The Besties - Facing our Inner Demons in Bayonetta 3

Episode Date: November 4, 2022

Bayonetta is back after a long sabbatical, and now there's like a million of her. Is that too many Bayonettas? Is such a thing possible? Let's find out as we share our thoughts on Bayonetta 3! Also discussed: Signalis, Marvel Snap, Idle Acorns, Binding of Isaac, Banshees of Inisherin 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!

All right, I want to do a round of is this anything? Okay. Okay, because I have something and I need, and don't just say it like you always do. All right. Just listen and think about it. Okay. Mayonetta.

All right. Is that anything? Let's dive in. So this is a witch who applies sandwich toppings? Is that about, maybe each of the four guns, two for the hands, two for the feet, each one does it different. There's a ketchup, there's a mustard,

there's obviously a mayo, there's a relish. Yeah, but why would a mayo only be 25% of her abilities if her name is Mayonetta? So four mayo guns. Wow. I mean, aren't there different? Yeah, you could have like a spicy mayo or like. I gotta say, Russ, even for you,

that's a lot of mayonnaise. It does seem like a lot. I don't know if you're a mayonnaise fan or not, Russ, but I just assumed it. I love mayo. I love it. Yeah, that's maybe the least surprising thing I've ever heard.

That's good. That's good juice. I think you're on to something here Is it something? I just want to confirm You weren't talking about the Mayo Clinic So it's not like about like Oh diabetes

Or like maybe some orthopedic surgery That does seem like it's going to fly off the shelves That is very tempting But I mean she's a very tall woman Wearing high heels. I imagine she could use some orthopedic support. Maybe, yeah.

What about Prayoneta? I was just about to say Prayoneta, Justin. It's like if, you know, sometimes our church would do, like, Pokemon, more like Prayemon. Or the Bible Adventures NES game. Bible Adventures NES was huge. So like Preyonetta would not be a video game,

but it would be like a skit or a sketch that the church drama group would do. Like, what's wrong, Preyonetta? Well, I've lost all sense of purpose and I just don't want to kill any more beasts. Yeah. Well, maybe the beast is inside of you because of Jesus. That's cool.

And they pray for forgiveness. It's funny that she would be called Prayonetta even before she became religious. Okay, so you haven't been, okay. You know what I'm saying? You're getting confused about, Prayonetta sounds like prayer. Yeah, wasn't that the joke you were making? Yeah.

But what I'm saying is you're saying in the Passion play, pray Onetta sounds like prayer. Yeah, wasn't that the joke you were making? Yeah. But what I'm saying is, you're saying in the passion play, she realizes maybe all this violence with my hair. It's really more of a cantata. All right. Yeah. A pageant. There are so many weird dates for Easter shows.

It's just the Easter musical. Yeah, man. We are really narrowcasting right now. 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 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 Ross Froschig 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. It's a game of the year show that goes all year long. And today we are going to be talking about Bayonetta 3, the long-awaited, was it seven years? Eight years? Something like that? Bayonetta 3, but Chris, what is Bayonetta? Bayonetta is an action game where you're a witch who kicks ass and fights demons. Kind of like Ninja Gaiden or Ninja Gaiden or Devil May Cry. That's a good comparison.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. And the old DMC like Grandpa used to make. The classics. You know what this game was? It was a game that came out on the Wii and was like, but what if the Wii wasn't for Grandpa? Interesting.

Not sure how you got there. No? I guess that's what the conversation part of the show is. It's like a core hardcore game that came out on the Wii. Yeah, we'll talk about it later. I better take a break. Okay, Bayonetta 3.

Many say it's the third one. It would be right. It would be correct. Griffin, can you bring us up to speed on the sort of overall plot? Oh, yeah, man. I'd fucking love to. So Bayonetta, aka Sereza,

is a witch, and she, God almighty, in the first game, is a witch and she, God almighty, in the first game she fights angels using demon, man, there's no fucking way. I've played all these games. I finished the first two Bayonetta games,

a gun to my head, four guns to my head, I can tell you exactly what's going on here, because the plot of the game is not particularly important. There are, you're a dark witch who's like sort of sandwiched between the sides of the angels and the sides of the demons, mostly I would say on the demons. And you are just trying to sort of fight to save the real world from this like, this crazy war

that's happening between the the heavens and hell and in this game the multiverse uh and there's like a returning cast of characters foes become friends friends become foes uh all you really need to know is that bayonetta is the most like precocious and unstoppable sort of force uh that exists in these games uh and uh just sort of like let the rest of it kind of wash wash over you uh and and you'll be good yeah she's like a fun loving action hero and uh wild shit happens around her and she sort of bats an eye but doesn't really care. I mean, she cares about humanity, but she doesn't care about, like,

