The Besties - Tunic is retro Zelda with a splash of Fez [The Resties]

Episode Date: March 22, 2022

This week, The Resties share their growing love of Tunic, an adventure game heavily inspired by the early entries of The Legend of Zelda. Without getting into spoilers, they also explain the game's similarities to indie hit Fez. In the second half, Frushtick and Plante run through Nintendo's mega-busy 2022 release calendar. Will we release get Breath of the Wild 2 this year AND another Pokemon?  Our recommendations of the week: Paprika and The French Dispatch. Get the full list of games (and other stuff) discussed at www.besties.fan. Want more episodes? Join us at patreon.com/thebesties for three bonus episodes each month!

hello everybody my name is christopher thomas plant my name is russ farshtick welcome to the resties where the best of the rest discuss the rest of the best today we are talking about tunic a new game that i've been waiting for for five six years how long have we been waiting for this game uh the game was announced at least a half decade ago yeah which is wild we're also going to talk about nintendo's absolutely bonkers plan for 2022 uh we'll get to that in a minute first things first tunic a game very heavily inspired by zelda and nintendo games we'll talk about it right after this break okay so tunic is i mean clearly inspired by zelda it's not it's not yeah i mean the name alone let alone we'll get into what the actual game is but the name alone you know link wears a tunic and in this case tunic is a game that

there's a little adorable fox who kind of looks like link who is also wearing a little tunic is it green i'm colorblind i can't tell yeah it's green and also also the little fox has a blade that looks kind of like the Master Sword and a shield that looks very Zelda-esque. You go from place to place in an open world, finding new weapons and abilities that make it so that you can go further into that big open world. And that open world is full of, you know, mysterious creatures and things like, I don't know, bushes that you can cut down and grass. Yeah, goblin people and bushes, and you need an upgrade to access this thing. It's like very traditional Zelda, but there is a hook to it. And before we get into the hook,

I do want to talk about like the development of this game and why it has taken so long, because at glance like i love the visual style but it's it's a very simple visual style um like miniatures right like if you have yeah it's like tilt shift um photography where everything looks like it's super teeny tiny kind of and it it uses a kind of low poly art style to render everything. So it's a very clean look, but not necessarily like, it's clear that like thousands of people

were not needed to make this game, which is true because predominantly it was made by one guy, Andrew Schuldice, who's based up in Canada. And this was sort of his passion project for the last again uh man of 2015 was like when it started i think i showed up for the first time in 2016 yeah i think i saw it at a fantastic fest yeah um so pretty wild that the game is actually finally out and here and um yeah so so at on its surface it's it's looks a lot like a zelda game but there is beneath the surface something that is very unique about this game that i i can't really put my finger on another game that has

done something like this although fez certainly jumps to mind so do you want to do you want to say what the yeah okay it's not a big twist we should be clear it is literally central to the game so if you play the game for more than a minute you're going to experience this i just feel like we haven't seen it in a lot of the marketing imagine going to a used video game store and buying a japanese game and you've heard great things about this game but you do not speak japanese thankfully the store had a player's guide for sale alongside the game so you buy that as well and you bring it home unfortunately your older brother beats you up, steals the player's guide,

and basically drip feeds it to you, but only when you desperately need it. That is what is going on inside of Tunic. There is a manual that is not entirely in English, but is mandatory for understanding the mechanics of the game, and it is fully baked into the game, but you only find specific pages kind of as you need them. Is that a fair way to present it?

Yeah, and the pages of the manual and the game itself are in this fictional language. Yes. So you... I have not done this yet. I'm curious done this yet. I'm curious if you have. You know what certain items are.

