Nintendo Gets Switch Sports Right on Its Second Try

Only four years after Nintendo Switch Sports (and only two years after that game’s final update), the series returns with an upgrade/sequel: Nintendo Switch Sports Resort. The latest entry in the series that began with Wii Sports is unquestionably more polished than its predecessor. But does Resort offer enough new stuff to warrant the price tag? Plus, Griffin dove into Final Fantasy Resonance and has the crystals to prove it!

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

• 0:00Russ Frushtick?

  How many oatmeals do you think there are?

• 0:03Griffin McElroy?

  One.

• 0:03Russ Frushtick?

  Wrong.

• 0:04Chris Plante?

  Two.

• 0:05Russ Frushtick?

  Maybe.

• 0:07Griffin McElroy?

  Okay. I mean, okay, are we, are we, are we, first of all, I don't know that I'm ready for this conversation.

• 0:13Russ Frushtick?

  No, you're ready.

• 0:14Griffin McElroy?

  I'm not, I'm not.

• 0:15Russ Frushtick?

  If I'm ready, you're ready.

• 0:17Griffin McElroy?

  Okay. I didn't, I'm, I've been sick. I didn't get a ton of sleep last night.

• 0:20Russ Frushtick?

  It's not gonna get gross. It's not gonna get gross.

• 0:22Griffin McElroy?

  It's just, no, I'm not talking about nausea being like, I'm saying like mentally, I don't know if I'm ready to argue.

• 0:27Russ Frushtick?

  No, it's not an argument. It's an education.

• 0:30Griffin McElroy?

  It seems like it's gonna be a.

• 0:31Russ Frushtick?

  I'm here to educate.

• 0:33Griffin McElroy?

  Okay. Are you just saying like, it's either oatmeal or it's cream of wheat?

• 0:36Russ Frushtick?

  Nope. Nope. It's way more complicated than that. So I'm not an oatmeal eater. I don't like the texture. It doesn't feel filling to me. I don't like oat.

• 0:45Chris Plante?

  Wait, wait.

• 0:46Russ Frushtick?

  What?

• 0:46Chris Plante?

  Before you go further, this doesn't end with you saying oatmeal, does it? Like eating dry oats?

• 0:53Russ Frushtick?

  No.

• 0:53Chris Plante?

  Actually, it's a meal.

• 0:54Russ Frushtick?

  Stop it. Stop it. It's a meal. It's not.

• 0:57Chris Plante?

  I just wanted to make sure.

• 0:58Russ Frushtick?

  This is not a setup. This is a genuine realization that I had.

• 1:01Griffin McElroy?

  It feels like a fucking setup.

• 1:02Russ Frushtick?

  I'm not an oatmeal.

• 1:03Chris Plante?

  It feels like a setup.

• 1:04Russ Frushtick?

  It's not. I'm not an oatmeal eater. My wife and my son are both people that enjoy oatmeal. So I was sent to the store to buy oatmeal.

• 1:15Griffin McElroy?

  Okay.

• 1:16Russ Frushtick?

  When I arrived at the store, there were a few oatmeal options and I was like, whatever, it's oatmeal. So I picked steel cut oatmeal because that seems high tech. They're gonna cut the oatmeal with steel. I want you to take a guess between one oatmeal and steel cut oatmeal. What is the gulf in cooking time?

• 1:40Griffin McElroy?

  Five, 10 minutes.

• 1:42Russ Frushtick?

  Minutes. It's like 30x.

• 1:46Griffin McElroy?

  So wait, steel cut requires more.

• 1:47Russ Frushtick?

  30 minutes of cooking time for steel cut oatmeal on the stove. 30 minutes compared to like two.

• 1:54Griffin McElroy?

  Versus, and how are we cutting the oatmeal, the non steel cut oatmeal?

• 1:58Russ Frushtick?

  I don't know. It's not even on the box.

• 2:01Griffin McElroy?

  Okay.

• 2:01Russ Frushtick?

  Chris Plant walked away. He was so aggrieved by this realization that I had. 30 minutes.

• 2:09Chris Plante?

  How do people listen to this show?

• 2:11Griffin McElroy?

  I don't know. It's the first thing. It's the first thing people hear.

• 2:16Russ Frushtick?

  I mean, it's relevant to the episode that we're talking about.

• 2:18Chris Plante?

  It's the first thing people, people are like.

• 2:19Griffin McElroy?

  In what way is an oatmeal discussion relevant to Nintendo Switch Sports Resort?

• 2:25Russ Frushtick?

  Let's say that you wanna play some Nintendo Switch Sports Resort and you only have five minutes, but you're also hungry. Do you buy steel cut oatmeal or do you buy the other oatmeal? I don't even know what the other oatmeal is called, but it cooks way faster.

• 2:38Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah. Okay. This is a low point for.

• 2:43Chris Plante?

  We found it.

• 2:44Griffin McElroy?

  The show, for my podcasting career, for your brand.

• 2:50Chris Plante?

  Actually, I'm gonna say it's a high point for his brand. I'm starting to think that that was the play.

• 2:54Griffin McElroy?

  Midpoint. I would say it's an average right across the plate point.

• 2:58Russ Frushtick?

  If there is one person listening that doesn't make the mistake that I made, sitting at the stove like an idiot for 30 minutes, waiting for the oatmeal to cook, god damn, it was worth it.

• 3:09Griffin McElroy?

  I just, I think you need to follow Justin's example and he thought about and talked about cereal so much on other podcasts. We said, start a cereal podcast.

• 3:21Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 3:21Griffin McElroy?

  And then he did, and now he has a venue for that. I just think that having a breakfast zone, Russ's breakfast zone, where people can come in and seek out your feelings

• 3:32Russ Frushtick?

  Griffin.

• 3:32Griffin McElroy?

  on steamy eggs and the different types of oats that there are.

• 3:35Russ Frushtick?

  Griffin, it's called a backdoor pilot.

• 3:38Griffin McElroy?

  Okay. Yeah.

• 3:41Chris Plante?

  Okay. Hey, do y'all know how many different types of bagels there are?

• 3:48Griffin McElroy?

  Take it to the breakfast zone, please.

• 4:09Griffin McElroy?

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

• 4:12Chris Plante?

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

• 4:15Russ Frushtick?

  My name is Ross Frusich. Ah, I know the best game of the week.

• 4:19Griffin McElroy?

  Welcome to the best season where we talk about the latest and greatest in home interactive entertainment. It's a game of the year club. Just by listening, you become a member. This week, we're talking about Nintendo Switch Sports Resort. You're probably thinking, wait, didn't, didn't they already do, didn't that already happen? Didn't they already make and release that game? No, you fucking dummy. They made Nintendo Switch Sports. This one's got a resort in it and it's different in a lot of very important ways.

• 4:42Russ Frushtick?

  So different from the last Nintendo Switch, Nintendo's resort game.

• 4:46Griffin McElroy?

  Which is different from Wii Sports and Wii Sports Resort. And Chris, what is Nintendo Switch Sports Resort?

• 4:51Chris Plante?

  I'm so glad you asked because it is a finished game version of Switch Sports. They, they, they actually shipped it with all of the modes in it that you would expect. You're not gonna have to wait for updates. This is closer to a real game than ever before. All of those Wii Sports games that you loved, some that you didn't, and more, right after the break.

• 5:17Chris Plante?

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• 5:44Chris Plante?

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• 6:29Chris Plante?

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• 6:52Griffin McElroy?

  Chris alluded to this. I had forgotten that Nintendo Switch Sports, which came out, I don't know, a couple of years ago.

• 6:58Russ Frushtick?

  Three years ago, something like that.

• 6:59Griffin McElroy?

  Three years ago, really did only ship with a handful of games and then they were like, trust, we'll get you on the back end with some additional content. And I will say this does feel a lot more, a lot more of a, of a product. There's 12 games up in this thing and some of them aren't great, but a lot of them are really fun.

• 7:22Russ Frushtick?

  I think the hit to miss ratio is very good.

• 7:24Griffin McElroy?

  The hit to miss ratio is, is really good for a, for a Nintendo game like this. And there's not just like fun sports. There's also like, you know, different variations on, on those sports. 100 pin bowling is back joyfully, joyously. We have 100 pin bowling back. And then there's, you know, different multiplayer modes and single player stuff and a bunch of character customization. There's, there is a lot more to this thing than I was anticipating and it has been received far more warmly in this household than I was expecting it to.

