for Pokemon to run free. And you like attract new Pokemon, but you are, you're building basically a big natural world for the Pokemon to come kick it with.

• 7:30Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah. You are building them, however, in, in these different, uh, I don't know how many areas there are in the game. I've, I've gotten to three and then there's also like a sort of can empty canvas world called Palet Town, which is very cute. But the other areas are, I believe, based on areas from other Pokemon games. So like you'll go into like the ruins of Pewter City, which is covered in uh, volcanic ash. Or you'll go into uh, I think Vermillion City is, is one of them. But again, no people, no signs of life. Nobody knows what's going on. And like, there is a bit of a, a narrative arc to the game as you like find these old mainstay Pokemon that have been there for a long time.

• 8:10Griffin McElroy?

  And trying to figure out using their information, like what happened here, because obviously no one's around.

• 8:16Russ Frushtick?

  You also read notes about like from humans that will be scattered around the world. And the humans will be like in letters saying, man, things are getting really bad. Uh, all their, we have no power and we need to get out of here as fast as, like shit went down.

• 8:32Griffin McElroy?

  Something bad happened and it makes sense because in every Pokemon game, uh, Pokemon that like is in control of time and space or gravity or whatever, almost destroys the world. So my theory, I haven't gotten very like to this point where I find out what happened to the world, but I bet it was one of those fucking guys.

• 8:47Russ Frushtick?

  Okay. But you don't think it's like more about maybe humans weren't respecting nature?

• 8:52Griffin McElroy?

  I would love it if that was the case, but no, I bet they're going to be like Giratina came down and just like squished everything.

• 8:56Chris Plante?

  So they very much have it both ways. It is unquestionably a game about climate collapse. Like there are literally. Like logs that you find from characters who are like, "The climate is going south. We can't stop it. We need to care about nature." There's like things about like hurricanes hitting, but then there's also something where it's like, "I've joined Team Rocket and I know the trick to weather."

• 9:21Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, sure. The weather is happening because Climate Sor has come and he's legendary and it's all his fault.

• 9:31Griffin McElroy?

  It is really, I referenced Viva Piñata earlier. I did not know that that was sort of what this game was going for and I think it's really, really spectacular, kind of how they have, how they've captured that formula. Viva Piñata was a rare title on Xbox 360 where you had a garden and you had to attract different sort of piñatas to your garden by building different habitats for them, or like including things that they might like. What that game did that this doesn't is like sometimes what the piñatas wanted was other piñatas they could definitely eat. That does, the Pokémon live in relative harmony here, but you, that, I guess that's only true if you do a good job of like making sure they're living in nice houses. If you, if you build a, you know,

• 10:14Griffin McElroy?

  a situation where they're living in squalor, maybe Hitmonchan will start, you know, taking swings at her across or something.

• 10:19Speaker 01

  I actually found it surprisingly more satisfying to like tend to this world because it didn't have the compulsion of like being a, like a more of a cityscape where you're trying to organize a town and figure out the layout for, you know, this building should be over here and this thing should be over here. I found that like, once I was just sort of making environments throughout, there was not a compulsion to like organize or min-max or perfect things that you would in a lot of more like life saving things. It felt a little bit more like in an environment that I was just sort of like, I mean, literally organically and figuratively organically sort of growing.

• 10:54Griffin McElroy?

  So in the second area, at least the second area that I went to is like a straight up like seaside town, like a city?

• 11:01Russ Frushtick?

  And there are plots, and I think a lot of this is more tutorial, and I think this game does it in a really smart way. There are plots where theoretically you could put buildings there. You can put buildings fucking anywhere. There is nothing saying it needs to go here. They're just sort of suggesting it and saying like, you could. And that's what I love about this game is there's so much freedom. You compare it to an experience like Animal Crossing. And I think anyone watching this trailer would be, oh, it's Animal Crossing meets Pokemon. Straightforward. Animal Crossing intentionally puts so many barriers in your way in terms of what you can do, where you can do it, how you can place things, so on and so forth. And this game totally takes the governor off. You really have so much freedom in terms of what you're building.

• 11:45Russ Frushtick?

  And I'm, yeah, I'm pretty over the moon about it.

• 11:47Chris Plante?

  At the same time, it borrows really well from those games. It borrows what really does work. Like in Animal Crossing, there are times where it says, hey, come back tomorrow. That's just not ready today. And a great thing about having some of that in a game is it avoids burnout. Because the addictive nature of this game is real. Like you could just keep playing forever, just cleaning and building and hitting all of the little activities that it has from you. You know, build another house, collect more of this, water a hundred more plants. And you will burn out on that. But the way it stops that is saying, hey, if you're building something really big and important, it's not going to be ready for a few hours, or it's not even going to be ready until tomorrow.

• 12:32Chris Plante?

  And that encouragement to put the game down weirdly makes me want to play it longer. Like over the long term.

• 12:41Russ Frushtick?

  I also think there's more shit to do. Like there is, this game's fucking huge, guys. I did not expect sort of, uh, when you move on from the first area and you see the second area, it really kind of like shows you like, oh, man, like I have really just kind of scratched the surface of this thing. There, there's a lot of tech in the game that is very cool. And a lot of that is, uh, like really adapted from Dragon Quest Builders 2. Omega Force is the studio that, uh, developed that game.

• 13:11Griffin McElroy?

  And they co-developed this game. And so there's stuff where like any place where you build, you know, a wall at least two blocks high and you throw a door on it becomes a house. And now you can ask Pokemon to live in that house and you can customize it for them. There's also prefabs where like you can set down this prefab and it'll show up like in Animal Crossing, where there's like a little gyroid wiggling around. And it'll be like, drop some resources in, stick some Pokemon here. They will build it in either in a couple hours or it'll be ready tomorrow. Or you can just like leave them to live in these more sort of natural habitats that you're like decorating or putting. It's, it's really up to you. There's so many ways to kind of like increase the environment level, which is sort of the, uh, sort of end goal, I guess, of all of the different,

• 13:55Griffin McElroy?

  uh, of all the different areas. Uh, but just the ways that they allow you to do that and the ways that they can kind of recognize like what you are building, what you're trying to do and facilitate that is really, I don't know, like really technically impressive also.

