Is the New Zelda as Good as We Hoped?

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Besties – "Is the New Zelda as Good as We Hoped?"

Introduction to the New Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom

In this episode of The Besties, hosts Chris Plante, Griffin McElroy, Justin McElroy, and Russ Frushtick delve into the much-anticipated release of the latest installment in the Zelda franchise, "The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom." Released on October 4, 2024, the episode explores whether the new game lives up to the high expectations set by its predecessors.

Gameplay Mechanics and Innovations

The discussion begins with Justin McElroy sharing a humorous anecdote about setting up his home network, which segues into the main topic—Echoes of Wisdom's unique gameplay mechanics.

Justin McElroy [03:14]: "Welcome to the Besties, where we talk about the latest and greatest in home interactive entertainment."

The hosts note that unlike previous Zelda titles where Link is the primary protagonist wielding a sword and shield, this installment places Zelda at the center, utilizing her ingenuity and available resources to solve puzzles.

Russ Frost [04:00]: "For the first time, Zelda is the star of this Zelda game. But rather than a sword and a shield, Zelda is using just whatever is available to solve puzzles."

Comparison with Previous Zelda Titles

Griffin McElroy draws comparisons between Echoes of Wisdom and earlier games like "Breath of the Wild" and "Tears of the Kingdom." He appreciates the blend of classic dungeon design with modern open-world elements but points out that some mechanics feel less polished.

Griffin McElroy [09:05]: "And this is somewhere in between the two."

Chris Plante echoes these sentiments, praising the dungeon and boss designs but criticizes the lack of polish in non-dungeon areas and the game's pacing.

Christopher Thomas Plant [09:39]: "I do think the puzzles in the game are great... but the middle stuff... it's not very interesting."

Combat and Player Empowerment

The combat system in Echoes of Wisdom introduces new elements such as summoning "echoes" of defeated enemies and utilizing a tether system to interact with objects and enemies creatively. While Justin finds the moment-to-moment gameplay engaging and reminiscent of games like Undertale, Russ and Chris express concerns about the combat's initial difficulty and balance.

Justin McElroy [10:25]: "It's similar to Undertale... you're not necessarily whacking stuff."

Russ Frost [12:35]: "Letting you have the sword and the shield just feels like a tremendous mistake."

Technical Performance and Artistic Direction

The hosts discuss the technical aspects of the game, noting issues with frame rates when docked and the art direction's high quality. Despite technical hiccups, the soundtrack receives high praise for its memorable overworld theme.

Justin McElroy [26:08]: "I just played it for the first time docked. It looked bad. Like the frame rate was flickery."

Russ Frost [26:30]: "Art direction is so good."

Narrative and Character Development

A significant departure in this Zelda game is making Zelda a playable character. While some hosts appreciate the fresh perspective, others feel that Zelda lacks vocal expression, making her character development less impactful.

Justin McElroy [29:27]: "I wish playing Zelda felt like, if you're gonna do it, why not have them feel like a different person?"

Christopher Thomas Plant [29:36]: "You don't hear it. She gestures like she's conveying information, but you don't actually hear because people understand."

Overall Impressions and Future Prospects

Despite some criticisms, the consensus among the hosts is that Echoes of Wisdom is a commendable addition to the Zelda series. They express hope for future sequels to build upon the innovative mechanics introduced.

Griffin McElroy [31:40]: "I think this is a good game. I don't think it's the best Zelda game ever, but it's a very, very good Zelda game."

Russ Frost [28:37]: "I really hope that they do a sequel to this because it really feels like step one of an idea."

Conclusion

The Besties episode provides a thorough analysis of The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom, highlighting its strengths in innovation and artistic design while also addressing areas needing improvement, such as combat balance and technical performance. The hosts agree that while it may not surpass the legendary status of Breath of the Wild or Tears of the Kingdom, it stands as a solid and enjoyable entry in the Zelda franchise, promising exciting developments for future installments.

Notable Quotes:

• Justin McElroy [05:58]: "I've been dying to continue the Zelda franchise and finally a new Zelda game. I'm thrilled."

• Griffin McElroy [09:08]: "I think Tears of the Kingdom is maybe the best game ever made."

• Russ Frost [12:35]: "Letting you have the sword and the shield just feels like a tremendous mistake."

• Christopher Thomas Plant [17:58]: "There are times this game is so fun to play. It is so fun to just fuck around in this game."

• Griffin McElroy [31:40]: "I think this is a good game. I don't think it's the best Zelda game ever, but it's a very, very good Zelda game."

Timestamps Overview:

• 00:00 - 05:48: Introduction and brief technical anecdote
• 05:48 - 12:35: Detailed discussion on gameplay mechanics and dungeon design
• 12:35 - 26:43: Combat system analysis and technical performance
• 26:43 - 31:53: Narrative elements and character development
• 31:53 - 65:01: (Skipped as per instructions: Advertisements, promotions, and non-content sections)
• 65:01 - 68:45: Conclusion and final thoughts

Note: Timestamps corresponding to notable quotes are included to highlight key moments in the discussion.

Transcript

[Justin McElroy]

I'm putting in some, like, WiFi. I'm putting in a unified system and putting, like, WiFi access points in my house.

[Griffin McElroy]

Sure, sure.

[Justin McElroy]

And part of that is, like, it got plugged into the Ethernet ports in the house, and. Except the one thing is that when I put the network lines in, the guys didn't label them to where they go, which is not that big of a deal usually, because, like, I don't know, they all want Internet. So I pop my eyes into the thing. But yesterday, to put in these access points, I had to figure out which line went to which thing. And I did not have the tools on hand to do that. So I came up with a system. And this is what the system is. I bring the Apple TV into the Ethernet port I'm trying to test. I plug that into the tv, then I turn the TV up as loud as it'll possibly go. And then I start playing Alvin and the Chipmunks on the kids Netflix because it's the most annoying and grating sound you're gonna hear that I'm like, down in the basement and I still hear those idiots upstairs. And eventually I pull the plug and I hear owie. And then I don't hear the Chipmunks anymore.

[Griffin McElroy]

They no longer want a hula hoop is what you're saying.

[Justin McElroy]

Yeah, but I. At one point, I messed myself up pretty bad because I identified one. And then I ran upstairs before I could forget the number of the one I was thinking. And then when I ran upstairs, I realized I left the volume remote down back downstairs. So I'm there with a screwdriver, like, trying to get into this access point. I just watch out.

[Griffin McElroy]

Here we go.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

The Single Ladies.

[Griffin McElroy]

But I love their Death Metal turn. That is my favorite anime of.

[Justin McElroy]

I know there is a tool. And friends, I know what you're wondering.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Members are fully looking at me right fully, fully, fully staring at me right.

[Justin McElroy]

Now just to label them after he found them this time.

[Russ Frost]

All right.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

I mean, you have a system now.

[Justin McElroy]

Why do you need to label? I have a system. I don't need labels. Well, actually, my new box tells me what's plugged into everything.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Damn, dude.

[Justin McElroy]

And it tells me if the government's watching me watch Alvin and the Chip on repeatedly.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Your algo is about to get.

[Justin McElroy]

Sir, his volume. His volume on his TV isn't right, sir. I think it's some sort of mental conditioning stewardship.

[Griffin McElroy]

He loves the first seven seconds of this show.

[Justin McElroy]

His Internet died. He's just staring at aesthetic images. My name is Justin McElroy. And I know the best game of the week.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

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

[Russ Frost]

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

[Griffin McElroy]

My name is Russ Frost. I know the best game of the week.

[Justin McElroy]

Welcome to the Besties, where we talk about the latest and greatest in home interactive entertainment. And it is always a rare, exciting day on the Besties where we get to talk about a new game in the franchise called the Legend of Zelda. This one's called Legend of Zelda Echo Chamber. I didn't. Sorry, I thought. I don't know.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

This is one where Zelda.

[Justin McElroy]

Echoes of wisdom.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Zelda loses the election and no one is quite sure why. Everyone is like, I thought it was a fucking lock, man. I don't get it.

[Justin McElroy]

Echoes of wisdom, Chris Plant.

[Russ Frost]

What's that this time? Zelda's back. Oh, wait, not back here. For the first time, Zelda is the star of this Zelda game. But rather than a sword and a shield, Zelda is going through using just whatever is available to solve puzzles.

[Griffin McElroy]

Also a sword and a shield.

[Russ Frost]

Sword in the shield mode.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

And we'll get to it. But all the good stuff.

[Russ Frost]

Hey, come on. Let me, let me. It's like a bed and like a table and like a giant spider. And we're going to talk about it more after the break.

