Pokopia Will Teach You to Love Pokémon Again

Summary

The Besties Podcast Episode Summary

Episode Title: Pokopia Will Teach You to Love Pokémon Again
Release Date: March 13, 2026
Hosts: Russ Frushtick, Chris Plante, Griffin McElroy, Justin McElroy

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Episode Overview

In this vibrant and hilarious episode, the Besties tackle “Pokopia,” the genre-blending Pokémon spinoff that takes Pokémon in a whole new, post-apocalyptic, builder-sim direction. The hosts dissect how this game both reinvigorates their love of the franchise and subverts expectations for what a Pokémon game can be. Beyond Pokopia, the group dives into upcoming Nintendo releases, industry speculation, and deliver some personal recommendations and charming banter.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Pokopia: Setting, Concept, and Mechanics

• Pokopia is the First Pokémon Game With No “Pokémon” in the Title ([02:25])
  • Griffin: “Yeah. No, yeah, I think you're right. I can't think of another one.”
• Post-Apocalyptic World, No Humans
  • Pokémon like WalBuffet runs the Federal Reserve and Koffing heads the EPA ([00:33]).
  • Griffin: “You play as Ditto in this game and you are sort of transformed into the shape of your missing trainer, who you love and miss very much” ([03:43]).
• Genre Mashup
  • Chris: “Pickopia is a mashup of, like, Animal Crossing and Minecraft and all sorts of stuff. Dragon Quest Builders. We got it all here.” ([02:39])
• Open World & Builder Aspects
  • Minecraft/Dragon Quest Builders DNA with crafting, resource gathering, and habitat creation for Pokémon ([04:38]).
  • Discovery via “habitat Dex” and clues in the environment ([04:38]).
• Narrative
  • Players find logs from missing humans, hinting at climate disaster and societal collapse ([06:54]).
  • Speculated causes: Legendary Pokémon may have destroyed the world, but there’s overt climate change commentary ([07:11]).

2. Gameplay Experience and Design Philosophy

• Core Gameplay Loop
  • Building habitats, attracting Pokémon, environmental stewardship ([05:40]).
  • Justin: “There is a spirit that feels more about, like, cooperation and like a, like a socialist paradise in the way that like, Pokémon never really feels. And I think that's cool.” ([13:36])
• Comparisons to Other Life Sims
  • More freedom than Animal Crossing, fewer placement restrictions ([09:32]).
  • Borrowing well-paced activity gating to prevent burnout ([10:26]).
  • Griffin: “This game’s fucking huge, guys. I did not expect… There’s a lot of tech in the game that is very cool… really technically impressive also.” ([11:19])
• Coop and Multiplayer
  • GameShare function allows limited multiplayer (restricted to Pallet Town, requires Switch 2 and Switch 1 setup) ([17:24]).
  • Building and sharing between generations of Switch hardware.

3. Emotional Resonance & Pokémon Fandom

• Rediscovering Pokémon
  • Chris Plant postulates Pokopia’s story is a metaphor for lapsed fans returning to Pokémon with fresh eyes.
  • Chris: “This is like, almost embarrassing to say. I, like, genuinely felt emotional playing this game… It is a welcoming back into the world of Pokémon from literally the ground up.” ([20:03])
• Virtuous Loop
  • Focus on making the world better for Pokémon, not exploiting them for battles ([15:16]).
  • Griffin recounts his son’s joy at customizing habitats for favorite Pokémon ([15:48]).
• Accessibility and Wider Appeal
  • Robust, layered systems appeal to adults; kids are smitten with roaming, gifting Pokémon ([22:01]).
  • The game's “crunch” supports deeper tech and creative play for advanced players ([21:32]).
• Inventory Management Only Major Complaint
  • Griffin: “The game is missing… like a quick sort stacks from your inventory to chest…” ([22:47])

4. Humor and Unique Moments in Pokopia

• Ditto as Player Character Is Both Endearing and Disturbing
  • Justin: “The lead character of this game is horrible. It's a nightmare. It's a ditto pretending to be a human. And it is ghoulish.” ([23:45])
• Pokémon Interactions
  • Humorous Pokémon behaviors and dialogue (“sup dude!” from Magikarp, and Professor Tangrowth as an MVP breakout star) ([25:51], [26:24]).
• Filling Out Pokedex Still Satisfying
  • Collecting and customizing matter as much as finding Pokémon ([16:52]).
• Fanbase Speculation
  • Justin: “I think the fans are gonna hate it… They're gonna walk away from this thing so fast…” ([26:51])
  • Griffin: “I do not think so, man. I think people are absolutely [gonna love it].” ([26:54])

5. Upcoming Nintendo Releases & Broader Industry Chatter

• Noteworthy Forthcoming Games ([29:12])
  • Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream (April 16), Rhythm Heaven Groove, Yoshi and the Mysterious Book, Fire Emblem, Indiana Jones, The Adventures of Elliot the Millennium Tales, and Kyoto Xanadu.
  • Griffin excited for Tomodachi Life’s potential as a TikTok meme machine ([29:37]).
  • Rhythm Heaven, Yoshi details and voice casting discussed ([31:49]).
• Switch 2 Impressions
  • DLSS technology allowing upscaling for better performance ([32:49]).
  • Anticipation and skepticism for ports (e.g., Indiana Jones performance concerns on Switch 2) ([32:20]).
• Nintendo Release Calendars
  • Perceived “anemic” software slate, speculation about the next Zelda title ([34:45]).
  • Shift in industry news rhythm post-E3, less predictable cadence of big announcements ([36:02]).
• Xbox & PlayStation Strategies
  • Justin: “If I'm Sony, I'm probably kind of slow playing on the strategic front a little bit just to see what is happening at Microsoft…” ([37:31])
  • Industry trends toward (and away from) platform exclusivity ([38:13]).

6. Community Questions, Recommendations & Pop Culture

• Griffin’s Choose-Your-Own-Adventure Book ([40:18])

  • Processes, branching storylines, and the joy of writing for CYOA.

• Esoteric Ebb: Recommendation

  • Disco Elysium meets D&D, highly recommended for its writing and originality ([42:42]).

• TV Talk: Survivor Season 50 & Traitors ([44:13])

  • Survivor: “This is the Avengers endgame of Survivor. Like everybody you love is back.” – Justin ([45:02])
  • Traitors Australia: Praised for stakes and casting of non-celebrities, more enticing to some hosts.

