The Besties - Final Fantasy 16 and Mario Trips Balls

Episode Date: June 30, 2023

On this episode of The Besties, the gang dive into the massive new RPG, Final Fantasy 16, what with its F-bombs and Mothercrystals. We're also discussing Nintendo's latest Direct presentation, which featured one of the most ridiculous Mario trailers ever. Other games discussed: Detective Pikachu Returns, Super Mario RPG, Wario Ware Move It, Super Mario Bros Wonder, Mythforce, Diablo 4, Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, Asteroid City (the movie) 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!

Purple is not a color that appears in nature, is what I'm saying. What about lilacs? The grimace. What about literally violets? Do you eat them? Thank you. Name a purple food. Go.

Eggplant. Eggplant. Inedible without modern preparation techniques. Our ancestors did not know to salt the eggplant to make it edible. No way. What color are grapes? What about grapes? What? Grapes are red and green. You never seen a grape? Come make it edible. No way. What color are grapes? What about grapes? Grapes are red and green. You've never seen a grape?

Come on, man. What I'm saying is grape doesn't appear in nature. And so when the Grimace Shake was put on offer, it should have been that your body is telling you, don't consume that. Don't consume that. But people have ordered it, and it's just so fucking grapey from what I hear. Oh, it's flavored

grapey? Just so grapey. You have not tried a Grimace Shake? I refuse to believe that. I've seen a bunch of teens drinking a Grimace Shake, and they make a face like, ugh. And I feel like if I got it, they'd be like. Do they make a Grimace? Yes, they Grimace.

That's what they make. Truth in advertising. So like Taco Bell has all those diarrhea burgers, just like it says right there. Exactly what you're getting with the new diarrhea burger. I don't know, man. You guys probably don't even have them in New York. Like if I wanted to make my own, what do you think is in it?

Great. There's a lot of grape in there. Melted down milk. Well, whatever they put in there. You know, I saw, did you see the founder? It's not milkshakes. great there's a lot of grape in there melted down milk well whatever they put in there you know i saw did you see the founder it's not milkshakes in the it's like a powder i think they mix up you don't think they just melt like those cheap ice pops on the bottom shelf and put them in there i'm i wouldn't uh begin to assume i know how they are making this he's a taste bud right is that what grimace is i think he's a taste bud he's like a personified taste bud

anthropomorphic taste do you think there do you guys think there's a podcast called taste buds and it's just two guys talking about their favorite tastes fuck if there isn't so much money in that hold on i might have to quit this show nope okay it's covered okay good i was worried for a second uh so germas is a taste as of 2021 in 2014 i guess like the m, the McDonald's Twitter was like, he's either a taste bud or a milkshake. Wait, wait, wait, wait. If he's a milkshake and we're drinking Grimace shakes, are we just, like, are we communing with the great Grimace? Are you saying Grimace is in the shakes?

The shakes are made of Grimace. Put it down. Kids. Kids, dump those out. The shakes are made of Grimace. my name is justin mccarroy and i know the best game of the week my name is christopher thomas plan and i know the best game of the week i like that there was a reverential pause for griffin's absence yeah uh my name is russ frustrating out of the best game of the week. I like that there was a reverential pause for Griffin's absence. Yeah.

My name is Russ Frustration, 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 is a video game club, and just by listening, my friend, you have joined our illustrious ranks.

Final Fantasy, they keep going with these things, and they've made it all the way to 16. And Chris Plant, Red Mage, White Mage, Black Mage, we know everything about Final Fantasy. This is just like another one of those, right? Oh, psych! They said, we're not doing it like that this time. They said, instead, we're going to do some Game of Thrones, and we're going to do some Devil May Cry action game.

And all of you who came here expecting another RPG in that traditional sense, go fuck yourselves. Oh, literally, go fuck yourselves, yeah. Yeah, because it's not on offer. Not welcome at this party. Not welcome here on this podcast. To which I say, great.

I feel like we're missing final boy Griffin McElroy who's like the most Final Fantasy among us Do you think that's for the better? He's out sick He's what he says But I think he's devastated

I think he's heart sick I think he He saw that the People, some of the people responsible for Final Fantasy 14 The nerdiest of all Final Fantasies, that they were making a new game, and he got his hopes up. And then they said, you know what? Bayonetta. And he's still recovering.

He just got knocked out. I feel like, you know, it's funny. I am struggling with how to talk about this game a little bit is it because there's no loop because oh no let's hold on one second okay okay okay we're getting way ahead of ourselves let me set it up i'm gonna explain the plot of final fantasy 16 in 30 seconds ready go there Go. There's a boy. He is like a little prince boy. He's got a brother who's got like superpowers.

There's a number of people with superpowers. They're called Dominants. They turn into the summons from Final Fantasy and they kind of like are these major weapons that kind of control this universe, which is vaguely inspired by Game of Thrones. Things don't go great for the brother kid with the superpowers

and the boy kind of jumps ahead in the future and he's older now and he's a soldier and he's fighting against the people that killed his brother kind of you kind of miss what i think is the most interesting fast they do say fuck a lot so they say fuck a lot i know what i think is cool is that in this game you know summons have been part of the Final Fantasy world for a very long time seemingly ever in this game they're called icons

and they are like actual beings in the world but they can be brought into the world or they call it primed instead of summoned by a single person for each icon who's called the dominant and that person can bring the icon into our world and also takes on some of their powers, which is wild. Like it's a really interesting – those people who can do that, the dominants, are like high up and kind of revered by people.

