Tomodatchi Life and the Magic and Wonder of Super Nintendo World

Summary

The Besties Podcast Summary

Episode: Tomodachi Life and the Magic and Wonder of Super Nintendo World
Date: April 24, 2026
Hosts: Russ Frushtick, Griffin McElroy, Justin McElroy (Chris Plante absent)

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Episode Overview

This episode of The Besties splits into two lively, in-depth reviews: first, a discussion of Nintendo's new Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream for Switch, and second, an immersive recounting of Griffin's journey to the brand-new Super Nintendo World in Orlando, Florida. The crew also dives into the state of retro gaming handhelds, swaps TV picks (including Survivor 50 and Taskmaster), and shares their signature humor throughout.

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Key Topics & Discussion Points

1. Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream (02:35–24:16)

What Is Tomodachi Life? (03:04)

• Griffin introduces the game: a sequel to the 2013 3DS life sim, expanded for Switch.
  • "It's a game where you create Miis... they live on an island, and you can watch them and lightly interact with them as they get into all kinds of crazy hijinks." (Griffin, 03:07)

Miis and Customization (05:40–06:42)

• Miis explained: Once central to Nintendo's identity, now more customizable than ever, letting players "fully paint over their face with like a paintbrush" (Griffin, 06:14).
• Modern Miis retain legacy vibes but offer deep character creation, giving the game a unique, nostalgic charm.

Gameplay & Unique Appeal (07:38–09:57)

• Ant Farm, not The Sims: Unlike other life sims, Tomodachi Life is about watching Miis relate, not micromanaging lives.
  • "It's much more focused on... the Miis having relationships with one another and like having conversations and that resulting in funny scenes playing." (Russ, 07:46)
• Algorithmic surprises: The fun comes from content you've created reappearing in surprising, emergent moments.
  • "The most interesting stuff this game does, it does without your input, really." (Griffin, 07:57)
  • "Once you've entered like 30 prompts... and they start like interacting... I think that's when it starts getting pretty fun." (Russ, 09:57)

User-Generated Content & Lack of Sharing (10:31–14:46)

• Unfiltered creativity: For the first time, there's "no profanity filter," letting players create anything—even "Star Fox Smut" as a dessert (Griffin, 11:28).
• But: No online sharing or screenshot export. Nintendo's solution to potential abuse is strict isolation, leading to frustration that creative work can't be showcased.
  • "There's none of that here. And that sucks so bad..." (Griffin, 12:41)

Playing with Kids & Audience (16:05–19:46)

• Both Griffin and Russ played with their children, highlighting the game's appeal to younger audiences and the delight in creating known characters or real-world people.
  • "Henry actually got way into it... this is the first game in a while where we were kind of wrestling for the Switch 2..." (Griffin, 16:07)
  • "I created [my son]. He was the first me that we created and then proceeded to make just any human character in the Pokémon anime..." (Russ, 17:46)

Progression & Repetition (19:46–22:47)

• Unlocks: Helping Miis levels up a central fountain, unlocking new creative tools and features.
• Replay value: While cutscenes can repeat, some surprises and sitcom-like interactions keep things fresh.

Final Thoughts on Tomodachi Life (22:47–24:16)

• Delightful weirdness: The hosts love the game's "weird, unique, amazing" energy, celebrating it as a "smash hit" for creative families—if you can live without robust community features.
  • "This game is absolute. You can do anything you want in this game." (Griffin, 16:00)
  • "Surprisingly great kids game if you have a sort of, I don't know, artistically inclined gamer kiddo in your house." (Griffin, 23:52)

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2. Super Nintendo World, Orlando – Griffin’s Theme Park Adventure (26:10–43:34)

Parks Structure & First Impressions (26:10–30:49)

• Epic Universe explained: Super Nintendo World is one "island" in Universal's new park; others include Dark Universe (monster movies), Harry Potter, and How to Train Your Dragon lands.
• Immersion: Enter through a warp pipe into Peach's Castle—instantly surrounded by Mario universe details.

Ride Highlights

• Three main rides:
  1. Yoshi’s Adventure (35:05): Gentle, interactive for little kids—collect eggs, hear the iconic Yoshi music.
  2. Mario Kart Bowser’s Challenge (36:31): Uses AR visors, blending real and virtual—navigate Mario Kart tracks, trigger effects like squid ink in AR, and compete for high scores.
     • "I thought it was the coolest sort of, like, interactive game ride, which is sort of a burgeoning genre, that I’d ever been on." (Griffin, 38:19)
  3. DK’s Minecart Madness (39:36): Coaster modeled after Donkey Kong Country’s famous minecart levels, with unique dual-rail illusions.
     • "It’s just a fun, fast coaster with a gimmick that is really, really neat." (Griffin, 41:13)
• Interactive Wristbands ("Magic Bands"): Used for simple puzzles/collectibles, especially fun for kids.

Merchandise & Atmosphere (43:23)

• Unique swag: Griffin bought a heat-activated Donkey Kong tank top—bananas appear in the sun!
• Compact space: The park’s density and theming are praised, but the hosts want even more Nintendo zones.
  • “I would go to a whole park that is just this. And it’s wild to me that there’s... not that.” (Griffin, 41:34)

Age Range & Accessibility

• Kids’ experiences: Best for ages 6+ due to noise/overstimulation; younger kids may be overwhelmed.
• Lines & Logistics: Early entry helps, and hotel guests get an hour head start on popular rides.

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3. The State of Retro Handhelds (47:11–55:35)

• Handheld chaos: The market for niche emulation devices has crashed—companies are struggling with manufacturing costs, preorders, and fulfilling promises.
  • "We are now in this window where a lot of these devices were preorders at a certain price... RAM absolutely shit the bed. And now nobody knows quite what to do..." (Justin, 47:54)
• Order challenges: Devices are discontinued before shipping, prices spike, and communication is poor.
  • "It's really, really widespread and it's really just kind of crashed the market. It feels like a lot of the people who are most enthusiastic about this stuff are starting to be like, well, if we can't fucking get it... what are we doing here?" (Griffin, 51:40)
• Cautious optimism: Russ notes he's grateful for existing devices that can handle up to PS1/N64, even if future innovation slows.

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4. TV Picks: Taskmaster & Survivor 50 (44:07–46:49, 55:40–57:18)

Survivor 50

• Russ and Griffin discuss the all-star, nostalgia-heavy 50th season, full of strategy, meta twists, and celebrity idols.
  • "If you know Survivor 50 is on, you probably are watching Survivor 50." (Justin, 44:14)
  • Notable moment: “Billie Eilish Boomerang Idol” gets repeated ad nauseam (Justin & Griffin, 46:02).

Taskmaster, Season 17 (UK)

• Taskmaster‘s new cast includes Kumail Nanjiani and Armando Iannucci and is highly recommended.
  • "This season fucking rules so far." (Griffin, 56:15)
  • Fun moment: Kumail’s celebrity status impresses the British comedians, leading to backstage awe (Russ, 56:39).

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• "You can make a photorealistic one-to-one box of Diaram Blacks... and people are just wild about these things. They're always talking about it. They eat them, they eat them up good." — Griffin, on Tomodachi Life's custom foods (08:31)
• "There is no filter. You can draw that and you can call it Star Fox Smut and people will be all about it. You could even make that a dessert, and people eat the book..." — Griffin (11:17)
• "This game's unhinged. This game is absolute. You can do anything you want in this game." — Griffin (16:00)
• "I have a ton of affection for everything there. And so does Henry... I was definitely sort of feeling..." — Griffin, reflecting on Nintendo World (30:53)
• "I would go to a whole park that is just this." — Griffin (41:34)
• "...the Ambernick RG Vita... looks exactly like a Vita and it can't play Vita games." — Justin (54:10)
• "This season fucking rules so far." — Griffin, on Taskmaster (56:15)

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream – 02:35–24:16
• Super Nintendo World Review – 26:10–43:34
• Survivor 50 Discussion – 44:07–46:49
• Retro Handheld Update – 47:11–55:35
• Taskmaster Recommendation – 55:40–57:18
• Episode Recap & Sign-off – 57:20–59:54

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Tone & Style

The episode is freewheeling, affectionate, and irreverent, with the hosts riffing on nostalgia, gaming quirks, and parenthood in equal measure. There’s a deep love for Nintendo’s willingness to stay weird, balanced by honest frustration with modern gaming and hardware hurdles.

