The Besties - Pepper Grinder and Princess Peach, Together at Last

Episode Date: April 5, 2024

This week we've got a game inspired by the SNES era and a game that probably shouldn't have come out at all. We'll also find out just what Justin thinks about Dragon's Dogma 2, and what's going on with the Stardew Valley 1.6 update. 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!

I'm all about life hacks for business place efficiency here in the studio. And I have a pretty good one that I came up with for this episode. If you guys will allow. I mean, this is the point of the podcast is life hacks for business efficiency. So yeah, so.

We want to teach thought leaders how to maximize their. It's mostly gonna be helpful for us in this one specific situation. And is this a TEDx or is it a normal Ted? This is a Ted Y. So real quick, let me just hit you guys with a Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice. Oh no.

Okay. I thought maybe Beetlejuice would show up if I said, let me try that again. Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice. I mean, I should be up to seven now. Okay, so that's- It's show time. Okay, and now everybody, we're gonna talk,

this week we're talking about Princess Peach, and then Beetlejuice can come in and say the showtime part for us. It's showtime. See? No, Beetlejuice? Yes? First of all, you sound super Jill.

You sound a lot like my brother Justin. I've had quite a few years off, thank you. You've really mellowed out. But I'm back. I don't know if you saw Timmy and I are back in business. No. Is that real Beetlejuice? Yeah, it's called Beetlejuice Beetlejuice.

Okay. It's my new movie coming out. I feel like you wouldn't come back unless- My tagline, I came up with a tagline for this one. It's Showtime Again. Okay. See, that's good. We need you to say Showtime for when we say Princess Peach showtime.

Right, if you had gotten to me like two years ago, I would say it's showtime for 20 bucks. I mean, I was in Toledo, I was in- Yeah, you were in Cameos, right? Las Cruces. I mean, any con, I did Dragon Con, Flame Con, Ass Play Con, I did them all. Ass Play Con, Ass PlayCon, I did them all.

I would have done it for $20. I would have said it's showtime to anybody to pay me $20. But now, Timmy and I are back, and Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice. Your star is rising. Quick follow up, which city is AssPlayCon in? Aspen. Of course.

Of course. Naturally. I said Aspencon, what did you hear? Well, that's the kind of stuff that I'm getting into. Nasty stuff, yeah. Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice. The new I see cool that's coming out. You won't get what they're doing with those sand worms.

Yeah, got one on her, she's back. No kidding. Yeah, and Jenna Ortega got them all. It's gonna be a good flick. A little redundant. What? Why you need them both? Yeah, they're mom and daughter, I bet.

Yeah, I bet. Have you not read the script, Beatlejuice? Hey, listen, when you're doing, when you come talk to me, when you're at like Lactation FetishCon 2024. Why are you at that? You come talk to me about how picky you are about projects. Yeah.

Cause I'm, I'll take anything at this point. Yeah, not at this point, back then. Now, Tammy and I are back in showtime again. Rising, yeah. Cool. So are you gonna give me $20 or where are we at? Do you know about Venmo? I only use Sinmo. It's the underworld Venmo.

Yeah. Does it go, does it like bones? Is it like bones that you give? Is bones, do you use bones for money? Okay, this is uncomfortable for me. I don't know Russ, how you're at with Griffin's behavior. I feel like it's a good question. Do they use bones for money in hell?

Okay, so I can tell what kind of space this is. I'm gonna step away from this project. Thank you so, blessings, namaste to you both. Thank you. I actually have a flight to catch. I am headed out to Tokon, and I have to get out there to all the piggly wigglies that I crave.

That one's for me. That one's for you, so you're a guest in that one. Namaste, thank you for having me. Thank you grave. That one's for me. That one's for you. So you're not you're a guest in that one. Namaste. Thank you guys. Thank you so much. Thank you. I'm flying a private plane. My name is Justin McElroy and I know the best game of the week.

My name is Griffin McElroy. I know the best game of the week. My name is Russ Freshman and I know the best game of the week. Welcome to the besties where we talk about the latest and greatest in home interactive entertainment. It is a video game club. And just by listening, my friend, you have joined our illustrious ranks. Chris Plant is on assignment at KneecapCon.

He is gonna be bringing back to us all the latest sort of silicon cappings that people are getting into, and different spikes that they can have attached, whatever. Cyber patella's. So I will turn to Russ Freshdick to ask him. Oh, no, what is Pepper grinder and what is Princess Peach Showtime? Sure homebound both Well, I'm a I'm a blow through them both pepper grinder is a 2d action

Platformer where you have a big-ass drill and you drill through the land and collect coins and have a good old time kind of an SNES vibe to it and and collect coins and have a good old time, kind of an SNES vibe to it. And Princess Peach Showtime is the first time that Princess Peach has starred in her own game in like 20 years. Somehow balloons keep it, this is our first episode recording with video.

Russ has enabled the Apple video emojis. And we're not sharing the video to be clear. We're not sharing the video, you'll have to lean on this description. But he's doing the same thing that our dad does, which is accidentally setting off the Apple emojis and not knowing how to turn it off. Which, you need to sit with that, Russ.

I've been on business calls where that has come out in really inopportune times, and it caused a lot of problems. Anyway, Princess Peach is back, or some shit. Let's go to commercial. Cool, cool, cool. So, let's start off with Peppergrinder because I think that that's probably a bit,

a lesser known quantity here. This would be, here's here, you wanna hear my pitch? My pitch. Yeah. It's Dig Dug meets Sonic the Hedgehog. Oh, okay. That's interesting. You put those two together, okay. It does have a drill. It's got a drill, which is huge,

but also the movement and the way that tying movement together in a satisfying way, and that being like maybe more important than the sort of like dig through, find every little hidden thing kind of thing. It's a more, it feels like a more, a fluid sort of action experience in the way that Sonic at its best is.

I would say the comparison I would make is it is Super Meat Boy meets Dolphin Olympics. Just a neat sort of locomotion of it. So the game, you have this drill and the main crux of the game, it's surprisingly straightforward. You are doing all these platforming challenges, but you keep coming across different sort of tunnels,

diggable land, and when you get into it, you just- Diggable planets. Diggable, yeah, sure, you just start zooming through. You just start zooming through the land, and if you exit out the end, you'll shoot out one side, and maybe you land in even more dirt, and start digging around, and you have to use that to navigate a bunch of treacherous obstacles.

