Ghost of Yotei Slashes Through Open-World Filler

Summary

The Besties – Ghost of Yotei Slashes Through Open-World Filler

Episode Date: October 3, 2025
Hosts: Chris Plante, Griffin McElroy, Justin McElroy, Russ Frushtick

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Episode Overview

This episode of The Besties is anchored by two deep-dives: a full review and group discussion of Ghost of Yotei, the highly anticipated open-world sequel to Ghost of Tsushima, and impressions of the Final Fantasy Tactics: Ivalice Chronicles remake. The crew breaks down what works and what doesn’t in modern open-world design, narrative integration, and the shifting tone of genre-defining RPGs. As always, the conversation is punctuated with tangents, favorite moments, and playful banter.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Banter and Set-Up (00:01–03:00)

• Opening with Justin’s porch-sweeping/power washing misadventures quickly spirals into a humorous riff about cleanliness, woodworking, and “sweeping with power.”
  • “When you know how to work your wood, it’s just an opportunity for a craft.” – Justin (00:55)
• The cast links these tangents to Ghost of Yotei’s gameplay loops and environmental details. Bird droppings, believe it or not, serve as both a joke and a segue into game navigation mechanics.
  • “Thank you, birds.” – Griffin (01:35)

2. Ghost of Yotei – Initial Impressions & Improvements (04:46–07:55)

• How does Yotei compare to Ghost of Tsushima?
  • Justin: “I thought it was really cool and I liked it a lot...but then I kinda lost interest in it. It got kind of samey for me and I bailed on it halfway through.” (04:49)
  • Griffin: Loss of taste for big open worlds, but praised polish and combat. (05:13)
  • Plante: “Did not like that game whatsoever... dull, slow, not even that pretty. But this game—mmm, yummy, yummy.” (05:29)
  • Russ: “Very slow-guided start in the first game. This definitely remedied that.” (05:45)
• Yotei’s Pacing & Premise
  • Immediate action: The revenge plot starts by killing one of the Yotei Six in the opening minutes (06:05).
  • The opening interactive sequence: painting a list of vengeance targets using the DualSense touchpad to form kanji. Griffin calls this a “really, really, really, very strong start.” (06:38–07:28)
  • Plante notes the familiar “revenge on masked enemies” setup but says the difference is Yotei’s speed: “You are zipping through it. That’s the hook here, right?” (07:55)

3. Technical Impressions & Quality of Life (08:35–10:39)

• Discussion of PS5 Pro and negligible but appreciated loading improvements (“I feel it not being there” – Justin, 08:54).
• “They’re finally using that technology from when they announced the PS5, where...you just zip. There’s no more loads. You just zip everywhere.” – Plante (08:35)
• The use of flashbacks for storytelling and tutorials (10:07), enabling you to learn skills as a child and immediately apply them as an adult.

4. Combat Evolution & Narrative Tone (10:41–13:06)

• Shift away from forced stealth and duality:
  • Justin: “This feels very heavily into combat... Why are you giving me both the assassinate prompt and the sword fight prompt?” (10:42)
  • Griffin: “This game does not fucking care... she just wants to fucking kill these guys.” (12:04)
• The main character, Atsu, is driven, blood-soaked, but sometimes casually conversational:
  • “She is fucking drenched in blood, head to toe, and she’s like, ‘Hey, do you have any hats?’” – Russ (12:55)
• Introduction of Miike Mode (Takashi Miike-inspired) and other visual filters for variety/customization:
  • “Such a great idea... it gives you these different options to change the vibe for whatever you’re feeling in that moment... And they actually work.” – Plante (13:26)
  • Kurosawa mode mentioned: black & white visuals, film grain, and crunched audio. (14:12)

5. Accessibility and Combat Mechanics (14:23–16:10)

• Colorblind issues: Yellow/red/orange attack cues; some accessibility options (“every single time on yellow” – Russ, 14:27).
• Combat described as stylish, dynamic, and reminiscent of Arkham Asylum, with context-based improvisation (picking up and throwing swords, using sand, etc.) (15:44).
  • “Closest yet to Bushido Blade as an open world combat system.” – Plante (15:59)

6. Weapon Progression and Immersion (16:18–18:28)

• Progress is tied to hunting down the six, each with signature weapons and unique “training montages”; weapon mastery is earned, not given.
  • “It’s some Indigo Prophecy shit... it’s Quantic Dream as hell. But it’s the good dream shit.” – Justin and Griffin, on two-sword QTEs (18:20–18:28)

7. Streamlined Open World Structure (18:33–21:19)

• Griffin lauds how clear and pared-back the world is: obvious visual indicators (shrines, hot springs, smoke), streamlined upgrades and quick skill progression.
• Still, some bemoan long traversal gaps (“bit long in the tooth” – Griffin, 19:56), but Justin and Russ point out the instant fast travel after initial exploration (20:03), and note that narrative missions are where pacing can bog down (20:10–21:19).
  • “This game wears a little bit two hats at points... the open world side mission stuff goes incredibly quickly... but mission missions, story missions... that’s where the bulk of time was spent in narrative and cutscenes, and none of which are skippable...” – Russ (20:10)

8. Narrative vs. Open World Experience (21:22–25:45)

• Unskippable cutscenes a recurring pet peeve—“44... why can't I skip?” – Justin (22:28)
• The game feels open, but at key moments, players are pushed into “levels” via transitions: “There are a lot of times where you are shimmying between rocks and you’re entering a level, or especially when you chase on the Yotei 6, it’s like, oh, I’m gonna climb the mountain...suddenly you’re in the mountain and you’re in the mountain level.” – Plante (23:13)
• Griffin wants more organic open-world surprises, like Zelda: Totally organic emergent moments are less frequent; more often, encounters are player-initiated via conscious choices (talking to NPCs triggers missions). (25:21–26:10)
  • “Do you not like video games?” (26:26) — playful ribbing of Griffin’s picky tastes

9. UI, Exploration, and Final Ghost of Yotei Thoughts (26:53–27:12)

• Universal applause for minimal, immersive UI and a “fast start” design philosophy: “Fast start makes people have fun in the first hour of the game. Don't start your game in a mine. Come on.” – Russ (27:12)

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[SECOND HALF] Final Fantasy Tactics: Ivalice Chronicles Review (29:26–42:18)

Game History, Remake Features, and Story (29:26–32:51)

• “Final Fantasy Tactics, Ivalice Chronicles” is a remake of the classic PS1 tactical RPG—features new memos, charts, easier-to-follow worldbuilding and retrained localization.
  • “It is a very, very dense story about a sort of war of succession... and I actually think that that stuff is pretty valuable.” – Griffin (31:08)

Story Themes and Writing (32:51–35:30)

• The game frames class conflict and the aftermath of war with unusually direct relevance to current events.
  • Quote from scenario writer Yasumi Matsuno:
    “And now, in 2025, a time when inequality and division are still deeply rooted in our society, I offer the story once again. The will to resist is in your hands.” (35:40–36:24)
  • “It is an effective thing to play a game that has a story that resonates with the current situation so clearly and so well.” – Griffin (36:29)

Difficulty, Accessibility, and Playability (36:46–38:00)

• “Opening difficulty curve is quite steep,” but for the first time, there are difficulty settings and automation to minimize grind (37:08).
• “I’ve had a lot of issues with the game’s opening difficulty curve...this game offers you difficulty settings for the first time...you can minimize some of the grinding and farming that you might need to do.” – Griffin (37:08–37:46)

Visual Upgrades, Features, and Camera Options (38:00–39:50)

• New softened sprites, optional CRT filter, bird’s-eye camera; not as luxurious as the new “2D-3D” RPG makeovers, but effective, accessible, and preserves the classic tactical flow.
  • “There’s a fast forward button...just hold to toggle during fights you don’t want to take forever.” – Griffin (39:54)

Missing Extras (final thoughts, 40:04–41:32)

• Some bonus content from earlier remakes cut, such as guest characters, but core story and gameplay “timeless” and “the most approachable version yet.”

