Chilling in the Grab Bag with Kingdom Come Deliverance 3

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Besties – "Chilling in the Grab Bag with Kingdom Come Deliverance 3"

Release Date: April 4, 2025
Hosts: Chris Plante, Griffin McElroy, Justin McElroy, Russ Frushtick
Episode Title: Chilling in the Grab Bag with Kingdom Come Deliverance 3

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1. Opening Discussion: The Movie Theater Dilemma (00:00 - 03:38)

Chris Plante initiates the episode with a thought-provoking scenario about encountering snoring moviegoers in a theater:

"You're at a movie and you're near the front. There are a lot of people behind you and there are two people in front of you... both of them start snoring. You truly are now the divider between the awake and the asleep." (00:25 - 01:31)

The hosts humorously dissect the situation, with Griffin McElroy questioning the film's nature and Ross Frosty speculating on the content:

"Are we at a snobby movie theater that's showing some sort of black and white documentary?" (00:10 - 00:15)

The conversation lightens as they reveal the movie in question is "The Monkey," leading to playful banter about hosting responsibilities and the film's quality.

2. Transition to Video Games (03:38 - 05:56)

The hosts shift focus to their primary passion—video games—introducing the episode's theme. Chris Plante expresses eagerness to dive into game discussions:

"Can we talk about the video games now?" (03:38 - 03:40)

They set the stage for a "grab bag" segment, indicating a variety of games will be explored beyond their usual rankings.

3. Game Spotlights

a. Nubby's Number Factory (05:56 - 16:00)

Griffin McElroy provides an in-depth review of "Nubby's Number Factory," highlighting its unique blend of pachinko mechanics with roguelike elements:

"It's one of those games where everybody was talking about it... up until one in the morning playing Nubby's Number Factory." (08:06 - 11:19)

Justin Baccarron contrasts it with "Balatro," praising its intricate puzzle design while Ross Frosty appreciates the game's addictive nature despite initial confusion:

"It's a vaporwave calculator and it's my obsession... make sure your numbers are high." (08:06 - 09:08)

They discuss the game's tactile inventory system and strategic item management, with Griffin emphasizing the satisfying gameplay loop:

"There's a little meter that fills up as you hit the goal... It's a tremendous dopamine hit." (12:23 - 13:30)

Ross adds a humorous critique on the aesthetic, likening it to "Snood," while Justin supports purchasing without waiting for a demo:

"If you download the demo before buying it for $5, you're wasting your time." (14:25 - 15:53)

b. Sulfur (16:00 - 19:11)

Ross Frosty introduces "Sulfur," a first-person shooter with roguelike RPG elements set in a visually stunning, adventure-inspired world:

"It looks like adventure time brought to life... playful aesthetic makes it more approachable." (16:16 - 17:50)

The discussion covers the game's balance between combat and inventory management, with Griffin highlighting the appealing graphics and Chris expressing initial apprehension overcome by the game's depth:

"It's a tactical shooter... You have to maximize what the board gives you." (12:30 - 13:30)

c. Spilled (19:11 - 22:24)

Justin Baccarron presents "Spilled," a calming simulation game focused on environmental cleanup:

"You cruise around these pools of water and you clean up oil spills... a pleasant sort of bonsai tree you can pluck away at." (21:19 - 22:24)

Chris questions the game's visual style, leading to comparisons with classic LucasArts aesthetics:

"It reminds me of a game about digging a hole... very nice relaxing experience." (22:31 - 22:56)

The hosts agree it's an excellent choice for players seeking a stress-free gaming experience.

d. Chef's Shift (22:24 - 25:05)

Justin introduces "Chef's Shift," a unique blend of restaurant management and typing practice:

"Everything you're doing is through typing... balancing and keeping everything going." (23:21 - 24:17)

Chris raises concerns about its dual-purpose nature, while Justin assures that typing enhances the gameplay rather than detracting from it:

"If you were good at typing, it would be more pleasant... balancing difficulty and involvement." (24:17 - 25:05)

The game is lauded for its engaging mechanics and charming art style, reminiscent of "Professor Layton."

e. Kingdom Come Deliverance 3 (26:02 - 33:15)

Chris Plante shares his excitement about finally experiencing "Kingdom Come Deliverance 3":

"It's a role-playing game set in 15th century Europe... an all-around sort of RPG experience." (26:02 - 28:25)

He praises the game's realistic combat system and immersive world-building:

"Combat feels really slick... the writing creates a sense that you are telling your story." (28:25 - 33:15)

The hosts commend the game's balance between action, strategy, and narrative depth, drawing parallels with beloved titles like "The Elder Scrolls."

4. Nintendo Direct and Switch 2 Announcements (33:15 - 48:15)

The conversation shifts to recent announcements from Nintendo, with Ross Frosty and Griffin McElroy expressing mixed reactions:

"There was a bunch of other games that came out... we're going to talk about the Switch eventually." (05:22 - 05:38)

They discuss upcoming titles such as "Rhythm Heaven Groove," "Tomodachi Life," and the multi-platform release of "Hotshots Golf." Ross provides insights into the franchise's history and expresses cautious optimism about new releases:

"It's coming to Switch, PS5, and Steam... none of these style games are out there." (40:09 - 41:18)

The hosts also delve into the complexities of Nintendo's "Nintendo Today" app and the implications of the Switch 2's digital game transfer system, highlighting both conveniences and frustrations:

"It's more about the way buying and playing video games is going... it's hard enough for me to keep track of my Switch." (43:10 - 46:38)

5. Honorable Mentions (48:15 - 55:52)

a. Astrobot and Noita

Griffin McElroy shares his son's experience with "Astrobot," praising its family-friendly design:

"Could really fuck up that score and make it re rack those pegs... that's that good dad shit." (50:37 - 52:10)

Ross Frosty discusses his return to "Noita," highlighting the satisfaction of completing unmodded runs and the added depth from mods:

"There’s so much hidden shit in that game... I appreciate that." (52:10 - 54:03)

Justin encourages listeners to explore the "Meta leveling" mod, commending the community's dedication:

"It's really beautiful to watch you and this community try to make this game fun against all odds." (53:06 - 53:57)

b. Upcoming Features and Teasers

Chris Plante hints at future content, teasing upcoming game discussions and special episodes:

"Next week, baby... Hands-on with Switch 2." (54:16 - 55:34)

They also extend gratitude to new Patreon members and promote their merchandise, fostering community engagement.

6. Closing Remarks and Teasers for Next Episode (55:52 - 56:30)

Justin Baccarron wraps up the episode by inviting listeners to join future discussions, hinting at a longer, more in-depth episode next week:

"Next week, we have our first ever four-hour long episode... so much fun." (54:30 - 55:28)

Ross Frosty teases participation in the Switch 2 exploration, while Chris hints at upcoming game highlights:

"I'm gonna be there and I'm gonna play it hands-on." (55:34 - 56:30)

The hosts sign off with enthusiasm, encouraging listeners to stay tuned for more engaging game discussions.

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Notable Quotes

• Chris Plante (00:25): "You're at a movie and you're near the front... you are now the divider between the awake and the asleep."
• Griffin McElroy (03:07): "Maybe it was too scary, too violent. They had to fall asleep as a defense mechanism."
• Ross Frosty (15:44): "You bought it sight unseen, just based on the words Nubby's Number Factory."
• Justin Baccarron (22:24): "If you're in the market for something like that then Spilled by Lente is the developer there."
• Chris Plante (26:02): "It's the role-playing game for the people who play Elder Scrolls and are like, I wish I could spend more time working as a blacksmith."
• Justin Baccarron (53:06): "It's really beautiful to watch you and this community try to make this game fun against all odds."

