Mario + Hulk + Red Faction = Donkey Kong Bananza

Donkey Kong Bananza isn't the game we expected Nintendo would create to launch the Switch 2. But we're so glad they made this weird, wonderful, and inverted platformer. Who needs to jump when you can smash? Plus, what other Nintendo series deserve the AAA treatment?

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

• 0:00Russ Frushtick?

  Chris Plant, here's the deal. I have a, the sides in front of me. And really, we just have one line that we need you to do. And hopefully, you could take as many tries as you want. You don't need to get it perfect the first time through. But if you just read this line for us, just however you want to deliver it, and we'll go from there.

• 0:26Chris Plante?

  Okay.

• 0:28Chris Plante?

  Oh, banana.

• 0:30Russ Frushtick?

  Okay.

• 0:32Russ Frushtick?

  You don't sound so excited about the banana. I want a little more enthusiasm, like you just found a banana and you're pretty pumped about it.

• 0:40Chris Plante?

  Oh, banana?

• 0:43Russ Frushtick?

  Okay, now you're just confused. You don't know what a banana is. You've never seen a banana in your life. You love bananas. You're a banana-loving creature. So I want to hear that in the delivery.

• 0:55Chris Plante?

  Ova nana!

• 0:58Russ Frushtick?

  Okay, that's just, I don't know what that is.

• 1:01Chris Plante?

  Can you give me one more try?

• 1:03Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, one more try. Go for it.

• 1:05Chris Plante?

  Oh, banana!

• 1:08Russ Frushtick?

  Okay, there it is. Check the gate. We got it. He's got the job. Congrats, Chris Plant, new voice of Donkey Kong.

• 1:18Chris Plante?

  Donkey Kong!

• 1:19Russ Frushtick?

  Well, no, no, no. The rap is already taken care of. We don't need anyone for the rap.

• 1:23Chris Plante?

  Sorry, you know what? I'm sorry for wasting your time.

• 1:27Russ Frushtick?

  I appreciate it.

• 1:29Chris Plante?

  Sorry, I don't think I got the wrong.

• 1:52Russ Frushtick?

  My name is, oh my god, I'm doing it first. My name is Ross Fraschek and I know the best game of the week.

• 1:57Chris Plante?

  My name is Christopher Thomas Plant and I know the best game of the week. And the best game in a very long time. What a game.

• 2:05Russ Frushtick?

  Welcome to the besties where the best, oh no, that's not how we do it. Welcome to the besties. It's a video game club and just by listening, you remember they've come a long way since Pac-Man. They sure have. And today it's just Plant and I. The McRoy Boys are dealing with some family stuff and they were unable to join because of some very last minute scenarios. I'm sure we will hear about their opinions on this game on the subsequent episode that we do, but for right now, we wanted to make sure that you guys heard just an initial Donkey Kong Bonanza episode. Chris Plant, what is Donkey Kong Bonanza?

• 2:41Chris Plante?

  Donkey Kong Bonanza, it's like that Super Mario Odyssey game that you love so much, except for now you're Donkey Kong and you can break the shit out of everything. In the words of Fred Durst, "Give me something to break." And we did. Nintendo gave us something to break everything in this video game.

• 3:01Russ Frushtick?

  I thank Fred, I thank Nintendo, and I thank Donkey Kong. Let's get into it.

• 3:07Chris Plante?

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• 3:51Chris Plante?

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• 4:15Chris Plante?

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• 4:42Russ Frushtick?

  Okay, so I played, I mentioned this before, but I played Donkey Kong Bonanza briefly at the Nintendo Switch 2, like the first hands-on preview ever.

• 4:51Chris Plante?

  Brag.

• 4:52Russ Frushtick?

  And I thought it was pretty fun.

• 4:54Chris Plante?

  Yeah.

• 4:54Russ Frushtick?

  I did not think the entire game was going to be as focused on the blowing shit up that this game is focused on. But man, they, they just like commit to the idea that you're, you're Donkey Kong. Donkey Kong loves bananas. The bananas are in the rocks for some reason and you need to get at them.

• 5:16Chris Plante?

  Yes. The way to think about this game as a platformer, or whatever you want to call it in the Mario style is, if Mario is about jumping to get to various areas around a platform and, and kind of fast movement, this is about carving straight through. A lot of the puzzles in this game, a lot of them, are about being able to create paths through the environment. So that means at the very beginning of a level, you might just say, I wonder what happens if I go straight down. And if you bury, bury, bury, or dig, dig, dig, you will find that there is a banana, which is the equivalent of the gold stars in the Mario games.

• 5:58Russ Frushtick?

  Yes.

• 5:58Chris Plante?

  It's waiting right there for you. So one, it just rewards discovery. But two, you might find that there's a puzzle where there's a tube of steel that cannot be broken by, by bashing. Oh no, what are we going to do? You have to find other things that can be destroyed to create the path into that, that giant, I don't know, super protective tube. It is, it, it, the puzzles of the game are the smashing and the bashing and the boring and the digging.

• 6:31Russ Frushtick?

  Not boring, but boring.

• 6:33Chris Plante?

  Bull. Yes, like you are a subway bore.

• 6:36Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, it's, it's interesting because when you first start out, like the early environments tend to be like, like, where is the challenge in this? Because you're really just going through and just like, dig, dig, dig. Oh, I see a banana because of my like, ability to sonar my way through the environment. But there isn't a lot that's in your way. And then obviously, as time goes on, it seems like the environments get more,

• 6:59Russ Frushtick?

  a little more level designed, like less just like you can explode this entire level and a little more like, I wouldn't say guided, but just like structurally, you're not necessarily just like able to dig straight down for 50 meters for no reason.

• 7:12Chris Plante?

  It feels like a game. We're going to figure out how smart it is in like a year or two or five. Because it is so unlike anything that I've played. And by that, I mean, you play any big open world platform a game where you need to go and collect stuff, right? There's types of signposting and things, tricks that are guiding your eye on where to go. That once you've played enough of these, you know, the language, you actually can see the way it's tricking you to get around. There are times here where I feel like a genius. Like I just happen to have just had this random decision to carve a path. And then how could I possibly have known that it would lead to this banana?

• 7:58Chris Plante?