nothing phases her. She's kind of more, like, demigod-like, I would say, in presentation. It's not really about the threat to Bayonetta, usually. Yeah. Which is what,

part of what feels weird when you start getting lollipops that heal your energy is like, I don't need this. I'm Bayonetta. being that what are they gonna do like you can't do anything to me i mean yeah i mean i think kind of like a dom toretto is like thank you the energy that she has you know like it's gonna work out and not only is it gonna work out she's gonna make friends along the way you know like she does make everyone succumbs to the greatness and joy that is the bayonet of cause yeah and if it doesn't she puts their like her shoe on their neck and and crushes

them to death which they probably like they probably do like that uh she's honestly a vehicle for platinum games and uh hideki kamiya's like over the top just action nonsense uh and and and carries that role i would say exceptionally well maybe more than ever in bayonetta 3 which i did not think was possible uh it has it's been eight years since bayonetta 2 come out which is wild uh it was announced in 2012 during a nintendo direct for the wii u which is really, really something. I think that's where they put a whole bunch of logos on the screen, and they were like, we promise we have games coming for this. Everybody's like, do you?

Do you, though? Let's talk about Bayonetta 3, because I feel like this franchise has been around for 13 years, and so folks kind of know what they're getting into. If you have played any Platinum Games game, I would say. If you have played Devil May Cry. If you've played Nier Automata. If you have played Astral Chain most recently. I think there's actually a shocking amount of Astral Chain DNA in Bayonetta 3.

Which I'm delighted by. Because that game fucking rips. rips uh this is this is i think a very logical evolution of like the type of shit that platinum games gets up to in their games which is to say like hugely stylish combo based fluid uh like combat sequences punctuated by some of the most like bonkers cut scenes uh that i think video games can possibly offer to people who play video games yeah it's actually interesting because the you know it is hugely stylish and weird and interesting and the costumes are amazing and everything is like very over the top but their game design tenants have been like kind of pretty consistent especially with bayonetta but even across all platinum games games like they all

feel kind of in the same ballpark um they all like revolve around the like last minute dodge slow down time and then fucking go ham after it um which has never really clicked for me it's like a personal taste thing but i they feel good i like they don't feel bad it's just interesting that they haven't it doesn't feel like they've evolved the gameplay side of these games that much what do you guys think yeah i i don't know so the big thing in this game is if you've played past Bayonetta games, okay, maybe we should start here. If you've not played past Bayonetta games, she's got ranged weapons, guns,

she's got melee combat, and you weave those together. You get a bunch of different types of weapons that spice things up. And then after you beat the shit out of a big angel or demon, then you go into a super over-the-top climax finisher essentially uh there's

which uh what's it called which time yeah which time you can dodge attacks if you dodge it perfectly you slow down time like dramatically and then you can just like unabated just beat ass for uh for a while and fights take place kind of like in arenas. They're not like a big open world where you can go everywhere. Yeah, I would say Bayonetta 3 is more open world than it has been in past games. But mostly we are talking about a sequence of battles for which you are graded and awarded medals and currencies with which to upgrade Bayonetta's different stats and unlock new shit. In Bayonetta 3, and this is where unlock new shit uh in Bayonetta 3 and this is where sort of the astral chain DNA comes in and I would say is sort of the biggest change uh you can summon the demons that uh traditionally you would only kind of see as those like over the

top climax moves that were essentially pre-canned finisher cut scenes. Now you can like directly control them in battle just by holding in left trigger. And you can kind of cue up two moves at a time. They're sort of slow and lumbering, but they do huge amounts of damage and sometimes like are required when you get in these like kaiju battles. And what's really neat is that you can pop a demon out,

you know, cue up a couple of moves and then sort of like let go of the trigger and be in control of Bayonetta for a while. And you can either just sort of take off with her from there and, you know, get right back into combat. Or you can kind of get in this pattern where you queue up a couple moves, switch back to Bayononetta do some bayonetta fights when then you know you have a free move slot open in the queue you switch back to demon control to like attack another one on there then back to bayonetta um and when i'd heard about that and seen it in trailers and read about it and stuff i thought that it was going to ruin the game like i thought it was going to you're prognosticating was right on the money oh wow i disagree wholeheartedly i think it's i think it fits i think it slots into combat really really well and i think once you get used to it uh it's just like a kind of a third heat that uh i i am

honestly glad for because character action games get a little mind-numbing for me after a while, even ones that are as spectacular as the Bayonetta series has been. And this, I think, has added a layer of complexity to the combat that I really like. And Juice, I'm curious to hear why you didn't. I don't like the... For me, it really felt like it interrupted the flow. I like the idea of one character that I'm controlling and being able to

like be on top of where she is in the environment and balancing the different enemies and stuff like that. So flow wise, I thought it felt bad. It also feels bad to go from a, this is all don't, I'm not going to keep saying for me, right.

