Nintendo Is Playing the B-Sides

Summary

The Besties – "Nintendo Is Playing the B-Sides"

Date: July 10, 2026
Hosts: Russ Frushtick, Chris Plante, Griffin McElroy, Justin McElroy

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Episode Overview

In this episode, The Besties dive deep into Nintendo's latest oddball release, Rhythm Heaven Groove, exploring whether the long-awaited sequel delivers on the series' quirky charm. Beyond the rhythm game discussion, the crew also hands-on with Valve's new living-room device, the Steam Machine, and shares impressions on other notable indie and mainstream releases. The conversations surface playful banter, candid critiques of Nintendo's design direction, and broader concerns about hardware costs in an ever-changing game industry, all steeped in The Besties’ trademark wit and camaraderie.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Comedy Cold Open: Bigfoot, Bee Stings, and Sick Voices

(00:00–03:08)

• Russ kicks off with a story about his swollen "bigfoot" from a bee sting, spawning a stream of gags.
• Chris struggles through laryngitis, but still joins in the humor:
  • Chris: "Are you big foot or are you big toe?" (00:25)
• Griffin quips about the bee movie and initiates the transition to the show proper.

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2. Main Event: Rhythm Heaven Groove

Series History & Mechanics

(06:31–13:32)

• The panel shares personal experiences with past Rhythm Heaven games, recounting the series' evolution from the DS to its first new entry in 11 years:
  • Griffin: "You're popping bubbles... or you're bouncing fruit off your big oily biceps, and you're doing so to a rhythm..." (07:25)
• The group underscores the game's defining simplicity: short minigames with one or two-button controls:
  • Ross: "This is not Guitar Hero. It is literally one or two buttons for every game." (08:21)
  • Griffin: "The simplicity of the minigame... is the defining feature, I think, of Rhythm Heaven." (08:42)

Remix Levels & Surreal Vibes

(08:54–10:36)

• The hosts praise the unique "remix" stages that weave unlocked minigames into dynamic music video-like challenges.
• Visuals and sounds described as "charming and bizarre," reminiscent of Katamari Damacy or Flash-game surrealism.

Favorite Minigames and Design Oddities

(10:36–13:32)

• Griffin spotlights standout segments like "Stop and Go," the vegetable chopping, and "Sneezing Moon":
  • Ross (on Sneezing Moon): "You need to watch the sneezing moon's cadence... then you dash in front of it... and if you miss, you get struck by lightning and everyone's sad. That’s the tone of this game." (11:35)
• Hosts appreciate how each level introduces tricky accents, obstacles, and expects pitch-perfect timing.

Critique: Nintendo's New Sterility

(13:32–15:58)

• Chris and Griffin criticize the bland presentation around the core game ("oddly sterile" menus, lack of UI weirdness).
  • Chris: "The experimentation that you would associate with these games... seems to have been condensed into these little safe packets." (14:44)
• There's a call for the return of weirder, more playful interfaces reminiscent of past Nintendo eras.

Multiplayer & Accessibility Concerns

(15:58–18:58)

• Russ hails the new local multiplayer as the "best multiplayer experience I've had on the Switch 2."
  • Describes a competitive cake game where players must time their actions after a countdown voice fades out, emphasizing couch hilarity and accessibility.
  • Ross: "Very little preamble... Very easy to get into." (16:17)
• Griffin struggled to play with his young kids, highlighting the comparative difficulty for newer/younger players.
• Chris notes the genre's tension with Nintendo's modern design ethos ("freedom vs. precision"); wonders if more expressive rhythm mechanics (Elite Beat Agents) could broaden its appeal.

Bonus Modes and Overall Value

(18:58–24:22)

• Griffin finds the Beat Spell "RPG" mode disappointingly shallow.
• Discussion of Nintendo's flexible pricing; is $40 justified given indie competition?
  • Griffin: "I pretty recently played through all of Rhythm Doctor... It's on sale for $15.99 right now, and it fucking rules." (21:56)
  • "I don't feel necessarily like I have gotten a ton of time out of this game or will continue to put much time into." (24:22)

Takeaways

• Multiplayer shines, but solo progression feels thin compared to indie contemporaries.
• Nintendo stans will enjoy the production, but design risks and depth feel muted compared to the series' legacy or indie alternatives.

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3. Valve’s Steam Machine: A Living Room PC for (Rich) Gamers

(28:03–43:24)

What Is the Steam Machine?

• Russ recaps the new device: a Linux-based, console-style PC for the TV, designed for plug-and-play PC gaming in the living room.
  • Russ: "You plug it in and it works... I was playing No Man's Sky in seven minutes after unboxing this thing." (29:25)

User Experience

• Russ uses it primarily to rediscover old indies and more accessible games with his son, praising its convenience.
  • Ross: "Now I can scroll through my library and he can see all the thumbnails and be like, ‘Oh, let's play that.’" (30:46)

Hardware and Flexibility

• Tech-savvy users can turn it into an emulation/media box, but PC gaming purists will find the specs underwhelming (struggles with recent top-end games).
  • Ross: "...If you try to play games like 007... or Death Stranding 2, it can run. It's not gonna be pretty. Low settings, maybe 1080p." (32:38)

Price and Value

• The entry price ($1050) draws skepticism; listeners could DIY a stronger PC for similar money, yet Valve isn't competing on raw power.
  • Ross: "Starts at $1,050... 100% you will be able to find something better elsewhere." (33:30–34:06)
• Valve has relaxed about competition—SteamOS is now open and will support third-party builds.

Market Context & Outlook

(38:11–43:24)

• Hardware costs have spiked industry-wide, making all console/PC options feel less affordable.
  • Griffin: "...Everything costs a lot of money now that has RAM in it." (37:26)
• Chris foresees local shops converting old laptops/desktops into Steam Machines for less, given permanent price hikes by manufacturers.
• The hosts view Valve's product mainly as a template/standard-setter for hassle-free living room PC gaming, rather than a must-buy for the masses.

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4. Reader Mail & Notable Indie Hits

(43:45–46:50)

Puzzle Game Recommendations

• Paul recommends The Message from Deep Space, a translation puzzle game ("definitely worth checking out" per Russ).
• The crew notes a recent influx of language-based puzzle indies inspired by Enchanted Sennaar.

Mecha Chameleon: The Hide-and-Seek Viral Sensation

• A listener asks about the latest 15-million-seller, an indie where players design camouflage in real time.
  • Chris confirms: "Y'all, it rocks. We should play it together... soon." (44:54)
• Griffin describes community hacks that automatically copy backgrounds for players, praising the experimental spirit.

Insight

• The group expects more wild, low-spec, viral indies in the face of rising hardware costs: "Weird ass experimental things that do not require you to have a modern PC. And that's good." (45:41 – Ross)

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5. Honorable Mentions & What Else We’re Playing

(47:11–56:03)

Blueprints (Puzzle Game)

• Russ is deep into this first-person puzzle adventure, ticking off in-game milestones.

Ace Combat 7

• Chris, sick but happy, revisits this combat flight title and teases a deep-dive Resties episode about the series' lore.

EverQuest Legends (EQ for Dads)

• Griffin is wrapped up in the open beta, enjoying quality-of-life improvements for this burgeoning, nostalgia-fueled MMO.

Diablo 4: Season Update

• Griffin is unimpressed with the latest season, citing lackluster gameplay changes and community backlash.

Deltarune Chapter 5

• Griffin gushes about the new chapter’s inventive mechanics—platforming segments, playful anagrams, emotional writing, and standout music.
  • "The writing continues to be hysterically funny and really warm-hearted... as weird as its sort of release strategy is, it's so polished and unlike anything else..." (53:08)
• He advises not to wait for all chapters before playing, since they function as contained experiences.

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6. Looking Ahead & Live Show News

(56:13–end)

Upcoming Content & Live Shows

• Reminder: Besties live in NYC during Comic Con (October 9), with newsletter and Patreon details.
• Next week: Reviews of Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced and "Dench Attack," a Judi Dench-themed action game.

