The Besties - Kirby and the Forgotten Stomach

Episode Date: April 1, 2022

This week we're diving into the latest installment of the long-running Kirby franchise, Kirby and the Forgotten Land. We'll also discuss Sony's attempt to take on the juggernaut that is Game Pass with its new PlayStation Plus service. Other games discussed: 13 Sentinels, Tunic. 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!

What do you guys think Griffin's doing right now? You think he's like paintballing? How do you think Griffin would be? Of the four of us, rank us in paintball prowess. Oh. Griffin would be number one. By far. Yeah, Griffin would be very good.

Okay. I think a lot of it, people underestimate how much of paintball is lower leg strength because you're sitting in a crouch for an extended period of time. Okay, yes. And so I think we just need to look at the gams and judge based on that. I got powerful gams. leg strength because you're sitting in a crouch for an extended period of time okay yes and so i think we just need to look at the gams and judge that based on that i got powerful games do you yeah the calves are good the calves the calves it's more a thigh than it is a calf quite honestly yeah i can't help you i can't help you i can't help you with that i feel like i'm gonna be pretty

high here yeah i think plant is high for for a number of reasons. One, I think he can get behind cover easily. True, very small. Because he's littler. Two, I think he's got the gams to pull it off. And three, I think he has natural camouflage. So it's between Russ and me in our power rankings.

Wait, wait, wait, what's the natural camouflage? I think you just sort of blend into the environment. That is, I do tend to not notice you a lot of the time play that's a great point russ thanks for touching on that well okay so i think okay griffin number one because griffin is by far the most competitive and i would say the most gamey of us griffin you know he's the world like the matrix and yeah that's that's why I call him Matrix Griff. Yeah, of course. I call him Mr. Neo, but

Matrix Griff also works. Then me, because I got them those, like, the thick thighs. Highly ignorable. And utterly invisible to the average person. Right. Then I'm gonna put Hoops there, because Hoops

is also a strong fellow. You have a little bit of... Easily winded. You're gonna have to you're gonna have to like there's gonna have to be like a bunch of trash and people are like standing too close to the trash and I pop

out from beneath the trash. You could be the guy with the like the bandoliers of ammo and like the heavy machine gun. Yes right don't get close to that tower it's just a tower In Fresh I know for a fact would be the bottom because

his face and I've seen this in real life is a magnet for paintballs. That's true I got shot in the face for the magnet i was wearing a mask and yet the paintball found a way but i would say have you ever tried to shoot slenderman it's pretty tough that's right that's right it'd be hard to hit russ i think what we've learned is we are kind of the ideal paintball squad we We're the A-team of paintball. We're the A-team of paintball.

The P-team. The D-team of podcasting, A-team of paintball. My name is Justin McElroy, and I know the best game of the week. My name is Christopher Thomas Plant, and I slurped up the best game of the week. My name is Russ Froschek, and I know the best game of the week. Kirby does not slurp things up. Yeah, but I didn't want to say what Kirby does because I felt like it could be used against me. Kirby this week on the besties,

which is a video game club that by listening to you've joined and become a member. This week we're going to be talking about Kirby and the Forgotten Land, the name of which I have just learned now. So that's a huge step for me. Yeah, I thought it was Realm. I wrote it originally Realm,

and I had to Google it to remember what the full title was. It's the new Kirby in the Forgotten Land, and we're going to be talking about it. Who's this Kirby? Kirby is a pink little fellow from the game Super Smash Brothers. He has no precedent. Now, he does a lot of platformers throughout the years. They're usually the more, I would say,

child-friendly version of the Mario games. They're not as challenging, but just as lovable. This is the first one that is a 3D-ish platformer, more in line with Super Mario 3D Land than Super Mario Odyssey. But we'll talk about that right after the break. This beautiful ball of puff doesn't know when to stop eating. He's never full.

Well, he doesn't eat though. He does get full. Does he get full? Is that the way you think of it? I mean, eventually, like at a certain point, he can't, like, for example, if he, which he does in this game, walks up to a water tower and sucks the entire water tower in him, it's not like he's like, oh, I'm going back for seconds.