• 14:09Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, Justin, I'm curious for you, as someone who obviously isn't like a huge Pokemon stan. Can you just appreciate, like, do you like just cut out the Pokemon parts of this and just appreciate it as like an open world building game?

• 14:22Speaker 01

  I think this is great. Like, and it's not about cutting out the, the parts of this, like Pokemon are cool. I like Pokemon. I think Pokemon games are boring. And I think that this is a lot more fun than a typical Pokemon game for a lot of reasons. But I think the main thing that for me was like, it was clicking is, I think, you can joke a lot about Pokemon, but the, like, the whole thing about eating them and that they're, are they pets? Or, but the general arc of Pokemon is kind of like, uh, it's been the same sort of loop for a very long time. There's a lot of like things that are built in there and it is.

• 14:57Russ Frushtick?

  You mean like a gameplay loop or?

• 14:59Speaker 01

  The base metaphor is you're finding these Pokemon and capturing them. And you know what I mean? There is something in the, in the base of this game where like, when you're trying to build a project, sometimes you need Pokemon for it, but they're just like any Pokemon and you just like need them to come and help. And it's not a currency, right? They're not, it's not like a, um, you know, you gotta get so many points. It's like. You're building houses for them and they're like helping you to build other things. There is a spirit that I think is at a base level of this game that feels more about like cooperation and like a socialist paradise in the way that like Pokemon never really feels.

• 15:40Speaker 01

  And I think that's, that's cool. And I also think the way that they give you the abilities and have that evolve gameplay, like you get the jump, you get the water spray, you get to do it, is so much more fun than, you know, find some scrotty little chihuahua that can shoot lightning out of its dick, you know?

• 15:56Chris Plante?

  Yeah, Justin, I, I think your point here about like stewardship is, is like pretty radical in terms of these games, because I think so many, the vast majority of open world games are about bending that world to your will. And usually that is you like remove the fog of war and then that means you have an area where you can kill more things or you can force people to sell you things. Or in the case of even Animal Crossing, it's where you're getting tons and tons of stuff to buy and then like just cover the environment in. Here, you can buy stuff, but what you quickly discover is even the stuff you're buying is towards the goal of building these habitats.

• 16:36Speaker 01

  Right.

• 16:37Chris Plante?

  And environment and decoration, you can do it, but it's not the point. Even when you are manipulating the land, you are very often doing it to either get resources to help other characters or to like literally terraform the world to be a more hospitable environment.

• 16:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 16:56Chris Plante?

  And that, I just, I'm like actually struggled to think of big games that have that approach to open world design. And I think, I think it's really something special.

• 17:09Speaker 01

  As, as, as sort of like cool and unique and virtuous is like the, the game sort of ethos is, it does also have its cake and eat it too. Uh, Henry was, Henry's a huge Pokemon fan. We spent, oh God, countless, countless hours playing Scarlet and Violet together. Uh, he got really into Z A. Uh, and he was not sold on this game. He didn't necessarily think it was.

• 17:33Griffin McElroy?

  Gonna sort of be for him. And then we played it and we played around in Palet Town. He just like took my switch and then started goofing around in there. And then he found Sizer. And he was like, oh, yeah, like immediately, just like finding Sizer was enough to get him stoked without having to imprison Sizer inside of his battle sphere and make him come out whatever he wants. And immediately he was like, all right, let's see what this dude needs. His big thing is we went to, there are these things called dream islands, which you can go to. Those you can fuck up. Those you can tear down to the studs because I guess they're not real, maybe. Maybe they're not real. We found a church on one of them.

• 18:14Russ Frushtick?

  I mean, a ghost takes you there, so.

• 18:15Griffin McElroy?

  A ghost takes you there, maybe it's. And so we found a church and he was like, take every block from that church. And so we destroyed this church, which he thought was really funny. And then he wanted to recreate the church on Palet Town for Sizer to live in. And he was like, that's all he wanted to do for like two whole days was just build this house, the church for Sizer coming along. I don't know, that that element of collecting Pokemon is still there, right? Like you're still filling out your Pokédex, but like, I don't know, the everything that happens after that point is completely different from a Pokemon game.

• 18:46Russ Frushtick?

  Griffin, you were talking about Palet Town. Did you try using game share there?

• 18:51Griffin McElroy?

  I did not try. So yeah, the game has multiplayer. It's Switch 2 exclusive. You can game share, I guess from Switch 2 to Switch 1. You tried it, Russ, right? You told me it was kind of restricted.

• 19:01Russ Frushtick?

  So I, when I told you that, I still believe it is a little bit restrictive. It's definitely not the full game. You are restricted to Palet Town.

• 19:09Griffin McElroy?

  Right.

• 19:10Russ Frushtick?

  And building there. And the person joining you, you really have to give them blocks and inventory items. They have all the powers that you have currently, but they don't necessarily have like full full capabilities. That being said, if you're just looking to like build habitats or build houses or discover Pokemon, that's all stuff that they can do.

• 19:30Griffin McElroy?

  So yeah, we, I don't know that we made it clear. You can game share to Switch 1. So if you have a Switch 2 and a Switch 1 lying around, you can game share from the Switch 2 to the Switch 1 and then have this sort of limit.

• 19:40Russ Frushtick?

  Honestly, I, to be clear, you don't need a copy. Obviously, there's no, it's only on Switch 2. It's a Switch 2 exclusive.

• 19:46Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 19:46Russ Frushtick?

  So if you have-

• 19:47Griffin McElroy?

  That is a good option. I may end up doing that after all, because the other option is buying a second Switch 2. Uh, cause he's like all about this game now.

• 19:56Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 19:56Griffin McElroy?

