The Besties - New Pokémon Snap and Returnal, a Mash-up for the Ages

Episode Date: May 7, 2021

This week we welcome back the long-wandering Griffin McElroy. And what a week it is! On the docket: two actual, major game releases, New Pokémon Snap and Returnal. They may be about as different as you could imagine, but they do both require you to play the same levels over and over again, so maybe not? 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!

Guys, I don't know why. Okay, I don't know. I clicked the new button in Skype and I somehow activated a new view for all four of us where our torsos are shooting out of these stone stairs. It looks like we're like monkeys in a zoo, like in an enclosure. Skype is a bad piece of software in so many ways.

And it delights me that this is where they're spending their R&D energy is how can we put the four besties boys in one virtual shot? Can someone screenshot that? Oh, I got it. Just don't worry. Okay, good. Okay, good.

Yeah, because we're going to need that for our social. Yeah, for sure, Sochi. But it feels right, doesn't it? It feels like a nice fun day at the zoo with my three friends. One of them is my brother. Yeah. And who I think we three friends. One of them is my brother. Yeah. And we're who I think we're friends.

Yeah, absolutely. Why did I just shrink? Oh, yeah, we can change. Wait, why did Chris just get smaller? No, he's just leaning back. It's perspective. If you get close. Boy, I wrote the book on podcasting.

And number one, chapter one is like visual gags. Yes. Always start podcasts with visual gags. We got to fix it back or the entire podcast will be about those steps. Griffin, what did you do? It would be nice though to take a little trip to the Arctic. Now we're behind a snowy tundra. Why did they do this? This is terrible.

This is horrid. Where would you guys... Oh my god, guys. No, forget... Why are we wasting our time? We're in Minecraft. To Minecraft. I know it's Minecraft, yeah. I mean, it's Microsoft, so yeah. This is actually, to be clear, this actually is kind of great.

It looks like a shitty gamer parody version of Bohemian Rhapsody. My name is Justin McElroy and I know the best games of the week. My name is Griffin McElroy and I played a game this week. My name is Christopher Thomas Plant and snap, I took a picture of you. Is that a thing? My name is Ross Farzik and farce again this game of the week uh 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 you my friend are a member we've got uh two games to discuss this week and and before i get into that let me say how happy I am to welcome back to the show.

One of, I like to think of him as one of the founders of the Best of the Sense. More of a mascot at this point. It's Griffin McElroy. Hey, everybody. Hey, everybody. How's it going? What'd I miss? What'd I miss, huh?

You talking about Monster Hunter Rise? It's a good game, huh? Hey, Griff, you didn't miss a lot, bud. It's been a slow time. I had a lot of fun, a lot of great guests but not a lot of huge new releases but wait a minute yeah we got two games to talk about this week yeah two games at the same episode it seems like um an embarrassment of riches but we're going to be talking about uh pokemon snap and we're going to be talking about returnal and uh i'm i'm thrilled about

this this is i'm so excited to have some video games back to discuss um i do want to say because i've seen a lot of people ask about my thoughts about monster hunter rise uh because i wasn't here for that episode and i'm a big monster hunter head and i do just want to say it whips absolute ass and i can't stop fucking playing it and it's the best game and me too i continue to still play it it's fantastic it's dope as shit i started playing a gunner and there's a special move now where you throw a like grappling hook forward and then swing around it like in a semi-circular fashion while shooting the whole time it's they basically made vanquish which is hot as hell like i am never going to be upset about that but that's not that's it that's all i want to say about that all right well that's but that's settled uh so oh man you know what else is you

know what else is like vanquish is fucking pokemon snap if it's a high octane action-packed thrill ride through i'm so i'm i've got chills with the fact that russ has just called this episode new pokemon snap without because like man there's not a lot to say about this one guys you take Russ has just called this episode new Pokemon Snap without, cause like, man, there's not a lot to say about this one, guys. You take pictures of Pokemon. Hey,

and now, and now moving on to the next topic. Now we got, we got plenty to talk about. Oh, good. I got plenty to listen about. Let's go. I can kick things off.

So this is the, this is the followup to the Nintendo 64 game Pokemon Snap and sort of not much of the core dna of the thing has changed you go through different routes in a vehicle that automatically moves it's an on rails photography or and you just snap pictures of pokemon and you get ratings based on you know photo composition uh what the pokemon's doing whether their pose is kind of dynamic, how many other Pokemon are in the picture, and then you sort of unlock new stuff and new routes and etc, etc. That is exactly how it worked in Nintendo 64. And in New Pokemon Snap, there are a few additional sort of things that are layered on top of that. There is like a daytime and nighttime version of each route.

