0:00

I'm all about life hacks

0:02

for business place efficiency here

0:04

in the studio. And

0:06

I have a pretty good one that I came

0:08

up with for this episode. If

0:11

you guys will allow. I mean, this is the point

0:13

of the podcast is life hacks for business efficiency. Yeah.

0:16

So we want to teach thought leaders how to maximize

0:18

their... Well, I mean, it's mostly going to be helpful

0:20

for us in this one specific situation. And is this

0:23

a TEDx or is it a normal TED? This

0:26

is a TEDy. Okay. So

0:28

real quick, let me just hit you

0:30

guys with a Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice. Oh,

0:33

no. Okay. I

0:36

thought maybe Beetlejuice would show up if I

0:38

said... Let me try that again. Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice,

0:40

Beetlejuice. I mean, I should be up to

0:42

seven now. Okay. So

0:44

that's... It's showtime. Okay. And

0:47

now everybody we're going to talk... This week we're talking about

0:49

Princess Peach and then Beetlejuice can come in and say

0:51

the showtime part for us. It's showtime. See?

0:54

No, Beetlejuice? Yes. And

0:56

then, I

0:58

feel like you wouldn't come back unless... My tagline, I came up with a tagline

1:00

for this one. It's showtime

1:02

again. Okay. See, that's good. We

1:05

need you to say showtime for when we say Princess Peach shows up.

1:08

Right. Yeah. Okay. Okay.

1:12

Okay. Okay. Okay.

1:15

Okay. Okay. Okay.

1:18

Okay. Okay. Okay.

1:21

Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay.

1:25

And then we say Princess Peach showtime is in it. Right.

1:28

If you had gotten to me like two years

1:30

ago, I would say it's showtime for 20

1:32

bucks. I mean, I was in

1:34

Toledo. I was in... Yeah, you were in

1:36

Cameos, right? Las Cruces. I

1:39

mean, any con... I did Dragon Con,

1:41

Flame Con, Ass Play

1:43

Con. I did them all. Ass Play Con. Ass

1:46

Play Con. I would have done it for $20. What?

1:50

But now, Tammy and I are back and

1:52

Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice. Your star is rising. Quick follow

1:54

up, which city is Ass Play Con? Aspen.

1:57

Yeah, of course. Of course. I

2:01

said Aspencon, what did you hear? That's

2:04

the kind of stuff that I'm getting into

2:06

in Beelgee Field. That's the new-age sequel that's

2:09

coming out. You won't get what they're doing

2:11

with those sandworms. Yeah. Got

2:13

Winona, she's back. No kidding.

2:15

Yeah. And Jenna Ortega. Got them

2:18

all. A little redundant.

2:21

What? Why you need them both? Yeah,

2:23

they're mom and daughter, I bet. I

2:26

bet. Have you not read the script, people? Listen,

2:29

when you come talk to

2:31

me when you're at,

2:33

like, Lactation, FetishCon 2024... Why

2:36

are you at that? You come talk

2:38

to me about how picky you are about

2:40

projects. Yeah. Because I'll pick

2:42

anything at this point. Okay,

2:45

cool. Yeah. Not at this point.

2:47

Back then. Back now, Timmy and I are

2:49

back in the showtime again. Rising, yeah.

2:51

Cool. So

2:54

are you going to give me $20 or where are we at? Do

2:57

you know about Venmo? I

3:00

only use Venmo. It's

3:02

the underworld. Okay, cool. Venmo.

3:06

Yeah. Do you – does it go – does

3:08

it like bones? Is it like bones that you

3:10

give? Is bones – do you use bones for

3:12

money? Okay. This is uncomfortable

3:14

for me. I don't know, Russ, how

3:16

you're at with Griffin's behavior. I feel

3:18

like it's a good question. Do they

3:20

use bones for money in hell? Okay.

3:23

So I can tell what kind of space

3:25

this is. I'm going to step away from

3:28

this project. Thank you. Blessings. Namaste. Do you

3:30

both? Thank you. I

3:32

actually have a flight to catch. I

3:34

am headed out to Tocon. And

3:38

I have to get out there. Call the Tiggly Wiggly.

3:41

Hi, Grace. That one's for me. I don't have a

3:43

phone. That one's for you. So you're not – you're

3:45

a guest in that one. Namaste. Thank you for having

3:48

me. Thank you so much, Beadle. Thank you. I am

3:50

Trava Palatine. www.mooji.org

4:08

My name is Justin McElroy and I know the best game

4:10

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

4:12

the best game of the week. My name is Russ Fresher

4:14

and I know the best game of the

4:16

week. Welcome to the besties where we talk about

4:18

the latest and greatest in home interactive entertainment. It

4:20

is a video game club and just by listening

4:23

my friend, you have joined our illustrious ranks. Chris

4:26

Plant is on assignment at knee

4:28

cap con. He

4:30

is going to be bringing back to us

4:32

all the latest sort of silicon cappings that

4:34

people are getting into and different

4:36

spikes that they can have attached,

4:39

whatever. Cyber patellas. So

4:41

I will turn to Russ Fresher to

4:44

ask him what

4:46

is Pepper Grinder

4:49

and what is Princess Peach Showtime? Sure.

4:52

Tell them about them both. I'm going to blow

4:54

through them both. Pepper Grinder is a 2D action

4:56

platformer where you have a big ass drill and

4:59

you drill through the land and collect coins and

5:01

have a good old time kind of an SNES

5:03

vibe to it. And Princess Peach

5:05

Showtime is the first time that Princess Peach

5:07

has starred in her own game in like

5:09

20 years. Somehow

5:13

balloons keep it. This is our first episode recording

5:15

with video. Russ has enabled the Apple

5:17

video in this game. And we are not sharing the video to

5:19

be clear. We are not sharing the video. You

5:21

will have to lean on this description. But

5:24

he's doing the same thing that our dad

5:26

does which is accidentally setting off the Apple

5:28

emojis and not knowing how to turn it

5:30

off. Which like you need to

5:32

sit with that Russ. I've been on business

5:34

calls where that has come out in like

5:36

really inopportune times and it's caused a lot

5:38

of problems. Anyway Princess Peach is back. Here's

5:40

some shit. Let's go to commercial. Cool, cool,

5:42

cool. My

5:46

body is a temple and I haven't

5:49

been the best steward of it.

5:51

There's some maintenance issues at the

5:53

temple. But I will say I've

5:55

been getting some help lately from our friends at Ritual

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6:59

So let's start off with pepper

7:01

grinder because I think that's probably a bit,

7:04

a lesser known quantity here. This

7:07

would be here's here. You want to hear my pitch?

7:09

My pitch. Yeah. It's dig

7:11

dug meets sonic dad. Oh, okay.

7:14

That's interesting together. Okay.

