The Besties - New Yakuza and the best Game Boy games on Switch [Resties]

Episode Date: February 21, 2023

The Yakuza series has a new name. "Like a Dragon" is a literal translation of the original Japanese title Ryu Ga Gotoku. Returning to where things started fits the latest release: a remaster of Like a Dragon: Ishin, an action-heavy spin-off set in the Late Edo. The historical setting and standalone story make Ishin a compelling starting point for a series we love. For the back half of the episode, Frush and Plante share their recommendations for listeners preparing to dive into the Game Boy and GBA games now available on Nintendo Switch Online. 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!

Hello everybody, my name is Christopher Thomas Plants. My name is Russ Fershtek. This is The Rusties, where the rest of the best discuss the best of the rest. This week we're talking about Like a Dragon Isshin, which is Yakuza, basically. They changed the name of Yakuza, it's called Like a Dragon Isshin, which is Yakuza, basically. They changed the name of Yakuza. It's called Like a Dragon now. It gets it closer to the original title in Japanese. I don't entirely understand why they would do this.

Yakuza was doing really well. But here we are. What is Like a Dragon Isshin? You know what? I'm going to explain that in the full segment because it's a lot. Before I do that, Frush, I have to tell you something I did last night. Oh? I finally went and saw Street Fighter the movie in a movie theater for the first time since it came out.

Did you see it in the movie theater when it came out? Yeah, of course. How old were you? Very young, but I am what we like to call a fan. Sure. And I support things i love yeah you didn't do that support ral julia's final performance i mean we've talked about this movie on the show before a little bit but it is uh it's quite the film it it is i i'm something of an

expert yeah you wrote a whole big piece about i i wrote the history of this movie which is i i think is fair for me to say because i don't think anybody else has written any history of this movie certainly not to the length and breadth although there is probably a four-hour youtube explainer and you know what they stole my entire thing i actually watched i watched when i was like this is great an hour long and i started it and I was like, you are reading Polygon's piece. What are we doing here? They don't nod to you at all?

No, it was brutal. But you know what? It's hard making money on YouTube. I didn't know what to really do there. Anyway, I watched it and here's my takeaway. So I love this movie. I thought I really loved this movie. Yeah.

And what I realized was I don't need to ever see it in a movie theater again. I mean, that's probably. I need it in the background while like I have friends over. Okay. It might be like, do you have movies like this? Perfect background movie. Yeah. I mean, they are visually interesting. It might be like, do you have movies like this? Perfect background movie. Yeah.

I mean, they are visually interesting. You see this not only in like if you're having people over, but if you're in like a cool bar and there will be on like a projector on the wall, there's going to be like nothing but trouble starring Chevy Chase because it's a visually interesting movie. But as a movie to sit and watch, maybe not great. Yeah. Pennies from Heaven. Is that Steve Martin's musical to sit and watch. Maybe not great. Yeah. Penny's from Heaven. Is that Steve Martin's musical? Another one of those type of things. Sure. Yeah.

Xanadu. It inspires like good conversation. You know. All you really need from this movie. As far as I can tell. In terms of being able to hear the movie. Is the first 10 minutes. Yeah.

Because in the first 10 minutes because in the first 10 minutes they introduce every character and every character just happens to be a street fighter character so there's like um you know there's like the obvious stuff where it's a commander and they're like hey commander commander guile and you're like oh okay that makes sense and then there's like a news team and it's like uh hello, I'm reporter Chun-Li. And you're like, oh, okay, that makes sense. And then she's like, talks to her camera crew and she's like, hey, behind the camera, eHonda? It's like, wait, what?

eHonda's the cameraman? Why? Yeah. Honda. And is it Barlog, the boxer? Yes, Barlog. He's also on her news crew. Oh, doing is it Barlog, the boxer? Yes, Barlog. He's also on her news crew. Oh, doing sound, I would guess.

Yeah, there's a point where Guile wants to go save his best friend from the evil bison, right? Yeah. And he's phoning into bison, and he's like, hey, to my best friend, Carlos Blanco, are you there? And Bison looks at a random guy and he's Blanco, eh? He's like, get him to my mutagen tank. Great. And that's a departure, right? Wasn't in the games, wasn't he just like a feral like wolf person?

I don't know. I don't know. I don't. I'm going to be real with you. I don't know i don't know i don't i'm gonna be real with you i don't know you don't know and i can say for certain the movie is not loyal to to to shannon you know like um uh cammy is um played by kylie minogue you know yeah what's wrong with that i mean it's just not right range she's a pop star she does She was wasted on this movie. I will say that.