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Bottom Line

Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream is celebrated as a creative, delightfully bizarre Nintendo sandbox, albeit one frustratingly locked away from online sharing. Meanwhile, Super Nintendo World (Orlando) emerges as a must-see for Nintendo super-fans, full of immersive rides and playful design. The hosts close with candid warnings about the shaky retro handheld market, and some joyful TV recs—making for another episode rich in personality, inside jokes, and gaming wisdom.

Transcript

[Russ Frostnik]

Guys, I don't do well in the sun. Did you know that? Can you imagine me in the sun?

[Griffin McElroy]

No, I can only imagine you dancing in the moonlight. And that's my own sort of stuff that I'm frolicking. Yeah.

[Russ Frostnik]

I took my family to Puerto Rico over spring break when I was out from the besties. And I had a lovely time. It was fantastic.

[Griffin McElroy]

Yeah.

[Russ Frostnik]

But I think they might have called me the Chupacabra when I was there because my skin did not look like a human being's skin after about a day.

[Griffin McElroy]

What did it. I mean, what happened to it? Because I usually it just turns red for me if I get too much on it. But does yours do sort of something different?

[Russ Frostnik]

I mean, there's redness. It starts with red.

[Griffin McElroy]

Okay.

[Justin McElroy]

Did you take proper precautions? That's my first question.

[Russ Frostnik]

So it turns out 30 SPF was not enough.

[Griffin McElroy]

Oh my God. For your alabaster porcelain skin. No way, dude.

[Russ Frostnik]

30 liners?

[Justin McElroy]

I don't even know how you convert SPF to rpf. First of all, there's another chart that you gotta do. The numbers don't even work the same way. It's like Celsius.

[Russ Frostnik]

I will say, on the third day, it looked more like a plaid than anything.

[Griffin McElroy]

Okay.

[Russ Frostnik]

Which is not good. And now I'm just shedding into my new evolution. Who knows what I'm gonna be like.

[Griffin McElroy]

Oh, that's cool.

[Russ Frostnik]

Species dude.

[Griffin McElroy]

What if a different rust shows up next week?

[Justin McElroy]

Juice.

[Griffin McElroy]

And it's like. And his name will be like rustar. And it'll be like bigger and stronger and cooler.

[Russ Frostnik]

Sunglasses.

[Griffin McElroy]

Sunglasses. Stronger, hotter, cooler.

[Justin McElroy]

30 SPF. You thought 30.

[Russ Frostnik]

I thought 30. It was folly on the level that I cannot even.

[Justin McElroy]

You've met you.

[Russ Frostnik]

Yeah. The problem is I don't go outside. So I was like, eh, I'll be fine. I've been saving it up.

[Griffin McElroy]

Been a while since you.

[Justin McElroy]

Yeah. Yeah. Well, from now. I bet that's a mistake you won't make again, right? Never taking care of that scan from now on.

[Griffin McElroy]

Good. Yes.

[Justin McElroy]

Great. I'm glad to hear Russ got to.

[Griffin McElroy]

It's your biggest organ.

[Justin McElroy]

Biggest organ.

[Griffin McElroy]

Second biggest for me.

[Justin McElroy]

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

[Griffin McElroy]

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

[Russ Frostnik]

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

[Justin McElroy]

Welcome to the Besties, where we talk about the latest and greatest in home interactive entertainment. It's a video game club, I guess you'd say. And just by listening You've become a member. We're so happy to have you here to talk about Tomodachi Life. Go live in the dream, maybe.

[Griffin McElroy]

Yeah. No, you got it. You crushed it. You got no shit. Yeah, dude. You got it in one. You did amazing. Yeah.

[Justin McElroy]

Yeah. Tomodachi Life Living the dream. Griffin, what is that?

[Griffin McElroy]

Tomodachi Life Living the Dream is a sequel to a 13 year old Nintendo 3DS game simply called Tomodachi Life. And it's a game where you create miis that can look like people or characters or really whatever the fuck you want. And they live on an island and you can watch them and lightly interact with them as they get into all kinds of crazy hijinks.

[Russ Frostnik]

And tomodachi means friend.

[Griffin McElroy]

That's good.

[Russ Frostnik]

Friend Life.

[Griffin McElroy]

Thank you, Friend Life.

[Justin McElroy]

You're already learning something. We'll be back right after this break with a lot more informative content,

[Sponsor/Ad Speaker]

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[Griffin McElroy]

And.

[Sponsor/Ad Speaker]

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[Justin McElroy]

I wanna clarify something, Griffin. Cause you said the US are in the game. Yeah, you can make a U.

[Griffin McElroy]

You can make Miis.

[Justin McElroy]

Yeah, but Miis are not. I feel like Miis haven't been kind of part of the vocabulary for a little while. Is that fair to say?

[Griffin McElroy]

So you can make Miis on the Nintendo Switch and I assume the Switch too, but it's these ones.

[Justin McElroy]

A Mii can you give the old man?

[Griffin McElroy]

Mii is a little avatar that I believe originated on the 3Ds or perhaps the W. I think the Wii. Yeah, I think the Wii came first, eh. And you created a little avatar and it was a simple little cartoony guy back, you know, original Wii days. Your options were super duper limited. Some hairstyles, some face stuff you could move around. And then as sort of new hardware came out and more games sort of featuring Miis came out, they added sort of more vectors of customization so that here in Tomodachi Life Living the Dream, you could really make them look like whatever the fuck you want to. It's not just sort of like hair and face options. You can just fully paint over their face with like a paintbrush. And you know, using that you can make these guys look like whatever you want them to.

[Russ Frostnik]

It is interesting though because yeah, technically you can make Miis on the system, but like there was no utility for that, right? Just like it was for YOLO.

[Griffin McElroy]

Like it's not like the 3Ds where there's like a button that you press to go to Streetpass. There's not a special light that flashes on the Switch too when you get a Streetpass from, you know, Reggie Fils Aime or whatever. So yeah, it is a weird holdover of systems gone by, but Tomodachi Life is, I don't know, such a celebration of those guys. And the last one that I can really think of, I mean, Smash Brothers lets you play with the Mii characters. And then there was the re release of Miitopia, which is an interesting kind of comparison point because it handles like that user generated content in a completely different way from Tomodachi Life Living the dream. Do you want me to set up sort of more of what you are actually doing in this game? Because it is quite unique from a, I don't know, life sim perspective.

[Russ Frostnik]

Yeah, it is not. Don't think of it as the Sims, although I think that's the way in for a lot of people. Yeah.

[Griffin McElroy]

For sure.

[Russ Frostnik]

It's much more focused on the just talking, like having relationships, right? The me is having relationships with one another and like having conversations and that resulting in like funny scenes playing.

[Griffin McElroy]

The most interesting stuff this game does, it does without your input, really. Like it takes a while, but you make a whole cast of Miis. I think you can have up to like 70 living on the same island, which is fucking bonkers.

[Russ Frostnik]

Nuts and people, for what it's worth, the community I looked on the Reddit were like only 70. Yeah, like, what the fuck are you, Are you building America? Like real America? In Miitopia, I forget in Kamatachi life

[Griffin McElroy]

I get what the limit was on the 3DS original, but 70 just seems like a lot to me.

[Russ Frostnik]

It seems like a lot.