And they throw some stuff in there to mix it up. Eventually you will start finding little segments where you will find a machine gun that you plug your drill into, or a mech suit that you plug your drill into. But for the most part, that's the crux of it. You are shooting through the terrain in a 2D sort of platform environment

and trying to connect your movement as smoothly as you possibly can, while solving the occasional puzzle and trying to find hidden like special coins that are scattered across every level. Yeah. Yeah. And your drill becomes almost sort of,

it's not just a weapon, it's kind of an extension of you. You're using it to like interact with the environment, switches, platforms, that kind of thing. Enemies, yeah. Enemies, yeah. Yeah, if you played Ori and the Will of the Wisps, which was the second Ori game, there was a mechanic that was kind of similar to this,

and this is kind of building the whole game around that idea of the drilling and then launching yourself out. And I think that part of it feels like incredibly good. Like on the level of like the sort of best moments of like Nintendo made the sort of, you know, best moments of, like, Nintendo-made SNES games, where it's like, this is a loop that they really fucking nailed,

and, like, the game feels, like, spot on, which I thought was really good. I also, the look and feel of it is very, that first Yoshi game, Yoshi's Island, has that, like, kind of hand-drawn, fun, light vibe. Sort of tropical kind of aesthetic. And even the world map is like that too, where it follows the Donkey Kong Country,

not to make all these comparisons, but a very simple walking around a map, hand-drawn map kind of vibe to it. I feel like there's a tendency for games that kind of pull inspiration inspiration from like older classics, especially platformers. There's a tendency to like stack a bunch of shit on top of that.

And sometimes that works really well and sometimes it does not. And so like Peppergrinder has made a choice here to not do that. Like it really is just about this platforming. There's a little shop that you can go to to spend the gems that you collect and the hidden coins that you collect.

And it is all either just aesthetics, there's stickers that you can collect, there's different hairstyles you can change to. There's single use items that you can buy. So like you'll go into the next level with double health starting out, but like in terms of like mechanical progression, like there isn't really. Yeah, I mean, you know, you mentioned a little bit that

there are those like missions where you like get a machine gun in the third area, you can get like a snowmobile. So they do find ways to sort of mix things up. I didn't find that anything quite matched the thrill of the core mechanic, which is the drilling, which again comes through the entire game. Like that doesn't go away. I think some of the challenges I ran into

is like when you're not drilling, it does not feel as good. Which is, I wish like the on the ground stuff felt a little bit better. I understand you being like kind of hamstrung by the fact that like, oh, you should be using the drill and the game is encouraging that, but I just wish it felt a little more fun to move around outside.

Yeah, it felt to me like there was like something missing. Like some, like there was one more mechanic that, and I don't know what it is, right? This is maybe a shitty critique because I have no idea like what is missing, but it just felt like that sort of locomotion of digging through shit and moving through the world is very, very cool.

And then like, I feel like there needed to be just one more element, one more sort of like component of the game. Because yeah, when you are not digging through the world, it's just a very, very, very straightforward basic platformer. I struggled to get into this. And just in case you have a similar brain makeup to me,

I wanted to sort of try to unpack it a little bit. For me, I like in like Twitch games or platforming games, the experience of running something repeatedly to try to get it as like smooth and fluid as possible. And my problem that I had in Peppergrinder is I would often like see the line they were wanting me to hit. It gets a little more complex as you go

where you kind of have to like, you have a boost sort of that you can time to like go through different stuff and et cetera, et cetera. But if I didn't hit a line exactly, my compulsion or my desire usually is like, oh, I'd like to try that again to get it. I'd like to get it the way that they want it here, right? And especially because enemies,

a lot of times, it wasn't super clear to me if a drill was gonna hurt them or if they were somebody that needed to bounce off someone and you just kind of bounce off of them. So I don't know. But the feeling of like going back to try to like try a line again is, it feels bad. Like it feels bad to kind of like tromp back there

and try it again. And that was the loop I was finding myself stuck in. When you can hit the line right the first time, it feels really good. When you're wanting to like back up and try something again, it feels worse. And also you got half the rewards the first time around. So there's going to be like fewer gems. It's like less rewarding and it feels less good to get it the second time. But that was what was kind of messing me up, I think.

Like kind of in Sonic, I have the same issue where if I get a really good flow going, I'm like, oh, that was fun. But then I'm like, what did I miss? Like, what did I, I'm gonna go back, I think, and go through it more slowly because that's the way I like to play them. I think this, again, Donkey Kong Country

has similar vibes to it. Sonic's a good example. It does make me wonder, like, would this have worked better if you followed the Super Meat Boy model of, like, here are a bunch of levels you can beat in, like, 30 seconds? Or even the Celeste model. I think I struggled with Peppergrinder a little bit because of the unfortunate timing

that we just played Celeste for a stream last week, and it just reminded me what a fucking full-throttle masterpiece that game is. Where if it was just like single screen puzzles that you zip through and if you get hit, you die instantly so you get to try it again. My biggest problem is that there are five hidden coins in each level that you spend on,

I mean, stuff that really doesn't have much impact in the game, but it shows you on the map how many coins you really doesn't have much impact in the game, but like, it shows you on the map, like, how many coins you found, and at the end of the level, it shows you how many coins you found. It feels awful to get to the end of the level, and you only found one of the five coins, but if you really wanna, like, take your time

and make sure that you are, like, turning over every nook and cranny looking for every coin, the flow state of the game never really gets off the ground because you are having to stop a lot and run around a lot looking for stuff. And so it's like that system is almost antithetical to like what works best about the game, which is, you know, a smooth ass feeling. And that was, again, like Chaos Emeralds in Sonic

and Sonic 2, whatever it was, that was the same deal where you'd have to like really go off the beaten path to Find these things but it meant not running fast scrap all that stuff Just put a timer on it make the levels way shorter Yeah, make more of me, you know split them apart make more of them and have like par times like oh You got a gold medal you finish that level in 45 seconds. You did all this cool shit You like strung together a line. Like give it to me, what's that skateboarding game?

Oh, the Roll 7 game. The Roll 7 one. Olly olly, yeah. That's something like, I feel like in a shorter burst, all about polishing up your line, I'd be really fucking into this game. But it's- I agree.

I think that that, and I also, I felt like the turning radius was a little wide on it to where I didn't feel in complete control a lot of the time. I kind of wanted that to be a little tighter for me to feel like I was in, but that's something that like, they probably know the flow, how it should feel better. I will also say some fucking gnarly difficulty spikes,

specifically on the boss fights. I breathe, you will breeze through the first act of this game, like the levels are pretty much showing you what to do. You may die here and there, but there's like a checkpoint system that's pretty forgiving. And then the first boss fight, I died a lot, a whole lot, because it is considerably harder than anything else

that happened in the game. And like, I'm not averse to that. I like difficulty in a game, but I feel like it has to be a little bit more even than that. Yeah, it should be consistent. Yeah, just to put a pin in this, my general vibe is like I had a really good time with it

as a light like throwback to that era. I do agree there are mechanics in there that like could be refined, but overall I think it's a good project for people looking for, again, that nostalgia itch, that 2D platforming nostalgia itch. It does have a good hit. I will say, when you first start getting into it,

it does have a good feel of like, oh, you guys are gonna let me do this? Because it feels overpowered from the beginning. Like the idea that, oh, I'm just gonna drill right through. That part is really fun. And maybe it'd be more fun if I didn't get in my head about like wanting to do all that stuff, but I guess if you put out collectibles,

gotta get them. People are gonna try to get them. I think they've definitely like found something. Like the core mechanic of Peppergrinder is very cool and very exciting. And I don't think that it has quite enough stuff to support it and it, you know, maybe Pepper Grindr too, that, you know, will look like something different.