But this is, it feels bad to be in control of a character who is so fluid and responsive and then go to these kind of like bigger more sluggish guys that are uh I mean obviously taking your your responses a lot more slowly because they're big lumbering monsters I also really didn't like how the camera behaved during those segments I mean even though you are in control of the monster or demon while you're holding in the trigger, the camera is not moving to accommodate that in a great way. So a lot of times you're like plugging in these attacks, trying to figure out the right way to angle your demon.

But all you're really seeing is like naked Bayonetta and demon feet. And you see that through a lot of the- Yeah, there's a lot of people though who are just okay with that. Just okay with that. It hits the proverbial spot. We should mention that's only though when you are playing as Bayonetta because there are so many times where that won't be true. Sometimes you play as a new character named Viola,

who, if you played, was it Devil May Cry 5 that introduced Nero, not introduced, but let you play as Nero? It was whatever the last one was. I cannot. The reboot, I think it was. DMC? DMC, I want to say, yeah. Was it DMC?

No, I think there was another devil. Anyway. The most recent one, yeah, yeah, yeah. She is a totally different character with a different feel. She has a totally different character with like a different feel. She has a demon who is the Cheshire Cat who may be my favorite character in the game.

Just this huge, just silly demon cat who rides around on a big, what a penny cycle? What are those things called? Yeah, those old timey, big wheel in front bicycles. Yeah, penny farthing bicycle uh and is more automated so with her you just more focus on the the beating ass and i i like that

part too sometimes you play a genre in some truly bizarre side-scrolling stealth sequences uh sometimes you yeah there are uh platinum games i feel like loves that multi-genre sort of mashup thing you you got that a lot in near automata uh and and that is certainly still the case here because you are going to be controlling a lot of characters and a lot of different types of gameplay and um i i don't know that they all work quite as well as like equally as well. But I, you know, like I said, like it helps break up the monotony that character action games get into sometimes where it's just like, OK, well, I know my combos. I know how to like string shit together. It's not super hard for me to get the dodges off now.

I feel like it is smart for them to break it up in the way that they have yeah it's interesting you know i was talking about how it hasn't changed that much but i actually like forgot because i coming off of astral's train was the last platinum game that i played forgot that that stuff wasn't in two so it is interesting that if you look at them all as sort of their own series even though obviously they deal with different IP and different franchises, like they do build on top of one another. There's a cumulative effect, I think, to how Platinum Games makes their games. And that's like, as someone who's, I think, played all of them, you know, I never played Metal Gear Rising, but as someone who's played all of them, like, it's cool to see that. Yeah.

Especially, like, I can't stress enough, like, Astral Chain was such a special, weird game. And to see some of that DNA here is exciting. I want to hear from you, Chris, because I feel like you haven't sounded off. And you are, I feel like, the resident Platinum Games, like, uber fan. I'll be very honest with you. I don't know. I didn't get to play nearly enough because my kid was sick this week. And he took control of the Switch for most of it.

So I played a fair amount, but not enough that I feel like I can speak to. The thing that I like about Platinum that you're talking about is the like 20 hours in mark. Is the like, oh, it's all starting to come together and I see what they're going for. together and i see what they're going for and the gist that i was getting from this and i'm curious for for y'all who played more is that it's not just the roller coaster vibe that i got with bayonetta one and two i i really love bayonetta two but i i made the um the fast and the furious comparison for a reason which is it felt like a series of increasingly absurd like action sequences into um yeah into rather than like oh it's doing what i like best about platinum which is the astral chains oh you have to do trick shots with trash cans or you have to collect the world's

tallest ice cream cone or what's going on in near automata i think a lot of people don't like that about platinum games that they often step away from the thing that they do best which is the action to do all this goofiness but that for me is like a huge part of the appeal so i'm i'm i'm excited to get more time with this because i'm i'm hoping that again they've had plenty of time to work on it that it is doing more of that type of stuff yeah yeah i would say it feels yeah in that way more experimental i guess with bayonetta specifically i i gotta also say man alive is this thing really top loaded with a lot of cut scenes yeah there's about a half hour of like full- Yeah, it's like four hours of just you are not necessary here. You can just go ahead and watch. That was that was rough.

And well, I like the tone of them. I like I do. I do like happens. I like. But I agree there. They're like, you know, Kojima ask in their length. And I wish at the very least i wish it was more a now you do two minutes of cut scenes now i do five minutes of gameplay now you do two minutes

of cut scenes rather than as justin said like the beginning of the game is really like a half hour long cut scene which is crazy do you really want that though because then that just means like the rest of the game you'll be doing five minutes of gameplay. I mean, I don't, honestly, I'd rather less in general. I just, I like the tone of them. I just wish they were a little more selective in when they would appear because they'd have more impact. The cut scenes are fucking bonkers. And I didn't beat the game, but I did scrub ahead to the end. And I'm not going to spoil for people.