Fire Emblem Comparison and Permadeath (41:01–42:00)

• Battles are more about elemental strengths and unit customization than rigid weapon-class triangles.
• Emphasis on small-party tactics (4–6 units); permadeath raises stakes, adds risk/reward. (41:32–42:00)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “For more woodwork. Yeah, more woodwork. I mean, they sound clean. Mission accomplished. No bird shit on these for sure.”
  – Griffin (01:00)
• “It is the guiding light.”
  – Plante, on bird droppings marking navigation points (01:36)
• “She just wants to fucking kill these guys.”
  – Russ, on the protagonist’s singular drive (12:04)
• “I can’t tell you how many dialogue sequences I’ve had where she is fucking drenched in blood, head to toe, drenched in the viscera of others, and she’s like, ‘Hey, do you have any hats?’”
  – Russ (12:55)
• “Use your senses. You’re cooking fish, flipping the controller up and down...for the two swords, it is giving you QTEs that are basically impossible...turns how miserable using the L3 button is into an idea inside of the game.”
  – Plant (17:12)
• “If I feel like my time is being wasted in an open world game, I feel it more intensely.”
  – Griffin (19:56)
• “Do you not like video games?”
  – Playful group ribbing at Griffin’s open-world fatigue (26:26)
• “And now in 2025...I offer the story once again. The will to resist is in your hands.”
  – Matsuno’s letter, read by Plante, on the relevance of Tactics (35:40)
• “It is an effective thing to play a game that has a story that resonates with the current situation so clearly and so well.”
  – Griffin (36:29)
• “I do kind of wish it had that level of polish that, like, Octopath and those more recent 2D-3D games have had. But I’ve gotten the furthest in it in this version of it than I ever have because...a lot of the things that have scared me off...have been smoothed out.”
  – Griffin (39:22)
• “There's permadeath in the game... you have three rounds to revive them, and if you don't, they're fucking gone.”
  – Griffin (41:32)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

| Time | Segment | |:---------:|:------------------------------------------------------------------------| | 00:01 | Opening banter: porch, power washing, woodworking | | 01:23 | Bird droppings, navigation, transition to Ghost of Yotei | | 04:46 | Ghost of Yotei impressions: how the sequel compares | | 06:38 | Opening sequence: hit list, DualSense kanji writing | | 07:55 | Speedy storytelling contrasted with other open worlds | | 10:07 | Flashbacks as tutorials, minimal downtime, instant “zipping” | | 12:04 | Protagonist’s drive and blood-soaked tonal shifts | | 13:06 | Miike mode, Kurosawa mode, stylistic and accessibility options | | 14:23 | Colorblindness and attack cue issues | | 15:44 | Combat: improvisation and Arkham influence | | 17:12 | Weapon progression, QTEs, immersive tactile play | | 18:33 | Map, skill points, open world flow | | 19:56 | Traversal gripes and fast travel | | 20:10 | Narrative missions, pacing, and unskippable cutscenes | | 22:28 | Linear “level” moments in the “open” world | | 23:13 | Seamless transitions, but sometimes claustrophobic story progression | | 25:21 | Open world organic moments versus structured content | | 26:53 | UI/UX minimalism, streamlined exploration | | 27:12 | “Fast start” design philosophy | | 29:26 | Final Fantasy Tactics: Ivalice Chronicles—remake begins | | 31:08 | Worldbuilding—memos, charts, better narrative tracking | | 32:51 | Class struggle, mature storytelling | | 35:40 | Designer letter, resonance with contemporary inequality | | 37:08 | Difficulty options, playability, automation | | 38:00 | Visual update, camera, and fast-forward features | | 41:32 | Permadeath, unit management |

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Additional Segments & Honorable Mentions

• Mailbag & Upcoming Games:
  • Hype for Pokémon/Minecraft fusion “Pocopia,” roguelike “Clover Pit”, and reactions to the “Baby Steps” demo (42:34–44:25).
• “Six Thumbs, One Heart” group play insight: The challenge and fun of splitting game controls between multiple players (44:25–45:41).
• Other Recommendations:
  • Hades II, Megabonk (3D Vampire Survivors), Only Murders in the Building (TV series), and a range of retro and DIY YouTube channels highlighted by Justin (48:22–52:00).
  • Justin details favorite YouTube channels for non-commercial, process-based gaming content: Sayaka's Digital Attic, Tech Dweeb, Cultured Vultures.
• Community and patron support reminders (56:17), plus tease for next episode: Silent Hill F.

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Memorable Moments of Levity

• Extended riff on whether to buy a power washer and the logistics of using one in an apartment. (50:16–50:42)
• Debate on whether the new “Q Up” game (by Frank Lantz) is “the future of esports” or an elaborate game-as-joke:
  • “It’s about coin flipping...what do you mean, is it a joke?” – Plante (54:36)
  • “Is it frog fractions three? Like, is that what’s going on?” – Russ (55:05)

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Podcast Character and Tone

The episode is marked by irreverence, friendly ribbing (especially at Griffin’s open-world fatigue), a passion for the interplay between game mechanics and narrative, and a real curiosity about how contemporary games can streamline genre conventions without losing personality. Their deep-dive reviews strike a balance between rigorous critique and heartfelt recommendation, always mindful of how design changes impact play.

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In Summary

Ghost of Yotei emerges as a sequel that learns from its predecessor’s pacing and polish flaws, centering player agency and RPG immediacy in both mechanics and narrative. The team praises its responsive combat, streamlined open world, dynamic side content, and commitment to player-fueled progression, with only minor gripes about traversal downtime and unskippable narrative sequences.

The Final Fantasy Tactics remake gets high marks for accessibility, modernized visuals, and narrative depth that feels timely and potent in 2025. The conversation is generous with context, always aware that long-time fans and newcomers alike have much to rediscover.

Throughout, the Besties maintain their signature mix of insightful critique and earnest delight—confirming, once more, that “the world’s best friends [should] pick the world’s best games.”

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Transcript

[Justin McElroy]

I was cleaning off my porch and I was sweeping. And then I always do this thing where I start sweeping my porch. I think, God, God, I hate sweeping my porch. And I remember, hey, you got that pressure washer. Oh, that's like sweeping. Now you're sweeping with power, you know, turbo power. So I do that thing I always do where I should be sweeping, but it's that I get the power washer and I just start spraying it off. And then I look at my beautiful Adirondack chairs that I made so many years ago and I thought, wow, these things have seen brighter days. I want to give them a bit of a spit of polish and get some of this old dust off of there. Oh, well, guys, my afternoon project. I'm going to be refinishing some chairs today.

[Russ Rushky]

Oh, no.

[Justin McElroy]

That decision was made pretty quickly. I was like, wow, this is looking great. Then I was like, wow, is that a splittered? I made splitters in this.

[Russ Rushky]

Oh, you fucked up your chairs.

[Justin McElroy]

No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Russ, when you know how to work your wood, it's just an opportunity for a craft.

[Griffin McElroy]

For more woodwork. Yeah, more woodwork. I mean, they sound clean. They sound like, mission, mission accomplished. No bird shit on these for sure.

[Justin McElroy]

No, no, no. It got worse than that, Griffin, because then once I started doing that, then I realized, oh, man, I have to do this everywhere. So now it actually looks worse than when I started because I really lost interest in it.

[Russ Rushky]

Yeah. Yeah, that's funny.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

I realizing that strategy would mess up the game we are talking about today. Ghost of Yotei minus birdshit. You would not have a fucking clue where to go in this game.

[Griffin McElroy]

Thank you, birds.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

It is the guiding light.

[Russ Rushky]

It is a blight on Japan. All of the bird shit. And Justin, you just need to travel over there and work your magic.

[Griffin McElroy]

Work your magic. Please don't. You would be asked to leave the country very, very quickly.

[Russ Rushky]

The birdshot is very holy.

[Griffin McElroy]

All these Torii gates are absolutely lovely and you just missed a smudge right there.

[Justin McElroy]

Let me just.

[Griffin McElroy]

Whoopsies.

[Justin McElroy]

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

[Griffin McElroy]

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

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

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

[Russ Rushky]

Sorry, Justin. Do you have a bar in your house?

[Justin McElroy]

Russ, say it. Just do a book, Russ.

[Russ Rushky]

It's like the picture of it.

[Justin McElroy]

The world is in my office. I don't know. Okay, hold on. Just like chill.

[Griffin McElroy]

Yeah, I need to say your name.

[Russ Rushky]

Okay. My name is Russ Rushky. I know the best game of the week. Welcome to Greatest and Greatest Home Entertainment.

[Griffin McElroy]

I'm one of the best seasons. We talk about the latest.

[Justin McElroy]

I'm not here. I have to trust that you're going to be able to do this.

[Russ Rushky]

We're crushing it. We're crushing it.

[Griffin McElroy]

Yeah.

[Russ Rushky]

Latest and the greatest of the home advertainment. I need to see this bug. So it's a video game club.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

It's come a long way since Pac Man.

