← The Besties
The Besties
Metal Gear Solid Delta is Peak Remake
00:56:15
With practically every “important” PlayStation 2 game being remastered, remade, and reimagined, it wasn’t a surprise when Konami announced Metal Gear Solid Delta. The question wasn’t “would it exist?”, but “should it exist?” This week, The Besties discuss why Metal Gear Solid 3 benefits from a high-definition, low-tweak update. And they debate just how loyal a remake should be to its source material.
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Transcript275 lines
- [00:00]
Justin McElroy
Justin's. He's pulling out his acoustic guitar now.
- [00:05]
I wrote the Cold open for you guys.
- [00:07]
Okay. I guess we have to.
- [00:08]
We never put this stuff in the show, so this is.
- [00:11]
Christopher Thomas Plant
You do this every episode, but we usually don't want the space.
- [00:14]
Justin McElroy
Normally, I don't include my songs. Okay. But I. Thank you guys. Thank you so much. I will. Thank you. Okay, thanks. So I will send a better version to Rachel too, so in case she wants it for her own files, you know, so if you're like, the sound quality is not great. It's more about the. The sentiment that I really need you guys to hear.
- [00:38]
Christopher Thomas Plant
Okay.
- [00:38]
Justin McElroy
Yeah. Because emotions, sometimes you gotta communicate them with music because words just don't do it. You know what I mean?
- [00:46]
Christopher Thomas Plant
You want to pull the guitar up to the mic a little bit more.
- [00:49]
Justin McElroy
Well, I don't want to blow it out. Okay. How's that?
- [00:52]
Christopher Thomas Plant
That's better.
- [00:53]
Griffin McElroy
That's beautiful.
- [00:54]
Justin McElroy
Okay, good.
- [00:55]
Griffin McElroy
It gives you a nice Bob Dylan hunch too, which. Nice.
- [01:02]
Justin McElroy
Remember when we first gave it a try? Oh, five. Pretty soon I knew I'd had enough. Cause, like, this cutscene has been going for a month, and I'd really like to play, please. Then you come around again and say, justin, they fixed it and it's really fun to play. Trust me, they trimmed that month on cutscene to a day. But I say, I'll try it, I'll load it. It could be a goatee.
- [01:23]
Griffin McElroy
Oo oo oo oo.
- [01:26]
Justin McElroy
You made me play again this week, but oo oo oo this time. I'm telling you. I'm telling you. We are never, ever, ever playing more Snake Eater. We are never, ever, ever playing more Snake Eater. You crawl through the grass, look like an ass, I'll play some wee.
- [01:49]
Griffin McElroy
But we are.
- [01:53]
Justin McElroy
Playing more Snake Eater.
- [02:00]
Griffin McElroy
It's beautiful. And also not true. They're definitely gonna crank out another one of these on PS6, baby. And we're gonna be back.
- [02:27]
Justin McElroy
My name is Justin McElroy and I know the best game of the week.
- [02:30]
Griffin McElroy
My name is Griffin McElroy and I know the best game of the week.
- [02:32]
Christopher Thomas Plant
My name is Christopher Thomas Plant, and I know the best game of the week.
- [02:37]
Justin McElroy
My name is Frost Frosh. I know the best game of the week.
- [02:42]
Hey, folks, this is the Monster Hunter that is really going to turn you up, I swear. This is the. No, sorry, I'm just ready. This is the iteration of Metal Gear Solid three that you're really going to get at this time. Metal Gear Solid Delta Snake Eater. Chris, what is that feel like I've kind of summed it up.
- [02:57]
Griffin McElroy
But what is that?
- [02:58]
Christopher Thomas Plant
Konami is back. They said we can't wait for Kojima to come back. We gotta do this on our own this time. And by do it on our own they mean just kind of remake it exactly how it was before. And some of us may be not into that, and some of us very into that. And maybe we'll do a performance of the Snake Eater theme before the end of the show, if we're lucky right after this break.
- [03:20]
Griffin McElroy
I thought for sure that's the way that was going.
- [03:23]
Christopher Thomas Plant
I did too.
- [03:26]
Griffin McElroy
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- [04:43]
Justin McElroy
Oh boy, this is going to be interesting.
- [04:45]
Griffin McElroy
This is going to be real interesting.
- [04:47]
Justin McElroy
So I'm going to start it off. I take a slight issue with Chris Plant's introduction of the game there because it is not an exact recreation. I would put the recreation quotient for Metal Gear solid delta at 85%. 85% of the game is the same game. They've changed two significant areas that are immediately obvious. Area 1 the graphics look better. It's like Unreal Engine. It's lighting. It looks pretty. Area 2 the controls are not total batshit, which the original controls, even in subsistence, pretty batshit. Now the controls. If you played metal gear solid 5, the controls are basically comparable to that you can do third person aiming, you can crouch walk. Remarkably, that was never in the original game. You can do all the things you would expect you could do in a modern ish stealth game.
- [05:43]
From a control standpoint, some smart streamlining, I think of some of the systems for making those accessible like on the fly, rather than having to like dig through menus quite as much.
- [05:52]
Correct.
- [05:52]
Christopher Thomas Plant
Yes.
- [05:53]
Griffin McElroy
Just being able to hold the up button and change your camouflage and it show you like, hey, this is the highest percentage camouflage you have. It really, really, really, really helps make that system that I found so annoying. It actually made it kind of fun.
- [06:08]
Justin McElroy
Yeah.
- [06:08]
Christopher Thomas Plant
So in defense of Chris Plant earlier, this is the same game in that. The same cutscenes.
- [06:16]
Justin McElroy
Yes.
- [06:17]
Christopher Thomas Plant
The same level design.
- [06:18]
Justin McElroy
Well, they redid the cutscenes, but the actual cinematography.
- [06:21]
Griffin McElroy
You could follow a GameFAQs walkthrough from 2007 or whatever and you will get through it just fine.
- [06:28]
Justin McElroy
Correct?
- [06:29]
Christopher Thomas Plant
Yes, yes. Which is a little unusual compared to what we have started to see from other studios like Capcom with the Resident Evil.
- [06:36]
Justin McElroy
Yeah, I thought about that a bit where I was like, you know, certainly when it was first teased, like we first saw that trailer, I'm like, oh, so they're doing a Resident Evil 2 style total remake of this game and that's pretty exciting. But the amount of. I can't even imagine the amount of total reframing that this game would require from tip to tail for it to make sense, for it to like still like track as a metal Gear Solid 3 remake because it is so weird and its own thing and it. I don't know, it just. I'm not saying they shouldn't have done that. I'm just saying this is a.
