The Besties - Mario Golf Raises the Question: What About Golf-Hims?

Episode Date: July 2, 2021

Mario Golf: Super Rush divides the world's best friends. Yes, the game Plante has hyped for weeks isn't a unanimous hit, but the crew still discusses at length what they love about Nintendo's oddball entry into the plumber's sports series. Justin, Griffin, and Plante also speculate on where Mario sports should go from here. Three words: Ultimate Mario Ultimate. 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!

We just lost a recording, or part of it at least, for the first time in Besties history, and I think this is a valuable opportunity for us to give each other some notes about how we could maybe improve the second shot. Yeah, because that was going nowhere, actually. It was going nowhere fast, and I don't want to name names, but Chris, you did like 15 minutes just straight out of the Blue Collar Comedy Tour that I don't even know that we can legally do like do that. I don't think that's fair use when you literally quote all of Larry,

the cable guy and part of Jeff Foxworthy's like, I just want to know why they have tractors, but they don't have tracked hymns. That's exactly the cut. Like it's not pertinent to the conversation about Mario golf. It's fucking, don't get me wrong, it's fucking funny. It's fucking funny. Justin's busting up over there in a big way.

I'm busting up, no question. But, like, people want to know about the games and the graphics and the features and how many points we give it. And I feel like 15 minutes of Blue Collar Comedy Tour maybe gets in the way. Why do they make crackers, but they don't make crack him that's sounds like shit how come it's a doctor yeah i think i know where but not a doctor him okay thank you this it's funny though, it's great. My name is Justin McElroy, and I know the best game of the week. My name is Griffin McElroy, I know the best game of the week. My name is Griffin McElroy and da-da-da-da-da-da.

We already did this. My name is Christopher Thomas Plant and I know the best Mario Golf of the week. Rush Freshstick is still in absentia, raising a new generation of Rush Freshsticks. As terrifying as that thought may be be we must soldier on to talk about the latest and greatest in home interactive entertainment as we are want to do here on the besties a video game club that just by listening you have become an official member congratulations whether you like it or not your choice is ours and this week our choice well let's talk about a little game called mario golf super rush y'all mario golf super rush is the latest mario sports game and it's available

on the nintendo switch and it makes one big wild choice which is what a golf game no balls it's golf of the mind it's like it go where you have to be honest about where it asks what if a golf game is fast what fast interesting uh now chris you've been playing you've been teasing this game for a while you've been playing it for a good long time and i set set the table for us before we get into our hot takes and reactions. I should have known when I was teasing this that it might not be everybody's cup of tea. Because the choice it makes is a big one. Which is, okay, here's Mario Golf.

You're familiar with it. You played it on the Nintendo 64 maybe or the Game Boy Advance. This time it's got a story mode. A little thin. We'll get to that in a second but uh when you play golf now instead of hitting the ball and you know like enjoying the leisureliness of it you you whack that ball off the tee and you immediately start hustling to the ball maybe you are racing against other players of you know body checking them across the green uh maybe you're

racing against you know yourself the greatest challenge right wow um but if that is not a thing you like i'm sorry because that's that's the game um except for multiplayer mode uh which means people might not like it as much as I did. That was not my problem with Mario Golf Super Rush. I actually like the running around. For one, it's a brief respite from playing golf. Now listen, you should not listen to my opinion about Mario Golf Super Rush. I would not play this game if I was not required to.

