The Best Combat in a Metroidvania . . .Ever

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Bestes - Episode: The Best Combat in a Metroidvania . . .Ever

Podcast Information

• Title: The Besties
• Host/Authors: Chris Plante, Griffin McElroy, Justin McElroy, Russ Frushtick
• Episode Title: The Best Combat in a Metroidvania . . .Ever
• Release Date: February 7, 2025
• Description: Four of Earth's best friends—Griffin McElroy, Justin McElroy, Chris Plante, and Russ Frushtick—rank and review their favorite video games, blending humor and insightful analysis.

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1. Introduction to Retro Handheld Enthusiasm ([00:10] - [02:32])

The episode kicks off with a lighthearted banter about the hosts' recent fascination with retro handheld gaming devices. Griffin McElroy expresses his deep dive into retro gadgets, lamenting the challenges of replicating nostalgic experiences:

Griffin McElroy ([00:26]): "We’re all like getting really into retro handheld stuff. Like in a big way. Even more than usual."

Russ Frushtick humorously dismisses some of Griffin’s hardware concerns, steering the conversation towards a playful take on retro gaming enhancements.

2. Deep Dive into Rotten Robots Rise of the Evil Steam ([02:32] - [27:32])

**a. Gameplay Mechanics and Combat System

The core of the episode centers on Rotten Robots Rise of the Evil Steam, a Metroidvania game praised for its exceptional combat mechanics. The hosts elaborate on the game's intricate system where players collect and assign robot spirits to different action buttons, enhancing both strategy and engagement.

Russ Frushtick ([10:50]): "I do want to call out, I think the one aspect. There aren't very many Metroidvania... that do combat as well as this game."

Justin McElroy highlights the game's flexibility, allowing players to customize their combat style extensively. This customization is compared favorably against industry standards, such as Hollow Knight:

Justin McElroy ([25:18]): "I don’t think there is a Metroidvania game with a better combat system than this. This is the bar."

**b. Narrative and Storyline

While the combat receives widespread acclaim, the hosts discuss some narrative shortcomings. The story revolves around a child navigating a world infested with corrupted robots, seeking to restore harmony by reclaiming robot spirits. The narrative is described as functional but not as compelling as other titles in the genre.

Justin McElroy ([14:04]): "I feel like a lot of games have gotten the wrong lesson from that and have decided to not do stories anymore."

**c. _Comparison with Hollow Knight_

A significant portion of the discussion contrasts Rotten Robots with Hollow Knight, particularly in combat depth and RPG systems. The hosts argue that Rotten Robots surpasses Hollow Knight in combat complexity and player agency.

Griffin McElroy ([26:33]): "Hollow Knight is so tight in a way where this game isn't at times. Which is fine because that means the RPG systems are so rich."

**d. Design and Accessibility

The game’s design is lauded for its user-friendly map system and adaptable difficulty settings, making it accessible to a broader audience without sacrificing depth.

Russ Frushtick ([12:04]): "You can tweak every aspect of the difficulty... which is really smart."

3. Discussion on Civilization VII ([32:05] - [42:02])

Transitioning from Metroidvanias, the hosts delve into Civilization VII, examining its new mechanics and structural changes. Griffin McElroy critiques the game's overhaul of diplomacy and the introduction of era-based gameplay, which introduces a "soft reset" mechanic to balance game progression.

Griffin McElroy ([37:00]): "They have streamlined... certain processes work. They have made certain processes automatic that before required micromanagement."

Russ Frushtick appreciates the developers' bold moves but acknowledges that long-time fans may find the changes divisive.

Russ Frushtick ([40:22]): "My impression in reading the reviews is that people that are, like, old school civ people don't like the changes."

4. Listener Mail and Game Recommendations ([42:05] - [55:27])

The hosts address listener questions, offering game recommendations tailored to specific needs. For a listener recovering from surgery, they suggest titles like Dragon Quest Builders 2 and The Binding of Isaac. Additionally, they recommend books such as The Murderbot Diaries, emphasizing low-motion activities suitable for relaxed engagement.

Christopher Thomas Plant ([43:32]): "I always replay Skyrim for the... Dragon Quest 11."

5. Technical Endeavors and Upcoming Content ([55:27] - [58:40])

Justin McElroy shares his recent technical projects, including setting up a Raspberry Pi-based retro gaming system, showcasing his passion for preserving and experiencing classic games. The conversation then shifts to upcoming podcast content, including a new Bracket Battles episode on "Weird Nintendo Failures" and previews future discussions on games like Avowed from Obsidian.

Justin McElroy ([49:31]): "Here's what's in my living room now is a mini PC... I can play any game ever made."

Notable Quotes

• Griffin McElroy ([26:33]): "Hollow Knight is so tight in a way where this game isn't at times. Which is fine because that means the RPG systems are so rich."

• Russ Frushtick ([12:04]): "You can tweak every aspect of the difficulty... which is really smart."

• Justin McElroy ([25:18]): "I don’t think there is a Metroidvania game with a better combat system than this. This is the bar."

Conclusion

In this episode, The Besties offers an in-depth analysis of what they consider the pinnacle of combat systems in the Metroidvania genre, using Rotten Robots Rise of the Evil Steam as the focal point. Through engaging dialogue, the hosts balance praise with constructive criticism, providing listeners with a nuanced perspective on game design, narrative integration, and player engagement. Additionally, the episode touches upon broader gaming topics and personal projects, enriching the content for both avid gamers and casual listeners.

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Note: This summary excludes non-content segments such as advertisements, intros, and outros, focusing solely on the substantive discussions and insights shared by the hosts.

Transcript

[Justin McElroy]

Busy week in the news.

[Griffin McElroy]

No, it's just a joke.

[Justin McElroy]

It's just a joke. It's just a joke.

[Russ Freshik]

Oh God.

[Griffin McElroy]

We're all like getting really into retro handheld stuff. Like in a big way. Even more than usual. Much to, I imagine, the chagrin of our listeners. And I don't know, I've messed around with a bunch of them. Russ, you know more about this stuff than I do. And maybe I should have asked this when Russ, other Russ was on the show.

[Russ Freshik]

No, I know more than him.

[Griffin McElroy]

Okay, cool. No, I figured. So I guess what I'm looking for, or I haven't found one yet, that obviously it's important to have a good screen. And I want the processor to be really fast in the graphics card to be zoom in. And then what is the piece of hardware that goes in it that determines how it makes me feel like it did when I was a kid.

[Russ Freshik]

Right.

[Griffin McElroy]

I know a lot of people are talking about the Snapdragon 3, the CPU, the clock.

[Russ Freshik]

Yeah, that's not gonna do it for you, Griffin.

[Justin McElroy]

You're gonna upgr. That's really awesome memories.

[Griffin McElroy]

See, I got the Upgraded Retroid Pocket 5 Thinking this is gonna make it feel like it did when I was a kid. But it doesn't feel like it does.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

You're trying to find one that has an npu, what's that? An npu, A Nostalgia Processing Unit.

[Justin McElroy]

Right?

[Griffin McElroy]

Yeah.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

You keep buying the normal ones and the NPUs, I mean, they are expensive.

[Russ Freshik]

You guys don't know what the fuck you're talking about. There's only one thing you need and it's called a Worm Light.

[Griffin McElroy]

Worm light.

[Russ Freshik]

Get yourself a Worm light and you're fucking set. You plug that into the USB C, you need a converter. And once it's in there, you lie in the back of your backseat of your car and ask your wife to.