[Griffin McElroy]

And then it's not just like the Miis. You can customize, you can also create little catchphrases for them, or you can straight up design using a sort of animal crossing pattern, designer style ui, like I don't know, man, fucking anything food. I thought it would be very funny if everyone on my island, their favorite food was jiaram blacks. Just like the clove cigarettes and I made a photorealistic one to one box of dioram blacks. And people are just wild about these things. They're always talking about it. They eat them, they eat them up good. And to me that's very, very, very fucking funny. And so you'll make something, you'll make a joke and then you'll forget about it. And then a few days later, fucking Chewbacca mom will be talking to me and we'll be like, hey, have you heard about these yarn blacks? And it's like, oh shit, I forgot I made those. That that's sort of the main crux is it.

[Justin McElroy]

Does it hit different though? Like the idea of seeing your personal stuff remixed through like an algorithmic lens and then regurgitated back to you. I feel like that was really novel back when this first happened. And I feel like these days that's a lot more commonplace. Does it hit different at all to see like the AI like coming to you with your quotes like, hey, is this. Do you like this anything?

[Russ Frostnik]

I was into it. I think a lot of it has to do with hitting a critical mass of that stuff. So once you've entered like 30 prompts or whatever of things they like or things they eat or designs or whatever it is, and you sort of start forgetting some of that stuff and then they start like interacting with one another, mentioning one versus the other. I Think that's when it starts getting pretty fun. I agree with you. It's not like a magic trick. Like I know how they're doing it in the way that it was incredibly novel before, but there's no real one to one for this game anywhere.

[Griffin McElroy]

That's what I was going to say. I don't think there's really much of an analog because I don't know, the original Tomodachi Life was even more limited than what this game can do. But even then there wasn't so much of a sort of Ant farm style life sim that was so common focused out there. I cannot think of a single one. And this one just kind of like escalates things dramatically by to me like the big talking point, the big sort of like I don't know. Thing that is interesting about this game from Nintendo is that there is no filter. There are no profanity filters. There is no filter for if you want to draw a magazine and have it be, you know, smut featuring Star Fox characters. Like you can fully, fully, fully drew it. You can draw that and you can call it Star Fox Smut and people will be all about it. You could even make that a dessert and people eat the book and it's like you can do whatever. You can make them say literally whatever. There is no filter on it whatsoever.

[Russ Frostnik]

And there is a voice translation for the text so you will actually hear them say Star Fox Smut.

[Griffin McElroy]

Do you want to talk about Star Fox mutt? Like it. And it's so like that's insane. That's crazy coming from Nintendo. There is a trade off that has happened that is I think a pretty unsophisticated solution for. Well, how do you make sure that like kids aren't finding the Star Fox smut and you know that that not being stored on Nintendo's servers for the Federal Bureau of Investigation to find like that is a great question. The answer that they came up with is there is no online sharing of any of this stuff at all. To a degree where I don't know if you guys noticed this. You can't sort of send screenshots and videos that you capture through the switch to capture thing to your phone. It is locked like this game is locked so that you can not do that. There's ways of doing it. Obviously you can pull them off the SD card or whatever. But they have built such a wall around this thing which compared to a Miitopia which is a turn based RPG featuring Mii characters where it will say like okay, here's this, you found a new party member, go ahead and design him. Or here's a big list of some of the most popular characters that other people have made. If you do not want to spend 15, 20 minutes like making a guy, all of a sudden you scroll through this list and you're like, yeah, I'll take, I'll take Jackson Galaxy, the Cat Whisperer on a journey with me and I won't have to draw that stuff. There's none of that here. There's none of that. And that sucks so bad because there's so many different things you can customize. There's so many different things you can draw and you can get so detailed with it. And I see other people's sort of like super hyper detailed drawings of characters using the MII face paint or, you know, different items that then they will sell in the store or whatever. And there's just kind of no way to get at them. Except for doing local multiplayer. When you do local multiplayer, you can share sort of locally, but.

[Russ Frostnik]

Or the alternative which I tried to do was like there's websites like there's something called Tomodachi Share where like people post their creations and you just sort of like eyeball it. And it might have some like slider settings to try to get it close. But obviously anything that involves like actual drawing or painting probably not gonna out the window.

[Griffin McElroy]

Right? Yeah, Tomodachi Life. I don't remember if it. I think it did have more of

[Russ Frostnik]

a 3Ds on it.

[Griffin McElroy]

And yes, the original Tomodachi Life, it had a sharing system that was pretty. Also a little bit clumsy where you would generate a QR code for your Miis and then people could use the 3DS camera to scan that QR code. And then bing bang boom, you got the guy imported into your thing. Right. I don't understand why that wasn't an option here. Right. Like obviously the Switch doesn't have a camera, but like if you can make a platform where these things can be hosted and curated. I thought about like Super Mario Maker. There's like a whole system for moderating that. Like you can, I mean Animal Crossing

[Russ Frostnik]

too has QR codes for creations and all that stuff.

[Griffin McElroy]

Sure. I'm more speaking about like Nintendo having an active hand in like oh, your Mario Maker level has, you know, you drew a wiener with question mark blocks. Like that one's, that one's obviously blocked out. I think it would be a full time, it would be many, many, many, many, many full time jobs to like do that here. But like, why Can't I do online sharing of this stuff with people on my friends list? That to me seems like pretty ironclad. And it's just kind of not an option.

[Justin McElroy]

I think it maybe in other countries you have to let everybody be on your friends list. Maybe it would be rude to let other people join your.

[Griffin McElroy]

Like, sure.

[Justin McElroy]

Like, this is what I'm saying. Maybe in Japan, where the corporate structure is different than it is here in America, maybe your boss, it's like, known that you have to give your boss your friend code. Like you have to go, right?

[Griffin McElroy]

It's on the business card.

[Justin McElroy]

It's on the business card. It's like a professional thing. So, like, the idea that you would want all of your friends to see everything you do online is like. Would be very hard to understand. Cause it's like, well, no. My aunt, my great aunt, my business partner, everybody, and my insurance agent, we are all friends through our switches.

[Griffin McElroy]

The trade off here is that this game's unhinged. This game is absolute. You can do anything you want in this game.

[Russ Frostnik]

Did you play with your kids, Grandpa?

[Griffin McElroy]

I did. So Henry actually got way into it. So much so that this is the first game in a while where we were kind of wrestling for the Switch 2 because he got really, really into it. Because he is young enough that he played the Sims, right? So to him, the novelty of I have this island where me and my aunts and uncles and grandparents and cousins live. And also, like, some characters from the amazing Digital Circus and also Steve Harvey, like, that is so novel to him. And it doesn't matter so much that, like, unlike the Sims, these guys don't have like a bunch of stats or a bunch of, like, you don't have to get them to pee or whatever. Right? Exactly. It's basically like you make them. You pick their stats and then, like, from time to time, they'll have a little speech bubble over their head, which means like, hey, they either need something like food or, you know, new decorations, or, you know, they have a question about, like, your personal sort of stuff that will then kind of turn into a topic of conversation around the island. Sometimes it's like a little mini game that they have that you get to play for little prizes and stuff like that, but you're really not. You're not having so firm a hand on the rudder. It is very ant farmy. And that is very much how the original tomodachi life was. And I know there's a lot of people who are like, well, why isn't it more like Animal Crossing or more like. This is totally a different thing.

[Russ Frostnik]

I think this skews younger than a lot of those titles insofar as, like, when I played it, I played with my 4 year old who was homesick and I was like, well, this is a good use of our time. So I created him. He was the first me that we created and then proceeded to make just any human character in the Pokemon anime, which he's watched quite a bit of.

[Griffin McElroy]

Great.

[Russ Frostnik]

And that was so easy to grok for him. The idea that like, oh, Brock is there and Misty's there and Ash and Professor Oak and fucking Gary and like they all have their kind of baked in personalities that you can set when you make those characters. So it starts just kind of playing out like an episode of the anime to some extent where Brock's a fucking horn dog and trying to get with Nurse Joy and whatever. Yeah. And Ash is like a little sassy asshole.

[Griffin McElroy]

Right.