So I mean, sort of. Sort of. But like when you see the word there, my guess is you could actually crack the language. I imagine it's more like a code than it is like a language. It seems like they want you to crack it yes so in uh fez the reason i mentioned fez earlier in fez which is a platforming game that came out 10 years ago at this point um there was actually a language within fez and you could like like letters you know their runic symbols translated to actual letters in the english language in this case um i don't think that's necessarily the case here because as you play the game and you discover let's say you pick up a weird like crystal ball

and then you figure out the way the crystal ball works if you go back into the manual that references the crystal ball it'll now say defense for example oh yeah it like translates it back into english yes you discover things right yeah that that that is that is true it's so yeah so the manual will kind of fill in yeah so like it's really you're finding two things right you're finding pieces of the manual and again with a tap of a button like kind of like a digital pdf of this manual appears on the screen and you can flip through the pages as you get them so you're finding those but then you're also discovering things by experimenting with the game and once you've done it once for yourself like should we just say how to upgrade in the game is that like i'm gonna give you a better one i'm

gonna give you a better one um because this is like the most simple thing in the world and it took me a good three hours oh my chris plant do you know how to run in this game oh yeah i figured yeah you you you do a roll and then you keep holding down the roll button yeah you just hold down the dash button it's actually exactly how it is in elden ring did not i did not realize that you could run in this game so for the first three hours of playing this game i was like man you move part of it kind of slow i was just rolling around everywhere and then i'd run out of stamina and i keep trying to roll until i found a page where it said like tired question mark and then it showed like a little picture of the a button and uh you hold it down you know it's like shows you holding it down while you're

moving and it just makes you run and i was like what that's yeah i was shocked it like and that's like a core mechanic of the game that is just like not explicitly told to you i'm i'm really curious what people will think of this game and like i feel like it's gonna break down by generations and then also the type of gamers from each generation i i'm really smitten with it because i imported quite a few games when i was a kid yeah uh because i was a dork and i wanted to be able to play power stone you know six months before everybody else or echo the dolphin on dreamcast and this was like a core experience of my childhood was doing a version of what you're talking about, you would, you know, get a game that would be in Japanese. And then you would

either have to get a strategy guide with it, and try to make sense of it. Or you would get like the manual that just came with the game um which often was you know much richer than anything that you could imagine coming with the game today um and kind of what i think this game is riffing on it the the guide looks like a lot of nes era um instruction manuals yeah or like even like the stuff you'd see in nintendo power when nintendo power was still a thing those sorts of like maps and little like tool like tips and stuff like that that you're right like has a could totally died and is like a bygone art form to the point where like i think if anyone's only been playing games for the last 20 years they probably have no idea what this is referencing, but I mean, it's awesome.

I hope that they sort of are able to appreciate it as well, because you're right. It does feel like a generational nod. Yeah, yeah. And I think that people will enjoy it even without that context. But I do wonder if, you know, somebody who's like a teenager now who plays this, if it's just treated like, I don't know, like a cipher, like it's like, oh, it's I have to unlock a code versus like this is this is very much trying to recreate a very particular experience for a certain type of person but but i would say like the person that's like just trying to unlock a code is also right because it's not just as simple as hey here's a strategy guide like it is also hey here's a strategy guide and we're not giving you all the information in this guide like most of the strategy guide is gibberish intentionally and you have to like the little bits and pieces that they do give you you have to make sense of there's i there's like little

items where you'll just see it'll just say like hp plus mp minus and you i mean that's a pretty straightforward one but there are more cagey ones where it's like you just have no idea what this item does until maybe you use it or you just kind of experiment and try a bunch of different things or eventually you get like a page that's more explicit about what that item is. Yeah. Yeah. And I think that makes sense. I guess the thing for me is the nostalgia of it all is so good that I love the game kind of on that alone with its art design.

And I'm curious how people who don't have that connection will feel about the game itself. Because as a Zelda game, it's certainly good, but it can be a little opaque, not in the best way at times. And I wouldn't say the combat is great. I would say it's good. But for a game that does have this kind of like Zelda, sort of Dark Souls-y, you know, every hit matters. You dodge and you have a shield eventually.

I don't know. There's something about it that's a little lumpy. Yeah. Well, you know, the comparison that jumps to mind is Death's Door, which came out last year. They're both isometric souls likes um and death's door you're right felt like tighter than this so it is a little bit plodding in that way i think um you know the art style for me and even the music which we haven't really talked about the music's lovely uh very ambient and like vibey um kind of helps elevate it but but i think

those yeah the combat definitely could be a little bit sharper um i think it is more about just the puzzle of it and you do need to have that level of patience where it's like well i'm not 100 sure where to go but i feel like I haven't explored this area enough. I feel like I'm missing something here. Yeah. And being willing to like have the patience to go back. I haven't gotten massive, like I feel like I've been making progress.