[Justin McElroy]

Close you ask your wife to drive you around town. Okay, this is important. You put on your Spider man peaches.

[Griffin McElroy]

Your wife turns around town, turn the brightness all the way down.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Worm light sounds like the thing that you eat too much egg Steam. And then you go get an endoscopy and they use the Worm light.

[Russ Freshik]

Yeah, they. It's multi purpose.

[Griffin McElroy]

They used to back back back in the 90s 90s kids remember this. They would shove a Game Boy camera down there. They would get right down in there.

[Justin McElroy]

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

[Griffin McElroy]

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

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

My name is Christopher Thomas Plant. And I have fallen in love with the Metroidvania.

[Russ Freshik]

My name is Russ Freshik. I know the best game of the week and we call it search action games here.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Oh, God.

[Justin McElroy]

Silk Song. Who? We can wait as long as it takes. Thanks to Ender. Magnolia Bloom in the Mist, the game that made us forget all about that. The other little guy running around with his needle. We love Inner Magnolia. We love these crazy little toys, these fun toys that are fun for the whole family. We're gonna tell you all about them right after this quick break.

[Griffin McElroy]

Well, do we want Chris to tell us what it is?

[Justin McElroy]

I think I covered it. Okay, cool. I would never want to steal his thunder, but like I described exactly what it is. Yeah, it's a.

[Griffin McElroy]

It's a fun toy that'll make you say Silksong. Who?

[Justin McElroy]

Hollow knight with toys. All right, Plant. You could try to describe it better than me, but I. Now that we're back from the break.

[Russ Freshik]

You need to say the word Homunculus more than once, though. That's the key.

[Griffin McElroy]

Yeah, Lot of homunculi.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Okay, I'm take a stab at this. So it's a sequel to a gameplay.

[Russ Freshik]

Oh, and you can't say near. You can't say the word near.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

That's impossible. That's not possible. Not only is it possible because, like, Also you can't 10 words without saying Nier, but like this game. Yeah, that's coming up.

[Justin McElroy]

No Clock Tower. You can't talk about clock tower.

[Russ Freshik]

Eye.

[Justin McElroy]

There's no Homunculus related.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Here's what it is. It's a Metroidvania set in the not universe of a search action game set in the not universe of Nier, where there are a whole bunch of sad robots and you basically have to take their spirits to make them fight alongside you somewhat between like Pokemon and Mega man boss fights. You know, you kill a boss in Mega man, you're like, hey, your skills are mine now. The cool shit about this game, though, is you basically assign all of these characters to different buttons. So where in a other game you would have like, oh, this is a button for a grenade. No, now you have just a spirit of a dead robot who flies out and like, it's the Jeff button.

[Russ Freshik]

Hit the Jeff button.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

It's the Jeff button.

[Justin McElroy]

Press triangle to Jeff.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

You hit the Bob button.

[Justin McElroy]

Press Jason. Press triangle to Jeff.

[Griffin McElroy]

We should point out this is a sequel to Ender Lily's Quietus of the Nights, which was a game that I played and I thought was cool and then I dropped it and then I picked this one up and I just finished 100 percenting it this morning. Oh my God, it's so fucking good. It's a lot better than the first game.

[Justin McElroy]

It took a little bit to. It took a little bit for this to click. For me at first when I started playing, it feels like a fairly sort of standard search action. One of these. You're a really underpowered. And not just a standard search action. Like this specific kind of search action where you are a little wispy nothing, right? Thrust into the scariest place in the world. And you have to slowly build your skill set by basically defeating these homunculi who will lend you their aid with basically their cores. I think the way that I was describing this to Griffin as this sort of congealed for me yesterday, but the experience of playing it reminds me a little bit of if you were like playing an MMORPG in a rating setting where you have several different kind of plates that you're spinning. And depending on how you've had your skill set up, there may be one that's like, for example, in my current loadout, I have an owl that I summon with one button and he just stays. And then I have like a big attack that's like a straightforward fire attack that is on a timer, so it's like triggered. And then I have a shooting attack that's on like a hold down. So I'm like holding that down. So it's basically like you have a lot of different abilities and the way they like interact is very interesting. But it's also you're trying to keep a lot of different things going in your head at once. So a lot of times for me, the challenge is like, hey, don't forget you have that fifth other thing that you could be doing right now. You just got to layer that on. But what I think is really smart about that is they give you sort of like a suite of. At least this is. This was my experience. It's pretty open ended, but I got a suite of like four powers for the four face buttons. And it kind of sat there for a while and it was like, let me kind of get comfortable with those. And then it started adding ways to like vary that. But it did give me enough time to sort of like get comfortable with those. But it's a really interesting, like a lot of flexibility and it feels different.

[Griffin McElroy]

There's also a system of relics which are equippable sort of modifiers to your different stats and how much damage you do in defense. And they do all kinds of stuff similar to. Oh, God, what were they called in Hollow Knight trinkets, I think something like that.

[Russ Freshik]

Yeah. They work the same way.

[Griffin McElroy]

And those also help you shape your build because you might find a relic that's like this increases the damage of autonomous abilities by 30% and you're like, oh, fuck. Okay. I wonder what would happen if I just got rid of all of the abilities that I have that are on active cooldown or whatever and just equip these auto abilities.

[Justin McElroy]

Yeah. Turn them into an auto shooter, basically.

[Griffin McElroy]

Right. Which sometimes I had to do for some of the boss fights because you have to focus a lot more on dodging and parrying. And when you're doing that, just having these three ghosts, these three robot ghosts fucking dealing all your damage for you is very, very cool.

[Justin McElroy]

It's huge changes too. Even the individual abilities have alternate forms. So there's that straight ahead fire attack that I was talking about. There is a variant that you get fairly early on that is an arcing ice attack, which doesn't seem that big of a deal. And in like running around, it's not as huge. But when you're in a boss fight, it's the difference between are you typically going to encounter this guy where he's like dead in front of you, or are you going to be guessing where he's going to be, where an arc would be more helpful and like that kind of like analysis with the boss fight. I found it really interesting.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Before we go too much further into the gameplay, just to give some people to hold onto something here, can anybody explain the story and what is happening?

[Russ Freshik]

Yeah, I beat the first game, so I can.

[Justin McElroy]

Oh, good.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Perfect. Thank you.

[Griffin McElroy]

This does not have much to do with the first game.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

From what I can say.

[Russ Freshik]

More stylistic than anything. There are like subtle nods to the.

[Griffin McElroy]

First game, but it is not a necessary thing to like.

[Russ Freshik]

Basically, here's what you need to know. This child, person, kid basically gets sent into this area that is filled with all of these basically rotten robots that have been infected by this steam.

[Justin McElroy]

That's why they call the game Rotten Robots.

[Russ Freshik]

It's evil Steam that has infected them.

[Griffin McElroy]

Rotten Robots. Rise of the Evil Steam is the name of the full name of it.

[Justin McElroy]

Russ's Rotten Robots Rise of the Evil Egg Steam.

[Russ Freshik]

Holy shit.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

I would play the hell, hell out.

[Griffin McElroy]

Of that game, man.

[Russ Freshik]

And you're basically just going around learning about the background of this world as you beat monsters and they tell you their sad story after you kill the evil robot and they become nice and join your Party seems like robots and.

[Justin McElroy]

Humans used to get along a lot better. Used to be chilling together. Really good.