Anyway, I'm really glad I saw it once because the reactions in the room, I did feel a little bad. The reactions were kind of like laughing at the film. And I don't like that because this film, credit to it, knows exactly what it's doing. Sure, yeah. Like it is in on the joke 95% of the time so there was a bit of like oh can you believe it you know bison has ugly like knockoff Picasso clown paintings of himself how stupid and it's like that's correct correct that that rules was it full was it a crowded room no because I

don't go movies it does seem like like the time for that cultural moment has kind of come and gone. Yeah, I don't. Well, you know, the 90s renaissance or reboot cultural, culture is moving so fast that I felt like we really blasted through 90s culture and we're already at early odds. I mean, fashion wise, it's still kind of pretty heavy 90s i think yeah yeah anyway i i i really enjoyed it i think people should should watch it i think it's like a great like weekend afternoon tbs tnt style hang yeah um but should we should we go talk about yakuza let's do it not yakuza i think we're talking about we'll talk about something that is more you know like a dragon yes ishin bye

okay we're back okay so this was like a lot of legwork you know like a long walk for a small glass of water to explain what the hell this thing is. Yeah. Here's the basic what you need to know, because I wanted you, listener, to be curious about it. This is a game where you are a samurai, and you beat the living shit out of people with swords and guns. And to be clear, so the game is called Like a Dragon Isshin, but it is in... See, that's what I was trying to do was just tell people basically what the game is before we get into explaining literally the chaos. Yeah, yeah, you're a samurai and it's a quasi-historical recreation of some major events within that period of Japanese history. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.

Okay, okay, okay. that period of japanese history yes yes yes yes yes okay okay okay so yes you do you want to take a shot explaining how this game even exists such what it is so i i i'll say that like i am far from the yakuza expert but this series has essentially been going on for i want to say like 20 years now and it is just a very bizarre mash-up between what is in a lot of ways like a visual novel there's like a ton of reading and dialogue and interactions between characters mixed with a quasi open world brawling game and with a with a layer of outlandish tone that doesn't seem to jive with any of it, but actually is the strongest part of the Yakuza series. And the game we should mention,

so they changed the name we talked about in the intro. It used to be called, all these games used to be called Yakuza, whatever, six or Yakuza seven, whatever. And now all of them will basically moving forward be called like a dragon six or seven or whatever the latest installment is. Apparently the reason for the change. And again, I'm not an expert, so I don't know.

You can maybe correct me. Is that recent Yakuza games haven't been as focused on Yakuza stuff. Correct. yakuza stuff correct so that they wanted to broaden it such that it would allow them to uh you know introduce non-yakuza things and have people be like why is this a yakuza game yeah i mean it's always so it's always been called effectively like a dragon in japan this is one of those you know like do you want to do the pronunciation of it no i'm gonna try it's no ryu ga go toku uh one second let me let me get it in front of me and they can tell you what it is ryu ga go toku yeah it was pretty close yeah and then ishin and so and that effectively is like a dragon yeah basically

yeah so they're just unifying it you know it's not the first time like i know dragon quest and dragon warrior for a long time was different and then they unified them and i think in japan now resident evil i think is called resident evil everywhere right i think that's right i think you're right they did it the opposite direction i can also imagine here you know this series it had a really tough go, like becoming a popular thing. Yeah. It was kind of Sega building off of the Shinmu hype of the very early aughts. Yeah, it's like kind of a life sim. Life simmy, yeah.

And it's like this like perfect recreation of just like a neighborhood in most of these games right and when they brought the first one out the original yakuza uh the idea was like oh you know let's really invest it in this like i think they had um what's his name mark mark hamill luke shower right was doing uh voice work for it they you know really really wanted it to like click with american audiences and i i believe because of that the localization is like very american forward okay which is to say they took out kind of the thing that makes this so um transportive which is like you really feel like you are in this neighborhood in japan um and then they every once in a while some of these games would come to the u.s not every like of these games would come to the U.S.

Not every, like, a Dragon game would come to the U.S. And it kind of felt like it was just never going to click. And then Yakuza 0 drops. And that's the one that is a prequel and set in the 80s, which was kind of ideal because you didn't need to know the story to get into it. And the setting was just awesome like it was just such a cool like 80s japan what what a great place to put your video game yeah um and that blows up and sega immediately capitalizes on it they do remakes or like remasters of the first two or three yakuza games i think full like remakes of the first two and then like aasters of the first two or three yakuza games i think full like remakes of the

first two and then like a cleanup of the third and basically you can play the entire core series now in the u.s um and they have much better localization uh it i mean there's just a ton of yakuza available to you now because of that because of all that being out there they're like hey you know what that's done so well what if we go back and start bringing the like even more obscure spin-off games yeah these are wild so you know today we're talking about ishin there's also like a zombie one um there's a fist of the north star one which i think actually might be out here i can't remember there's another historical um period one called kinsen um i mean just a ton a ton a ton a ton of video games this is a you know effectually like an almost annual series sure um that we're we are