But the end especially gets like so fucking funny and over the top and wild that like i applaud that i just wish they were again a little more selective because i want to feel like i'm earning that stuff rather than i played for 15 minutes and now i have a half hour cutscene yeah or 15 minute cutscene whatever it is it gets better than the beginning which i agree is like crazy too much it is interesting i will say something that i kind of dug about this uh especially early on the uh i kept waiting to like for it to get into a groove of like this is what a typical level is this is how it's divided this is the flow of it um and it doesn't seem to be that interested in doing that like it it seems

to adjust its pacing uh pretty consistently like not just the pacing but like the scale sometimes you'll be in more of like an open area sometimes it's more focused or controlled but it kind of goes back and forth like that and the and the splits or like or you think of like chapters or levels or whatever or feel pretty organic and less sort of like video game-y structure. Yeah, I think that's like a Platinum Games thing too where you can almost feel like them getting bored with ideas very quickly in their games

and they rather have a bunch of things in a game and not all of them work than like, I don't know, do the very kind of traditional AAA thing which is you have one level and then you build on it and make it slightly better and then you build on it and make it slightly better. And then you build on it and make it slightly better. And by the end, it's like the most refined version of where you started. I mean, it's the Mario formula, right? Like it works for a reason, but I like that. You're right. There's something more organic and kind of surprising when you play this sort of game. i also just uh wanted to because i kind of

ragged on it earlier and i want to say the things that i did like um the scale i don't love how the camera handles the the shifting scale of like bayonetta size to monster size but i do like how they have uh made her so mobile where like getting around these big arenas and like navigating around these big monsters she feels capable of that and I do like that where you can kind of like positioning is not a big problem because you have a very effective like dash and then there's a flutter and all this stuff

and I like that part of it yeah no she's always been I think one of the more fluid characters they have which I think makes a big difference. Not only just in combat, but also just like getting around the world. She's pretty quick. I just have a bonkers bit of trivia for us as we wrap up this section. So the first Bayonetta comes out in October 2009, right?

And then this third one comes out right now. And then this third one comes out right now. The first version of Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 comes out a week after the first Bayonetta. The new version of Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 comes out this week. So basically in the span of... Time is really a flat circle. Yeah, three Bayonetta games, Call of Duty 2 worked its way all the way back to just doing the thing all over again, which is wild.

I mean, it's just a branding thing, right? It's not a remake. They just called it the same thing. No, I know, but I'm saying that we could even get to the point where they had done so many Call of Duties in the interim where they were like, let's just do that again. It's time. We could get away with this. Yeah. Well, that's all

the things that we know to say about Bayonetta 3. It's a Bayonetta-ass Bayonetta game. After the break, we will come back and talk about so much more in the world of gaming. Maybe something a little bit scary. It's Signalis is what i was i i downloaded and played like an hour of this on it's really cool it's a very cool game very cool let me let me see if i could take a stab at like a pitch

sure um because you're actually supposed to hit those with uh bats okay let me take a swing at this pitch signalis is a survival horror game set in a sci-fi environment um it i guess feels most similar to resident evil one and two the origin, not the reboots, insofar as, you know, it's very slow moving. You're moving from room to room. You've got very limited ammo. You've got an inventory that you use to, like, collect keys and solve puzzles. Not tank controls.

Yeah, well, I was going to mention that. You can pick those, though. So even though moving around the world, you know, kind of feels the same pace as Resident Evil one and two, the game is played from a kind of more of a top down perspective such that you have feel like you have way more control over where you're running at any given time so that you can like, as Justin said,

like not tank control. So you can basically run in the direction you're pushing rather than not. I think that stuff is all cool. And this is not a big difference, but there's also not a third dimension to aiming. Yeah. You don't have to go for headshots and stuff like that. Yeah.

It's just, you're pointing a laser at a, and there's a lock on system and it's, yeah. I think that's all cool i think the thing that like really sets this game apart is just aesthetically like does not ring a lot of bells that are familiar to me um it feels like very much its own thing which is like a mix between like an early ps1 era with like some like snesES era pixel art mixed with modern day horror tropes.