[Justin McElroy]

Yeah, to be sure, video game club is just like you absolute gum.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Oh, well, thank you, Justin. Today we're talking about Ghost of Yotei. It is the sequel to Ghost of Tsushima. Big open world game. You're doing all sorts of stuff like hunting down the Yotei 6. And also you're using bird poop to figure out where you should climb in the mountains. And also there's a horse. But back to you, Justin. And I can't wait to hear more about that big, beautiful bug.

[Justin McElroy]

Check the slack, Chris. I've got a live image for you. Coming to Live from.

[Griffin McElroy]

Dude, that's a Dark Souls boss.

[Justin McElroy]

So what I'm saying is that's why the podcast stopped on my end. Guys, how many legs is that, y'? All?

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

There are so many legs on this thing, you can't count them.

[Griffin McElroy]

That's the gaping dragon out of there.

[Justin McElroy]

Poor Rachel, who is also in our slack room just like, getting absolutely no context on this one.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Also, it's on a clean Xbox. So, like, if you didn't know it was there and you went and took out a Kleenex and you tried to blow your nose, you would have a bug going up into your skull turning into a symbiote.

[Justin McElroy]

Hey, Plant, guess what? I used to pick up bugs to take him outside.

[Griffin McElroy]

Tish, I guess. Tish, I don't know.

[Russ Rushky]

Yeah, he knows.

[Justin McElroy]

He's, like, already one step ahead of me.

[Griffin McElroy]

So where is or like 30?

[Justin McElroy]

Look at his legs. Like, he'll be like 30 steps ahead of me. Just like. Cause of all the feet.

[Griffin McElroy]

So goes to the.

[Justin McElroy]

I left the picture up on my computer and now it's like the bug is here and there.

[Griffin McElroy]

You have two bugs now. We'll talk about. About Ghost of Yotei right after this break.

[Russ Rushky]

We'll put that bad boy bug in the newsletter. Won't we got to.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Oh, yeah, I'll add that shit.

[Griffin McElroy]

Spooky cd.

[Justin McElroy]

Get that? And then someone will say, justin, you have to move.

[Russ Rushky]

You can't live there anymore.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Just burn the whole house down. Get that power washer. Just start spraying.

[Justin McElroy]

Get that power washer. Blast that bug to hell. Like in the unreleased Sega CD game Bug Blasters.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Shoot the tubes, dog meat.

[Justin McElroy]

That's the re, re release sewer shark.

[Griffin McElroy]

Hey, what do you guys think about Ghost of Yotei?

[Justin McElroy]

Can I say? Well, okay, can I ask real quick, 32nd Ghost of Tsushima, how did you feel about that one? My very quick take is that I thought it was really cool and I liked it a lot, I thought. But then I kind of lost interest in it. It got kind of samey for me and I kind of bailed on it halfway through. But I thought it was really gorgeous and everything. I just didn't have staying power with him.

[Griffin McElroy]

Same for me. I love Sucker Punch and their games. I have lost my taste for open world games almost entirely, so I kind of knew it wasn't going to be my bag. But it seemed very polished and the combat I thought was pretty fun. But yeah, I bounced off Ghost of Tsushima pretty quickly.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

I love Sucker Punch, love open world games, love beautiful spaces, love visiting Japan. Did not like that game whatsoever. I found it dull. I found it slow to start and I didn't even find it that pretty. I didn't like it that much. But this game.

[Griffin McElroy]

Hmm.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Mmm, yummy, yummy. What about you, Russ?

[Russ Rushky]

Yeah, I pretty much feel the same way as Plant. Yeah. Very slow guided start in the first game. This definitely remedied that this one gets.

[Griffin McElroy]

Going almost immediately, which is really strong start. Really strong. Like Kill Bill style start of just like, I'm gonna kill these fucking six dudes. The game's going to start with me killing one of them.

[Russ Rushky]

They say yote six, but there's really just five. Cause in the first 30 seconds you're killing one of them.

[Griffin McElroy]

The tutorial is one of them.

[Justin McElroy]

And so you get to smok this cat. Yeah, it's about. You see a family attacked by a group of warriors. You have very little context for what's happening except that this girl's family has been killed. And they thought that they had killed her as well, but they didn't kill her good enough because she's coming back to kill all of them. And that's for a video game. I think one of the best premises.

[Griffin McElroy]

And it's the best one, it hits it really well too, because the first bit of interactivity you have in the game is you flash forward and you are Atsu, the main character in the game. And you are painting the names of the yote 6. On this sash that you're going to wear and you use the dualsense. What is the controller even called it the touch screen. You use the touchpad. Use the touchpad to form the kanji for these six villains names. And it's a really solid way to, like, I transition. I do. I like it sparingly. I think it's. I think in a lot of first party Zodiac games, they do go a little bit too hard. Fortunately, you can skip most of it in this game, which I appreciate, but I think that's a really, really, really, very strong start of like, here's the game. You're gonna kill these six guys and you're painting your hit list and now it's time to get going.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

And the thing is, this is not an original idea. 1. It's not an original idea. It's like so many Japanese movies, especially in the 60s and 70s, but also games have done this. I feel like the most recent Assassin's Creed was doing a version of this.

[Russ Rushky]

The most recent Assassin's Creed starts with you as a younger protagonist getting attacked by like a bunch of masked guys that you then have to go out and kill.

[Justin McElroy]

I'm really glad to hear you say that because I thought I was like losing it a little bit.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

The difference is this moves fast, really, really quick. That's the hook here, right? It moves boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. You are zipping through it. And it does a number of things that that Assassin's Creed game did. You are also going back and forth in time and kind of reliving experiences. But here again, all of these quality of life improvements. So when you want to go back in time and experience life before everything bad happened to your family, you will find a kind of like a ghost of a memory and you will press. I think it's the faceplate button and you just instantly zip to it. They're finally using that technology from when they announced the PS5, where they were like, you're gonna zip. There's no more loads. You just zip everywhere.

[Justin McElroy]

I will say this is the. I'm playing on a PS5 Professional.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Nice.

[Justin McElroy]

And I for professionals.

[Griffin McElroy]

I don't know what you're talking about, man.

[Justin McElroy]

The PS5 Pro for professionals.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Griffin didn't remember that a PS5 Pro.

[Griffin McElroy]

Happened with the rest of them.

[Justin McElroy]

It is the loading times are. I will say that notably, like, yeah, I feel it not being there.

[Russ Rushky]

Wait, wait, wait. Faster than it was.

[Justin McElroy]

Like, like, it feels fast. I don't know how to say it other than when I start the game, I'M playing the game quick.

[Russ Rushky]

Yeah, I just. I think it's comparable for what it's worth, to the normal PS5 because I also, like, did not.

[Justin McElroy]

Right. I was just specify in case that is a fact.

[Russ Rushky]

Sure.

[Justin McElroy]

I was specifying what I played.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

You're on the Professional.

[Justin McElroy]

I felt it like, on the PS5 Professional for Professional Edition VS5PE, as I call it. The interesting thing, the thing that it is doing with the timelines that I think is cool, is that the flashbacks are used. They're very brief. You're not usually stuck in them for a very long time, and you're jumping back and forth to just when it makes sense. Right. So they use it for tutorials a lot, which I think is very cool. If it needs to teach you a skill, it will have you learn that skill as a child and then it's immediately applied in your adult. So you don't get that, like, kind of nonsensical, like, learning. You already know it. Right. It's more framed like a refresher.

[Griffin McElroy]

They also do smart stuff with, like, in one of the early flashback missions, you're like, trying to find this runaway horse and you're running around with your dad and at one point he places a charm in this, like, hollow tree stump and it's like, supposed to help the flowers grow nearby. And then you go on and you do the rest of this little tutorial thing. You can come back there later when you're playing as an adult. And I was like, oh, I wonder what's up? And if you get close to the tree stump, Batsu says, like, I wonder if that charm's still there. And it is. So there's things where it's like you're hiding things in the past and you can find them in the present, which is really cool.

[Justin McElroy]

Okay. But the game.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

The game.

[Justin McElroy]

So the game part, though I remembered the last one being more stealth focused, I think. And for me, I really feel like this, even more than the last one was more of, like, a balance. This feels very heavily into combat. Like, for example, when you are in a base and trying to stealthily kill the different soldiers and you pick them off one by one, you almost immediately have a prompt that's like, hey, do you want to start a standoff and just kick this off and fight them all? No, I don't. Clearly, I don't. Why are you giving me both the assassinate prompt and the sword fight prompt? Like, no, I don't.