• 8:01Chris Plante?

  Interesting. I'm, take, take me down the warm path. Take me down what's working for you here.

• 8:07Griffin McElroy?

  I will say this. The surprising thing for, for me is that my nine-year-old, Henry, has really gotten into this thing and he liked Nintendo Switch Sports, which, can someone look up, I think it only shipped with like six games or something. It wasn't very much.

• 8:31Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah. On the cold path.

• 8:33Griffin McElroy?

  We, we had sword fighting in that one, which was basically all we played.

• 8:38Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 8:38Griffin McElroy?

  And then the rest of them, you know, I think tennis was in there. I think they got bowling up in there.

• 8:44Russ Frushtick?

  It was a basketball.

• 8:46Griffin McElroy?

  At some point. Basketball is and has always been and remains very shitty, the shittiest of the sports. But he has really taken a shine to this game. I think a game with character customization options that you can unlock, you like get, you know, currency by playing the games and unlocking achievements and, you know, just, just playing every day, you get like a little bonus that you spend in a shop to do like random gotcha draws of new kind of like cosmetic customization options. He loves that stuff.

• 9:15Russ Frushtick?

  This game does something actually when you launch that I don't know that I've ever seen on a Switch game before, and this might be me misspeaking because it's possible that the other Switch game did it and I just didn't notice.

• 9:26Griffin McElroy?

  Walk us through it because my son started playing this game without me, so I don't know what you're about to talk about.

• 9:31Russ Frushtick?

  Okay. So when you launch the game, usually when you launch any Switch game, it'll say which profile is playing. When you launch this game, it does not do that. It just launches. And I was like, that's weird. Normally, so what that allows, I think, what that allows them to do is constantly let you change who is playing, like who is player one and player two. So the drop in, drop out aspects of this are incredibly smooth. Like it's really easy to just have people like bounce in, play around, and then bounce out and switch it with someone else.

• 10:03Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, I didn't even consider that, but that is, that is, it is very, very easy. I think he actually made another profile on our Switch. So he could make like a third bonus character that we could switch around. But just, man, I just, a lot of the games he's really into, he likes the boxing game, uh, which, which returns here, uh, which I've never been like a huge sort of fan of. But, uh, that has been a big hit. Table tennis has been a big hit. Bowling has been a big hit. And then there's more sort of like leisure activities that are more about just exploring Woo-Hoo Island, it's called, which is a returning location. Like the prop plane, which is actually one of my favorites. It makes me desperate for a new Pilot Wings.

• 10:47Griffin McElroy?

  As is so often the case in these wee sports games that let you explore the island where you just, you hold the Switch Joy-Con in your hand like you're about to throw a paper airplane. That is the, the, the grip that it encourages. And then as you sort of just tilt your hand and tilt the controller, the plane moves. To, to follow suit and it feels really, really good. And it's really fun to go around and explore and find all the secret little, uh, photo spots and pop balloons and, uh, there's, there's just been a ton of, a ton of stuff that he has gotten into and I have really enjoyed playing with him.

• 11:19Chris Plante?

  I, I want to hop in, uh, the chill out games real quick, but first the research, uh, Nintendo Switch Sports. The golf game was added at the end of 2022.

• 11:30Russ Frushtick?

  This game does have golf.

• 11:31Chris Plante?

  Basketball game was added in 2024, I think.

• 11:36Griffin McElroy?

  Wow.

• 11:36Chris Plante?

  Which is wild. Um, I'm, I'm not cold on this game. I just think that ultimately you are buying Wii bowling.

• 11:47Griffin McElroy?

  Sports. Yeah.

• 11:47Chris Plante?

  Not even that, just the bowling. I think like that's, that's, that's the real reason you want to get this thing. The bowling is still great. You can play it with everybody else. There are three tiers here. There's the Wii tier, there's the Kinect tier, there is the Roblox tier. The Wii tier, we got bowling, we got tennis, we got golf.

• 12:04Russ Frushtick?

  Paddle, paddle tennis, archery. I'd fucking put thumb wrestling at Wii tier.

• 12:10Griffin McElroy?

  Thumb wrestling is so good.

• 12:12Chris Plante?

  Fuckers. You are.

• 12:13Russ Frushtick?

  Nah, dog.

• 12:14Chris Plante?

  Kinect, these aren't bad games, but these are not like on the tier of saying that archery is as good as bowling.

• 12:22Russ Frushtick?

  Not since Zelda Tears of the Kingdom has Nintendo created an interactive experience as compelling as Wii Sports Thumb Wrestling. Genuinely, it is, it is actually genuinely, I think, fucking excellent. And you know what?

• 12:38Griffin McElroy?

  Online play, the online thumb wrestling community is fucking so intense.

• 12:43Russ Frushtick?

  Let me explain to the people how this works, because it's possible that you might be hearing this and be like, who gives a fuck? Let me explain to you how thumb wrestling works in this game. So thumb wrestling, we all know how thumb wrestling works in real life, same thing here, but you can level up your thumb as long as it is down. So if it's in the down position, you will, your thumb will earn experience and get stronger. So what you can do is juke out your opponents by putting your thumb down. They go to tackle you, you lift your thumb up and then you tackle them in response. And all of this is happening, obviously with the aiming is happening with the motion controls. Genuinely, maybe my favorite game in the entire package. I'm not, extremely good.

• 13:25Griffin McElroy?

  Wow. It's really fun. It's really simple and really, really, really fun.

• 13:28Russ Frushtick?

  And maybe, Chris Plant, you just don't, aren't good at thumb wrestling.

• 13:31Griffin McElroy?

  Maybe you're just not good at it. That's okay.

• 13:33Chris Plante?

  No, the problem is I'm too good at it in real life and the skills don't transfer. So I think it's more of like for beginners, which, which that checks out, that checks out.

• 13:40Griffin McElroy?

  Man, I, I don't know about y'all, I have been constantly struggling to not, um, either on purpose or accidentally absolutely annihilate my child at this game. And it's really, it's really, really tough. Part of it is, part of it is like my own shit that I've got going on in my head where like, he asked me to play table tennis with him. I was like, okay, man, but I'm fucking really, really good at table tennis. And then he was like, all right, maybe you should play the CPU and we'll see how good you are. And I played the CPU and got just fucking bodied. And then he talked a bunch of shit and then beat me at table tennis and beat, talked a bunch of shit. And then he was like, let's try this 100 pin bowling out. And I was like, fucking, all right, dude.

• 14:22Griffin McElroy?

  And then I did the thing where you bowl it and it goes right across the rail and hits the button at the end of the lane and it knocks over all the pins. That classic Easter egg from Wii bowling, that's still there. He was like, holy shit, how did you do that? And I was like, I know the old magic, dude. And then he tried to do it and couldn't, uh, because I've been training this shit for two decades.

• 14:43Chris Plante?

  Yeah.

• 14:43Griffin McElroy?

  And he got so upset, he got so pissed off at me for, for absolutely, uh, burning his shit down and doing these like arcade maneuvers he had no idea about. I felt bad afterwards.

• 14:55Chris Plante?

  I do think it's like, it was a little bit much that you turned to him and you were like, mom loves me the most now. Like I thought that was like.

• 15:03Griffin McElroy?

  That was fucked up. But sometimes like when I'm playing tennis against him and I'm like, eh, I'll throw the match, you know, I don't want to go too hard. And, but I can't, cause it's like, I don't know, too hard to be shitty at the games and not make it seem like you're totally throwing it.

• 15:19Russ Frushtick?

  For a five-year-old, they have no, I'll say for my five-year-old, he has no idea that I'm throwing this stuff.

• 15:23Griffin McElroy?

  Nine-year-old knows. Nine-year-old can be like, did you, did you?

• 15:28Chris Plante?

  Hey, I want to go back to these desk games that you were talking about, Griffin. The paper airplane thing with the, uh, prop plane. I'm calling these desk games because they feel like things where they're like, hey, you know what? You've been standing for a while.

• 15:39Griffin McElroy?

  Yes.

• 15:39Chris Plante?

  Sit down, play, play your desk. The other game they have that I like, I put on Kinect tier, because I'm a little bit more, you know, I don't just give everything Wii tier, skateboarding, which you, uh, here's a note.

• 15:52Russ Frushtick?

  I agree, Kinect tier for skateboarding. I agree with that.

