Want a New GBA-style Zelda? Try This Indie Game

Pipistrello and the Cursed Yoyo looks and feels like a lost Game Boy Advance game, but with all of the quality of life improvements of a modern game. We talk about what makes it a great game to fill a weekend. In the back half, we share our feelings on the nerd event of the season: Superman!

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

• 0:00Griffin McElroy?

  Name of the year. I know that's not what we do here. I know that we focus more on sort of the holistic package of a video game, but you, you ain't gonna beat Pete Pastrello. You ain't gonna beat Pete Pastrello for name of the year. It's a good name, man.

• 0:16Speaker 01

  Pete Pastrello is fun to say. Is it fun name? I mean, name of the year to say out loud? Maybe.

• 0:25Russ Frushtick?

  Are you judging it as just like a person's name, Justin?

• 0:29Speaker 01

  No, it's just like Pete Pastrello. Does it help me remember?

• 0:33Griffin McElroy?

  Okay, you ain't gonna forget Pete Pastrello.

• 0:35Speaker 01

  If I hear the name, if I hear the name Death Spank, I'm immediately thinking Death Spank, right? I'm like, I'm thinking about the heroic knight with the bad sense of humor and he loves bacon. Death Spank, you know, but Pete Pastrello, I don't know. Who's Pete Pastrello?

• 0:49Russ Frushtick?

  Well, it's in the, it's, are we including the subtitle in the name of the year?

• 0:54Griffin McElroy?

  Pete Pastrello and the cursed yoyo. I mean, the cursed yoyo, like, it's fine. It's, it's, it's not necessary. It's just, it's Pete Pastrello.

• 1:00Speaker 01

  Now, what, what, now what about, what about Y's Memoir, The Oath in Felgana? Cause that's January 7th.

• 1:09Griffin McElroy?

  That came out, that's a remake.

• 1:11Speaker 01

  You might have forgotten about Y's Memoir, The Oath in Felgana.

• 1:14Griffin McElroy?

  It ain't no Pete Pastrello, though. You ain't topping Pete Pastrello.

• 1:18Speaker 01

  Turn a boy robs a bank?

• 1:19Chris Plante?

  That this title is better than Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii.

• 1:24Griffin McElroy?

  Um, it's, that's a good one. That's a good one, but it ain't Pete Pastrello.

• 1:28Russ Frushtick?

  Pete Pastrello is more fun to say than any other name I've ever heard.

• 1:32Griffin McElroy?

  The mouth feel on this one is just out of sight.

• 1:35Speaker 01

  Pete Pastrello seems like you're getting away with something. I agree with that. I agree with that.

• 1:39Griffin McElroy?

  We shouldn't be allowed to say Pete Pastrello as much as we have even in the intro of this podcast episode.

• 1:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, I agree. Um, The Legend of Heroes Trails Through Daybreak 2. No.

• 1:51Russ Frushtick?

  No.

• 1:51Speaker 01

  Fair.

• 1:52Griffin McElroy?

  It ain't, you ain't beating Pete Pastrello, baby.

• 2:13Speaker 01

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

• 2:15Griffin McElroy?

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

• 2:18Chris Plante?

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

• 2:21Russ Frushtick?

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

• 2:25Speaker 01

  Welcome to The Besties, where we talk about the latest and greatest in home interactive entertainment. It's a video game club and just by listening to you, my friend, have become a member. This week on the show, we're going to be talking about a new title called Peep Strello.

• 2:41Griffin McElroy?

  Peep Strello.

• 2:42Speaker 01

  Peep Strello. What is that, Chris Plant?

• 2:46Chris Plante?

  I'm really sorry.

• 2:47Speaker 01

  Caught you by surprise, huh?

• 2:48Chris Plante?

  I was trying to see if I could find any other game names and I found one called, "Don't Tell Mom I Fed My Stepsister." And let me tell you, it's not your... You're not giving them sandwiches. Um, what is Peep Strello, Christ? I don't know. It's like a, it's a Zelda game that's 2D pixels and you play as Peep Strello, a thing with a yo-yo.

• 3:09Speaker 01

  Okay, thank you. You know what? We may have to re-assign our jobs. We'll talk about that during the break.

• 3:16Chris Plante?

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• 4:35Chris Plante?

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• 4:51Russ Frushtick?

  Before we talk about Pepe Strello and the cursed yo-yo. I just want to confirm because because in the intro, Plant called Pepe.

• 5:00Chris Plante?

  Are you saying Pepe Strello and the cursed yo-yo? Are you saying, no, I need to clarify. Are you saying Pepe Strello and the cursed yo-yo?

• 5:09Russ Frushtick?

  Pepe Strello.

• 5:11Chris Plante?

  And?

• 5:11Russ Frushtick?

  The cursed yo-yo.

• 5:13Chris Plante?

  The cursed yo-yo?

• 5:14Griffin McElroy?

  And folks listening at home, we are going to talk about the game.

• 5:17Chris Plante?

  Is that not the name of the game?

• 5:18Speaker 01

  To know it is, but Frestic, are you adding this like this fun second syllable to the word? This is why are you leaning into cursed or are we going with cursed?

• 5:31Russ Frushtick?

  I mean cursed, I don't know. That works.

• 5:33Chris Plante?

  I like that.

• 5:34Griffin McElroy?

  It does feel right.

• 5:35Chris Plante?

  Yo-yo.

• 5:37Griffin McElroy?

  I like it.

• 5:37Russ Frushtick?

  Okay, I just, I need to clarify something.

• 5:40Chris Plante?

  Because a cursed yo-yo has a curse on it. A cursed yo-yo is a yo-yo you really hate, which would be funny because it's like this cursed yo-yo. And then you throw it away and it comes right back to you. That's a good bit. That's free.

• 5:50Griffin McElroy?

  Good bit. Yeah. What are you going to clarify, Russ?

• 5:52Russ Frushtick?

  Okay, at the beginning in the intro, when Plant was describing what this game is, he said a thing. Specifically referring to Pepe Strello. And to be clear, Pepe Strello is not a thing. Pepe Strello is an animal and a very specific animal indeed. And I want to make sure that everyone knows what kind of animal he is.

• 6:09Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, he is a Pepe Strello. He is the animal Pepe Strello. That's Italian for.

• 6:16Russ Frushtick?

  Yes.

• 6:17Chris Plante?

  Thank you.

• 6:17Russ Frushtick?

  It's a bat.

• 6:18Griffin McElroy?

  He's a bat. He's a bat. Yeah. I didn't realize that until maybe two hours into the game. When someone referenced that he was a bat, because he doesn't look like a bat. He looks like a little monster.

• 6:27Chris Plante?

  Or like a mouse.

• 6:28Speaker 01

  What I thought the whole game is, I hate the way this ugly boy looks.

• 6:33Griffin McElroy?

  It is, can I try and set up what Pippastrello is all about?

• 6:37Chris Plante?

  Sure.

• 6:37Griffin McElroy?

  It has really charmed me. Right from the jump, it, the game opens by showing you what is essentially a 3D render of a Game Boy Advance. Classic, not the SP, not the folding screen, a classic sort of, you know, long Game Boy Advance.