[Griffin McElroy]

Yeah, there's skill trees where you can go down either way. Ghost of Tsushima made such a big deal out of the main character. I think his name was Jin I wanna say.

[Justin McElroy]

Right. It was about the duality of him.

[Griffin McElroy]

He was a samurai, an honor bound samurai who had to learn to basically fight dirty so that he could make a dent in the opposition which so heavily outnumbered him. So it was about how does he integrate these stealth maneuvers or you know, dirty tricks or whatever into his, his honor, honor bound samurai ways. And this game does not fucking care.

[Russ Rushky]

Is not concerned about dirty ways. She just wants to fucking kill these guys.

[Griffin McElroy]

I love that shit. I really, really do appreciate that a lot.

[Justin McElroy]

And it's a really good character, it's a fun character who has, you know, obviously is, has had a lot of stuff go bad, but is really seems to enjoy what she does. Like, like it like in a weird way is like taking joy in this journey. Like she doesn't really have much of a plan. She's just kind of letting the wind guide her towards whatever person she wants to murder next. But like there does seem to be like a savoring of it because there she's not getting her family back. And I think that there is a realization on her part that this is it for her. Like this. The vengeance is what she is getting out of this. And she seems to enjoy it more than some characters.

[Russ Rushky]

I can't tell you how many dialogue sequences I've had where she is fucking drenched in blood, head to toe, drenched in the viscera of others and she's like, hey, do you have any hats?

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

This raises a question. There are a number of modes in this game inspired by Japanese filmmakers and artists. One of them being Miike mode, named after Takashi Miike. Did you pick that mode? Did you turn that on?

[Russ Rushky]

No, I was playing without that. I tried it a little bit like, but I'm sure it's even more absurd.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

You are just everything is covered in mud and blood. It is goop the video game really quickly on those modes. Such a great idea because open world games, you spend so much time just being in the space and it kind of can wear at its welcome, it can get dull. I think that's why a lot of people listen to podcasts when they play open world games, right? And it gives you these different options to change the vibe for whatever you're feeling in that moment. And most impressively, they actually work. Like the layers are not entirely artificial in my opinion. So there's a Kurosawa mode that makes things black and white. It's a hard way to play because you can't spot items as well, but.

[Russ Rushky]

It'S add not just black and white. It also adds like a film grain filter to it and also crunches the audio such that it sounds like you're listening to like an old fucking movie, which is very cool.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Yes.

[Griffin McElroy]

That's pretty rad.

[Justin McElroy]

Hey, Russ, did you have any problems with the colors and the parry?

[Russ Rushky]

Yeah, yeah. There's some colorblind issues in this game. There are accessibility features that make the game easier for people, but there's like. I think there's a yellow and orange that I like. Yes. Every single time on yellow.

[Griffin McElroy]

Yeah. Yellow attacks are like. You have to parry them.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Exactly.

[Griffin McElroy]

And red attacks, you have to dodge out of the way of sort of.

[Justin McElroy]

Yellow attacks are disarm attacks.

[Griffin McElroy]

That's right. Yeah.

[Justin McElroy]

You have to hold. It doesn't matter.

[Russ Rushky]

I just dodge.

[Justin McElroy]

Play the game. Play the fucking game.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

It's one of those guys.

[Justin McElroy]

If you want to know how to counter the boss at level three.

[Griffin McElroy]

I really like the combat in this game a lot. I tend to try to play it stealthy once I get into a place, but after I pick off a few people, I'll do that standoff, which is very stylish, and it helps you take out, you know, one or two guys. But then the fighting feels very. I would say it's sort of more in the kind of like Arkham Asylum style. Like, you point one stick to sort of aim your attack at the enemy you want to attack, and then it's a question of like either breaking their stance or doing a perfect parry or it's less about sort of chipping away at health bars. Unless you're in a boss fight, in which case it's very much about chipping away at health bars and. But the rest of the time, it's very much like if you get a few hits off on a guy you're going to kill.

[Russ Rushky]

There's also some. It feels like a lot of dynamism in the combat because you are doing a lot of like, oh, that guy just died. He dropped his sword on the ground. I'm going to pick up the sword and throw it at this guy for an instant kill.

[Justin McElroy]

That's such a cool.

[Russ Rushky]

That's such a cool.

[Griffin McElroy]

Throw some sand in this guy's face and get in there while he's not.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

The closest yet to Bushido Blade as an open world combat system in that as well.

[Griffin McElroy]

I'd agree with that. Yeah.

[Justin McElroy]

I. I hope as you get advanced, you're able to go back to these places and just mow through Well, I really want to. I want more of like a tap, tap, tap, where I'm just like, I.

[Russ Rushky]

Have some level there.

[Justin McElroy]

Let me just say one other thing about the. That's really important to the base combat that we didn't touch on. You have to match weapon types. So as you go through, one of the smartest things that it does is that it ties weapons to characters in the game, right? So it really quickly establishes these characters and forces you to care about them because they are also the one with the gun. Or, like, they'll only talk about, like, there's this crazy guy, he lives out on this mountain, and he has two swords, if you can believe that. And everybody's like, no way. How's he not cutting his balls off every day? I'm going to go find that guy. Like the guy who fights with a long staff on an island. It's like, okay, I'll go find.

[Griffin McElroy]

Super good training montages, too. They really make you feel like you're. You're earning it. It's not like you talk to a guy and it's like a little, you know, badge appears, and it's like, you can use two swords now. Like, you've got to.

[Justin McElroy]

Did you do the two swords?

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

So it's very rad.

[Justin McElroy]

I don't want to. It's really good. That is.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

I think it's worth talking about just that one. It's early enough in the game, and I think it's useful. So I want to talk about the two swords thing, because a thing this game does, incredibly, is use your actual senses. So Griffin already talked about the writing, the kanji with it, right? And you can feel it. There's. When you are making. You're cooking fish, you're flipping the controller kind of up and down to, like, move the fish around. You're using the gyroscope. This isn't new, but it's just using them in all the right places. And then for the two swords, it is giving you QTEs that are basically impossible. So you're learning to use the left hand for the sword. So it's like, okay, you need to QTE within a second. L1, L3 up, down, right, left on the pad. And it's just not doable and it feels terrible. It is a game that actually just turns how miserable using the L3 button is into an idea inside of the game, right? And then as you progress, you get easier and easier QTEs to the point that it starts to feel natural.

[Justin McElroy]

It's so it's some indigo prophecy Shit, we can call it what we want, but it's Quantic Dream as hell.

[Griffin McElroy]

But it's the good dream.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Shit.

[Justin McElroy]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Griffin McElroy]

I think it's great.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Really tickled.

[Griffin McElroy]

How do you guys feel about. I really do appreciate how quick everything kind of feels like you figure out you get a mission, it's like, oh, go to this cave. There's a shrine there. You go to the shrine and it's like you got a skill point now. You can unlock one of these things for the tree. There's not a ton of shit that it makes you do in order to learn that idea. And then it's like, oh, you find maps and you sort of lay those maps over your map and that helps you find the other shrines. You go there and you get a skill point that is streamlined in a way that I do appreciate quite a bit. I know when I see a hot spring in the distance, I can run to that. If I see smoke in the distance, that's probably a camp with some characters or a vendor or something. Like, I appreciate how the game stays out of its own way for the most part. So you just kind of know, like, okay, if I go there. And I think that's a staple of Sucker Punch's games. I think Sucker Punch makes great open worlds where, you know, if I go here, this will happen and I'll get this sort of like boost. I'll get this upgrade. I find the running from point A to point B to be a bit long in the tooth. You have a horse who is pretty fast. But anytime I look at my map and I'm like, I want to go there so I can get this new thing, but it's going to be quite a bit of running through fields. That is like my own personal gripe that's sort of if I feel like my time is being wasted in an open world game. I feel it. I feel like a bit more intensely.

[Justin McElroy]

But there's such. There's like an instant fast travel. Like, you only have to do that really once. Like once you get to a location like, you are basically.

[Griffin McElroy]

No, I know for sure.

[Justin McElroy]

There's a beautifully rendered like and you only have to go through it once. I don't think that. That. I don't know.

[Russ Rushky]

It didn't feel slow to me.

[Griffin McElroy]

There are.