[Russ Freshik]

It is staggeringly similar to the plot of Lies of P and no other games that I can think of.

[Griffin McElroy]

True.

[Justin McElroy]

Yeah.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

There's no other game.

[Justin McElroy]

Yeah, it's a lot like. Yeah, it's a lot like this, man. Yeah, we need a narrowing of ip. I feel like we need a win. We need a. An mc, a. An ultimate universe, but for like all of gaming. So we could just condense all these franchises down into one.

[Russ Freshik]

I would say narratively, like, I don't think it's as immediately intriguing as something like Hollow Knight or Dark Souls where they like kind of obscure exactly what the. Is going on. But I do think it gives you a little more to grab onto. And I would say the backstories that you get of the characters that you're defeated and then using his powers helps to humanize the powers they're getting.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

It's like a short story collection for sad robots. Like each. Each boss you beat is like 30 seconds of a little tiny story that stands out.

[Russ Freshik]

And I on the bosses specifically, just to briefly go back to the gameplay, I do want to call out, I think the one aspect. There aren't very many Metroidvania, Sorry, there aren't very many search action games that do combat as well as this game. And I would include Hollow Knight in that. I think the combat in this game is better than Hollow Knight's combat. And why that is is when you were doing a build. We were talking about builds earlier. When you were doing a build in Hollow Knight almost exclusively. It was those trinkets you were equipping, oh, I need a little more range or oh, I need whatever extra defense. And it was all in the trinkets. The fact that you are tweaking both the trinkets and the abilities at any given time.

[Griffin McElroy]

And your equipment, there's like different types of equipment that you can equip that also gives you like different ways to counter or.

[Russ Freshik]

And. And there's a physicality to those changes that aren't just stat changes. Justin was referencing like the ice arc attack. Like when I do a boss fight in this game, I will look and see, oh, this guy is flying up in the air. So anything ground based is going to be worthless. I'm going to unequip that. I'm going to use more automated things. I'm going to increase my running speed or if I need a slightly higher jump, I can do that.

[Justin McElroy]

Ice will sometimes freeze and it'll Buy you, like, two seconds to maybe knock down a health potion or something.

[Russ Freshik]

It all just coalesces into something that gives you more ownership over how you're playing through it, and therefore, it actually makes the whole experience feel better. Speaking of ownership, let me just say I don't know if you guys saw you pirated it. You can tweak every aspect of the difficulty and that'll. You can increase or decrease enemy health, you can increase your personal health, cooldowns, et cetera, et cetera. And either you can make it more manageable for yourself if you have struggles with these games, or if you find it too easy, you can increase the difficulty and that'll increase the amount of resources you're getting on a given moment, which is really smart.

[Justin McElroy]

I defaulted to easy on this one because I wanted to see a bunch of it, and I found that to be a really good experience. I'm not getting hung up. The bosses are not super hard, but I do have to think about what I'm taking into the fight. But it's kind of the deal. Like, once you get the. The hook or the gimmick of it, it's not too hard to.

[Russ Freshik]

Even on normal, it's not as hard as Hollow Knight. By even, like, I found it to be much more approachable.

[Justin McElroy]

I enjoy that a lot, though, because you don't.

[Russ Freshik]

Yeah.

[Justin McElroy]

I don't think these environments are interesting enough to where I would want to.

[Griffin McElroy]

Do it over and over and over.

[Justin McElroy]

Yes.

[Griffin McElroy]

Right.

[Russ Freshik]

I agree.

[Griffin McElroy]

I would not want some of the late. I will say some of the later ones are pretty. Like, some of the later ones, if you get careless for like a second, you'll be. I played it on normal and you get absolutely torn apart. But there's no death penalty. You don't, like, lose souls or whatever. So there's like, no reason not to kind of push your luck a little bit.

[Justin McElroy]

I do want to. If we could just return to the story thing a little bit. I do want to complain a bit about a narrative thing that has been a trend lately. Not lately. Past five, 10 years. I feel like the success of games like Elden Ring and the Souls, games where the narrative is more of a. It's more of like a plotmosphere thing where, like, it's an abstract.

[Russ Freshik]

You invent that? I like that.

[Justin McElroy]

No.

[Russ Freshik]

Did you invent that?

[Justin McElroy]

No. I think the first time I heard it was people talking about Bioshock or maybe even Sleep. No, more like plotmosphere. Like, it's like the story is around you, but you're not like going through a narrative.

[Russ Freshik]

There's not a beat by beat narrative.

[Justin McElroy]

I think there's game. I think that like, for a lot of games that makes a lot of sense because you're. You're cooking in a world you're living in a world, you're inhabiting it. And like it's so richly created that like they need to lay out the texture for you. Like, and you can kind of like fill in the gaps of the aesthetics. It's all jiving together, but it's not like a shortcut for having an actual story. Right. It doesn't save you from having to make it narratively compelling. I feel like a lot of games have gotten the wrong lesson from that and have decided to not do stories anymore and just kind of have like story fragments, like vibes, you know what I mean? Without actually adding anything to it. Like Nier was abstract but. Or surreal is probably a better way of describing it. But there were those like points of narrative that you can like cling on to that are at least helping to propel you. Like even with like surrealist or abstract film, you have some sort of like something that is taking you through it, right. You're not experiencing the entire thing out of sequence holistically. And I feel like it's. It's a shortcut for having an actual compelling story that a lot of times just gets in the way of the rest of the stuff if you're not actually executing it.

[Griffin McElroy]

I think the thing that is supposed to be pulling people through the story is the characters is the different automatons that you befriend and recruit. And that does sort of get fleshed out the further you get into the story. I agree with the plotmosphere complaints. I feel like this game is missing a first act where it explains what the fuck is anything and what's going on. You really have to kind of put in some effort to credit to them.

[Justin McElroy]

Though I did kind of know where I should be going by and large. You can cut. It's a pretty good pathing, but I just didn't have any idea what I was talking about, why I was doing it.

[Griffin McElroy]

If we could talk about just sort of like traversal in progress. I love the way this game handles it. You get double jump and air dash at the same time 10 minutes into the game.

[Justin McElroy]

That's how we do it. What was that one that we just played? Or Prince of Pearl where you didn't get air dash until like almost the end of the game. This is how you Turn, jump.

[Russ Freshik]

I think it's good design sign if they are willing to make a. Able to make a game that doesn't give you that early. It didn't bother me here, but I'm always impressed by a game like Prince of Persia that's like it's going to.

[Griffin McElroy]

Be 10 hours and it really gives you a lot of tools to mess with the game's sort of intended route. Right. Like whenever you do your melee attack chain, every time you do an attack, you get a little bit of height. Right. And every time you do like a movement action, whether it's a dash or like a parry or a double jump, it resets that chain. So I was able to more times than I can count, get somewhere I wasn't supposed to be yet because I could jump, do my attacks, dash, do my attacks, do my double jump, do my attack.

[Russ Freshik]

That's fucking animal welding skills right there.

[Griffin McElroy]

You really like. It's very approachable tech. And I found myself. There was one area where I got to the final boss of the area after only being in the area for like a minute and a half. And then I was like, oh, cool. Now I have the traversal ability that this boss unlocked. I can just run through this whole area real quick. I found that to be very, very exciting and also a testament to the fact that it doesn't fuck the game up. Like, that is clearly by design. You're able to do this because it's not that hard.

