The Besties - Dreaming the Impossible Dreamlight Valley

Episode Date: September 23, 2022

We're as surprised as anyone that Dreamlight Valley, Gameloft's Disney-flavored life sim, has enraptured our hearts and our minds. Join us as we force feed Goofy raw fish while hunting the unquiet spirit of Minnie Mouse. Also discussed: Return to Monkey Island, Final Fantasy X, The Elden Ring Manga, Predator: A Memoir, Arcade Paradise, Slay the Spire 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 think Mickey Mouse is a little full of himself. Okay. He seems like he has kind of the protagonist, like I'm the protagonist vibe about him. I'm the main character, yeah, for sure. Everything sort of revolves around him when realistically speaking, he's just like wearing red shorts

and that's basically all he has going. He's a mouse in red shorts and nobody wants to talk about it. Thank you, Russ. And like Donald is sick and like he's too proud to talk about it, but he's like really sick what's wrong with donald so when mickey comes just really sick it's really really it's a big sickness and every time

mickey comes around it's like oh no i gotta have some of minnie's crackers and donald's like yeah man um i'll uh i'll get i'll get right on that hey hey pal i'm throwing a fruit salad party for all my friends it's like yeah yeah sounds i'd love i i know i'm trying to get it together i know i know and like goofy knows but he promised donald not to say anything. So he's like, gosh, Mick, maybe we should give him a little space. Maybe if you took a little more time to get to know him, deepen your relationship. Maybe give him some raw fish and gems. He seems confused when you want to hang out with other people, too. Like if you have someone else with you, Mickey's like, oh, well, I get it.

A little bit of strange, huh? Merlin's an actual wizard, Mickey. I want to know about that. So Minnie's a ghost. It's weird. Let's just go. Let's just go. I want to talk about this game and nothing else.

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. My name is Christopher Thomas Plant, and I know the best game of the week. My name is Griffin McElroy and I know the best game of the week. My name is Christopher Thomas Plant and I know the best game of the week. My name is Russ Froschek and I know the best game of the week. Welcome to the besties where we talk about the latest and greatest in home interactive entertainment. This week we're talking about Disney Dreamlight Valley. Chris Plant, how did that happen? The people at Disney saw Animal Crossing and they're like,

I would like some of that money, please. And then the people at Gameloft who love to make money on mobile games were like, sure. And now we're there. Now it's just real. They did it. They both did the thing. And let me tell you, I'm in love. I'm accidentally in love.

I'm ironically in love. Okay okay we'll be right back to talk about this believe it or not oh god i spent a good amount of this week wondering if you guys this is not i'm not this is not a good wondering if you guys were tricking me. Like, I was the only one playing it. And then when you got here, it'd be like, surprise. Surprise, we're throwing you a birthday party. Like, or something. I don't know what I thought would happen, but I could not fathom it. It is, yeah, it's funny.

And you didn't know about this game until we mentioned it while we were recording last week, right? Yeah. Wow. And now it's here, and you're experiencing everything you've ever dreamed. Every time you go to Disneyland, this is what you want. Yeah, absolutely. Just immersing myself in a wild hodgepodge of Disney characters that resembles nothing as coherent as the bedroom wall of a 10-year-old cutting pictures out of Disney Adventures magazine and taking them to their wall in a bizarre melange of Disney IP.

Can I ask a question up front? Yeah. Am I the only person who's probably going to put this in their top 10 games of the year list? I adore this game. Oh, thank God. No, no, no, no, no. Okay, good. It's great. No, no, no, no, no.

It's great. No, it's great. But like, it's great. Should we explain what the loop is? Can I try? Okay, you've played farming games like

Stardew Valley, right? Let's start with Stardew Valley, right? Let's start with Stardew Valley, right? Yeah. Although I think Animal Crossing is probably a better comparison. I think it's a little closer to Animal Crossing because of the – so you're in this place called Dreamlight Valley. It's been taken over by this dark force, and you, through the power of gardening and friendship,

are going to beat back the forces of darkness. Wait, wait, wait, wait. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Gardening, mining, fishing, the power of friendship. What mine was was sort of an oversimplification for comedic effect. No, no, no, no, no. But I think it's important everybody knows mining and fishing. Mining and fishing.

Yeah, obviously mining and fishing. Disney games do this a lot, actually, where whenever there is a uh mashup of ip there's always like a centralized like i don't know it's just kind of like a disney area it's just like real disney looking and you use this hub world to lure in other beloved disney characters to your valley to come live in your valley so You have to make them like the home, the like, and do quests for them and help cook meals for them and do all those kind of like life sim type things that you would.

Lure in sounds a little nefarious, but honestly, that's pretty accurate. Like you are kind of. I've said exactly the word I meant to use. You do lure them in. Yeah. You say honey pots for them and then you,

you imprison them in your valley. Is Pooh in this game? I haven't seen him yet. I don't know. With the amount of bananas I've been eating, I sure hope Pooh's in this game or else it's gonna be a rough time. And they're like weird rights.

I always noticed in Kingdom Hearts and all the Kingdom Hearts games, it always opened up and it was like, characters trademark Disney, except for Pooh, who is here on special loan from the author of the Pooh books. Yeah, they can use- Well, Pooh's in the public domain now.