Besties Bracket Battles & Resties Tease

• Mary Kish of Fire Escape joins for a "bracket battle" episode now available for Patreon supporters.
• Chris promises an Ace Combat lore masterclass on The Resties—"for a mere $5..."

Closing Gags

• Continued foot-related humor and Patreon shoutouts round out the show, illustrating the light and friendly tone.

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Memorable Quotes & Moments

• Griffin: "There's a surrealism to [Rhythm Heaven] and the music is... really great." (10:00)
• Chris: "The experimentation... seems to have been condensed into these little safe packets." (14:44)
• Ross (on Steam Machine): "If you want an easy PC for a friend that doesn't know anything about PCs—Steam Machine makes total sense." (42:35)
• Chris: "Moving to PC is... a great time to jump into a relatively easy, more welcoming PC experience like Steam..." (39:28)
• Griffin (on indie competition): "There's so many games doing this stuff... in the indie ecosystem, [with] financials on a whole other level..." (24:55)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 00:00–03:08: Cold open — Russ's bigfoot, bee sting anecdotes, intro
• 06:31–18:58: Rhythm Heaven Groove—series history, gameplay, critique, and multiplayer
• 21:23–24:22: Pricing debate (Nintendo vs. indie rhythm games)
• 28:03–43:24: Steam Machine—user experience, pricing, value debate
• 43:45–46:50: Reader mail—The Message from Deep Space, Mecha Chameleon
• 47:11–56:03: Honorable mentions—Blueprints, Ace Combat 7, EverQuest Legends, Diablo IV, Deltarune Chapter 5
• 56:13–58:45: Next week’s games, bracket battles, live show/Patreon plugs

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Final Takeaways

This episode wrapped playful banter around a thoughtful critique of Nintendo’s risk-averse era, the best and worst of recent rhythm games, and rising hardware costs reshaping how (and what) we play. The Besties again prove they’re Earth’s best friends—and gaming’s sharpest, funniest fans.

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Transcript

[Ross Rushick]

I have a case of bigfoot, and I don't know what to do about it.

[Griffin McElroy]

Yeah, man. I knew this was going to be. I knew this was going to be the introduction. I knew this from the moment I received the JPEG on my phone, which I won't get into details, but came at a hysterically inopportune time. I knew that we were going to be spending a little bit of. A little bit of our time with it here on the basket.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

I don't want to be pedantic here, and I should, you know, choose my words wisely because I only have so many of them. Are you big foot or are you big toe?

[Ross Rushick]

Oh. Oh, it's bigfoot. It started as a whole foot. It started as big toe, and now it's bigfoot.

[Griffin McElroy]

Yeah. And I wanna be. I do wanna be podantic and hear about your foot.

[Ross Rushick]

Okay. I love that. Here's what happened. A bee stung me on my toe, my middle toe.

[Griffin McElroy]

He tried to steal his honey. He's trying to get up in the hive and get a little bit of.

[Ross Rushick]

I was putting those little footsies in the. See what I could grab out with.

[Griffin McElroy]

Why did you use your footsies to get the sticky, sticky goo out of them?

[Ross Rushick]

I thought they wouldn't expect it. My thinking was they always see hands. They know what hands look like. They don't know what feet look like. They're always in shoes.

[Griffin McElroy]

Yeah.

[Ross Rushick]

And here we are.

[Griffin McElroy]

Now, what if some of the bees really liked it? What if that was actually what the bee movie was about? Was Jerry Seinfeld like, Listen, guys, you're not gonna believe this.

[Ross Rushick]

It's not far off.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

We're gonna get rich selling pictures of these things.

[Ross Rushick]

Yeah, it's not far off. I'm hobbling around on a giant foot. It seems to maybe be getting better, but it's still pretty big. It's definitely much bigger than the other foot.

[Griffin McElroy]

Ross, this is your rookie of the year moment. Have you tried kicking a football? Oh, you could be the new NFL all star kicker, punter, Russ Fresh.

[Ross Rushick]

And for a very limited time, the World cup is happening right now. I know it's going to go away eventually, but now is the time I.

[Griffin McElroy]

Watch out, Pele. So I was doing a sort of football norte Americano thing, but, yeah, for sure you could. Yeah, for sure you could do.

[Ross Rushick]

I mean, they're in norte Americano.

[Griffin McElroy]

That's true.

[Ross Rushick]

That's true.

[Griffin McElroy]

And they're ba da, ba, ba ba. Loving it. And who can blame them?

[Ross Rushick]

I'll be fine.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Did you at one point. Think about maybe seeing if you could get those bees to sting your other foot and just make this the new you, Chris Pint.

[Ross Rushick]

You sound like shit.

[Griffin McElroy]

You sound so bad, dude. My name is Griffin McElroy. I know the best game of the week.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

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

[Ross Rushick]

Okay. My name is Ross Rushick. I know the best game of the week. Chris Plant literally has laryngitis. He says he feels better, but we all know that he doesn't sound better. Yeah, I've literally never heard him sound worse.

[Griffin McElroy]

Welcome, really, to the Besties. I've heard him sound worse. Welcome to the Besties, though, where we talk about the latest and greatest in home interactive entertainment. I'm still, like, learning the ropes of doing the intro.

[Ross Rushick]

Guys, you're doing great.

[Griffin McElroy]

You can't throw all this. You can't throw bits. You're doing it at me in the middle of it because it messes my timing off. And I'm all about that rhythm. I know because of the game we've been playing this week, which is Rhythm Heaven Groove. Maybe, Chris, you could, instead of having to use your words to describe the

[Ross Rushick]

game, do you have series of semaphore

[Griffin McElroy]

stomps and claps to rhythm?

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Ba ba ba ba ba ba.

[Griffin McElroy]

You're still using your voice. It's just you have so many ways of making music with your body.

[Ross Rushick]

Okay, he's snapping now, dude.

[Griffin McElroy]

Can I say that's good shit?

[Ross Rushick]

That was good shit.

[Justin McElroy]

Thank you.

[Ross Rushick]

People know what Rhythm Heaven Groove is now.

[Griffin McElroy]

You put all four of those on the floor. It's a Switch game and Switch 2, and it's rhythm Heaven. And then you've got a bunch of new modes and stuff, but for the most part it's Rhythm Heaven. So we're gonna talk a lot about what that means and a whole bunch more right after this short break.

[Justin McElroy]

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[Ross Rushick]

Before we jump into it, yes, we talked about it last week. But I do want to re highlight the fact that we, and by we, I mean Griffin McElroy, Christopher Thomas, Plant, Ross Frostch, and none other than our executive producer, Justin McElroy are doing a live show in New.

[Griffin McElroy]

Hell yes.

[Ross Rushick]

It's happening in New York City.

[Griffin McElroy]

Sorry. Sorry to interrupt. I just need to get in there. My enthusiasm for this project, it's been a long time coming, baby.

[Ross Rushick]

It has, it has. It's going to be October 9th. That's a Friday. It's at the Town hall, which is a venue in New York City. It's the same weekend as New York Comic Con. Tickets are available now. Please make sure you don't go to a ticket reseller. They suck. Just go to, like, the venue website or. As a matter of fact, I'm sure Plant will drop in the legit link in our newsletter as well.

[Griffin McElroy]

Oh, you gotta be on the newsletter.

[Ross Rushick]

You gotta be on that newsletter.

[Griffin McElroy]

You gotta get on the newsletter.

[Ross Rushick]

Besties fan for that newsletter. It's gonna be a lot of fun we're gonna have.

[Griffin McElroy]

We don't know what it's gonna be yet. We got some big ideas.

[Ross Rushick]

Here's what I will promise you. Special guests.

[Griffin McElroy]

Okay. Wow. We haven't really even talked about that, but I guess we're promising. I guess we are making promises.