7:17

That's have a drill. It's, it's,

7:19

it's got a drill, which is huge, but

7:21

also the, the movement

7:24

and the way that tying movement

7:26

together in a satisfying way and

7:28

not being like maybe more important

7:31

than the sort of like dig

7:33

through find every little hidden

7:35

thing kind of thing. It's a more, it feels

7:37

like a more, uh, a

7:39

fluid sort of action experience and the way

7:41

that sonic at its best is. I would

7:44

say the comparison I would make is it

7:46

is super meat boy meets dolphin Olympics, just

7:49

in the sort of locomotion of it. So

7:51

the game you have this drill and the

7:53

main crux of the game, it's,

7:55

it's surprisingly straightforward. Uh,

7:58

you know, are doing all these platforming. challenges but

8:00

you keep coming across different

8:03

sort of tunnels, diggable

8:06

land and when you get into it

8:08

you diggable planets yeah sure

8:10

you just start you just

8:12

start zooming through you just start zooming through the land

8:15

and if you exit out the end

8:17

you'll shoot out one side and maybe you land in

8:19

even more dirt and start digging around and you have

8:21

to use that to

8:23

navigate a bunch of treacherous obstacles

8:26

and they throw some stuff in there to to

8:28

mix it up eventually you will

8:30

start finding little segments where you will find

8:32

like a machine gun that you plug your

8:35

drill into or a

8:37

mech suit that you plug your drill into

8:40

but for the most part like that's the crux of it like

8:42

you are shooting through the

8:44

terrain in a 2d

8:46

sort of platform environment and trying

8:49

to you know connect your your

8:51

movement as smoothly as you possibly

8:53

can while solving like the occasional

8:55

puzzle and trying to find hidden

8:58

like special coins that are scattered

9:01

across every level yeah yeah

9:04

and your your drill because almost sort of

9:06

it's not just a weapon it's kind of

9:08

an extension of you you're using it to

9:10

like interact with the environment switches platforms that

9:12

kind of thing enemies yeah enemies yeah yeah

9:14

if you played Ori and

9:17

the will of the wisps which was the

9:19

second Ori game there was a mechanic that

9:21

was kind of similar to this and this

9:23

is kind of building the whole game around

9:25

that idea of the drilling and

9:27

then launching yourself out and I think that

9:29

part of it feels like incredibly

9:32

good like yeah on the level of like

9:34

the sort of you know

9:36

best moments of like Nintendo made

9:38

SNES games with like this is a

9:41

loop that they really fucking

9:43

nailed and like the game feels like spot-on

9:45

yeah which I thought was really good I

9:47

also like the look and feel of it

9:49

is very that first

9:52

Yoshi game Yoshi Island

9:54

yeah has that like kind

9:56

of hand-drawn fun light

9:58

vibe sort of tropical kind of Aesthetic

10:00

and even though like world map is like that too

10:02

where it's like, huh It follows the

10:04

like Donkey Kong country not to make all these comparisons

10:06

but like a very simple like walking

10:08

around a map Hand-drawn

10:11

map kind of vibe to it. I

10:13

feel like there's a tendency for games

10:15

that kind of like pull inspiration from

10:18

like older classics, especially platformers there's

10:20

there's a tendency to like Stack

10:23

a bunch of shit on top of

10:25

that and sometimes that works really well

10:27

and sometimes it does not And

10:31

so like a pepper grinder has made

10:33

a choice here to not do that

10:35

Like it really is just about this

10:38

platforming. There's like a little Shop

10:40

that you can go to to spend the gyms that

10:43

you collect and like the hidden coins that you collect

10:45

and it is all like Either

10:47

just sort of aesthetics. There's like stickers

10:49

that you can collect. There's like different

10:51

hairstyles you can change to There's

10:54

like single use items that you can

10:57

Buy so like you'll go into the next level

10:59

with double double health and starting out But

11:03

like in terms of like mechanical progression

11:05

like there's Yeah,

11:07

I mean, I you know you mentioned a little bit

11:09

that there are those like missions where you like get

11:11

a machine gun in In the third

11:13

area you can get like a snowmobile Yeah,

11:16

so they do find ways to sort of

11:18

mix things up I didn't find that

11:20

anything quite matched the thrill of the

11:22

core mechanic, which is the drilling which

11:25

yes again comes through the entire game

11:27

like that doesn't go away You

11:30

know, I think the some of the

11:32

challenges I ran into is like when you're not

11:34

drilling it does not feel as good No,

11:36

which is I wish like the on the

11:38

ground stuff felt a little bit better. I

11:40

understand you being like Kind

11:43

of hamstrung by the fact that like oh you should

11:45

be using the drill and the game is encouraging that

11:47

but I just wish it Felt a little more fun

11:49

to move around It felt

11:52

to me like there was like something Missing

11:55

like some some like there was one more mechanic

11:57

that and I don't know what it is. Yeah

12:00

This is maybe a shitty critique because I

12:02

have no idea what

12:06

is missing, but it just felt like that

12:09

sort of locomotion of

12:12

digging through shit and moving through the

12:14

world is very, very cool. And

12:16

then I feel like there needed to be just

12:18

one more element, one

12:20

more sort of component of the game.

12:22

Because yeah, when you are not digging

12:24

through the world, it's just a very,

12:27

very, very straightforward basic platformer. I

12:29

struggled to get into this, and just in case

12:31

you have a similar brain

12:33

makeup to me, I wanted to sort of try

12:36

to unpack it a little bit. For

12:39

me, I like in like Twitch

12:41

games or platforming games, the experience

12:43

of running something repeatedly

12:45

to try to get it as like

12:47

smooth and fluid as possible. And

12:50

my problem that I had in Pepper Grinder is,

12:52

I would often like see the line they were

12:54

wanting me to hit. It gets a

12:57

little more complex as you go where you kind of

12:59

have to like, you have a boost sort of that

13:01

you can time to like go through different stuff and

13:03

et cetera, et cetera. If I didn't

13:05

hit a line exactly, my

13:08

compulsion or my desire usually is

13:10

like, oh, I'd like to try

13:12

that again to get it, I'd like to get

13:14

it the way that they want it here, right?

13:16

And especially because enemies, a lot of times, it

13:18

wasn't super clear to me if a

13:20

drill was gonna hurt them or if they were

13:22

somebody that needed to bounce off some enemies to

13:24

just kind of bounce off of them, so I

13:26

don't know. But the feeling of like going back

13:29

to try to like try a line again is,

13:31

it feels bad. Like

13:34

it feels bad to kind of like tromp back there

13:36

and try it again. And that was the loop I

13:38

was finding myself stuck in. When you can hit the

13:40

line right the first time, it feels

13:42

really good. When you're wanting to like back

13:44

up and try something again, it feels worse

13:47

and also you got half the rewards the first

13:49

time around, so there's gonna be like fewer gems,

13:51

it's like less rewarding and it feels less good

13:53

to get it the second time. But that was

13:55

what was kind of messing me up, I think.

13:57

Like kind of in Sonic, I have the same.

14:00

issue where if I get a really good flow

14:02

going like oh that was fun but then I'm

14:04

like what did I miss like what did I

14:06

I'm gonna go back I think and go through

14:08

it more slowly like yeah I like to play

14:10

them I think this again Donkey

14:12

Kong Country has similar vibes to its sonics

14:14

a good example it does

14:16

make me wonder like would this have worked better

14:19

if you followed the Super Meat Boy model of

14:21

like here are a bunch of levels you can

14:24

beat in like 30 seconds or

14:26

even the Celeste model I think I think I

14:28

struggled with Pepper Grinder a little bit because

14:31

of the unfortunate timing that we just played Celeste for

14:33

a stream last week and it just reminded me what

14:35

a fucking full-throttle

14:37

masterpiece that game is yeah where if it

14:39

was like single screen like puzzles that

14:41

you you know zip through and if you

14:43

get hit you you know die instantly so

14:46

you get to try it again my

14:48

biggest problem is that the there are

14:51

five hidden coins in each level that

14:53

you spend on I mean stuff

14:56

that really doesn't have much impact in the game but like

14:58

it shows you on the map like how many coins you found and

15:00

at the end of the level it shows you how many coins you

15:02

found it feels awful to get to the end of the level and

15:04

you only found one of the five coins but if you really want

15:07

to like take your time

15:09

and make sure that you are like

15:11

turning over every nook and cranny looking

15:13

for every coin the flow state of

15:15

the game never really gets off the

15:18

ground because you are having to stop

15:20

a lot and run around a

15:22

lot looking for stuff and so it's like

15:24

that that system is almost antithetical to like

15:26

what works best about the game which is

15:29

you know a smooth-ass feeling and

15:31

that was again like Chaos Emerald in Sonic

15:33

and Sonic 2 whatever it was that was

15:35

the same deal where you'd have to like

15:37

really go off the beaten path to find

15:39

these things but it meant not running fast

15:42

scrap all that stuff just put

15:44

a timer on it make the levels way shorter

15:47

make more of make you know split them apart

15:49

make more of them and have like par times

15:51

like oh you got a gold medal you finish

15:53

that level in 45 seconds you did all this

15:55

cool shit you like strung together a line like

15:57

give it to give it to me What's

16:00

that skateboarding game? I

16:02

like the Roll 7 game. The Roll 7 line. Ollie

16:05

Ollie. Yeah. I

16:07

feel like in a shorter burst all about

16:09

polishing up your line, I'd be really fucking

16:12

into this game. I

16:14

agree. Yeah. I think that

16:16

that... And I also, I felt like the turning

16:18

radius was a little wide on it to where

16:20

I didn't feel incomplete control a lot of the

16:22

time. I kind of wanted that to be a

16:24

little tighter for me to feel like

16:26

I was in, but that's something that they

16:28

probably know the flow, how

16:30

it should feel better. I will also say

16:33

some fucking gnarly difficulty spikes, specifically

16:35

on the boss fights. You

16:38

will breeze through the first act of this game. The

16:40

levels are pretty much showing you what to do. You

16:42

may die here and there, but there's a checkpoint system

16:44

that's pretty forgiving. And then the first

16:46

boss fight I died a lot,

16:48

a whole lot, because it is considerably harder than

16:50

anything else that happened in the game. I'm

16:53

not averse to that. I like difficulty in a

16:55

game, but I feel like it has to

16:58

be a little bit more even than that. Yeah.

17:00

It should be consistent. Yeah. Just

17:03

to put a pin in this, my general vibe

17:05

is I had a really good time with it

17:07

as a light throwback to that era. I

17:09

do agree there are mechanics in there that could

17:11

be refined. But overall,

17:14

I think it's a good project

17:16

for people looking for, again, that

17:18

nostalgia itch, that 2D

17:20

platforming nostalgia itch. It does have a good hit.