Well, sometimes. Like weapons. Some of them are like running the place. Some revered by people. Well, sometimes. Like weapons. Some of them are like running the place. Some of them are running their own kingdom. Some of them are sort of like works. Prisoners, effectively. Prisoners. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it takes the dragons are the nuclear weapons of Game of Thrones. Right. And switches it to this, where, yes, revered or absolutely despised and disgusted with because you're not seen as a human. You are seen as a tool for dominance, ironically. And that's also true for bearers who have some of these power.

They're the people that have magic powers but are treated as such outcasts that they are largely like enslaved to these different kingdoms yeah there's like some of them have broken free their communes you know communes where some of them are working together but like that is the that is the the status quo and i will say like even though i think the intro like the first two hours is told pretty slowly until a bit of a climax the world overall like this premise like was immediately pretty interesting to me like i like for sure this universe that they've created and i'm always for what it's worth even though it doesn't always cook for me massively impressed by square and i guess Creative Business Unit 3 and its other developers,

the idea that they have to, they don't have to, but they do do this for all the mainline Final Fantasy games, the numbered ones, they start from scratch. They literally like, we're going to start from scratch. And sure, there's going to be Moogles. There's going to be Chocobos. Might be like Ifrit might show up.

But broadly speaking, they really are starting with brand new characters, brand new universe. There's going to be Chocobos. Might be like Ifrit might show up. But broadly speaking, they really are starting with brand new characters, brand new universe. You know what they are? Really hard. They're Wes Anderson, except for instead of like Bill Murray and Jason Schwartzman, they have Chocobos. Yeah, but I think unlike Wes Anderson. They're familiar players. I understand what you're saying. But unlike Wes Anderson.

I'm being kind of silly. You're joking. It's silly. But tonally, they vary pretty dramatically is why it's not Wes Anderson, right? Whereas Wes Anderson movies have a vibe to them, even though I appreciate the silliness. I also like that they set out to make Game of Thrones, which they've been very open about, right? Yeah. And I feel like a lot of Hollywood studios, when they do that, they're like, we're going feel like a lot of uh hollywood studios when they do that they're

like we're gonna make a game of thrones they just tried to make game of thrones we're here they're like well what we like about game of thrones that dragons are nuclear weapons well we have these things let's just go off in our own direction yeah the thing about game of thrones like aesthetically makes a lot of sense but like this is, this is not a story of rival kingdoms vying for power. And that is, like – It's not? Not really. I mean, it's the story of this one guy and his quest for, like, vengeance and understanding.

I mean, the things of, like, nations battling with each other is very much, like, hand-waved and sort of background like it is not the you're not expected to follow like eight different kingdoms and their different leaders and their different families you have a battlefield view of this like giant thing going but that's just a perspective thing like in the universe i mean justin you're further along than i am but my read of it is like it's more like we're just playing from john's perspective well i think that Thrones. I think that's what Justin is saying, is what Game of Thrones is, is the thousand-foot view, right? Yeah, that's fair. And this is a much more human story. Yeah.

Also, though, when you do get into those geopolitical situations, it has one of the smartest features that actually oh yeah headline love it above anything else it's called active time lore i believe they call it and you can pause the screen at any time any time and it says hey here's what's going on here's this guy this dude is and and they're like i can't i'm i'm so bad about keeping lore in my head it's never been something i've been like good at and this is so nice to be able to say like oh so this guy's the dominant of titan and he rules this kingdom okay that explains it that's why this guy knows this person and it really does help ground you in a scene anytime where you feel like kind of lost you can see it and it's not like a huge

massive ass codex, right? Yeah. What they basically done is like pulled out the relevant codex entries with a little graphic to show you what it is you're talking about that you can highlight at any time during cutscene and like find out what you want. It's like the x-ray feature on Amazon Prime. Yeah. It's amazing. It's exactly like that. It rules.

exactly like that it rules and also it is i don't know if the story is just a million times easier to follow than previous final fantasy games or if that is so helpful in that for me with a really dense fantasy story all i have to do is miss a couple things and it becomes like a snowball effect yep where then i'm like well now i don't know what that is and then you kind of check out and then you lose track of something else and just just gets worse and worse. Being able to check in just a few times early on in the game got me my footing. And I don't check it very often the further I go. It just made sure that I could stay. Knowing what like a mother crystal is was like a total like,

because they kept saying mother crystal early on. I'm like, what the fuck? And yeah, it explains that there are these mountains and they've got like magic powers and people fight over them. And every time it came up after that, I didn't have to look it up. I knew. Yeah, there is a layer, like a sort of background layer where there's obviously some sort of progenitor or some sort of society that was there before you. Sure. That has been

destroyed and there's like pieces of their um culture and pieces of their architecture still sort of like littering the uh the land so i want to i want to dig into that architecture thing but one other cool thing about the time lore and why it is better than just googling it which is what you would normally do for most video games, it doesn't spoil things. Yeah, they're very smart. Well, yeah, the cards actually update as you go through the story. Yeah. Which, yeah, is just a huge help.