- [07:19]
This is a quibble that's actually separate from the product itself, but does bother me. I feel like if you're going to, especially if you're going to hue this closely to the source material, you and I know I get the gimmick with Delta and 3 or whatever. You shouldn't change the name, especially when Kojima is not there. Right. Like this is. This is a work, this has a name. This is Metal Gear Solid three. You know, like I, to me, I feel like it's an unmooring from history that makes these things easier to like recycle and regurgitate. So if they don't have numbers, you can just put them back out whenever. But I really, I feel like it's important to. If you're going to do an update like this that like it should be called what it Is. Yeah, and that's a quibble, but, like, I think it's kind of weird and.
- [08:03]
Griffin McElroy
Sorry, but it's also.
- [08:04]
Justin McElroy
I don't understand what you're taking issue with. The fact that it has Delta in the name.
- [08:08]
Christopher Thomas Plant
Well, doesn't have.
- [08:09]
Justin McElroy
It's not called Metal Gear Solid three. It should be called Metal Gear Solid three. It's Metal Gear Solid three. It's like, that is what this game is, and I feel like it is there. They. The fact that they took the liberty to change the three to something else to, like, update that.
- [08:23]
That's fair.
- [08:23]
Yeah, that is shitty. And Mark, like, it's bad for a historical preservation sense, too. You know what I mean? Like, you're changing the name of something that you didn't like. You didn't redo the work. You just rebranded it to make it sound cooler or something. I don't know. I don't know.
- [08:41]
Griffin McElroy
I think it's an especially acute problem for this game, which has been remade for a few different platforms, a few different sort of generations. And I'm of two minds about it because while I agree with you and this was not something I expected, this was the first version that actually worked for me. This was the first version of this game that I was able to pound through past the first couple hours and really, finally feel like I get it, and I get why people hold this game in the esteem that they do.
- [09:21]
Justin McElroy
And.
- [09:21]
Griffin McElroy
And I think part of it is that they did shave off a lot of the rough edges from a control standpoint, like, just being able to play it and not constantly be like, oh, fuck, wait, which one is the CQC button? And which one's just like the quick Melee attack button? And why are those two different buttons? And, like, all of that shit has been really, really filed down. And now it feels very. Not completely filed down, but it does feel more organic and sort of, I don't know, easy to remember than it has in past iterations.
- [09:54]
Justin McElroy
Before we go too much further, it is better to. It is easier to remember than metal gear solid 3. Beloved 04.
- [10:02]
Christopher Thomas Plant
I know that we have talked about this game a couple times on the show, but I'm sure there are some people who just literally do not know what Metal Gear Solid three is. Does somebody want to give the explainer?
- [10:13]
Justin McElroy
May I? I feel like I could do it.
- [10:15]
Do it. Nice.
- [10:17]
I will. I will. There's the.
- [10:20]
Griffin McElroy
In the.
- [10:20]
Justin McElroy
In this sequence of Metal Gear Solid that we think of the canonical Metal Gear Solid games, Metal gear Solid on PlayStation. And then you got Metal Gear Solid 2 and PS2. And then this was the third Metal Gear Solid game, but chronologically, it's the first.
- [10:35]
Yep.
- [10:36]
And it takes place in the 60s and has more of a. I would say, like, Spy Cold War. That is a huge influence on this. And it really feels like more of a Kojima wanting to do more of, like, a period piece. But it's still. It is a prequel, but still very much like the themes and the storylines and everything you're learning are in conversation with what has happened in, you know, in the future games.
- [11:02]
Yeah.
- [11:02]
You're learning backstory that you didn't have before. It's not just, like, all prequel. Y. I don't know.
- [11:07]
And it's worth considering, like, you're playing as. Who is effectively the main, if you will, kind of antagonist of the rest of the series. So you're learning about his origins and, like, why he became who he became what. I find just narratively the last thing.
- [11:22]
I'll just say mechanically is that there's a big emphasis on collecting your resources from the environment and scrabbling together things like your own camouflage, your disguises, harvesting food from the livestock. And not livestock, but, like, the creature, the wildlife, if you will. So that's kind of like, thematically one of the big differences.
- [11:42]
Yeah. I do want to say, narratively speaking, I think this game is maybe. No, I'm gonna go out and say definitely the most cogent Metal Gear Solid game by, like, a good mile. Because there's, like, 5% magic in this, but most of it is just, like, in, you know, Cold War spy shit that doesn't rely on the fact that, you know, that this person is possessed by the ghost of this person who was a clone of this person who needed to. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Because this takes place before all of that. There are references to other characters and even, like, parentage of other characters, but you don't necessarily need to know them to understand what is going on, which is really a pretty straightforward superweapon cult war story.
- [12:30]
Griffin McElroy
It's really. I was surprised because I had never really played past the beginning of the second act of the game or whatever. I was surprised at how much the story kind of trucks along. And I think that I'm in the right context to sort of process that, having played Death Stranding and Death Stranding 2 sort of earlier this year. And didn't we go back and revisit Metal Gear?
- [12:56]
Justin McElroy
We did.
- [12:56]
I feel like we did go back. Yeah. For sure.
- [12:58]
Griffin McElroy
And there's like, the cutscenes are still Definitely pretty long sometimes. But there's less bloviating about like just someone talking about their philosophy about gene sequencing for fun.
- [13:11]
Justin McElroy
What if you want to save your game, though?
- [13:13]
Griffin McElroy
Well, if you do want to save your game, you do need to HEAR A quick IMDb recap of a classic B movie of the era. It's like in video games, good games. Yeah, sure.
- [13:26]
Justin McElroy
All games, good games, all games.
- [13:27]
You need that letterboxd review. I get it. I think having played this and beaten it probably four times, this was my fourth time and I did actually beat it. So much of that stuff gets alleviated by the fact that, like, I'm not listening about attack of the 50 foot woman. I'm good.
- [13:46]
Griffin McElroy
Sure.
- [13:46]
Justin McElroy
And you skip all.
- [13:47]
That's just quick around the horn. How. What was our sort of skip rate on that old dialogue? Because we've all seen that a lot, but a lot of us started to get a little pretty gisty, huh? Get kind of gisty from having played. I bet it does go pretty smooth when you're just fucking parody the turbo on that circle button, brother.