• Other Game Mentions

  • Slay the Spire 2 (early impressions), Death Stranding 2 coming to PC, Mewgenics.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the Game’s Tone:

  • Chris: “There are no gods anymore. There are no trainers anymore. There is only Pokémon and man-shaped Pokémon.” ([03:10])

• On Habitat Building:

  • Justin: “This is more like you're building a Pokémon reserve… you’re building basically a big natural world for the Pokémon to come kick it with you.” ([05:40])

• On Cooperative Spirit:

  • Justin: “There is a spirit… more about cooperation and like a, like a socialist paradise, in the way that like, Pokémon never really feels. And I think that's cool.” ([13:36])

• On the Lead Character:

  • Justin: “The lead character of this game is horrible… It's a Ditto pretending to be a human. And it is ghoulish.” ([23:45])

• On Emotional Resonance:

  • Chris: “It is a welcoming back into the world of Pokémon from literally the ground up. I, like, genuinely felt emotional playing this game…” ([20:03])

• On Potential Fan Reception:

  • Justin: “I think the fans are gonna hate it. They're gonna walk away from this thing so fast, it's gonna make your head spin.” ([26:51])
  • Griffin: “I do not think so, man. I think people are absolutely [gonna love it].” ([26:54])

• On Inventory Management:

  • Griffin: “The game is missing… like a quick sort stacks from your inventory to chest…” ([22:47])

• On Upcoming Nintendo Releases:

  • Griffin: “You’re gonna be so happy. Tomodachi Life soap opera simulator… The potential there is for just like really out of pocket funny shit is through the roof.” ([29:37])

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• 00:25 – Introduction to Pokopia as the first Pokémon game without “Pokémon” in the title
• 02:39 – Explaining Pokopia: a mashup of “Animal Crossing,” “Minecraft,” and “Dragon Quest Builders”
• 03:10 – 04:38 – Game’s setup (post-apocalyptic, Ditto as protagonist, sandbox world)
• 05:40 – 06:54 – Habitat Dex, rebuilding, narrative/climate collapse themes
• 09:32 – 11:19 – Design freedom, comparisons to Animal Crossing
• 13:00 – 14:34 – Justin on why this is more fun than a standard Pokémon game, focus on cooperation
• 15:15 – 15:48 – Stewardship and player motivation in open-world design
• 16:52 – 18:34 – Kid/family co-op, GameShare functionality
• 20:03 – Chris’s emotional/fandom theory, nostalgia for lapsed players
• 22:47 – 23:45 – Inventory management complaint
• 23:45 – 24:55 – The disturbing protagonist: Ditto in a human skin suit
• 25:51 – 26:27 – Professor Tangrowth, humorous Pokémon dialogue
• 29:12 – 34:45 – Forthcoming Nintendo games, Tomodachi Life and more
• 40:18 – 42:32 – Griffin’s process writing a Choose Your Own Adventure book
• 42:42 – 44:24 – Esoteric Ebb recommendation/discussion
• 44:13 – 48:26 – Survivor S50, Traitors Australia, and miscellaneous TV/game recommendations

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Tone and Presentation

The Besties maintain their trademark blend of insightful criticism and irreverent, friendly banter. The episode is fast-paced, funny, and full of niche references that fans of gaming and pop culture will appreciate. The excitement over Pokopia is sincere and infectious, with a healthy thread of skepticism and self-awareness around nostalgia and franchise fatigue.

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Final Thoughts

“Pokopia Will Teach You to Love Pokémon Again” is a rich, entertaining, and detailed exploration of how the Pokémon franchise can reinvent itself. The hosts' discussion will resonate with lapsed fans, Pokémon diehards, families, and anyone who loves cozy open-world builder games—while also celebrating the ways that gaming can make us feel nostalgic, cooperative, and creatively fulfilled.

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If you’re interested in a Pokémon game that breaks the mold and lets you reshape the world with, rather than for, your Pokémon friends—Pokopia might just be your next obsession.

Transcript

[Ross Freshwick]

Do you think Pikachu is a leader in the Madbax rebellion? Do you think he is ripping skulls out of necks? What is this Pikachu that we are

[Justin McElroy]

now meeting has been into a sphere that is used to power some of the bigger war machines. So he's basically just a big battery.

[Griffin McElroy]

Yeah.

[Justin McElroy]

They fight for Evie for, like, control of the chu. Because whoever has the chu has the power.

[Griffin McElroy]

Yeah. The chu is life.

[Ross Freshwick]

And how does Wah Buffett fit in?

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

I just want to invite all the listeners in. We are in a post apocalyptic scenario. There was a big assumption from the top that Pikachu is in the post apocalypse now. Yes.

[Griffin McElroy]

And so Wal Buffett is chairman of the Federal Reserve.

[Ross Freshwick]

Oh, good for him.

[Griffin McElroy]

Yeah. He's the chairperson of Berkshire Hathaway and he's still out there doing his thing, wobbling around, shaking it. Shaking it. Shaking his. Shaking that dirty thing.

[Justin McElroy]

And editorializing with the dirtiest.

[Griffin McElroy]

Yeah.

[Ross Freshwick]

And Koffing is the head of the epa.

[Griffin McElroy]

Koffing is head of epa. And I've got salad for everybody. So it's like, really on this kind of, like, sliding scale of apocalypses, I do think this one's not bad.

[Ross Freshwick]

It's going okay, right?

[Griffin McElroy]

It's kind of going all right. Because you can get salad so fast and easy. It's like, not an issue.

[Justin McElroy]

Salad's not a problem. My name is Justin McElroy and I know the best game of the week.

[Griffin McElroy]

My name is Griffin McRoy and Warren Buffett is still alive. He's 95 years old. I've been.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

My name is.

[Griffin McElroy]

I just have his shit pulled up here because I made a Warren Buffett joke earlier and it's just pulled up. This man's worth $147 billion. What are we fucking doing, man?

[Justin McElroy]

Dude, are you just now finding out about this disparity? It's been an issue.

[Griffin McElroy]

It's so crazy.

[Ross Freshwick]

Half of those are Pogs.

[Griffin McElroy]

I'm really sorry.

[Ross Freshwick]

So, Chris.

[Griffin McElroy]

So sorry.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

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

[Ross Freshwick]

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

[Justin McElroy]

This week we're talking about the first ever Pokemon game that doesn't have Pokemon in the title.

[Griffin McElroy]

Pocopia.

[Justin McElroy]

What's Popia?

[Griffin McElroy]

Is that true? Yeah. No, Yeah, I think you're right. I can't think of another one.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Pickopia is a mashup of, like, Animal Crossing and Minecraft and all sorts of stuff. Dragon Quest Builders. We got it all here.

[Griffin McElroy]

Voil Me.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

It's common knowledge that this game Is set in the post apocalypse. Did everybody know this before playing this game?

[Ross Freshwick]

I think there were some indications from the community, but here we are.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Here we are.

[Justin McElroy]

And we'll talk about that right after this. There are no gods anymore.

[Griffin McElroy]

Yeah.

[Justin McElroy]

There are no trainers anymore. There is only Pokemon and man shaped Pokemon.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

I thought that was a weird intro screen, but it did kind of set the mood.

[Justin McElroy]

It's not far off. I'm not even editorializing that much. You visit upon this nightmare man who's like, I thought everything was dead. You're the first living thing I've seen. And he's a horrifying.

[Griffin McElroy]

He's not a man. There's no man. There is only Pokemon.

[Justin McElroy]

He wouldn't have never had first sight, though.

[Griffin McElroy]

That's true. He could be a man carrying a bunch of cables around his body. You play as Ditto in this game and you are sort of transformed into the shape of your missing trainer, who you love and miss very much. And when other Pokemon see you, they're always like, whoa, a person. But then they're immediately like, oh, that's Ditto. That's cool. They're not like, how dare you dress up in the guise of our subjugators. Can I take a swing at explaining what is going on in this game? Because I think it's kind of a tough sell. In this game, you are playing as Ditto. You are in an open sort of sandbox world. There's a handful of areas in the kind of Dragon quest builders fashion that you are unlocking and jumping between. But they're all huge and open and full of resources for you to smash up and gather and craft into different things.