now just culturally getting caught back up and it does feel like the other big breakout game was like a dragon with seven yeah seven i guess which was the turn-based one right yeah and that's why just culturally getting caught back up. And it does feel like the other big breakout game was Like a Dragon. Seven, yeah. Seven, I guess, which was the turn-based one, right? Yeah, and that's why it's confusing because Yakuza Like a Dragon is Yakuza 7, and then everything becomes Like a Dragon after that. That was their transition period where they were just going to be like,

this is what it's called from now on, just get used to it. Yes, and to make things even further confusing, Like a Dragon, Yakuza Like a Dragon, Yakuza 7 and the Yakuza series moving forward. Oh my gosh, this is so perplexing. Is all turn-based. Oh, really?

There's a spinoff series called Lost Judgment. Oh my God. Which will likely, if it continues to exist, be the continuation of the beat-em-up version. Oh, I didn't realize it was all the yakuza stuff is now turn-based or the like a dragon stuff is now term i i believe i mean i thought there was just the this one that just came out i think like a dragon 8 is going to be turn-based okay interesting wow holy oh well we made it we made it to the part where we talk about

the game that we're actually playing okay um okay okay you know what i'm gonna do one more table setting here and just i'm just gonna straight up read the wikipedia for the descriptor of like what where where this game is okay sure let's do it mostly i just want to hear your pronunciation oh my gosh please bear with me because i i know i'm gonna he's been studying for months and months and almost a year. Okay, so this is from Wikipedia. Set in the chaotic Bakumatsu, there's like 1853 to 1867 phase of the late Edo period. So Japan makes their periods based off emperors, I believe. Players take on a role of Sakamoto Ryoma, who is distressed resulting from conflicting pressures and uncertainty about oneself and role in their society being embroiled in the middle of a tosa kudata and bent on finding the murderer who

assassinated his mentor ryoma borrows or ryoma burrows himself with a hidden identity in the streets of kyo and joins the shinzen gumi so basically it's like every Yakuza story, which is you are a former crime person who now is avenging some father figure. And you are either going undercover or making a risky alliance with another type of crime syndicate. Except for now, it's you know, period piece. And I was reading some old reviews. So this game originally came out on like, I actually don't have the year in front of me, but it came out previously only in Japan.

And I was reading some reviews of the original Japanese version. And people were basically saying like, a lot of this stuff is pretty well known in Japan. This is, like, straight Japanese history and very important moments within Japanese history in the way that, like, you know, whatever, Boston Tea Party would land in the U.S. So that, like, a lot of the references that they're making to various characters or events are instantly familiar to a lot of people in Japan, whereas obviously for us, maybe not so much. Yeah, or not at all. Yeah, which made it a little tough to get into at the beginning because there is like

a ton of setup and character introduction that, again, is like really hard for my brain to absorb. It's just like a lot of names. Yeah, I mean, so I think this game works perfectly fine. really hard for my brain to absorb not it's just like a lot of names yeah i mean a lot of names so i think this game works perfectly fine if you don't know anything about yakuza or or japanese history i'll say that first i i can't imagine how awesome it must be if you do know both yeah because every character or at least all the main characters so so far as I can tell, are kind of the, like, players of, you know, the cast of previous Yakuza games. Yeah, it's like an ensemble.

Yeah, aligning a personality with a historical figure. So it'd be like playing, I don't know, like a Mass Effect spinoff, I guess, that where all the characters are dressed as, you know, like Abe Lincoln. I don't know. Sure. Garrus is John Adams. Sure. Yeah. Apparently this Mass Effect game spans a very long period of time.

Of course. Yeah. Okay. We've got all that out of the way. The game itself. did you enjoy this no sorry sorry sorry i'll say that i enjoyed parts of it i actually think the the combat is quite fun it's like it's like a really fun uh third person brawler where you're running in and like just fucking guys up with a sword and guns and

combinations of the two and you can do these crazy like ultra attacks in the middle of combat like combat feels really really good um i would say moving around the world i found to be like miserable and i and i think this might just be a an aspect of the series because i remember kind of thinking the same thing about um like a dragon uh it just feels like like it hasn't been the the the feel of moving around has not been edited or touched in 20 years it just feels like very ps2 era of locomotion and just like exploration it just feels very rigid um and the and the main story stuff didn't again really land for me probably because i wasn't making necessarily connections to the characters that a lot of people that are fans of the series liked but i do think that

there's like i think the silliness of it does land for me and that's the stuff that i find like really funny and engaging but it it just takes some work to get to that stuff yeah it's a couple hours before you start really getting to the the goofiness what was there like a silly thing that you that stuck out for you there's just like a lot of hip thrusting out of nowhere which i found very funny like people are like given the like serious tone of a lot of it, the contrast of that is extremely funny to me. And like, I also like the various mini games that are like very relatively lighthearted

