The Besties - Super Mario RPG's Super Faithful Remake (feat. Felicia Day)

Episode Date: November 24, 2023

Nearly 30 years ago, Nintendo and Square teamed up for one of the wildest collabs in gaming history: A turn-based RPG adventure featuring everyone's favorite blue collar jumping man. How well does the remake, now on Nintendo Switch, fare? Well, that's what we're talking about today with our pal, Felicia Day. Also discussed: Third Eye, Scavengers Reign, Heroes vs. Hordes, Teardown, The National Museum of American History, Vampire Survivors, Naheulbeuk's Dungeon Master, Suika Game Subscribe to our newsletter at besties.fan! 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!

Y'all, we have a special guest today. Yes. A very special guest. We have Felicia Day here. Can you say hello to the world? Hey, what's up, everybody? Our small world. Hi, small world.

I hate that ride, but I don't hate you. Wow. Do you really? I mean, well, I was going to take this in a different direction, but now I have a lot of questions. Yeah. I feel like unpacking Felicia's small world should take place off

the air. We have a lot of Disney heads in the audience that would freak the fuck out on you, Felicia. You're not ready for that heat. It's just the song. I love the interior. If they could just put something else, anything, trip-hop, anything in that ride. You love dead-eye puppets.

But the music. Okay, i don't love it my dog died while i was at disneyland land so i'm scarred for life there okay i didn't think did they did they let dogs at disneyland no but they they while i was at disneyland i called my partner and he had had to put the dog down. Okay. I started sobbing and the lady who was escorting us around because I was with a famous person who had like that docent thing. She was like, please, let's get you backstage because she didn't want me crying near the carousel. They're still crying at Disneyland. This is the darkest fucking cold open we've ever had in the entire history of the show. Oh, sorry.

No, it's working. I gotta be honest, it's working. I just imagine that they have a bucket of that green paint that makes things invisible, and they just, like, doused you with it. Just covered Felicia in it? What is it, go away green? No, I got, she escorted me, but she's like, let's get you out of the park. And then she took

me backstage, where, by the way, everything's held up by two-by by fours. It's not nice back there. You needed the magic now more than ever. I know. I needed a hug. I needed something. I'm sorry. Anyway, get back with your podcast. my name is griffin mccoy and i know the best game of the week my name is christopher thomas

plant and i know the best game of the week my name is ross frosch and i'm the best game of the week game of the week my name is ross frosch and i'm the best game of the week feel free to let it rip felicia we don't really have much um religion about this okay i'm felicia day and i know the best game of the week and this is the besties where we talk about things here oh wait what's the intro for this one this is the besties it's a video game club and just by listening to you my friend i remember i almost did the intro to wonderful uh but that's not this show this one's besties uh this one's video games this one's video this one's video games and uh so we're going to talk about those this week specifically super mario rpg the remake on the nintendo switch it's come a long way since pac-man chris what is a mario rpg i wish i could tell you more than what you just said of a remake of Super Mario

RPG on Switch, but it's that. They brought it back. Those wild minds at Nintendo said, now is the time to bring back the strangest Mario while we have a really strong solid IP vision. Let's bring back the one where he looks like a crushed piece of Play-Doh.

And he did. We love him. We love the crushed Mario. We want to pop him like a little gumball-doh and yes and we love him we love the crushed mario we want to pop him like a little gumball right in our gobs but we're going to talk more about that in just a moment after the break okay so uh again thank you for joining us felicia very special guest uh i want to say before we jump into the game proper which i'm very excited to talk about this is one of my favorite games, literally of all time. It introduced me to the format of the RPG.

But Felicia's here not just to talk about video games. Well, mostly she will be talking about video games, but I do want to call out. She created a new narrative audio series called Third Eye, which is on Audible, and it fucking rocks. I'm going to try to do an elevator pitch for it, but please stop me if you think this is a bad elevator pitch for me.

Okay, you pitch it out. Harry Potter goes through, a Harry Potter type, I should say. Imagine goes through seven books of adventures and is called the Chosen One and is basically guaranteed to save the planet from Voldemort and then gets to the end of the seventh book and fucking beefs it on the seventh book. And then time jumps 10 years forward

to Loser Harry Potter. Is that a fair way to pitch this series? You know, it's 15 years, but you are accurate. You are super accurate. Actually, I mean, I haven't wanted to mention Harry Potter in my press, trying to get word out on this, because J.K. Rowling sucks.

I think we can all agree on that. But at the same time, yeah, that was kind of the concept. I was like, what if Harry Potter whiffed it? And then later this girl comes in and kind of blows her life up. She's a loser, and everybody kind of suffers because of her, and nobody will let her forget she's a loser. So yeah, that's the story. It's a seven-hour epic, you guys. So if you want to listen to it, it has me and Neil Gaiman and Sean Astin and Will Beaton and Lily Pichu. It's like a murderer's row of kick-ass voice actors. Alan Tudyk, Christopher Judge. Yep.

Weird Al's fucking in it. Like, you got some real talent in this thing. I spent four years writing it. I was like, I'll call in every favor i have okay so come play with me yeah chris judge is in it and i'm like he's he's he's the big bad guy so appropriate right yeah yeah it's gonna be fun uh please check it out that's an audible too right that's an audible product it's an audible original so they um you know and we worked on it for i mean i wrote it for like three years and then we took a year to make it like recording and all the special effects.

Like it's kind of like a AAA. It is like a Harry Potter movie in audio. Oh, yeah. It's like orally extremely like overwhelming at how dense it is. Like clearly y'all spent a ton of time making sure every aspect was represented. And there were a lot of video game analogies. We argued a lot about what would a portal really sound like? And we're like, no, no, it needs to go one more.