  And I get the sense that they have so many little tricks in their utility belt to guide you through something that seems random and chaotic and happenstance.

• 8:12Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, the, well, yeah, when I think about signposting, like there are moments where you'll like be running through a grass field. And there's like a circle that doesn't have any grass on it. And chances are, if you dig in that spot, something's going to happen. The other element, every area in the game, and these environments are quite huge, has like,

• 8:32Russ Frushtick?

  I don't know, fucking 50 collectibles per area. It's like an astonishing, because there's the bananas, which we've talked about. There's fossils that you can collect that unlock like different like clothing pieces, whatever. There's like bigger fossils, and then there's like super big fossils, and then there's these randomly appearing chests. So really, whenever you're digging, it's kind of shocking if you don't find anything for like two or three digs, because the the environment is so littered with stuff, which again feels incredibly incredibly satisfying. Like they nailed that feeling incredibly well.

• 9:08Chris Plante?

  Yes. The the cool thing about the level design for me is it feels chaotic, and it feels like you will the very first time you go into a level. And I should clarify, the way the game works is you are going deeper and deeper into the core of a planet. But really, you're just going from like deep one level to the next. And these levels are larger and larger spaces that you when you first land in them, you will dig and carve, and you'll wind up exiting a hillside and not even know how you got there or where you are. Because you actually never even explored the surface of the level. And it feels like, well, how do I even know

• 9:50Chris Plante?

  where to go in this space? But the all of the destruction that you do is persistent, at least when you are in that level, it resets when you leave the level. And that does this one of many cool magic tricks. It lets you know where you've been. And you end up recognizing the the the scope, the geography of the level, based off of the destruction that you've done to it, more than you actually do from the level's design itself. So it's this weird thing where you're kind of like almost creating your own map through this big amorphous space. It's really trippy.

• 10:30Russ Frushtick?

  The old version of that was like, very old Wolfenstein 3D. Oh, there's dead Nazis here. Clearly, I've been. But this obviously, yeah, much more in depth than you can really, it just saves you the effort of like, oh, I don't need to dig here a ton because I've really like plumbed the environment as much as I can. Which, again, when you're trying to get the most out of each and every area, that makes it so much easier.

• 10:56Chris Plante?

  Do you, did you feel lost when you were playing the game at all?

• 11:01Russ Frushtick?

  I mean, the map is pretty good. There's, there is like a 3D map. If you ever get lost, you're not sure. For example, like you want to find the store or whatever. There's a 3D map that lets you really just like scrub anywhere you want. And set pins. So you can like, oh, I want to find the store. I'm going to set a pin on the store and it'll always appear on your radar. You can also hold down the, I think it's the left bumper, whatever like causes you to sing. You can like whistle as Donkey Kong. And we'll talk about her, but Pauline is also in this game and she'll sing and it reveals like if you found any fossil maps, for example, they'll like stay on your radar, uh, on the HUD. So that I think really helps in terms of guidance. But there are certainly moments where again, you're underground, you have no fucking idea where you are.

• 11:47Russ Frushtick?

  You're just punching like a madman, mad Donkey Kong. And suddenly you're like, yeah, you pop out and you like fall 50 feet. Cause there's just water in front of you, uh, which feels very Looney Tunes in that way. So I, I didn't have problems, uh, navigating, I would say, what about you?

• 12:02Chris Plante?

  Yeah. I, I, anytime I felt lost, it wasn't a bad type of lost. It was kind of the fun of it. It was that overwhelming experience at the beginning of a level where it's like, I don't even know where I'm going. And I am kind of okay with that. We've talked before on, maybe on Resties about like weed games. Or, uh, if you don't want to call them that because you live in certain states, podcast games, maybe. But games that are, they benefit from a certain degree of zoning out. And holy moly, is that this game for me? Last night I was playing in Mozy and Steffi, uh, had gone to bed.

• 12:47Chris Plante?

  And I was like, oh, you know, I'll get a little bit in before the episode tomorrow. And I had YouTube on on the TV and, uh, that band Korong Ben came on.

• 12:58Russ Frushtick?

  Oh, yeah.

• 12:59Chris Plante?

  Right?

• 12:59Russ Frushtick?

  Like a vibey jam.

• 13:00Chris Plante?

  Very vibey, very like modern day equivalent of like listening to the Dead or Fish. And.

• 13:07Chris Plante?

  I don't know, like, two hours passed, where I was just zipping through, and I hadn't, like, that was, I was stone cold sober, but the vibe was just there, and I was completely entranced by it. And I, I don't know.

• 13:22Chris Plante?

  The weird thing about this game is, I often don't even know if I'm on quests or missions. I'm just kind of carving through it. I, I, I don't know if I'm like, I don't know if I should be talking to more characters, or if I should be like, accepting quests, or if I, if like, my goal in the game is to just kind of destroy, destroy, destroy, until I get to a new area where I can hop down to the next layer.

• 13:47Chris Plante?

  But it seems to be okay with me doing that. And when I do talk to people, a thing that, sorry, just very quickly, that I do want to highlight, which is one of the most brilliant decisions in this game. Everybody's so happy you're there, and they're so happy you're breaking stuff. Which is really important, because I think the vibe and the energy of this game would just feel different if it was like, "Oh no, Donkey Kong's here, that comes out, he breaks everything." We're here, there are characters made out of gems, and you can like, break them in half, and they're like, "Wow, that was such a cool idea, doing that. I'm so glad you tried that." And you're like, "Thank you."

• 14:27Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, there is like a Yoshi's story, almost like upbeatness to this entire world, and everyone is like, totally game for it, except for like, the villains, who are obviously like, not that. But every other NPC you meet is like, yeah, super thrilled to be there, having a great time. You know, would like to have this problem addressed with Void Kong, or whatever he's got going on, but largely, very happy to be there. I do want to mention, though, we've been talking a lot about like, the vibey, just exploration, destroying shit parts. There are like, For lack of a better term, like challenge parts, or even like puzzle parts, where you'll find these warp areas, and you'll enter them, and they are like very contained

• 15:10Russ Frushtick?

  platforming challenges, or puzzle challenges, that usually have like a few bananas that you find just by like trying to complete the normal path, and then like a hidden banana, if you like go off the beaten path. The closest analog I could think of would be like in Breath of the Wild or Tears of the Kingdom, the shrines. It's like a very similar thing here, where it's like just a very focused challenge.