• 15:54Chris Plante?

  I, I cannot believe that they, Nintendo, who is cautious about you breaking things, has not put out a, hey, maybe get like a placemat to do this on. Because we're going to ask you to scrape up your table real good.

• 16:06Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah. So this is the sole game in the collection that uses the mouse controls of the Joy-Con 2, where you are literally dragging the, you know, one Joy-Con across of, you know.

• 16:18Russ Frushtick?

  Like imagine your foot while you're skateboarding and that's basically what you're doing.

• 16:21Griffin McElroy?

  You're just doing that. And then when you pick it up real sharply, it does a jump and then you can kind of flick it around to do tricks. And that's about it. It's fine. It's, it's fine. Um, he likes it a lot.

• 16:31Russ Frushtick?

  You're a boarder, right? Chris Plant is a.

• 16:32Chris Plante?

  More of a boarder. I felt like the skills were pretty transferable, you know? Like I couldn't do my, my Christ Air, couldn't do my 900, but otherwise, the, just the feeling of using those tiny little diminutive Joy-Cons as the paper airplane or as the like, oh, that's a little like, you know what it feels like? Uh, remember fingerboards?

• 16:52Griffin McElroy?

  Uh-huh. Tech decks?

• 16:53Chris Plante?

  Yeah, like a tech deck. Like it feels similar of like, oh, this is like a little tiny version of a thing that I like doing. And then there's also the jet ski.

• 17:03Griffin McElroy?

  The jet ski's terrible. It's, the jet ski encourages you to hold two Joy-Cons like you're holding a, like, holding handlebars on a jet ski. And you can like rev one of them to go and then it just like turning never feels very good. But the prop plane, I think is, is phenomenal. The plot, the prop plane, it feels good. You get the good like music and vibes of just like cruising around in like free flight mode. And then there's like a mode where you have five minutes to zoom by as many like photo op zones as you can. And then there's a mode where you're flying around and picking up balloons, but then you can fly behind your opponent and steal their balloons and like, I don't know, it feels great.

• 17:39Griffin McElroy?

  And it's, the, the vibe of this game is on par with the vibe of, you know, Wii Sports Resort, which is like top tier. The music is so iconic and like, just being in this tropical sort of paradise, uh, where an entire island's sort of, um, infrastructure is built around mini-games. Like, it's just a good, it's just a great vibe. Uh, so that is, that is my favorite of the leisure activities.

• 18:07Chris Plante?

  I, I recommend starting with that one too. If you like, before you do anything, start with the prop plane. It's new, but also getting to see the entire universe of this game before you start playing all the stadiums is very, very, very cool.

• 18:21Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah. Cause all of the, I do want to say like all of the, where you play table, table tennis and skateboard, all the other sports take place in this world. So seeing it from the air, like, it really does humanize the entire environment in a way that I was not expecting.

• 18:36Chris Plante?

  But I, I agree. I like, I like.

• 18:39Russ Frushtick?

  Chris Plant is setting us up for the sad, like.

• 18:42Chris Plante?

  No, I'm not setting up for sad. I'm just.

• 18:45Russ Frushtick?

  How bad was your week, Chris Plant?

• 18:47Chris Plante?

  I've got, I've got, no, it's not bad. It's just, listen, well, okay, two things. One, prop plane and jet ski.

• 18:56Russ Frushtick?

  Jet ski is bad. I agree. I didn't like jet ski.

• 18:57Chris Plante?

  Don't tease me with Pilot Wings and Wave Race. You'll be like, you're never going to get these. That's a bummer. But here's, here's my bigger thing with this. I. I am perfectly happy to have this. Like, we got press copies. I can play bowling whenever I want. Somebody else is gonna have to spend 60 bucks or 50 bucks on this, or whatever, right? Depending on digital versus physical. And Wii Sports came with the Wii, right? And this feels like a game that really should at least come with a Joy-Con. And here's my theory on this.

• 19:28Griffin McElroy?

  Okay.

• 19:28Chris Plante?

  The Wii, Wii Sports, it knew that everybody had like multiple Wii controllers and multiple nunchucks, right?

• 19:35Griffin McElroy?

  Right.

• 19:36Chris Plante?

  So you could have big multiplayer sessions. Here, the idea of having a whole bunch of Joy-Cons for a Switch 2 is unhinged.

• 19:44Russ Frushtick?

  Okay, but you're guaranteed to have two.

• 19:47Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, which does cover most of it.

• 19:49Russ Frushtick?

  Most of the games.

• 19:49Chris Plante?

  And it changes the way that the games designed work because everything has to be designed for one Joy-Con. So you go from having an experience where you have, ideally, the Joy-Con and the nunchuck. And they are like meaty, like substantial devices that have like precision to switching to the Joy-Cons, which are less precise. And just like fussy, they're small, and you have fewer of them. I'm not saying that this is a game breaker by any means. I'm just saying, if they had shipped this game as a free pack-in with another Joy-Con set, I would be over the moon. Like, that'd be great. Like, great. Now, more people are gonna be able to play this in party mode.

• 20:32Chris Plante?

  It is not a full-priced game. There's like a long legacy of these games being free. Because ultimately, these are like, compared to Nintendo games, they're like small party games, right? It just feels like, it feels like such a wild ask to basically be like, I need you to go spend 60 bucks on this game. And if you wanna have like a true four-player experience, I need you to go buy Joy-Cons too.

• 20:55Russ Frushtick?

  Okay, so I agree. Look, I agree. Look, yes, if you wanna play a four-player experience, yes, you need to buy Joy-Cons 100%. And for what it's worth, Joy-Cons are $100. So I don't know what this bundle would cost, but it would probably be a lot of fucking money for a Switch 4.

• 21:09Chris Plante?

  That's even more reason for them to include it with the Joy-Cons!

• 21:12Russ Frushtick?

  But I don't, but, I don't think that this feels like the pack-in quality that was Wii Sports when it first launched. Like, I think it's higher than that. Um, I think the larger point that I would say is, and Griffin made this point earlier, is, I will speak for myself. I had a fucking blast having, with only two Joy-Cons at our disposal, swat, switching between different people. And also by playing games where you only need one Joy-Con. Some of the games, you do need two. So like, uh, archery, for example, you need two at the same time. So in that case, we were just like handing.

• 21:48Griffin McElroy?

  But that's pass and play. I don't, is there a game in here that

• 21:53Russ Frushtick?

  simultaneous?

• 21:53Griffin McElroy?

  simultaneous play using two, like?

• 21:56Russ Frushtick?

  I don't know, because even, even jet ski, uh, you can do, with just one Joy-Con, if you hold the controller sideways.

• 22:03Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah. So like, I don't, I don't, I haven't had that issue where I've been like, god dang, I wish I had more Joy-Cons. Also, another big, a big difference here, I think, is also the online play is pretty great. Like, it works really well, and there's different modes that, uh, you know, are, I think, only available on the online play. Like, archery has a fun one where you are, uh, you know, shooting at a target that's sort of split into quadrants.

• 22:27Russ Frushtick?

  Archery is fantastic.

• 22:28Griffin McElroy?

  Like, gets, the archery is so fucking good.

• 22:30Russ Frushtick?

  Genuinely, it's so good.

• 22:31Griffin McElroy?

  Truly, I think it's, I think it's really great.

• 22:33Chris Plante?

  I'm gonna go back and play more archery. I, I think I didn't give archery enough time.

• 22:37Griffin McElroy?

  I think archery's great. I think golf, I think golf.

• 22:39Russ Frushtick?

  Golf stresses me out. It's good.

• 22:41Griffin McElroy?

  Golf is almost great. Golf is a little, golf is the only one that I do feel like is a little too finicky.

• 22:48Russ Frushtick?

  It demands too much of you.

• 22:49Griffin McElroy?

  With the controls. Yeah. Like, bowling, I think, uh, is a great selling point for the, like, accuracy of the movement of the Joy-Con. Because you can really feel every little, especially when you're trying to bowl a straight line down one of those side rails on 100-pin mode, like, you know if you fucked it up, like, even by a millimeter. It's really, really responsive and feels fantastic.

• 23:11Russ Frushtick?

  You were sort of implying that bowling was the, like, reason to buy this, to have bowling?

• 23:16Griffin McElroy?

  Oh, absolutely.

• 23:17Russ Frushtick?

  I think, I think genuinely, for me, bowling is like maybe four or five.