- [14:03]
Christopher Thomas Plant
You can skip the second time they explain things. So for example, the first hour of this game. I really actually love this remake, despite maybe my tone. The first hour of this game is a series of awesome, just fucking awesome computer animated action sequences. Like, finally, a Metal Gear movie. And then it's like, okay, I'm glad that we gave you the entire story. Now we're going to show you a motion comic of two world leaders repeating everything that you just saw for another 15 minutes and knowing that you can just skip that and be like, I remember this. I remember this old trick. No need for me to watch it. That is a huge relief. I think two things about brevity here. One, I do think it is briefer than other Metal Gear games. Ironically briefer than Metal Gear Solid four, which will come out right after this, which is to me the worst offender. It finds its pace as it goes along. But to contradict that, I have a theory about why Kojima games have gotten more and more bearable in terms of story, which is Kojima was a natural born tweeter. Even before Twitter existed. He needed to tweet more than any person has ever needed to tweet in their life. And he would just tweet directly into the game. You want to know why a character is named west or whatever? It's because of this movie that I liked. Just tweets and tweets and tweets. And now if you actually follow Kojima on Twitter, Or Instagram. My dude has the outlet and boy does he take great use of it. Like just hundreds of stuff all the time. And there's something cool about that where yes, you get a random thing about the Great Escape, but. But it is, it can wear out its welcome sometimes.
- [15:58]
Justin McElroy
Oh, so you think just because he has a steam vent to let him get out these like nonsense ideas, he doesn't put them in the game?
- [16:06]
Christopher Thomas Plant
I think he still put some in the game, but he doesn't put Death.
- [16:09]
Justin McElroy
Stranding 1 had a lot.
- [16:12]
Griffin McElroy
It weeds out the boring thoughts. Yeah, and leaves him.
- [16:18]
Justin McElroy
Sorry, go ahead. Sorry Girvan, go ahead.
- [16:22]
Griffin McElroy
It weeds out the thoughts that would be boring to see in a video game. And leaves in the rad thoughts like what if all the enemies had superpowers and when you defeated them they shouted their own name like Pokemon.
- [16:35]
Justin McElroy
While exploding.
- [16:36]
Griffin McElroy
Yeah, while exploding. It's fucking great. It really, really, really is. I feel like it was the shit I enjoyed about Death Stranding 2 when it got super duper weird. And this game, I don't know, the ratio of boring exposition to wild and silly shit happening is, I don't know, a lot better than I remember it being. And I think that's only because I was able to engage with the game more because I found it so much more enjoyable to play because of some of the mechanical change. It's still not my favorite game ever, but this genuinely, I'm really glad for this remake because it's. I know so many people who hold this game in such high regard and I've always been bored to death by it and I feel like after there is a certain amount of pushing through you do have to do and it is easier to push through in this version of it and get to the stuff that makes you see like, okay, I get why this was a classic of the PS2 era and is still loved by so many people today.
- [17:40]
Christopher Thomas Plant
I have one other theory about that, about why maybe this game benefits from a revisit not just because of the remake, which is the game has a lot of mechanical doodads. You can do some really silly ass stuff like throw sleeping snakes over at enemies or porno mags to distract them. It does not take a lot of time to explain any of the things you can do with its systems. It barely even explains some of its core systems.
- [18:09]
Griffin McElroy
You know what's crazy though is that it does have a tips system that when you start playing you tell it like, here's how much MGs I played. Here's my favorite one. You can choose how often you want tips to appear. And if you die in a boss fight, when you start it again, the tip will appear like, hey, press start and you can see a tip about this fight. And I would not look at those. And then I would check my tip screen later and it would have. Here's five pages on things you can do to beat the fear.
- [18:37]
Justin McElroy
I was having the same problem as you, Griffin, except I would press R1 to look at it. Kept saying, like, press R1 to look at the tips. And I didn't Want to press R1. Cause I'm 44 and my wife could walk in at any moment.
- [18:50]
Griffin McElroy
No, I'm sorry, Jen.
- [18:51]
Justin McElroy
So I didn't want to press the R1.
- [18:53]
Christopher Thomas Plant
That's.
- [18:53]
Griffin McElroy
The R1 is the horny button you can press during cutscenes sometimes to look at. What did you say to look at base with a P. With a P. I'm talking about a very gamey high.
- [19:02]
Justin McElroy
I'm so sorry. Okay.
- [19:03]
Griffin McElroy
And in.
- [19:05]
Justin McElroy
Griffin, I'm so sorry. I misheard you. I was trying to go with it. But yeah, I did think that was weird that that was still in there. How you could press.
- [19:11]
Griffin McElroy
But sometimes when you.
- [19:13]
Justin McElroy
Seems like if you could get in there and change around all the polygons, you could probably take out the one. Press R1. I know you had to remaster the image. Press R1 to look at this person's boobs button.
- [19:25]
It's adorable.
- [19:26]
You can make a new R1.
- [19:28]
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [19:29]
Griffin McElroy
But sometimes when you press R1, sometimes when you press R1 in a cutscene, it does make you check out a babe. Sometimes when you press it, it gives you the password to escape the prison that you need later. So it's like it's going to be.
- [19:41]
Justin McElroy
I've been so good. I've been so good. Other than a song at the beginning that did set a bit of a tone. I've been so good.
- [19:50]
Christopher Thomas Plant
One last thing. Just one last mild correction to hoop saying, yes, you can press one. There is the horny button. There is two styles to the game. Legacy style. That's really true to the original new style, which makes some changes, including all of the horny bikini babe posters that were in the game. When you switch to new style are pictures from that same woman's family in the real world from like now. So it's like her with her, like, kid wearing a cute little bunny outfit just like a high school. Yep.
- [20:26]
Justin McElroy
Of the person that was in the bikini picture?
- [20:30]
Christopher Thomas Plant
Initially, yes. So now it's like fast forward 21 years and it's them with their family.
- [20:34]
Justin McElroy
So there's just like. There's like a serial killer button you can activate like a detective vision.
- [20:39]
That's not better.
- [20:40]
Christopher Thomas Plant
No, that's clearly so much worse. Wait, wait, wait. Look at. Here's a photo from it. I just dropped it in our slack.
- [20:51]
Justin McElroy
I guess that's not too bad.
- [20:54]
Griffin McElroy
That's the lady with a baby wearing a bunny costume.
- [20:56]
Justin McElroy
It's frigging cute. Yeah, it's really cute.
- [20:58]
Christopher Thomas Plant
It's cute. Okay, okay now Hoops, please. Go ahead.
- [21:02]
Justin McElroy
So. Right. So like I actually don't have that big of a problem with this thing because I think the. From a preservation standpoint, I think it's great because I think that this is really, really what you want in a sense because it is like we've, we've taken off a little bit of the rough edges. But like everything else that made this video game, this video game, it's here. Like you could get the experience. And I think personally that's really cool. I think that from a preservation standpoint, making it so that people can have these experiences and like make them easier for people to have more accessible. But like you still get as close to the initial. That's great. Charging $70 for that is not preservation. Because you have made such a huge wall to accessing that right? It. You are preying on people to get more cash out of them. Like because you know you can and it's been enough years. But like you're not. This is not preserving this world.
- [22:04]
It's a pachinko company, my dude. This is what they've been doing for 30 years. No, you're right. I'm agreeing with you. They're right. It's just funny because it's Konami and they're. They make their money off pachinko.
