The Besties - Seeing Pokémon Scarlet and Violet Through the Eyes of a Child

Episode Date: November 25, 2022

It's one of the biggest releases of the year and Justin paid his daughter, Charlie McElroy, to play it for him. Yes, it's Pokémon time once again and we're diving into Scarlet and Violet. We've also got way more to say about Pentiment.Also discussed: Andor, Fargo Season 4, Spy x Family and Warhammer: Darktide. 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!

Oh, guys, I have to tell you the best story. Okay. We had some friends over for a birthday party, and one of them was a young man named Keir, who I believe. Oh, yes. Tell him, tell him, tell him. I believe he's, how old is Keir? 11 or 12, I would say.

And he said, I had my Steam Deck out, and I was playing, well, I was playing Pentament at the time. And I was... At a party? I mean, it was sort of like I was kind of hiding from people, if that makes sense. Oh, sure. Yeah, it makes a lot of sense.

And then Kier rolls in, and he's like, are you playing a Switch? And I said, no, it's actually a Steam Deck. And I kind of said it like... I kind of felt like, what do you think, Kier? It's the latest technology. It's pretty cool. And he stops for a second. He says Imagine that grown man plants something called a steam deck caught you slipping

What he was nagging you By a switch He's walking away, he says, buy a Switch! What? He has three Switches! I have three, and in my moment, I felt bad about my incredible handheld gaming computer, and I was like, I should get a Switch.

Like, I have three. He just lit you up. At least you weren't playing a video game that is, I'm pretty sure, toxic to children, like poisonous to, if children touch it, they will get very, very sick and ill from it. Yeah. Just because it's about an Italian medieval painter. He could be from Flanders. Plumber.

He could be from Flanders. He could be a plumber. Yeah, he could be. He could be from... Anyway, I'd like to be from anywhere else because that kid really burnt me to the ground, man. It hurt. like to be from anywhere else because that kid really burnt me in the ground man it hurt my name is justin mcelroy and I know the best game of the week. I said I was going to leave room for Charlie.

It feels like she should be here. I would just introduce her as a guest. I mean, normally what we would do is we would introduce her. She's not a guest. She's family. She's family. I'm Griffin. I'm Uncle Griffin.

And you don't know anything about this week. My name is Christopher Thomas Plant, and I know a video game for this week. My name is Russ Frost. Check it out. It's the best game of the week. Welcome to the besties, where we talk about the latest and greatest in home interactive entertainment.

These things have come a very long way since Pac-Man, and this is a video game club to celebrate that achievement. And just by listening to my friend, you are now a member. Every week we look at a new release and we are back with a big new Pokemon, Pokemon Scarlet and Violet. Chris Plant, what are these?

These are great. What are these all about? They're back, baby. I know you thought you got a new Pokemon game at the beginning of this year, but this is the real new Pokemon game. You got three starters. You pick one. You go on an adventure.

You collect badges. You say bye to mom. We're doing it again. We're doing it again, and we're going to do it right after the break. We'll talk to our special guests, and I'll explain why I'm basically the smartest man alive right after this so here's the deal i'm a good sport i download the game pay my 60 dollars it's an into noa they get my 60 and i start attacks yeah they get my gamer attacks and i started up and i i mean this is nothing about my pokemon at all this is completely about my

relationship to pokemon but i started it up and I played for two minutes and then I said out loud to no one, I can't. And then I shut it off. What was I to do? Luckily, I had a brilliant idea. I have an eight-year-old who has not experienced Pokemon before, but I would say is part

of the demographic for these games as a youngster and somebody who enjoys fun. And so I, well, I mean, there's no easy way to say it. I paid her $20 to play this Pokemon game and then talk to you guys about it so I would not have to spend time with it. Again, I'm not saying anything negative about Pokemon.

I just can't. You kind of are by sort of inaction. That's not true. You also unwittingly created the world's youngest game journalist. Do you realize what you've done? Also, your rates are terrible. Yeah.

It's just a play Pokemon. This is Charlie McElroy. Charlie, say hello. Hi. Hi, Charlie. Hi, Charlie say hello Hi Hi Charlie Hi Charlie Hello You've never played a Pokemon game before? I feel like a personal

Like that's a personal failing of my own Bad uncle For not exposing you to that I don't think I have Other than Scarlet Okay Wow no Pokemon Go Nothing

No Pokemon Stay I mean you have to understand The kids don't have their own money. So what you're presupposing is a world where Sydney is buying Pokemon games, because that is the only other possibility. Yeah, sure, understood. That's fair. But now, at least one of them has their own money. That's true.

She's a third of the way to buying Violet. Charlie, real quick, just so people know your deal, what is like your gaming-wise? What do you enjoy? What do you like to spend your time playing? So people know your perspective entering into this. I really like games where

you can interact with stuff, do stuff. I don't know. You like Kirby? Yeah. I like that. She likes to do a lot of the iPhone where you do creative stuff.

The Toka series. The Tokas. We're big Toka fans. Oh, Roblox is the other one. A ton of Roblox. There's no point in having these other games because we've got Roblox is the other one. And Roblox. There's a ton of Roblox. That's every game. And that's every game.