Justin, can you tell us a little bit more about that architecture and stuff? Because I'm curious if it hit you the way it hit me. I'm not really smart about that kind of stuff it's just like looks all weird yeah I mean it looks kind of like it kind of reminds me of

the architecture and I know story wise nothing about it so I'm not like spoiling anything I have no idea it kind of reminds me of like the architecture you see like in the Assassin's Creed games when they're trying to show you something's like not of this world you know what i mean like it's it's very it's it's very detailed uh and fanciful well i was curious if you would get to is it felt like i was playing old cg

uh final fantasy cut scenes like it's so big. The scale of this architecture. I mean, it's, like, cathedral-like. The first kind of, like, sanctuary that you go to where people are hanging out. And it does this really beautiful thing throughout the whole game, both in this setting and in, like, large outdoor settings where you're constantly shifting between really confined, dense visual places and really big, open, like yawning spaces. So you'll be in a castle, like going in and out of the castle. And I think we talked about this with Elden Ring, where you're in the castle and like every little detail of a room is so intentional. And then you'll cut to like a hallway where there's a big hole in the wall and you'll see this gorgeous panorama that like stretches out i mean across like an it looks

like it's hundreds of miles you know there's like a little mountain in the in the distance and that that constant shifting of scale that for me is what makes it feel like a real space okay mechanics yeah well yeah well but no no i'm gonna i'm gonna tie this into what plant just said versus mechanics and here is where i think it has difficulty when you make a comparison to a game like elden ring and obviously they're very different games doing very different things but specifically on scale if you see like an amazing vista in front of you in elden ring you could run to that vista you could go there and here a lot of it is just window dressing because the maps apart from the like little hub areas that you're in the ones i've

seen at least have been extremely linear and like guiding you in a path and that's fun like i get it i think that's a feature not a bug for yeah it's a narrative game it's not a uh open world exploration game i totally get that but it is it does put me in a slightly different mindset where i like can appreciate the visuals but i'm not as like enthused as i would be if i knew oh i could also go there you know see i i felt the opposite where i was so relieved that I don't have to think about that. That's not to say I don't want Elden Ring. I do. I want both of these types of games.

Sure, yeah. And I like having a game that's like I feel like I am being guided. Like it's a very authored experience. It is. That's nice. Okay. Anyway, sorry. Mechanic. guided like it's a very authored experience it is that that's nice okay anyway sorry mechanic final fantasy has been moving in a sort of like more action friendly direction like moving away

from the sort of like stayed um turn-based time battle yeah yeah yeah even active time is an evolution from turn-based sure that's fair um the turn-based battles uh and and more of an action direction this one is this is an action game yeah like it is it is an action game to this extent where like time doesn't freeze you can you can equip an item that like stops time if you're about to get hit and like makes it a little bit more accessible you're not going to be like unable to progress if action is not your thing they have they've made a lot of concessions for that um but like potions and high potions are limited highly limited in the amount you can carry like four potions three high potions and like that is it so you are not incentivized to run around collecting all the potions and hoarding them they are literally like almost like estus flasks for

the speed that you get them back i mean it is is just almost an extension of your health bar in a way. Wait, sorry, can we pause for just one second? I do want to set like a boundary with the mechanics are actually very heavily tied to the story. I think it's fair game for us to

talk about the mechanics for the first 10 hours, but we don't need to talk about what triggers them. Does that seem fair? So for people who are worried about story, you're going to be fine. We're going to talk about some mechanics. We're just not going to explain how they come to be.

But I would say the game does a very good job of merging story and mechanics. And it involves Moogles. And it involves Chocobo. There's no writing of Chocobo that i've seen it's not that kind of game oh man chocobos get wrecked in this game if you see a chocobo stable and you can talk to the guy and it seems weird i got a lot of gill can i just have one i'll buy it from you please okay i'm sorry go go back to uh the combat uh so the combat is like uh you have your standard like

sword attack sword is like the weapon that you are using like it's not like there's a bunch of other different weapon types you got a sword um and you have like one armor slot and one accessory slot three accessory slots three sorry three accessories one accessory slot one armor slot one weapon slot and one um there's one more like in your equipment slot like a uh a belt and you do have magic yes you do have magic but the magic is is more akin to like guns in devil may cry yeah that's like you can fire off a quick shot with triangle um or charge it up or you can work it into a combo like if you're in the middle yeah right but this is like but it's and you start with like just fire abilities like it is do a fireball augment your attacks with like some pretty sick looking fire stuff like uh and that

you use those to uh build you know combos just like any other freaking action game. You can stagger enemies by knocking them down. It's usually around half health. And then your combos or your attacks all do 1.5 times damage. So you're kind of incentivized to save up those big attacks for when the enemy is staggered.

But maybe you need the big attack to get them staggered and that's the kind of math that you're running while you go. And as you unlock more abilities, you just become, like, really, really devastating. Yeah. But it never feels overwhelming. When we started the show, Justin asked where I am, and I just got wind abilities to go with my fire abilities. And then both of our reaction was like oh you're

in it now it feels devastating like for the first time you you get wind like another set of abilities on top of it and now you have four slots for these like special you know magic abilities that you can launch at any time plus you have one where you can teleport to anybody. And then you also have one where you can basically teleport them to you now. Yeah. It is nuts. It is absolutely nuts how powerful you are. And it is, I think, the most open space that you have yet found in the game is where it throws you into right after this. Because it knows like, hey, you're probably going to want to have some fun with this.

We just set out some soldiers walking around a valley. Yeah, look at these dummies. Go ahead. Go test this out. Go ahead, tornado man. Go get them. Let me use my giant god hands that now come in and rip people in half.