You can level each route up as you play through it a certain amount of times, which unlocks sort of new paths and new Pokemon interactions. But the way that I think this game is best described is like a puzzle game almost, because it's so funny watching like younger folks who were introduced to the franchise

after Pokemon Snap came out of just like, hey, in Pokemon Sword and Shield, you can take pictures of Pokemon. So like, why do you need a whole fucking game about this? When really it's not exactly about that. It is about sort of figuring out how to deal with these environments and figure out the little interactions

in the environments to get these like special special pictures like for instance you may see some like burned up fruit uh sitting in the roots of a tree and if you throw an apple or what's it called a fluff fruit i think is one of the items you can throw in the game into that pile it will summon down the pokemon essentially that burned them and then you can get a picture of them. That's it. Like, that's, in a nutshell, it. Yeah. And, yeah.

I mean, the other big thing that they added is the end game, which is slightly different than the original Pokemon Snap, where you collect the five camera stones, and once you get them all, you perform a Pokemon Snap, and half of the Pokemon disappear off the planet. Okay, see I haven't gotten that far in Pokemon Snap

so I thought that this was real deal Holyfield that you were just being sort of a goop for talking about Avengers jokes. Bringing those 2019 references. Welcome back maybe. Hey, 2020 never happened. Yeah, okay. So I have very strong memories of Pokemon Snap coming out and whatever it was

1999 for printing out your pictures from your memory card at the local blockbuster like you did not do that oh but okay i really don't think there's a more uh there's a bigger poster child for a rental game than pokemon snap on the n64 yeah you could play it for about four hours and see the entire game. No questions asked. Like there is not much there. It was fun. I had a blast playing it. But for four hours, you know, you weren't going to want to pay full price for that.

Now, new Pokemon Snap, much, much more content, way more levels. As Griffin said, day night cycle, stuff like that. The core of the game remains the same for me while i like the minute to minute of this game it's still not engaging for me enough to be like yeah this stands toe-to-toe against other full-priced releases um it still feels a little light to me and part of that is i'm a little bit bitter because i played the pokemon snap game i wanted to play and it was called alba on the ios uh adding yeah it's called alba uh in alba you are a little girl on an island and you walk around the island

and you take photos of animals in their natural habitat on your own you can go wherever you want and you are in control of that the fact that they are still in pokemon snap keeping you on this rail system and you're basically just like it's basically like a disney ride right yeah but for me even though it does change the 20th time i do the fucking Disney ride does not have the same thrill as the third time. No. So I really would have preferred some- Well, now that is debatable, my friend. Because if you continue to educate yourself about the creation of the ride,

the way the rides have evolved over time- Hidden Mickeys. Maybe find some Hidden Mickeys. Who said Hidden Mickeys? They're right. Whoever said that. It's even more rewarding the 20th time. I did not like the original pokemon snap

because it was a game for babies um all right we've talked about this before that body harvest was out there were 3d open world games and here they were giving me pokemon stadium and and pokemon snap and i was like what are you doing like let me run around the pokemon world and they weren't letting me do it. And also it was dull. And I know that everybody is nostalgic for Nintendo 64 graphics, but that's okay. Quite often everybody's wrong. New Pokemon Snap, what a gem.

I am delighted. I did not expect to love this game. And I am on with it. And I think, I do think it is finding me at the right moment. I'm like for the first time able to travel right now. So I am in Ohio seeing family. I, my child is with my wife at a different state. So I actually have time to play something extremely leisurely.

And it feels like vacation, the video game. And I also love Disney rides way more now because yeah i'm choogy and i like going to disney over and over in this vault um i i don't know what about it feels so different than the other one other than it being bigger and i think i think better visuals does really help it i think like yeah it's a photography game. You want it to look good. Exactly. Feeling like you're in this space.