There were a couple moments where I was like, I'm not 100% sure, but usually the player guidance is pretty good. Whereas, you know, some of the puzzles in fez you could give me 10 000 years or even elden ring for that matter most recently you could give me 10 000 years with this npc side quest and i would never figure it out and here i think actually the player guidance is quite good i i agree i've gotten stuck a bit more than you it's not pretty smart well you well it's not smart because it's not

the puzzles that i'm getting stuck on it's like oh i i quite literally don't know where to go next well i'm smart because i figured out where to go next that is true you you are you that's what i always say about you um i do think there's like just a narrow like a reading the developer kind of cues to some extent but also like it's very easy to miss the corner and that we were supposed to be walking to and if you miss that one corner where that like must must have item is then it can be kind of a drag that's the thing is there are a few choke points where like the way out of an area yeah there's only one way out so you can find yourself backtracking a little while trying to find that spot.

And if you happen to miss it one or two times, then you've done multiple rounds of backtracking and then you get a little frustrated, which is what happened to me. There was a single page in the manual, talking about the manual again, that when I found it, I was like, oh my God, there are like six places i need to go and try this out now like that level of mind-blowing which is really cool because it's stuff that i could have done before finding the manual if i even thought to do it it's it's um you know we're referencing a lot of games but outer wilds does this as well where it's like they're not locking you out of doing these things you just wouldn't even think to try it. It's funny. We were texting last night,

and I think both of us were pretty warm on the game, but maybe not quite in love with it yet. And I think this is one of those games where it starts out kind of rote and just doing the thing that you expect it to do, and then very gradually it is surprising you in pretty quiet ways until you take a look back at the manual that you've collected as a whole. And you're like, well, hot damn, there's a lot. There's a lot going on here that I haven't picked up.

And I'm not even sure if I have to. Like, I kind of wonder how much of the game is non-mandatory oh yeah i think there probably is a lot of optional stuff in the game yeah yeah it's it's yeah it's just cute that's that's mosey um was playing wanted to watch me play it last night which usually is not his thing and he was like oh that fox is having an adventure. He's so cute. And then I'm giving him kisses. And I was like, yeah, it's true. He's not during a boss fight, but please. Oh, let me.

Yeah. It certainly didn't help. Not to mention the boss fights. I've had one big boss fight. I'm at it right now. And that's where I'm kind of worried about the combat yeah there are through any of them yeah i i've beaten probably two of the larger boss fights and um yeah it's definitely hard it is in i wouldn't say it's harder than elden ring because it kind of met

there is an element to which it's a little bit harder than elden ring because there's not really an alternative to doing these boss fights you bit harder than elden ring because there's not really an alternative to doing these boss fights you can't just like go off and like you know you're going to be sort of gated in terms of how powerful you can get at certain points of the game so you kind of just have to do it that being said there are accessibility features as an accessibility mode in the options menu um where you can turn off I think you can more or less have infinite health and stamina. So if you're really just in it for the puzzle and the experience of it, they have that option too,

which is great to see. Love it. Yeah. That's not a bad option for this game too, because I, I might turn that on. I'm going back and forth. I might have to think about that because I,

I am enjoying all of that stuff. Again, the combat's not bad. No. It's just. It's a little. It's just a little hinky. I agree with you. Yeah.

Do you find the world too opaque? By that, I mean. Okay, here's a good comparison. When we talked about Death's Door last year, issue that we had with it was there not being an overworld map right yes and that the map was really dense and labyrinthian and there is this question of like how do you even make a map for it because of kind of the weirdness of its camera angles and sure the way it builds its isometric world

this game in theory has similar problems but two parts i think the world is well it just has clear visual choices of like the past that you're on it has more landmarks yeah um i i think it doesn't all kind of bleed together the way the dark uh or not dark bird dark souls with birds. Were the way Dust Door did. But also, I think the manual, the way that they do maps in it is really cool. There is a full-on map in the manual. There's a few things. There's a full-on map.