I also wish, as long as we're talking about it, I wish that the stakes of like the collectibles and what you could unlock was sort of laid out from the beginning. Like, hey, don't worry so much about collecting this stuff. It's not gonna affect your performance at all. Cause like, I don't really care about costumes and stickers and the biggest bummer is when I use a bunch of my money

to buy a health upgrade and then it's not permanent. You just get hit and it disappears. That feels bad. Like that doesn't feel good. That makes me sad. Speaking of good feel, let's jump to our other game that we're discussing this week, Princess Peach. Showtime.

It's showtime. Thank you so much, Beetlejuice. You're welcome. It'll be $20, please. This is a, just to invoice us at the end of the episode, it's to have a go-piece meal every time you say it. This is a- I only use flus.

Do you do flues? Flues? Made up internet currency, old men to reference. We've already established you use bones. So fucking stay with the, stick with the program. Good Feel is the creator of this game. And I feel like it has a similar vibe to some of their other big titles,

like Yoshi's Crafted World and Yoshi's Woolly World. Can I also just add, it's very weird because before this game came out, Nintendo wouldn't say who made the game. That's fucking weird, man. They're like, you'll find out when you play it and see the credits. But they like wouldn't tell people, I don't know, it's really bizarre. It has a similar vibe to it, because all of the other games they have made

have been single character Mario universe spin-off games, right? Right. That have not been as mechanically complex at all as those other things, and are much more about like aesthetics and vibe, right? Kirby's Epic Yarn is another one that is like not the most challenging or like frankly, interesting game, but like it looks cool.

Like it looks crazy. Yoshi's crafted or whatever it was. Yeah, Yoshi's crafted world. Like everything being like handmade stitched fabrics and like craft supplies. Like that is very much the vibe of the game. It is not like a, you know, intricate twitchy platformer, like a, you know, a Mario Odyssey or anything like that.

And that is very, very much, I feel like the vibe of Princess Peach Showtime. The format of like the game is quite different. I can lay that out if you- Yeah, yeah, go for it. Sure, yeah. So Princess Peach goes to, at the beginning of the game is quite different. I can lay that out if you... Yeah, yeah, go for it. Sure, yeah. So Princess Peach goes to, at the beginning of the game, the Sparkle Theater. Everything that happens in this game takes place on stage.

Which is a recurring theme for Nintendo games. Like Super Mario 3 was the same thing. Yeah. A lot of these games have that kind of... It makes it easier if you don't wanna work very hard on animations to say everyone's a puppet. Well, that's not quite what's going on in this one.

No, I know, I know. They take some liberties with that. Like you will go through a door and then like just be, I guess on another adjacent stage. Like I kind of wish they had committed to it and like done a lot of sort of clever transitions. The metaphor is wild, okay? They either like, welcome to our theater,

or like, oh cool, I've been to the theaters, here's where all the different plays are. Well, that's not how theaters work at all. You know that, right? It's like a super theater. Here's the hub world with 10 plays all going on at the same time, yeah. So you go into these different play worlds and-

Do you think it's like a black box thing where it's like an off, like- It's all experimental shit. Everyone is just spending like nine dollars for the black box and they can do whatever the fuck they want. That might be it. In each world, like it is a different sort of genre and Peach will don a different costume

that gives her different sort of, powers is almost not the right word because it's like every- She's playing like a role at that point. It's almost different genres. Yeah. Like different genres of game, right? So the first one is Swordfighter Peach and you are, you know,

sieging this castle that's been taken over by these giant evil plants to try and save the king and you are doing some, and this is a recurring theme, like pretty rudimentary action stuff, like slicing enemies with one button and dodging them with the other, and that's pretty much the whole thing.

If you are looking for mechanical complexity, like it is even more so than other good feel games, like Wicked Not Here. And so I think that you can enjoy this game if your expectations are set, right? And you, maybe like a certain demographic playing it, like a younger person who wants to, you wanna like expose to like a lot of different genres

of games at very, very like entry friendly levels. Like I think that this is, I think this is a good fit for that. And maybe like more of a narrative experience that you would get from like a Super Mario Wonder, for example. Yeah, absolutely. It is very much for me a Jack of all trades,

Master of None, and also a lot of the trades aren't just like pretty, are pretty boring. I would say almost half of them. Like some of them were pretty fun. There's a ninja one that involves like sneaking around and wall jumping and sneaking up on enemies to take them out and you know, that part is pretty fun and then some of it is like,

there's a rhythm game one that is not good, just fully full stop not good. Yeah. And so like, yeah, it is such a mixed bag for me. I also noticed it does not run very well. No. With like long load, like weirdly long load times. And like just performance issues throughout.

Especially during cut scenes. Yeah. Like the frame rate really, really plummets. So I know a lot of the conversation around this game is, this is probably going to be one of the last first party swan songs on the current Switch hard. Currently original first party games. There'll be a bunch of re-releases, I think,

between now and Switch 2, but yeah. But like, so like, is that, I feel like if this game had come out two or three years ago, I think between now and Switch 2, but yeah. I feel like if this game had come out two or three years ago, it would have just sort of slid under the radar and been kind of a cute game for younger folks who wanna just try out a bunch of different stuff. As one of the big original first party releases on Nintendo's hardware this year,

it is not a great fit, not a great showcase of the hardware. I like good feel games. I have played all of those with Henry and they are not challenging in a way that his eyes kind of glaze over, but at least exploring the world is fun. It is fun to look at the worlds.

The game feels great. And this one, like I could not get him to get past like the second level because it is just not that engaging to play just because of how, I don't know, how simple it is. It's weird. I think that people miss a trick and some understand it better,

but if you're trying to, you have to accept that this is a game that has kids in mind to a certain extent. Like it is not tax, so I think what people, the mistake people make a lot of times when they're designing games for kids is that they reduce the challenge,

but don't replace that with like a sense of play. And I think that like, that's what kids get into more, I have found at least in my own personal experience, if you're gonna put in like an, like, okay, the ninja part is very, very easy. It's very easy, but it's also, if you get spotted, you get caught and sent back. Yeah, there's no room to like fuck around basically.