17:22

I will say when you first start getting into

17:24

it, it does have a good feel of like,

17:26

oh, you guys are going to let me do

17:28

this. Yeah. Because it feels

17:30

overpowered from the beginning. The idea that, oh, I'm

17:33

just going to drill right through. That

17:35

part is really fun. And maybe it'd

17:37

be more fun if I didn't get in my head

17:39

about wanting to do all that stuff. But I guess

17:41

if you put out collectibles, gotta

17:44

get them. Yeah, you gotta. People are going to try

17:46

to get them. I think they've definitely found something. The

17:49

core mechanic of Pepper Grinder is very cool and very

17:51

exciting. And I

17:53

don't think that it has quite enough

17:55

stuff to support it. And maybe

17:58

Pepper Grinder too. that will look

18:01

like something different. I

18:03

also wish, as long as we're talking about it, I wish that

18:06

the stakes of the collectibles and

18:08

what you could unlock was

18:11

sort of laid out from the beginning, like, hey, don't

18:13

worry so much about collecting this stuff. It's not going

18:15

to affect your performance at all. Because

18:17

I don't really care about costumes

18:19

and stickers. And the biggest

18:21

bummer is when I used a bunch

18:23

of my money to buy a health

18:25

upgrade, and then it's

18:27

not permanent. You

18:30

just get hit and disappears. That feels

18:32

bad. Like, that doesn't feel good. That

18:34

makes me bad. Speaking of good feel,

18:37

let's jump to our other game that we're discussing this week, Princess

18:40

Peach. Showtime. It's

18:42

Showtime. Thank you so much, Beetlejuice. You're

18:45

welcome. And so I'll be $20, please. This

18:47

is a just to invoice us

18:49

at the end of the episode. It's to have it

18:51

go piecemeal every time you say it. This

18:54

is a way to do it. I only use Flus. Do

18:57

you do Flus? Flus? It's

19:01

made up internet currency. Old men

19:03

to reference. We've already established you

19:05

use Bones. So just fucking stick

19:07

with the program. Good

19:10

Feel is the creator of this game. And

19:13

I feel like it has a similar vibe

19:15

to some of their other

19:17

big titles, like Yoshi's Crafted World

19:20

and Yoshi's Woolly World. Can I

19:22

also just add, it's very weird

19:24

because before this game came out,

19:27

Nintendo wouldn't say who made the

19:29

game. That's fucking weird, man.

19:31

They're like, you'll find out when

19:33

you play it and see the credits. But they

19:35

wouldn't tell people. I

19:37

don't know. It's really bizarre. It has

19:40

a similar vibe to it because all

19:42

of the other games they have made

19:44

have been single character Mario universe spin

19:46

off games, right? That have not been

19:48

as mechanically complex at all as those

19:50

other things and are much more about

19:52

aesthetics and vibe, right? Kirby's Epic Yarn

19:55

is another one. That is not

19:58

the most challenging or bad. Like

20:00

frankly interesting game, but like it

20:02

looks cool. Like it looks crazy

20:04

Yeah, Yoshi's well crafted or whatever

20:06

it was. Yeah, you have a

20:08

craft world like everything being like

20:11

handmade stitched fabrics and

20:14

like craft supplies like that is very much the vibe

20:16

of the game it is not like a You

20:19

know intricate twitchy platformer like

20:21

a you know Mario

20:24

Odyssey or anything like that and that

20:26

is very very much I Feel

20:29

like the vibe of Princess Peach Showtime

20:31

the format of like the game is

20:35

Is quite different? I

20:37

can lay that out if you yeah, yeah,

20:39

yeah, Princess Peach goes to at the beginning

20:41

of the game these sparkle theater Everything

20:44

that happens in this game takes place on stage

20:47

Which is a recurring theme for Nintendo

20:50

games like Mario Mario 3 was the

20:52

same thing Yeah A lot

20:54

of these games after that like kind of makes

20:56

it easier if you don't want to work very

20:58

hard on animations to say Everyone's a puppet. Well,

21:00

that's not quite what's going on. No, no, I know I

21:03

know If they take

21:05

some liberties with that like you will go through

21:07

a door and then like just be I guess

21:09

on another Adjacent stage like

21:11

I kind of wish they had committed to it and

21:14

like done a lot of sort of clever Transition

21:17

metaphor is wild. Okay. Yeah, they are

21:19

like welcome to our theater like, oh

21:21

cool. I've been to the cedars Here's

21:23

where all the different plays are. Well,

21:25

that's not how theaters work The

21:28

hub world with ten plays all going on at

21:30

the same time. Yeah So

21:33

you you go into these

21:35

different play worlds? And

21:38

do you think it's like a black box thing where it's like

21:40

an off like Everyone is spending

21:42

like nine hours for the black box and

21:44

they could do whatever they want That might

21:46

in each world like it is a different

21:49

sort of genre and peach will don a

21:51

different costume that gives her different sort

21:53

of Powers is almost not the

21:55

right word because it's like Every

21:58

role at that point It's

22:00

almost different genres, different genres of

22:03

game, right? So the first one is Swordfighter Peach, and

22:06

you are, you know, sieging this castle that's been

22:08

taken over by these giant evil plants to try

22:10

and save the king, and you are doing some,

22:13

and this is a recurring theme,

22:15

like pretty rudimentary, like, action

22:19

stuff, like slicing enemies with one button and

22:21

dodging them with the other, and that's pretty

22:23

much, that's pretty much

22:25

the whole thing. If you're looking for mechanical

22:27

complexity, like, it is even

22:29

more so than other Goodfield games, like Wicked

22:32

Not Here. And

22:34

so I think that you

22:38

can enjoy this game if your expectations

22:40

are set right, and you, maybe like

22:42

a certain demographic playing

22:44

it, like a younger person who wants

22:47

to, you want to like expose

22:49

to like a lot of different genres of

22:51

games at very, very, like, entry-friendly

22:54

levels, like, I think that this is,

22:56

I think this is a good fit

22:58

for that. And maybe like

23:00

more of a narrative experience that

23:02

you would get from like a

23:04

Super Mario Wonder, for example. Yeah,

23:06

absolutely. It is very

23:09

much, for me, a

23:12

jack-of-all-trades master of

23:14

none, and also a lot of the trades

23:16

aren't just like pretty, are pretty boring. I

23:19

would say almost half of them. Like, some of

23:21

them were pretty fun. There's a ninja one that

23:23

involves like sneaking around and wall jumping and sneaking

23:25

up on enemies to take them out, and you

23:29

know, that part is pretty fun, and then

23:31

some of it is like, there's a rhythm

23:33

game one that is not

23:35

good, just fully full stop, not good.

23:38

Yeah. And so like, yeah, it is

23:40

such a, it is such a mixed

23:42

bag for me. I also noticed it

23:44

does not run very well. No, weird.

