Silksong is an Exceptional Metroidvania (If You Endure its Challenges)

Summary

The Besties Podcast

Episode: “Silksong is an Exceptional Metroidvania (If You Endure its Challenges)”

Date: September 12, 2025
Hosts: Chris Plante, Griffin McElroy, Justin McElroy, Russ Frushtick

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Overview

This much-anticipated Besties episode delves into the release of Hollow Knight: Silksong, the long-awaited sequel to the beloved Metroidvania. The hosts break down their initial experiences, discuss the game’s difficulty, and analyze major gameplay shifts from its predecessor. Along the way, the crew shares personal Silksong launch day stories, debates on difficulty, and offers candid takes on design, exploration, and challenge. The episode also touches on upcoming games they’re excited for, AR glasses, and brings some classic Besties banter.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Personal Silksong Launch Stories

• Russ’s Calamity-Filled Launch Day (00:06 – 04:37)
  • Russ recounts a day full of obstacles: failed downloads, canceled childcare, and a flooded apartment. Despite it all, he squeezes in 30 minutes of Silksong before Justin jokingly “spoils” a fake tip about an “OP yo-yo” weapon, leading to an entertaining exchange about spoilers and pranks in the group’s chat.
    • Memorable quote:
      “You actually can't babysit your child. You can only parent them.” – Griffin (00:41)
    • “It is so not a spoiler and yet it is enough to really cap off you.” – Griffin (04:00)

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2. Silksong — Atmosphere, Vibe, and Visuals

• Immediate Impressions & The Magic of Place (09:03 – 11:51)
  • The team overwhelmingly agrees that Silksong recaptures and deepens the immersive, atmospheric feeling of Hollow Knight.
    • “I have not felt so sort of like transported by a game in a very, very, very long time, if ever.” – Griffin (10:41)
• Animation and Artistic References (11:51 – 12:26)
  • Justin compares the game’s look to Don Bluth’s lush, painterly animation of the 80s, praising its abundance of frames and visual generosity.
    • “It reminds me of a lot of the non-Disney animation of the 80s... Don Bluth, exactly.” – Justin (11:51)

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3. Audio and Environmental Storytelling

• Sound Design Standouts (12:56 – 14:06)
  • Russ is blown away by the audio design, especially with headphones. Early moments are highlighted, such as following distant singing through echoey caves to meet the map vendor.
    • “I don’t think I’ve ever played a game with better audio design than this fucking game.” – Russ (13:03)
• Holistic Cues & Environmental Progression (14:06 – 14:38)
  • Chris notes subtle visual and audio cues guiding players—like objects signaling you’re close to key NPCs—which he finds “incredibly clever.”

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4. Approachability & Difficulty

• A Gentler Introduction? (14:46 – 15:49)
  • Chris, who bounced off Hollow Knight, feels Silksong is more approachable, with clearer early direction and puzzle-solving.
    • “With that confinement, I feel like you have the opportunity to get the core parts of the mapping system before you get thrown out into the murkiness.” – Chris (15:49)
• Combat & Moveset Changes (15:55 – 17:18)
  • The combat is compared to “a Platinum game” for its speed, intensity, and the aggressive use of the moveset. Players are encouraged to use all tools, not just the classic “poke, poke, dodge” formula.

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5. Balancing Difficulty & Exploration

• Difficulty Spike and Frustration (17:34 – 19:56)
  • Justin admits he’s struggling. Early game deaths, punishing runbacks, and a sense of not having the right toolkit make repeated attempts exhausting.
    • “There was too much distance between the safe point and the boss that I was fighting.... I just found that frustrating.” – Justin (17:43–18:32)
• Early Game = Hardest Game (20:07 – 20:33)
  • Russ and Griffin agree the opening hours are the hardest and least fun due to limited kit and punishing bosses—an issue that starts to resolve with upgrades and tools.

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6. Evolving Metroidvania Mechanics

• Crests Mechanic (22:02 – 24:53)
  • Russ explains the major addition of Crests, item-based subclasses that reshape attacks, abilities, and playstyle—offering far greater variety and adaptability than the first game.
    • “Crests are basically subclasses or even classes that you can find in the world.” – Russ (23:08)
• Personal Playstyles and Tools (24:53 – 26:28)
  • Griffin highlights that different playstyles are not just possible but encouraged by the variety of crests. However, he criticizes punishing runbacks to bosses and notes Team Cherry is already patching those pain points based on feedback.

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7. Metroidvania Philosophy & Player Agency

• “Wasting Time” vs. Meaningful Challenge (28:03 – 30:04)
  • Chris voices a classic Metroidvania critique: feeling the game wastes time through backtracking or artificially inflating length via grinding or repetition, noting that Silksong mostly avoids (but doesn’t eliminate) this trap.
• Non-Linearity and Signposts (29:09 – 30:35)
  • Discussion of “Hunter’s March”, an area accessible too early that spikes in difficulty without warning—a classic Metroidvania risk.

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8. Reception and Final Thoughts

• Russ’s Verdict: A New Favorite (30:35 – 31:34)
  • Russ is all-in, calling Silksong potentially his new favorite Metroidvania, “better than Hollow Knight.”
• Chris’s Surprise Enjoyment (31:34 – 32:16)
  • Chris, a genre skeptic, is surprised by how much he’s enjoying Silksong and expects more discussion come Game of the Year season.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Atmosphere:
  “That vibe, the fact that they have been able to do that again, and I think much more even effectively than in Hollow Knight, is really above everything else.” – Griffin (10:41)

• On Audio:
  “I don’t think I’ve ever played a game with better audio design than this fucking game.” – Russ (13:03)

• On Difficulty:
  “I don’t think I’m gonna be able to hang with this one. I just found it pretty frustrating.” – Justin (17:34)

• On Playstyles:
  “I found a few at this point. And the one that I keep coming back to is the Crest of the Reaper… It creates this playstyle where it’s like, I’m gonna heal, I’m gonna use my moves. As long as I don’t get hit and I keep hitting the enemy, I can just keep this chain going.” – Griffin (24:27)

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Timestamps for Important Segments

| Time | Segment | Description | |-----------|----------------------------------------------|-------------| | 00:06 | Russ’s Silksong launch day/calamities | Personal story, group banter, and joking ‘spoiler’ | | 05:17 | Episode proper begins | Intro and pivot to Silksong discussion| | 09:03 | Setting spoilers boundary | Decision to discuss up to ‘Bellheart’ town| | 10:06 | Sense of place & atmosphere praise | Griffin leads discussion, all respond| | 12:56 | Audio design/playing with headphones | Russ’s rave| | 14:46 | Chris on approachability for newcomers | More directed, gentle intro| | 15:55 | Combat – action comparison | More kinetic, less passive than Hollow Knight| | 17:34 | Justin’s struggle and criticism | “I don’t think I’m gonna be able to hang…”| | 22:02 | Russ explains Crests and expanded loadouts | Major new mechanic| | 24:53 | Griffin: Different playstyles and early-game pain points | | 28:03 | Debating “wasting time” in Metroidvanias | Genre criticism| | 30:35 | Russ: “This is doing it all for me…” | High praise| | 31:34 | Chris: “Surprised how much I’ve enjoyed it” | Genre convert|

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Additional Segments

Upcoming Games Discussion (34:11 – 41:15)

• Each host picks a title they’re excited about for the rest of 2025:
  Sonic Racing Cross Worlds (Chris), The Outer Worlds 2 (Justin), Pokemon Legends: Z to A (Griffin), Mina the Hollower (Russ), along with Kirby Air Riders, Cairn, Ball Xpit, and the looming Metroid Prime 4.