[Russ Rushky]

I think there are pacing issues to this game that aren't that because Justin's right. Like, you really just have to go once. And I know you didn't do as much of the main story stuff, Griffin, but I think that's where this game wears a little bit too hats at points because I think the open world side mission stuff, you're right, goes incredibly quickly. You're doing side missions, you're killing guys, you get the skill point, blah, blah, blah. Once you start doing mission missions like story missions, this is not a knock per se, but that's where the bulk of the time was spent in narrative and cutscenes, and none of which are skippable. It should be noticed. It should be noted. So you are watching those cutscenes and if you decide, as I did at one point, I was like, oh, I'm in this new area. I'm just going to like see through to the end of this storyline to see what happens. It's a lot of start and stop. Like I wouldn't say Kojima level, but in the ballpark of Kojima level in terms of start and stop when you're doing the main story stuff, which to me, I gotta be real. There are definitely times, even though I like a lot of the cutscenes, there are definitely times where I was like, I should be able to skip these cutscenes.

[Griffin McElroy]

Some. Some you can skip. You can skip some just the, like.

[Russ Rushky]

Cooking food stuff you can skip. I don't.

[Griffin McElroy]

No, I mean, sometimes if you're like in a conversation, you pause. Sometimes it'll say like, hold X to.

[Justin McElroy]

See if you pause.

[Griffin McElroy]

But it's like almost. It's very, very, very rare. Yeah, you.

[Justin McElroy]

You can. Yeah. And there's some. You just can't. But there's a lot you can pause. It's like less essential. Usually sidequest data stuff. Yeah, it is interesting because you have a lot of freedom in the order in which you do stuff. Right. We kind of talked beforehand about sort of which of the Yotae six we were going to push towards because you really get yourself in a pretty long quest chain, you know, for. For a mission that I will say does start to feel like even though you could stop in the middle of one of those. Those, they don't really feel like they want you to.

[Russ Rushky]

Yeah, they feel like they roll into each other.

[Justin McElroy]

Each mission very much does. Once you're on one of those trails and it. And that does start to feel like. It starts to feel a little itchy. You know what I mean? Like, I'd like to do something else and I want to go. I want to go play the game. And it's so enjoyable. I feel like that is the one. I sort of struggled with that. Like, why can't I Skip the. I'm 44. Why can't I?

[Griffin McElroy]

In the.

[Russ Rushky]

In the first game, they added a new Game plus mode that let you skip the cutscenes in New Game plus, which honestly makes me even more aggravated because they knew it was something that people might have wanted to do. So just let me do it. The cutscenes are good. They're well directed, they're well acted, the writing is quite good. But it's just like, yeah, I want to see more of the game and maybe I have 20 minutes and maybe I don't want to spend that watching. So having that option, that's the thing.

[Justin McElroy]

It's like, I, I. Realistically, I don't know if I'm gonna get to the end of this or not, but I'd like to experience more of it.

[Griffin McElroy]

Right.

[Justin McElroy]

And. And you know, I've been watching movies and TV shows a lot. I think the Sucker Punch folks are really talented. They're not exactly reinventing the wheel narratively, you know what I mean? Like, I get it. Some of these tales, I've maybe heard some form of them before.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Yeah. But yeah, the linearity of it too is just of a different style and maybe even a different era. The game looks very open world. It does a good job of tricking it, and especially without many load times it can pull this off. But there are a lot of times where you are shimmying between rocks and you're entering a level, or especially when you chase on the Yotei 6, it's like, oh, I'm gonna climb the mountain. And then like a cutscene happens and suddenly you're in the mountain and you're in the mountain level. This isn't. It's not bad or good. It's just a style, but it feels so seamless. I want to be careful that I'm not knocking it, because in the moment I felt like I was all in the same world. They do a good job of conveying that, but once you go down a path, you can get kind of locked into it.

[Griffin McElroy]

My hang up with open world games is almost always like, if I feel like this would be better served as a more linear experience, not completely linear. It doesn't have to be like a Ninja Gaiden game, where it's like you're going from level one to level two to level three level. I really like playing the game. I like the combat, I like the cutscenes. I like the acting, I like the writing. It is the. And there is fast travel to places that you have been before, but I don't know it always kind of felt like a drag to me. The moments where I wasn't doing that stuff and that is. Wasn't doing witch stuff very much a personal gripe for me. An open world.

[Justin McElroy]

Would you like there to be a radio on the horse that you.

[Griffin McElroy]

A radio on the horse would be nice.

[Justin McElroy]

A station.

[Griffin McElroy]

No, I mean a. I think that the game gets out of its own way in terms of not overcomplicating its systems or overcomplicating its exploration. But I'm not having that Tears of the Kingdom moment where I'm like, I'm gonna go there and on my way, I get distracted by 50 things and I discover so many things and I get waylaid. And now I'm doing this dungeon. Now I'm doing this cool thing. Now I'm doing this cool thing. It's a beautiful open world, but it doesn't have that sort of vibrant density of experiences that it doesn' that maybe I want out of this.

[Russ Rushky]

I've had that moment, for what it's worth. I've had the. Like, I'm riding to this mission and like, three other things happen on the way that I, like, chase down. So it's.

[Justin McElroy]

They do it pretty organically too. You'll see, like, some wildlife. The birds are cool. Like, a bird will, like, hove in your field of view and, like, where are you going, pal? If you follow him, he will usually lead you towards something interesting.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Yes. I think the difference between what Griffin's talking about and what happens in this game is you're in Zelda and you come across a camp and then you just can fight in the camp where you can walk away. Here you'll find people at a camp and you will consciously decide to talk with them and initiate a new, like, mission sequence. You kind of like.

[Justin McElroy]

I think Griff may want more, like, arrows maybe. Is it maybe an arrows thing? Maybe if you have more arrows that were sort of like, that's it.

[Griffin McElroy]

Yeah, if I had fire arrows or freeze arrows. No, I mean, Chris actually hit on it. It's like, if I come across a camp with, like, three dudes chilling around a fire, it's like, I guess I could hang with you guys. I'm going to kill the people who kill my parents. But, like, I guess I could grill fish with you and play some tunes around the campf.

[Justin McElroy]

Yeah, man. It's kicks ass.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Yes.

[Griffin McElroy]

Do you not like video games?

[Justin McElroy]

Like, I do like.

[Griffin McElroy]

I do like video games. I like a lot of rest at camp sometimes.

[Justin McElroy]

And characters that you know in the game. Will just come up and be like, hey, so good to see you. Do you want to buy a map? But if I hit a camp right.

[Griffin McElroy]

After I camped with a young boy who's like, let me teach you how to cook mushrooms. And then I run 100ft and I run into a camp of traders, I can't be like, sorry, guys, I just camped. I can't fucking camp with you guys. I literally just camped a few minutes ago.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

I want to hear more about Final Fantasy from Griffin. But one last thing on this game. I just hope that more open world designers follow the lead here of UIs are gross in open world games. You're there because the world is beautiful and I want to spend less time in the maps. And this game does all that so well.

[Russ Rushky]

And a fast start, y'.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

All.

[Russ Rushky]

A fast start makes people have fun in the first hour of the game. Don't start your game in a mine. Come on.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

This week's episode is brought to you by Rocket Money. Now I know how it was at the beginning of the year. You said, I'm gonna get my money in order. I'm gonna cut back on all the subscriptions. And maybe you even did it. But then the year happens and stuff just kind of accumulates. You sign up for one thing here, you sign up for another thing there, and suddenly you're back to square one. Well, I have good news for you. Rocket Money makes it so easy to get everything in order. Rocket Money will help you find all of the subscriptions that you forgot about and then help you get them cancelled, saving you all of that cash, which, hey, a good time to do that, because the holidays are going to be here sooner than you think. Rocket Money is a personal finance app that helps find and cancel your unwanted subscriptions, monitors your spending, and helps lower your bills so you can grow your savings. Rocket Money shows all of your expenses in one place, including the subscriptions that you forgot about. So, like I said, you see something you don't want, boom. Get it? Canceled. Rocket Money's 5 million members have saved a total of $500 million in canceled subscriptions, with members saving up to $740 a year when they use all of the app's premium features. Cancel your unwanted subscriptions and reach your financial goals faster with Rocket Money. Go to RocketMoney.comBesties today. That's RocketMoney.comBesties RocketMoney.comBesties hey, we're back and I am very excited because Final Fantasy Tactics is a game that I have always wanted to get into. I've tried a few times. I bounced off every one of those times. And I've been hearing word that this is my opportunity to get into it. Can I ask you an embarrassing question?