23:47

Like, weirdly long load time. And

23:51

like performance issues throughout. It's like you're

23:53

in cutscenes. Yeah. Like, the frame rate

23:55

really, really plummets. So like, I know

23:57

a lot of the conversation around this

23:59

game And it's like, this is probably

24:01

going to be one of the last

24:04

sort of first party swan

24:06

songs on the current

24:09

original first party games. There'll

24:11

be a bunch of re-releases, I think, between now

24:13

and Switch 2. I

24:19

feel like if this game had come out two or three

24:21

years ago, it would have kind of just

24:23

sort of slid under the radar and been

24:25

kind of a cute game for younger folks

24:27

who want to just try

24:29

out a bunch of different stuff. As like

24:33

one of the big original first

24:35

party releases on Nintendo's hardware this

24:37

year, it is not a great

24:39

fit, not a great showcase of

24:41

the hardware. I

24:43

like Good Feel games. I have

24:46

played all of those with Henry, and

24:48

they are not challenging in

24:50

a way that his eyes

24:53

kind of glaze over. But at least like exploring

24:56

the world is fun. It is fun to

24:58

look at the world so the game feels

25:00

great. And this

25:02

one, I could not get him to

25:04

get past the second level because it

25:06

is just not that engaging to

25:09

play just because of how simple it

25:11

is. It's

25:14

weird. I think that people miss

25:16

a trick and some understand it better, but

25:19

if you're trying to, you

25:22

have to accept that this is a game that

25:24

has kids in mind to a certain extent. It

25:26

is not. Of course. So I

25:29

think what people, the mistake people make a

25:31

lot of times when they're designing games for

25:33

kids is that they reduce the challenge, but

25:36

don't replace that

25:38

with like a sense of

25:41

play. Yeah. And I think that

25:43

like that's what kids get into more, I have

25:45

found at least in my own personal experience, if

25:48

you're going to put in like an, like,

25:50

okay, the ninja part is

25:53

very, very easy. It's very easy,

25:55

but it's also if you get

25:57

spotted, you get caught and

25:59

sent by. Yeah, there's no room to like

26:02

fuck around basically right, but it's extremely easy,

26:04

but if you're six like Cooper is She

26:07

just wanted to play around like doesn't want to do that She

26:09

doesn't want to get caught and sent back and do it over

26:12

again Like especially kids that ate

26:14

like they don't they don't want to do that so they've

26:16

reduced the difficulty, but they haven't made it like playful

26:19

right there's some areas where you can

26:21

use when princess

26:23

beautiful in one of these roles she can use

26:25

like her magic wand and Sometimes

26:28

like you like interact with people a little bit and

26:30

like cheer them up And I feel

26:32

like what it needed was more of that so it

26:34

was like more satisfying to be in the world Because

26:37

playing in the world is not that

26:39

engaging. It's just not none of these mechanics

26:42

are that interesting It also does the Mario

26:44

spin-off thing that drives me absolutely up a

26:46

wall Which is that like

26:48

99% of the characters you

26:50

interact with are like this same sort of

26:53

I? For me

26:55

she's I call them so I

26:57

just had species. Yeah, it's like. It's just like

26:59

yeah It's like little tiny guys

27:01

with little tiny hats, and they dress up

27:03

in different costumes depending on like what genre

27:05

They're in but like I don't

27:07

know you're not gonna see like they're not

27:09

any other blitz But they might as well

27:12

be called gooblets like gooblets sounds really good

27:14

You'll see toads in there because for whatever

27:16

fucking reason like they got to get a

27:18

toad in every game But like you don't

27:20

really see anyone else from this like incredibly

27:22

rich world It's kind of like what I

27:24

feel like they're trying to do is what

27:26

they did with Wario where which

27:28

is like we're gonna Make a

27:30

whole universe for each individual character

27:32

And then when it's like

27:34

a shared thing where lots of familiar characters are

27:37

in it and and Luigi's Mansion to for that

27:39

matter When lots of characters are in

27:41

it we're gonna bring back. Oh, there's gonna be Koopas

27:43

There's gonna be shot guys etc, but

27:45

here they like are being very

27:47

like intentionally selective to like create

27:50

a peach universe Right,

27:52

I don't know if that's a good thing, but I

27:55

mean if they wanted to do that

27:57

They should have included more than like two original

27:59

characters. Yeah It just feels half-baked

28:01

to me. My problem with the

28:04

game isn't that it's too

28:06

easy and it's

28:09

not even really that it doesn't have

28:11

a bunch of different Mario characters in

28:13

it. It doesn't feel very considered. It

28:15

doesn't feel half-baked. It

28:17

feels like – it has a system

28:19

in it where there are these sparkles that

28:21

you can find. You need the sparkles for

28:23

advancement, but really they're more like the –

28:26

they're kind of like stars in Mario,

28:28

right? You're collecting them as a way

28:31

of showing your mastery of this. Some

28:33

of these levels have 10 of them

28:36

to collect, and

28:38

some of these levels are the kind of thing where once

28:40

you do it – like you barely want to do it

28:42

the first time. I'll

28:45

get – the detective one, for example,

28:47

is not – I thought

28:50

that was kind of fun to do with kids.

28:52

It's kind of a very rudimentary point and click

28:54

where you're like walking around and looking at things,

28:56

and you see how these two things interact in

28:59

the environment. But there is –

29:01

I will say, and this is the case for all of the

29:03

ones, there's like a five to 10

29:05

minute segment up top where you don't

29:07

even have the basic detective abilities. And

29:10

the idea that you would want to replay some of

29:12

these to collect all that stuff is, I mean,

29:16

unthinkable literally. I don't think

29:18

anybody thought like, well,

29:20

what if they do want to go back and get all

29:22

this stuff? They're going to have to play through all this

29:24

part again, and this is so boring. I

29:26

think that's all fair to say.

29:29

I'm bummed because it's been so

29:31

fucking long since she's had her

29:33

own game. And

29:35

the last game was like, okay. It was

29:37

pretty good. It was in DS and it's

29:39

Super Princess Peach. And I

29:41

mean, I guess you could play Super

29:43

Mario Wonder just as Princess Peach, and that almost feels

29:45

like her – I mean, it feels like Super Princess

29:48

Peach in a lot of ways that way. But

29:50

yeah, I just sort of like – it

29:52

just feels like they kind of brought out the B

29:55

team for this one. And this

29:57

isn't about complaining because it's a kids'

29:59

game. Like my girls love Princess Peach. Like

30:01

they were very excited and it just did. And

30:03

they were fantastic kids games. Like at the play

30:05

point you made is really good. It's like if

30:07

you're gonna make a kids game, you're gonna make

30:10

it really easy, you need to let

30:12

kids be able to be creative

30:14

and screw around cause that's what you know what to do. They

30:16

wanna do it. It's funny and this is kind of, like

30:18

I'm not gonna tie this into a B

30:21

statement, but yesterday we had really bad weather

30:23

and the girls had to come home early from school

30:26

and I had Cooper on my lap while I was

30:28

trying to do other stuff and I turned on

30:30

Putt Putt. And

30:32

it was Putt. Putt Putt travels

30:34

through time is one of humongous

30:36

entertainment slash bird or buns point

30:40

and click adventure games for kids. Got it. Junior

30:43

adventures they call them. So there's Fatty

30:45

Bear, there was Putt Putt, there was

30:47

Pajama Sam, Spy Fox. These are all

30:49

Wii's. Mokijo. Yeah, Mokijo.

30:51

Now they're all like kids. O.J.

30:53

Kush. Kids point and click adventure

30:55

games. But the hook with these games was that in

30:57

addition to being like four kids and

30:59

being really easy, everything you click at in the

31:02

environment has a fun little

31:04

animation and a fun little noise.

31:06

And that's everything. And like Cooper

31:09

sat in Raptured for two

31:11

hours with this 1996 point

31:15

and click adventure game because everything in

31:17

it was designed to be played with.

31:19

And that's the kind of games kids

31:21

wanna play. So it is

31:23

not a complaint about it being a kids game.

31:25

It's just you can't talk down to kids. It

31:27

has to just be more fun. So

31:30

yeah, that's a bummer. But

31:32

we have other things to talk about. We

31:36

do. We do. And things that I

31:38

think we probably were a little more engaged with

31:40

in the B segment. So that's something

31:42

exciting. Griffin, I know you played Stardew the new update.

31:44

Yeah, we've got a lot to talk about. So let's

31:46

take a look at it. We've got a lot to

31:48

talk about. Just come on back, okay? Come

31:51

on back. This

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34:00

domain. I

34:04

actually kind of want to start things out. I

34:06

want to hear Justin's thoughts on what he's played

34:08

of Dragon's Dog. Oh boy. Okay, I wasn't gonna

34:10

I wasn't gonna play it cuz I was gonna

34:12

wait for a performance improvement.

34:15

That is still my plan. So this

34:17

is more of a teaser period for

34:19

myself. A little, oh my shh. You

34:21

like the first game a lot, right?

34:23

I love the first game. And

34:25

so far this one's really good too.

34:27

Oh wow, you're into it. Oh

34:30

yeah man. Oh yeah, are you

34:32

kidding me? How much have you played? How much

34:34

time have you spent on it? I don't know,

34:36

four hours, three hours. That's what's amazing to me

34:38

why I'm so surprised is because I think the

34:40

first game's first four hours are actually pretty strong.

34:42

And this game's first four hours are like fucking

34:45

dismal. Like you're walking flowers to people

34:47

and like, yeah man, I don't know.

34:49

That shit is no good. Yeah, it's

34:52

really funny though. Like it's so wild

34:54

to have a team of weird... Who

34:56

is... Does Dr. Hot Dog

34:58

belong to one of you guys? No, I've

35:00

seen Dr. Hot Dog before. Dr. Hot Dog

35:02

is one of my pawns. I recruited Dr.

35:04

Hot Dog and then I have my own

35:06

pawn. And I guess

35:09

I didn't understand what's happening. Okay,

35:11

I have a question for you all. Was the

35:14

first character you met named Justin? No. I don't

35:17

remember. I don't think so. I

35:19

don't think I really understood what was happening with

35:21

the naming because I made my character and then

35:24

everybody was talking to him like

35:26

he was a pawn. And then the first

35:28

character I met was a knight named Justin

35:31

that looked kind of like the character that

35:33

I had created. My

35:38

reason looks just like me though. It's

35:40

so funny. I can't believe they

35:42

make games like this. Like you

35:45

are a... I chose Mage and

35:47

it's so funny to have this like little...

35:50

I've got this little dork named Special Boy.

35:52

He's back. Except

35:54

now he's a 50 year old bald man.

35:57

With a tiny tiny body and he's a fighter and

35:59

he's so... And

36:01

I'm a mage which means I can control

36:03

the mystical arts. And that

36:05

also means that if a wolf looks

36:07

at me wrong, I fucking die. I

36:09

die from it. I die all the

36:12

time for very, really no good reason.

