The Besties - Disney Illusion Island's Clever, Kid-Friendly Contrivances

Episode Date: August 4, 2023

Disney Illusion Island might not be the most mechanically complex platformer to grace modern consoles, but what it lacks in depth it more than makes up for with systems to ease in younger, less nimble-fingered players. We're talking all about it, and also tierlisting all the Mickeyverse characters for some reason. Also discussed: Chrono Cross: Radical Dreamers Edition, Mia and the Dragon Princess, Good Omens Season 2, Chip and Dale Park Life Get the full list of games (and other stuff) discussed at www.besties.fan. Want more episodes? Join us at patreon.com/thebesties for three bonus episodes each month!

I have a problem with Baldur's Gate 3, a video game that's out, I think, today, the day that this episode drops. And that is that no matter how much I tool around with the character creator, the character that comes out of that crucible always ends up looking like Corky St. Clair from Waiting for Guffman. Interesting. Or Richard Garriott from real life. Are they the same person is the real question. I feel like you're gonna get people jazzed that this is the Baldur's Gate episode, but it's not. It's not.

It's not, but I mean, do you not want me to address this very real and pressing issue? It does seem important, and I think you're right. I appreciate you rushing this to the front of the line. I want people to be careful because we're having a lot of fun. You dip around in some different haircuts, and you're like, oh, that bowl cut looks unique.

I'll try that one out. And then you're like, oh, I think I will put a little goatee on him. And it's like, well, that's Corky St. Clair again. He's back. And the wing. I feel like all the haircuts have wings. A lot of haircuts have wings a lot of haircuts have wings and then we all experiment with facial hair sure time to time yeah but then you do that too

much and all of a sudden you're richard garriott or corky saint claire or the bad guy from the princess adding horns horns i'm worried that it'll kind of just look like an evil corky saint claire so you've chosen inquire about something? You've chosen two Christopher Guest characters and a real human from actual Earth. This is your comparison. Okay. So you're saying that if they made a Richard Garriott movie, get Guest. They made a Richard Garriott movie.

Give me Mr. Jamie Lee Curtis, please. They made a Richard Garriott movie. It's called Man on a Mission. It beats ass. But it was a documentary. When they make a movie of the documentary, it's going to have Christopher Guest. Was Christopher Guest the bad guy in Princess Bride?

Yes, he was. Count Rugen, yeah, that's Christopher Guest. Six fingers. Wow, man. Anyway, be careful. Keep your head on a swivel. When you're messing around, you're going to spend a lot of time with this character.

You're going to go on an epic adventure. If I had to ask you who played Count Rugen 30 seconds ago, what would you have said? Probably Christian Bale. You know, he was in Pac-Man cereal commercials at that point. There's no way. The dude has range.

Even at a young age, the dude had range. He was in Newsies, and then he jumped right into Princess Bride. Sorry, Christian Slater. Change my answer to Christian Slaterater that's my cigar find another sorry My name is Justin McElroy, and I know the best game of the week. My name is Griffin McElroy, and I know the best game of the week. That got too much. Yeah, wow. My name is Christopher Thomas Plant, and I know the best game of the week. My name is Russ Frushton, and I forgot to jump in to say it's the best game of the week this week.

Oh, my. Wow. I was distracted. Welcome to the besties, where we talk about the latest and greatest in home interactive inter-game-ment? I guess. It's a game of the year club, and just by listening, you have become a member, and I'm so happy to welcome you to our illustrious ranks where this week we'll be discussing the new platformer, Disney, Illusion Island. Chris, what's that? Think of a Metroidvania for people who've never played Metroidvanias.

Or video games. Now add in some Mickey Mouse and I think you're there. Okay. I mean, that's a very promising start, but where to next? You're going to have to wait until after this ad to find out. Before we start talking about Disney Illusion Island, I wanted to mention that I know we've been doing a lot of plugs

for the newsletter. You should sign up for it. It's at besties.fan. Very easy to sign up. And here is an incentive to do so. On August 8th, which is coming up in a few days we're going to be dropping eight playstation codes for double dragon gaiden rise of the dragons which is the latest installment in the double dragon franchise it's going to be in the newsletter

the only way to get one of those codes is it's kind of like a first come first serve but like keep an eye out on august 8th when that newsletter comes in but you have to obviously be subscribed to the newsletter to get it and then get a chance of the codes let me also add that game is fucking dope it might surprise you to learn but it's a pretty good double dragon game so fresh and i had to record uh the upcoming rest is quite a bit early uh and we it's all about this game and i was shocked i was skeptical when fresh said let's play this game double dragon that game hasn't been good in forever and it turns out adding some roguelike elements and giving it to an indie developer pretty good choice pretty good that sounds that sounds all right it's a good game how many dragons are there though because i've been tricked before i don't think there's there

are 13 characters in this game and one of them takes up half the screen. I love that. I love that. We need to get you a code for it, and we can do that. I'll take one of these eight. Now there's seven free ones, haters. Hey, can we talk about Disney Illusion Island?