Wow, does it feel incredibly good. It's really good. It feels good. I get feels, like, really fluid good it's really good it feels good i get feels like really fluid it feels really good that the ability to teleport to enemies is like really helps keep the momentum going like if you see somebody you can close the distance uh really quickly and that's like part of combos that you can that you can do um you can also there's like upgrading your abilities uh it is a restrained ability circle or ability you know net uh compared to a lot of other final fantasy games um and it's not a bunch of like bogus um you know plus two

stamina kind of stuff it is like improve this ability that you like to use pretty meaningful upgrades yeah yeah in terms of the stuff that you can actually slot in i believe it's you have three abilities to choose from but only two slots for for like fire and wind there's also like a fourth ability that is like a mega ability but cost of fortune and i have no idea how to unlock it but it does create this thing of like oh choose what you want to invest in the amount of the amount of like skill points you earn increases as you go on so like things that seem really unattainable early on will start to it's sort of like naturally gated like that it's like they'll become more affordable as you as you go forward did either of you uh use like try any

of the accessibility features that like the items that are actually built into the game yeah so when the game starts they basically say like hey do you want a story experience or a action experience and i started on story mostly just because i want to see a lot of the narrative before we recorded and when you do that it gives you these accessibility like items that you can equip and one of them is just to mention this earlier uh if you're about to get hit it'll basically stop time and tell you like hey you should probably dodge and that's pretty useful in action too i think you get those as options either way okay well yeah i mean so there's a number of those another one that's really useful

is you have a dog friend and you can direct the dog to like do things for you attack or heal whatever it is or you could equip this item and it basically just tells the dog do whatever you want that's going to be most effective at any given time and i think the accessibility stuff is really smart because it's basically saying how micromanaging do you want to be at any given time do you want to just play this as a you're a sword guy with magic or do you want to like really control everyone in the battlefield very specifically and all of that isn't like buried in settings it's like literally stuff you equip so if you feel like i have a handle on this like i don't need the item that heals me automatically like

uses a potion automatically you just unequip it and put in something else and then kind of like gradually ease yourself into micromanaging more and more and more of the game, which is smart. And when, when Russ is saying everyone, the battlefield, it's really just the dog. Yeah.

Like you do not have control. You will get people who are working with you. You have absolutely no insight into what they're doing. They're just like another DPS source out there. But yeah, I equipped that item to micromanage a dog. Cause I don't want to tell a dog to heal me. it's it's uh i will say though when you uh equip that item every time you he gives an attack to the dog there's a vocal bark and that gets a little old

get him boy get him boy get him heal me boy heal me the only bummer of it is if you are using these you can't equip other stuff that is true sure which is like i'm like so torn on this because on one hand i really like that they built like these accessibility features just into the game as items not as like toggles i think that's very clever i wish it almost been like a separate you know equipment belt or whatever where you could put these things and then you could still use everything else um but that said it's just they're like really clever one of one of them is um like street fighter 6 button combos yeah where you just all you have to do is hit one button and it'll like string together combos for you yeah um which for somebody who wants to play a Final Fantasy game, but is intimidated by the words Devil May Cry.

Don't worry, like it, it will take care of it. Yeah. And for what it's worth, like, I'm not a huge like platinum action fan. We've talked about it in the past. And I found this to be more tactile and satisfying. and satisfying i think just because it's like a little more a slightly slightly more grounded than a lot of the like outrageous like where a giant combo meter appears on the screen it takes up half the screen and blah blah this feels like i have more visibility and more control over a scene without it having to rely on like bullet which time every two seconds? I will say that the combat is so enjoyable

that for me, it did make the amount of time that you spend in cut scenes grating sometimes. I think that this game is very well localized and very well performed. So it's not like, it doesn't feel like a massive waste of time or anything but it is like i was anxious to do the the get back to the actual like combat of the thing and it it's a it's a pretty heavy load of cut scenes especially early on it's like it's a lot

yeah i was saying to justin it felt like three minutes of cut scenes for every one minute of gameplay and justin said it it got a little bit better over time. But I did. I spoke to friend of the show, Jason Schreier, about it, who's like a diehard Final Fantasy guy. And he confirmed that like that ratio does not change that dramatically. He already beat the game, does not change over the course of the game. game so you have to decide like are these cut scenes enough interesting enough for you to justify sitting through that much non-gameplay time what helped it for me is it feels seamless to me like this feels like a seamless animated movie this feels like final fantasy doing

something that it's tried to do for a very very long time where you are blending back and forth that it's not the go watch 15 minutes of computer animation and then go watch a video game that looks nothing like it yeah they it's all in engine and it does look very seamless i i would say while i was playing it it reminded me of Uncharted in some extent because you'd have an action scene in Uncharted, and then they do the classic Drake talking to whoever else, but you would do that while you were running around. And there's a number of moments in this game where you, really the cutscene is just two people talking in the woods,

walking down a path, easily could have been done within gameplay yeah so like i just think they needed to be a little more economical with it some of the animation on some of those cut scenes is like not great either it's very stoic and and like uh not a lot of like dynamism in the in the camera angles or the cuts or any of it they can be a little flat to watch i i i think that is funny how i i feel like the first two hours that wasn't the case at all that it was like very very very intentional and that first time you get to the sanctuary you just meet some general people yeah and that is the first time in the game where it's like oh these you didn't you didn't spend as much time on these ones although i would say they're smart because those general people cut scenes where you're just talking to someone you could skip through that dialogue yeah

yeah if there's a cut scene where you can't skip through the dialogue it means they're like oh we spent some time on this one yeah um i would love to return to talk about this game with griff i do and maybe we could do a part two on this if we if we so choose um i would really like that i do have to highlight sort of like two sort of base quibbles I have, other than the pacing, which I think is like, is wild. I think that they have fully bought into this action game thing,

and the failings that this has, or the annoyances, like, all stem, I think, from where they've tried to keep a foot in the old final fantasy so like you pick up a lot of items and almost none of them are like that interesting or useful like it's almost all like crafting stuff and even the crafting stuff which you use to upgrade your gear it's pretty rare that you can do that and i regularly would just just randomly get like an i you don't get a lot of different items or weapons you're not constantly like swapping stuff out you'll keep stuff for hours and but you'll regularly like get something new that just like wipes out everything that you had before and it kind of like negates all of that