I will say it takes a while to find its groove. I think the first two spots are the dullest spots in the game. And a lot of that is it's trying to train you in that very Nintendo fashion where you don't really need a tutorial. Yeah. But once it finds its energy i don't know if any of y'all made it like to the later stuff like the mist forest but it's awesome um mostly because bulbasaur is there so i like him i like him he does great stuff i i wanted to say i

i think that um the games i i enjoy playing the game, like Russ said, the minute-to-minute stuff is great, but the way that they, the progression and gating of the game feels so unnecessary and so weirdly punitive, where you get points for taking good pictures of Pokemon, and each Pokemon has four star ratings of pictures that you can take, which is a bonkers inscrutable system that makes no sense, right? So if you take a picture of a Bulbasaur

just kind of sitting down, that may just be a one star photo opportunity. But if he's standing up and smiling, that's a two star opportunity. And if he's got his vines out, that's a three star opportunity. And if he's jumping, that's a four star opportunity. And that stuff is like,

you just have to guess at that shit and you can never really tell and it's important that you do that because you have to level up each route individually and if you get like a really good one-star photo of a bulbasaur and then you try to take another picture of a bulbasaur and it's just another one-star photo you're not going to get that you're not going to get like hardly any it's worthless right that system is makes no sense at all it is it is genuinely not fun to go through a route taking a bunch of pictures of Pokemon and then you get to the end and you get like no experience points which is made more punitive by the fact that I feel like the unlocks are so slow and so like seemingly random where you'll be going through a place and be like oh i obviously there's some sort of opportunity here but i don't have the

you know song power up yet and i guess i'll just keep going through this same route taking the same impotent pictures of bulbasaur until i finally unlock it at some point. It doesn't make any sense, man. Yeah, I think I didn't like that with, again, Pokemon Snap original, however its scoring system worked. I really just had to ignore it effectively and just play this

to like, hey, I'm taking photos that I think are fun. And I don't know if it's just luck or whatever, but I at most had to play a route twice to unlock whatever was that's fucking wild most usually i paid it once absolutely wild yeah i like an ansel adams over here well the other weird thing about this is like and they kind of recognize it you don't win with good photography the What they want is like, okay, the creature needs to be in the center and be super big and looking at you. And that's good photography.

Yeah, they don't do rule of thirds in Pokemon. No, they do not. And then acknowledging it, they have an option afterwards. They're like, hey, were there any photos that were actually good that you want to save? Because you can go do that. Because we know that you probably took some photos that were actually good i mean that that's the thing of it is like i want a photography game i want to have that level of control in a world that is as gorgeous as new pokemon snap is unfortunately the main pokemon games are not this is definitely an upgrade

visually speaking which is funny because it's a spin-off so i want like i just want these visuals in an open world like the last pokemon game was and i'm like over the moon thrilled and it's just not there yet this is probably the only time i'll ever say this but this is a video game that would have benefited from ripping off uh disneyland on uh xbox 360 connect i feel like you're always saying shit like that, Chris. Seriously, if you happen to have Apple Arcade, play Alba. It is spectacular and exactly what I'm talking about. Yes, and to go off the Disneyland thing,

I think this would have been better if there was a somewhat 3D world that you could walk around and do other things and you could just go on any of these quote rides whenever you wanted i actually think making this more of a game hurts it i i think it would have been better if it was just like hey there are 15 spots where you can go do photography and then you can also walk around a pokemon world and it's basically a pokemon theme park that would have yeah yeah that'd be great yeah i i feel like all the things that they did to make it not a four hour blockbuster

rental hurt hurt the experience and that and that's that's a bummer like i and again you can't make that game anymore and charge 60 bucks for it and i understand that but it i give me the things that i need to start solving the puzzles right away don't make me play the same route you know a few times to get it to level three so I can finally knock that Heracross out of that tree. It's very frustrating and genuinely kind of disappointing. I have not loved my time with the game. Yeah, and the other bummer is Nintendo games just don't get reduced in price. Like any other studio made this, it would be $40 in two weeks.

Maybe $50 eventually. Also, it made my son cry because i missed a picture of a score bunny sitting on a torterra and he was like why didn't you get that picture and it's at the end of this route and i was like oh well let's just play it again we'll play the route again until we get back to that score bunny and he had no fucking patience for that because i hadn't unlocked the turbo mode yet sucks no stars that that actually was my sort of core frustration with the experience uh is i felt like more than the feeling of the satisfied feeling of like oh that was a good one i got that at just the right time the the beat or the loop that i had

more frequently was the sense that i had like just missed the picture that i would have wanted to take. And it's just like that feeling over and over and over again. And because it's on rails, you're constantly feeling like, oh man, I missed that. Oh, I missed that.