• 6:55Russ Frushtick?

  But like a knockoff you would find on like St. Mark's Place.

• 6:58Griffin McElroy?

  Yes, yeah, and you see the cartridge of Pippastrello and the Custio Yo go into this Game Boy Advance, and then it zooms in on the screen and then that's, then you're in the game. And I think that that is a really, really effective setup because this is such a a love letter to Game Boy Advance games, that entire era, just from the way that it, from a design standpoint, from an aesthetic standpoint, everything is sort of like, it took me a while to get used to how kind of like zoomed in everything felt. Like it didn't feel like there's a ton of real estate on the screen that you are like navigating. It feels like you're playing a Game Boy Advance game, but a really, really good one.

• 7:43Griffin McElroy?

  And I have so much fondness for that era, so it worked on me.

• 7:46Chris Plante?

  Before we, before we go too much further, yeah, let's just say like what the game actually is.

• 7:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, so it's like, Plant wasn't wrong, there is definitely like a 90's Zelda, 80's, 90's Zelda overhead, the sort of vibe to this, kind of a link to the past kind of thing. But the thing that I think is cool and sets it apart is the Pippastrello's main thing is this, this yo-yo. And the yo-yo attacks, you know, like you would expect from like a Star Tropics or whatever. Lots of games have a yo-yo. But what's cool about this is if you use a yo-yo to attack angles, like corners, there's lots of 45 degree angles throughout the world. And if you strike one of those, it kind of like can extend your attack. So like your attack will then go 90 degrees off of that and can continue an attack.

• 8:32Speaker 01

  And you can use that, they're sort of like, what you might think of as like lines in a Tony Hawk game. Similar to that, there are lines in the different stages and screens where if you hit this certain angle, you'll hit repeated angles that will extend your attack that may even like take out all the enemies in the room if you shoot at just the right point.

• 8:50Griffin McElroy?

  It feels very, it reminds me a lot of Minish Cap. To conjure a specific Zelda reference. It's very simple to start out. It did not hook me at first, but very quickly as you explore the game, you get your objective to collect these MacGuffins from around the map and you get different power ups that give you more options, things to do with your yo-yo, like release it from the string and just send it rolling forward. So you can use it as like a far off range attack, but then you have to go and grab your dumb ass yo-yo off the ground before you can attack with it again. Eventually you learn to walk the dog, which is kind of like a locomotion power that like opens a lot of fun doors for you.

• 9:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's really good.

• 9:34Griffin McElroy?

  And there's like tons of, you know.

• 9:37Speaker 01

  That's probably the moment I would say that it really unlocked for me. Cause like, when do you get to walk the dog? That lets you travel with the attack, then it really starts to feel a lot more like kinetic. Then you would normally associate with this sort of like isometric. Is that right?

• 9:51Griffin McElroy?

  No, not isometric, birdseye. It's a birdseye, yeah.

• 9:54Russ Frushtick?

  But I would, I think it's important to also know that like all that stuff ties into combat, sure. And there is a lot of combat in this game, but it also ties directly into like all of the puzzles. So there will be puzzles where like you need to launch your yo-yo because you need it to land against a wall and then weigh down a weight, a pressure plate. And then there are times where you need to ride it and there are times where you need to like ride it and then throw it and then like do multiple combinations of the two as you're moving your way through a given puzzle. So that stuff feels very, you know, some of the later Zelda games where they have these like mini puzzles within that are totally optional, like that stuff feels very much included into that.

• 10:34Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, you're collecting stuff to like, you know, basically heart pieces to like extend your health. There's a really, really, really clever way that this game handles upgrades. You're collecting money from fallen enemies and by solving puzzles and stuff the whole time. And you have this little home base that you can pop into basically anywhere you see a little manhole cover on the ground. You pop in and then you're back in your, your home base. And there's a vendor there who will sell you new upgrades, but the way it works is. It'll be like, okay, this one will extend your health bar by one thing, or this one will increase your attack power. But it's gonna cause, it's gonna put you in debt for $300. And until you complete that debt, half your money's gonna get drained. It's gonna go into this, this debt account to pay it off.

• 11:16Griffin McElroy?

  And also you're going to have a debuff on you. So maybe the debuff is you take more damage. But once you've paid off the debt, the debuff goes away and that power is yours permanently, which I think is such a clever way of like, I don't know, always making you feel like you are progressing, even if you hit a wall and you aren't making money. You still have the upgrade, right? You still have the power. It's just a question of like, how long it takes you to work off the, the debuff debt that it puts on you.

• 11:43Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, I thought that was very, very smart.

• 11:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, they do a similar, similarly like, and a smart, small thing is the more, it's like a little bit of a extremely, extremely souls like element where the more money that you're carrying with you in a given time, when you die, you lose more of it. So there's this incentive to like, upgrade and like a stress that comes along with carrying a bunch of cash on your, on hand.

• 12:08Russ Frushtick?

  There is an interesting twist to that though, because unlike a souls like, you're not sent back to like a save point. Or like a, the equivalent of a bonfire.

• 12:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's just a clean restart.

• 12:17Russ Frushtick?

  You can restart right from the screen that you're on. But again, you're, you're taking that punishment and there are upgrades that like diminish the punishment.

• 12:25Speaker 01

  It's a good point though, Russ, because I think that games like this have struggled with ways to like, when you have this sort of like limited health bar, whatever, ways to make death feel meaningful and not just like a reset or kind of an annoyance. And I think that this, like, this system of like dangling you a little bit, it makes it, it makes it so that you don't lose any progress really. You're like right back in it. But there is a little bit of frustration with like, ah, you know, I should be more careful than that.

• 12:50Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, because the upgrades are genuinely really meaningful. Like you are, you are, I died a lot in this game, especially. You'll find some like arena battles and it's like, oh, there's great rewards. You can earn badges, which are basically like, you know, how they work in like Paper Mario or whatever, you find them and they give you these benefits, but. You know, you only have so many slots to equip with the badges, but you can increase that with upgrades too. All that stuff is like so meaningful and, and so track, tracking them down and doing these like super tough puzzles or arena battles, like you're gonna get your ass kicked. And so, I don't know, I, I wasn't expecting that from my first few, uh, you know, moments with the game, cause it seemed pretty like, oh, it's like a cute Game Boy Advance thing,

• 13:34Griffin McElroy?

  but there, there's genuinely a lot, uh, a lot going on in here.

• 13:38Speaker 01

  You can also get in trouble if you're playing it like you would another game that looks like this. Like if you're trying to force it into, I'm just gonna whack this guy with my yo-yo until he dies. And then I, I did that so many times, then I looked around and found like the one line that they wanted, like if I had just looked for that one angle for a second, I would've found the one attack that would've like wiped the whole board, uh, clean in a second.

• 14:00Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah. There's also a parry, cause it's, it's the year of the parry, man. Once you knock that parry, it really gets, it really starts getting good.

• 14:06Chris Plante?