Yeah, I would say there are three different art styles where the core game is the very grungy pixel art that we've seen in a lot of post-Hotline Miami. It doesn't look anything like... I'm trying to think of a good comp. What was that game that you liked, Griffin? Oh, gosh. Jesus. You know, the game

you liked. The game I liked? It was very pixely, neon. I think Heart Machine made it. Oh, fucking Hyper Light Drifter. Yeah, kind of a darker, grimier version of that for the main thing. Then there is our cutscenes, are like very anime inspired

um but also kind of look like they were made i don't know like like metal gear ish yeah a little bit like uh close to you know what like um the cut scenes in one of the snes megaman games like halfway between the yes and snes megaman not halfway between the SNES and SNES Mega Man. Not, not, between the two. And then there are these first-person puzzle sequence in Freshman Tonight, the PS1 comparison. For me, they look like pre-rendered CGI photos that you would have in like puzzle games

on PC in the mid-90s. It also reminded me of, what was the game we played last year the card game horror game inscription inscription oh for yeah good call yeah reminded me of those sequences felt very inscription to me which is cool it's a weird fucking game but it feels like i was looking up like the developer to see if i knew their previous work and at least on steam this is the only game that they've put out there they might have newly formed um but it just feels so confident and polished and i was just blown away by it yeah it's very uh uh it's very it's a very smart um

enhancement of like resident evil except and i think you're seeing more and more of this we're like as those franchises evolved i think the a big focus on that was um graphical fidelity and audio fidelity presentation like how do we make this feel modern uh from a av perspective but i think that like this takes the bones of resident evil and modernizes in a way that's like just a little bit easier to live with. It just doesn't feel as, um, archaic.

Uh, and a lot of the like little edges are sanded off things like it doesn't take as long to get into a menu or it's a little bit snappier to, to control and easier to aim. Or like, it'll tell you right on the map. I don't know if this is a resident control and easier to aim or like it'll tell you right on the map i don't know this is a resident evil one or two feature but it'll tell you hey all these doors are locked this door is locked but you can find a key for it and so all that stuff is tracked

in the menu so you don't have to like take meticulous notes but there are still for the puzzle solving elements there are still like kind of like, read notes and figure out what the code is for this safe or whatever it is. Yeah, and some neat, like, there's a, I did a little lockpicking minigame that was, like, manually adjusting tumblers. That was actually fun. It was, like, it was a fun little take on it. And usually lockpicking minigames are not a highlight. I mean, that's the thing right it's doing a lot of things that have been done elsewhere since the original resident evil but it's doing them in new just slightly new and inventive ways the lock picking thing comes to

mind another thing i love in this game is the environmental storytelling that it's not doing the same thing with either you know like and here is just another voice diary or here's things written on the wall uh it it's a lot of like paperwork that you're going through um one of the earliest things you need to fight figure out how to open a safe and rather than it being like oh thank goodness somebody wrote this on a notepad next to it it's like oh no you need to find the manual to figure out how to open this safe because of course that's where the actual reset code would be um it's just very clever yeah i also like they do some interesting storytelling stuff like non-linear like jumping back and forth

stuff you know i've talked about this before i don't like horror games because i just get too creeped out this feels like it's walking a good line because you are like somewhat removed because of that top-down perspective that i don't feel like i'm totally paralyzed by fear but it's hitting those notes of like you know creepy video footage and stuff like that that that gives me again inscription is similar in that way where i wasn't too scared by it but i felt uh at least emotionally moved by it yeah uh it seems very cool i'm gonna keep keep playing that it was a nice we talked about alternative games to play and i made it uh exactly five minutes into modern warfare 2 and then said i'm gonna check out signals yeah i haven't touched the new judgment on modern warfare

2 that is completely about me and my tolerance for just snuffing out human life willy-nilly in a hyper realistic fashion uh how else have you guys been spending your your game time this this past week we've still been struggling a lot with Gus's sleep. I've been spending a lot of time in the old rocking chair in the dark for 30, 40 minute stretches at a time multiple times a night. And let me just say, Marvel Snap got in there

and was like, don't worry, Griffin, I got you. Boy, howdy. I really liked that game. I know I said last week it didn't click with me but now it has and i'm at like collection level like 130 or something like that cleared out most of the first card pool and i've been like watching youtube videos of like beginner deck builds and it's man it uh i didn't know that this game was going to hook me in the same way that Hearthstone did where I was doing that shit for Hearthstone, like buying lots of packs so that I could do these bananas decks that were the meta at the time. But yeah, Marvel Snap, man.

Good game. Very good game. Yeah. I've also been playing a lot of Marvel snap. It is so smart how hard they've condensed it to a thing where you actually could be in line for something and get through an entire match like in, in three minutes. I mean,

it's so fast. Um, and also the, the, how small the deck size is really appeals to me. Cause I'm not, I'm not somebody who likes to build decks normally. Like I don't like to – as much as I like deck building games, I don't like like a Hearthstone style where I'm having to put the act together myself.