[Justin McElroy]

We are officially there. We're there in the gift giving season. We're in that special gift giving time. You don't want to hear about it because it's stressful. Well, good news. How about I just fix all the stress for you right now? No problem with aura frames. Every time you give an aura frame, it's going to feel like a hand picked personal gift. Why? Because you're going to digitally fill it with an incredible number of memories that you and the person you're giving the gift to can share. You want your grandma to see what's going on with your kids. You want to see your brother, to know what your dogs are up to, whatever. Then buy them an aura frame. You set it up on their wifi. You can do it ahead of time if you want to. And then with just a couple of button presses on your phone or whatever, you can upload photos to that person's phone. It's a really good way of staying in contact. It's a wonderful gift. It's easy to set up. We've got. We've gotten them for quite a few people in our lives and we have never had anything but a Thrilled reaction and I think that you should really give it a shot. For a limited time visit aura frames.com and get $45 off or as best selling Carver matte frames by using promo code Besties at checkout. That's a U R A frames.com promo code besties. This exclusive Black Friday Cyber Monday deal is their best of the year. So don't miss out. Terms and conditions apply. So I love Zelda's adventure on the cdi.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

I was just thinking that. I was trying to remember the name.

[Justin McElroy]

Yeah, I've been dying to continue the Zelda franchise and finally a new Zelda game. I'm. I'm thrilled.

[Griffin McElroy]

I was. I want to mention something about the CDI game before we move on to the games.

[Russ Frost]

Which one are we talking about? Are we talking about Zelda?

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Well, only one I think starred Zelda.

[Russ Frost]

No, there are two.

[Justin McElroy]

No. You can play as Zelda and want to gamble on. But Zelda's adventure is the one that.

[Griffin McElroy]

It should be noted that that was the first time that props the Polygon's YouTube video that I watched yesterday. The first time that Zelda appeared with her blonde hair that like defined her blonde hair in those games.

[Russ Frost]

In a games.

[Griffin McElroy]

In a game. Yeah.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Did she not have blonde hair in the first.

[Russ Frost]

She is. No. Red hair. First game, blonde hair TV show and.

[Griffin McElroy]

Like brown hair in Zelda 2 which we don't.

[Russ Frost]

Incredibly.

[Justin McElroy]

It doesn't matter. This is a game that couldn't matter less. This is a top down isometric.

[Griffin McElroy]

Is it isometric? It doesn't need to be tilted to be isometric.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

It's slightly isometric. It's not a bird's eye view Zelda.

[Justin McElroy]

Game that is pulling in a lot of the trappings of the classic franchise. A lot like the enemies and characters and weapons and world and what have.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

You specifically linked to the past? For the most part.

[Russ Frost]

No.

[Justin McElroy]

Yes.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Linked to the past. The SNES one.

[Justin McElroy]

But you are interacting with the world I would say in a more active and kinetic way then I think you're used to in these perspective of Zelda games.

[Griffin McElroy]

Yeah. The 2D top down games tend to be very.

[Justin McElroy]

2D is like very inaccurate.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Sorry.

[Griffin McElroy]

Top down. You're right. Top down Zelda games tend to be.

[Justin McElroy]

Top down either because top down is like worst.

[Russ Frost]

How about this? It's a sort of a blending of the link to the past era and the creative era of the modern Zelda games that are ones you crushed it. But in reality it's more of like a puzzle game than anything else.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Yeah, yeah. I think that's true. Maybe everybody I feel like knows the thing of this game. You have a magic rod that can create copies of things that you have discovered, whether that be enemies you've defeated. Every time you defeat an enemy for the first time, they drop a little echo that you can then summon them. Or maybe it's a jug that you found.

[Griffin McElroy]

Could be a jug.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

You can spawn a jug if you need to and jump up, clamber on top of the jug and. Or climb inside the jug. There's all kinds of.

[Justin McElroy]

There's all kinds of activities you can do with jugs in this game.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

That's true.

[Justin McElroy]

The only limit is how many jugs you're able to summon at any given time. Which your partner who's I guess a. It doesn't matter, but he's like a guy who's helping you. And he gets more jug triangles as the game progresses. That allows him to summon more jugs at once.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

You can get four jugs going pretty quick in this game. And here's my walkthrough on how to speed run the jugs to just go.

[Griffin McElroy]

Back to Plant's very astute summary. When you think of Link to the Past era, I think you think of a relatively rigid, like, there's a way to solve this dungeon. And when you think of Breath of the Wild slash Tears of the Kingdom era, you think of like, oh, here's like 16 different ways I could solve this dungeon.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Yeah.

[Griffin McElroy]

And this is somewhere in between the two.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

And I'll tell you what really works for me with that. Is that my only quibble really with. I think Tears of the Kingdom is maybe the best game ever made.

[Griffin McElroy]

Yeah.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

But I do. There is something in the Breath of the Wild Tears of the Kingdom era of the like dungeons not feeling like classic Zelda dungeons that are a little bit more, I don't know, scripted isn't the right word. But there is a route through them. There is a progression to like, you have to go here, find the key so you can open this door.

[Griffin McElroy]

You're talking about the classic dungeons.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

The classic. The more classic dungeons in this game does kind of both. And I think it does it really, really well. I've really enjoyed this sort of dungeon design and boss design.

[Justin McElroy]

And I mean just the moment to moment playing of this game is really incredible for me. I mean I really do. I find it like once you realize that there is not going to be a like standard default melee attack that you use it all. You know what it kind of reminds me of? It's Similar. It. It put me in a similar headspace as, like, Undertale. In a weird way. It's like your main way of interacting with the world is not necessarily to whack stuff. And I feel like that just that small change is like.

[Griffin McElroy]

I mean, you do get other people to wax.

[Russ Frost]

Yeah, yeah.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

That is the thing.

[Justin McElroy]

I know. You could also, like, magically transform, which I think is kind of a cop out. I don't like that. That you could just magically transform into Link for a little bit. I think that that's kind of weak.

[Griffin McElroy]

It's his outfit.

[Justin McElroy]

What?

[Griffin McElroy]

It's just his outfit.

[Justin McElroy]

His outfit, yeah.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

But all his characters.

[Justin McElroy]

You try to push any buttons while that mode was active, but you're actually able to use his magical sword. Like, what are you talking about?

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

I do think the puzzles in the game are great. When you are traversing the world, you feel a lot of the time like you can just break the shit wide open.

[Griffin McElroy]

Yes.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Very soon in the game, you get what is basically a thwomp, and you can just get on top of that fucking guy and ride it 20ft into the sky. And then all of a sudden, most of your platforming issues have been solved. So you can really. You feel like you can go wherever you want. I do think starting out combat is not so great, because a lot of it boils down to like, okay, I'm gonna spawn this moblin and watch him very, very, very slowly kind of chip away. There's a lot of kiting, but eventually you do get more lethal options. Or if you can get clever with it. One of the first powers you unlock is basically a tether. You can shoot out and grab objects and move around, or tether yourself to them. So you can shoot it at a bird and then ride it up into the sky, which is very cool. I would put down a path blade, which is one of those circular things that just goes back and forth with like a whirling blade on it. Grab it with my tether, and then all of a sudden I'm Chainsaw Zelda. And that did make things, in most cases, a lot, a lot faster. But it does take a little bit of time. You can do that with time with.

[Russ Frost]

The big enemies too, and effectively use them to dodge, where you wait for them to load up the hit. But I do agree, I found the combat rough, especially at first, and letting you have the sword and the shield just feels to me like a tremendous mistake. Like it should either be let me have it or don't let me have it the whole time.

[Justin McElroy]

I agree, I agree.

[Russ Frost]

But the second I had it, it was like, oh, yeah, there's that flavor I love. And then it runs out of energy. And I was like, no, like what? You let me know how good this feels. I could have forgotten. I could have eventually fallen in love with the other.

[Justin McElroy]

So I'm saying you can balance it for one or the other. Right. Like, I feel like they should have balanced it to where that isn't an option that's available to you. Right. Because I like the idea of just making somebody that's keeping somebody else busy. Why I do what I need to do. Like, I, I like creative ways of like, like offing people like that. I just don't know that the sword and shield was like, was necessary.

[Griffin McElroy]

Yeah. There are, there are a few things that I think balance wise, it gets a little wonky. I think on, on the good balance side, Zelda is very frail. Like, if you get hit, you take like four or five hearts.

[Russ Frost]

It's tough.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

It's a fucking tough, tough game. It's.

[Griffin McElroy]

But I, But I would counter that by saying the more I've played, I feel way overpowered now because I can summon four moblins at once and they all just fucking wreck shit and I don't do anything. And those are the parts that I actually like. I wanted to talk about this in the context of Tears of the Kingdom, and this is going to require a little bit of setup. Justin, you remember one of your critiques, which is a fair critique about Tears of the Kingdom, was that there's this resource aspect to it where you couldn't just like build anything you wanted. You needed like currency to be able to like build a blimp or something like that at a random time.