[Russ Freshik]

I want to hear from Plant because Plant, we know doesn't care for these games and I'd like to know. I mean, we've talked a little bit about the narrative being there, but kind of light. So I'm curious what it is that's like pulling you through this in ways that hasn't previously done.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Yeah, no, that's a great question. It's the action. It has to be the action. I think the combat is just so much more compelling than it is in like 99% of these games. And it's the type of action that I crave. That's because I want to be clear Hollow Knight. Great. I'm glad people love it. I hope to one day fall in love with it. Maybe before Silksong comes out, which means I probably have another 15 years. But for here, it's kind of doing a Platinum Games thing. It reminded me of. What was that? The Platinum Games one on the switch where you unchained Chained Souls.

[Russ Freshik]

Oh, Unchained Spirit. Yeah, yeah. It had chains in it. And you were a cop.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Yeah. And you Literally had a, like, ghastly robot thing that fought on, on your behalf and you could switch.

[Justin McElroy]

You're thinking of Geists.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

I wish. I wish.

[Justin McElroy]

The Nomad Soul. Yeah.

[Russ Freshik]

It's interesting. You make the plat. I want to just address the platinum thing because I actually found I hate platinum games, as we know. I've just like. I mean, I don't hate them, but I. They've never appealed to me, really. And part of that is because I think they're very busy and I think they overload you with. Here's a combo that you do. Xyy, xxxy, X, pause, Y. And all that stuff goes right over my head. And what I liked about this is that all of your different powers are so compartmentalized and relatively simple. So it's more just about equipping the things and then executing the things rather than keeping a lot of, like, combos and shit in your head.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

That's interesting to me because I don't remember any combos. I'm not a combo person in action games. I struggle with games like Bayonetta or Devil May Cry. But what I like about the combat here that reminds me of more modern platinum games is it's more like stringing together tricks. So it's, hey, I'm going to charge that person. It's going to pop them in the air. Then I'm going to use my scythe, which can rally them up higher and higher and higher. They're going to drop, so I'm going to ground pound onto them. And then I'm going to use whatever my heavy attack is right then. And it's not all about, oh, I'm going to deploy the same combo over and over and over again because I've nailed the controls, and it's the most powerful thing I can accomplish. It's. This is what feels fun in the moment and takes the most advantage of the environment around me. Because that's the other part of what's cool about the combat here, is it's not just, oh, you're on a flat surface with your enemy. There are height variations. And you have some enemies that are flying. You have some that have. They're really slow, but they shoot out their weapon really far in, like, an instant. So you're having to use dodge.

[Russ Freshik]

There's a great fight against a dung beetle where there's, like, just a giant ball that you cannot shoot through. It's just, like, right in front of you. So you have to, like, work your way around that problem in ways that did not match any Other build that I had used previously in the game.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

The combat and the action ends up feeling more like a puzzle or even just like improvisation, which I really, really enjoy. So I think that's it. I think the other part is it being so easy to zip around the map. I just have so little patience for backtracking, even in a game, that I think the art here is quite beautiful at times. But I have no patience for that even in the best Metroidvania search action games.

[Justin McElroy]

On that note, I know other games have done this. I'm pretty sure Prince of Persia did something similar. But this game is so clear about when you are done with a room, which I really, as somebody who hates backtracking, I really love that because that says to me, like, well, that room's still gray and I don't think I missed anything. So let me go back in there and like, poke around and save for having to like, oh, my God, what did I miss? I'll just do it right now. And I. For my brain, I need that.

[Griffin McElroy]

I need. It doesn't just make it more approachable. It makes it I 100% of the game because I wanted that big blue. Whenever you finish an area and find everything that's in an area, you get this little blue seal next to the area's name. And I'm like, oh, that feels good. I never have to step foot in that fucking nasty rotten place ever again.

[Russ Freshik]

The game also does something that Metroid Dread did, which I absolutely love is rather than having you have to keep in your head, oh, I saw a cracked wall over here, but I don't have the ability to go there. Everything is tracked in the map. So if you pull open the map, it'll say locked door. Or, oh, is a locked door, but you have the key now. Or, oh, you need to bash through this with the power you just got.

[Griffin McElroy]

Yeah.

[Russ Freshik]

So the map tells you, but it doesn't do. The thing that I think some search action games do, which I don't like, is here's a fucking waypoint.

[Griffin McElroy]

No way.

[Russ Freshik]

You got to go here. And I don't like that. That feels a little counter to the spirit of the genre, but it is in a way, like just giving you enough kind of to lead you along.

[Justin McElroy]

You also, and this is like, this is getting pretty ephemeral, but I really feel like this is a game that has a clear map that is well represented that you can actually visualize navigating. I think like a one to one of those games that feel so organic and textured. In their map design, they start to get so nuanced that you can't even really tell, you know what I mean?

[Russ Freshik]

I mean, fucking Elden Ring has like six layers going on.

[Justin McElroy]

Exactly.

[Russ Freshik]

Where am I?

[Justin McElroy]

I don't know. This map is not helping me. This is a good map, man. I know where I am and the waypoints. You can automatically go to them whenever you want to from the pause menu. You can fast travel right back. And I don't. There's not a penalty for death as far as I can tell.

[Russ Freshik]

No, there isn't.

[Justin McElroy]

It's very generous in that way, which I really appreciate. The only thing that kind of annoyed me early on, I struggled with a couple of bosses where I felt like I would get in sort of like attack patterns that I couldn't break out of that would like, wipe me in one hit. Like, you would have a big attack that you would get caught in and it would like, literally, like three hits and you're done before you even hit the ground. You can go. You can die really. Even on easy, you can die really quick.

[Griffin McElroy]

Yeah. But I think as you play, you sort of unlock stuff that can mitigate that for sure. You have these totems that. I played the whole game with this one totem, which is like a piece of equipment that made it that if you died, it refilled your life once, one time. Which, like, is such a huge relief to like the number of times that thing saved me. I don't know that this game does anything hugely inventive. Right. Like, I don't think it is necessarily a shift in the genre. I think it just really nails the fundamentals and layers on top of them. Really good RPG systems, like, really good build crafting and really good, like fully customizable combat. And that's a. That's a lot of you say no.

[Justin McElroy]

Innovation, but like a combat system. As hard as this must have been to make balanced and nuanced and to.

[Russ Freshik]

Look good, it also looks.

[Justin McElroy]

That's got to be top of the design document right when you're starting. That's got to be the big idea because I feel like that does feel very different from a lot of. A lot of these games. There are so many different, like not just satisfying different combinations, but like different weapons that very clearly communicate why you would want to use them in one circumstance over another without having to get out a graphing calculator.

[Russ Freshik]

And that was a big change. I mean, the first game kind of started dipping a toe into this stuff. And the first game's combat is Quite good. But they really. All of the like flexibility that you have where each weapon has like sub weapons attached to it and things like that, that's all stuff that was added. So they've really spent a lot of time. I would echo this just to reiterate, I don't think there is a search action game with a better combat system than this. This is the bar. And when Silksong does come out, which is never I.

[Justin McElroy]

Not now after they play, it's like, oh, well, back to the drawing board.

[Russ Freshik]

Seven more years, baby.

[Griffin McElroy]

There is. I mean, we keep comparing those two games. I think they're pretty wildly different. Oh yeah. In the way that Hollow Knight and Silksong do not offer you that level of customization you have to master. It's Dark Souls versus Sekiro.

[Justin McElroy]

Right.