Yeah. So huge that you did all of the Foley work with your own sort of mouth, Michael Winslow style. I did. It was all about... Blah, blah, blah, blah. And... That... The Super Mario RPG,

The Legend of the Seven Stars. They dropped the subtitle. Yeah, I literally forgot it had a subtitle. For this one. It was an RPG that came out in 1996. So it's been a minute. And it was developed by Square. This was pre-Enix merger.

And it was the first sort of RPG Mario game. There've been a lot since then. There's been Paper Mario. There's been the Mario and Luigi games, Paper Mario. I said already. I don't know why everybody says that. You said it already. There's two of them i guess and mario

and luigi and paper mario and mario and luigi um they're they've made a ton of games sort of in that vein since then to varying degrees of success i will say but this was the first one that and it was i cannot stress this enough if you were a nine-year-old at the time who was obsessed with mario and final fantasy this mashup was literally a uh the most exciting thing that had ever happened in video games i feel like which which was a little bit sad because it would be the last mashup they would do for mate like ever together right square and nintendo square and well just for from a like square never worked on another like nintendo rpg because they didn't give mario neck that's true that is true you mean my man looks so fucking stupid guys get out of here uh it is uh one thing i will say that

is sort of like noteworthy about super mario rpg it is weird and very funny and irreverent i think it set the tone for all of the like silly mario rpg games that came afterwards right like mario uh uh superstar saga mario and luigi superstar saga on uh what was that game boy advanced first then it's gotten ported all over. All those games, Paper Mario, all pretty funny. Yeah. And even characterizations are defined in this game. So you look at how Bowser appears in this game, the kind of loser, sad Bowser,

is fully recreated in the Super Mario movie that just came out. Absolutely. So it's totally carried through, and it's really defining in that way though i will say appreciating how weird this game is benefits from the movie because the movie in this game we're tasked with the same impossible project tell a story about mario a character that has effectively no story and the mario movie was like got it he's gonna do all the things he he likes hitting the power boxes He's going to do all the things.

He likes hitting the power boxes. Let's do that scene. He likes riding the go-kart. Let's go do that scene. And it's very, very true. And then Enix was like, oh, I don't know. What would Mario want to do? How about a giant fucking sword?

I don't know, like falls into the the castle and then they're like baby swords with eyes and like a toad kingdom and it's very weird um other stuff is uh i don't know if it was the first but it was one of the first rpgs that uh got rid of random encounters you can see all the enemies on the field while you run around there's like some light platforming stuff and also i would say the biggest thing is timed uh inputs in battles which uh you know you press a button right when your attack hits you do some extra damage or you block an attack which is something that has been utilized by so many rpgs uh since since uh since this game came out in 1996 uh most notably sea of stars which we just played earlier this year felicia i know you didn't play this originally.

No. Okay. Let me just give you a little summary of my, my mom wouldn't get us a console. So the only exposure I had was going to a friend's house once. Now I went to, I was homeschooled, so I wasn't let out of the house ever. One time I went to another child's house. I'm not even exaggerating. That was it.

No birthday parties, no playdates, nothing. I was locked in my house with my PC. So I went once and I was so envious. And my mom was like, no, you guys can't have a console to ruin your brain. Proceeds to let us play eight hours of PC games a day, unsupervised, doing whatever we want. So- Was there a stipulation on the PC games? I got to say, like, was there a line where like, oh, this PC game's a bridge too far? No, she was like, place Mass Blaster. And I genuinely don't understand, does she think we were doing Mavis Beacon and Mass Blaster the whole time?

I don't know. No. You had the laser suit Larry in another window. We were playing all the laser suit Larrys. That's how I formed my idea of relationships. And that is a personal issue. I did want to confirm this with you because I don't want to be weird, but I have read a profile on you before. It's okay.

And they did talk about how your mom only wanted to let you be elite gamer when you grew up. Yes. You did have the mandatory 10 hours of Counter-Strike. Esports training. Yes. Day in, day out. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I actually have a Twitch.

Yeah. I have a Twitch in my right eye just because I was raised only on FPS, right? So. I'm imagining this. They named Twitch after you, actually. Yeah, exactly.

That's why it's called Twitch, guys. I'm imagining this encounter you had with your friend where you saw a game console for the first time and they're just like, Felicia, hey, Felicia, felicia this shit right here felicia this shit right here it's called bubsy this shit right here is called gex you're gonna love this shit the envy lose your mind the envy what do you remember what they had what they played it was just it was a mario game

it was i think it was just basic mario so cut to my child turns three, and I was super disciplined about not showing her any screens until she was three. Wow, three. Good work. I know. I'm impressed. It was hard on planes. But then, boom, three years old, we're playing Switch every night of the rest of your life.

And so we played through Mario Odyssey five times. Super Paper Mario is her favorite. So now that I'm listening to you guys, I'm like, this is it. I just got wonder, but I'm like, this is it for the holidays. I will, my last thing I want to say here is though, she loves Super Paper Mario so much, I downloaded the first one you could get on the Switch. And she has formed her opinion of quote unquote old games. Mama, I don't want to see those dirty graphics.

They look like broken quills. Oh no. It's like Justin. Justin has the same opinion about old graphics. Oh, that's fucking... I will say this. I got this game. I have two switches.

I have like a Switch Lite that is like my Switch that I travel with. And then I have like the OLED Switch that usually Henry plays. So I downloaded Mario RPG on both of them because I was super excited. I love this game so much. I downloaded it.

