The Besties - The new Double Dragon is a summer surprise!

Episode Date: August 8, 2023

Double Dragon helped popularize the beat 'em-up genre in 1980s arcades, but over the following decades, the series fell into irrelevance. Recently, the publisher handed the rights to an indie developer with a knack for pixelated combat. The result is Double Dragon Gaiden, a clever twist on the genre with a small army of playable characters. In the second half of the episode, Frushtick and Plante pick their combined six favorite beat 'em-ups! Subscribe to our newsletter at besties.fan for a full list of every game, movie, TV show, and book discussed on the podcast along with links and bonus materials!! 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 hey, good to see you. My name is Christopher Thomas Plant. My name is Russ Froschek. Welcome back to The Resties, where the rest of the best discuss the best of the rest. This week we're talking about Double Dragon Gaiden, Rise of the Dragons, a new double dragon game, and the greatest surprise of all, a good double dragon game. They did it. After decades of ups and downs, we are at a place of good drubble, drubble, double dragon games.

Drubble, drubble, toil and trouble. You have something that you want to talk about. Okay, so, yeah, real quick. You know, you get to a certain age and it's a good idea, especially if you have children, to get your I guess, estate

figured out so that if something untoward were to happen nothing would be the problem you know um so i found myself in a lawyer's office very recently figuring out like pretty basic boilerplate estate you know will stuff and so i'm leaving and i you know these days i don't spend a lot of time in offices but it's a picture like a very traditional lawyer's office with very traditional lawyerly looking people hammers gavels hammers gap you know it and so i'm leaving the office and i'm in the elevator and there's another guy in the elevator with me

and i'm standing there and as the elevator doors are closing someone else starts running into the elevator to like hop on with us it's another guy okay and the other guy says hey gil and the guy that's in the elevator with me goes hey man how's it going and the other guy goes so man what's going on in gilville and Gil says, Not a mucho, man. Not a mucho. It was like I was on another planet. I don't know how it happened. It was like I was dropped into a Truman Show sketch.

And it was unbelievable. Did they invite you in like did they turn to you without blinking and just say hey who's ready for some fresh dick as in breakfast as in I speak German no no no

I Russ yeah that wouldn't even work that would be too like clever not not to say that what I said was clever it's not it's not but it not to say that what I said was clever. It's not, it's not, but it needs to be even simpler. I mean, Gilville,

you just can't be Gilville. I've never heard that before. I, first of all, I don't think I've ever met someone named Gil. So part one right there. Secondly, someone unironically calling them Gilville and then them saying, Oh,

not a mucho. It was just a just a glowing moment I don't even know I feel like we could go to Griff land and just town you know Griff land and what is Griff land Griffin and Justin

Griff land I don't know no it, it needs to rhyme. The two words need to rhyme. Gilville. I have never felt more. Griff biff. I have never felt more defeated than my inability to come up with something better. You can't.

Here's the thing. You can't match the perfect scenario, which I just described to you. There's no way to match it. You can't best it. You can't yes end it. You just need to bask in the glow of, hey, man. Hey, what's up in gilville not a mucho you just need that not a mucho i'm just here to get a divorce that would have actually been better

okay what are we talking about today we have to take a break break. Right after this. What's after the break? I already told people. We're going to talk about Double Dragon Gaiden. Remember, we had a whole flub around it. Double Dragon Gaiden. And you flubbed again. Right up the dragons. We're going to talk about it right after the break.

And I absolutely can't fucking wait. See you on the other side. Okay. We're back double dragon gaiden this one caught me by surprise you you sent me a link to this and i i did not have double dragon on my dance card for 2023 like at all i kind of figured they just stopped making these um double dragon for we should probably give like a little bit of history double dragon is not the first beat them up but i would say it's the first really popular one in america um it is the game that is eating lots of young people's quarters in arcades um it sets the stage