And what this does with the 12 cards, it's very manageable. Like it is – you have – you don't have many different strategies with a 12 card deck that you could pull out. What type of deck are y'all building? Or is there like a card that you're building your decks around? Right. So there's, there's different types of, we talked about the game last week, but you and your opponent lay down cards and then sort of reveal them at the end of the turn and then they do either what their abilities are or their interactions with other cards or activate the abilities of the three different you know lanes that you are competing for uh i have a deck that is built all around cards that have abilities that trigger when you reveal the card called on reveal cards uh and so when you lay one down maybe it has a non-reveal

ability that if your opponent plays a card in the same lane in the same turn it like you know vastly increases the uh the the power of of that card that you played uh and so those cards are like trying to guess how your opponent will play and encountering it and then all of that culminates in the final turn if uh if i if my hand draw if my card draw has been good with odin who is a card that then makes all those abilities trigger again so it's like i am building my way toward that happening on the sixth turn uh so it's it's kind of uh it's hit or miss uh i've won with it way way way more than I've lost. But if you don't draw Odin or if the different territories you're competing for aren't good for that type of deck, then. But if that's the case, you run away.

You retreat. You don't lose a bunch of cubes, which I think I was sort of confused, honestly, on how the snap mechanic worked last time we recorded. But now I think it kind of is necessary for how quick the game is. Because you'll have rounds where it's just like, well, I can't get anything going this time. I'm more, I actually like, I've started to see more of like people using it in a meta way. Where they will, snapping is sort of like upping the ante in a poker sense right it's like we're playing for cubes that show our ranking but now i want to play for more cubes and if you don't want to play for more cubes you should quit because i'm about to really whip you down yes and sometimes you'll get a situation where like one of the lanes will reveal and i'll

be like play a random card from your hand and you'll play like a six cost card. That is like an Uber card that normally you would play on the final turn. But now you're playing it here on turn two. And then you just snap and the opponent's like, OK, bye. I'm not going to win. Bye. It's very sad. But you can also bluff like you get a card and then immediately snap.

And then the person's like well i don't because they have to call it before they see your reveal so you you really have to like make the decision like i don't know do they they have something good i don't know to see you don't want to snap too much because scaring people off does not get you many cubes right people can leave early and they don't have to surrender nearly as much cubes so if you want to get like a big eight cube game you kind of have to like really slow pull people into it yeah so griffin uh last time we talked about this game we were talking about the monetization i think plant indicated that the monetization primarily or at least early on was cosmetic based like you'd get these alt art for your cards and

edges and they get more powerful and stuff like that it sounds like you are beyond that level and are now in the in the meat of the monetization is that fair to say yeah i should make it clear i've not spent a dime oh okay on on the on the game uh and i'm pretty far down the track. We kind of explained how progression worked. But basically, when you upgrade your cards aesthetically, you unlock more collection levels. And that sends you down a track that is how you unlock more cards, right? unlock more cards, right? The monetization comes in where you can spend gold, which you can buy with cash, or you will unlock it just by completing, you know, various missions. And, you know, if you complete a certain number of daily missions in the week, you get pretty big piles of gold. You can spend those on variants right so it's like i've already unlocked groot

but i can unlock a variant of groot that then i can also upgrade aesthetically in tandem with the other groot card that i have right and then that is just going to move me further down the collection level track a bit faster and as you as you go through that track that's how you unlock more cards so right you're motivated to do that because like you you won't have you can't just go buy a pack of cards like you couldn't hear stone uh and i'm pretty sure you can only buy variants of cards that you already own if i'm not if i'm not mistaken you can't just like i believe that's right a new card that you that you want to get um i uh i did buy the they have a season pass i just got to the to the once you complete the free season pass which is like 20 levels and unlocks like a bunch

of cards and stuff like that then you get to the like real season pass that does cost 10 bucks i think and what are you getting i honestly i'd been spending so much time playing this thing i felt completely fine about what's in the season pass you get miles morale it's like right from the jump which is yeah but it's more like a it's it's more of a quest progression chain to where you you you keep getting rewards for completing quests that you wouldn't if you didn't have the season pass like you you i finished a bunch of base levels and then i was into this so i've gotten miles morales a lot of a lot of upgrade points for him specifically right some other like characters from the spider verse that kind of thing it's all all themed around the symbiote invasion and it's the theme of this one and it's one of those things where like the track the like uh season pass track, gives you lots of gold and credits, which are the currency that you spend to do those aesthetic upgrades for your cards.