um so those places were and and there's also like a really not much in the way of like side quests or other things that you can go do uh it's very directed every once in a while you get one randomly like 15 hours in or whatever i am i just found a guy who who was like hooking me up with a bunch of side quests all over the world it was he's like a new dude that was just like at the base like hey i've heard about all these random things happening it's like a new dude that was just like at the base like hey i've heard about all these random things happening it's like are you sure i don't really seem like that kind of guy that goes around and does random stuff for people but okay that's fine um so that's a big like weird change the other thing i'll say is that i find the as good as like the writing and

the performances are i still think like the uh the cast itself is like thuddingly homogenous. It's like so white. Yeah. So, I mean, they were inspired by game of Thrones. So yeah, for sure.

But there are nonwhite characters in game. No, no, I know. I mean like, and that was something they had to get to. They did. Yeah.

A while to get to that point. But like the, the, it is so white that there is maybe two or three women that are actually written as characters, and the one that is with you for the vast amount of time, they have done, I swear to God, nothing to characterize this person, who is just like a childhood friend of yours that starts tagging along with you for hours and hours and hours, and there is no even lip service paid towards making her like an actual person it's wild um and that stuff is like

it was kind of is pretty grating especially when you like every single time what i suspect happened is that they realized that they were making a game that was saying things about like enslaved people and if i had to guess the math on that just became too complicated if it wasn't just a bunch of white people i can't figure out something other than that but like other games and other fantasy worlds have worked around that like you look at um brandon sanderson has a world called the stormlight archive and people are differentiated by their eye color. Like, skin color is not even noticed, but your eye color is like a huge differentiator in your class structure. There's things you can do, right, where the cast is not so utterly like just carbon copies of the same dude. It's wild.

Yeah. I'm interested in coming back to this game. I think that if there was more side stuff, it would help pace out the story stuff better. And that, I think, is the issue. It's like, you know, if I'm in the mood to do, I'm going to do three hours of side quests, I don't know that they have that option versus like, well, I'm in the mood to do, I'm going to do three hours of side quests. I don't know that they have that, have that option versus like,

well, I'm going to play the only missions I have available to me. And they're going to be 50, 50 cut scene gameplay, or, or maybe even like 70, 70, 30 cuts,

uh, cuts in gameplay. And so like, I just want more, I guess, options, but I would say like, there are very few Final Fantasy games

that have ever clicked with me, ever. Seven and Seven Remake were two of them. And this one is, like, I am more engaged in this one than I really have been in years and years and years. So I am on the trail to be like, okay, I'm into this, but I just wish it wasn't.

Yeah, so cutscene it's just like it's really it just kills my momentum i really am enjoying this video game if my save got deleted like i would never touch it again you know what i mean like i would i mean i don't know that there's many games you would play for 15 hours and have a save deleted and never touch it again for what i've done it i'm just saying with this i've deleted my binding of isaac save and then started to slowly rebuild but like i yeah i wish the pacing was better this does feel like a very big step forward i could see where like some people would be kind of butthurt about it being a calling itself final fantasy 16 and and having like i would, I can make a case for it, the gap between Final Fantasy XV and XVI is bigger than the gap between Final Fantasy I and Final Fantasy XV.

Like, it is more recognizable, I feel like. It is such a massive, massive departure. And I think it's cool they didn't give it some weird subtitle or something to try know, to try to couch it like they did. I mean, but isn't it just like a throwback in a lot of ways to like the original Final Fantasy games that were like all fantasy and very little like fucking bros in cars driving around the desert? Yeah, in a sense,

but like even those were very much defined by relationships. And I think that that's something that I'm kind of missing here is like you had a lot of different characters and the way that they interacted with you and each other was like a big part of the game and that is like a non-factor here i mean there are like there is one or two that you interact with quite a bit and honestly they're they're great the sid in this game is fantastic yeah and it's really don't you mean sidolphus it's great that's funny it's funny that's like it's really funny um i i do yeah i i get what you mean um

it's hard to believe that like after seven and seven success and seven remake as well that they haven't realized that the best possible way to start a huge grand enormous story is with a small mission with just like few people that you bond with over the course of that mission and then they introduce the world like that that is the format that all of these games should start with and instead of like kingdoms and you know marching through a grand throne room and blah blah blah like i think you could do that i said james bond but i i think that is like true of like a a considered standalone set piece right it doesn't even have to be small i think just having like a big set piece that is you know immediately gets you into its characters i mean i i think this the star wars game the the latest

star wars game did a relative oh yeah that was yeah a good well yeah it's funny because everyone dies yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah twist um no i i i agree with all this i just one more thought on uh just with your critiques i think they're all spot on i I do worried that the Game of Thrones was a bad influence there a little bit, especially with the depiction of women. There is a villain, a female villain that you meet pretty early on. And like one of the few scenes that you see that focuses just on her is like her in bed nude

with like a grumpy man who she's like trying to impress and it feels like it it feels like a parody of a game of thrones scene um where they're not allowed to show nipples yes yes everyone's contorting like that those fucking scenes in austin powers movies like everyone's contorting to avoid showing any sort of genitalia. Yes. But no, I would like to talk more about the game and maybe do a spoiler episode at some point because I'm really enjoying it and I would like to talk about the weird, weird, weird stuff it's doing with that story.