- [22:14]
If you're gonna preserve it and say this is release as is, then frigging do that and charge a fair amount for that. But you didn't make a new video game. You're pro. You're. You didn't even get new voice actors, man. You're just profiting off the same work of the same people that. You know what I mean? It's like you didn't make a new thing and you're charging people for a new thing. I think that sucks. I would also be fine with. If they wanted to make a game where it was like a real overhaul and it, and it, you know, it wanted to re envision this thing. I don't think that would be good. Probably it seems like it'd be really, really weird. It's just for me, it is a compliment in a sense that I still am bouncing off of this thing because the stuff that is in there is very representative of this initial experience when it came out. Like, it does not do enough for me to make it. Like, oh, I'm having fun now. But like, I'm glad it exists. I just wish it was like they made it fair to. I feel like Konami, they're one of the worst offenders because they are profiting off of just withholding access to this stuff. And I think that that sucks.
- [23:22]
Christopher Thomas Plant
I think what is tricky about this game in any video games now that they cost so much money to make, is they have to be so many things at once. And that's like. Yeah, I agree. Like, part of this is like acting like it's preservation, which I imagine for them was very low. Very, very low on the to do list. I think a huge part of it for them was we want to ramp up Metal Gear games again and we eventually want to make our new ones. And we want to do like what 343 did with Halo, which is we train ourselves by remaking the originals. I think why it's called Metal Gear Solid Delta back to your original point Hoops, is because they're going to release these in a different order. They don't want to do three, one, two or whatever they're going to do. They want to change the name. Then they also want it to be a thing that makes them a lot of money. So then it's being released as if it's a quadruple a game or whatever they want to do. It's just when games become this expensive, the messiness of what the thing is is so tough. And that makes it hard for us because. Oops. I think what you're getting at here, and I think what you get at every episode very well is like, our job is to review a thing for whatever it intended to be. And it's hard. When a thing intends to be everything, it intends to be so many different things, many of which are inherently conflicting.
- [24:45]
Justin McElroy
I mean, I don't. This to me feels like a pret. Focused project. Like, it does not feel like this got Scope creeped to the point where there's that much more in this.
- [24:56]
Christopher Thomas Plant
Yeah, I don't mean my thing needs to be everything. I don't mean Scope creep. I mean like existentially, what were you trying to do with the game? Are you trying to ramp, get a team train?
- [25:05]
Justin McElroy
What A product, like, from a product.
- [25:07]
Christopher Thomas Plant
Are you trying to preserve it? Are you trying to, you know, reintroduce a lot of previous, like, old players to the game? Are you trying to introduce a bunch of new players to it? Like, what. It's. It's having to do a lot of different things all at the same time. But, yeah, it.
- [25:23]
Justin McElroy
There is. It is. You know, I think it's part of what soured me on this. I know that this is not, like, this would not be everyone's experience, obviously, but I was looking into, like, PS2 emulation this week and looking at how there are people in communities that will, like, work on. They've basically worked on HD texture packs that. For specific games, the big ones, because this is a real labor of love, they will go in and, like, remake textures, like, remake all the textures in the game, and you download the pack and then you're playing this game with, like, newly handcrafted textures that fans have, like, gone and, like, recreated. Right. And that is work that people are, like, doing because they love the games and they are, like, they want to preserve them and they want to update the experiences and they want to, like, they're doing it for all these great reasons and, like, this kind of work, the things that they're added to this game or whatever. There are people that care about this stuff that are doing it for free because they love it. And those people are the ones that are getting prosecuted by companies like Konami because they want to be able to keep profiting off of the work somebody did 20 years ago, rather than gatekeeping this product that they own, rather than actually preserving these works. And I think that to not call it what it is is. Is not really fair play. Because they are asking $70 for something that is a new coat of paint, pretty much.
- [26:55]
Griffin McElroy
I think that's kind of crappy. I think that's a little bit dismissive because I do agree that, you know, it is not the boldest remaster, but I do think that considerable amount of work goes into, you know, changing the complete perspective through which all of the gameplay kind of takes place. Right. It is not a. Just saying it is a visual overhaul is also not accurate.
- [27:18]
Justin McElroy
Gryffon, given the fact that this is the first time that you've sort of latched onto this, what was the turning point for you? Was it literally like the first two minutes and you're like, oh, I can actually walk around and see what I'm doing, or was it more gradual than that?
- [27:34]
Griffin McElroy
You know, I think it was getting to the second Revolver Ocelot boss fight the duel on either sides of the cave.
- [27:45]
Justin McElroy
The ravine thing.
- [27:46]
Griffin McElroy
Yeah. Seeing this man, who is just the biggest dork ever, summon his troops to his side by putting his paws up next to his face and going, it really clicked in my head of like, oh, this is like a stupid. Like, this is a stupid thing.
- [28:06]
Justin McElroy
That is.
- [28:06]
Griffin McElroy
Ha. I think I was trying to take this game really seriously every time that I've played it in the past. And because of that, I don't know, my perspective was like, well, if I'm supposed to be taking this pretty seriously, I'm actually pretty bored. I'm just bored. It is slow. And a lot of these systems, while they were innovative at the time, aren't that exciting now. But then when you start to treat it as Hideo Kojima's magical mystery tour of silly bullshit, which is very much how I engaged with Death Stranding too, and I enjoyed it that way as well. I don't know, I feel like treating it that way kind of made me more curious to see what was going to happen next, rather than sort of dreading the next extended gameplay sequence where I was just going to be slowly crawling on my gut from point A to point B and hoping nobody turned a corner.
- [29:05]
Justin McElroy
Yeah, this was, I think, the first time where humor was injected into the whole thing. Previously, it was like, oh, that guy's pissing. Why don't you, like, punch him in the back of the head? Like, that was the extent of the humor. And here it really feels. And this. I think this is the beginning of Kojima having a lot of fun with later games. You'd see like, oh, I'm gonna use a fulton balloon to like launch a sheep into the air. Or Even Death Stranding 1 and 2 have like a ton of these. Like, I'm not taking this seriously. And it makes the whole thing more tolerable. I even think the humor in this because the systems are pretty flexible. There's humor in just the gameplay of it. Like, I was doing a non lethal run and I tranquilized a spider and picked it up and threw it at a guard.
- [29:54]
Griffin McElroy
Yeah, full Kevin McAllister bullshit. It's. Yeah, yeah, it's, it's. It's.
- [29:57]
Justin McElroy
The guard died. The guard, like, got poisoned and fell off a cliff, but I still didn't.
- [30:03]
Griffin McElroy
Get that doesn't count as a human kill. I do appreciate what this game calls human kills or not, because that is important to the plot of the game. Later, I've tranquilized a couple dudes Just standing on bridges and watched them fall either to their death by crushing or drowning. But then I check the stats screen and it's like, don't worry, dude, you're cool.