  And, uh, I don't know, I can't, I, it is, it is the first time, it's the first Switch 2 game that I have felt that compulsion of like, Henry and I play a lot of games together. This is the first one where it's like, shit, man. This one might be so fun to play together. We might get so into this that, you know, it might be, it might, this might be the time. I'm definitely gonna have to do it before the fucking Winds and Waves comes out. So eventually I'm gonna have to break that bullet.

• 20:20Russ Frushtick?

  I do a while.

• 20:22Chris Plante?

  I'm realizing hearing y'all that I think we've mentioned this a million times on the show of like, when are we gonna actually get the Pokemon game that is just in a world where you get to walk around and hang out with Pokemon? And this is that-

• 20:34Russ Frushtick?

  That's it, right?

• 20:34Chris Plante?

  They actually, they actually finally made-

• 20:36Russ Frushtick?

  We did it.

• 20:37Chris Plante?

  The game that we've been wanting forever. I, I also, I wanna run a, run a little, little fan theory past y'all here though. I think the text of this game is about people like us. Specifically me and probably Justin, which is, in this game's world, all humans have disappeared, because we are all adults and we played the same damn Pokemon game a trillion times and we've stepped away from it. And now we are literally returning to Pokemon world and having to rebuild it from the ground up. We're having to relearn the old text. We're having to meet all the Pokemon and learn all their details. We're getting caught up with like mentions of all the characters from our era.

• 21:19Chris Plante?

  Like, one of the first things that you find is a message about gym leader, uh, spotlight Misty, right?

• 21:25Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 21:25Chris Plante?

  It is a welcoming back into the world of Pokemon from the, from literally the ground up. And I think-

• 21:34Chris Plante?

  I am very curious to see what this does to the fandom and how this strikes people who have been away from it for a few years. Because as somebody who desperately loves Pokemon as idea, but has really struggled to get back into the main games. I felt like this, this is like almost embarrassing to say, I like genuinely felt emotional playing this game. Like, I felt whatever the thing is that people, I guess is nostalgia, that I very rarely feel. And allow myself to feel here where I was like, oh my God, I am back. I am like, something that has not been awakened is awakened. And that is, it's a really incredible thing. I mean, I just, I love this game.

• 22:15Griffin McElroy?

  I, I think the, the reason I was a bit hesitant about this game. Like the lineage of like the developers and the sort of comparisons to Dragon Quest Builders 2, which I adore that game. I was like, I knew it was going to be pretty good. I did not expect it to be like, as cool as all the stuff we've talked about here is. It is also pretty crunchy, like mechanically too. Like if you want to sink your teeth into that stuff. There is like a system, uh, that you can use or not use, like most other things in the game where like you can build a power grid. Uh, or you can, uh, there's like a cooking kind of elements that you can get to later, like there's a, there's.

• 22:54Russ Frushtick?

  You can run water through towns and then the wa, the ground around the water gets hydrated and you can plant stuff in the, like all that stuff is encompassed.

• 23:02Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah. So like, if that is stuff that appeals to you also, it, it's here, man. Um, I, I am, I love this game, man. I think this is the best Pokemon spinoff game I've, I've, I've ever played. Uh, and I'm someone who's still like, plays the games. I'm someone who still enjoys the franchise quite a bit. Uh, and this, this one is, I, is just has really blown me away.

• 23:23Russ Frushtick?

  Outside of Griffin, did anyone else's children play this game?

• 23:29Speaker 01

  My son watched and was absolutely smitten with it.

• 23:33Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 23:33Speaker 01

  Just the very idea. Again, you're walking around, you're just surrounded by Pokemon who want to talk to you and give you gifts. Like, yeah, what more could you want?

• 23:42Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, I would also say the other thing when we think about builders, for those that did play that game, builders, even though it does allow you to have a fair amount of freedom, is also incredibly linear in terms of quest progression and what you're doing. And you have to go to this place to unlock this thing and so on and so forth. And this is just so wide open and like you could spend 30 hours on the starting island and nothing is preventing you from doing that. Cause they just will constantly give you stuff.

• 24:09Griffin McElroy?

  I will say, my only gripe with the game, truly my only gripe with the game so far is that inventory management is kind of a bear. There isn't, and this is something that is like.

• 24:19Russ Frushtick?

  It's better than Animal Crossing.

• 24:20Griffin McElroy?

  It's better than Animal Crossing for sure. Like just your, the sheer size of your inventory dwarfs that of Animal Crossing. And so like, it's not a thing where your pockets are constantly filling up. It is a thing of like, there are so many different items and pieces of furniture and materials and blocks and all kinds of different stuff. And the game is missing like a like quick sort stacks from your inventory to chest or like drop in a nearby chest. It does let you attach chests to like crafting benches and then pull materials from there. Like it does some of that stuff, but just a button where after I get back from a dream island, I don't have to like, remember like, oh, where do I put, where, where have I been putting my roadblocks? Like, any, anything to make that process smoother would really, I think,

• 25:04Griffin McElroy?

  buff out any of the, the rough edges on this thing.

• 25:07Speaker 01

  We've covered a lot of stuff about this game, but before we move on, I think we've finally danced around it enough that I would like to talk about the big problem, and that is the lead character of this game is horrible. It's a nightmare. It's a ditto pretending to be a human. And it is ghoulish. I mean.

• 25:27Griffin McElroy?

  Not just any human.

• 25:28Speaker 01

  Not just any human, a human it cares for. Guys, it walks around. There were several times I checked this. You could look around and not see anybody and still wear your skin suit. You don't let it drop. You know what I mean? It's for you. It's perverse, right? It's disgusting. It's, there was one time, guys, this, this is the worst jumpscare, jumpscare of 2026. If you go towards a gap that's too low for you to stand in, you'll fucking turn back into a ditto and go underneath it. Fuck you. Are you serious?

• 25:57Griffin McElroy?

  Or if you drop. If you drop, yeah, you turn into goo for like a second.