Right, but it's extremely easy. But if you're six, like Cooper is, she just wanted to play around. Like she doesn't wanna do that. She doesn't wanna get caught and sent back and do it over again. Like, especially kids that age, like they don't wanna do that.

So they've reduced the difficulty, but they haven't made it, like, playful. There's some areas where you can use... When Princess Peach is in one of these roles, she can use, like, her magic wand. And sometimes, like, you can, like, interact with people a little bit and, like, cheer them up. And I feel like what it needed was more of that, so it was, like, more satisfying to be in the world, because playing in the world is not that engaging.

It's just not, none of these mechanics are that interesting. It also does the Mario spin-off thing that drives me absolutely up a wall, which is that 99% of the characters you interact with are this same sort of, I forget what they call them. I just said species. Yeah, it's just like little tiny guys with little tiny hats and they dress up in different costumes

depending on what genre they're in, but I don't know, you're not gonna see any other. They're not called gooblets, but they might as well be called gooblets. Gooblets sounds really good. You'll see toads in there, because for whatever fucking reason, they gotta get a toad in every game.

But, like, you don't really see anyone else from this, like, incredibly rich world. It's kind of like what I feel like they're trying to do is what they did with WarioWare, which is, like, we're gonna make a whole universe for each individual character, and then when it's, like, a shared thing where lots of familiar characters are in it,

and Luigi's Mansion, too, for that matter where lots of familiar characters are in it, and Luigi's Mansion too for that matter, when lots of characters are in it, we're gonna bring back, oh, there's gonna be Koopas, there's gonna be Shy Guys, et cetera. But here they are being very intentionally selective to create a Peach universe, if you will. Right.

I don't know if that's a good thing, but that feels like a good shot. If they wanted to do that, they should have included more than two original characters. It just feels half-baked to me. My problem with the game isn't that it's too easy, and it's not even really that it doesn't have a bunch of different Mario characters in it. It doesn't feel very considered. It feels half-baked. It feels like...

It has a system in it where there are these sparkles that you can find. You need the sparkles for advancement, but really they're more like the... They're kind of like stars in Mario, right? Like you get, you're collecting them as a way of showing your mastery of this. Some of these levels have 10 of them to collect, and some of these levels are the kind of thing where once you do it, like you barely want to do it

the first time. Like, I'll give, the detective one, for example, is not, I thought that was kind of fun to do with kids. It's kind of a very rudimentary point and click where you're like walking around and looking at things and you see how these two things interact in the environment. And there, but there is, I will say, and this is the case for all of the ones,

there's like a five to 10 minute segment up top where you don't even have the basic detective abilities. And the idea that you would wanna replay some of these to collect all that stuff is, I mean, unthinkable literally. Like, I don't think anybody thought like, well, what if they do wanna go back and get all this stuff? They're gonna have to go back and get all that stuff is, I mean, unthinkable, literally. Like, I don't think anybody thought, like, well, what if they do want to go back and get all this stuff? They're going to have to play through all this part again, and this is so boring.

Yeah, yeah. I think that's all fair to say. I'm bummed because it's been so fucking long since she's had her own game. And the last game was like, okay, it was pretty good. It was in DS and it was Super Princess Peach. And I mean, I guess you could play Super Mario Wonder just as Princess Peach and that almost feels like her,

I mean, it feels like Super Princess Peach in a lot of ways that way. But yeah, I just sort of like, it just feels like they kind of brought out the B team for this one. And it's- Which sucks. And this isn't about complaining because it's a kids game.

Cause like my girls love Princess Peach. Like they were very excited and it just did. And there were fantastic kids games. Like the play point you made is really good. It's like, if you're going to make a kid's game, you're going to make it really easy. You need to let kids have like be able to be creative and screw around.

Cause that's what kids like to do. Do you know what? It's funny. And this is kind of, I'm not gonna tie this into a B segment, but yesterday we had really bad weather and the girls had to come home early from school and I had Cooper on my lap while I was trying to do other stuff and I turned on Putt Putt.

And it was Putt Putt Travels. Putt Putt Travels Through Time is one of Humongous Entertainment slash Bird or Bun's point and click adventure games for kids. Got it. Junior adventures, they call them. So there's Fatty Bear, there was Putt Putt, there was Pajama Sam, Spy Fox. These are all weird. Smokey Joe. Yeah, Smokey Joe.

Now they're all like kids. OG Kush. Kids point and click adventure games. But the hook with these games was that in addition to being like four kids and really easy, everything you click out in the environment has a fun little animation and a fun little noise. And that's everything. And like Cooper sat in raptured for two hours with this 1996 point and click adventure game, because everything in it was designed to be played with. And that's the kind of games kids wanna play.

Like not, so it is not a complaint about it being a kids game. It's just, you can't talk down to kids. It has to just be more fun. So yeah, that's a bummer. But I don't know what to say. We have other things to talk about. We do, we do.

And things that I think we probably were a little more engaged with in the B segment. So that's something exciting. Griffin, I know you played Stardew, the new update. And I'm very excited to hear about that. Yeah, we've got a lot to talk about. So let's take a look. We got a lot to talk about.

Just come on back, okay? Come on back. I actually kind of want to start things out. I want to hear Justin's thoughts on what he's played of Dragon's Dog. Oh boy. Okay, I wasn't gonna play it because I was gonna wait for a performance improvement

and that is still my plan. So this is more of a teaser period for myself. A little, a little treat. You like the first game a lot, right? I love the first game. And so far, this one's really good too. Oh wow, you're into it. Oh yeah, man! Oh yeah! Are you kidding me?

How much have you played? How much time have you spent on it? I don't know, four hours, three hours, something like that. So that's what's amazing to me, why I'm so surprised, is because I think the first game's first four hours are actually pretty strong, and this game's first four hours are like fucking dismal like you're walking flowers to people and like Yeah, man. That shit is no good. Yeah, it's really funny though Like it's so wild to have a team of weird who is who does dr. Hotdog belong to one of you guys No, I've seen dr. Hotdog dr. Hotdog is one of my pawns. I recruited dr. Hotdog and then of those, so I don't know who he belongs to. I recruited Dr. Hotdog, and then I have my own pawn. And I guess I didn't understand what's happened.

Okay, I have a question for you all. Was the first character you met named Justin? No. I don't remember. I don't think so. I don't think I really understood what was happening with the naming, because I made my character, and then everybody was talking to him like he was a pawn,

and then the first character I met was a knight named Justin that looked kind of like the character that I had created, and it was very, very confusing. My resin looks just like me though. It's so funny, I can't believe they make games like this. Like, you are a ma... I chose mage, and it's so funny to have this, like, little... I've got this little dork named Special Boy.