where you're like cutting fish and stuff like that. Yeah. So that was good. Yeah, you can like- But I also think that there's like, there are jokes in the game i don't even know if they're jokes they're like very very early on they're trying to teach you that there's stuff in pots now anyone who's played a video game of the last ever knows that if you break a pot open

or you try to open a pot somewhere around the environment there's going to be something in there you can get something good you're going to get something good yakuza first of all has a guy that basically is like introducing the idea that like i walk around filling pots with things and he talks for like 10 pages of dialogue about how he likes putting things in pots and then at the end of those 10 pages of dialogue you get a helpful tip that pops up on the screen that says you can search pots and there are things in them and that takes like a good five minutes we talked about this with justin last week uh on besties of like you know sometimes when you really don't like something and you're describing it uh you realize like oh that's exactly what i love like i get why you do not like it i also get why i'm just

i just think in love with it no i i i agree i i i i think one i just find it i do find it genuinely funny it's funny they try to explain everything and and i do think they know what they're doing i think the issue is you're right it is over that the like the tutorialization after that yeah is a bit much and for me you know we were texting about this while we were playing i didn't even notice it because i played enough of these games like okay once that happens my brain just is like beep beep i skip right through it. Um, but yes, I don't, but to go back to the thing,

you know, you, you say that like, they're aware of the overriding. I don't either. They are. And it's just like a thing. They,

I think there's a cultural aspect to this that like, just doesn't land for me in the same way because so much of the game is overwritten. Like every single aspect, whether it's a serious like cut scene, setting up the idea of like the Tosa rebellion or the, you know, more goofy stuff.

You know, I was watching clips of like a dragon set, like a dragon. And there are scenes in that game that are so fucking funny where you're trying to identify like which of the three guys is pissing in the river and they all have their back turned and the the gag is basically like oh it's that guy and he turns around and he's actually like playing a flute and that's funny but it's really held back by the fact that like that scene plays out for 15 minutes yeah and really it should be a two minute game well i so i disagree but only

for me the porridge is just right and i i think and this goes same with the walking around and like knowing what you're getting i think if you go into this game wanting an action game which is kind of what it presents itself as especially in the trailers right you're going to be really disappointed if you go into this expecting an rpg you're going to get exactly what you expected with a dash of like action yeah and and the walking around if you think about it like that and walking around in a lot of rpgs honestly i think it feels better than a lot that's probably true right and And same with the conversations. It is a game for people who want to spend at least half, if not more, of their time engaging in the story in some way. And I think that this game in particular is a bit of a tough sell because even though you don't need to know this part of like japanese

history and you don't need to know about yakuza um you you need to know what you're getting going into it and i think you have to at least be curious about this period of japanese history yeah um because it takes so long for these stories to kind of take root that if you're not curious, I think you're going to bounce off. And maybe I'm wrong here because there's stuff like chicken racing. And there's a dude with a giant cannon who needs help determining the precision of his cannon. So he fires cannonballs at you that you chop in half. Like really silly minigames that i love and adore but how much that will pull you through if you're not also like really on board with either either the story or the history

yeah i don't i don't know i mean the combat i think the combat is also more immediately fun than it is in most Yakuza games. Okay. Again, I don't have that. Yeah. Did you like the combat at all? Did you like find yourself changing any of the styles? Yeah, it feels very natural. I like the pairing system.

I like the different, the varied style, you know, the sword and gun and fists. Which style did you go with most of the time i can't i found myself switching around yeah i like i like just going barehanded just because i think that looks cool to do those those like judo parries yeah but um yeah i mean it kind of depended on the situation right like what you were trying to counter yeah i i found myself switching styles way more than i have in past yakuza games and this game seems a lot more interested even though again i said it's not a combat game this one seems the most interested in its combat um they're they're one of the styles

that you learn like pretty much right away is having a pistol like a magnum in one hand or a revolver in one hand and a samurai sword in the other and you can start upgrading your kind of like skills way way way way faster than you could in yakuza zero or other games and you know i'm probably like i don't know seven or eight hours in um maybe a little bit more, and almost fully upgraded on the tree for that style. And I just blast through things. It is hilarious playing this game that series that is largely built around fist fighting or improvised weapons, with some exceptions. weapons um with some exceptions you know being able to just have like a sword and a gun on hand at all times uh is a bit jarring but hey i love it i'm not gonna complain yeah it worked um yeah i i i really enjoy this i i feel like we've kind of like set people up to know what they're expecting if they want to give it a try.