[Griffin McElroy]

Like Sekiro is like you have to get good at this thing. And Hollow Knight is so fucking tight. So, so, so, so tight in a way where this game isn't at times. Which is fine because that means that the RPG systems are so rich that you could make a build that completely just Shadracks this boss you've been stuck on for an hour.

[Russ Freshik]

Yeah. I would also say, for what it's worth, I find Hollow Knight's art design and tone to be more interesting, personally. More interesting just because they, I think are a little more risky and a little bit silly at times in a world that's like very fucking dark. Whereas this is like basically grim start to finish.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

I love my nier. It felt a little familiar at times. The art style, you know, and it's not bad. Let me be clear. Better than like most of what's out there. But I agree.

[Griffin McElroy]

I do want to say these are minor. These are minor criticisms of a game that I.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

This is.

[Griffin McElroy]

This is my favorite thing I've played this year. Pretty. Pretty handily.

[Justin McElroy]

You guys think it's weird in gaming. It's getting more common to have. I feel like this and magical Mr. Mistoffeles. What was the Japanese RPG you guys liked so much last year that night of 4, Refusio, that it's like getting more common to have the games that are sort of like adjacent. They're like not in a franchise, but they sort of are. You know what I mean? They're like. They might as not even like a spiritual successor, but like it's basically understood that they are a part of the franchise without.

[Russ Freshik]

I mean, this is. This is a different story metaphor. Refantazio was the same developer, same, you know, same people behind Persona. This is more you know, this is a different sphere entirely. Inspired.

[Justin McElroy]

No, but there's like a shorthand. Right. That we have started to establish. It's like you. You get it.

[Griffin McElroy]

It's.

[Russ Freshik]

I guess I would. I agree with the art. Sad robots did not come from Nier. Like, let's be real.

[Justin McElroy]

I wasn't really talking about.

[Griffin McElroy]

Yeah.

[Russ Freshik]

What franchise were you saying?

[Justin McElroy]

I was thinking more of like the. With the. The metaphor Refantasio and. And Persona. Like having these, like. I know you can't talk about Nier with this, but it is a. The story of this makes sense to you. If the story of this makes sense to you, it is because of the groundwork that is laid by games like that. Right. So they are building off of a story framework that you already have in your head. Right?

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Yes.

[Justin McElroy]

With no context. You play this game and you're like, what is happening right now? But in conversation with Nier and Liza P. And all those other like, Homunculus video games, like, I feel like you kind of get it fresh. You're right.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

That like Nier didn't invent the sad robot. But I think a lot of people who are playing this have enjoyed Nier and are bringing Nier to them. There's one thing that gives you a.

[Justin McElroy]

Saleable Bioshock or whatever marketing point. If you're pitching it to a friend or somebody else, you're like, you remember how you like Persona. Remember how you like Mir.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Well, I want to go back to one thing Hoop said about the story here and like, having something to hold onto. And this is just a request before we wrap, to developers and also to people who play these games, a really simple, you might even call it tropy Story is okay. In fact, it's great. And the best experimental filmmakers are already doing that. David Lynch, I would say Inland Empire, probably the most difficult lynch film to get into. It is about an actress who is cursed and is told that if you make this movie, things will go very, very bad. And then every 15 minutes you can check in on the most simple story imaginable. Holy Motors. Very complicated movie. It's about an actor who wakes up and has to put on makeup between six different roles or however many that he's going to perform that day.

[Justin McElroy]

Straight story. Don't even get me said.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

It's a straight story.

[Justin McElroy]

It's a straight story.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

I think we should not. One artists should not be afraid about building. If you're going to build something really abstract, using something extremely familiar as a through line is a powerful thing. And us as the Audience should not discount something just because it's familiar and simple. We connect with those things for a very.

[Russ Freshik]

It's a platform to do something new.

[Justin McElroy]

But it's a gateway, I do think, in. In a game, in anything other than, like, where the pieces of the game have been abstracted out to, like, Thomas was alone, which is a bad example. But, like, unless there's, like, completely abstracted. If you're talking about people. I think that if you want me to play the game, you've got to at least give me something that I am working towards narratively so I can make that part of my brain shut up for a while. Right. You know what I mean? Like, without that even a basic. Like, I have to find my sister.

[Russ Freshik]

Okay.

[Justin McElroy]

You know, I'll look around for my sister for a while. Like, something like that, just to get me started.

[Russ Freshik]

And even, like, Minecraft is like, you need a fucking house, dude. You need to be able to sleep.

[Griffin McElroy]

When was the last time you played Minecraft? Because I have never seen a message pop up that's like, hey, it's.

[Russ Freshik]

Hey, it's grinding minecrain left and right. You haven't seen my Minecoin grinding machine.

[Griffin McElroy]

No, I haven't seen your Minecraft chain. Astral chain.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Astral chain.

[Russ Freshik]

We did it.

[Justin McElroy]

You just got a bunch of people. Russ is making another Minecraft movie coming in 2027. It's a different Minecraft movie.

[Russ Freshik]

It's gonna be so fucking good. I've got circles in mind. Oh, my God.

[Justin McElroy]

He got back Jack.

[Griffin McElroy]

The game is called Ender, Magnolia Bloom in the Mist. It's important.

[Justin McElroy]

Got back Jack.

[Griffin McElroy]

Play it and let's go to the break. Hey, I played Civilization 7, the seventh of Sid Meier's diabolical little world boxes that he loves to build.

[Justin McElroy]

Griffin, can I ask you as a layman, instead of having an outsider.

[Griffin McElroy]

Yeah.

[Justin McElroy]

And this is gonna sound kind of stupid, and I don't mean it to, but I thought all these were good. Do you know what I'm saying? I thought this was a series where each time there's some series where everyone comes out and everybody likes them all. I thought this was one of those.

[Griffin McElroy]

No, this is the seventh one of them. So, like, obviously they've realized their mistakes every time, and then, like, we gotta fix it. We gotta do it better. I am not like, a civ expert. I picked up the series at five, and I played a lot of five, and I played some six, didn't love it, and now there's seven. I'd like to share my Thoughts, if I may. I don't know if any of you guys actually played it. I'm seeing a lot of head shaking.

[Russ Freshik]

I found it very scary. Yeah. Played two hours.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

I played two hours. It was a trance.

[Griffin McElroy]

It was a trance. In a what way?

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Like, I played two hours, like, this is gonna teach me how to play the game. And it proceeded to tell me rules. But then by the end of the two hours, I had no idea how I had done literally anything.

[Griffin McElroy]

I mean, Civilization, and I would say probably any 4x strategy game is a thing where I feel like you have to have a couple runs at it. It requires almost the way that we talk about JRPGs requiring time before you get to the good stuff. It's such an insanely dense. It comes with its own encyclopedia of rules. The encyclopedia, this one is not particularly informative.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Even though all the games are different. Is it also the genre where it took me multiple soulslikes before I really got into them, but all the hours I put into each one prepared me for the next.