  I wanna go back to that thing that you said about nostalgia of the Game Boy Advance, uh, Griffin. What I really admire about this game is it captures the actual feeling of playing a great Game Boy Advance game, not just like looking like it. And by that, I mean, when you have nostalgia for an Atari game, you expect kind of like a trifle, they're gonna play for like a few minutes, it'll be silly. With an NES game, you have different expectations. For people who were not around when the Game Boy Advance came out, what was so incredible about that system is it, for the first time, felt like real games.

• 14:40Griffin McElroy?

  Yes.

• 14:41Chris Plante?

  When you played Game Boy, it was cool that you could play a game on a go. They did not feel like real games, barring maybe two or three exceptions.

• 14:49Speaker 01

  No, they had to be- Just like grand spectrum of like Game and Watch and Tiger handheld electronics are down here. You knew you were getting Methadone, right? You knew you were just beeping on that until you could get home and play a real video.

• 15:00Russ Frushtick?

  Sort of like Link's Awakening being maybe the only exception.

• 15:03Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, I mean, there, there's exceptions to the rule, but for the most part, like, if you wanna play Final Fantasy on the original Game Boy, you're playing like Final Fantasy Legend, which is not good. And then Game Boy Advance comes along and it's like, oh, now you can just play, you know.

• 15:15Speaker 01

  And you're getting more NES, you're getting NES ports on GBA too, right?

• 15:19Griffin McElroy?

  Right, exactly, yeah.

• 15:20Chris Plante?

  Yes. But there are, there are these moments where you're playing Game Boy Advance game and it just-

• 15:24Speaker 01

  Was shocking. Like it was like, it surprised you how much the game opened up itself. And I feel like that this game just captures that vibe. It was like you were saying also of like, there's more there there. And if you don't go to it like expecting to kind of get your ass kicked and really have to like, commit to the game, you'll, you'll be caught off guard.

• 15:45Griffin McElroy?

  There's also a really fun tropical vibe to the game. It was made by a developer. Oh, what's, what's their, uh, pocket trap, a Brazilian indie developer.

• 15:58Griffin McElroy?

  And I don't know, the game, the game seems to have a lot of cultural influence too. And sort of like the soundtrack and the design. I, it's, it's, I used the word charming to describe it earlier. It really is one that I was not expecting to, I don't know, put a lot of time into, but we just had two extremely long coast to coast flights and I could not put Pepe Strelo down.

• 16:23Speaker 01

  They have previously worked on Dodgeball Academia.

• 16:26Griffin McElroy?

  Oh, yeah.

• 16:27Speaker 01

  Ninja on Cartoon Network and HBO Max.

• 16:30Russ Frushtick?

  Um, I also want to-

• 16:32Speaker 01

  Which is a cartoon, not a video.

• 16:34Russ Frushtick?

  I also want to call attention to the, just the narrative beats, specifically the idea that like Pepe Strelo is kind of like a shitty nepo baby kid.

• 16:42Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 16:43Russ Frushtick?

  Like it's, the whole, the game starts and you're like coming back from a yo-yo tournament where you just did like pretty poorly. And your aunt is like-

• 16:51Griffin McElroy?

  He's a shithead.

• 16:52Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, he's a shithead. Your aunt is very wealthy. She like runs the energy company for the entire city, basically. And a bunch of villains-

• 17:00Griffin McElroy?

  She's an oil baron essentially. Like she's not great either. Yeah.

• 17:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, your whole family sucks.

• 17:04Russ Frushtick?

  Right. So, so the, a bunch of villains show up and they're like, hey, you're stealing, you know, you're charging us, raking over the coals over this energy. And they like steal all our batteries and eventually I think accidentally suck her soul into the yo-yo. But like, they kind of have a point and that's-

• 17:21Speaker 01

  Right. They're not wrong. They are breaking up the monopoly of Ma Bell and like breaking up into five different things. And she's like, the only thing that can save my soul is you have to rebuild the monopoly.

• 17:32Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 17:33Russ Frushtick?

  So it's, it's a very clever, I think, twist.

• 17:35Speaker 01

  I like it.

• 17:36Russ Frushtick?

  Level of nuance you don't get in a lot of those GBA games.

• 17:39Speaker 01

  I, I honestly also at this point, I think it's really, I think if you're already going to do this retro aesthetic and you're going to do like, you might as well do something different with the narrative, right? Like- Why are we having to save the world again? You know what I mean? Like, just do something fun. Do something a little bit off the wall like this. I dig it.

• 17:57Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, I agree.

• 17:59Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, a wonderful, wonderful little surprise, wonderful little treat. I think I'm almost done with it. It's not like the biggest thing in the world.

• 18:07Speaker 01

  It feels like it's like eight. Pick up and play deal too.

• 18:08Griffin McElroy?

  Eight or nine hours. Yeah, like I've played so many monster games this year that have required so much of me. Having this little weird bat boy like in my rag ally like, hey, wanna come? Wanna come throw some yoyos at some guys?

• 18:24Speaker 01

  I will say Griffin, every episode of Griffin's Monster Games on G4 this season has been better than the one before.

• 18:29Griffin McElroy?

  Oh, thank you so much, man.

• 18:30Speaker 01

  I'm so glad that Griffin's still playing the Monster Games for us, the fans.

• 18:34Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, when we last lost our Axe partnership, I thought that that was gonna be the end for us, but yeah, no, we persevere.

• 18:43Chris Plante?

  You've been breathing really well, though. Fresh air. It is smelled great.

• 18:48Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, I do miss the stink, that good stink, though.

• 18:51Speaker 01

  It's important. This one isn't life-changing, you know what I mean? It's not one of those where it's like, you know what, and you know, end of the year, I don't know. I don't, this feels like the kind of thing that we'll, I don't know if we'll remember, but if you, if you want something like really solid and amusing and pleasant and fun, this is like, it's just like all right.

• 19:08Chris Plante?

  It's a hell of a weekend game.

• 19:10Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 19:11Chris Plante?

  Like, download it on a Friday, play it for the weekend, or if you have a long trip.

• 19:16Speaker 01

  And very respectful of your time.

• 19:18Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 19:18Speaker 01

  It wants you to have fun. It doesn't wanna waste your time. It's, it's very pleasant.

• 19:22Russ Frushtick?

  If this game had come out in the GBA era, it would have been like nines and tens. I have no doubt. Like, it just like is incredibly capable of what it's doing. And I agree with you, might not make the goody list, but like, I've had a blast playing it.

• 19:36Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah. Let's take a break and then let's, let's go visit the man of steel in his crystal palace.

• 19:48Speaker 01

  If I go crazy.

• 19:51Chris Plante?

  This one is a little Superman for you, a little sting. I don't want to give you the whole thing.

• 19:56Russ Frushtick?

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• 20:36Russ Frushtick?

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• 21:19Russ Frushtick?

  We've all seen uh.

• 21:21Chris Plante?

  Superman.

• 21:22Russ Frushtick?

  Gym guns.

• 21:22Chris Plante?

  The whole world has seen Superman, apparently.

• 21:24Russ Frushtick?

  I believe so, yeah. A fair number of people saw it, yes. Yeah.

• 21:28Chris Plante?