• 15:32Chris Plante?

  Or like the tapes in Celeste, like the little one-off missions in Celeste?

• 15:38Russ Frushtick?

  Oh, yeah, sure, yeah.

• 15:40Chris Plante?

  Like, yeah, yeah, no, it's, it's such a clever solution for, well, if you can destroy everything, how do you create any order? How do you control the player? And by having that, it's like, oh, this is a thing that you've chosen to do. You want a more controlled experience. They're like in a minute and a half long.

• 15:58Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, they're very short.

• 15:59Chris Plante?

  Back into busting shit up. You mentioned Pauline.

• 16:04Russ Frushtick?

  Oh, yeah.

• 16:05Chris Plante?

  Can you tell people how Pauline works?

• 16:07Russ Frushtick?

  Okay, well, just a quick history lesson. Pauline, for those that aren't aware, was the woman that was in the original Donkey Kong game. So when Mario is climbing up the construction site, and Donkey Kong is up there throwing barrels, he's doing it for his love of Pauline. So I don't, I haven't finished the game, and I haven't looked up spoilers. I imagine it's addressed because Pauline in this game is only 13 years old. So it is before theoretically the events of the Mario game, where Pauline and Donkey Kong are, I guess, older.

• 16:43Chris Plante?

  She's also the mayor of New Donk City in Super Mario Odyssey.

• 16:47Russ Frushtick?

  Mario Odyssey, yeah.

• 16:48Chris Plante?

  Yes, yeah. Which, we don't want to get too lost in the weeds here. I'm having Jeremy Parrish is coming on Post Games this week to talk about video game history, and we'll have a whole lesson on the chronology, which is a disaster. But her power is she sings, is basically it?

• 17:09Russ Frushtick?

  Yes. She sings. And that's true. That's a good note, because obviously in Mario Odyssey, she's very famously singing. She has a big theme song that she sings. So, but here, she sings, and if you're playing in co-op... Her power is fucking outrageous. Have you played Co-op yet?

• 17:27Chris Plante?

  I haven't. I saw a video of it and I was like, I don't know if I'm ready for this.

• 17:32Russ Frushtick?

  Okay, so in Co-op, the main character, the player one plays Donkey Kong, standard controls. But the second player plays as Pauline, who is riding on Donkey Kong's back, like a piggyback situation. And at any given time, the second player, using like a targeting radical on the screen, uh, similar to like, uh, Mario, uh, what is it? The space one, Mario Galaxy, very similar to that, can fire off these shouts that, um, Pauline can do. And the shouts can be, uh, different materials. So if you set it to be like grass, she'll like shoot these big grass clumps out. Or if you set it to stone or even gold, you'll change what she's like shooting out.

• 18:16Russ Frushtick?

  And there is no limit to this power. You can use it as much as you want, as often as you want. And it's fucking buck wild, especially when you introduce a small child to the mix. And let me tell you, my small child, who is four, fucking loves this game and loves breaking shit. This is like the first time that he and I have played a new game that he is so jazzed about. Everything before this was like, we're playing Animal Crossing, which obviously been out for a while and different games that have been out. This is the first new game and he is like Donkey Kong pilled up the wall.

• 18:54Russ Frushtick?

  And he contributes, like I will be running straight as Donkey Kong and he is firing off bazookas worth of ground destructing capabilities. Now, that doesn't make it easy to climb a hill, let me tell you. Cause he's just like destroying everything around me, but if I'm just looking to clear the map.

• 19:15Russ Frushtick?

  It's going pretty well.

• 19:16Chris Plante?

  I mean, you can just rubble that entire map in minutes.

• 19:19Russ Frushtick?

  You really can very quickly. It's pretty impressive, actually.

• 19:22Chris Plante?

  Yeah, one of the materials for people is a basically a bomb explosive material. So you can just truly wreck.

• 19:29Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, I haven't tried that one in turn. She can like copy the material if she's like aiming at it. And he is not the best at aiming, so it's more just like a scattershot.

• 19:39Chris Plante?

  Sure.

• 19:39Russ Frushtick?

  Cluster bomb approach to it. But it's pretty fun to play with a little kid. I wouldn't say you make a lot of progress. From a like working through your way through the story. But all he cares about, and we haven't talked about it yet. Is breaking shit with Pauline and character customization, which I am also deeply into.

• 20:00Chris Plante?

  Yeah.

• 20:01Russ Frushtick?

  This is the first game that I can think of where there was like pretty extensive Donkey Kong customization in it.

• 20:09Chris Plante?

  Yeah, yeah, it's weird. I'm I'm kind of torn on the customization. I love it in that it looks great. His outfits are great, and I like the new Donkey Kong design. We'll get to that in a second. It's weird in that the clothes that you pick have powers. And it's kind of in that like, I don't know, Ubisoft Activision EA realm of. Save X many points to get 10% or 20% or 30% buff to your speed in mud and ice environments. Which never really feels exciting to me.

• 20:47Chris Plante?

  But.

• 20:47Russ Frushtick?

  It's useful and they're useful part. It's not like a 3% improvement or whatever. It'll be like. Yeah, you can swim 30% faster, whatever. That's a useful skill. But it is weird to tie it to clothing, especially when it comes to little children. Cause my boy does not like it when Donkey Kong wears pants. So I'm continually a suboptimal build because Donkey Kong cannot wear pants. Which is, yeah, it probably should have just been like a badge that you equip or something that doesn't have a visual impact on the character. Cause I would collect pants just as a matter of course.

• 21:25Chris Plante?

  I love that you just said that was such certainty. Um, yeah, I, I agree. You, you mentioned not getting much done in this story. A cool thing about the destruction though is there's gold everywhere.

• 21:39Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 21:40Chris Plante?

  And gold ends up being the way that they gate you in this game between various things. So as you get deeper into the game, there are even like small little quests that will have a character say, hey, I can unlock that area for a thousand gold. Or I can like unlock blank for 500 gold or whatever. So you end up wanting to, you're rewarded for the grind a little bit.

• 22:09Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 22:09Chris Plante?