• 26:02Speaker 01

  Four hours, I'm playing as a man and then I'm just like confronted with the ditto-ness of my nature in like a full screen like if, cause it flips the perspective too and I'm seeing through the ditto's eyes. Terrifying. This thing's horrible. That's what it thinks we are. Do you know what I mean?

• 26:18Griffin McElroy?

  There's a surprising amount of humor that works for me in this game too. Like when you learn these transformation moves, you will usually learn them from the Pokemon who like, uh, you know, who taught them. And when you transform into them, sometimes you'll like turn into a lapis, uh, so you can learn how to swim. But the lapis still has that fucking completely 180 degree flat mouth, like just blank dead eyed stare. And lapis will be like, hey, great job. You really, oh, fuck. Oh, yeah. I mean, yeah, most of it looks really great. The faces, um, oh, wow.

• 26:51Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah. Terrifying.

• 26:52Chris Plante?

  Also because you look like a human, the rest of the world thinks you are like human and you act kind of like a human. You are the only one who carries around a smartphone and everybody else is living like, finally I'm free of the 5G. And you're over here every time that somebody talks to you, you're pulling out your phone, taking a picture of them, checking notifications.

• 27:10Speaker 01

  Don't know what to do with it because you've only seen humans have it. So you're like smushing it on your face and licking it like, human.

• 27:17Griffin McElroy?

  Fucking Professor Tang Growth, I think is going to come out of this as the star, as the MVP, like breakout star of the game. He is the professor of this game and he had, he, well, he's just a big tentally, tentacally dude. And

• 27:31Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, Tangruth is a Pokemon. It's an evolution of, uh, Tangla. Like dangles over his head and he has a CD tap like wrapped around it. So it looks like a, it looks like a doctor's like flashlight. He's, he's, he's a real unk. He's great.

• 27:46Russ Frushtick?

  Also Magic Herb says, yo, and sup dude.

• 27:49Griffin McElroy?

  A lot of Pokemon say yo and sup dude.

• 27:51Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, they just have a chill vibe about them, which I wasn't necessarily expecting, but then I was thinking about it in the show. Whenever Pokemon hang out on their own and it's subtitled, which does happen occasionally. It's, it's basically that same tone. It's like, what's going on? Yo, man.

• 28:06Griffin McElroy?

  Hey, got any ketchup?

• 28:08Speaker 01

  It's a lot of fun. It's really fun. I really like it.

• 28:11Russ Frushtick?

  It's fucking good. I'm gonna be playing this game for a very long time.

• 28:13Speaker 01

  I think the fans are gonna hate it.

• 28:15Chris Plante?

  It's gonna be a catastrophe.

• 28:16Griffin McElroy?

  I do not think so, man. I think people are absolutely buck wild.

• 28:19Chris Plante?

  No, no, no, let me go ahead and plant this flag. They are gonna hate it. They're gonna walk away from this thing so fast, it's gonna make your head spin. It's gonna be ponopia. Out.

• 28:32Griffin McElroy?

  Uh, should we take a break and talk about more Nintendo? What's coming down the Nintendo pipe?

• 28:37Chris Plante?

  You bet. It's called the Nintendo hole. We'll check it, look right down in it.

• 28:41Griffin McElroy?

  The Nintendo pipe goes in the Nintendo, the Nintendo hole.

• 28:43Chris Plante?

  Right.

• 28:46Chris Plante?

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• 29:29Chris Plante?

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• 30:14Chris Plante?

  That's protonvpn.com slash besties.

• 30:22Russ Frushtick?

  So Nintendo's release dates are, I would say, generally hidden. For example, we don't know what like Q3 and Q4 really have in store for us.

• 30:34Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 30:35Russ Frushtick?

  There's really only three major first-party releases that have been revealed for this year. Wait, is it four? Does Fire Emblem have a release date yet?

• 30:46Griffin McElroy?

  Uh, no.

• 30:47Russ Frushtick?

  So they're really, yeah, I'm looking at it now. Tamadachi Life, Rhythm Heaven, Yoshi and the Mysterious Book, and Fire Emblem, whatever the fuck it's called, I think are the four big ones that have been announced this year. Of those, I know Griffin, you're in particular, pretty psyched about Tamadachi Life. I feel like I will not be able to play another one of these after playing Pokopia for quite some time.

• 31:11Griffin McElroy?

  Oh, I mean, that's a totally different thing, dude. It's a fucking complete, oh, man. You're gonna be so happy. So Tamadachi Life, uh... Soap opera simulator. Basically. I watched the, a bit of the direct about it. What's the, what is the subtitle? Tamadachi Life Island Getaway? I forget the... They're all the same. Every subtitle of this game.

• 31:31Russ Frushtick?

  It is called, uh, Living the Dream.

• 31:34Griffin McElroy?

  Living the Dream. Uh, Tamadachi Life is...

• 31:36Russ Frushtick?

  April 16th is coming out.

• 31:37Griffin McElroy?

  Was a 3DS game originally where you took me's that either you had created or like found in Street Pass or whatever, and you live on an island with them. But like, there is no mech, like the mechanics are the red bear. You are not collecting resources and crafting shit and doing all that jazz. You are mostly like dropping down this, uh, you know, uh, this, this, this weird sort of huge-headed caricature of, uh, you know, Whoopi Goldberg, uh, next to one of Anderson Cooper. And then like, they start talking and go to the beach. And then they go and they sing a song together that you customize all the lyrics to. It's just like...

• 32:19Griffin McElroy?

  It's going to be the only thing you see, I think, on TikTok for a while, just because the, the, the potential there is for, for just like really out of pocket funny shit is through the roof. And I'm sure that it will be.

• 32:34Chris Plante?

  It's arriving at the perfect time with these micro dramas blowing up because like, yes, on the Whoopi Goldberg Anderson Cooper example, they will then go take a ride on a carousel and propose, but then they'll be interrupted by Kylo Ren because Kylo Ren is also in love, but so is Peter Griffin.

• 32:52Russ Frushtick?

  Okay, but I guess like, what do you, what is your input to that?

• 32:57Griffin McElroy?