That's wild. Well, but only early Pooh, not Disney Pooh. Right, so that's the distinction, right? Yeah, Winnie the Pooh is in the public domain. Winnie a Pooh is. Winnie a Pooh. I don't- don't anyway wally's in this so who cares wally is definitely in this game loft has is such a wild company they have made disney games in the past but they have also made a million games in the past and not all of them i would say are

slam dunk i mean i would go so far as to say they are the Majesco of games right now. Yeah. Reputation. Can you explain that? Because that, that, that, that is a little bit.

I'll be more blunt. I think game lofts rep, rep, uh, like reputation as a game maker is terrible. Like, I think most people do not get jazzed when they play a game loft game, but they do have a shitload of them,

and they basically owned the mobile gaming AA space forever. Yes, I will also clarify, most people, by that you mean people who don't play a lot of mobile games. Because I think people who play a lot of mobile games would be like, love it. If there's a Need for Speed game or whatever,

it's almost always like a like a ip existing ip it's always game yes paddington paddington run was a game loft joint if sure that's sure or like the asphalt series yeah which is like the dungeon hunter i believe and i'm gonna add this by saying i know i'm sure there's a very a bunch of very talented people making games at game loft i think by their nature of working with ip their schedules are very tight and there's a limit to how much quote creative magic a lot of game loft games can have so i don't want to like dunk on these people here's a more mainstream thing than majesco their activision before activision stopped making games remember when action is

like your spongebob sure whatever we can get like five of those out like they just make a lot of stuff and not all of it is great but some of it is great they they just made a lego star wars like survival multi castaways i think is what it's called that's pretty great uh they did they they haven't they've done a lot of disney stuff they made one that was called disney magic kingdoms that was oh yeah kind of a disney park management sim almost much more than this was yeah it made me sad i thought it was okay but this is this is this is on another level i don't know that i associate that brand with quality and so when i saw that they were the developers of this game that i saw a trailer for i was like oh that looks cool i was like oh no this is but i think that the amount of polish and not just polish but like

creativity that has gone into this game is is is genuinely very impressive hey before before we get off the game left boat just one more thing. Do you all know who is the founder of GameLoft? Isn't it a Ubisoft, like, drive? It's Michel Guillermo, who is the brother of the Ubisoft guy. And let me tell you, this is the best scenario for a life.

Dude founded GameLoft does not have a Wikipedia page. There we go. That's the dream, right? Like, you're a gajillionaire and people like, you are known as brother of the Ubisoft guy. Yeah. I think we've talked about, I mean,

I think people know that the Stardew Valley comparison is so apt that I don't know that there is much mechanically that. Well, there is one mechanic. I think the big difference between this and Stardew and even Animal Crossing is I think there are people, Justin was certainly one of them, who pick up Stardew and they're like, what the fuck am I supposed to be doing?

Like, I am overwhelmed. Someone's throwing me seeds. I don't know what to do. Yes. And those first few days, you kind of have to figure it out on your own, find your own fun, whatever.

Animal Crossing has gotten a little better at this, but that too is like pretty self-directed. Whereas in Dreamlike Valley, you are given like six quests from the jump and it's like, oh, Donald Duck or whatever. What's the rich duck Scrooge? What's the rich duck, Scrooge? What's the rich duck?

Scrooge needs you to sell some gems at the store or put up some signs. He's the most mean rich dude ever. Except for Bezos. So you are given direction in what to do and it progresses easier.

Thank you, Fresh, for muscling through that. Yeah, that was a heroic effort yeah i think it goes even beyond that because yes you're given like six things to do right away and you're told like yeah it's kind of like animal crossing you know stop by here now and then and it's like but there's also a thousand other sub quests that you can do here's a list of them oh and as you complete them we'll just keep giving you more on top of that so you basically never see the bottom of the coffee cup and it's yeah animal crossing for its worth has those two where it's like pick three if it yeah but it's not it's

not it's not narrative in the way that this game is narrative and that is was probably the most unexpected thing for me where it's like this dark force that has taken over the world, which is called the forgetting. Like all of the characters are kind of struggling with that. And anytime, there are lots of prompts for you to respond. Okay, Mickey's one of the first people.

Talk about Minnie. Mickey is really struggling with the fact that Minnie is gone. He's struggling with the loss of Minnie. I mean, like, literally that is what's happening. He's grieving Minnie. So much worse than that. Minnie is gone, and yet her ghost haunts

the valley. Like, you'll be farming your, like, I don't know, your canola oil or whatever, and then in the distance by the river, you'll see the reflection of Mickey's ghost, and you'll be like, that can't be right no sorry thank you i it is uh it is wild to me that this game there is such a weird hodgepodge of disney characters in it and it's not weird i mean there's like we're not going into like you, we're not digging up like Oswald the Rabbit or Mortimer Mouse or something.

But like, it is a weird sort of thing where like, Ursula will pop up and she'll be like, go unlock this secret cave for me. And I know that's a bad idea. And my character, who seems to know everybody in Disney, does not seem aware that she should not be helping Ursula. And then Ursula's like, now build me a house on the beach. Like, no way. You're the worst. By the way, it's $10,000. Like, I don't want to do that.