• 23:23Griffin McElroy?

  Really?

• 23:24Russ Frushtick?

  It's low. I would put archery on top of that. I put aforementioned thumb wrestling on top of that. My son, okay, so there's like multiple layers of this game that like, how much a five-year-old could play versus a nine-year-old, et cetera. The plane is the perfect example of this, because I can enjoy a two-player match with my son playing the plane game, the whatever it's called, where he, really having very little, like, motor skills whatsoever, can like fly a fucking plane through the air without really thinking about it. And I'm actually like going around collecting cameras and things like that. So like, there's a lot of layers that this game is working on, depending on what the mini-game is, which is, from a, like, party perspective, fucking fantastic.

• 24:09Griffin McElroy?

  Right. Um, my main complaint about the game is less about its, like, value proposition, or maybe it kind of is. I, I wish that it was somehow packaged together with, or you had some option to fold in the games from Nintendo Switch Sports Resort. Specifically, like, if this one had sword fighting.

• 24:32Russ Frushtick?

  Uh, you mean from the Witch Resort, Witch?

• 24:34Griffin McElroy?

  Oh, I'm sorry, Nintendo Switch Sports.

• 24:36Russ Frushtick?

  Oh, yeah.

• 24:36Griffin McElroy?

  Uh, if it had sword fighting from Nintendo Switch Sports, if it had baseball, which I thought was pretty fun from Nintendo Switch Sports, like, I would love a comprehensive, it feels weird to have this kind of, uh, bifurcated, sort of like, well, if you wanna play. The sword fighting is so fucking fun. It's so fun. It is like, it has always been great in all of the, like, Nintendo's sports collections. It's a bummer that, like, I don't know, I guess I have to switch.

• 25:01Chris Plante?

  I have a theory. I have a theory. I think the reason we got this so close after the last one is they want to do what they've been doing with things like Mortal, or not Mortal Kombat, Mario Kart 8, where they just add and add and add on to it over the course of a long generation.

• 25:16Russ Frushtick?

  Do an expansion pack.

• 25:16Chris Plante?

  Yeah. And I think we will gradually see this become the kind of default Nintendo Switch Sports. What a weird naming convention. But like, I, I think that this game will get built upon. I mean, we already know from the previous one that they'll add a little bit, but I, I could imagine them adding a ton to this game.

• 25:36Griffin McElroy?

  It's been a hit here. I, um, I don't know, I've, I've really enjoyed it, and I, I've played it by myself a little bit. Uh, because the crowd, there's like a single-player, almost campaign mode that's like, alright, I, I mostly wanna just be able to bowl and just take the fucking limiters off and just go back to the old ways. And it, it really, there is something kind of magical about the fact that, like, the first time I picked up Nintendo Switch Sports Resort bowling, I was, I was, I was throwing fucking heaters down the lane in the way that I knew I could, back when I was 20 years old and like playing this game, you know, on, on the Wii.

• 26:18Griffin McElroy?

  Uh, it's, it's, it's really pretty incredible how like, that stuff sticks with you. And, and I, this game does such a great job of, I don't know, luring old players back in while I think shockingly making it like really, really appealing to kids who have never played, you know, a game with motion controls like this.

• 26:40Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah. I would feel better about it if it weren't for that Switch Sports game that came out in 2023. I would feel better.

• 26:46Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 26:47Russ Frushtick?

  Uh, because I would be like, unreservedly forget about it.

• 26:51Griffin McElroy?

  It was April 22, so this is, this is, uh, four years ago.

• 26:55Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, four years ago. So not like a small amount, but like, it's just a little bit of a drag.

• 26:59Griffin McElroy?

  By Nintendo standards.

• 27:00Russ Frushtick?

  This is a Switch 2 exclusive, for what it's worth. So if you don't have a Switch 2, you're kind of.

• 27:05Griffin McElroy?

  How are you gonna skateboard with a Switch 1? Fucking, forget about it, man.

• 27:09Russ Frushtick?

  But yeah, I, I was pretty skeptical and uninspired, like, going in, and came away with like, oh yeah, they're fucking, I think they did a really, really good job on this. It's really good.

• 27:23Griffin McElroy?

  Um, yeah, I, I mean, I dream of a, like, just make it a platform, like, make it in the, in the, in the sort of like Jackbox fashion, the way that they've like, you know, turned, turned that idea of these, like, mini-games into like a, a platform that can be expanded on. Like, I think that this has, I think this has like real legs, uh, for, for that. And I'm, I'm hopeful that they can do more stuff with it, because I think we're gonna be playing it for, for a while.

• 27:48Russ Frushtick?

  It does seem unlikely that we're gonna see another Switch Sports game on the Switch 2.

• 27:53Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, no, but I'm saying, I'm not, I'm saying, yeah, just keep expanding, expanding this one. Make the deal.

• 27:58Chris Plante?

  Yeah, I also would not wait for a sale or any free thing like I have described, because the last Switch, the, the one that got negative, not negative, it got like 7 out of 10 reviews. It was still, I think, just outside of the top 10 in Switch's overall sales, even coming out late in its life cycle. I think it was like 11. So they are incentivized to keep updating this game for a long time.

• 28:22Russ Frushtick?

  You're gonna have people, you're gonna go to Thanksgiving, and someone's gonna have a Switch 2 and have this game, and it's gonna be the fucking talk of Thanksgiving.

• 28:28Chris Plante?

  Though, though, I, a small, I'm sorry, I'm not trying to just be rank, I overall like this game.

• 28:33Russ Frushtick?

  No, no, no, I don't either like it. It's fine. It's fine.

• 28:36Chris Plante?

  The, if you play this in handheld mode, not all of the local multiplayer stuff works.

• 28:42Russ Frushtick?

  How do you play it in handheld mode?

• 28:44Chris Plante?

  You just use the screen and you take the Joy-Cons off.

• 28:47Russ Frushtick?

  You just stand the screen up?

• 28:48Chris Plante?

  Yeah, I'm saying it's like, part of it is like, oh, great, you can take this wherever you want and play it at Thanksgiving without bringing your, your, like, Switch portal, connect to the TV. You still probably wanna do that.

• 28:58Griffin McElroy?

  I, I think that this would be a thing where like, if the Switch 2 wasn't selling well, if they were having trouble pushing it, like, would be a de facto, like, pack-in with the, with the thing. And you can get, they are, they have released a bundle with the Switch 2 and, uh, Nintendo Switch Sports Resort, which I, I only think you save like 30 bucks or something like that total by getting them bundled together. So it's not like the best deal, uh, on, on earth, but.

• 29:23Chris Plante?

  And that timing is good. They got all the hardcore weirdos like us with Donkey Kong Bonanza, and now they have this for all the.

• 29:29Russ Frushtick?

  They know what they're doing.

• 29:30Chris Plante?

  They know what they're doing. They know what they're doing!

• 29:31Griffin McElroy?

  I would say it falls just shy of Nintendo Land from the Wii U, which I'm still waiting on a Nintendo Land 2 on the Switch 2, uh, of, of being like the killer app of, for like what the, what the, what the device itself can do. But it's, it's, it's really great, and it's been a real crowd pleaser.

• 29:52Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 29:53Griffin McElroy?

  Um, let's take a quick break, and then, uh, I've, I've played a bit of Final Fantasy Resonance that I can talk about after, after this quick, quick, uh, message from our sponsors.

• 30:03Russ 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.

• 30:47Russ Frushtick?

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• 31:24Russ Frushtick?

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• 32:05Russ Frushtick?

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• 32:16Griffin McElroy?

  I know that you guys did not play this game.

• 32:19Russ Frushtick?

  Well, maybe Chris played this game. Did you play it?

• 32:21Chris Plante?

  I tried to play the beginning and then I wasn't able to get it to run on my AYN Thor when I was traveling. So.

• 32:30Griffin McElroy?

  That's surprising. You know what? That's actually not surprising because I fucked around with Droid Deck and also could not, because there's like a Windows C++ visual.

• 32:41Chris Plante?

  I think it runs now post-launch, but it was having troubles before.

• 32:45Griffin McElroy?

  Well, I could, I played it a little bit. Yeah, I played it on the Rog LIX and it works fine.

• 32:51Russ Frushtick?

  The Republic of Gamer LIX?