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Gadget Pick: AR Glasses (45:09 – 49:47)

• Justin reviews the Xreal One AR glasses, describing their travel utility: “If you are watching a lot of TV, movies, video games in hotel rooms or planes... it’s a fantastic experience.” (46:01–49:47)

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Lightning Recommendations & Mailbag (50:00 – End)

• YouTube recs: Griffin praises Kasso (a Japanese skateboard challenge show), and Russ highlights the Secret Base Scorigami video.
• Movie rec: Chris recommends “Halloween 3: Season of the Witch” for its cult-status fun.
• Mailbag Q: “What’s harder: a financially successful game or book?” – Group agrees making games is the tougher gamble but encourages making art for joy, not profit.

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Conclusion

“Hollow Knight: Silksong” is lauded for its deepened atmosphere, intricate and evolving gameplay, and for offering a challenging but rewarding experience for Metroidvania lovers. While newcomers and veterans alike may be frustrated by punishing difficulty spikes—especially in the early game—the new Crests system and multiple playstyles make exploring Hallownest’s dangerous world richer than before. The Besties’ verdict: Silksong is a high bar for the genre, rewarding those who push through its early, imposing walls.

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Links/References

• Hollow Knight: Silksong (up to Bellheart, spoilers avoided past this)
• Xreal One AR Glasses
• Kasso (YouTube)
• Secret Base: Scorigami (YouTube)
• “Halloween 3: Season of the Witch” (film)

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Episode Tone:
Conversational, irreverent, passionate, and honest—with in-jokes, gentle ribbing, and deep genre knowledge throughout. The hosts speak as unapologetic fans but aren’t shy about identifying flaws.

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(For a full listing of mentioned games and media, see Besties Fan Newsletter)

Transcript

[Russ Frostic]

Justin, do you feel bad?

[Justin McElroy]

Yes.

[Russ Frostic]

Just in general.

[Justin McElroy]

How did you know? It's a good guess. Honestly.

[Russ Frostic]

I'm gonna talk a little bit about my Silksong day. The day that Silksong came out. This is how the day went. I woke up in the morning, I was like, I'm gonna Download silksong at 10am Eastern. Steam totally shit the bed and wouldn't let me buy it. And then I had to record with Chris Plant an episode of Resties. And then I got off of that and couldn't download it. And then my aftercare for my child fell through, so I had to babysit my child. It wasn't until I was.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

I don't think you babysit.

[Griffin McElroy]

We gotta take a big stop right there, my man. Because you actually can't babysit your child. You can only parent them.

[Justin McElroy]

I think Russ is having some Andrew Dice Clay style fun there, guys. I don't wanna hang later on it too much.

[Russ Frostic]

Okay?

[Justin McElroy]

He's the bad boy.

[Russ Frostic]

Okay.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Okay, Dice man. Keep going, keep going, keep going.

[Griffin McElroy]

I just wanted to make it explicitly clear for the listener. Clay shit.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

It might help if. And people don't get to hear it very often, but if you actually use your natural accent, use a nasty voice.

[Griffin McElroy]

If you're gonna say nasty stuff, do a nasty voice.

[Russ Frostic]

Hickory dickory dock. I had to babysit my child. Great.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Now. Now it makes sense.

[Justin McElroy]

Okay, you know, in 2025, maybe that is edgy. You know, I don't know we allowed to even say that anymore.

[Russ Frostic]

So we go through the whole process and 8:30 rolls around and my child is sleeping in his bed. It's time. I've got. Finally, I've been able to download Silksong. It downloads to the Steam deck. I'm ready to start playing. I literally turn the lights off, put headphones on, and I'm going to like be in it. And I suddenly hear a click, click, click coming from my bathroom. And I go in there and water is pouring out of my outlet. What? Which is not a good thing.

[Griffin McElroy]

No, that's crazy because for me, for me, electricity comes out.

[Russ Frostic]

Yeah, this is literally. I'm not joking. 30 seconds into playing the game. I haven't even gotten intro. Apparently there was a pipe that broke several floors above me in my apartment building and water was flowing down.

[Griffin McElroy]

Is it all the drilling? It's all the drilling that's happening.

[Russ Frostic]

Part of the drill. Yes, part of the drilling. We've heard the drilling before. Okay, so that happens. I call the downstairs, I talk to the super. We're figuring out where?

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Pause, pause, pause, pause, pause. You do let them know that it's silksong day, right?

[Russ Frostic]

Yes.

[Griffin McElroy]

Yeah. Okay.

[Russ Frostic]

I let them know. I mean I sent them an email two weeks ago making sure they were aware and yet this still happened. Takes about an hour for things to calm down. Water is no longer pouring from my outlet. Hooray. And I'm able to play about probably 30 minutes of that nice of so far.

[Justin McElroy]

I imagine him starting to play in like a rocking chair and he's like, time to game. Well actually his little sleeping cap falls over. So here's the little bubble comes out of his nose and then suddenly I.

[Russ Frostic]

Get a notification on my phone and someone has sent a slack message to the besties. Now I know if it's a slack message it must be important work related information.

[Justin McElroy]

Oh no, I just remembered. Okay.

[Russ Frostic]

Now as we all know, I'm not a big fan of spoilers. At 11:09pm on that night, what does Justin send? Justin, you want to do it?

[Justin McElroy]

I'd rather not.

[Russ Frostic]

Okay, so Justin sent pro tip the yo yo is op. Once you get the chain.

[Griffin McElroy]

Listener. This is not a real. This is not a first of all listener. You probably don't care about this as much as Russ will.

[Justin McElroy]

That's so fucking fun now that you've told me. Contextualize it. That's actually one of the best jokes I ever did. Oh man.

[Griffin McElroy]

Russ, that story tells so much about you. I think the ending is the most demonstrative because it is so not a spoiler and yet it is enough to really cap off you.

[Russ Frostic]

I mean it's literally not a spoiler because it was bullshit. Right, but how would I know that?

[Griffin McElroy]

Right?

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

So when you're kind of like fading in and out of this gentle slumber.

[Russ Frostic]

Yes. So I sent a very snippy slack message to Justin and said in the morning.

[Griffin McElroy]

Really good.

[Russ Frostic]

Well, not to Justin. I sent it to all of us.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Yeah, sure.

[Russ Frostic]

The group don't talk about Silks song in here. And Justin admitted that he was baiting me.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Yeah.

[Russ Frostic]

So that was my silksong day. How. How was your guys day? Fun.

