Silent Hill and the Heir to Castle Crashers' Crown

What if you combined the structure of Hades with the minute-to-minute gameplay of Castle Crashers? Absolum! The new game from the creators of Streets of Rage 4 is one of the best surprises in a year full of them. Plus, The Besties take a trip to 1960s Japan with Silent Hill f. It might not look like other entries in the series, but we explain why this is definitely a Silent Hill game.

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

• 0:00Russ Frushtick?

  I would consider myself an egg expert. We've gone over this quite a number of times and I've

• 0:04Griffin McElroy?

  Sure.

• 0:04Russ Frushtick?

  Spent so much fucking time on one specific topic and I don't have the answer for it.

• 0:09Griffin McElroy?

  Okay.

• 0:09Russ Frushtick?

  I have compared extra large eggs to large eggs in the supermarket repeatedly.

• 0:17Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 0:18Russ Frushtick?

  And they look the fucking same to me.

• 0:21Griffin McElroy?

  Okay.

• 0:22Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 0:22Chris Plante?

  Common mistake.

• 0:23Griffin McElroy?

  If I.

• 0:24Chris Plante?

  You're mistaken the cover of the book for what's inside.

• 0:28Griffin McElroy?

  Exactly.

• 0:29Chris Plante?

  You're on those extra large eggs, the yolk is like

• 0:32Griffin McElroy?

  The yolk, big fat yolk.

• 0:34Chris Plante?

  It's like almost all yolk.

• 0:35Speaker 02

  And it's like a thick, hard yolk.

• 0:38Griffin McElroy?

  Hard yolk.

• 0:38Speaker 02

  And it's dimpled in that way that you look.

• 0:40Chris Plante?

  And if you get the extra, extra large, they kind of like quack at you. They're like, fuck, what?

• 0:44Griffin McElroy?

  Well, no, that's, that's fucked up. If you're, if you're going to a grocery store that is selling you that, Chris, you need to report them to the Food and Drug Administration.

• 0:53Chris Plante?

  I don't go to a grocery store to buy eggs. I go to the Eggman.

• 0:56Speaker 02

  There's no, it's why, great, okay.

• 0:58Griffin McElroy?

  Well, no, cause now, hold on, there's like three layers to this thing now, cause first I want to hear about who the Eggman is other than Dr. Robotnik, that you're going to and getting you special.

• 1:06Chris Plante?

  Okay, okay.

• 1:08Speaker 02

  Can I just take it at fit? Can we maybe just not talk about a bunch of stupid shit? Take the question.

• 1:13Chris Plante?

  Please, please, please. I want to go, no, you go ahead.

• 1:16Speaker 02

  Can we just talk about the question at face value? Cause Russ is right.

• 1:19Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 1:20Speaker 02

  There's two reasons you buy eggs.

• 1:22Chris Plante?

  Okay.

• 1:23Speaker 02

  Recipe.

• 1:24Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 1:25Speaker 02

  Breakfast. That's it, right? You either get it for a recipe, you get it for a breakfast.

• 1:30Griffin McElroy?

  Principal prank. Principal Halloween prank.

• 1:32Russ Frushtick?

  That's a big one.

• 1:33Speaker 02

  I'll great, I'll great you prank, prank, third reason to buy egg, prank.

• 1:36Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 1:37Speaker 02

  In none of those scenarios, even in baking and cooking, it doesn't very, it very rarely will say, don't get large eggs.

• 1:46Griffin McElroy?

  Right.

• 1:46Speaker 02

  Get extra large eggs. If you ask someone how, if they want eggs for breakfast, you would not say, would you like a large egg? Or an extra large egg? It's insane, right? So like, why do you even need to make the distinction when you're shopping between the two?

• 2:02Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, well, we're talking about.

• 2:03Chris Plante?

  It's like a declaration of power, right? You know, you're like, oh, I'm, I'm the sort of person who can get extra large eggs when you're, you know.

• 2:11Speaker 02

  Milk you for a few more cents.

• 2:12Chris Plante?

  I think that's right. A few more cents, more like a few more dollars in this economy.

• 2:17Griffin McElroy?

  With eggs?

• 2:18Chris Plante?

  Yeah.

• 2:19Griffin McElroy?

  Especially?

• 2:20Chris Plante?

  Yeah.

• 2:20Griffin McElroy?

  Hot topic.

• 2:22Russ Frushtick?

  So

• 2:22Speaker 02

  I'm only shopping Bitcoins.

• 2:24Russ Frushtick?

  No one has any answer to my question. It's fucking horseshit.

• 2:27Griffin McElroy?

  It's a weight thing. They are.

• 2:28Russ Frushtick?

  Oh, it's weight?

• 2:29Griffin McElroy?

  It's by weight.

• 2:29Speaker 02

  By weight. It's by weight in a dozen.

• 2:31Russ Frushtick?

  So a denser egg will be an extra large egg?

• 2:35Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 2:36Russ Frushtick?

  They should go by density, not size.

• 2:38Griffin McElroy?

  How thick is the chicken inside it?

• 2:39Speaker 02

  That dumb shit we said about yolks may have been right.

• 2:41Russ Frushtick?

  It's not a volume thing. It's a density thing.

• 2:44Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah. Yeah. The albumen can be more tightly sort of packed, less porous.

• 2:49Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah. Fuck. My world has changed.

• 2:52Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, man. You're about to go on a whole new layer of your egg sandwich every single morning. Still can't believe that's good for you, Journey. And now you'll be able to tell the difference by eating them.

• 3:02Russ Frushtick?

  Can I launch a new tier of the Patreon just so I can have ostrich eggs every morning?

• 3:07Speaker 02

  Tier of the Patreon? Because if so, no.

• 3:10Chris Plante?

  No, I think yes.

• 3:11Russ Frushtick?

  Have ostrich eggs every morning. That is my number one goal because I've seen them and man, that is an ambition I want to crush.

• 3:18Griffin McElroy?

  Oh dude, climb, climb. That's the last mountain for you, huh?

• 3:22Griffin McElroy?

  The last tower.

• 3:24Chris Plante?

  Oh, sorry. Stuff is dropping off my breakfast.

• 3:27Griffin McElroy?

  God, you gotta stop going to that guy, Chris. It's not good for your soul.

• 3:49Speaker 02

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

• 3:52Griffin McElroy?

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

• 3:55Chris Plante?

  My name is Chris Plant and Justin's gonna act like I'm not gonna ask what the glowing ass controller light is.

• 4:01Speaker 02

  I got it out of the.

• 4:02Chris Plante?

  Waving around.

• 4:02Speaker 02

  This is part of my decor. It's my decor.

• 4:05Chris Plante?

  Oh, it's an infinity light.

• 4:07Speaker 02

  Yeah, dude. I found it at the peddler's mall for five bucks, dude.

• 4:12Griffin McElroy?

  Fuck, yeah, dude.

• 4:13Speaker 02

  Sick, right?

• 4:14Russ Frushtick?

  My.

• 4:16Speaker 02

  Hey Rusty, wait one second.

• 4:17Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, go ahead.

• 4:18Speaker 02

  Uh, I wanna try, I've, I've been trying to get it to, I guess if I placed it right here, I could get it to read on camera, but I just don't want the glare.

• 4:26Russ Frushtick?

  Okay, well now you need to take another photo and put it in the newsletter.

• 4:28Speaker 02

  Sorry, who are you?

• 4:29Russ Frushtick?

  It mine, it was Russ Fraschik, I know the best game of the week. And anything visual we need to put in the newsletter, that's the rule. We had so many fucking comments about the bug last week, we'll get to them in the reader mail section. But anything visual needs to go in the newsletter, so you need to take a photo of your.