By the besties, I'm not a big fan of sports i super don't like golf and i don't even really love mario that much so don't listen to me but i thought the running around kind of fun why not sure it's i mean it doesn't feel great uh in fact it really is pretty annoying to press the super yeah i think super dash and then uh spurt right past your damn golf ball right i think the fact that you love the running speaks it is more of a testament to how much you don't like golfing i didn't say i love the running i just said it's a nice break from golfing right no i i mean so i i like i said i don't have a big vocabulary with this sort of thing. Here was my experience of it, okay? It introduces a lot of concepts that don't probably, if you know about golf or have played golf or even played golf video games, don't feel like they're introducing a lot of concepts. But to me, a layman felt like the introduction of a lot of concepts.

to me, a layman, felt like the introduction of a lot of concepts. But for, like, I mean, hours of playing, literally the only thing I had to do was point at the hole with my ball and then hit it towards the hole. And then eventually it went in, and i got first place in the tournament with like it's taught they're constantly talking about concepts like shaping your shots and backspin and and all this this a bunch of yay and i don't i haven't had to you i haven't used any of it i'm just hitting the ball towards the hole and then winning the tournament um and then when there are like you get to some areas where you know elevation is an issue where you have to kind of go up and i don't know how to go up except i guess sometimes if you hit it in tornadoes it'll go up sometimes

yes that's a different kind of mode but like i i don't know that i just feel like the the additional parts of there's just not a lot of depth in the in terms of like, I haven't had to use any of the the weird stuff. I just kind of like, you know, it's like every other golf game, you hit the ball or sorry, hit the button and the meter raises and then you hit the button to stop the meter, you know, pretty close to the top. Yeah, there's a weird I couldn't i played this game quite a bit and i'm still not entirely sure if how many times you're supposed to press the button on the meter you don't have to press it because there's this concept in like everybody's golf or hot shots golf called what the three the three touch uh golfing system right you press it once to start the meter you press it a second time to set the power and then you have to sort of match where you pressed it the

second time with a third click to set the accuracy but i think that's automated unless i'm incorrect in mario golf so the way it works in this game is you hit it once to start the power like the bar goes up then you hit it one more time that's all you do tapping it uh to set how much power you're actually putting into that that little swing of yours, right? Then, depending on how much you've kind of, like, progressed in the RPG mode, if you're using your Mii, right? The meter will be broken up into, like, little bars. So, like, let's say there's four bars. That meter will refill one more time.

let's say there's four bars, that meter will refill one more time. And while it's refilling, you can aim left or right and shape the ball at those different points. So you can shape the ball so that it goes left and then right and then left again around like a series of trees using the meter. Which is not necessary at all early on in the... We need to stop for a second and make something kind of clear. This game has two components. One is the adventure mode, and one is the playing by yourself challenge mode or online, whatever. The not adventure mode thing. Because I think that is by far the more successful part of this game, which is to say the adventure mode for me was a huge letdown uh the thing justin was talking about about uh the part with different elevations and

maybe you have to shoot it into a tornado is a part of the campaign it's like the second course that you get to and you do what is called cross-country golf uh because they don't really just let you play normal golf golf a whole lot in the campaign mode uh you you play you know the the speed golf or other variations on it the second thing you have to do is cross-country golf where which like results in you are dropped into this huge mountainous like canyon region where there are nine holes and it's up to you what order you hit them in and they're on different elevations and you have like 30 shots to do it and it sucks the moon right out of the sky it's like it is it is the antithesis of of fun for me because it is so easy to just like have one shot go a little too close to a mountain and then you are not getting

up that that thing now you do get a. Now, you do get a second chance if you do one that's going to really mess you up. You can take a penalty stroke and do the shot again. Yes, that's true. Is that fun to do that? It's not fun. My counterpoint, this stage is one of my favorite things in video games this year.

And this is not me being a contrarian. I'm genuinely surprised that, again, I guess I expected people to have mixed feelings on it. But the way the stage worked for me was it felt like Nintendo asked, what if we took Breath of the Wild and we tried to make a golf idea around it? So for me playing it, it was like a big puzzle game of, okay, how do I go through this course in as few strokes as possible to hit all these holes? And on top of that, what Griffin didn't mention is, maybe this is another point against it, you have a limited amount of time between each hit. So you have to be kind of