  You pick the, the guys that live there and you can sort of like drop them near each other. And I, I don't know, I have not watched enough footage of, of this new game to know exactly what the mechanics are.

• 33:07Russ Frushtick?

  But it's gotta be basically the same as the previous one, right?

• 33:09Griffin McElroy?

  I assume so. I don't know.

• 33:12Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 33:13Griffin McElroy?

  Um, but yeah, that one will be, that one will be fun.

• 33:16Russ Frushtick?

  Uh, and then there's a Rhythm Heaven game that's coming out. Um, I don't know when the last Rhythm Heaven game came out.

• 33:23Griffin McElroy?

  Do we have the release date for the new Rhythm?

• 33:25Russ Frushtick?

  No, it's still 2026. It's called Rhythm Heaven Groove.

• 33:28Griffin McElroy?

  And yes, this Yoshi date, I think, was just announced a couple of hours ago.

• 33:33Chris Plante?

  As his, for Mario.

• 33:35Speaker 01

  As the voice of Yoshi.

• 33:37Griffin McElroy?

  Yes, that's, that's true.

• 33:39Chris Plante?

  That's true.

• 33:42Griffin McElroy?

  Not probably in the game, though, I don't think.

• 33:44Chris Plante?

  No.

• 33:44Russ Frushtick?

  Maybe.

• 33:45Chris Plante?

  But you are gonna get Luis Guzman as Wart. So yeah, I think I'll take it. Thank you.

• 33:50Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 33:51Chris Plante?

  Yeah, dude. I think so.

• 33:54Griffin McElroy?

  Uh, I mean, there, I don't know, there's, there's a lot of, you know what I'm actually kind of excited about is Indiana Jones is coming to Switch 2, uh, on, in May 12th, which, uh, I would love to play that game in a mobile. How?

• 34:08Chris Plante?

  Like, how will that run?

• 34:10Speaker 01

  Badly.

• 34:10Russ Frushtick?

  I bet. I mean, Resident Evil Requiem runs great on Switch 2.

• 34:13Griffin McElroy?

  Guys, this thing is pretty fucking, we're far enough into the lifespan of this thing that like, I, I, uh, I, I, it's a pretty diesel, man. I think.

• 34:23Russ Frushtick?

  Well, and it's also because of, what is it? DLSS or whatever technology.

• 34:26Griffin McElroy?

  Oh, sure.

• 34:27Russ Frushtick?

  Like, I think Requiem runs at 360p.

• 34:31Griffin McElroy?

  But it just they

• 34:32Russ Frushtick?

  Because they upscale it, it looks good. Like it looks really good.

• 34:36Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 34:36Russ Frushtick?

  So I think they're at this point where they've dialed in the the upscaling tech.

• 34:42Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 34:42Russ Frushtick?

  It really does open a lot of possibilities for what can run versus not. I mean, who knows? It might launch and run like dog shit.

• 34:47Griffin McElroy?

  Damn, we also, we also got the adventures of Elliot, the millennium tales.

• 34:51Russ Frushtick?

  Genuinely, pretty psyched about that game.

• 34:53Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, it looks cool. It's from the octopath traveler, bravely, bravely default team. Looks great. I love all those HD 2D games.

• 35:02Chris Plante?

  Uh, Griffin, are you excited about Tokyo Zanadu? Are you that, that whole PSP or PS Vita era RPG stuff coming?

• 35:13Griffin McElroy?

  I believe it's Kyoto Zanadu.

• 35:15Chris Plante?

  Oh, sorry. I think Tokyo Zanadu is maybe getting a re-release and then Kyoto's. No, it's just Canada.

• 35:20Griffin McElroy?

  No fucking Well, to answer your question, no, I don't know what you're talking about. I had to Google it.

• 35:24Chris Plante?

  Okay.

• 35:26Griffin McElroy?

  So.

• 35:27Russ Frushtick?

  What is it?

• 35:28Chris Plante?

  It's a sequel to a PlayStation Vita game, which was Tokyo Zanadu. And it's like, basically like, kind of a mishmash of E's Trails and Persona.

• 35:39Griffin McElroy?

  Seems good. Interesting. I mean, yeah, okay, that all sounds cool. Um, I don't know much about it. I, guys, I, I want to direct. Doesn't it feel like it's been a minute since the last direct?

• 35:48Russ Frushtick?

  Well, they just did one for the movie. So that was the last.

• 35:52Griffin McElroy?

  That doesn't, yeah. So I don't give a shit about, I don't give a shit about that.

• 35:57Russ Frushtick?

  Sure, yeah.

• 35:58Griffin McElroy?

  Uh, have we talked about the new Pokemon games? I think we did actually last.

• 36:01Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, we did.

• 36:02Griffin McElroy?

  First segment on it, dude. Are you kidding me? It's called.

• 36:06Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah. I mean, there, there's stuff that is, there, there's stuff on the docket that I am, uh, that I am really looking forward to, but it does feel, I don't know, it feels a bit, it still feels a bit anemic.

• 36:17Russ Frushtick?

  I do think, I mean, right now, we're really looking, I think, basically through probably July of this year. I think we have a pretty good sense. These games will probably come out before July, if I had to guess, maybe if Iron Man goes to fall. I think, well, I do have a prediction that says the new Zelda game is going to get announced this year. I don't think it's going to release this year.

• 36:37Griffin McElroy?

  That's your prediction?

• 36:38Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 36:39Griffin McElroy?

  Okay.

• 36:40Russ Frushtick?

  According, well, my prediction to plan, uh, we have an annual predictions thing and that was one of my predictions. I think it's going to get announced this year.

• 36:50Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, the big question is like, what the big Q4 releases? Because right now we have no fucking idea. They, for all we know, could Shadow drop it in the way practically in the way that they did Donkey Kong. Like, here's a game you didn't even know we were fucking working on, and it's coming out in like, two months. So. Um, it'll be interesting.

• 37:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 37:09Chris Plante?

  Do we think that the new Splatoon spinoff game comes out this year?

• 37:13Griffin McElroy?