There's no point in having these other games because we've got Roblox, which is every game. But Charlie, you did have familiarity with the franchise. You knew who Pikachu was. Yeah, I know who some of the Pokemon is, by the way. Favorite Pokemon, Jigglypuff. Oh, sure. Oh, wow, yeah, sure. Good at singing.

Yeah, we love Jigglypuff around these parts. So what did you think about this game? Was it fun? It was so much fun. I loved it so much. Why? I'm sorry, let me... Let me do it different.

What did you enjoy about it, Charlie? What kept you coming back? Some of my favorite things about it were that you can name them things. You can name them things. Oh my gosh. Okay, so you and Henry will have a lot to talk about

in this regard because naming Pokemon is Henry's true calling on this earth. What do you think about whenever you choose a name for a Pokemon? Every time I choose a name for a Pokemon, you think about whenever you choose a name for a Pokemon? Every time I choose a name for a Pokemon,

I think about either the funniest thing I can think of, the cutest thing I can think of, or just something that would go along with whatever Pokemon this is. Yeah, do you pick like the genre? Do you look at like, oh, it's a fire type, so you want something fire related for the nickname, or you just go YOLO, whatever you want? What are some names of some of your Pokemon?

My first one ever that I ever got was a grass type named Lovey. Lovey is a good name for that. My newest one is named Turtley. Give me other names. I know you've got lots of them. I did 123 Stinky and 456 Smelly. That's actually my password

for my email. Wait, you did 123 Stinky and 456 Smelly? Okay. Yeah. I did Charlie Jr. Good, classic.

I did I I couldn't think of a name for one so i just typed in idk yeah okay we all run dry sometimes help me guys understand guys what is um like if you're hanging your hat on like new features in this yeah this is something charlie won't have a reference point for what what is like the new the new stuff so the big difference with this one um is traditionally hold on i want to imagine you explain this to your grandpa okay go ahead okay the big difference with this one traditionally pokemon games are very directed and linear where you'll have to like follow this very set narrow path of where you go. And in this one, you have a lot more freedom of where you go.

Like, you can run around the fields and grass and stuff like that. You could ride Pokemon in past games, too. Oh, yeah, I guess. Including the very first one. Yeah, that's a good one. What about Arceus? Arceus. Arceus, that was like an open world thing.

So, yeah, that came out earlier this year and was kind of the same thing where you could kind of go to wherever you want and do whatever you want. And this game, I think, builds. Well, builds on and subtracts from that in a lot of different complicated ways. So it came out earlier this year

and it's kind of the same thing, but I'm the bad guy? Is that where we're at right now uh it's it's uh how how far have you have you gotten have you gotten any of those big gym badges no no not yet it's hard what do you work you're you're very thorough charlie will go around and get all all of them What are you doing in the story right now, just to give them a frame of reference? Right now, I... Last time I played, I was just really catching Pokemon.

Yeah, I mean, for sure, bud. The time before last, I did something really not smart. I spent almost all my money on just creating a new outfit. Oh, that's the only thing to spend money on. Anybody who says differently hasn't played Pokemon before.

I'm glad you're enjoying it. Henry is similarly just head over heels with this game. He is having himself a great time. He is actually, we are playing Violet together, and I was playing Scarlet on my own because i didn't want to trample uh all over his incredible team which includes uh members like

whooper pooper and uh peanut and he didn't nickname le chonk because that's he think is already just the funniest word that exists in the world is lechonk. He'll just sometimes just shout, apropos of nothing, while eating dinner, like, lechonk. That's very good. Now, Charlie, I had a question for you. Okay. Do you think

this is a pretty game? Like, graphically, do you think the graphics are good? Yeah. Graphics are good. It's a really nice looking game. Yeah. All right. Now this is somebody who spends most of their time

playing Ukrainian nail art simulators. I don't know. What? now now i was on el chapo's puppet maker yesterday and i had to say honey it says on the screen every every pop of the puppet sends three cents to el chapo to fund his organization that That's wild. You just have wild... Charlie Ruggs Healy Dresses for $9.99 a week. Subscriptions to nail art simulators. Now, I mention it because...

And Charlie, I know you haven't played any other Pokemon games, and that's totally fine. Actually, even better in this situation. But I've played a lot of nintendo switch games and i feel like there are a lot of games like super mario odyssey uh zelda breath the wild as mario like that every time there's something we've tried just ignore it and move on zelda breath the wild um a number of other games that seem to look and run a lot better than this Pokemon game.

Did you notice, I don't know, frame pacing issues? Did it seem when you compare it to like Kirby, which I think has a lot of stuff on screen. Good comparison. Do you even notice any difference? Yeah.

There is one difference I noticed. It is very hard to climb up things In Pokemon? Yes Charlie, before you go because we do have to give

Uncle Griffin time to just go off and do his entire thing I have a Pokemon that I haven't named yet. And I'm kind of torn between two names. And I was hoping that you could tell me which one you prefer. Okay.

The first one is... You got to tell her what Pokemon is it. It's a gas mud type. Okay. Okay. Well, it's gas, but it looks like mud. What are you saying? Neither of those are types.