But then there are also places where there's individual dungeon maps. Yeah. And then there are also these things that are kind of like you see it in triple a games now and then i know it's a thing that you love where it's a picture of a landmark or a little corner of the world with like you know like a treasure map type of look to it of like oh x on this spot is where you should head yeah and i all three of those things together when i have those in an open world game i find quite overwhelming because they're in different menus and I kind of can't piece it all together. But what's cool about the strategy guide format is it's doing that work for me.

So, yeah, in that way, it feels actually quite helpful and generous now that I think about yeah and not only that it shows you in the strategy guide it kind of breaks the illusion a little bit but it shows you where you are on the map in the strategy guide if you find the part that the place where you are on the map there will be a little fox icon there to show you yeah yeah yeah that's right which is helpful because the map is not isometric it's actually straight on and the game is isometric which i think is intentionally a little bit confusing to make it such that like well a it'd be hard to make an isometric map as you said but b i think they didn't want to make it like so obvious to know exactly what you were looking at yeah so you you played this on your desktop right yes i uh trust

me when i say i wish i was playing on steam deck because i think that was gonna be my question because i i played it on steam deck and it felt perfect i mean this felt like you know they're they're it'll be the new thing i'm sure just like it was with nintendo switch like oh no this is a killer app but wow this game felt so cool to have as a portable yeah i think this is like the perfect example because it's a game that has like very clear visual identity does not require like whatever 4k graphics to like sell the point and you know can be uh you know a little bit like thoughtful and puzzly sometimes so it's good to be able to just like turn it off and then come back to it um you know i've been playing at my desk effectively and i'd rather just be able to like chill on the couch and pick away at it but

um you know this is it's such a small thing but having the instruction manual in the game be the size of an actual instruction manual that you're holding in your hand oh yeah that's cool feels very cool yeah that's neat yeah i obviously hand. Oh yeah, that's cool. Feels very cool. Yeah, that's neat. Yeah, obviously this was in development long before that was even a possibility. Yeah. But it just feels like such a natural fit on this device. It would be cool though. The one thing that I think might be missing, when you're looking through the manual, you can see like someone's written stuff, like pen marks in the manual itself.

You can zoom in. And I know you can zoom in and i know you can zoom in but i don't know i kind of want to be able to make notes on the manual oh that would be i don't know how you would do that with a controller in a good way but maybe being able to like drop markers or something i don't know anyway there's just like maybe when it gets a steam release or not steam when it gets a switch release yeah you get something like that i feel like this should come to switch right like i don't think there's anything about it that is yeah it's weird because i think there is maybe more i i don't know how well optimized this i mean death's door came to switch so in theory this should as well um right now it's exclusive to xbox and pc i believe um i think it will

probably eventually come to switch so long as it there's not like a weird back-end thing that's making it more uh of a processor churn than you think it is yeah no that makes sense i mean well speaking of we should probably go and talk about the switch that it's not like this game needs to come out on the switch because the switch is going to be so so busy with video games it's a busy year it's a busy year um do you have any any other thoughts on tunic before we before we swap no i i look forward to people trying it out especially if you're into uh like zelda early zelda era um and i'd recommend just having some patience with it be okay with not knowing 100 where to go

that is the game is sort of piecing that together and figuring it out you could always look at a guide and i'm sure there will be tons of them when the game is out but um you know try to try to solve as much as you can for yourself because i think it'll be really rewarding if you figure it out and uh if you find the combat too tough use the accessibility features that's what they're there for yeah i i agree i think in terms i usually always say just use a guide there's no shame in it in this case think of the frustrating bits more like puzzles than the game being a pain. Because it is purposely being opaque most of the time and usually for the better. Usually because it wants you to have the pleasure of discovery.

There are exceptions. Don't feel bad if you need to look up how to upgrade your character. Because both Rush and I had the epiphany last night. I think like midnight you texted me. Yeah. Well, yeah. Somewhere in there. I was like, what?

It's a pretty great surprise. Yeah. Cool. Okay. We will talk with you all right after this break. Okay, Fresh. right after this break. Okay, Fresh, I wanted to talk about the Nintendo lineup for 2022

because it seems impossible. It doesn't seem that hard. Okay, I'm going to go through the list. I'm looking at the list. Okay, but yeah, go through it. There are two new Pokemon games, right? One that is the first major departure departure for the series which is out already which is out already but it still counts for 2022 legends arceus the other one uh pokemon

scarlet and violet which is a mainline entry it looks like a a pretty significant upgrade to the core pokemon games in a way that maybe the past two or three entries haven't been, right? Maybe. It looks like it could be open world. Maybe. I mean, we'll see. I'm skeptical, but yeah. It's still a new core entry.