[Justin McElroy]

Yeah.

[Griffin McElroy]

This goes the other way where so long as you have the mana, if you will, like the total mana, you can summon infinite enemies and they die and you can summon another one in a second later. And that to me took a little bit of the like risk reward system out of it because I just like.

[Justin McElroy]

Summon two moblins and they're just chipping.

[Griffin McElroy]

Away and one dog.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

The fastest way to like engage in a melee fight is to spawn a sword moblin. He doesn't attack pretty quickly and then you immediately erase him and spawn another one so he doesn't have to get.

[Justin McElroy]

Sea urchins and just summon them.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Just drop them on their ass.

[Griffin McElroy]

I think it's cool that there are so many different approaches. Like, you guys have talked about things that I like. I didn't use the sea urchins barely at all, or the thwomp I didn't even find. So I've found alternative ways of guys that do basically the same thing. But that makes me feel like I have more personal control over it. But I don't think that the combat itself feels super engaging. It feels like a little bit of an afterthought.

[Justin McElroy]

We have actually, though, talked about the combat more than the game thinks about combat. I think you can fight the monsters.

[Griffin McElroy]

You spend a lot of time with combat.

[Russ Frost]

I kept thinking that Justin, where I was like, this is a puzzle game at its best. And yet when I would look at my roster of things I could create how many enemies.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

It was like, you can create every enemy every time.

[Justin McElroy]

I think puzzle game isn't accurate either. It's like. Because I feel like for me, a puzzle game hints at, like, a solution. I think what makes this game fun and special is the play aspect, like the experimentation aspect.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

It's a puzzle game in a way that Scribblenauts is a puzzle game where it's like you could. There's probably an intended solution that you are showing me with environment mental clues, but also I can just put down a bed, jump on my thwomp, ride that shit up to glory.

[Justin McElroy]

It is interesting to see where it bumps up against, like, what I think I want from video games and what I actually want from video games. Right. Like, this is requiring me to think a lot more actively about how I'm engaging with situations. And I find that, like, I'm not doing this isn't good or bad, but, like, I'm not listening to other stuff while I'm playing this game. I'm not, like, engaging with other media or whatever. I really kind of have to focus because I have to actively think a little bit. I'll give you an example. That tether thing that you can do. I would forget that I could do that for like 20 minutes. There were. There are so many things in this game where I'm like, stuck. And then I'm like, well, there is the one button that lets you, like, pick stuff off the ground. And it's like I completely did not keep track of that. Like, wasn't thinking about it.

[Russ Frost]

Why you forgot that? For me, I had the same issue. And it's that this does not feel like a capital N Nintendo game. And the number of times where I forgot something because the buttons were just uncomfortable. The tethering, the way you tether things and then, like, attach them feels. Yeah. Not great. And even just early in the game, I Mean, this is within the first half hour when I'm scrolling through the items that I can create and I'm like, wow, this is the beginning of the game and I'm already doing this. It really helps you appreciate the magic of other Nintendo games where they make this promise that seems impossible and then you play it and it's all intuitive. Oh, I don't think the game is. I want to be super clear. I don't think the game is bad because of this. This is the challenge of it just being released by Nintendo. Being a Zelda game, it is in a franchise where it's going to draw that comparison. But yeah, it does not have that same kind of polish or intuitiveness that a Nintendo game has. But anyway, Griffin, I'll throw it right back to you.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Yeah, I was just going to say there are times this game is so fun to play. It is so fun to just fuck around in this game. And every time you find a new echo that your brain puts the pieces together of like, oh, I can think of 20 ways that I can start employing this echo. This is fucking rad. Which is good because a lot of the other economy of the game kind of sucks. Like when you go through a mini puzzle dungeon and you get to the end and it's like you found 10 pieces of kelp, it's like, that's not, man.

[Justin McElroy]

There's a lot of smoothie making in this movie.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

A lot of smoothie making in this one.

[Justin McElroy]

That is kind of wild. Like, I don't know, man, but it is aspect is a little flaky.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

It does seem. I do feel like it's a bit undercooked though, with like systemically, the. The list of echoes is just one long. One long row that you just really.

[Griffin McElroy]

You can sort it.

[Justin McElroy]

You got the sorting. Choosing the right filter is actually like, you can sort very quickly. And I think that that's actually what helped me is when I started being a little bit quicker on the trigger. Because you can sort by like last use, last learn, most used. And between those three and cost, I.

[Griffin McElroy]

Use cost all the time because when I'm like, oh, I have a tough fight, I'm going to drop my strongest mob when in there. And he costs like five fucking mana.

[Justin McElroy]

Between those, you can usually find four pretty easily.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

But I would love a favorites system.

[Russ Frost]

Yeah.

[Griffin McElroy]

Something I wish Tears of the Kingdom had and didn't.

[Russ Frost]

I was watching like pro tips on YouTube or like wild things you don't know you could do in Echoes of Wisdom. And one of the tips was I was like, okay, so you go over to this corner by the water and you pick out one of the echoes that you like and then you just, you like spam it for like 15 minutes. Like put a podcast on and then just spam it, spam it, spam it. And now it's always going to be at the top whenever you want it because you'll never. It'll never get passed.

[Griffin McElroy]

Why didn't you.

[Russ Frost]

I was like, wow.

[Griffin McElroy]

Why didn't you learn the lesson? How many times do you need to learn? This lesson is don't watch the pro tips videos.

[Russ Frost]

The pro tips videos are what the people I do like.

[Justin McElroy]

It's helpful to know and listen. I. Yes. And I think in your business you should encourage people to watch.

[Russ Frost]

All is always out here being like, can you please make sure that our business falls apart?

[Justin McElroy]

Something else, man. This game is also, like, it gets real talky in a way.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Dude, that was what I was about to say.

[Russ Frost]

Really?

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Yeah.

[Justin McElroy]

I just did this. I'm in this section where like the Zoras are fighting and their complaints with each other are interminable. Like, they take a very long time to elucidate. Like, I don't care. You're Zora. I see you next game.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

It is another instance, I feel like, of the game being undercooked, where the sections between the dungeons or the sections of the game that aren't exploring and experimenting aren't very good. And it's tragic because I started playing this game with Henry. We started playing together on his switch and he fucking loved it. He's never played a Zelda game before. He has never. He played 10 minutes of breath of the Wild and all the buttons were way too confusing for him. So he played this and he was obsessed for a few days. And then we got to the first one of those, like, okay, now go run a bunch of errands for the Gerudo. And he just fully stopped and I had to start a new save file because he had done a bunch of stuff I didn't see.

[Justin McElroy]

There's a lot of stuff also where, like you have a quest marker for a location, but the quest marker is not pointing you towards where the next thing for the quest is. And a lot, and a lot of it is you go to where the quest marker is and then someone will say something kind of ambiguous, like, to the east there's a platform where you'll find. But just like, just tell me where I'm going, man.

[Griffin McElroy]

That is funny because I feel differently. I feel I would rather Honestly, I would rather no quest markers at all, but this at least gives me some work. I don't want to know exactly where the fucking magic flower is that I need to find because that takes any sort of discovery.

[Justin McElroy]

That's true. Okay, here's what's tough for me about that. The rest. This is where I struggle with that. I can get a lot of places in this game.

[Russ Frost]

Sure.

[Justin McElroy]

I can get to a lot of weird blind alleys where I'm like not supposed to be at. And it's not close to where I'm trying to get to like at all. There's a lot of square footage and just telling me like a lot of times like I'm not interested in trying to like decode what they're wanting me to do. I want to get back to actually like playing it. Because when I'm running around doing these errands, it's just a lot of talk.

[Griffin McElroy]

I love, I love the decoding. I mean we've talked about this before. I love the decoding. Like that is one of my favorite parts of video games is like trying to mind meld with developer.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

I enjoy that stuff too. It's just that most of the time that stuff pops up during these kind of boring like. Yeah, the talking transitional sections.

[Justin McElroy]

I like it in the dungeons. For whatever it's worth. I like dungeons that are a little bit more open ended in how you can approach them because I know that it's all confined to this one.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

This game's dungeons do a great job of. You get to the end of it and you have the boss key and you're about to go in the door and then you open your map and you see there's like four rooms with treasure chests that you missed. And now you gotta go back to find those treasure chests. Now most of the time those treasure chests is gonna have some grapes in it, which is not the most exciting prize.