He's back. Um, except now he's a 50-year-old bald man, uh, with a tiny, tiny body, and he's a fighter, and he's so vicious. And I'm a mage, which means I can control mystical arts. And that also means that if a wolf looks at me wrong, I fucking die. I die from it.

I die all the time for really no good reason. Considering the games about me, I die a lot. And the punishment hasn't been too harsh for that yet. I'm still trying to get the hang of it. I really think the stuff they do, though, as somebody who likes to play, and this is a very first blush, but as somebody who likes to play magic users

in games like this, I think that they've made magic using a lot more like interactive and tactile with the ability to speed up your casting speed. You guys do that? I actually didn't use any magic. Yeah, I have not played a Magic cat. I leave that to my pawns.

With the spells, to use a spell, you have to do an incantation, right? And that incantation is interruptible. And then once you finish the incantation, then you do another command to trigger the spell. So I have to push the button to do my, like, lightning bolt incantation.

And then I press another button to fire it, but that's interruptible. But what's cool is you can unlock an ability very early on that you can hold the right bumper while you're doing the incantation, and you do it very quickly, but you burn stamina. Oh, interesting. So like mid-fight, you are kind of weighing like,

can I speed this up? Should I speed this? I can speed this up and I might exhaust myself, but it might be enough to get my spell off. It's also very satisfying to be able to like cast lightning bolts from far away while your pawn is in there. Yeah.

And you can fly around. Getting work done. I think it's really weird. I haven't played enough to, the performance is wild. It's wild that I decide I'm gonna play some- Have you been to Capital City yet? Not yet, no. Oh my God.

It's wild that I decide I'm gonna play some video games and it's like just 20 minutes for shaders to compile and then I'll be ready to adventure. Yeah, I have missed Dragon's Dogway 2. I've been thinking a lot about Dragon'sma 2 because it's very it's a very interesting game and I really want to uncover more of it, but I feel this same impulse of like I'm and I wanna wait. Thank you dragons dogma For letting me create a body for my hero that looks like my incredible body

a body for my hero that looks like my incredible body. Yeah. And just to look, see myself represented in a game like this in a way where I don't have to like push a slider up so high to have something that kind of looks like chunk, but it's really just like these giant gut muscles flexing and undulating like fucking kingpin. The from software model of just like wide muscles to just have a little

Chungus running around you know me it's like it's very pleasing Yeah, I do want to mention There's a feature in this game that was never explained to me as far as I'm aware there isn't a tutorial menu that I might Have skipped it But I don't think there is one that explains something that would have made my life so much fucking easier and better When you look at your quest list, next to all your quests, there's an icon. And it's an icon of a hand, and it has a number on it. Does anyone here know what that indicates?

It means you have a pawn that knows that quest, right? Right. And if you have that, you basically talk to the pawn, one of the pawns, and they will like walk you to that quest. So all that fucking time that I spent running around in circles in an area, trying to figure out where they wanted me to go, because with 30,000 people in this town, I could have just been fucking following the pawn

the whole way. But instead they explained that by like a very obtuse icon that drove me nuts. Dr. Hotdog is level 26. so if you guys want to bring him in, Dr. Hotdog, I have found, is quite the expert on the quest. Dr. Hotdog has done a lot of them. Does Dr. Hotdog just clean the fucking floor for you? Like, does he just kill everything instantly?

Yeah, good question. There is some scaling going on, there must be, because I'm like level, but the levels aren't that huge. I mean, I'm level seven after playing for an hour, so like a couple hours. So like I don't. But he's not like one shotting guy. No, no, no, no.

There must be, there has to be some damage going on because it wouldn't make sense. And he was zero RC because somebody. I think friends are free. Friends don't cost anything, which seems weird. It seems a little broken But how they fix that fucking game though? Why I gotta say the one thing that they got a fit the pawns saying the same garbage over and over again It is endearing but it's actually more robust than they had in the last game. Oh it is for sure a hundred percent

But like what's your favorite doctor hot dog one more time? But like what's your favorite? I'm your hot dog one more time If one more time I'm trying to venture across the countryside at dr. Hot dogs like excuse me or isn't yes, dr hot dog If I might speak my mind. Yes, dr. Hot dog as I've said you don't have to ask the speaker Okay Arisen I had to master once that preferred the companion of Beastrin for his pawns. Oh, okay.

Yeah, you have told me that. A lot. A lot. Actually, that your last master really liked beast people to serve him. And Dr. Hotdog, as I've pointed out, every time you are not a beast person, so I don't know why you keep mentioning this. Okay, Orison, thanks very much. Did you see the ladder? Yes. Thank you so much.

Yes, thank you about the ladder. We're all very- I remember you guys were all super excited about the ladder. Sometimes they agree about ladders. Yeah. Arisen, we could use that to get to a higher point, and then another part will be like, Yes, a fine point! Like, yeah! Everybody loves ladders! Yeah. They're great. So stupid.

It is such a stupid game. What a good player right now. I know, me too. I wanna play more of it, yeah. As a wizard, in the props, the first time I fought a gigantic, like a gigantic giant cyclops, it's like, you can, you should try climbing it.

In a tutorial. Why? For what? It's like, why? I use magic spells. It's like, and. The tutorial is like, why? I use magic spells. It's like, and then the tutorial is like insisting like, no, no, no, go on, try it. Like, I don't wanna do this. This won't go good for me. Of course he chucks me 20 yards and I get a concussion. I can talk about Stardew real quick.

Cause I think, did I talk about it a little bit last week? I don't think so. Okay. I think we should maybe warn people, because I know people are very wary about spoilers in Stardew. So maybe cover what you want to dive into. Yeah.

I mean, if you care about that, just skip this. Yeah, just skip it. It is a ton of little stuff, this update. It is not, the 1.5 update added the tropical island that you can go explore, which is like a huge area. New characters, new quests, there's a new farm. You basically get a second farm with different crops. There's a volcano with a sort of end game combat loop

and it added the doctor, or Mr. Key, I think his name is, which added a bunch of end game activities that unlock a ton name is, which added like a bunch of like end game activities that unlock like a ton of new, 1.6 is not on that scale. Instead, what it does is it just kind of like seeds a bunch of little things so that if you would start a new game and play through it, you are just constantly discovering stuff that was not in the game before.

Some of it is like different sorts of like machines that really impact the economy of the game. Like if you have played Stardew a lot, like you kind of have a good idea of like, okay, I'm gonna save up some money in the spring so that I can buy some strawberries at the flower festival and like X, Y, and Z. But now it's like actually everybody's really

into fish smoking. Everybody's all about smoking their fish and getting huge, huge gains that way. There is a, one of the bigger additions is the way that there are sort of new powers that you unlock, mostly through books. There's like a couple dozen books that you can now find in the game, and they give you all kinds of little benefits if you find them. Some of them just like give you experience for your different skills. Some of them like make it so that your friendship

increases faster with all residents of the village across the board. There's one that like shows you, I think the value of items like from your screen before you sell them. There's like a ton of like little quality of value of items, like, from your screen before you sell them. There's like a ton of like little quality of life improvements through these like, these powers, these books that you can find.