Oh, I wish I'd, oh, I missed, dang, I missed that. Oh, I missed that.

Like that constant loop of like feeling like I just missed a great thing, which I think could have been ameliorated sort of by like what plant is saying where it's like a little bit less you know on rails a like 100 concrete this is what we you have to do to get the points and more like experiential like i like that picture that i took i thought it was funny that i got that picture that i got yeah um because of the circumstances that that entered into it and i i also and this is like a broader sort of issue that i don't know how you fix but i think there's something fundamentally sort of troubling about photography which is an art being judged by an AI. Like, I think that that sort of robs some of the fun of it.

Like it kind of weirds me out. I know that I'm reading too deep into it and you are free to dismiss this criticism as the ramblings of an old man in his twilight years. And I think you're well-earned, but it kind of weirds me out when I think about people investing time into something to try to improve their skills at like a fake version of an actual skill games are good sometimes at

actually like giving you a fundamental understanding of a real world skill this is like spend time trying to get good at this sort of perversion of what good photography is as judged by an artificial intelligence. And for me, I think that that's weird. Just learn to go take pictures. I also don't think that's a Twilight years thought. I think that's a young people thought because it feels like a leftover from a different time. Younger people now. young people thought because it feels like a leftover from a different time like younger people there's a world there's a world where these are judged by people yeah on a network well there is that you can't post the photos like that online if that was the idea though right like

if this is like pokemon tiktok you've got the biggest game in the world right like all of a sudden it's like and it's like an open world where you can find pokemon doing weird stuff you can make weird videos of pokemon and then share them with people like and that's how you like rank up or whatever like that that's a massive that's a massive game this feels very uh outdated also closer to what photography is today yeah right it should be noted that if you are connected to the internet um that grading system actually is handled by one man at nintendo um he's very sad uh but uh i mean you know it's weird it's reggie i don't know how he's unemployed there um let's let's let's move on we said that there's not much to say about pokemon snap and then we talked about it for 20 minutes. I think, I don't know.

If you liked the first Pokemon- I talked about it for 30 seconds. I did my part. If you liked the first Pokemon Snap, you'll probably enjoy this one too. Just be prepared to put a little bit more time into it than should probably be necessary in order for it to get going.

Alba. That's my last plug for Alba. That's Russ's plug. Okay, and Russ has said Alba a few times. Next up, I want to talk about Returnal. Turbo mode. I haven't played it because I can't imagine a game

less suitable for me, the father of a one-month-old, to play than a extremely punishing long-run roguelike that apparently crashes and updates quite a bit. Yeah, and doesn't have saves. It sounds like fucking poison to me.

So please tell me why people are enjoying and talking about this game. I've been enjoying it. You know, it's, okay. So if you want the Pitcher on Returnal and you don't know anything about it, here is my best, the best I can do for you is

Bullet Hell Dark Souls. Stop dark so if dark souls was a bullet hell that this is what it would be is that fair like dark with sort of the underlying dna of a metroid like if you can imagine like if this was what the next Metroid game was, it would feel like as much of an evolution as Prime was from the beginning of Metroid. Russ disagrees with me. I agree with the Metroid part. I don't agree necessarily with the Dark Souls part,

although it has sprung to mind a couple times. It's hard. I know that that Dark Souls thing is a little bit pat. It's so part of the DNA. It's hard. It's a hard game, so I agree on that. It's hard. It know that that Dark Souls thing is a little bit pat. It's been, it's so part of the DNA. It's hard. It's a hard game. So I agree on that. It's hard.

It's rewards, repeated runs. Yeah, let me. Your skills evolve over time. Let me try to do the like loop. Maybe that's like an easier way for people to grok it if you haven't played. The loop. You are a, an astronaut. You're on this alien planet.

It's a third person shooter. And you basically explore this alien planet uh it's a third person shooter and um you basically explore this alien planet you find upgrades you find new weapons you find currency sometimes you can buy little upgrades in like mini stores and then you die and it starts you exactly at the beginning classic roguelike style and when you go to explore the planet again it's all kind of rearranged and the encounters are different and the upgrades you find are different. So it's like very, very traditional roguelike in that sense. Like that format, if you've played Enter the Gungeon, if you played Binding of Isaac, it's that but in 3D and a third person shooter. And I should mention like a pretty spectacular third person shooter.