[Griffin McElroy]

Yeah, pretty good. But we should probably talk about the game too.

[Russ Frostic]

Okay, fair enough.

[Justin McElroy]

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

[Griffin McElroy]

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

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

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

[Russ Frostic]

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

[Justin McElroy]

Hello and welcome to the besties. A besties Episode long, long awaited, Long anticipated. We are talking about Hollow Knight Silk song, Chris Plant. I don't know if it even needs explanations. Are you fucking kidding me?

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

I'm telling you, jack shit. We've been talking about this game for years. It's a sequel to Hollow Knight and it finally came out. But it's faster and harder. Unless it's not harder and it's easier and it's better. Unless it's not better. And the discourse is hot and fast. And we're gonna get right to it after this. Wait, not after this break. Russ Rushdig, please.

[Russ Frostic]

Thank you. We have some news actually before the the ad rolls here. And this will be relevant because we are launching a new tier to our Patreon.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

What?

[Russ Frostic]

We've. Yeah.

[Griffin McElroy]

What's that even mean, Russ? I'm scared and pissed off, but excited.

[Russ Frostic]

We've been doing this Patreon for about a year and a half now. We love you guys. We really appreciate the support. It's awesome.

[Griffin McElroy]

And at this point there's probably the vibes are great.

[Russ Frostic]

55Ish episodes.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Way more than that. Way more than that. I think we're at 55. I think we're like over like 60.

[Russ Frostic]

Approaching 60. Okay, maybe 60. Anyway, a shitload of bonus content that is only available to Patreon subscribers is all there. So that's all great.

[Justin McElroy]

There's a bunch of the resties. There's our monthly Besties bracket episodes. There's the Rusties. There's the Rusties, which is Russ's annual adult video award that he does. He does this quarterly, folks. You would think annual would make sense, but he says there just too much.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

It needs some green.

[Russ Frostic]

No, we're trying to encourage people.

[Griffin McElroy]

We want people to do this thing.

[Russ Frostic]

Ever since we launched, there's been a request and that request has been can we get the main episodes like the episode you're listening to right now, ad free? And now you can, because we are launching. We've launched in theory, assuming everything goes well, we've launched a $10 tier that includes all of the bonus content you've currently been getting as well as all of the main feed episodes completely ad free. So that will be up now. Hopefully that is something you guys are interested in. I know a bunch of people have asked about. Should be noted that we are once again just straight copying what Blank Check did on their Patreon because they seem to be good folks that know what they're doing. So that's what we've done here. And yeah, so if that's of interest. I know for people that haven't subscribed yet or don't have an active subscription, there's a bit of a discount for signing up things like that. So hop on over patreon.com thebesties for all that cool stuff with the tier and that's it.

[Griffin McElroy]

And we should make it clear if you don't want to do that, you still can listen to the regular episodes.

[Russ Frostic]

With not going anywhere. You'll still have the ad supported main feed episodes. Those are there. Or if you just want to stay at $5, you'll just get the bonus content and the ad supported episodes of the main feedback. This is really just for people that either want to support us more or just want ad free main feed and they'll all be in. You could actually choose. They'll all be in one giant feed with all the bonus and the regular episodes. Or you can separate them out if you want. According to Patreon, people that know more than me, that's it. Let's take an ad break. Let's do it.

[Griffin McElroy]

Or not.

[Russ Frostic]

Or not.

[Griffin McElroy]

If you're a part of the new tier.

[Russ Frostic]

Wow.

[Justin McElroy]

Wow. Hey. Welcome.

[Griffin McElroy]

Wow.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Here's your chance to try it out.

[Justin McElroy]

So Hollow Knight Silksong is here. The wait is ogre and it's. What do you guys think? How is it living up to your expectations?

[Russ Frostic]

How do we even tackle this?

[Griffin McElroy]

It's such a. Yeah, it's tough. We should lay this out first. We are only talking up to a certain point in the game. Obviously with Russ on the line, we're extremely cognizant about spoilers. And so we are not going to go too far past an area that's maybe like halfway through act one. Maybe a good like eight or six.

[Russ Frostic]

I think we can give town names. I don't think a town name is a spoiler.

[Griffin McElroy]

Well, I don't know, man. With you it's always a moving target.

[Russ Frostic]

It would be a spoiler for me, but I think for most normal people it wouldn't.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Yeah, you set the boundaries fresh. Where are we at?

[Russ Frostic]

So there's a town called Bellheart which is like a critical path town. It takes, I mean depending on skill, probably seven or eight hours to reach. If you played a ton since launch, you've probably reached it already. So we were thinking everything before that we'll cover here. We won't be touching any late game stuff in this conversation, but obviously you know, anything before reaching Bella Heart is fair game. So if you want to wait to listen to this until you've gotten to that point. Feel free if you don't care like most people, I'm sure. Rock and roll.

[Griffin McElroy]

Okay, can I. Can I kick things off with this? And it's the thing that I keep kinda coming back to as I've played. I think I've put about 20 hours into silksong at this point is I had forgotten the thing that made Hollow Knight so special and so memorable, which is this sense of place and atmosphere and vibe that Team Cherry was able to sort of accomplish of being a little bug in a big sprawling.

[Russ Frostic]

Bigger bug now.

[Griffin McElroy]

Yeah, bigger bug. Slightly bigger bug now. In a threatening, sprawling world that constantly scares and surprises and overwhelms you. That vibe, the fact that they have been able to do that again, and I think much more even effectively than in Hollow Knight is really above everything else. There's a lot about this game that is working for me so well. I have not felt so sort of like transported by a game in a very, very, very long time, if ever. Difficulty is like the big conversation about this game and it's always one that is so fraught and turns people into, I don't know, buttholes sort of on either side of the conversation. But. But the way that this game makes you pay attention to everything and care about every hit you take and every jump you make, because of that kind of like, atmosphere that it surrounds you with. It is a feat, it is an accomplishment that I think cannot be overstated.

[Justin McElroy]

The way it looks, especially now that you've mentioned the bigger bug and like the animation. I kept trying to think, like, what is the vibe that is I'm connecting with here. It reminds me of like a lot of the non Disney animation of the 80s.

[Russ Frostic]

Like Don Bluth stuff.

[Justin McElroy]

Don Bluth, exactly like that. It's a very generous, like, lush kind of animation, you know what I mean? There's almost more frames than you need to really bring across the fluidity of it. Like, you feel that sort of an almost sort of like painterly aspect to it as you're going through.

[Griffin McElroy]

And so crazy varied too, like beyond the point we're going to talk about today. You will reach areas that don't look anything like places you have been before. And all of a sudden it's like, oh, fuck, the rules are different here. I need to be on my fucking toes. And that sense of constant alertness that the game requires, it dovetails. It feeds back into just the appreciation for the. For the vibe in the environment.

[Russ Frostic]

I mentioned earlier when I was playing, I plugged in headphones, did Anyone else try playing with headphones?

[Griffin McElroy]

No, I don't think so.