[Griffin McElroy]

Sometimes they have the equipment, the amulets, which is something that I wish Tears of the Kingdom has. That is they divide the armor, the like cosmetic armor that you get in the game from your like passive abilities. So you can get equipment slots that let you climb faster or swim faster, whatever it is, and you add more slots to that so you can actually like passively impact your character without having to wear this specific set of armor. The armor switching in Tears of the Kingdom was always one of the least fun parts of it.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Sure.

[Griffin McElroy]

So I thought that was a huge improvement. I do want to say one more quick thing about the slow bits, the talking bits. Tears of the Kingdom has this stuff too. But why it works in Tears of the Kingdom and is not as, I guess, annoying as it is here, which it definitely is, is because the space in between those moments is much longer. You'll do a quest with a lot of talking in it, and then 30 minutes will go by as you're trying to do whatever they asked of you or just wandering around the map. And then you'll get to the next stage and they'll talk a lot more. But I think that's the difference here. Whereas right now you're getting them all stacked one after the other.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

I mean, the middle stuff in Tears of the Kingdom is just better than the middle stuff. I'm not saying I totally understand. The pacing of a Zelda game requires that stuff. But the middle stuff in Tears of the Kingdom is learning to fly upwards through a tornado climbing thing. And in this one it's like run up to the Zora village at the north side and then down to the Zora village at the south side and go talk to those guys. And it's like. That's not very interesting.

[Griffin McElroy]

Yeah. I think part of the problem is that this game, which is the first, like brand new, you know, mainline Zelda game since Tears of the Kingdom, but realistically, like, it was Tears of the Kingdom, it was Breath of the Wild, and it was Link between worlds with the last three brand new mainline Zelda games. And those are three of the best video games ever fucking made.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Yeah, they're really, really good.

[Griffin McElroy]

And this is not at that level.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Overall, it's better than. I genuinely. This game is better than I was worried it would be. I was worried it would be just gimmicky and that's it.

[Griffin McElroy]

Yeah, it doesn't feel gimmicky to me.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

It doesn't. It feels like a whole ass Zelda game and a good Zelda game, but.

[Griffin McElroy]

It does feel a little bit B team. Like it does not feel like the A, which is true. Grezzo developed this. This is the team that made the Link's Awakening remake.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

It also made, I think, 3Ds, the 3Ds remakes of Majora's Mask, Ocarina of Time.

[Griffin McElroy]

So they've made remakes which are very good, but they're not originally designed necessarily. It would also maybe explain why this game kind of runs like shit.

[Justin McElroy]

Oh, gosh, man. I just played it for the first time docked. It looked bad. Like the frame rate. When I docked it, it was like flickery.

[Griffin McElroy]

Yeah, I haven't watched the Digital Foundry. I'm sure they go into it, but Link's Awakening had the exact same problem, the exact same engine. And it is shocking to me that Nintendo can't be like, oh, you can't run it at 60, put a cap at 30 or something just to keep it stable. Because it just does not feel good.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

I will say, other than the frame.

[Russ Frost]

Rate, art direction is so good.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

The soundtrack is great. I have had the Overworld theme stuck in my head and it's not the, you know, da da, da, da, da da. It's like a new thing. And it's, how's it going? You just.

[Griffin McElroy]

Oh, God. Nintendo's lawyers.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Oh, fuck. That's really all it takes these days.

[Justin McElroy]

I want to ask you guys a question. Do you think that. And this is kind of a really tough thought experiment to do on the fly, but do you think when. If this wasn't a Zelda game. I'm not marketed as a Zelda game, but just take it on its own merits. Do you feel like our discussion would have a more positive tone? Because it does feel like such a departure and really out of left field. And I'm wondering if it's hampered by the fact that it is, as you said, Rust competing with some of these all time.

[Russ Frost]

Honestly, I feel the opposite. If this had been Scribblenauts is the perfect comparison for me. If this had been released by Warner Brothers and didn't have the Zelda trappings, which is what I enjoy most about it, I would be like, this is a really cool rough draft. I can't wait to see what the sequel looks like. But I think that there's a little bit of the old Nintendo, like the flavor of Nintendo adds a lot to this game. And I think the things, like all of the lack of polish that we talked about, of navigating the systems and the combat would feel. I feel like I'd be less likely to forgive it. I mean, I appreciate. I think there's a version of this. If we had recorded this episode 10 years ago, where we would love it just because games that tried new things were so rare and exciting, but games that try new things come out every week and.

[Griffin McElroy]

Well, and Zelda is now the franchise of trying new things. Like that is all it.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

And that's fucking crazy.

[Russ Frost]

I'm glad that they released it. I really hope that they do a sequel to this because it really feels like step one of an idea, and I think it's totally reasonable for a step one. It's really good. Um, but I. I know it can be better.

[Griffin McElroy]

It kind of sets up. Who fucking knows? But if I was Nintendo, kind of seems like the merging of both a Zelda game and a link game in an open, like their next 3D game, where, like, you can summon monsters and you can build shit, like, that's a pretty fucking compelling idea in an open world space. I also obviously limited by, like, some perspective stuff of what you can really do, but, like, the potential is kind of endless.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

It is also kind of great to play as Zelda, if for no other reason than when you meet people out in the world, they're like, holy fucking shit, you're the princess of the realm. How can I help you?

[Justin McElroy]

I wish they'd made more of that, honestly. I wish playing Zelda felt like, if you're gonna do it. I kind of wish she talked.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

That's the other thing. Yeah. Making her playable, you take away her.

[Griffin McElroy]

Ability to speak because she does speak. You just don't hear it.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

You don't hear it.

[Griffin McElroy]

She gestures like she's conveying information, but you don't actually hear because people understand. It's like, you know, people understand when she's saying stuff.

[Justin McElroy]

That's fine. I'm just saying it would be cool to have a protagonist in the game. Like, if you're going to put a different protagonist in this franchise, why not have them feel like a different person? I mean, the fact of the matter is she puts on Link's clothes, like, immediately. I kind of wonder the fact she's wearing his robe all the time. I kind of wonder if they wanted to, like, be able to back. Back out of it. Like. No, no, no, that's Link. Just kidding, Just kidding.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Press the link. Oh, you're upset. Press the link button.

[Justin McElroy]

Press the link button.

[Griffin McElroy]

I was link.

[Justin McElroy]

Don't worry about it.

[Griffin McElroy]

I was reading an interview that was saying that they originally had this as a link game and he could summon shit, but he also obviously had his sword and shield. And they were like. It just kind of conflicted. Like, you. You would. Monsters would get in the way of your sword and shield, so you would just use your sword and shield instead of the monsters, which obviously happens in this game at times. And that was the impetus for them making Zelda the protagonist.

[Justin McElroy]

Russ, the fact that that is the lineage of this game is 100% apparent. Like, yeah, like, the proof is in. In the pudding with this, because it feels like something that was going to be something else for a while and then it was something different. And, man, our slate's looking pretty empty. Let's see what games we can get out. All right.

[Griffin McElroy]

I am dying to know if this was planned as a Switch 2 game. I think we'll know for sure if the Switch 2 comes out and this immediately runs, like, fucking perfect. Yes, we'll kind of know. But I am like, can you imagine if they fucking shadow dropped a Zelda game at launch of the Switch 2 that no one fucking knew about? Would have been fucked wild.

[Justin McElroy]

I mean, that would be cool, man. I'd love Dreamcast, too. Yeah.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

What if they did, like, Panzer Dragoon on the Switch too? Just like, surprise.

[Justin McElroy]

That'd be sick. I like Nights into Dreams. If they made another one of those, but it was on phones and free, that would kick ass, man.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Stunt me. Well, they did.

[Justin McElroy]

Hey, why don't they bring back Viennetta ice cream cakes? What the fuck is that?

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Have we said our piece about Zelda?

[Griffin McElroy]

I think this is a good game. I don't think it's the best Zelda game ever, but I think it's a very, very good Zelda game. And as Plant said, I would love to see them evolve this idea further.

[Justin McElroy]

It's really fun.

[Griffin McElroy]

It is. It's really fun. I've enjoyed it. Good.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

In short bursts, too. Like, I've been playing it while also playing other stuff. Or, like, it's easy to pick up the Switch and just play for five minutes while the kids are eating dinner and just do a little mini dungeon and get a new echo and. Yeah, it's great.

[Griffin McElroy]

The checkpoints and the fast travel and all that stuff.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Very common, Very generous.

[Griffin McElroy]

Yeah.