careful of like, oh, I could hit it up this mountain, but do I think I can make it up that mountain under the amount of time I need to get to the ball? But it's not particularly deep though, right? Because the answer is yes you just run to a tornado which is like an elevator that will just put you up on the next level it's not particularly strategic and that's like my my problem i think with the the campaign mode overall is you know justin was talking about like the first couple courses when you're playing against ai they are universally really shitty at golf like really very bad and it is not hard to just trounce them and then you get into this cross-country mode uh which is annoying but not particularly like you know difficult and then the next mode is like kind of a take on speed golf but instead of racing

against time you have a water meter because you're in the desert and your water runs out. What's the difference between that and a clock running out? Nothing. It has a weird lack of like depth and polish. And I can't believe, like the most surprising thing is like a lack of character that I, you know,

maybe it's not fair to compare yeah go ahead yeah yeah i i i want to say one more thing about the story mode and then i think we can talk about the the other stuff because i think that'll be more fun but did you did you get to the point where you meet uh wario and waluigi i haven't gotten to the part where you meet mario and or wario and waluigi okay so that's when the story the story like actually kicks off i don't i'm not saying this is like a oh once you get there you'll like the game because you won't like if if you're not vibing with the game at this point you're not vibing with it but it takes a a truly bizarre turn um and kind of like the final half or third where it decides that there is a story.

There are antagonists. There is a magical sword. And it's, again, if you are vibing with the game at the beginning and you're like, hey, this feels like this is for me, but the story itself is kind of whatever, have some patience because I do think, again, if you like the game, it does end up rewarding you in the long run. That said, let's talk about both the normal exhibition mode. And did you all get to play the battle mode? The battle mode is the highlight for me i just i don't want to i do not want to uh understate my disappointment in the in the campaign mode because that was the

thing i got excited about because uh advanced tour is still my favorite mario sports game because it is like that full-blown rpg and i i heard a lot about super rush and it's like it's that baby it's back and it i feel like fucking Charlie Brown with the football, because any time a new Mario, but when Aces came out, the tennis game, people were like, it's got its own RPG campaign mode. I was like, yeah, baby. But it wasn't quite that.

That said, Battle Golf rips ass. Battle Golf is actually pretty fun. Because Battle Golf is essentially that cross-country idea where you have a big, very colorful neon neon course and you're going against other players and if you make uh if you get your ball in the hole the hole disappears for everybody else and now you're shooting for something for a different hole so you're racing across this course bumping into each other knocking each other's balls out of the way uh the the rounds are mercifully short so if you like really start you know being terrible at the game don't worry about it it'll be over very soon uh battle golf is like the

pinnacle of of what super rush uh attempts to do um the adventure mode has rpg in it and if i could uh also just pile on there um it's so thoughtless like it's so it's kind of embarrassing i think that it's in there it's just like which of these do you want to do better i think the only thing that makes any sort of sense is to just increase each one each level in kind you know to keep yourself relatively because who knows i don't know sure i'll god do one in strength and one in finesse yeah it's why like you should it's so i it always kills me this rpg stuff with sports games like i don't know i'll get better at it i guess or i won't you know what i mean and make the challenge better but like why would you make why would you artificially limit what my character could do in terms of like a sporting challenge

it doesn't make any sense i i like that what i don't like is this game does the thing where sometimes if you level up one stat it makes another stat go down and it's like what the fuck are we doing here why is it i can hit the ball that's why i'm saying like it all makes sense to even them just try to keep them all relatively even. Okay, that was the last dunking we will do on the campaign mode. The regular playing golf, especially online with other people,

is far more successful, is far more fun. And I found myself really disappointed in this game until I just gave up on the campaign mode, which is unfortunate because you do unlock some of these single player courses by playing the campaign mode so you do kind of have to suffer through it if you want to unlock all the all the courses uh but yeah i think how do you feel about just playing speed golf have we really explained what that means you're just running to you don't you don't zip to your ball automatically after each shot you have to run to it and you have a stamina meter and you can do, every character has sort of a special dash ability that they can do.