[Ross Freshwick]

Think of them like Minecraft. If you haven't played Builders, which I don't know that a lot of people have necessarily. It's Minecraft.

[Griffin McElroy]

It's Minecraft. Sort of. Yeah, we'll get there. And so between you know, crafting things and using these different Pokemon transform powers that you will unlock by meeting new Pokemon, you have to rebuild habitats for different Pokemon. In addition to a Pokedex, which exists in this game, there's also a habitat Dex that will give you clues. Sometimes you'll find little traces of Pokemon on the ground. It'll be like, hey, if you build, if you grow four flowers under a tree, maybe this type of Pokemon will show up and it'll show you a silhouette. But like, that's a combee. Like, that's definitely a Vespiqueen in there. Like, I know my shapes. Thank you so much. And so you do that and you make friends with them. You help them build their house or little habitat, how they want it, and they get happier and the environment of the area changes and improves, and you unlock new recipes and items and new skills, and you just keep on going, building new habitats, improving their homes and looking around.

[Justin McElroy]

Building, like, where a lot of games are more like Pokemon are pets, and you're traveling city to city and finding them in the wilderness. This is more like you're building a Pokemon reserve, and you're building it hand in hand with the Pokemon, right? It's kind of like you're building the. The Animal Kingdom park, where you're, like, creating all these habitats for Pokemon to run free, and you, like, attract new Pokemon. But you are. You're building basically a big natural world for the Pokemon to come kick it with you.

[Griffin McElroy]

You are building them, however, in these different. I don't know how many areas there are in the game. I've gotten to three. And then there's also, like, a sort of empty canvas world called Palette Town, which is very cute. But the other areas are, I believe, based on areas from other Pokemon games. So, like, you'll go into, like, the ruins of Pewter City, which is covered in volcanic ash, or you'll go into, I think Vermillion City is one of them. But again, no people, no signs of life. Nobody knows what's going on. And, like, there is a bit of a narrative arc to the game as you, like, find these old mainstay Pokemon that have been there for a long time and trying to figure out, using their information, like, what happened here, because obviously no one's around.

[Ross Freshwick]

You also read notes about, like, from humans that will be scattered around the world, and the humans will be, like, in letters saying, man, things are getting really bad. All the. We have no power and we need to get out of here. As fast as, like, shit went down, something bad happened.

[Griffin McElroy]

And it makes sense because in every Pokemon game, a Pokemon that, like, is in control of time and space or gravity or whatever almost destroys the world. So my theory, I haven't gotten very, like, to this point where I find out what happened to the world, but I bet it was one of those fucking guys.

[Ross Freshwick]

Okay, but you don't think it's, like, more about maybe humans weren't respecting nature?

[Griffin McElroy]

I would love it if that was the case, but no, I bet they're going to be like, guerritina came down and just. Just squished everything.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

They very much have it both ways. It is unquestionably a Game about climate collapse. There are literally logs that you find from characters who are like, the climate is going south. We can't stop it. We need to care about nature. There's things about hurricanes hitting, but then there's also something where it's like, I've joined Team Rocket and I know the trick to weather.

[Griffin McElroy]

Yeah, sure. The weather is happening because Climatesor has come and he's legendary and it's all his fault. It is really. I referenced Viva Pinata earlier. I did not know that that was sort of what this game was going for. And I think it's really, really spectacular kind of how they've captured that formula. Viva Pinata was a Rare title on Xbox360 where you had a garden and you had to attract different sort of pinatas to your garden by building different habitats for them or including things that they might like. What that game did that this doesn't is like. Sometimes what the pinatas wanted was other pinatas they could definitely eat. The Pokemon live in relative harmony here. But I guess that's only true if you do a good job of like making sure they're living in nice houses. If you build a, you know, a situation where they're living in squalor, maybe Hitmonchan will start, you know, taking swings at Heracross or something.

[Justin McElroy]

I actually found it surprisingly more satisfying to like tend to this world because it didn't have the compulsion of being more of a cityscape where you're trying to organize a town and figure out the layout for this building should be over here and this thing should be over here. I found that once I was just making environments throughout. There was not a compulsion to organize or min max or perfect things that you would in a lot of more life saving things. It felt a little bit more like an environment that I was just sort of literally organically and figuratively, organically growing.

[Ross Freshwick]

So in the second area, at least the second area that I went to is like a straight up like seaside town, like a city. And there are plots. And I think a lot of this is more tutorial and I think this game does it in a really smart way. There are plots where theoretically you could put buildings there. You can put buildings fucking anywhere. There is nothing saying it needs to go here. They're just sort of suggesting it and saying like you could. And that's what I love about this game is there's so much freedom. You compare it to an experience like Animal Crossing and I think anyone watching this trailer would be, oh, it's Animal Crossing meets Pokemon Straightforward. Animal Crossing intentionally puts so many barriers in your way in terms of what you can do, where you can do it, how you can place things, so on and so forth. And this game totally takes the governor off. You really have so much freedom in terms of what you're building. And I'm. Yeah, I'm pretty over the moon about it.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

At the same time, it borrows really well from those games. It borrows is what really does work. Like in Animal Crossing, there are times where it says, hey, come back tomorrow. That's just not ready today. And a great thing about having some of that in a game is it avoids burnout. Because the addictive nature of this game is real. Like you could just keep playing forever, just cleaning and building and hitting all of the little activities that it has from you Build another house, collect more of this water, 100 more plants, and you will burn out on that. But the way it stops that is saying, hey, if you're building something really big and important, it's not going to be ready for a few hours or it's not even going to be ready until tomorrow. And that encouragement to put the game down weirdly makes me want to play it longer. Like over the long term.

[Griffin McElroy]

I also think there's more shit to do. Like, there is. This game's fucking huge, guys. I did not expect. Sort of when you move on from the first area and you see the second area, it really kind of shows you like, oh man, I have really just kind of scratched the surface of this thing. There's a lot of tech in the game that is very cool. And a lot of that is really adapted From Dragon Quest Builders 2. Omega Force is the studio that developed that game and they co developed this game. And so there's stuff where like any place where you build, you know, a wall at least two blocks high and you throw a door on, it becomes a house. And now you can ask Pokemon to live in that house and you can customize it for him. There's also prefabs where like you can set down this prefab and it'll show up like in Animal Crossing where there's like a little gyroid wiggling around and it'll be like, drop some resources in, stick some Pokemon here. They will build it in either a couple hours or it'll be ready tomorrow. Or you can just like leave them to live in these more sort of natural habitats that you're like decorating or putting. It's really up to you. There's so many ways to kind of like increase the environment level, which is sort of the sort of end goal, I guess, of all of the different. Of all the different areas. But just the ways that they allow you to do that and the ways that they can kind of recognize like, what you are building, what you are trying to do and facilitate that is really, I don't know, like, really technically impressive also.

[Ross Freshwick]

Yeah. Justin, I'm curious for you as someone who obviously isn't like a huge Pokemon. Stan, can you just appreciate, like, do you like, just cut out the Pokemon parts of this and just appreciate it as like an open world building game

[Justin McElroy]

or is it great? Like. And it's not about cutting out the. The parts of this, like, Pokemon are cool. I like Pokemon. I think Pokemon games are boring.

[Ross Freshwick]

Yeah.