  Why do you feel it's appropriate for us to talk about Superman on a video game podcast? I have feelings. I think I have an answer, but I want to hear it from you.

• 21:37Russ Frushtick?

  Geek shit.

• 21:39Russ Frushtick?

  Geek shit, man, yeah.

• 21:41Griffin McElroy?

  We just talked about a little video.

• 21:42Speaker 01

  I have no other venue. If I talk about it with my brothers on my other shows, they'll try to make me do boner jokes about it. So I have to talk about it here. What do you want? Sorry.

• 21:51Chris Plante?

  Kevin Smith over here.

• 21:54Speaker 01

  No, I don't want to do that. I want to be taken seriously as a Superman critic. Holy shit, I am Kevin Smith.

• 22:01Chris Plante?

  I always got a clip and always learn to it.

• 22:05Russ Frushtick?

  Why do you think we should talk about Superman the movie?

• 22:09Chris Plante?

  Because Superman is the original gamer, if you think about it.

• 22:13Griffin McElroy?

  Oh, heck, yeah.

• 22:14Chris Plante?

  Right? He's always in God mode. Am I right?

• 22:17Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 22:18Chris Plante?

  You ever think about that?

• 22:18Griffin McElroy?

  So many good ones.

• 22:19Speaker 01

  Wait, sorry. Do you mean Henry Cavill Superman? Because he is the original gamer. He has, he has LEDs on his computer. There's no question.

• 22:28Griffin McElroy?

  They got a different guy now. Um, I think, I will, I, let me, can I start? Because I had the most tempered excitement for this film.

• 22:35Russ Frushtick?

  And we will avoid any major spoilers as part of this conversation.

• 22:38Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, we're not gonna bring any spoilers. I genuinely, I have not watched a superhero film since, I think, Shang-Chi. I believe was the last one that I, uh, that I did watch. No, that's not true. We saw, we saw the Deadpool V Wolverine, uh, which was, which was fun. But like, I don't know, man, I didn't care about DC at all. I've never really found Superman particularly enjoyable as a character. I thought Man of Steel is one of the.

• 23:05Griffin McElroy?

  Well, because I, I, that's a good point.

• 23:08Russ Frushtick?

  You gotta knock him down before you rise him up.

• 23:11Speaker 01

  No, no, no. Griffin, knock him down. They'll rebuild him.

• 23:14Griffin McElroy?

  Uh, I, I think what they've done here has been very fun. And I think that what they've done here is very iconic and very smart and very, uh, I don't know, just really canny to go back to kind of like brass tacks Superman as a beacon of hope without really much complication on top of that. Like, the movie is very much about how the rest of the world reacts to him as this straightforward scion of, uh, of hope. And I don't know, I think that's a very, very interesting choice. And I think that it probably wouldn't have played maybe 10 years ago before the DC Universe got the treatment that it got in, in cinema.

• 23:57Griffin McElroy?

  Uh, but this very much feels like a, I don't know, a response to that. And, uh, I, I really ended up liking it quite a bit.

• 24:05Speaker 01

  Uh, yeah, this is, this is, this is always the kind of Superman movie that should be made. I, I, I don't agree with, I want to reject the idea that Zack Snyder's Superman was the Superman for that time. And this is the Superman we need now. The Zack Snyder Superman was a fundamental misunderstanding of the character, period. The end, writ large. History has proven that to be true and culture will agree with me throughout the millennia. I said it then, and history has proven me right.

• 24:30Russ Frushtick?

  I mean, there are comic books that like are authentic to what Zack Snyder was trying to do with that.

• 24:36Chris Plante?

  No, no.

• 24:37Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, but that doesn't.

• 24:37Chris Plante?

  I don't think those movies were good, but.

• 24:39Speaker 01

  No, no, no, dude, no, no, no, no.

• 24:41Chris Plante?

  Like, the long-term plan for Zack Snyder was that, like, Superman was, or no, Batman was going to, uh, have sex with Lois Lane and then Superman was going to turn evil and like kill the world.

• 24:54Russ Frushtick?

  He did turn evil.

• 24:56Chris Plante?

  Yeah.

• 24:56Russ Frushtick?

  Anyway, yeah, it was, it was not good. I think we can all agree with that.

• 24:59Speaker 01

  But I'm not saying good or bad movie. I, he doesn't like whatever. It's just, that's not who the character is. And it, and people who defended it were people who'd never liked Superman. And then they like Superman because they got Superman wrong. That's fine, too. Friggin' great, man. I, I think that the, that, good for you. I'm glad you got some movies you like. This is a movie that recognizes what Superman is about and then asks a lot of interesting questions about it. About what Superman is and who Superman is and why he does what he does. And then, most importantly, comes up with a lot of interesting answers and has the strength of its convictions to say like, this is, this is sort of what we were thinking. And by doing that, by like being willing to throw away like the convention or the things that have to be in a Superman movie,

• 25:43Speaker 01

  or have to be part of a Superman story, or have to be part of a superhero movie, I think, moreover, like, that have to fit into that template are, you know, cast aside. And I think that that's what, that's actually where I would say it's closer to Deadpool versus Wolverine in a sense. Weirdly, because that movie was.

• 26:05Speaker 01

  Specific to those characters, like that was specifically that kind of the movie for them. And it wasn't in the typical formula. And this is a movie for Superman. Like this is a movie to explore what he means. And not a franchise starting, you know, superhero movie, even though it obviously is pulling double duty.

• 26:22Russ Frushtick?

  This, I think the thing that stood out to me most is just the overall tone of this movie from like a all of the other characters delivering performances in this movie is blasé. And I actually say that in a good way. There is like an accepting, just like, well, that's how it is. Aspect to this universe that James Gunn is presenting that feels like it allows me to not only buy that Superman exists in this world, but also that he's like, people sort of like sometimes like shrug at him and oh, he's being ridiculous. And it all kind of works because everyone is just like.

• 26:58Speaker 01

  That pre credits.

• 26:59Chris Plante?

  There's a scene where a conversation is happening that could be happening anywhere, could be happening in a windowless room. And instead, outside the window, a giant galaxy tearing monster is being fought by other superheroes.

• 27:11Russ Frushtick?

  It's a Tuesday.

• 27:12Chris Plante?

  Nobody is.

• 27:12Russ Frushtick?

  For them.

• 27:13Chris Plante?

  It's a Tuesday.

• 27:13Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 27:14Chris Plante?

  Exactly.

• 27:14Speaker 01

  It's a really, it's a, there's a really smart, like the first credit, like not credit, but like the first text scrawl on the screen. And then not exactly this, but it's some equivalent of

• 27:26Speaker 01

  3,000 years ago, there were gods. 300 years ago, there were the first superheroes. 30 years ago, Superman came to earth. Three years ago, he came out as Superman. Three hours ago, he started this fight. Three minutes ago, he just lost the first fight of his life. And it's so smart because it's like, okay, we're resetting everything.

• 27:46Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 27:46Speaker 01

  This is it. This is where we're at right now. Okay. And it, it looks exactly like, it doesn't look exactly like, but it reminds me of the scrawls that you find in the beginning of issues of comics that aren't the first one. You know, because you'll get like a page of setup. It's like, okay, here's kind of where we're at. Now, back to the story. And that's what this feels like. It feels like we're joining it like as it's already started, because you don't have to introduce who Superman is.