I want to know what Griffin thinks. Yeah. He's not a purist. No, that's true. I know he can enjoy games of all types, but I would like to know. I will say this. If you're thinking about picking this one up, you haven't done a five-phase game,

it is not a pick-up-and-play-for-20-minutes kind of thing. You really do, especially early on, have to sit down. It becomes pretty episodic after the first couple hours, like digestible mission-sized chunks. But early on, it's going to feel like you are not even like playing plant plant gave me a great pro tip well done plant eat lunch while you're playing the beginning of this game or eat dinner yeah yeah like have something else to do while you're doing this because there's gonna be a lot of hands off the controller time for the first 90 minutes of the game

yeah let's take a quick break because we got a ton of news to talk about nintendo just went absolutely ham and i'd love to discuss it with you all uh we'll be right back okay so we're coming at this uh i guess it happened last week so it's a little bit later but i did want to highlight this uh nintendo direct that just happened mostly because i think everyone has been under the mindset that the switch is on its last legs from a release stand i mean it's done incredibly well but it does you know it came out and what was it 2017 so we're now six years in and obviously the rumors of a switch to or switch hd whatever it is have been circling forever and it just feels like we're starting to get to the point where the releases would really slow down and it would just like pivot to whatever the next thing is and this nintendo direct made me think

that maybe not because they announced a lot of stuff that I was not expecting. I guess we'll start with the big surprise for me. Well, there were a few surprises, but the remake of Super Mario RPG, which is the first RPG I really ever played and adored, which just looks so fucking good. I'm so excited for it. Yeah. My wife, actually,'s like one of the

few mario games that she uh really enjoyed she had great memories of so i think it's it's really cool that they're bringing back that part of that aspect of mario yeah i think they've done a very smart job of of picking and choosing which games to sort of revive and this is one that i think probably the large bulk of their audience has never even played let alone like spent any time thinking about although they might have played like the paper mario games which are obviously inspired by super mario rpg but uh i think this is the like cream of the crop either this or like thousand year door in terms of mario rpgs and uh so i'm really excited for people to

experience it i mean detective pikachu is back he's back no he died in the fire what certainly not he can't be back he died in a fire no i'm just kidding oh i thought it was like a ground type that did it uh that's weird um they are making another wario game wario ware game that's exciting that's great that's yeah this feels like um i don't know if this is like true or not i don't know if the thing that was officially said or just like assumed that nintendo doesn't like to make uh more than one entry of a franchise per per per hardware release. Have you heard this? I mean, that's been said.

Yves Guillemin was talking about this with regards to Mario Rabbids. He was saying Nintendo sort of counts, like, I wish we had just done one on the console, and that's how Nintendo likes to do it. I think he said Nintendo kind of advised them advised them like uh you know i don't know you don't want to go too hard on any one because you know you get diminishing returns when people just keep buying the original one there's like not a whole lot of a point and that was like i i um obviously there's an exception to the rule there with zelda and i'm sure others those mario is right like yeah um that well

but is there a new mark it's always a different type of mario yeah but that's the argument on wario where so wario where move it which is the new one is a and i don't know how i feel about this because motion gaming but it is a like seemingly like exclusively motion gaming experience so there's, you know, all the mini games are tied to like waggles and stuff. I didn't love, I think, I know we talked about it on the show. I didn't love the last WarioWare game,

which was like a massive departure for them. This feels closer to home in terms of what WarioWare is, but I don't know, TBD on whether I really want to do motion controls again. This is like peak end of console Nintendo. It was kind of the point that I was getting at with WarioWare that I like that they're like, when we can't make, what can we make that we haven't made already?

Let's do another WarioWare, but it's motion control. Yeah, I was excited to see a game like Mythforce just because i think it didn't get enough conversation when it launched it looks if you haven't seen it it looks it's like a action rpg group based kind of thing first person but it looks like a don bluth cartoon it looks like cartoons from the 80s and it looks amazing and that's a great application of the switch right a distinct art style that maybe isn't pushing a bajillion polygons but like has such a perspective that you don't even notice

yeah super mario brothers wonder yeah that was i think the biggest announcement of this so excited i was not expecting a new mario game for this generation i actually keep thinking that the i think and this is probably still the case i think the next switch whatever it is will launch with the like follow-up to odyssey the next 3d mario game but uh yeah to see a new 2d mario game that is like probably most inspired by super mario brothers 2 and it's fucking weirdness yeah i'm very man. Hey, what about the Metal Gear Solid Master Collection? I mean, people can finally play the game that we've been talking about on the show.

I know, we did it too early. Yeah, that's coming to everything, though, thankfully. Yeah, it's just nice to see it. What do you think? It's so hard to imagine what more they can do with a 2D Mario game. What is your read on wonder i think this is the free pass like let's do silly things with mario that we would not do in a

traditional game like we saw him turning into an elephant right yes or let's i mean he's turned into bees before that's not that much of a departure he's wearing a bee costume okay fair he's not literally an elephant and like in this case it looks i mean just watching it it looks so fun it does so colorful and neat and i uh i am i disappointed that it's not just based on the super mario brothers movie yeah obviously i'd much prefer chris and the gang be here for this it doesn't really feel right excuse me princess what's weird is it looks like an illumination movie in some degree yeah but but doesn't look like the mario illumination doesn't it kind of make you wonder if at some point that was part of it had to have been right

like at some point maybe that was part of the discussion you mean that because the mario mario looks like not like he's traditionally looked. He looks like an anime. I mean, he looks like a very detailed rendering of Mario. He looks like the Mario from the movie. Like, it looks like that. And I just feel like I'm surprised that as much money as that thing made, but of course, you know, the timelines

and this don't exactly line up, but like, it seems like that's something they might do at some point. Yeah, I don't know. I don't think he looks like the Mario in the movie. I think he looks like if you were to take like Super Mario World and 3D it, that's what it looks like to me.