He's got to get rid of that water tower before he does anything. And he can't get the whole water tower in his bod. Same with like a car, right? Beep, beep. Yeah. But I think in the case of the car, he swallows most of it and then leaves the wheels because how would you drive if your mouth was over the wheel so you're saying he could like swallow the earth if he pleased but he's strategic yes i think so and and just to take a step back i

just want to talk a little bit about this kirby game broadly and then we'll go into what he's capable please oh sure sure all of as as plan alluded to in the intro all of the kirby games more or less the like mainline kirby games we're not talking kirby tilt and tumble or the line drawing one we're talking uh most of the kirby games are platforming games you you know scroll right left to right and uh suck up enemies and you swallow them and you steal their powers and use those powers to go further in levels and the games for the most part are games that you could give to a pretty young player and they would do fine they are they are not you know the difficulty that you think of when you think of like even super mario world for example

is like a pretty tough platforming game kirby is not that he can float he's got all sorts of like health you know he won't die in two hits um so they tend to be pretty approachable and this game in particular i think is also approachable but i think it wears different hats to make it more fun, not only for the casual, but also for a little bit more of a hardcore audience. Yeah, it was interesting coming to this game. I think that this is really one of those where I had to check my reaction to see if it was me or if it was the game, because I have cut the two most recent things I've spent a huge amount of time with have been Elden Ring and Tunic. And Kirby really kind of threw me off at first.

I mean, lack of difficulty does not really describe the level that even the normal is set at like my four-year-old saw me um playing and she took the controller from me and like beat the boss on her for the first boss on her first try like it is not there is very very little in the way of challenge um it's also not as deliberate like it's also unfair because tunic is maybe like the most thoughtfully constructed game world I've ever been in. And this is not necessarily that like not every shadow and plant is leading you towards some sort of secret. Sometimes it is sometimes. Well,

yeah, that's why I went with every instead of none. Cause it's kind of in the middle between the two of those. But like, if you can just sort of like let go the what you maybe would like it to be in terms of like difficulty because i would like a little bit more it feels like a cheat code is on or something like i would love a little bit more of a challenge now there are sort of challenge stages that are like timed things that i actually

enjoyed more because they really drill down like one specific skill and force you to sort of like master that skill to get through this level in a certain amount of time those those sometimes took me a couple tries to get like the the ideal time or what justin i will say this though on the difficulty i think and this is in line with basically every nintendo game ever um it actually does ramp up it probably takes a little too long to ramp up but i i will say i'm in the third area now which is like the carnival area and i'm not saying it's like hard i'm not struggling but it definitely gets more challenging i think more in line with the difficulty that you're seeing in those like mini challenge areas and i have heard that the later levels get like while not donkey kong country levels of

difficult definitely a lot harder so i i think there is this element of like the nintendo ramp up going on here so if you're looking for more challenge i think it does get there it also makes a lot of sense though that that because you um what i enjoyed about it is the lack of difficulty makes it so that you are really encouraged and free to experiment with the different abilities like because it's not like you must have the cutter that lets you throw a spinning disc to get through this area or it'll never work i mean they give you options um and sort of encourage you to to play around with them which i dug yeah yeah i fucked around a lot i am in love with the game. I've never been a huge Kirby person.

I like all the Kirby spinoffs. And we've talked about why, you know, the Kirby golf game on the Super Nintendo is Kirby Dream Course, one of the top 10 greatest games of all time. But the Kirby games were always just, yeah, too easy, too repetitive in my head. in my head and now i get it because i'm always looking for a game to play with my son who is also four who's not as pro gamer as justin's child i'm just gonna get it up front he loves to watch um he likes to watch the characters go die basically he thinks it's very funny like when sonic falls off a pit and then kind of bounces back up and makes that face to camera like oh no he's like that that's the funniest thing that's ever happened um he likes to play pbs kids games and then it's like oh cookie monster slipped in the mud very funny the fool that's great. Which is great.

Like, I'm happy for him because what he's, you know, he's showing that, you know, he rolls with the punches. You know, it's not just about winning. Sometimes losing is fun, too. But as someone who would like to, you know, gradually ease him through the idea of, you know, progressing through a video game, something like Kirby is great because it challenges him and it's funny and cute and adorable in plenty of other ways and it basically doesn't let him do that it like keeps uh giving him other like cool interesting surprising things and kind of pushes him through so i i don't think like you would beat a level but in the first uh stage we just had a good time in the co-op mode just bouncing around just how does that shake out how does that co-op mode work i mean there's just another character it's the bandana character and okay

they come and chill with you we honestly we we did not play the game proper with it. We just kind of hung out in the area and just ran around in 3D space. Yeah, I played with my wife. I played as Bandana Waddle Dee. It's his full official name. And my wife played as Kirby. And Kirby basically has full control of the situation.