  Oh, God, I forgot about that.

• 37:14Chris Plante?

  Yeah.

• 37:15Griffin McElroy?

  Maybe Splatoon Raiders, is that it?

• 37:17Chris Plante?

  Yeah, it looks more like, kind of like, an open world, maybe, cleaning game? I can't really tell what it is.

• 37:24Russ Frushtick?

  That would be ironic.

• 37:25Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, I don't think we know a ton about it.

• 37:28Chris Plante?

  I would like that. I love that Splatoon stuff. I'm just not good at multiplayer.

• 37:32Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, I'm terrible. And that's most of the game, so.

• 37:35Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, I always really like the stories in the story mode in those games.

• 37:40Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 37:40Griffin McElroy?

  But I never really get too particularly absorbed by the. Um, yeah, I, I, I miss, we're so far away from the world that we kind of like. Uh, I shouldn't speak for all of us, because you guys got an earlier start in the industry than I did, but like. There is no rhythm, I feel like, to this stuff anymore. There is no like, well, okay, well, in the, in the early months of the year, you won't know a ton, and then you'll get like, a little bit of stuff around GDC, and then, uh, come, come E3, baby. That's where you find out what the years got coming for you, and it, it just simply doesn't work like that, uh, anymore.

• 38:16Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 38:17Griffin McElroy?

  And so, it doesn't, it's weird to not know, kind of, when we could expect another round of big, you know, here's the new Zelda, here's the new.

• 38:25Russ Frushtick?

  I would also add, even though you said earlier that this is an anemic list, uh, which I sort of agree with, it feels a little light, but then you look at, like, what is the PS5 exclusive list?

• 38:36Griffin McElroy?

  Oh, dude, don't get me wrong. I'm not, I'm not, to compare these, I think, yeah, I think they would probably come out.

• 38:42Russ Frushtick?

  Or Xbox for that matter.

• 38:43Griffin McElroy?

  Roughly the same. It still kind of feels like we are in that weird, uh, like, we are maybe around the time that games that would have been developed during COVID, like, uh, shutdown sweeping the, the, the world. Would be coming out of it. Like, it does feel like we are in a bit of an abnormal, uh, lull, but like, I mean, there's still some fucking jams on here.

• 39:04Speaker 01

  I also, man, I, this is not, maybe they're not the most charitable take, but like, if I'm Sony, I'm probably kind of.

• 39:14Speaker 01

  Slow playing on the strategic front a little bit, just to see what is happening at Microsoft. Right? Like, I kind of feel like if I'm Sony right now, I'm like this. Right? Like, I'm not doing anything, man. Yeah, I'm not releasing shit. I'm not doing shit. You guys just do, like, spin out over there and-

• 39:32Griffin McElroy?

  See where it lands.

• 39:33Speaker 01

  See where it goes, and then we will build a strategy to respond to that. Cause right now, if I'm Sony, I don't know. How do you respond to that?

• 39:39Griffin McElroy?

  Wait, wait, get, grab fucking blinks the time sweeper at a fire sale. This is what, this is what we're waiting on.

• 39:46Russ Frushtick?

  There are, uh, reports saying that Sony will be moving away from bringing its single-player games to PC. Which would be very sad.

• 39:55Griffin McElroy?

  That sucks, man, cause I'm real excited for Death Stranding 2.

• 39:58Russ Frushtick?

  Well, that one is coming. This is more for moving forward. Uh, you wouldn't necessarily say. I think there is concern both on the Xbox side and on the PS5 side, that this move away from exclusives, as much as we all love it as consumers, uh, is not helping the, the big studios, and they're gonna start rolling back a lot of those decisions.

• 40:18Griffin McElroy?

  Well, yeah, I mean, there's no reason why they started, uh, releasing their games, you know, for broader markets in the first place. So, you know, the, I totally find to just like-

• 40:27Russ Frushtick?

  I mean, there was a reason. The reason was-

• 40:29Griffin McElroy?

  No, I know, dude. I was being about as facetious as I could be.

• 40:32Russ Frushtick?

  Well, your camera's off, so it's hard to read sarcasm.

• 40:35Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 40:36Chris Plante?

  Hey, hey, y'all, I do wanna give one more-

• 40:39Griffin McElroy?

  I didn't put my Sark mark on there, that's true.

• 40:42Chris Plante?

  One more Nintendo thing. In two weeks, we're gonna get more Super Mario Brothers Wonder.

• 40:48Griffin McElroy?

  Well, yes.

• 40:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's true.

• 40:51Chris Plante?

  That's good news.

• 40:53Russ Frushtick?

  I'm sort of excited. It is very multiplayer focused, is the only hesitance that I have. It's like a multiplayer-

• 41:00Chris Plante?

  You love playing these games in multiplayer, because then you're gonna boss me around.

• 41:03Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, it's like competitive modes. It's just not necessarily what I'm playing Mario Wonder for. I'm like, playing it for new levels in campaign and things like that.

• 41:13Chris Plante?

  That's fair.

• 41:14Russ Frushtick?

  So I'm a little bit not over the moon about it. I could be wrong. Uh, they do add, I think, a new character or two. I think he plays the star.

• 41:22Speaker 01

  I enjoyed that game. I don't know that I enjoyed it so much that I wanna play it again already. I don't know. I don't, it didn't leave me with that, that particular hunger.

• 41:32Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, my fucking kid can't get enough, so. We have some reader mail. First one from Thrillho. I would love to hear about Griffin's Choose Your Own Adventure book, which we've mentioned before, but let's hear more about it. What was your process for writing it? How did you determine how many choices to have? How did your experience as a DM impact how you approached the project?

• 41:52Griffin McElroy?