It is very hard to make a good feeling third-person shooter and house mark who's the studio that made this game has been making action games forever tremendous ones like reso gun and uh outland is another great uh adventure game they made so so that part is extremely good but paired with that because it's a roguelike is if you die um you aren't necessarily making progress they there are constellations that people have made a big deal about the fact you can't save as you make it through the game there are actually permanent unlocks that you get grappling hooks and various other permanent unlocks as well as progression unlocks once

you beat the first boss you never have to fight that boss again you could just skip him and go to the next area without worrying about it so there are like consolations on that front but runs as griffin mentioned are extremely long to do a full run carefully takes me about three hours i'm full full run to the end uh it's complicated okay uh the game has like a few different acts to it um and they're kind of chunked up um but i would say like to get to an end is three hours um now at this point i can i can win basically every single run i've gotten to that point um and it takes me probably about 90 minutes to do a run but there's no saving there's no like oh i'm gonna play another game and then come back to this because you'll lose your progress entirely

and as justin mentioned or griffin mentioned if the game crashes your sol you lost all that run that could be two hours worth of work um and that part is pretty here's where here's where your logic starts to fall apart and where this is like i i think frustrating is it's not it's a video game like it's not it's fun it's not two hours worth of work it's two hours worth of fun that you're having playing a fun video game so base to base beats i understand what you're saying and normal and there's a lot of times i agree with you i'm saying for me personally with this um i just think the basic action is so pleasurable yeah and it is fun spectacular that like i don't really mind

like it's a fun experience to play i am not progressing as fast as i would like to i feel like at this point i still have a i have unlocked a pistol and a shotgun and a machine gun and like some upgrades for those. And they each have alt fires that change depending on the pickup. So sometimes you'll get a gun that you really like with the alt fire you don't like or and they have different levels to them. There's also perks on weapons that you can unlock as you use the perks, like ricochet, right on a pistol that, that the more you use the pistol with a ricochet perk,

you fill up that progress bar. And then when it's full from then on, when you find a pistol with ricochet on it, you just have it. It just works, right? That's another sense of like progression. The only thing I don't love about the base action and what does actually feel very grindy to me is there's this idea of weapon proficiency, which is the idea that when you first land on the run you gain weapon proficiency both from kills and

pickups um that like just overall boost your damage and that starts back at zero when you die so that does feel kind of like you've got to get your weapon proficiency up before you can start to just like mow stuff down yeah so i'm glad you mentioned the proficiency thing because really what this boils down to is there are a lot of systems in this game a lot of systems a lot of systems and probably too many there's actually a number of systems in the game that probably shouldn't are like that for sure are not very well balanced right now to the point where they're more punishing uh than they are rewarding there are chests that are like infected and they have a chance to give you malfunctions you're better off right now entirely ignoring those chests you don't know functions in this case are like a a bad state

that you can heal by doing something right like by picking up a certain amount of money or by using a consumable you can heal this there's also parasites you can pick up that will attach to you that give you a boost right but also have a negative uh thing uh attached to them sure a negative and like uh you bleed health or something like that so the parasites thing is a great system because you know exactly what you're dealing with oh i'm gonna get this It's going to give me more health per every kill that I get, but it will also take damage whenever I use a key. So you know that stakes up front before you actually accept this thing. But there's a lot of like random punishments as well, like the malfunctioning thing that I

mentioned. It just feels like, you know, I've been looking at games like Nuclear Throne or Hades is obviously a great example of this. Both of those games were made in the public eye for a year. There were updates for a year, if not more, like Nuclear Throne, several years of updates happened in the public eye. It feels like there's a lot in this game that would have been much more refined had it been a more public development and I think ordinarily I would say not most games do not it does not help to do that because it generates a lot more problems but with a roguelike the nature of roguelike is you have the core right you have

the gameplay center and once that's locked in adding things removing things and turning dials is relatively easy from a development side that's why smaller, adding things, removing things, and turning dials is relatively easy from a development side. That's why smaller studios make roguelikes. You can scale up a lot of content, scale down, change things without spending a ton of resources. That's why I think here, there are just like a lot of systems that would have been kind of polished and buffed had they been getting more feedback. Hey, this isn't work versus not.