[Ross Rushick]

Everyone gets a car.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Since we're on Broadway, maybe I should bring out some of those high school theater audition monologues.

[Griffin McElroy]

I think that's a good idea, man.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Yeah. I got Richard III just cooking.

[Justin McElroy]

Yeah, man.

[Griffin McElroy]

And do it. You should record those now. You should do it.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

You should record some Signs of My Discontent. Yeah, baby.

[Ross Rushick]

He'll probably be better by then.

[Justin McElroy]

Yeah.

[Griffin McElroy]

Rhythm Heaven. Groove. Are we ready?

[Ross Rushick]

Yes.

[Griffin McElroy]

How much Rhythm Heaven had you guys played?

[Ross Rushick]

I remember playing it on, I guess, ds.

[Griffin McElroy]

Yes.

[Ross Rushick]

And having a really good time. I actually think the copy that I got for ds. I went to GDC one year and I think Shigeru Miyamoto gave a speech at gdc and they just gave everyone in the audience copies of Rhythm Heaven. And I was like, what the fuck is this? And it ended up being a fucking blast. And I loved it.

[Griffin McElroy]

It's great. It's great. Yeah. There was the original Rhythm Heaven, which I think was only released in Japan at first before it came to. I think it came over here as Rhythm Heaven. It was Rhythm Tengoku before, and then it came to the DS in 2008. There was Rhythm Heaven Fever on the Wii in 2011, there was Rhythm Heaven Megamix on the 3DS, which was sort of a combo platter, if you will. And then this is the first one in 11 years. The first rhythm heaven game in 11 years.

[Ross Rushick]

Incredible.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Wow.

[Griffin McElroy]

Yeah. If you've not played a Rhythm Heaven game, I think it's actually pretty easy to explain what it is. Which is a very short form, very straightforward for the most part. Rhythm based minigames, usually using only one or two buttons. And most of the time you're to the beat of a song. You're popping bubbles with your fingers, or you're popping frogs up off lily pads, or you're bouncing fruit off your big oily biceps and you are doing so to a rhythm that is sort defined in a brief intro package for each of the little mini games.

[Justin McElroy]

Yeah.

[Ross Rushick]

There's a little tutorial for it so you can get the timing down.

[Griffin McElroy]

A little isn't the word I would use. I would say my biggest issue with this game is the tutorialization for just how much they make sure you know what you're doing before they'll let you get in there and make a big mess out of things. I feel like there's maybe a little bit of time padding happening in the tutorial section.

[Ross Rushick]

You can thankfully skip them once you get.

[Griffin McElroy]

You can skip them once.

[Ross Rushick]

You could even watch a video of them doing it properly. That's probably a faster way to do it, but once you do get it down. Yeah. As you said, the games are very simple. Like this is not Guitar Hero. It is literally one or two buttons for basically every game.

[Griffin McElroy]

Yes.

[Ross Rushick]

Which I actually think is to a benefit. Like I think the simplicity of it works for this game in a lot of ways.

[Griffin McElroy]

It is what the franchise is like. It is the defining feature, I think of Rhythm, Evan, is the relative simplicity of the minigame.

[Ross Rushick]

In the same way that like warioware.

[Griffin McElroy]

In the same way as warioware.

[Justin McElroy]

Right.

[Griffin McElroy]

My favorite part of this game and all of the Rhythm Heaven games is it separates these songs, these minigame levels out into sets of four. I believe in this game it's sets of four with a remix that you then get to do that then combines the sort of, you know, the animations and the different kind of rhythms of the four preceding songs into one kind of mix. And it jumps between them all sort of in a random sequence. Well, not random. I guess it's predefined based on whatever the song is.

[Ross Rushick]

It turns it into like a music video featuring all of the minigames you just played.

[Griffin McElroy]

Yeah. And that's to me, that is like. I really do enjoy Rhythm Heaven. I enjoy the vibe and the aesthetic of it is like really, really charming and bizarre. There's a lot about kind of the art style that reminds me of the soft sort of painterly style of the like Katamari Damacy sort of world or

[Ross Rushick]

even like flash game era. Like there's not that crudeness to it, but the. It's. It's, I guess, very welcoming.

[Griffin McElroy]

There's a surrealism to it and the music is. The music is for the most part, like, I think, really great. They do license a few like, songs in this one that are a real highlight some of the levels. It is not something that I would ever want to go back and listen to again, let alone go back and play again. But I would say on the whole, like, the music and the way that it kind of asks you to interact with it is still as fun now as it was, you know, back in oh God, whenever the 2008, when the first Rhythm of Heaven first came to the stage.

[Ross Rushick]

Is there a scenario in particular that jumped out to you, Griffin, that you liked?

[Griffin McElroy]

I really like stop and go and Stop. In that one, you're driving a car for a commercial shoot and to the beat of music, you have to stop your car and start your car. Just a great, great track. Great music on that one. Just felt really good. I liked the vegetable chopping one when it would throw those, those triplets at you, those paradiddles. I did appreciate those. I really like any of the ones that involve like holding in the bubble popping one coming down the conveyor belt. I like, I like all of those.

[Ross Rushick]

Did you do the Sneezing Moon one?

[Griffin McElroy]

The sneezing moon one is a bit scary.

[Ross Rushick]

Okay, so the sneezing. I just need to set up the sneezing moon. So the premise of the sneezing moon is that you're controlling, I guess they're like cult members, like little people dressed up to pray to this sneezing moon. And you need to watch the sneezing moon's like cadence of sneeze of his. Yeah.

[Griffin McElroy]

Choo.

[Justin McElroy]

Yeah.

[Ross Rushick]

And then you dash in front of it like on the chew, and if you miss, you get struck by lightning and everyone's sad. That's the like weird fucking tone of this entire game. Some weirder than others, but like it goes for it.

[Griffin McElroy]

But to really, I think, dial down on the mechanics of it. That level in particular will also throw at you half measure sort of sequences where instead of doing three wind up like, true. He only does one. So you have to be really paying attention to. And then also he will throw like an offbeat sort of set of, you know, sneezes at you that you have to also be kind of ready for. So it does involve. You do have to be paying very, very close attention.

[Ross Rushick]

Although even like remove elements so they'll like. There's one that's set on a beach with crabs and at one point in the front of frame, someone like puts a Coke can down in front of your character.

[Griffin McElroy]

Sets a soda down right there. Yeah.

[Ross Rushick]

And you just can't see. So you have to like, still use the bead, obviously.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Yeah.

[Ross Rushick]

So it's. Yeah, it's a very smart way to sort of evolve the challenge as it goes.

[Griffin McElroy]

That's the core, like, Rhythm Heaven sort of stuff going on here. I think there's eight sets of the four levels and a remix for each one of the sets.

[Ross Rushick]

It's a lot. It's more than my understanding is. It's more than have been in any Rhythm Heaven game previously.

[Griffin McElroy]

Yeah, I really do enjoy it, especially the remixes. Those are genuinely thrilling because you're having to go in a split second like, oh, fuck, what do I do when the vegetable chopping lady gets a yellow bell pepper? Oh, that's right. You do have to be constantly bouncing between stuff. And it is fun and really exciting when you're able to kind of string stuff to. It is also really demanding of accuracy. It is tighter than you may be used to from a Guitar Hero or something like that. Not a lot of rhythm games here to compare it to.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

I gotta offer a small critique. Small critique. I think this is a trend across a lot of what Nintendo's been doing over the last five years. But it's cool they're making the weird game. It's cool we're getting a Rhythm Heaven for the first time in 11 years. The kind of stuff around the game is so streamlined and not weird anymore. Like the actual menus. The being in the game is like oddly sterile.

[Griffin McElroy]

The main menu is the weirdest. The main menu seems weirdly unfinished where you're like selecting like a bunch of options on a plain white screen. I don't even think there's any music playing.