- [30:23]
Christopher Thomas Plant
Yeah, I wonder how much of the humor in these games because now I want to go back and play more Metal Gear 1 and 2 if it's there. And I just wasn't ready for it. These games were released in such a weird time in the early 2000s. Like Peak are video games art? You know, for 2004, whenever this came out, 2003. And I think that there was a desire to see games as serious. And the things that people focused on about this game were the serious bits. Was the ending. You know, it was not as much. Here is somebody who can spin their revolvers so fast that they can fend off thousands of hornets by actually fighting a hornet's nest. Like that shit I think is silly and also just looks badass and fun and ultra, ultra high definition.
- [31:17]
Justin McElroy
I think there's a lot of humor in this game that like works for me and I think it makes it more tolerable that it's overly serious. And the contrast with the goofy bullshit makes it work because if you. If the whole thing is like 90% serious and then occasionally there's something wacky, this feels closer to almost 50, 50 of like wacky shit versus not even just eating random shit off the floor is funny. Like that's a. You know, the fact that he's high.
- [31:45]
Griffin McElroy
Definition models of him picking up a snake and just take a. Or a big fucking arowana fish just eating it like fucking Fred Flintstone style.
- [31:55]
Justin McElroy
Y'. All.
- [31:55]
Christopher Thomas Plant
We have talked a lot about Metal Gear and maybe we'll talk about it more another time, but because that's kind of what we do on this other stuff I want to make sure we have time for. I want to hear more about this sweet, sweet new Kirby DLC from Fresh. We got a bunch of stuff in the mailbag. Cool if we take a break?
- [32:13]
Justin McElroy
Please, let's do it.
- [32:15]
You know, people don't tell you this about coffee, but even if it seems like it's just a few bucks a day, those few bucks really add up eventually. You're paying six bucks a day every day for delicious cold brew at your local cafe. And then all of a sudden you get a knock on the door and they won't let you in anymore.
- [32:31]
Griffin McElroy
Cool.
- [32:31]
Justin McElroy
Because you haven't paid for two months because you're out of money. There's a solution for you. You can get your delicious Cold brew a little bit more affordably but also no less deliciously with Trade. Trade sources beans from over 50 top roasters across the US and for you cold brew lovers out there, they've teamed with up to 15 roasters to create a special collection made just for cold brew. I tried this myself. A delicious ground blend. I'm not a big cold brew person because usually it's such a hassle, but this was easy and fun and it made it so smooth and delicious. You know, normally I love coffee and sweeteners in my coffee, but I drank this just as is because it was so smooth and delicious and it made me have the energy to face the day, which is no small feat. Right now, Trade is offering 50% off of a one month trial@drinktrade.com besties. That's drinktrade.com besties to get 50% off one month again, that's drinktrade.com besties.
- [33:34]
Okay, so Kirby and the Forgotten world.
- [33:39]
Griffin McElroy
What was the original in the forgotten land, Star Crossed World. I don't see what's so hard about it.
- [33:43]
Justin McElroy
Can we do it again? That's we were professionals.
- [33:46]
I kind of.
- [33:46]
That's the first thing you said.
- [33:47]
I'm not gonna do it again. I think I need to be honest.
- [33:50]
Christopher Thomas Plant
Basically nailed it pretty close.
- [33:53]
Justin McElroy
So that game came out a few years ago. It was fucking great. We all loved it. It's an amazing co op game. It's amazing core game. I had a blast fucking playing it. There was a problem though. It was running on the original Switch and the best it could do was 30 frames a second and that could be better. So Nintendo has gone ahead and released an upgrade pack for the Switch 2 that allows you to play the original game in 60fps. It also adds a new chapter, if you will, expansion pack, if you will. A little side story.
- [34:28]
It's called the New Kirby's New Nightmare. It's a new.
- [34:31]
Griffin McElroy
It's a new twisted spin.
- [34:34]
Justin McElroy
And so that is in the game as well. I played a couple hours of this, the first few levels and it's a delight. First of all, my son has been obsessed with playing this game. But having to play it at 30fps knowing that a 60fps update was coming has been true torture. So I can finally actually experience it as it was meant. And it's glorious. It's very. Looks great, feels great, It's a big improvement. The actual like level content are kind of like remixed levels that were in the original game areas that were in the original game, but they've added like new paths through them because you're using these like icicle meteors. Whatever the. I don't think it's a life changing update but if you love the original Kirby and you want it's like 5ish hours to play through the campaign. Probably 7 if you're collecting everything. It's certainly a nice improvement. For me the like huge draw was the just playing it at 60fps is like a really nice upgrade. But honestly like I've been. I think their level design chops are like through the roof great and they continue to be really great. They do a great job hiding secrets in the. In the world in like a really neat way. They added a few Kirby new transformations so you can like be a new mouthful mouthfuls. You're a spring at one point, you're a cog at one point. And all that stuff is like just transforming the way you interact with the world in fun, interesting ways. In the same way that like Astrobot had very similar approach to different power ups or upgrades.
- [36:13]
Christopher Thomas Plant
You think Kirby's a cog these days?
- [36:15]
Justin McElroy
I'm telling you, part of the machine.
- [36:20]
Griffin McElroy
I've been a bit underwhelmed by this dlc. I do think it looks great and plays great but Henry and I 100% ed this thing have played the ever living shit out of it. And it adds like a dozen levels that are sort of remixes of some of the original levels. But there's not a lot of carrots to pursue as far as I am concerned. Like there's no new you know, copy abilities or anything like that to find in the original. You were finding like blueprints and you could do these extra challenges to upgrade them. And I think that that stuff made the campaign really propulsive and really exciting to go through. And while the new levels are great and they're fun to play through, it has not gotten its hooks in us in nearly the way that I was sort of expecting.
- [37:20]
Justin McElroy
It does seem like they're relying on the Gashapon collection token capsule toys as like the way to pull you through. That doesn't do anything for me. My son for whatever reason loves it. And that's like the driving factor matters, right? But I do agree it needed a little bit more of a meta component to like make it a little more compelling. But I, I think just as a game it's still got it. Like I think there's elements in here that feel really, really good.
- [37:49]
I just wanted to clarify from. Because this is a an upgrade, you buy it as like an add on or you buy it.
- [37:56]
Griffin McElroy
So it's a $20 upgrade if you own the Switch 1 version to get the Switch 2 version and the Star Crossed World DLC stuff.
- [38:06]
Justin McElroy
How do you guys feel about this? This is the sec. I have not done any of the like upgrade things that Nintendo has done. I didn't check out the Zelda thing either.