for streets of rage and all of those konami games like the Simpsons Arcade and X-Men Arcade to become really, really popular. But Double Dragon itself is very, very, very simple. Even for a beat-em-up, it's very simple. You're just two dudes out kicking some ass. kicking some ass uh and and that's it i i mean it they made more of them they made a really really awful movie and i say that as somebody who genuinely likes a street fighter and the mario brothers movie um that one was pretty bad but now we're back and the uh i guess it's like the licensor, Arc System Works, had a good idea, which was let's give the property to an indie developer who has a knack for making this sort of game. So did you know about the game that the developer of this, Secret Base, made before Double Dragon Gaiden? I didn't, but before we get into that, I do want to give a little bit of background on arc system works so arc system works made uh double dragon 4 which came out in 2017 and it got absolutely shredded uh let's see metacritic like a 50 on metacritic, like a 50 on Metacritic, 6 out of 10. IGN awarded it

a 3.5 out of 10. This was in 2017. So at this point, Arc System Works, and again, like, you know, that's the publisher and developer of Double Dragon 4, was like, maybe we need someone else.

And, yeah, so they turned to this other developer. So what is their background? So this developer before this made a game called Devil's Dare. I believe that they made that and then redid it for a game called Streets of Red Devil's Dare Redux. And that game, I think, popped off pretty well on Steam. And it is kind of a classic 2D pixely beat-em-up, but mashing in a lot more horror

so that it looks somewhere between the game that you like with the visuals that I can't take. Binding of Isaac? Binding of Isaac I can't take. Binding of Isaac? Binding of Isaac, yeah. Somewhere between Binding of Isaac and Slaughterhouse. Yeah, I can see that. And it did pretty well. And it looks very similar to what would become Double Dragon Gaiden.

dragon gaiden um i i think this is becoming a trend as publishers realize that there's a lot of very talented developers out there who are you know just at the beginning of their careers and they've made an indie release and now they want to take that next step and they need the funding to do that and an ip is a way for them to do it it's not so unlike what we see in you know like movies with uh indie directors giving you know a marvel project except in this case it looks like they were actually allowed to like make the game they wanted to make rather than marvel movies where you would never know anybody is making them other than the producers um but yeah what did you what did you think about do you want to talk about kind of how it works because it it has some pretty unusual

and new choices for a beat-em-up game sure so yeah it is at its core i think it plays very similar to what you would expect from a double dragon game you know it's a side scrolling beat them up you're punching guys you've got like attack combos but it's very simple and you know you kind of move through these levels and punch a lot of guys in the face but the meta game of double dragon gaiden is actually pretty complicated it has elements of a roguelike insofar as when you start a run you kind of uh basically start from scratch at the beginning of like whatever you know an initial level and at the end of each level you can pick perks which will assist you in the run that you're on and you either eventually win the run,

or if you, let's say, die a bunch of times, you can spend currency to like get continues, if you will. And this is free, you know, in-game currency. This is not like real money currency. Or you can decide to cash out and start completely from scratch again, converting some of that currency into tokens, which you can then use

to unlock content in the game so playable characters or concept art or music and stuff like that so there's a very interesting flow to it where you're deciding oh man this run is going terribly so i'm just going to cash out and try to get as many tokens as i can to unlock a bunch of characters um and uh do maybe do another run and more successfully like get deeper into the game yeah and and the other thing that's kind of roguelike about it is you i think there's like four main campaign locations yeah i think there's five and five campaign locations. Yeah, I think there's five in total. Yeah, you can pick between them. So you don't have to go in the same order.

And the order in which you pick them, it applies greater difficulty to those areas. And I think even like lengthens those stages. Yeah, so the first area you pick will only be one stage. The second area will be two stages and the enemies will be harder, so on and so forth, until you've played through all four stages. And then there's kind of a final stage. So, yeah, it does change. You'll see different levels if you play a mission earlier versus later, basically.