[Ross Rushick]

It looks like when I would test, like early indie games, that's what it looks like.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Yeah.

[Griffin McElroy]

We're like.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

I just think about this in relation to the Wii versus being on the Switch 2 main UI, right?

[Griffin McElroy]

Yeah.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Like you used to get into a Nintendo UI and it was like wow, this is so weird. There's cool music and there's like bips and bops and there are these little distractions I think about the Game Boy cameras ui which was like kind of looked like a role playing game weirdly.

[Ross Rushick]

Yeah.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

And just like that, the experimentation that you would associate with these games top to bottom seems to have been kind of condensed into these little safe packets. And it's not the worst thing in the world, but it is certainly a strange change.

[Griffin McElroy]

It is the beginning. It is part of a bigger critique of. It really feels like as cool as this is and I do enjoy just kind of plugging into Rhythm Heaven and, and going with it and just like playing it for an hour and going through like a dozen levels or so and you know, trying to get the medals on the amazing ranks, like trying to get perfect scores on all this stuff. Like I really do enjoy that. But it really does feel like they could do more. Like there could be something more. And there is other stuff in here. Right, let's touch on that. Because there's, there's a multiplayer mode that I will be frank, I did not play at all because I tried to get my kids. My youngest, my 5 year old Gus, loves music. He has a drum set. His rhythm is actually really good. But he could not keep up with the very first mini game. It's hard for some reason. Throws you like a five count instead of a four four sort of traditional thing. It's kind of weird, a weird one to start with. And my other son didn't like it very much at all. So I didn't play much of the multiplayer.

[Ross Rushick]

I played a lot of the multiplayer with my wife while my son watched.

[Griffin McElroy]

Okay.

[Ross Rushick]

And I will say this unabashedly, it's one of the best multiplayer experiences I've had on the Switch 2 and the Switch quite frankly, unquestionably, like super, super fun immediately. Very little preamble, very.

[Griffin McElroy]

Looks great.

[Ross Rushick]

Very easy to get into. They tutorial wise we can skip all the tutorials they do. Like when it's different people's turns they'll do the like voiceover of that person's like character and they use the like tomodachi style, like voice text into voice thing. So there's just like that silliness to it. But obviously you have the layer of both cooperative and competitive. And I do want to call out about half of the levels that are in multiplayer are cooperative and half of them are competitive. And so having those options is actually really great because you can remove the like, oh, you Suck. And really have, like, an actual competition to it.

[Griffin McElroy]

I like that. Are you spending the medals that you earn to, like, unlock stuff in the multiplayer?

[Ross Rushick]

Yeah. So in the multiplayer, you're earning another currency, which is rings.

[Griffin McElroy]

Okay.

[Ross Rushick]

And the rings unlock like other mini games in multiplayer. But it feels pretty optional.

[Griffin McElroy]

Okay.

[Ross Rushick]

And nothing, like, worth writing home about. I think it's more just about, like, this is a very good party game. I would say better party game than, like, Mario Kart in a lot of ways. Because it doesn't have that, like, intensive setup phase.

[Griffin McElroy]

Yeah.

[Ross Rushick]

And was, like, really fun. We were, like, played it for, like, two hours. It was like, really. I thought they did a really, really good job. I did a great. We did a great one where it's cake. And you're supposed to pick up the cake at a specific time. Right. And it, like, starts the timer at 10, 9, 8, 7, 6. And then suddenly, like, the voice fades out and you just have to, like, try to sense when 10 is. And so, like, that was hilarious every time. And we'd, like, get it perfectly or be like a tiny, tiny bit off. And that was, like, really fun. This, like, a lot of multiplayer stuff that I think for me, that's more of the draw. I like the single player. I had fun with the single player, but I wouldn't necessarily have the stick to it. Iveness to perfect it. The multiplayer is like, this is one of. At the top of my list of, like, games I would trot out if I was having a multiplayer night.

[Griffin McElroy]

Maybe I'll give it a shot with Rachel.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

I'm curious how this plays with younger Nintendo fans, because I do think it is at odds with modern Nintendo in their design focus, which is, I think, about expression and freedom. It is about, you can go anywhere, you can create lots of things. There are not wrong answers in a thing like Bonanza or Zelda. Right. And this is about, like, rhythm Heaven is about precision. It is about competition. There is a right way to do it. And I was trying to think of, like, what is. What does a rhythm game look like that would fit modern Nintendo? And actually what came to mind is Elite Beat Agents.

[Ross Rushick]

Oh, interesting.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

That's interesting.

[Ross Rushick]

I thought you were gonna say Wii music.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

No, no. I mean, get out of here.

[Griffin McElroy]

Ravi Drums.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

I think Elite Beat Agents has a little bit more flow. There's a little more room for some physical expression while you are still meeting the rhythm. It is not as hardcore. I don't know if that'll ever come back. Cause I don't know how the rights Worked with that game. But yeah, I am not to hear, Griffin, that your kids were bounced off because I just don't think there are a lot of games that ask this level of precision of their players pretty much exclusively. That's what the game is.

[Griffin McElroy]

Yeah, there is another. So there's some other single player kind of bonus stuff on the fringes. There's a little silly kind of sequencer thing and you can spend some medals to unlock more of those little mini games. None of which really I found particularly compelling. The thing about the game that I found most disappointing that I was kind of interested in, based on what I heard was Beat Spell, which is a game mode that unlocks very early. And it purports to be sort of an RPG where you play this young wizard and you can cast spells, sequences of spells by pressing buttons as you know, to a 4, 4 beat. You know, there's like a fire spell to damage enemies and a healing spell. And every time you, you know, defeat an enemy and you level up, you can upgrade one of your spells and you're kind of, you know, seeing how far you can get into a run. And then there's like things like you get critical hits if you hit it right on the beat, which is really fucking hard to do. And I thought that sounded neat. I thought that sounded really cool.

[Ross Rushick]

It sounded to me like I thought it was going to be like the Miitopia stuff.

[Griffin McElroy]

Sure, yeah. Oh yeah. That is sort of the bar that I was expecting was the Miitopia, you know, whether it was the simpler street pass version of Miitopia or like the full blown Find Me, I guess it was called, or Miitopia. And it really is, it is, it is, it is barely there. It is not very fleshed out at all. It is just another. It is just another rhythm minigame basically with sort of RPG trappings. But it is not, it is not rich or honestly very. It's very tedious because the fights can go on for a while. And yeah, I really, really found that mode to be kind of a bummer.

[Ross Rushick]

I do find it interesting though because Nintendo continues to experiment with the price of their games.

[Griffin McElroy]

Sure.

[Ross Rushick]

And so we just did Star Fox last week. Star fox is a $50 digital game. This game is $40 digital. And then obviously they have like the bigger releases at 70 or even $80. How do you guys feel about like this? I kind of like. I like the fact that there's that flexibility. I think at $40, this is a good deal, personally. But I'm curious what you Guys think

[Griffin McElroy]

I don't know. I'm not gonna get into the like how much money depends on. I will say that like, I pretty recently played through all of Rhythm Doctor, which is a Rhythm Heaven inspired indie game that's on Steam and it's on sale for $15.99 right now. And it fucking rules. I loved every second of my time with and has like a kick ass story and the music is like amazing like it did. I think it eats this. It's not entirely the exact same thing, but it is so inspired by is going to stick around in my memory a lot longer than Rhythm Heaven Groove is because ultimately I've enjoyed the time I spent playing through the levels of Rhythm Heaven Groove. Maybe I'll dip back in for the multiplayer stuff, but it is not something I'm going to stick with, I don't think.

[Ross Rushick]

Yeah.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Fresh for the broader conversation of the money. I think Nintendo realizes if they're not going to do sales very often and they're doing more than they used to, but they still don't do them a lot and they certainly don't do steep discounts.

[Ross Rushick]

Yeah.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

They need to start distinguishing. Yeah. The prices have to be very distinguished because they can't have a scenario where like, well, Rhythm Heaven goes on sale for half off.