  Yes, thank you. I have a new book out. It's a Choose Your Own Adventure book called The Stowaway. And it is out today on Mario Day. And it was a lot of fun to write. It was, it was, it was pretty challenging, I guess, as a, I haven't written like a ton of, you know, prose books. I do mostly picture book stuff. And writing a book in second person was kind of a trip. But a lot of those things were like guidelines that the ChooseCo, the company that does Choose Your Own Adventure books, kind of like, provide, provided, like, hey, you know, you want to be shooting for around this much, around this many endings. I think the book has 27, 28 endings, somewhere around there. And, you know, there's some,

• 42:35Griffin McElroy?

  some suggestions of like, you know, make sure you include some, you know, you gotta get like a quick failure one in there. You gotta get like some silly ones in there.

• 42:45Russ Frushtick?

  Do you write from like the beginning to the end of one line?

• 42:49Griffin McElroy?

  No. So what I did is like, I had ideas for like, it's a, it's set on a spaceship, and you're a kid who has stowed away on that spaceship, and you wake up and all the humans are gone, and all of the like automated security of the ship have kind of gone rogue. And you have to kind of figure out why. And so like, knowing that that was the setting and everything, I just kind of thought about like, what would be cool scenes? And then basically what I did was I had all this stuff written down in note cards, and I basically made a, whatever, a mind web on the floor of my office, with like, you know, something like 70 note cards or something like that of, you know, here are the endings that I wanted to get to, and here's how they can organize. And, you know, it sort of organically

• 43:29Griffin McElroy?

  arranges itself into, you know, four or five sort of main story paths that all branch out and go in sort of like different directions. But yeah, it was really genuinely super duper satisfying to like, get all of that organized and figured out. And there's a part of my brain that really likes, um, you know, organizing a flowchart. And I, I, I do think that, uh, you know, having experienced DMing as much as I have sort of helped that out. But yeah, it was, it was truly a cool project and, um, I'm, I'm really proud of it and I hope people like it. It's 10 bucks. It's 10.

• 44:05Chris Plante?

  10 bucks? I mean, what do you want?

• 44:07Russ Frushtick?

  What a steal.

• 44:08Chris Plante?

  Is that bit that I know why for slash Griffin Stowey?

• 44:11Griffin McElroy?

  Yes, but at this point you can also just go into a store and it, you know, probably be there.

• 44:16Russ Frushtick?

  Uh, we have one more letter. This one comes from Dean. Uh, question for the mailbag. Is esoteric eb on anyone's radar?

• 44:23Griffin McElroy?

  Yes.

• 44:23Russ Frushtick?

  Disco Elysium like wrapped in a classic D and D package. We've played it and talked about it on Resties as a matter of fact. Has anyone else talked about it or played it here?

• 44:33Griffin McElroy?

  I, it's, it's, it's, I want to play it.

• 44:37Russ Frushtick?

  It's really good.

• 44:38Chris Plante?

  Dude, Griffin.

• 44:39Griffin McElroy?

  I know. I'm, I, I know it's going to slap ass. I am right now, like being pulled between Muugenix, Pokopia and Slay the Spire 2 just came like.

• 44:50Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 44:51Griffin McElroy?

  Uh, it's crazy how much these, these hungry little monsters are like scrambling for like, hey, you know, we haven't tried this new class inspire yet. Like, oh, but you gotta keep, you gotta finish that run. You almost made it to the throbbing domain. Like it's, uh, these games are just.

• 45:08Chris Plante?

  Sounds like Oscar the Grouch and Hank Hill are both already into the game. So.

• 45:13Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, they're, but they're, they're in there. Uh, I just.

• 45:16Speaker 04

  And I'm Michael Caine and I love the game too.

• 45:19Griffin McElroy?

  It's tough to pick up a new one when you have all these, these boys that you know, you're going to have a great time.

• 45:24Russ Frushtick?

  I would also say esoteric eb is the sort of game you want to play, uh, mostly focused on just esoteric eb, because you do need to keep a lot of stuff in your head.

• 45:32Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 45:33Russ Frushtick?

  So, uh, but strongly recommend it for people that like Disco Elysium definitely, but also just like general D and D. It's incredibly well-written, offers a lot of freedom. It doesn't feel like Baldur's Gate. It feels like its own thing.

• 45:47Chris Plante?

  It's also not as heavy as Disco Elysium. I know Disco Elysium is funny, but like this was a more inviting world to live in. So if that is putting you off, I would definitely check it out. It's, it's incredible.

• 45:59Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, it's excellent. I think it'll has a chance of coming back for game of the year talk. So definitely worth checking out.

• 46:06Russ Frushtick?

  Uh, any honorable mentions?

• 46:09Russ Frushtick?

  I'm watching season 50 of Survivor.

• 46:12Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. Me too. It's really good. It's probably gonna be an all-timer, y'all. You gotta get in now. If you've never watched Survivor before, weird. It's probably not the time to start. It's a good time to start, maybe. I don't know.

• 46:26Griffin McElroy?

  Not a good time to start.

• 46:26Speaker 01

  Not a good time to start.

• 46:27Griffin McElroy?

  I would not watch this, uh, one that is sort of based on how much we all, uh, remember these guys. It's, it's memphis 90's kids this season.

• 46:35Speaker 01

  This is, this is the end game for Survivor. It's a very mu- not the end game, but this is the Avengers end game of, of Survivor. Like, everybody you love is back. I think this season will have to end with all of the continuity being destroyed.

• 46:48Russ Frushtick?

  Um, yeah, probably.

• 46:49Speaker 01

  I would not be surprised.

• 46:50Russ Frushtick?

  G sinks into the ocean.

• 46:52Speaker 01

  Griff, I wanna hear from you. Is Jeff gonna retire after this one? What do you think? Jeff done?

• 46:56Griffin McElroy?

  No.

• 46:56Speaker 01

  No. Never.

• 46:58Russ Frushtick?

  No. What is he doing? He's not doing Rock and Roll Jeopardy. He's got nothing else going.

• 47:01Speaker 01

  Yeah. He would call it Rock and Roll Jeopardy. If he, they should've just switched the whole show to Jeopardy when they had the whole hosting crisis.

• 47:08Russ Frushtick?

  They blew it.

• 47:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 47:09Russ Frushtick?