And there's like hearts that you can collect to refill your stamina meter. You can draft behind other players while they're running so that you can like wheeze their juice without burning your own stamina for it. There's a bit of depth to i stuck to the adventure mode and so i don't i feel like it never really made that much of a difference like i don't think it was very impactful to what i was doing yeah uh in it did y'all play super stickman golf yes that was that's the main point of comparison i have for like speed real-time battle golf. Yeah. Do you want to explain what that is for people? Sure. So super stick man golf is a two-dimensional, uh, golf game where you have, like you aim your shot and then you, you know, hit a power meter and then your ball goes and

you can shoot special shots. There's like a sticky shot where you can stick it to walls. There's a bomb shot that will knock other balls away whenever it lands. Um, but the, your success is not measured in strokes. It is measured in time, how fast you can get to the hole. That's it. It's just a full-blown race. Strokes do not count at all. And so I think the comparison here is apt.

It's 3D, obviously. And it is just as chaotic as stickman golf got. The running is a little tedious for me. The running to the ball is, once you do it, I played a few rounds online, and after the third or fourth round, I was kind of sick of running to my ball. I will tell you what I did like about it

as somebody who's kind of a golf neophyte, besides just the break from playing golf, running through the course gave me a much better idea of the scope of it, like grounded me in what was happening a little bit better. You know what I mean? Like I had a better it wasn't just a fixed point on a map and very abstract. Like I really got a better sense of like distance in the world right so like you're running to a driver shot you get a sense of like this is how far i hit it with my driver like this is what that means and i think like that actually i don't think that was the point of this but for me as somebody who doesn't really understand a lot of what's going on

grounding it in that way of like actually taking you physically make you go to where you're going to hit your next shot made me like it kind of like brought me into the experience more because it wasn't just an abstraction of parabolas yeah the the thrill for me was i mean there uh it only happened a few times but where i would be competing and I would, you know, whip and shoot something into the bunker. And I would have two people in front of me who are on the putting green and have like, literally, you know, seconds, a second before they put it in and steal a win out from underneath them. And that feeling rules. The problem is, and this is, I guess, kind of the grand irony of the game, is I feel like the Super Rush modes

are meant to make the game more accessible and fun and exciting for you know non-golfers but if you don't know how to play golf games pretty well you actually are at an extreme disadvantage because you're having to make decisions and actually know the controls very well to be able to do that if you want to just sneak in. I think that's the appeal of everybody, or not everybody's golf, sorry, Super Stickman Golf is because it is 2D, because you just teleport to your ball, because it's touch controls.

Even if you don't know a lot about golf or even just the controls of the game, you can kind of pick up and play and have those competitive moments right away. And I don't think that's true with this game. And for what it's worth i i love a golf video game i enjoy the the sport of golf this boy love a golf i love a golf but the golfing in this game is good like the actual golf control is like once you learn how to you know uh later courses have like lots of hazards on them so you do have to sort of shape your shots uh

once you learn like how to put backspin or super backspin uh on on a shot and when to properly use that when to sort of like aim against the uh you know curve on the shot gauge if you're shooting and like if you're shooting out of a bunker or you're shooting on like a hill or something wild like that the gauge itself is curved which like, hey, even if you shoot this shot really well, it's going to hook pretty bad. So trying to like counteract that and learn it like mechanically, like the golfing itself is quite sound. And I found myself really enjoying that more so.

I eventually came to enjoy just straight up golf more than speed golf because i feel like speed golf is it it got a little gimmicky for me pretty fast um y'all it's yeah i think we did it i think we talked about it i think we talked about the mario golf super rush i think our conversation matches the reviews out there if you are unsure if this is for you out there if you are unsure if this is for you holy moly i cannot remember a nintendo game running the spectrum of reviews uh quite like this one so check out metacritic and go read a whole bunch of different reviews um i would also encourage you if you have a if you have a playstation device to check out everybody's golf i really think that that is the uh current sort of gold standard for what mario golf super rush sort of tries to do with the like rpgeness of it or clap hands golf i suppose yes we'll also we'll

also we'll also get you there um i enjoy my time with it but also i don't think i'm gonna play it a whole lot more straight up because even though like the battle golf stuff is is fun and it's fun to play online there's also not a ton of content even though the Battlegolf stuff is fun and it's fun to play online, there's also not a ton of content in the game. There's not a ton of different courses to play on. And it feels a little content-light a bit. But who knows? Maybe they'll drop some more stuff in there.