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Conclusion

In this episode of The Besties, the hosts delve into a diverse array of video games, offering insightful critiques, personal anecdotes, and enthusiastic endorsements. From the strategic depth of "Nubby's Number Factory" to the immersive realism of "Kingdom Come Deliverance 3," listeners are treated to comprehensive analyses that cater to a wide range of gaming preferences. Additionally, the discussion on upcoming Nintendo releases and the complexities of the Switch 2's ecosystem provides valuable information for avid Nintendo fans. The episode balances humor with expert knowledge, making it a must-listen for both regular followers and newcomers to the podcast.

Transcript

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

I got a question for you all.

[Griffin McElroy]

Okay.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

It's kind of a tricky scenario. You go to a movie theater, right? And it's nice and quiet. You're watching the movie. Is this.

[Ross Frosty]

Are we you. Are we at a snobby movie theater that's showing some sort of black and white documentary?

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

I haven't curtains at the movie yet.

[Griffin McElroy]

Oh, sorry.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

And you're already just dunking it down on me. Let me finish the premise.

[Griffin McElroy]

Let him finish.

[Ross Frosty]

Okay, sorry.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

You're at a movie and you're near the front. There are a lot of people behind you and there are two people in front of you, but everybody else, they're all behind you. In front of you. One of those people starts snoring and like at first it's soft. Maybe you only you hear it.

[Ross Frosty]

So what you're saying is you are at a black and white documentary, boring film.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Then they start snoring, right? But everybody is behind you.

[Griffin McElroy]

So they think it, you might be part of the snore.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Maybe like they think it's you or it's like it's your responsibility to kind of wake them and, and then you can kind of defend yourself by like. Well, yeah, but I'm not the person that they're with. Like they surely have like the most obligation, right?

[Ross Frosty]

They might be sleeping too.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

I kind of like wave my hand around like a twirl in the air, like a. Yes, yes. But then here's the problem. Both of them start snoring. They are now both asleep on each other. And you truly are now the divider between the awake and the asleep.

[Griffin McElroy]

Yeah, I know we give you a hard time, Chris, for the, you know, the types of cinema that you do consume, but I would actually like to know the answer to what was the film that you were watching?

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

This was a while ago. This was the monkey.

[Griffin McElroy]

Oh, okay, well, never mind then. That's lit.

[Ross Frosty]

It's actually Le monkey. So wait, wait, wait.

[Griffin McElroy]

Is it the kick ass one with all the violence and stuff or is it one about like, you know, a French acrobat and they call him Mon.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Ka Mon K. My key. No, it is a monkey. It's the monkey. It's where everybody gets their heads blown off. Yeah, people just falling asleep right in the front. Oh, twist. Turns out I watch movies that people like. What a surprise.

[Ross Frosty]

By accident, you just wandered in there.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

You're the worst. What do you do? Like, I don't wanna wake somebody that feels like bad.

[Ross Frosty]

Well, you don't wanna wake.

[Griffin McElroy]

Of course not. Chris. You have no legal right to Wake someone up who is asleep.

[Ross Frosty]

You could kick both seats at the same time.

[Griffin McElroy]

Yeah, man. If you're right behind them, scare em good. And then you'd be like, ooh, ooh, ah, ah. Right in their ear. And they'll be like, oh, fuck, we fell asleep in the Monkees movie. He mad. He's gonna explode our heads.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

What if I grabbed both their hands and then kind of made them like slap each other at the same time?

[Ross Frosty]

Yeah, yeah.

[Griffin McElroy]

Like they do in the monkey.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Like they do in the monkey.

[Griffin McElroy]

Yeah.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

This is good. Yeah, no, this is. This is really. I really just sat through it. They did it for like 20 minutes and then they woke up and left.

[Griffin McElroy]

Good for them, man.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Yeah, no, they got some good rest.

[Griffin McElroy]

They got what they needed out of that film. Maybe it was too scary, too violent. They had to fall asleep as a defense mechanism.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

That's so true. I bet that's right. Or maybe it was like their way of screaming and it just sounded like snores. Right. That would be kind of like troubling if you were falling off a building and as you like splatted on the pavement. It's the only time I can think of when people scream. Listen, I watched the monkey.

[Griffin McElroy]

You have a new reputation. And now it's not. You watch art house films is that you watch so much violent stuff that it has turned you into a real nasty little Grimm.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Turned me on is what you're saying.

[Ross Frosty]

Whoa.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

The only way I can feel alive.

[Ross Frosty]

Whoa.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Can we talk about the video games now?

[Griffin McElroy]

I'd love to.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Thank you.

[Justin Baccarron]

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

[Griffin McElroy]

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

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

My name is Christopher Thomas Plant and I am awake and ready for this episode.

[Ross Frosty]

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

[Justin Baccarron]

Welcome to the Besties, where we talk about the latest and greatest in home interactive entertainment this week.

[Ross Frosty]

Well, not the latest. Now, people, this is.

[Justin Baccarron]

Yeah, good point, good point.

[Griffin McElroy]

You probably came here thinking, I can't wait to hear my boys get in here and discuss the legend of the Hero's blade or Metroid 9. The Nemesis gets it.

[Ross Frosty]

I can't believe how much Kirby Kirby ate so much.

[Griffin McElroy]

Kirby X. Kirby.

[Justin Baccarron]

Wait, did you say Kirby ate so much? Because I'm into it.

[Griffin McElroy]

If it's a new bloodborne K ate so much. You want to hear us talk about that? You want to hear us talk about Mario Paint? Too bloodborne. I'm just going to start jazzing. Yeah.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

These are all games.

[Griffin McElroy]

I'm going to start jazzing.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

We're not talking about today.

[Griffin McElroy]

I'm just going to start jazzing in case I get one of these, right? And then people will be like, oh, shit. Because we were recording this before, before the Nintendo Direct, where they talk about all the Switch two stuff.

[Ross Frosty]

Dabi, dabi, man.

[Justin Baccarron]

So if you are playing a Switch 2 now, like, if they were like. And everyone goes in your mailbox, they're.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Out there kind of Sega Saturn style, they're like, look under your seat. And you're like, holy shit, how'd you get my house?

[Griffin McElroy]

What are we doing instead, boys?

[Justin Baccarron]

Instead we're gonna do a bit of a grab bag, a bit of a poacher.

[Ross Frosty]

And to be clear, it's because we didn't. We recorded this before the events. It's not because we don't.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Yes.

[Justin Baccarron]

Not some sort of weird protest.

[Griffin McElroy]

Yeah, yeah, no. We're on tour and so we had to record early. But we'll talk about the Switch eventually. Probably when it's out, Right?

[Ross Frosty]

And next week as well.

[Griffin McElroy]

And next week. Yeah, probably, yeah.