[Russ Frostic]

I don't think I've ever played a game with better audio design than this fucking game. The audio design in this game is fucking through the roof insane. There's a moment very, very early on when you are going through a cavern or whatever and you hear in the distance Somehow it's a 2D game and yet you hear it in the distance. Just the echoing of a song from someone that is singing.

[Griffin McElroy]

Beautiful Chris.

[Russ Frostic]

And your footsteps are echoing on like the cave floor and you can hear just like the whispers of air sneaking through the cave. And you get closer and closer to this singing voice and you meet the person who turns out to be like your main map vendor effectively. And that vibe is just like so precision tuned in ways that I really can't think of a single like oral experience that I've ever had that is better than this game.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

And it's holistic. Yes, I. It's. It's incredible how well they do that. And they do that in a lot of other ways. There are lots of subtle audio cues and then there are subtle visual. Visual cues. So like when you're meeting this character chakra, there are little items that serve no real purpose other than to cue you in to you are getting closer and closer to this person. There are large objects in the environment that also cue you in that you are getting closer and closer to this person. It's so incredibly clever.

[Russ Frostic]

I'm curious, Plant, as someone who we've talked a lot about the fact that this genre does not click with you.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Yeah.

[Russ Frostic]

How you found this one in particular, because in my experience in playing it, it does feel more directed, although not extremely directed at all, but more directed than Hollow Knight was.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Yes. I'm so glad you asked because I bounced off Hollow Knight and there are a few things that have changed. One, didn't just have a kid. Let me tell you. Bad time to play a game where you need to remember an entire giant world is when you don't remember anything, including your own name. So that was a huge game changer. Two, you write more directed from the drop. This game does a pretty clear job of confining you just enough that you feel like you know what you're doing before you get lost in its world. And most importantly, with that confinement, I feel like you have the opportunity to get the core parts of the mapping system before you get thrown out into the murkiness, which I did not feel personally with Hollow Knight. Maybe that is. Maybe I'm Wrong, I assume.

[Russ Frostic]

No. This game gives you the mapping stuff earlier and earlier.

[Griffin McElroy]

Yeah, way easier. Yes.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

I also just found the combat very quickly to be much more exciting. And again, I don't remember much of Hollow Knight or why I bounced off. I remember it being a little bit slower or not muddier because it's not bad in that way. But this reminds me of something closer to a platinum game. Honestly, it feels like pretty intense action combat. The amount of aerial work that I'm doing when I'm playing the game feels like the sort of thing I like doing in action games. And what's really, really blown me away about this game, as somebody who is less interested in the Metroidvania stuff, is your moveset is so small, but it wants you to use every piece of it. So, like, I pictured this game as, oh, I'm gonna do the normal, like, poke, poke, dodge. Like, that's the system here. That is not how the combat works. It is, at least for me. I have been zipping through it and have maybe had to retry a boss once or twice. As long as I continue to play really aggressive, and I'm jumping and I'm doing the dive poke, and I'm doing stab, stab, and then diving downward. Actually, once you get to dash, it's wild how much you benefit from just using every little thing that it gives you.

[Griffin McElroy]

It does so well at catering to different play styles. And I think there's a lot to talk about there, but I am curious to hear Juice's thoughts about it, because I don't. Were you a big hollow knight?

[Justin McElroy]

Yeah, I finished it. I played all of it.

[Griffin McElroy]

How is Silksong treating you?

[Justin McElroy]

Yeah, I don't know. I don't think I'm gonna be able to hang with this one.

[Griffin McElroy]

I really.

[Justin McElroy]

I just found it pretty frustrating. The boss, whatever that I ran into were, like, difficult, but, like, once you learn the patterns you like, it was a little bit more manageable. But I would, like. I just kept getting kids. I would need to pace myself a little bit too much. There was, like, too much distance between the safe point and the boss that I was fighting. And I would, like. Takes a little bit too long to get back to the guy, and I would, like, die and get hurt on the way back to him and just found that frustrating. It felt. I think that it feels more like a Dark Souls or, like, that level of, like, find the perfect route, master the perfect way through, and, like, there's things like the little platforms that you have to jump at diagonally to, like, to move off of.

[Griffin McElroy]

Yeah, yeah.

[Russ Frostic]

So just a question, because you're right, this is before the cutoff. So is. Is the thing that like, destroyed you a little bit mentally was the. This Chapel of the Beast fight?

[Justin McElroy]

I don't know if.

[Russ Frostic]

No big bug in a cave.

[Justin McElroy]

No, I beat him. Oh, a big bug in a cave. Hold on. You described them all. It wasn't. And it wasn't even like. I mean, the first boss fight that I did, the Bell Beast, was the first one that I like. And the Bell Beast is like, once you learn. Feels a little slow, but once you learn it, it's not that hard. Once you learn that there's a pattern and once you get the pattern and once you realize, like, oh, this is much more. This is really the kind of experience where if you look at other Metroidvanias or search action. Thank you. Those battles, the big fights in there are a lot more about utilizing tools a lot of times than they are about pattern memorization. And there are some that are like, on the harder end, like Prince of Persia was a little bit. Not to this level, I don't think at all. But for me, I kind of wanted to do more the exploration and I felt like, so sort of hampered by how careful I had to be all the time. That it made it. That sucked some of the. The fun out.

[Russ Frostic]

Yeah. For what. For what it's worth, I found the. It's. It's by no means an easy game. It is a hard game. I did find the early parts of the game to be some of the hardest.

[Griffin McElroy]

The hardest.

[Russ Frostic]

Because you really don't have much of a kit at all.

[Griffin McElroy]

And not just hardest, but like most unpleasant. Like, not most. Least enjoyable. Because before you will, you can reach a point where it's like, okay, I've got some traversal upgrades. I know I can go back and maybe find this mask shard. And if I go into that fight and I have an extra mask, that's going to. That's going to help me do that a lot. But when you start the game, you don't. You only have this one.

[Russ Frostic]

This one Sekiro at the beginning of the game where you're like locked into a playstyle.

[Justin McElroy]

And I also have like 400 of the, I don't know, chits, books, Rosary beads. No, not rose shards. Oh, yeah, shards. I got 400 shards and I can't get any more of those. There's a limit. I can't get more. I haven't found any place to use them. But there is a limit. And Then the rosary beads, you lose those if you die, you know, and you don't get back to your. Your thing. But I was confused about that because it seems like there's a finite number of them. Right?

[Russ Frostic]

Yeah. So my. My interpretation, Justin, is you might feel like you're being more critical pathed than you actually are. Because really at this point where you're at there is a ton specifically involving like your. A ton of aspects involving your actual like kit that you haven't found yet that you might think you have to take on these boss fights with what you have.

[Justin McElroy]

But yeah, I don't know why.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

I would say probably from the getting to them, there's an item that you get that completely changes how your jump dive kit works, that makes it usable. And those are the things that I.

[Russ Frostic]

Think or like you don't have any tools. And we haven't actually talked about tools, but it's a big mechanic.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Let's come back to that. I do want to hear Griffin fresh. I feel like you two are the ones who've been waiting a long time. Where are you at on it?