I was playing it. And then he got home from school. I was like, dude, you got to check out this game. You love Pokemon. It's got turn-based combat. You like Mario. It's got Mario in it. Check it out.

And he was so bored. He did not like it even a little bit. Because here's the thing. There is a lot about this game. This is an incredibly faithful remake. A remarkably, remarkably faithful remake. It was made by Arte Piazza, which is a Japanese developer that I would say most notably has done like all of the Dragon Quest ports. So they did, I would say sort of their biggest undertakings were dragon quest 7 and 8

which launched on the playstation 1 and ps2 respectively they did 3ds ports of them that were like complete overhauls and the fact that they got these you know 150 hour rpgs to fit on 3ds is like a miracle they are they have a deft hand at this and they have done a remarkable job i would say updating this but it is pretty antiquated well uh oh as far as like the mechanics well the thing is she doesn't play this is why i need i need you guys's advice so she watches me and eats so this is how i rationalize being a good mom playing like up to an hour a night with a six-year-old she eats her fruit and vegetable plate while i do all the work. But she's like yelling over like, ground pound, mama, ground pound.

It's just like dictating to me. We just finished like Pokemon Scarlet and Violet. And she's like, she's obsessed with Whopper. But you're right. Like she, I tried to play Lisa Wiggity. Paldean Whopper or original Whopper? Paldean Whopper. Listen, I just ordered $125 Claude Sire from Japan

because that's her favorite Pokemon and no one in this country would make that ugly ass Pokemon. It's stuffy. Super ugly. So anyway,

I think the words are dirty graphics. Dirty graphics. Should I buy her a, so that's my question. I want to get her like into it but she is intimidated

by the, the, the concept. How old is she now you said she's almost seven so i'm like should i get her a switch light for christmas i mean it's a good reading game for what it's worth she can't read it's true okay but like that it's very simple is what i'm saying so if you're trying to like ease someone into reading it's like not a bad area to start exploring okay um i will say the graphics are not dirty. This game looks... Yeah, it looks nice.

This game looks stunning. I am wild about how this game looks. They've added a lot of pre-rendered cutscenes, which are delightful. They really do a lot to add to the charm of the game. It's very colorful and

all the animations are very faithfully recreated in like very good satisfying ways there's also like people kind of forget like there's characters in this game that have never appeared in any other mario project ever yeah who's this mallow guy and who's this gino guy these guys look kind of creepy like they were like spin-offs or what's going on with these no they they just like they're, one-off square created them. It was like, eh, that's the end of them. This is when, this is, I love looking at this game and looking at

Kingdom Hearts and looking at the two different squares. The two different companies that created these two things were like, they were like, alright, we got our hands on the Mario franchise. We need to create some original characters. What about a puppet that comes to life and he has a finger blaster? Oh, that's not actually a good one.

Describe his weapon actually. Oh, okay. And then what about this little cloud man? And he can cast magic spells, and that's great. And then when they got to Kingdom Hearts, it was like, all right, we need some original characters. I want a fucking spiky animal. What about Sephiroth with brown hair?

Like, just lost the fucking plot completely. I think Henry was mostly turned off because the turn-based combat in this game is super duper uh old school in the like dragon quest style which is like attack item magic defend and that's like it and then you have the time button presses and you get some new, you know, special attacks, but it doesn't really get more interesting than that. Yeah, but you know, Super Paper Mario isn't that, I mean, I'm sorry, the combat can be kind of a drag sometimes

in Super Paper Mario, you know? Yeah, that's true. What I like about this combat is very fast. So you can get through a battle in like 10 seconds it just flies by which really helps and they also added a little bit to modernize it where there's like a meter that goes up if you like properly time your attacks and you get like a super power attack if it fills up they also added like rare enemies that so they like modernized it like 10 and i agree like it's like it's not gonna feel

like a Persona game from a modern RPG standpoint. God, give me that shit. Yeah, I know. Mario like facing his own shadow self. I mean, they made that, what is that? Fire Emblem X Persona game, whatever that was called. And I guess that's the closest you're gonna get. I just, I wanna see Bowser tackle his own

sort of like Freudian tendencies to summon demons. He's got some issues. He sure fucking does. Especially around women and just kidnapping. I mean, woman, right? Just the one. Really just the one. He doesn't care about Daisy.

No, he doesn't give a shit. I agree. I think the best thing that they, the best choice they have made with this game is that battles last not a joke like if you just run into a battle and there's one enemy in it you will be out of there in five seconds okay that's way different from super paper mario i mean you could spend 10 minutes in a battle there if you're battling a boss you know and like we played that literally four times through now so i think she she's going to... Also, if Peach is in it, it's always a winner.

She, you know, she just... Not only is Peach in it, Peach is fully playable and fully awesome in this game. She is like the dedicated, like in addition to Malo, like a very good caster and has some great powers

and characterization for her is really great. And I know she's going to star in her own game next year, which is exciting. So exciting exciting this is a nice little teaser to that i think um i will also say i believe this game is like a dozen hours long it is for an art for a square rpg not not a i gotta say that's a w in my book hell yeah man for for sure i'm like uh i have not had a ton of time to play it over the past week uh my my youngest was was sick most of the time and i was sort of it was all hands on deck over here but i am maybe

two-thirds of the way through the game so uh it is uh it is it is i don't know i am i am having a very tough time separating my deep nostalgia for the original from my like feelings about this and i don't usually fall prey to that um because you know there is a lot about this game that feels quite uh out outdated but they've just done such a good faithful job uh reviving it and the presentation is so great and it's so like fast and snappy and charming and uh i'm just i'm just having a i'm having i don't think it's a game changer by any stretch of the imagination i think if maybe you haven't played it before uh you'll you'll you'll have a great time with it but it is it's just nice to play and did y'all play on the easy mode no no it's pretty easy as as as are you sorry i shouldn't

say that because no no no no no yeah Yeah, I definitely played on the hardest. It's also not called the easy mode. It's called breezy. The breezy mode. I can't wait for breezy mode. Honestly, I will play easy on everything. I don't have time to dick around in a video game. How did you know it was called the breezy mode?