• 4:43Speaker 02

  Can I show you the other sign that I got then?

• 4:45Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, show me.

• 4:46Speaker 02

  Can I get the other sign? Just go ahead and do some, talk about.

• 4:48Russ Frushtick?

  So Justin.

• 4:49Griffin McElroy?

  Okay, so this week, we know we said we were gonna talk about Silent Hill F.

• 4:52Russ Frushtick?

  We are gonna.

• 4:53Griffin McElroy?

  Talk about Silent Hill F. In the B segment of this show, cuz another game scuttled along out of nowhere, uh, that we are able to talk about this week that.

• 5:00Chris Plante?

  Like a house.

• 5:01Griffin McElroy?

  More sort of, more energy, like a house.

• 5:03Russ Frushtick?

  Or like a character in Silent Hill.

• 5:05Griffin McElroy?

  Yes, exactly. Uh, we were a little bit more energized by it, and that game is Absalom. Uh, a very, very cool rogue-like beat'em up, uh, RPG, uh, from the creators of Streets of Rage 4. And so we're gonna talk about, okay, so show us the other sign, Juice. We vamped as hard as we could.

• 5:23Speaker 02

  This is the first one that I found at the Peddler's Mall. This is a history of PlayStation.

• 5:28Russ Frushtick?

  It's a history of PlayStation, it's every PlayStation store from PS1 to PS5.

• 5:33Griffin McElroy?

  That's really cool, man.

• 5:34Russ Frushtick?

  In like.

• 5:34Speaker 02

  It's not cool, that's cool, right? That's not the best.

• 5:36Russ Frushtick?

  And where does that go?

• 5:37Chris Plante?

  Real, that is a visual version of we used to have jobs, cash.

• 5:42Speaker 02

  That was eight dollars.

• 5:43Griffin McElroy?

  For sure, for sure.

• 5:44Russ Frushtick?

  Where does that go, Justin, in your house? Where does that go?

• 5:46Griffin McElroy?

  I mean, in the background of his shot, I hope, oh, yeah. And lastly. I have a dream that one day my parents will understand that online games cannot be paused. That's awesome, dude.

• 5:59Russ Frushtick?

  Sign that says that, that's spectacular.

• 6:01Griffin McElroy?

  You gotta hang that sign up that says that and then start Airbnb-ing your place. Cuz I need someone to find that kind of while poking their head around in the house they're gonna be sleeping in that night and understand what it means for them.

• 6:16Speaker 02

  We're gonna go, yeah, now this goes in the art, this is, it's, I'm gonna, I need to get rid of this dumb sound bath, I'm kidding myself, this doesn't do anything.

• 6:25Griffin McElroy?

  Alright, we're gonna take a quick break and then talk about Absalom.

• 6:27Speaker 02

  Absolutely.

• 6:31Chris Plante?

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• 7:59Chris Plante?

  That's protonvpn.com/besties.

• 8:06Griffin McElroy?

  Had you all heard of this game before we got code?

• 8:10Russ Frushtick?

  I've gotten emails about it, but I got to admit, just the title alone made me seemingly not really super care. And then, at one point, I read in one of the emails it said, "Hey, this is by the team that made TMNT, Shredder's Revenge, and a bunch of other incredible beat'em ups, but it's their original IP." And I was like, "Oh, okay, I'm interested now."

• 8:32Griffin McElroy?

  Yes, so it is made by Guard Crush, who worked on Streets of Rage for Emu. I guess it's supposed to be like Emu later.

• 8:42Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, I think it's like an Emu like the bird.

• 8:44Griffin McElroy?

  Maybe. And Super Monks, and who?

• 8:51Griffin McElroy?

  Do you all want me to set up what the game is?

• 8:54Russ Frushtick?

  I can do it.

• 8:54Griffin McElroy?

  Okay, go for it, Russ.

• 8:56Russ Frushtick?

  Uh, structurally, the game, I'm sure there's a narrative, but we're not gonna focus on that right now. Structurally, the game is picture a Hades-like, but instead of it being a top-down isometric-like action kind of game, it's a beat'em up in the style of X-Men Arcade, or Simpsons Arcade, or TMNT Shredder's Revenge. It's that. So you go out into the world, you do runs, you'll find currencies, you'll unlock new abilities, you're picking perks as you go through the runs, and just progress in this world.

• 9:26Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, there's a lot of really good, sort of, micro and macro progression hooks. Like, certain things are per run, like the rituals you find that give you special, sort of, abilities bound to your character's move set. Those are like, per run, so you're trying to put together a synergistic sort of thing, like, oh, this build, when I use my heavy attack, it puts the enemies in a bubble, and then when that bubble pops, because of this thing, it shoots out a wave, and it increases how much water knocks people. You're trying to, like, put together a general strategy by enhancing yourself. But then there's, you go back to base, and you can spend your currencies to, like, permanently add health to your pool, or unlock new moves for the characters.

• 10:05Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, I don't know.

• 10:06Chris Plante?

  My shortened version is Hades plus Castle Crashers.

• 10:09Griffin McElroy?

  That's a really fucking, pretty good, succinct version of it.

• 10:12Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, it seems very clear that Hades was a big inspiration, specifically because not only the upgrade systems and all that stuff, but the idea that, like, you're building up this hub world that slowly gets filled with NPCs, and the NPCs obviously have different, you know, reasons to talk to them, upgrade reasons to talk to them, but also, they're also delivering narrative, and the story progresses as you go through it.

• 10:35Griffin McElroy?

  And sending you on quests.

• 10:36Chris Plante?

  People who love these sorts of games, you just take a break. People who do not like these games, come a little closer, because you're probably thinking, hey, I can skip to the Silent Hill part of this episode. Usually what people don't like about these games is they're just super repetitive, right? Like, you're just doing the same thing over and over and over again. And this game has one of the most brilliant fixes for a major problem for a genre that I've ever seen, which is, while you are going through these runs, not only are you incentivized to go through them over and over and again to learn story beats like you would in Hades. But then also, your point A to point B branch, in a variety of number ways, kinda FTL-like. So you'll be seeing different spots.

• 11:18Chris Plante?

  And when you go to those spots, new events will happen that you don't expect. You'll discover new enemies, maybe a new branch will appear, maybe a different character will materialize, maybe an entire boss fight will happen. So you are going through, you're going from point A to point B over and over and over again, but it feels different every time, to the point that you're incentivized to do it. And by a certain point, you actually have quests where it's like, hey, on the next run, I really wanna make sure I stop by the waterfall before I get to the end, because I wanna accomplish something there. It makes it feel like a game game, and not an arcade game, which is, again, the forever-

• 12:02Griffin McElroy?

  That is a huge distinction, yeah.

• 12:04Chris Plante?

  Yeah.

• 12:04Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah. Uh, what do you think? Juice, you and I had a chance to play it a bit yesterday, co-op, which it does have two-player, online and local. Um, which the online is pretty clever, if we could talk about that in a bit.

• 12:14Speaker 02

  Yeah, you, you should probably describe, like, set it up. We, we played through a, a level of it. I guess we're pretty different level-wise, but it still felt pretty, you had a lot more health than me, and you were able to stay alive a lot longer, but it still felt like we were both doing stuff.

• 12:28Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, it synchronizes, i- it doesn't synchronize your thing. It basically takes the world of the lower level player, uh, and so the higher level player, like, they're not really, uh, completing quests or doing things along those lines. But like, the currencies that you find, and the things that you discover and unlock, those are progressive. So it's like, you can play with another player and not have one of you just not be progressing in some way, which is, I think, kinda how these things usually go in online, you know, multiplayer beat'em ups especially. Uh, it's just a very, very clever fix, I think.