[Justin McElroy]

All right, let's take a quick break, and we'll come back and talk about more right after this break.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Us gamers got a game, and there's nothing that can stop us, even a subscription fee for the game that we're playing. But sometimes we move on to a new game and forget about that subscription fee for a long, long time, and it's just chewing away at our bank account like so many termites. Well, good news. Rocket Money is here to help you find those subscriptions that you have forgotten about and help you cancel them so that you can save a whole bunch of money. I've used Rocket Money a lot in the past to catch some subscriptions for games, MMOs specifically that I hadn't been playing, or apps specifically for my kids on the iPad that I had subscribed to and forgotten about. And I cannot even fathom how much money it has saved me because of those subscriptions that it caught. Rocket Money is a personal finance app. That helps you find and cancels unwanted subscriptions. It also monitors your spending and helps lower your bills so you can grow your savings. Rocket Money has over 5 million users and has saved a total of $500 million in canceled subscriptions, saving members up to 740 bucks a year. When using all the app's features, stop wasting money on things you don't use. Cancel your unwanted subscriptions by going to rocketmoney.combesties that's rocketmoney.combesties one last time. Rocketmoney.combesties.

[Russ Frost]

This podcast is sponsored by Squarespace. Squarespace makes it easy to create a beautiful website, engage with your audience, and sell anything from products to content to time, all in one place, all on your terms. But here's the real reason, you know, now that we've got that out of the way, why you should get Squarespace because everybody should have a website now more than ever. You've heard me talk about this. You need to have a space on the Internet that is truly your own. Everybody is trying to take advantage of you effectively with social media and other forms of creating content for them. Why not have a space where you are creating something for yourself? Maybe that is for your friends, maybe that is for your family. Maybe it is literally an art posting spot that is literally just for you to preserve whatever it is that you do and care about. Squarespace has all of these great systems like Design Intelligence from Squarespace or Squarespace Payments, which makes it super easy to manage your payments. You can get started with like just a few clicks and you have all sorts of popular payment methods like ACH and Apple Pay because you need a home online. Create something, make something awesome and share it with the world and do it for nobody but yourself. That's a way of being on the Internet in 2024 and moving forward. So how do you do it? You go to squarespace.com for a free trial and when you're ready to Launch, go to www.squarespace.combesties to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. That is squarespace.com besties to save 10 percent off your first purchase of a website or domain.

[Griffin McElroy]

Okay, we're back. We talked about Zelda. Hooray. I thought it might be a good time given the fact that it's October. We just kind of quickly summarize what is left on the docket for the rest.

[Justin McElroy]

I get impressed. I didn't know this game was coming out and then you guys said it was and I liked that. But what else do you magicians have in your hats? I don't follow this stuff at all anymore, so it's a complete surprise to me every week when the show ends. I have no idea what games are coming out.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Yeah.

[Griffin McElroy]

How do you feel about playing Silent Hill 2?

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Yeah, man, for sure. I already done that one.

[Justin McElroy]

Is it a remake?

[Griffin McElroy]

Is it a remake of Silent Hill 2?

[Justin McElroy]

Those are scary.

[Griffin McElroy]

I was way too scared to play the first one, so this might be the time.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Yeah. That game is too spooky for me. We got it on Xbox, and I was like, no way, man.

[Griffin McElroy]

Did you even say, I love you?

[Justin McElroy]

That doesn't make a damn bit of sense.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

I didn't even get to Pyramid Head. Nope. I went into a school and I saw a little ghost, and I was like, bye.

[Griffin McElroy]

Someone singing Ring around the Rosie turned it off.

[Justin McElroy]

Is that the radio one? Silent Hill two. There's a radio in that? Scary radio.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

I think there's a scary radio in every Silent Hill game. Just like the Keyblade.

[Griffin McElroy]

Okay, next up, we have a Diablo 4 expansion coming out pretty soon.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Let me say this. I've been hearing some shit about Diablo 4 from people I trust saying it's gotten good, and it's like, man, I might dip back in for an expansion. Sure, why not?

[Griffin McElroy]

I was sort of in that mindset with Diablo 3, and they fixed Diablo 3. So maybe Diablo 4 is fun. I mean, it was fine at launch. It just wasn't. Didn't keep my attention.

[Russ Frost]

No. I think you could also start playing it now because a lot of the features of the expansion came out earlier this year.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Yeah, yeah. The Loot 2.0 stuff. Yeah, yeah.

[Griffin McElroy]

We have a game coming out next week called. Let me see if I get the pronunciation right.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

I think it's the week after.

[Griffin McElroy]

It's next week.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

The 11th.

[Griffin McElroy]

Yeah, 11th is next week.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Oh, you're right.

[Russ Frost]

Yeah.

[Griffin McElroy]

Metaphor refantazio.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Everyone's gonna say the name Persona Fantasy.

[Griffin McElroy]

Can we just say Persona 6?

[Russ Frost]

That's an easy way. Fantasy. Persona. Yeah.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Fantasy Persona. Yeah. Understandably, I am looking forward to that video game quite a bit.

[Griffin McElroy]

After that, we have Neva, which is this quasi sequel to Grease, which is like that weird platforming.

[Justin McElroy]

It's also when I'm gonna be playing Metaphor refantasia. It's nice that that lined up.

[Griffin McElroy]

I'm kind of excited for that. I didn't play Grease, but people seem to like it, and I like Journey, and it seems Journey inspired Mario Kart.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Pretty fucking wild. There's a new Dragon Age game. I don't Know if you're going in chronological.

[Griffin McElroy]

Oh, I was sort of. But yeah, there is a new dragon age.

[Russ Frost]

Like, the early word on the game is so positive. I can't remember seeing previews for a game that are.

[Justin McElroy]

Is that true?

[Russ Frost]

Yeah, the previews for this game are like, well, there's our Baldur's gate for this year. Or like, there's our game of the year.

[Justin McElroy]

Is that good?

[Russ Frost]

It's. Well, I don't know if the game is that good, but it is.

[Justin McElroy]

You say, but the previews never lie.

[Russ Frost]

The previews. Hey, you know what? They said Suicide Squad would be the dog's breakfast. And it was. It was so.

[Justin McElroy]

It was.

[Russ Frost]

Sometimes they get right, hey, Mario Party Jamboree. Like, what is our take on this? Is this, you know, how many times can I be Charlie Brown in the football? And yet I feel myself. I feel myself lining up, being.

[Griffin McElroy]

I can't.

[Russ Frost]

This is it. This is the time I kick that football.

[Griffin McElroy]

I don't think we can do an episode on this game. And we probably won't. We just like, logistically speaking, we do not have. None of us have four friends is the problem.

[Russ Frost]

Oh, well, yes, that too. I thought you meant just like, you know that I'm gonna take a ol swing football and miss dramatically.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

The only people I would have to play this game with would be my kids, and I would not introduce them to this fucking stochastic, hateful franchise.

[Justin McElroy]

The idea that I would willingly have my kids join in a Mario party and then at the end of it, fucking Mario and all of his friends come out and like, one of you is the best kid.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

No fucking Mario.

[Justin McElroy]

I lost on purpose hours ago. But the fact that they would set that up like, never, never in a million years. I'll tell my kids Mario Party doesn't exist. If they hear about it at school or whatever, they're just lying to you kids.

[Griffin McElroy]

Apparently the Mario Party Die Hards are excited about the fact that it has a pro mode, which removes all of the luck based party games. So it's just the skill based party games?

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Sure, man. If you play it right. It's all skill based. I've got a system.

[Justin McElroy]

It's about streaks.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

It's about maximizing your streaks.

[Griffin McElroy]

Okay, a few more to go. Go through. We have Black Ops 6 coming out. We gonna play this one? What do we think?

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Haven't played.

[Russ Frost]

This one isn't in the 90s.

[Justin McElroy]

I haven't played one.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

I haven't played the last.

[Justin McElroy]

I keep telling myself I'm gonna play a Call of Duty's. And I just don't.

[Griffin McElroy]

And I don't have the hard drive space is the problem. Like 300 megs.

[Russ Frost]

300 gigs, 500 gigs.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Crazy. This is still October, right?

[Griffin McElroy]

Yes. Yeah, we're dipping into.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

I think, hey, this one's maybe not gonna hit for everybody else. There's a new Pokemon trading card game coming out on mobile. Pokemon Trading Card Game Pocket. That's like all about how good it feels to open up packs of Pokemon cards. I think that's gonna be a hit in this household.

[Russ Frost]

Griffin, are you playing that TCG simulator?

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

No. I mean, there's a couple of those. I've dipped into that genre in the past, but it's never really.

[Griffin McElroy]

What is that genre?

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

I mean, you run like a card shop and you get packs that you buy with your. With your finances and you can open the packs and maybe you'll find a card that you can resell for more. You know, it is a simulation of that whole kind of.

[Griffin McElroy]

But like there's no IP or anything. So what is.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

No, no, no. I mean it's like. It's like Palworld. Got it.

[Griffin McElroy]

Okay. Understood. Stalker 2. Do we think that's actually going to.