[Justin McElroy]

Is Tactics one game? Is Final Fantasy Tactics one game or is that a franchise?

[Griffin McElroy]

So there's Final Fantasy Tactics. Advance was the other big one. And then Final Fantasy tactics. Basically advance 2 on the DS, I want to say. But those are sort of like standalone. Where it gets a little bit weird is the world of Final Fantasy Tactics is iValice, which is also the world of Final Fantasy 12 and Vagrant Story, if you remember that little PS1 gym. But you don't need to know any of that shit. It's completely its own sort of stuff.

[Russ Rushky]

But this is a remake. We're talking about a remake of the original game that came out on PS1.

[Griffin McElroy]

Yes. So bit of backstory. Final Fantasy X came out in 1997 on the PS1 and was beloved. Big dense story. It was the first Final Fantasy game that came to the states that had a job system where you could pick the different jobs and abilities of all of your different characters on your team. This was before Final Fantasy V and III and the other sort of ones that had those systems finally came stateside. So it was a big deal. And I would say in so much that a Final Fantasy game can be a cult classic. Like was a cult classic on the PS1. Then in 2000 something, maybe 2007, they remade it for the PSP called Final Fantasy War of the Lions. There was also a iOS version that I think was based on War of the Lions that just added some extra content, but most importantly had a retranslation because the PS1 translation had some issues. This was much more Shakespearean sort of text.

[Russ Rushky]

The original was or the remake.

[Griffin McElroy]

The retranslation for War of the Lions. It is a very, very dense story about a sort of war of succession following this like 50 year conflict between these kind of like rival princes. And there's a lot of castle intrigue and there's a lot to follow this game. Final Fantasy Tactics, the ivalice Chronicles is what this new version is called. Very wisely provides a lot of like memos and charts to help you like keep track of like, you know, who is Duke Larg and Duke Goltana. And I actually think that that stuff is pretty valuable.

[Russ Rushky]

It seems like they're doing more of that after. What was it? Final Fantasy 16 where they have like wikis as you're playing the game to like.

[Griffin McElroy]

Yeah, Right.

[Russ Rushky]

Keep you up to speed.

[Griffin McElroy]

And it's. I think that is really, really valuable in a game like this because it is clippy.

[Justin McElroy]

I want to screen at all times like, oh, you want to know about Zeny?

[Griffin McElroy]

It is a way more ambitious story than I think any of, certainly any of the Final Fantasy games that came before Tactics.

[Justin McElroy]

Right.

[Griffin McElroy]

Final Fantasy 7 and before, which were very much like, you know, there's a world of ESPers and it's leaking into our world and people want to take control and use them for magic to take over the world. This is like, hey, there's this. There's a war of succession. Like it's going to be fucking kind of complicated keeping track of who's doing what. And I really think that this game does a. This version of the game does a great job of helping you follow all that stuff. It is a tactical rpg. You have different units that you are customizing, picking their jobs as you play and do stuff with those units. They get job points that you use and you go through and say like, oh, I want this white mage ability and this white mage ability and then I'm going to switch over to black mage and unlock some abilities and mix and match the two.

[Russ Rushky]

And it's like a Fire Emblem thing where like this class is strong against this class. Other class is it stuff?

[Griffin McElroy]

No, no, it's more of a Final Fantasy type thing where it's like this unit is weak to Blizzard. There's like elemental weaknesses, but there isn't that spear type units. Beat this type units. It's more like you have attack and defense stats, like more traditional sort of Final Fantasy RPG sort of fundamentals. And all of the customization stuff is really fantastic. It's really one of the best things about the game because you really can customize your units to make them whatever you want them to be. If you are noticing like, hey, I'm actually lacking in some like raged combat capabilities. Like you can make one of your units like specialize directly in that. And experimenting with that stuff is really fun and really rewarding. The writing is. And they've done some expansion of. They used the War of the Lions translation for this version of the game. The writing is really, I think heads and shoulders beyond any Final Fantasy. That certainly came before Tactics and maybe since it is a story about after this 50 years war came to this kind of like brutal stalemate, very costly war and after the war ended, all of the rich people and royals are like fine. They're like okay. They came out of it pretty well and they're like, let's just get back to work. Let's figure out who's gonna be the next king. Whereas all of the commoners and people who, like, fought and died and sacrificed in the war are treated like garbage. They are not. They are. A lot of them become these, like, roving bands of thieves and scoundrels because, like, they weren't catered to, they weren't seen to after they gave all of this, like, bloodshed for the, you know, kingdoms in which they lived. And so the story is set in that backdrop of you are a royal heir, basically, you are a member of this noble house, Beowulf, and you have a friend, your best buddy, who is like a commoner. And like, pretty much right away, you guys are sort of thrown into the thick of this. This class conflict. And it's really interesting, really fast. And it makes you care about the characters in the game very, very quickly. And also has a fucking lot to say, man, about class and about fascism and about how we sort of how people are treated who go above and beyond and give the most for their, you know, society and the people who are in charge of them.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

And I think that is great. Really quick. Would you mind if I read the letter from the original script scenario writer Yasumi Matsuno on the email?

[Griffin McElroy]

I would love nothing more.

[Justin McElroy]

I'd mind. It sounds boring, but okay.

[Griffin McElroy]

It's not gonna be.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

It's so good. So this is the writer from the original game, right? Nearly 30 years ago. This is a press statement. Nearly 30 years ago, the collapse of Japan's bubble economy engulfed the nation's financial institutions and mountains of bad debt, triggering a wave of corporate bankruptcies, a sudden extreme rise in unemployment rates, and stagnation of Japanese society as a whole. It was an era when many were robbed of hope, when dreams were measured by their price tag. I'll fast forward down the statement to the end. And now in 2025, a time when inequality and division are still deeply rooted in our society, I offer the story once again. The will to resist is in your hands.

[Russ Rushky]

Wow.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Maybe the best fucking season I've ever.

[Justin McElroy]

That's pretty good. It's good shit.

[Griffin McElroy]

And it really, truly not an exaggeration. So relevant and so prescient and so effective. It is an effective thing to play a game that has a story that resonates with the. With the current situation so clearly and so well.

[Justin McElroy]

There's a lot of these stories that sound like things I'd like to experience, but I never sure what time commitment I'm looking at here? What are we talking about for this?

[Griffin McElroy]

I mean, it depends on how much you want to get lost in the systems of customization. Let's assume it's me. Yeah, let's assume it's you. Can I tell you the truth? I don't know. I've never finished the game because it has been kind of Hell yeah.

[Russ Rushky]

Now we're cooking infinite.

[Griffin McElroy]

There have been a lot of. I've had a lot of issues with the games. Like opening difficulty curve is quite steep because you don't have all these things unlocked. You don't have your team of specialists. You're pretty weak when you start out. This game offers you difficulty settings for the first time. If you want to play on easy mode until you get more of your footing and then you can switch it, you can do that. I do appreciate that a whole lot. So you can minimize some of the grinding and farming that you might need to do. So yeah, you might have to google to see how long a time commitment you are talking about. There are a lot of ways to automate combat if you do want to just kind of like farm, farm, shit out and get stronger. You can totally do that if you so choose.

[Russ Rushky]

How long?

[Justin McElroy]

What do you think? Can we talk about graphics?

[Griffin McElroy]

Yeah, sure.

[Justin McElroy]

I always think this is interesting because I think that anytime you're doing a remaster, a reissue or whatever, there's a balance you're striking between preservation and, you know, modernity. But what do you think?

[Griffin McElroy]

I think they did a pretty good job actually. I think it is. They have done a lot of work with the sprites to kind of like soften them and make them look good on like an HD screen. It almost looks like CRT vignetting.

[Russ Rushky]

It almost looks like crt.

[Griffin McElroy]

There's some CRT effect. Yeah, it's a little grainy, but in like a purposeful way. It looks cool. It is not on the level of like 2D, 3D remake, Octopath Traveler, anything along those lines, which I think is like gorgeous and would have been a cool way to do this. But it would have been a. That would have been a full like skeleton like remaster of the thing. That would be a much more ambitious deal. I think it looks great. I think I do enjoy the way the game works, unfortunately. If you want to play it with the original visuals, you can do that, but you lose all of the quality of life stuff like the difficulty settings. There is a option to switch into a top down camera for the first time, which is kind of important because this is A game where you're going through these sort of. It's an isometric view and, you know, sometimes there'll be a building in the way that you have to kind of like adjust the camera to get around. Being able to switch. This bird's eye view really does help with that. There's a lot of little stuff like that that makes it a much more, I don't know, enjoyable experience.