It is, I mean, you mentioned the issues with the controls and stuff. The original one came out in 2014 and I believe it was PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 4. But, you know, that means it was developed for PlayStation 3. Right. was developed for playstation 3 right um uh and which is kind of wild because this one this version is available on ps4 also um this feels this feels to me like uh kind of a if you're a hardcore yakuza fan this is the game for you there's no scenario where i would start someone on the yakuza franchise i mean as you said zero is like a good place to start and also you know i found um yakuza 7 like a dragon to be like a decent place to start just because like it's visually very cool

and you don't necessarily have to worry about the combat too much if you wanted to just like get the taste of the narrative and the writing and that's also on Game Pass for what it's worth so you can kind of dip your toes in if you are a Game Pass subscriber I also say I expect this game you know we're recording this before reviews are up I expect this game to do pretty well

with reviews y'all if you're curious and especially if you're curious about the Japanese history stuff you should check out Polygon. We have a piece from Kazuma Hashimoto, who is an absolutely fantastic writer. And he goes into kind of the politics of the game. There are certainly some choices from having talked with him about the ending that are messy. That said, will, like, I ever see the ending no of course not what what are the odds um uh so so right now i'm enjoying it

uh ignorance is bliss yeah uh shall we go to the other side and talk about some game boy and game boy advanced stuff let's do it cool okay we're back there are a ton of amazing games on the nintendo switch as of like two weeks ago you know we got metroid prime remastered which can i say i think that you and i a bit more in love with this one than Justin and Griffin were. I think they liked it. Yeah, I'm not surprised about Justin. I think Griffin maybe is, maybe poop socked it a little bit

and played a little too much to the point where he got over absorbed with it. But I am like, I mean, we'll talk about it during Honorable Mentions because I have more to say about that game but i think we'll be talking about that game at like end of the year i think so too i really yeah i was really impressed um but alongside that uh nintendo surprise announced

a bunch like over a dozen uh game boy and game boy advanced games uh that are now available on nintendo switch online and whatever that expansion pack plus right so if you subscribe to just normal nintendo switch online uh you just get the game boy games as part of the like virtual console whatever they call it and if you subscribe to the expansion pass which i believe is like 50 a year or something like that uh in addition to the you currently get the n64 collection that's on there and i think the genesis collection you are which I believe is like $50 a year or something like that. In addition to the, you currently get the N64 collection that's on there. And I think the Genesis collection,

you are now also getting a collection of Game Boy Advance games. So we're going to go through and just talk through the list and give some recommendations of stuff to check out. So to just kind of go through the list, Game Boy game wise. super mario land 2 legend of zelda links awakening dx gargoyles quest game and watch gallery 3 this one surprised me alone in the dark the new nightmare which i believe is a game boy color exclusive yeah uh metroid 2 return of samus wario land 3 kirby's dreamland first reaction there are more uh fun games for game boy on this list than i remembered being fun games for game boy in general that is like uh wow that is a head trip right there yeah i mean i think there were

all you more game good game boy games than you i think recall you know you're you're you're right um but i i feel like there were a lot that i liked as a kid that i have since tried to go back and play and i'm like wolf yes big so and there are a few on this list that i would say woof and like don't play them uh a couple i would say i don't think super mario land 2 ages well really at all if you've played any recent Mario game, 2D Mario game. Like I think it's,

it was impressive for the time because it felt a lot more like the NES Mario, but it's not a great game in my opinion. Game Watch 3, I can't play Game Watch, whatever. They're like a nice little luxury. I'm glad they're there for the historic purpose of people knowing what the hell Game & Watch is.

Yeah, but not like fun. No. Alone in the Dark, probably skip. And then I think the rest of them are quite good. So Legends of Zelda, Link's Awakening DX, probably the best of these, arguably the best Game Boy game ever made. probably the best of these arguably the best uh game boy game ever made uh this was the the game boy color version which added like an a color themed dungeon and a bunch of other stuff um but this game rocks you might have played the remake of it which came out a couple years ago on switch which is like cutesy uh chibi style uh remake both games are awesome uh But yeah, I'm a huge, huge fan.

Gargoyles Quest. That one is a cool surprise. I love Gargoyles Quest. Yeah. Gargoyles Quest is a spinoff from Ghosts and Goblins. Yes. And kind of like how Wario is a spinoff from the Mario games. It both is similar and totally different. Ghosts and Goblinsins like very difficult side scroller this is like an action rpg yeah it's like a gargoyle yeah so you play as the guy that basically like constantly swoops down at you in ghost and goblins but you're that guy um and it has yeah like an action rpg there's like you can find new abilities the levels are enormous um and uh had some like incredibly strong

art design for the time i think this is one of the earliest uh game boy games ever that came out and not only that uh i'm sure you had this experience too when we were kids you would go into the game store and basically pick the game based on the cover art, the horror. I can't even like imagine myself ever doing that now, obviously, because we have so many resources to tell us what is good and not, but this was one of the games. I think I got this and I got at the same point, uh,

Gator pinball or something like that. Our goals quest, much better game, uh, really, really strong, had a sequel on, Gargoyle's Quest, much better game. Really, really strong. Had a sequel on, I believe, SNES that's also really good. So I highly recommend it. I never played, and I still haven't played,

Alone in the Dark, A New Nightmare. I don't know. Yeah. Are there any games that come to mind for Game Boy that you're like, oh, I really want to get that whenever they add them? Because they are adding some games. I believe Tetris is coming.