[Justin McElroy]

Come out until dawn that we.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

That's a remake. Yeah, that's for PC and PS5. Yeah.

[Justin McElroy]

Okay. Thank.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

I mean, I'll play that fucking game again. I love until done.

[Griffin McElroy]

Scary.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Very scary.

[Russ Frost]

Talk about this here. I. I feel positive about that. They, you know, they bumped it a few times, but I think, you know, each bump is a little shorter than the last one. Also, I believe that they're gonna do previews or something, so. Which would suggest that they have code. This game, if it hits, I feel like is going to be exceptional. But that's a vague question. Right?

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

I'll tell you back to back. I am very much looking forward to Mario and luigi brothership on November 7th and Dragon Quest 3 HD 2D remake on November 14th. A lot of big RPGs here towards the back. And Dragon Age drops the week before that. It's going to. Jesus Christ. I'm just now realizing metaphor. Into Dragon Age, into Mario and Luigi, into Dragon Quest 3. It's a. It's a. I mean, it's good. I'm eating good over here, but I'm also. I got a bit of a tummy.

[Justin McElroy]

I cannot believe you guys are gonna skip past Shadows of the Damned Hella Remastered.

[Griffin McElroy]

Oh, that game is awesome. I love that game rules.

[Justin McElroy]

That's the game of the year.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

I genuinely.

[Justin McElroy]

What?

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

I don't remember Shadows of the damned.

[Justin McElroy]

You would. If you look really done talked, you look up a trailer for you. Love it. Came out in 2011. It was great.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Oh, was it one of the fucking killer 7 grasshopper?

[Griffin McElroy]

It was from the resident evil 4 guy. It's a very sassy kind of middle ground between Resident Evil 4 and Devil May Cry.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Yeah, this is a grasshopper game.

[Griffin McElroy]

It's fun.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Yeah, man, I do remember this game.

[Justin McElroy]

And can I ask you guys about one other thing? What's Retro Realms? There's a couple of games I'm seeing listed as Retro Realms. Halloween and Retro Realms. Ash versus Evil Dead.

[Griffin McElroy]

I have no fucking idea.

[Justin McElroy]

Way forward is.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

I think it's like a six, like a eight bit version of like horror. Horror stuff. Sort of like how they did with like Stranger Things.

[Justin McElroy]

I don't know.

[Griffin McElroy]

Oh.

[Russ Frost]

I have spent the last five minutes trying to figure out how to add Dragon Quest 1 and 2 HD 2D remake into document because for the life of me, I was literally reading it and I couldn't transcribe it.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Is that dropping day and date with Dragon Quest 3?

[Russ Frost]

I thought Dragon Quest 1 and 2 comes out and then 3 comes out later. But I, for the life of me can't figure it out.

[Griffin McElroy]

Did they call it that because they wanted to make a 3D remake of 1 and 2, but they wanted to save that for later.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Oh, fuck. Maybe Rust.

[Griffin McElroy]

Why specify?

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

I don't know.

[Russ Frost]

There's no three does come out on November 14th. You're all okay. You can all take a deep breath.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Do you know what else comes out on Halloween? Russ is a DLC for Blasphemous 2. Guys, it's stacked out here. It's looking good out here.

[Justin McElroy]

So Ash vs Evil Dead and Halloween are 16 bit platformers that WayForward is making out on October 18th. It looks like both of them are coming out in like 16 bit platform form. Okay, There you go.

[Griffin McElroy]

Also, there's an Indiana Jones game coming out.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Yeah, baby. I can't wait.

[Griffin McElroy]

It's gonna be bad. That's a good developer.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Yeah, they make a spiritual sequel to the fate of Atlantis.

[Justin McElroy]

I know, I know that it is a controversial opinion. If you wanted a yes man on the show, go get Jason Schreier back. You know what I mean? He's at the company teet. I'm saying, listen, you watch that trailer, okay? And then think about anything you see in that trailer for that game that you want to do at home. Tell me one fun thing.

[Griffin McElroy]

I like Russian dust off of artifacts.

[Justin McElroy]

No part of that trailer's fun. Guys, I'm going to get out in front of this one, say that game is going to be a disappointment. And when it is, I'm going to look fucking smart. And if I'm wrong, I got a fun Indiana Jones game. So what's up?

[Griffin McElroy]

You say disappointment. I don't think it's like going to be in the running for Game of the Year.

[Justin McElroy]

It's like, I think it will be a six. That's what I think.

[Griffin McElroy]

Wow.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

I think it'll be Peter Jackson's King Kong.

[Griffin McElroy]

Okay, That's a huge success.

[Justin McElroy]

That's a huge success. That's a great success. That's an 8.5 out of 10.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

We're going to get 8.5. Todd Howard executive produced this King Kong game. This is Todd Howard's King Kong. I'm so into it.

[Justin McElroy]

I hope that. I hope that I am wrong. Yeah, I will say that. The second thing I'll say. I rarely am.

[Griffin McElroy]

Sure. Troy. What's his name? What's his name? The voice actor?

[Russ Frost]

Baker.

[Griffin McElroy]

No, Troy Baker. Troy Baker. Thank you. Does an amazing Harrison Ford impression.

[Russ Frost]

Like, okay, so it is amazing. The only problem is it's like. It's like a deep fake face where it looks so real, but then like, I don't know, 1% of the time it just completely misses, which makes it all the more unsettling. It's when it. When it bounces off because it's so good.

[Griffin McElroy]

Good thing it's the first person game mostly.

[Justin McElroy]

You know, it's wild.

[Russ Frost]

That's true. That's true.

[Justin McElroy]

It's wild. What a departure this is. This Indiana Jones in December. When we were starting in the business, like mid 2000s, the. You would never see anything released after Thanksgiving. Like, once Thanksgiving hit, you were done. Like, there was nothing until a lot of times, like March usually, but like absolutely nothing in this delayed. That's kind of why, like Game of the Year stuff, I think became such a big deal in video game coverage because you had this whole month where nothing was happening. Yeah.

[Russ Frost]

It's also why I'm a little worried about this game, at least in its state at release, because coming out in December feels like we are running to the wire. I'm also just a little like, I hope this game is excellent. But it's a strange choice for machine games to be like, hey, the number one thing we are good at is shooting stuff. And they're like, cool, cool, cool. So what are you going to do next game where you don't shoot stuff?

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

I have to imagine he gets A gun. At some point, you gotta shoot that whip guy.

[Russ Frost]

Yeah, but he doesn't get, like, a shotgun with the bullets and bounce off walls.

[Justin McElroy]

No, it is where it kind of makes me wonder. I wonder if Microsoft maybe just needed to be able to say something was coming out in 2024, and December 9th is just about as late as something can come out in 2020.

[Griffin McElroy]

Well, something else did come out in 2024, and it's called the Starfield expansion package. We haven't discussed yet. I think it's out today.

[Justin McElroy]

Is it out today? I'll play every fucking second of it. I would love it. What if I play it?

[Griffin McElroy]

I'm not this week. I think it might be out this week.

[Justin McElroy]

Oh, man. What if it's great? Wouldn't that be. What if it's just.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Yeah, man.

[Russ Frost]

Justin, are you gonna. Are you gonna play that? And while we play metaphor. Is that.

[Justin McElroy]

I will. I will do that for you guys. I hate. I. Listen, I walked around space and got all the dumb powers. I would love a reason to use my stupid space powers on something.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

The fact that you would rather go back and play Starfield rather than play fantasy Persona 6 makes me sad in a way that I am. I would not be able to describe.

[Justin McElroy]

To you with words just for the listeners.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

No, no, no, I know for the listeners.

[Russ Frost]

The thing is. Yeah, we have each other, Griffin. And next week is going to be you and I. We're going to have our time to shine in the sun. Wonderful days are ahead.

[Griffin McElroy]

Okay, do we have any. I think that more or less summarizes the release slate for the rest of the year. Do we have any honorable mentions that people want to.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

I got two. I'm gonna say I've been playing Balatro on my fucking phone. Careful, guys. Careful with that. Uh. Oh, Be careful.

[Justin McElroy]

It'll get you progress. Crossover.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

No, but I'm like, so good at Balatra. I can re unlock all that shit in like a couple hours probably. It feels great. It kicks ass. It whips. It's good if I'm shooting a duke, like, I'll just plop down and I'll like, knock out a couple antes, no problem.

[Griffin McElroy]

Do you prefer playing on phone to whatever you're playing on?