Listen, I've been watching the website. Like, I've literally been like, what would it feel like to touch Gino? Like, it's going to give me a splitter. Oh, listen, I've been watching the website. Like I've literally been like, how could, what would it feel like to touch Gino? Like it's going to give me a splinter. Oh no, don't. That'll lead you down some rabbit holes that maybe your browser history will not recover. Listen, I did a My Little Pony episode.

I've seen some stuff, okay? That's a fair point. Of all the characters to wonder what it feels like to touch them, you didn't go with Mallow, though? Because, look, I've just, I gotta know. Does your hand pass through him like a cloud or bounce off like a mushroom? No, no, he's squishy.

He's squishy. That would be fun. That would be a fun squeeze. You know, I would get a splinter, but I might like it. Anybody else have anything to say about this 30-year-old video game? Play it. You have anything? No, it's about this, uh, 30 year old video game? Play it. You have anything? No, it's just very, very, very charming.

And even if you don't have a lot of nostalgia for it, I remember I couldn't stand this game when I was a kid because it had like books level boring attitude and no, it's a delight. I think everybody should check it out. All right. Um, that's Super Mario RPG. Get there. Big year for Mario. Weird year for Mario. Big year. Big year. He's going Mario RPG. Get there. Big year for Mario. Weird year for Mario.

Big year. Big year. He's going big. He's like, he's a mainstream. He's like Taylor Swift and that guy, whatever the football guy is. Oh, no. Dan Marino. Let's go to a break.

Okay, Felicia. of a break okay Felicia uh I know you are already you've wish listed uh Super Mario RPG it's on every list that you have but I know you also played quite a number of other games and we're getting to the point the time of year that we reach every every November December where it's game of the year time oh wow I I'm curious if anything is currently jumping out at you. Okay, listen. I mean, I stream three times a week on Twitch. I shouldn't. It's not my profession. I don't know what I'm doing with my time. I should be doing other things. But you know, it's my joy. I think, I mean, obviously, I can't not pick Baldur's Gate 3. Like, it's a no-brainer. I really

enjoyed Cyberpunk the first time, and I think the DLC is absolutely incredible, and I feel like I played it... Wait, wait, wait. Can we step back and say you enjoyed, like, you didn't have any issues with Cyberpunk? I had zero issues. I think I got stuck once, and I played it from

day one, so I had a totally different experience. The gods were smiling upon you. I know, I know. Well, the gods recognize your insane PC gamer cred. Oh yeah, that's it. They're like, you know what? You're the only one here, girl.

We'll protect you. Yeah, so I have to say on that end, I mean, like I play a lot of game. I play a lot of Fortnite with my friends. I play a lot of RPGs. And then anything with a digital hoe that I can grow up turnip with, I'm a hoe for a digital hoe. And so you give me literally any farming game. So I played Fey Farm and Sandrock and, I mean, name it.

I got it. I mean, Coral Island's next on my list. It's just I love farming games. And I love co-op farming games more than anything. So I have to give a shout out to the farming genre in general, because it is really reached new heights. I would love to hear, I don't think we've talked about Sandrock at all on this show. No, I actually haven't heard of it. So it's the follow-up to what was my time at Porsche, right?

Porsche, my time at Porsche. So, and my time at Sandrock has co-op and it's like, it's like in, you know, you're in this Arizona kind of thing. And I, you know, again, I'm a tactile person. So, like, just like I wanted to touch Gino in a bad way. Yeah. And felt like I was going to get a Splendor. It's a very dry game. You know, you got to dust things. Literally.

Yeah, it's literally very dry. But it's very, very fun. And I will say the depth of this kind of... I mean, Fey Farm was a fantastic game, but it felt like I played it and then it was over and I can't go back. You know, Sandrock has so much depth to it. And I think it's because they developed Portia so much that they just added on all these other mechanics. And it's just like you could go on forever and build your farm. So I love it. Although the aesthetic, again, I would like a little bit more moisture in my world. So I'm excited about Coral Island, which is, I guess you could, you know, date mermaids,

which I'm totally into. Fuchsia, let me ask you, how much of a wishlist is Haunted Chocolatier? Oh, I mean, listen, I play every farming game, even ones that are like, and there's nothing that beats Stardew. It's just the writing, the goals, the mechanics. It's like, it's the master of all of them. And it's like, oh, I wish it was little, you know, we got all these beautiful graphics. And I will say Fae Farm did some stuff that really simplified the farming genre in very pleasing ways. But at the end of the day, it doesn't linger with me, the story. Whereas Stardew, I want to get back in there. I want to see what's going on.

So Chocolatier is like, I'm going to play that. And he's still fucking working on Stardew updates. I know. It is telling that one of my most anticipated games is the 1.6 update for Stardew. So good. Yeah. Have you checked out Palia at all? That's another.