So it's like, you know, the value proposition. I mean, I agree with Juice. I've spent so much time playing the game. I think it's absolutely there. spent so much time playing the game i think it's absolutely there i've completed the season pass or at least to the main point where you double 50 is where you get like this special miles from ralph's card that they keep advertising for you damn so you've played a lot of yeah i've played a lot and i'm i'm pretty sure that the gold that you get and especially the credits that you get to spend on upgrades is like a much better deal effectively than if you had just bought it outright my only thing is i

will say where i'm at now i think as far as a free-to-play game goes so far this is as good as it gets it there there's really not a lot of incentive to spend money for the first many many hours um unless you really want those gold variant cards. You kind of have more credits than you know what to do with in terms of upgrading cards for a very long chunk of time. But then you do get to a point where kind of these blue credits that help you upgrade things are not coming fast enough. And you have cards just building up waiting to get upgraded and you can't upgrade them until you

complete more activities and again if you've run out of activities for the day or for the pass that's where it's like hey if you want more activities you can wait another three hours or you can spend some gold to get more activities

Chris as an outside observer I may say that this is a safety feature that Marvel's- No, no, no, no, no. To protect the Chris Blitz of the world. No, I agree. I think there's a lot of those safety features. I think not allowing you to buy cards is another one of those, right?

That said, if you are a person who just wants to keep upgrading very, very fast and get all the cards there is a way to do it and the way to do it is to spend money but again there are safety checks on that so another example i'll give is if you can upgrade some cars even without having to effectively play to use them but it only lets you upgrade i believe three a day um and it and those do cost more credits than if you were to upgrade them the traditional the traditional way honestly it's one of those things where like if you just play more you will you'll get you'll get it wants you to play more yeah that's the

thing that i don't want to get lost in the shuffle it it for all this talk and i think it is important anytime with a free-to-play game but like it's just really fun like I don't feel guilty at all playing this as much as I have because I'm having such a good time it every match is like wild and chaotic and absolutely bananas things happen there's so many different locations where it's just like weird crap like all of your cards will be teleported away from here to another uh square in round five and it's like well crap yeah my plan for that and seeing like you and your opponent both kind of like adjust to it is uh and all the the animations uh for every card look awesome i actually found in the menu where you can switch to 60 frames per second on the animations, and they look even better.

They look fantastic. It's like a joy to look at and to play. I also want to make it clear because I'm looking at the game right now. We were talking about the season pass having to pay the $10 for it. There are a lot of spots on that season pass where the reward is free so like you don't have to like you can still get a lot of the rewards not the like big ones not the like cards for the most part but like you can get some of the rewards just by trekking your way down the the season yeah that's pretty common but that's good to see yeah i i will also say in terms of the tasks that it gives you the season pass they they really did

get me to like play the game in a new way that i loved it wasn't always to like win um but it's not full like the fortnight thing of like go smash however many of these or go solve this puzzle that is kind of antithetical to a battle royale but one example i'll give and this is a normal thing they'll have in dailies but you just had to do it way more with the season passes win 20 20 times, win a lane with only one card. And what I found was like, oh, I really will soup up a lane so that the opponent is afraid of it. And then I will move everyone off on the final turn and then lay one card there. So I end up like completely dominating all three lanes.

And then the opponent never plays anything on the lane that they thought was like basically already decided. And then I'll win that lane with like a two cost card. They also, another brilliant thing that they've done is every day, I think, or maybe several times a week, they add new locations to the game that are like the different category, the different sort of like abilities that the three lanes are imbued with right and then when they add a new one it is more likely that you will encounter that uh location when you play matches on that day so for example today they added a new

or maybe last night they added a new one called machine world and the ability there is when you play a card in machine world it adds a copy of the card you played right into the opponent's hand, which is like pretty like I don't know. I just loaded up the game and looked at that and I was like, I don't know how to fucking play that bad. Like you don't want to play anything that's going to be like coming back to it just to see like what the different strategies can possibly be for these locations. We should have made the A segment of this podcast. I enjoy Bayonetta 3. I have played Marvel Snap nonstop and I cannot see taking it out of rotation on my phone. In that first half hour of Bayonetta 3, I played them both.

I was covered. I also want to say, for all my idol pals out there, if you're a kind of idol person, I found a really nice one called Idol Acorns. And it looks really nice. You're just kind of shaking acorns out of a tree. And then you're meeting some forest friends who want you to help them out with different stuff, do a little fishing,

do a little acorn harvesting. What I like about this one, you pay for it once and there's no microtransactions or anything like that. That's good. Such a rarity. And there's like little hidden things

where every once in a while you'll check in on your world to see how things are going and there'll be something just a little bit different. A little bit weird. A character showing up you've never seen before.

Stuff like that. So Idle Acorns is the name of that one. I played it on iOS. And if you like Idle games but get frustrated with how many of them are like, merge three dragons together for $7.

This is like a good one. I have one million billion combat power. Is that Count Dracula? No, it's the commercials for these dragon merging games where it's like you can't get into the party.