[Russ Frostic]

I'm through the roof in love with it. I've played about as much as Griffin has. And the things that I love about Metroidvania's first action game. Sorry are all here. It's just done at such a high level of quality and just variety. I'll talk about a couple things that really stand out to me. I had just played Hollow Knight. I mentioned on the episode last week. I had just played through Hollow Knight before this. And I was a little bit worried that like I might be burnt out or something like that. But this game actually takes a lot of turns that Hollow Knight never even approaches. One of which is. And we'll talk about it because it's before that cutoff, there's something called Crests. So Crests are basically subclasses or even classes that you can find in the world. They're items that allow you that. That allow you to change your primary attack, the gear that you have equipped, how you interact with the world, what your down stab is like, all sorts of aspects of the like way you actually fight that felt like a total shift from how they were approaching Hollow Knight where Hollow Knight's combat plant you kind of mentioned it was attack attack dash or sometimes cast a spell. Like that was really. There wasn't a lot to it. And here you are given so many tools at your disposal to really transform the way you interact with this game that I was not expecting at all. In Addition to all the other stuff that I love about Hollow Knight, which is exploration and world design and audio design, et cetera.

[Griffin McElroy]

Yeah, it really didn't click for me until I found one of those because I fucking hated the diagonal down dash. Like that pogo mechanic is so integral to Hollow Knight and this game. And I was like, well, I've done it a million times and it still doesn't feel good. But finding one of those crests completely changes your moveset. And also they are built for different playstyles, which I think is the most brilliant thing. I found a few at this point. And the one that I keep coming back to is the Crest of the Reaper. And what that does is after you heal, which you use some of your silk to heal, it puts you in this state where if you can hit enemies without getting hit, it will spawn extra little silk orbs in the environment. So it creates this playstyle where it's like, I'm gonna heal, I'm gonna use my moves. As long as I don't get hit and I keep hitting the enemy, I can just keep this chain going of healing and powers and all this stuff. There's one where after you. He puts you into this rage state where you deal extra damage, but the moveset is like really weird because your attacks are really, really small. Also, there's different tools that are kind of like the. What were they called in Hollow Knight? Not badges, but something like that.

[Russ Frostic]

Oh, yeah, the perks, basically.

[Griffin McElroy]

Yeah. Where there's different slots, different types of perks, and each crest can equip a certain amount of those. And so I don't know, looking at other people talking about the game, it's interesting to see how people are gravitating towards different playstyles as you find more movement abilities. Specifically the dash, that is where the game really took off for me. But I really did not have a good time with this game until I found that stuff. And I think that that is an evidence of like seven years of overtuning, perhaps the game, as evidenced by the fact that they are patching it to give you more rosaries and reduce the cost of unlocking checkpoints and making a few of the early game bosses a little bit easier because I. That stuff is just. That stuff is a pretty, pretty solid wall. I am well past that stuff now, and I am really, really, really liking the game a lot. I do think that there are a couple elements still though, that are just like too punishing, not. Not hard. Like, there's boss. I have yet to face a Boss that, you know, I felt like I can't beat this. But I have faced a boss where I'm like, this is a five minute fucking run back to this. There's a five minute run back to this boss and then I have to fight five waves of enemies and then I get a chance at the boss. Like, that sucks, man. Like, that's not. I'll just. I will leave and maybe I'll come back and do that later. But it really sucks to, like, put a bunch of work into clearing out an area, hit this point, and then feel like, well, okay, this is not.

[Russ Frostic]

This is.

[Griffin McElroy]

This is a little bit too much for me.

[Russ Frostic]

I have found that for what it's worth and again, having played Hollow Knight just recently, it actually helped this. I think I have a good sense now of like, what a normal fight or a normal quote run back should be for them based on their design language. And oftentimes if I feel like a fight is going on so long, even though I know the pattern or whatever it is, it usually means, like, it tells me at least I don't have the right kit for this. I should just come back later when I have more gear or a damage increase or whatever it is. And that has actually helped me rather than, like, throwing myself again and again and again. I get that thing.

[Griffin McElroy]

I get that. I. And I, I. I should be clear. Like, I like hard games. I like that this game is. I like that this game is really challenging. There's an area pretty well past the point that we're supposed to talk about that, so I won't get too deep into it, but it's like, it's just a really, really, really, really hard challenge that you get a cool thing if you can do it. And I banged my head against it for two hours and I did it and it was fucking great. That's cool. What's not cool is like, I have to. All of this work I have to do to go through this area and then hit this boss and get my ass kicked. And then, like, instead of getting another shot at it, I have to do a lot of busy work to get there. It doesn't feel. It feels like punishing in a bad way. And there's not a lot of that in the game. But I have hit a couple points of it and it really. It is a pretty big kind of like, I don't know, momentum killer threading.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Together what you and Frosh are saying. For me, what I don't like about Metroidvanias in general, especially bad ones, which I don't think this is is. I don't like the feeling of wasting my time. I don't like when a game feels like it's larger because it is having me backtrack. And it's the thing that I don't like about some Souls games too, for a different reason is the wasting my time of having to replay and regrind to make up for the time that I lost. And I think what you are talking about feels like a bit of both those things. That said, because I am so skeptical of the genre Fresh, I've had almost an identical experience to you despite not knowing the language of this game, which is the second I go somewhere and I'm like. Right away I'm like, well, this is harder. This is more challenging than it was before. I turn around and I go a different direction because I'm like, I just want to fucking deal with it right now. And what is cool about the game is there are a lot of different directions to go. So you guys end up in Hunter.

[Griffin McElroy]

Did you guys end up in Hunter's March? Do you guys make it to that old.

[Russ Frostic]

It sounded like Justin did, if he's bounding off, bouncing off.

[Griffin McElroy]

Did you hit Hunter's March juice?

[Justin McElroy]

Yeah.

[Griffin McElroy]

Yeah. Hunter's March is an area that you. No one has any right to go to early in the game, but you can get there pretty easily. And it is a point where it's so fucking brutal. It's so hard. The enemies are.

[Justin McElroy]

I think that's where I am probably. I guess. I don't know.

[Griffin McElroy]

It is. It is an area that you can get to fairly early in the game where it just. The difficulty spike is insane and there's not really a lot of signposts saying, like, turn back, man. You ain't ready for this shit. Where it's an area that is just nasty, full of traps and crazy fights. And I don't know, I am of two minds about it because it was so annoying, but I felt like, well, this is the way I'm supposed to go. Because it's a straight shot from the last boss that I fought. And I did end up sort of making it pretty far into it before I realized, wait a second, there's a lot of platforming shit here that I'm not able to do, so maybe I should turn back.

[Russ Frostic]

Almost always. There's. It's so rare that maybe at the very, very beginning of the game, but otherwise it's so rare that there is just one path you have to go to and you don't have anything else to explore. When I hit that, I hit that cat. I was going to address what you mentioned earlier, Justin. I hit that cap, that resource cap of the shards, whatever they're called. And I'm like, I'm fighting a boss, but I'm at this cap. This is weird to me. There's no reason I'd be running around with this much currency that I've been collecting and nowhere to use it.