• 32:53Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, the Republic of Gamers LIX. If you did not play Final Fantasy Brave Exuvius, specifically the first story arc called Lapis from Final Fantasy Brave Exuvius in the 2015 mobile gacha-based RPG, then I don't know what to tell you.

• 33:13Russ Frushtick?

  It's new to you.

• 33:15Griffin McElroy?

  It's new to you. I think I did probably play some of that mobile game when it first launched because I'm a fucking Final Fantasy freak. But not enough to, that this feels like old hat. What they've done is taken it, they've stripped out all the gacha mechanics entirely and just turned it into, you know, a real game. And I think it is a really unique thing that I don't, I don't, I'm kind of mixed about. It is a game about you are a knight of this sort of besieged kingdom where these six bad knights who have come from another world come to destroy all the crystals. Stop me if you've heard this one before.

• 33:59Griffin McElroy?

  And so you set off on a sort of romp around the world, visiting different cities and recruiting new party members as you try to find out what these guys are up to and stop them.

• 34:08Russ Frushtick?

  This one got crystals in it?

• 34:10Griffin McElroy?

  This one's got crystals in it. Yeah, for sure. It also has a girl with magic powers who doesn't have any memories.

• 34:16Russ Frushtick?

  Oh, no.

• 34:17Griffin McElroy?

  So like.

• 34:18Russ Frushtick?

  Special boy, special boy?

• 34:20Griffin McElroy?

  I don't know about special boy yet. I don't know about special boy.

• 34:23Russ Frushtick?

  Kill God?

• 34:24Griffin McElroy?

  Kill God? I haven't yet, but I've recruited gods. And so that's been nice. It really is a, it is a best of. It is a kind of like a pastiche of past Final Fantasy games.

• 34:40Russ Frushtick?

  Because the characters come back, right? Like there's old characters.

• 34:42Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, so I mean that in some direct and some indirect ways, right? The indirect ways is like, there's crystals. And like the towns, like here's the town of Moblis, you know, from FF6, I think. Like, there's a lot of shit that you'll see. And then there's things that are like, you know, franchise mainstays, specifically the summons, right? Those are in the game too. You've got, you know, Ramah and Carbuncle.

• 35:06Russ Frushtick?

  Bahamut.

• 35:07Griffin McElroy?

  Probably, yeah. No, Bahamut is definitely up in this one. And so you're like recruiting them as you find them around the world. And, you know, chocobos and whatever. And then there is the element that was the sort of gacha mechanic of Brave Exuvius, which in that game you would have draws from a machine where you would pull characters from past Final Fantasy games, which would be your visions, which is basically the class system in the game. Like each character has sort of a, you know, a set of stuff that they're good at. Like this is the healer character. This one is the like status breaker character. This one is the tank character. But then you equip them with these visions, which are characters from past Final Fantasy games like Squall and Cloud and Terra.

• 35:52Griffin McElroy?

  And, I mean, they go deep in the fucking paint. They got, you know, Onion Knight from FF3. They've got what's-his-face from FF2.

• 36:02Russ Frushtick?

  My favorite.

• 36:04Griffin McElroy?

  Oh, God, I should really remember his name. I've played all of these fucking games at this point.

• 36:08Russ Frushtick?

  Red Mage, White Mage, they're all here.

• 36:11Griffin McElroy?

  The first two you unlock are White Mage and Black Mage. Yeah, so, yeah, I mean, they're all here. And so instead of paying money and randomly pulling them out of places, you will just find them in these shrines in the world.

• 36:23Russ Frushtick?

  And you're not, so you're not playing as Cloud, right? You're playing as like the ghost of Cloud? Like, how does that manifest in the game?

• 36:30Griffin McElroy?

  You go into a little shrine and you go up to this big crystal and you talk to it and it's like, and here is a vision that's come to help you. Let's meet them. And it shows you like a bunch of like tiny panels of cutscenes from FF7. And it's like, imagine you were a mercenary who had, was working to fight the totalitarian, you know, government who is trying to drain all the energy from the world. What would you do? And it asks you some questions. The questions, the way you answer them doesn't fucking matter even a little bit. But it's enough to give you some like background on, you know, here's this character from this game.

• 37:11Russ Frushtick?

  In the original, in the original format, I would imagine it's like, oh, I'm going to get excited because I'm going to get a Final Fantasy character.

• 37:16Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, because it's a random thing, right? And this one, it is preordained. You go to the Shrine of Terra and there's Terra. And then that is like sort of the additional class system where you are ranking up your like affinity with those visions and unlocking new skills. You're unlocking like passive benefits that you can, you know, equip even when you don't have that, that vision equipped. So it's like, oh, I'm going to dip into Zedain from FF9 so I can learn the steal ability and then I'll equip that. And then, you know, if I'm playing more of a magic-based build, I still have the option to get in there and steal if I think the enemy's got something.

• 37:50Russ Frushtick?

  Do these characters show up beyond just like their icons?

• 37:53Griffin McElroy?

  No, they are, so they are constantly standing behind you in battle, which is kind of a cool effect. It's almost like a Persona-style thing.

• 38:00Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 38:00Griffin McElroy?

  If you use, you know, Squall's big like fire attack, I forget what it's called. He will like jump out from behind you and do it. Like, it looks cool. It's neat, but it's not like.

• 38:12Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 38:13Griffin McElroy?

  You don't talk to Cloud at some point.

• 38:15Russ Frushtick?

  There wouldn't be any way to narratively do it. I understand.

• 38:17Griffin McElroy?

  He's like, you got Mako in this world? What's up? You got Emateria? Is that a thing you guys do here? Like, it does, it simply doesn't, it doesn't pop up. It is just like Final Fantasy flavor on top of everything else, right? The world is very like, almost, it's not an open world game, but like the activities that you are doing feel kind of open worldy. I mentioned the like different shrines that you find all around. That's how you unlock the visions. But then like, you'll find like a cave that has like a tough boss fight in it. Or you'll find like one little area that is going to be used for one side quest and that's more or less it. So like, exploring the world is pretty rewarding. And I think mechanically, the game has a lot of stuff going on.

• 39:00Griffin McElroy?

  Like, I really enjoy a good job system in an RPG. And Final Fantasy does it, you know, just about the best out there. And I think this game does a really, really good job of letting you really, you know, customize your team, customize what skills they have, what they can do. It is a game where it feels really rewarding to get out there and grind. And the combat is like pretty fun. There's like a stagger meter on every enemy. And it encourages you to kind of like chain together staggers. Because if you can stagger every enemy at the same time, it kicks off this like insane bonus round.

• 39:33Russ Frushtick?

  Is there any like active element or is it just turn-based?

• 39:35Griffin McElroy?

  No, there's no, you know, press this button in time to like do this or whatever. It's all, it's all turn-based, very classic sort of JRPG stuff. And so like, I have been really enjoying playing it. And I have felt like pulled along to like, I gotta get to the next chapter because I know when I get to the next chapter, I'm going to unlock like four new visions. And I want to see, I want to see who the fuck they got. I want to see who they got showing up. Onion Knight showed up. I was like, oh damn, it's Onion Knight. I can't believe they got this fool. And so like, and also like, it's not just nostalgia for nostalgia's sake. It's like, well, they, they have some unique abilities that I'm gonna be able to fold in and

• 40:16Griffin McElroy?

  make this, make this, uh, you know, character I've been specializing feel, have, have a little bit more capacity. It ain't easy. Like it's, it's, it is just on the normal difficulty. Like you do have to have your wits about you and you do have to like, I've had some boss fights where I've gotten my ass stomped and have had to like go back and reevaluate like, okay, I, I need to be able to target this elemental weakness. I'm gonna throw this vision back on, change some shit around. And so like, you, you really do have to engage with the game mechanically. There's not like an auto battle mode where you just like press start and it does all the shit for you. Like you really have to pay attention to the mechanics. So like mechanically, I think the game's great. I think it's got it going on. The music's fucking fantastic. I think it's one of the better like 2D, 3D, what do they call it? HD 2D?

• 41:01Chris Plante?

  Oh, yeah.

• 41:01Griffin McElroy?

  HD 2D gaze. Like it looks fantastic. Uh, and there's like really wild shit that happens where like, uh, when you get into this like full stagger mode, you can activate your visions like super duper attack. And then it jumps from being like this HD 2D thing to like just a fully 3D rendered, you know, cloud shows up and does, you know, his, uh, uh, Omni Slash or whatever. Uh, and it's, it's just like, it's crazy. Like it's just sort of visually bonkers. So I'm like, I'm enjoying it. I'm on like chapter four, I think. Uh, I've, I've put maybe a dozen or so hours into it.