I have. I have. I really, I'm in a beta. I play the alpha actually, because I know people who work there and it's really lovely. I'm just waiting. I'm waiting for it to add them to add more, but it is really beautiful. It's very much like, wow, inside an MMO. It's just, I don't know, MMOs, I got kids. It's so hard. I lived in there. i can't invest enough time to get good at it you know and that's kind of my my issue i don't want to be bad when i was an expert warlock i don't want to go back to being like a casual in an mmo so i don't i don't blame you yeah just to go back

to balder's gate we were talking before the show you made a i wouldn't call it a rookie mistake because i think it's a reasonable mistake to make when when deciding how you're going to play through Baldur's Gate oh yeah I have a co-op game and it's the dumbest thing I've ever done in my life now I played I will say two years ago I played through act one you know in bait with early access yeah so I soloed that and it was like some of the best playing I've ever had and then I decided to get my three friends who we play, we play Fortnite, we play all the farming games together, we play other things. But we decided to do co-op. And it was the stupidest idea because, you know, two of us have kids and the other one, they don't do anything. But one of them is a game developer, Adam, out of vision. He does a lot of really cool games. And the other one's my best friend.

So it's fine. Where they have all the time in the world, and then Gary Witta and I have no time. And so we're in there, and like, my partner got injured, and I couldn't stream at night. And he has a kid, like a little kid, and he can't stream at night. So it's just like, we are stuck in Act 2 in a most frustrating way. And I keep being like on the Discord. I'm like, hey, guys, anybody just not want to play anymore? I'm happy to take over the game as a solo thing.

No, no, no, we want to come in. I'm like, no! Yeah, because you can now boot people out of and just have a solo campaign. That was originally not in the release, but thankfully you can do that. I know Griffin got stuck with my freak co-op character for a bit. I had to redo like an hour and a half of that game

because Russ and I played the co-op so we could talk about it on the show and he made a little fucking horrible Lord Farquaad fucking shithead and then I had to just like roll with him. I could not do it. I had to do the whole Goblin Camp over again. Oh no, that's a lot.

Which is a lot, yeah. Well, we actually killed Lazelle or Lazel. I don't even know. Lazelle. Wow. We killed her and then her body just – we can't revive her no matter if nobody's in the game or not. And her dead body is just there. So it's like a joke.

We just log into camp. We just put more stuff in her inventory and like see if anybody discovers. We put some ham in there or whatever. I mean, we can't, it's really creepy. That seems like something Weathers could handle now.

He can't do it. I don't know what, I kept, so I, you know, one of our players wasn't there for like 30 minutes.

I'm like, okay, great, let's revive her because he was the one who made the decision to allow Shadowheart to kill her

and I'm like, okay, let's get her off the ground and like just torment him. She won't get up. He won't give us the option. And I'm just like, what is the problem? Dark. I know.

She's dead. She's stinking dead. I think it was just Char magic that just made it permanent probably. Yeah, it was probably. So anyway, yeah, I don't know what to do, man. I'd love to dump my friends, but, you know, it's kind of my fault that we can't play. Yeah. So whatever.

I'll get back to it in like 2025. Yeah. It's definitely, I think, neck and neck with Zelda for me for game of the year right now. I think that's going to be the case for a lot of people. Yeah. I think it's starting to feel a little bit as things kind of coalesce and we start to like try and figure out what our like goatee end of year special is going to look like. Was it last? When did Elden Ring come out?

Was that last year? That was last year. Was it last year? That was just a fucking parade. That was last year. Last year we did, Felicia, for our goatee special, we did the best game that isn't Elden Ring. Because we knew that Elden Ring was going to win it

and this year it feels like it's like going to be a heads up battle between Baldur's Gate 3 and Tears of the Kingdom and let and let God decide

the rest of them so we'll see how that goes I mean it's hard because you want to give a shout out to I mean Dredge was amazing I played a lot of Dredge

this year oh yeah that's definitely on my list I love that game so like there's a lot of games that you don't want to just a shout out to, I mean, Dredge was amazing. I played a little Dredge this year. Oh yeah, that's definitely on my list. I love that game. So like there's a lot of games that you don't want to just be like neglecting because there was just like this giant, you know, 400 pound gorilla this year. You can't argue with it,

but it's the same time. There's 240, it's King Kong versus Godzilla. And then there's a bunch of other really great monsters just sort of scooting around. Yep, exactly. So it's not the best, you know, it's a stressful time to be a parent because you literally just can't keep up with anything. Yeah. Well, thankfully, we have a 16-game bracket during our Game of the Year special.

So I think we'll cover most of the big stuff. We got anything in the mailbag? Oh, yeah. We've got some mail. um we got anything in the mail bag oh yeah we've got some mail uh we were recently asked in a previous episode uh folks were asking if you're on a budget uh and you want to do some gaming what would you recommend we had some recommendations but this might be the best recommendation of them all and i regret we didn't mention it this comes from peter uh to the guy that is gaming on a budget get a library card bigger libraries have

been branching out into video games and no one knows it my library got the new resident evil 4 and it mostly just sat on the shelf if your library doesn't have video games your library is probably part of a library system that will get it from a neighboring library wow that's wild that's that's not anything I've ever heard of before. Well, if you have a library card, they have, like, the LA Library, not only do you get, like, a free streaming service, but they have, like, discounts on classes.