The camera follows Kirby. Waddle Dee, if Waddle d if uh like waddle d is off the screen it'll like automatically zoom back to kirby kirby gets all the ability to like suck up a car and then drive the car like all the most of the fun stuff happens with kirby but the benefit of waddle d is that you if you have someone that is like not super into video games or more casual or a younger kid, they don't have as much to worry about. They don't have to worry about

oh this button and this ability and whatever. Waddle Dee is just like I'm going to float around the world and throw spears at people and kind of just have fun and screw around and there's really no downside. It's not like they have to keep track of lives or anything like that. It's very low impact and i think it's actually great

probably even better than like super mario 3d world from a co-op standpoint because it really is like anti-competitive there's no like score comparison or anything like that so if both characters are low on health and one of them eats food to eat that health, you can run over to the other character and hug them. And then both characters will get the benefit of healing, which is just like. That's so beautiful. So adorable and fucking cute. The whole thing is adorable.

It looks kind of like, especially once you get like when I hit the water area. Yeah. It looks so good. It's so colorful. It reminds me of like peak Dreamcast. Like for some reason, that is like my aesthetic that, that really gets me every time.

It's like that very colorful, big, richly detailed. Like it just looks beautiful. Fresh. Have you played more Kirby games before this? I've played a lot of them. Okay.

So I have a question because i i'm like kind of spitting with this game especially the more i play does kirby always get so violent like terrifyingly overpowered uh you mean in terms of like him sucking up powers the powers that he gets so i mean sure he has mouthful mode in this and he can suck up things and you know drive a car but for example you know you have all the various powers there's like a boomerang power and there's an electric power and there's a firepower and the firepower all these can be upgraded so the firepower when you first get it's like oh wow you're just a power when you first get it it's like oh wow you're just a basically a bottomless flamethrower and not only do you spew an endless you know vomit of flame that flame can catch the enemies and like the ground on fire and that's just the first version of it but then you get an upgrade

for it and you i mean it's like elden ring like you. Yeah, you turn into a volcano. Yeah, and you're just feeling like just endless giant boulders of molten rock. It's bonkers. And each upgrade has a similarly, wow, this is overpowered upgrade to it. To the point where I was just like kirby is a devastating hell god i mean i already knew that i already knew kirby was you know probably the most powerful character in the universe it's so funny when he gets there's like very large objects that he can put in his mouth and it's like griffin eating an amiibo it just gets kind of stuck there because like it's too big for him but he just keeps holding on to it like giant sets of stairs and stuff like that he's just waddling around with

it stuck in his mouth it's so ridiculous and i think the that part of it is very smart because ordinarily where i'd like kind of lose interest in a kirby game you would get that sameness where it's like okay i've used all the powers or whatever. But here, because they smartly weave in these moments where you can control something, it kind of refreshes the interest level. You know, obviously... It also lets you use those without dropping your current ability. Yes, which is also really smart.

It's like you can play with it and not have to worry about losing it. And it puts a little hat on the stairs curvy or the car curvy. Well, now, I would add, we'd be remiss to not say like it's obvious that super mario odyssey was a big inspiration for this because it also does basically the same thing where you can get these powers fire flower whatever but also like oh i'm gonna control a t-rex or something like that so i think they're they're very smart in that you have the core game mechanic and then when they realize oh things are getting a little stale we're gonna throw in this like you know i think in

development circles they call it exotic gameplay because it's not the normal day-to-day gameplay yeah um it definitely keeps things a lot fresher to plant's early earlier point about um kirby being like overpowered it's very i think part of the reason i agree like he's extremely powerful but also part of the reason it feels weird all the enemies that you fight in this game for the most part maybe not the bosses but almost every little enemy is the cutest fucking guy you've ever seen oh my gosh little dogs like or a little like little creature with a little happy face they're all all adorable. There's a moment later, like the third world is like the carnival area.