Yes. Let's do it. I feel like when we first picked this game, I was like, I don't know how much there is going to be to talk about, and then I played it a bit, and I was like, I don't know how much there is going to be to talk about. And then I played it a bit and I was like, I don't think there's going to be much to talk about. And then I played it with my kid for a while.

And I was like, oh, I could talk about this for a very long time. That's what I needed. Cause I remember I came to you guys cause I had just played it and I was like, eh, I'm not sure.

But the problem is my son is too young to really play anything. Right. So I needed to lean on the wisdom that your older kids have developed. So this is a straight up platformer, not an action platformer, by which I mean, even more so than most platformers, violence is not an option.

You're making your way to this 2D world trying to collect some MacGuffins. I don't know. Mickey's Illusion castle was more violent it was basically the doom to this game yeah you could like throw apples or maybe i'm thinking of aladdin but like you could bonk enemies and knock them sort of loopy for a little bit uh not even an option here on this one you just gotta get on over them and don't touch them or you get hurt um yeah it's it's there's it's so wild to me that uh i i don't think of my son as harboring a deep and a quiet aggression but even he at certain

points was like so when do we get like a sword how do i fuck this guy up any there are several boss battles in this game not many but there's like three or four, and everyone, the combat is doing some things until something falls from the ceiling onto the head of your opponent, which is basically an accident. You just have to wait long enough for Mickey to be present for an accident. Mickey checked the actuarial tables and was like, this might happen. for an accident. Mickey checked the actuarial tables and was like, this might happen.

You do start out with just like absolutely bare bones jumping and running. And that's absolutely it. You have to earn basically everything else of locomotion wise, because it can't roll out in terms of weaponry. So the Metroidvania elements have to be all forms of locomotion and and basically you see the hooks all around the world you know you'll see an arched rainbow that

is very clearly a sort of like grappling point there's water all around that you know you'll be able to come and like swim through later when there's even like little things that say like you need another move to do this yeah and that shows up on the mini map which is nice like you you just know like okay i don't need to mess around with this it is weird because i've as you guys know i've played like every metroidvania that's ever come out so playing one that is specifically designed for people that a have never touched the genre before and b maybe have never touched a video game before is like a weird time warp that i'm having and it's not bad it's just so obviously not for someone that's played every metroidvania ever yes sir that it's just it's just very odd

to be playing that that is something that is so specific about telling you what you need to be doing at any given time it it also i would say in the back it begins like very easy yeah and i don't mean that in like a like i'm not i don't mean that even in a critical way but like it's very much if you enjoyed it first it'll be very much about the locomotion. The jumps are interesting where they're more about distance than height, if that makes any sense. They're very floaty to use common platformer parlance. Yeah. So you get – it feels good though.

I mean like anywhere in the world feels nice and especially as you start to unlock more of the locomotion upgrades that help you sort of like get through things uh quicker it it feels very good but it is not challenging it until like the last third i weirdly it gets a lot more not even hard but like more annoying like it's easy early on to get into a groove where you're just sort of like effortlessly. It almost feels like speed running. Yeah, a little bit. Even though it's the first time you played it. But everything's like placed appropriately so you feel like there are lines. Like you feel like, oh, I just hit the line I was supposed to hit. Later on in the game that starts to feel a little bit chunkier and a little bit more annoying. Like you have to end up waiting a lot more for your opening versus just

like kind of getting into a flow and moving forward yeah for for the adult it kind of reminds me of like good children's movies where the story or whatever isn't going to be for you but they surround it in either like beautiful art or really good music or voices you're familiar with in this case i think the animation even though there's not a ton of it but like the jump animations are really cute and charming the sound effects are really good and the music in this game is killer it's it is good so good it is i mean just fantastic orchestration it's beautiful i if you're not playing this with a child, if you don't have a child and you're playing it at home, I definitely recommend headphones for this game.

All the characters also, you mentioned the... Oh, sorry, go ahead. I recommend the game in that case. Go ahead. All the characters also have their own animations for each of the abilities. So for the grappling hook, Goofy gets a link of sausages. In fact, all of Goofy's are food.