Like, libraries actually have a lot. You can rent tools at one of the libraries in LA. What? Yeah, you need a drill? Go down there and rent, you know, check it out. It's really cool. I want a Dremel. I want a library dremel there you go that's awesome uh cool get a library card recommended uh this next letter comes from marcus green good question for all of us are you guys gonna let your children inherit your steam

account uh will you leave them your password and your will that's a great a great question if steam still exists when i die in 200 years then maybe i mean we know gabe will still exist in 200 years but whether steam will exist is is tbd i have been meaning to ask you griffin how how are you planning to live for another 200 years well uh i don't know let me ask this uh bootleg dialysis machine right now while we record swapping my blood out for uh child but no um i don't man i don't know my son doesn't give a shit about pc gaming barely any any shits at all so like i don't know he would his life would have to take some pretty wild twists and turns to to to care about the and also my steam library it's got some good stuff in it it also has a lot of let's say cruft a lot of stuff i don't know that my son would know how to navigate

i don't know either of my children would be able to navigate the library to get to i thought you were gonna say a lot of hentai puzzle games. And so many hentai puzzle games. So many titties. Yeah. Like eight. What about you all? Well, the thing is, like, for me, like, I don't, I'm literally contemplating, should I get her a Switch Lite for Christmas? Or should I just be like, we're going to go iPad?

Because I feel like in 10 years, are we going to just be gesturing? Is there going to be a joystick ever? Like touchpad, anything? Like, I don't know. I think controllers are here to stay. I think people need that tactile thing. You know, iPads certainly have good games on them. But I think you really saw like with the rise of the Steam Deck and the rise of these new handhelds that are coming out,

people want something that they can directly hold and interact with, and touchscreen just isn't going to recreate that. Yeah. My recommendation, definitely go Switch because it's not that there aren't good games on iPad, but there are a lot of really bad ones. Yeah, I know you're right. They're really bad.

I mean, basically, it's like I'm going to let her play Minecraft when she's seven. Yeah. And then we're going to play Zelda. Because I tried a couple years ago with Zelda, Breath of the Wild, and she was too scared. She was like, why are you murdering actual animals? So I'm going to try again. So I'm going to try again. But then I really want to encourage her to play because I don't want her just to be a

Twitch watcher. I want her to be a Twitch player if she wants to. And I want her to get used I don't want her just to be a Twitch watcher. I want her to be a Twitch player if she wants to. And I want her to get, you know, used to using the controller. And I feel like now is the time. It's like, get piano lessons and get a Switch Lite to figure out these controls out. I just don't want to hamper her like, oh, you're adapting old technology. But I guess you're right. You know, it's fine. She'll be fine. I would say in a couple years, big recommendation, guess you're right you know it's fine she'll be i would say in a couple years big recommendation get her uh the portal uh collection on switch oh that's great that is a really great i mean that and minecraft are like two really great introductions to dual stick controls um so yeah

no they're awesome okay great thank you i mean i think mario wonder like the fact that it seems so newbie friendly is like why i was inspired like okay maybe if she had a smaller controller because like a regular controller is huge for a little kid like yeah and it's really unwieldy and she's not the kind of kid who wants to look dumb you know she's super perfectionist syndrome so she's like doesn't want to pick it up and i'm like i i want her to be able to practice so i think the switch light is the way to go the switch light would be perfect so it Also, 8BitDo makes little kid-size controllers. I just bought one, actually.

What? Really? Yeah. I bought... They have a wireless PC one that I got to play on Steam Deck when it's docked. It's so cute. It's like a little mint green little deal. I love it.

Okay. I'm already on the website. Thank you. For Switch, I like the PowerA Nano. I swear by that one. I don't know if 8BitDo makes a Switch controller or not. Okay, we have one last question and then we'll do a little bit of honorable mentions.

Wrap it up. This is actually, sorry, not a question but a clarification on a question that I asked in a previous episode regarding Scooby-Doo. Specifically, are there any scooby-doo episodes or even murder mysteries that end up where it's just a ghost as the murderer when did we talk about oh when we talked about a haunting in venice yeah i think it was maybe in the maybe in the

context of that did we talk about that movie um but yes uh that was the question the you know basically obviously we all know usually in murder mysteries it ends up with it being like the security guard or the hairdresser having done it spoilers but i guess the question is are there any instances where it's ghosts and uh people wrote in specifically alexis mccausland sorry for butchering your name, wrote in to say, gentlemen, I'd like to direct both of your attentions to the 2002 film Scooby-Doo. I thought in that movie it ended up being Scrappy-Doo as the villain. Well, yes, but there's also a bit where the Scooby gang switched spirits

and switched bodies. like um the scooby gangs like switch spirits oh and switch but like that that they it enters the realm of the supernatural pretty um concretely i would say got it you also have to stay after the credits when um shaggy pulls the green ribbon off of uh scrappy's neck and then his head falls off and it turns out he's been dead all along yeah that's right that's right uh ben also wrote in to say that there's a scooby-doo there's also scooby-doo on zombie island where i believe the twist was just that zombies were real yeah and that one shaggy has to sort of face his mortality and i think that that was a big moment for animation yeah so uh last chunk of the show we're going to talk about our mentions. Felicia, this can be anything. It doesn't need to be a video game. It can be anything that you're into, that you've been watching, that you've been reading, playing, what have you. I'll start, give you some time to think about it. I've been playing the DLC for Teardown, which is a game I've talked a lot about.

So good. So good. I love Teardown. Felicia, have you tried the DLC for this game? I have not. I played it a while ago, and I was just like, this is the best thing for my brain I've ever done in my life. Oh, it's fucking amazing.