[Griffin McElroy]

Absolutely. They will prepare prepared for Civilization VII based on the time I spent with the other games. Even though Civ 7 does make some pretty huge changes. In some ways, I will say they have streamlined, if you can believe it, the way a lot of the systems work. They have made certain processes automatic that before required micromanagement. You no longer have to spawn builders in order to make buildings and produce buildings. All of that stuff happens automatically as your city expands. There's a lot of stuff like that that they have sort of streamlined. I will say. Like, I think the two big changes they've made, I think one is great. I think one has really lost me. The one that's great is they've fully overhauled the way sort of diplomacy works in the game, which is obviously important for a world conquering big board game essentially where you're going up against other world leaders. Before it was like kind of abstract and you know, sometimes you would obviously see like signs of aggression. Like, oh man, this guy's really running up on my borders. I hope he doesn't declare war on me. Oh, he did. Now I have to go into war. Oh no. All my citizens are super fucking unhappy. It was like kind of. It kind of felt like a crapshoot every time. Now you have a resource called influence that you accrue just like gold and you know, science and all of the other resources in the game. And you spend that to do different things. Like if you want to get a city state on your side, you can spend Influence to attract them. You also use it for like espionage stuff. So you can spend influence on espionage actions like stealing somebody's like scientific discovery or forming a trade alliance with somebody. All of that stuff is like really mechanical now in a way that I find fucking rad. I think is, has, has made the whole idea of how do I get this whole nation on my side or how do I defend myself or weaken this other nation. All of that is like pretty understandable now. And you have like a list of options and costs and all that. The big thing that this game does different is it separates the whole of the game into three ages. There is like the classic age, there is the age of exploration and then there is the modern age. And there's a set time limit that you pick basically when you start the game for each of those different ages. And as different, you know, societies grow and hit these different sort of like benchmarks and hit these complete these like mission objectives, that clock moves forward and forward until the age ends. You kind of cash out. You, you sort of like if you completed these different science missions, you will get a science point that you can invest at the start of the next age.

[Russ Freshik]

Got it.

[Griffin McElroy]

It's basically a sort of rubber banding system that stops the game from. This is why they did it. I think it stops the game from Snowballing on turn 10 where it's like, well, this is decided. We can play another 95 turns of this if you want. But this guy is so in the instead there's two sort of soft resets that they have in a campaign.

[Russ Freshik]

I feel like you could rally at the end of an era if things are going poorly because you get some sort of bonus at the end of the era.

[Griffin McElroy]

Yes, you get a bonus. Right. So you're starting out stronger. If you did a good job in the last era and you have sort of a focused idea, it'll give you a jump start in the next one. But it also does kind of put everyone on sort of a level playing field. Right. And then in the modern era, that's where you get your game winning objectives that you're. Now it's a race to see who can get there first. I don't love it and I think that it kind of goes hand in hand with the other big change that I don't love, which is they have unpaired like leaders from actual civilizations. Right. So like at the start of the game you pick your leader. So it's like, oh, I'll pick Gandhi.

[Russ Freshik]

Is like the known one, right?

[Griffin McElroy]

Yeah. Say Like, I'll pick Gandhi, and then you have to pick your ancient civilization to start. Like, okay, well, I'll pick Rome, I guess. What if Gandhi was the leader of Rome? Okay, cool. You get to the end of the age, you have to pick a whole new civilization, right? And it's. The ones that are available to you are based on sort of, like, what achievements you have made in the prior age. And maybe.

[Russ Freshik]

So you're not sticking with Rome and Gandhi for all three eras.

[Griffin McElroy]

Sometimes you can, but, like, not into the modern era.

[Justin McElroy]

Sometimes you gotta ditch Gandhi and get serious.

[Griffin McElroy]

So, no, you stay with your. I'm pretty sure there's no way to change your leader, but you change the nation and all it does is kind of like, it doesn't wipe the map clean, right? Like, all the stuff that you built on the map, the state of the board game is the same. I mean, shit will have different names, but then, like, the different abilities and the different kind of, like, modifiers that the different nations get, those change age to age. And I don't know, man. I feel like it takes away the thing that I like about civilization, which is like, building. Like, I am building this thing. It is the reason that that whole one more turn kind of idea works. And I know that I think this is gonna be divisive. I think there's lots of people who are fed up with the way civilization works who are excited about this. For me, it got rid of that feeling of, like, it's turn 100. I know exactly how I got to where I am, and I know exactly the state of the world having that sort of soft reset kind of. I don't know, it really, really took all the wind out of my sails every time it happened. So that's like. That's the lay of the land. It is still, if you have played civ before, like, all the core systems are pretty identifiable, pretty recognizable, and it is neat. Like, it is very, very cool. Especially once you start fucking around with, like, what if this time, instead of building a huge military, I instead tried to become this, like, diplomatic spymaster and try to win that way. Like, being able to do that stuff is very, very cool. It's the big structural changes I am not so wild about. But I also am a fairly recent newcomer to the series, and maybe there are people who are excited about this idea of this sort of rebalancing research.

[Russ Freshik]

My impression in reading the reviews is that people that are, like, old school civ people don't like the changes. But I'm also really sensitive to the. How fucking hard it must be. And this is not a like pro or con about the game, but imagine having to make a new fucking civ game. Yeah, it's not like making Madden every year where it's like, oh, we, there's a hit stick now and whatever. There's new players that you have to like recreate chess a little bit each time you do it and that's really okay.

[Justin McElroy]

But no one asked them to.

[Russ Freshik]

I know that's not. I'm not making an excuse.

[Justin McElroy]

No one made them. They're the ones who wanted 60 new dollars. You know, I already gave them the $60.

[Russ Freshik]

I'm not giving them a. I'm not saying they were right whatever to say, whatever it is. I'm just as an intellectual experience, if someone came to me and is like, you need to make a new civ game, I'd be shitting my pants.

[Griffin McElroy]

Right. And I think that they are taking some big bold swings with this game. But. And this is, I think the case. This was certainly the case with Civ 6. Like some of the changes are fucking great and some of them I don't, I really, really don't care for. Your mileage is gonna vary a whole lot. I think that despite the fact that some stuff has been done to make this a more sort of user friendly, beginner friendly experience, I still think like Civ 4 or 5 is the, is the gold standard just because, I don't know, I think they are better games. But.

[Russ Freshik]

Did this work on Steam Deck for you, Griffin?

[Griffin McElroy]

I didn't try it. Didn't even try it. The idea of it.

[Russ Freshik]

I think it is supported on Steam Deck for those who have.

[Griffin McElroy]

I mean, it's on consoles, right? So like a lot of the stuff.

[Justin McElroy]

Seems to me the only way I would do that is if I paired my Steam Deck to a TV and then got a Bluetooth mouse keyboard instead of my laughing.

[Griffin McElroy]

Yeah, that's the Civ 7.

[Russ Freshik]

Thank you for teaching us, Griffin. We appreciate it. We have just a couple reader mail questions I wanted to call out. This one comes from Archie McCarras. Did any of you finish Lorelei and the Laser Eyes? I know there were some hesitations about the UI and the general obtrusiveness, but in retrospect, every single aspect feels so intentional and it comes together as a really compelling piece of art. Did anyone go back to it?

[Justin McElroy]

Nope.

[Griffin McElroy]

No, I played. I would say I got maybe halfway through it and did not get. I really liked it. I just kept hitting walls where I wasn't making Any progress?

[Russ Freshik]

I keep wondering if it's going to come out on mobile because their games, that game in particular felt very touch friendly. Yeah.

[Justin McElroy]

When you have to play a new game. Not have to, but when you play a new game every week, that's the kind of game that tends to fall through the cracks is the ones that have some. Some rough edges.

[Griffin McElroy]

Yeah.

[Russ Freshik]

We have one more question. This comes from Matthew. Hi, besties. I'm having surgery in April, which means six weeks. For six weeks, I have to avoid raising my hands above shoulder level. What games do you recommend for post surgery? Ideally something that you can sink a lot of hours into without raising your blood pressure too much.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

I always replay Skyrim for the 11 Dragon Quest 11.