  I even call it a grind because it, it's kind of the whole heart and soul of the game. But it, the game wants you to explore and to destroy stuff and to really find and discover new things. It seems like it will punish you if you try to just mainline the game and we try to go from point A to point B. I'm really curious what speedruns of this game will look like because, because of its gating.

• 22:38Chris Plante?

  I don't know. It could look cool. Like how people harvest gold very quickly will be interesting. There is a bit of RNG, I think.

• 22:46Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah. In terms of what's actually in the ground. I, I agree. And the treasure chests tend to be, I think RNG based as well. So the gold gating that you're talking about is really just like when you reach like certain moments, they'll be like, oh, we actually need 10,000 gold to like open this thing. Correct?

• 23:01Chris Plante?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 23:02Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 23:03Chris Plante?

  Though I think you can still, there are other ways of like progressing the core levels. There are just certain, I, I've started to come across more things where they're asking me for gold to keep moving. And I

• 23:14Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah. What's funny

• 23:15Chris Plante?

  how much that happens.

• 23:17Russ Frushtick?

  What's funny is that because of playing co-op with him and him not really wanting to do anything but like dig?

• 23:24Chris Plante?

  Yeah.

• 23:25Russ Frushtick?

  Gold is like so not a problem. I have so much fucking gold. It is, I'm drowning in it and it constantly responds and it's everywhere. And honestly, like even when I see gold, like the urge to break it up is incredible because it feels so good when they, when you do that. So I haven't hit that wall, but I, yeah, it will be interesting to see if people figure out a way to like, get enough to get to the next area and the next area.

• 23:50Chris Plante?

  Yeah, yeah. Um, uh, any, any other kind of thoughts on it about, you know, did you, did it feel overpowered for you? I mean, you mentioned that in co-op and even if it does, like, do you mind?

• 24:01Russ Frushtick?

  No, I don't, I don't care. I mean, it does feel overpowered, but I don't care. I don't think Nintendo cares. I think they just want it to feel good. You certainly feel very powerful as Donkey Kong, whether you're playing co-op or not. To the point where a lot of the fights that I've done, like the larger fights tend to be like, well, fuck that guy up. You can turn into, we haven't talked about, you can turn into like the equivalent of like super forms of Donkey Kong that have different powers, but the base, the first one you're getting is really just, you turn into a giant Donkey Kong and you're much more powerful than you were previously.

• 24:36Chris Plante?

  Yeah.

• 24:36Russ Frushtick?

  And so that, you know, activating that in the first third of the game feels like a cheat code that you're entering. Cause you are just so astonishingly powerful as that Donkey Kong and you just trivialize basically any bosses that you come across.

• 24:51Chris Plante?

  This seems to be the new model of Nintendo game design. Of if you want to be ultra powerful and you want to just crush the game beneath you, you can. If you want to give yourself more challenge and come up with like a more creative way to beat something, you can also do that and it's going to rely on you to make that decision. Um.

• 25:15Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, I don't know. I mean, with Tears of the Kingdom, like, I don't think that's the case.

• 25:20Chris Plante?

  Really?

• 25:20Russ Frushtick?

  Tears of the Kingdom, I don't, I mean, theoretically, if you like, look at guides or whatever, I guess you could, whatever, break it with, with like abusing the systems, like respawn zone item, whatever the fuck. But I think broadly speaking, like, for, for like, the first 10 hours of that game, you feel pretty weak.

• 25:39Chris Plante?

  I think that's true, but I guess I feel like with Tears of the Kingdom, there are a few contraptions that you can build to solve pretty much every puzzle.

• 25:47Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 25:47Chris Plante?

  Or you can get really creative, like, it's up to you. But yes, it's, this is the

• 25:54Chris Plante?

  most, the far end of that spectrum. Again, we haven't talked about the powers. I don't want to go too much into the powers because I think that is like a spoilery thing that you should

• 26:04Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 26:04Chris Plante?

  to discover. But as Donkey Kong gets his Donkey Kong superpowers, you can really bust through this game. I mean, they are, they are the perpetual cheat code. And you, um, you charge them up and it's very silly because there's an option to like, make it charge faster. There's all these upgrades you can get and I have yet to have any reason to do that because I'm just constantly charged up.

• 26:30Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 26:30Chris Plante?

  Feels like I can just live in superhero mode all the time. Uh, yeah, I, I, I really, I really dug it.

• 26:39Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 26:40Chris Plante?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 26:41Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, pop, pop, pop.

• 26:42Chris Plante?

  Um, I look forward to talking about it more once we have, uh, the boys back because it, I'm sure it will be part of the game of the year conversation.

• 26:52Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 26:52Chris Plante?

  Um, and I think it'll also be good to talk about like what the end game looks like. We've run into this a few times with like Kirby, where we really, really enjoy the game and then you get to see the real challenging stuff and it becomes a whole separate thing that we love. And I'm, I'm curious where that is. I think I'm probably about five or six hours from the end. Um, so yeah, we'll, we'll follow up on it.

• 27:17Russ Frushtick?

  Cool. Let's take a quick break and then we've got a little more coming at you after the break.

• 27:25Russ 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,

• 28:09Russ Frushtick?

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• 28:48Chris Plante?

  Okay, we are back. And I am so happy that Nintendo gave Donkey Kong another shot. Donkey Kong, disrespected. Donkey Kong, the original Nintendo icon. He performs one rap on the Nintendo 64 and suddenly he can't get AAA games anymore. I think that's bullshit. So I'm happy that Donkey Kong is getting his, you know, his return, his moment.

• 29:12Russ Frushtick?

  For what it's worth, I do think, I guess that was the last one, right?

• 29:16Chris Plante?

  That was the last one.

• 29:18Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, that was the last one was N64. Donkey Kong, the rest of them have been like either spinoffs or throwbacks to the Donkey Kong Country style. Those were great, but I would agree that they're not like full-on huge, huge titles.

• 29:32Chris Plante?

  And what I realized is that- A lot of brands than just getting this disrespect. And sure, I understand Nintendo, they know exactly what they're doing. You don't need to tell me this. But also like, why haven't I got my earthbound AAA game? Just saying. So I thought what we could do is we can go through a list of the games that are either fully ignored. They haven't been getting anything in a while, or they've been bumped down to the B or the C tier list. In make our

• 30:04Russ Frushtick?