And for swimming, he has a watermelon fin. And Donald gets stupid stuff. His ground pound is an anvil for no real reason. I like the mustard on Goofy. It's probably my favorite. All of that stuff, all of those platforming enhancements

represent the only kinds of mechanical upgrades, carrots, whatever you want to call them, that exist in the game. Everything else that you can hunt around and find is just like souvenirs or gallery art. Custom art, concept art, stuff like that. Concept art, stuff like that. Hidden Mickeys. There are Hidden Mickeys, which is the only other kind of big draw that has worked for me.

And I don't care so much about going around and looking for character cards of the different... Of the made-up characters. Of the made-up NPCs for this game. But if we're running around the map,, you know, I've been playing it with Henry, who is, you know, six and a half. And we see a hidden Mickey. It is just like a race to see who can snap it first. That has been just as compelling as it is in the Disney parks in kingdom hearts three. I like, I like, I do like some of the memorabilia that you can collect where they have like

little props from classic Mickey cartoons. Griffin, you'll be relieved to hear that there is a potato land suite of collectibles. There are three different potato land. So fucking funny props that you can get. Okay. If I could just, can I,

can I have like a brief minute to talk about Mickey? This is genuinely what I'm most interested in. As a character, I have not experienced Mickey in any form in the last 30 years. Oh, you're kidding me. I mean, I've seen him. Here's the deal.

There are two different sort of current canonical Mickeys. This is not a Disney distinction. This is my distinction. Sure. There are two different canonical Mickeys. There's Mickey the Icon, who's been around for many, many, many years.

And that's the Mickey we all know and love. In 2013, they started this series of Mickey Mouse shorts that is basically you should know that for Mickey there is one person who voices Mickey at any one time there's an unbroken chain from Walt to Brett Ewan who is the current Mickey there's only been two Mickeys ever I said a chain a chain okay unbroken chain well you just mentioned two people. I thought. No, because there's all of them. But you got, Brett Ewan is the one currently who is doing it.

Okay. In 2013, there was a series of shorts where Chris Diamantopoulos, who you know from, like, he was, I mean, he was in the Three Stooges movie. He was the billionaire in Silicon Valley. Oh, yeah. Okay. So he did the Mickey in silicon valley oh yeah um okay so he did the mickey voice in those shorts and i consider that to be it's funny mickey yes the mickey that is allowed to be funny manic mickey it does those shorts are genuinely really funny

really really they're great they look great they sound great they're the characters have like actual rough edges that make them he's like a he's like a character he's like a human not a human he's a mouse but like has human characteristics right there's there's a new one that just came out called steamboat silly it's the last one that what it's the finale it's the last oh really that's the very last one yeah oh man that's a bummer. But yeah, it is. It's extremely silly, and I cannot believe what they allowed these animators to do

with Disney's most precious characters. It is transgressive in a way that is full-blown like Ren and Stimpy show at times. But it's never called like Mickey Mouse zany tales, right? No. No, it is Mickey Mouse. This is a Mickey Mouse cartoon that is supposed to be actually funny rather than just sell you a cup.

Now, the, the interesting thing about Disney illusion Island is art style wise. It's not exactly funny. Mickey funny. Mickey also is the one that is in the theme parks. It's worth noting. Like that is the Mickey that you get in Mickey and Minnie's runaway railway. Like that is the Mickey that you get in. A Mickey and Minnie's Runaway Railway.

Yeah. But like the guy in the suit is Funny Mickey? No. Funny Mickey's just in Runaway Railway. In that attraction, when they built the first ever Mickey Mouse ride, that is what they went with. They went with Funny Mickey. So the art style is closer to that. It's not exactly that.

The costume designs are different. But the art style is closer. But they do not have uh christy montopolis they have they have brett ewan doing make the mickey voice make brett ewan is not as good at making mickey funny right he's not it's not his skill set but the the game falls into this like uh weird middle ground between the two i think where it is funny there's actual jokes right they do actual things it's not as transgressive as in the yeah it's it's all very weird middle ground between the two. I think where it is funny, there's actual jokes, right? They do actual things. None of it is transgressive as in the...

It's all very soft, borderline transgressive. It's like illumination humor. A little more meta, I would say. There's a joke about TBD in it. Oh, yeah. It's the sort of jokes you would see in the Mario movie. Oh, no.

They're better than that. That didn't actually have jokes per se. Let's not be mean. Yeah. Let's not be cruel about it. But that, but anyway, like in terms of like Mickey,

that's the interesting, like what the way they've gotten around having to make it feel exactly right is that they didn't really base it on. It's kind of its own Splinter Mickey. So Splinter Mickeyverse. So totally, I would have, the problem I have actually is that, and this is, I will talk about the problem I have with this game.