- [38:18]
Griffin McElroy
Well, the Zelda thing was, if memory serves, if you had a Nintendo Switch online membership, it was gratis. And I don't think that that is true for this one. For whatever reason, I think if this had been available day one of the Switch 2 launch and maybe it would be sort of a different story. This is truly a, for me, a mismatch of expectation versus what we got. And this has been like the killer app, like big thing that we have been really excited for in this household. And it's just, it hasn't been. It has not set this house on fire in the way that the original Kirby and the Forgotten Land did. And that's genuinely like pretty disappointing.
- [39:02]
Justin McElroy
I worry that Nintendo is gonna go too. If Nintendo goes too hard on these sort of like semi remakes between their platform generations, they're already pretty iterative. I worry that their release schedule is gonna get even more predictable. Like each generation not only will have its Kirby game, but it's gonna have its like remake of the last generations. You know, everything from the last generation getting an update. Because I feel like Nintendo's big struggle is always to fill out their release calendar in a way that feels compelling. And I will be interested to see if they start padding with a lot of these sorts of like half, half measure releases.
- [39:37]
Christopher Thomas Plant
I think this is a reflection of the challenge every developer is going to face now that you can carry your games over between generation and between hardware where in the past it was, you know, we'll just resell you Super Mario Brothers 2 Every new time that you get a piece of an upgrade and you'll buy it because you love that game. I mean Final Fantasy was, you know, the definition of this strategy. And now that they know, hey, you already have it, it's going to follow you over. What we're going to do is we're going to just create a little bit of incentive to. Incentive to, to get you to pay that 20 bucks extra. So we're not just reselling you Final Fantasy VII or Metal or Super Mario Bros. 2. We're also selling you these blank extra levels plus the hardware upgrade that maybe you should expect just to happen and maybe you shouldn't. I think that is.
- [40:31]
Justin McElroy
And it does, for what it's worth, it does happen in certain titles. I think it's really the inconsistency that's confusing here because, like, what is it? The Link's Awakening remake now runs great on Switch 2, and that was a free update to support.
- [40:45]
Griffin McElroy
Yeah, Pokemon, the last Pokemon games, they. They run much better.
- [40:49]
Justin McElroy
Animal Crossing as well, runs much better. Faster load time. So, yeah, they're trying to make this delay delineation of, like, I'm also going to give you this content and that's the stuff we're going to charge for. But again, there's that weird middle ground with Zelda where it was like, well, mostly just an FPS increase, but there was also that weird app integration nonsense. So I agree it's messy. It's like a messy situation right now. And I also agree at, you know, that's. I wish it was more substantive at, you know, what they're charging for this expansion pack. I thought it was fun, but not. I agree it didn't fully transform the experience of playing Kirby as much as just like, I just liked playing it at 60fps.
- [41:30]
Griffin McElroy
Just give me something to chase. It's also an issue with, like, we played the shit out of it.
- [41:34]
Justin McElroy
Yeah.
- [41:34]
Griffin McElroy
Like, if. I think if Henry and I had not gone as hard because it's one of his favorite games ever, if we had not gone as hard really playing it as. As much as we had, then, you know, the lack of incentive kind of like baked into the content itself wouldn't be as big of an issue.
- [41:49]
Justin McElroy
But some of it is just you also have all the upgrades, so you're just like a fucking God King walking, really, really upgraded with a giant fucking sword just demolishing everything. And I kind of wish that they, like, you know, just like, started you from scratch when you were in this area or something. Just. Just to like, give you a little bit more of a power curve for experience.
- [42:08]
Griffin McElroy
Yeah. We got any mail?
- [42:11]
Justin McElroy
We do. Point. You want to read some mail?
- [42:15]
Christopher Thomas Plant
Yes, I would love to. This one is from Wizzle. I want to take this opportunity to shout out stray children. It's a spiritual successor to Moon, developed by Onion Games that came out.
- [42:27]
Justin McElroy
I'm so glad it was a game. Sheesh, man. I'm so glad that was a game.
- [42:30]
Griffin McElroy
Holler stray children.
- [42:32]
Justin McElroy
Kids out there. Shout out to the kids. Like the. The Baker Street Irregulars. Like the Lost Boys, Car children. Kids from Newsies. Just like any stray kids. Fagan's kids. Like all straight kids. Shout out, man, thank you for Keeping the Street Like Keeping the streets.
- [42:51]
Christopher Thomas Plant
Moon, developed by Games, came out for the Switch in Japan last December. They've announced that it's coming out in English later this year along with the Steam release. I just can't wait. Oh, and Moon is also available on modern platforms for anyone interested. And here's some mechanics with Chibi Robo and is very similar in tone. P.S. the subtitle for Okairi Chibi Robo means Happy Rich Osoji Osoji is basically the Japanese equivalent to spring cleaning, a common custom at the end of the year. Think big. Cleaning project. Perfect for Chibi Robo.
- [43:25]
Griffin McElroy
Love it. Thank you for the clarification.
- [43:29]
Christopher Thomas Plant
This one is for Justin from Frank. Justin, as a bike pervert, I would love nothing more than hear about your journey. Getting into biking?
- [43:40]
Justin McElroy
Yeah. So I don't know. I live on a hill and I miss riding a bike. But realistically, if I rode a bike down my hill, I would have to get a new house. Yeah. Yeah. Or yeah, I'd have to get a new place to live because I wouldn't have a car to get back up the hill. So I would have to move every time. So I found the sort of like the lowest barrier E bike that I could so I could like ride it like normal. But then when it came time to come back up the hill that I could have a little extra juice in the tank. And so that's what I did.
- [44:15]
Griffin McElroy
Did you find the process of picking your E bike challenging at all?
- [44:21]
Justin McElroy
Yes. I regretted the one I got as soon as I got it. I went with like a mountain bike type deal, which I don't know why. I definitely was not gonna do. I was definitely not gonna leap from 20 years, no biking to shredding the trails behind the Huntington Museum of Art. Like, I don't know why I thought that was necessary because it's quite heavy too. The other thing I will say is that I cannot lift my bike by myself very well, for sure. So I have to get a little bit of help.
- [44:50]
Can you lift it off the ground? Like, if it was on its side?
- [44:53]
I can lift off the ground. I can't lift it into my car.
- [44:55]
Sure. That is an issue.
- [44:56]
So, yeah. So yeah, I don't know. It's been nice to have an excuse to get out and ride around. Simple joys, what have you.
- [45:04]
Do they explode?
- [45:07]
Griffin McElroy
Mine hasn't.
- [45:08]
Justin McElroy
I hear they explode.
- [45:09]
Griffin McElroy
No.
- [45:09]
Justin McElroy
Makes me want to.
- [45:10]
Griffin McElroy
Anything can explode.