It's amazing. So the DLC is called Time Campers, and it's basically Back to the Future 3 because you get in a time machine and all of the levels are set in the Wild West. And you get Wild West-like and all the levels are set in the Wild West. And you get like Wild West like equipment and you can ride horses and all that stuff ties in

with like the heist mechanics of normal teardown. And it fucking rules. They also just came out on consoles for the first time. It's on PS5, Xbox Series X and S, which is cool if you haven't ever played it. Is it on game pass um i don't think it's on game pass i think it's on playstation plus like premium whatever that's called those like ridiculous tiers of playstation plus um it also still runs really really well on

a steam deck if you've got one uh yeah it is incredible dlc uh and really exciting that a lot of people can now play it because it's on consoles for the first time. So check that out. It's called Teardown. And the DLC that I played is called Time Campers. Do you think that would be an okay fit for a kiddo? Because I think Henry and Gus would like to watch things get smashed apart, but I feel like the heist mechanics would be a little bit dense for them. It's real complicated.

It is complicated. Here's the thing though teardown has like a lot of side modes like there's just a mode where you just like fuck shit up so if they just want to like knock stuff down you can do that and you can give them all sorts of tools and there's like user created like uh tools that you can download okay that sounds great then so i think it is viable for that i mean i don't know what's going to result in your house, but at least it's a start. I think Justin mentioned this. I think maybe all of you maybe have mentioned this at various points.

I have almost finished Scavenger's Reign, which is on Max, max and it is maybe the best sci-fi show i've ever seen in my entire life wow i i i cannot uh i cannot i i can't remember the last time a a tv show like made me feel the way that this show uh makes me feel it is absolutely remarkable if you did not hear us talk about it in the past it is a uh just jaw-droppingly gorgeous uh very adult animation uh series about uh survivors of a uh a deep space uh crash on an alien planet with an intricate and like bewildering ecology that they have to learn how to adapt to and uh you know hide from often uh in order to you know survive uh and it is it is staggering i am i am deeply in love with this show i I started watching it like three days ago, and I have been staying up at night too late just tearing through it.

So I would recommend it to pretty much anyone except if you have maybe a weak stomach because it is pretty horrifying at times. Um, but man, I really hope it gets the sort of like recognition it deserves, because I think if it does, it is, it is going to be a, I like important show for like Western animation. Um, I, it is like on the level of like Evangelion in, in my mind for like what it is, it is doing. So yeah, watch, watch that shit. Have you watched it yet, Chris? Uh, I have not.

I watched the original short that it's based off of, and I am so excited for it. I just, I don't know. I've been kind of like putting it off for the holidays because I want to be able to really get into it. Yeah, yeah, everyone should do that. Also, on the inverse side of that, I've been playing a game on my phone

called Heroes vs. Hordes. It is a vampire survivors like and it has like a trillion like microtransaction hooks not great but like the uh the the game itself is very uh fun and it has a lot of like neat rpg mechanics and i don't know if you've played any game like it looks pretty i i I don't know, if you've played any game like Survivor.io. I was addicted to Vampire Survivors because I could play it on. So basically, I got rid of my gaming laptop because I'm like, Felicia, when you're traveling, you need to write.

And of course, you can play Vampire Survivors on a Mac with a touchpad. And I just played 400 hours of Vampire Survivors last year. So now I'm downloading this immediately for my trip. Thank you. Yeah. It's, um, it's,

it's, it's good. It's like very short form, uh, lots of like stuff to unlock. And, um, I think,

I think you can, I've spent a little bit of cash on it. There's like an option to remove ads, which is like, if I really like a game and I play it a lot, I will always spring for, um, but you can,

you can do most of the stuff here without spending any money. So, yeah, it's a good one. For mine, this is more of a story, but Felicia, I am so happy to have you here because I can tell you directly that you are tied to one of my favorite museum experiences in examples of government lack of oversight that I have ever experienced. What? Okay. And you are so directly tied to it. Okay. So my recommendation is the Smithsonian National Museum of American History. Oh, the best. Right. Right. But right before I know that you probably have a general idea of where that's going, but I assure you, you also don't. Okay, great.

Right before the pandemic, I am in D.C. for work, right? And it's like – I don't know, like early January, there's rumblings like, oh, something's going on in the world. Is that virus going to come over here? And it's like, you know what? I don't know. Maybe I'm not going to be able to travel for like another month or two. I should really go see a museum while I'm in D.C. So I go to the National Museum of American History.

And the bottom area is like very well laid out. You know, it's not as it's not how I remembered it as a kid, but it's still it's still nice. They're taking good care of it. And I go upstairs and there's nothing like there's i don't know if it's like under construction but there's nothing i go in like the main room there's nothing there it's like everything's been removed i go into another room there's nothing there i go deeper into this labyrinth nothing nothing nothing in every room and then i get to the end and in one room in the center of that room there is a single thing.

And it is the costume that Felicia wore in Do You Want to Date My Avatar? In the center, in a giant glass display case. And all I could think was, this is when the zombie apocalypse needs to happen. We need it to happen right now. That way. We need it to happen right now. That way. So that this will be the only, this will be the museum of American history and Felicia Day.

People will come back a hundred years from now, you know, there'll be rebuilding civilization and they'll say, this was the most important thing. I need to study it. We need to know everything about it. And it made me so fucking happy. And I'm so glad i get to tell you about it that is the weirdest story did you like step over like a stanchion or something like you were just breaking into this i don't know i i wanted to ask questions but as

a good citizen of the world i knew the asking questions would ruin this. No. I simply appreciated it. He saw Nicolas Cage eyeing the costume in a way that was kind of – But it was a wax – yeah, it was just a wax thing of Nicolas Cage. A wax Nicolas Cage. But that's actually Nicolas Cage. He's made out of wax.