[Griffin McElroy]

Right?

[Russ Frostic]

So instead of fighting that boss, I was like, I'm just going to, like, walk around and look in rooms and see what's there until I found a way to actually spend that stuff. Which in turn gave me tools that made me more effective in combat, that made me better at exploring. And that's kind of. I mean, I don't know. It's a design language that oftentimes is a little opaque. You really have to be into this kind of game and you kind of have to meet at its own kind of level. And if it's not clicking for you, I probably won't. For me, this. I've talked for a long while about, like, what kind of games I'm into and what, like, checks my boxes from a game. I. This is. This is doing it all for me. Like, it's. I think it's better than Hollow Knight. Hollow Knight was easily one of my top five games of all time. And I think it does everything in here. Apart from which I agree the intro is a little bit punishing.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Yeah, I want to. I want to put a bone up because I know that we will probably be talking about it more at the end of the year and I also honestly just want to play more of it. I am surprised how much I've enjoyed it. Despite it not being the game that was at the top of my to wait list. I'm still waiting for Mother three. It's gonna come out. I've been talking with my buddy Doug Bowser and Shigeru Miyamoto with our, you know, usual, like, weekend lunches. And they keep saying, chris, you just keep waiting. But I guess that this will hold me over for now. You want to talk about speaking of some other games that I will never play? And by that I mean Silksong 3.

[Griffin McElroy]

I would love to after a quick break. Or not, depending. Again, on the. On the t. On the new tier thing.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

This week's episode of the Besties is brought to you in part by Rocket Money. Do you have a bunch of subscriptions that maybe you don't need? Well, I have great news for you. Rocket Money can round them all up, show them to you in a simple list, and say, hey, which of these do you want to keep and which of these should? You probably have canceled a long time ago. It is a humongous help, and Rocket Money has all sorts of other features. Rocket Money is a personal finance app that helps you find and cancel your unwanted subscriptions, monitors your spending, and helps lower your bills so you can grow your savings. It has been a huge help to me, which, if you listen to the show, you are already aware of. Rocket Money's 5 billion members have saved a total of $500 million in canceled subscriptions, with members saving up to $740 a year when they use all of the app's premium features. Cancel your unwanted subscriptions and reach your financial goals faster with Rocket money. Go to Rocketmoney.combesties today. That's Rocketmoney.combesties Rocketmoney.combesties we are back. And with Silksong now available now taking off of our fantasy dreams of the future, we have to move our hearts to something new, something fresh. So I thought we could talk about the games that we're really excited about coming up between now and the end of the year. And you might be thinking, chris, this seems like just an excuse for you to talk about Sonic racing cross worlds. To which I want to say, yes, it is. And I don't need an excuse. 30 minutes.

[Griffin McElroy]

I don't have to give you an excuse to talk about Sonic racing cross worlds.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

So you're saying like 30 minutes is maybe too much.

[Griffin McElroy]

If you want to take 30 minutes to talk about Sonic racing cross worlds, that's actually great.

[Russ Frostic]

It's a crossword game, right?

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

What if I told you Sonic Racing is back and you might be a little worried because it's not being made by Sumo Digital, the team that made the really good ones. But you know who is making it? Team fucking Sonic. Sonic Team is making the racing game now and you're thinking, yeah, but just more Sonic. Don't worry. What if I told you spongebob was there? What if I told you Avatar and the Ninja Turtles are going to pop up?

[Griffin McElroy]

They're doing Nickelodeon in with the Sonic.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Of course they got Nickelodeon in it. Who else would you put in these games?

[Griffin McElroy]

Did you say multi Curses.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

But if you want to talk about some. If you want to talk about some other games, I want to make sure that I give you all time to talk about those too. But we can come back to tell.

[Justin McElroy]

You about the Outer Worlds two is the true Starfield. I'm going to say it because Outer Worlds two, the benefits are one, no one is going to be confused and think you're talking about outer wilds. That's because there's no outer wilds too. Very powerful. Second, I feel like Outer Worlds one was so close, so close to really great. Like the wheels fell off like for me, halfway through it was halfway to being like truly great. And I feel like Obsidian is on a really solid run where they're figuring out ways to iterate things that Bethesda is still struggling to sort of figure out how to do with any sort of like soul or character. And I feel like Outer Worlds too is going to be very good. That's where I'm at.

[Russ Frostic]

It's crazy that they're releasing two large action RPGs in the same fucking year.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

And they released that. The Honey I Shrunk the kids.

[Russ Frostic]

Oh yeah, and fucking grounded as well.

[Justin McElroy]

What's the other. Sorry, what's the. My. My brain is. What's the other biggest?

[Russ Frostic]

Obsidian and Shrek and Slate was avowed. Ashen.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Ashen.

[Justin McElroy]

Poor Ashen man. That was a real spate of those A games all at once. That didn't come out.

[Griffin McElroy]

I am nervously excited. I am tentatively excited for Pokemon Legends Z to A mostly because Henry and I still play Scarlet and Violet. And so just the idea that I'll be able to play a different Pokemon game is an exciting notion to me. I can only square off against him in six on six battles with the same fucking team and pretend like it is a thrilling melee so many times. So I'm looking forward to seeing what they do. I'm looking forward to seeing what they do on new hardware sort of natively. Because the last Pokemon game really was pushing at the seams of what the Switch could kind of do and suffered dramatic.

[Russ Frostic]

I think it's on both.

[Griffin McElroy]

It is. It is on both. Yeah, I guess.

[Russ Frostic]

But it's gonna roll like it's closer.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

To what I want from a modern Pokemon game. When we played that last one, that was the first time I felt like in a long time.

[Griffin McElroy]

Oh, I'm. Yeah, it was cool.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

This feels made for me.

[Griffin McElroy]

It was cool. It's also returning to like my favorite generation of. Of Pokemon games. That Pokemon X and y early Nintendo 3ds era I thought was really, really good.

[Russ Frostic]

I want to call out Mina the Hollower which is the yacht club game makers of Shovel Knight. I just a few weeks ago finished Pipestrello and the cursed yo yo which like Awakened Something in me for this game, era of game, and I just kind of want more of it. And that game was so good.

[Justin McElroy]

And did that keep evolving, that Pip Estrello? I liked it all right at the beginning, but I didn't know where it was going.

[Russ Frostic]

Yeah, I mean, they kept adding like new movement and puzzle mechanics that like, kept it very interesting throughout. I think it was 10ish hours miserable this year.

[Justin McElroy]

I feel like worse than any other year at finishing stuff. I feel like my ability to like actually see things through has been so bad this year. I feel like I keep jumping from thing to thing. Maybe that's a testament to the speed of releases. I don't feel like there've been a.

[Griffin McElroy]

Lot of dry spells, but yeah, there really haven't even. You know, I think our driest spell has been this, you know, past month or so before, you know, before Silksong. And even then it was like, there's still stuff to play if you. The backlog for this year for me too is. Is really quite brutal. It's been a really strong year. It's gonna get even stronger when Kirby Air Riders comes out because that shit looks good as hell. It doesn't have spongebob in it. Unfortunately.