[Griffin McElroy]

Dragon Quest 11.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

So easy.

[Justin McElroy]

It's right there.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Do it.

[Justin McElroy]

Dragon Quest Builders, though. What about Dragon Builders?

[Russ Freshik]

Oh, I love Dragon Builders Builders.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

You know what? Not a bad idea either.

[Justin McElroy]

Dragon Quest Builders.

[Griffin McElroy]

Dragon Quest Builders 2. Dragon Quest Builders 2, please.

[Justin McElroy]

Dragon Quest Builders 2 is. Oh, my God. Oh, I just got something that's like stomach pain, except it's the feeling of wanting to play Dragon Quest Builders 2 so much.

[Griffin McElroy]

It runs like shit on Steam decks, sadly.

[Russ Freshik]

Really?

[Griffin McElroy]

Yeah.

[Justin McElroy]

I would also say I had a really outrageously great beach trip once where I played almost the entirety of Persona 4 on my PlayStation portal.

[Russ Freshik]

Oh, yeah. Persona seems like a good one because you're. You're just stuck and you're just reading and that's not gonna jam your.

[Griffin McElroy]

I'd say four golden if you. Yeah.

[Russ Freshik]

But if you're worried with Teddy.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Even more with the blood pressure. I think. What if this person doesn't like RPGs?

[Russ Freshik]

Okay, that's a good question. The binding. No, don't do binding. Why not?

[Griffin McElroy]

I think.

[Russ Freshik]

I think it's a good. Blood pressure. Gets jacked and I've been playing 700 hours.

[Justin McElroy]

I mean, that's it for Hades would be my other. I mean that's when I put a bajillion hours.

[Russ Freshik]

Tense, man.

[Justin McElroy]

I would say that like Balatro. I don't really get that tense about like. But I have played a bunch like.

[Russ Freshik]

Balatro is a good one. I would recommend on mobile.

[Justin McElroy]

Oh. Solitarica also is similar.

[Griffin McElroy]

If you want to go for sheer content. I'll say Final Fantasy 14 has a lot to offer you.

[Justin McElroy]

Yeah.

[Griffin McElroy]

If you.

[Justin McElroy]

I also recommend books.

[Griffin McElroy]

Books? Yeah.

[Justin McElroy]

Check them out.

[Russ Freshik]

Was there one in particular?

[Justin McElroy]

Not big reader. No, I haven't had time. Haven't had time this week. Been really swamped. No, I only read Romantasy and I don't Think our listeners care about an image?

[Russ Freshik]

Should I be reading Onyx Storm? Justin.

[Justin McElroy]

What?

[Russ Freshik]

Should I be reading Onyx Storm seems like a phenomenon.

[Justin McElroy]

Did you read. I mean, did you read Fourth Wing and. No, I mean, Fourth Wing is the first one, so. Fourth Wing first. That was a phenomenon. Onyx Storm is the third book. I will say this. I like them. A lot of shit happens in them, and it's a pretty good blend of dragons and kissing.

[Russ Freshik]

Is it steamy?

[Justin McElroy]

Yeah, in a lot of different ways. Because there's dragons too.

[Russ Freshik]

Love it. Do we have any honorable mentions?

[Griffin McElroy]

I mean, as long as we're talking books. I've been reading the Murderbot Diaries.

[Justin McElroy]

Yeah, they're good, right?

[Griffin McElroy]

Yeah, they're real fucking good. Martha Wells is a book series. There's seven of these bad boys. I'm almost done with number two. I've been absolutely just gnawing through these beauties. It's about a robot.

[Justin McElroy]

I will say this, Griffin, before you go too deep down this hole. I've done this pitch on besties.

[Griffin McElroy]

Oh.

[Justin McElroy]

Within the past few episodes, so.

[Griffin McElroy]

Oh, have you?

[Justin McElroy]

Yeah, you could do, like, a concise version.

[Griffin McElroy]

Was I absent for that one?

[Justin McElroy]

Yeah, if you were absent for that episode.

[Griffin McElroy]

Well, then I won't go too deep. But they're great. They're incredibly readable, incredibly likable, incredibly exciting.

[Justin McElroy]

I hope Marci Wells wasn't listening to that. She's probably like, you motherfucker. What a piece of shit. I hate Dustin McElroy so much.

[Griffin McElroy]

All right, will someone else go while I think of a thing?

[Russ Freshik]

I've been playing the Binding of Isaac.

[Justin McElroy]

Can I. Do I get a. Do I.

[Griffin McElroy]

Do you get a vote on if Russ can talk?

[Justin McElroy]

I would love to know. No, I'm desperate to hear more. Binding of Isaac. I'm in one of my.

[Russ Freshik]

Like, I'm gonna keep it small. I'm gonna keep it short on Binding of isaac. I have 10 more achievements to go out of 640 achievements.

[Justin McElroy]

Holy crap.

[Russ Freshik]

It has taken me literally 10 years to get to this point. And it was one of my. As plant can attest, it was one of my New Year's resolutions to finish this game. So I am closing in on it.

[Justin McElroy]

Finish this game. No one has ever finished this game in that context.

[Russ Freshik]

I'm gonna do it.

[Justin McElroy]

That's finished. See, like, it's.

[Russ Freshik]

There is a funny thing about Binding of Isaac. I don't think I'm gonna do this, but when you 100% binding of Isaac, it gives you, like, a yay. You completed it. But it also Changes your save file to say two more to go and you have to 100% the other two save files to get like a full infinity thing. I'm not gonna do that.

[Justin McElroy]

I really appreciate that.

[Russ Freshik]

I can't wait to be able to play this in multiplayer. It does support online multiplayer. It's currently in beta, but I would love to play more. So maybe you guys will join me for my last hurrah. That'd be fun.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

That would be fun. My recommendation is the Super Bowl. The Kansas City Chiefs are going to be there this Sunday against the Philadelphia Eagles. Whoever wins, it's going to be a great time. But I'm very, very, very, very happy about this. It is bringing me a lot of joy right now.

[Russ Freshik]

How many years they got left? Is this it? Are they going to be done?

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

It has to be it for a while after this, right?

[Griffin McElroy]

Like I feel like I said last year.

[Justin McElroy]

Yep.

[Russ Freshik]

Yeah, they should launch a podcast instead. Just do that. Seems pretty.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

They did Travis, Kelsey.

[Russ Freshik]

Well, all of them.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Yeah.

[Justin McElroy]

They launched a Hallmark movie, for God's sake. Listen, you guys played old video games.

[Griffin McElroy]

Oh, shit. What do you want now? Juice?

[Justin McElroy]

Hey, listen, I don't know. Having Russ, a good Russ on the show awoke something in me, like something really scary. And I.

[Griffin McElroy]

Sorry, did you just refer to Russ from Retro Game Corps as a good Russ?

[Russ Freshik]

Yeah, he did.

[Justin McElroy]

No, good Russ. Like the definite article. Like the good Russian having. When the good Russ was on the show, it really unlocked something. I don't know what it is. Something broke deep down in me and I started really getting deep. So the first thing I made was I showed you guys the PI Cade. That's like a stand up arcade cabinet that has a Raspberry PI 4 in it with a hat on top of it that plugs into like the joystick.

[Russ Freshik]

And you say hat like people just know. You're right.