[Justin Baccarron]

But today we're doing a potpourri, a grab bag. I'm not going to ask Chris Plant what that means because it's insulting. We've talked enough. But after the break, we'll talk about an assortment of games we've been enjoying and so much more right after this.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

We're sponsored in part this week by the UNC Kenan Flagler Business School Master of Accounting program. Y'all, the world needs more accountants and it needs it bad. I just watched a video on YouTube, a good one from a reputable channel, that told me all about this problem where there are not enough accountants in the world to fill all the accountant roles needed. Which means if you're kind of worried about the job market and you're looking for a place where you're going to get hired fast Accountant is the thing to do. And do I have a recommendation for you. UNC Kenan Flagler offers a top ranked online Master of Accounting degree. If you've been thinking of switching industries or you want to set yourself up for a lifelong career, pick the program with proven ROI and a 98% job placement rate. Now you might be thinking, hey, I'm a gamer. What did I have in common with accountants? I saw that movie the Accountant. That doesn't seem like me. And let me tell you two things. One, that movie, the Accountant, that's not how most accountants go about the day. That's a very different movie. It's fiction. And number two, a lot of the gaming habits that you have might align perfectly with accounting. You got min maxing, you got inventory management. If you're one of those people who loves those spreadsheet type of games, let me tell you, you are set. So that is it. Give it a thought. Give it a consideration. Set yourself up. Unc Kenan Flagler Business School's Master of Accounting program. You could be a Tar Heel in less than one year. Learn more at Accounting Unc.

[Ross Frosty]

Edu.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Okay, I'm looking at the top of this list and I see the series of words, Nubby's Number Factory. Yeah, I have a lot of questions, but I feel like I should get an explanation first.

[Griffin McElroy]

Stepping up to the plate here, Nubby's Number Factory. In the grand tradition of a pachinko sort of roguelite roguelike. Yeah, sure, a pachinko roguelike with elements of Balatro and Bolionaire and other games with ball in it. Here comes Nubby's Number Factory. It looks like a vaporwave calculator and it's my obsession. I stayed up too late last night, partially because of a tummy ache and partially because of Nubby's Number Factory. We were actually turned onto this game by our. By a few members of our staff who spotted it and it is really scratching that itch for me of a Balatro of a go do this simple thing over and over again while collecting synergistic items to make crazy shit happen and get very good scores.

[Justin Baccarron]

The difference here is Balatro is made by a caring genius that wants to create an intricate series of puzzles for you to unpack and enjoy. And nub. This Number Factory seems to be made by an insane dirtbag that sees you for exactly the numbers pervert that you are.

[Griffin McElroy]

It's by Mogdog Blog Productions, is the name of the developer of this one. So, brass tacks. You have a board with a bunch of little pegs on it, and the pegs have numbers. And you shoot Nubby. He's a little bouncy ball from the top of the screen. You aim him, shoot him peggle style. He bounces off the pegs, earning points for the numbers that he pops. Each time you hit a peg, it gets cut in half. And then if you beat the score that is required of you that round, then you get more pegs that combine and make even higher numbers. You can also really fuck up that score and make it re rack those pegs like six or seven times before you move on to the next round. All of A sudden, you're way ahead of the curve. You've got numbers so high that you couldn't even believe it. Every few rounds you go to a shop and you'll be able to buy stuff. This is where the game really goes bananas. You have an inventory of like, seven items that you can have equipped at any given time. And the things are all very tactile, they're all very physical. And they come in sort of like different strategic kind of columns. You can find items that are like, every time you hit the wall, you double the lowest peg on the board or you double the highest peg on the board, or sometimes it'll be things that actually help you hit more pegs. So, like, this one will shoot lasers out of Nubby and it will get you the score for the things without popping the peg. So you can keep those high numbers on the board a little bit longer. But there's dozens and dozens and dozens and dozens of these items, and there's little passive upgrades that you get each run. And. I don't know, gang. It's one of those games where everybody was talking about it. I saw Northern lion playing it a bunch. I was like, I'll check this out. And then I played it once and didn't get it, and I played it second time and didn't get it, and I played it a third time. And I was up until one in the morning playing Nubby's Number Factory.

[Ross Frosty]

Is that because you weren't putting, like, runs together or just the gameplay wasn't clicking?

[Griffin McElroy]

It takes. Yeah. I mean, it is a. It's a weird. It's a weird thing to strategize, right? Like, when you start playing this game, you are not going to know how to succeed. All of the usual kind of, like, you know, four brain shit that you would probably, like, factor in while, like, deciding what items to buy or what synergies to go for will end up actually screwing you over. It's a lot more about, like, you know, making sure that your numbers are high, that your board is stocked, and that you are able to really maximize what it is that the board gives you instead of just going for, like, oh, well, this one shoots a sword out and it hits all the pegs around it. That's fine. But if those pegs are worth eight points, then it's not going to do you a whole lot of good. Talking about Numby's Number Factory is boring because it's a game about shooting bubbles at numbers to make them get higher.

[Ross Frosty]

Does it have the game feel that Peggle does where it actually feels good to watch the ball bounce around.

[Griffin McElroy]

It does feel good to watch the ball bounce around. It feels good when you can really trap it. A lot of the items activate at set intervals. So this item is really, really strong. But you have to stay on the board for three seconds. It activates every three seconds. So like now all of a sudden, you don't want a bunch of items that pop a bunch of pegs. You want your, your nubby to just kind of keep bouncing around helplessly as you kind of like accrue these like, other bonuses for, for these like, time gated items. So, like, yeah, I mean, it's, it's fucking satisfying watching. There's a little meter that fills up as you hit the, the goal for the round and then watching it kind of lap and go like times 9, times 10, times 11 as you have these perfect, perfect synergistic shots. It really is a tremendous dopamine hit. And I don't know, I'm pretty self aware of that, but it is still very enjoyable all the same.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

There's a certain aesthetic. I don't know if I would call it like elementary school library aesthetic.

[Griffin McElroy]

Yeah.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

That when I see it in a modern game, I expect there to be a secret game hidden underneath it at this point.

[Ross Frosty]

Yeah, it looks like Snood.

[Griffin McElroy]

Snood.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

It does look like Snood.

[Ross Frosty]

But I mean, more than fucking imagine a game called Snood. You guys, you down with juice.

[Griffin McElroy]

You're muted. I don't know if you were trying to rap about Snood.

[Justin Baccarron]

It looks like Snood. I mean, that's my incredible contribution that I was trying to say is that it does indeed look like Snood. It was basically a confirmation of snood ness.

[Griffin McElroy]

It's. I mean, I love it. I think, I think this shit rules. I can't get.

[Ross Frosty]

Who's the guy?

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Huh?

[Ross Frosty]

I'm looking at screenshots. Who's the guy on the left?

[Griffin McElroy]

I think his name is Todd.

[Ross Frosty]

Okay. He's not nubby.

[Justin Baccarron]

Is it Todd?

[Griffin McElroy]

Tony? Maybe it's Tony. No, there's a Tony and I think there's a Todd. Anyway, it couldn't matter fucking less. It couldn't matter.

[Ross Frosty]

No, no.

[Griffin McElroy]

You work at the number factory with the ball.

[Ross Frosty]

You were kind of implying that the ball is nubby.

[Griffin McElroy]

The ball is nubby. Yeah.

[Ross Frosty]

Okay, so that's to be respected. Because honestly, that's like a CEO getting down the trenches and like working with underway.

[Griffin McElroy]

Yeah, I mean, his name's right on the 10. One fun thing is that I can't get it to work on the Rog fucking power. The horsepower of this thing is not capable of handling Nubby's Number Factory. Mostly because it's, you know, mouse and keyboard controls. So I have. I have to scratch this fucking itch while I am seated at my desk doing my work, which is probably honestly for the best if I had Nubby with me anywhere. I mean, I lost months of my life to Balatro, so I'm not looking to do that again.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Mog Dog Blog Productions. Okay. I'm gonna follow this developer so I can see what comes up after Nubby's Number.