• 13:02Speaker 02

  Um, I will say, I'm, I know that, I'm sure that there gets to be more layers, but, um, as you go on, but with the direct comparison to Hades- I do still feel like the, the one vestige of beat them ups that this hasn't really like figured out a way to rethink is for me, just the moment to moment playing of it doesn't feel quite dynamic enough. Um, you do have like, uh, a, a regular attack and kind of a special attack kind of thing. And then like a magic that you can build up. And there are, as you like unlock abilities and stuff, there's like lots of ways that those can layer on top of each other in interesting ways. But a lot of the ways they layer on each other, top of

• 13:44Speaker 02

  each other are interesting in sort of a meta way, but not necessarily like, I just felt like the, the moment to moment playing of it without the layering those things on top of it. Still a lot of time felt like I was just kind of pounding on the attack button and, and trying to hit as many people as possible, which I understand is every video game ever made, but I

• 14:03Griffin McElroy?

  Well, but not right. The Hades comparison here is at because Hades doesn't really do that to you. Hades, when you start playing, you know, you're finding all the different, you know, divinities, uh, like upgrades that you get like, there's a huge amount there for you. In this game, you start with virtually nothing. And by going through the different routes, you are like unlocking new types of rituals and new types of things because it does add those things, but you do gotta get there. And considering it's a beat them up game that you want to be pretty fun right away.

• 14:30Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 14:30Griffin McElroy?

  It's, yeah.

• 14:31Speaker 02

  It has also wants you to do stuff like dodge and, and incorporates more elements like that. And where this is early on, especially like there is a dodge, but it's not something you necessarily are want, you don't need to do that. It's a beat them up. Like you don't need to do that a lot early on.

• 14:45Chris Plante?

  The progression group is very dead cells. And for some people that is something they will love. And that is for me, I think I have not liked in the past and I'm, I'm going to get to why I like it here. But basically you have to unlock the fun of the game as you go along. So Hoops is right. At the very beginning, it's pretty straightforward. As you unlock all these things, you're getting all sorts of new abilities that make it, uh, I would say much more elaborate in terms of how your combat works, but you have to get there. I think it was a pure luck situation with my interest in this game, that I got an incredible build within 15 minutes. And you don't always get an incredible build,

• 15:28Chris Plante?

  but the very first time through, I had this build where my character was like scyson and dicing and every move I did would Throw a character into a bubble that would make them float across the screen and then they would splash against a wall and burst onto somebody. And then, uh, once they popped out of the bu- bubble, they caught on fire. And when I ran around, fire trailed me. It was all of this cra- like incredible stuff. And I spoke with, um, Frush and I's buddy Gio, uh, at Polygon. And, uh, he playing this game too and was like, yeah, I played like five rounds before I got a single interesting skill.

• 16:05Speaker 02

  Yeah. And it's like-

• 16:06Russ Frushtick?

  It did feel, it felt to me, what like my first run that I did was with Griffin, pretty much in online. And because he was more powerful, we were able to get a lot further into the run.

• 16:17Chris Plante?

  So I also just got a quick, for that, just to-

• 16:19Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 16:19Chris Plante?

  For that run, I got in a fucking insane build where I was spawning like infinite throwable daggers and ki- and then when Justin and I played yesterday, I got some real garbage in like all of my draws and it was, we got significantly less far.

• 16:32Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah. So I think it turbocharging the, those early runs do really make a big difference because you get a lot more tools at your disposal much quicker than you would if you, yeah, kind of fumbled around for the first-

• 16:43Speaker 02

  I also wish they would funnel those a little bit more early on where like you would, it would sort of like default to some sort of interesting-

• 16:51Chris Plante?

  Yeah.

• 16:51Speaker 02

  -build and then you would cut it, cause I didn't even really understand. I, I feel like a lot, with the success of Hades specifically, and I think this is a problem for a lot of video games, but this model more than others. I feel like so many devs ha- are, are bringing so much of that game into their games that they don't feel the need to explain it very much. And that's tough because their Hades, you know, their power curves and their structures and their currencies and everything is, it's all just a little different.

• 17:24Chris Plante?

  Right.

• 17:24Speaker 02

  And I feel like the first time I'm playing, I was still trying to understand the game and you're like, you're, the gust power of this clash is double this. And it's like, I don't know, it, like you're throwing so much at me, I'm not going to have any hope of building something interesting.

• 17:37Chris Plante?

  And they, they try to accommodate for that. There's characters that you can meet in the hub world that will explain things if you go through the menus, but even still, like there was a currency that I texted Frush after probably two hours of playing, I was like-

• 17:51Speaker 02

  I straight up do not know what this current.

• 17:53Griffin McElroy?

  It's a huge upgrade mechanic that really opens the game up and you do not get access to it until you beat like the first huge wall of a boss who is a real piece of shit.

• 18:04Speaker 02

  But it's just sitting there the whole time.

• 18:06Griffin McElroy?

  I know. I do agree that the pacing stuff is bad. I think that the moment to moment gameplay is tight as fuck. And I think it is like the most fun feeling beat them up that I can maybe ever remember playing. When Russ and I had our run where like my build really came together, just juggling dudes in the air for like a 200 hit combo and going absolutely ham. Like it feels, it feels fucking great. And you are getting new stuff every run. You are, you know, putting together a different build that, you know, if you get far enough, like really feels kind of unique by the end of the run. Like I really.

• 18:48Speaker 02

  It looks outrageous too. It looks so good.

• 18:50Griffin McElroy?

  It looks like so fucking good.

• 18:51Speaker 02

  The best, like generous is the word that kept coming to mind when I was like, I get the animation. It's like so many like really lavishly animated frames that are like, everyone looks like a little painting. It's gorgeous.

• 19:05Griffin McElroy?

  The first time you punch a guy.

• 19:06Speaker 02

  It's amazing.

• 19:07Griffin McElroy?

  The first time you punch a guy and see his like hit animation. It's like, oh damn, this is gonna be, this is gonna be a good one.

• 19:12Russ Frushtick?

  It's kind of wild because Dot Emu in particular, they've made such a name out of these like IP centric titles, He-Man T being probably the biggest one. And this feels like just another level of quality layered on top of what they're already known for, which is kind of wild because they're known for some incredibly high quality shit. And I was wondering, like, a lot of that is just like, hey, we don't have to adhere to the limitations that an IP might have. We don't have to give them a chunk of our end revenue. Like this is all on us and our, the other teams that are working on this. And it just feels like they just took the governor off and went kind of wild with it.

• 19:51Speaker 02

  The aesthetic is, uh, let me know if I'm wrong here, but He-Man meets the Adventure Zone was what I kept thinking. Like I thought of y'all's comics.

• 20:01Griffin McElroy?

  There is a character that hugely resembles Taco from the, from the graphic novel.

• 20:06Speaker 02

  From the graphic novel. I will say, I will say maybe. Kerry Peaches work on the Adventure Zone. I, I, I don't know, maybe it is somewhat.

• 20:15Griffin McElroy?

  Uh, I think, I think it looks really terrific. And the world is like really strange and kind of rich. Like the respawn loop happens because you guys are, your characters are.

• 20:25Speaker 02

  Loops on it, that would be.

• 20:27Griffin McElroy?

  No, that would be too. Uh, your characters are like, uh, worshippers of this pregnant goddess who like, grants you the gift of rebirth every time you die. It's like, it's wild and there's like a lot of story. Apparently they have already, uh, like licensed out doing an animated series based on it.