It's very beautiful to look at and the humor is very present in the cut scenes and nothing about the actual game and the playing of it that self is very present in the cut scenes and nothing about the actual game and the playing of it that self is very charming or funny or cute or interesting or like surprising. And that's even the case when playing with the kids. Oh yeah, that doesn't change based on. Because I know that it's a bunch of like co-op features

that they added that made. The co-op features are amazing. That's different from sort of what we're very briefly on that. You can make your kid invincible. You can make it so that your kid is both invincible and can press a button to heal you with a hug. Adorable. Come on. Yeah.

There's also you can make it so that wall clings are infinite. Yeah. And there's like jump assist so that no matter you don't have to hold the button in longer to do a longer jump every button press is the same so they've got like a ton of accessibility in there that makes it like my favorite is and the game doesn't explain this which is kind of wild uh if if you're playing and you know you're playing with a younger person who like misses a jump and falls all the way down to the bottom of the screen and gets frustrated, you can drop a rope for them. Yeah, that's cool.

You can climb up the rope and catch up to where you are. That's the stuff that I feel like I could talk about forever. makes games less punishing for younger people who lack the either fine motor skills or just sort of like gaming vocabulary to like know how to do that stuff i i am very interested in because those are the types of experience that my oldest son is like right in the right in the zone for uh and this this game does it so smartly. It is a very easy game, but at the same time, the kind of platforming stuff it is asking players of a certain age to do

is hard. Henry was struggling with it when we first started, but we were able to kind of get over the hump because of these accessibility sort of features. And now he is just cruising through the world, stringing together, you know, sequences of wall jumps and stuff like that, like, with way more sort of proficiency

than he was when he first started out. And I think that is, like, nearly unprecedented. That's amazing. Like, that is a level of thoughtfulness that I think a lot of games don't have. I think it maybe comes at the cost of the game is not particularly mechanically fascinating to me. Like a Metroidvania that doesn't actually have that many sort of carrots is not – it just kind of feels like a big empty map. It's also just like none of the ideas in it feel fresh.

Like none of the platforming ideas, like everything in this game has an analog to something that you have done in another game. You know what I mean? Like it's not like, oh, this really changes things. It's very much just like, oh, now I can swim through water. Yeah, I would also add that like i i think the cut scenes look really good i think the characters look really good i think having played games like

ori and cuphead it's really hard to say this is like a gobsmackingly gorgeous game in comparison to other games that have done the 2d metroidvania thing or the 2d platforming thing, like so with so much more care, like the worlds themselves are like, at least, you know, I'm still pretty early in the game, but the environments I've seen are like extremely simple.

Yeah, they are. And there's a lot of homogeny within the biomes within the areas. And there's not like landmarks, right? Or like, they just feel like puzzles. Like they just, not puzzles, they feel like levels.

Yeah. You know, rather than like a world that would be inhabited. There's not like a lot in terms of visual interest there, for sure. You were saying that Moses was not vibing. This is a case of very bad timing so we've been playing through uh super mario odyssey the past few weeks and we literally rolled credits on it and he's like oh what else

can we play and i loaded this and he immediately was like what the fuck are you doing like how how are we going from here right yeah and like that's that's no fault of disney illusion island like sorry you're not as good as one of the best games i've played in the last decade yeah um but yeah that that's a hard thing to communicate to him that like no not every game gets to be mario odyssey i'm sorry i thought you would like this um yeah he's also it was homework so yeah yeah yeah yeah you better start playing this has not been like like uh when we were playing Pokemon Violet and Scarlet together like Henry wanted to play it all the time this is not that but it has been a pretty chill just turn it on when we want to play a game for an hour and just

sort of cruise cruise through the world um it's yeah i feel i feel like there aren't many of those that are that chill and like oh pop in pop out kind of yeah for kids especially not for kids yeah it's it's it is a rare rarefied air that this game is breathing. And yeah, I am happy that it is out. I think that there are a few missed opportunities here. I do think that there is a bit, if it had been closer to the tone of the wonderful world of Mickey Mouse cartoon stuff that's happening now, that would have been great.

If there had been a little bit more sort of mechanics for it to hang its hat on, I think that would have been great if there had been a little bit more sort of mechanics for it to hang its hat on i think that would have been an improvement um we're set in a mickey like universe yeah i i still don't understand setting it in a place with a whole bunch of new characters other than maybe that being like a requirement from disney uh it probably gives them some more leeway yeah i had to guess but i don't know but if each world was like the worlds at disneyland i mean that would be wild fucking awesome right but yeah what was the last just out of curiosity before we wrap what was the last like pretty good disney like mickey game oh i was gonna say disney game is dreamlike valley um yeah i mean mickey is arguably in dreamlike but in in terms of a Mickey starring replay as Mickey. Probably Epic Mickey.