[Russ Frostic]

We should also mention there's gonna be a Nintendo Direct happening when this episode goes live. Obviously we won't have seen it, so who fucking knows what's gonna be in there. It does feel like they're missing. I mean, I guess Metroid theoretically is coming out this year. It does feel like they're missing another holiday title at the moment. Yeah, something.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Have y' all heard about Cairn C A?

[Russ Frostic]

Rings a bell?

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

No. So it's a mountain climbing game. And look, I just dropped two images in the Besties Slack and I feel like these images are designed to get the juices tingling in a certain type of brain.

[Justin McElroy]

I see a lot of tiktoks about Karens.

[Griffin McElroy]

Oh, that's a different. Sorry, that's a different thing.

[Justin McElroy]

My kids are always talking about Karen's.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Yeah, yeah.

[Justin McElroy]

There's a haircut.

[Griffin McElroy]

This screenshot, the screenshot you sent me is insane. It's a backpack full of pasta noodles.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Yeah, it's kind of like a Resident Evil style inventory thing, but it looks like it's like physics space where you're kind of just making space for all of your items. And then it's a climbing game. It's all about just climbing mountainsides, but taking try and try again to like find your path. It looks to me like a return of the Strand game And if we could get two strand games in the same year. I'm just saying that's big. That's big news for the strand genre. That is a sharp. That is 100% increase in strand games.

[Griffin McElroy]

Yeah. Who put ball xpit on here?

[Russ Frostic]

I put it on there. I think it's pronounced ball pit in the way that anime often ads like Spy Family. Like Spy Family. But it's just a breakout Roguelike.

[Griffin McElroy]

Yeah. I've seen some streamers playing it and it looks really. I guess the demo is out and it looks really, really good.

[Russ Frostic]

Yeah, I'm pretty excited about that one.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

What? Any other last ones?

[Russ Frostic]

I mean.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Yeah.

[Russ Frostic]

Prime four, assuming it comes out this year.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Did they say officially that it is coming out and they just haven't given a release date?

[Griffin McElroy]

I don't remember hearing a release date. But I'm also pretty dogshit at keeping track of that.

[Russ Frostic]

I think it might come. We might hear the release. I would guess we're gonna hear the release date on this new Nintendo.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

That seems right.

[Justin McElroy]

Yeah.

[Griffin McElroy]

That is A cursory Google search does suggest that that is what's going to happen.

[Russ Frostic]

The point I'm also very excited about Baby Steps which got delayed because it wanted to get out of the way of Silksong. But that comes out end of September. That's the.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Did you see our friend Gio took a nice long walk with her friend Simone for that?

[Russ Frostic]

No, I didn't see it. It's very interesting.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Yeah. Gio and Simone at Polygon went on a long walk with Bennett Foddy, the co creator of this game. And it's just a great conversation about game design in walking.

[Russ Frostic]

That's awesome.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

That I really recommend.

[Griffin McElroy]

Lots of good stuff. Lots of good stuff. Do we have any questions from the mailbag?

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

I think we do. Let me pull this up really quick. This one is from Thrillhoe. Hey besties. This question is partially inspired by Chris's excellent interview with the creative multi hyphen at Claire Evans on Postgames. But I think this is a better place to ask.

[Justin McElroy]

Any place to get a promo.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Mini gamers.

[Justin McElroy]

Anything to get a promo.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Hey. Hey.

[Griffin McElroy]

I just.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

It was the first time I remember.

[Justin McElroy]

I was enjoying a Lipton iced tea on my Casper mattress.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

The question continues. For a mere $5 a month you can subscribe to Patreon. That's wild like.

[Justin McElroy]

And subscribe to Save the Rizzler. What?

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

I, like many gamers, harbor dreams of making a video game despite knowing nothing about programming or what game development actually entails. It would be an utterly boneheaded thing for me to attempt, both because of my lack of knowledge and how very rare it is for a game to pay off. At the same time, I've somehow managed to be a mildly successful writer. Another career where the odds of success are dismal at best. It got me wondering which is the more quixotic pursuit making a financially sexful, financially successful video game?

[Griffin McElroy]

I would say just sort of like with the second recent spate of censorship on Steam, making a sexful game is not going to be financially the most sort of sound decision.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Making it a financially successful video game or writing a financially successful book.

[Russ Frostic]

They seem comparable. But I would say I think writing the book is easier.

[Griffin McElroy]

Yeah, I've written books. It's hard. It takes a while. But like, you don't. Like you don't.

[Russ Frostic]

I don't need just one person.

[Griffin McElroy]

Yeah, you just be the one person. Just write a whole dang book. And that's cool. But there's so many other things you have to do to make a game. I don't know how to make a financially successful either one of them.

[Russ Frostic]

I don't think anyone does.

[Griffin McElroy]

But I mean, the game does seem harder in general than the book.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

So, yeah, I will say the books make money. But then does anything make money is the big question. So you know what? I'm gonna flip this question and say make things because they're great art. And if you can't not worry about the money, if the hard part of.

[Russ Frostic]

It, I would just say make things if it brings joy to your life.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Oh, there you go.

[Russ Frostic]

If you feel like you want to.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Put it into the world.

[Russ Frostic]

Doesn't need to be art.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

It could be fart. That's a great art. That's a great point. Hey, I want to get into honorable mentions and there's a request we've had from a listener about AR glass and what we think of them. And hoops. I know that you've actually tried these things, so I was hoping that you could tell us a little bit about it.

[Justin McElroy]

Yeah, I use a pair of xreal. I gotta make sure I'm saying the right things because there's a lot of Xreal glasses. The xreal ones, they I believe. I don't know if I have this model I'm looking at here, but they're by xreal. There's several different kinds. These, there's the xreal one Pros are the new, the new, latest and greatest. I think those are 650. And I don't know what you're getting that's different with those. Let me tell you what these do. All right, Let me tell you what these are. And you will know if this use case will work for you or not. But you got a pair of sunglasses that look like big, thick black sunglasses. They look, they don't look like normal sunglasses, but they don't look like a visor. They look like there's a depth.

[Griffin McElroy]

There's a depth to these thickness and.

[Justin McElroy]

They look kind of like stupid. They look kind of stupid, but not stupid in the way that like a visor would. They look like stupid sunglasses. And they connect via USB C to whatever, anything with a USB C outlet or a USB C video out, I guess I should say. And they will play the video signal from that device and the sound from that device through like bone conduction speakers in this part, right in the, in the ear part. And then the glasses will project a large image in front of you that's tandem out to like a seven foot tall screen. You can adjust the size in terms of inches. You can make it big enough that you have to like look around to see all of it. You can also do. If you're watching something that's in side by side 3D, you can activate that as a mode if you like. But mainly the use case is like, if you are. Here's. Here's why I have found them to be useful for me and why I end up using them a lot. Because if you travel a lot and you don't want, like, if you're trying to like watch something on a flight or you want to do something like that, it is like just a fantastic experience. I mean, you plug it in and you're. And you could do with a Steam deck. You plug it into a Steam deck and you're playing the latest and greatest video.