• 20:46Speaker 02

  Oh, wow.

• 20:47Griffin McElroy?

  Which I think could be.

• 20:48Speaker 02

  I still don't understand. Sometimes when people start attacking you, why? But like.

• 20:54Griffin McElroy?

  There's humans sometimes who are like, hey, fuck these guys. And then there's humans who are like, hey, come on into our tavern.

• 20:58Speaker 02

  It's always a craft shoes. Like, look at this guy. I wonder what his story is. Let's find out. Okay, cool. You're gonna sell me a potion.

• 21:05Chris Plante?

  I do love that using the 2D plane of like, oh, you are going always left to right. It's a classic arcade game. Of the first world you're in is a feud between the humans and goblins, I guess.

• 21:19Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 21:20Chris Plante?

  Yeah.

• 21:20Griffin McElroy?

  Right.

• 21:21Chris Plante?

  And you will have these situations where you are literally just in the middle at the wrong time. You are moving from left to right. You're trying to get past a castle. The goblins coming from behind you. And suddenly you're caught in the middle of a battle and you just have to take everyone out. And that.

• 21:37Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 21:38Chris Plante?

  Feeling of, it's just like the lightest bit of story, but it's very cool. But you're right. There's a lot of times where you find a camp and it's like, why are you giving me free beer? I don't know what the thing is here.

• 21:49Griffin McElroy?

  I think it's important though, that it is a light bit of story, but you get it every run.

• 21:53Chris Plante?

  Yeah.

• 21:53Griffin McElroy?

  And it will, things will happen where it's like, if you go down the route that takes you to fight the goblin boss a bunch of times, then the humans will be able to sort of regroup and build a bridge that you can then go on the next time you run. But if you build that bridge, now they're going to start kicking the goblins asses. And like, you're going to keep getting updates every time you go through the run, like when you hit these certain hub spots. Like, hey, you fucked us over big time because now the sea tribe is coming to beat the shit out. It is not like rich, sort of lengthy exposition and stuff like that. But I think, given the short run nature of the game, that kind of like peppered on storytelling, I think goes a long way.

• 22:34Chris Plante?

  I just have one quick, like, small game design thing, because I can't tell if I'm like in my own head on this, if this is even happening. There's something about the juggling that I love in this game, and I don't know how they pull it off. So if you knock characters against a wall in this game, like, you'll knock them, they'll hit the wall, they'll take some damage, they'll fly up into the air. The invisible wall feels like it is inconsistent, and in a really good way. Like, if you just-

• 23:00Griffin McElroy?

  You want them to hit the wall.

• 23:02Chris Plante?

  Yes, you want them to hit the wall. And it's like, as long as you knock them a certain distance away from the character, an invisible wall will basically appear to, like, deal them damage.

• 23:12Griffin McElroy?

  Bounce them out.

• 23:12Chris Plante?

  And I don't know exactly how it's working, but it is so intuitive. Like, I very quickly realized, oh, this is how far I need to hit people to kind of smash them up into the air and do all this extra damage.

• 23:25Griffin McElroy?

  The boss fights are also really great, which is not something I could say about a lot of beat'em ups. Like, a lot of beat'em ups, you're just doing the same thing you're doing to, like, the standard grunts that come your way, but they have a million times more health. In this one, almost all the bosses have some sort of shield that you need to break with, like, enough pressure. And once you have done that, they will become, like, pretty comboable for a short amount of time. So, like, there's a rhythm to it of getting in there, dodging a few attacks, deflecting a few attacks, punishing a few attacks. There's, like, three different ways to, like, counter shit in this game.

• 23:56Russ Frushtick?

  It's absurdly complex. Once you, like, start reading the tool tips of, like, the different damage types that you can deal to enemies and how they, like, combo into your build. Pressure versus launch versus break versus whatever. And, um, so, yeah, if you want to get crazy with it, I would also add, like- I've been pretty intimidated by some of their games in the past, like they, I thought Streets of Rage 4, was that the one, 4?

• 24:22Chris Plante?

  Yeah.

• 24:22Russ Frushtick?

  Streets of Rage 4 definitely got very difficult, but what's cool about all of these games is that they have accessibility features in them. So if you feel like you're struggling or whatever, you can dial down like the amount of damage you take, amount of damage you're giving out, just to like see more of the story and that could actually probably smooth over some of the rough edges you might have on the early runs.

• 24:43Chris Plante?

  It also rewards you for being creative and how you handle things. And well, it's not cheating because it's what the game can do, but this final boss of the first stage is not easy and it wants you to learn how to do the dodge, to do all these different things. Or you can do what I did, which is you collected 16 axes over the course of your run, went into the boss, very pissed off at it and just spammed it, knocked him down. Just one shot. He didn't even have a chance.

• 25:13Griffin McElroy?

  You can, you can break it. It is hard, but it gets easier. Once you unlock more of those like different types of rituals you could, but you can really break this thing right open. You can really, really fuck it up in some pretty major ways. I'm crazy about it. I can't stop playing it. I'm excited for it to come out on Switch. So Henry and I can play it. He loves beat'em ups. And this is a really fucking good one. That is not like super gory or, or mature in a way that I think would be too much for him.

• 25:39Russ Frushtick?

  Justin, did you run into any like lag issues or anything like that when you played?

• 25:43Speaker 02

  No, it was pretty smooth, wasn't it?

• 25:44Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, I could not.

• 25:45Speaker 02

  I didn't have any problems.

• 25:46Russ Frushtick?

  I mean, I'm farther away from Griffin and I couldn't notice a thing. Like it was like.

• 25:50Griffin McElroy?

  It was also very streamlined, like just like getting in. I didn't even like, like I just started the game and we were together playing in a lobby. Like it was no preamble or anything.

• 26:00Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, yeah. Having to like use the invite system or whatever.

• 26:02Griffin McElroy?

  It reminded me more, you know, it felt like Castle Crashers in that sense. Like it reminded me that XBL license, like jump in, jump out. It was very streamlined in that sense.

• 26:11Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, yeah, agreed.

• 26:14Griffin McElroy?

  This is a, this is a, this is a top fiver for me, I think of, of the year.

• 26:18Speaker 02

  You've been throwing those out a lot lately, Griff. I feel like.

• 26:21Griffin McElroy?

  No, I, I've been pretty, I've been pretty good about it lately, actually.

• 26:25Speaker 02

  Really thrown that, those plaudits out a lot lately.

• 26:28Chris Plante?

  Been a real plant over here.

• 26:30Griffin McElroy?

  It's been a real fucking bonkers year.

• 26:33Russ Frushtick?

  It's been some good stuff.

• 26:36Chris Plante?

  Hey, who's ready for some Silent Hill?

• 26:39Griffin McElroy?

  Me.

• 26:41Russ 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, I am incredibly jealous of his mattress,

• 27:25Russ Frushtick?

  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.

• 28:03Griffin McElroy?

  Does F stand for five?

• 28:05Speaker 02

  F stands for fun.

• 28:08Griffin McElroy?

  Silent Hill fun is the new twist.

• 28:10Speaker 02

  Silent Hill fear.

• 28:12Russ Frushtick?

  Oh, I like fear.

• 28:13Griffin McElroy?

  That's cool.

• 28:14Russ Frushtick?

  But it's a lowercase fear. It's like a chill fear.

• 28:17Speaker 02

  No, it's Silent Hill fuck.

• 28:20Griffin McElroy?

  Silent Hill fucks.

• 28:21Russ Frushtick?