Yeah, I believe they're adding Tetris. I'm trying to remember. Is Kirby's Tilt and Tumble, was that a GBA game or was that a Game Boy? Oh, wait, wait. I think Tetris is actually already there. I think you goofed. I think when you wrote up this list, I think you goofed.

I think it is the one additional game. Oh, I think you're right, actually. Yeah, I think you're right. They're adding Zelda Oracle of Seasons and Ages, Pokemon Trading Card Game, and Kirby Tilt and Tumble. Okay, yeah. Kirby Tilt and Tumble is dope. I'll be interested to see how they do the controls

because that game actually had like a tilt input thing.'d imagine it's just analog stick controls probably but uh i guess they could use the switch yeah i forgot that the joy cons have have motion controls the gyro um i would say though broadly speaking um the game boy collection is a lot overall, I think, weaker than the Game Boy Advance just overall catalog. I think the Game Boy Advance catalog is like so many bangers in that catalog that are just great. I will add one more Game Boy game that I'm dying for is Mario Golf, which is spectacular. It's a Game Boy Color game we've talked about in the past. It's one of my favorite sports games. It's one of those sports RPGs that there are so few of those,

and that one totally rocks. I mean, they're not happening for IP reasons, but James Bond 007, Metal Gear Solid, and honestly, Harvest Moon, the Game Boy version. That was the one I fell in love with i it's one of those you know do i actually want to play it or do i just want to know it's near and dear sure um but but yeah but i will say i have recently replayed mario golf on gb game boy color and it is still really really good yeah um uh okay the gba games do you want to do

you want to hit me with those yeah absolutely so the full list i hope i got this right is super mario advance for super mario brothers 3 which is a port of super mario 3 that came to game boy advance very confusing uh do you know what's special about it well there's a couple things one they changed the art is like quote updated so the art kind of uses like almost an snes art style to it and secondly it has new exclusive levels that were originally only playable if you had an e-reader which was a crazy piece of hardware where you'd scan cards and it would like unlock features in the game it's like i mean what a cool weird decision it's very weird uh and i haven't played those levels yet yet, but that's dope to think like,

these are Nintendo made levels for Super Mario 3 that no one has really, like, how many people have actually played those levels realistically? So I think that'll be really, really cool. What else? We also have WarioWare Incorporated Mega Micro micro games the very first wario ware game which continues to be fucking great and totally awesome and playable and delightful so i strongly recommend that this was before wario ware got like way more complicated than it should be when it was just like a single input like it was just hit a to do whatever the thing it was. And it was just like lightning fast minigames.

So awesome. Loved it. Kuru Kuru Kuru Rain. I think that's right. Yeah. Have you ever played this? It's great. I actually haven't.

I know this is the spinning stick game, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, you nailed it. You're a stick. It's a spinning stick game. I don't know a good way to describe this game other than like, you should just go play it because it's effectively free. If you have,

yeah. If you have the service, the expansion pack. Yeah. I mean, it's like a, like an arcade puzzle game. Almost.

It's kind of like, like a well-made mobile game, I would say. Not to diminish it, but it has that like... There's a stick that is spinning either left or right automatically, and then you move through a

course, trying not to hit the walls with the spinning stick. I mean, it's like as simple as that. What a delight, this game. There's also some awesome games done quick speedruns of this game. Oh, really? That are obviously, you can guess, cool as hell. Yeah, that does sound dope, actually.

Okay, then Mario Kart. Mario Kart, which was the very first portable version of Mario Kart, came out ages ago, and pretty damn good Mario Kart. They did a good job. It's hard for me to recommend the old Mario Karts because I think they've just gotten better over the years, but from a retro standpoint, pretty good. 3D Mario's, I just, I so much prefer than that old school style. Mario and Luigi Superstar Saga.

This is great because I believe this game cost a fortune. I mean, I would imagine original versions of all of these games cost a fortune to some extent, but I'm sure this one is probably one of the more expensive ones. Yes, let's look right now. Yeah, it looks like this is like 40 bucks, which, not a fortune, fortune.