Some of them just feel versus not some of them just feel unfair some of them just like well it's and not unfair like oh what a ripoff but like you didn't tell me what i was like for instance this idea of like malfunctions sometimes there'll be chests right where there is a chance that you will get a malfunction if you open it not 100 but there's a chance and also what malfunction you get is random so you don't you don't know what's going to happen to you and it might be the kind of malfunction that absolutely fucks your run when you're however long into the run so eventually it's just like well i'm just not even gonna i'm just gonna ignore that i'm not even gonna do those because i don't know and that's

something that could have been fixed if i'm i feel like if I'm in a roguelike and I'm going to take on a negative trait in a run, Hades does this. If I'm going to take on a negative trait in a run, I want to know what it is. And if it's something that I can incorporate. If it's worse, I can't make the value judgment. development cycle just by virtue of the fact that this is like the first kind of major non-remakey release on on playstation 5 as a ps5 exclusive so it couldn't it couldn't be a nuclear and it's a big greedy game right like yeah and there's a pretty big difference just in terms of fidelity between this and something like nuclear throne doesn't mean they can't do those things it just i'm sure is a little bit harder i mean a lot of the issues that russ and i are describing are not they're not art intensive

they are not like design intensive i wouldn't change any the art design is spectacular in this game it's a gorgeous game um all the enemies look really interesting the environments look really interesting the like there's weird narrative stuff happening that i have no context for and do not understand i'm rest i'm sure russ gets better than i do sort of just like interesting things that are happening in the world like oh that's the great voice actor like the the woman doing the voice acting is spectacular um so it's really like i i know where that comes from plant but it's really not that stuff it's the well this system isn't working quite right so let's retool it in the way that like remember when diablo 3 launched and it was a total mess at launch like it was not a

super fun game and they basically had to do this redux uh where they the cores was was essentially the same but they re-evaluated loot and different other systems and that's what it feels like there are i don't think it's as drastic as that because i think this is a good game but it definitely does not you know the reason that i can win or run right now every single time without fail is because i found the magic recipe of this overpowered gun this overpowered perk this overpowered thing and now whenever i just find those i just hold on to them for most of the game and just cruise. And that's a sign that like balance is certainly an issue.

Now it should be said, how smart I think just today released another patch. It's funny. Cause they need to tell people, Hey, if your game is in sleep mode, it's be wary. Cause you're going to lose your save if we put this patch out.

So there's that. What I, that's the consensus I've heard is that it's a genuinely very you're gonna lose your save if we put this patch out so there's that what i what i that that's the consensus i've heard is that it's a genuinely very fun game but if but if you haven't picked it up yet maybe wait for it to at least like get off the ground a little bit because i genuinely they've patched the game a lot since it came out and not a joke like what russ just described has happened to people like that, that I know like a few times. So I don't think I, this will be the type of game I can sink time into and until my childcare situation is profoundly different from what it is right now.

But hopefully by that point, it'll be things will have settled a little bit. Six months from now, I think a, the game's balance and stuff will be in a much better place. And B, I don't know if it's going to be six months it will be a certain amount of time 100 no doubt question that this game will hit playstation plus plus yeah it's not even a doubt yeah so if you have the patience

i would certainly recommend it i think it'll be a better game at that point anyway um but uh for right now it's a very cool game if you're really hard up for a playstation 5 game it's very cool with a lot of buyer beware stuff let's return all to the reader questions oh good yeah it kind of works i mean arguably sure we weren't there before but fine okay here we go uh welcome to the reader questions okay so here here's one uh i've got that's for pokemon snap this one's from maggie uh what's your favorite research location in the game um i like the jungle a lot the jungle is i think the second level that you open up and i don't know i feel like there's just like a lot of different opportunities for like interactions there that just feel a lot more kind of logical, which is something that I think it's the strongest suit of the game.

I think actually the original Pokemon Snap did this a little bit better where it's like, okay, if you want the picture of the Charizard, you got to throw something at this Charmeleon so it falls into the volcano and a Charizard comes out. Where in a lot of new Pokemon Snap, it's like, you have to throw this Crystal Gym at the Crystal Flower and that will summon a Vespiquen, which, and it's like not quite as logical, but I don't know. I feel like my first run through the jungle, I was doing stuff that I was like, oh, that's clever. That's cool. The jungle was also the first area that I found was like really started to show the visuals off more.

Yeah, that too. Y'all liked the game way before I did. I think it really starts to sing once you get to the island and the volcano areas. You start going underwater, stuff like that. And then the late game stuff. Elsewhere Forest, I think, they saved the best for last sort of scenario i actually

don't know if that's last level um but it's it's fantastic justin what's your favorite route oh yeah i realize justin doesn't have an opinion oh gosh i like the not i like the all of them but don't make me choose um of all the ones i unlocked i liked them both i like them all just the same all of them are great. Don't make me choose. It's like choosing two of my kids. I've got a Returnal question for you, Justin. This one's from Joe.