  I asked Google and Google said it was Forte, like the, like the musical.

• 28:28Griffin McElroy?

  Like loud? It's not even, I think, a loud... Of the Silent Hill games, I think it is among the quieter ones.

• 28:34Speaker 02

  Well, but compared to Fortissimo or Fortississimo.

• 28:37Griffin McElroy?

  That's true. That's a fair point. Who wants to set it up?

• 28:41Russ Frushtick?

  I mean, Plant, this is your dream game. Here we have a, what is it? Mid 60s Japan game. It's set in Japan in a small village featuring classic horror tropes. Silent Hill game. Like, this seems like right up Chris Plant's alley.

• 28:59Chris Plante?

  Sure.

• 28:59Griffin McElroy?

  Is it right up your alley, Chris?

• 29:00Chris Plante?

  Nah, I mean, yes and no. Sure. So, yes, it doesn't look like your average Silent Hill game, but let me tell you, it is because there is fog and there is a story about how terrible men are and how hard it is to be a woman in modern society, which is a theme of Silent Hill games. You're a high schooler in this one. It might even like just a kind of a full re-intro of what this game is. What do you want?

• 29:27Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, I think that would be good.

• 29:28Russ Frushtick?

  I think it would be helpful.

• 29:30Chris Plante?

  Yeah, so you are a high school student in 1960s Japan and as a young woman in this culture, in this small town, life is pretty hard. Your dad is a tremendous asshole. It seems like a lot of things are going bad, but then they get worse when the fog comes and practically everybody in town disappears except for your friends. But you know what is still around?

• 29:55Chris Plante?

  Like flowers, like evil flowers.

• 29:57Griffin McElroy?

  Red, evil flowers.

• 29:59Chris Plante?

  Evil flowers.

• 30:00Griffin McElroy?

  They kill you.

• 30:01Chris Plante?

  And, um, and a monster mannequins that bend in all sorts of uncomfortable waves and often have knives. And it is your job to figure out what happened. Where did all the adults go? Um, how do you protect your friends? Spoilers, you don't because a lot of people die in this game and it happens pretty early. Um, and, and then you solve a lot of puzzles. So, yes, in theory, I should be really into this because I do like horror. I do love Japanese horror. Uh, the, where I bounce off a little bit is it's, it's kind of a puzzle game, my friends. And I always forget about that with this series until I start playing it. And then I'm like, oh yeah, this game's a puzzle game series.

• 30:45Griffin McElroy?

  When, when, when you start the game, you pick your difficulty for combat and, and puzzles separately. The difficulties are story, hard, and then lost in the fog, I think, which is like super duper hard.

• 30:59Chris Plante?

  It's like that tells you it's wrong even if you get it right.

• 31:01Griffin McElroy?

  Right.

• 31:02Chris Plante?

  It's really twisted.

• 31:03Griffin McElroy?

  It's really fucked up. So, the, it is structurally like Silent Hill where you are, usually you'll have some area wide puzzle, like you're looking for the password for this door and you will find it in these different locations across this map and you will have to find them while you are pursued by fog monsters. Timeless, classic, can't beat it.

• 31:24Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, I think this is the first one, and Silent Hill fans can correct me if this is incorrect, but I think this is the first one that only has melee combat?

• 31:32Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, I don't know. I think the first one maybe did. This was definitely a talking point about this game is like, we're going back to this kind of like feeling of powerlessness in tight quarters that is sort of a staple of older games.

• 31:46Chris Plante?

  Which is hilarious, because there is one thing this game is not about, and that is being powerless. You are a cold-blooded killer. This is the single most powerful teenager to have ever walked the earth. She shadow dances between realms, killing whatever gets in her way.

• 32:08Griffin McElroy?

  Your dodge in this game is crazy.

• 32:10Speaker 02

  The dodge is cra- the dodge was the most confusing thing about the entire game to me, literally. Like, I don't know why she's like, she's got several classes, PE, she's got geometry and bayonetta, and those are the three classes she has. So she has to like, at school, she studied bayonetta moves. You don't have to get hit if you don't want to, I guess. I mean, I don't know. What difficulty did you guys play at?

• 32:35Griffin McElroy?

  I played on story combat hard puzzles.

• 32:39Russ Frushtick?

  Oh, I did story, story, just to see as much as I could.

• 32:43Chris Plante?

  I will say, this is the entire reputation that this game, people are drawing fanfiction of this main character as a like, pure muscle beast. It is-

• 32:53Speaker 02

  Yeah, I'll tell you, here, to give you an example, it's the kind of, it's the kind of thing where you can hold in left trigger to go into like a slow, slow time focus mode, and there's a frame signal that you see where you can combo this attack. If you hit the dodge, if you hit the counter at the right time-

• 33:13Griffin McElroy?

  They try to do something interesting with it, which is that you have your health meter, which you know what that does, but then you also have a sanity meter, which I'm always excited to see one of those in a horror game, because I think we're in for, you know, some, what was it, sanity's requiem, eternal darkness shit. This doesn't really get into that quite as much, but you can use this focus power, which will slow down time just a little bit and let you spot those frames where you can counter a little bit easier. But if you get hit while you're doing that, then your max sanity will decrease. So it's like looping in that element into it as well, but it's- It's it's just kind of weird because sometimes they'll do an attack that's counterable and sometimes they'll do an attack that's not and

• 33:53Russ Frushtick?

  And you don't really realize that until

• 33:55Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, I guess it doesn't feel good ever like there's I I have not had a fight that felt great in the game yet.

• 34:03Chris Plante?

  I I am not excusing the combat. I'm more saying this to put it on the side. The combat is by far the least interesting part of the game. It I I don't know why it's there. Every time I was doing it, I wanted to be doing something else. It feels to me like the whole hook of this game is the story, the the visuals of it and in the puzzles. So just very quickly on the story and the visuals of it. Not only is this game influenced by, you know, Japanese cinema and Japanese horror.

• 34:40Chris Plante?

  The way it is like quite literally shot is stunning. And there's a thing that happens in a lot of video games where it's like at most they figure out their camera position and that's it. There are choices with where they place the camera here that are so interesting. There are entire sequences where you will only see a character's legs as if everything above that is missing, which one is kind of unsettling and horrific, but two is

• 35:08Russ Frushtick?

  It's muppet babies. I get it.

• 35:10Chris Plante?

  Well, it also gets

• 35:10Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, it's a nanny treatment.

• 35:12Chris Plante?

  The leering nature of the game. It also gets it's like you are kind of being infantilized. It's it is doing so much with its visual storytelling that the script isn't even there for. So I really appreciate it for that. I am curious what people thought of the puzzles because I'm just not a puzzle person.

• 35:33Russ Frushtick?

  I've never really enjoyed the puzzles in any Simon Hill games and this was sort of like I don't get satisfaction out of it. It's just like, oh, I figured out the trick to flipping the the things around or whatever it is.

• 35:44Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 35:45Russ Frushtick?

  And that's just par for the course for me. Not only Simon Hill, like Resident Evil, whenever they did puzzles, it was like, oh, okay, I gotta get through this before

• 35:52Griffin McElroy?

  We use that term pretty liberally because that term is sometimes used to describe like Like you have to go find the token for the machine at the hotel. And that's not really a puzzle so much.

• 36:02Speaker 02

  Right.

• 36:03Griffin McElroy?

  Maybe you have to decide like you have to read a poem and interpret it. It's really uneven. I think some of the puzzles in this game are pretty bad and are just designed to make you run around a scary area and get jumped by monsters a dozen times. And sometimes they're really fucking cool. Like I really liked the scarecrow puzzle in this game that you hit sort of towards the end of, I don't know, act, act three or something like that.