It is. That is a big deal and more recent than I was expecting it to arrive. I was not expecting it so soon. We got the new open world kirby game which comes out like now yeah we have a a brand new wii sports sequel which i just was not ready for and if you don't like the third in the wii sports franchise right it's true yeah um there's mario strikers another in june to a sports game i didn't think we'd get in june yeah there's the fire emblem wait one second i want a sports game I didn't think we'd get in June.

There's the Fire Emblem Warriors. Wait one second, I want to talk about Mario Strikers for a second. Okay. Next to Mario Golf, Mario Golf Advance, which we've talked about in this show, Mario Strikers might be the best Mario sports game ever made.

The original, which came out on GameCube, I believe. It is fucking spectacular if you uh are able to get like another person around the screen it is if you like fifa it's like fifa but much smaller and faster and uh with fucking plumbers and shit it's so good man soccer is that like the only comparison yeah i don't know i mean they are both soccer but it's like three on three soccer it's man i have such fond memories of playing myro strikers anyway we're gonna go from that to to utter dejection on my part so go ahead oh fire emblem warriors

three hopes you're not you're not excited for so fucking bummed about that game yeah so bummed uh yeah i saw i as people might know i'm a huge fire and boom fan uh and when i saw the trailer for fire and boom warriors three hopes all i saw was like oh these look like fire and boom characters and they're fighting and i was so so excited because i thought it was going to be a follow-up to um three houses and which i loved and uh then it said warriors at the end of the trailer and i was like i hate all those games goodbye so i was really let down that it was a dynasty warriors uh knockoff which yeah they're just not for me here's another game that you are probably not excited about i'm very excited about splatoon 3. Also correct, not excited about it. Yeah, Splatoon, I, goodness gracious, I love these games. The art style is great.

I like the art style. They're multiplayer games that I can actually play. Are they? I get destroyed. I get destroyed in Splatoon. I don't know what it is, but I think it's because it's not about reflexes or precision. It's about strategy. And it's a thinking person's first person.

I don't know. Or third person. I just, you know, you say that, but then like some dude with like dual Uzi paint guns comes around the corner and just wrecks me. And suddenly it's not about strategy anymore. It's because you're not good at video games. Yes. They don't have dates right now, butio plus rabbits sparks of hope a sequel to a shockingly good uh what would you call it like x-com style yeah it's a turn-based tactical strategy game

yeah um with mario and friends and then in the rabbits. In Advance Wars 1 plus 2 reboot camp, which has been indefinitely delayed because there's an actual war happening and Nintendo is trying to be, I think, respectful of that. Yeah, I mean, 100%. In the press release, I don't think they actually name the reason,

like, you know, world events. I think they're pretty, it's pretty obvious why the press release, I don't think they actually name the reason, like, you know, world events. I think they're pretty, it's pretty obvious why the game is being delayed. It was, for what it's worth, delayed from last year to this year. And now, I think in this case, the game is done and they just don't want anything close to real life. You know, it's a cartoony war game but still nintendo is probably rightfully being very sensitive yeah i i think it's the right call um there's also xenoblade chronicles three yeah which i don't i don't think either of us have gotten into this series no i've tried it's i know i was just i've i've tried it's just not for me, man. Yeah, but it has a massive audience.

It does. It's so big that Nintendo ended its big press event with that. And they added Xenoblade characters to, like, multiple Xenoblade characters to Smash Brothers. Yeah, they're all over the place. Can't escape them. Okay, then we have Pokemon, Scarlet and Violet. Yep. And somewhere at the end of the year.