You suck. Has anyone in the game, I saw this in a trailer. Has anyone met Scar yet? No. Okay, so Scar is in the game. I don't know if it's also another character you can invite. Scar fucking murdered Mufasa. Yeah, right. You don't want him in your game. I don't know if it's also another character you can invite. Scar fucking murdered Mufasa. Yeah, right.

You don't want him in your town. Yeah. There's all kinds of weirdness like that where the Disney IP is treated in a whimsical way, but not in a precious way. And that just leaves weird stuff. You can eat raw fish to get energy. And then to be friends with people and build your level, you give them gifts. And it is so bizarre to have Mickey like, hey, you're my best pal.

And if you bring me three peridots, I'll really like you then. Then we'll really be close. I like you a lot now, but what if you brought me a fish sandwich? It's really a transactional relationship. That feels pretty in line with the Disney company. Yeah, fair enough. I mean, I like it a lot now, but what if you brought me a fish sandwich? It's really a transactional relationship. That feels pretty in line with the Disney company. Yeah, fair enough. I was surprised at the amount of freedom that GameLoft seemed to have been given to make these characters say things that I certainly wouldn't expect to hear about Mickey's sort of depressive episode that he finds himself in.

But it's, it is somewhat refreshing to, to, to see these like incredibly protected characters used in that way. I also wanted to say we've compared this game to a lot of things. I would say in terms of presentation, this game gives me huge Viva Pinata vibes. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

A lot of chunky sound design that really reinforces the stuff you're doing. Lots of flashy effects whenever you do literally anything. Yeah, it feels like a you know a rare title like that that that i know that's sort of an abstract thing but i feel like if you've played fable and uh played played viva pinata you kind of know what i'm talking about yeah out of curiosity what platform did you guys play on steam deck baby yeah i played on steam deck i played it on switch first so yes that this is what i did

want to discuss and griffin you could add some perspective here my biggest problem with this game is i've been playing it on the switch because it is a really good game for switch if you got kids because it's very easy to like pass the switch around and you guys you know let them take turns but like it is chunky like on the switch is it it is not running great the load times are long the frame rate is bad like bad did you use the cross save feature see that is the that is that was my issue with the switch is i did not think the performance was terrible on the switch i thought it was passable and it is like the most convenient way for me to play games with with henry um but like the very first time you open up a chest and it's like you should do cross saves so that uh you know

you can use these reward these one-time rewards if you play this game on other platforms and i was like oh okay and then of course like that shit never works good on switch like never uh and so like it was impossible to get that to like authenticate and connect and so i was like well i just started and i i don't want to you know lose lose this progress or anything like that so i switched to steam deck and it was uh it plays a million times better yeah i i feel like i if I was going to keep playing this, I would switch. Because even things like loading up your inventory or opening a package, there's a good second of delay before you actually do it. And that really slows down the experience. I do also wish there was a little bit of faster running. Like for some reason, I switched my shoes at some point.

And this is, again, my experience is just the switch. So maybe exclusive to that. But I switched my shoes at some point. And this is, again, my experience is just a switch, so it may be exclusive to that. But I switched my shoes at some point, and I started running twice as fast. But the frame rate didn't alter, so I just looked like I was Benny Hilling around the world. Wait, wait, wait. That's fantastic.

What? There are shoes that increase your run speed? No, it glitched. Oh. It was a glitch. Well, there is a waiting increase. It's me, Buttman69. I'm here with a great new glitch. Speed run, 80%.

You put on the Astro Boots while you're force-feeding Goofy more wheat. It's so dry. You can't increase your run speed. How do you do that? You eat meals. Your stamina bar is blue, and when it's full and you eat meals, it'll turn yellow.

Did you eat the shoes? Maybe. And then also I put on my Buzz Lightyear baby boots, and I was too infinity and beyond baby. Can I talk about Disney adults for a second? Yeah, please. I apologize because I'm fresh i'm surrounded by disney adults so i apologize in advance it just seems a little weird to me okay that this full on like the only character models that you can pick are like basically like 20 somethings and it just

seems weird to see one lone 20 something running around a a Disney world like solo. And I'm not judging, but I am. You are getting excluded. A little bit. And it just seems, I'm not saying that there need to be kids there, but there's no multiplayer in this game. So just like this random ass 20-something wearing like an exclusive Mickey hat. So do you want to be controlling a 38-year-old man just running around?

No, no. I'm saying it should be kids. You want to control a child. No, but you own a house. Just like Animal Crossing. No. Frank, you're forgetting that kids have their own dreams, and their dream is not to be a six-year-old who's renting a house.

Yeah, but Animal Crossing, I think, walks that line where it could read as an adult or a kid kind of thing, whereas here they're like full on like, oh, this person has a mortgage. Is that the distinction you struggle with a lot, Russ, just telling kids from adults? Because it feels like you've really forgotten how to dream, how to dream big, because this 41-year-old- It just seems fucking weird.