Is Returnal a good or a terrible title? I think this is a great question because I really... I don't have any trouble remembering it. Yes. Yeah. Which I like. Returnal. have any trouble remembering yes yeah which i like returnal i mean it's like it's just out there but it is like very much in keeping thematically with the spirit of the game

what did christian figure out what the title means christopher it's internal but you return oh my christopher thomas plant it's weird that another roguelike didn't use it already. It is. I think it's a pretty good, it's kind of generic, but it's also like, well, somebody should do that. Well, somebody making a roguelike game should do that.

It's worth noting that like, there haven't been very many roguelike games apart from Hades that have brought the narrative of the fact that you are constantly reviving yourself into the game. Usually it's just like, oh, you just start another run.

Yeah, it's cool in Returnal. Sometimes when you find power-ups, they're on your corpse. Yeah, that's neat. Like, oh, I had this before. Dang, all right, cool. How has there not been an adaptation of Live Die Repeat for a video game?

Wasn't there like a phone game or something there might have been probably a phone game of everything it's a good it's a good point they've made a roguelike movie the book's basically based off that's weird that it's not it's weird that it's not an adaptation of a video it's weird that that movie is not actually an adaptation of an existing property it's an adaptation of a book, which itself seems to be very blatantly inspired by video games. A book is a trip. Okay, one more question. This one is from Peep.

I love New Pokemon Snap, but I do feel nostalgia gives it a big boost. What are your takes on nostalgia in video games in 2021? Does it have a big role um yes oh so i i think yes for sure but i don't think it is quite as like potent as it was maybe even like five years ago where it felt like okay if you make an indie game it's a pixel game um there was a point where i felt like every indie title was kind of going off this like weird nostalgia beat um maybe that was even longer ago than five years i don't think that's a nostalgia thing yeah that's not exactly fair game design right i think i think nostalgia i think like

we're using characters from you know characters you know as a way to like pull heartstrings which i think you know the games industry has more and more gone the safe route of like known franchises, established franchises, because that makes the most money. And I think that's not going to change. It's a weird year just because there aren't a lot of games coming out. But consider like the big games that have come out or are about to Resident Evil Village, Monster Hunter, Pokemon Snap. You know, we're talking about generally sequel, you know, sequels or follow ups.

Returnal is one of the few exceptions. But Returnal is a risky game. Like that's I'm not surprised that there aren't more of those. I guess I don't I don't see nostalgia in these franchises. I see. I don't know. I feel like video game franchises are almost akin to sports because it is a form of play. And it's, oh, you like this thing and you will keep coming back to it and they'll evolve it.

But then nostalgia for me would be like, oh, then they add tofu mode to a new Resident Evil, right? Like it's like very much it's like specific type of winkiness. I think Pokemon Snap has that because it's such a, you know, singular moment in Pokemon games. But I don't find like I have nostalgia for Pokemon characters, but not for like Pokemon the game, I guess. Yeah. Pokemon as a franchise is nostalgia personified. Like, right. It's been the same game over and over again since 1998 or whatever.

Griffin, Justin, you have any feelings on this before we wrap? No. Great. You've said it. Perfect. We did it. We got through it. What are y'all playing this week besides the stuff that we've been playing?

When are we going to do? Should we do eventually a full Nier episode? 100%. We have to. You've played Nier Automata now. Yes. You're not gonna play near replicant i can talk about no replicant i've seen a lot of people on twitter say that they want a

just russ and chris and just an episode of near um without that's so weird i've seen the reverse i've seen griffin and russ and plant well maybe we just make russ and plant talk about near but we make them do it for four hours. There's no way we haven't exhaustively talked about Nier Automata on this show. I know we have. Well, I hadn't really played very much of it at the time. Fresh has

feelings that are contrary to mine. And maybe, yeah, maybe Russ and I will find a way to do that at some point down the line. I'll spare you me talking about Nier Replicant then, and say I've been playing uh mario golf advanced tour hell yeah what a great game so y'all except for game takes way too long to get started classic game boy thing classic nintendo problem but damn once it gets going yeah uh i i actually replayed chrono trigger that's great we're talking about playing retro shit holy shit that game's good wowsers bowsers holy shit