[Russ Frostnik]

And he was like super into it. I don't know that he wanted to go back to it after we had that session of whatever it was two hours. But it does seem like just as like a cool activity to do with a kid that involves a lot of back and forth of like, oh, what personality should we give Misty? Or oh, what character traits? Or do those eyes look right? Things like that. It was like a really fun activity with him.

[Griffin McElroy]

It's also as a sort of like visual arts kind of exercise. Like, Henry loves doing like pixel art stuff. He's got like a couple apps on his iPad that he uses to make stuff. He's been doing that for a while. And so like having this. When he got into Animal Crossing, he did the same thing where he was like using the pattern editor to like make. Make lots and lots and lots and lots and lots of designs. And this is, this game lets you do that more than any game I've like from a UGC perspective. Like, it's insane how much is available to you just in the game without you having to like download some third party app that you like, make this stuff on your computer and import. Like the game should be anything.

[Russ Frostnik]

Just the MII creator alone. The idea that I could make Misty's hair and they had the ponytail and you could decide which side of her head the ponytail was on is like a representative of just how fucking in depth you can get with this if you really want to.

[Griffin McElroy]

Yeah.

[Russ Frostnik]

Which is great.

[Griffin McElroy]

It's great if you like doing that. If you like making characters in the Sims, if you like making. If you like having sort of that creative exercise of like, how can I take this real world person or this character from a movie or a game or whatever and using this tool set, like realize them in the game. Cause I have yet to have an idea that I haven't been able to at least roughly get in there. I got Skimbleshanks, the railway cat. And he looks really, really good. He looks amazing. He's got a tiger onesie that he wears. He looks perfect. He looks so good. So that challenge to me is really compelling. It's really great. And there's progression hooks in the game of as you help people out, you get this energy that you use to charge up this fountain at the center of your town. And as that fountain levels up, it gives you more options of like, okay, now you can do that sort of painting and you can make your own clothes now. Or okay, now you've unlocked this suite of weird perks that you can give your Miis, like different walking styles or you know, stuff like that.

[Russ Frostnik]

They get new catchphrases, things like that.

[Griffin McElroy]

And so the progression hooks in the game are all kind of tied back into like, it's pretty fun to make these guys. And then on top of that, the cutscenes and like random shit that they will get into is, is. Is just. It's really hysterical. It's really, really, truly funny. The only thing that's been missing is the 3DS version's sort of like highlight was a concert hall where you could go and you could write the lyrics to a song and then the Miis would sing the song to like a pre made melody. And like I feel like 99 out of 100 sort of clips that ever came out from that game where people sort of sharing their songs. I haven't found that yet. Maybe it's in the game. I don't know. Yeah, I don't know. You see a lot of repeated scenes. I kind of skip now whenever, like two MIIs meet each other and they have like a conversation topic that they come out and discuss. Like those kind of always play out the same. Or like, oh, one of these Miis fell down and I'm gonna drag, you know, Skimmelshanks over there to help him out. And I can pretty safely skip that cutscene. Cause it's always the same. But sometimes it'll be like a little sitcom cutscene of them sitting at a dine, you know, talking about just random bullshit. And I don't know, it's really, really funny. This game is truly.

[Russ Frostnik]

Or just having like weird Fucking dreams

[Griffin McElroy]

or having weird dreams that you have to go in and kind of like witness and then you get a prize from their dream.

[Russ Frostnik]

It's such a fucking weird game.

[Griffin McElroy]

It's such a weird, unique, amazing sort of thing. And I truly think if it had more kind of community connection, you know, not even just baked in. Like, even if there was a website that LittleBigPlanet had like a website that you could go to to like save levels on the website and then they would be like in your game next time you put like something, man. Something so I can share like the crazy stuff I've made and find like infinite pools. I feel like this game would be monstrous. This game would be.

[Russ Frostnik]

Yeah. If it wasn't Nintendo, I think you'd be seeing clips fucking non stop. The fact that Nintendo put all these barriers up for I kind of guess obvious reasons because it is Nintendo. But if it was literally any other company, you'd be seeing just like fucking buck wild clips of people doing crazy ass shit. I don't think it's the game that in the way that Animal Crossing people play for 200 hours.

[Griffin McElroy]

No.

[Russ Frostnik]

Which I think is fine.

[Griffin McElroy]

I think there are some people who will play. There are people who are still playing the original 3DS Tomodachi. Like there are people. This game has a huge dedicated fan base and I get that. But I do think it's not going to have the sort of broader appeal that Animal Crossing had.

[Russ Frostnik]

I like having an alternative. Like it's nice to have something that's very, very different.

[Griffin McElroy]

It also it did not come out during a global pandemic. So it does have that kind of like working against it.

[Russ Frostnik]

Well, you know, the globe's not doing great now either.

[Griffin McElroy]

Yeah, that's a good point. Russ, thank you so much for the week.

[Russ Frostnik]

Happy to bring it up.

[Griffin McElroy]

Global affairs.

[Russ Frostnik]

Happy to bring it up.

[Griffin McElroy]

Yeah. Weird fucking game. But I am delighted by it. And it has been a smash hit in this house.

[Russ Frostnik]

Yep.

[Griffin McElroy]

So surprising. Surprisingly great kids game if you have a sort of like, I don't know, artistically inclined gamer kiddo in your house.

[Justin McElroy]

Cool. Well that sounds like a lot of fun guys. Give it a whirl. I'm happy to see a little bit more of a steady flow of releases on the Switch too.

[Russ Frostnik]

Yeah.

[Griffin McElroy]

Weird ones. But like, yeah, hey, something to play.

[Justin McElroy]

They should be doing something weird. It's Nintendo, right? They're not doing weird stuff. Who is?

[Griffin McElroy]

Yeah, true. Nice.

[Justin McElroy]

If they got the Internet would be cool. Got onto it. There's a world of information and connection out There just waiting for you. Nintendo Connect with the World Wide Web today. Let's take a quick break and then we'll come back and talk about the Amazing Adventures of Griffin McElroy.

[Russ Frostnik]

This episode of the Besties is sponsored by Reddit. Literally, it's Reddit is the sponsor of this episode. I'm sure you've heard of it before, but maybe you haven't used it in the way that I've used it, which is to do like incredibly deep dives on mechanics and lore of the games I love and strategy and just to find like a new community to talk about the game. There are over 47 million members on R gaming and Reddit is the front page for gaming news, updates, rumors, leaks, all discussed in real time by people who actually play. There are subs for every game, genre, niche, MMOs, shooters, RPGs, speedruns, modding, lore. Every single thing there is a subreddit for. It's real players sharing, real tips, fixes and discoveries. I will speak for myself. Two subreddits I use all the time are SBC Gaming, which is a subreddit dedicated to handheld gaming, the sorts of handhelds we talk about all the time here. Very, very cool subreddit. Also, the R eldenring subreddit is also excellent, has very cool deep dive lore things if you're into Elden Ring, if you're into soulsborne games, things like that. So really, anything you can think of, there's probably a dedicated subreddit for you. And if all that sounds good, Reddit is the place to go for gaming deep dives. Download the Reddit app and dive into R sbcgaming R eldenring for the latest gaming updates or whatever you want to learn about. Download the Reddit app today. Griffin, you went to my Shangri La. I have not been there yet.

[Griffin McElroy]

It's not. Wow, okay. Yeah. I think I'm the only one of the three of us who has been to Super Nintendo World in Orlando, Florida. Part of the epic universe. I don't like that you don't like. It's part of the.

[Russ Frostnik]

Just the branding epic. I don't know.

[Justin McElroy]

They have. This is a. I feel like this is a problem that Universal has always struggled with. They have three different parks there, but they don't have the guts to theme any of them. So it's all epic. Wonderful universe of adventure, of islands, of yadda yadda.

[Russ Frostnik]

Might as well be here.

[Justin McElroy]

Pick a lane.