[Justin McElroy]

And I think that this is a lot more fun than a typical Pokemon game for a lot of reasons. But I think the main thing that for me was like, it was clicking is I think you can joke a lot about Pokemon, but the like, the whole thing about eating them and that there. Are they pets or. But the general arc of Pokemon is kind of like. It's been the same sort of loop for a very long time. There's a lot of like, things that are built in there, and it is the base.

[Ross Freshwick]

You mean like a gameplay loop or

[Justin McElroy]

a base metaphor is you're finding these Pokemon and capturing them and. You know what I mean? There is something in the. In the base of this game where, like, when you're trying to build a project, sometimes you need Pokemon for it, but they're just like any Pokemon and you just like, need them to come and help. And it's not a currency. Right. They're not. It's not like a, you know, you got to get this many points. It's like you are building houses for them and they're like helping you to build other things. There is a spirit that I think is at a base level of this game that feels more about, like, cooperation and like a, like a socialist paradise in the way that like, Pokemon never really feels. And I think that's cool. And I also think the way that they give you the abilities and have that evolve gameplay, like you get the jump, you get the water spray, you get to do it is so much more fun than find some scrotty row little Chihuahua that can shoot lightning out of its dick.

[Griffin McElroy]

Yeah.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Justin, I think your point here about stewardship is pretty radical in terms of these games because I think so many. The vast majority of open world games are about bending that world. Your Will. And usually that is you, like, remove the fog of war. And then that means you have an area where you can kill more things. Or you can force people to sell you things. Or in the case of even Animal Crossing, it's. You're getting tons and tons of stuff to buy. And then, like, just cover the environment. In here, you can buy stuff. But what you quickly discover is even the stuff you're buying is towards the goal of building these habitats. Right?

[Griffin McElroy]

Yeah.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Environment and decoration. You can do it, but it's not the point. Even when you are manipulating the land, you are very often doing it to either get resources to help other characters or to, like, literally terraform the world to be a more hospitable environment.

[Griffin McElroy]

Yeah.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

And that. I just. I actually struggle to think of big games that have that approach to open world design. And I think it's really something special

[Griffin McElroy]

as sort of, like, cool and unique and virtuous as, like, the game's sort of ethos is. It does also have its cake and eat it too. Henry was. Henry's a huge Pokemon fan. We spent, God, countless hours playing Scarlet and Violet together. He got really into Za and he was not sold on this game. He didn't necessarily think it was gonna sort of be for him. And then we played it and we played around in Pallet Town. He just took my switch and started goofing around in there. And then he found Scizor. And he was like, oh, yeah. Immediately. Just finding Scizor was enough to get him stoked without having to imprison Scizor inside of his battle sphere and make him come out whatever he wants. And immediately he was like, all right, let's see what this dude needs. His big thing is, we went to. There are these things called Dream Islands, which you can go to those you can fuck up. Those you can teach. Tear down to the studs. Because I guess they're not real. Maybe. Maybe they're not real. We found a church on one of them.

[Ross Freshwick]

I mean, a ghost takes you there.

[Griffin McElroy]

So a ghost takes you there. Maybe it's. And so we found a church. And he was like, take every block from that church. And so we destroyed this church, which he thought was really funny. And then he wanted to recreate the church on Pallet Town for Scizor to live in. And he was like, that's all he wanted to do for like, two whole days was just build this house. The church for Scizor. Coming along. I don't know. That element of collecting Pokemon is still there. Right? Like, you're still filling out your Pokedex, but, like, I don't know, everything that happens after that point is completely different from a Pokemon game.

[Ross Freshwick]

Griffin, you were talking about Pallet Town. Did you try using GameShare there?

[Griffin McElroy]

I did not try. So, yeah, the game has multiplayer. It's Switch 2 exclusive. You can game share, I guess, from Switch 2 to Switch 1. You tried it, Russ, right? Yeah, I tried it. You told me it was kind of restricted, so I.

[Ross Freshwick]

When I told you that, I still believe it is a little bit restrictive. It's definitely not the full game. You are restricted to the. To Pallet Town.

[Griffin McElroy]

Right.

[Ross Freshwick]

And building there and the person joining you, you really have to give them blocks and inventory items. They have all the powers that you have currently, but they don't necessarily have, like, full. Full capabilities. That being said, if you're just looking to, like, build habitats or build houses or discover Pokemon, that's all stuff that they can do.

[Griffin McElroy]

So, yeah, I don't know that we made it clear. You can game share to Switch one. So if you have a Switch two and a Switch one lying around, you can game share from the Switch two to the Switch one and then have this sort of limit.

[Ross Freshwick]

Honestly, to be clear, you don't need a copy. Obviously. There's no. It's only on Switch 2. It's a Switch 2 exclusive. So if you.

[Griffin McElroy]

That is a good option. I may end up doing that after all. Because the other option is buying a second switch 2. Because he's like, all about this game now.

[Ross Freshwick]

Yeah.

[Griffin McElroy]

And I don't know.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

I can't.

[Griffin McElroy]

It is. It is the first time. It's the first Switch 2 game that I have felt that compulsion of, like, Henry and I play a lot of games together. This is the first one where it's like, shit, man, this one might be so fun to play together. We might get so into this that, you know, it might be. It might. This might be the time I'm definitely gonna have to do it before the fucking winds and waves comes out. So eventually I'm gonna hit that bullet.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

I'm realizing, hearing y', all, that I think we've mentioned this a million times on the show of, like, when are we gonna actually get the Pokemon game? That is just in a world where you get to walk around and hang out with Pokemon. And this is that game. They actually finally made the game that we've been wanting forever. I also. I wanna run a little fan theory past y' all here, though. I think the text of this game is about people like us Specifically me and probably Justin, which is in this game's world, all humans have disappeared because we are all adults and we played the same damn Pokemon game a trillion times. And we've stepped away from it. And now we are literally returning to Pokemon World and having to rebuild it from the ground up. We're having to relearn the old text. We're having to meet all the Pokemon and learn all their details. We're getting caught up with, like, mentions of all the characters, characters from our era. Like, one of the first things that you find is a message about gym leader Spotlight Misty.

[Griffin McElroy]

Right.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

It is a welcoming back into the world of Pokemon from literally the ground up. And I think I am very curious to see what this does to the fandom and how this strikes people who have been away from it for a few years. Because as somebody who desperately loves Pokemon as idea, but has really struggled to get back into the main games, I felt like this. This is like, almost embarrassing to say. I, like, genuinely felt emotional playing this game. Like, I felt. Whatever. The thing is that people, I guess, is nostalgia that I very rarely feel and allow myself to feel here, where I was like, oh, my God, I am back. I am like something that has not been awakened is awakened. And that is. It's a really incredible thing. I mean, I just. I love this game.

[Griffin McElroy]

I think the reason I was a bit hesitant about this game, like, the lineage of, like, the developers and the sort of comparisons to Dragon Quest Builders 2, which I adore that game. I was like, I knew it was going to be pretty good. I did not expect it to be, like, as cool as all the stuff we've talked about here is. It is also pretty crunchy, like, mechanically, too. Like, if you want to sink your teeth into that stuff, there is, like, a system that you can use or not use, like, most other things in the game where, like, you can build a power grid or you can. There's like a cooking kind of element that you can get to later. Like, there's a.