[Russ Frostic]

And is it on a gigantic screen? Is it two screens, one for each eye?

[Justin McElroy]

What do you mean?

[Russ Frostic]

Like, what are you seeing when you're looking at a.

[Justin McElroy]

You're looking at a stereoscopic. So you're looking at a 2D image is what you're looking at. It is two dependent, independent things. But you're like looking at a reg. It looks like you're looking at a big floating TV screen in front of you. And if you move your hand, if.

[Russ Frostic]

You were to pull your. Pull the glasses away from your face, you would see two screens on the inside.

[Griffin McElroy]

Yeah. Sort of like how an Oculus, you know, Quest.

[Justin McElroy]

Yeah.

[Griffin McElroy]

Does it. Yeah, I imagine.

[Russ Frostic]

Okay.

[Justin McElroy]

Yeah, yeah. Same concept. It's boiled down to the very smallest. You can Push a button and like, it'll turn into like pretty dark sunglasses so you can see, you know, in front of you, but they're pretty good at shutting the light out. You know, you don't have to use them in like a super dark environment, but like for, you know, if you end up watching a lot of like TV movies, video games and like hotel rooms or planes or taxis or whatever, like, like we do, they're. It's pretty cool. I don't know if you would want to necessarily use them in a place where people, you know, might see you, but like, you know, when you're on a plane or whatever, you don't give a crap. It's pretty cool for that. And gaming is a lot of fun. I will say it feels like you are not. You know, there's that old David lynch video where he talks about, like, if you watch a movie on your phone, you'll think you'll have seen the film, but you won't have actually seen the film. This does feel like. In this one specific case, when I plug these glasses in, I do feel like I can watch a capital F film.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

And also cheaper than the Apple Vision Pro, right?

[Russ Frostic]

I mean, every.

[Justin McElroy]

Yeah, but like, you are. It is a. Such a. More. I mean, I will say this, that's probably what I would use the Apple Vision Pro the most for anyway. I mean, if my history with VR is any example I have, I'll say this. I have used these more than I have ever used any, like, cumulative hours spent, I have used these more than I've ever used any VR helmet I've ever owned. So I mean, this is, that, this is the way this needs to go, right? This is much closer to the way.

[Griffin McElroy]

Things need to be.

[Justin McElroy]

But yeah, they're. They're cool. I have not tried the, like, best of the best higher end ones, but the ones I mean, the, the Xreal ones I used are good. I enjoy them.

[Griffin McElroy]

I've been watching Kasso Kasso. Y' all heard about this shit? It's a Japanese competition Show. It's on YouTube. So I've been watching it and it's basically skateboarding. Ninja Warrior is a long skateboard obstacle courses that incredibly talented skateboarders go through. Like, one is just a crazy long winding rail that goes around and around and people take runs at it just to see how far they can go before they fall off. And it beats ass because it's a lot of like really, really, really good skateboarders, like busting up as people try to do these like, ridiculous Challenges. It's taken way less seriously than a, you know, a Sasuke or ninja warrior or whatever. It's just like skaters cutting up and doing crazy stunts. And it is a good ass time. It's K A S s O on YouTube.

[Justin McElroy]

I love that.

[Griffin McElroy]

Just look it up.

[Russ Frostic]

I want to call out a video Speaking of YouTube, done by our friends over at Secret base. It is about scoragami.

[Justin McElroy]

Oh, yeah.

[Russ Frostic]

If you're. If you're not familiar with scoregami, it is a concept that John Boyce invented. It's basically the idea that in football, when there's a score that has never happened before in the history of the NFL, that's a scoragami. So if you. No one's ever scored 21 to 6, I'm sure that's happened a lot. For argument's sake, that counts as a scorigami. And so they're doing a video series about the concept of score, the history of it, why people are so into it, the weird, esoteric moments throughout history. You don't need to care about football.

[Griffin McElroy]

God bless John Boyce for making me give a shit about sports that I otherwise would not give a shit about by focusing only on the weird, weird errata that I'm.

[Russ Frostic]

That whole channel has dynamite stuff in here that will really draw you into the weird, esoteric sports stories. And this, this video just went up, so it's definitely worth a watch. It's great.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

There's so much good stuff.

[Griffin McElroy]

What games did we talk about this.

[Russ Frostic]

Week, Chris, Clint, do you have anything before we.

[Griffin McElroy]

Oh, yeah.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

I mean, it's basically Halloween season, so I'll just throw out like a random recommendation. I think that everybody should watch. Watch Halloween 3.

[Griffin McElroy]

Season of the Witch, man.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

It's basically Halloween 2 because Halloween 2 is a direct sequel to Halloween 1, and Halloween 3 is basically the exact opposite. They said, you know what? Halloween, it's just going to be this random series where we tell different stories and not all of them are about Michael Myers. And after this one, people got so mad that they didn't do it again, which is a shame because this movie is a blast and it is a great way to both start or stop your Halloween season. And you should check it out.

[Griffin McElroy]

It's also a great way to stop the Halloween franchise for four decades.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

We're going to release another one of those then. That might be a good idea. Okay, what did we talk about this week? We talked about so much stuff. We talked about Hollow Knight, Silksong. We talked about Metroid Prime 4, baby steps, Pokemon Legends, Z through a Sonic Racing Cross Worlds Ball Pit or Ball X Pit Cairn Mina the Hollower, Kirby Air riders, the Outer Worlds 2. Plus we talked about the Xreal 1 AR glasses, Kasso, the YouTube TV show about skateboarding challenges, Halloween 3, season of the Witch and the Skoragami video, which will be linked along with everything else at Besties Fan, a newsletter that you can subscribe to for free.

[Russ Frostic]

There's also the patreon [e-mail] thebesties I wanted to thank a few members. We have Alden, we have Tanner, we have Sarah, and we have Triosaurus. Thank you for being members of the Patreon once again. We have that new tier if you're interested in getting the main episodes ad free. In addition to all the bonus episodes. The new tier is up, but if you want to just stay at $5, that's also fine. But you do you whatever is going to float your boat. We've got a new bracket episode up about bathroom games if that's enticing to you. We've also got a new Besties episode up where we played some fun stuff and yeah, what are we doing next week?

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Oh, we're doing a Grab bag next week. We're doing so much stuff. We're going to be getting back to some things that people have been asking us to check out like Abiotic Factor and a bunch of other games.

[Griffin McElroy]

Have we talked about the new Hotshots?

[Russ Frostic]

We talked a little bit about it on Rusty's.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Have you played it yet, Griffin?

[Griffin McElroy]

Yeah. Hell yeah.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Okay. Okay. Let's talk more about it. Let's talk more about it next year. Had a more successful technical experience than some of us past. Yeah, I want to talk about Loan Shark. I need to give that a try. There's so much stuff, so many games.

[Justin McElroy]

That is going to do it for us for this week's episode of the Besties. Be sure to join us again next time for the Besties because shouldn't the world's best friends pick the world's best games.

[Griffin McElroy]

Besties.