[Justin McElroy]

To smoothed a lot of the pixels. Looks like these aliases have been anti.

[Griffin McElroy]

I think it looks fan. I think it looks really, really good. I do enjoy it. I do kind of wish that it had that level of polish that like, Octopath and Those more recent 2D 3D games have had. But I've gotten the furthest in it in this version of it than I ever have because I find that the stuff that has always been really great about the game is, you know, as good as it's ever been. And a lot of the things that have, you know, scared me off of the game have been smoothed out.

[Justin McElroy]

There's dragons. The spiders.

[Griffin McElroy]

Yeah, the dragons. The skeletons.

[Justin McElroy]

The skeletons.

[Griffin McElroy]

There's a fast. There's a fast forward.

[Justin McElroy]

There's masks in there and there's like a vacuum cleaner, weirdly, is one.

[Griffin McElroy]

There is a fast forward button. You can sort of like hold to toggle whenever you are like, going through fights and it's the enemy's turn. And you don't want that to take fucking forever. Like, I don't know. They've done a lot of really smart stuff and I think it's great. There is some content from the War of the Lions that is missing, like, a few additional classes. A few, like, guest characters like Balthier From Final Fantasy 12 stopped in and could be like, join your team in War of the Lions. And he's not in this one. So that's like kind of spawn, spawn, spawn. Link Yoda. Chief Yoda. So, like, that's kind of disappointing. I think that, you know, you want it to be the definitive, authoritative version of the thing, but I do think it's the most approachable version of a game that is truly timeless. And I don't use that word lightly. I think that the story is important and I think that the gameplay, if you like tactics games like Rust, I think this would hit for you. I think as much as you like Fire Emblem, I genuinely think this would be the version of the game that you could sink your teeth into.

[Russ Rushky]

That's really the big question for me is like, can that Fire Emblem interest translate? Cause I've Always had trouble keeping in my head the Final Fantasy magic strength, weakness thing. Whereas Fire Emblem was always so linear of like, oh, bow guys are always great against these guys.

[Griffin McElroy]

And that's no, but it does actually keep the battles using Fire Emblem as a comparison. Like, most of the time you're gonna be working with 4, 5, 6 units on your team, tops. And like, you will know them very well because you have customized them and managed them.

[Russ Rushky]

Yeah, that's cool.

[Griffin McElroy]

There's permadeath in the game. If one of your units falls, you have three rounds to revive them. And if you don't, they're fucking gone. And so that's sort of like adds a little bit of pressure, but it's like a very manageable pressure as long as you are careful. And I think it's great. I think it's really, really great. I was fully expecting to dip into this and be like, yeah, they've made these changes and it's cool. But I keep coming back to it and I keep playing it and I think it'll probably be the first time I have finished this game. And it's cool to hell.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Yeah.

[Griffin McElroy]

I'm such a huge Final Fantasy fan and now I feel like I have finally unlocked this big piece of the puzzle. The Final Fantasy. The final Final Fantasy. I don't know.

[Russ Rushky]

It just kills me that this fucking thing came out now when it's like, oh, we're spending a ton of time on Yotei and Baby Steps and Silksong. It's just like.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

It feels like it would have been the perfect January.

[Griffin McElroy]

Yeah, it would be a great January game for sure. But yeah, that's Final Fantasy tactics. The ivalice Chronicles. We want to do some honorable mentions or mailbag. What we got?

[Russ Rushky]

We could do a couple mailbags. And then.

[Griffin McElroy]

Oh, fuck. I just opened up slack to find our document working out of and the bug pick was picked up. It was pulled up and scared me.

[Russ Rushky]

We have a couple reader mails. This is from a little while ago, but Bastoad was calling out Pocopia as the only thing that they will think about until its release. I am incredibly excited about Pocopia. It will dominate my entire life. That is for those that don't remember the Minecraft Pokemon thing.

[Griffin McElroy]

Oh, yeah. It's gonna fuck up this household in a major way.

[Russ Rushky]

I'm incredibly excited for that. Josh wrote in to say, you guys gotta try Clover Pit. It's been described as Balachro, like, which was an instant buy for me. Have you guys heard about this game?

[Griffin McElroy]

I watched Northern lion gameplay. Video of it yesterday. It's like a slot machine, I believe. Buckshot roulette. Sort of lightly inspired kind of hell.

[Russ Rushky]

Hell.

[Griffin McElroy]

Roguelike.

[Russ Rushky]

I would have guessed Luck be a Landlord.

[Griffin McElroy]

No, it's much more gritty, and it looks like there is a sort of constant threat of death and a lot of, you know, Satan stuff, which I don't love. Yeah, Satan's okay, but, yeah, no, it looks pretty.

[Justin McElroy]

Don't have Satan.

[Griffin McElroy]

Scary, scary, scary stuff.

[Justin McElroy]

Gonna be. You're gonna be mad when you just hear how much of Capcom he just bought.

[Russ Rushky]

This letter comes from James. Watching Travis and Griffin play Baby Steps was an absolutely surreal experience. Very funny. Probably won't pick it up myself, but look forward to watching other streamers suffer.

[Griffin McElroy]

Yeah, I think our plan is to do it next week. Me, Justin and Travis trying to, like, split up the controls of the.

[Russ Rushky]

I mean, the game is hard and entertaining with one human being. You don't necessarily need to add more variables to it.

[Griffin McElroy]

But, dudes, listen. Justin can speak to this, too. Something really interesting. This series we do. I call it a series, but it's like a thing we do on Clubhouse, sometimes called Six Thumbs, One Heart. Playing games like that has been such a transformative type of thing. Like playing Super Mario World, I think, is when it was, like, kind of firing at all cylinders where one of us was jumping, one of us was moving with the D pad, and one of us was, like, doing the other button. It really. Playing a game with that kind of multiplayer experience is really fascinating. It really is pretty interesting to see.

[Justin McElroy]

There's some things that get easier because you're only thinking about one thing, right? So you're not actually having to multitask. What's weird is, like, the only way it actually works is if, you know, if you play. If you were to play Super Mario Brothers 1 Right now, you wouldn't think about how to play it, right? You would pick it up and just do the buttons. The only way this works is if the other people's hands are doing what you assume your own hands would be doing. Like, you have to trust that they are doing what you would be doing. Right? But with a game, like, and that's a game that's designed to be done by one person. Baby Steps is designed to be hard when it's done by one person. It's, like, too much to think about when you're just like, one leg. Like, I know how to keep one leg up, maybe, but it's fun.

[Griffin McElroy]

It is truly fun to play a game like Travis And I got into some grooves where, like, I was controlling the pitch and yaw of the body and he was doing the feet and like, we would get into a pretty stable groove and like, it feels great. Like, it feels really, really good when you can pull that off. I think it's a fun way to. To play games that, like, if you set your shit up with, you know, whatever remote play software is available to you, is not that hard to set up.

[Justin McElroy]

And I think even if Russ doesn't think our video sounds very good, we'll still do our best to make.

[Russ Rushky]

I was thinking that. I wasn't saying it.

[Justin McElroy]

Yeah.

[Russ Rushky]

We have some honorable mentions. Anyone have anything off the top of their heads?

[Justin McElroy]

Yes.

[Griffin McElroy]

But come back.

[Russ Rushky]

Okay, I'll go. I beat Baby steps. Good segue. I finished that game.

[Griffin McElroy]

It was still feel as strongly about.

[Russ Rushky]

It unquestionably in probably my top three of the year right now.

[Griffin McElroy]

Wow.

[Russ Rushky]

I fucking love that game. Just like player, agency and exploration stuff is just scratching every itch for me. I hope more people do try it. I think the demo is still live if you wanted to try a free version. But I've just been totally blown away by the whole experience. A lot of dicks, though. Just a heads up. The other thing, I've been playing a little bit more of everybody's golf hot shots, which has been patched a few times and now runs not perfect, but pretty okay on Steam Deck. I know it runs a lot better on a more powerful device, but they are getting closer to like, getting the bar to run smoothly to the point where I can actually play it. And so I've been enjoying that quite a bit. The other thing I want to call out was this video on YouTube. The creator is any Austin, and the premise of the video is do red Dead Redemption 2's power lines connect to anything?

[Griffin McElroy]

Oh, I saw that thumbnail really good. So didn't watch it.