This game has actually a lot to teach you. Yeah, you actually should be paid. I think you might have missed some of the lessons. You know what is irritating for me about this is i i really think it's fun like aesthetically and i think it's it's kind of cute that i kept getting hung up on how many like quality of life upgrades and changes that like I, as someone who, you know, doesn't want to spend a hundred hours on this, like the,

um, backpack is really restrictive. Like the amount of stuff you can carry around is pretty restrictive and all flat flowers killed me. Like the, the, the floor gets littered with stuff and you end up picking up these flowers and sometimes you need a flower for a quest,

but like every different color of every strain of flower takes up its own backpack slot so like you have to be careful to not pick up flowers i spent way too much time like did you build more chests yeah but i don't know at any given point like what i need to be storing and what's like worth keeping and and things like that so what i did with that is I built chests and I put them in certain areas. So like where I do most of my flower harvesting, I put a chest outside there and where I do a lot of my mining, I put a chest out there. And then I like just fast travel because it takes like two seconds to a chest

that I need. Cause I put them right by fast travel spots. I mean, it's definitely gaming it, but I didn't find it. it no that's a good idea i i think my experience was colored by like even going into the menu to get fast travel slots like took a few seconds so like yeah it was a lot of times quicker to run than it was to like get into the menu and and let it run and everything i guess the thing for me is i was so impressed by the

like the creature comforts this game especially compared to like an animal crossing and somewhat to a i think it's better than animal crossing i think it's worse than stardew valley i think from the beginning from the beginning i think it's better than stardew valley but you can unlock stuff in stardew that gets you to that place but like the fact that like when you want to water plants which is the most annoying thing in any farming game from the top, that you can water like eight plants right away, more than that, right? And they grow in like 20 minutes. I mean, depending on the fruit, it's fast.

You can also just hold down a button and you will just go from spot to spot planting your chosen seeds instead of having like do it one button press at a time turbo harvests and the plant will just glow gold and then you can harvest a bunch from it for no real reason i mean it's cool to see a studio like game loft that has mastered all of the like fuel lessons of mobile games of hey that sure feels good i'll keep playing for a few more seconds and putting it in a legit video game yeah yeah it's good and then they got the legit video game part right and the legit video game part is it that actually works really well because there are a bunch of like dumb tasks you know like meaningless like collect 10 fish or whatever but that stuff kind of happens organically as you're doing the more structured things.

So every once in a while you just go to collect your, like your dream light winnings from completing all these like little side objectives and stuff. And you're not having to like focus on it, but it does give you the sense that like, even if you're not right in the middle of something, you might as well pick up some different items because you might need them later or you might need to be harvesting.

And it also, you can have friends with you. Like you, you can ask any of the characters to like hang out with you. And then when you're doing the little piddly things like mining and fishing and all that stuff, it increases your friendship level. Just cause I guess Moana is like,

fuck, you are so good at planting corn. You're like, dude, forever. This is so real to me. Should we talk about how this game is like like how it works pricing wise because i think it's pretty confusing and people i would love you to explain it to me

because i'm confused yeah okay so right now disney dream life valley is in early access which means the only way to play this game right now is to pay 30 with that 30 you get a bunch of furniture some clothing and you get moonstones which is the premium currency of this game you get a shitload of moonstones eventually i don't know how long this is going to take but eventually dreamlike valley will go to 1.0 and become a free-to-play game in which case you obviously when you start playing you won't get any of the clothing or the moonstones or anything like that now you might be asking what do the moonstones do what do the moonstones do good question justin the moonstones unlock at least what i've seen

the moonstones unlock premium effectively they're like battle passes for cosmetics so right now there's a pixar fest going on and you can buy the pixar fest battle pass i'm sure it's called something else and uh basically you'll do quests and unlock cosmetics within that over the span of however long it is. I think it's like two months, the Battle Pass runs. I do not know, and I kind of have an inkling, that later on they will begin to lock character quests and new characters behind Moonstones as well. I'm not 100% sure of that,

but I kind of feel like they might go down that road, in which case it could potentially get pretty expensive and potentially predatory if your kid really likes i don't know fucking br'er rabbit but in this case i don't think they're gonna have that one in it yeah uh but in this case for right now it is really just cosmetics uh and and for what it worth, you can unlock some of those cosmetics for free, but it just takes a lot longer, and a lot of them are also locked. I will say that the cosmetics also, this is not my jam, and I imagine we have maybe aged out of this a little bit, but the outfits and stuff are, my kids were wild about them. I mean, there's like so many, they did spend a lot of the time, uh,

just switching out their outfits and collecting, you know, different skirts and dresses and hats and stuff. And it actually got to a point where I was like, okay, girls, um, daddy's daddy's really got to go get goofy. Some more tomatoes.

Okay. Or else I'm not going to see much of this game other than this menu of you guys changing your clothes. They're very cute. A lot of them are, like, inspired by – you know what? A lot of them are, like, Disney bounding, which if you don't know, you're not allowed to dress like a Disney character if you're an adult in the parks. So people dress in, like, color blocks and things like that that sort of, like, you know, nod towards a character's iconic look. And a lot of the outfits are like that.