36:15

Considering the games about me, I

36:17

die a lot. And the

36:20

Punisher hasn't been too harsh for that yet. I'm still trying

36:22

to get the hang of it. I really

36:24

think the stuff they do, though, as somebody who

36:26

likes to play, and this is a very first blush, but

36:29

as somebody who likes to play magic

36:32

users in games like this, I

36:36

think that they've made magic using

36:38

a lot more interactive and tactile

36:40

with the ability to speed up your casting

36:42

speed because... I actually didn't use it. Yeah,

36:44

I have not played a magic cast. I

36:46

leave that to my pawns. With

36:50

the spells, to use

36:53

a spell, you have to do an

36:55

incantation, right? And that incantation

36:57

is interruptible, and then once you finish

37:00

the incantation, then you do another command

37:02

to trigger the spell. So

37:04

I have to push the button to

37:06

do my lightning bolt

37:08

incantation, and then I press another

37:10

button to fire it, but that's

37:12

interruptible. But what's cool is you

37:15

can unlock an ability very early

37:17

on that you can hold the

37:19

right bumper while you're doing the

37:21

incantation, and you do it very quickly,

37:23

but you burn stamina. Oh, interesting. So

37:25

mid-fight, you are kind of weighing

37:28

like, can I speed this

37:30

up? I can speed this

37:32

up, and I might exhaust myself, but it

37:34

might be enough to get my spell

37:36

off. It's also

37:38

very satisfying to be able to cast lightning bolts from

37:40

far away while your pawn is in there. Yeah, and

37:43

you can fly around. Getting

37:45

work done. I think it's really weird. I haven't

37:47

played enough to... The performance is wild. It's wild

37:49

that I'm going to fight them. Have you been

37:51

to the capital city yet? Not

37:53

yet, no. It's wild that I decide I'm

37:55

going to play some video games, and it's

37:57

like just 20 minutes for shaders to compile.

38:00

And then I'll be ready to adventure.

38:02

Yeah, it's a I I've I

38:04

have missed dragon song with you I've been thinking

38:06

a lot about dragon song with two because it's

38:08

very it's a very interesting game and I really

38:11

want to Uncover more

38:13

of it, but I feel this same impulse

38:15

of like I'm I want

38:18

away Thank you dragons dogma for

38:20

letting me create a body For

38:23

my hero that looks like my incredible

38:25

body Yeah And just to look see

38:27

myself represented in a game like this

38:29

in a way where I don't have

38:31

to like push a slider up So

38:34

high to have something that kind of

38:36

looks like chunk, but it's really just

38:38

like these giant gut muscles thing

38:41

it's undulating like fucking kinked in

38:43

the Software model of

38:45

just like wide muscles to just have a

38:47

little chungus running around, you know, I mean

38:50

it's like it's very pleasing I

38:52

do want to mention there's a feature in this game that

38:54

was never explained to me as far as I'm aware

38:57

There isn't a tutorial menu that I might have skipped

38:59

it But I don't think there is one that

39:01

explains something that would have made my

39:03

life so much fucking easier and better

39:06

When you look at your quest list next

39:09

to all your quests There's an icon and it's

39:11

an icon of a hand and it has a

39:13

number on it Does anyone here

39:15

know what that indicates? It means you

39:17

have a pawn that knows that quest, right? right and

39:20

if you have that you basically talked to

39:22

the pawn one of the pawns and They

39:25

will like walk you to that quest So

39:27

all that fucking time that I spent running

39:29

around in circles in an area Trying

39:32

to figure out where they wanted me to go

39:34

because it's 30,000 people in this town I could

39:36

have just been fucking following the pawn the

39:38

whole way I will say they explained that

39:41

by like a very obtuse icon that drove

39:43

me nuts. Dr Hotdog is level

39:45

26. So if you guys want

39:47

to bring him in dr. Hotdog

39:50

I have found is quite the expert on the

39:52

quest. Dr. Hotdog has done a lot of how

39:54

does does dr Hotdog just clean the fucking Floor

39:58

for you like does he just kill everything? Instantly

40:00

yeah good. Uh it there is

40:02

some scaling going on there, but

40:04

yeah, I'm like level, but

40:06

I the levels aren't that huge I mean, I'm

40:08

level seven after playing for an hour so like

40:10

a couple hours so like I don't I but

40:12

he's not like one-shotting Guy

40:15

no no no no I there must be I there

40:17

has to be some damage there because they wouldn't make

40:19

sense and he was zero RC

40:21

because somebody I think friends are

40:24

friends. Yeah, don't cost anything which seems weird.

40:26

It seems a little broken But I hope

40:28

they fix that fucking game though why that

40:30

I gotta say the one thing that they

40:32

gotta fit the pawns Saying the same garbage

40:34

over and over again it is endearing, but

40:37

it's actually more robust than they had in the

40:39

last game Oh, it is for sure a hundred

40:41

percent though. I like what's your favorite of the

40:43

doctor hot dog one more time If

40:47

one more time I'm trying to venture across

40:49

the countryside a doctor hot dogs like excuse

40:51

me a reason yes, dr. Hotdog If

40:54

I might speak my mind yes, dr. Hotdog

40:57

as I've said you don't have to ask to speak Okay

41:02

Arisen I had to master

41:04

once to prefer the companion of bestrin

41:07

for his poems Okay,

41:10

yeah, you have told me that That

41:15

your last master really like beast people

41:17

to serve him And dr.

41:19

Hotdog as I've pointed out every time you are not

41:21

a beast person, so I don't know why you keep

41:29

The ladder world fair I remember you guys

41:31

are all super excited about the ladder sometimes

41:34

they agree about ladder Yeah, listen

41:36

we could use that to get to a higher point

41:38

and then another probably like yes a good

41:40

a fine point everybody

41:43

loves ladders Yeah

41:48

As a wizard in the props the first time I fought a gigantic

41:50

dress like a gigantic drop giant cyclone It's

42:00

like you can you

42:03

should try climbing it

42:07

For what is what I use magic spells it's

42:09

like and then the tutorials like insisting like no

42:11

no go on Try it

42:13

like I don't want to do this. I

42:15

just won't go good for me Of course he

42:18

chucks me 20 yards and I get a

42:20

concussion Um I

42:22

can talk about starting real quick cuz I think

42:24

did I talk about it a little bit last

42:26

week. I don't think so I Just

42:30

you should maybe warn people because I know

42:32

people are very wary about spoilers and stardust

42:34

so maybe yeah What you want to dive

42:36

into yeah, I mean if you care about

42:38

that just skip this Yeah, it

42:40

is a ton of little stuff. Yeah

42:42

this update It is not what the

42:44

1.5 update added the like

42:47

tropical island that you can go explore It's

42:49

just like a huge area new

42:51

characters new quests. There's a new farm you

42:53

basically get a second farm with like different

42:56

crops, there's like a volcano with a sort

42:58

of like in the game combat loop and

43:01

It added the doctor or mr. Key I

43:03

think his name is which added like a bunch of like

43:05

in the game activities that unlock like a ton of new

43:08

1.6 is not on that scale instead

43:11

what it does is it just kind of like

43:13

seeds a bunch of Little things

43:15

so that if you would start a new

43:17

game and play through it You're just constantly

43:19

discovering stuff that was not in a game

43:22

before some of it is like different

43:26

sorts of like machines that

43:29

Really impact the economy of the game like if you

43:31

have played stardew a lot like you kind of have

43:33

a good idea of like okay I'm gonna save up

43:35

some money in the spring so that I can buy

43:38

some strawberries at the flower festival and like XY

43:41

and Z But now

43:43

it's like actually everybody's really into

43:45

fish smoking Everybody's all about smoking

43:47

their fish and getting huge huge

43:49

gains that way There

43:52

is a One

43:55

of the bigger additions is the way

43:57

that there are sort of new powers

43:59

that you unlock mostly through books. There's

44:01

like a couple dozen books that you can now find in

44:04

the game, and they give you all

44:06

kinds of little benefits if you find them. Some of

44:08

them just like give you experience for your different skills.

44:11

Some of them like make it so

44:13

that your friendship increases faster with all

44:15

residents of the of the village across

44:17

the board. There's

44:19

one that like shows you I think

44:22

the value of items like from your screen

44:25

before you sell them. There's like a

44:27

ton of like little quality of life improvements

44:29

through these like these powers, these books

44:31

that you can find. And there's

44:33

also like a whole mastery system for skills

44:35

because it's not that hard to max out

44:38

all of the different skills and professions in

44:41

the game. Now there's like another sort of thing

44:43

beyond that once you have completed that cycle

44:45

of the game that is that

44:47

is very cool. There's some new

44:49

festivals and stuff like that, but for

44:52

the most part it's just like random

44:54

weird shit that you find. One they added

44:56

a new weather event to the game that's

44:58

green rain. This only happened to me once

45:00

throughout the year, but it like uh

45:02

it is uh good or bad. It's

45:06

good. Everybody gets scared. Everybody like holds

45:08

up in the houses. As you would.