• 28:08Russ Frushtick?

  Clark and Lois are already together. Like you're, it's in media res. You and that immediately engages you. And also, it solves the problem of like Superman's boring because he wins all the time. He loses a lot in this movie. And not because, you know, they fall on the like usual kryptonite sword. Like, he's kind of just like much more, I think, vulnerable. And literally, I mean, vulnerable in this movie than he is in other presentations. Because that's more interesting. You want to think that he might lose.

• 28:38Chris Plante?

  What I, what I think works best, both of what you, Fresh and Hoops are saying, is it feels like a story of the week. Like, this does not feel like the most important Lex Luthor story to ever be told.

• 28:50Russ Frushtick?

  It feels small.

• 28:51Chris Plante?

  It feels like a Lex Luthor story. There will be more of them. And the way that all the like, I saw some complaints about the many, many extended universe characters who show up in this movie. And how people are like, hey, I liked it, but like, I'm just so annoyed that it's going to be setting up more stuff. And it feels like that's just not the case. And I hope that that's not the case. It feels more like, if you, I mean, again, if you read the comics, this is how it just works in the comics. It's closer to The Simpsons, actually, where characters are always just drifting in and out. And maybe you get an episode where they're important, but for the most part, they're just

• 29:35Chris Plante?

  there because they're the right person for that moment.

• 29:37Speaker 01

  It, what you're talking about is actually, I think, a huge part of the reason that Marvel ran out of steam. Because the fun, once you gave us the fun of seeing 20 superheroes interacting in one movie, it is so hard to go back to just one guy running around. Who cares? And Ant-Man's super small. Like, how can he compete? It feels that way. Like, you're missing a lot of those. I thought we were going to go more in that direction when you had like, Civil War was a good example of this, where like, it was a Captain America movie in title, but it was doing a lot more. But that's so hard to communicate. I can't imagine, like, unless we're bought in for every movie.

• 30:14Chris Plante?

  When the stakes are just too high, right? Like, that's the other thing with Marvel.

• 30:17Griffin McElroy?

  I don't think I consciously realized that. One of the reasons I enjoyed the movie so much is because it wasn't trying to splinter off all of these different... Like, the idea of there being a full feature-length film about Nathan Fillion's Hal Jordan is so unthinkable.

• 30:34Russ Frushtick?

  He's Guy Gardner, actually.

• 30:36Griffin McElroy?

  Guy Gardner, sorry, yes. Is so, like, seems so beyond the realm of possibility.

• 30:43Chris Plante?

  Now, that said, well, we're gonna get a Mr. Terrific show.

• 30:47Griffin McElroy?

  A Mr. Terrific show does feel, it definitely feels like he can carry.

• 30:51Russ Frushtick?

  I also want to call attention to the performance of Nicholas Holt, who plays Lex Luthor, because in every memory that I have of any Lex Luthor, and this is probably not, I haven't read a ton of Superman comics, but in the movies that I've seen where he's been featured, I've always seen him as like, a force of greed. Like, he wants a shitload of money. Like, Gene Hackman, the whole plot of, I believe, Superman I was a real estate plot to, like, get more money by...

• 31:22Chris Plante?

  Yes.

• 31:23Russ Frushtick?

  He's basically Chinatown.

• 31:25Chris Plante?

  Yeah.

• 31:26Russ Frushtick?

  His motivation in this movie has nothing to do with money, has nothing to do with power. It is purely a ego, like, envy, Superman fucking sucks. And I kind of love that. The simplicity of that.

• 31:38Chris Plante?

  That's who Lex Luthor is. Like, it's, like, that is, that's speaking right to the soul of the guy.

• 31:44Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 31:44Chris Plante?

  So it makes him compelling. He does this, Nicholas Holt does a speech towards the end of this that I think, like, about envy, that I think speaks to Lex Luthor so elegantly. It's like, fucking great. It's like, outstanding.

• 31:57Griffin McElroy?

  I also want to shout out Rachel Brosnahan. I think is the best Lois Lane that I've ever seen in a, in a live-action Superman thing.

• 32:07Russ Frushtick?

  I don't know that she's a good reporter, but that's not a knock on her performance. I think she makes that.

• 32:12Chris Plante?

  Let's talk about the journalism in this movie, because it's wild.

• 32:15Griffin McElroy?

  Yes.

• 32:15Chris Plante?

  It's very cool.

• 32:17Griffin McElroy?

  It's really bad.

• 32:18Chris Plante?

  Well, okay, so it's really bad and it's really good, and it's very critical of it, while not always understanding it. So, the problem is Superman, as Clark Kent, interviews himself. And Lois Lane is rightly like, "That seems like a bad." But then Lois Lane interviews Superman slash Clark Kent, who she's in a relationship with, which is also bad. They also publish information without ever like vetting it or like asking for comment, which is weird. The, the thing that I did like though in this movie, and I think it's

• 32:55Chris Plante?

  like almost the point of the movie is it's really easy to let a system trap you and to prevent progress. And by that, I mean like there are conversations throughout the movie where Superman's like, I want to do good. And Lois Lane's like, yes, but did you go through all of the right steps? Did you go through the government? Did you do all of this? And what we see is Lex Luthor in the movie, use that like process to grind down Superman. Like that he is literally using the apparatus of the government and the media to like punish him, which doesn't feel so different than when you will open

• 33:40Chris Plante?

  the New York Times and see something that is clearly like it's the classic Trumpy thing of like, people are saying, and then suddenly it's like a news cycle. I don't know. I just found the journalism in this movie really weird and really interesting. Also, they publish a story in the climax of the movie and you get to see the CMS and I just, I live for that.

• 34:01Russ Frushtick?

  It's basically not since shattered glass has a CMS had so much attention on screen.

• 34:06Chris Plante?

  So yeah.

• 34:06Russ Frushtick?

  It's great.

• 34:07Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah. One thing is, could we lose the dog? We can't. We absolutely couldn't.

• 34:13Chris Plante?

  Wow.

• 34:14Griffin McElroy?

  There's a lot of dog stuff, but.

• 34:16Speaker 01

  It's a little too much dog stuff for me. It feels a little thirsty.

• 34:19Chris Plante?

  Are you, are you saying it's like that your, your dish came with too much salt and pepper on it? Like it was a little too much of the spice?

• 34:24Speaker 01

  I'm just saying, they probably text dog name registry, saw a lot of cryptos in there and thought, maybe we could pick up a few milli at the box office. If we slip the dog in a few more scenes, they're gonna love this dog. The test, the test.

• 34:36Chris Plante?

  I mean, think about how many dogs are gonna get adopted though, over the next few months. There are gonna be so many cryptos and I am not, I am completely vulnerable to that.

• 34:46Russ Frushtick?

  Crypto is also the only character outside of a very brief cameo that I won't spoil that is setting up a future movie that is coming out next year. Like guaranteed crypto is going to be featured in whatever the next movie is.