towards a character's iconic look. And a lot of the outfits are like that. I tried to make a E. Griffin, a Virtua Griffin. And I looked like I was 20 years old, but with a sort of gray undercut. Okay. Not the best sort of simulacrum I've ever created, but the fashions are still fantastic. Yeah like there was like a hoodie that i was like i would wear that to the park in real life that's that's pretty

stylish um um yeah i think they it's very clear they spent a ton of time on the outfits and stuff like that the last game that did this was actually pretty recent saints row spent like a ton of time and effort making like really robust costume like options and i think it really pays off because it makes you feel more attached to your character and it makes you feel like you're unlocking a lot more even if it's not like gameplay content yeah so props to that i i think this is one area where they trump animal crossing and the stardew because you've got like a necklace and glasses and a hat and a shirt and a uh you know there's a sweatshirt on top of the shirt there's just like way more options and layers which i guess is the upside of having a 20 something you could like wear a lot more stuff i mean i would i could

wear anything and yeah you know me i'm a real clothes horse i know but i'm basically i'm still basically in my 20s to put a bow on this 30 dollars i mean free is a hell of a deal for this three dollars i think is still compared to a lot of games we've played this year that cost 60 or 70 bucks this feels like a very full game to me so far. And I'm like probably 20 hours in. Is this the sort of thing where you're all's appreciation of it is like more, more sort of, are you appreciating this or is this the kind of thing that you think that you'll stick with beyond today's episode?

And if so, like what is pulling you through? Like, what is it that you are enjoying about it? Cause right now I kind of feel closer to like, Oh, this is neat and I'm having a little bit of fun with it, but it doesn't feel like maybe like a long-term thing, even though I think my kids will probably stick with it for sure. Yeah, I think plant is the one that's probably furthest out of any of us. I just finished the like WALL-E quest, which is like the first like leave your world and go bring someone back quest.

Well, if that's the only one you choose, because I had Moana first. Yeah, there's a few different options. But after I completed that, and they were like, oh, you should build WALL-E a house. I was like, nah, I'm good. And it's not because I didn't like it, but I definitely like could extrapolate

what the next 10 or 20 hours was going to look like, because I'm sure I would unlock the next one, and then I'm doing little quests for that person. It's pretty different than that, actually. But yeah, that was my concern early on, that it would be kind of episodic like that. But it takes a pretty different direction. Again, you've played more than anyone. Yeah, I mean, it's unfortunate that you did the the wally one is like kind of the worst starting quest if if anybody's going to choose

one i would start with the there's a ratatouille one and i would do that yeah that was the other i wish i started with that yeah the ratatouille you like go to the kitchen in paris and it's like you learn a lot more about cooking you get a whole bunch of recipes then you come and build his house in the city and the second that you build his house it also builds a restaurant for the city where you can like buy a lot of the ingredients that you need for different things and then because you now have a restaurant in your city there's a whole bunch of quests that are like built around running a restaurant so different like characters now want to come and eat their meals at different times of the day

it's like oh well somebody's going to come because it's tied to a real clock merlin's going to come for breakfast he's going to want these things um oh man speaking of that that reminded me you can always open the map and see exactly where anybody's ass is love it yes love it as merlin i know i got exactly merlin's ass this map is so good that if if Minnie's ghost appears, it shows Minnie on the map. Like, hey, Minnie's here. Isn't that weird? Her ghost is still haunting you. Yeah, and then the other part of the game that's different than that, because

the area that y'all are talking about is in the kind of like Disney, iconic Disney castle. But most of the stuff that you're actually unlocking are these like other parts of the main map. So there's like a elephant graveyard area again dark oh i guess that's where scar is yeah yeah yeah there and there's and there are more characters in all these different parts there's kind of like a

a frozen area um so yeah they kind of find ways to introduce characters who are going to live in the town in in different ways. Some of them, it's just like, oh, they're just already inhabitants. And then other people are the people that you're kind of bringing in and building houses for. I mean, I will play a lot more of this game. I know that there's like the Toy Story expansion coming, I guess, later this year. And I'm extremely excited about that. But I mean, the big thing is it's just it. I have desperately needed one of those games that I can play while like Mosey's having

dinner and I can kind of pay attention to the game, but kind of not. And this is I mean, it's perfect for that. I mean, Griffin, you mentioned the hold down a button to do all your farming. That's really nice in terms of like letting me get out any grinding that i would need to do but mostly it's you know i like disney stuff i like seeing what all the characters do and i like that the game itself around it is good enough to hold my attention and not feel like a waste of my time because if what i wanted was just disney like there's a trillion games Game Loft

made plenty of them that that could you know whet the appetite but this this being like actually a solid game I'm pretty stuck in it wow yeah Disney Dreamlight Valley I I would not have expected it um but this is a thing I would I would say this if you don't know for sure if you're on the fence about this i think you would be fine to wait until this is a little bit more especially if you're playing on the switch because i hope that there will be some like it's on game pass oh yeah well there you go okay yeah is it currently on game pass right now i didn't know that yep yep yep yeah and on steam is overwhelmingly positive right now with 2600 reviews which i am shocked by like i mean everything about this game

is the best kind of surprise yeah hey should we should we go to should we go to the b segment let's do it let's go justin you reviewed a game for polygongon.com. That's right. I'm not just a pretty face. I'm also got a way with words too, you know? And I talked about Return to Monkey Island. Okay, so Return to Monkey Island. I've been to this island in past years and now I'm coming back to it.