[Ross Freshwick]

You can run water through towns, and then the ground around the water gets hydrated. Then you can plant stuff in the. Like, all that stuff is encompassed.

[Griffin McElroy]

Yeah. So, like, if that is stuff that appeals to you also, it's here, man. I am. I love this game, man. I think this is the best Pokemon spin off game I've ever played. And I am someone who still plays the games. I'm someone who still enjoys the franchise quite a bit. And this one just has really blown me away.

[Ross Freshwick]

Outside of Griffon, did anyone Else's children play this game.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

My son watched and was absolutely smitten with it.

[Ross Freshwick]

Yeah.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Just the very idea. Again, you're walking around, you're just surrounded by Pokemon who want to talk to you and give you gifts, like, yeah, what more could you want?

[Ross Freshwick]

Yeah. I would also say the other thing, when we think about builders for those that did play that game, builders, even though it does allow you to have a fair amount of freedom, is also incredibly linear in terms of quest progression and what you're doing. And you have to go to this place to unlock this thing and so on and so forth. And this is just so wide open. And like, you could spend 30 hours on the starting island and nothing is preventing you from doing that because they just will constantly give you stuff.

[Griffin McElroy]

I will say my only gripe at the game, truly my only gripe at the game so far is that inventory management is kind of a bear. There isn't. And this is something that is like,

[Ross Freshwick]

it's better than Animal Crossing.

[Griffin McElroy]

It's better than Animal Crossing, for sure. Like, just your. The sheer size of your inventory dwarfs that of Animal Crossing. And so, like, it's not a thing where your pockets are constantly filling up. It is a thing of, like, there's so many different items and pieces of furniture and materials and blocks and all kinds of different stuff. And the game is missing, like a, like, quick sort stacks from your inventory to chest or like, drop in a nearby chest. It does let you attach chests to, like, crafting benches and then pull materials from there. Like, it does some of that stuff. But just a button where after I get back from a dream island, I don't have to, like, remember, like, oh, where do I put. Where have I been putting my road blocks? Like, anything to make that process smoother would really, I think, buff out any of the rough edges on this thing.

[Justin McElroy]

We've covered a lot of stuff about this game, but before we move on, I think we've finally danced around it enough that I would like to talk about the big problem and that is the lead character of this game is horrible. It's a nightmare. It's a ditto pretending to be a human. And it is ghoulish.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

I mean, not just any human.

[Justin McElroy]

Not just any human. A human. It cares for guys. It walks around. There are several times I checked this. You could look around and not see anybody and still wear your skin suit. You don't let it drop. You know what I mean? It's for you. It's perverse, right? It's disgusting. Guys, this Is the worst jump scare jump scare of 2026. If you go towards a gap that's too low for you to stand in, you'll turn back into a Ditto and go underneath it.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

You.

[Justin McElroy]

Are you serious?

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Or if you drop.

[Griffin McElroy]

If you drop. Yeah. You turn into goo for like a second.

[Justin McElroy]

Four hours I'm playing as a man and then I'm just like confronted with the ditto ness of my nature in like a full screen.

[Griffin McElroy]

Like if.

[Justin McElroy]

Because it flips the perspective and I'm seeing through the ditto's eyes. Terrifying. This thing's horrible. That's what it thinks we are. Do you know what I mean?

[Griffin McElroy]

Yeah. There's a surprising amount of humor that works for me in this game too. Like when you learn these transformation moves you will usually learn them from the Pokemon who taught them. And when you transform into them, sometimes you'll turn into a Lapras so you can learn how to swim. But the Lapras still has that fucking completely 180 degree flat mouth. Like just blank dead eyed stare. And Lapras will be like hey, great job. You really. Oh fuck. Oh yeah. I mean yeah, most of it looks really great. The face is. Oh wow.

[Ross Freshwick]

Yeah.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Terrifying also because you look like a human. The rest of the world thinks you are like human and you act kind of like a human. You are the only one who carries around a smartphone. Nobody else is living. Like finally I'm free of the 5G and you're over here. Every time somebody talks to you, you're pulling out your phone, taking a picture of them, checking.

[Justin McElroy]

You don't know what you do with it because you've only seen humans have it. So you're like smushing it on your

[Griffin McElroy]

face and licking it like human fucking Professor Tangrowth I think is going to come out of this as the star, as the mvp, like breakout star of the game. He is the professor of this game and he had. He's just a big tentacly dude and kind of dangles. Yeah, Tanglith is a Pokemon. It's an evolution of Tangela. It like dangles over his head and he has a CD wrapped around it so it looks like a doctor's flashlight. He's a real unk. He's great.

[Ross Freshwick]

Also Magikarp says yo and sup dude.

[Griffin McElroy]

A lot of Pokemon say Yo and sup dude.

[Ross Freshwick]

Yeah, they noticed. They just have a chill vibe about them, which I wasn't necessarily expecting. But then I was thinking about it in the show whenever Pokemon hang out on their own and it's Subtitled, which does happen occasionally. It's basically that same tone. It's like, what's going on? Yo, man.

[Griffin McElroy]

Hey. Got any ketchup?

[Justin McElroy]

It's a lot of fun. It's really fun. I really like it.

[Ross Freshwick]

It's really fucking good. I'm gonna be playing this game for a very long time.

[Justin McElroy]

I think the fans are gonna hate it. It's gonna be a. I don't think so.

[Griffin McElroy]

I do not think so, man. I think people are absolutely fake. Buck Wildlife.

[Justin McElroy]

No, no, no. Let me go ahead and plant this flag. They are gonna hate it. They're gonna walk away from this thing so fast, it's gonna make your head spin. It's go.

[Griffin McElroy]

Ouch. Should we take a break and talk about more Nintendo? What's coming down the Nintendo pipe?

[Ross Freshwick]

You bet.

[Justin McElroy]

It's called the Nintendo Hole. We'll check it.

[Griffin McElroy]

The Nintendo pipe goes in the Nintendo. The Nintendo Hole.

[Justin McElroy]

Right.

[Griffin McElroy]

If you have a child or other family member who likes to play games on your iPad sometimes, you're probably well aware that a lot of those games do want to charge you $8 a week for you to do them. And you may think that's ridiculous. Why would a game that pretends to be a slime that You Touch Want $8 a week? I can't answer that for you. What I can tell you is that you should probably be using Rocket Money to catch that stuff in the dragnet and make sure that you're not spending money that you don't even know about. Rocket Money is a personal finance app that helps find and cancel your unwanted subscriptions, monitors your spending, and helps lower your bills so you can grow your savings. Obviously, the subscription catching thing is enormously useful for someone like myself, but if you need help sort of keeping all of your different accounts in a single place, a single dashboard, so you can kind of get a whole idea of your financial health. Rocket Money can do that too, and set budgets for things and automatically categorize your transactions so you can see where your money is going. There's a lot of stuff that Rocket Money does to help you with your money, and I've used it countless times in the past. Can't recommend it enough. Let Rocket Money help you reach your financial goals faster. [e-mail] Besties. That's RocketMoney.com Besties one last time. RocketMoney.com Besties.

[Ross Freshwick]

So Nintendo's release dates are, I would say, generally hidden. For example, we don't know what, like Q3 and Q4 really have in store for us?

[Griffin McElroy]

Yeah.