And there's a moment early on when you start and none of the enemies are like aggressive towards you. They're just waiting in line to get on a carnival ride. And my wife, who was playing as Kirby at the time, started just shredding into them. And I was like, why? They've done nothing. They're just waiting to have some fun.

But yeah, it's this weird dichotomy of like the most adorable things ever and you're just shredding them to death. My two favorite powers is, one is, you know, there's Spike Kirby, which like we've seen in other games where, you know, you just turn pointy. But when you upgrade it,

you become like Tetanus Kirby. You just become a like collection of random objects like katamari style yeah and it just looks it looks excruciatingly painful for it to poke anything and the other one is has there always been gun kirby Yeah, I was wondering that myself. I couldn't remember. There is like a, you've got like a little toy pistol. Yeah, and I thought it was going to shoot air, but it doesn't. It shoots bullets, and you can like super saiyan the bullet into a mega bullet that fills like a quarter of the screen. Yeah, and the upgrade you do, you're actually dual wielding guns.

And you look like a pirate. Yeah, it's amazing. You know, and all the, as you upgrade them, the costumes change and look different. Yeah. Yeah, I don't think, you know, Justin's right.

It's weird coming to this after Elden Ring in a game like Tunic, which is like a very, very different vibe. Um, but I think it's really nice to have a game where this is like the perfect, like I have 15 minutes game because all of the levels are like that length and they have like a little arc to them and you have like a very cool,

like mouthful mode moment in each one. And, and then you can put it down and like do something else. Um, it's, yeah, it's a really nice change of pace for me. Yeah.

And it really rewards you the further you get in. Like that's, that's what I've enjoyed about. I was lukewarm on the first half hour or so. Um, but I feel like every time I play it, I like it more than the last time. Yeah.

They really take the rails off as you go it's a good video game should we talk about other stuff? yeah I like that I don't like talking about Kirby but it's fun it's good

so after this break let's talk about that PlayStation Plus announcement okay so what's going on with this guys what's i'm not a newsman anymore i'm not plugged into the day-to-day you know fresh so okay so place uh sony playstation for a while now, there's been a rumor that they were working on basically a Game Pass competitor. Obviously, Sony has had PS Plus for a very long time. PS Plus gives you two free games a month, give or take, and cloud saves or whatever. or whatever um but it has not offered the like giant catalog of games that you could pay one price for and you get access to akin to game pass i realize ps now exists we're going to put that to

the side because i think it's yeah not the relevant later a little bit later so so sony has had ps plus now they are introducing it's it's going to get really complicated in a second so bear with me three tiers effectively of ps plus there is ps plus essential which is what it is currently sixty dollars a year um basically you know everything that you currently get with ps plus you would get with ps plus essential there is ps plus playstation plus extra which is a hundred dollars a year um that includes normal playstation plus as well as a catalog of 400 ps4 and ps5 games available to download so getting closer to the like game pass model but there's a caveat there which we'll go into in a second. portable games some of those being like streamed into your console like not ones you can download basically the the ps now model okay so those are the three tiers um important distinction between

game pass because as i mentioned that that middle tier does sound a lot like game pass important distinction as of right now there will not be day and date releases for this so that means god of war ragnarok will not come to ps plus extra on launch day as part of your subscription model in the way that like halo infinite did or forza horizon did with game pass so that is like a very i think important distinction okay so i mean in that way it's not necessarily comparable with what microsoft is doing yeah well i think they're trying to present it as being comparable but you're right i think it is lacking something yeah and they've made some weird choices here because so game pass has three options too one is pc game pass 10 bucks a month 100 120 a year so the right up top big difference here microsoft isn't giving

you a you know discount if you buy the whole year up front that that's kind of like the other thing xbox game pass that's just game pass for xbox same thing and then game pass ultimate which is 15 a month so cheaper than the most premium playstation one but 180 a year so clearly what sony wants here is like they really want to pressure you into getting that yearly pick by making it you know a pretty significant discount versus paying in monthly increments yeah but i but i think the important thing in addition to the price difference is whether this is going to result in the thing that sony wants which is in the way that like microsoft has built up this subscription revenue source whether sony can pull off the same thing with