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I mean, they did a remake of Castle Evolution, right? Did they? Yes, but then they took it off Steam for some reason. That was in 2013, though. I think that was probably before Epic Mickey. I don't even know if you can buy that anymore.

Yeah, Epic Mickey 2 was the one with Oswald. That was 2012. That's a neat game. I thought Oswald was in the first one. Wasn't he the bad guy in the first one? I don't think so. It's impossible for anybody to remember the details of Epic Mickey. Yes, he was.

Thank you, Warren Spector. Thank you for the contributions, Warren. Thank you for bringing back Mickey. They'd forgotten about him. So anyway, that's Epic Mickey. No, it's not Epic Mickey. It not epic that's no i'm closing the chapter on epic mickey and now i'm talking about disney illusion island okay uh yeah it's good it's it's good it's exactly what it needs to be i feel like it is i think almost all the complaints i have with

it are maybe not complaints that would be shared by you know a a young child or someone playing it with a young child. I will say, though, once it gets towards the ending of the game, the kids are going to be struggling. There's a lot more bad guys and a lot more stuff to get around. I know it's very easy, and it wasn't challenging for me, a man, but I think it might start to get a little frustrating for kids but again you could just make your kids invincible like once i just toggled that for henry he's he enjoyed the game

so much more you also if you get too far away from them they get stamped that's what killed is in this game you get stamped and sent back to a mailbox um and they'll just come up and teleport up to where you are it's like getting inked sure yeah terrifying uh let's take a break and then we'll come back and talk about more uh uh fantastic disney content okay so i'm now surrounded by people that uh particularly enjoy the disney world the universe i'm still kind of out of the loop uh my son doesn't seem to care for mickey mouse but that's only because he sees them at the doctor's office and that's it um so i wanted you're withholding yeah i wanted to i wanted to uh see if we could bring me up to speed by tier

listing some of our favorite mickey characters and uh see where they stand for y'all favorite or best whoa favorite or best it's different things right this is best we're going best best yes i gotta say uh we should start from the top see okay hey here's what's hard man you got mickey and funny mickey and you got goofy but not funny goofy yeah funny goofy is extremely funny goofy kicks ass funny goofy has an episode where he gets jealous of pluto and decides to give up human life to just become a dog full time that mickey has to take care of there's one where he's asleep and can't wake up

but has a job interview and so Donald and Mickey have to climb inside his clothes and control him like a weekend at Bernie's Mexican. There's a Potato Land episode where there's a theme park he's obsessed with that is closed or did not exist called Potato Land

that Mickey and Donald have to recreate for him out of potatoes. Funny Goofy's really good. Here's what I think we need to do. We need to remove any stipulation of Funny Mickey or Funny Goofy and you just need to fold them in. Fold them in together.

Well then in that case I would say the best character's Pete. Well, we're tiering these Okay Mickey S tier legend I mean right You know what I'm gonna have to bring him No no no wait

You can't S tier Mickey because Mickey has also been like In some shit Well no I was just like He's been so over exposed That he's basically like a McDonald's Arches. You know what I mean? This is tough. Come on.

Just make him an S chair and get it over with. What are we doing? Let's do A plus for Mickey. Okay. Oh, my gosh. You got to have room to grow. Okay, Goofy. Can we take a pause on Goofy for a second?

You were talking about the Goofy Pluto situation. Okay. Does anyone ever say situation okay does anyone ever say that like does goofy ever say hey i'm also a dog that is what i just i'm i know i know he was jealous frustrated people are like justin why are you so hard on russ he knows i just described the plot of that episode russ i know you said he was jealous of pluto but a human might be jealous of their dog for being able to be lazy so just acknowledge that he is a dog and he is going to live life look at pluto's face and look at goofy's face if you blocked out the rest of those characters and they're identical their face shape of their bones is identical and yeah so is it like a waiting for Godot situation? Like what is going on there? I don't know that book or play or movie. One is a dog and one is a man. I mean, what do you want?

So you're saying Goofy is a man. Goofy's a man and Pluto's a dog. I don't know what's confusing. Many men look like dogs. That doesn't make them dogs. Okay, Goofy's just an ugly man. I got it. Goofy's not ugly.

What's wrong with you, Russ? This segment was your idea. D-tier Russ Freshdick. Oh, no. Goofy gets an A. I think I can put Goofy at an A. I think S for Donald. I agree.