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Yes, I do think that is true. Yes. Because I can do that shit anywhere. I always got my phone on me. Don't always got my steam deck on me. Most of the time it's littler. I wanted to give a special shout out to the golden bachelorette. Now, listen. Yeah, this is an old. This is an older lady and she is from the season of the Golden Bachelor, which is the last one. Consider, if you will, a bunch of 60 plus year old men go into the bachelor mansion house and imagine what that is like, what that moment is like. Because it's mostly these older men walking around and talking about how nice the appliances are. And it's them talking about how do you make your. There's one scene in this most recent episode where one guy starts grilling hamburgers and like six dads come up to him like, ooh, gotta take those off soon. He puts barbecue sauce on them. He's like, yeah, this is New York style. Everyone's like, you don't put barbecue sauce on a hamburger. Like it's. You've never seen this many old men together and it be good and it not be some sort of meaning. Forced to socialize, commerce, just to socialize. These are all old widowers for the most part. They're so lonely and now they get to hang out with a bunch of like minded older men. This shit hits so fucking correct. It is unbelievable. I want to watch.

[Justin McElroy]

Can I sign up for the show just to go hang at the mansion with all my elders, pick up the scraps of knowledge, dropping for.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

I wish, I wish there was an apprenticeship position that you could sign up for on this show.

[Justin McElroy]

This is our pool boy, Justin. He just.

[Russ Frost]

It's.

[Justin McElroy]

It's lapse of the stories.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

I was worried when they announced this season. Cause I was like, man, you get a bunch of older dudes together, like sometimes old dudes suck shit. But these are lonely older men and there's no villain arc, as far as I can tell, which is unique to this franchise. It's just. It is.

[Russ Frost]

They're all looking for companionship really. Of any kind, Any kind. Any sort of finding.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Yeah, it's just episode one. I like this. Episode one is usually so cutthroat. People trying to like carve out little bits of time and screen time and time with the lead. And in this one, episode one, they're carving out wood.

[Griffin McElroy]

Cause they're all whittling.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

No, episode one, the dudes are like widowers.

[Justin McElroy]

Not widowers, widowers.

[Griffin McElroy]

I thought they were all whittling.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

No, they're not whittling. Episode one, there's more than one guy who says something like, she would be lucky to have any one of this great group of guys. And it's like, that's so good. That's never happened here before. I'm fucking loving it. I'm having a ball watching this With Rachel.

[Russ Frost]

Do you think that this is more of like a kind of like, karmic spiritual cleansing of the Bachelor mansion? That they need to do this now every year?

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Maybe.

[Russ Frost]

Maybe all of the.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Yeah, I watched some of Jen's season. I watched, I think, all of the Bachelor before that and the Golden Bachelor. Jerry. That one hit pretty good, too. Cause it was a lot of older ladies. It's like a totally different demographic, totally different vibe. It feels like a completely different team of people making the show just in terms of, like, how nice it is. Anyway, that's my shit.

[Griffin McElroy]

This week I wanted to talk about the Ayaneo Pocket Micro, which is a very bizarre device. I was sent a production model. This is not the final retail model, but I imagine they're pretty close by. Ayaneo, they sent it to me and I've been playing it for the last, like, week or so.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Oh, my God. Is it a Game Boy Micro?

[Griffin McElroy]

Basically, it is bigger than a Game Boy Micro. Okay. But not by much.

[Justin McElroy]

Let's see it.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

God damn, Russ. This looks good.

[Griffin McElroy]

Imagine it if you will hold it.

[Justin McElroy]

Up so I can see it.

[Griffin McElroy]

I don't have it right here. Google it. Now, here's the thing about the Ayaneo Pocket. Microsoft.

[Justin McElroy]

Now, I have to guess how to spell that so I can see what it looks like.

[Griffin McElroy]

It's in the rundown. You could just pull it from there if you wanted to play basically NES through, let's say, PS1. You're going to have one of the best experiences, I think, on any of these handheld devices. And I think it even goes kind of head to head against the analog pocket, which is also kind of designed for this era of gaming. It's a different technology. You're using software emulation instead of hardware emulation. Fucking dorks will yell at me. I get it. But because it's running on Android, you have the versatility of, like, everything that an Android device can do.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

I love the look of this thing.

[Griffin McElroy]

It's a very cool device.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Those thumbsticks look a little low on.

[Griffin McElroy]

The thumbsticks were fine. Here's the issue. The triggers are stack triggers on the top. They're like flat stack triggers. So if you're playing anything that has extensive trigger use, including racing games, things like that, you're going to have a bad time. It's just like, not designed to support that thing, which arguably you could kind of say a little bit about, you know, most of these devices, a lot of these devices, which is pretty typical. This one, it feels a little overpowered and price Wise is a little high. I think it's $200, which is in line with the analog pocket. But if you're just looking to do software emulation for like, later systems, even though this has the horsepower to do that stuff, I think the form factor is not there.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Is that going to replace the Miyoo Mini? Miyoo Mini is still my weapon of choice for like, I think at this.

[Griffin McElroy]

Point, just to bring everyone up to speed for where the handheld gaming space is right now. I think the Miyoo Mini is kind of the grandpa. It is the golden bachelor of the group, such that it just kind of caps out again at PS1. And a lot of the handhelds these days are doing, you know, PSP, even GameCube, PS2, 3DS.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

But it's hard to do that in a form. The form factor for these things is like the number one concern for me because I have. I could play PS2 games, you know, on my Odin, whatever.

[Justin McElroy]

Why on the some look at the actual website.

[Griffin McElroy]

Sure.

[Justin McElroy]

First off, this is coming soon. It doesn't look like you can get this. Yep.

[Griffin McElroy]

There is a way to order it now off of Indiegogo, actually.

[Justin McElroy]

Weird. It says premium horizontal retro handheld console. A delicate plaything you won't want to put down. Why are you marketing this as delicate?

[Griffin McElroy]

Yeah, there might be a translation situation going on. It's a Chinese manufacturer.

[Russ Frost]

The retro game corps review of it is like, I would not take this out of my house.

[Griffin McElroy]

I haven't dropped it, but it seems pretty durable to me.

[Justin McElroy]

I wouldn't actually push against that. Russ, Just based on the fact that on the manufacturer's website it says that it is delicate. So that would be my sort of counter to that.

[Griffin McElroy]

I think they probably fancy.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Fancy maybe. Yeah, delicate the way that, like a nice croissant is delicate.

[Griffin McElroy]

I think if you're looking to run like every game of the last 30 years, this is not necessarily the device for you. But if you are an obsessive about that, like NES2, I would say PS1 era. This is like a very good device for that. And again, like, I was able to play Fortnite on it, which is, you know, you can't say that about a lot of these handhelds.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

On through, like the Android.

[Griffin McElroy]

Through Android. Yeah.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Google.

[Griffin McElroy]

Well, through the Epic Game stores.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Yeah.

[Griffin McElroy]

I think the only way to do.

[Justin McElroy]

That, every frame of Boogerman.

[Griffin McElroy]

It is a very weird, interesting space plant. I think mentioned Retro Game Core, which I think is one of the better YouTubers covering this space. I also really like the subreddit SBC Gaming, which stands for single something Chip gaming.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Single board computer.

[Griffin McElroy]

Single board computer. Thank you. And they I think do a very good job summarizing where the. With the state of this market, which moves incredibly quickly, they release new handhelds every like three weeks. It's nuts. But this one's a very cool one and I think from a. If someone's looking for like a daily driver these days, I'm a big fan of the 3.5xx h, which is from Amber.

[Justin McElroy]

Unbelievable that you take up our time with this.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

No, I'm here for it, man.

[Justin McElroy]

Talk to him personally. The fact that you're using a broadcasting channel to have these discussions with each other is truly nauseating. It is immoral.

[Griffin McElroy]

Justin, before we recorded, you were like, I think I'm going to get one of these things. Did I just.

[Justin McElroy]

You know what I do if I was going to do that? I just ask you. Like I directly I wouldn't.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

But now you don't have to. You don't have to do that.

[Russ Frost]

Now the whole world knows.

[Justin McElroy]

Yeah, but. But you know what? I. By after I asked you, I'd be like, okay, I just put the order in. You'd be like, actually there's this new sick one that I just heard.

[Griffin McElroy]

I mean, yeah, that's. That is the problem with this.

[Justin McElroy]

And this is not the turnover for Russ and his handhelds is like weekly. Weekly. No, here's a. Here's how it works. It's the same every time. And it's happened eight times at this point. Russell be like, here's the sick new shit. And then Plant for some reason always sweeps in his like, here's a tutorial for how to set it up Super Easy on YouTube.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Their work, they're in cahoots for sure.

[Justin McElroy]

Like there's a tutorial for how to set up good. And then I get it all on and I go, I got it all set up. I get it from China. And I get a box. I open it, I'm like, what the fuck is this? I'm like, oh yeah, it's the new thing. So I go find now load up Boogerman. I'm like, absolutely. Put it in a box.