Uh-huh. Yes. Okay. Monkey Island, because we got a lot of children who listen to this show just young kids uh monkey island is is a wild franchise the chronology which the weirdness of it did not strike me until i uh wrote the review for this game so monkey island is a um a series an adventure game series one of the one of the first uh one of the like landmark lucas arts adventure game uh series you play a pirate called guy brush three wood

who is uh trying to become a mighty pirate and he's facing off against the ghost pirate le chuck who is his enemy with the help of governor elaine marley who is also his wife now and is also no longer the governor um they have always been very silly, punny sorts of experiences. They were designed in counterpoint to some of the harder core adventure games where death was on the table. You can't really die in a Monkey Island game, and that was sort of a big innovation at the time.

They wanted you to experiment and do silly stuff, and there would be written a lot of gags, you know, if you tried to do a weird combination of items. And that is another like hallmark of the series is like sort of outside of the box, to put it kindly, thinking. But the wild thing about this game, the first one came out in 1990. They had a sequel in 91. Okay. Then there's six years until The Curse of Monkey Island in 97.

Three years until Escape from Monkey Island. And that's the third one, or the, I guess the fourth one at that point. And then there was a full nine year gap

between that and Tales of Monkey Island, which was like the telltale series that was like, when that came out, it was already a nostalgia piece, right? series that was like, when that came out, it was already a nostalgia piece, right?

It was already like, whoa, this is wild. You guys are bringing back monkey Island. Fantastic. Fast forward to 13 years later. Wow. And the,

uh, uh, we've got returned to monkey Island, uh, brought back from the dead yet again. Uh, this time it is being helmed by Ron Gilbert and the original creators of the game were you had Ron Gilbert and Dave Grossman and Tim Schafer.

And obviously Tim Schafer is doing Double Fine type stuff. So he's not on board for this. But Gilbert and Grossman are both back. And that is Return to Monkey Island. It looks kind of like, I said in the review, it's kind of like a Henry Selleck folding paper doll type look. It's much more aesthetically pleasing than a lot of the gross, polygonal directions that this franchise went into.

It's one of those long-running franchises where the best entries are the oldest and the newest you know what i mean there's like a part part in the 90s that no one is going to have nostalgia for because it was that horrid 3d that we were all uh forced to endure um but it's that's i don't know i i don't know what like the questions would be about it but but, like, that's the pitch. I guess the question is this. So the game originally was a point-and-click adventure game. So it was 2D, and you'd click around the screen, and you'd, like, oh, you have a sandwich in your inventory. So you click on the sandwich, and then you click on a keyhole.

Oh, no, that sandwich can't unlock the keyhole. Try something else. How much of that, I guess, has changed and or modernized to make it maybe a little more palatable for a modern game audience? Or is it just like total throwback? It's not total throwback. The, so there is still like the get an item,

use the item on the thing, but that I feel like is foundational to the genre. What monkey Island return to monkey Island does. So these original original the original games were built on what's called uh scum which is an engine an adventure game engine where you're choosing verbs and then choosing how you like use those verbs on objects in the environment like smell the horse smell the horse look at the man you know touch smell the glove whatever and um stop smelling smell the horse put the glove on horse this does away with the this makes it contextual so if you

see a glove you maybe have like left click and look at the glove right click will pick up the glove and it says that on the screen like what the different clicks would do. So you don't have to choose like what verb you're using to, to interact with stuff. It's also like fully voiced. A lot of the original performers are back. So like, that's really the, the joy of it is in the story.

And, and I will say like the puzzles and that stuff, like do less to get in the way of, they're not as obtuse as they, yeah. And also there is a casual mode where a lot of the puzzles are sort of like simplified and there's also a hint book that's great where it's like i don't know what to do next and you can ask it a question that will give you

like a very well a very general hint that increases in specificity as you continue to ask for more, more nudges. Yeah. No, that's, I never really got like frustrated by any of it. Um,

in that regard, uh, it's cool because it, it's very much like a game about its own lineage. It's a game, but not in the sense of like, we're bringing back a lot of characters that you know and and that's the gag like that they just happen to be back that definitely happens

a lot but the game narratively or maybe thematically is very interested in like how things are remembered and how stories change over time um And like Guybrush returns to Monkey Island and he's actually returned to Melee Island at first, which is like sort of the home base island. And like a lot of people don't remember him or the town has changed a lot. He makes a lot of comment about how things have gotten like remodeled or whatever.

There's a museum where the artifact, this is really pretty meta, but there's a museum on Melee Island that has artifacts from all these previous Monkey Island games, but the curator doesn't know anything about Guybrush Threepwood. So it's him insisting like, yeah, I did this. I got this thing and this was my adventure. And the guy's like, I don this like I got this this thing and like this was my adventure and the guy's like I don't know I haven't heard of you like

that's really that's bizarre that you know I don't quite believe it but like there's a lot of things like that where it's about history and lineage and narrative and it doesn't get like heavy handed with it or anything but it does interestingly seem to be the creators of the game sort of in conversation

with their own legacy which I think is kind of interesting for a sort of silly adventure game like this. Do you think that someone needs that background to like enjoy themselves with this? It would definitely enhance it. I think I mean, it's going to be better. it i think i mean it's going to be better uh there there are a few too many characters where there's this like used ship salesman named stan in a lot of the games and he's this very goofy looking character with a big cowboy hat and he's got a um he's wildly gesticulating his arms all over the place and the pattern of his jacket does not move as he moves so you're just seeing like that's hard to explain unless you see the effect in practice,

but like all of those things were in creations of an era where it was much harder to communicate what a character look like. Right. So these visual hallmarks have just been sort of carried through. So if you're new to it, you might wonder like, this guy looks insane. Why did they do this?