The first name is... Are you ready, Charlie? Okay, the first one is Captain Extra Long Fart. It's not 12 letters. And then the second one is Oobsy Diarrhea. You feel good about that, Chris? You feel good which which one do you think i should go with i like both oh thank you i would choose the second one yeah that that jumps out at me as well all right so last my my last question for you because I do think that this is, I mean, a question

that people, you know, a lot of people are in this situation, right? The new Pokemon's out. It's been, I mean, weeks and weeks since the last one. And they are thinking, is this time finally get my kid into it? Charlie, what did you ask me right before we started recording? I asked him if I could keep playing it after. Wow. Oh.

So that's a good sign to me. That is a good sign. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Did you ask, can I keep playing it after and you pay me another $20? That's important. No, but I should. Good, good, good. You'd play it for free.

All right. Well, Charlie, thank you so much. Thank you, Charlie. Thank you, Charlie. You can go eat your free Alright Charlie thank you so much Thank you Charlie You can go eat your donuts now Goodbye everyone Goodbye Charlie Gas mud type They are going to

Run you out of town on a rail Chris plant Gas mud type Okay guys I'm sensing some some hesitance what what is the what is the the the negatives about this one i maybe i'm misreading but well i want griffin to go first because i think he's the certainly the most experienced pokemon the preeminent yes scholar on this on this jump in there griffin it's i'm glad charlie came on here because i have had a really unique experience playing pokemon scarlet and violet in that i have been playing violet with

henry who's like he had his first dentist appointment which yeah sorry we're late to the game on that one uh but when he was there he was like telling the like hygienist, like, yeah, I got this dragon motorcycle named, uh, Miride on. It's, uh, it's pretty cool. Like he's like so stoked about it.

And we've played Pokemon games before. And, and he is like, he's bonkers about it. It's, it's, I think it's right up there with Curry with him. Um,

and it's really nice to see the game through a child's eyes because, uh, it's, it's so frustrating for me playing this game solo. And I've played a lot. I'm maybe like a little over halfway through the three main tracks in the game. Unlike past games, like you have the gym badge challenge. We have to go do the eight gyms, get the badges, beat the Elite Four, et cetera. And then there's two other paths, they call them.

One of which you're hunting down these Titan Pokemon, which are just big Pokemon with some extra health. And then you're taking down the Team Rocket equivalent in this game. Those are the two other paths. And I'm a little bit more than halfway done with all of those. And there's a lot that is very charming about this game those are the two other paths and i'm a little bit more than halfway done with all of those and there's a lot that is very charming about this game there's a lot that uh sort of core mechanical stuff is actually really cool about this game one big mechanic that they've added which is sort of the mandatory obligatory like um extra spice on top of the usual, like beat the fire type with the water type, et cetera, is called Terastalizing, which is a primo name,

which basically makes it so that once in the middle of battle, you can swap a Pokemon's type to some secret type that they may have that your opponent might not be expecting. This is the Gigantamax. The Mega Evolution. The whatever sort of additional battle mechanic. And I think it's brilliant. I think it's great.

When you throw down some fire type. And they put down a water type. And then you Terastalize yours. And oh just got you. It's an electric type. And you shock them. You twist them. That's great.

All that stuff is is is really cool just running around the open world catching pokemon is is fantastic i think like the biggest thing to talk about and it is the thing that people have been talking about i imagine we're about to spend a lot of time talking about it is it runs and performs like absolute dog shit. And I am not the type of person who really cares a whole lot about performance. Like the, obviously like I prefer a nice smooth 60 frames, but it doesn't bother me so much when a game runs at 30. When a game drops below a certain frame rate threshold

that it like actively feels quite bad and slow all the time. It is a death knell, especially for a game like Pokemon that you are, that is frankly pretty repetitive and you are doing the same things over and over and over and over and over and over and over again to have like a consistent,

like latent slowdown behind all of that makes it a nigh-on unbearable sort of experience. It's weird because a part of me was like, well, maybe they were designing it for the new switch hardware that ended up getting delayed for whatever reason and on the new switch hardware could have run a lot better maybe it doesn't really but it's not it's it's there are an infinite array of like breakdowns of this game's technical failings well i was gonna say like it also looks like dog shit so like you can't justify the textures being like n64 level textures it's it's not that like the hardware is not beefy enough it's it's shit like the you know um like loading priority of things

is like so suboptimal uh that like it it doesn't have it is it is not well it is not well or at all optimized yeah uh and and it it it is like game freak has been making games game freak has been making this game for 26 fucking years now like it's it's it is but not but not like they've only really made one other open world game ever and i think that's the problem is their engine cannot handle the game that they are throwing at it yeah and i this game has sort of uh multiplayer that is uh simultaneous in this open world you can get people that just like you know they can pop into your open world, you can get people that just like, you know, they can pop into your open world and roll the dice, maybe crash your Switch, maybe blue screen your Switch, maybe. And it seems like a lot of work went into like sort of making this open world that multiple players can inhabit at

the same time, which is not, which is a, I think a poor focus because it just makes the rest of the game feel kind of empty and sluggish. It feels like they have like there are not many people who played this game who or not many people who worked on this game who have played other open world games that have come out in the last like decade. And this is already like a genre that i am not wild about like i feel like for an open world game to really hook me it needs to have something that is new or clever uh and to their credit there is some like streamlining that has happened like you can fly to any pokemon center you've been to before like right from the, right from the start of the game. So backtracking isn't like a huge concern. But like aside from the three tracks that I laid out,