this and i kind of have my doubts but it's going to depend pretty heavily on that plate on the ps plus extras tier of catalog of 400 400 ps4 and ps5 games yeah justin is this interesting to you like would you subscribe to this i mean is it i could see me like, okay. So game pass is like a, you kind of got it. I mean, the value is just too, too good. Like it's wild to not,

to not have it. Like, I don't know that I would necessarily, I mean, I probably will just because like as video games, you know what I mean? Like I'm kind of a sucker. I'm not a good,

and I'm not smart with like my money. So like, I, I don't, I think that I probably would, but I don't know why. Cause I'm. Yeah good and I'm not smart with like my money so like I I don't I think that I probably would but I don't know why because I'm yeah I mean I guess the question is if you're not getting day and date releases with this new like exclusive that's tough because I want to play like I'm going to want to play God of War Ragnarok when it comes out right so I'm not sure saving money in that sense but I also like no you know

what i don't think i would because like i had playstation now downloaded i used it twice it was kind of like huh okay well got it yeah like you know i i it was not as good an experience i i've had a lot better with like the remote play um has been very good which i know it's not exactly the same idea but like i use remote play all the time have we clarified what playstation now is slash was so playstation now yeah it's the netflix of games it's effectively dead now they've rebranded it as i guess ps plus premium is the equivalent i think that's right um and the idea was you would subscribe to this thing and then you could cloud stream in a collection of games from older playstation platforms effectively i think there

were also some games you could also stream in that were on current platforms but predominantly it was about like accessing like ps3 era games that aren't going to be be downloadable portable uh ported to the playstation 5 yeah so i i just have like a few questions about this of like how the business of it all works so playstation plus essential you still get the two free playstation games you know once a month and whatever you'd gotten if you you know if you'd subscribe for three years all the games that you've gotten to that point yeah if you've been subscribing to playstation plus for a few years you probably already have most of the games you want from the higher end tiers of playstation plus uh i mean premium i don't know it depends because i don't know what the full catalog is

on the extra tier um i i will say like it's not super frequent that i get super jazzed about a playstation plus like selection yeah they tend to not always but sometimes they tend to scrape the barrel a little bit finding these games like this this month, for example, March had some really good games. Ghostrunner was one of the games. And there was another title I was pretty jazzed to see. So like it happens where they have good games, but they generally are not like the best of the best. Yeah.

And that's the weird thing here is like now it's competing with itself. Like I don't understand, you know, in the future, are they going to offer worse games on this? And Microsoft has the same thing, to be clear. Microsoft has the Xbox Live option. The difference with Microsoft is they want you to just go to Game Pass. They want you to just go to Game Pass. Yeah, those games with gold picks have gotten so bad because everyone, they just want to move people over to Game Pass. Yeah, where with this, again, I just don't know. I don't know what the hook is here. For me, the issue of not having brand new games, and I get why they can't do it. They pretty much said, you know, financially, that does not make sense for us which i would get you know microsoft has

way more money to just burn in the same way that amazon and netflix you know burn money to accrue you know as many people as possible before they start you know actually turning up the subscription cost and maybe being a little bit more diligent with their budgets. But that's how you get people in the door on this. The PlayStation model feels to me like the cable model of, yeah, we let the movie play in theaters, and then we let it go to home video, and eventually it gets here. And that worked in the cable era.

That doesn't work now when the competition is, even HBO Max is making its own films to come directly to HBO Max, even the thing that like created that formula is not following that formula anymore. And on top of that, you know, just in terms of raw competition of new games, yes, Sony is always going to have, you know, the three or so big releases each year. to have you know the three or so big releases each year microsoft has just taken more chances so you know not only do they have you know the the expensive big budget games but they've just been loading up on studios for so long that it sure feels like their goal is to have a new a brand new game every month in the next few years um not to mention the like day and date indie stuff that

happens on game pass a lot which i would imagine you know depending on contracts might also now come to this ps plus service but yeah those indies matter a lot for filling out that catalog where every single time you log in you know every week or so you're always going to see at least one or two new games that are worth trying out yeah the other thing with these the this list of you know like oh you you get all these older games i'm excited to see it as someone who wants you know preservation but there are so many new games coming out all the time that i personally have less and less time to dig up this stuff and i i get that you know like maybe there are newcomers who i guess are buying a ps5 and then want to go back and play old stuff maybe that's who this is targeting i certainly don't think that audience is wanting

to go back and play ps1 ps2 psp stuff i think that is very clearly meant for like just hardcore Sony fans who might not even play most of that stuff, but just want to know that they have it on hand, just in case. But what I guess it misunderstands for me about the Microsoft strategy in general is Microsoft's whole backwards compatibility thing is to give you comfort that when you buy something, it is not just going to disappear in about six to eight years. Yeah. And this seems like a fundamental misunderstanding of why people care about backwards compatibility.