45:10

Yeah. Half the village takes

45:12

up shelter in the pub and so you

45:14

can go to the pub and talk to

45:16

everybody and everybody's like what the fuck is

45:18

going on? But the green rain makes everything

45:20

grow super fast and it makes these like

45:22

mossy trees and these like

45:24

bean stalks appear all over. And so

45:26

it like gives the whole world this

45:29

kind of like alien vibe and then

45:31

afterwards like all the trees are still

45:33

covered in moss from this green rainfall.

45:35

There's like a ton of stuff like that.

45:37

So like this update isn't uh

45:40

it's not hugely transformative uh

45:43

in a like easily kind of identifiable way.

45:45

It's not like adding a new chapter to

45:47

the game, but it has made it like

45:49

I did not think I would have another

45:51

run of Stardew Valley that felt as as

45:54

as fresh as this one is uh

45:56

because I'm I'm really way way

46:00

way back into Stardew Valley in a way that I

46:02

didn't anticipate ever kind of doing.

46:04

And you started from scratch? I

46:06

started from scratch, yeah. Did you use the new farm type?

46:08

I did, yeah. The new farm type

46:10

is interesting. It starts you off with like some

46:12

rancher stuff. Like it starts you out with a

46:15

chicken coop and some chickens. There's

46:18

like blue grass that grows all around the

46:20

farm that's like good for the

46:22

chickens. I don't really care

46:25

for that part of the game, but

46:27

it is, you know, I'll take, I'll try some

46:29

new shit like whenever they offer it. Yeah.

46:32

Yeah. That game continues to blow

46:35

me away, continues to be one of the best games I

46:37

think ever made. And the fact that it is,

46:40

it is just growing,

46:42

it has grown so much beyond

46:45

what was already like the best

46:47

farm sim game out there is

46:50

unthinkable. It is wild to me. And

46:53

just to echo, if you get the chance to

46:55

go to that concert, you should really go. If

46:57

you're a fan, it fucking rolls. It's

46:59

coming to Philadelphia. I might take a train

47:01

out there. I do believe they, when

47:04

I spoke to Concerned Ape, he

47:07

said they are, he

47:10

said, ooh, banana, banana, wear banana.

47:13

He got really freaked out. He punched Russ. He said,

47:15

wear banana. Based on

47:17

his response, it sounded like they will release the

47:21

album of the live concert. Oh, that'd be cool. He

47:23

didn't like confirm 100%, but it sounded pretty cool.

47:26

So for those that aren't able to get tickets, I

47:28

know it's very competitive. Definitely

47:30

you look out for that because it really was,

47:32

they did such a good job on the arrangements

47:34

and it was really just a really charming night.

47:37

Cool. We have a couple

47:39

rear mail things we'll go through. These

47:42

questions are specifically about the soundtracks. We

47:44

were talking about great soundtracks in video

47:46

games last week. This letter comes

47:49

from Brett S. I'd just like to chime in

47:51

on video game soundtracks. Citizen Sleeper Soundtrack is something

47:53

I think about and go back and listen to.

47:55

I love it. It really adds to the game's

47:57

theming beautifully. I

48:00

love that game, it doesn't specifically, I haven't listened

48:02

to the soundtrack specifically for it since, but I

48:04

did really, I know we all really dug that

48:06

game a lot. Yeah, I can. Which

48:08

one was that? That was the sci-fi novel. Sort

48:10

of visual novel, you had to like. Visual novel,

48:13

where the hacking and you're trying

48:15

to escape a space station kind of thing. Oh

48:17

yeah, okay, yeah, yeah, yeah.

48:20

Yes, okay, yes, I don't know. That was

48:23

good. We have another letter, this comes from

48:25

Amaria. I'll just say Disco

48:27

Elysium, specific to the soundtrack. I think C

48:29

Power set the tone so perfectly for that

48:32

game. All

48:34

I have to do is hear those

48:36

horns and start going .5 seconds on

48:38

instantly back in Revichol. Is

48:40

that how you say that, Revichol? Yeah, I think so. And

48:44

I'd also like to thank the person who uploaded

48:46

Whirling in Rags 12 PM to Two Hour Loop

48:49

to YouTube for helping me sleep when it's really tough out

48:51

there. That's great. That's awesome.

48:55

Can we talk about this last question?

48:57

Oh yes. I definitely wanted to hear

48:59

your thoughts on this last question. Sure.

49:03

Logan asks, I wanted someone to defend Final

49:05

Fantasy VII Rebirth like Chris defended Dragon's Dogma.

49:08

Nonetheless, I hope any of y'all

49:10

who have continued with Rebirth like it a lot

49:12

more now. It's everything and more I hoped for

49:14

as a huge Final Fantasy VII fan. I

49:16

think a lot of love was put into the game and the characters come

49:18

to life so well. Whether your views have changed or stayed the same, I

49:20

wanna hear you talk about it more. Can

49:23

I? Go ahead, I think

49:26

you got farther than me probably. I did. I

49:28

did stick with it by the way, just for the

49:30

record. I kept going for the five or six or

49:32

seven hours after we talked

49:35

about it. I think I made it like chapter eight

49:37

or nine, like a couple chapters past the gold

49:39

saucer bit. The gold

49:41

saucer bit is worth

49:43

the price of admission. I will say all my

49:45

problems with it gave a side. The cutscene that

49:48

plays when you show up to the gold saucer

49:50

and then it just turns into a big fucking

49:52

Bollywood dance battle. See all of these different forces

49:54

and then there's just a huge oily shirtless man

49:56

there and he's leading his own dance crew. Watch

49:59

it on YouTube. You could watch that

50:01

on YouTube. Yeah, if you'd like to. Do

50:04

not trade two dozen hours of your human

50:06

life. Just watch it on YouTube. I hit

50:08

a wall with the game and I just

50:10

realized I wasn't liking it. I

50:12

wasn't enjoying it. I hit just like – I hit

50:14

another big chunk of new

50:17

open world. And the prospect

50:20

of doing that was

50:22

just enough that I just didn't –

50:24

I put the controller in. I just

50:26

could not – I

50:28

realized I just couldn't stick with it, which

50:30

is heartbreaking. I love Final Fantasy VII. I

50:32

went back and downloaded Final Fantasy VII on

50:34

the Switch, the original one, just to kind

50:36

of refresh myself. Because you can – on

50:39

the Switch you can turn on all these

50:41

crazy boosters and make the game run

50:43

three times faster and turn off battles. I wanted

50:45

to just kind of run through it and see

50:47

some of those set pieces to kind of remind

50:49

myself what that

50:51

world was like

50:53

originally. And it's

50:56

great. It kicks ass. If you've never played Final

50:58

Fantasy VII, that Switch version is a

51:00

pretty good way to go. I

51:03

wasn't enjoying this

51:06

sort of story that they

51:09

– the multiversal

51:11

element of the story that they

51:14

were telling, which is super

51:16

fucking disappointing because at the end of Final

51:18

Fantasy VII Remake they kind of set up

51:20

like, uh-oh. Like, something's changed here. Anything can

51:23

happen. You hear that and you're like, okay,

51:25

they're going to make some big swings with

51:27

this. And instead, like without getting

51:29

into too many spoilers, they get into

51:31

the fucking Marvel Cinematic

51:34

Universe bullshit like, anything

51:36

is – everything is happening all the

51:38

time. Everything is possible. Maybe

51:41

detracts the point of any specific thing

51:43

happening because anything can happen. And so

51:45

like some – okay, some Final Fantasy

51:47

VII original spoilers. I'm not going to

51:49

get too deep into Rebirth here, but

51:51

like, end of Remake, something has changed.

51:54

You think maybe they

51:57

say Varyth. Maybe they say Varyth, right? Like

51:59

maybe that's – Maybe if they're choosing

52:01

that things can change maybe they will change the

52:03

one huge fucking thing that happens that everybody remembers

52:05

about this game the

52:08

way that they Handle the ending

52:10

of this section of the game I

52:13

went and watched basically the last 12

52:15

hours of cutscenes of this game on

52:17

YouTube I wanted to see it

52:19

I wanted to know like where this story went what

52:21

it did but I could not I was not enjoying

52:23

the playing of it and Watching

52:26

that I my enthusiasm for the

52:28

third part of this chapter is

52:30

fucking gone and that is Wow

52:33

Pressing well, you don't feel like you you

52:35

you have no second guesses about like Oh,

52:37

maybe I wish I'd stuck with it and

52:39

played through I do not feel any second

52:41

guess I feel incredibly justified in my decision.