• 35:02Chris Plante?

  Is this the best PR for crypto? Like just the word crypto in a long time.

• 35:09Speaker 01

  Feel the thing about that.

• 35:10Russ Frushtick?

  It is with a K.

• 35:12Speaker 01

  I like to think about the crypto stuff, which I I I joke about. What I'd like about it is that it feels like a non. It feels like a personality choice rather than an authoritative choice. It feels like the decision to say like with this Superman, which is how Superman has been in the comics the whole time. Right? With this Superman, we're trying something different. This take on Superman does this. I feel like this is a movie that has the courage to kind of say, this isn't every Superman ever. This isn't the definitive cinematic Superman. This is this Superman.

• 35:43Russ Frushtick?

  And honestly, like that's the answer for all Supermans in a way. Like he's gone through so many transformations since 1930 that like, if you were to say, point that this definitive Superman, like people, some people would say Christopher Reeve, definitive Superman. Some people would say, I don't know, fucking Lois and Clark Superman. Like there are so many approaches to it.

• 36:03Speaker 01

  But they're trying to, like, if you look at Superman Returns, that was not a movie about establishing a take on Superman. That was a movie about trying to recapture the take that Richard Donner had.

• 36:15Russ Frushtick?

  That's true.

• 36:16Speaker 01

  Right? So it's like not, you don't have the personality. It's a fake, it's a, it's an imitation act.

• 36:21Chris Plante?

  I think it also immediately says, like, there's a certain degree of silliness and lightheartedness when.

• 36:26Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah. Yeah. I mean, crypto fucking him up at the beginning of the movie, after he's been beat up and he's in the snow. This happens in the first 30 seconds of the movie. Crypto runs up, you think crypto is going to save him and crypto fucks him up real good. And crypto being a bad dog, like a shit, like literally they say multiple times, he's a bad dog. He's like a troublesome.

• 36:44Chris Plante?

  It's a good.

• 36:45Russ Frushtick?

  It's great. It's like so smart and such a, such an adjustment of what you expect not only from Superman dog, but also from any dog in any movie ever is usually like a pretty fucking good dog. Like there's not a lot of asshole dogs in movies. Cujo maybe. So nice.

• 37:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, but the thing is with all these choices that it's making and the personality and stuff, what's important is that it gets at, it uses that original perspective and that original insight to get at the central question with Superman and the central thing of his character, which is always about helping people and being a symbol and doing good. That, those fundamentals of who the character is, those are still there. Those are unchanged. And I think that's really why it works so well.

• 37:28Chris Plante?

  Do you feel like we're going to be getting, you know, more of this type of like DCU for, for the foreseeable future? Or do you think that they'll commit to the, hey, we have this? And then we have Robert Pattinson as Batman and a totally different thing. And then we, maybe we have another Batman that's Silver Age Batman. Cause that was always like the promise of James Gunn. But you know, the promise is easy to make when you don't have the most successful movie in the world. And then suddenly people are like, I want a million of these.

• 37:59Russ Frushtick?

  I do not know how the fuck, um, first of all, I think James Gunn walks. If they start forcing him to do things he doesn't want to do. I don't think there's no incentive keeping him there if they like really pull the threat on him. Secondly, I don't think there's any way to meld Robert Pattinson, James Gunn, uh, Robert Pattinson, Batman with this movie. I think they would need to be separate. I think it could be five to seven years before like Batman gets injected to this world because it is so vastly different. And honestly, I'd be cool with them never getting injected into one another because there's such different properties. That's fine with me. But I do think that anything that involves the super family, if you will, and they've already announced

• 38:39Russ Frushtick?

  the Supergirl movie, has to be at least in the ballpark of this tone.

• 38:45Speaker 01

  I would, maybe, I don't know, right? Cause it's like, you see some things that come back around to where the tone makes sense again, right? Like you have, uh, I mean Deadpool and Wolverine is a good example where the Wolverine of some of those movies, who was also Hugh Jackman, would not make sense. The two movies wouldn't make sense smoosh together, but if you take the character, you might be able to make something happen with just the, it's about taking the character out of the world and putting him in the other world, right? Like it, you have to commit to one of the tones. Smashing up the movies wouldn't make sense.

• 39:18Russ Frushtick?

  That's fair.

• 39:19Speaker 01

  But I think you could put one of those characters into the other movie.

• 39:22Russ Frushtick?

  I was gonna say, they also did that with Thor. Where they change tones dramatically from one movie to the next.

• 39:28Speaker 01

  We will find out how weird it's gonna get very quickly because no more DC movies this year. Next year, Supergirl comes out in June. In September, Clayface, the movie, written by Mike Flanagan, of all people.

• 39:46Chris Plante?

  Fuck yeah, man, actually, yeah.

• 39:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. Writer of Haunting of Hill House, Haunting of Blight Manor, Midnight Mass. I am very curious about what that means. Yeah, that sounds like a lot of standalone stuff to me. There's also another Batman movie.

• 40:03Russ Frushtick?

  Well, that's what I'm saying. So maybe that's the solution.

• 40:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, maybe.

• 40:08Russ Frushtick?

  Is just have it go as long as you can standalone. Don't stress about building up to a fucking Justice League movie. Just make very, very good movies until people really care about DC again, which they.

• 40:19Speaker 01

  Isn't this part of the?

• 40:20Russ Frushtick?

  You know.

• 40:21Speaker 01

  I don't know. I feel like this impulse is part of the problem, right? Like.

• 40:24Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 40:24Speaker 01

  The impulse to say, okay, now I really like this one. Give me five.

• 40:29Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 40:30Speaker 01

  Like, I feel like it's part of the issue, right? Which maybe, hopefully, they've learned the lesson, right? Hopefully, they just do the movies that people want to do, that people are interested in doing. Like, Matt Reeves' Batman, I feel like history will be very good in Matt Reeves' Batman. I feel like the first time I watched it, I thought, Flur, this is kind of boring and a lot of it. But I think when you go back to it's like, he really likes Batman a lot and he really has a very specific idea about Batman that is kind of funky. Like, I kind of dig it, Matt. He seems like he really wants to make the next Batman movie. He just wants to, like, take time to do it.

• 41:04Chris Plante?

  Turned in. Big news in LA town.

• 41:07Speaker 01

  I prefer he take a long time with it. That's good. Cut some parts out of it this time, Matt.

• 41:12Chris Plante?

  I think I'd be much more excited for another Matt Reeves Batman movie if I hadn't got that Joker stinger, which really made me worry about anything after that.

• 41:22Speaker 01

  Now, listen, if you can give me, what about Matt Reeves' Batman, Mr. Terrific? That would, that would be a, that would be a hell of a film. Watch that.

• 41:30Chris Plante?

  What if we had Joaquin Phoenix Joker and Jared Leto Joker in the same movie?

• 41:34Speaker 01

  Just do it.

• 41:36Chris Plante?

  Just do it. Sorry, can we do one more, one more, one more Superman thing and then we'll wrap?

• 41:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 41:40Chris Plante?

  The Mr. Terrific fight sequence.