  Where they'll have like, oh, here's a card game version of this. That's all you're getting.

• 30:08Chris Plante?

  Or like 99, you know, those series were like F0. We can start with F0, F0 99. Congratulations. It's, you know, a novelty that will take off the store once we're done with it.

• 30:20Chris Plante?

  Let's start there. F0. Does this, do you think it has any chance in hell of coming back as a major Nintendo series?

• 30:32Russ Frushtick?

  Uh, yes, I do. I think the last time that there was like a major F0 game was what on GameCube?

• 30:40Chris Plante?

  Yeah.

• 30:41Russ Frushtick?

  And then there was like an arcade version of that.

• 30:45Russ Frushtick?

  But I think right now they've got, the only hesitation I have is like, they are a little top heavy on racing games right now. Cause they have Mario Kart, they have Kirby's air ride is coming. So I wouldn't necessarily see, I wouldn't expect to see an F0 game in the next year. But it's like the other big racing franchise for them and it has the ability in the same way that, what did we play? That the Fast Fusion, whatever that game was on. It has the ability to like be a real showpiece for the hardware, because everything is moving so quickly.

• 31:25Russ Frushtick?

  That it wouldn't surprise me. It's also as they've seen, as they've shown with F0 99, like it's great for online play. So it wouldn't totally shock me. I would like to see something more story based or like character development based.

• 31:43Russ Frushtick?

  But I don't know that maybe that goes in conflict to like what F0 is, which is really just like an arcade racer in the style of Wipeout. Or I guess Wipeout was in the style of F0. So yeah, I could see it, but it might be a few years.

• 31:56Chris Plante?

  That's the problem for me is I don't know why they make another racing game series when they have made it clear that they will put all the eggs in the Mario Kart basket.

• 32:06Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 32:06Chris Plante?

  You know, throughout a console's life cycle and I'm sure there'll be.

• 32:09Russ Frushtick?

  And Kirby Air Ride they're making.

• 32:12Chris Plante?

  Sure. That's, that's true and still wild to me.

• 32:15Russ Frushtick?

  In the same year.

• 32:17Chris Plante?

  But F0 for me, yeah, I would love either a game that is more of a story based racer game, a racing RPG like we used to get a long time ago, or hand it over to an indie studio. There is a time where I felt like Nintendo was doing a bit more of that of trusting, you know, crypto the Neko dancer developers to make the Zelda game.

• 32:44Russ Frushtick?

  Is that the only example that I can think of?

• 32:46Chris Plante?

  I could have sworn that there was more. You're right. I started to say that. I was like, they've did that a few times. And now I'm like, ah.

• 32:51Russ Frushtick?

  I think it might be just the one. Otherwise they'll work with like Namco and things like that.

• 32:55Chris Plante?

  Yeah, but it feels like it would be a good partnership. You're right. And Nimco Bandai. Okay. I'm going to put, what would you put the odds at for that one?

• 33:04Russ Frushtick?

  Uh, I think there's a, in, in the lifespan of the Switch 2?

• 33:09Chris Plante?

  Yeah.

• 33:10Russ Frushtick?

  I'd say there's a 20% chance of getting an F0 game in the lifespan.

• 33:14Chris Plante?

  Yeah. Um, uh, next one I have is the Earthbound Mother series.

• 33:20Russ Frushtick?

  3% chance.

• 33:22Chris Plante?

  I think you're right.

• 33:25Chris Plante?

  I don't know if we need to say much more. For people who don't know, Earthbound was a cult favorite RPG for the Super Nintendo. There was a prequel or a predecessor that was not released in the US. There was a sequel called Mother 3 that was not released in the US. The hardcore fans have been badgering Nintendo for more Earthbound forever. And

• 33:55Chris Plante?

  Not without reason, because Earthbound's main characters have appeared in Smash Brothers from the very beginning. Ness is the protagonist of Earthbound, so Earthbound has just always been part of Nintendo IP. But I agree with you in that it almost feels like it's been so long that it's a lose-lose. That it's not a big enough name that it will make you a lot of money. And the fanbase is so rabid that the odds of you messing up are really high. So.

• 34:36Russ Frushtick?

  I also don't even know how big that fanbase is. I know they are rabid. I know they're intense. But like, is it, is it?

• 34:43Chris Plante?

  Hundreds.

• 34:44Russ Frushtick?

  Millions? Yeah, it's hundreds. Right. That's the problem. Yeah.

• 34:48Chris Plante?

  Um, okay. So the next one is.

• 34:51Russ Frushtick?

  Wait, wait, wait. Let me do a caveat. There were, how many Earthbound games were there?

• 34:56Chris Plante?

  Three.

• 34:57Russ Frushtick?

  Three. And didn't the third one never get released in the US?

• 35:00Chris Plante?

  Correct.

• 35:02Russ Frushtick?

  I could definitely see the third one getting a port with the translation.

• 35:06Chris Plante?

  My friend, here is where you are wrong. Here's where you may be schooled by a real fan.

• 35:12Russ Frushtick?

  Okay.

• 35:12Chris Plante?

  There are a few things in it that have not aged well.

• 35:16Russ Frushtick?

  Oh, no.

• 35:17Chris Plante?

  And they will never release it.

• 35:19Russ Frushtick?

  Okay.

• 35:20Chris Plante?

  Yeah. So I would not count on that. I think there's a reason that they have been very okay with a fan translation of that game.

• 35:27Russ Frushtick?

  Sure.

• 35:27Chris Plante?

  I think that is a compromise. Love that game, but there are some parts that would need work. Okay, 3%. Great, we're moving along. Here's a weird one. Pokemon. I know what you're saying. Pokemon already has big games out there. What I'm asking is, is this really, is this really the peak? Is this really AAA Pokemon when we see this stuff? Because I look at these Pokemon games, I eat so much shit for this. I love when I say something, I'm like, I can already feel the rage. They don't look visually great. Like at all. We can all agree on that, right? Like, they kind of look busted.

• 36:12Russ Frushtick?

  Uh, I would say, I thought, um, yeah, I would say the most recent one certainly was like. I think incredibly hamstrung by the hardware to the point where they designed it for hardware. They couldn't run it and even then it still looked pretty bad.