[Russ Rushky]

But I. Annie Austin has been doing these like, basically like land management videos about large scale open world games. And this is one of the more recent ones. And what is totally insane is every single fucking house in Red Dead Redemption two that has electricity is connected to an electric wire that if you follow the electric wire all over the landscape, it will eventually lead into St. Denis, which is the like big Louisiana city, New Orleans city. And in St. Denis, it leads to a fucking power station.

[Griffin McElroy]

That's cool.

[Justin McElroy]

Unreal.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

That's cool.

[Russ Rushky]

I like real. So he did a really good job. A lot of his other videos are excellent, so I definitely recommend checking that that's Anyaustin on YouTube.

[Griffin McElroy]

I played a bit more Hades 2.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Griffin McElroy]

Have you been dipping back in juice? Oh, yeah.

[Justin McElroy]

Yeah. It's really good. It's good.

[Griffin McElroy]

I feel like I still am not hitting the stuff that feels so obviously new, and maybe I need to put more time into it to get to that shit. I know there's whole areas.

[Justin McElroy]

Do you think that's a mental thing, though? Do you think that's a result of you having played it? It's possibly, like, so long ago you don't remember.

[Griffin McElroy]

It was a really long time ago. I tell you what I struggle with is that I feel like it is kind of hitting the same pleasure centers of my brain as megabonk. And megabonk is all new, baby, and it's all fast and it's all good.

[Russ Rushky]

I played the fucking demo of megabonk and I was like, I cannot play this game. This is gonna ruin my fucking life. It looks.

[Griffin McElroy]

Megabonk will fuck you up.

[Russ Rushky]

It looks so fucking good. I loved what I played, but it was just like, this is not the right time of year for this game.

[Griffin McElroy]

Yeah, I've hit a wall in megabonk where it's too, like, the further levels are too hard and I can't make much progress in it.

[Russ Rushky]

Just a refresher. Megabunk was the 3D Vampire Survivors game.

[Griffin McElroy]

Vampire Survivors game, yeah. But it is very, like. It is very much a. You pick it up once and play it and you're like, oh, I get it. It kicks ass. Travis has gotten into MegaBonk, which is. It's not typically his style of game to dip into. I also want to shout out, I've been watching Only Murders in the Building this season. Oh, it's been a really good season. I don't know if you guys have still fuck with that show, but it's so fun. The swings they take with the mysteries are so big, and it moves at a really nice clip, which I appreciate. There's no episodes that feel like, oh, they're just kind of spinning their wheels like they. They are constantly kind of like, you know, raising the stakes and putting the three main characters into increasingly, you know, sort of outrageous situations. So, yeah, been. Been liking that.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Nice.

[Russ Rushky]

Anyone else?

[Justin McElroy]

You know, not really.

[Russ Rushky]

Should I get a power washer, Justin?

[Justin McElroy]

What? I mean, power wash simulator. For real?

[Russ Rushky]

Should I get one? Seems like. Seems like fun.

[Justin McElroy]

You live in, like, it's a lot of fun, but you gotta have a hose to plug into it and generates a lot of water. I have a balcony somewhere for that water. To go. If you got a balcony, this would.

[Griffin McElroy]

Be a good idea.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

I think your neighbors would be wicked pissed.

[Russ Rushky]

No.

[Justin McElroy]

I'll use my time here to say there are a lot of YouTube channels that I've been enjoying lately that are not focused on consumption of games, but rather on like creation or like not consumption of new stuff. I'll say. So I just wanted to mention a few of those channels I've really enjoyed lately. One that me and my kids have liked a lot is Sayaka's Digital Attic. It's a woman who restores old consoles and old games like cartridges themselves. It's very relaxing and soothing and you learn so much about how these things are assembled and you see her process for going through it's very satisfying. The girls, even though they have no awareness of these old consoles, find it really interesting and enjoy watching it. So that channel has been great, of course, Retro Game Corps. We love our friend good Russ over there. He's always doing great stuff if you want to get into that. I have also been enjoying a channel called Tech Dweeb is embarrassing as that name might sound initiated. But one thing he does a lot of retro game coverage of like Android game consoles and things like that. But. But every other video on the channel is something about a creative project he put out just this week. While a lot of channels that are in the retro game space are in the tech space, I would say writ large, you see this in a lot of technology. People seem to just be looking for an excuse to put out affiliate links. So it's very biased towards the latest and greatest because if you click through their video to buy the thing, then they get a little bit off the top. So you're not really incentivized to not make videos about new products. But like half of Tech Dweeb's videos are creative things. Like the newest one is make your own retro style four by three monitor. And it's like a absolute step by step, bare bones from the beginning, like DIY process of making like a cool repainted monitor yourself for very cheap. He made a practical version of Balatro that you make play with physical cards and that's one of the videos. But it's not like three videos a week. It's wild. This guy's output, they're all a joy to watch, but those are the few. When those channels pop up, I really, I find it very relaxing. It's something I really look forward to. So yeah, another the last element is cultured vultures. They do a lot of like console based like things you may have missed on certain consoles, hidden gems, videos, and they're some of, like, the best produced and really fascinating. I always find a lot of great recommendations to stuff I should go back and check out. So those are some. If you want to just experience games rather than buy games, that's a fun way of doing it.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Cool. Very quickly, Frank, Lance, friend of the show, has a new video game coming out, and you can play a demo of it right now. And let me tell you, you all are going to want to play the shit out of this. It is called Q up, the letter Q up. And it is the future of esports. I'm serious, y'.

[Justin McElroy]

All.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Coin flipping. Heads or tails, Esports. It's coming at you. And let me tell you, this game is committed to 50, 50 fairness every time. And can you also get upgrades that make it, you know, a little bit easier for you? Yes, you can. But does the game also evolve to guarantee at all times, 50, 50, 100% fairness? Yes, it does. Okay.

[Russ Rushky]

Frank's gonna be really pissed at how terrible that pitch was.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

No, I don't think he will, man. I think that's what the game is. It's about 50, 50 fairness 100% of the time. 100% randomness 100% of the time.

[Russ Rushky]

So is it a joke?

[Griffin McElroy]

This looks fucking insane.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

It's about coin. It's the future of esports. What do you mean, is it a joke? It's coin flipping. What's the future? It's the future of esports. Cue up.

[Russ Rushky]

It says it's part clicker. In what way would it be a clicker?

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

It's about having 100% fairness and 100% randomness 100% of the time. I don't know what else you want me to tell you about this game. It seems like you're trying to figure out if there's maybe something else going on and I don't know what.

[Griffin McElroy]

Dawn always gotta try to break this.

[Russ Rushky]

Is it frog fractions three? Like, is that what's going on?

[Justin McElroy]

Oh, dang. Is there frog fractions three now?

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Maybe there's coin flipping Esport video game, and I think you should play this game.

[Russ Rushky]

Is there actually multiplayer in this or is it like a metaverse?

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

I'll be honest with you about that part. I'm still not sure. It both has told me that there is and there isn't. The. The here, here. Okay. I don't want to spoil much of this game. I'll just say read the full terms of service when you're playing the game and that'll give you a very clear idea of what you're getting.

[Russ Rushky]

It's from universally. Yeah, right. I forgot Frank work on Universal paperclips. That's right. So yeah, it's from that team. I think they are not allowed to say multiplayer on the Steam page if it doesn't have multiplayer. So it probably does. I don't think they're allowed to fuck around with that. Gabe would get so pissed with his knives.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

I would say there is a point in the game where it tells me that it is single player but then also at a point where it tells me it is.

[Russ Rushky]

When is this game coming out? It just says coming soon.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

I don't know.

[Justin McElroy]

It's always been out man. Or it's not out. It's never gonna come out. Or it's always been out.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

It's one of those sort of games.

[Russ Rushky]

Wild. It's so good. I think we did it. I wanted to thank some members of the patreon [e-mail] thebesties we have Paul S. We have Benjamin W. We have David D. And we have Teresa S. Thank you for being patrons of the besties. Just as a reminder, we have a new ten dollar tier. If you wanted to have ad free episodes of the main feed in addition to all the bonus content that you were getting on the five dollar tier, you can definitely do that as well. Throw us some extra bucks. We really greatly appreciate it and I think next week we're doing a very scary game that I'm scared of. Silent Hill F. Just say fuck.

[Griffin McElroy]

It's actually pronounced silent. Hilf. Hilf.

[Justin McElroy]

I'm looking forward to that. Be sure to join us again next time for the besties because shouldn't the world's best friends pick the world's best games Satisfaction.