You are the Donald of the show. Donald is the great. Look, no one is more sure of himself and confident and pantsless. Also, Donald produced like an entire spinoff world. We get Scrooge McDuck because of Donald. We get Daisy. We just had one movie. The kids.

Donald is pretty great as a supporting character. I mean, I would go A tier just because sometimes he's very cruel to his nephews. Very mean. Very mean uncle. Yeah, but they're like wicked annoying. They're so annoying, but their hearts are in the right place.

They call him Uncle Donald. I give... I would say S tier, but that's, you know, if I'm outvoted, S tier for Donald is fine. Okay, many. I would say S tier, but if I'm outvoted, S tier for Donald is fine. Okay, Minnie. I will say, quick complaint, Disney Illusion Island does not have Daisy. Wild choice. That's a wild choice.

If you have two daughters especially who you have kept the piece for many years by letting one of them be Minnie and one of them be Daisy. One of them gets the Daisy cup, one of them gets the Minnie cup. It's pretty rough to not have Daisy to lean on. You gotta have the big five. It's all of them. You gotta have them. It's weird to not include Daisy.

Wait, is Pluto not in the five? Goofy is in the big five. The big five is Mickey, Goofy, Donald, Minnie, Mickey. What about Pluto? The big five characters. Pluto is a fucking dog. I can Minnie, Mickey. What about Pluto? This is my big five characters. Pluto is a fucking dog. I can't believe this. What about Mickey's lunchbox?

Like, who cares? I can't believe I have to go over this with you again. He's not a man. There's been like 80 Plutos. They keep dying. No one cares. Minnie? I don't know the character.

I will say this. I will say this. I will say this. The best thing about the new Mickey Mouse cartoons is it has given Minnie a personality beyond those. And what is her personality? She is, I would say, is much feistier in the new cartoons. She gets things done. She gets shit done.

I do like, though, in the cartoons, like the Clubhouse era, Minnie's got, like, several side hustles. Like, her happy helpers, which is her and Daisy. Yeah, sure. And sometimes Clarabelle and sometimes Kukuloka. Like, they're out there, like, getting it done, helping people out, doing the work. There is still a great obsession, though. It's a great point. A.

A tier for Minnie. Okay, Daisy. Daisy's gotta be b she doesn't have as much of a niche niche i'm sorry that's not my fault but they haven't done as much with daisy i feel like it like yeah she doesn't i mean she's not as angry as donald is certainly she gets up there oh really she does get up there She can get a little steamed What is it that sets Daisy off? Donald Oh Usually yeah Reasonable

Okay we're gonna say B Who's this segment for? Or God's indifference to man Sometimes That pisses her off something fierce This segment's for me Griffin by the way In case you're curious Professor Von Drake

S tier Scientist Working his ass off Anytime you see him You know you're in for a treat I have no idea who that is Professor Von Drake, S tier, scientist. S tier, like so good. Anytime you see him, you know you're in for a treat. I have no idea who that is. Really? This segment isn't for you then. It is.

It's educational for me. I don't know who that is. Okay, you would know him if you saw him. Professor Von Drake? He's a doctor, talks like this, and he does science and he's oh he does have a little bit of like an operation paperclip vibes like where did professor von drake start his career where was he in the 1940s yeah okay okay can i? Not a bad question. I think that puts him at C rank at least. A lot of people would probably be like, whoa, too far.

Too flippant. But me, I'm like, where was he? It's a simple question. It's just a simple question. You should have pictures or something. Yeah. Pluto is S rank. No.

No one is purer than Pluto. Pluto's D for dog. Oswald, cool. Oswald, cool. Where was he for so long? I don't know, but now he's back, and that's pretty cool. Where was Oswald in the 1940s? I mean, Oswald was the fucking shit in the 1940s.

He was Mickey in the 1940s. That's true. Well, no, not in the 1940s. Basically. We're not going to go down this deep dog um walt lost access to to um to oswald the lucky rabbit he was very upset about it but he made mickey and that's what got us all here today today that's why we're all here today should we put lindbergh on this tier list, by the way?

Who? Lindbergh. Lucky Lindy. Just stop having fun. Like, this is good stuff. You don't need to add a bunch of weird shit. This is a professional ranking of power rankings. Please.