- [45:11]
Justin McElroy
I mean, I. Sometimes it goes so fast that it leaves like fire behind it, like impact to the future because I'm going so hard. I'm riding so hard.
- [45:21]
Yeah.
- [45:21]
Griffin McElroy
When I bought my E bike, I did it from a shop around the corner from me and they were really cool, they were really chill and they helped me pick out a good one. Got the Tern hsd. Beautiful, beautiful bike. Love trucking around with my kids, taking them to school, doing errands, all that. And I bought it. I was like, yeah, this will be great because this place is right around the corner from my house. If I need any upkeep or help or anything, they'll be right there. And they shut down two and a half weeks later. And now was it like one of.
- [45:48]
Justin McElroy
Those Monkey Paw stands where they sell you something and then you went back.
- [45:51]
Griffin McElroy
And it was just like, yeah, it was a load bearing E bike. It was a load bearing commuter vehicle.
- [46:00]
Justin McElroy
We have one more letter. This one comes from. Definitely Shrek. It's awesome to hear juice Talk about 3D printing. I've been working in the industry for a number of years. Customer care and helping others make things is a hallmark of the industry. There's a lot of crossover between gaming and 3D printing. In fact. In fact, y' all taught me about anti aliasing before the industry did. It didn't occur to me when Shrek wrote this. It didn't occur to me that anti aliasing was obviously an issue in 3D printing, but it's just like a resolution thing. Effectively. It's just a physical object. Right.
- [46:29]
It's a really interesting. It's funny because I was talking about like overlap. Right. This is something that just finished. You guys obviously can see it, but it's a 3D print handle for this Ambernic 35xx Plus. But you can see the like lines of filament. And that's a really interesting way of like understanding resolution too because I could print this finer and it would take longer and it would look smoother, but it would be at a cost of like more filament. It would slow the whole process down. Which is like pretty good analogy, I would think for like computer graphics. As I understand my limited understanding.
- [47:03]
Yeah, higher resolution, it causes more performance chug and things like that. Now it's super interesting.
- [47:09]
Griffin McElroy
Anyone been playing any other video games?
- [47:12]
Justin McElroy
I went ahead and finished Hollow Knight.
- [47:16]
Griffin McElroy
That's crazy.
- [47:17]
Christopher Thomas Plant
Wow.
- [47:18]
Griffin McElroy
I had the temptation to do that and then I had a voice in my head that said, that's crazy. Don't burn yourself out right before Silksong comes out.
- [47:25]
Justin McElroy
What do you mean by finish?
- [47:27]
I didn't do 100%. I just wanted to get to an ending. So I think it ended up being like 80.
- [47:32]
Griffin McElroy
You finished it before.
- [47:33]
Justin McElroy
You've beaten it before.
- [47:33]
Yeah, yeah, I beaten it. And I went. Ham. When it first came. Came out on Switch, I went totally nuts. Ham. This was more of a. Like, I want to remember the characters and the narrative and the whatever, just so I like I'm not coming into Silksong fresh. The crazy thing about Hollow Knight is it still slaps in comparison to the competition in ways that just blow me away. It is just like there's been a ton of indie Metroidvanias that come out since Hollow Knight and there's been some really great ones like Blasphemous 2 and Andromagnolia. Fantastic ones. Nothing comes close to holding a candle to what Hollow Knight did. Just from an art and gameplay and overall package standpoint. It's really an astonishing thing. And I've remained incredibly dark on what is going on with Silksong, which comes out this week. Obviously we are recording before it's actually out, so I just wanted. Yeah, I wanted to jump in with a little bit of background and better understand our gal hornet.
- [48:38]
Griffin McElroy
Yeah, I'm real fucking excited and I have. It's one that I've been scared I'm going to somehow ruin for myself. Yeah, here's.
- [48:45]
Justin McElroy
Here's the trick. It's really easy to not ruin it for yourself. Don't.
- [48:50]
Griffin McElroy
Don't watch any trailers.
- [48:52]
Justin McElroy
The second you see anything about Silksong, turn away. I've been doing it for many, many years. And fight the urge. There's gonna be a moment when you're playing through Silksong where it's like, I'm stuck. I don't know where to go. Fight the urge. Just wander around. Have a good time with the world.
- [49:07]
Absorb it, if I may. Fucking look it up.
- [49:10]
Or don't. Or don't. But that's how it is.
- [49:12]
Griffin McElroy
Be a nasty dog.
- [49:13]
Justin McElroy
Yeah.
- [49:14]
Be an exhaust one go round. Don't take time management tips from us guys. Seriously.
- [49:18]
That is true. It was a delight. I used God's a little bit for this run of Hollow Knight just because I wanted to get it done before Silksong came out, so. But I had already beaten it, so it's fine. It was mostly just me fighting my memory. Great game.
- [49:32]
That is a very rewarding. You know, it's always hard. I feel like if a game is really well constructed, I. I usually agree.
- [49:38]
With you, Russ, and I think Hollow Knight is that I really do.
- [49:42]
Like, I. I would think that for like animal. Well, because the, the understanding that you are building, you really are cheating yourself. And I, I would say that about Silksong too. Just kind of teasing.
- [49:50]
Yeah, agree.
- [49:52]
I wanted to tell you guys about something that I thought was kind of neat called Kazeta. Have you guys heard of Kazeta? No.
- [49:59]
Griffin McElroy
No.
- [49:59]
Justin McElroy
That is a check word for. I'm going to send you a link here in the best room is a check word for cartridge. And it is a new Linux based operating system that came out this week. A new operating system, if you can imagine. And with these like little indie operating systems. This person made one called Chimera os. It's very popular with these indie operating systems. They, you know, you can flash them to a mini PC but what a lot of people do is they will put the whole thing on like a USB drive so you can like run it off a thumb drive and you can pop it into whatever and whatever you plug it into, it'll work. But Kazeta is a really cool one that just came out recently. And the whole gimmick with it is that you store, it plays DRM free games that you store each game individually on an SD card and you can make your own little label for it. But it's one SD card per game. And when you put the SD card in, the game starts.
- [50:53]
Griffin McElroy
That's fucking insane.
- [50:54]
Justin McElroy
That's crazy.
- [50:55]
The idea is that people will make their own cartridges because you can make your own cartridges and you could like distribute these, collect and share with people. You could release in this format if you wanted to physically release this way you can also use USB drives, but the metaphor is a little bit different.
- [51:14]
But it's probably means cassette if I had to guess. Is that what that word means?
- [51:18]
It does, is a Czech word for cassette, which you can have as much fun. I know for example, that there are, as I have tried to get my kids into games, it is sometimes easier for me to show them a cartridge like on the DS or the 3DS and say this is this game. Put it in and you play it versus handing them 10,000 old games that they can scroll through endlessly and get lost. So from a collection standpoint and just a fun, the fun of doing it, I think it's a really fun little thing, easy to set up, pretty slick. It's got some rough edges. It's just getting started. But that's kind of the fun with these open source things is that they continue to grow and get better. And I don't know.