For a card. Oh, no, I was thinking of, well, Superstar Saga Advance. Oh, no, so you can get it for 40 bucks if you buy the 3DS version it looks like the GBA version is like more unsurprisingly

but this game is great if you love any of the Paper Mario games this is very much in that vein of like a turn based actiony RPG stellar writing in this game I uh i think these mario and luigi games are some of the best writing that nintendo has done in terms of like back and forth character dialogue um and just feels really good like the combat feels good it's it's like an

actiony turn-based so it's all like oh hit a at the right time to do like a critical attack which just feels like way more engaging to me i most rpgs i can't get into but this this series i was really able to get into and this one's really really strong and then i think the showpiece for the show both both of us right the legend of zelda the minish cap which you liked for a long time i feel like i really fell in love with while we were doing our zelda bracketing yeah so i recently even before this happened i was replaying minish cap and i hadn't played it really in ages like i played a little bit during our brackets and i loved it then but like didn't get really that deep into it and the more i play minish gap the more i realize how strong it is and how much of a an air it is to like link to the past and all the ones that are considered like the very, very best.

Amazing art design, really cool puzzles where you're shrinking down into tiny size and then growing up super big. It also does something that I think Oracle of Ages and Seasons does not do very well, which is I think it does Agents and season Oracle of ages and seasons does not do very well, which is, I think it does player guidance really well. Uh, I think ages and seasons are like very reliant on go to this grid moment, go to this grid at this very specific point.

And there'll be an NPC there and he's going to like advance the story, whatever. Whereas Minish Cap, I think you're constantly given like just enough to know, Oh, it makes sense. If I were to go here and progress the story whatever whereas minish cap i think you're constantly given like just enough to know oh it makes sense if i were to go here and progress the story it just feels like it's very hands-off i could beat this game without looking things up and uh that i think to me makes for a really good zelda game yeah and then stuff that's being added uh in the future metroid fusion kirby in the amazing mirror fire emblem f0 maximum velocity and golden sun In the future, Metroid Fusion, Kirby and the Amazing Mirror, Fire Emblem, F-Zero Maximum Velocity, and Golden Sun. Great games.

That last one. Is it surprising that Golden Sun's on there? I don't know. I mean, it's like, you know, it shows up in most top 10 lists for the GBA, but it's also not, I don't know. I feel like it's kind of the disrespected gba game by nintendo yeah but in terms of like big like traditional style rpgs it's really it yeah that's it yeah well i mean as long as you're not including final fantasy yeah no i mean made by nintendo i mean yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah no i i think that's right i mean and those games are like i played

through the first one i remember when it first came out it was really really strong um so yeah i mean i think all those that are being added are are all great that fireball game that you mentioned is the reason i am now a fireball fan like that converted me when it first that was the first one that came to the u.s and i absolutely fell in love so if you get pissed about all the firemob games the all the firemob characters that come out in smash brothers you can finally get into the series and be like oh i i recognize that that one is that one this is the one with lynn they introduced the lynn what would you want added that's not here i mean the the obvious omission for me is advance wars which i get because they have a new Advance Wars game.

Yeah, they're they're re-releasing those first and second games on Switch. You know, omissions would probably be the Castlevania games, but those also just got re-released as the Castlevania Advance Collection, all three of them. So kind of hard to justify those additions. You know, I'll say it again the game boy advanced version of mario golf also really good arguably even better than the uh game boy color version so yeah bring that guy back love it yeah and then there are some things that just probably are not going to happen like any of the final fantasy games sure pokemon mother 3 slash earthbound 2 um i'm a little surprised metroid zero mission you know i think that will come i think they wanted to they didn't want to mention two metroid games in the coming soon list yeah that so i think

it will happen plus the metroid they just released that day right zero mission is stellar though i'm i that's definitely worth playing yeah and then the one that i really really want asteroid astro boy the omega factor oh yeah that game's so good that's a cool game action game made by treasure that just rules um uh and again i i would assume lost to time for something like this because it's Sega published it but it was developed by Treasure and you know it's tied to an iconic

IP I mean maybe but I'd be surprised yeah I mean just a lot of good stuff if you pick only one game right now from this whole list that we just went through what would you recommend people play uh i would well i'll do one for each platform so i think on game boy

legend of zelda links awakening dx if you've never played it amazing and uh just to mix it up i would normally say minish cap but just to mix it up marion lu Luigi Super Star Staga. Super, super, super good. Yeah, for me, it would be Wario Land 3 on Game Boy. Yeah, great game. And then, yeah, I mean, I would say WarioWare or Kuro Kuro Kuren. I mean, really,

you're not going to miss with pretty much, you're not going to miss with anything on the GBA list. That is true, yeah. And pretty good odds with Game Boy. Hey, before we wrap up, what else have you been playing? anything on the gba list that is true yeah um and you pretty good odds with with game boy um hey before we wrap up what else have you been playing well again we talked about it on on