[Ross Rushick]

Yeah.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Mario Kart never does. So I think this is them trying to find that balance of how do we create some clarification of value if we want to keep these prizes more or less locked in?

[Ross Rushick]

For sure.

[Griffin McElroy]

Understand that. For sure. But if you're competing with. If you're competing with other, you know, folks in the hardware space, like, okay, that's fine. PlayStation 5 games are pretty expensive too. Like, I get it. But if you're competing with all the, I don't know, man, all the Necrodancer games on Steam and all the other kind of like really fucking rad.

[Ross Rushick]

Eventually like Rhythm Dance or Rhythm Doctor will come to Switch, I imagine.

[Griffin McElroy]

Right.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

I think the harsh reality is that most of the people who hear of Rhythm Heaven have not and probably will not hear of those games just by

[Ross Rushick]

hearing there's some fucking freaks out there. Look at Griffin.

[Griffin McElroy]

There's a freaky Zeke franchise.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

There's a huge audience. I'm just saying Nintendo automatically, fair or not, has the benefit of. You open the Eshop and you're our friends who never look into video games and you see a new Nintendo game came out.

[Ross Rushick]

Yeah, for sure.

[Griffin McElroy]

I mean, $40 is a lot of. Is a lot of money.

[Ross Rushick]

Yeah.

[Griffin McElroy]

And sitting with it here, I don't know if this is. I don't. I don't feel necessarily like I have gotten a ton of time out of this game or will continue to put much time into. So like, I don't know.

[Ross Rushick]

I am not saying.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

And like you said, Griffin, there are like many other rhythm games on Steam.

[Griffin McElroy]

There are.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

There are a variety.

[Ross Rushick]

I am not saying it is necessarily worth it. I would recommend though, Griffin, if you get the chance to try to do some multiplayer, I do think it helps to elevate. I'm not saying it reaches the $40, whatever, but it does elevate the product.

[Griffin McElroy]

I got to try. I really enjoy. Unbeatable is another one that came out, I think, actually. Oh yeah, late last year at the beginning of this one. I never. It was on my wish list. It was like one of the first games I ever wish listed and I never. I have not dipped into that one. Yeah, there's so many, there's just so many games doing this stuff. And the indie sort of like ecosystem, financially speaking, is like completely on a whole other level than a $50 we didn't. I wasn't here for the Star fox episode, but $50 for the star Fox remake also feels a bit out of pocket to me. But let's not, I guess, relitigate that. Let's take maybe a brief break and then we can come back and talk about things that you can feel great spending an exorbitant amount of money on. Maybe I want to hear about the Steam Mach, which Russ has been spending some time with. But first, let's take this quick break.

[Ross Rushick]

This episode of the Besties is sponsored by Leesa. I have talked a lot about Leesa and how much I love their mattresses, specifically the mattress that my son got, which is unquestionably nicer than the mattress that I currently have. Lisa offered to send us a mattress. I was like, well, he's ready for a big boy bed. Send one to him. And now suddenly, poof, he has a much nicer mattress than me. Leesa has a lineup of beautifully crafted mattresses tailored to how you sleep. Each mattress is designed with specific sleep positions and feel preferences in mind. From night one, you'll feel the difference. Premium materials that deliver serious comfort and full body support no matter how you sleep. Just take the Leesa Sleep Quiz and you'll find your perfect match in two minutes or less. If that sounds good to you, you should go to leesa.com for 30% off select mattresses, plus get an extra $50 off with promo code. Besties Exclusive for our listeners. That's L E S A.com promo code besties for 30% off, select mattresses plus an extra $50 off. And when you use the code, you're supporting our show. That's Lisa.com promo code besties.

[Justin McElroy]

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[Ross Rushick]

Okay, so I'm about a week so, maybe 10 days into using the steam machine, which is Valve's TV side computer. I don't know that I need to. Do I need to describe it for the people?

[Griffin McElroy]

I mean, maybe, dude, they announced it a long time ago and then did not say anything about it for a long time.

[Ross Rushick]

That's true.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

And Steam Machine used to mean something different. So hardcore. This appears.

[Griffin McElroy]

Yeah.

[Ross Rushick]

Okay, so the Steam Machine that Valve just released is a computer that runs linux. It runs SteamOS, which we should be familiar with through that's what's running on a Steam deck. But this one is designed specifically to plug into a tv. So the idea would be you would have a Steam Machine in your living room and you plug it into the TV and suddenly you have all of the things that were in your Steam library accessible on this box. Obviously, there are many other ways to have a computer gaming experience in your living room. You can plug a laptop in, you can plug a desktop computer in. There are a number of different ways, but I think Steam's goal was Valve's goal was to make this as easy as possible for people to have this experience that aren't interested in like juggling a lot of setup or wires or whatever, right? You plug it in and it works. And I will say from my experience, they did achieve that goal. It is incredibly easy. I was playing no Man's sky in like seven minutes after unboxing this thing.

[Griffin McElroy]

You may have not played no Man's sky recently enough to have a feeling about this, but isn't the latest five updates they've done on that game. Just fucking crazy.

[Ross Rushick]

Oh, yeah, Fucking.

[Griffin McElroy]

I don't think I've talked about it on this show. Maybe I did.

[Ross Rushick]

I think a little bit. You mentioned it. The fact that you can jump out of a spaceship from orbit, build your

[Griffin McElroy]

own Corvette, jump out into space, and just free float around while catching space.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Pikachus.

[Griffin McElroy]

It's fucking crazy, that game.

[Ross Rushick]

But yes, I was able to start playing that game immediately. And I have just gobs of games just covering games for as long as we have. Just untold numbers of games that are on my Steam library that I was able to boot up. And mostly the way I've been using it is not for me necessarily. It's more for. There's a ton of games that I know my son would enjoy, but for whatever reason, it was a pain in the ass to set it up on the tv and now I can play. We were just playing Unpacking the other day, which is a really fun puzzle game where you basically empty boxes in a room and like put clothing and toys and things away in your house. Very simple game. Really loved it when I played it on Steam, however long ago that was, and then promptly forgot about it and it disappeared into my giant library of games. And now I can go and scroll through my library and he can see all the thumbnails and be like, oh, let's play that. And when he wants to play Death Stranding, I say, oh, maybe not. And then I pick something else, right? And so he picked. He picked Unpacking. And we also played Eartheon. Do you remember that game? Eartheon Plant.

[Griffin McElroy]

Not.

[Ross Rushick]

You might remember that game. Yeah, Eartheon is a SHMUP that actually runs on native Genesis hardware. If you were to like, get the rom.

[Griffin McElroy]

Oh, cool.

[Ross Rushick]

It actually runs, but it is made obviously with very modern design tenants and is fucking awesome. I'm not really a SHMUP guy, but apparently my son is now a shmup guy because he fucking loved it and we played that.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Can I tell you that just real quick, the game that you should play, I don't want to say with your son. Drain us. Do you remember Drainus?

[Ross Rushick]

No.

[Griffin McElroy]

This sounds made up.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Dranus. Dranus is one of the best shmups of the last decade.

[Ross Rushick]

Dranus.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

But it's called Dranus like anus for the drain.

[Griffin McElroy]

Okay. I know you may not like us talking about your voice a whole lot, Chris, but when you get happy, when you get happy with his voice, your voice compresses into something so small and adorable. I Just want to put like a little tiny cup over it and carry it outside.

[Ross Rushick]

Now here is the deal. I do think he would probably love Dranus. Now that I'm looking at it right now.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Who doesn't love Dranus?

[Ross Rushick]

It looks pretty good. Okay, so that's the like top line understanding of what the Steam machine is. I think most people will probably have that user experience. We will get to the price, don't worry.

[Griffin McElroy]

I think it's a million. It's a million trillion fucking dollars.