• 41:42Speaker 01

  I wrote a Superman rap, is what Plant is referring to. The man of steel really makes me feel like, sorry.

• 41:49Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 41:50Chris Plante?

  Mr. Terrific Fight sequence is amazing and the best use of the Guardians of the Galaxy type of thing.

• 41:58Griffin McElroy?

  It is the only needle drop in the film that did not annoy me. It was the only needle drop I enjoyed.

• 42:03Speaker 01

  First note out of Superman. We walk out of it into the beautiful California sunshine. So happy for this film and Griffin was like, could have done without all the needle drops, James. Like, okay.

• 42:14Griffin McElroy?

  I mean, that's, it's, it's, that's his deal and I get it, but it does feel like you've just gotten your uncle's car and he's like plugged in the aux cable.

• 42:24Chris Plante?

  It's, it's so good. Somebody I mentioned that it looked a little bit like a theater staging where the actors, the villains are like, kind of like, they're almost dancing in their way that they're getting thrown across, but I love that. I love that style. There's like, there's a lightness to the whole movie that just feels like a throwback that, I don't know, I feel like safe watching it. I feel good.

• 42:46Speaker 01

  Can I, oh, okay. Very tiny thing, like little thing to that point. When we're with the, the Justice Gang, hilarious name, Justice Gang.

• 42:56Speaker 01

  Guy Gardner says at one point, uh, what I, what I'd really like to do is hit you all with a giant hammer. When he's frustrated and there is such a canny cut to Hawkgirl smiling at Guy being Guy. That shows that he is like, that is like defusing the situation, but it's like, it's really smart. Cause it's like, wait, how does Hawkgirl? Okay. She's fine with, like, this isn't a bad situation for her. And it's total, it's a half a second, but you do cut to her. She's good. Back to the, like, that's a really smart filmmaker. That's what he was like thinking about. How do these characters live in this era? Because in the 1990s, no one is getting a cutaway after Guy Gardner. Guy Gardner is probably the hero of the whole thing.

• 43:41Speaker 01

  It was played by Dolph Lundgren, right? Like.

• 43:44Griffin McElroy?

  Um, hey, anybody been watching or playing anything else?

• 43:47Chris Plante?

  Oh, man. Video games. Uh, what, what have y'all been playing? Did you play anything on the, on the, while traveling?

• 43:55Griffin McElroy?

  I played a bunch more Monster Train 2.

• 43:59Griffin McElroy?

  I don't really have a ton to add. I've been unlocking more of the the different clans and the way that you like combine them to make different decks really does make the runs feel pretty dramatically different in a way that I am finding very compelling. It hasn't quite got its hooks in me as deeply as a slade as buyer, but I don't know. I feel like I will play you know, a run with two of these clans in it and then I'll have this idea of like, wait a minute, if you use the Pyreborn Clan with the one that buffs the magic, then I bet you could get into some pretty nasty shit and and I don't know. I've been theory crafting that game in my off time. Which has been very integral. I also finished Murderbot and I think they did a great job with that.

• 44:42Griffin McElroy?

  I think the last episode is really strong and really sells Skarsgård as the titular murder.

• 44:48Russ Frushtick?

  That's another good example of tone and like really diverging from like what you view as like a quote sci fi tone in a very interesting way. I thought they did a great job.

• 44:59Chris Plante?

  I have been playing a game called Maze Mice, which I'll probably talk a little bit more on rescues, but I'm dropping here. So people know to check this out hoops. I think this is definitely yours. Maze Mice is a vampire survivors like meets Pac-Man. So you are in a you're in a Pac-Man map and you have enemies.

• 45:23Speaker 01

  Killing the mice or are you one of the mice?

• 45:25Chris Plante?

  You are the mice and you're being chased by cats. And they are they are following you, following you, following you, and they follow your path exactly. So in a way also has that snake vibe where like they become your tail.

• 45:38Speaker 01

  Oh, you know what? That's also kind of like Deep Rock Galactic Survivors, right? Is that the same where like you're setting up? Is it like traps and stuff that you're trying to lure them into or?

• 45:47Chris Plante?

  You're yes, but instead of it being a big free for all map like Deep Rock, it is Pac-Man stages. And to get your upgrades, you are collecting pellets that, you know, reset after you've collected them. So you collect a line of pellets and then they'll appear somewhere else in the map. You have to find a way to get to without, you know, running into your own tail of monsters.

• 46:10Russ Frushtick?

  Oh, I was gonna say, I didn't realize it's the same. Is it the same developer as Lucky Landlord?

• 46:14Chris Plante?

  Uh, is it? Trampoline Tales?

• 46:17Russ Frushtick?

  Looks like it.

• 46:19Chris Plante?

  Oh yeah, it is. Um, but yes, a really cool thing that it does is you, you move, the enemies move, the like, kind of classic rogue system. So when you watch trailers of it, it looks like it's moving fast like Pac-Man. But the reality is down to the frame, you are choosing to move. So if you want to make a sharp corner and you're really worried about nailing it, you can down to the frame move without the enemies like swarming on you. Or you can stop at a intersection and decide which way you want to go, without having to just like constantly be zipping all over the map.

• 46:58Speaker 01

  I like that.

• 46:58Chris Plante?

  Uh, inadvertently, you know, creating a situation where you run into your own tail. Uh, it is, it's really neat.

• 47:06Speaker 01

  Seven, seven bucks right now, folks. Get out there and grab it.

• 47:09Russ Frushtick?

  What a steal.

• 47:10Chris Plante?

  It's a deal.

• 47:11Speaker 01

  Seven forty-one with that, come on.

• 47:13Chris Plante?

  Um, uh, Hoops, how about you? Anything else you've been enjoying?

• 47:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, I played a lot of Tron Catalyst, the, uh, the new Tron thing from Biffle Games. Um, uh, I, uh, the last one was a lot talkier. This is more action.

• 47:30Russ Frushtick?

  The last Tron game or the last?

• 47:32Speaker 01

  The last Tron thing that Biffle did was more Tron, uh, what was it called?

• 47:38Chris Plante?

  Like a visual novel almost, yeah.

• 47:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, I, uh, help me with the title of some of it.

• 47:43Chris Plante?

  It was Tron Identity. Yes.

• 47:46Speaker 01

  I, yes, Tron Identity. So this, yes, so Tron, uh, this is, yeah, that was more of a visual novel. This is a, uh, a, a new one that is, uh, much more action oriented. The combat is probably closest to like, uh, a Hades, something like that from that isometric point of view, where you are like throwing your disc, uh, and using your disc to attack enemies. Um, there is also, it's all presented in like an open world, where you are able to take out your light cycle and like travel around the world at any time independently. If you know Tron, you're a computer program, and this is a story like that, where at the beginning of it, you're a computer program that is delivering, you're like a delivery program. And in the middle of your delivery, this delivery that you're carrying explodes and creates a glitch.