• 36:30Chris Plante?

  Yeah.

• 36:31Russ Frushtick?

  It does. I agree. It doesn't look certainly on the tier of something like Donkey Kong Bonanza.

• 36:36Chris Plante?

  No.

• 36:37Russ Frushtick?

  So it'd be nice to that, to have that level of quality attached to it. But it, this one in particular seems, it seems unlikely to me that it would ever get that level of polish. Because they don't need to.

• 36:53Chris Plante?

  Yeah.

• 36:54Russ Frushtick?

  These games still sell astonishingly well.

• 36:57Chris Plante?

  And it makes them at a much faster rate, like a much faster rate.

• 37:03Russ Frushtick?

  I also think that like, there was a new trailer for Pokemon Legends. What is it? ZX, whatever it is, X, A, whatever it is, the new one. And it looks fine. It looks good enough to me. Like it's not, it's not jaw dropping, but it's, it's okay.

• 37:21Chris Plante?

  Good enough is truly the, the Pokemon way when it comes to it.

• 37:26Russ Frushtick?

  Well, when good enough sells astonishing numbers of copies, yeah, that's.

• 37:29Chris Plante?

  You're right. You're, you're right. Okay. So I, we're not gonna, we're gonna put that as NA. We're not gonna give a percentage there. Here's one that definitely could or couldn't happen. I don't, I don't know where to go with this. Yoshi.

• 37:44Russ Frushtick?

  Okay.

• 37:45Chris Plante?

  So Yoshi is interesting because before Kirby got Kirby's big game, I would have said like, why would you ever make another big top tier Yoshi? Because Yoshi is the little kid brand.

• 38:00Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 38:02Chris Plante?

  But now I don't know.

• 38:04Russ Frushtick?

  I mean, I think Nintendo has realized that you don't need theoretically, you don't need little kid brands. You can design games that are fun for both little kids and for adults. And Kirby Forgotten Land is the like epitome of that, as honestly is Donkey Kong Bonanza.

• 38:20Chris Plante?

  Yeah.

• 38:20Russ Frushtick?

  Like perfect example. So I don't think they need to like silo, oh, this game needs to be so easy that babies can play it. Which I think is pretty much what the latest Yoshi games have. Been they've been like very approachable, very cute and like amazingly like art designed, but very, very simple. Um, so I guess the question I would have for you is like, would you consider like another Yoshi's Crafted World like a AAA on the level of Donkey Kong? No, I don't think so.

• 38:50Chris Plante?

  No, and he knows talked about this that they want to have different levels of budgets for different projects because that's the sustainable way of doing things. I think Yoshi maybe more than any franchises trapped in that weird liminal space and that it is not doomed like F Zero or we're going to talk about Pilot Wings. Um, but also by not being doomed, it has no chance to come back. It's doing just well enough that they will continue to make these games that are still targeting little kids because they're not getting the support to be a game for everybody, a multi quadrant game, or whatever you'd want to call it. Um, I would put like a big budget,

• 39:32Chris Plante?

  the all, the only thing, and this would be the most Nintendo thing to do. So it make my, the percentage increase quite a bit here. Nintendo releasing Donkey Kong Bonanza from the Mario Odyssey team. Five years pass. I'm like, wait, are we ever going to get Mario Odyssey two? And like, we heard you knew Yoshi's Island two Odyssey. We're doing it like, and it's like, the next Mario game is actually a Yoshi's Island game.

• 40:05Russ Frushtick?

  In the same way that the original Yoshi's Island game was indeed a Super Mario Brothers.

• 40:10Chris Plante?

  Hundred percent.

• 40:11Russ Frushtick?

  Whatever it was.

• 40:11Chris Plante?

  And that, that, that like, that feels so Nintendo that the Switch, you would never get a true Mario game and that we would get a Donkey Kong game and a Yoshi's Island game.

• 40:22Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 40:22Chris Plante?

  That feels. Right, in some really twisted way.

• 40:27Russ Frushtick?

  I mean, the interesting thing about Donkey Kong is it's a reminder that they, if they don't have like a drastically new idea.

• 40:36Chris Plante?

  Oh, yeah.

• 40:37Russ Frushtick?

  They kind of just won't do it. So obviously, Mr. Mario Odyssey, the drastically new idea, you were like transforming into different creatures using the hat and whatever. And that was like a pretty drastic idea. Donkey Kong, you were destroying the environments in ways we've never seen previously. I don't see them doing, hey, here's Super Mario Odyssey, but more levels. The only time that I can remember them really doing that was with Galaxy 2.

• 41:03Chris Plante?

  Yeah.

• 41:04Russ Frushtick?

  But I think it's too, it's been too long since Mario Odyssey came out for them to just like, here's Mario Odyssey with new, like new levels. I think they would need a pretty substantially different mechanic to justify the return of Mario to like a big new game.

• 41:19Chris Plante?

  Yeah, I think that's right. Well, so then where does that put the percentage for you for Yoshi?

• 41:24Russ Frushtick?

  For like a big Yoshi game, I think if you're not counting those side scrolling games, very low. I would put it at like 10 or 15%. Because I think it's, that's how it's going to manifest. It's like Yoshi will be like on off years when they're not doing either a big 3D Mario game or, or like a Mario Wonder, for example, like Yoshi will get slotted in as like their 2D platforming solution. That's my guess.

• 41:51Chris Plante?

  I agree with that. Let's, I'm going to bash some of these together.

• 41:57Chris Plante?

  Wario, Star Fox, do you see either of those games?

• 42:02Russ Frushtick?

  There will be a Wario, WarioWare equivalent game. I guarantee it. No, no question about it. It'll have online play or whatever it is.

• 42:12Russ Frushtick?

  As much as I'm dying for like. While I was playing Tokyo, I was like, this maybe should have been a Wario game because Wario loves gold and

• 42:22Russ Frushtick?

  breaking shit. So I think it kind of dashed those hopes. I don't think he's going to star in like a big AAA game, but there will be another Wario game. So if we're saying, what are the odds of a AAA? I would put it at 2%, very, very low, very low.

• 42:36Chris Plante?