Yeah. So, again, the combat of a double dragon is itself not my favorite thing. It is so simple. And that's still kind of true here. I don't know if Smash Brothers is the best comparison. It has these kind of special abilities for each character that you can use. So this is the thing that maybe I am most impressed with about this game. There is a mechanic in this game that kind of rewrites how beat-em-ups work,

and I actually would love to see it in other games. Basically, if you've played a beat-em-up before, you know the experience of, oh, no, I'm low on health. Hopefully I find some food, and then you, like, punch a barrel, and there's, like, a turkey under the barrel, barrel and you eat the turkey and you regain all your health and that's still here like you will still sometimes find food under barrels and various other things but you can guarantee getting a food drop if you do something called a crowd control move which is basically you basically kill like three or more guys in one hit so usually this is while you're using a special move let's say your

character pulls out a rocket launcher and like blows up three guys at once they will automatically drop like a chicken leg or something like that and the more people you can pull into the crowd control the better the health drop yeah you'll get like a full turkey if you do five in a row yeah so it creates scenarios where you actually want to accrue enemies on the screen and then kind of like shepherd them yeah like herd them together packs and then you know blast them away yeah it's really smart and it also ties into some of the uh challenges in the game as you're playing for each level as you're playing you'll be given a challenge of like complete five crowd control moves in one stage for example so you are further incentivized to do these things

beyond just like oh i'm gonna get a healing item for it see i thought you were gonna say another i think really clever design bit that solves the oh i'm about to a healing item for it see i thought you were gonna say another i think really clever design bit that solves the oh i'm about to die problem in these sorts of games is you can tag team kind of like in a tag team fighting game like marvel versus capcom or or something you pick two characters at the beginning of the game and i think the game starts with four characters to pick from yes and you pair up two and basically at any time that your power bar is full which is like the bar that you would use to use a power move and these things it fills very very very quickly um you can optionally trigger a switch out where your character who is in will step aside and a new character will step in. What is interesting about that is that doesn't guarantee that the character who wants to, you

know, step out is safe. They do step aside and stay on the screen for a moment. And if you don't kind of land an initial attack, that's an opportunity for the enemies to kind of keep wailing on the character that should be getting out for safety um so you want to be very careful about when you make that switch because you can end up with two characters taking damage and then while characters are out they actually recover and there's like some health uh system where they i don't think you can recover like full health but there's like a certain degree of health that you can recover while your characters out. So it motivates you or incentivizes you to switch back and forth between two

different character types. And also each of the characters, and this is the big thing, like I said, one character on its own, pretty straightforward. Each of the characters of which there are 13 is pretty different. I was not expecting the variance in characters, but there is, yeah, a pretty huge difference between them.

Yeah, I mean, just from the top, you have the two double dragon dudes. One is like more of a striker and one is a bit more of a grappler. And then the woman... What is the difference between a striker and a grappler? I've never heard those terms before. Striker is like you're going in with swift punches and kicks. Grappling is more like grab moves and pound moves. Oh, yeah. Okay.

Fair enough. And then you mentioned the woman who has the rocket launcher and a pistol and is more of a distance character. Yeah, so that's a character. Yeah, so that's a character, if you've played the original Double Dragon, she's the one that gets like punched in the face in the first three seconds and then kidnapped. So thankfully, we've evolved beyond that to the point where, I mean, she has like a gun and a rocket launcher and stuff. It is a little bit funny to see this character like fully unloading on mostly unarmed people. Yes. But that's okay. It's all cartoon, whatever.

Yeah, and it gets sillier from there. There is both of us very quickly discovered the muscle dude who takes up a third of the screen. It's a Bobo who is a mainstay of the franchise. He's been in every game. And yeah, he's enormous. Yes. And there was a dude with like,

I think nunchucks or like some sort of striking weapons. Yeah, they're all just really fun. You can unlock all the bosses are playable, for example. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I think finding out how to like kind of mix and match them and also figuring out which one works best in which level i i have not done like multiple complete runs through the game but i have a feeling the type of combo of characters that you pick will inform the order that you want to do the stages in because there are going to be some that have some platforming where you do not want a big bulky guy

playing the hardest version of that level you want to get that one out by the way earlier um but then having you know the kind of more nimble striker with powerful jumps has an advantage in that sort of level um yeah it's it is a game that there's not a lot of wasted space in it i think some people might find it almost too simple um and be wondering where like more like level content is um but again i think that's just part of the dynamic of a lot of roguelike games um that the pleasure is playing through it multiple times in multiple different ways it's not oh well i got to the credits and now i'm done with it forever yeah it's it's also interesting where they spent their resources so this is clearly if you you put this like up close and next to the So this is clearly if you put this like up close and next to the TMNT Shredder's Revenge game that came out, Streets of Rage 4 that came out semi recently.