there's not much else to do in the game. And the cities that you come across are pretty lifeless. Yeah. I hate, I am usually not one to kind of guess what was happening behind the scenes or like tell developers well here's how you should have done it but i don't see how anybody plays this game in good faith and comes away with any conclusion other than like this shit was not ready for prime time like it was not, this game needed more time in the oven from a technical standpoint,

from a design standpoint. And again, like, God, I'm so sick of saying this about Pokemon games of just like, oh, the promise is there. This is a good rough draft, but like you're making it for 26 years. Like it's not, you're so far out of rough draft

forgiveness territory yeah and and realistically like from a like a game structure standpoint even though it does play with it it still like feels like 80 percent of what red and blue was 25 years more or less yeah that hasn't changed and there And one of the biggest frustrating things for me, and one of the things that tarnishes that playing with Henry experience, is that there is no scaling at all for any of the Pokemon, any of the gyms, any of these Titans, any of the Operation Team Starfall things. There's no level scaling, right? So you'll be running around the open world maybe heading to a gym like oh i got i started with the fire type starter so maybe i should head to the grass gym next on the way i run into a titan pokemon i'm like oh i'll just knock that out

and i go in and it fucking sweeps my party because it is 10 levels higher yeah and there's no way to know there's no way to know that ahead of time. There is some like gating in the form of your, you have a riding Pokemon, either Kouridon, I think if you're playing Scarlet or Miridon, if you're playing on Violet. And as you do those tight, this is a pro tip from me to you. As you do those Titan Pokemon challenges, it unlocks more sort of traversal powers

for your riding Pokemon, like dashing or swimming or et cetera. And there are certain areas that are like much, much harder to get to if you don't have those certain power-ups. And it kind of gates off some of the like more bodacious wild Pokemon areas and gym challenges and et cetera.

But it's not like foolproof. And so more than once playing with Henry or playing by myself, I will just come across a challenge that will destroy me because I'm not ready. And when you're playing with a kid, they have no patience for that shit. And that is like, it kind of spoils

what is delightful about playing the game with a younger person. So I actually heard that it's a hundred person team primarily at pokemon company making it will be game freak game freak i'm sorry game freak like a support which is for this level for this scale of a game pretty small for especially if they split their i have not yeah into this if they split their team to work on this and rcs in the same in the same year yeah i'm sure they shared some of the technology uh yeah because there's there's some things that feel i mean running around the open world dropping your pokemon out of a ball

and making it go and like destroy a field of magnemites uh you can you can automate pokemon battles now you get like a fraction of the experience but. You can automate Pokemon battles now. You get like a fraction of the experience, but it's still much, much faster to level up all of your Pokemon. If you just like, you know, you wander into a field filled with grass types and you drop your fire type Pokemon

and just make them obliterate all of them and level up your whole team a whole bunch without having to do a single trainer battle. All trainer battles in this game are optional. That's great. I fucking love that. That's good. Because those aren't very fun when you have to do a single trainer battle. All trainer battles in this game are optional. That's great. I fucking love that. That's good. Because those aren't very fun

when you have to do a million of them in a row. But like, I don't know, man. Every great idea, every step forward this game makes, it has a similar step backward. And all of that takes place on top of a foundation that is so shoddily crafted uh that it is it's it makes it a kind of a hard hard game to love um so i guess here's the question we we think about charlie's reaction to it which obviously she loved it and that's great i guess you know the reason obviously she

loved it is she hasn't played 30 of them she doesn't know the history she doesn't really know open world games primarily she doesn't have a lot of frame of reference of like what it could be where she also doesn't like pizza so like let's not go crazy it's just interesting to me that like you know i mean this is more of a an art thing which is to say like your taste and what you know whether you have quote good taste or bad taste is determined by what you've seen in the past and whether you know what the media is capable of i i think it's what you think is possible and where you would hope this goes like i look just i mean fresh for us at you know vox the people at

polygon i think in general the reaction is similar to griffin maybe not as negative but kind of frustrated by the game but people who don't work at polygon but are at vox love this game it is almost universally beloved by people who are like outside of our space who only play you know two or three games a year but again which is great for them but i think because they only play a few games a year, they're not thinking about, hey, I'm playing all this other stuff that is making all of these steps forward.

Why can I not expect the same from arguably the biggest video game franchise ever? It's insane that this Charlie Brown with the football shit is still so... It is the law of the land for Pokemon games because it's every game. It's all of them. Pokemon Sword and Shield, I adored Pokemon Sword and Shield.

I played the fuck out of that game. I collected them all. And it was still not, like, it still had some pretty major shortcomings and some pretty obvious, like, ways that it could have been something really, really special. Same for Arceus earlier this year, although Arceus was so weird that I was willing to like...

I like that game a lot, yeah. ...cut it a little bit more slack. But this is just like, well, this ain't it. And I don't know, it seems pretty obvious that this ain't it, if you have played a lot of these games before, or I have to imagine have made these games before. So I guess the question is, when would the chickens ever come to roost?