[Griffin McElroy]

It's like five bucks also, and they've earned a free demo a handful of times. Yeah, I mean, you don't need a demo. I'll say this. You don't need a. I'll say this. If you download the demo for Nubby's Number Factory before buying it for $5, you're wasting your time. Look at it. Look at a video of anyone playing it. No instincts, just a fucking gut check around the horn. Looking at Nubby's Number Factory. Yes or no?

[Ross Frosty]

Yeah.

[Justin Baccarron]

And I'll regret it. Yes. And we'll feel guilty.

[Griffin McElroy]

Yeah. Okay. So, like, yeah, I appreciate that. There's a demo out there. It's Nubby's Number Factory. You should know how you feel about Nubby's Number.

[Justin Baccarron]

I bought it sight unseen, just based on the words Nubby's Number factor.

[Ross Frosty]

I mean, branding wise, they fucking crushed it.

[Griffin McElroy]

Yeah, they did. What else have you guys been playing?

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Who's talking sulfur?

[Ross Frosty]

I'm talking sulfur.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

I am curious about this game. I feel like I was seeing it kind of lingering around and I don't really know why I haven't picked it up. Because it seems my shit. Can you explain Top Level? What it is?

[Ross Frosty]

Sure. Top Level. It is a FPS extraction shooter rpg. Basically you are going through randomly generated environments with various weapons and throwables and pickups and armor and like that and getting as far as you can and bringing some of that stuff back and upgrading it and improving your runs with meta persistent abilities and things like that. I think this all sounds very familiar. What appeals to me about Sulfur because like the nitty gritty, you know, kind of fits with stuff we've certainly played before. Visually speaking, it looks like fantastic. It looks very much like a adventure time brought to life. So you have that paired with like, like these little goblins, like showing up around the corner and they're charging at you and you've Got like a cartoon gun that you're trying to like, desperately reload and you're low on ammo and. And you have all those moments, those like, tense moments and that you have in a roguelike shooter. But because of the playful aesthetic, it makes it much more approachable. I think why you've been hearing about it plan is just because they did a bunch of Steam Next Fest demos and they've been in early access for about three or four months, I want to say. And they've been doing updates in early access as well. So there's been some churn. It is not out of early access. I think it's pretty smooth for early access, but obviously there's still room to grow.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

I was trying to remember why I didn't play this and I found the screenshot that scared me away. Tell me what I'm looking at here. I just dropped it in the slack. Whoa.

[Griffin McElroy]

Oh, yeah, baby. What are you talking about? That's my shit right there, man.

[Justin Baccarron]

I see a skin pizza. This looks. Yeah, man, Good game.

[Griffin McElroy]

Deus Exs. Grid based inventory system all day.

[Ross Frosty]

Yeah, that's. That's what Plant has shared with us.

[Justin Baccarron]

Three shotguns, a bunch of rifles. This looks fun. What game is every. I want to listen now. What are you guys talking about? Hey, sorry, I zoned up. I saw five guns. What is this? I heard Plant talking. I assumed it was French. What are these? All these guns.

[Ross Frosty]

Everything has inventory space, as Griffin alluded to. It's like Deus ex where things take up grids in your inventory. So a shotgun's gonna take up a lot more space than a little pistol. So you're making those tough calls of like, what am I bringing versus not. And then back at home, you have like a kind of a home base inventory that you can stock up with random shit.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

So do I have to spend a lot of time in this or do I spend most of my time shooting and, like, causing chaos?

[Ross Frosty]

I mean, that's up to you. Do you want to min max your runs to the great success that you might see in doing that, or would you rather just like, kind of fuck around? You can do both.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Okay, that's good. I want it.

[Ross Frosty]

Yeah. You might not find as successful runs there. I kind of like the satisfaction of like, building a run out of like, all this stuff as you know. But it is not for everyone. It's not a Boomer shooter. Like, you shouldn't look at it like that. It is more like a tactical.

[Griffin McElroy]

What does that mean? Boomer shooter?

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Are you frill?

[Griffin McElroy]

Yeah, I don't know what that means, but Justin and I don't work at Polygon anymore, so.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Yeah, but like you're the target audience of a boomer shooter is a shooter that is inspired by the era of like from Doom to Quake to Unreal, but now we're getting modern versions of it. So I think like what would be the classic.

[Griffin McElroy]

More of a Gen X shooter if you. If you really want to.

[Ross Frosty]

Yeah, I think it's more that you do. Booming. It's not that you are a boomer.

[Justin Baccarron]

But that is a bad. Added up to another classic bit of video games industry slang that doesn't make a goddamn bit of sense. Put it on the pile with Roguelites.

[Ross Frosty]

I kind of agree, quite honestly, but I mean, it's a Doom, like, but it's not in this case, it's not a Doom. Like that's good.

[Justin Baccarron]

If you said quakish. If you said it's quakish, then I'm with you.

[Ross Frosty]

Hexanes.

[Justin Baccarron]

Hexx. Hexagonal.

[Ross Frosty]

Hexagonal. I like that. It's a cool game. My one minor critique, and I hope they kind of evolve this over time, is it feels like the level design is like pretty simplistic, which doesn't allow like a lot of like you're kind of like churning through, I wouldn't say corridors, but a little more linear than I would prefer. I kind of want a little more room to explore and find random off the beaten path. But it's cool. I've been enjoying it.

[Griffin McElroy]

Great.

[Justin Baccarron]

I've. I had a couple little small things that I thought were kind of neat. More and more public service announcement type things because I feel like this is another one that won't. These two don't require a lot of explanation. You're probably going to know if you want to play these or not. First is Spilled, which is a little independent game that is just very recently released. 26th of March, I think this. This was released. So it's. It's fairly recent. It is a, I guess you'd say a cozy game where you play the captain of a little. A little vessel that's cleaning up waste in a body of water. So you cruise around these pools of water and you clean up oil spills and find trash with a big scoop. And then you push the scoop and all the oil and the trash into a recycling station where you are paid for it and given you guessed it, a bigger scoop and a bigger tank to store the oil and some speed upgrades and stuff. And there's like, if you run across like oil on rocks. You could spray the oil off. There is no difficulty to this. It is. It reminds me of a little bit of like a game about digging a hole. This idea of just like a pleasant sort of bonsai tree that you can pluck away at and just unwind. If you're in the market for something like that then Spilled by Lente L E N T E Is the developer there.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

What would you call the. The visual style here where I assume it was made in 3D but it looks like it's pixels.

[Justin Baccarron]

Gosh. You know what plant the. The nearest I can say is it kind of looks like. Like the. Like a more detailed Lucas Arts kind of like. Yeah compute. Like it's like a more dialed in but same aesthetic sense is like a Day of the Tentacle. Almost like that.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Like a scum game. Maiden 3 yeah, there's a bit of.

[Justin Baccarron]

A scum game I think. I think vibe to it a little bit like Dirk Small Wood or something like that if you want to get real old school. But yeah, it's very nice relaxing experience if you're in the mood. The other thing that came out this week is called the Chef's shift.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Sorry, I'm just very glad you're bringing this because I have a million questions about this one. And like, literally, how does it work? Sorry I cut you off.