Yeah, no, I'm not saying he looks like the Mario in the movie. I'm saying like if this is actually closer to what I imagined Illumination making when they were going to make a Mario movie based off their other stuff. I didn't expect them to make something so loyal which is why it's like funny to me that the mario the iconic look of mario has never been more you know like out there mainstream and nintendo decides you know what we're gonna have mario do acid instead it's not that big of a departure guys he. He just looks like fucking Mario.

I know. This whole conversation. If you ask my mom. Ask anyone's dad. Yeah, I was pretty, honestly, I was pretty excited. Nothing here that absolutely drove me insane with passion. I will definitely play a Mario game, but I'm much more into the 3d ones than the than the 2d ones personally um play new wario ware looks like a lot of fun there's a ton of stuff i mean i think that that's

really the the headline here is like pikmin 4 is about to come out like yeah they are not entering a uh an an inhale yeah i mean there's still a lot of stuff. Do we think there's any chance? Where are we betting on the Switch follow-up to drop? Do we think for sure it's next year? I think it's April. Wow, that's soon. Yeah. That is very soon. That would be pretty surprising.

Although, I mean, I think that, hey, can we agree on this? That Metroid Prime 4 definitely will we agree on this that uh metroid prime 4 definitely will not appear on this switch yes 100 percent it will not appear before switch the new switch that will be the launch title uh alongside the 3d mario i think they'll launch with metroid prime 4 shit that'd be killer yeah that'd be really good yeah uh yeah it'll be interesting i i i think because of the pace of these releases i am hesitant to think that april will be the time but i would say i think we are going to see something that is much closer to what the xbox and playstation did which is a very a much more gradual console evolution rather than being like, oh, we're fully rebooting this

and doing something completely new. Everything in this Nintendo Direct, they said, was this year. Yeah. So to me, if I've got a new console coming out in April, Yeah. I could definitely see like,

okay, everybody out. Like, this is it. Yeah. Come on. Let's, like, everything you got going it's got to be done by this time because we're moving on after this so let's blow it like completely out and that would like that story makes a lot of sense if you can buy that they've got another one coming out next year and they want like a clear like three month runway to to build up to

it but my point is, I think these, there will be many games, these games included that run on the next way. Oh, for sure. Yeah. So, so I think you could have arguably,

if you wanted to buoy the launch of a next switch, you could arguably have held back some of these games and been like, Hey, and by the way, but they didn't do that, which tells me I think it's going to be longer. No, no,

no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,

no, no, this is like so semantic. I, tells me I think it's going to be longer. No, no, no, no. This is like so semantic. I think them doing this, they just need games to be out. Nintendo doesn't need games to like launch at a certain time to make money. They just need them to like exist. So I think that's why dumping everything now and then setting themselves up for April is the play.

But, I mean, who knows they're they could not release it all next year and i would be not entirely surprised i think it would be not ideal um but i mean they're already they haven't didn't they talk about how your switch id is going to like easily transfer to the next generation yeah i like that that came out of the ftc filing right that's like a recent is that where it came from i think yeah they didn't make a public statement for it to the next generation. Yeah. That came out of the FTC filing, right? That's like a recent... Oh, is that where it came from? I think, yeah. They didn't make a public statement about it.

I think it just came out. All you'll need is the charged up power dongle for $40 and you can plug the two in. Oh my gosh. Y'all want to do some honorable mentions before we wrap up? Can I say one other thing? And I'm sure this isn't Switch only.

Batman Arkham Trilogy to me is wild. That it's running on Switch? Yeah, I guess. I don't know. It's just wild that that's still an ongoing thing. It looks terrible. I mean, it's not ongoing. It's just a re-release.

I know, but the trailer they show for it looks so bad. It looks really, really, really bad. And I'll be really interested to see how that holds up i'd kind of like to play them again um i mean they rule those i think those games overall rule i think they're great one especially the first i think both the first and second are great i think the third one is okay but yeah i mean i guess there's just a question of like how well it could run on a Switch, but I was reading that the folks doing the port have quite a bit of experience and they've put some pretty impressive ports out there,

so I think it'll run fine, but I don't- Interesting that it stopped where it did, right? Also, because you're leaving out Arkham- Origins. Origins, right. Which arguably different studio, not as well, you know, people were a little more lukewarm on that one. So, yeah, I'm not shocked that they stopped it there, but, yeah.

So it's Arkham Asylum, Arkham City, Arkham Knight, right? Right, correct. That's the three. Those were the three Rocksteady games. Yeah, and Rocksteady has not published anything since then. Yeah, and they're not going to make any more games, is my understanding. Got to keep the lights on.

They're just going to keep on tinkering. Man, I do not want to play that game. I worry about it. I would love for it to be great. They had to start over. Yeah. I would love, to be clear, we're all talking about the Suicide Squad game

for people who do not know what any developer is working on at any time. But man, the- Very weird scenario there, if you weren't following it, where like a trailer or video is put out and everybody's like, this sucks. And then they're like, yeah, this sucks. It's gonna take longer than we thought.