It's not just that, hey, I want to go play old games. It's, hey, I want a sense that there is a continuity to my investment in video games and that this isn't just a one-off thing so just so much of it just it just feels like it feels like somebody you know reading the answers to the test and then like just fundamentally misunderstanding how they got to those answers it just feels like a half measure is what it's like like it just feels like they are not comfortable going all the way with this strategy and that's fine like that's their prerogative to make that call but if this is a huge part of their like long-term strategy i don't think this is as it's presented going to work for them unless you know

they decide hey you know we're not looking to grow the audience we're just going to like expand the number of ps plus users a little bit like maybe that's fine but but as it's presented here i i just don't see enough of a value to justify you you know, this added expense. I can't believe I'm saying this, but I kind of wish that they had gone the Nintendo route of, Hey, here's a shop. We're just going to every,

you know, week or month, add some new beloved PlayStation classic games in it. And, uh, all DLC for all of your major games is just cooked into this cost um and we're going to keep it cheaper something something just more intentional because that's what i struggle with this is again let's think about it like a streaming service if you can't compete with netflix and

amazon then you need to come up with something like Pluto TV or even like Shudder where you have a niche or a like different approach that makes sense for you. There's also just the thing of like, they could just not have done any of this and just said, you know, hey, we are taking the Nintendo route in terms of we make, we know we make great games and people are going to come and buy our hardware no matter what, just because they want to play those three games a year. But yeah, I just don't really get this one. Yeah, the last thing I would say is I think Xbox has been smart on their cloud gaming delivery service insofar as it's like a side thing. It's there.

You can play games over the cloud. You can play Halo Infinite over the cloud. You have that option. It's cool to be able to play a game like that without downloading anything. You're up and running in an instant. But I think the technology is still not there yet. I think most people do not have the bandwidth

to properly play cloud games. And this service, PS Plus service, relies heavily on, especially on the top end, relies heavily on the idea that cloud streaming is like there and ready and people are going to have good experiences with it. When, in my experience, anything that is like an action game or platform game will be fine, but not great. And that's with like, I have pretty good speed on my connection. PS3 games i think are only available via streaming is that right i think i think you're right or psp i forget which ones are like exclusive i just know a large collection of this catalog will be um streaming only and

it's just not it's just not fun for me to play games on streaming maybe once 5g whatever lte whatever we're up to is going to be ready it'll be better but i think we're still five three to five years away from that yeah i mean just one more thing for for people who listen to this and like all you have is a sony console this is like not a terrible thing it's a it's just one specific corner of it they're still going to be making you know these huge games that everybody's excited to play yeah i i think like i think the risk of like getting too focused on this is really what we're looking at is a strategy that's going to impact sony five to ten years from now and they still have time to kind of write the course I just as somebody who I would like Sony to be competitive and with light you know they talk about you know

not financially having the stability to both make those big budget games and you know give them away as part of this program but it's like I yeah i just hope that you still have the freedom to make those games 10 years from now that's what's hard is it feels like a half measure that like the places where this is awkward feels like the places where they are trying to where their business model differs from microsoft right yeah they just want microsoft just wants you in the ecosystem they don't they don't care they want you subscribed to this thing um i don't think microsoft cares that much anymore if you buy one game like they want you to give them money every month like yeah if anything they'd rather you give them money instead of buying one game because it guarantees they're

getting that income every single month yes and recurring revenue is the like that's the holy grail for a lot of businesses are trying to pivot into that. And I, I understand it just seems like a place where Sony is not willing to, is not trying to make that pivot or at least not to the degree that Microsoft is like they, I, it feels like them still trying to shield and hold back certain parts of their, of their business.