And it's like, that's, I don't know. It's just the way he's, he's looked from the beginning um it is the the music and the voices are really like it hit some big nostalgia buttons for me i did not even realize like hearing monkey island music is like very uh was very comforting and and chill and and dominic amato which is weird he is like the voice of guy brush throughput and he's great and he does and he has done like almost nothing else it's very weird like

he's done some other like side uh voices he's into like dining and he writes like a dining blog or something but he just comes back to these monkey island games every you know whatever 10 years whenever he's he is summoned um but he sounds great everybody there's a lot of returning cast members that are great um le chuck has a new voice uh and that that you know is is a big deal i guess the original uh le chuck has retired oh okay i thought he got canceled or something no no no. Came out heavy for NFTs. I wish. That would be fantastic.

No, he's just out of the game. So they have a new LeChuck, which I only mentioned because it's Jess Harnell. Anyone Jess Harnell? No, it doesn't ring a bell. As Crash Bandicoot. So that's pretty good. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Oh, yeah. Pretty good. I always love the fact that if you guys have never looked at a picture of Jess Harnell. He looks like Crash Bandicoot. He looks like Crash Bandicoot. If he was a human being, it's fantastic. Yeah, it's interesting.

I'm trying to think of the last old school adventure game that I've actually finished. And it's been so long. But I don't know. There have been some good like indie ones. That's the thing about this that makes it sort of interesting is like this genre, it's not like it used to be where like this genre just sort of uh lies dormant until one of these big franchises revives it right yeah it's like the the these games are getting made very regularly i mean there's developers like watch at i or um some of the others that like been there done dan that yeah they just like specialize in in this sort of thing. So that part is not that novel.

And there are not big evolutions made to the, from it mechanically. But I do think it's very interesting from a, like a narrative point of view. It's very pleasant and well-meaning and good natured and everything. I don't know. Yeah, that seems, it seems interesting. Certainly for people that want to like dive into the genre that, don't know you might not get all the references but i'd imagine from a polish standpoint it's one of the better ones out there and it's been getting really good reviews which has been nice to has been nice to say yeah y'all want to open the mailbag sure let's do it

do do do the mailbag um Here's a question from Grant. What do you think should be the first thing that happens when Mickey Mouse enters the public domain in 2024? Mickey Mouse fucking? I mean, one, I don't think there's any way it actually happens. It won't. I mean, but yes, I think doing it would probably be right. Did y'all see the Winnie the Pooh horror movie coming out? Yes.

What? Yes. Yeah. Wait, is that real? Yeah, there's a real horror movie starring Winnie the Pooh. It's Winnie the Pooh, Blood and Honey. Okay, so it's using the public domain Winnie. Correct.

Yes. Does he look at all like the disney winnie the pooh he looks like it's like the rock of fire explosion or whatever it's called oh sure had a winnie the pooh yeah you know i mean they have those original illustrations the a.a milton ones that like uh you know look enough like winnie the pooh that you get the idea he's more naked but other than that let me tell you he's punishing teens for having sex that kind of deal um i do i do agree yeah there's no way that disney would allow a full public domain mickey mouse they're just gonna like continue moving it along this one's from ham what would be the final thing disney buys before the

apocalypse i'm going to tweak this to what would you ignoring the larger philosophical question of uh disney having a monopoly on the arts what would you want disney to buy i don't want disney to buy anything okay what i think they would buy shit man c man. CVS could be nicer. CVS? CVS? Pharmacy? Yeah, I want them to bring their flair to CVS. That's a fucking great. Hey, Russ, that's great, man.

I know you were maybe trying to have a little fun here, but I would love for my local CVS to get a little bit of extra Disney magic for sure. I'll expand that and just say healthcare in general. If I could get on an app, if I had a healthcare magic band and I just scanned it and then a doctor- Yeah, but you're talking about financial priority.

You're gonna have to genie pass your way into a kidney surgery. What about policing? Hey, now we're cooking with- What if Disney bought the prisons? These are skits. These are skits. It's important that you know.

It's a joke. We're doing skits here. Just doing skits. And we're not believing this. I got one more question for you. DreamWorks. Buy DreamWorks. Oh my gosh.

But then fucking never make another one. Just buy it now. Just buy it now. Disney bought No, you just shut it down. Just buy some of that. We're at Dizzy Bunch. We worked to shut it down. We're releasing Shrek into the public domain. Boss Baby is a free agent. Puss in boots and butts.

Just do it. Go for it. God almighty. Make a porno out of it. We don't care. Ruin Shrek. This is the final question. This one's from Austin.

If you could room with any of the Disney characters, who would it be and why? It would be Buzz Lightyear. What? Why? Smallest, least, obtrusive. Oh, Remy. I mean, Remy's small and can pull on your hair to help you do things that you can't do yourself. And can cook. Well, yourself. And can cook.