Yeah. We've got more stuff to talk about. More games, more fun, more discourse, more growth. A lot more. Don't even act like we don't have more to do. We're going to do it. Okay. Okay, y'all, I want to run something past you.

I feel like Nintendo has been kind of, I don't know, you know, doing the same thing over and over with these Mario sports games. I feel like we've seen a lot of Mario golf. We've seen a lot of Mario tennis. We haven't seen Mario, you know, extend himself into new hobbies and pastimes in sports. So I was hoping that you two could, you know, maybe pitch me and, you know, Reggie and everybody else at Nintendo, even though Reggie's not at Nintendo, on some sports that would be good for Mario and friends.

Well, you are ignoring Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games, which I went out to a Dave and Buster's this past weekend because I was looking for activities for my easily bored four-year-old. And they had that arcade game there. And watching Mario's beautiful body just soar through the water like a mustachioed dolphin, it just drives home that there's nothing this little guy can't do. My son, of course, did not want to play as Mario.

He did play as mario he did play as metal sonic and so i think that his his skill set is a lot more diverse than you're giving him credit for you know he's played basketball with the extremely good weirdly square enix titan uh uh basketball was that on ds what what system had the uh the mario square enix basketball game oh god this is gonna this is going to drive me crazy. Anyway, it couldn't matter less. I gotcha. Man,

this is not going to be funny because it's just going to be great. It's just going to be a great idea. Ultimate. Yeah. I mean, Ultimate. It's right there. There's a ton of... And don't say Ultimate Frisbee. Don't you dare. Me and all the real pros call, Ultimate. It's right there. There's a ton of... And don't say Ultimate Frisbee. Don't you dare.

Me and all the real pros call it Ultimate. Yeah. Ultimate is where you're running around. That's a great fit for Mario. Tossing the fun disc. That's great. And then you're running to catch it. You can use super throws and super catches.

And then there's also different super runs you could do. I mean, come on. Ultimate Mario Ultimate. I don't want to poo-poo on your idea, but this is just an alternative. What about Mario eSports? What does that even mean? What is that? So you'd be Mario?

It's Overwatch. You just play Overwatch, but you dress up as Mario. But what if there's like a border around the screen and you could just see Mario's head? Like a VTuber? Like it's in VR and if you look down, you see your weird mustache and gloved hands, but you are playing the game Overwatch.

That would be good actually i don't know that we need that many more what are the other sports he's done basketball he's done baseball that game what by the way it was mario hoops three on three and you could play as like vivi the black mage and like all kinds of weird shit that game kicked ass mario has bowled obviously i think think we're missing stuff like lacrosse, rugby. Hockey. I don't know if he's done hockey. Hockey. Because he's really not done hockey. Well, okay, so he probably did in one of the...

Mario Sports Mix. Oh, in Mario Sports Mix. And in the Winter Olympic Games. Yeah, right. That's what I was thinking of. Also, there's not much jumping in hockey. In fact, they kind of discourage it because you have swords on your feet.

When you Google Mario hockey, Google's like, you mean Mario Lemieux, right? You couldn't possibly. We all called him Mario hockey. Racquetball? I mean, there was that Virtual Boy gameockey. Racquetball? I mean, there was that Virtual Boy game. Sure.

Dodgeball? Did he do those? I think the answer is Ultimate. I think I, you know, like... Ultimate Mario Ultimate is a very good idea. Oh, by the way, Ultimate Fighting Championship. And don't say Smash Brothers. I want that real shit.