Yeah. Well, we'll see where things are at, whether in two years, whether they need to pivot it again and say like okay no we're actually gonna put god war three whatever the fuck they're at um on this thing uh day and date but i think in the short term you know they're gonna hold back when again it's like can't even afford to because again to do that you lose money for a while and like

this doesn't feel like a decision that was made by PlayStation people. I have a feeling that they probably would love to have the big games out there so much as this was a decision made by Sony. Yeah. But I mean, you know, that's just me making a guess. Anyway.

Anyway. It's a weird time for the video games And a bad time for GameStop I mean it just I think we can all agree the loser in this one Is GameStop Which will probably be an NFT by the time you're hearing me Say this

Oh my gosh Honorable mentions Yeah I beat Tunic Did you beat Tunic or we honorable mentions? Yeah. I beat Tunic. Whoa. Did you beat Tunic or did you beat Tunic? I beat Tunic. Beat it. Oh, okay.

I'm not going to say anything about the end. What's so weird about that game is it lives and dies based on the secrets. So if you know anything beforehand, it's just not as good of an experience. know anything beforehand is just not as good of an experience i think you should go in as blind as possible with tunic and figuring out the like grand puzzle that's going on here was just like one of the most satisfying experiences of my gaming career um so yeah that game is sick i i you know i don't even want to do a spoiler episode because i really think it would like hamstring the game for people but suffice to say it's a sick game love it uh i've been playing 13 sentinels on the switch and let me tell you i know that nobody's gonna play this game i know that i know that everybody here is gonna to just completely, you know, walk all over it all over again.

But it looks incredible on the OLED switch. Like, absolutely incredible. You can see every pixel of the many, many letters that you have to read. There's not a G. Don't even think you're going to confuse a G with a Q on this one, baby. That comma is not a g all right you don't even think you're gonna confuse a g with a q on this one baby that comma is not a period all those arabic numerals are there for you to enjoy but you enjoy reading things more when they're in the palm of your hands you know feels it feels like a book so i'm just putting it out there if anybody wants to try it i think you should i think you'll like it justin yeah man also tunic it's great yeah it's great here's what i will here's what i will say and again this is not

to spoil tunic would be a real shame um i am not someone who usually engages with secrets. You know what I mean? I'm a critical path kind of person. I want to have the experience and, and move on to something else. But I realized after beating tunic that that was not an, an option. Yeah.

That was not a, that's not really, but yeah, that's what, so, so I guess the question I would have is again, without spoiling anything once you beat it did you jump back in and you were like okay i'm gonna figure the rest of this out

um i'm not i'm not quite sure where this i'll talk to you okay okay that game rules i'm glad i'm glad i took the time is fucking play Tunic before everybody just like tells you everything about Tunic accidentally Yeah Griffin is trying to platinum Drawn to Death is what's down here on the rundown, I'm glad he was able to email in his current status Do we need to remind

people what Drawn to Death is? I don't think we should, you know Is there a funnier game that I could have written down? Because that's the one that really hit me. It really tickled me, but I. Yeah, that's good. That's a good one. Okay, I think that'll do it then.

I wanted to thank the following people for writing reviews for the besties on Apple Podcasts. Tommy D. Has No Jazz. Brego Stink Lord. Lord Artemis Sterling. Jacob Remy, and Sabrina Volante. Thank you for writing reviews for The Besties on Apple Podcasts.

Thank you to everyone else who are writing reviews on Apple Podcasts. Y'all rock. We appreciate it. Do us a favor and talk about how much you love the show on the various social platforms that you might be on

because we're always happy to welcome people into this video game club we call The Besties, and it's great. So, yes, spread the word. Here's what we talked about this week. We talked about Kirby in the Forgotten Land, now available on Nintendo Switch, and that was pretty much it.

We also mentioned Tunic and 13 Sentinels and the game that should not be mentioned. And that's all. Wow. This is a pretty straightforward Maybe it's been Griffin this whole time that's been throwing us off.

Oh, man. Yeah, we didn't talk about any Final Fantasy. This is kind of sad actually now You know, I feel like It's kind of like having a tasty meal But there's no salt on it And you're like

I do need that salt Anyway, thanks for listening to the besties We really appreciate you We hope you'll join us again next time For the besties Because shouldn't the world's best friends pick the world's best games? Besties!