• 41:38Griffin McElroy?

  The characters are fun and the dialogue is pretty good. Like the, on the Final Fantasy scale, I think they do a pretty good job of like characterization and stuff like that. But as you might've inferred from me discussing the premise of the story, it's bad. Like it feels bad. It's really, really.

• 41:58Chris Plante?

  Do you think that's because you haven't heard the rest of the tale of Lilac or whatever?

• 42:04Griffin McElroy?

  No, I mean, uh, it could be doing a thing that of like, uh, oh, actually all these bad knights are characters maybe that you also know, and they're doing stuff. But like even that is sort of old hat for Final Fantasy and like it just, it just, it's the one part of the game that just still kind of feels like throwaway mobile slop.

• 42:27Chris Plante?

  Yeah.

• 42:27Griffin McElroy?

  Um, and I don't know, I don't know how you, are you gonna fully rewrite Final Fantasy Brave Exuvius? So that like the story hits a little bit harder? Cause every other part of the game, like they've really done a great job of, of remastering and making it that this is a feat that I don't know I've seen accomplished before of like a developer, especially a large developer like Square Enix saying like, there was this game we made for mobile devices that was, you know, uh, predatory and like not, uh, not, not a great, not one of our best games, but there was a lot to it that we thought was really cool. So what if we made it into like

• 43:08Griffin McElroy?

  a more fully featured, uh, proper traditional game? I think they've done a really great job of that in some points. And then there's some points that's like, maybe there is no salvaging that particular aspect of the game, namely the story.

• 43:21Chris Plante?

  I will say this has been done before by Square Enix and that is Octopath Traveler Zero, which is an adaptation.

• 43:28Griffin McElroy?

  Very recently. Yeah, that's a great point.

• 43:29Chris Plante?

  Octopath Traveler Champions of the Continent. Um, yes. Do you think, I mean, listening to you talk about all this, do you think we will see the opposite of the Final Fantasy VII modern remakes? We get like a Final Fantasy XV remake into HD 2D?

• 43:48Griffin McElroy?

  Well, friend, I mean, they did make that Final Fantasy, I think it was 15, uh, uh, like mobile game. That was like a full version of FF15, but it was like, you played on mobile devices and it looked fucking completely different. So like, yeah, I mean, they fuck around with this a lot. Um, in terms of like, I don't know what I would like to see from them. There's, there's a lot of, I'm not like a huge fan in general of remakes for remake's sake, unless they're like doing something kind of unique with it. And, you know, I say that, but I haven't loved the FF7 remakes. I've kind of just want them to be more like Final Fantasy VII. Um, but they made like a lot of choices with that.

• 44:34Griffin McElroy?

  But I don't know, they have been, uh, there, there have been rumors of a FF9 remake for like a long time. And I would be over the moon for that because FF9 is one of my favorite games ever. It is probably, it's maybe my favorite Final Fantasy game. It's up there with VII. And, uh, they haven't done anything with it really. Uh, and so like, I, but, so I don't know what I would want that to be. Just like a Final Fantasy IX that like looks better and plays the same. I don't know. I can play FF9 on anything. I can play it on my phone. Oh, it's fucking great. It's so good. It's such a unique sort of like special games. Like I don't, I don't, I don't know what I would want

• 45:14Griffin McElroy?

  from them in this kind of like capacity, because I, I kind of just want them to keep making new Final Fantasy games and, you know, make them ideally better. Cause I haven't liked the last couple.

• 45:27Russ Frushtick?

  It seems like all of these strategies and obviously some of them succeeded more than others are like, I don't know about primarily driven, but certainly driven by this is a less risky endeavor than you would start an entire project from scratch. And we're gonna like, you know, come up with an entire world and story and all that stuff from scratch versus we have all the game systems in play. We have all the assets more or less. We have to make some tweaks, obviously with the new art style. And so we're seeing, um, companies like Square do that approach. And then we're seeing companies like Capcom do the approach of like ground, floor to ceiling remakes, but still obviously doing.

• 46:08Griffin McElroy?

  And I think they're better at it. Capcom's better at like the, the, what they have done with Resident Evil, uh, with the Resident Evil remakes has just been like, yeah, it's Resident Evil, but like it feels a lot more like a modern game and it looks fucking fantastic. And, but it still feels like that game.

• 46:23Russ Frushtick?

  I think they, I think Square in particular has a challenge because if you look at their games, they're, they, you know, their RPG could be 60 fucking hours. Whereas a lot of those Resident Evil games are 15 hours maybe. So the idea you're gonna make a, that's why these Resident Evil, I'm sorry. That's why these Final Fantasy VII remakes have taken so long. It's because the games are so fucking huge.

• 46:44Griffin McElroy?

  They're so big. I get it. I get that there's unique challenges here. I just, um, I don't know. I, I, I, I feel like I'm coming off very negative. When like I have been enjoying this game.

• 46:55Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah. I think it's a smart strategy from a business perspective, especially like, I'm sure there's a lot of people that really liked Exuvius and were bummed the fact that it was like cloistered on mobile and finally other people get to experience the story that they enjoyed. So I think it's smart.

• 47:10Griffin McElroy?

  I think it is smart. I think that it, I think they could have done more with like the old Final Fantasy shit. For me, the gold standard is still Final Fantasy XIV. Final Fantasy XIV, if you've never really played it, like it's a unique game with its own storyline that crosses over all these different expansions. And like the quality of the story is like hit or miss. Like some of the expansions are just okay. And then you get like Shadowbringers, which is my favorite Final Fantasy story ever told. And you have to really put in the work to get there. But they also have added raids and like, uh, you know, big boss fights and, uh,

• 47:49Griffin McElroy?

  even folded some of that shit into like the, the, the storylines of the, of the expansions where like, it's just Kefka. Like now you're fighting Kefka and like, we're gonna give you some FF6 flavor as you like work your way up to it. And that stuff is fantastic. And it's not just Final Fantasy. They have the whole near, uh, the whole like near set of raids, uh, that they did. That's just like, this is a cool fucking adventure in near world with like really kickass boss fights that use mechanics from the video game that it put like FF14 does that shit so well. And, and this game definitely dabbles in, in that stuff, but it feels more like surface level.

• 48:30Griffin McElroy?

  You know, after the cut scene where you get like an explainer of like, this is who Squall is. Listening to them try to recap the plot of Final Fantasy 8 is worth the price of admission. Cause it's like, imagine, okay. So imagine you're a student of this organization and there's a sorceress. But then it turns out your girlfriend is also fated to become that sorceress. So you go on a journey through time, but also through dreams. And it's like, you have two minutes to encapsulate this whole thing. Good fucking luck, man.

• 49:03Chris Plante?

  Do you think you would have enjoyed this game more if it came with Joycons?

• 49:07Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, I definitely, if this had been a pack in with Joycons.

• 49:09Chris Plante?

  That makes sense. Yeah, that checks out.

• 49:11Griffin McElroy?

  No, I, I've, I've been enjoying it, but I have, I've felt my momentum start to slow a little bit where I, where I am in the game. Because, um, I don't know, the story is just really, really leaving me pretty cold. Um, and so the joy of like discovery and, you know, customizing my, my characters and stuff has started to, to wane a little bit.

• 49:31Russ Frushtick?

  Did either of you ever review, like fully review front to back a Final Fantasy game?

• 49:37Griffin McElroy?

  Oh yeah, brother. Fucking FF13. I got FF13, I think four days before the game came out. And, uh, it is the hardest I ever had to poop sock a game to like get a review out. And I did get my review out on time, but I literally just played it non-stop. I played it and then I would sleep for six hours and then I would wake up and I would play it again.

• 49:57Russ Frushtick?

  I just can't imagine how brutal.

• 50:00Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, no, it was really.

• 50:01Chris Plante?

  What's the origin of the term poop sock?

• 50:03Russ Frushtick?

  Someone pooped in a sock when they couldn't leave the desk.

• 50:06Griffin McElroy?

  In a sock when they had to play a game. The only two I ever had to do that was-

• 50:08Chris Plante?

  I don't want to get caught in technicalities or just-

• 50:09Griffin McElroy?