We're sorry, we'll go do it better. And they delayed it for a year, but realistically, like you can't change the core gameplay of a loop, which is really the problem with that game in a year so i don't know what their plan is but well we'll see maybe who knows maybe it's just like it was a bad sequence exactly so it might be good and and i will keep an open mind yeah that would be my hope that they're like we just want to get away from that marketing decision the game we think the game is good we just need to get away from maybe most of it is like quiet i don't know walking through hallways and like co-op was it just the co-op gameplay thing that

they showed is that what yeah yeah yeah they're like you're flying through the air doing like anime moves on a giant uh like aerial tank and also it's like shooter stuff it's like yeah you're you're you're you're super villains or heroes or whatever that's the thing about suicide squad is you never know it looked like what was that disaster ea game uh with the mechs that came out and everyone forgot about that was like supposed to be origin it was you just said everybody forgot about it yeah i guess i forgot oh oh the the the Bob Dylan of video games. Anthem. You guys are getting weird.

Anthem? Anthem. Anthem. Yeah, Anthem. Anthem. Oh, God. Wow. That's what it looks like from a combat perspective.

Shout out. Sorry. Shout out to Anthem. Should be bad. I think, did they officially say they're not going to try again? Because for a long time, they were like, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, they pulled the ripcord on trying to reboot reboot that one yeah let's go back to mass effect uh okay i i for what it's worth honorable mentions i'm i'm in zelda as we all know i've been playing it without looking

anything up i have officially found all of the shrines and all of the bubble frogs in that game and it was the most satisfying experience of my life. Sorry, raising a child, but this ruled. And I think we are closing in on the full spoilers episode. So Justin and Plant, you should beat the game now. I'm close. I'm kind of like, I'm on like the last thing. I just am kind of, I know myself. And once I'm done, I'm done i'm done yeah yeah sure

that's like yeah spin my wheels a little bit to see i've also been playing some uh i played some more diablo oh yeah okay my father's day man my friend slice was in town with autumn and their kids and father's day we were both there so we sat on the couch with our steam ducks and bacon and got stoned and played Diablo 4 all day. It was amazing. It was so great. I did not appreciate Diablo 4 until I played it stoned with my friend Slice. And then it's like, yes, this is perfect. I could do this all day long.

And I did. It was such a great Father's Day. And Diablo 4 is a great game i i was maybe uh i didn't have the ideal experience first played it because i played it too much by myself yeah playing it with somebody else is so much more fun um and uh it's a great like especially just like you have it on while you're bullshitting and i know we kind of said this already and every game kind of is better that way but like it's it's it's it's good it's a lot of fun and i also uh uh took the time to just like i started getting the legendaries that can really like

alter your whole gameplay style and started experimenting more with like dropping all my abilities and just like relearning to fit certain uh different weapons or items that i'd found and it it was really satisfying and fun and really like up the variety and it's one that i've like kept returning to so diablo 4 still cool what about you point i mean i i played a lot of zelda while traveling i i'm just not going to finish it anytime soon i am in no rush but i'm happy to do this spoiler episode. I don't really care about the spoilers. But I'm enjoying it a lot, a lot, a lot. And I guess my recommendation then is Asteroid City because, of course, it is.

Is it good? It's so – it's excellent. I've heard it's the most Wes Anderson – he's ever Wes Andersoned. No, I don't – It's not like supremely wes anderson yeah i feel like the conversation about wes anderson and maybe this is because of like all the ai stuff he's like really boiled down to his visual aesthetic where it's like yes their own his his writing is like pretty specific yeah but he's wrestling yeah i guess i just don't really buy into like that all these movies are the same he's wrestling with like very different ideas in each one and i think this one is just right in my wheelhouse of like the big questions of why are we all here

whoa um and like heavy how does our family and our friends fit into that. And then also, it does the thing that I love as a near fan where it's like, using layers of art to kind of like critique itself or kind of recognize it like, hey, you know, asking the movie in some way to be able to ask them in a way that like kind of shakes people and wakes them up versus just doing something more traditional. I think it's excellent. I know you pride yourself on your critical insight, but if I hear one more fucking Asteroid City review that compares and contrasts it with Nier, I just don't know what could be hackier at this point, you know?

Come up with an original viewpoint for a change. I know. I mean, Anderson and Yoko Taro, they're always just chasing after each other, you know? You're just parroting Gene Siskel, man. We get it. This is just like Nier. I was nearly to tears at how much I love this film.

It's fucking narrow casting in the extreme to just plant it was great you found me uh next week we're oh we got to do some thanks russ you gotta thank people for reviewing the show thank you we always really appreciate it thank you justin for the reminder and thank you so much to the following people for reviewing the show. Thank you. We always really appreciate it. Thank you, Justin, for the reminder. And thank you so much to the following people for writing reviews for the besties on Apple Podcasts. We have Rebar Rollercoaster, Seasick Fish, and The Bonch. Thank you. The Bonch. Classic Bonch.

The Bonch. The Bonch is like the new Cheers character that just walks through the door. Oh, The Bonch. The Bonch. They've been here the whole time. Good to see you, The Bonch. I've been in the back walks through the door. Oh, Devon! Devon! They've been here the whole time. Good to see you, Devon. I've been in the back corner near the camera. You couldn't see me. How are your kids? I know all your names.

You were at my daughter's christening. Games we talked about. Final Fantasy 16, Detective Pikachu Returns, Super Mario RPG, WarioWare Move It, Super Mario Bros. Wonder, Myth Force, Diablo 4, Zelda, and then we talked about a film called Asteroid City. Next week, we're going to talk about the best games of the first half of 2023. Some we've discussed quite a bit, I'm sure, and maybe a few that we have discovered more recently. So that'll be fascinating. Be sure to join

us again next week for the best games. Because shouldn't the world's best friends pick the world's best games? Besties!