And there's also like a whole mastery system for skills because it's not that hard to max out all of the different skills and professions in the game. Now there's like another sort of thing beyond that once you have completed that cycle of the game that is very cool. There's some new festivals and stuff like that, but for the most part, it's just like random,

weird shit that you find. They added a new weather event to the game that's green rain. It's only happened to me once throughout the year, but it like, it is- Good or bad? It's good. Everybody gets scared.

Everybody like holds up in their houses. As you would. Yeah. Half the village takes up shelter in the pub. And so you can go to the pub and talk to everybody and everybody's like, what the fuck is going on? But the green rain makes everything grow super fast. And it makes these like mossy trees

and these like beanstalks appear all over. And so it gives the whole world this alien vibe. And then afterwards, all the trees are still covered in moss from this green rainfall. There's a ton of stuff like that. So this update isn't, it's not hugely transformative in a easily identifiable way. It's not adding a new chapter to the game,

but it has made it like, I did not think I would have another run of Stardew Valley that felt as fresh as this one is, because I'm really way, way, way back into Stardew Valley in a way that I didn't anticipate ever kind of doing. And you started from scratch. I started from scratch, yeah. Did you use the new farm type? I did, yeah.

The new farm type is interesting. It starts you off with some rancher stuff. It starts you out with a chicken coop and some chickens. There's blue grass that grows all around the farm that's good for the chickens. I don't really care for that part of the game, but it is, you know, I'll try some new shit like whenever they offer it.

Yeah. Yeah, that game continues to blow me away, continues to be one of the best games I think ever made. And the fact that it is just growing, it has grown so much beyond what was already like the best farm sim game out there is unthinkable. It has grown so much beyond what was already the best farm sim game out there is unthinkable. It is wild to me.

And just to echo, if you get the chance to go to that concert, you should really go. If you're a fan, it fucking rules. It was so great. It's coming to Philadelphia. I might take a train up there just to- I do believe they, when I spoke to Concerned Ape, he said they are considered- I do believe they, when I spoke to Concerned Ape,

he said they are considered- He said, ooh, ah, ah, banana, banana, wear a banana. He got really freaked out, he punched Russ, he said, wear banana. Based on his response, it sounded like they will release the album of the live concert. Oh, that'd be cool. He didn't confirm it 100%, but it sounded pretty cool. So for those that aren't able to get tickets, I know it's very competitive. Definitely you

look out for that because it really was they did such a good job on the arrangements and it was really just a really charming night. Cool. We have a couple rear mail things we'll go through. These questions are specifically about the soundtracks we were talking about, great soundtracks in video games last week. This letter comes from Brett S. I'd just like to chime in on video game soundtracks. Citizen Sleeper's soundtrack is something I think about and go back and listen to. I love it. It really adds to the game's theming beautifully.

I love that game. It doesn't specifically... I haven't listened to the soundtrack specifically for it since, but I did really. I know we all really dug that game a lot. Yeah. Which one was that? That was the sci-fi novel. Sort of visual novel? Visual novel where the hacking and you're trying to escape a space station kind of thing. Oh, yeah. Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yes, okay, yes, I remember. That was good.

We have another letter. This comes from Amari. I'll just say, Disco E Elysium specific to the soundtrack. I think C power set the tone so perfectly for that game. All I have to do is hear those horns and start going 0.5 seconds and I'm instantly back in Revahole. Is that how you say that? Revahole? Yeah, I think so.

And I'd also like to thank the person who uploaded whirling in rags 12pm to 2 hour loop to YouTube for helping me sleep when it's really tough out there. That's great. That's awesome. Can we talk about this last question? Oh yes. From Logan. I definitely wanted to hear your thoughts on this last question.

Sure. Logan asks, I wanted someone to defend Final Fantasy VII Rebirth like Chris defended Dragon's Dogma, nonetheless, I hope any of y'all who have continued with Rebirth like it a lot more now. It's everything and more I hoped for as a huge Final Fantasy VII fan. I think a lot of love was put into the game and the characters come to life so well.

Whether your views have changed or stayed the same, I wanna hear you talk about it more. Can I? Go ahead, I think you got farther than me probably. I did. I did stick with it by the way, just for the record. I kept going for the five or six or seven hours after we talked about it. I think I made it like chapter eight or nine, like a couple chapters past the gold saucer bit.

The gold saucer bit is worth the price of admission. I will say all my problems with the game aside, the cut scene that plays when you show up to the gold saucer and then it Just turns into like a big fucking Bollywood dance battle between like all of these different forces And then there's just like a huge oily shirtless man there, and he's leading his own dance group I should on YouTube you can watch that on YouTube. Yeah, if you'd like to Do not trade two dozen hours of your human life.

Just do not need to. I hit a wall with the game and I just realized I wasn't liking it, I wasn't enjoying it. I hit another big chunk of new open world and the prospect of doing that was just enough that I just didn't, I put the control again. I just could not, I realized I just didn't, I put the control again, I just could not. I realized I just couldn't stick with it,

which is heartbreaking. I love Final Fantasy VII. I went back and downloaded Final Fantasy VII on the Switch, the original one, just to kind of refresh myself, because you can, on the Switch, you can turn on all these crazy boosters and make the game run three times faster and turn off battles. I wanted to just run through it

and see some of those set pieces to remind myself what that world was like originally. And it's great, it kicks ass. If you've never played Final Fantasy VII, that Switch version is a pretty good way to go. I wasn't enjoying the sort of story that the multiversal element of the story that they were telling,

which is super fucking disappointing because at the end of Final Fantasy VII Remake, they kind of set up like, uh-oh, like something's changed here, anything can happen. You hear that and you're like, okay, they're gonna make some big swings with this. And instead, like without getting into too many spoilers, like they get into the fucking

Marvel Cinematic Universe bullshit, like, anything is, everything is happening all the time. Everything is possible. So it almost detracts the point of like any specific thing happening, because anything can happen. And so like, some, okay, some Final Fantasy VII original spoilers, I'm not gonna get too deep

into rebirth here, but like end of remake, something has changed, you think maybe they save Aerith. Maybe they save Aerith, right? Like maybe that's, maybe if they're teasing that things can change, maybe they will change the one huge fucking thing that happens that everybody remembers about this game. The way that they handle the ending

of this section of the game, I went and watched basically the last 12 hours of cut scenes of this game on YouTube. Because I wanted to see it. I wanted to know like where this story went, what it did, but I could not, I was not enjoying the playing of it and watching that, my enthusiasm for the third part of this chapter is fucking gone.