[Justin Baccarron]

No, you didn't cut me off at all. So it's like a. Similar to like overcooked or other sorts of like, you know, keeping the different. You got a customer that you're in the. In the. You're working a restaurant and you've got customers coming in. You're also trying to hide the fact that you're a criminal, which is story relevant, but like not really gameplay relevant, but the way that you interact with the things in the kitchen with your customers with like for example, if you want to make an espresso, you have to go to the espresso machine and grind it and then you have to go to the brewing machine and brew the cup and then you serve it. But from the moment the game begins, it's all keyboard. You don't you. If you try to use the mouse, it says use the keyboard. Like you don't touch the mouse. Again, it's all keyboard. So all interactions. Everything you're doing is through typing. So like you're practicing your typing. You're trying to type as fast and accurately as possible. And that is how you are like balancing and keeping everything going.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

So a word you chose to use there is practicing and that's my, like, big question around this game. Is this a game that is a game first, or is it a teachers typing practice typing game first?

[Justin Baccarron]

I think this is very much more about like the. The. The. The balancing, the different things that you've got going on in the kitchen and like, time management. Definitely. I think that the typing is like an added layer of interactivity where you're like, there's some extra, you know, some extra difficulty. And it's a way for the game to balance difficulty and for you to feel like you're more involved in the cooking process and all these different tasks.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

It's more of a fun mechanic than like a. Oh, we are doing this really as an exercise for you to learn typing.

[Justin Baccarron]

It feels like a hook in a. In a real sense, but it does. It also feels like if you were good at typing, it would be more pleasant. Like, it would probably be a little easier to play. This is not reinventing the will. It's not particularly like you.

[Griffin McElroy]

You.

[Justin Baccarron]

You probably have a pretty good idea what it is. The art style is nice. It reminds me of. It's a little bit like washed out pastoral. A bit like Professor Layton. I want almost say.

[Griffin McElroy]

Sure.

[Justin Baccarron]

With. With the aesthetics. It's like, it's very nice, pleasant to look at, calm.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Kind of like Diner Dash by way of Professor Layton.

[Justin Baccarron]

That's. Yeah, that's. Wow, that's such a good call. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Professor Layton started in a Diner Dash game that was powered by typing. It would be the Chef. Chef.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Man, that's awesome. I'm definitely gonna check that one out. Cool. Hey, y'all. I finally played a game that I've been wanting to play for, like, I don't know, two months now. It feels like Halo 3.

[Ross Frosty]

Got it.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Halo 3. I played Kingdom Come, Deliverance 2, which I will, like, bash out the backstory here. We did not get code for this when it came out, which is a little unusual. Polygon, specifically Polygon didn't. But then I don't think we did either. Right?

[Justin Baccarron]

Yeah, we get ignored all the time.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

That's nothing new.

[Justin Baccarron]

You can't really tell much about a game from us getting passed over anyway.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

There was a bunch of other games that came out, and that's not an excuse to not try something. It's more that there was a ton of games. So now finally got a chance to play it. And y'all. Y'all are gonna need to play it. That's like the long story short of it. I know.

[Justin Baccarron]

What is it?

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

I think you're Gonna dig it quite a bit. It is role playing game set in 15th century Europe. You are, you might change characters at some point, I'm not sure, but you are basically like the right hand of who would be the hero in a traditional video game. And you two are on your first kind of like quest of sorts back in the day. You're going to deliver a message that might just stop war of some kind. And along the way things go very, very far south. And the game is basically like you untangling that original sin. So you go from being, you know, festooned in all this amazing armor and all these powers to having to kind of work your way back up in this society so that you can find that original message, fight, you know, the evildoer who slayed your family members and deliver this and accomplish whatever it is you're about to accomplish in the first place. All that is a backdrop to, hey, we want to drop you in a really dense, really active recreation of this world. And that's the cool shit. This is, as far as I can tell, the role playing game for the people who play Elder Scrolls and are like, I wish I could spend more time working as a blacksmith. And they're like, great, we have that for you. You want to go study. We have that for you. You want to go out and just fight people and have like some really, really solid sword combat that's there too. Like we're not ignoring that type of person, but it is an all around sort of RPG experience.

[Justin Baccarron]

I want to ask a question that has helped me to more quickly understand what a game is in this current landscape. Is this a thing that you're going to play on a Steam deck that you could do a controller or is this a mouse and keyboard experience?

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

It's a controller game. I don't, I haven't tested it on Steam deck yet.

[Ross Frosty]

I think it does run.

[Justin Baccarron]

Actually I'm more interested in like how one interacts with it because I feel like it's two very different kinds of RPGs.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

It is not the true old school RPG where you can only play it with mouse and keyboard. It is, it's working just fine for me with a controller. Like it feels the first person is very cinematic. It's a first person action game. The way that the sword combat works is it's effectively like you are leaning your sword left, right, up or down and adjusting against like the person across from you. And the combat feels like really slick because you have to be watching the blade of the person who's attacking You. And if you get surrounded even by two people, which is like real life rules, if you get in a fight with two people, even if you are like really good at fighting, you're probably fucked. Maybe. Yeah, it's not good.

[Ross Frosty]

Think I can do it.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

And that happens. I know you could. That happens a lot in this game where people just get on your side or in your blind spot while you were watching a sword and suddenly you're getting your head cut off. It feels like a realistic environment. The really nice thing about this game is there are all these systems and yet the UI is extremely navigable, which I'll spare you, like, getting into it. But just to say it kind of introduces things to you right when you need to know them. And then it provides the explanation sometimes with like, literal. In game books, where necessary. It is a game that you have those games that are like a wave, like a big wave coming at you in the ocean. And you can choose to like, dive under it and just ignore it entirely, or you can try to, like, ride it and like, just get on its wavelength. And like, that is the way to play this. Because there is so much that if I. If I fought it or I worried, like, well, what if I forget any of that? It would immediately overwhelm me. But if I just, like, accept, like, I'm not very good at this, the game will, like, lend me a hand whenever I clearly need it. It's right there for me. Which is to say, like, again, tutorials are always, like, right there when you need it. Whenever you need supplies, they just happen to be around. You're like, constantly beaten up, especially at the beginning of the game. But it really wants you to accept that you, like, you again, have been completely lowered in status in this society. So it's okay that you suck and that you're like, failing a lot of like, your dialogue prompts and getting the shit kicked out of you.

[Justin Baccarron]

And you just have to go from like a rush fresh stick type to more of a.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Like a just a giraffe. A New York giraffe type.

[Ross Frosty]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, sure. Is it like simmy in the way that, like, you have to eat and drink and shit and shit?

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Yes, there is a fair amount of that stuff, but again, not to the degree that I found it distracting from fun. It never. The easy way of putting that is.

[Justin Baccarron]

There must be a really good game then. If it didn't distract me from the fun.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Press F2 shit. It never felt like work doing any of those things. They're like, should we get a lot.

[Justin Baccarron]

Of fiber then, because everything's just.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

I'm a psyllium husk man myself. And they just didn't have that in 15th century Europe. So that's a real problem.

[Justin Baccarron]

That's actually all they had, all the.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

It's just all psyllium husk, all you can eat. It's really promising. I. I would like you all to play it. I'm trying not to go too much deep into it because there's like a lot of story and I don't really want to spoil that for people who want to play it. But I think. I think you'll dig it. I mean, I think most people here liked Witcher 3, right?

[Ross Frosty]

Loved it.

[Justin Baccarron]

Yeah.

[Ross Frosty]

Do you think the writing is on par as the Witcher 3 writing?