It's very clear that from a presentational standpoint and from like a moment to moment look and feel standpoint, those games are much bigger uh higher end than this experience is but i think this game does some very smart things to a as we've talked about like change the gameplay experience and like creatively work around the limitations of oh you're replaying the same levels a lot in uh just a really smart way so yeah yeah, I'm like really quite surprised. I was expecting like, eh, you know, whatever, another beat-em-up, it's fine. And I was really surprised to see just how much they were willing to play with that format in like a really cool way.

Yeah, and I saw some reviews for the game where they were pretty critical of the visuals. And again, I'm not going to say they're as good as the recent tmnt or streets of rage game but what is you know like that's some of the best pixel art i've seen in forever um and i think this is like perfectly charming it kind of reminded me of the scottgrim beat-em-up. Yeah, that's what I thought too, yeah. Yeah, cutesy take on pixel art. There's just maybe not as much visual density to it, but what's there is, I think, fine. I think some of the fighting combat animations themselves are pretty great.

And on top of that, it just feels good on a moment-to-moment basis. We talked about a lot of the design mechanics, but the way that you can clobber multiple people and trigger that health thing, like you said, the destructible scenery, the screen shake, the frame skipping on really powerful hits, it just feels moment-to-moment pleasurable to play, which I think a game in this genre

kind of lives and dies by. Oh, they also, i totally forgot this you can customize the run based on difficulty so if you make it like a really tough run it's much easier to earn those tokens that unlock new content but if you'll probably die sooner so if you want to make it an easier run you'll get fewer tokens but you'll get deeper into the game another like just a fun player friendly feature that allows you to really customize the experience which i thought was very smart yeah i'm i'm so glad that you you flagged this because i would have completely overlooked it i don't even know i mean i i have affinity for double dragon like i remember playing

it on the nes and specifically double dragon 2 like totally blew me away where you could like knock people out of a helicopter so effing cool so i had like really formative memories playing double dragon games but had very little expectations that like a new one would be good especially after they kind of shit the bed with double dragon 4 but yeah no they they did a really good job. I was really pleased with this one. Yeah, cool. Well, how about we take a break

and then we can come back and talk some more about beat-em-ups. Okay, we are back and we are going to talk about beat-ups. I have a bunch of questions that I want to go through with you and build towards what are our top three beat them ups for each of us. Um, but first I'm curious from your end, what makes a great beat them up now, like in 2023, because I think what makes a good one has changed quite a bit over the years yeah 100 i my tastes and beat-em-ups maybe aren't the most traditional insofar as like what i look for now is some form of like permanence or content unlocking or something that gives what i'm doing a little more meaning

um i know you know we talked a lot about double dragon which certainly has that uh and i'm sure we'll talk about it but like the epitome of this is castle crashers where you're unlocking like new characters and leveling them up and unlocking new abilities and weapons and just tons of stuff to chase makes once again playing through the same levels over and over again fun and meaningful because you are constantly like getting new stuff to play with new toys whereas i think the traditional beat-em-up is really just like a quarter sucker that you know they tried to just kill you as much as they could to get as much money out of the out of the arcade as they could and i think they have evolved beyond that yeah i think that's right um what what series or ip would you like to become a beat

him up hmm that's a good question you know it would work really well but i don't know that they would do oh maybe they would they've they've already gone the x-com route a freaking mario beat him up would be super good uh like a mushroom kingdom beat him up would be like really fun um and silly and yeah i mean there's so much to work with there with the enemies and different abilities and different playable characters it just i feel like it would scale so easily and because of their willingness to like do things like uh mario versus rabbits it just tells me that like yeah maybe they would explore that i think they are more interested in the dynasty warriors type of format yeah i know you know they don't like that for zelda yeah it. Yeah, it's not as appealing to me.