Okay. There's a character that Fresh forgot to put on this thing, so I just dropped a picture in Slack. And where would this go? This is just a combination of Goofy head with Pluto body. That looks like a dog. to put on this thing so i just dropped a picture in in the slack and where would this go this is just a combination of goofy head with pluto body that looks like a dog i'm not gonna address that with a hat on this is pluto i love poofy pete's s tier he's s tier can't beat him s here he's the most valuable but pete okay pete the dog has played a lovable buffoon that just lives next to mickey

and is trying his best but always like shits and falls back in it and also the literal devil from hell like whatever you need him to be in that sometimes pete even on the same show is like i stole all of your peanuts and you gotta come over to a big peanut party and eat them with me. And then, like, later on, a few seasons later, he's like, I killed your dog. You'll never find the bones. He's an amazing character. He can do whatever he wants. Yeah, and fucking, I'm pretty sure in Kingdom Hearts 3, he's like, I did genocide with Sephiroth.

Holy shit, man. Or later, but later on, he's like, I painted my house better than my next door neighbor Goofy. It's like, who cares? Who gives a shit, man? Oswald B., I guess. I don't know. Nobody can tell me anything about Oswald. He doesn't do much.

Clarabelle. Clarabelle is great representation. We love the visibility. Of what exactly? Just pretty much everything else. Like like everybody else is pretty normal and then claribel is like every uh she's a real funky lady they only bring her they only bring her out when they want to kind of a funky funky energy with claire no one's quite comfortable with Clarabelle. You know it's going to be a funky one. Yeah.

Clarabelle is F for funky. I think that's rude. I think that's rude. I would give her an S for so funky. Okay. I put Al Borland on here as well, but I think we can move along. Is that because it's just the larger ABC company?

Yeah. And then once we start talking about Al, there's really no stopping us. I do love Al Borland in Kingdom Hearts 3. I will say we didn't talk about Mortimer Mouse, who is hilarious. And he's just like, where Pete is more of like a,

whatever you need him to be. Mortimer Mouse just fucking hates Mickey Mouse. And that's his whole thing. He hates his cats. And he's been around for 90 years pretty much just hating Mickey. That's all he does. It's great. Well, I think we did it.

A quick recap of the rankings here. Mickey A+, Goofy A, Donald S, Minnie A, Daisy B, Pluto D for dog, Professor Von Drake C, probably should be lower given where he was in the 1930s. Pete S, Oswald B, Clara Belkow, SF for so funky, and Al Borland,

great, and Mortimer S, pretty good as well. Did not register. Anybody been playing anything else any other video games you've been enjoying uh i mean balder's gate we're gonna talk about that next week is that next week's episode yeah that is next week's episode i'm also playing something that is also under embargo oh is it the one you just sent me a code for yes Yes. Yama, yama. Can't wait. Did you send me a code?

No, we only got two so far. I'm working on it. What? There's a game and I don't even know about it and you've been playing it with Griffin? Oh, it's so good. We've been having so, it's like a sliver of fun. Oh my God, we're just gonna spend it all night together. I played a little bit of an FMV thing

called Mia and the Dragon Princess by Wales Interactive and it's actually pretty good. It's more of an interactive movie. There's not a lot of game elements. But it's actually pretty well written. And it's got Paul McGann, the real eighth doctor, Paul McGann, right in there. You can get him. The eye from Withnail and I himself.

It's pretty good. If you like interactive cinema, then it's great. I also read a, just finished up a book called The Inheritance Game. It's a YA novel, but it's about a 16-year-old young woman who inherits a multi-billion dollar estate,

much to the chagrin of the family of the billionaire, and she has no idea who he is or any relation to him, but he was sort of like game and puzzle obsessed. And she has to live in his house for a year with the family that she disinherited to try to figure out what the connection is and why the money was left to her etc etc it's very good it's an easy read if you like books sounds good i think you can skip fourth wing sorry i know it's not popular opinion but uh i read fourth wing too it's all buzz all book talks talking about and i think it's just okay it's a video game book club uh i started watching good omens season two is that out is out it started on amazon prime whatever they call it and it's extremely good as expected uh if you didn't watch the first season of those two cats and i literally they're so good together i can't tell if they're scripted it seems like always script right do you know what i'm talking like do you guys get service

these on like facebook or whatever it's these two cats just hanging out and i literally are you talking about the show no no no like in interviews they'll just show like little snippets of them interacting and it seems scripted there's like so good together oh yeah they have amazing chemistry they're amazing really tremendous this is michael sheen and michael david tennant oh and they're both tremendous together and uh it's really why is why is russ praising michael richards he's like that's really weird really wicked weird uh i just want to say my my initial experience with both neil gaiman and ter Terry Pratchett was good omens. I read it when I was like 12 and it sent me down like a rabbit hole of like every Discworld book and all Neil Gaiman's novels.