Yeah, you put this on here, interestingly. oh the super mario brothers movie yeah i took this i i i meant to say this up top this list is uh coming to us from fandom so okay find this list on fandom um i do think the super mario brothers movie is relevant because we have a bet about there maybe being a Super Mario Brothers movie mobile game. I know. Well, not specific mobile, but really any new Super Mario Brothers platforming game. Yeah, correct. And then the sequel

to Breath of the Wild, which doesn't have a name, and Bayonetta 3. I thought Breath of the Wild had a 2022 release date. What year are we in? 2022. Okay. And I thought it had a 2022 release date.

Right. So that would be this year. Yeah, so, okay. You wrote TBA like it's not coming out this year. Well, no, these are all things that are coming out this year. Oh, okay, guaranteed. Well, not guaranteed, but yeah. Well, they're supposed to be coming out in 2022. I understand. That's a ton of games that you know for a company that you know they're kind of notorious for

releasing three or four games maybe a year that are the things that you want to i mean for but in the switch era it hasn't been that few titles yeah that's true this is more than normal i will grant you and and if you look at this right now, like games that definitely got, were probably planned for last year and then got moved, probably Kirby, if I had to guess, that wasn't publicly stated,

but I would say probably, well, certainly Advance Wars. I think one of these Pokemon games has to have been delayed. Yeah, one of the Pokemon games was probably shoved. So, I mean, this is what, honestly, this is what, honestly,

this is what I would expect from all the other game publishers, and we're not really seeing it, which is like an insanely jam-packed year. But right now, we've had an insanely jam-packed first quarter, and then there's kind of a gap, this weird gap in May when normally things are much busier. So, I guess Nintendo will have to pick up the slack. Yeah, it would be nice if one of these TBA games mysteriously dropped during then, but I kind of doubt it.

I think it's just going to be a bonkers fall. And that's what's wild to me is the Switch getting the new Xenoblade, a new Pokemon, and a new Zelda and potentially Bayonetta all in the same kind of fall season that just seems dense do you think that like one do you think it'll happen and two do you think it's a good idea I mean it kind of depends on what their long-term plans are you know we've been kind of they've been dangling the prospect of the switch pro in front of us and at this point it's been so long that i think it's probably just going to be a new console um so it's possible that they want to get this stuff out that was not designed

for new hardware um then again the switch pros you, there's some evidence that a lot of these games were designed with the hardware for the Switch Pro and then had it pulled from the code. So, I don't know. Do I think it's a good idea? I think Nintendo wants to put out games and make a lot of money, especially while they're riding high with this huge install base. So, hell yeah. I don't think they're competing with themselves. That makes sense. And I guess they don't have to really worry about cannibalism because they don't put their own games on sale ever anyway. Right.

So, whether you buy the game now that it's out or you buy it in two years, they're still going to make the same amount of money. And you're eventually going to buy it. They're pretty confident that you will not be able to resist for long. confident that you will not be able to resist for long. And they have plenty of reason to believe that, where you look at their games and how they just keep selling consistently. Yeah, the back catalog is

entirely how Nintendo just destroys everyone else, because no one is buying, you know, Xbox games from three years ago. But people are definitely buying Breath of the Wild all the time, or Animal Crossing, or, you know, whatever other game is from several years ago on the Switch. Because you're right.

Like that's they everyone knows that when you buy a first party Nintendo game, for the most part, you're getting like a very high quality thing. So they can afford to, you know, charge full price. Yeah. We didn't even mention the secret game in here, which is all of the expansion tracks for Mario Kart 8. I mean, how many? It's like, what? It's a lot of

expansion tracks. 30 or 40 tracks or something? Some just astonishing number of tracks. I mean, I guess they had a lot of success with the Smash Bros. DLC packs, and they were like, we can just copy this over yeah i mean i am extremely excited for that i haven't revisited that game in a long time because when it came out on the switch we had already i think really enjoyed it on the wii u so i was i

enjoyed it on switch but i kind of forgot about it and i checked in recently because of this news of these expansion packs do you know there are 48 tracks in the game now? Is that more tracks than they started with? Yeah, I believe a lot more. I believe that they've added quite a bit to this game. Well, because they had all the DLC that came out on the Wii U. So that brought the track number up a lot. But it's possible they've released more stuff since then.

I'll have to check that. Ask yourself, person listening, ask yourself internally, do you need 98 tracks for Mario Kart? Do you? How many times can you drive around and there's a pipe. That pipe's in a different spot.