- [52:09]
Griffin McElroy
I finished playing Final Fantasy V Advance on The Ayaneo Pocket Ace, which I had never finished before. It's a weird installment in the series. It has probably the best fleshed out job system of any of the Final Fantasy games. Like you can make any of the characters be any jobs and you can mix and match the different abilities, which is like mechanically very fun. Is this a translation?
- [52:30]
Justin McElroy
A sequel to the original Final Fantasy.
- [52:33]
Griffin McElroy
Tactics Final Fantasy 5 advanced.
- [52:35]
Justin McElroy
Oh, 5 advanced. Sorry.
- [52:36]
Griffin McElroy
Yeah, there was Final Fantasy Tactics advance and then a 2 for the DS, which was also pretty great. 5 advance is weird from a narrative standpoint, especially in this translation. This translation is apparently famous for being really fucking weird and full of weird pop culture references that were definitely not in the original script of the game to Mighty Morphin, Power Rangers and Ninja Turtles. And they gave one of the characters an insane, insane old prospector accent for no reason. Like there's a character who just says things like what in tarnation? Like, I mean, at the drop of.
- [53:16]
Justin McElroy
A line, someone's gotta say that.
- [53:18]
Griffin McElroy
No, they really don't. And it's weird and out of step with the rest of the game.
- [53:21]
Christopher Thomas Plant
So.
- [53:22]
Griffin McElroy
But I don't know. It was like one of the only Final Fantasy games I had not finished, so I had a good time with it. I also went to a movie theater and I saw Weapons that shit slaps. This shit's really, really good. I won't say a ton.
- [53:35]
Justin McElroy
Yeah, no, I've. I've been told to not have it discussed in front of me, but I hear it's very good.
- [53:42]
Sorry, I forgot to mention I've been playing when we were doing signings last week during the lulz. The very infrequent lulz. Yeah, Well, I played a lot of who Wants to be A Millionaire 3rd Edition on the PlayStation. It is a really good, really good who Wants to Be a Millionaire? It's really, really good. The load times are a trick atrocious and you barely see any Regis Philbin and the questions are outdated.
- [54:10]
Did you play with the texture pack or no?
- [54:12]
No.
- [54:12]
Griffin McElroy
Did you download the Regis filled in texture pack or what was the deal there?
- [54:15]
Justin McElroy
I can tell the day you're gonna die. He's so. It's so HD that it's like that one is a HDAI pack for Regis.
- [54:25]
Griffin McElroy
Where he's like, he's alive. And he's like, I'm trapped in here. What am I?
- [54:29]
Justin McElroy
Don't turn it off, Justin.
- [54:33]
Griffin McElroy
But Weapons is really great. I won't talk about it because I know Russ is sensitive about that stuff.
- [54:37]
Justin McElroy
I want to watch it My. My wife won't watch it, so I got. I'm waiting for it to go on streaming and then I'll watch it.
- [54:42]
Griffin McElroy
It's very exciting to see. To see Zach Kreger sort of like do this thing a second time. Cracking it up with the. With the second sort of like fucking slam dunk hit in this really, really weird fashion. It really, it's. It establishes him in a way that is. I don't know. I'm not like a movie buff or anything like that, but even, even for me, like, it is exciting.
- [55:06]
Justin McElroy
Would you recommend I watch one first? One of them first?
- [55:10]
Griffin McElroy
No, I don't think so. I think they work well in concert with each other, but it's, It's. It is not a. I don't think that necessarily one builds on. On the other. I think Weapons sort of does the thing Barbarian does a little bit more experimentally, but I don't think there's like.
- [55:26]
Christopher Thomas Plant
This is PT Anderson going from Boogie Nights to Magnolia is what my dude's doing here. Also, I would recommend you watch some whitest kids, you know, before you see this movie.
- [55:35]
Griffin McElroy
Sure. If you want to complete the whole.
- [55:38]
Christopher Thomas Plant
I actually think it sets the vibe. I think it is a good thing to watch very quickly for me. Demon School, we were going to talk about that recently, but we can't talk about it.
- [55:49]
Griffin McElroy
It's delayed.
- [55:49]
Justin McElroy
Right.
- [55:50]
Christopher Thomas Plant
It was delayed because of it got song, so I just want to shout it out. I can't give a review, but what I can say is it's coming out on November 19th. I am digging into it and you don't want to lose track of this game. I think a lot of people who like our show who also like Persona and Tactics games, I think they want to keep an eye on this. So I know that we will. Will be talking about it more when it does come out, but yeah, I'm bummed it got delayed and I am excited to talk about it more when we have that opportunity.
- [56:24]
Justin McElroy
Thanks, Team Cherry. Yeah.
- [56:30]
Griffin McElroy
I mean, we don't really need to talk about what we're doing next week, right?
- [56:33]
Justin McElroy
Well, it will be Silksong for people, but it will be Silksong. That's right. We are doing Hollow Knight Silksong, a video game which is actually coming out.
- [56:42]
I'm not going to give it to you creeps early.
- [56:44]
We are not getting it early. It would be tomorrow. We're not getting any code. They've. They're doing everyone's equal in. In Team Cherry's eyes. So that's beautiful. Team we're gonna be playing it alongside y', all and I'm very excited about that. So stay tuned.
- [57:03]
Christopher Thomas Plant
Also, if you are a Patreon subscriber, you have so much good stuff right now. You have our besties battle bracket, which we just did, which was awesome. And it's about the best games to play on the toilet in the bathroom. And we also have an episode coming up on the Art of Vengeance, which just ridiculous how many good ninja video games there are in the world right now.
- [57:28]
Justin McElroy
Yes. I also wanted to thank some people that are patrons over@patreon.com thebesties we have Soren, we have Alex, we have Danielle, and we have discount Dracula. Thank you for being patrons of the besties. You mean a lot to us. We have a big announcement happening next week. I'm not going to talk about it right now, but it's exciting and so stay tuned. In addition to the silksong, we're going to toss in some big news on the Patreon front. So stay. Stay tuned for that. You can end the show now, Justin.
- [58:01]
No, it just sounds. What is it? I'm, like, looking forward to it.
- [58:03]
He should be excited.
- [58:05]
Griffin McElroy
Are you playing who Wants to be a Millionaire right now? Is Regis with you? Is Regis in the room right now?
- [58:10]
Justin McElroy
Is Regis with us? That is going to do it for us this week on the Besties. Be sure to join us again next time for the besties because shouldn't the world's best friend pick the world's best games? Sam.