If they can continue to make games that are like really not it, but they continue to sell very well. Take a fucking year off. Like that's it, right? There's people, as long as they are selling well, I don't know that they have to change anything,

but it, the opportunity I genuinely believe, is there for something that could be really huge and really special and a new high watermark for the franchise because I don't think they've had that. I think that'll be Arceus 2. Well, I was going to say, but I think what's holding it back is the engine

if arseas 2 or whatever it is pokemon legends 2 was made within the let's say the breath of the wild engine which is capable of like an open world beautiful environment yeah like i think that puts it on another level i don't think this engine is capable of doing anything remotely close to that yeah i don't know if it's the engine, but also the art design and the type of world you're building, right? The idea is to have this being a lived-in world, and the Breath of the Wild engine is not going to help you there either. What do you mean? Breath of the Wild looks lived-in.

It looks dead-in. Well, sure. I disagree with that. I could point you to a dozen open world games that run on Switch. Fine. Like Xenoblade Chronicles 3, I played for not very long this year because it didn't hook me. But like I was like blown away by how good that game looked and how well it ran. But it also looks like ass.

Like I mean I agree with all these. But like I think this is – we're getting into like a hardware issue here. Xenoblade Chronicles 3 is not a beautiful looking game beyond its art direction like i think compared to pokemon scarlet and violet it is a masterpiece yeah like compared to how that game runs and looks i think it is well sure it runs it runs very well it legit like no joke i remember when i got an n64 and i didn't know what to get but they they were selling Bomberman 64 as like one of the three games that were out. And I got that and like tried to pretend that I was happy with that decision.

Yeah. So much of this open world environment, like the like little walls that are blocking you from going over looks legit like an N64 game. Like I'm not exaggerating. It is wild. I think we should probably run on to the next okay you're right i mean there's not a lot i will also say and i say this with love my heart for sonic the

hedgehog we talked about sonic frontiers last week y'all it does not look that bad no it doesn't look that's true this That's true. Please understand. I've played a lot of this game, and I have enjoyed a lot of my time with it. And I do think if you are a Pokemon fan, you're probably going to play it anyway, right?

This is 100% a situation where it is infuriating how the shortcomings that this game has that have no, there's no excuse for it anymore. And it just sucks. I don't know.

And I think I'm probably past the point. This may be the game that pushes me over the edge to thinking maybe the next one is the one that is gonna like be a a genuinely great game that doesn't have all of these like pretty obvious shortcomings uh but but i i regret to inform you that this ain't it it's not there uh and for for for all the good times I've had with the game, I don't think I'm going to keep playing it, except with Henry. My own solo journey is done

because it's too frustrating. Oh, man. I can't believe I skipped the one Pokemon we're allowed to talk shit about. Damn. So does me, I guess. We'll be right back after this with some different video games, whether you

like it or not. It's hard to think of two games that are more different than our... They both start with a P. And honestly, this is perfect, because we all spent so much time talking about Pokemon. We don't have a ton of time,

but I do want to check in. We promised to follow up on Pentament. We have, on average, spent more time with it. Yeah, I played more of it. You've been going deep on this one. Plant, what do you think? I love this game. People on Twitter and whatnot called it.

It is very clearly my 13 Sentinels of this year. And that it feels like a game that was just micro-targeted for me. Unlike 13 Sentinels, I don't know if I recommend it to everybody because it's just a lot. And it feels, I don't know, it feels a little impenetrable.

But maybe I'm wrong. Maybe it is more welcoming than I think. Oh, no. I'm kidding, right? Yeah, no, it's not. Yeah, so like some context here. It's a game set in, I guess, effectively the Middle Ages, right? I guess.

The 16th. Basically right around the time of Martin Luther, you know, trying to separate from the church. Yeah. Martin Luther trying to separate from the church. And you are well you can choose all sorts of different personality traits which we talked about last week like are you Flemish? Did you study in Italy? Do you have an interest

in the occult or Christianity or all these different things. And then the game is a open world as generous as they're putting it 2d open world uh of a town uh where you just walk around and chat with people and those choices that you made through the beginning of the game and throughout the game inform what you're allowed to say to them and it's not a scenario where like oh you're talking to somebody and your italian comes in

handy and that that's inherently good um it might be the opposite you might have the opportunity to say something in italian because you know it and it might just really piss off the townsperson that you're talking to because they're like geez what an asshole why are you talking to me in italian there's a hidden like arithmetic that is happening in the background of like these major conversations where you're trying to accomplish something uh and it it adds and subtracts sort of like points based on how how wisely you have approached that conversation i one of my like subjects i studied in school was uh like logic and reason and in one of the first sort of like big things like this, I was trying to convince a nun to give me this banned book.