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

I don't know. The cool trick that the writing does, it's also just way more realistic than Witcher 3. It's not about fantasy Beast, but a cool trick that the writing does is. I feel like the choices I'm making are having a tremendous impact on the story. I don't actually know if they are. They probably aren't. But I think that is the trick of good writing is that it creates a sense that you are. It doesn't really matter if there are like five other directions that could go. So long as I feel like I am telling my story, it's working. And it does a great job of that where when things go wrong in the like top level story, I feel like it was because of decisions I made. And that's to me a pretty great sign of writing. And the dialogue is good, like moment to moment. It knows when to like get out of its own way.

[Justin Baccarron]

Well, there's an assortment for you. There's a bevy of different games you could enjoy. After the break, we're going to kind of say, take a moment to remember a friend, look at the. His oncoming death and consider his son's future right after this.

[Ross Frosty]

So once again, we are obviously recording this before the big Nintendo direct you all are wondering about. But we did record this after the first Nintendo direct that happened in late March. That had a surprising number of kind of crazy announcements in it.

[Griffin McElroy]

Yeah, I think crazy in sort of like every imaginable kind of like read on that word. Every possible definition.

[Ross Frosty]

There's a lot of shit in there I don't think anyone was expecting.

[Griffin McElroy]

Sure. Yes. No, I will grant you that. Absolutely. It is the. I mean, we were talking recently, I don't remember if it was on show or not, about sort of like the Swan Song Kind of games for a console sort of life cycle.

[Ross Frosty]

Yeah, the last games that come out right at the end of the cycle that kind of show off all the hardware's tricks.

[Griffin McElroy]

And this feels like the Nintendo Direct, where they kind of show what that is going to entail. And there. Yeah, man, there's a lot of stuff. A lot of it is known quantity like Pokemon Legends ZA and Metroid Prime 4. Beyond which I guess we haven't seen like actual gameplay footage of until now, right?

[Ross Frosty]

Yes.

[Griffin McElroy]

It's the first kind of debut of that.

[Ross Frosty]

Yeah, I turned it off.

[Griffin McElroy]

Oh, really?

[Ross Frosty]

Yeah, I was like, I don't want to watch this. I'm gonna play this game. So I turned that off, but I did know it was in there.

[Griffin McElroy]

Okay, well, you tell Earmuffs. I guess Russ is fine.

[Ross Frosty]

No, Earmuffs is fine.

[Griffin McElroy]

I guess Samus has psychic abilities in this one. There's like psychic powers that you get. That looks fun. And then there's a new Rhythm Heaven. And then there's a new Tomodachi Life.

[Ross Frosty]

Wait, wait, wait. I wanna hear about Rhythm Heaven Heaven because that game had only one installment, right? Yeah.

[Griffin McElroy]

Rhythm Heaven. No.

[Ross Frosty]

Have there been multiples before this one?

[Griffin McElroy]

I'm pretty sure you're gonna make me.

[Ross Frosty]

Because that's the one with a little. Little guys run across the screen and they go baa, baa, ba. And you hit the button in time with their bars.

[Griffin McElroy]

That's exactly right, Russ. You got it in one. This is Rhythm Heaven Groove. It's a new. A new Rhythm Heaven game. Not a. Not a remake or re release or anything. It's. It's coming out on Switch in 2026. They showed it and it's Rhythm Heaven. It's basically about as straightforward a rhythm game as you can possibly imagine.

[Ross Frosty]

If only someone did an act out to prove exactly what kind of game it was.

[Griffin McElroy]

You just did and you crushed it. You did so good. Thank you.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Tomodachi Life. I think we should get into Tomodachi Life, which is.

[Griffin McElroy]

Yeah, let's get into it.

[Ross Frosty]

I never played the original and I don't fully. I guess it's the Sims made by Nintendo. Is that a fair statement?

[Griffin McElroy]

That is a wild. I think it is the Sims only in the sense that you have a bunch of little guys. And then in any other sense. It's not really that. It is more akin to Miitopia, I believe was the name of that RPG that came out where you had all the Miis. And in the original Tomodachi Life, you used your Miis and the Miis that I think you could, like, download over the Internet, and they would live on a little island together, and you could make them date and get married, and then they would go and they would sing karaoke, and you could change the words that they sang when they did karaoke. And it was just an infinite sort of, like, comedy engine.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

It's a soap opera scene.

[Griffin McElroy]

It's really, really good shit. Yes, that's a very good shit.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

It's about causing drama between you and all your friends who are represented as Miis in this world. And then also downloading, like, lots of famous models of characters. So it's like you and Batman and Prince.

[Ross Frosty]

Okay. This all sounds like the Sims.

[Griffin McElroy]

It's like. I mean, more.

[Justin Baccarron]

It's a.

[Griffin McElroy]

More.

[Justin Baccarron]

It's like a gamier version of it. Like, it's. It's less sim and more about, like, the human interaction and the stories and the narrative. Right. Like, you're thinking a lot more about, like, bathroom breaks and hydration, where this is more about, like, your interests. It's more like think more reality show kind of. That makes more sense.

[Ross Frosty]

Yeah, yeah.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Less caring for an ant farm. More drama.

[Ross Frosty]

More watching all the chaos sort of unfold like a Rube Goldberg machine.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Kind of like the hilarious shit about this is it is the final announcement. It looks at first, a little bit like Animal Crossing, which is a great way of getting people excited and then throwing them off. And then.

[Griffin McElroy]

I was not fooled for it.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Of course not.

[Griffin McElroy]

I do not think it looks like it.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

They announced Tomodachi life, and you're like, wow, great. I mean, this must come out tomorrow. It's that type of game, right? Like 2026. We needed to let you know early. We know that the hype is strong on this one.

[Griffin McElroy]

So we got Patapom 1 and 2 are getting a re release.

[Justin Baccarron]

That's great.

[Griffin McElroy]

I'm here for that. The new Hot Shots golf game. Absolutely.

[Ross Frosty]

Okay.

[Justin Baccarron]

I want to.

[Ross Frosty]

This is. This was it.

[Justin Baccarron]

Yeah.

[Griffin McElroy]

Russ, go off chain. Go off chain. You're ready, dog.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Let him loose.

[Ross Frosty]

Of all the announcements that happened during this press conference, this was the one that I was most excited for. How obsessed am I with Hotshots Golf? In addition to playing through stupid. Extremely. I've played through both PSP installments. I've played through the PS4, everybody's golf, whatever that was called. I've played through all of them. How obsessed am I? I've been trying to count. When was the last Clap Hands golf game, which was the developer of Hotshots Golf to figure out like when the next cadence would happen, which it turns out was the iOS not actually making this game. No, they are not involved in this game. Sony hired, I don't remember the developer team, but they're working with Namco Bandai to make this game. Clap Hands has completely been cut out of the franchise they built from scratch. But I kind of hope that at this point there's enough Hotshots DNA in the world that people know what a good versus bad game in the Hot Shots franchise is and maybe they can make a good one.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Okay, so this is a Resident Evil is called Resident Evil in America. It's called Biohazard in Japan. Right. And eventually we got to Biohazard, Resident Evil and Resident Evil. Biohazard, were they like the subtitle was the thing?

[Ross Frosty]

Yes, they were trying to unify the branding and that's, I think, what they're doing here. Because it's everybody's Golf in Japan and Hotshots Golf in the West.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

I did not appreciate that it had been everybody's golf this entire time. Yeah, this is wild. So. So Claphams is separate from this.