[Griffin McElroy]

Have you noticed if you reverse Ayaneo it spells frost?

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Yeah, that's cool.

[Justin McElroy]

Kaiser Soze.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Is Rush frostic Justin or Chris?

[Justin McElroy]

I saw Transformers won twice. Move far.

[Russ Frost]

Hell yeah. Yeah, I think that's it. He's just, you know, it's a confession.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Don't get me wrong. Justin's been talking about Transformers 1 across our whole slate of media offerings.

[Justin McElroy]

So I just don't have a ton else to like survivors back. I'll update you on from real quick.

[Russ Frost]

If you guys oh yeah, people are.

[Justin McElroy]

Bunches of things continue to happen on From. Currently, a woman is excavating her basement with a shovel because the outlets aren't real and there's no wires in the cords and she's trying to figure out where the electricity comes from that.

[Griffin McElroy]

Wait, what the from in the title.

[Justin McElroy]

Means that oh, you. You are not the last. The last shot of from season one is a tour bus pulling into town.

[Russ Frost]

Oh, so now the Universal Studios tour.

[Justin McElroy]

They'Re coming trapped in from Is the.

[Griffin McElroy]

Town called from every.

[Justin McElroy]

That's what I call it because no, I don't know. The town is. There's Colony Town and then Town Town. There's Colony House, then regular Town and then Colony House got busted into by a bunch of the monsters that live in from World at Night and it got busted into. So every left Colony House to go move into town, but nobody likes the colony.

[Griffin McElroy]

It's New England Lost, basically.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Yeah, yeah.

[Justin McElroy]

From continues to air.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Keep doing it.

[Justin McElroy]

Hey, if you want to watch something good that actually seriously delivers, if you like spy stuff at all, Slow Courses on Apple TV is coming. Fourth season. It is a really. That's a show that like might have gotten lost in the glut of overspending on streaming shows. Like it was one of that wave where it seemed like all of a sudden there was 30 things to watch all at once. But it has continued to deliver really, I would say increasingly good seasons.

[Griffin McElroy]

I confuse that with the old man.

[Justin McElroy]

100% and I confuse it with Old Dogs. And I confuse it with Space cowboys, Wild Hogs. I confuse it with all of them. The Old man is back too, actually, Russ. Love it. Hilariously, your Old man needs are between the Golden Bachelor, the Old man and Slow Horses. Old men are really good old men.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

It's time for Old Men to have some power.

[Justin McElroy]

They finally have 50 consoles that can play all their favorite games portably.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

What about you, Chris?

[Russ Frost]

I got two things to shout out real quick. One friend of the show, Johnny Stanton, is the co creator of a tabletop project called Sync that is a 5th edition supplement of D and D. But it's got Pirates and it's very cool and I'm going to include it in the newsletter so people can check it out. And then also because it is spooky season, have you all heard of Ghost Watch?

[Justin McElroy]

No Watch is one of the best things ever. I'M so excited you're going to talk about that.

[Russ Frost]

I knew you would be the one. Ghost watch aired on BBC on Halloween of 1992. And there had been a series of kind of crime, almost like talk shows where they would be like, okay, we're going to talk about local crime that's happening and then you're going to call in and help us try to solve these crimes. And these are real crimes, like real, like newsy programs on the BBC. And then they're like, okay, now we're going to do one for ghosts. And people are like, oh great. On Halloween.

[Griffin McElroy]

Cool.

[Russ Frost]

It goes.

[Justin McElroy]

We're gonna have real. You can call in during the show to tell us about your ghost experiences.

[Russ Frost]

Yeah. And we're gonna go to this house that's like a local neighborhood house that is actually haunted. And over the course of the show, things go very, very, very, very wrong. And it is absolutely horrifying. And it, it ends up being a movie that they had made. But it was presented to everybody as if it was real down to the point where it was an hour long show and then it runs an extra half hour and like, hey, things are getting out of control here. We're going to go over the next episode behind us. Freaked people the hell out when it aired and it just made so many brilliant decisions like using non actors and newsy people to like fill all the roles. It is unbelievable. And it is on shudder. If you want to watch it.

[Justin McElroy]

It's on shudder. Yeah. You don't have to like track it down wildly now. You can just go watch it on shudder. And if you want more context. This feels weird to do like a double. There's a sawbones episode on my medical history show about Ghost Watch because it caused such a panic at the time that a lot of people treated it as like it was a legitimate medical concern because people were so freaked out about it and like war of the world, like a few yokels. This is like a bit. It was a, it was an issue. It was a big issue.

[Griffin McElroy]

So you mean more from like an anxiety standpoint?

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Yes.

[Justin McElroy]

Like it caused people like to a point where it's like, is the BBC liable for my like mental distress that I have experienced? It's, it's a wild thing. Go watch it on shutter free of context. It's not going to like chill you to your bones. But watching it and trying to imagine being in that headspace, it's so well.

[Russ Frost]

Done and it's pretty chilling even without that.

[Justin McElroy]

Oh yeah, I don't, I Just don't want like yeah, it's not going to make you insane from terror. It's not the video in the ring.

[Griffin McElroy]

It's just like, cool, we did it.

[Justin McElroy]

There's a. I'm doing. I actually plant. I'm watching something on shutter right now. Sydney and I pause it called WNU F local broadcast doing the same thing that it's like very much recreating the time period but it's like a similar concept like non actors and doing a exploitation.

[Russ Frost]

I'm a total sucker for that stuff. Same thing with Late Night with the Devil which came out a while ago movies.

[Justin McElroy]

Thank you so much for listening to our program. Next week we will be talking about Metaphor refantazio.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

This week though, we talked about so many freaking games. Legend of Zelda, Echoes of Wisdom. We talked about Here we go, right? Silent Hill 2 Remake Diablo 4 Expansion Metaphor Refantazioneva Mario Party Jamboree Black Ops 6 Mario and Luigi Brothership Dragon Quest 1 and 2 HD 2D Remake which I don't think is coming out this Dragon Quest 3 HD 2D Remake Dragon Age Veilguard Stalker 2, Indiana Jones Pokemon Trading Card Game Pocket Blasphemous 2 DLC and then the I Neo Pocket Micro, the Amber Nick 35 XXH Johnny Stanton's tabletop Game Dive expansion.

[Russ Frost]

What was it called?

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Sink Sync Not Dive, Ghost Watch, Balatra Mobile, Golden Bachelorette and Slow Horses.

[Griffin McElroy]

I also wanted to thank the people on our Patreon. You can go patreon.com thebesties I forgot to write down the names this time, but thank you. I remember Kazookal from last week and I'm going to just call out Kazukal one more time.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Yeah, sure.

[Griffin McElroy]

Thank you for supporting the Patreon. We have a new bracket episode which is live right now. We talked about the very best launch games of all time. And here is a clip for that episode.

[Justin McElroy]

The promise of the Dreamcast is a surprise launch, right? And then it had way too many games to be successful, like way too many games. And it was. It came out way too early. And the promise of that launch is, man, this thing's going to fucking flame out, but it's going to be a hell of a show. And then it delivered on that exactly, like 100%.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

I love you guys so much. If you're suggesting that Sega said we're going where this is, we're going out like a beautiful dining.

[Griffin McElroy]

They see the end of the Runway, the gas is running out of the plane, and they're like, fuck it.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

And they just keep rolling on all the fucking like advertisements were just bald cybermen just going nigh, nigh, nigh. Sega's gonna fuck this one up bad in two and a half years, but you're gonna have some good times with Chin Mew. That's not how that happened.

[Justin McElroy]

The Dreamcast would have been a better console than it was.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

I want it to also.

[Justin McElroy]

I love it so much.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Some shocking twists and turns in that one.

[Griffin McElroy]

You never know what's going to happen in those bracket episodes, even though they're a science.

[Justin McElroy]

That is Now I can tell you officially, right, that next week is metaphor. Refantazio. Is that. Yes, now is the moment.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

And also possibly the Starfield DLC now.

[Justin McElroy]

Russ has just changed that in the document after I've said it out loud. The first possible moment that it could be not helpful is the moment he has chosen to change it in the document. Thank you, Russ.

[Griffin McElroy]

Posterity, for posterity.

[Justin McElroy]

And to have it say it next week. It'll be wrong all next week until we change. So that'll be.

[Griffin McElroy]

I guess I'm going to play metaphor with Fantasio. Even though I have not clicked with a Persona game yet, this is the time that's going to happen for me.

[Justin McElroy]

That's going to do it for us. Until next time, my name is Justin McIlroy. For all the besties, I want to say thank you for joining us. 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?