[Ross Rushick]

The other aspect that I want to mention before we get to the price is if you're willing to start tinkering, I think the Steam machine gets increasingly even more valuable because you can turn it into an enormously capable emulation machine, ROM playing machine, whatever, or turn it into a media set top box where you're not even using like an Apple TV anymore. You're just using that to like launch Netflix and whatever else. So there are, I think a lot of, there's a lot of utility so long as you're willing to like go a little bit deeper. But even if you aren't, hey, poof, you have a pretty damn good Steam playing thing so long as you are not necessarily interested in pushing the hardware. Because if you try to play games like 007, First Light or even Death Straining 2, it can run. It's not gonna be pretty. You're talking about like low settings, maybe 1080p to get a clean 60fps on like a modern 3D big game like that. Okay, so that's the consideration you're doing. You can, you know, again, play these like 2D games or even a lot of 3D games that came out like two or three years ago. But if you're trying to play modern games, you are gonna take a hit. I would say you can certainly run a lot more than you can on a Steam deck, but that's not saying a whole lot these days.

[Justin McElroy]

Right.

[Ross Rushick]

That's that part of it. And then there's the price part of it which is 100% valid. The price is. Starts at $1050.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Yeah.

[Ross Rushick]

Which is high. People have done, I have not done this myself, but people have done a ton of like side by side comparisons of what's more powerful as PS5 or a steam machine. Obviously the PS5, maybe not. Obviously the PS5 is noticeably more powerful than a Steam machine is. They've also done the thing where they're like, we're going to build our own Steam machine using parts off the shelf and it's and they end up building a much more powerful device for the same amount of money.

[Griffin McElroy]

Right.

[Ross Rushick]

Valve doesn't seem to have a problem with that. In fact, Valve released SteamOS to fully support any computer with an AMD chip in it. So if you want to build an AMD computer as a Steam deck that is arguably more powerful, you can do that. And in fact Valve is like, that's part of the reason Valve isn't taking that 30% into consideration when they're like pricing this thing. They didn't lower the price because they didn't know necessarily what people were going to do with it. I, I mean, who's it for? I, I think if you've listened to all this, you probably know. Are you the sort of person that like likes the convenience of playing older Steam games in an easy way and could maybe like drop a bunch of emulators on this thing? It's very convenient. Are you gonna be more careful with how you spend your money and you want to like get the most bang for your buck? 100% you will be able to find something better elsewhere. And even as the years go by, even six months from now, I'm willing to bet that there will be like off the shelf Steam Machine competitors that will do pretty well. So those are really the considerations. I don't know. Do you guys have questions?

[Griffin McElroy]

Are you using the new Steam controller?

[Ross Rushick]

I'm using the Steam controller. We've talked about the Steam controller in the past. It is fully compatible with the Steam Machine as you'd imagine. I fucking love this controller. I've used it basically non stop since it first came out a few months ago. One of my favorite controllers ever made, unquestionably. It's very ugly if you. Yeah, sure, very ugly. But I love holding it. I love the buttons. It feels great. Very flexible with the trackpads if you want to use those.

[Griffin McElroy]

So I do kind of want one of those. It's pretty good because it looks cool.

[Ross Rushick]

I give a glowing recommendation for the controller unquestionably and a, I would say, hesitant recommendation for the Steam machine only if that's what you're looking to accomplish.

[Griffin McElroy]

My beef is not with the Steam machine. Okay, I want one. I think it looks great. Yeah, I truly do. And I think it fills a need that, that I have in my kind of gaming space. I guess I could dock my Rog Ally X to my living room TV if I wanted to play PC games.

[Ross Rushick]

I mean I've had that use case and in my experience I just don't end up doing that because it's.

[Griffin McElroy]

I just don't end up doing it because it's.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Yeah.

[Griffin McElroy]

And it can be a pain in the ass to set up. And then also the. I don't know if this is true, but using Bazzite on the Rog Allyx sometimes after docking it and then undocking has trouble getting back into kind of undocked like using the onboard controller.

[Ross Rushick]

And the OS does fully support the Rog Ally X now, by the way, just letting you know if you want to leave Bazzite behind. It does fully support.

[Griffin McElroy]

Bazzite's been pretty good to me. Okay. My beef is not with Steam Machine or Valve or this price point. I think it's. Or with Gabe. Like, it's a lot of money. And when you compare it to like the Rog Ally X or I don't know how much the new Xbox Rog Ally is or the, you know, the PS5, you know, whatever, it's a lot of money. But everything costs a lot of money now that has RAM in it. It just feels, I don't know when I'm going to feel like great about dropping a bunch of money on a thing that has obviously had its price jacked into the fucking stratosphere by a global economic sort of crisis is maybe a strong word. And I know that it is the kind of nature of this thing that you don't really know. No one really knows when the RAM shortage will begin to sort of resolve. But I don't know, it feels bad to think about buying a new PC or buying a, you know, buying even a Switch 2 right now to the increase the price. It's. It's something that has never really happened in my lifetime before, where a game console gets more expensive after they release it. And it, it just feels so bad to imagine spending money on that when ostensibly you could wait, but who knows?

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Well, I'm going to make it worse for everyone, which is you might not be able to wait because Lenovo has said that they don't expect prices to ever to come down. And Lenovo is incentivized to say that for reasons. But that is also how inflation works. When prices go up, rarely if ever does the market want to bring them back down. They're not incentivized to. They would much sooner keep the profits than they would bring the prices back down. The other thing that I think we have to be aware of for, like, who this is for, the bummer here is this is for people who want to get into PCs, which should be a growing audience and The Steam machine itself was never going to replace the Xbox or the PlayStation. But the idea of SteamOS and moving to PC has been gradually doing that. And as consoles themselves become $1,000 and, and as consoles get worse and worse and like, let's be clear, they've gotten much worse this year, they're going to get significantly worse over the limitations over the next three years. Moving to PC is.

[Ross Rushick]

By worse you mean price worse.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Not just price. They will have less features than they've ever had. You won't be able to play retail discs in your products. You have even less clarity on how your digital rights work. Right. These are not great times for a console owner. We're not talking about Nintendo, that's a whole different thing. And for that reason it would be a great time to jump into a relatively easy, more welcoming PC experience like Steam. So you can benefit from the sales. It is digital sales, but they have a much longer history of digital rights maintenance for you. Right. There's a lot of reasons for you to do it which are still pretty

[Griffin McElroy]

draconian, but at least they're all in one one place like, and they're consistent. Yeah, yeah, sure.

[Ross Rushick]

I would also add that you don't have to pay a subscription fee to play online games, which is another way you can save some of that money. I think that there is value in this. The other thing to keep in mind is because of the prices being so extreme, I think you will see way fewer developers apart from like the rock stars of the world pushing hardware in extreme ways. I think you're going to see people design games, continue design games to be very scalable, such that hardware from a few years ago, which Steam Machine arguably is, because it's not top of the shelf stuff right now, can still run those games. So I think you will get more life out of this than you think. But yeah, again, you are still. You won't be just playing, it's a new computer, but you won't be playing games with all settings max, by any means.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

This is my theory and I'm going to sound like a bonkers person, but I think over the next year or two we're going to see more things pop up that we've seen in other countries where people are better about repurposing the hardware they already have. And I won't be surprised if those computer shops that you see or repair shops that you see in your neighborhood or in your city, if they start saying, hey, you can come in and we'll wipe your old laptop or your old PC and we will convert it into a Steam machine or something like this for you. Because the process isn't so easy that the average person is going to do it. But if that becomes something that your local vendor can do on your behalf, that's a great option. Like a lot of people have old hardware in their home that is not being used to the best of its capability and that would run a lot of old hardware stuff and accomplish a lot of these things.

[Griffin McElroy]

Yeah man, shit's really rough. Sort of industry wide. Like it is sort of a bummer thing to prophesize about like what the future holds. I do want one of the. I like the form factor of it and I think it looks rad and everything. But I don't know that the need for it justifies the, justifies the price for me, personally speaking.