And that is, that is depressing. Wow, so you don't feel like you, you have no second guesses about like, oh, maybe I wish I'd stuck with it and played through. I do not feel any second guesses. I feel incredibly justified in my decision. This is probably not what this question asker wanted to hear.

I think there's a lot of stuff about this game that is cool. I think of the way that the characters are represented and the moments that they have, the growth that they have is very, very cool. The way that the set pieces come alive and these moments from the game, the original game come alive are very, very cool. Some of the changes that they've made to that story

are surprising and very cool. And then the fucking inscrutable, like, multiverse shit of this game and the direction that it is going in, I could not be less interested in. And that really, I cannot, this is one of my most anticipated games of the year, I cannot stress to you how much that

bums me right the fuck out. So like, yeah, that's been my continue. I don't know how much further you guys made it into the game. Yeah, no, you guys are long, I basically made it to Coast of the Lost Souls, like I don't have any motivation to keep going. If you can't hang with that, like that shit's good. Like I like that shit.

There's a lot of moments in this game that I love, but Square Enix is one of my favorite, Square Enix RPGs, some of my favorite games ever made, but the modern trend towards incredibly dense and convoluted plot lines, especially in a like chapter based sort of cliffhanger-y structure that this Final Fantasy VII remake,

rebirth, probably reunion, I'm guessing is what the third one's gonna be called. It just doesn't work and it feels bad and it's so frustrating. And so I realize I'm venting now, but yeah, that was my experience. No, yeah, no, it's a bummer. And I feel your pain.

It would be the equivalent of, I don't know, fucking Breath of the Wild 3 coming out and just like not cooking with me, and I would be pretty sore. It would be like a remake of Mother 3 that didn't... And Chris Plain had to play it. It had microtransactions. I'll play the, whatever the fuck else comes out. I don't know if I will, like, if it's like this, I don't know if I'll finish it. Maybe I'll watch the 40 hour long, like, cut scene movie on YouTube.

But like, this is, I hold this game so near, this story and this world and these characters, like, so near and dear to my heart. It's one of my favorite games ever made, and it is crushing how much I did not enjoy sort of where the direction this is going. But you know what, Logan, if you love it, that's all that matters, for sure.

Sure, yeah. Absolutely. I'm not judging on- It's lavishly produced. If you love the way they tell a story, it's a great story to look at. It's a great, it's well-performed. It's, I'm totally into this.

I wanted them to take big, I wanted them to, there's a great story to look at. It's a great, it's well-performed. It's, I'm completely wild. I wanted them to take bigger, I wanted them to, there's a lot of cop-out shit that is sort of inherent in this like multiverse sort of style. Yeah, it's like bringing fucking Tony Stark back. Like, it's, yeah, and it is. Not to say that that's what happens, but like, that's the equivalent.

It's like just removing key points that like had weight previously. And that is the absence of bold storytelling. If they had picked a gun and stuck with it, I don't even, do some of the multiverse shit, that's fine, but this is, I wanna move on, I'm spiraling. Okay, let's move on. I played Bellatro.

That's a good video game. How deep into Bellatro are you? Yeah, which level? Okay, I guess level two, according to the tiers of the TripleClick podcast. I have won like four or five runs with different decks. Cool. I'm trying to get a win on the joker deck,

which is a black deck, I believe it's called, which is a fun one. Is that the one that gives you an extra joker? Yeah, yeah. It's great. For people that are listening that have not played this game, what I'm gonna say is I fully understand that when you're listening to other people describe Bellatro,

it's like listening to people describe their dreams Which is to say it's the most boring fucking shit imaginable until you play it and you understand what's going on So I'm like really sensitive To that so I don't want to go too deep into it But I hope more people play it because it is everything that I love about Binding of Isaac in a way more approachable format like I handed this to my wife who hates Binding of Isaac in a way more approachable format. Like I handed this to my wife who hates Binding of Isaac and she was instantly able to like grok what it was doing and not have to stress about like action combat,

whatever it was. And it was just like much more approachable, which is I think a really impressive feat for such a complicated game. Yeah. I have yet to have someone try it that didn't like it. Yeah. It's like, yeah, I mean, like 100% like everybody

that I've had try it has become, not just likes it, but kind of just wants to play it all the time and doesn't want to talk about anything else. I keep, whenever we talk about honorable mentions for, basically I'm guessing the rest of the year, just assume that Bellatro is also, like, the ghost of Bellatro, we've left a chair for Bellatro because I keep coming back to it and keep playing it.

It's also got that great thing that so few games have. I would say the other one is like, I think, Binding of Isaac is, I would put in this category, Slay the Spire, where you can, it doesn't feel like, when you're done with a run, it feels satisfying. It feels like, oh, good run.

Win or lose, it's like, I got what I wanted out of that. And you can put it down. And of course you can keep playing it, but you have felt satisfied. It's not hitting the frigging dopamine feeder bar and just making you obsessed and fixated on it. It's like, oh, that was a satisfying experience. I'll pick it up again, maybe in a week.

You know what I mean? Maybe I've taken multiple days off where it's like, oh, I'll play some other stuff. And then it's always right there. And it is so intuitive that like, you just pick it right back up. It doesn't take a bunch of memorization. I wanted to talk about a game

that was recommended to us last week by a listener, which is Slice and Dice. Yeah, I put this too. This is a sort of dice-based roguelike, sort of in the vein of like, kind of like a dicey dungeons a little bit. You have a party of five heroes, and there are lots and lots and lots

of different types of heroes. Sometimes your parties are like randomly thrown together, sometimes you start with like these five basic archetypes, like there's a mage and a healer and a tank and a fighter and a thief. Each one has a six-sided dice that is assigned to them, that the sides of which are changed depending on like what their class is, right? So the fighter might have like a couple of like damaging sides and maybe like a couple of weak shield sides while the defender, you know, has way more shield sides. The healer obviously has sides that can like heal you, but they mix it up dramatically because there's like a hundred different classes

and the classes constantly upgrade as you're playing through a run. Each run of like the classic mode has 20 different fights that you get into and between each one, you'll either level up one of your characters which changes their dice, improves like, you know, what are on the sides,

how many pips are on each side so that, you know,-pip sword does more than a one-pip sword, et cetera. And then you also will find items that you can equip to your characters, which also can dramatically change them, like add new faces to the dice, or increase their health,

or make them immune to poison or whatever. And that is the game at the most basic fundamental level and it's really fun to play. It's really, really well balanced and there is a shit ton of stuff to unlock. What I love about the game is when you download it, you can play the demo for free, which is like the first 12, you can play like a 12 fight round of like just the basic classic mode to like get a feel for like what's going on If you buy the game, which I think is like six bucks if you go for the full upgrade on iOS well worth it then you start to unlock like