  FF13 I do that with and Legend of Zelda Skyward Sword I got in like real hot and then played through all of in a very, very short span of time. Uh, anyway, that's a, that's, that's residence. It's, it's cool and I'm glad that I played it. Um, I don't know if I'm gonna finish it, but um, it's been neat.

• 50:29Russ Frushtick?

  Uh, we have some reader mail we could go through real quick.

• 50:33Griffin McElroy?

  Okay.

• 50:33Russ Frushtick?

  This one comes from Jaconian. So excited to hear Griffin's reading Discworld. I highly recommend reading them in the published order and don't bother with the lists that break them out. These are the witch books. These are death books. These are watchbooks and don't try to binge your way through. Take your time. Read a couple of books a year and you're good. I would, that's more or less what I do.

• 50:50Griffin McElroy?

  That is the route I ultimately, after looking at like people's recommendations, the overwhelming chorus was like, just read them in publishing order. And then it's like fun because you'll hit a book and you'll be like, oh shit, Rinse wins back. That's fun. I'm reading equal rights right now and it's fucking great.

• 51:04Russ Frushtick?

  Really good.

• 51:04Griffin McElroy?

  I was really worried like, am I gonna still enjoy this thing if I'm like starting over with like a new cast of characters? And it's like, actually, uh, yeah. Cause the characters in this book also kick ass.

• 51:15Russ Frushtick?

  That's what I think was so surprising to me is I would always come upon a new series and be like, I don't know if I care about witches or like the cops of the city. Like who cares? And it would always come around and man, he was such a good fucking writer.

• 51:27Griffin McElroy?

  I'm loving it. Yeah. It's, it's been a, it's exciting. It's really truly exciting. I feel like I've like, I don't know, found a new, just a new category of entertainment that like I had never really experienced.

• 51:41Russ Frushtick?

  Sadly, I don't think they ever made a great game. People can correct if I'm wrong about this, write in, but I don't know that there's ever been like a great Discworld game, which is fine.

• 51:50Griffin McElroy?

  Maybe, I don't know.

• 51:51Russ Frushtick?

  Okay. This one comes from James W. Uh, my eldest is graduating high school next month. Uh, and my wife and I are going to get her a portable handheld that can play 3DS level games, obviously not actually 3DS titles, but games at that level.

• 52:07Russ Frushtick?

  Should we get an Ein Thor? It's a bit pricier than the Retroid Pocket Duel screen I, uh, that just came out, but it seems like it might be worth it to spend for the extra beefiness.

• 52:18Griffin McElroy?

  Um, I've heard good things about the Retroid Pocket Duo. Uh, I don't know that it can do everything that the Thor does, but like, if you're just looking for 3DS quality games and not like anything beefier than that, I, I, I'm, I think the duo would probably get you there.

• 52:36Chris Plante?

  If you want, if, if you think that there might be a chance that you'd be using game native and Steam games, that's where the Thor comes in and like the higher end of the Thor. But if, if it truly is just like, not the 3DS, but games that maybe are very similar to the 3DS, the duo seems like it should be fine enough, right?

• 52:55Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah. I don't know. I don't follow the space quite as closely.

• 52:58Chris Plante?

  I would check it out. Retro Game Corp. Like-

• 53:00Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah. See what good Russ says and uh, I, from what I can tell, it's, it's, it's pretty good though.

• 53:07Russ Frushtick?

  Um, this last letter comes from, oh wait, we have a second Jaconian letter. I didn't even mean to do that, but Jaconian has some good notes. Uh, Jaconian writes, I don't remember which episode Russ mentioned it, but I wanted to thank him for his recommendation of the Breath of the Wild art book at over 400 pages. This book is massive and I love it. I wish Nintendo slash Dark Horse would do this with Age of Calamity or Age of Imprisonment, but I'm not holding my breath. Uh, those were the, uh, High Rule Warriors, um, spinoffs.

• 53:36Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 53:37Russ Frushtick?

  Completely agree. That book is amazing. Uh, if you're not aware, there is actually a Tears of the Kingdom book called Secrets of the Zone Eye from the same publisher that is coming out, I guess in April, I think pre-orders just went live. Um, if it's anything close to the fucking quality of the Breath of the Wild art book, that book is insane. My son has been reading it cover to cover, like every single night he asked for it. It is so heavy. I think he's gonna break his foot. Uh, I need to carry it around the house for him. Uh, but he's always like asking questions about the art and then we'll visit the locations of the game and all that stuff. So, uh, look out for that. But if you love Breath of the Wild, uh, you can get this book for insanely cheap. Uh, so just look online. Uh, the Breath of the Wild book is really, really good.

• 54:18Griffin McElroy?

  Awesome.

• 54:19Russ Frushtick?

  That's it. Uh, any honorable mentions?

• 54:22Griffin McElroy?

  I, uh, finished Castlevania Belmont's Curse, finished 100%ing it. Uh, and I, my opinions have not changed in any kind of dramatic fashion. It's pretty good. Uh, what I really want to talk about, and maybe we can't talk about it a ton, is we did finish our Big Walk. We didn't conclude our Big Walk last week and, uh, I think this one's gonna be tough to beat fam. I think this is gonna be a tough one to beat. Gody Wise, the last, uh, the last hour and a half of this game introduces some,

• 55:02Griffin McElroy?

  some sort of ideas, some, some ways of thinking about, uh, the people you are playing this game with, uh, that no video game has ever done before. Truly, I can say authoritatively, there are elements of, of the game in that back sort of, uh, chapter of, of, of Big Walk that become less about like solving puzzles with your friends and more about like knowing how your friends solve puzzles. And like knowing how your friend and knowing how your friends like to interact with video games.

• 55:41Griffin McElroy?

  And like realizing that over the course of your time with the game, you have been subtly learning that. That's, that's new. Like that's, I've never, ever, ever seen that considered in a video game before. And then it has, I've heard this from people. Uh, and I, I was, I wasn't sure how it accomplishes, but like has a truly emotional kind of, uh, finale that is really something I cannot stop thinking about.

• 56:13Russ Frushtick?

  It was really incredible and I, we, even in the Gody episode, I can't talk about it.

• 56:20Griffin McElroy?

  We'll have to do a standalone spoiler.

• 56:21Chris Plante?

  Yeah, we need to do a spoiler episode for sure.

• 56:23Griffin McElroy?

  Cause I, I have been wanting to, I have, uh, I, I have my friend JD, like was talking to me about the game and said like, let me know as soon as you finish it. And then as soon as we did, I was like, oh, I get why you have been desperate to talk about this with someone because it is so spoilable. It is so ruinable and there's a lot about this game that feels so precious because you gotta play it. You have to, it has to be appointment like gaming. It has to be, we have it on our calendar every week. We know we've played, finished it with a group of seven people, the three of us and Juice and, uh, some other folks. And you gotta play it like that and-

• 57:05Russ Frushtick?

  You don't need seven people, I would say.

• 57:07Griffin McElroy?

  You don't need seven people. No, you can do it with two. I think with two people, like it would be a different, like different experience. I encourage people, I was talking about it a little bit on, on stream the other day. Like if you don't know people that you could play this with, like find a pickup group. Like I bet you could find a group of people online who are looking for people to play Big Walk with. And I bet that would be a really unique experience of like getting to, no, I truly need it.

• 57:29Russ Frushtick?

  Until someone starts talking about anti-vaxing and-

• 57:32Griffin McElroy?

  Okay. Well, don't, obviously factoring in that would be bad, but like this thing I'm talking about of like learning about how your friends play games and learning about how involved they like to get in, in like problem solving process, like learning that about a group of strangers, I bet would also be very unique and cool. But like, you're only gonna get that experience once. And so I, you gotta make sure that it's like with a group of people who will be there on time and you gotta make sure you set aside ample time for the ending. Cause it, it will be, it's demanding. Uh, but it is, man, it's really special. It's a really, really, really special game that, uh, delivered a kind of, I don't know, a sort of emotional payload

• 58:15Griffin McElroy?

  that I don't think a game has really done before, or at least not one that I've played. Um, so yeah, it's, it's my Gody with a bullet right now and I, I don't know what's gonna dethrone it, but

• 58:25Russ Frushtick?

  We'll see.

• 58:26Griffin McElroy?

  You know, there's still a couple of months, so.

• 58:28Russ Frushtick?

  Point, you got anything?

• 58:29Chris Plante?