[Ross Rushick]

I think a lot of people are going to make that decision and I think that's right. Like if I was buying an easy PC for a friend that doesn't know anything about PCs. Yeah, Steam Machine makes total sense.

[Griffin McElroy]

Yeah.

[Ross Rushick]

But I'm mindful that like there's a lot of people that could do a little bit of heavy lifting and get a more powerful machine out of it. But it's. I think it's great that this is here and I think it sets a standard for the industry, for the PC gaming industry. And like Microsoft and whoever else sets a standard to be like hey dummies, we can make this incredibly easy for people. You don't need to overcomplicate it by making them install fucking stock widgets every time they launch their computer. Let's just like give them the games they paid for. So I do appreciate Valve on that front of designing a system that is like as smooth as it could possibly be.

[Griffin McElroy]

I also like, if I'm gonna spend an outrageous amount of money on a Steam thing, I'm probably gonna wait for that VR headset. Cause that thing looks, that thing does look pretty tight. I don't have a need for that either. That would justify whatever the price of that will almost certainly be quite, quite large as well. But I don't know, that stuff gets me. That stuff gets me real excited.

[Ross Rushick]

We have a little bit of reader mail Paul wrote in to say you mentioned liking puzzle games this week. And I know you guys have tried TR49 enchanted Sennaar in the past. My friend turned me on to a recent release, recently released game the Message from Deep Space, which is on Steam. It's a puzzle game where you are decoding messages being sent From a meteor. You will know in the first 15 minutes if it's a game for you, but if it is, it's great. Otherwise bail and you can see what you got.

[Griffin McElroy]

There's a demo. Yeah, I just looked it up.

[Ross Rushick]

It looks very cool. Definitely worth checking out.

[Griffin McElroy]

This does look cool. Yeah, this looks neat. There's a few of these I feel like language based translation based games that have dropped over the last year. I think Chances and our really, I don't know, set the genre ablaze.

[Ross Rushick]

One more reader. Mail email. This one comes from Bass Toad. Bass Toad maybe. Has anyone in the Besties played Mecha Chameleon, the biggest indie hit of the year? It has 15 million sales worldwide in a single month. I have not played it yet, but I have seen it many times.

[Griffin McElroy]

Yeah, Yeah. I mean I've seen my kids watch videos of Mecha Chameleon a lot.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Y'. All, it rocks. We should, we should play it together in the, in the coming weeks, sometime before the end of the summer. We will, we'll play it.

[Griffin McElroy]

Yeah.

[Ross Rushick]

For those that don't know, it's a hide and seek game where when you go to hide you can basically like draw on yourself and design your own camouflage such that you fit in with the scene. So you could like draw half a hydrant and like kind of blend in with the scene better and then the other person tries to find you. It's very clever.

[Griffin McElroy]

Yeah, some people are really good at it. I've also seen some people have developed a hack technology that will like screen print exactly what you're standing in front of in like a weird kind of line by line dot matrix style.

[Ross Rushick]

So funny.

[Griffin McElroy]

Which I'm sure is frustrating for the hardcore Mecha Chameleon community, but I enjoyed the ingenuity of it.

[Ross Rushick]

I mean we talk about price stuff and like capabilities of computers these days. Like this is what we're going to see more of is weird ass experimental things that do not require you to have a modern PC. And that's good. Keeping in mind like the odds of another indie game having this level of success fucking very, very low, if not zero. So just keep that in mind.

[Griffin McElroy]

I mean there's always one every year at least there's always.

[Ross Rushick]

Usually there's one not to this level. 15 million sales is fucking crazy.

[Griffin McElroy]

This is the video games equivalent of. Well actually I guess the video game's equivalent of backrooms is backrooms. But in terms of what that has done to the film industry, that and. Oh shit, what's the one with the wish Willow? They Snap it. Obsession.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Yeah.

[Griffin McElroy]

Where it's like, we need indie horror stuff. I don't know, I feel like that also does happen every year where then the big players in the space are like, shit, guys, we gotta make an among us. And we got a month and a half to do it.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Also, just a little thing with Mecha. Chameleon, a little Japanese here. It's pronounced mecha and that means like oh, very chameleon. Or like it's totally a mess of a chameleon.

[Griffin McElroy]

That's fun. I had no idea.

[Ross Rushick]

Okay, that explains the extra C. I

[Griffin McElroy]

guess I'm glad you told me that before I said the name of the game like in public or something. Like picking my kids up from school.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Embarrassing.

[Griffin McElroy]

Would have been really humiliating.

[Ross Rushick]

Is this your version of saying karate correctly?

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

No, this is my version of saying near automata.

[Justin McElroy]

Oh boy.

[Ross Rushick]

Hon.

[Griffin McElroy]

You got any honorable mentions?

[Ross Rushick]

Mentions. I've been playing a game called, it's called Blueprints. It's a first person puzzle game where you explore apps.

[Griffin McElroy]

Yeah, man.

[Ross Rushick]

Where are we at? I have all the sigils done. The sigil doors are done.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Ross Rushick]

And I'm currently saving money for a blue skin of my tents.

[Griffin McElroy]

Oh, that's such a good one. That's a real good one to have, man. Can I tell you, the blue tents really open the game up for you. Everything before that is basically the tutorial.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Oh yeah, it's filler, basically. Yeah.

[Griffin McElroy]

I do actually really like, I mean, I won't tell you what happens when you get those, but it's, it's, it is truly pretty transformative for like what the game has to offer.

[Ross Rushick]

Yeah, I'm pretty excited. We're a day like 60 something and obviously look, it couldn't last forever. As of right now, we are currently like kind of up again. I'm sure there's stuff we've missed, but like I would say 90% of the threads we have pulled and seen what the end of the thread is. So I am waiting for that chew to drop a little bit.

[Griffin McElroy]

But we'll see if you ever want tender sort of. I don't, no, no, I'm not, not hints. But just like, I don't know, I

[Ross Rushick]

don't want those nudges.

[Griffin McElroy]

Not nudges, just confirmation of whether or not you're done. Done.

[Ross Rushick]

Yeah, I, I know, I know because you guys were struggling because you beat the game and had no idea that you beat it. So I, I, we will get to that point before I quit. I will ask someone whether we are at that point I.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

This is a little tease for resties, which I hopefully will have my voice back for by the time we record that. But I have been playing Ace Combat 7 again and I am going to teach Russ Frushtick the history of the Ace Combat series on the upcoming arrestees to prepare everyone. Because I understand that you might think, how will I be ready for thev if I haven't played Ace combats one through seven? And you, I mean for a mere $5, can listen to the resties and you will find out, you know what game fucking rocks. Ace Combat 7. That game rocks so unbelievably hard. I really had forgotten just how much I enjoyed it. And being sick sucks, but being sick and getting to play Ace Combat 7 again has been a total joy.

[Griffin McElroy]

I don't think I spend a ton of time with Ace Combat 7, but you have good taste in games, Chris.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Sometimes, I mean, you can just wait for. Well actually you don't need to wait for eight. Oh, Griffin. Are you ready for this? Ace Combat 7 runs on the Ein Thor.

[Griffin McElroy]

Oh shit.

[Justin McElroy]

Okay.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

I don't know how, but magic dreams.

[Griffin McElroy]

I mean I want to. If I'm in a cockpit, dude, I do want it to surround me. I don't want to hold the tiny little Nintendo DS in my hands.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Well, you hold it like two inches from your face and you go, is that the secret?

[Ross Rushick]

I mean that game is seven years old. Of course it runs on the handheld from it's old.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Why you gotta.

[Griffin McElroy]

Looks good.

[Ross Rushick]

I'm just saying. Griffin, anything you want to shout out?