That's my question for both it and Super Smash Brothers for the next no smash brothers i get it i get it yeah but what do you do after this you know how do you yeah that's mario kart nine and it's like oh you enjoyed those 90 tracks or whatever well great we've got 20 yeah i get the street fighter games are kind of the comparison to this, right? Where they, you know, introduce a new installment of Street Fighter. We've got one coming up with what is it? Six Street Fighter six.

They're not going to include. I don't think the character count is going to be as high as it was in five necessarily. And then they slow to slowly build back up to it. And I think doesn't matter because people still buy it like honestly like people understand that you're getting a different experience and will take the hit of losing some of the content in that to that extent yeah i guess i i looked up the mario kart 8 i think i think you may be right i think it might have felt big because it was including all the wii u dlc yeah but everything just kind of blurs together at that point yeah i i i think I think you may be right. I think it might have felt big because it was including all the Wii U DLC. Yeah.

But everything just kind of blurs together at that point. Yeah, I think what confuses me about Mario Kart 9 as a concept is Mario Kart games had done this in the past. They used other courses or other tracks from previous games. So how would Mario Kart 9 even work then? If there are effectively no tracks left to add. I mean, there will still be, you know. Yeah, yeah. I mean, sure, there's some. And they refresh them and stuff.

I don't know if any good ones. It is always interesting to me, though, how they bring a Game Boy Advance track to an HD system. That's always a fun design challenge so yeah yeah i i did remember while we were talking i did remember they added link and his motorcycle to mario kart 8 deluxe and i think they added a zelda like matt a track when they did that so that was the two games, Mario Kart eight, Mario Kart eight deluxe have sold a combined 51 million copies.

That's pretty good. That's ridiculous. That's pretty good, man. That's more than pretty good. That's like what that has to be top 10 bestselling video games of all time. Gotta be. I have to imagine.

I, I, I cannot, I'm trying to think of like oh okay here it is that puts it at number seven of the best-selling video games we're bundling them together uh yeah if you're bundling i mean the wii u version what did it sell six copies yeah also like a lot of the things that are are on this list it's of top games it's like minecraft grand theft auto 5 you know stuff that those are themselves kind of bundles like it's funny to include minecraft in here which has 238 million because it's like well sure there are roughly trillion versions of it on every yeah but people are buying and buying it over and over again on different oh yeah of course it's just it's hard to compare that to you know a single

like uh i'm trying to even look for a game that actually hasn't been re-released multiple times a duck hunt well that doesn't count borderlands 2 maybe i i don't know. This is a deeply strange list. Connect Adventures is number 39. 24 million sold. It probably came with... It did. It came with... The bundle. That's why Duck Hunt's on that list.

Yeah, yeah. That makes sense. It looks like FIFA would be the best example of a game that is not already tied to the Which installment of FIFA? FIFA 18 is the 39th best-selling game of all time. This is great podcast content. Ronaldo was great in FIFA 18.

That's why people got it. So, yeah, I think I agree with you. I think it's overall smart i i think that i do think that they will just release everything if they have the opportunity to i don't think we're going to see them hold breath of the wild just because pokemon is coming out yeah no definitely not a month earlier definitely um the big question for me is like when will when will they launch like my my suspicion would be you know breath the wild in october yeah november maybe yeah yeah and then pokemon december um just because not that nintendo cares about stuff like game of the year list

but i don't know it feels like that like that October, November areas where the cultural conversation stuff is. Well, and then December is, we just know that you want to buy this for Christmas. Yeah. Christmas buying. I mean, there's a reason why all the games come out in the holidays.