[Ross Freshwick]

There's really only three major first party releases that have been revealed for this year. Wait, is it 4? Does fire emblem have a release date yet?

[Griffin McElroy]

No.

[Ross Freshwick]

So there are really. Yeah, I'm looking at it now. Tomodachi Life Rhythm, Heaven Yoshi and the Mysterious Book and Fire Emblem, whatever the fuck it's called, I think are the four big ones that have been announced this year. Of those, I know Griffin, you're in particular pretty psyched about Tomodachi Life. I feel like I will not be able to play another one of these after playing Pocopia for quite some time.

[Griffin McElroy]

Oh, I mean that's a totally different thing. Dude, it's a fucking completely. You're gonna be so happy. So, Tomodachi Life Soap opera simulator. Basically I watched a bit of the direct about it. What is the subtitle? Tomodachi Life Island Getaway. I forget the.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

They're all the same, every subtitle.

[Ross Freshwick]

It is called Living the Dream.

[Griffin McElroy]

Living the dream. Tomodachi Life.

[Ross Freshwick]

April 16th is coming out.

[Griffin McElroy]

Was a 3ds game originally where you took Miis that either you had created or found in Streetpass or whatever and you live on an island with them. But there is no mechanic. The mechanics are threadbare. You are not collecting resources and crafting shit and doing all that jazz. You are mostly dropping down this weird sort of huge headed caricature of Whoopi Goldberg next to one of Anderson Cooper. And then they start talking and go to the beach and then they. And they sing a song together that you customize all the lyrics. It's just like it's going to be the only thing you see I think on TikTok for a while. Just because the, the. The potential there is for. For just like really out of pocket funny shit is through the roof and I'm sure that it will be.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

It's arriving at the perfect time with these micro dramas blowing up. Because like yes, on the Whoopi Goldberg Anderson Cooper example, they will then go take a ride on a carousel and propose. But then they interrupted by Kylo Ren. Because Kylo Ren is also in love. But so is Peter Griffin.

[Ross Freshwick]

Okay, but I guess like what do you. What is your input to that?

[Griffin McElroy]

You pick the guys that live there and you can sort of like drop them near each other and I don't know. I have not watched enough footage of this new game to know exactly what.

[Ross Freshwick]

But it's got to be basically the same as the previous one, right?

[Griffin McElroy]

I assume so. I don't know.

[Ross Freshwick]

Yeah.

[Griffin McElroy]

But yeah, that one will be that one will be fun.

[Ross Freshwick]

And then there's a Rhythm Heaven game that's coming out. I don't know when the last Rhythm Heaven game came out.

[Griffin McElroy]

Do we have the release date for the new rhythm?

[Ross Freshwick]

No, it's still 2026. It's called rhythm Heaven Groove.

[Griffin McElroy]

Yes. This Yoshi date, I think was just announced a couple of hours ago

[Ross Freshwick]

for

[Justin McElroy]

Mario as the voice of Yoshi.

[Griffin McElroy]

Yes, that's. That's true. Not probably in the game though, I don't think. No, maybe.

[Justin McElroy]

But you are going to get Louise Guzman as Wart, so. Yeah, I think I'll take it. Thank you.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Yeah.

[Justin McElroy]

Yeah, dude. I think so.

[Griffin McElroy]

I mean, I don't know. There's. There's a lot of. You know what I'm actually kind of excited about is Indiana Jones is coming to switch to on in May 12, which I would love to play that game in a mobile. How.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Like, how will that run?

[Justin McElroy]

Badly, I bet.

[Ross Freshwick]

I mean, Resident Evil Requiem runs great. On.

[Griffin McElroy]

I mean, guys, this thing is pretty fucking. We're far enough into the lifespan of this thing that like, I. It's pretty Diesel Man, I think.

[Ross Freshwick]

Well, and it's. It's also because of. What is it? Dlss or whatever technology? Oh, sure, yeah. Like, I think Requiem runs at 360p, but it just.

[Griffin McElroy]

They.

[Ross Freshwick]

Because they upscale it, it looks good. Like, it looks really good. So I think they're at this point where they've dialed in the upscaling tech. So it really does open a lot of possibilities for what can run versus not. I mean, who knows? It might launch and run like Dog Chain.

[Griffin McElroy]

Damn. We also got the Adventures of Elliot the Millennium Tales, which is genuinely pretty

[Ross Freshwick]

psyched about that game.

[Griffin McElroy]

Yeah, it looks cool. It's from the Octopath Traveler Bravely Default team looks great. I love all those HD 2D games.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Griffin, are you excited about Tokyo Xanadu? Are you that whole PSP or PS Vita era RPG stuff coming?

[Griffin McElroy]

I believe it's Kyoto Xanadu.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Oh, sorry. I think Tokyo Xanadu is maybe getting a re release and then Kyoto's. No, it's just Kyoto.

[Griffin McElroy]

Well, to answer your question, no, I don't know what you're talking about. I had to Google it.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Okay, okay, so what is it? It's a sequel to a PlayStation Vita game which was Tokyo Xanadu. And it's like basically like kind of a mishmash of Y's trails. And Persona seems interesting.

[Griffin McElroy]

I mean.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Yeah.

[Griffin McElroy]

Okay, that all sounds cool. I don't know much about it. Guys, I want to Direct. Doesn't it feel like it's been a minute since the last direct?

[Ross Freshwick]

Well, they just did one for the movie, so.

[Griffin McElroy]

Yeah, that doesn't. Yeah. So I don't give a shit about. I don't give a shit about that.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Yeah.

[Griffin McElroy]

Have we talked about the new Pokemon games? I think we did actually last.

[Ross Freshwick]

Yeah, we did on it.

[Justin McElroy]

Dude. Are you kidding me? It's called.

[Griffin McElroy]

Pathetic.

[Ross Freshwick]

Yeah.

[Griffin McElroy]

I mean, there. There's stuff that is. There's stuff on the docket that I am. That I am really looking forward to, but it does feel. I don't know, it feels a bit. It still feels a bit anemic, I do think.

[Ross Freshwick]

I mean, right now we're really looking, I think basically through probably July of this year. I think we have a pretty good sense these games will probably come out before July. If I had to guess. Maybe Fire Emblem goes to fall, I think. Well, I do have a prediction that says the new Zelda game is going to get announced this year. I don't think it's going to release this year.

[Griffin McElroy]

That's your prediction?

[Ross Freshwick]

Yeah.

[Griffin McElroy]

Okay.

[Ross Freshwick]

According. Well, my prediction to plant. We have an annual predictions thing and that was one of my predictions. I think it's going to get announced this year. Yeah. The big question is like what the big Q4 release is, because right now we have no idea. They, for all we know, could shadow drop it in the way. Practically in the way that they did Donkey Kong. Like, here's a game you didn't even know we were working on and it's coming out in like two months, so it'll be interesting. Yeah.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Do we think that the new Splatoon spinoff game comes out this year?

[Griffin McElroy]

Oh God, I forgot about that.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Yeah.

[Griffin McElroy]

Maybe Splatoon Raiders. Is that it?

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Yeah, it looks more like kind of like an open world, maybe cleaning game. I can't really tell what it is.

[Ross Freshwick]

That would be ironic.

[Griffin McElroy]

Yeah. I don't think we know a ton about it.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

I would like that. I love that splatoon stuff. I'm just not good at multiplayer.