I mean, I could see, I guess they've been doing it with Fire Emblem and Zelda, but for Mario, they haven't gone that route, and it would be very odd if they did. Yeah. Because there's no weapons in Mario, really. I think the trick with a great beat-em-up now, and Double Dragon does not meet this standard, is having lots of recognizable characters.

What about a Bobo? He's there. Yeah, or if not recognizable, then just great designs, which I think Double Dragon does have in that. But I look at, you know, the Simpsons arcade or the x-men arcade games or teenage mutant ninja turtles and all of those you know the fun is seeing the the different characters that you know and love and getting to you know pummel them um and then i think the games that are original ip they just rely on having a really really really interesting character designs you're constantly wanting to see what sort of people are around the corner um so like when i think of what series or ip it would need to be something like either thematic or or um just a

massive franchise that would allow for it i'm kind of surprised that i mean i guess the x-men ultimate alliance is that what it was yeah but they've done yeah they've done x yeah they've done a few of those yeah um but yeah i mean something that would be more like just all marvel characters i'll tell you it's a shame that the well i guess it's kind of coming back with the house of the dragon but game of thrones would kind of be a dope yeah yeah no that that's true i i also think like you can do like themes like if you know mashups

of brands i'm kind of surprised that you know um warner brothers they did that fighting game that i actually liked and now is i don't know what's going on with it multiverses yeah um but i think like that sort of thing as a beat-em-up, honestly, might work even better than a fighting game.

Yeah, I think what's preventing that from happening is I don't know that beat-em-up from a money-making genre standpoint is really... I don't think the draw is there as much as a competitive Smash Bros. style multiplayer game. So that's why you're not necessarily seeing a ton of these. But I do agree with you that they kind of live and die based on familiarity of characters. And also, I want to say, a modern tenet of these games is game feel and feeling really good.

Whereas if you go back and play most of the old arcade games or Double Dragon or whatever, they tend to feel pretty stiff and rough. But like you play Shredder's Revenge and it's like a dramatic difference to the point where like you really feel like you're making impact on the world. And I think that's kind of a requirement these days. Yeah, yeah, I think that makes sense. Um, is there any any beat them up that you would want to change to a new genre i'm not sure what that means so like if would you want to make castle crashers into a non-beat-em-up genre oh sure i love i love castle crashers bring that to like as many genres as you want it's so bizarre because the behemoth which is the developer of castle crashers made so much money on that game and props to them very easily they could have gone and made a sequel to castle crashers and made a lot more money on top of it and they have not done that and they've kind of gone and made like their own creative i know they did like battle block theater and a number of other games that were like pretty wild and creative but uh yeah i mean i i really love the aesthetic of

castle crashers so i'd love to see it in other formats i don't know what they would be yeah i castle crashers well actually let's let's hop to that that final question of what are your top three beat-em-ups because i first up, I nominate Castle Crashers, which was one of the original Xbox 360 kind of indie arcade games. You play as adorable little knights, cartoon knights, and you bash around a world full of terrifying- looking monsters and lots of like poop jokes basically yeah um and it is an absolute delight there's all sorts of little unlocks and critters that follow you around um and was such a great game for that period of multiplayer where more and more people were playing online but but also there is still a great community of playing on the couch. I also think

that was peak college gaming for me. So I obviously have a special place for it. Have you played Castle Crashers with your son? I haven't yet. I remember there being some pretty nasty stuff in it. It's pretty violent.

Not yet, but maybe yeah maybe um how about you what's one of your three well i think the challenge again is like are we including nostalgia versus like actually playable really be like good games okay so i i think team nt i mentioned it before team nt shredders revenge came out about a year ago. Unquestionably one of the best beat-em-ups ever made. Artistically gorgeous. Plant mentioned the pixel art. The pixel art is peerlessly good.