[Griffin McElroy]

Yeah, I got a few. They've just opened up the Open beta for EverQuest Legends. The kind of like EQ for dads, for people who pre order the game. And I spent some more time with it, but they're gonna wipe all the progress from the beta on the 21st, I think before the game goes live on the 28th. For real. So I think I've kind of stopped. Cause I don't want to. I played quite a bit of the closed beta and I don't want to burn myself out, but really, really, really, really fun. Really enjoying that game a lot and seeing the community kind of come to life. There's always been like hardcore EQ players, but it's been fairly insular. Now I feel like they've broken containment in a way and it's. I don't know, it is really enjoyable and it's cool how many kind of quality of life things they've done. Diablo 4 has a new season that I'VE spent a couple hours playing and I don'. I'm gonna stop. And there's been quite a bit of, I would say, pushback against this. They did some weird stuff like changing how like the unique items that drop work and now mythic items drop differently and they're not dropping for a lot of people at all. And the seasonal activity is not very fun and it's just kind of a weak one. What I did play and finish that I really enjoyed was deltarune, the new chapter, Chapter five of deltarune, which I don't know, man. How do you talk about the fifth chapter of a game that no one else on your podcast has played? You do so sort of quickly and respectfully. No, it's great. I would say more than any other chapter, it is the one that kind of like deals with undertale stuff. More like that's always been a kind of somewhat weird thing about this game that is an anagram of undertale is deltarune. I did forget that is like, oh, it takes place in a different world. But a lot of the characters are the same and there's references like nonstop. So what is going on? This is one that does that. I'm not gonna talk really anything about the main hook of this one chapter and kind of the characters that come in and are featured. I really enjoyed it. The writing continues to be hysterically funny and really warm hearted and just kind of nice. This chapter does some really fun, mechanical things. Jump ahead if you don't want to be spoiled on it if you think you'll play it. But partway through the chapter, you unlock an item that allows you to switch perspective from the kind of top down RPG style that undertale and deltarune to this point have had. And then it goes into a side scrolling platform and it shifts it sort of like in real time, sort of FEZ style. And then you have to like, you know, do a platforming segment. There's like boss fights that you do in platforming mode. It's very mechanically sort of ambitious.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

It is.

[Griffin McElroy]

It doesn't do a lot to kind of move the overarching plot forward. This is a game that is like full of mysteries that people are kind of trying to unpack and figure out. And I don't know that it gives folks a ton to chew on. Not. Not as much as 4, which I really, really liked. But man, I just. I just think it's. I just think it's exceptional. The music is so good and this, this game, as weird as its sort of release Strategy is like, it's so polished and so unlike anything else that anyone else is making. And I don't know when it will be finished but they've said it's six chapters.

[Ross Rushick]

Is that right?

[Griffin McElroy]

I thought it was seven. Okay, I'm pretty sure it's seven. I don't think it makes sense to hold off on it just because these. It took me like a few hours to get through this. This chapter, maybe four or five or so. It's big. It's like the length of undertale and so like I don't. I feel like almost waiting until it's all out and trying to play through all of it would actually be kind of rough because now it's shaping up to be. I mean I can look at my Steam playtime for deltarune so far, but you know, five. Five chapters in and I'm actually curious to see what that. What that figure is. Yeah, 24.9 hours, five for five chapters. So like would sever all here. That's like, I don't know, a pretty big time commitment. I don't know. I liked it a lot. I think it's fucking great. And if you've played deltarune and finished chapter four, got a new one for you. It's great.

[Ross Rushick]

Maybe during Christmas break, that seems like a good time to maybe try to catch this game.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Look at you talking like me, acting like you're gonna play that game.

[Ross Rushick]

I mean, I do feel like, to Griffin's point, like I do feel some obligation, especially if it eventually end, to like experience this thing that specifically Griffin has been in love with.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Oh, you'll definitely experience it when it ends. But you're not gonna. You're not gonna start it until it ends.

[Ross Rushick]

But I know if I. Griffin's right. I know if I wait until the end, it's gonna come out and I'll be like, oh fuck, I gotta play chapter one first and then I'm gonna have 30 hours.

[Griffin McElroy]

A lot of under of Deltarune. Yeah, that's a lot.

[Ross Rushick]

Before I get to the new stuff.

[Griffin McElroy]

I am very hesitant about things like early access. Right. Like I'm not gonna touch Fields of Mystery again until it's out 1.0. I'm not gon touch and shroud it again until it's out 1.0. I have games that I'm waiting on bated breath to be finished before I really put my time into playing it. The episodes are so self contained is not the exact right word, but they're done. But they're complete packages they feel like full game. I spent a long time with this latest chapter and now I am really excited and really looking forward to the next one. And to me, that is a different sort of pattern because that stuff is not gonna change. Right. They're not gonna do much to adjust. I imagine the first five chapters of Game it's just, you know, there's more stuff coming.

[Ross Rushick]

Cool.

[Griffin McElroy]

Hey, thank you so much for listening to our show, which is called the Besties. We sure do appreciate you, Chris. Do you want me to go through and talk about all the games we did yesterday?

[Ross Rushick]

Actually, before we do that.

[Griffin McElroy]

Oh, shit.

[Ross Rushick]

I do want to throw to the fact that we have a brand new bracket battles episode which is live currently. We have a very special guest. Mary Kish from the Fire Escape podcast joined us. It's excellent and we have a clip here for it.

[Griffin McElroy]

It's impossible to put yourself in the shoes of a person in 1985 playing this game and beating four levels and thinking you do it all the time. Pretend that you have a child playing a game. Well, okay, that is fair.

[Ross Rushick]

That's fair.

[Griffin McElroy]

That was before I was alive. So that's like a huge. A huge leap backwards. Very fun.

[Ross Rushick]

Super Fun.

[Griffin McElroy]

Go to patreon.com thebesties if you haven't already. That's where you can get access to those bracket episodes as well as episodes of the Resties that Chris and Russ.com talking about games that we don't cover here on the Besties. This week on the Besties, we talked about Rhythm Heaven Groove. Touched a little bit on Rhythm Doctor and Unbeatable Russ detailed his time with the Steam Machine, talked about the Message from Deep Space, talked about Mecha Chameleon, which is pronounced mecha chameleon. I think we talked about Ace Combat 7. We talked about EverQuest Legends, talked about Deltarune Chapter 5, talked about blueprints once again. And. And we'll continue to until Russ has slain. Slain that dragon. Russ and Alex, I do want to give. I'm sure that she is.

[Ross Rushick]

Yeah, she is the bulk of the

[Griffin McElroy]

driving force, the brain, the real brain power of your duo.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

She's crushing it and fresh. Where can people see pictures of your foot that could be traveling?

[Ross Rushick]

I think you. We need another Patreon just for my foot. Is.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Sounds good.

[Ross Rushick]

Honestly, I think that makes sense.

[Griffin McElroy]

Yeah. Yeah. Lonely fans. Is that anything? There's got to be something there.

[Ross Rushick]

Speaking of people paying money, I want to thank some backers that have recently supported us. We have Adam N. We have Stephen T. We have Source 4 mini and we have Kieran. Thank you for being backers at the [e-mail] thebesties and thank you to everyone else who supported our show. Please remember to check the newsletter or about the live show tickets which are going fast. You want to make sure you get a good seat. Now is the time to do so. And yeah, next week we are going to be doing two games. We're going to be talking about the Assassin's Creed 4 remake which I believe is called Assassin's Creed Black Flag resynced. And we're also talking about Dench Attack

[Griffin McElroy]

where you just the Judi Dench simulator. She. And she's pissed off with a thirst for blood.

[Ross Rushick]

That's right.

[Griffin McElroy]

And vengeance.

[Ross Rushick]

And I think you are. She's also a train that grinds rails, I believe.

[Griffin McElroy]

Yeah. She is a train. She's a train that grinds rails. So yeah. Join us again next week for the besties for for that and more because shouldn't the world's best friends play the world's best games?

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Sam.