  Uh, it's great. It's, it's really, uh, super compelling and I'm, I'm enjoying it. And it might end up, uh, getting me into Traders because I am now aware that a number of Survivor people, in addition to a friend of the show, Ron Funches, a number of Survivor people also do Traders, so.

• 47:25Griffin McElroy?

  Rachel and I started watching, um, Traders Australia, season one. We basically were like, hey, we, we are between things to watch right now. Uh, do we wanna check this out? Because a lot of people have said, like, this is a different form of the game. Uh, and because they do not cast inherently celebrities from, from the jump.

• 47:46Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, that is more enticing to me.

• 47:48Griffin McElroy?

  They are making a US version of the, of, of that sort of like, non-celebrity Traders also. Uh, but it is also like, Alan Cumming's not in it. It's set in like a-

• 47:58Russ Frushtick?

  Is it Paul Hogan?

• 47:59Griffin McElroy?

  Hotel. I, it's, it is not Paul Hogan. I can't remember the, the host name. Um, we've only watched one episode of it, so maybe I should. It's, it's, it is like, satisfying in the way of like, it is cool to watch people play this game for whom it feels like there are greater stakes.

• 48:14Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 48:14Griffin McElroy?

  Because the money is, I would say, more significant and- You don't get that kind of baked in like, well, all these people are going to be friends because they were all on Below Deck together. Or these people will be friends because they are gold medal award winning Olympian, uh, figure skater and commentators like. It's, it is sort of just a clean slate and that feels a bit more, I don't know, it feels more exciting.

• 48:39Russ Frushtick?

  More fair, certainly.

• 48:40Griffin McElroy?

  Certainly more fair, yeah. Um, but this is the season that people usually say like outside of the. This is like the best season of Traders that is out there. This, and I think UK season two is the other one that people recommend.

• 48:51Russ Frushtick?

  Where does one watch Traders Australia season one?

• 48:54Griffin McElroy?

  Same place you watch Traders. I think it's on, I think it's just on the Peacock app.

• 48:57Russ Frushtick?

  Oh, nice.

• 48:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, Peacock has a lot of international versions of their shows, which is cool.

• 49:00Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah. Um, I've also been playing Slay the Spire two, but like, but genuinely, genuine fear, genuine fear of like what that game is gonna. When you start playing, Ironclad is the only class unlocked, which is smart. And you go through a run and it like, you see kind of how things are different and what is very much the same. And you fucking beat ass because it's the Ironclad and you know, the Ironclad like the back of your hand. And that is the run I am currently like wrapping up right now. And it, it is a perfect way of making you remember like. The old ways. I thought about holding off, right? Because I didn't want to happen what happened to. Hades two, where I played early access a lot. And then when the full game came out, like it was like pulling teeth to, to get back into it.

• 49:42Griffin McElroy?

  But I am glad that I eventually did, but I don't know, man, Slay, it's Slay the Spire and I'm gonna play that a million times anyway. So it felt like, like a better idea to do the early access stuff here. That's how I'm at least, uh, you know. Get, getting by without feeling too guilty about it. But yeah.

• 50:00Russ Frushtick?

  We will, we will talk more about it next week for sure.

• 50:03Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 50:05Russ Frushtick?

  Justin and Plant?

• 50:06Speaker 01

  Hmm. Well, the Survivor thing is what I've been, I've been mainly.

• 50:11Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, yeah. It's super.

• 50:14Chris Plante?

  Mine is just a reminder that Death Stranding 2 on the beach is coming out on PC in like a week, less than a week, probably when you hear this. And it was our, our big game last year and now it's gonna be even, well, not even better. It'll run well and have all the bonus PC features.

• 50:32Russ Frushtick?

  I don't know if it's gonna run on Steam Deck. That is the real X factor.

• 50:35Chris Plante?

  Yeah.

• 50:36Russ Frushtick?

  And for a lot of people, a determining factor of whether it's worthwhile or not. Uh, but yeah, this might be the last Sony first person, uh, single player game that they do on there. So.

• 50:47Chris Plante?

  I'm curious how that deal works because, uh, well, I'm getting way in the weeds, but like it, it's co-published by Kojima and they had done like publishing with 505 before. And that's why it was on PC before all the Sony stuff last time. So maybe we would see Death Stranding or kind of like Kojima stuff on PC in the future, but.

• 51:07Russ Frushtick?

  Maybe.

• 51:08Chris Plante?

  I don't know.

• 51:09Russ Frushtick?

  I think we've done it.

• 51:10Chris Plante?

  Yeah. What's next up?

• 51:12Russ Frushtick?

  Well, we're gonna do a grab bag next week. We're also going to do that long promised Resident Evil Requiem spoilers episode. Uh, so, uh, Chris Plant has a little homework. He needs to finish it up. He's very, very close, last I heard.

• 51:26Chris Plante?

  Yes.

• 51:27Russ Frushtick?

  But it'll be great. And then I wanted to thank the members over at the Patreon. That would be patreon.com slash the besties. I'm sorry. Uh, we have Aspen Shield, we have Trent C, we have Jamie R. And we have Sharonamo. Sharonamo. Sharonamo. Probably someone named Sharon. Uh, very funny. I like that. Uh, thank you for being patrons over at the besties. Thank you to everyone else for supporting us. We have a new episode of Resties. We've talked about it already, which was, uh, the esoteric eb episode that is up and live. Uh, and we have new bracket battles every month and all sorts of fun stuff. So please go over there and support us if you haven't yet. We love you. We love all of you. Uh, you make the show possible.

• 52:09Chris Plante?

  Do you think that maybe it says Sharon is email?

• 52:13Russ Frushtick?

  No.

• 52:15Chris Plante?

  Hmm.

• 52:15Russ Frushtick?

  Because it's I M O, it's not E M O.

• 52:18Chris Plante?

  I was sharing in my opinion.

• 52:21Speaker 01

  Thank you so much for listening to Besties. Join us again next week for the Besties, because shouldn't the world's best friends pick the world's best games?