[Griffin McElroy]

It's also strange that when you go to Universal Studios or you go to Islands of Adventure Those have basically the same entrance right off the CityWalk, right? And it splits off and it's like, well, today I'm doing this one or I'm doing this one. And there's like the Hogwarts train connects the two different Harry Potter parts of those two parts. Those two parks are very much a set. And there are bundled tickets of like, okay, I'm do both of these, these today. And then Epic Universe is like way far away. It's like way. It's, I think four miles away. Like longer than a, you know, a train could sort of run. I think between them. It's like a pretty big gap. So it's not like you have that bundled sort of prospect when you go to Epic Universe. It's sort of on its own.

[Russ Frostnik]

Epic Universe includes in addition to the Nintendo thing, what else?

[Griffin McElroy]

So it has a few main, I think five islands. The middle one that kind of is the Hub world is Celestial something. And it's like, I forget the name of it. It's not great branding, but it's sort of like a sort of spacey, lightly spacey kind of vibe that they're going for. Lot of big Bellagio fountains and a huge hotel that you can stay on, like right on the park, like right on the premises. And so off of that you have a sort of like spoken hub system where that's the main, the main part of the park. And it has a few rides. Crazy fucking coaster in that one. The Stardust Racers, which there was like no line for and absolutely rocked my shit. Absolutely crazy. So a revival of the Dueling Dragons from Islands of Adventure that they shut down that had the two trains that would go at the same time. So you're like going through a tunnel and you'll be lagging behind the other train and then you'll fucking boost forward to shoot.

[Justin McElroy]

It's tight.

[Griffin McElroy]

It's good as hell, that ride. So then there's a Super Nintendo World which I'll break down more of. There is a Dark Universe, which is like classic monster movie, Frankenstein and Mummy and stuff.

[Justin McElroy]

Sorry, I got enough of the Dark Universe over here, thanks.

[Griffin McElroy]

What do you mean? Oh, another global update. Bring it up. Yeah, yeah, for sure.

[Justin McElroy]

You know what I mean?

[Griffin McElroy]

So there's like a coaster there and there's like a immersive cinematic ride there. There is a Harry Potter Battle of the Ministry, like a Ministry of Magic. And it's three different parks.

[Justin McElroy]

These are three different parks that just all happen to have a Harry Potter area that makes sense thematically because they're all distinct lands that you know that are very distinct parks.

[Griffin McElroy]

Right, Exactly. And then there is a How to train your Dragon Land. We did not. We spent almost our whole time in Super Nintendo World. We didn't do a ton of other stuff in the other parts of the park. And that is because Super Nintendo World beats ass. It's so cool. It's pretty tight, pretty small. They have done a really good job of kind of walling it off. You go up in a big, green warp pipe escalator, and then you let out, and you're inside Peach's castle. And then you step out, and it's just like, everything you can see is Nintendo shit. Everything you can see is mostly Mario stuff. And then there's, like, a path that you follow. And now you're in Donkey Kong country. Those are the two kind of main parts of the Super Nintendo World. And it's amazing. It's incredibly immersive. It's so, so cool. I talked about this a little bit, I think, on wonderful. Of, like, I've been going to parks for a while. We go to Disney fairly routinely for the kids spring. They love it. And I enjoy Disney World a lot. Like, I think it is from a infrastructural design perspective, like, just cool to be in a place that is so immersed, so, like, intentional, where so many different things have been kind of decided and optimized and all that. But I don't, like, have a ton of affection for a lot of the stuff there.

[Russ Frostnik]

Sure.

[Griffin McElroy]

Super Nintendo World. Like, I have a ton of affection for everything there. And so does Henry. Even Rachel. Just the three of us went. Because there wasn't a ton of, like, little kids rides at Epic Universe. So Gus stayed behind with some friends to do an extra Epcot Day. But there's so much stuff there that.

[Justin McElroy]

A man of taste and distinction. Yeah, of course, Gus.

[Griffin McElroy]

There's so much stuff there that is really exciting. Cause I've been playing these games my whole life, and I have a ton of affection for them. And that is, like. I don't know. It adds a certain something. It makes me jealous of people who are wicked into Disney movies and characters and all that. Cause I imagine that brings a whole other heat to the equation. Cause I was definitely sort of feeling

[Russ Frostnik]

that's sort of how I've always felt about Disney. Is like, yeah, good job. Like, they did a good job. But, like, I don't give a fuck about making.

[Griffin McElroy]

Yeah, it's a cool part.

[Russ Frostnik]

He could live or die. I really don't care.

[Griffin McElroy]

Right. I Don't. I don't. We're changing this ride. And now it's not this character anymore. It's this character. Okay. Does it still go up and down? Like, it does make it harder for

[Russ Frostnik]

me to make fun of Disney adults because I sense that I would have that over.

[Justin McElroy]

Listen, we can all make fun of Disney adults.

[Griffin McElroy]

So Super Nintendo World, like, you walk in and you're like in the Mushroom Kingdom and just everywhere you look there's fucking thwomps and Yoshis and pipes and just like, it's really, really, really immersive. That's really cool. It's a bunch of shops that are all kind of selling sort of the same stuff.

[Russ Frostnik]

How much of it is like you can only get this here stuff versus like stuff you could just buy online in the shops?

[Griffin McElroy]

I don't know. I haven't really done a ton of shopping around for this stuff, so I'm not sure where else it is available.

[Russ Frostnik]

Obviously they don't have the equivalent of like the Star wars make your own lightsaber thing.

[Griffin McElroy]

No, no, nothing. Nothing like that that I saw. There is a. I mean, the food, I think is where you kind of get a lot of that. There was. The big thing is in Donkey Kong Country World, you can get this insane like banana ice cream float with like a huge waffle bowl kind of like emerging from it. It looks insane and I thought about getting it. You can get it with like a special barrel mug that is like commemorative. But it was also like $17. I was like, I'm not gonna. It's. I don't want ice cream. It's ten in the morning. So like, I don't know. The immersion is great. The food I didn't really dip into, but the rides. So there's three rides in the Super Nintendo World. And again, it's like compact, it's tiny. This is one part of Epic universe and it is layered. There's like a lot of stairs. There's like a lot of. There's elevators for, you know, accessibility purposes. But like, it's really dense. And we got there basically right at opening and it wasn't too crazy. But I imagine, like, it gets really, really wild.

[Russ Frostnik]

When you were leaving, was it like a fucking zoom?

[Griffin McElroy]

It was getting worse. Yeah. As we were. We left after a few hours in there and it was becoming a bit uncomfortable. Yeah, they have a system that is basically like magic bands. There's like eight or nine different designs and they have sort of Mario iconography on them.

[Russ Frostnik]

Tell people what a magic band is.

[Griffin McElroy]

Yeah. So it's a bracelet that you wear that has like an FC chip, I'm assuming, in it, that you can use to interact with in Disney World. You use it to get on rides or open up your hotel room. Here it is like, oh, there's a bunch of music blocks. One of them's lit up. I'm gonna punch it. And then the band will detect that and set it off. And then, oh, the next music block is lit up. And then, oh, it's doing a little pattern. And then you finish it. And it was like, oh, that pattern was the Mario theme song. And it plays. And you get on the app. There's an app, and it'll be like, you solved the piano block puzzle, and here you got 50 coins for that. There's some pretty cool.

[Russ Frostnik]

And then you go to the store to try to trade in the coins, and they're like, go fuck yourself.

[Griffin McElroy]

I don't know that there's any sort of real life implications for the coins, but, like, again, Henry wanted to do all that stuff.

[Russ Frostnik]

Yeah, no, that's.

[Justin McElroy]

That's great. That's also the kind of stuff that I do feel like Disney has not done as much of lately is having, like, areas that are interactive. Like, you look at Pandora as a good example of there's, like, stuff to do there that isn't just getting on a ride and going to do things. More and more, I think they've tried to funnel people into activities that make profits versus, like, just kind of experiences.

[Sponsor/Ad Speaker]

Yeah.