[Ross Freshwick]

Yeah, I'm terrible and that's most of the game, so. Yeah, it'd be nice.

[Griffin McElroy]

I always really like the stories in the story mode in those games, but I never really get too particularly absorbed by the. Yeah, I miss. We're so far away from the world that we kind of like. I shouldn't speak for all of us because you guys got an earlier start in the industry than I did. But like, there is no rhythm, I feel like to this stuff anymore. There is no like, well, okay, well, in the early months of the year, you won't know a ton. And then you'll get like a little bit of stuff around GDC and then come E3, baby. That's where you find out what the year's got coming for you. And it just simply doesn't work like that anymore. And so it's weird to not know kind of when we could expect another round of big, you know, here's the new Zelda. Here's the new Mario.

[Ross Freshwick]

I would also add, even though you said earlier that this is an anemic list, which I sort of agree with. It feels a little light. But then you look at like, what is the PS5 exclusive list?

[Griffin McElroy]

Oh, dude, don't get me wrong. I'm not. I'm not to compare these. I think, yeah, I think they would probably come out or Xbox roughly the same. It still kind of feels like we are in that weird. Like, we are maybe around the time that games that would have been developed during COVID like shutdown sweeping the world would be coming out of it. Like, it does feel like we are in a bit of an abnormal.

[Ross Freshwick]

Lol.

[Griffin McElroy]

But like, I mean, there's still some fucking jams.

[Justin McElroy]

I also, man, this is not, maybe not the most charitable take, but, like, if I'm Sony, I'm probably kind of slow playing on the strategic front a little bit just to see what is happening at Microsoft, right? Like, I kind of feel like if I'm Sony right now, I'm like this, right? Like, I'm not doing anything, man. Yeah, y', all. I'm not releasing shit. I'm not doing shit. You guys just do, like, spin out

[Griffin McElroy]

over there and see where it lands,

[Justin McElroy]

see where it goes. And then we will build a strategy to respond to that. Cause right now, if I'm Sony, I don't know how do you respond to that?

[Griffin McElroy]

Wait, wait. Grab fucking blinks. The time sweeper at a fire sale. Yeah, this is what we're waiting on.

[Ross Freshwick]

There are reports saying that Sony will be moving away from bringing its single player games to PC. Huh. Which would be very sad.

[Griffin McElroy]

That sucks, man. Cause I'm real excited for Death Stranding 2.

[Ross Freshwick]

Well, that one is coming. This is more for moving forward. You wouldn't necessarily see. I think there is concern both on the Xbox side and on the PS5 side, that this move away from exclusives, as much as we all love it as consumers, is not helping the big studios. And they're gonna start rolling back a lot of those decisions.

[Griffin McElroy]

Well, yeah. I mean, there's no reason why they started releasing their games for broader markets in the first place. So, you know, I totally fine to just like.

[Ross Freshwick]

I mean, there was a reason. The reason was.

[Griffin McElroy]

No, I know, dude. I was being about as facetious as I got.

[Ross Freshwick]

Camera's eating shit. It's hard to read off.

[Griffin McElroy]

Yeah. Hey.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Hey, y'.

[Griffin McElroy]

All. I didn't put my Sark mark on there. That's true.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

One more Nintendo thing in two weeks. We're gonna get more Super Mario Brothers Wonder.

[Griffin McElroy]

Well, yes. Yeah, that's true.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

That is good news.

[Ross Freshwick]

I'm sort of excited. It is very multiplayer focused is the only hesitance that I have. It's like a multiplayer game is in

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

multiplayer because then you get to boss me around.

[Ross Freshwick]

Yeah, it's like competitive modes. It's just not necessarily what I'm playing Mario Wonder for. I'm like, playing it for new levels in campaign and things like that. So I'm a little bit not over the moon about it. I could be wrong. They do add, I think, a new character or two. I think you play as the star.

[Griffin McElroy]

I enjoyed that game. I don't know that I enjoyed it so much that I want to play it again already. I don't know. It didn't leave me with that particular hunger.

[Ross Freshwick]

Yeah, my fucking game. I played it enough. We have some reader mail. First one from Thrillhoe. I would love to hear about Griffin's choose youe Own Adventure book, which we've mentioned before, but let's hear more about it. What was your process for writing it? How did you determine how many choices to have? How did your experience as a DM impact how you approach the project?

[Griffin McElroy]

Yes. Thank you. I have a new book out. It's a choose your own adventure book called the Stowaway. And it is out today on Mario Day. And it was a lot of fun to write. It was pretty challenging, I guess. I haven't written a ton of prose books. I do mostly picture book stuff. And writing a book in second person was kind of a trip. But a lot of those things were guidelines that the ChooseCo, the company that does choose your own adventure books, kind of like, provided, like, hey, you know, you want to be shooting for around this much, around this many endings. I think the book has 27, 28 endings somewhere around there. And, you know, there's some suggestions of, like, you know, make sure you include some. You know, you got to get, like, a quick failure one in there. You got to get, like, some silly ones in there.

[Ross Freshwick]

Do you write from, like, the beginning to the end of one line?

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

No.

[Griffin McElroy]

So what I did is I had ideas for, like, it's set on a spaceship, and you're a kid who has stowed away on that spaceship, and you wake up and all the humans are gone, and all of the automated security of the ship have kind of gone rogue, and you have to kind of figure out why. And so knowing that that was the setting and everything, I just kind of thought about, like, what would be cool scenes. And then basically what I did was I had all this stuff written down in note cards, and I basically made a whatever, a mind web on the floor of my office with, like, you know, something like 70 note cards or something like that of, you know, here are the endings that I wanted to get to, and here's how they can organize. And, you know, it sort of organically arranges itself into, you know, four or five sort of main story paths that all branch out and go in sort of, like, different directions. But, yeah, it was really genuinely super duper satisfying to, like, get all of that organized and figured out. And there's a part of my brain that really liked, you know, organizing a flowchart. And I do think that, you know, having experience DMing as much as I have sort of helped that out. But yeah, it was truly a cool project and I'm really proud of it, and I hope people like it. It's 10 bucks. It's 10 bucks.

[Justin McElroy]

What do you want? What a steal is that bit download/griffinsoway.

[Griffin McElroy]

Yes, but at this point, you can also just go into a store and it'll probably be there.

[Ross Freshwick]

We have one more letter. This one comes from Dean. Question for the mailbag. Is esoteric Ebb on anyone's radar? It's Disco Elysium, like, wrapped in a classic D and D package. We've played it and talked about it on Resties, as a matter of fact. Has anyone else talked about it or played it Here?

[Griffin McElroy]

I want to play it really good.

[Ross Freshwick]

Really good.

[Griffin McElroy]

Dude.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Griffin.

[Griffin McElroy]

I know, I know. It's gonna slap ass. I am right now, like, being pulled between Mewgenics Pocopia and slay the Spire 2 just came like, yeah, it's crazy how much these hungry little monsters are, like, scrambling for. Like, hey, you know, you haven't tried this new class inspire yet. Like, oh, but you gotta finish that run. You almost made it to the Throbbing Domain. Like, it's these games.

[Justin McElroy]

Oscar the Grouch and Hank Hill are both already into the game, so, yeah, they're.