besties this past week but metroid primary mastered has been my like go-to chill out game uh playing it mostly on hand in handheld thank god for for the Hori Split Pad Pro being comfortable to do dual stick controls in handheld. But man, that game rocks. I'm playing it as a... I've never done this in a Metroid game before. We talked a little bit about it on Besties, the map not giving you a ton of guidance

in terms of where to go next. I've started taking notes and they're not super detailed notes they are simply like okay this room has a spider ball track in it and i don't have the spider ball yet so i'm going to write down the area and the name of the room so that when i get the spider ball i can just go back to all the rooms that had spider ball tracks in them and i think that'll really cut down on the like hunting and pecking that these games kind of turn into where you're like i kind of remember there was a door here but i don't remember where

and i think it'll really help so we'll see i'll report back um i've been playing wanted dead oh yeah we were i think we were going to talk about this maybe on no we were going to talk about each i was trying to remember what we almost talked about on besties wanted dead maybe we'll talk about it at more length later on i know justin is playing it it is a curiosity that is hard to believe exists it is you know you know when people are like, hey, they don't make them like they used to. Well, they've made one like they used to. It is an action game from former members of the Ninja Gaiden and Dead or Alive team. You play as a riot squad in, like, future Hong Kong. Like, riot response, I guess.

But your only weapons are, like, heavy machine guns and katanas. Sure. And you just slice and dice your way through a world that looks like how video games looked in the PS2 era, but, like, through the lens of Unreal Engine 4 or 5 or whatever. It's deeply weird just in terms of like the action gameness of it all right if you just said that you're like hey it's a game where half of it is cover-based shooting and half of it is close combat sword fights which do not seemingly go

well together right um that would be enough uh but they don't stop there there is like yakuza style mini games like ramen slurping and karaoke and uh a crane game and an arcade game and all this stuff there is like anime cut scenes that inexplicably interrupt the game there is a live action cooking show uh that's part of the game and also exists outside of the game there's a full like four song album performed by the voice actress who plays the main character and it seems to be you know quote produced by one of the evil companies or mysterious companies in the game itself it is bizarre the game opens you know i say all this you think wow the game itself. It is bizarre. The game opens, you know, I say all this, and you think, wow, the game must open with you, like,

just causing chaos or with chaos being thrown at you. No, it opens with, like, an extended diner sequence where they just talk about what feels like nothing. Like, it might as well be, like, a Seinfeld episode. It is truly bizarre. I am in disbelief by it. I can't recommend people, you know, rush out to buy it because I believe it's full price. Like, I think it's like a $60 game.

It sounds very much like a YouTube kind of game. But, yeah, I feel like if you are a person who loves to stream games, it feels perfect for that because it's bizarre. And I did enjoy it. Like, let me be clear. I didn't hate my time with it. I wasn't, like, angry with it. I even enjoyed the combat as busted as it is. It's just wild you know it it's so weird that dead space came out you know basically

around the exact same time and dead space is literally a game from you know 10 or however many years ago yeah and then they updated it and that somebody else was like yeah but what if we did the opposite what if we used all of this modern technology to go back to all of the problems with video games 10 years ago? And it was like, sure. I mean, I don't know if that's the best idea, but it looks like you got financing, so go for it. That's very funny. I wrote a whole review on it.

If you want to read it, it's at Polygon. If you don't, I understand. And yeah, that's it um do we have anything else before we wrap no i think we did it all cool okay here's what we talked about today you know what i'm not gonna i'm not gonna do the whole game boy game boy no that's okay that's that's you don't need to wild we talked about like a dragon ishin um and then we talked about all of the new game boy and game boy advanced games you can rewind a little bit in the episode if you want to hear that because

we listed them out in full um uh we also talked about metroid prime remastered again on the nintendo switch and wanted dead which i believe is available on pc xbox and playstation i i i do want to mention one more thing. And last episode, if you listened to the last Rusty's episode, you criticized my pronunciation of arigato gozaimashita because you said it was past tense or something, but I was playing like a Dragon Asian and one of the vendors in that game said exact same thing after completing a purchase. So I think I appropriately said it. I mean, you may have, here's the thing,

that game knows a lot more about the Japanese language than I do. There you go. And clearly I do as well. I do like that you don't know for sure if you're right though. I mean, it sounded like what I said the last time. Okay, I'm going to find out. I think mashita, if you add that, adds a level of formality that you wouldn't necessarily

have with a friend. You're making some wild guesses that I do not think are right. We'll find out. The mas form is like a polite, but not the most polite form. Okay. But okay. I love that you're like,

I'm pretty sure. Hey, you know what? I played a Yakuza game once, and I'm something of an expert. Cool. This has been a blast. My name is Christopher Thomas Plant. My name is Wes Frustick. That's who you are.

This has been another episode of The Resties, where the rest of the best discuss the best of the rest until next time resties