[Griffin McElroy]

Or in app sort of focused things or some integration of that. Like, Disney came out with a new magic band that has, like, Bluetooth functionality so it can connect with these different kind of like, app mini games and stuff. And then hasn't done a ton with it, like, since then. So this was cool. It only works in the Mario Park. These things are not in any of the other things.

[Russ Frostnik]

I have heard that if you have multiple kids, it's not. Not a good idea to only get one band.

[Griffin McElroy]

Well, yeah, of course not. It's insane. So that stuff is very neat. And then there's like a little mini game on the phone that Henry got into. There's three rides. Okay. Cause it's small. It's not a huge. It's not a huge footprint. This place has three rides. One Yoshi's Adventure. Little baby Yoshis. They go real, real slow through a little thing. And you have to climb up a tree to get up to these guys. And it's. You're hearing the Yoshis, the whole, like, it's great. It's for the little kids, it's for the little guys and me. There's a. And Russ, there's a little interactivity where like, as you go through the course or whatever, there's tiny multicolored eggs and you have buttons on the inside of your Yoshi cart that you can press when you see one of them. And then at the end, like Captain Toad comes out and he's like, you got the golden egg because you found all the little it's for. It's a little. It's an easy game for babies. But like, it's cool. It's great. The other two rides are Mario Kart, which was sort of one of the, like the flagship ride when it first when the park opened. And this is a. What's the word for like a. You're in a car that's like being controlled by a computer through a course, a la Mickey and Minnie's runaway railway or whatever.

[Russ Frostnik]

Like, Justin, this is why we keep you here.

[Griffin McElroy]

Ratatouille is one of these. It's like a. It's like a car with a brain and it follows the same thing. What's it?

[Justin McElroy]

An Omnimover.

[Griffin McElroy]

Omnimover. Thank you. You're in an Omnimover and you're going through all these sort of iconic Mario Kart tracks, but you are also wearing a. When you walk in, you get a Mario Kart sort of visor that has a magnetic strip on it. And then when you get in your cart, there's like a lens that pops in and covers your whole face that attaches to that magnet. And now it's an AR ride, right?

[Russ Frostnik]

Crazy.

[Griffin McElroy]

So on the steering wheel you'll see like as you're going through the track, flashes of like arrows pointing left or right. And it's sort of quick time event of like if you steer in that direction quick enough, you get some coins for your score for that ride. But the other thing is you'll see other racers through the lens. And if you look at a bad guy racer, you don't want to shoot the good guy racers. But if you hit, you know, Iggy or whatever, you look at them, you press the triggers on the wheel and a shell shoots out in the direction that you're looking. And if you hit them, you get coins. And so also elements of the ride are constantly appearing on the visor in the AR space with some sort of integration in the real world sort of track that you're on. For instance, at one point Bowser shows up and he Uses the Squid Ink power up, which in the game covers your screen in black ink, and you can't see for a second on the ride. That happens. And your screen starts to get covered with black ink as all the lights in the track around you go completely pitch black.

[Russ Frostnik]

Whoa.

[Griffin McElroy]

So, like, it's stuff like that that is constant. When you do Rainbow Road, they turn on a huge fan that's, like, blowing against you. And you see the Rainbow Road track in AR space going by really, really, really fast. And like, yeah, it feels pretty fucking cool. I thought it was the coolest shit ever. I thought it was the coolest sort of, like, interactive game ride, which is sort of a burgeoning genre that I'd ever been on.

[Russ Frostnik]

I think I've only done the Toy Story one.

[Griffin McElroy]

They updated that, by the way. It just opened a couple weeks ago. And it's way better. You can take the guns out of the thing, and it actually works way, way better. But this is still way cooler than that because it's, like, blending all this different, really bleeding edge tech. And I thought it worked really, really well.

[Justin McElroy]

It's also Mario who is better than Buzz Lightyear, right?

[Griffin McElroy]

Exactly. It's Mario. Duh.

[Justin McElroy]

It's like they're both better than Paw Patrol. Like, I don't even need to hearing

[Griffin McElroy]

the Mario Kart music. Also, like, while you're doing this, it works really well. For what it is worth, Rachel did not care for that ride because it was extremely overwhelmed. Like, you're having.

[Russ Frostnik]

Yeah, that's what it sounded like. Remembering my son would be in a horror. It's like the fucking ride in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

[Griffin McElroy]

It would be really, really tough. I got super competitive about it. I was, like, paying attention to the tutorial, like, yes, yes. And I thought it was the coolest shit ever.

[Russ Frostnik]

Are you sitting next to your compatriot?

[Griffin McElroy]

Yeah. So a cart has four sort of people in it because, again, when you turn the wheel, you're not controlling how the car moves. You have no control. It's like, are you matching which way it's going, you know, hitting these?

[Russ Frostnik]

And everyone has a wheel.

[Griffin McElroy]

Yes, but you're scored individually. It's not like a per cart score. That ride rules. The other one is a coaster, and it's DK's Minecart Madness, which is modeled after a Minecart level in Donkey Kong

[Russ Frostnik]

country, One of the go fuck yourself

[Griffin McElroy]

levels, one of the many go fuck yourself levels. And it is set in this sort of, like, I don't know, Aztec Ruin type place with A minecart running through it. The big thing with this ride, it's not too crazy. It's not doing inversions or loops or anything like that. It does go fairly fast. But the big thing with the ride is that there's a thick rail that the cart that you are in is attached to, but that is descended. It is lower than a minecart track that looks like what your minecart is on. Because it's higher up. They have hidden the actual rail that the ride takes you on and put this minecart track on top, top of that. So the effect of which is that they can make the minecart track look like it's broken and arcing upward. And then when you hit that, it takes you upward and then lands you with, like, a rattle. So that it's very, very, very cool. It broke down a couple times while we were waiting in line.

[Russ Frostnik]

Wait. Not narratively or.

[Griffin McElroy]

No, not narratively. Like, no, it just. Maybe they. There is. If you're on it, they're like, you died. You press the braum button and you hit a B and you died. But waiting in line, it was like, those lousy apes have stolen the Golden Banana or some bullshit.

[Russ Frostnik]

And do you just leave in that scenario?

[Griffin McElroy]

No, you stick around and wait. From what I understand, it breaks frequently because this dual track sort of thing is a bit temperamental because the cart is on a long arm connecting it to that bottom track. But we stuck around for it, and I'm glad we did because it was, like, a highlight of the day. And it's also, like, hits that sweet spot for my kids where it's not too scary, it's not too crazy. It's not Stardust Racers. It's not separating your soul from your body. It's just a fun, fast coaster with a gimmick that is really, really neat. I would go to a whole park that is just this. I would go to a whole park that is just this. And it's wild to me that there's. I don't know. Not that.

[Russ Frostnik]

I mean, they just started, right? Like, what is it, four years in at this point? Something like that?

[Griffin McElroy]

Yes, that's true. But also, the Mario movies are gonna make a trillion. So it seems to me like it is always the busiest part of the park. From what I understand, generally speaking, the other big attractions can rack up some monster lines, but Is that the Dark Universe? Is that a joke? I think, yeah. How to Train youn Dragon stuff has a couple light coasters that get pretty popular throughout the day, but if there was like a place that had like a Star Fox Space island and like an animal crossing island. And it just seems like it would be such a huge smash hit. So it feels pretty certain they're gonna keep doing stuff like this. I don't know how Epic Universe is doing in general. And to be fair, some of the other stuff we did at Epic Universe was like eh, kind of so so and so I spent most of the day wishing like I just wish the Nintendo part was bigger. Cause they've really, really done something very cool here.

[Russ Frostnik]

What's the waiting like for the line for their rides?

[Griffin McElroy]

It was not too bad.

[Russ Frostnik]

Are you doing the like scheduled waiting thing?

[Griffin McElroy]

We got there. So like we did the Donkey Kong ride and it was. That was probably the longest way. I think they.

[Russ Frostnik]

Rope drop. Is that what they call it, Justin?