that's a good game wow does it hold up what a masterpiece yeah it's really expected it's one of the few jrpgs from that era that i can really personally stomach yeah and it's just really it's phenomenal combat and the music everything it's all good um i wanted to mention we talked about a little bit at the top but monster hunter i'm still playing it yeah um they just released an update like earlier this week or last week um that added like a bunch of new monsters a bunch of new like equipment and it like put me right back on that grind of like i'm i'm like galaxy braining these like builds for my characters oh i'm gonna use a sword and shield and oh if i bring this talisman into

it's for a game that like has literally never grabbed me and there have been 30 of them Yeah, the fact that it's suddenly like all clicking now and it's this thing that like I'm actually gonna keep up with free updates Just because fighting a new monster is fighting new monsters. Yeah fighting camellia This was like oh shit this if this monsters invisible what and to play it in contrast to returnal Which is an enjoyable but very stressful game monster hunter is not it is i find it like extremely relaxing which is ironic given the visuals and the fact you're fighting giant monsters like generally speaking like you faint like big fucking whoop there's cats there's dogs it's just like i'm chilling on the couch

feeling progress like i'm i'm actually progressing it doesn't feel grindy to me it's just like i'm chilling on the couch feeling progress like i'm i'm actually progressing it doesn't feel grindy to me it's very satisfying i just love it it's great real quick i've been playing the longing oh yeah no oh my god so this just came out in switch it came out on pc i think last year this just came out switch last month uh the longing is you play a character called shade who is the servant of um a king and the king lives underground with you and the king says i need to go to sleep for 400 days to regain my power and then he leaves you there and the king goes to sleep and this game plays out in 400 days of real time and the real time is always moving no matter if you're playing or not it's your real time basically it's it's our real time right so it's 400 days of real time if you um and basically what

you're just doing is like wandering around killing time time, waiting for the king to wake back up. And you can wander around and find coal and then go back and make drawings in your little office. And that can help. That passes time a little bit more quickly. Wait. But no matter what is happening. How does it pass? I thought it was in real time.

It's part of the thing. What is happening? How does it pass? I thought it was in real time. It's part of the thing. Part of the thing is the game. Part of the game is you're finding things that help. Oh, decrease the 400 days.

So make the 400 days go go fast. But if you were to install it and then just like forget about it and then come back in 400 days, it would be done. It would be over and you could trigger the ending. That seems like a pretty easy way to win the game. Yeah. I mean, there's your what's the opposite of a speedrun? But there's neat stuff like if you go around and you explore, you can just tell them to go back home and then turn the game off. Oh, yeah.

And the next time you turn the game on, it's back at the house. Hey, what's going on? You can tell them to read a book. I'm like, okay, I'll just read this book. And then when you come back, he's like, oh, I read the book. Here's what I think about. It's very kind of morose and sad and solitary. Isn't like all of Moby Dick in it and you can read it alongside him if you want?

Something like that? I have not encountered Moby Dick. Maybe that's a pick up. DLC microtransaction. It's very interesting. It's one of those things that's neat to have a game that I don't feel bad about like picking up and playing for 20 seconds

but like, all right, I'll check back in on it later. It's going fine. It doesn't need me to be there but it is kind of interesting. That's a cool idea.

Next week on the Besties, we are going to talk about Resident Evil Villages. Where's the excitement? Another village. It's a big game. I'm stoked. Another big game. I wrote village. I wrote villages but the excitement? Another village. It's a big game. I'm stoked. Another big game.

I wrote Village. I wrote Villages, but it should just be Village. I think it's just the one Village. You can't do more than one scary Village. That's the sequel. I'm so excited for this game. I hope we have the appropriate time to spend with it. Do you think they...

They make a joke in the title where V-I-L-L of, is basically eight in Roman numerals. So do you think internally they just call it Resident Evil 8? Or they called it Vedages. It's Resident Evil 8. I mean, I feel like we're buying into the company bullshit by calling it Village. It's Resident Evil 8. Come on.

I'm excited. I was too scared to play the last one. All right. Wait, really? And you'll probably be too scared to play this one and you'll probably pretend to be sick sorry guys I can't podcast today that's gonna do it for us

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the photos from the cold open yeah it's uh fun uh and that'll do it for us for this week so be sure to join us again next time for the besties because you're the world's best friends at the world's best friends at the world's best games Besties!