  Yes. With Star Fox, if I could merge these together, I have Star Fox, Kid Icarus and F-Zero. If you, if I could do, it's not a reverse parlay. I don't know how you'd describe this, but if you could say, hey, one of those games is going to get turned into a major third person, open world franchise that is like Nintendo's version of a third person action game. I would 100% believe that mostly because they've tried to do it at different times with, I think all of them. And it feels like a natural fit. All of them have these cool worlds that you want to be in. They have great characters,

• 43:21Chris Plante?

  but the core games themselves have aged poorly. You know, F-Zero still somewhat holds up. Star Fox, the original thing is not.

• 43:32Russ Frushtick?

  I mean, they barely run, so yeah.

• 43:33Chris Plante?

  Yeah. Kid Icarus, the original game is best not spoken of. But they are great IPs that they, you know, seem to return to every 15 or so years.

• 43:46Chris Plante?

  So I don't think any of them individually have much of a chance, but I wouldn't be surprised if one of them somehow popped out during this period.

• 43:57Russ Frushtick?

  I'll tell you what I want is like a space exploration Star Fox game where you're like going from planet to planet and like, like moving, like you're like a space trader, but you're Star Fox.

• 44:09Chris Plante?

  No Man's Sky, but with.

• 44:11Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, like a No Man's Sky thing with Star Fox. That'd be fucking cool.

• 44:13Chris Plante?

  I wouldn't mind it. Speaking of zipping around Pilot Wings and, and Wave Race, are those sorts of games? Do you, do you think we'll ever get the? I don't even know what to call these oddities of the Nintendo.

• 44:28Russ Frushtick?

  I mean, wave race, no, I'll just say right here, I'll be direct and say 1% chance of wave race.

• 44:34Chris Plante?

  Yeah.

• 44:34Russ Frushtick?

  Because who knows what the future, but very, very, very, like, it's too over there, it's too limited. You're just like, oh, it's a jet ski game. Like, I don't think there's a lot of interest in that, something that's that limited.

• 44:45Chris Plante?

  1080 degrees, snowboarding didn't even make our list, and it is in that same, that same pool.

• 44:53Russ Frushtick?

  Pilot wings, maybe. I could see a pilot, I could see another pilot games. I think, I could see another Pilot Wings game. I think the last one was on 3DS.

• 45:02Chris Plante?

  Yeah.

• 45:03Russ Frushtick?

  I believe. I like those games a lot, and I think they are, again, a good demonstration of system power. And it allows Nintendo to make, like, smaller experiences that aren't like a full-on game, and then you sort of just cobble them all together. But like, a big, open-world Pilot Wings game in the style of like Forza Horizon, be fucking awesome.

• 45:28Chris Plante?

  Yeah.

• 45:28Russ Frushtick?

  That'd be great. I'd put it at like 10, 10%.

• 45:32Chris Plante?

  Yeah, yeah. I mean, I, I think the lesson from this exercise is, there's no way of ever knowing what Nintendo will do. It's so completely unpredictable, and there is no consistency or rhyme or reason to them doing these things. I mean, I, even with, I remember before Tears of the Kingdom was announced, I had no idea if they would give that type of Zelda another shot, despite it being the most successful game imaginable. And I still don't like that, I don't know what the next Zelda looks like.

• 46:09Russ Frushtick?

  I think it'll be not a direct, like, it won't be in the same environment, but I think it'll be in the same spirit.

• 46:15Chris Plante?

  Yeah. I, I, that's the other side of the coin for everything that we just talked about, too, is, as they are figuring out different budgets, I am curious what gets shrunken down, what we get really small versions of.

• 46:29Russ Frushtick?

  Yep.

• 46:30Chris Plante?

  Like, do we get a wave race 99? Do we get these things that are kind of meant to humor you, that are the, you know, one-off bobbles?

• 46:42Chris Plante?

  I don't know. I'm, I'm, I'm very curious. I have a feeling that they have a lot of weird stuff coming, and even before the end of the year. I feel like they have not put all their hands or all the cards on the table just yet.

• 46:56Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, I think so, too.

• 46:59Chris Plante?

  Do we have some reader mail?

• 47:01Russ Frushtick?

  We have a few things. We had this letter. This one came from James. This is wild, y'all. This is in reference to PP Strello, which we talked about last week. This is wild. Y'all are covering a game in the style of a GBA Zelda, and I was just coming here to recommend Master Key, a one-bit graphics but plays like a GBA Zelda. If it had been on handheld 20 years ago, it would have been my favorite game. Absolutely worth your time. I have not played this, but it looks fucking dope.

• 47:29Chris Plante?

  The visuals are killer.

• 47:33Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 47:34Chris Plante?

  Yeah, I'll make sure that we include that in the newsletter because I am definitely digging it. It's also 40% off on Steam right now. I mean, it only costs $12 normally. It costs $7 now. But yeah, this looks cool. I also love that only one person I know owns this game, and it is Chris Grant. Polygon's founder and a longtime nerd. That's pretty awesome. What else do we got in the mailbag?

• 48:05Russ Frushtick?

  We got another letter. This one comes from Connor. Y'all should check out Battle Train, the second train-based rogue light deck-building game of the year. It has neat tracklaying mechanics and a fun TV game show vibe. This seems like Justin Fodder to me, if I had to guess. I know Griffin was really getting into Monster Train 2 as well. Last letter. This one comes from Keaton, and I will preemptively apologize. Keaton writes, "Russ called Cujo an innocent and lovable dog who contracted rabies from a bat an asshole." That's true, I did, and I apologize. It's not Cujo's fault that he has rabies.

• 48:45Russ Frushtick?

  He seems very nice. Otherwise, he just has rabies. So I'm sorry, memory of Cujo. I'm sorry, Stephen King.

• 48:56Russ Frushtick?

  You're great.

• 48:56Chris Plante?

  Okay, honorable mentions before we wrap up. I, yesterday, drove up to Los Angeles, went to the Vista Theater. One of, I believe, the mini theaters now owned by Quentin Tarantino in Los Angeles. And I saw Kill Bill, The Whole Bloody Affair, which I had never actually seen. Which, do you know about this?

• 49:18Russ Frushtick?

  I mean, it's just, I mean, I assume it's both movies?

• 49:21Chris Plante?