52:43

This is probably not what this question ask

52:45

her wanted to hear I think there's a

52:47

lot of stuff about this game that is

52:49

cool I think of the way that the

52:51

characters are represented and the moments that they

52:53

have the growth that they have is very

52:55

very cool The way that the set pieces

52:57

like come alive and these like moments from

52:59

the game the the original game come alive

53:01

are very very cool Some of the changes

53:03

that they've made to that story are surprising

53:05

and very cool and then the fucking inscrutable

53:10

like multiverse

53:12

shit of This game and the

53:14

direction that it is going in

53:16

I could not be less

53:19

interested in and that really I

53:21

cannot This is one of my most anticipated games of

53:23

the year. I cannot stress you how much that bums

53:26

me right the fuck out So

53:29

like yeah that that that's that's been my continue. I

53:31

don't know how much how much further you guys made

53:33

it into the game Yeah, no, you guys are long

53:35

I basically made it to cut the

53:38

little soul and was like I don't have any motivation

53:40

to keep Okay, you can't if you can't hang

53:42

with that like that shit's good like I like that there's

53:44

a lot of I just there's a lot of moments in

53:46

this game that I love but like Square

53:48

Enix is one of my favorite like Square

53:50

Enix RPGs some my favorite games ever

53:53

made but the modern sort

53:55

of like trend towards incredibly

54:01

dense and convoluted and

54:05

like plot lines especially in a

54:07

like chapter based sort of cliff

54:09

hangry structure that this FNAF

54:12

7 remake, rebirth, probably reunion I'm guessing is

54:14

what the third one is going to be

54:16

called. It just doesn't work and it feels

54:18

bad and it's so frustrating. And

54:22

so I realize I'm venting now but yeah

54:24

that was a big period. No, it's a

54:27

bummer. And I feel

54:29

your pain. It would be the

54:31

equivalent of I don't know, fucking

54:33

both of the wild three coming out and just like

54:36

not clicking with me and I would be pretty sore. It would be like

54:38

a remake of Mother for you. I didn't, Chris play, I had to play

54:40

it. I

54:46

had microtransactions. I'll

54:48

play the whatever the fuck else comes

54:50

out. I don't know if I will like if it's

54:52

like this I don't know if I'll finish it. Maybe

54:54

I'll watch the 40 hour long like cut scene movie

54:56

on YouTube. But like this

54:59

is I hold this game so near

55:01

this this story in this world and these characters

55:03

like so near and dear to my heart. It's

55:05

my favorite games ever made and it is crushing

55:07

how much I did not enjoy sort of

55:09

where this the direction this is going. But

55:12

you know what Logan if you love it

55:14

that's all that matters. For sure. Yeah,

55:16

absolutely. I'm not. Produced

55:19

if you're if you love the way they

55:21

tell a story. It's a great story to

55:23

look at. It's a great it's well performed.

55:26

I wanted them to take bigger. I wanted them to.

55:29

There's a lot of cop out shit that

55:31

is sort of inherent in this like multiverse

55:34

sort of bringing

55:36

fucking Tony Stark back like it's

55:39

yeah. That's what

55:41

happens but like that's the equivalent

55:43

is like just removing key points

55:45

that like had wait previously and

55:48

that is that is the absence of

55:51

like bold storytelling. Yeah, if they had done

55:53

if they had done if they picked a

55:55

gun and stuck with it. I don't

55:58

even you know do some of the multiverse.

56:00

That's fine, but this is this I

56:02

I want to I want to move on. I'm okay.

56:04

Let's move on I played Bellatro That's

56:07

a good video game How

56:10

deep into Bellatro are yeah,

56:12

which level okay? I guess

56:14

level two according to the

56:17

Tears of the triple click podcast

56:20

I have won like four or five

56:22

runs with different decks Cool I'm

56:25

on the trying to get a win on the Joker deck Which

56:27

is a black stack I believe it's called which is a fun

56:30

one You don't want to give you

56:32

an extra Joker. Yeah, yeah It's

56:34

great. I for people that are

56:36

listening that have not played this game What

56:39

I'm gonna say is I fully understand

56:42

that when you're listening to other people

56:44

describe Bellatro It's like listening to people

56:46

describe their dreams Which is to

56:48

say it's the most boring fucking shit imaginable

56:50

until you play it and you understand what's

56:52

going on So I'm like really sensitive To

56:55

that so I don't want to go too deep into it

56:58

But I hope more people play it because

57:00

it is everything that I love about binding

57:02

of Isaac in a way more

57:05

approachable format like I handed this to

57:07

my wife who hates binding of Isaac

57:10

and she was instantly able to like grok what it

57:12

was doing and not

57:14

have to stress about like action combat whatever it

57:16

was and It

57:18

was just like much more approachable Which

57:21

is I think a really impressive feat

57:23

for such a complicated game. Yeah, I

57:26

have yet to have someone try that didn't like

57:28

it Yeah, it's like yeah, I mean like a

57:30

hundred percent Like

57:33

everybody that I had tried

57:35

has become not just likes it But

57:38

kind of just want to play it all

57:40

the time. It doesn't want to talk about

57:42

anything else I keep whenever we talk about

57:44

honorable mentions for basically I'm guessing the rest

57:46

of the year Just assume that Bellatro is

57:48

also like the ghost of a lot We've

57:50

left a chair for Bellatro because I keep

57:52

coming back to it and keep playing it

57:54

It's also got that great thing that so

57:56

few games have I would say the other

57:59

one is like I think, I, Bonnie

58:01

and Isaac, I would put in this category, Slay

58:03

the Spire, where you can, it

58:05

doesn't feel like when you're done with a run,

58:07

it feels satisfying.

58:09

Yeah. It feels like,

58:11

oh, good run. Win or

58:13

lose. Even if you die. Yeah, exactly. I

58:16

got what I wanted out of that. And you can put it down, and

58:18

of course you can keep playing it, like,

58:21

but you have felt satisfied. It's not hitting

58:23

the frigging dopamine feeder bar

58:25

and just making you obsessed and fixated

58:27

on it. It's like, oh,

58:29

that was a satisfying experience. I'll pick it up

58:31

again maybe in a week. You know what I

58:33

mean? Maybe I've taken multiple days off where it's

58:36

like, I'll play some other stuff. And then it's

58:38

always right there, and it is so intuitive that,

58:40

like, you just pick it right back up. It doesn't take a bunch of memorization.

58:44

I wanted to

58:46

talk about a game that was recommended

58:48

to us last week by a listener,

58:51

which is Slice and Dice. Yeah, I'll

58:53

put this too. This is a sort

58:55

of dice-based roguelike, sort of in

58:57

the vein of, like, kind of

58:59

like a dicey dungeon a little bit. You have a

59:01

party of five heroes, and

59:03

there are lots and lots and lots of different

59:06

types of heroes. Sometimes your parties are, like, randomly

59:08

thrown together. Sometimes you start with, like, these five

59:10

basic archetypes, like there's a mage and a healer

59:12

and a tank and a fighter and

59:14

a thief. Each

59:17

one has a six-sided dice that

59:20

is assigned to them that

59:22

the sides of which are changed

59:25

depending on, like, what their class is,

59:27

right? So the fighter

59:29

might have, like, a couple of, like,

59:31

damaging sides and maybe, like, a couple

59:33

of weak shield sides, while the defender,

59:35

you know, has way more shield sides.

59:39

The healer obviously has sides that can, like, heal

59:41

you, but they mix it up dramatically

59:44

because there's, like, a hundred different classes. And

59:47

the classes constantly upgrade as you're playing through a run.