• 48:31Speaker 01

  And the glitch is represented through a time loop. So you're living through the same time loop to try to solve and when you wake up, you're told by the first person like, hey, we don't know who did this. We don't know what was in there. But because of this glitch, you were able to live certain chunks of your time over and over and over again. So basically you're able to repeat time to try to solve your own murder to see who caused the glitch, who blew it up. And you can use this ability to reset time where like you'll get a code in your identity of this for a door. Right. And then the next time you do the loop, you've already got that code. So you don't have to meet the guy that you got the code from.

• 49:09Russ Frushtick?

  You play that game Minute where you had one.

• 49:11Speaker 01

  So yeah, Minute is a really good example. Narratively, it's a lot like Minute. Except it's not always the same beginning, right? You'll eventually get through a chunk and then you'll move on to the next sort of chunk. And then you'll start doing that chunk over and over again. So unlike like a death loop where it's always the same day or always the same time. Once you sort of like piece together how a loop is supposed to go, or like your ideal thing, you'll move into the next segment and the next loop and it'll sort of like flow into the next chunk. But like a lot of times, like, for example, your progress will get blocked because you'll trigger an alarm. So you'll restart the time chunk to try to do it, you know, quicker or differently or whatever. Not a lot. It's not usually like um

• 49:54Speaker 01

  specific timing based. It's not that death loop thing of like in 30 seconds, this person's going to be there. So make sure you're ready. It's not that complex. It's, it's, it's a little more fun and open ended than that, but uh it's, it's really well written. Looks cool. I love the Tron. I've always loved the Tron aesthetic and all that stuff. So if you like Tron and you like being in that world with something that's a little bit more like tactile, this is a really cool way of doing it.

• 50:20Russ Frushtick?

  Uh, cool.

• 50:21Speaker 01

  If you like Tron.

• 50:23Russ Frushtick?

  Real quick.

• 50:24Speaker 01

  I also played Maroi.

• 50:26Russ Frushtick?

  What is that?

• 50:29Speaker 01

  If you guys wanna do something really weird, go to Steam. Get Moroi, M-O-R-O-I. It is, you guys send a code, so you can't get mad at me. It's the strangest damn thing that I have downloaded. It is so weird. It is like a dark fantasy surrealist action game where you wake up without a memory, but the entire thing looks like a Gothic like nightmare sort of, and the whole thing is surreal. You like meet the moon and the moon is mad at you for taking all of its energy.

• 51:11Speaker 01

  And you meet like these, the, the, there's, it's extremely violent. So when you wander around the world and attack guys, you basically turn them into like guts and blood everywhere and your character doesn't know why any of it is happening. The whole thing is like so surreal. Um, if you, it, it, watch like a trailer of it. And if you like this aesthetic, I don't even, I'm struggling to like compare it to anything just because it feels, it feels so weird. My, my, my touchstones for stuff like this is often things like, um, like those weird ace team games. It feels like that sort of like surreal a little bit. Not Dark Souls with like that edge. It's a little bit more like funny French surreal, you know, that kind of like European surreal. I don't know.

• 51:56Speaker 01

  Sure. Uh, it's really, it's, it's very strange, but I kind of dig it. Like it's, I don't know. It's worth, it's, it's worth trying. It's so like in the opening moments of the game, you have to find a corpse to feed to a machine that loves to eat people. And the machine is so happy that he grinds the bones of the corpse into a dust and you give the dust to a woman who makes a potion. And then that potion lets you create a sword in a nightmare and you use the sword. A duck gives you its teeth and the teeth give your sword an extra edge. So Dark Souls. And you can use that to you. That sounds normal. It sounds like a normal thing. Fucking, give it a whirl. Give it a whirl. Sounds interesting.

• 52:41Speaker 01

  Don't say, I, it, you know what? Go to Steam, look at the reviews. It's mixed. We love to see it. Mixed? Yeah, please. It's been a while since Justin had a little broken puppy to take care of. Oh, this one's broke as fuck. It's good.

• 52:55Russ Frushtick?

  Uh, real quick, I've been playing-

• 52:56Speaker 01

  It looks like if the neighborhood was made by somebody, it ain't absolute dipshit.

• 53:01Russ Frushtick?

  Uh, real quick, I've been playing Tears of the Kingdom 2 on Switch. Uh, I have a bunch of stuff that I haven't done in that game despite spending, I don't know, like 150 hours the first time I played it.

• 53:12Speaker 01

  Tears of the Kingdom 2?

• 53:14Russ Frushtick?

  No. It's just Tears of the Kingdom. I don't know why you said Tears of the Kingdom. Did I say, I mean, well, I'm playing it on Switch 2. That's probably, I probably misspoke.

• 53:19Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 53:20Russ Frushtick?

  Uh, but I'm finding the Koroks and I'm building the signs for that guy. Apparently there's a hundred of those guys around and so I'm finding them and it's like a great, oh, I have five minutes. I can build a sign or oh, I have five minutes. I'm gonna ship this Korok. I would play a game that's just making signs for that guy. So much fucking fun. Yeah. Uh, and the bummer of the original game, and honestly, I still think this is a bummer, is like, there's no real way to find all those guys without being a total psychopath. Like, you would have to draw a grid or whatever, use an online like screenshot. And now with Switch 2, if you get the upgrade, you can use the app and it like guides you to the different guys that you're missing, which isn't as, I don't want to be using an app. I wish it was in-game, but-

• 54:02Speaker 01

  Do you, do you-

• 54:03Russ Frushtick?

  I like-

• 54:03Speaker 01

  Do you ever have moments where you're like, "Listen to me"? You know what I mean? Like, my dad was in the war, you know? All of our dads were in the war, you know? Think about that, guys. All of our dads were in the war and we're like, "The Nintendo Switch 2 app will let you find all the guys." Finally, you can realistically find all the guys with this app.

• 54:23Russ Frushtick?

  That's what they were fighting.

• 54:23Speaker 01

  That's what they were fighting for?

• 54:25Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah. Well, good news, our children will also be in the war, so it all comes back around. Yeah, but then their kids- They'll be fine. Zelda 3. They're gonna be stoked for that one.

• 54:37Russ Frushtick?

  Uh, okay, I think we did it. I wanted to thank some-

• 54:40Speaker 01

  World War IV will be fought with Splatoon.

• 54:45Russ Frushtick?

  Uh, go over to patreon.com/thbesties. Uh, we've got some great ass content over there. Rest these episodes. We've got new bracket episodes.

• 54:52Speaker 01

  Wait, sorry, not great ass content.

• 54:54Russ Frushtick?

  I mean- No, there's some, there's some stuff. We haven't done that ranking yet, but maybe. We'll do that bracket battle.

• 54:59Russ Frushtick?

  We haven't covered Butt Night yet, but we'll do that in another episode. Uh, thank you to some new members. We have Nathaniel, we have Jason, we have Robert, and we have Julie. Ja, thank you for being members. Uh, next week, we are playing big one, Donkey Kong Bonanza. Hell, yeah. You see-

• 55:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 55:19Russ Frushtick?

  He's back.

• 55:19Speaker 01

  Here we go.

• 55:20Russ Frushtick?

  Exciting.

• 55:21Speaker 01

  That's gonna do it for us. This week's episode of The Besties. Be sure to join us again next week for The Besties, because shouldn't the world's best friends pick the world's best games?