You want to feel the mustache sweat being flicked into your eyes as you go for a huge spin kick I want it to get nasty like those super fucking funny Newgrounds Flash games where it's like Luigi's bleeding dude I need to say one other thing

about Mario Golf, first off checks in the mail from Nintendo I assume Ultimate Mario Ultimate is actually extremely good idea. Let's see some box art. Let's get it out there. Let's crank it out. Nintendo takes eight years to make a Zelda and three months

to make a sports, so just make a few. Make Ultimate Mario Ultimate. One other complaint I have to lodge. Sometimes after you finish your shot, you have to for just a few fleeting moments watch other characters finish their golf and the fact that i have now had to spend literally any of my increasingly fleeting life minutes watching fucking pink yoshi finish his golf segment is absolutely a moral crime it's a moral crime

you're rooting for your opponents because you just you're tired of watching them play golf without you and you're like just sink it just fucking drain that bucket from that like that that 30 yard chip in baby just fucking fast forward button when you're golfing by yourself, but not when fucking Pink Yoshi is golfing and you're watching him golf out in front of everybody. Anyway, we ask you for your thoughts on Mario Golf. Super, super rushed. I'm opening up the mailbag. Let's see what we got. From AJ, we got, the game is good aj you're right i'm so

glad to have somebody on on my side which of the current rosters outfits do you like the best i'm a big fan of wario and waluigi's pointed shoes but bowser jr's whole fit is a 10 out of 10 for me any choice other than mario and waluigi is wrong because wario's got also got like a weird cowboy hat on that is so fresh that doesn't make much sense but is so fresh i had 8 000 gold coins i couldn't figure out how to spend a damn one of them i'm still wearing the exact same get up i wore when i started the game there's no place to buy clothes that's not one person there was i not that i mean i ran around the whole stupid building i found someone that would sell me a bunch of different themed clubs

which was great because for me seven clubs is never enough because i have real specific needs with each different one because i know what they all do right um but there i couldn't find where to buy clothes i'm sure you can't add 8 gold coins. I'll never play this game again. Here's an interesting question from Josh. I tend to strongly associate feeling confident at a game with enjoying it. If I feel I'm bad at it, I struggle to actually enjoy the game. As I get older, this seems more common. Curious if you guys have experienced similar anxieties, especially as you've aged.

I think this is very relevant because I'm good at the game, therefore I like it. But you two are bad at the game, therefore you don't like it. That's relevant because i'm good at the game therefore i like it but you two are bad at the game therefore that's bullshit i'm great at the game i think i um the first course that i did i got like an eight under like i finished with a minus eight because it's it's not that difficult i did win that that first one first place like i got first place and i i'm comfortable by comfortable margin and i did enjoy that sensation of like winning at it um i but i i mean now as i look back i'm like what did i enjoy about that it's just like beating koopa or something um i i can kind of associate with this although i will say that like i actually have kind of had the inverse where if a game is frustrating in a way that seems like possible,

I'm actually much more susceptible to incremental improvement than I am overwhelming success. If a game just doles out a little bit where it's like, well, you made it five inches farther in your run, that will hook me a lot more than overwhelming success. Especially if you have the scrutiny of other players, if it's an online thing. That is why I think Destiny and Final Fantasy XIV like hooked me so much is this feeling of like,

God, this high-end raid looks hard as shit. But you do stuff that kind of walks you towards that and you see the trajectory that can get you there and overcoming that that anxiety is is the most rewarding thing i feel like games can do to a player um and so yeah i'm in the same boat if something now that said you know i will buy a like a horny fight stick and then try to get into Street Fighter V and then play a couple matches and be like, fuck this, because I don't see that trajectory forward. So I am right there with you, but that can also be a very intoxicating experience also. I've got two final questions, but I'm going to put them together because I think they pair nicely. The first is from Matt,

who said, Plant said in his review that he would turn to other golf games for standard golf mode. I don't have any golf games. Is Super Rush a good option if I want to spend most of my time playing standard golf mode? Which games do you prefer for traditional golf? Cheers, boys. Love the show. And this one from Shannon. I'm a big Mario fan, but I've never gotten to the golf games because I've never actually played golf.