Well, no. And can cook. What do you mean he can't cook? I mean, he can cook, but he's better at pulling your hair. Anyone can cook. He's better at, thank you, he's better at pulling your hair and making you cook. Because he's really small. Like, it takes him a while to get to the stuff on the shelves.

Towards the end of the movie, it's clear that he's doing all the cooking. He doesn't need,'s-his-name. Yeah, but I'm saying it would be faster if he just pulled my hair to help me make eggs Florentine or whatever. It sounds like you want that to happen then. It sounds like he didn't get past that part in the movie. It seems like that would be cool if a brat could pull my hair to help me do things I don't know how to do.

Sure, sure, sure. But I think we are all in agreement that the smallest character would be the best. Well, if that's the case, then a Bugs Life. Jiminy Cricket, yeah. Yeah. Oh. Jiminy's a pain in the ass.

Osmosis Jones is my favorite Disney character. Yeah, I feel like a Bugs Life would be better because you basically get one of the kids in the hall, but very tiny. Like, whenever it's annoying, you can put them in a jar or something. Jiminy Cricket, I feel feel like would be judging me constantly maybe a lot of songs and that that's it that's all the questions fantastic hey honorable mentions yeah fresh anything else you've been reading is this real this is real y'all buckle the fuck up because there is an official elden ring manga

yeah it's only in japan although there are english translations of it that you can find on the internet it is wait for it a comedy the official elden ring manga is a comedy portrayal of the events of elden ring complete with like the main character is like naked almost the entire run of the series it's quite funny so please look that up because uh it's pretty enjoyable and I love to see is it like an isekai thing of like it's about the player playing the game no it is in universe why and it like legit starts with melana or whatever you're you're uh the lady comes to you at the fire campfire and she's like ah really this is this is all we got there's no one better and it kind of just like progresses from there where you're just meeting

the various npcs of elden ring, but everyone is very disappointed in you. Wait, is it first person? No, there's an actual character. Okay, okay. I was like, wow, this is really avant-garde. It's great. There just aren't very many very successful IPs that have a sense of humor about themselves. And for a million bucks, I never would have thought

that FromSoftware would be one of the companies that would have a pretty easy sense of humor about themselves. And here you go. There's evidence that they indeed are. It rocks. Griffin, how about you? Yeah, nothing really worth talking about i just picked up so i think i have a pretty comprehensive knowledge of the final fantasy universe but i have never really made much of a dent into 10 um but i've had it on the steam deck for a while because the pc version of the final fantasy 10 remastered lets you like run the

game at four times speed and turn off random encounters. And so it's like, this seems like what it would take for me to finally make it into this game. Tennis Titus? Is that right? Tennis Titus. And Blitzball and Sin and yeah, all that jazz. I've always admired the game. It's just like, it's so slow.

It's so slow. Even compared to Final Fantasy games, it's pretty slow. But not when you're running it at four times speed. So, yeah, I really, I have not been gaming a whole lot. A cold has been ravaging my household. So not a lot of gaming time on the books this week. Hoops. Gosh, you know, I don't know.

I'm still playing Arcade Paradise and still playing Slay the Spire. You know, I hop back into Solitarica a little bit. And so, yeah, I don't know. Sorry, guys, not a lot of new games over here. Just hanging in there. What about you? I've been playing a lot,

but it's all stuff we're going to talk about next week. So for now, I'm going to say that people should read Predator, a memoir, which is a book, like experimental fiction, nonfiction, about Predator the movie, written by this dude, Ander monson who is one of my favorite uh i guess indie writers i don't know what you call it in the book world when you mostly write outside of like the major publications i guess indie writers

anyway it's great it is a recounting of his life and a recounting of the original predator and a dissection of culture it's bizarre sorry just to clarify when you say his life do a recounting of the original predator and a dissection of culture. It's bizarre. Sorry, just to clarify, when you say his life, do you mean the predator's life? Both.

Yeah. The predator's life and the author's life. Right. But is it in first person from the predator's point of view? No. Okay. Cause it's predator, a memoir.

Cause so that implies that it's the Predator's memoir. He rubbed mud all over his body, which I thought was cheating. I just wanted his spine. Okay, good clarification. Why is every human man so big uh fresh shooting we have to thank yeah i wanted to thank the following people for writing reviews for the besties

on apple podcast we have platoon sergeant sean lily sleeper jaw thumb one and jd buffington thank you for writing reviews for the besties on apple podcast thank you to everyone else for writing reviews and talking about the show and sharing the word uh we really super duper appreciate it this week we talked about disney

dreamlight valley we talked about return to monkey island uh the elden ring manga which i guess is only available i assume illegally online just google it and you might it might stumble i'm not gonna give you direction. Google it. Final Fantasy X, Arcade Paradise, Slay the Spire, and Predator, a Memoir. And then next week, basically the big indie games of the season. Just a grab bag full of all these cool indie games. We got Hyper Demon, Metal Hellsinger, Trombone Champ. There's plenty more that we're going to talk about. This is just the beginning.

And in the B segment, Deep Rock Galactic. It's happening. How are we going to find the time to play all these games? I've already played, like, most of these. They're great. It's been a smorgasburg of delicious games. Smorgasburg. All right, that is going to be next week

I'm looking forward to that be sure to join us again for all that great conversation with the besties because you're the world's best friends pick the world's best games Besties!