It's, you know, they got to get that money. It's true. You do got to get that money. Yeah. Any, anything,

any other thoughts on Nintendo before we wrap? No, I would just say like, I know this looks like a busy list. It's, I think the weird thing here is that we know so much about Nintendo's lineup. on nintendo before we wrap no i would just say like i know this looks like a busy list it's i think the weird thing here is that we know so much about nintendo's lineup this early in the year usually we do not know this much until like e3 time and they're being weirdly uh much more open

about what their like full slate is so i would be surprised if there are like i'd be surprised if there's anything else and if it stays at this list this is definitely a more packed year but i wouldn't say it's like an outrageous year if you're spreading this across the 12 months this doesn't seem like totally out of whack what i could see is we talked about may being the clear month that's empty on this yeah this calendar that in may we get a surprise n the clear month that's empty on this calendar, that in May we get a surprise Nintendo Direct update that is catching us up on, like, what's on Nintendo Direct Online and all that stuff. And then they're like, oh, by the way,

these two GameCube Zelda remasters are available right now. Yeah, we've all been waiting for the Wind Waker slash Twilight Princess HD bundle, which will come eventually. right now yeah we've all been waiting for the wind waker slash twilight princess hd bundle um which will come eventually but uh yeah no it's been rumored for quite some time now and certainly i agree with you i think it could be i could even be like a and it's out right now situation quite honestly yeah which this year would make the most sense also if they could pull that off in may it'd be doing pretty well because there would not be much to compete with.

That's true. And I would love for us to do a Wind Waker episode of the show. Oh. Yeah, I watched a friend beat that game, but I've never gotten too far into it myself. Oh, it's great. It's lovely. Very Tunic-esque, I would say.

Yeah. Well, also, I don't like they shouldn't spoil it but the the final image uh of a battle between link and somebody has really stuck with me over the years yeah it's a very visually striking yeah i'm looking forward to talking about it um cool well uh i think we can start to wrap up do you have a recommendation of the week um i did watch a movie that you recommended uh a while back french dispatch which is now streaming on hbo max um the wes anderson movie um i liked it a lot it was very cool i have only watched the first act so far but i really liked it it's a lot to take in it's like maybe one of the most dense like visually dense movies i've ever

seen because every single frame is like very packed i mean not only because it's shot in, what do they call that, academy format with the edges cut off? Yeah, yeah, yeah. But also, yeah, it's really like the epitome of Wes Anderson's style. And so if you like his stuff, definitely check that out. It is streaming now. So you watched the, it's two segments probably, the Owen Wilson segment and the Benicio Del Toro and Lea Seydoux segment. Yes, yes, yes. Those two.

Yeah, it's great um everyone i talked to has a different favorite and i feel like a lot of people have one that they don't like at all but i haven't noticed a lot of consistency yeah interesting i i really like both of those so far yeah i i enjoy all of it it is i i obviously i think we're biased but it's really affectionate towards writers and editors and kind of how weird this whole business is and it just made me feel really good about like yeah what we do and what what they're what like that is clearly about the new yorker and um the paris review and a number of other things but still there's kind of a universalness, universality to it. Yeah, I like seeing the contrast, I should say,

of the business elements of running a paper versus the artistic, spiritual elements. The touchy-feely stuff. The touchy-feely stuff. So you have the editors sort of representing one side and the writers representing the other and they're all working for the same end goal but don't always have the like number one priority in uh in line with one another yes i think i think i i'm really excited for you to watch the rest because i feel like that's where we live now in polyon is that the intersection of those two things and it's such a

weird spot to be in um but also is rewarding in its own way um that is very cool i i probably have already recommended this film on this like i don't know um a couple months ago but i watched paprika again uh the satoshi kon uh animated film that very clearly inspired Inception I got a chance to see it on a big screen at the Frida Cinema in Santana which I just love and if you live

in LA or in Orange County or in this area you should definitely patron because it's great to have a small art house like that in the area anyway Paprika just fantastic patron because it's great to have a small art house like that in the area anyway paprika just fantastic you if you're curious about it it's very weird and extremely dense i have watched it four times now in my life and i feel like i'm kind of getting my arms around it um but if you're curious you should just youtube search paprika intro like the opening credits um because it gives you a real vibe that you'll know if you want to watch the movie just

off that yeah um yeah that's it cool we did it we did another episode we did it uh next time i don't i don't know it's a it's a little ways away we're recording this a little early so the next episode is like yeah a good chunk of time away we'll come up with something fun i promise it's gonna be great i can't i can't believe we're doing that oh that's gonna be exciting uh that's it for the Resties. Thank you for joining us. I am Christopher Thomas Plant. I'm Russ Varsik. That's your name.

That's right. And we're the Resties. We're the best of the rest. Discuss the rest of the best. We'll see you next time.