Feels great to play. Tons of content. Bunch of playable characters. Everyone's, like, fun and different. And they just did a really really good job yeah i mean game rules what a fantastic game um my next up is die hard arcade did you play this one very much i did yeah it's the one with the they've got the quick time events right yes not to be confused with die hard trilogy iogy. I think that was Die Hard Trilogy Arcade or whatever.

That was a console game. But this originally came out in arcades. And then I believe it was on the Sega Saturn. And it was a kind of like a localization of a Japanese game called Dynamite Dica. Oh, I didn't know that. Or Dynamite Cop. Yeah. And then they brought it over here.

And like, yeah, we could kind of make it into die hard there's like there's a tower and a dude in a blue you know like jacket punches people i guess there's not really blue jacket wait he's not in a i thought he's in like a tank top no no at a certain point you do switch to a tank top they make sure to you to really bring it all together. But it is kind of my perfect arcade game in that when you go to an arcade now in the year 2023, people, they see Mortal Kombat or they see whatever and they play it and they're immediately frustrated because the games are like meant to chew quarters from a long time ago. And then they will see Die Hard Arcade and be curious because most people did not play it. And what you'll find is you can kind of stretch your quarters for the first half of this game.

There does come a point where it just completely eats your money. And if you want to see it to the end, you should be prepared to spend probably like five or 10 bucks. But that said, you can see the ending. It doesn't have such a steep final curve where you have to have a certain skill level to beat it it kind of wants to have a full playthrough um which i love and i also just love the nostalgia this is where i'm bringing my nostalgia and obviously but like the diehard brand through the lens of this localization

is great. I mean, it is like only comparable to that Super Nintendo Empire Strikes Back game where Darth Vader turns into a spider level of silliness. Is that silliness or is that maybe the best thing that's ever happened in Star Wars? Oh, I think by far, right? In hindsight, you know, it was all downhill after that. What's next for you well this is a retro game but i i want to call it out because it was the really one of the first times that i thought a video game managed to capture the source material without feeling like too much of a downgrade and that was the simpsons arcade game which i played a shitload of when i was a kid it even though like you look at it it's

like oh it's obviously not like one for one with the show they just spent so much time doing like small nods to the show that uh it just felt like you were really in the world and uh really cool levels i remember there's like a jazz theme level and of those those guys from the life is hell cartoons were like running around in like costumes and stuff and man uh i just i just really uh enjoyed playing that game a lot and and it still holds up i've recently played it and it it is still really fun but for me it's mostly just about the visuals and i just like very clearly remember that cuts the like opening cut scene of maggie where she had a big diamond that gets replaced instead of her pacifier and then mr burns steals her man that's good stuff it's so good. And so cool to play this, like, very, I mean, at the time, a good video game based on an IP early, early, early in the Simpsons lifespan.

Yeah. Like, very, very early. You mentioned the Life is Hell references, but, like, it is referencing stuff that, like, nobody who started watching The Simpsons after the first five seasons um is going to get which is yeah it came out in 1991 and the simpsons premiered i think in 89 yeah so it's like super early yeah that that's wild um my last one is river city ransom which i think we've talked about a couple times on the show over the years, but River City Ransom is an NES game that is based off of the

I think it's called the Kunio-kun series, which has gone on to plenty of success in Japan. And I think actually inspired or is a branched off Double Dragon, weirdly. I mean, that makes sense.

They're beat-em-ups, right? Yeah. But what's different about River City Ransom is it's a beat-em-up and kind of a proto open world game where you can go into shops and you can buy food and you can buy power-ups and there are characters to see and chat with. And as a kid, this felt wild to me. I mean, this felt similar to Grand Theft Auto when I first played Grand Theft Auto 1 with the 2D world and then 3 with the 3D world. This is probably the earliest experience I had of,

oh, this is what an open-world game can feel like. This is definitely, definitely me bringing my nostalgia to this one. But I think River City R city ransom still holds up pretty well and if it doesn't for you then i think you should check out river city girls one and two um and that is also published by arc system works and made by way forward who just has been putting out tons of cool 2D pixel games, I don't know, for decades at this point. They're probably best known for the Shantae series or Switch Force, but they've made all sorts of stuff.