And I was like applying all these very logical arguments. And then it shows you the math at the end of the thing to show you if you succeed or fail. And I had a lot of marks, a lot of demerits for like, you were a real pedantic shit head. Yeah, you're a patronizing pedantic piece of shit. And so it's like when you get those extra options that are like, actually, I would click those

because in every other RPG it's like, ooh, a little extra special secret door just for me when really like I was doing myself a great disservice by being kind of an asshole. That's great for me. I love that. It does make you feel like you're kind of swimming without a, or I guess walking without a net because there is like everything that you're,

you know, normally when you play like a walking dead or something like that, it says someone will remember that. You're like, all right, it might change a cut scene a little bit or something like that. But here you don't know when it's ever going to pop up like yeah like one random dialogue choice you're going to get that notification to be like oh shit yeah what have i done you are not

supposed to play it like min maxing or play it to right is like you should just play it choosing things that you think are interesting or else you will be punished. And a great way, again, of showing this is this is a deeply religious game. I don't think it's like pro or anti. Yeah, it's certainly not pro or anti, but it does. It's extremely Catholic. And at first I was like, oh, you know, my character is both a secondary study of the cult's first study of theology. If I use my theology, I bet that'll really impress people. And it impressed no one, like not even people in the church.

It's just incredibly grating to have a theology expert amongst a bunch of monks. Also does a brilliant thing where sometimes when you are faced with like multiple choice answers to some conversation uh you'll get a little thought bubble and you can select that instead and your your character will uh like think about the situation at hand and try and work through it with the help of his three sort of uh i don't know, mind palace residents, Socrates, Prester John, and this jester, nightmare demon, Grobian. Grobian.

Grobian. And after you really try to think about the situation at hand, you can ask them for advice and see where they go. So Socrates always comes at it with a very logical level head prester john is like uh very very much about being a good christian and grobian's like just burn it the fuck down incredibly skeptical yeah so and it makes it makes those multiple choice decisions like way better because you feel like you really understand the stakes and you understand like maybe what the wisest course of action is instead of just guessing at it, which is like kind of what you do in every other game with this kind of like conversation system. So here's why I wondered if it was impenetrable. This game goes very deep and just largely uses the language of the time

and of the Catholic Church. My father was in seminary before he met my mother and decided not to be in seminary anymore. So I was raised very much in the church. My confirmation priest left our hometown to go to Rome just to study theology because he found that having to deal with, I guess, plebeians was profoundly annoying when he could just be reading books. So I just felt like I was surrounded in a lot of language. And even then, I was using the tool that this game has quite a bit, which is as you dialogue pops up on the screen, you'll get little words underlined and you hit a button and it pulls the camera out so that the image of the game, the world, is like an illustration inside of a book. And then there is effectively footnotes that tell you what those words mean. Or if there's a character, it'll show you a picture of that character. Yeah.

Which I think is great it's but i also wonder like is it too like did you find yourself just constantly reading the foot constantly yes you you have to want to like spend some time with this with this game i think to get a lot out of it but i i think the evolutions that it introduces to like the idea of having a conversation in a video game is much more than enough to get its get its hooks in you yeah i i as somebody who was sort of i was trying to unpack why i wasn't enjoying it more um because i it's all very well done i i will say that and we've kind of this should be obvious from what we've said, but I am somebody who grew up in a church and spent a lot of time sort of unpacking the baggage of that and sort of shackling myself from it. It's really hard for me to sort of casually engage with religion. Like I can't sort of like engage with it in a way that's a little bit more – what's the word I'm looking for?

Intellectualize it. It's hard for me to intellectualize it in that way, stories that are like this sort of deeply ingrained. I know there's other people in that sort of scenario. So, you know. Yeah. And I would say even for, I can relate to that profoundly. Yeah, for sure. I kind of process, I guess, the opposite way, which is like, it really helps me. It has been, I mean, genuinely great. I've been lost in this game because I find myself asking a lot of questions of myself as I'm playing it. asking a lot of questions of myself as I'm playing it.

You know, again, growing up Catholic, there's a lot of stuff here about Luther and whether or not you can talk about Luther and how you talk about Luther or how you talk about versions of the King James Bible that come from other countries and represent Christ in different ways. And like all of those things, maybe they're questions I've kind of

already gone through but I'm seeing kind of like struggles that I've had and it shows the church as this monolithic like thing but also at nearing the end of its nearing the end of like the age of illumination and you are a book maker in an book maker in a monastery and like the printing press just came out. So it's like you are – and at the end of its kind of uh unchallenged reign all of this shit sounds so boring i get it it works man it's so it's so i think it's unbelievable yeah it's unbelievable this this game justin i know i know that i know that i'm not trying to convince you to do it but i will say that this is the game that all of the Sleep No More,

every developer who's tried to do Sleep No More, this is the one. 100%. This is the closest to that by far. Oh, yeah. No, I mean, it's... I mean, guys, I don't know. We both played this game,

and I didn't have a good time and you guys did have a good time. I was trying to worry. Can I finish your thought? I was going to say, I think I fell in the middle, but go ahead. I'm just starting to worry

that the games aren't really good or bad. Whoa. Whoa. I'm starting to worry that maybe the premise, maybe there aren't like best games don't need to say it out loud

Justin what if it's not a best what if it's not a best Justin we've been doing this for a decade do not break the podcast say you're just playing.

Say you're just playing. Charlie liked Pokemon and I didn't like Pokemon. Say just again. Like what's happening? Say JK right now, Juice, or we're gonna, this is it for the show.