  I've been going back and playing a variety of stuff just to get a taste of some of the games that we've enjoyed over the years as we prep for Gody. But one thing I want to talk about is what I talked about briefly last week, which is Ace Combat, cause I went back to it and I did what I did with Ace Combat 7, flipped on those expert controls after I had a sense of what I was doing. And let me tell you, I feel the need, the need for speed. The G-force turns in this game are utterly deranged. And it does this great thing where you can just re-center to the horizon whenever you want. So it's like bonkers as you get, you still have a sense of control. Um, that said, oh my, do I still recommend the path that I take unless you're a hardcore person who plays these games all the time

• 59:14Chris Plante?

  of starting with basic controls because the game is still not intuitive in its way pointing of what you need to focus on, on these humongous battlefields. And learning that while also learning the expert controls of being able to do a barrel roll, uh, which that's simple. But being able to do all of that and bring it all together is quite tough. But if you are willing to replay these missions, it goes from feeling like, like being in Top Gun, the movie to like actually being in a fighter jet. You just-

• 59:48Russ Frushtick?

  Which Brad knows about.

• 59:49Chris Plante?

  Which I, which I do all, all the time. You just have such a greater sense of like your turns and like actually really getting on someone's tail. You feel way more in control of it rather than it being like a movie that you are participating in. I will say as the game progresses,

• 1:00:08Chris Plante?

  it does a thing that just drives me bonkers, especially like in horror usually, but in really anything where, uh, it uses fictional names for like fantasy settings. And then it's like, but did you notice that rhymes with something in the real world? Do you think that this might be about the real world? And I don't think the game, uh, is best when it is doing that. I think it is best when it is like a very, and like emotionally affecting melodramatic anime. Um, I think it's like one to wanting is, is far less interesting to me, though I'm sure that there are a lot of people who like

• 1:00:49Chris Plante?

  military simulation games that probably enjoy that, uh, just not for me. But overall, I'm, I'm really glad that I'm like now pretty deep into it and like feel like I'm, I'm locked in for, for the rest of the game.

• 1:01:02Griffin McElroy?

  Do you think you'll finish it?

• 1:01:03Chris Plante?

  I do. Yeah. It, there's a thing that happens around like mission nine or 10 that is so utterly bonkers. Um, that it, it kind of is like, okay, well, if you can pull that off, I need to see what the rest is, but I won't, I won't spoil that for now. We might talk about that closer to the end of the year.

• 1:01:21Russ Frushtick?

  It's weird that we had two games in this episode that had Cloud in them.

• 1:01:25Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:27Russ Frushtick?

  I also wanted to talk about Idle Obelisk Minor, which is a game that I've been playing for like four fucking months.

• 1:01:35Russ Frushtick?

  And haven't talked about it partly. I don't know if it's shame.

• 1:01:38Griffin McElroy?

  Cause it's embarrassing.

• 1:01:39Russ Frushtick?

  It's a little embarrassing.

• 1:01:39Griffin McElroy?

  It's embarrassing how good the game is and how steep you get into it.

• 1:01:43Russ Frushtick?

  It's an incremental game on iPhone and probably Android.

• 1:01:47Griffin McElroy?

  I think it's on Steam too. It's everywhere.

• 1:01:49Russ Frushtick?

  Oh yeah. Wow. I can't imagine that playing on a not mobile. Cause it's so, it is, it has supplanted Fire Emblem Heroes, which I hadn't played in many years, but like that experience of like, oh, I have three minutes. I can do something quasi productive on my phone in those three minutes. That wouldn't be enough time to like read a news article or something like that. So I'm going to like fucking harvest this copper or whatever I'm doing. And I played free to play for like three months and then bought, spent money.

• 1:02:21Griffin McElroy?

  The Founder.

• 1:02:22Russ Frushtick?

  Bought the Founder thing, which is.

• 1:02:23Griffin McElroy?

  You got to.

• 1:02:24Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah. You know, it seems like a, I'll, I'll be frank. It is, it's a 50, I spent $50. That's what it costs to buy this Founder thing. I have no intention of spending any more money. I know for people that play gotcha games, they spend, spend way more. I probably ended up spending way more in Fire Emblem Heroes.

• 1:02:45Russ Frushtick?

  I could look at my playtime and tell you that I've unquestionably gotten.

• 1:02:49Griffin McElroy?

  Point, I have spent, I bought that as well. I bought a couple of other things. Not nearly as that expensive, but I think I'm still looking at a like point 001 cents per hour of like time. I've, I've, I've spent so much fucking time. And the development is so great of this game. Like the dev team is fantastic.

• 1:03:09Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah. They did a very good job. And I would also say like, I think there's a mindless aspect to the genre that I always like hit up against, which is just like, well, I'm just watching numbers go up and oh, the numbers are bigger now. And the, the math of like, how do I get over this next hump? I find like very interesting and scratches like actually creative itch in my brain. And there's a cool community on Discord and things like that. So props to this game.

• 1:03:37Russ Frushtick?

  Genuinely though, if you're going to try it out, just play free to play for as long as you can. There's a bunch of codes you can activate on the, on the wiki that'll like give you a shitload of free currency to start you off. That'll be.

• 1:03:47Griffin McElroy?

  They also just released an update like two days ago that is designed to like make the game just more, more enjoyable and less punishing.

• 1:03:55Russ Frushtick?

  Much more welcoming to newcomers.

• 1:03:57Griffin McElroy?

  Much more welcoming. Like they realize like, oh, you, the whole game is about, you know, trying to get over these breakpoints where you can take down these, these obelisks. But it doesn't feel very rewarding to do that. So what if we added like a whole new reward system to it? And then I'm on like obelisk 66 or something and they prorated everything. So I just turned on the game and it's like, hey, here's a million fucking, here's like a million chests and like special currencies and like new shit that you just get. Cause we decided like it hasn't been rewarding enough. Like, I don't know. That feels like a very kind of.

• 1:04:32Russ Frushtick?

  It does not feel remotely predatory, which.

• 1:04:34Griffin McElroy?

  No, not at all. Whatever the opposite of predatory is chill, I guess.

• 1:04:39Russ Frushtick?

  Okay.

• 1:04:40Griffin McElroy?

  That is, that is it. Chris, do you want to give us a recap of the stuff we talked about?

• 1:04:44Chris Plante?

  Yes, I would love to do that. We talked about Nintendo Switch Sports Resort. We also talked about Ace Combat 8, Wings of Thee, Castlevania, Belmont's Curse, Big Walk, Idle Obelisk Minor, and let's not forget Final Fantasy Resonance.

• 1:05:00Griffin McElroy?

  I thought you did forget it.

• 1:05:02Chris Plante?

  No, I'm not. I could, I could, I could feel that anxiety bubbling, but I like to save the best ish for last.

• 1:05:08Griffin McElroy?

  Folks, we have a Patreon where you can go and support us directly over at patreon.com/thebesties. And, and when you do that, you will also get access to episodes of The Resties, where Chris and Russ talk about the games that we don't get around to here on The Besties. You also get access to our monthly bracket battle episodes where we bring on a special guest to decide extremely arbitrary things about video games in a lengthy, some have argued too lengthy tournament style bracket. I'm not sure what the most recent one of those is. Birds up yet?

• 1:05:43Russ Frushtick?

  Birds is coming. First week of November, you're going to get best birds in video games.

• 1:05:50Russ Frushtick?

  Should be.

• 1:05:51Griffin McElroy?

  It's a really good episode.

• 1:05:52Chris Plante?

  What a promise.

• 1:05:52Russ Frushtick?

  It'll be fun. We'll have a clip of that next week in the main feed. You can hear it.

• 1:05:56Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:58Russ Frushtick?

  Uh, cool. I wanted to thank some backers over at the Patreon. We have Bry J, we have Esch Gatan, we have Nick W and Christopher in Sweden. Thank you for being backers of the Patreon. Thank you to everyone else for supporting us and making the show happen. It's, it's awesome and we greatly massively hugely appreciate it. So thank you and thank you to everyone else.

• 1:06:19Griffin McElroy?

  Thank you, thank you. Um, next week we're going to be doing a grab bag because the year's going to pick up steam and then we're going to get into goody stuff. So this is our last chance to sort of talk about some smaller stuff we've been playing. So, um, get ready, get ready, get pumped, get psyched and join us again next week and every week here on The Besties because shouldn't the world's best friends play the world's best game?