[Griffin McElroy]

Rope drop? Yeah. But except they let people who stay in that hotel in like an hour earlier. So like already there was quite a wait for the Donkey Kong ride. But the walk ups are like next level cool. Like really, really, really cool. So it didn't seem to, you know, bother us too much.

[Justin McElroy]

Sounds like a wasted day. Overall, Griff, I'm sorry you didn't head over to the Magic Kingdom.

[Griffin McElroy]

Epcot, we did, we did all that shit too. But it's. I don't know, it's.

[Russ Frostnik]

What was the best merch you bought at the Nintendo World?

[Justin McElroy]

Yeah, they haven't.

[Griffin McElroy]

Oh, I got a. I got a heat activated Donkey Kong country tank top that when you get it in direct sunlight, bananas appear on it and it makes my guns look fucking huge.

[Russ Frostnik]

Nice.

[Justin McElroy]

That's cool.

[Griffin McElroy]

So that's cool. Yeah. So yeah, it's great. I don't know that Epic Universe is worth the price of admission the whole way. But I think they're gonna keep adding to Nintendo World stuff.

[Russ Frostnik]

Do we know if the California one is just like the exact same thing?

[Griffin McElroy]

I don't know. I don't know.

[Russ Frostnik]

I'm sure plant expert. That he is. Cool. That's exciting.

[Griffin McElroy]

I.

[Russ Frostnik]

It is extremely on my list. I'm gonna have to wait until my son's a bit older. Yeah, most of that sounds like it would be really bad for him, but it would be great for me. So I'll just stick him on a pipe or something.

[Griffin McElroy]

And then Henry's nine and it really split the uprights. It was like. That was perfect. Perfect.

[Russ Frostnik]

Yeah. Cool. Any honorable mentions you guys wanted to talk about? I mean I've been watching Survivor 50. I don't know about you guys.

[Justin McElroy]

Yeah, yeah, it's good if you fiery Survivor 50 is like the most sort of like, recursive recommendation you could make because if you know Survivor 50 is on, you probably are watching Survivor 50. You know what I mean?

[Russ Frostnik]

Like, yeah, to some extent. I mean, I don't know. I don't part. Some of this is like they're referencing that happened 25 years ago and I have no. I mean, I might have watched those seasons, but I have no recollection. So even like five seasons ago, I don't recognize these people. They go out of my brain the second the season ends. So the fact that I don't necessarily know their relationships, it hasn't been a huge problem because I watched every season.

[Griffin McElroy]

I've watched every season save for like, a handful in like, the 30s era. And even I am like, I don't remember who. I don't. They were not in one of the seasons we skipped and I do not remember who that is.

[Russ Frostnik]

It's just a lot of people that are very plugged into strategy and that's kind of why I think it's very entertaining, is because normally there's always like three or four assholes that have no fucking idea what they're doing and they're just sort of like bumbling along until the end.

[Griffin McElroy]

I bristle at the hands of the fans conceit of the entire season where they did these votes. Like, should there be idols? Should there be X, Y or Z? And now you'll be watching an episode and be like, guess what, motherfuckers? We're voting three people off this time because the fans wanted a twist. And it's like, did the. The fans want that? Did the fans want you to. Did the fans want you to rap?

[Justin McElroy]

Jeff, I was not consulted on these. Like, I don't know when the fans

[Griffin McElroy]

remember this that it needs to be

[Russ Frostnik]

a bigger twist than more people getting voted off. Like, Jeff needs to be in the game. Like, that's what I was waiting for. But it's been fun to watch. Certainly.

[Justin McElroy]

My other. First of all, one quick note. Last episode, Sydney did use the phrase cultural appropriation, which is.

[Griffin McElroy]

That's really, really good.

[Justin McElroy]

Really powerful. Second, secondly, I love and celebrate the idea of the Billie Eilish boomerang idol. It's fun to say and fun to hear. They had to have some other celebrities making idols. It's crazy. I bet Billie Eilish is furious. Like, she probably thought there was like 20 celebrities who are all doing their unique spit. Instead, it's just a whole season of people saying Billie Eilish Boomerang Idol. They have to say all four words constantly.

[Griffin McElroy]

I was wondering if the other players, when Zack Brown came in to spearfish for 30 uninterrupted minutes.

[Justin McElroy]

Crazy. After he left fast forwarded Survivor. In my life, I did for that. I'm not going to watch Zack Brown fucking Spearfish.

[Griffin McElroy]

You're out of your goddamn mind. I'm not going to watch him perform two entire songs to an ambivalent Mike White. Are you out of your mind? No fucking way. But you know, they were, they were scouring that beach, you know, after Zach Brown left. Like, you know, he hid the Zac Brown, you know, zoom necklace.

[Justin McElroy]

It's the Zach Brown Community Idol. It's called it. Everybody works together.

[Griffin McElroy]

It's beautiful. It's so, so beautiful. It's, it's outrageous.

[Justin McElroy]

TV I wanted to give a very quick update on the handheld retro gaming market because it is truly buck wild. I'm not following it as closely as I did when I had had two functioning hands, but it is just a quick update. Because of the shifting prices of the supply chain and RAM and what have you. It's very much a moving target right now for these devices. To wit, there are a lot of devices that the way these were set up for a while is that they're moving so fast is you would pre order them like before they were even manufactured and then as soon as they were made they would ship them to you. We are now in this window where a lot of these devices were pre orders at a certain price. RAM absolutely shit the bed. And now nobody knows quite what to do because it's like, well, we don't, we're definitely not going to eat. You know, we're not going to pay this expensive price for ram. But you still want this thing. You already gave us your pre order money so we're gonna need some more money. It was happening.

[Russ Frostnik]

So It'll be like $200. You come in, you pre order for $200. Oh, it'll be out in six months or whatever it is. And then they have to email you again and be like, actually it's $300. And if you say you don't want that, what happens?

[Justin McElroy]

Here's a quick example of how things are going over here from last month. So I, Neo is one of the big players in the space. They, they made this thing called the Pocket S Mini. It's another small handheld, had a Snapdragon Gen 2 in it, whatever. And the important thing here is it was advertised with a 6,000 milliamp battery. And then it shipped with a 4,700 milliamp battery that they said was an error in the manufacturing process. They meant to put a different battery in, and they put this battery in. Hey, as somebody who's. First of all, let me just say this. As somebody who's seen a lot of videos of batteries exploding in devices, let's all be real careful about batteries. That would be my first request. Good tip. If you are affected by this, they are going to send you another handheld, the Pocket Air Mini, which is a $90 Android handheld that's less powerful. And to say they're sorry, they're going to send you another handheld. Another quick example for you is the Pocket Vert. That is a handheld that has no thumbstick, except the thumbstick is an imaginary thumb. It's like a tactile thumbstick hidden within the face of the device.

[Russ Frostnik]

Got it.

[Justin McElroy]

So you have four face buttons, a D pad, and like a analog touchpad, basically. Touch pad, basically on the front. It was revealed in July 2025, and then pre orders started in December of 2025. Okay. I pre ordered one. It showed up. And within a week of it showing up, it has now been discontinued. And so the Vert is no longer available for sale. They're selling the rest of it, and it's gone. There was another one, the Pocket S Mini, that device from another in that same line from Ayaneo, also similarly discontinued before it started shipping.

[Russ Frostnik]

Like, oh, my God.

[Justin McElroy]

Yeah. Because of how.

[Russ Frostnik]

Because all these companies just can't afford to make these things anymore.

[Justin McElroy]

It's like, can't afford it.

[Russ Frostnik]

They can't afford whatever money we got so far.

[Justin McElroy]

They. Not only can they not afford to make these things, I think the bigger problem is they can't plan.

[Russ Frostnik]

Yeah.

[Justin McElroy]

Because they don't know. So it's. The whole thing is kind of in a weird standstill right now.