Yeah, I think they're great. How about you? what's your final one my final one is a little game called i lost the rundown such suspense streets of rage 4 yeah you how could you forget how could i forget uh i think this game qualifies in the same way that Shredder's Revenge qualifies. This is also a very modern, recently released beat-em-up that just feels so effing good and just brings modern design sensibilities to a genre that had started feeling pretty stale, but just kind of knocks it out of the park with the various characters and like really cool levels and just just a very smart approach to a genre that i think needed a little love and at this point like you know i remember a few years ago this is like around the shadow complex time when everyone was like man i i wish people made more games like symphony of the night and metroid and there just weren't any and now you look today and there's like one every other

week coming out yeah and i think that's you know not that frequency with beat-em-ups but we are starting to see more and more of these drop and it's really exciting because i think a lot of people love these they're a great excuse for couch co-op and just like fucking around with your friends and these are all fantastic games. Yeah, I like your list because I think that the truth is these games are just so much better now than they were. Again, if we're not thinking about the nostalgia of it all

and what actually really plays well, these new games are, are really a step above. Yeah. Um, cool. I think that's like a, I think that's a solid list,

uh, and kind of a nice, uh, series of recommendations for anybody who's going back to school. If you're going to a college dorm, my gosh, God bless you. Download all of these.

I'm picturing like you set it up in the in the whatever it is the common room yeah and you just like have an extra controller lying there and all someone has to do is press start that's an instant friend right there you got it we just did it we just solved friendship we solved friendship and and you know what if you have x-men arcade in there six friends right there boom uh cool how about we talk about our recommendations for the week okay do you ever feel like we need like more of a transition there like a cute song or something hell no no you know you wouldn't like like maybe like a little like a little chip tune or like maybe a symphony?

I mean, I'm for sure going to cut out you making beeps and boops, which is horrible in my ears. That's fair. For sure cutting that out. Tell me about the TV show that you have been telling me about for so long, and I loved the episodes I watched, and I am deeply ashamed that I have not stuck to it. I think I've probably brought this probably in a previous season, but I've been watching the righteous gemstones, which is now in season three. And, uh,

if you're not familiar, the premise is basically it follows a, um, religious family of preachers that are like television preachers that are obviously insanely wealthy from donations from their church. And maybe not the most pious of individuals. It's made by Jody Hill and Danny McBride, whose past works were eastbound and down and vice principals.

And this is maybe my favorite of all of their shows because of the way they've like really developed the ensemble cast of like fucking everyone is bringing it. John Goodman is fantastic. Danny McBride and and just like every single component to it. They have amazing guest stars. Steve Zahn is a set guest star this season. And Walton Goggins plays a recurring character. Man, I'm just like so over the moon happy whenever the show is on because they like never pull punches. It's always like the wildest shit imaginable.

Eric Andre last season, I don't want to spoil it, but had like the most hilarious I've ever seen in a show. So I guess that is spoiled right there sorry uh but it's done all for laughs and uh so uh yeah i'm glad that you bleeped that word i i did i did actually bleep it in the edit you didn't hear it but it it was late. It's perfect. It's perfect. My thing, I was hesitant to bring this because I'm bringing a movie that's really good. But there are times where I bring something and it is like so arthouse sounding that I think I worry about judgment. I worry that people hear this and be like, this pretentious asshole. It's not even judgment. It's just like, this and be like, this pretentious asshole. It's not even judgment. It's just like, come on, plant.

Mix it up a little. But it's like mixing it up. I just, I don't know. I like bringing what I genuinely like and what I think maybe is not getting enough attention. This is definitely not getting enough attention. So I saw this movie called Earth Mama that I didn't know that it's an A24 movie until the movie started. And the reason I didn't know is I had like not seen a single trailer or any bit of marketing for this movie. Nothing for it.