59:50

Each run of, like, the classic mode has 20 different

59:53

fights that you get into, and between each

59:55

one, you'll either level up one of your

59:57

characters, which changes their dice, improves, like... You

1:00:01

know what what are on the sides how many

1:00:03

pips are on each side so that you know a

1:00:06

Two pips or does more than a one pips or it,

1:00:08

etc And

1:00:10

then you also will find items that you

1:00:12

can equip to your characters Which like also

1:00:14

can dramatically change them like add new faces

1:00:16

to the dice or like increase their health

1:00:19

or you know make them immune

1:00:21

to poison or whatever and

1:00:25

Like that is the game at the most

1:00:27

basic fundamental level and it's really fun to

1:00:30

play It's really really well balanced and there

1:00:32

is a shit ton of stuff to unlock

1:00:34

what I love about the game When

1:00:36

you download it you can play the like

1:00:38

demo for free Which is like the first

1:00:40

12 you can play like a 12

1:00:43

fight round of like just the basic classic mode to

1:00:45

like get a feel For like what's going on if

1:00:47

you buy the game I think it's like six bucks

1:00:49

if you go for the full upgrade on iOS well

1:00:51

worth it Then you start to

1:00:53

unlock like there's 40 different

1:00:56

modes in the game. This one is

1:00:58

silly It gives every hero random stats

1:01:00

and random dice with random sides This

1:01:02

one lets you skip the first eight

1:01:05

matches and your heroes are gonna be a little bit

1:01:07

under level, but that's the challenge Can you make it

1:01:09

further? This one is like you don't find any items

1:01:11

in this round like there

1:01:13

are so many different iterations on it and you

1:01:15

can tell that the developer of the game just

1:01:17

like Would have

1:01:19

an idea and make it work in

1:01:21

one of these like weird offshoot Modes

1:01:24

and there's like incentive to play each one as

1:01:26

silly as some of them are because you will

1:01:28

get more and more unlocks Find

1:01:30

new modes new items new heroes new

1:01:32

just like just a ton of new stuff

1:01:36

So like I I've really really really

1:01:38

been enjoying it does a great thing

1:01:40

on on mobile Which is that you

1:01:42

can play it landscape or you can play it in portrait

1:01:44

mode. Oh, I didn't know you play it in portrait mode

1:01:46

That's the plan portrait mode it you can play it one

1:01:49

one finger and that is So

1:01:51

so dope I

1:01:53

I cannot recommend this game enough if you are

1:01:55

into rogue likes or Like

1:01:58

anything in that sort of genre This is this is

1:02:00

gonna be a jammer for you. What do you think about

1:02:03

it juice? Yeah, I like that I I I

1:02:08

Was struggling a little bit with the the size

1:02:10

of the interface I think that the I have

1:02:12

a regular size the just the standard size iPhone

1:02:15

15 Yeah, and I feel like

1:02:17

it's a little finicky when you're selecting like

1:02:19

individual I know it and then as well

1:02:21

and individual things like I kind of wanted

1:02:23

it to be There's some

1:02:25

UI scaling options. Yeah, like I don't know

1:02:27

if there's something there that can like Improve

1:02:30

that for you. I have the small nimble

1:02:33

fingers of a pianist I

1:02:36

I do also kind of feel like there's a little bit

1:02:38

too much of having to like Highlight

1:02:40

the dice by holding your finger on it

1:02:42

and and stuff like that. Just feels like

1:02:44

touch. Yeah It feels like it

1:02:46

would be just feel better on like a full-size

1:02:48

screen, but I

1:02:51

mean I really I Believe yeah, I think that

1:02:53

would be the way to but I really like

1:02:55

having games like this like on the go I

1:02:57

will say it's like really well sized

1:02:59

and paste for that like of I Really

1:03:04

dug it Do you think is there a part of

1:03:06

you with Bellatro that like you don't want to play

1:03:08

a ton on steam? Because you're waiting for the iOS

1:03:10

version where you will play it on. No, okay Yeah,

1:03:13

no, I I actually bought it on

1:03:15

my switch light Yeah, I can have

1:03:17

like a littler guy. Yeah, I

1:03:20

already did that once it cross save

1:03:22

or no Probably not. No, I didn't

1:03:24

care. I don't know that I care either Okay,

1:03:27

I do I would like it on iOS I mean

1:03:29

I think I would need they are making it I

1:03:31

mean I I don't know if I could switch I

1:03:34

think if I could just be like tell the game

1:03:36

like I need that I've done like I don't know

1:03:38

it gives me it makes me a little scared to

1:03:40

think about Bellatro on my phone I'm not sure I

1:03:42

need that like I'm not sure that's yeah for me

1:03:44

guys. I'm getting a little scared guys I don't think

1:03:46

I should have that Okay,

1:03:49

I think we did it man We

1:03:52

have a lot of patreon stuff going on. So I wanted

1:03:55

to call that out real quick First

1:03:57

of all our episode the bracket battles

1:03:59

episode about the best twists in

1:04:01

video games is live and

1:04:03

here is a very short clip from

1:04:06

that episode. I

1:04:30

don't know that I gasped it either. I

1:04:32

think we do need to go to the tiebreaker. Yeah.

1:04:35

And we need to figure out

1:04:37

the gasp for each of these.

1:04:39

Who's that? I don't think. I think I can

1:04:41

take it. I can do

1:04:44

the gasp for Shadow of the Colossus. Gasp

1:04:46

for... Are you ready? I was... Can

1:04:49

I just say, I feel like gasping is reserved

1:04:51

for drama that others are experiencing that

1:04:53

I'm not a part of when I'm

1:04:55

relishing the drama. Okay. You

1:04:57

know what I mean? Interesting. I feel like I'm

1:04:59

gasping when I find out that I'm the shithead.

1:05:01

Right? That's not a gasping moment for

1:05:03

me. Gasping is I'm savoring

1:05:05

the drama. Well, there's a way to

1:05:08

actually do this because how

1:05:10

did you feel when you saw Shadow

1:05:13

of the Colossus appear in the hit

1:05:15

Adam Sandler film, Reign Over Me? Oh,

1:05:18

huge twist. Huge

1:05:20

twist. Boy, that was short. That

1:05:23

was pretty short. Hopefully

1:05:25

you enjoy that. If you're a Patreon subscriber,

1:05:27

if you're not yet, you can go to

1:05:29

patreon.com/The Besties. Yeah,

1:05:33

I think it's The Besties. That sounds like our podcast name.

1:05:36

Yes. Let's call it The Besties if we're not

1:05:38

already. You can subscribe. It's just five bucks. Extra

1:05:41

bonus that's happening off of this episode.

1:05:43

If you were curious about Pepper Grinder,

1:05:45

which is the first game we talked

1:05:47

about, we've got four Steam codes that

1:05:49

we're giving away on the Patreon for

1:05:51

backers. I'm going to drop them

1:05:54

in a post that will go up after

1:05:56

this episode is live. So

1:05:59

just as a. way to like make sure that I

1:06:01

don't know why people would do this but just Listen

1:06:04

to this episode and then you'll know because

1:06:06

I'm gonna drop in these following missing letters from

1:06:08

each of the codes So

1:06:10

the first missing letter in the first

1:06:13

code is a the next missing letter and the

1:06:15

next code is X the

1:06:17

third missing number and the third

1:06:19

code is eight and In

1:06:22

the fourth code the missing letter is

1:06:24

K So I'm gonna leave

1:06:26

this ARG narrow Love this is yes shit that we've

1:06:28

ever done I don't know why I need to do

1:06:31

this because it's really just for backers It's not like

1:06:33

bots are gonna jump in but I feel like we've

1:06:35

done it like half. No, we might have love it

1:06:37

Be careful So I'm

1:06:39

gonna drop those in it should be

1:06:41

up shortly after on the patreon after

1:06:44

this episode goes live The

1:06:47

last thing I want to mention on the patreon

1:06:49

side Thank you to the following people for being

1:06:51

patrons of the patreon. Thank you for

1:06:53

all your backing And thank you

1:06:55

to everyone else. We have I am a

1:06:57

robot who turns into a car and I find no humor

1:07:00

in this That's one

1:07:02

person. We have milk toast. We have

1:07:05

Johan porter hoot of

1:07:08

Sweden And

1:07:10

we have a beam patrol. Thank

1:07:12

you to y'all for backing us and

1:07:14

supporting us and thank you Therefore

1:07:18

be what I needed you beaten patrol. This

1:07:20

is no exception be patrol. Thank you I

1:07:24

Cool. Okay. So next week We

1:07:27

I believe I'm not gonna be here I know

1:07:29

that for sure But you guys are gonna be

1:07:32

here and I think we have a rainy day

1:07:34

games grab bag coming at you games to play

1:07:36

on a rainy Day, who knows

1:07:38

what's gonna happen? And also in the second

1:07:40

half of the episode you guys are going

1:07:42

to dive into a like

1:07:45

a dragon Sports in

1:07:47

it whilst yeah, you know what you're not here. We

1:07:49

may just go ahead and talk about that the entire

1:07:52

time We'll see how long we'll

1:07:54

say but you guys can go ham I won't be listening

1:07:56

because I'm still about six hours into

1:07:58

that game and that might Not cut it. You

1:08:00

better hurry up, but you're gonna

1:08:03

struggle to finish it. Ross. You

1:08:05

don't get on it I'll be looking at him.

1:08:07

I'll be here before you know it I'll be

1:08:09

looking at the majesty and of a solar eclipse

1:08:11

instead of talking about video games So do

1:08:14

you know how Ross kind of say something? December

1:08:18

if you have not completed the video game

1:08:20

like a dragon infinite wealth December

1:08:22

is going to be an ugly month

1:08:24

for all no I'm aware it's

1:08:27

gonna be a really unpleasant time. I'm

1:08:29

aware It is definitely a game

1:08:31

that I will need to play a lot of I don't

1:08:33

know if I'll beat it But I'm definitely gonna play a

1:08:36

lot of it The

1:08:38

balloons are back. The balloons are back man.

1:08:40

Good job. And yeah, so those are the

1:08:42

lie balloons Those are the balloons that come

1:08:44

up when Apple can tell if that's our

1:08:46

polygraph balloons. They sense They

1:08:49

sense your phablets. Okay. Thanks so much for

1:08:51

listening our podcast Be sure to join us

1:08:53

again next time for the best because shouldn't the world's

1:08:55

best friends Pick the world's best

1:08:57

game You

1:09:25

Best these