Are these games still fun to play if you have no IRL golfing skills? I think we can kind of answer those both at the same time, which is Super Rush is probably not the game for you for either of these people. I really would recommend everybody's golf on i think it's ps4 i don't know if they've done a ps5 version of it but it's like it's cheap now it's like 20 bucks and it's so deep and has a great character customization thing that's what we made oh god i can't remember his name we did an episode of monster factory with it but there's like a ton of very very fun stuff and it's just you know it it's clap hands. So they've been doing it for an eternity and have gotten it extremely tight. So for me, like that.

Or, no joke, Advance Tour for Game Boy Advance, if you can find a copy of it, is probably my favorite handheld golfing experience. Yeah, if you've never actually played golf or just have no interest in it, I think Golf Story, which is also on Switch. Golf Story is great yeah it's 2d they get wild with it too right they do have like a frisbee golf mode that is not as successful and they do some like silly mini game stuff but it's uh it's it is a very good golfing rpg yeah heavily heavily influenced by the game boy advance Mario Golf game, but available to download, unlike the Mario Golf Game Boy Advance game, which is pretty challenging to find

if you don't want to spend a ton of money buying a hard copy or emulating it. Right. And let me just say, to answer the other question, is if it's fun if you've never played golf, hey, everybody, this is Griffin. You know me enough now to know my vibe and so it may come as a surprise when i tell you golf it's really fucking fun it's there's a lot of uh there's a lot of trappings around golf that i think people see

it they see the visors they see the polos they see the pleated pants they say this isn't for me golf is a game where you use a heavy stick and you hit a ball with it and you try to get it to go in a hole that's all it is that's all it is that can be for anybody it's and guess what it's fun you go with some friends and you just try to hit balls into a hole it's a good time for a place to start pitching putts pitching putts are where it's at baby that's where that's all you need pitching putts. Pitch and putts are where it's at, baby. That's where. That's all you need. Pitch and putts, you only need a pitching wedge and a putter. And it's like small golf.

It's somewhere between putt-putt and big golf. And it rules. They usually have beverages, tasty foods. It's a delight. What else are you playing this week? Yeah, I got more into Rogue Book. that's a very good one of those and they're updating it a lot which i dig it's probably a little overpriced i which i realize now but um i think could i do you think that that one would be conducive for like ipad remote play or is there like for for for pc games that are mostly sort of like that you play mostly with

the mouse without having to fuck around with the keyboard like remote play on an ipad is super doable is it like that or do you think that it would be too yeah i don't see why it wouldn't be i mean i don't i don't i don't think so i think that'd be great i mean give it a whirl it's it's very cool um i also played a little bit of luck be A Landlord, which we all started going through all these great reader suggestions. Luck Be A Landlord was one of those where it is a great idea. where after each play, you have a choice of symbols that you want to pick, that you can pick from. And then you add one of them to your slot machine. And you gradually fill your slot machine with the symbols that you have collected. And the interesting thing about it is that there are a bajillion different combos, basically, that you can sort of ease your way into, right?

So just to give you an example, you can get a flower. And on each spin, a flower is worth one gold coin. So if a flower comes up, you get one gold coin. Cool. Okay, but later you can find a sun. And if the sun is adjacent to the flower, then you'll get five times the value. And sometimes you'll get a water droplet also

that you can put next, that if it pops up next to the flower, then it can double the value of the flower, which if it's next to the sun can double it, you know, can, what would that be? Quintuplet, something like that. And there's tons and tons and tons of different combos like that.