And I get it after watching it. Tough thing to sell. The premise is extremely sad. And I will say that up front. Extremely sad. And I will say that up front, extremely sad. It is about a woman on the edge of poverty. She has two children that she is trying to get out of child protective services. And she has another child on the way. And it's her deciding whether or not she wants to keep this child or put the child up for adoption. And tough, very, very tough. The thing though is, it is one of the most beautiful movies I've ever seen. From the writing, from the acting,

everybody is so compassionate and so incredibly believable and affecting the filmmaking. There's just these gorgeous close-ups. The score is stunning. And as a result, this thing that I think would be really, really, really hard to sit down and pay attention to and not just be completely overwhelmed by ends up becoming a really moving experience. And I think that's a really tough needle the thread i don't know many movies that pull that off i i think usually when you hear

something about this it it sounds like a tough movie and it just is a tough movie um i don't know what the deal is with this movie in terms of its complete lack of promotion. I guess it's getting released alongside Talk to Me, the horror movie that A24 put out in theaters. So maybe if your theater is showing both, that's a win-win for folks all around. But yeah, I really, really, really recommend people giving this a look because it's a movie that needs needs i think like all the support it can get at this point um though my guess is it will be up on streaming sooner rather than later and i don't know if this is still going on but i think i think a24 has a relationship with is it canopy the library streaming service yeah canopy um yeah where they will put things up pretty early on that too so uh i would recommend keeping your eyes there to see if it's available

um maybe even in the coming weeks because i i would not be surprised if it goes there first uh yeah that's it okay love it that does sound good any anything else do we just recap i think we can recap it oh no there is something else oh yeah you want to mention it so you might have heard we have a newsletter besties.fan. Go there. Hit subscribe. Why should you subscribe? Because we have the full list of games and anything else that we talk about on the show with links so you can just go directly to them. Makes it super easy on you. Don't bury the lead.

No, I'm pulling people through it. I'm getting them excited. We have other, if there's any visuals that we reference in the show, you're going to see that there. Oh my God, you're burying the lead. And're very and then you know what else what was the other thing it was something else oh free video games now and then including right now like literally right now in the newsletter for this episode there are codes for double dragon and the first first seven or eight or however many people are going to get access to this awesome game, thanks to the devs who sent those over

to give to folks via the newsletter. So a good reason to subscribe is that we try to drop codes in there whenever we can, and it is a first-come, first-served basis. So good reason to keep your eyes peeled um will they always be dropped uh when the new newsletters for each episode go out uh no not necessarily we might just have one-off newsletters with video game codes uh we'll keep you posted on how we decide to go about that more in the future but hey if you are

listening to this like right when the episode goes live, you should go check that newsletter right now because those codes are just sitting there. And if you're listening to this a few days later, I'm sorry, you probably didn't get the codes, but you should go subscribe because then you'll be ready for next time. There will be more.

I promise you that will not be the last time we do code drops in the newsletter. That's true. Yeah, this is already our second one. The developers have been very helpful in general, it seems like, since we started the newsletter of wanting to

do this for the audience, which is very kind. And they send them over way before we record these episodes. They don't even know what we're going to say about the game, which is a real test of faith on their part, which I appreciate. And that's it. How about I recap real quick?

We talked about Double Dragon Gaiden, Rise of the Dragons. We also shared each of our three top beat-em-ups. Mine were Castle Crashers, Die Hard Arcade, River City Ransom. Yours were Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Shredder's Revenge, Simpsons Arcade, and Streets of Rage 4. I recommended the film Earth Mama, and you recommended the TV show The Righteous Gemstones. Did it.

That's it. We did it again. Another episode of the Rusties in the can. From our mouths to your ears, you'll love to hear it. Hey, I think it's time for us to go. But, we have a

bunch, a bunch of video games coming out in the coming months. So, if you haven't already, you should subscribe to the show. And if you are subscribed, you should leave a kind review at Apple Podcasts because it goes a long way towards helping us. And you should subscribe to us at besties.fan

for the newsletter. Until next time, we will see you later. This has been an episode of the Resties, where the rest of the best discuss the best of the rest. Resties!