• 36:27Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's like a long time.

• 36:29Griffin McElroy?

  That's a long time to get there. Absolutely.

• 36:32Speaker 02

  It was really hard for me to shake the feeling while I'm playing this like last, last week, we talked about Ghost of Yote and Ghost of Yote, one of the things that as I've continued to play it is really cool is the way it is. That used mechanics to like get across a story. And they used game mechanics to like make you feel stuff narratively and I'm, I'm always knocked out when that happens. This feels to me like someone who is deeply inspired by the aesthetics of Japanese horror cinema, but didn't necessarily have a lot of interesting ideas about how to make that a gameplay experience. Instead, try to capture like the aesthetics of it to give you to like.

• 37:12Speaker 02

  The idea that the mon, the, the thing that is scary in this game or the elements that I have to overcome are just like the same mob type that is introduced early on is such a retrograde sort of way of approaching. It's a very like PS1 era idea of horror where like there is this type of bad guy and they're free roaming around this area. And you go and attack them with your pipe. It's like you, I don't feel like a lot of thought has been given to the way you make the game feel interesting or like the, the sort of Japanese horror cinema that you're trying to capture. And instead it's just kind of like the aesthetics are doing a lot of the work and it's kind of laid over a formula that are like.

• 37:58Griffin McElroy?

  I mean, feels very late 90s.

• 38:01Russ Frushtick?

  If anything, it feels like it would have been supported more by like way fewer, but more deadly enemies in the way that like retro Silent Hill relied on like the Pyramid Head Man or whatever. And that was like a really scary moment, but here you're constantly facing people. And yeah, you have like a lot of combat maneuvers, but your weapons are all, they break after a certain amount of time. You can dodge out of the way, but you're not getting anything from killing anyone. So there's really no reason to actually fight a lot of these people unless you're forced in like a boss fight or like a, there's like, you know, blood gating stuff later on. But it just, yeah.

• 38:41Griffin McElroy?

  That's when it, that's when it hit a point for me where I, that's about where I stopped where I was like, okay, I actually can't play more of the game until you force me to fight like two to three guys at once.

• 38:50Russ Frushtick?

  It just feels like two different faces of like, I don't understand how these two merged because they feel like so dichotomous to one another. Did I make that word up?

• 39:00Griffin McElroy?

  I don't think so. I want to.

• 39:00Russ Frushtick?

  Diametrically opposed?

• 39:01Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah. I agree with what Chris said. Like there is so much this game is doing that I'm fully fucking vibing with. I was really excited when I started playing it because I think it starts really strong. And the way that it kind of like introduces the creepy supernatural element into the world, like it fucking hits. And I was like, hell yeah, man. This is going to be, this is going to be a really scary game. And I do think that they, as much as they nail the fear with the, the aesthetics and the cinematography and the storytelling and the writing, uh, and the sound design, Jesus Christ, the sound of the monsters as they get close to you is of course good because that's what like Silent Hill sort of has to nail. It is betrayed, I think, pretty completely by the actual, the actual playing of it. Cause I, I do think

• 39:46Griffin McElroy?

  it makes the game less scary when combat isn't threatening so much as it is sort of tedious, which is not a good kind of fear, I don't think.

• 39:58Speaker 02

  I wasn't, yeah. And to be clear, like I, I had it set on story difficulty for the combat and like, I was not dislike it. I mean, it was like, I, it felt kind of weird to be walking around with like 11 or, you know, 11 red pills and three bandages to heal myself with. Like I'm fully ready for whatever's happening. I'm, I don't feel really under threat. Like it wasn't, I wasn't hating it. I just didn't like feel a lot in between those areas where I wasn't doing some sort of like. Puzzle thing.

• 40:28Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 40:29Chris Plante?

  I think it will be a great game to watch. I am looking forward to watching the rest of the game.

• 40:35Griffin McElroy?

  I bet there's gonna be a cutscene, a two hour long cutscene supercut you'll be able to watch. That'll be fucking really, really good.

• 40:41Russ Frushtick?

  I will say I skipped ahead and watched like some later game moments. And there is one of the grisliest moments I've ever seen in a video game in this game. So if you're squeamish, maybe no.

• 40:52Chris Plante?

  What it does with little worms that can come out of your skin is.

• 40:56Griffin McElroy?

  Yep.

• 40:57Chris Plante?

  It'll stick with you.

• 40:58Griffin McElroy?

  Talk less chef. That's good.

• 41:01Russ Frushtick?

  We have some reader mail if you want to jump into that.

• 41:04Griffin McElroy?

  Would love to.

• 41:04Russ Frushtick?

  First one comes from Kel. Justin's bug is a house centipede. I think we expected that, but I'm glad it was confirmed by many of our readers. I know they look scary, but they're actually nice friends to have around the house. They are completely harmless to humans and eat bugs you don't want, like roaches and even wasps. They use their long legs to capture prey in a technique called lassoing. So that you can think of them as little cowboys. Does that help?

• 41:29Griffin McElroy?

  I really, I really do.

• 41:30Speaker 02

  Sure, I feel a lot better.

• 41:31Russ Frushtick?

  I saw one in my lobby a day later, so they might be invading. They're everywhere.

• 41:37Griffin McElroy?

  But they're little cowboys now in my mind.

• 41:39Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, no, I like them. I like them. Uh, we got another letter. This one comes from Chris. Uh, thanks for the heads up on Q up. That was the game, the, the coin flipping game that Chris Plant mentioned.

• 41:50Chris Plante?

  Hell yeah.

• 41:51Russ Frushtick?

  Um, there is another recent indie release that's all about coin flipping. And I recommend it as a very simple clicker game. It's called Unfair Flips. The goal is to flip heads 10 times in a row. If that's compelling to you.

• 42:05Griffin McElroy?

  I've actually seen some streamers, uh, playing that one and I'm, I have put it on the list.

• 42:10Russ Frushtick?

  Uh, and then this last letter comes from Sean. You all might be surprised to learn that not only is there Frog Fractions 3, there is a Frog Fractions 4.

• 42:18Griffin McElroy?

  Well, you're saying, there's also a Frog Fractions 5.

• 42:21Russ Frushtick?

  Is there?

• 42:21Griffin McElroy?

  And a Frog Fraction 6. You can just say whatever.

• 42:24Speaker 02

  That's. You can say whatever shit you want. You can just say anything.

• 42:26Russ Frushtick?

  Do we know if?

• 42:27Speaker 02

  I would know if Twain Beard had related Frog Fractions 4.

• 42:32Speaker 02

  I would know.

• 42:33Griffin McElroy?

  Wow.

• 42:33Speaker 02

  Personally.

• 42:34Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 42:34Speaker 02

  Brag.

• 42:36Griffin McElroy?

  Do we have any honorable mentions here at the end of our program?

• 42:43Griffin McElroy?

  Cause I've been playing one that has really got stuck in my craw. It was suggested to us last week in an email and I'd seen some, some streamers play in it. Cloverpit, Cloverpit, the slot machine, rogue-like. And it is, I mean, it's got all this stuff. I feel like it is lazy perhaps to say like, you know, it does a lot of the rogue-like stuff that you would see in a, you know, a Slay the Spire or a Luck be a Landlord or a, what's the one that came out that?

• 43:16Speaker 02

  Inscription?

• 43:17Griffin McElroy?