And you're kind of like adding symbols, hoping that you get the one that's gonna turn your board into like an outrageous money generator. It's very cool. It's a little, there's no persistence is the only sort of thing. So it's like, while it's a very fun core idea after you beat it, it's sort of like, I mean, there's not a ton of story. There is a very strong anti-capitalist undercurrent. There's like a anti-capitalist group that is helping you to thwart your landlord with uh secret items that

you can use to remove symbols or or get another chance at symbols or whatever but it's a very interesting idea and i'm really interested to see what they where they go with it i uh i just started scarlet nexus which is uh we're gonna talk about that next week oh is that the game for next week okay good i'm glad i got a jump on it it's uh then i'll say pretty cool so far got some cool ideas what are you playing it on uh playstation 5 oh yeah check me out um i finished off a game called omori i don't know if we've talked about it on the show before it is a uh it is a god almighty very stylistic kind of like rpg maker style rpg uh somewhat reminiscent i guess of like undertale uh but extremely

troubling with extremely like with with some truly horrific imagery and genuinely scary stuff that happens. Not for the faint of heart, Amore. But it has some cool ideas that I was a big fan of. Not the feel-good game of the summer. I'll say that. I mean, what can you expect that's Amore? All right, all right, all right. The game I really want to talk about,

I dusted off the old Xbox One and the Kinect because Henry kind of enjoys the games that we've played on that. I think I've talked about the Rabbids game before. I want to talk about a game that we've been really into called Fru. You know about Fru? Uh-uh.

Fru is a platformer, and I played it at E3 a long time ago and completely forgot about it, but I was looking for Kinect games because we just plugged it back in. In Fru, you can play it with one- Can you spell this? F-R-U.

Your silhouette? Yes. So in the game, you can play it by yourself or you can do what we've been doing, which is Henry does the Kine which is henry does the connect part and i do the controls part you have a little uh a little sort of girl wearing a fox mask who runs through these different environments and you can use your body which shows up as a silhouette in the world to reveal platforms for the character to run and jump around on uh you can make platforms

sort of disappear sometimes. It is a puzzle platformer, essentially, where you have to use your body and the controller in tandem. And I'm always on the lookout for games that I can play with my four-year-old son who doesn't like, you know, using two analog sticks is kind of like

beyond his ability right now. Uh, but holy shit, it's so much fun having him just like scamper around the room, trying to make bridges for, for my character to jump around on. And we were, we were cackling,

laughing, playing this game. So if you want to play a 2016 Xbox one connect game revealed at 2014, he three, right? Have I got thealed at 2014 E3, by the way. Have I got the pick for you? No, it's fun. It has made me think, hey man, was the Kinect

maybe just a little bit ahead of its time? Discuss. Probably not. Chris, you been playing anything else? Yeah, I've been playing more The Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild, maybe. Yeah. Yeah.

Chris is living in a parallel reality where he's like, why is no one talking about this fucking game? I mean, I won't spend too much time on it. I know I brought it up last week. Other than to say, I haven't really gone back and just played a game that I enjoyed in a long time. Just because, you know, we do this show every week, and there's also just the stuff that we do at Polygon. So it's rare that I make time to go

and replay something. And what a pleasure, you know? I mean, this game, especially knowing how it works, knowing how cooking works, knowing just kind of like what order you want to do things in, and also, honestly, just being able to do it at my own pace. When this game came out, I felt like I just blasted through it to a point because it was like, wow, I just need to consume this to be part of this conversation. Like, wow, I just need to consume this to be part of this conversation. And now playing it where it's like nobody wants to talk to me about this. I am playing this just for myself. It's just hidden in a different way. And I just adore it. It is wonderful, which is not new information for anybody.

But, yeah, I encourage people to give this a try. Not specifically Breath of the Wild, but if you have an older game that you remember loving but you haven't played in a long time, maybe give it a revisit. Cool. All right. Hey, folks, thank you so much for listening.

As Chris alluded, we'll be back next week with Scarlet Nexus. But, you know, until then, keep it real. You can follow us on Twitter, at TheBestiesPod. You can subscribe and review and rate and share it with everybody. That would be sublime. Thank you in advance for doing that. That is going to do it for us for this week, though. So until next time,

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