And so to see like this franchise come back in an unexpected way has been really awesome. Seems like I'd like Discworld, doesn't it? I think you would. No, I don't. But it seems like I would. Fair enough. I've tried. I'm going to recommend Chippendale Park Life.

There's two seasons of it on Disney+. Have any of you watched this show? No. Yeah, it's funny. Y'all, it's bonkers. It is absolutely, I mean, it takes the, hey, we're going to go have fun with Mickey Mouse and be extra silly to run in Stimpy level extremes. Where Chip and Dale are like using fake versions of other animals' faces to go to like bars and hang out with those animals. And I kind of make each other like romantically jealous.

It's awesome. I love this show so much. Yeah, the movie is quite good. It's very funny. It's awesome. I love this show so much. Yeah, the movie was quite good. It's very funny. Yeah, yeah. It feels like one of those scripts that was funnier on paper than it was in the movie.

It's got an absolutely astounding Sonic gag, though. Yeah, it's true. Just thinking about it again. Griffin, anything else? Not really really I finished Chrono Cross Radical Dreamers but last time I brought that up on the show I was ridiculed

so violently that I sort of withered away it's the kind of growth that I wish Russ could hate Griffin I have such a soft spot if you like here's my pitch for that game if you like the convoluted and rushed at

the end plot of neon genesis evangelion you will love croto cross uh because i would have what have i loved chrono trigger no then it's weird you won't like it's weird it's one of those weird things where if you like the first one you'll fucking fucking hate the second one. Oh, crazy. No, it's so, like, the plot is bonkers. It's so overwrought. And then, as was the case with, like, so many games of, like, that era, of, like, the late 90s pre-generational shift, they just, like, you can tell there's, like,

there should be a cut scene like 20 hours in where just like the developer of the game pops up and is like and then we ran out of money so these three kids are gonna tell you the rest of the plot and um man it would have been cool if we originally this was going to be a 12-disc sort of years-long adventure. Now, it's very cool. The vibe is unlike any other game I think that's ever been made. And the plot, there's a lot of it there that, you know, it's one of those that you can get lost sort of looking at interpretations

and shit online. But is the combat pretty much like it was in Chrono Trigger? No, not at all. Because I love that combat. Sure, yeah, that combat was great. wasn't chronic trigger no not at all because i love that combat sure yeah that combat was great but it's not like that at all it's very i mean it has a very unique combat thing where like you have these elements that are basically your spells that you put on this uh grid and then as you use regular attacks you can use those elements but it's not like there's no like mp to speak of there's no it's it's not i just like the spacing stuff i thought yeah that stuff's not that stuff's

not in it okay yeah it's it is a fundamentally different game and then like once you're like 30 hours in it's like and by the way remember robo anyway oh i do i do remember robo and frog yeah frog he's great cool um i want i think we did it i wanted to thank the following people for writing reviews for the besties on apple podcasts the first username looks french to me chamois modic that's how i'm gonna pronounce it uh then we have the feller and abe from and thank you for writing reviews for the besties on Apple Podcasts. Thank you to everyone else who has talked about the show or, very importantly, signed up for the newsletter, which if you do that now, you might have a chance

to get a free code to Double Dragon, Rise of the Dragons. And Chris Plant, why don't you recap what we talked about? Games we talked about? Disney Illusion Island, Baldur's Gate 3, Me and the Dragon Princess, and Chrono Cross the Radical Dreamer, books, The Inheritance Game, movies and TV,

The Wonderful World of Mickey Mouse, Steamboat Silly, Chippendale Park Life, and Good Omens Season 2. And next week? Baldur's Gate 3. Yeah. Quick housekeeping thing that I meant to say

first off I know we have a lot of parents that listen Patrick Kleppig, long time video game journalist has just started a newsletter called Crossplay, I think it's crossplay.news, you can find it, it's just about parents and gaming, so there's a lot of good family recommendations

and stuff like that that I've found there, the other thing is Stitcher, podcast platform where you may very well be listening to this right now but probably not is going away this month. It's going to disappear and vanish. So if you have been listening to us there

or any other podcast there make sure you get out. There's still time. Wow. I recommend Overcast. I love Overcast. I like Pocket Cast, but to each his own. We can all agree not podcast the Apple app, but

I like Spotify. But do leave reviews. Please get us back. Please Spotify. Please Spotify. We need that money. Just kidding. We don't want your fucking money. Besties Not fan is the newsletter sign up for it right now before you can even think about it

that's going to do it for us for this week be sure to join us again next week for the besties because shouldn't the world's best friends pick the world's best games Besties!