  Merge Maestro, inscription, absolutely. It is set in a single room with a slot machine and an ATM in it and a little shop. And you go and you play slots and then between rounds, you go to the shop and you will purchase little upgrades and those upgrades will be things like now cherries, when they spawn, they'll be 20% likely to have a buff on them that permanently increases how much you get for cherries or a special ability that's whenever you press this button, it increases the odds that cherries are going to spawn in and you get both those at the same time. And now you're building, you know, synergies and stuff like that. So as you're playing through these runs, you are getting ways to affect the, the rate at which the different symbols appear, how much money they give you, how much money you

• 44:02Griffin McElroy?

  get from the different patterns you could get on the slot machine, trying to reach these deadlines in a certain number of spins. And if you don't, you die. That's Cloverpit. And it's really very, very good. I got through it, maybe not like the true, true ending, but I got through a couple of endings on it and have beaten quite a few runs. I think I probably only played like eight or nine hours or so. So I'm not sure how much staying power it's going to have, but like I can't get enough of these types of games and this one does some.

• 44:36Speaker 02

  It's got a really good, it really, at first it feels like Cheetos. Like it feels like, oh, this is just, this is dumb. I'm going to burn. Like I'm addicted, but it's gonna last 30 minutes.

• 44:48Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 44:48Speaker 02

  And what you really do is like, it is actually a lot more nuanced and dynamic than it seems. Like you really do have to have like, it rewards a pretty active strategy. For like how you, how you approach each run and it's really dynamic. Like you'll end up with really interesting choices that make it a lot of fun. Uh, it's also, it's also got that like dopamine hit.

• 45:11Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, it feels really, really good when the stars align and you get a run where you start getting that Bellatro like, the machine is just making the same noise a hundred million times as your points reach into like exponential scientific notation, like, yeah, it does that. And it's, it feels quite good to pull that off. Yeah.

• 45:30Speaker 02

  I wanted to clarify something. I went to the hit Polygon story about this question. Apparently Jim Crawford would, the creator of Frog Fractions would classify Frog Fractions 1 as Frog Fractions. Frog Fractions 2 as the search for Frog Fractions 2. Glitter Bitten Grove as Frog Fractions 3. And the, the DLC for Frog Fractions, Hop's Iconic Hat as Frog Fractions 4.

• 46:02Griffin McElroy?

  Okay.

• 46:03Speaker 02

  Everyone's. Okay. If you wanna, listen, if the creator of the game says that wild stuff, then that's his, okay. He's the boss.

• 46:11Griffin McElroy?

  True. Yeah.

• 46:11Speaker 02

  Hey, good Jim.

• 46:12Chris Plante?

  I love it. Um.

• 46:13Speaker 02

  You're in charge.

• 46:14Chris Plante?

  I have the entry point for our friend Russ Froschick into the world of mystery dungeon games. I think I found it.

• 46:23Griffin McElroy?

  That seems really unlikely. I'm excited to hear this too. I like a mystery dungeon game.

• 46:27Chris Plante?

  It's called House of Necrosis and it is Resident Evil 1, the mystery dungeon game. To the point that I'm a little worried about a lawsuit.

• 46:40Griffin McElroy?

  Oh my God. Yeah, dudes. Yeah, man.

• 46:43Chris Plante?

  Yeah, but if you have ever been curious about the mystery dungeon genre, which is one of the earliest forms of kind of like a rogue game. This is it. This is, uh, it's, it's something. Uh, if you also just like Resident Evil 1 and you miss that aesthetic, hop into this. And then don't even ask yourself, what is mystery dungeon? Just let yourself sink into it because it is both one of the most challenging genres and also one of the most rewarding if you are able to get past that barrier.

• 47:15Griffin McElroy?

  It's got a demo on Steam.

• 47:17Chris Plante?

  Yeah.

• 47:17Griffin McElroy?

  It's got big demo energy.

• 47:19Russ Frushtick?

  Represent it. Is there more to like the the core gameplay of Mystery Dungeon has never appealed to me because it is that like turn based rogue like rogue style gameplay. It just hasn't clicked for me. Is there anything this game is doing apart from the art style to make it more approachable?

• 47:34Chris Plante?

  It's doing that really well. The reason that I think you will eventually change your mind on all of this is because you love rogue designs other than the moment to moment. And these games do that top level. Oh, I I am great at this. I am learning to get better.

• 47:51Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, player empowerment.

• 47:52Chris Plante?

  Me knowing this world.

• 47:53Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 47:54Chris Plante?

  It does that very, very well. But I mean, then again, so does Sheeran the Wanderer. The only problem is you have to play like 100 hours of those games before you understand how to play them.

• 48:03Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 48:03Griffin McElroy?

  Yep.

• 48:04Russ Frushtick?

  Interesting.

• 48:05Griffin McElroy?

  This looks cool.

• 48:06Russ Frushtick?

  It does look cool. Justin, you got anything?

• 48:10Speaker 02

  Uh, I got in my RG 476H this week.

• 48:16Russ Frushtick?

  Wait, wait, wait. Let me see if I can figure it out. Okay, it's an Ambernic.

• 48:19Speaker 02

  Go for it. Do your best. Let's see what you got.

• 48:20Russ Frushtick?

  RG is an Ambernic device.

• 48:23Speaker 02

  No, what does RG mean?

• 48:24Russ Frushtick?

  I don't remember.

• 48:26Speaker 02

  Retro game. It always means retro.

• 48:28Russ Frushtick?

  But it but it usually means it's made by Ambernic, correct?

• 48:31Speaker 02

  It means retro game.

• 48:33Griffin McElroy?

  But it also means that Ambernic made it. Yes.

• 48:34Speaker 02

  Correct.

• 48:36Russ Frushtick?

  And then what are the other numbers?

• 48:38Speaker 02

  476H.

• 48:39Russ Frushtick?

  Okay, so the 47 is the size of the screen, 4.7 inches.

• 48:43Speaker 02

  That's my man.

• 48:44Russ Frushtick?

  And the H is a horizontal form factor.

• 48:47Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 48:48Russ Frushtick?

  So that the. And what?

• 48:50Speaker 02

  What's the six?

• 48:51Russ Frushtick?

  Oh, there was a six.

• 48:52Speaker 02

  66H.

• 48:53Russ Frushtick?

  Oh, 6 model.

• 48:55Speaker 02

  Yes, it's of the sixth generation. Exactly right, man.

• 48:58Russ Frushtick?

  Crushed it. You know what? It's all very logical. Once you.

• 49:01Speaker 02

  This is just like this is this is very similar to something they released a while back. Uh, the 477, but that is a same form factor, but it has. Do you guys have a preference on stacked shoulder buttons or inline shoulder buttons?

• 49:17Russ Frushtick?

  I like stacked.

• 49:19Griffin McElroy?

  I like stacked too.

• 49:20Russ Frushtick?

  Stacked is like when you're holding like a PlayStation controller that where the where the triggers are like behind one another. On a really thin device, they have to be in line.

• 49:30Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 49:30Russ Frushtick?

  There's not as much real estate back there.

• 49:31Speaker 02

  So that's the, that's the trade off you're making, right? If you want the stacked, then you, you're going to have something that's a little less pocketable.

• 49:37Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 49:37Speaker 02

  This is stacked compared to the four seven seven, which is in line. So I like that a little better. It is a less powerful processor. It's, it's the, but it is capable of playing pretty much up through like PS2 at like regular emulation speed and it can play stuff, all the older stuff with like shaders or what have you. I think this is a, and it's a great, the screen is a, the, the great, a great form factor for like playing older stuff. I think.

• 50:10Russ Frushtick?

  Is it like a budget, like a budget?