JK 5000. JK, JK. Okay, okay. There's a number, there's a number for every game that is true and right. I'm gonna give this pro tip for people and I think i mentioned this the last time we were talking about pentament speedrun but man 420 yeah if you kind of find the idea interesting but find it also like books

level boring like justin does just play fallout new vegas it has the narrative hooks that we're talking about in this but with also like a more traditional game specifically an open world game um it's written by the same guy uh josh sawyer and um i think it is a much more approachable version of this but i do agree that this game is doing something that i've never ever ever seen in a video game before the level of like freedom and uh the amount of writing and how it's sort of conveyed and the approach is just like so super unique so and it's on game pass so like if you want to just like dip a little tippy toe into it just to like see something really weird um it's definitely worthwhile emails emails here here we go uh the first one that we have up i'm just a traditional question but one i don't think

we've ever answered this one's from austin what is your favorite pokemon uh we have to have answered this i have to right side just jumped to my mind is like immediately just i don't have an answer you don't have like a go-to side i mean mine's so easy too i bulbous are but guys i'm not gonna change i'm not gonna i'm not gonna like just because it's basic i'm not gonna i'm not gonna be me okay uh i mean halucha is a is a flying fighting type pokemon that looks like a luchador wrestler and uh he's fucking great he's really good for me he doesn't evolve doesn't need to he's he's strong he's a strong wrestle but he's a strong wrestle bird i I like him aesthetically. I like to use him in the game.

I always get stoked when Hawlucha shows up. Can I change mine? I mean, yeah, because obviously. There's a Gen 3 Pokemon that I forgot about, and it's Oopsie Diarrhea. That's not Gen 3. Ghastly. Ghastly is great.

You all picked really basic shit shit I do want to mention I this is the first time I've ever played a pokemon game where I didn't look up what the evolutions were when I was making my choices of what pokemon to pick yeah and that I can't decide if it's a good or bad way to play because it can be truly devastating

to see your adorable creature evolve into something that is just like a horrific man beast yeah but it is more thrilling it does add a sense of tension general rule if the pokemon is bipedal uh at the in its first evolution don't because it's gonna stay that way only get bigger and then it'll be bigger than you, and it'll be upsetting. If it's on all four, I'll say this, Fuecoco, that one stays pretty much a crocodile. That's good. So if that's a concern of yours, Fuecoco, the way to go.

Just out of curiosity, what is the ultimate evolution of the water duck? The water duck? I don't know its name because I didn't pick it. Yeah, but do you know what it looks like i mean it looks like a tall water duck person i think it's like a uh a dancer hold on i have to look up the name of it or else people get it it's quag good lord quagmire quagmire quagmire and it it looks like uh i mean it looks it looks like a tall i mean it looks like donald it looks like anime donald duck i don't know how else to put it it looks like something that would have to pay taxes like a human yeah it's it's fucked up like

this pokemon has a driver's license no good uh one last question this one is from lisi uh this is actually just a question for me. Important question for Plant. Thoughts on Goncharov. Do you know about Goncharov? No, of course not. Martin Scorsese made this movie in 1973 that actually never came out. And it's long, long cinema history.

It's absolutely bonkers. It didn't come out. It had Al Pacino. I think De Niro, Keitel is in it. And now people are actually getting to see it. And it's cool. Yeah, I mean, I think it is like probably like Scorsese's like third best movie is probably where I'd put it. And there's absolutely nothing else that's interesting about it.

No, that's, I mean, it's just about the winter coming to naples you know no other um any any uh anything else honorable mentions uh chris plant gave me a good anime uh recommendation and it's it's kind of a basic anime i know like true anime fans have watched this like a year ago but i just started and it's great it's called spy i think it's called spy family yeah but it's written spy x family and i'm watching it on hulu and it is a spy family show but it's very light and silly um and um tonally it's just like perfect for what i'm looking for right now which is just like a light uh over the top uh gorgeously animated and uh very well voice acted um kind of episodic anime it rocks i love it uh i have been playing the uh warhammer 40k uh dark tide beta dark tide is like the follow-up to vermin tide

but this one is set in the space version of Warhammer. Cool. And y'all, I cannot wait to play this game with you. It is so fun. And the music in this game is batshit good. Oh my God. It's incredible. It is a huge oversight that we did not talk about the music

in Pokemon Scarlet and Violet. It's done by Toby Fox, Undertale. It's fucking great. The gym battle music in this game is the best it's ever been. The music is great in Pokemon. Sorry, I completely forgot to talk about that. Griffin, you're watching Andor? Yeah, I watched all of Andor.

I went from not watching any Andor to the season finale came out this morning, and I finished it while I was practicing. I am now three episodes in. Is it better, Russ? Yeah, I mean, finished it while I am now three episodes in. Is it better Russ? Yeah. I mean, you just need to know right out the jump. It's made in three,

three episode chunks. If you watch only two episodes, you're going to be like, why, what? That's not the end of an episode. Nothing happened. The first three episodes are good.

The second three episodes are hot shit. The third three episodes are the best star Wars shit I've ever, ever, ever seen. And then the last three episodes are hot shit the third three episodes are the best star wars shit i've ever ever ever seen yeah and then the last three episodes are pretty good too uh but that's what there's there's an arc in andor that i think people are going to be talking about for a a long time uh and it's it's fucking fantastic it's so good i don't know how else to put it it's uh hey huge thank you to bob jay and his somewhat, I argue, reckless amount of spending on the Disney Plus platform.