[Griffin McElroy]

But they're. They're in there. I just.

[Justin McElroy]

And I'm Michael Caine and I love the game too.

[Griffin McElroy]

It's tough to pick up a new one when you have all these. These boys that you know you're gonna have a great time.

[Ross Freshwick]

I would also say esoteric ebb is the sort of game you want to play. Mostly focused on just esoteric ebb because you do need to keep a lot of stuff in your head.

[Griffin McElroy]

Yeah.

[Ross Freshwick]

So. But. But strongly recommend it for people that like Disco Elysium. Definitely. But also just like general D and D. It's incredibly well written, offers a lot of freedom. It doesn't feel like Baldur's gate. It feels like its own thing.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

It's also not as heavy as Disco Elysium. I know Disco Elysium is funny, but like, this was a more inviting world to live in. So if that is putting you off, I would definitely check it out.

[Griffin McElroy]

It's going to credit them.

[Ross Freshwick]

Yeah, it's excellent. I think it'll has a chance of coming back for game of the year talk, so definitely worth checking out any honorable mentions. I'm watching season 50 of Survivor, which is really fucking good.

[Justin McElroy]

It's really good. It's probably going to be an all timer, y'.

[Ross Freshwick]

All.

[Justin McElroy]

You got to get in now. If you've never watched Survivor before, weird. It's probably not the time to start. It's a good time to start.

[Griffin McElroy]

Maybe it's not a good time to start.

[Justin McElroy]

Not a good time to start.

[Griffin McElroy]

I would not watch this one. That is sort of based on how much we all remember these guys. Nice. It's Memedis 90s kids. This season.

[Justin McElroy]

This is the end game for Survivor. It's a very. Not the end game, but this is the Avengers endgame of Survivor. Like everybody you love is back. I think this season will have to end with all the continuity being destroyed.

[Ross Freshwick]

Yeah, probably.

[Justin McElroy]

I would not be surprised.

[Ross Freshwick]

Sinks into the ocean.

[Justin McElroy]

Griff, I want to hear from you. Is Jeff going to retire after this one? What do you think Jeff done?

[Griffin McElroy]

No.

[Justin McElroy]

Never.

[Griffin McElroy]

No.

[Ross Freshwick]

What is he doing? He's not doing rock and roll Jeopardy. He's got nothing else going on.

[Justin McElroy]

Yeah, he would call it rock and roll Jeopardy if he. They should have switched the whole show to Jeopardy. When they had the whole hosting crisis.

[Ross Freshwick]

They blew it. Yeah, it's great. It's really super compelling and I'm enjoying it. And it might end up getting me into traitors because I am now aware that a number of Survivor people, in addition to friend of the show Ron Funches, a number of Survivor people also do traitors.

[Griffin McElroy]

So Rachel and I started watching Traders Australia season one. We basically were like, hey, we are between things to watch right now. Do we want to check this out? Because a lot of people have said this is a different form of the game because they do not cast inherently celebrities from the jump.

[Ross Freshwick]

Yeah. That is more enticing to me.

[Griffin McElroy]

They are making a US version of that. Sort of non celebrity traitors also. But it is also. Alan Cumming's not in it. It's set in. Is it Paul Hogan hotel? It is not Paul Hogan. I can't remember the host name. We've only watched one episode of it, so maybe I should. It is satisfying in the way of it is cool to watch people play this game for whom it feels like there are greater stakes because the money is, I would say, more significant. And you don't get that kind of baked in like, well, all these people are gonna be friends because they were all on Below Deck together or these people will be friends because they are gold medal award winning Olympian figure skater and commentators. Like it's. It is sort of just a clean slate and that feels a bit more, I don't know, it feels more exciting, more fair.

[Ross Freshwick]

Certainly.

[Griffin McElroy]

Certainly more fair. Yeah. But this is the season that people usually say like outside of the. This is like the best season of Traders that is out there. This and I think UK season two is the other one that people recommend.

[Ross Freshwick]

Where does one watch Traders Australia season one?

[Griffin McElroy]

Same place you watch Traders. I think it's on. I think it's just on the Peacock app.

[Ross Freshwick]

Oh, nice.

[Justin McElroy]

Yeah. Peacock has a lot of international versions of their shows, which is cool.

[Griffin McElroy]

Yeah. I've also been playing Slay the Spire 2 but like genuinely genuine fear. Genuine fear of like what that game's gonna. When you start playing. Ironclad is the only class unlocked, which is smart. And you go through a run and it like you see kind of how things are different and what is very much the same. And you fucking beat ass. Because it's the Ironclad. And you know the Ironclad like the back of your hand. And that is the run I am currently wrapping up right now. And it is a perfect way of making you remember like the old ways. I thought about holding off, right. Because I didn't want to happen. What happened to Hades 2 where I played early access a lot and then when the full game came out, like it was like pulling teeth to get back into it. But I am glad that I eventually did. But I don't know, man, it's Slay the spire. And I'm gonna play that a million times anyway, so it felt like, like a better idea to do the early access stuff here. That's how I'm at least, you know, getting by without feeling too guilty about it.

[Ross Freshwick]

But yeah, we will talk more about it next week for sure.

[Griffin McElroy]

Yeah.

[Ross Freshwick]

Justin and Plant,

[Justin McElroy]

the survivor thing is what I've been. I've been mainly.

[Ross Freshwick]

Yeah.

[Griffin McElroy]

Yeah.

[Ross Freshwick]

It's super.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Yeah. Mine is just a reminder that Death Stranding 2 on the beach is coming out on PC in like a week. Less than a week probably when you hear this. And it was our big game last year and now it's gonna be even. Well, not even better. It'll run well and have all the bonus PC features.

[Ross Freshwick]

I don't know if it's gonna run on Steam Deck. That is the real X factor.

[Griffin McElroy]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Ross Freshwick]

And for a lot of people, a determining factor of whether it's worthwhile or not. But yeah. This might be the last Sony for so first person single player game that they do on there.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

So I'm curious how that deal works because. Well, I'm getting way in the weeds but like it's co published by Kojima and they had done like publishing with 505 before and that's why it was on PC before all the Sony stuff last time. So maybe we would see Death Stranding or like Kojima stuff on PC in the future. But maybe.

[Ross Freshwick]

I don't know. I think we've done it.

[Justin McElroy]

Yeah. What's next up?

[Ross Freshwick]

Well, we're gonna do a grab bag next week. We're also going to do that long promised Resident Evil Requiem spoilers episode. So Chris Plant has a little homework. He needs to finish it up. He's very, very close, last I heard. Yes, but it'll be great. And then I wanted to thank the members over at the Patreon. That would be patreon.com thebesties I'm sorry. We have Aspen Shield, we have Trent C. We have Jamie R. And we have Sharanimo. Probably someone named Sharon. Very funny. I like that. Thank you for being patrons over at the Besties. Thank you to everyone else for supporting us. We have a new episode of Resties. We've talked about it already, which was the esoteric EBB episode that is up and live. And we have new bracket battles every month and all sorts of fun stuff. So please go over there and support us if you haven't yet. We love you. We love all of you. Make the show possible.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Do you think that maybe it's just Sharon is emo?

[Ross Freshwick]

No, because it's. It's imo. It's not emo.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Oh, Sharon, in my opinion.

[Justin McElroy]

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

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Sam.