[Justin McElroy]

It's a hat is like a. Sorry, it's been a long week since I didn't know anything about it.

[Russ Freshik]

It's like a trilby.

[Justin McElroy]

So it's like the Raspberry PI is a tiny computer. A hat is sort of like interface components that if you put it on will make that computer into something more like the computer that you want. So this little PI Cade hat slid onto the Raspberry PI and had a place to plug in controllers and a screen and stuff like that.

[Russ Freshik]

When you plugged everything in, did you say finishing the hat?

[Justin McElroy]

No, I didn't. I didn't notice. I didn't do that. So I did that and I put A bunch of old video games on it. And then that didn't. Then my rocks still weren't hard enough, so I decided that I was going to. So basically, here's what's in my living room now is a mini PC that I have a jump drive connected via USB that has a Batocera image that I flashed onto the drive that is now the boot image for the mini PC that boots into the emulation station Batocera that's paired to an 8bitdo controller in a dock that's behind the TV along with the mini PC. So I reach behind my TV, I pull out a controller, and I can play any game ever made.

[Griffin McElroy]

And what have you been playing? What have you been playing?

[Justin McElroy]

Oh, I don't play them. I don't play the games, baby. I'm Night at the museum, you know what I mean? Like, I'm Ben Stiller walking around the Genesis 32X section, like, looking good tonight, everyone. Keep it in place. Girl, Girl party. What was the one we played, Griffin?

[Griffin McElroy]

Girl party.

[Justin McElroy]

Girl Club. Girls Club member on the CD. Yeah.

[Griffin McElroy]

I will never forget Girls Club.

[Justin McElroy]

The Justin McIlroy Prize for getting CDI video cartridge emulation running on any sort of, like, any fashion is still unclaimed. $1,000 in Olive Garden gift certificates are waiting for you if you can make that happen. But no, I've been playing. Actually, what I messed with a lot is Daphne this week has been causing me the most consternation because it's a. Do you guys know about Daphne? It's a laserdisc emulator that is very old. Like, old old thing. But laserdisc game emulation is really hard because you have to have these laserdisc video files and you have to have ROMs, right? And the ROMs are basically like, both running the game and also telling the game where the video files are that it needs to play. So, like, if you think about the ROM for Dragon's Lair, it's actually like this incredibly intricate DVD menu, right? Where like, you can go through the ROM path, but that's the rom and then it's cueing you towards. So it's basically like, file structure is really important with Daphne ship because it's pointing to a lot of different places. It's not just one file. And each of the different emulators has that in different structures. So you can't have the same file format for, like, RetroArch that you would have for RetroPie because they format the stuff differently on Android or depending on what architecture you're in. So that's what I've been messing with a lot. That's not an advisement. I can't imagine that anybody would want to do this. But I can now play a time traveler Griffin on my desktop.

[Griffin McElroy]

I can play time reversal cues.

[Justin McElroy]

I can play space ace in 4K when it stopped. But yeah, it's been fun. It's been great. I really have enjoyed collecting those games in a digital format is a lot more pleasurable than it used to be and much more pleasurable and satisfying. And I will say educational, like just kind of cruising around with like the ratings and the information on the games and like clips and stuff. I really do get the sense of like history when you wander into these like full game collections where the like logos are built out and it feels like you are seeing an entire collection you've never seen before. It really is kind of amazing.

[Griffin McElroy]

All my shit is stuff I've talked about before. I leveled up all my guys in heroes of Hammer Watch 2 and kind of slowed down after that. I don't really feel like pushing new Game plus, but that game is still rad and I'm waiting for more stuff to come out for it. I did finish the Root Trees are Dead.

[Justin McElroy]

Oh, that's good too. I started that with Sydney this week. That's a great co op play together game.

[Griffin McElroy]

I solved it. And then I go back to the main menu and it's like, and here's the second one. And they have a whole second mystery. No, really, everything is different. Like you get the board from the first one still you get everything that you did that you figured out in the first one. But now it's like much later and the board is like twice as big and now there's a bunch of different much, much harder stuff to solve. And I honestly kind of put a pause on that.

[Justin McElroy]

That's such an amazing game. I've been playing it with Sydney. I will say that I usually find there is a point in each evening at which I'm no longer able to play the Root Trees are Dead. It becomes incredibly way too complex for me to try to organize and keep in my head. That is like a. It's a lot less casual, I think than like something like we were doing Curse of the Golden Idol and that's a little bit more relaxed. This is very much like, okay, hold on, wait. I've almost got it. Give me one more second.

[Griffin McElroy]

And yeah, I'm still doing my Godot training course. It's still very, very cool. I get excited now when I see the little Godot icon before an indie game boots up and start trying to, like, figure out how they did all the different shit. It's neat. That's it.

[Russ Freshik]

Love it. I wanted to thank some people. We have some members over at the Patreon Wampaphil. We have Violence, we have Liv, and we have Felicity. Thank you for being patrons. Just for y'all being patrons, we have a new bracket Battles episode. This one is about the best, I think. Weird Nintendo failures.

[Justin McElroy]

I think it's the best Nintendo failure. Is that what we settled on?

[Russ Freshik]

Best weirdo Nintendo failure. Who knows Something to that effect? I don't know. Here's a clip from that bracket battles episode. You can listen to that right here.

[Griffin McElroy]

Both of these, I think, are about. They provide about the same amount of entertainment value. I feel like they're both sort of spread out more. They're intangible in the same kind of way, which I appreciate. I do think Labo is more fun.

[Russ Freshik]

Yeah.

[Griffin McElroy]

Which is more weird. I think as a concept, Labo's more weird. But looking at this fucking box art, it's so weird why they made it look like this. It's so weird why they made it look so shitty and not have art from the game. Super Mario Brothers and the Legend of Zelda.

[Justin McElroy]

Yeah.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Like, we live in a time now where you make a marketing partnership and then you reach out to Nintendo and you're like, hey, send me over the assets, the original assets. And they send you a big file.

[Griffin McElroy]

Right.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

And that takes five seconds. But back in the day, you're saying, hey, I need to get some Mario and Zelda assets. And somebody else is like, yeah, I'll reach out to Japan.

[Russ Freshik]

Oh, they're gonna, like, fly Miyamoto out.

[Justin McElroy]

I'm getting a description over the phone. Like, yeah, he's got, like, a red hat and black.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

That is a green hat.

[Griffin McElroy]

The green is like, a little nasty guy. I don't know.

[Justin McElroy]

I don't know.

[Russ Freshik]

Just like. That was a fun one. We had a good time doing that one.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Also on Tuesday, we have Orestes on Big Helmet Heroes, which Hoops Griffin. We need to get you into this game. They made another Castle Crashers.

[Russ Freshik]

It's basically Castle Crashers.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

It's just Castle crashers, but in 3D. It's good stuff.

[Russ Freshik]

It's a lot of fun.

[Justin McElroy]

I thought we told you guys not to have any good games on the Rest Easy.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

We tried not to, and then it ended up being great.

[Justin McElroy]

Dang it.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

I know.

[Justin McElroy]

Slate play plans of my submit do go off dry.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Also, next week. We have avowed on next Besties. Avowed is the new game from Obsidian, the developer best known for games like Fallout New Vegas.

[Justin McElroy]

That's next week. I hope you'll join us for that because we want you to join us next time for the besties, won't you? Because shouldn't the world's best friends pick the world's best gangs?

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Besties?