  It's a cut that brings the two movies together and there's like some changes. For example, the, um, the crazy 88 fight sequence isn't in black and white. It's just in color.

• 49:31Russ Frushtick?

  Oh, interesting.

• 49:33Chris Plante?

  A few, a few changes.

• 49:34Russ Frushtick?

  Did he make the cut?

• 49:36Chris Plante?

  Yeah, it's his. He, he made the cut and then the version that I saw was the same reels that he showed at Cannes Film Festival. So it had the French subtitles on the bottom.

• 49:50Russ Frushtick?

  That's funny.

• 49:50Chris Plante?

  Very, yeah, very silly.

• 49:52Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 49:53Chris Plante?

  Um, but hey, what a great movie. Uh, and what a great movie when watched as a single movie. I remember like more or less liking both of them when they came out. But it not being my favorite stuff. And this time it really, really worked for me. And it really does feel like just one humongous movie. More so than I expected it to, which I mean, I should have known. But it is playing, if you live in Southern California, it is playing at the Vista Theater, I think, for the rest of the month. Twice a day.

• 50:34Russ Frushtick?

  It's like four, four hours?

• 50:36Chris Plante?

  Four and a half hours. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 50:37Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, wow.

• 50:39Chris Plante?

  But it's great. And the theater is gorgeous, like, it's like a really classic, old school Los Angeles theater. But they've basically ripped out every other row. So there's just a lot of space between the seats now.

• 50:54Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 50:55Chris Plante?

  So it feels way more comfortable and not so claustrophobic like some of the older houses do.

• 51:01Russ Frushtick?

  Wow. Yeah, that sounds cool. I mean, I love both of those movies for different reasons. So.

• 51:06Chris Plante?

  It is funny. I mean, I guess I, I, I respect it. They just show his movies at that and the New Beverly just nonstop.

• 51:15Russ Frushtick?

  I mean, like, yeah.

• 51:16Chris Plante?

  If you, if you own it, you know, why, why wouldn't you? But.

• 51:19Russ Frushtick?

  Well, and I also think his movies like are good fodder for, you know, midnight screenings and things like that. It's very easy. I don't, I don't think it's, although certainly part, partially self-promotion. I'm sure the tickets sell.

• 51:33Chris Plante?

  Oh, I mean, this was a 12:30 in the afternoon showing and it was packed. I mean,

• 51:41Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 51:41Chris Plante?

  completely sold out. Uh, how about you? Uh, what you got going?

• 51:45Russ Frushtick?

  Um, I finished Murderbot, which I thought was great. I know Griffin talked about it recently. Uh, I thought they just did a really good job of telling a very focused story. I don't know about the source material, like where it goes from here. And whether it's like a individual contains stories for each season, or whether there's some continuity there, but I thought it was just really smart and, uh, and really enjoyable and like, uh, I mean, very gory, but also like a light watch, which I also appreciated. So, uh, check that out.

• 52:20Chris Plante?

  Nice. I.

• 52:21Russ Frushtick?

  I think. Yeah, it's quite good. I think that's it. Uh, wanted to thank some people. Oh, I have some news real quick. I am no longer working at Polygon.

• 52:31Chris Plante?

  Hey.

• 52:31Russ Frushtick?

  Plant, plant aware.

• 52:33Chris Plante?

  Yeah.

• 52:33Russ Frushtick?

  I mentioned it on, on my Blue Sky. Uh, so just letting you all know. I, I mean, it doesn't really impact this show at all. Obviously this is a fully independent thing, but, uh, I have departed Polygon. I am the last of the besties to do so. Uh, so we are now formally divorced of Polygon, but there are still some lovely people that are still working there. So please be nice to them and, uh, also.

• 52:58Chris Plante?

  And a great time to mention that we have a Patreon.

• 53:02Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 53:02Chris Plante?

  For the besties and the resties. And if you enjoyed this episode, let me tell you, there's a lot more where this comes from over at the Patreon.

• 53:10Russ Frushtick?

  Oh my God, so much more. Uh, we've got just tons of content.

• 53:14Chris Plante?

  Sign up now, get like 55 episodes, I think.

• 53:17Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah. I mean, I, and, and yeah, I don't want to diminish the support of the previous people that have signed up because you made those 55 episodes happen. But if you have been late to the party, you're like, maybe I'll wait and see. You have now waited and seen, and now you have literally probably 80 to 90 hours of content waiting for you to absorb. If that is something you want to do, uh, if you have, you want us in your ears nonstop. So you can do that over at the Patreon, which is patreon.com slash the besties. We have a few new members, uh, to call out trampoline tales. We have Theltes, we have Michael and we have Bill. Thank you to our Patreon members. We love you.

• 54:00Russ Frushtick?

  You're great. Next week, uh, boys will be back. Griffin and Justin will be back and I'm sure they'll talk about Donkey Kong some more. I know y'all probably want to hear what they have to say. I actually have no idea what they think of this game. This was not a game that I discussed with them prior. So I don't know if they liked it or hated it. So that'll be interesting. Uh, the, the focus of the game that week will be Ninja Gaiden Ragebound.

• 54:23Chris Plante?

  Oh, yeah.

• 54:23Russ Frushtick?

  Which is the 2D, I think, throwback style Ninja Gaiden game. Uh, and I believe that's coming from the developers of blasphemous.

• 54:35Chris Plante?

  Yes. Not to be confused with the, uh, Shinobi update that we've covered on the resties and that will be officially releasing in a few months too. We are in an embarrassment of ninja riches right now.

• 54:49Russ Frushtick?

  Drowning in ninjas. I love to see it. Well, I think that's gonna do it. Thank you, Chris Plant, for joining me for this very special episode. Thank you to everyone at home. This has been the besties, where the best, no.

• 55:03Chris Plante?

  Good try.

• 55:03Russ Frushtick?

  This has been the besties.

• 55:06Chris Plante?

  Cause shouldn't the world's best friends pick the world's best?

• 55:09Russ Frushtick?

  I got it. I got it. I got it.

• 55:10Chris Plante?

  You go ahead. No, you go ahead. You got it.

• 55:12Russ Frushtick?

  This has been the besties because shouldn't the world's best friends pick the world's best game?

• 55:20Chris Plante?

  Oh, banana.

• 55:49Speaker 02

  Besties!