There's 40 different modes in the game. This one is silly It gives every hero random stats and random dice with random sides This one lets you skip the first eight matches and your heroes are gonna be a little bit underleveled, but that's the challenge, can you make it further? This one is like, you don't find any items in this round. Like, there are so many different iterations on it and you can tell that the developer of the game just like would have an idea and make it work

in one of these like weird offshoot modes. And there's like incentive to play each one as silly as some of them are because you will get more and more unlocks, find new modes, new items, new heroes, new just like, just a ton of new stuff. So like I have really, really, really been enjoying it. Does a great thing on mobile,

which is that you can play it landscape or you can play it in portrait mode. Oh, I didn't know you could play it in portrait mode. That's landscape or you can play it in portrait mode. Oh, I didn't know you could play it in portrait mode. That's awesome. You can play it in portrait mode. You can play it one finger and that is so, so dope. I cannot recommend this game enough. If you are into roguelikes or like anything in that sort of genre, this is gonna be a jammer for you.

What do you think about it, Juce? Yeah, I liked it. I was struggling a little bit with the size of the interface. I think that I have a regular size, just the standard size iPhone 15, and I feel like it's a little finicky when you're selecting individual dice. Yeah, I noticed that as well. And individual things, I kind of wanted it to be... There's some UI scaling options, so like I don't know if there's something there

that can like improve that for you. I have the small, nimble fingers of a pianist. I do also kind of feel like there's a little bit too much of having to like highlight the dice by holding your finger on it and stuff like that. That stuff's a little bit touchy, yeah, a little touchy. It feels like it would be just feel better on like a full size screen.

But mechanically I really. I mean it's on Steam, I believe. Yeah, I think that would be the way to, but I really like having games like this on the go. I will say it's really well sized and paced for that. I really dug it. Do you think, is there a part of you with Bellatro that you don't want to play a ton on Steam

because you're waiting for the iOS version where you will play a ton? No. Okay. Yeah, no, I actually bought it on my Switch Lite just so I could have a littler guy. So I already did that once. Is it cross-saber-y?

Probably not, no. I don't care. I don't know that I care either. Okay. I do, I would like it on iOS. I mean, I think I would need cross saber though. They are making it. I mean, I don't know if I could switch.

I think if I could just be like, tell the game, I've done these challenges. It gives me, it makes me a little scared to think about Bellatron on my phone. I'm not sure I need that. Like, I'm not sure that's good for me guys. I'm getting a little scared guys. I don't think I should have that. Like, I'm not sure that's good for me, guys. I'm getting a little scared, guys. I don't think I should have that. Okay, I think we did it.

Yeah, man. We have a lot of Patreon stuff going on, so I wanted to call that out real quick. First of all, our episode, the Bracket Battles episode about the best twists in video games is live, and here is a very short clip from that episode. Everyone's looking for the heir of Dracula. Yeah.

Him. That's pretty much it. That sounds like a novelty hit that Boris Karloff would have in the 60s. Everyone's looking for the heir of Dracula, and it turns out it's you. Shake it! I don't know that I gasped it either.

I think we do need to go to the tiebreaker. Yeah. And we need to figure out the gasp for each of these. Who's gasping? I think I can take it. I can do the gasp for Shadow of the Colossus. Gasp for... of the Colossus. Gasp for... Are you ready?

I was... Can I just say, I feel like gasping is reserved for drama that others are experiencing that I'm not a part of when I'm relishing the drama. Okay. You know what I mean? I feel like to me, I'm not gasping when I find out that I'm the shithead, right? That's not a gasping moment for me. Gasping is I'm savoring the drama.

Well, there is a way to actually do this, because how did you feel when you saw Shadow of the Colossus appear in the hit Adam Sandler film, Rain Over Me? Oh, huge, huge twist. Huge twist. Boy, that was short. That was pretty short. Hopefully you enjoy that.

If you're a Patreon subscriber, if you're not yet, you can go to patreon.com slash the besties. And where is it? Yeah, I think it's the besties. That sounds like our podcast name. Yes. Let's call it the besties if we're not already. You can subscribe.

It's just five bucks. Extra bonus that's happening off of this episode. If you were curious about Peppergrinder, which is the first game we talked about We've got four steam codes that we're giving away on the patreon for backers I'm gonna drop them in a post that will go up after this episode is live So just as a way to like make sure that I don't know why people would do this but just Listen to this episode and then you'll know because I'm going to drop in these following missing letters from each of the codes.

So the first missing letter in the first code is A, the next missing letter and the next code is X, the third missing number in the third code is eight, and in the fourth code the missing letter is K. So I'm going to leave this ARG narrow cast is the best shit that we've ever done. I don't know why I need to do this because it's really just for backers. It's not like bots are gonna jump in, but I feel like we've done it in the past.

It's so good. We might as well just be careful. So I'm gonna drop those in. It should be up shortly after, on the Patreon after this episode goes live. The last thing I wanna mention on the patreon side. Thank you to the following people for being patrons of the patreon Thank you for all your backing and thank you to everyone else We have I am a robot who turns into a car and I find no humor in this

That's one person. We have milk toast we have Johan torr Holt of Sweden And we have beam patrol. Thank you to y'all for backing us and supporting us and thank you Always been there for me what I needed you beaten patrol and this is no exception be patrol. Thank you Cool. Okay, so next week be patrol thank you cool okay so next week we I believe I'm not gonna be here I know that for sure but you guys are gonna be here and I think we have a rainy day games grab bag coming at you games to play on a rainy day who knows what's gonna happen and also in the second half of the episode you guys are

going to dive into a like a dragon spoiler. Infinite Wealth. Yeah, you know what? You're not here. We may just go ahead and talk about that the entire time. We'll see how long it takes. We'll see, we'll see. But you guys can go ham.

I won't be listening because I'm still about six hours into that game and that might not cut it. You better hurry up. You're gonna struggle to finish it, Russ, if you don't get on it. I'll be looking at- December will be here before you know it. I'll be looking at the majesty of a solar eclipse instead of talking about video games, so.

Do you know how, Russ, can I just say something? December, if you have not completed the video game Like a Dragon, Infinite Wealth, December is going to be an ugly month for all of us. No, I'm aware. It's gonna be a really unpleasant time. I'm aware it is definitely a game that I will need to play a lot of. I don't know if I'll beat it, but I'm definitely going to play a lot of it.

The balloons are back. The balloons are back, man. Good job. Those are the lie balloons. Those are the balloons that come up when Apple can tell us what's going on. That's our polygraph balloons. They sense your phoblets. Okay, thanks so much for listening to our podcast. Be sure to join us again next time for the besties because shouldn't the world's best friends

pick the world's best games? Besties!