[Ross Frosty]

Yeah. Claph Hands is an independent developer. They've basically made every hotshots game since 2:22 because the first game was made by the Intelligent Systems, made the first Hotshots golf game, incredibly. So they've been making all of them since then and they've gotten very good at it. And then they went and made what is it? Fucking easy come easy Golf with The. Was the iOS version. It was also on Switch, so that was their, like spin off, I guess, because they don't own the rights to Hot Shots. So now Sony's doing their own thing. This is the first Hotshots Golf to be multi platform. So it's coming to Switch, it's coming to PS5 and it's also coming to Steam, which is also very exciting because there really aren't any great arcadey golf games on Steam. I've really looked.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

How do you feel about it being made by people who haven't made these games before?

[Ross Frosty]

I am cautiously optimistic. I think there's enough, you know, I think there's enough on paper to know what a good Hotshot's golf game is, that someone could kind of follow it if they were a capable developer. But who knows?

[Justin Baccarron]

It's.

[Ross Frosty]

It's kind of hard to say. It is funny though, because like, Clap Hands was working off of someone else's work too. Clap Hands came in after Hotshots one made by Intelligent Systems, which went on to make Mario Golf and all that stuff. So sorry for the rant on this franchise, but there just aren't very many of these style games out there. So whenever one of them comes along, I get very excited.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

It's this attention to detail that people listen to the show for.

[Ross Frosty]

I guess.

[Griffin McElroy]

So I'm so excited. I'm also thrilled. I love this series and I'm chomping at the bit for the new shit. Witchbrook got a trailer that looks great. Little life sim I want to talk about. I think it's very interesting. The virtual game card.

[Justin Baccarron]

Yeah. Help me understand this.

[Griffin McElroy]

So the way that they are making it sound is the same way that you can take a game, a physical game cartridge out of your switch, put it in somebody else's switch and just play it. They are going to make it possible to do that with a digital title where you can eject it from one switch and then put it on another switch, regardless of who that second switch kind of belongs to. And so it allows you to transfer over digital games. I'm assuming it is like a license transfer thing. Right. I imagine there's a lot of online connectivity. I imagine there will probably be some gating in terms of how often you are able to do this.

[Ross Frosty]

Yeah. So I have some of that background. You need a Internet connection when you do the connection to the new console. So you're connecting to another console. You need an Internet connection. And when you do that share, you need an Internet connection, but the person that has it does not need an Internet connection while they're playing that game, is my understanding.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Which is the change from right now. Which is like the change from right now. Right now you need the connection.

[Ross Frosty]

So you could have like, you know, if your kid is in the backseat playing Switch, they don't necessarily need an Internet connection while they're playing it, but it does automatically revert the game back to you after two weeks.

[Justin Baccarron]

Okay.

[Ross Frosty]

So you can reload it, but that's sort of how they suspend it.

[Griffin McElroy]

Oh, I didn't know that part.

[Ross Frosty]

Yeah. They also limit the. You can only do one game at a time. So your kid is like, oh, I want to play Zelda. Here's Zelda for two weeks. You can play it whenever you want to. I can't play Zelda while that's happening. So it's. It's on your thing. We can't play at the same time.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

So you can't permanently like sell a game. A digital copy of a game, correct?

[Ross Frosty]

Yeah. There's nothing. Nothing that would remove your ownership of the Game permanently.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Okay, okay.

[Ross Frosty]

It's very bizarre. It's also bizarre when you compare it to like Steam, for example, which has the Steam family system, which is like way more generous and not as limited.

[Justin Baccarron]

Like can you ask for it back.

[Griffin McElroy]

From them physical force?

[Justin Baccarron]

If you loan it to. If I loan a game to Griffin and I'm like, actually I want to play it.

[Ross Frosty]

Yeah. I think there must be a way to revert it. That would be crazy if it was just locked on his system for two weeks.

[Justin Baccarron]

The whole thing just feels like, I don't know, it's definitely more in line with the way like buying and playing video games is going. But it feels like typical Nintendo, like glacial shift. That doesn't really seem to address what like the need would be.

[Ross Frosty]

I mean it addresses this, which is a family ownership of a Switch. You've got a, you know, in this case what's going to be a Switch two, let's say. And Griffin has the best and brightest and then he gives the shitty Switch to his child and he can give the games that he already owns to his child on that shitty Switch.

[Justin Baccarron]

I think the difference is though, like when I do that with my kids and I'm like, here's this shitty iPad for you to mess around with. All the games, all the content is like there, it's still just as usable and like it's hard. It's actually hard to get my kids into like other games because all these like hoops you gotta jump through. Whereas with an iPad it's like, here, you don't have Roblox on there. Well, here I can log into Roblox in 30 seconds. And now I'm on this device too, because it's so much less about the device that you're using it on.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Okay, I think I've found one complication here. If you have two Nintendo Switch and they are both linked to the same Nintendo account, then you can switch it permanently. Not the two week thing. So like exactly what you were saying. Fresh. Like Griffin has a Nintendo Switch that, you know, Daddy Switch and then he has Baby Switch and he wants to make it so that the games belong to Baby Switch. He can switch those over. This is an insane thing to say. I don't even know what I'm doing here. Then he can, that, that will be permanent.

[Ross Frosty]

But you could do that previously. Like if you logged into the, the same account, you could download any games you own.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Yes, but you would need the, you would need to sign on online. You would, you could have one, you could have one default you could have one default switch, right?

[Ross Frosty]

Oh, and now you can have more.

[Justin Baccarron]

Than one default switch of our podcast because Nintendo, we are being punished. That's not fair.

[Ross Frosty]

We are.

[Justin Baccarron]

It's not fair that we have to be boring because this doesn't make sense.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Can we talk about Nintendo today? Let's talk about a cool thing.

[Justin Baccarron]

I mean. Yeah, sounds good.

[Griffin McElroy]

I mean, that's whole.

[Justin Baccarron]

I'd rather talk about Nintendo in 10 years when they figure out Internet. But sure, we can talk about.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Oh, okay. Nintendo today. Have you all downloaded it? The app? Nintendo Today, Find my Switch.

[Justin Baccarron]

First they gotta come out with an app. They would come out with a Steam app to help you find your Switch.

[Griffin McElroy]

You guys are my Nintendo today, so I don't need it.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

I think it's a great idea for a company like Nintendo to make an app where they say, you know what, you want something to click on and to scroll, but you don't want it to ruin your life and you want it to only last for like two minutes a day. And they made an app that's just that you open it and they're like, hey, you know what? Here's a cute Pokemon. Feeling pretty good. Here's a little. Here's a little. Here's a little bit of news. Here's a little trailer for the C button on the Nintendo Switch 2. You have now, you little.

[Ross Frosty]

I did hear about the fact that they are moving forward with the Legends of Zelda movie and that did ruin my day. So I don't know how you guys feel about that.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Never happen.

[Griffin McElroy]

I don't know.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

I like this, this era of Nintendo. I like the console transition because we get the like dump of truly some of the weirder stranger. I can't believe that they decided to put money behind this. I did not think tomodachi life would be returning anytime soon. I kind of had given up on Rhythm Heaven too.

[Justin Baccarron]

It feels like a clearing of the decks.

[Ross Frosty]

I mean, it's not. I don't think it's. I think it's different than that because you look at like a lot of these games are not coming out until after supposedly when the Switch 2 is coming out. So they. I think their intention is this is kind of like the next year of both the Switch and Switch 2. These are just games that will also work on the original Switch.