That is true. Well, thank you for that story. That's really creepy. It's actually still on display right now, but it is in a different area with like next to Scully's badge and like the Zina outfit. So you can see it. And I will tell you a small story about being humble on the internet. I did a convention there, awesome con, very fun con. And I went on break to go see my costume, right? And it's in this huge display of like powerful women and like, it's wonderful. Like, and I walk up and there's a picture of me on the ground, you know, like my head shot in the outfit and a whole blurb about why my outfit's there and the outfit there. And

it was packed. I stood as obviously as I could in front of that cabinet, like pointing to it, gesturing. I did a TikTok video video very loudly trying to get any attention from anybody around me at all to be like hey that's you not one person noticed me cared it was the most humbling like oh okay you're never yeah don't be confident don't i i will i will say we've we've been to this museum a few times it really is i think it's probably my favorite of the like Smithsonian museums to bring the kids to because it's huge. They have like a kids play area on the first floor. It's absolutely rad. This display that your outfit from the Guild is in is right next to a gigantic like screen that is like showing important clips in the history of American

cinema. And so I took the boys here and we were like walking around and I was, you know, looking at all these incredible relics from cinema history. And Henry plopped down and was just watching this big screen. And later he came up to me and he was like, hey, who is Austin Powers? And I was like, what? He was like, I saw a thing from Austin Powers. It was like hey um who is austin powers and i was like what he was like i saw a thing from austin powers it was really funny who's austin powers i was like oh shit there is no way there is no way he is ready for this conversation there's so much stuff i would have to explain to him to make him understand sort of the place amer was at when Austin Powers happened. Luckily, you know, he saw Captain America's shield after that.

And he's never talked about it again. Do you think that's kind of the traditional way of telling your children about Austin Powers, which is wearing the Halloween costume and waking them up in the middle of the night? Yeah. Oh, God. It's time. It's time for the talk. Imagine if Shrek was a British sex pest.

Now you know. Felicia, anything else you wanted to shout out in the honorable mention section? Yes, I was streaming yesterday, and I was streaming Nalbeck's Dungeon Master, which is, I did a voice in Dungeons of Nalbeck. It's a really cool French game that I got to play the Wizardess, and they have a new game out, which is Dungeon Matcher, which is essentially Dungeon Keeper. Do you

remember that? It was a PC game about making a... Anyway, it's very fun. Then my friend Adam, who created Push and all these one-button games that are very fun, he logs in and is like, hey, Felicia, I want to show you a game. And I'm streaming. And I was like, okay. He makes me go to Suka game, S-U-I-K-A game. It's a browser game. And I proceed to play this stupid, dumb, free game for three and a half hours because it's totally addictive. It has amazing sounds. It's like Tetris, but also Bubble Bobble, but also like everything. And I don't know how he found this dumb browser game, but I'll be playing it on my browser on my phone, probably all my vacation.

Is this the watermelon puzzle game? It's the watermelon game, yes. Have you played it? It's just- No, I've just seen it all over and it looks so cute. It's so good. It's like everything you want in a quick, I mean, I played three and a half hours.

My back is so messed up right now because of Suka game. So I want to give a shout out to that, you know, if you want to really destroy your body and your mind, Suka Game. I think it's on Switch, too. I think it's on. Yeah, it is on Switch. But it's also great. Awesome. I want to,

are we going to recap everything we talked about? That's a lot. Go for it, Chris. Sure, I'll do it very quick. We talked about Super Mario RPG. We talked about Tear Down DLC,. Go for it, Chris. I'll do it very quick. We talked about Super Mario RPG. We talked about Teardown DLC, Time Campers, Scavenger's Reign on Macs, Heroes vs. Hordes,

the Smithsonian National Museum of American History, Vampire Survivors, Malbec's Dungeon Master, and Suica Game. I want to thank the following people for writing reviews for the besties on Apple Podcasts. We have Move Apparel,

Late Soar, and I May Liffy. I also wanted to thank our very special guest, Felicia Day, who has the Audible series that I mentioned. It's called Third Eye. It fucking rules. It's great. Thank you. I highly recommend

checking it out. Are all the episodes live now? Yeah, it's seven hours, so it's kind of like an audiobook, but it's also 10 episodes of television. That's how I wrote it. Awesome. You can get it right now at audible.com slash third eye. They also have a very good deal.

They're not sponsoring the podcast, but they have a very good deal right now. If you're interested in signing up for Audible, it's a good time to do it. Don't you give them that shit for free? No free ads. I know. Don't give them anything for free, but you probably have a free credit, so get my thing. The landscape, the podcast advertising landscape is so bad right now. You can't devalue us that way.

Hey, next week, we are pulling the train into Goaty Station. Next week, though, we are going to be revisiting some of our favorite unheralded indie games of the year. This would be a great time for you to go to the newsletter and let us know your favorites. And that newsletter, just go to Bessies. us know, uh, your, your favorites and that newsletter, it just go to besties.fan and you can get all kinds of great stuff. It is like one of the only newsletters I'm subscribed to. Uh, and it is,

uh, cause sometimes Chris and Russ talk about stuff on there that I don't fucking know about. Uh, so that's, that's great. So, uh,

we'll, we'll be back next week with some indie games. So thank you for joining us. Uh, tune in again next time for the besties because shouldn't the world's best friends pick week with some indie games. So thank you for joining us. Tune in again next time for the besties because shouldn't the world's best friends pick the world's best games? Besties!