[Griffin McElroy]

Everyone's having problems with fulfillment. Like, Ayaneo has a pretty bad reputation for just not shipping their pre order, like, taking forever to actually fulfill these things. But even, like, I pre ordered a retroid Pocket 6, which is usually pretty ironclad. Like, you get those out pretty quick. I was part of the second batch of pre orders, which were supposed to start beginning of March, and I have not gotten a single goddamn email that's like, we're working on, like, nothing. Complete radio silence. So it's really, really widespread and it's. It's really just kind of crashed the market. It feels like a lot of the people who are most enthusiastic about this stuff are starting to be like, well, if we can't fucking get it, if we can't guarantee we'll get the thing, what are we doing here?

[Russ Frostnik]

You're also seeing the big handhelds, like the Logitech, whatever it is, the big, basically Windows Machine handhelds dramatically increasing prices by $500. Like, I think one of them went up to $2,200 for a PC handle. Like, just tell people you don't want, you don't want to sell this thing anymore. That's all you need to do. You just tell people.

[Justin McElroy]

This is my, this is my last little anecdote about this space and why I'm a lot more skittish about it. And I wanted to bring this up mainly because I was such a big cheerleader for this stuff. And I'm trying to pledge a little caution here. There's a guy on YouTube, I watch his videos about this space and his name is Zoo Reviews. And he had one about how he got a pocket fit in the mail. And he, for the life of him could not remember pre ordering a pocket fit. And it just kind of showed up. And I watched that video and thought, dude, that is really, really embarrassing. And I go upstairs, oh no. I get an email that says the shipping status of my pocket fit has changed. This was on April 20th, guys. I apparently pre ordered this thing on October 29th of 2025.

[Russ Frostnik]

Oh my God.

[Justin McElroy]

Like when I was very much deep into this space and it was at a very, very low price.

[Griffin McElroy]

This is the Conquer Conker, right?

[Justin McElroy]

Yeah, it's a Conquer Pocket Fit.

[Griffin McElroy]

Price conscious.

[Justin McElroy]

Like the whole thing has been. Yeah, that was the whole bit. It's like, wow, I can't believe they can afford to do this so cheaply. And then they didn't for a lot of months. They were like, yeah, us neither. I don't know, man. What were we thinking? I would be nervous about buying stuff that isn't physically extant. And like, you know, maybe within your

[Griffin McElroy]

hemisphere, you gotta think this is gonna slow down the, the space. Like in terms of announcements. Right?

[Russ Frostnik]

It is, right? It's gotta be slower. Like there's no. They're not announcing nearly as much as they used to. I don't know what this means.

[Griffin McElroy]

I'm not as plugged in as I once was. Maybe it feels like the RG sort of series of, you know, handhelds has been slowing its role and they're not announcing a new one every four days.

[Russ Frostnik]

Well, ambernick did just announce some like, goofy ass, one by one flip up screen nonsense. So they are still doing it out there.

[Griffin McElroy]

Doing the damn thing.

[Justin McElroy]

Yeah. Yeah. Well, there was the Amber, Nick. The Vita was funny. There was the Ambernake RG Vita that looks exactly like a Vita and it can't play Vita games.

[Russ Frostnik]

So they.

[Justin McElroy]

They then literally the same month they released the Anbernic RGD Vita Pro that still doesn't play Vita games very well. Part of that is Vita emulation sucks. It's really hard and complicated and bad. I mean. I mean, people have figured it out mainly by. Is usually like the best solution.

[Griffin McElroy]

It's integrated into the live area sort of shit. That was the core UI of the. So, like, there's all these insane licenses that you have to do and emulations of the.

[Justin McElroy]

It's kind of like each firmware own pocket application. It's like its own instance. It's not just like an image. I don't know. I don't understand.

[Russ Frostnik]

Here's where I'm at in that space right now is I am fucking thrilled that I have devices. And you can buy these devices right now. They're available. I have devices that can very, very easily handle anything, PS1 and earlier, without even batting an eyelash.

[Griffin McElroy]

Sure.

[Russ Frostnik]

And they're tiny and they go in my pocket and when I want to play something, I can play something. I think the age of like, yeah, getting these devices and they can run GameCube and PS2 and blah, blah, blah. And it's a reasonable price. I don't know if it's permanently come to an end, but certainly for the foreseeable future it's come to an end and I'm fine with that. But I realize a lot of people want to do a lot more with these devices than I do, so I don't know.

[Griffin McElroy]

Yeah, it's a bummer. It's a huge bummer.

[Russ Frostnik]

Yeah.

[Griffin McElroy]

I will tell you what's not a huge bummer, though, and that's the new season of Taskmaster.

[Russ Frostnik]

Oh, yes. Last week we didn't actually.

[Griffin McElroy]

New season of Taskmaster got some really, really funny folks on it. A couple of folks who were on Last One Laughing UK the past couple seasons of that. And Kumail Nanjiani is on it.

[Russ Frostnik]

And the other known person is Armando Iannucci, who did Veep and all sorts of stuff.

[Griffin McElroy]

It's a really, really funny cast. And I don't know, I sort of am spotty in watching that show. But if I get into a season, I will stick with it to the end. And the first episode of this one is really, really hysterically funny. There's only two out. They release new ones, I think every Thursday. But it's a. If you've been lapsed like me for a little bit, it's good time to hop back on because this season fucking rules so far.

[Russ Frostnik]

I like the moment where the other two comedians first meet Kumail and they're like, he leaves the room and they're like, oh, my God, he's so fucking famous.

[Griffin McElroy]

It's really hysterical. It's really, really funny. I think this is only they have not had a ton of American comedians on the show last. I don't know if it was last season or the season before last. They had Jason Mantoukis and now they got Camille.

[Russ Frostnik]

And it does seem like it's going to. As the show gets bigger and bigger, which it has been, you're gonna see more at least one pretty known name outside of the England.

[Griffin McElroy]

You can watch it on YouTube. Just go to the Taskmaster YouTube channel. It's great.

[Justin McElroy]

Nice.

[Russ Frostnik]

Okay, I think we did it. I'm gonna recap the stuff we talked about because Chris Plant is not here. We talked about tomodachi life, Living the Dream, which is on Nintendo Switch. Actually, it works on Switch 1 as well as Switch 2. We also talked about Nintendo World, Super Nintendo World down in Florida. Griffin experienced that himself. We talked about Survivor season 50. We talked about Taskmaster, the new season, which you can watch on YouTube. We talked about handheld craziness going on in Justin's neck of the world. And I think that's what we talked about.

[Justin McElroy]

I miss Chris.

[Russ Frostnik]

Yeah, me too. He'll be back.

[Justin McElroy]

It wasn't very good. It was okay. You tried, but it was like.

[Russ Frostnik]

I tried the reading.

[Justin McElroy]

You felt it though, right?

[Griffin McElroy]

It's a lot of reading.

[Russ Frostnik]

Miss Chris, by the way. We have a new episode, new content, new episode of Resties up. We have new bracket battles up for the month. We have another one coming first week of May. So keep an eye out for that [e-mail] thebesties if you haven't joined yet, please join. You make this show possible. Literally. This show wouldn't exist without you. So thank you so much for supporting us. Here's some new members that have recently joined. We have Brandon F. We have Brooks, we have Nick W. And we have Starfolk. Thank you so much for being Patreon members. Also, if you're just curious about it, you want to just make a free account. You can also do that and be a member. So that's a possibility as well. You won't get the bonus concept but that's okay. It's a way to dip a toe. In Next week, vampire Crawlers, which I believe, Justin, was on your most anticipated list of 2026.

[Justin McElroy]

I believe it was.

[Russ Frostnik]

It was the card based game using the franchise.

[Justin McElroy]

I haven't played it yet, but I'm feeling pretty good about one handed operation.

[Russ Frostnik]

I mean, at the very least, it definitely works with a mouse. So there's that. But we'll see. So big week, Big stuff. It's all happening. I'm very excited about it.

[Justin McElroy]

That's gonna do it for us for this week on 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.