He got wild and he was shown the door, but we've got Andor forevermore. He got one. Hey, you know, one out of 50 ain't bad. Sure. What's the Mandalorian whipsass? That was before him. What?

Yeah, I think Iger was in place when that happened yeah but he kept making it oh yeah yeah the book of bubba felt was great um justin yeah uh i wanted to say russ fresh to tonight it almost never gets talked about on this program but we both know it to be true have he is one of the only people whose taste in tv is like 100 russ and i will be watching weird shows that we'll text only each other about because the world has moved on that's true like legion is a good example of this like when everyone was freaking out over a moon night and russ and i are like they're just doing legion again everyone everyone listen this is Legion. They did it already. But Russ tweeted about finishing the fourth episode or the fourth season of Fargo, the one that stars Chris Rock, Jason Schwartzman, a host of other folks, Timothy Oliphant. And I had never – I have watched all of Fargo, and for some reason I hadn't – I kind of lost the plot on it.

And I picked it back up and and started watching the the fourth season and it is fantastic I mean it's just fantastic it looks great it's very intentionally written like all the dialogue and stuff is like very specific and efficient and the storylines there's so many that create almost more of like a texture and I Russ has said that there's you know more of a payoff towards the end of the season but um it's so great so fun to watch uh and i had sort of like fallen off of it it's been two years since there's been an any fargo and i i mean they've said the fifth season is coming but who knows i never i i watched i love the first

two seasons the third season did not do it for me. That was the Ewan McGregor season. Mary Elizabeth Winstead season. I don't think I finished that one. What happened to the social media season? That's like the next season. That's been in development forever, I think. What? It's supposed to be about social media.

It's still moving along. I think they said Jon Hamm is in it. Good old Midwestern boy, Jon Hamm. But it is still moving along. Is it also in Kansas City? No, I don't think so. I know he's from there. Just to hit on this season real quick, though, if you didn't watch it.

It's really a, I mean, from what I've seen so far, who knows. But it's set in 1950 in Kansas City, and it is very, very much about race. 50 in Kansas City, and it is very, very much about race. But rather than the way that race connected like white people and black people during that time, this is much more a story, which is territory that I think that there's a lot of media that covers really well. This is more a story of how non-white people interact with each other and like what, how they're, they're like cultures and the, the, the different priorities and stuff are intermeshing and white people are really peripheral. Like it,

you know, it's there, it's much more centered on the non-white characters and their gangs and how like the, the crime in the town has sort of passed from Jewish immigrants to Irish immigrants to Italian immigrants. And now Chris rocks gang of African-American people are sort of like clashing with the Italians

that currently run the town. It's really interesting. I just, I think it's fascinating. It's so well, like all Fargo, it's so well performed and written. And I would add like very interesting to think that like in the 1950s when this is set, the definition of what a

quote white person versus a non-white person was very different so in this case like italians not considered white people in the 1950s by a lot of people and they're really yeah that they they're uh there's a lot of that which is like not something that you know as somebody who grew up in the time period i grew up in being the person i am not something that i was super aware of so right yeah it is i like the show but i kind of bounced off after like the five minute as somebody who grew up in the time period I grew up in, being the person I am, not something that I was super aware of. So it was really interesting to see it on screen. I like the show, but I kind of bounced off after the five-minute monologue about Mario versus Mario.

Yeah. Yeah. I get enough of that. I get enough of that on this show. Are you not going to talk about Binding of Isaac 2, Juice? Because I know that you've been... There's a second one? We've got to wrap this up.

We gotta end. Nobody needs anybody here to talk about Binding of Isaac. It's great. I have thought I might start streaming it. What would that look like if I streamed Binding of Isaac? How would that be for everybody? I'll get that going. Oh yeah, we gotta thank the following people for writing reviews for the besties

on Apple Podcasts. Thank you to Kia Soldier Boy, Little Pig Boy, Monkey 4, and I love these usernames. Thank you, everyone, for your great usernames. It brings me so much joy. You didn't thank Dominic. And Dominic VC. Thank you for writing reviews for the besties on Apple Podcasts. Y'all rock.

Y'all are awesome. Keep it up. We appreciate it. Here's what we talked about this week. We talked about Pokemon Scarlet and Violet. We talked about Pentament. We talked about Martin Scorsese's Goncharov. We talked about Spy Family.

We talked about Darktide, Andor, and Fargo Season 4. And next week, we're going to talk about Darktide for real, I think. Yes. Yeah. Is that still in beta or is that out now? And next week, we're going to talk about Darktide for real, I think. Yeah. Is that still in beta or is that out out? Well, it's, yeah, it's kind of beta. It's like a pre-order. These terms are basically meaningless at this point, I understand. Yeah.

It comes out officially, I think, on November 30th. It will be out out. And Marvel Midnight Suns. Yes, there's a Marvel Tactics game. I forgot too. I imagine there's a lot of people in the same boat, so we will talk about that next week as well. That's going to do it for us for this

week, though. Be sure to join us again next week for the besties, because shouldn't the world's best friends pick the world's best games? Besties!