[Justin Baccarron]

I just feel like it's frustrating to me because I. These ecosystems are getting easier to navigate everywhere else. And the idea that I'm going to have to not only like. I mean, I don't. That doesn't sound good to me because it's hard enough for me to keep track of my Switch as it is. I'm certainly not gonna keep track of my Switch and my Switch 2. Like, it feels like so out of step with the way things are going. If they wanna keep both of these platforms going. I mean, I'm glad they're reducing some of the walls, but it just feels like. I don't know, it feels out of step. But maybe Nintendo gets to do that. Cause they're Nintendo. I don't know.

[Griffin McElroy]

It's also insane that we're having this conversation without knowing what's going to happen in this Switch two.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Sure.

[Justin Baccarron]

Yeah. Maybe it's.

[Griffin McElroy]

For all we know, they could announce in their like all kinds of other wild, you know, anachronistic shit.

[Justin Baccarron]

But I think the question is going to be to what extent do I need to keep my Switch around if I have a Switch too? That is. That to me is like.

[Ross Frosty]

I think the. Not. Like, why would you. Like. None of these games are going to be exclusive to the original Switch.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Like, what about no Sleep? No Sleep for kaname date from A.I. the somnium files. Do you think that that comes out in July? Do you think that'll be Switch one only?

[Ross Frosty]

It's gonna be both?

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Yeah. You sure?

[Griffin McElroy]

Cool.

[Ross Frosty]

Why do you think you need your Switch apart from like having a kid play it? Why do you think you need to.

[Justin Baccarron]

Do all my, like, are all my. So all my Switch games will. Will carry over the Switch too?

[Ross Frosty]

More or less. Yeah. That's my understanding.

[Justin Baccarron]

I might go ahead and wait for the Nintendo direct since you're literally pulling it out of your ass as I'm watching in front of you.

[Ross Frosty]

I mean, I. I am pulling out of my ass, but they have been pretty clear about like backwards compatibility being like a big deal.

[Justin Baccarron]

Yeah, but I don't even know what backwards compatibility means in terms of just the Switch. Right. Because there's games that don't work because you bought this mini Switch. Right. And so the ones that require the free. The free floating controller joy cons. The free floating joy cons don't work. Right. So there's like already a fragmentation there. And I would just like to know if I buy this new thing, can the old ones go away or will I need to like keep them around to play some of those, like, specific experiences?

[Ross Frosty]

Yeah, I don't know. I guess the listeners know, but we don't.

[Justin Baccarron]

Isn't that frustrating?

[Griffin McElroy]

Must be nice.

[Justin Baccarron]

Must be nice.

[Ross Frosty]

Yeah.

[Griffin McElroy]

Should we do some honorable mentions? Yeah, I Wanna. This is a big one. Henry got really into Astrobot. He saw some videos. I don't know how these things happen. Some kids at school told him about it, or he saw a video online and he saw about Astrobot and he's like, I won't play Astrobot. So I moved the PS5 out of Daddy's office downstairs and he played through fucking all of Astrobot and got all the bots and all the puzzle pieces 100% at that thing.

[Ross Frosty]

He did that really hard platforming sequence at the end.

[Griffin McElroy]

He definitely needed some help from his old man for some of the harder challenges. I did do that, whatever it was called, the master challenge that you unlock by doing it was like we turned screens off at a certain time at night so we can try and wear the boys out before bedtime. And it was like a few minutes before that and he was like, all stressed out. He was like, could you please? And I was like, man, this level's super hard. I don't know. And I took it down. That shit feels so good. Yeah, that's that good dad shit. But, yeah, just a delightful game to play with other people. I did not necessarily click with it when I played it myself, but playing it with my. Playing it with Henry and, you know, Rachel was enjoying watching it. Gus was really, really into watching it. He's still a little too young to play it, but I just had a delightful time cruising, cruising through that whole game, seeing all the stuff it has to offer. So, yeah, that's not anything new, but that's where I'm at.

[Ross Frosty]

I've been continuing to play Noita, which I know I've bored you guys a few times about, but. But I do want to do a shout out. Okay. So I had a clean run of Noita. I beat like a run without mods or anything, and it was very satisfying. I was like, yeah, that was great. And then I looked online and realized that there's so much hidden shit in that game that you could spend like nine hours of a run just going through and, like finding everything. But you're always at the. There's always the potential of you getting one shot by fucking lava coming out from the sky or whatever it is. So I installed a mod called the Meta leveling mod, which basically allows you to level up in the game, pick perks. If you level up like a bunch of times, like 10 times in a single run, you get a meta point that allows you to permanently increase a stat. I see Justin reacting. This is his shit.

[Justin Baccarron]

No, you could really Russ it's really beautiful to watch you and this community try to make this game fun against all odds. You guys are killing yourselves to try to enjoy this fucking thing. And honestly, Russ, your determination to derive pleasure from this program when by all external signs it seems hard determined to keep you from doing so in despite a bevy of electronic entertainment options is a daily inspiration to me. Almost as inspiring as your daily quest to try to rope me in to your fucking emperor's new fun situation that you have embroiled yourself in. Not since Binding of Isaac have you worked so hard to extract the SAP of joy from a stone.

[Ross Frosty]

I appreciate that. It's a good.

[Justin Baccarron]

Please send the link. So we'll check it out though. The meta leveling sounds good.

[Ross Frosty]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's. We'll have the link for the. For the mod in. In the newsletter there.

[Justin Baccarron]

Yeah, it's links to like better help and some other resources if you just need someone to talk to or whatever your. Your particular cry for help is.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Man, I'm kind of. I can't talk about blueprints yet.

[Griffin McElroy]

Next week, baby.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Next week.

[Justin Baccarron]

We're almost there. So honorable mention is next week's episode of Besties, our first ever four hour long. No, we're gonna talk about a lot. There's. There's so many great games. There's so much fun.

[Ross Frosty]

Next week is gonna be also the Switch two because I'm going, I'm gonna be there and I'm gonna play it hands on. So we'll see. We'll see what I do.

[Griffin McElroy]

It's a big one. Perfect.

[Ross Frosty]

And then I'm gonna not participate in the blueprints conversation because I can't personally play that game right now.

[Justin Baccarron]

Yeah, hopefully they'll figure that out. Russ.

[Ross Frosty]

We'll see.

[Justin Baccarron]

But that will be next week. Anybody, anything else? We need to make the listeners aware of Planet.

[Ross Frosty]

Yeah. I wanted to thank some new members to the Patreon. We have John, we have Amos, we have Jenna, and we have Callie. Thank you for being members of the patreon [e-mail] thebesties we love you. You're great. We also have a bunch of merch in the merch store if you want to check that out. Just like besties T shirts. Probably Google that. That might show up when you search it. And it'll also be in the newsletter and I think that's the business.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Hey, Fresh, I dropped a game in the slack that I think you can play for next week. I think you'll enjoy it.

[Ross Frosty]

Really?

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Yeah. I think it's like flight catastrophe. It gives you a unique opportunity to become a crisis management specialist aboard the passenger plane.

[Ross Frosty]

Wow. That is where they're like, just designed. That's all the training was leading up to that moment.

[Justin Baccarron]

Thank you so much for listening to our podcast. Be sure to join us again next week for the besties, because shouldn't the world's besties friends pick the world's best games.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Besties?