You don't have a ten bazillion gigapower white dragon. Juice, have you played enough? I'm very curious about your journey into Binding of Isaac. Oh, did he play it all? I've been playing it nonstop. I got, yeah, I put it onto the Switch,

or sorry, the Steam Deck, and it is very good. I tell you, you know, I had put some decent time into it many years prior, but I feel like the sense of progression and structure now is so much more akin to how I like to play games, like these really focused

challenges and a real sense of learning something every time you play it's great, great, great, great, great, great, great that's a great game and it is great if you've got a Steam Deck to be to just like pick it up for three minutes and do a run and then die and then curse russ and isaac let's uh let's let's we should play some co-op i did that with russ for the first time last week it's a it's a blast man yeah it's a i gotta finish this one i'm trying to do this one challenge where your shots, it's called Pac-Man.

Yeah. And the shots like freeze in place as you're firing them. And then once you let go of the stick, they all. Yeah. That's not a fun, that's not a fun mechanic. I just want to get it over with. Well,

you might be able to, you might be able to co-op. You can co-op. I'm pretty sure you can co-op those challenges as well. So it actually. What do I need the dead weight for? I'm, you know what I mean?

I don't need to carry you guys that how's that helping strap you guys to my back carry you to the end of the level i've just started to unlock the uh there's like the i guess in repentance maybe the most recent dlc they added like b-side versions of every character in the game they all have wild wild like modifiers for the thing. Well beyond, like, oh, they start with this item. It's things like, I just unlocked, there's a character, I guess characters, named Jacob and Esau,

who are two characters you have to control at the same time. And it's not, it's annoying. But their B-side character is, Esau is dead. You're just Jacob. But after, like, 30 seconds, Esau appears in the level that you're in and just starts chasing you yeah to kill you uh and you have to constantly be running away from your infernal demon brother uh but you can bait him you can bait him and use him as a weapon right too because he does like a flaming chart it it man this may be one of my favorite games ever i cannot stop playing this this video game for for the life of me i wish i could see fresh's face right now i feel like

the vindication must be oh it must be i know you guys never wrote it off but i i'm glad that you are i've dabbled and we actually wrote it's more we wrote you off. More of the time. You know what I mean? We got it. I played it a lot on Switch. It's just, honestly, it is this external item description mod. It is like. Yeah, it really is. That's huge.

The only problem with this game is it is a bit like the VHS tape in the ring, where after you play it for a while, you start craving egg steam. You start doing voices of characters. That's true. HS tape in the ring where after you play it for a while, you start craving egg steam. Um, you start doing voices of characters. Yeah. So I hope you are ready for that. Caveat M tour. Um,

Oh, uh, I, I, I was, I mentioned that I have had a sick kid all week, but, my wife and I gave each other a couple hours out of the house.

Um, and I went and saw banshees of Inisharen, which as somebody who loves Mark McDonagh's plays, he's the writer of this, but has really disliked his movies, he wrote... He's like In Bruges? In Bruges, okay.

And then Seven Psychopaths is meh. And then Three Billboards is one of the worst movies I've ever seen. I absolutely despise it. I think it should be erased. Really? Yes, I think it's like... I didn't love it either. I really, really dislike it.

And hey, here's the great thing. This movie is, it turns out, him finishing a trilogy he had started as plays and the movie itself feels quite literally like him looking back on everything he's done in movies and been like maybe that was maybe that was bad maybe i should have just never done any of that and i should have stuck with what i was doing before um and it's great. I absolutely love it. It's the happiest, I mean, it's not a happy movie,

but I came out of the theater like giddy. I'm just thrilled. So I really recommend people check it out. Yeah, I'm very, those movies, I've seen pretty much all his stuff and I'd like to know as little as possible going in, apart from, you know,

I know a baseline of, there's going to be a lot of cursing and violence, generally. But as a writer writer as a playwright he's certainly one of my favorites so very excited that's it we did it what's what's next oh i know what next week is oh yeah we got a big one coming up next week but first let me thank the following people for writing reviews for the besties um we have db we have panda bud thousand autumns and grandpa simon thank you for writing reviews for the besties on apple podcasts thank you to everyone else who has written reviews for the besties on apple podcasts it is tremendously helpful it makes me feel good in my heart when i see them i appreciate it if you

haven't done it yet please take your time and do it and uh yeah maybe we'll shout your name out what are we doing next week the god of war is back for a second adventure this guy's getting another turn at the wheel second god of war game ever god of war ragnarok and that is going to be next week's episode uh can't wait to discuss that with you guys and i hope you'll join us too until then thanks so much for listening and be sure to join us again next time for the besties because shouldn't the world's best friends pick the world's best games Besties!