• 50:11Speaker 02

  It's 150. So that's the thing, right? For a hundred and 50 bucks, if you don't want to do a bunch of stuff beyond PlayStation, if you want to just do like PlayStation before, I would say this is a great place to start. This may be the new, like best place to start. It's 150, it feels great, it looks great. It's got this glass front, I think it's really slick, all the controls feel good. It feels a lot pricier than it is. I think it's a great place. If you just want something to play a bunch of older games on, this is a great.

• 50:41Russ Frushtick?

  But you, you, you would say it's okay for PlayStation two.

• 50:45Speaker 02

  You could, okay.

• 50:46Russ Frushtick?

  Or is it like hit or miss?

• 50:48Speaker 02

  For me personally.

• 50:49Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 50:49Speaker 02

  I don't like to play stuff that is, I want to play stuff in the best form factor for it.

• 50:55Russ Frushtick?

  Sure.

• 50:56Speaker 02

  And so I wouldn't play PS2 or PSP or Vita stuff on a four by three or one by one device. I only play it on like a widescreen.

• 51:05Russ Frushtick?

  I guess what I would say is like there are like cheaper devices, like the brick and things like that, that can handle PS1 and before pretty handily, right?

• 51:14Speaker 02

  If you want, I mean, you're always talking about the metaphor here, right? So like with a brick, you don't have the thumb sticks.

• 51:21Russ Frushtick?

  Oh, sure.

• 51:22Speaker 02

  So like, so for me, that limits the library a lot and the screen's not as good, like 4.7. Inch four by three screen is gonna make like your Game Boy GBA, GBC, like all those games are gonna look amazing, like better than you've ever seen them. Um, and I just think it's a really great stage for everything before that. Once you're into stuff where like even PS2 games that weren't in innately widescreen. A lot of them have widescreen hacks that have been developed by the community that are a lot of fun to play with. If you're already gonna have the juice to do it, right?

• 51:53Griffin McElroy?

  Right.

• 51:54Speaker 02

  For me, I, I, I would stick to widescreen devices if I'm gonna be doing anything after, uh, PlayStation.

• 52:01Griffin McElroy?

  That makes sense.

• 52:01Speaker 02

  Yeah. I think it's cool. It's a really cool, and for a hundred and fifty bucks, I think it's, and if that's where your interests are at, I think it's a great, like, great advice.

• 52:09Griffin McElroy?

  Midline, yeah. Russ, did you go?

• 52:11Russ Frushtick?

  I didn't go. Uh, I played a little bit of, um, Super Mario, yeah, Super Mario Galaxy 2. Uh, which we're gonna talk more extensively on Rusty's about. Uh, but there is, for the first time in like fifteen years, an official playable version of Super Mario Galaxy 2. Uh, it just, just starting that up and reminding myself like, oh, fuck, this was like where they really took the limits off of their game design stuff that they introduced in the original Mario Galaxy, which I think kinda takes some time get going. Whereas this is like bam, you're like fucking in it, minute one. Um, so if you're looking for a fucking great 3D Mario game and you haven't played Galaxy 2, cause it kinda came at the end of the Wii's life cycle.

• 52:56Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 52:57Griffin McElroy?

  It's a good opportunity.

• 52:58Speaker 02

  Taking the, uh, the limits off, you also wanna listen to that episode of Rusty's, cause we're talking about Sonic Racing Crossworlds. Let me tell you, these people took the limits off. They

• 53:08Russ Frushtick?

  They did.

• 53:09Speaker 02

  Minecraft Steve is there. I mean, they're doing Hatsune Miku. They do whatever they want over at Sega, and I love it.

• 53:18Russ Frushtick?

  Uh, I think we did it. I want to thank some member, actually before I thank the members, even though I love them very much, I want to throw out. We have a new episode of the Bracket Battles series that we do. This one was most practical car in video games, not counting racing games. Uh, so there's not a lot of Honda Civics and things like that, but, uh, we had a lot of fun with this one. I will, uh, ask our great editor Rachel to drop a clip in here.

• 53:46Chris Plante?

  We have the tram from Half-Life versus

• 53:49Speaker 02

  I gotta start the recording, hold on, I gotta record this. This is too funny not to record, guys, I gotta record this conversation. Okay, now I'm recording, started.

• 53:56Griffin McElroy?

  Wait, wait, really?

• 53:58Speaker 02

  Yeah, Griff, really? Let's go on.

• 54:03Chris Plante?

  Okay, so, these are just, you know, we don't get to drive these in either of the games, they're a means to getting-

• 54:10Russ Frushtick?

  The beginning of each game is the tram in Half-Life and the battle bus of Fortnite. Both games begin with both vehicles.

• 54:17Chris Plante?

  Uh huh. But again, it's not about the games, so what was I thinking?

• 54:20Russ Frushtick?

  That's true.

• 54:20Chris Plante?

  It's about what they would do for me in real life. A tram would do jack shit, because I don't-

• 54:26Griffin McElroy?

  How is not doing the airboat from Half-Life?

• 54:29Russ Frushtick?

  Because we're doing the tram.

• 54:31Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 54:31Russ Frushtick?

  Okay.

• 54:35Griffin McElroy?

  MF2 has a fucking kick-ass vehicle in it, and we're picking the one that you start the game in. That exists at the airport.

• 54:44Russ Frushtick?

  No fucking-

• 54:46Griffin McElroy?

  That you can ride at the ATL airport. Here at the Kelly Blue Book, we're excited to announce 2025's Vehicle of the Year is the Tomorrowland People Mover.

• 54:59Griffin McElroy?

  A ride that can't even jet up a 20-minute wait for.

• 55:02Russ Frushtick?

  You could move the tram such that it would solve child transport issues for one location.

• 55:10Griffin McElroy?

  Sure. Yeah, no, I get, yeah, that's cool. That's great. Um, my kids are gonna go to several schools, so like, that's gonna, I will age out of that at some point.

• 55:23Russ Frushtick?

  We had a lot of fun.

• 55:24Griffin McElroy?

  I think it's a great episode, I think it's some of our most, like, deranged logic. Just like, really, really, really bad faith.

• 55:30Russ Frushtick?

  We had a good time.

• 55:31Griffin McElroy?

  But really fun stuff.

• 55:33Russ Frushtick?

  Um, we have some members to thank as well over at the Patreon, we have Graham S., we have Brandon B., we have Joshua S., and we have the Dankest Mike. Thank you for being members of the Besties Patreon. Uh, thank you to everyone else who's supported us, we really appreciate it. Um, and I think we can recap what games we talked about. Plant?

• 55:54Chris Plante?

  We talked about Silent Hill F, Absolum, Clover Pit, Cue Up, Unfair Flips, House of Necrosis, and Super Mario Galaxy 2, along with the Anvernik RG476H. You can get links to all of those things and so much more, and photos of stuff that Hoops showed at one point in this show at the newsletter, that is at besties.fan.

• 56:19Speaker 02

  What are we doing next week, guys?

• 56:22Russ Frushtick?

  Next week, we're playing Ball Pit.

• 56:25Speaker 02

  There's an X in there.

• 56:26Russ Frushtick?

  There's an X in there.

• 56:27Speaker 02

  It seems wild to not include it.

• 56:28Russ Frushtick?

  You know, but yeah, I think you pronounce it Ball Pit. And so that's happening next week. Might be some other stuff, but I think that's going to be the key focus there.

• 56:38Speaker 02

  All right. Well, I'm looking forward to that. And I'm looking forward to spending that time with you, our beloved listeners. Be sure to join us again next week for the Besties, because shouldn't the world's best friends pick the world's best games?