The Besties - Two new games to play with friends! [Resties]

Episode Date: November 14, 2023

It's the special time of year when families gather together to eat turkey, watch football, and play video games. With perfect timing, two new local (and online) multiplayer treats have appeared on digital store shelves. We open the episode with Alien Hominid Invasion, a sequel of sorts to the beloved '00s Flash game Alien Hominid. For the B-segment, we bump and bounce around KarmaZoo, a beginner-friendly co-op game that allows for up to 10 players -- and features a special local multiplayer mode! Plus, we open the reader mail bag, then share a classic Ghibli movie and a bold Ghibli adaptation. Get links to everything we discuss and much more by joining our newsletter at besties.fan or https://thebesties.substack.com/ 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 Plank. My name is Russ Froschdick. Welcome to The Resties, where the rest of the best discuss the best of the rest. This week, we're talking about Alien Hominid Invasion, a sequel to Alien Hominid, which I say sequel, there are probably many listeners who have never heard of Alien Hominid because they're young. And there are probably many old listeners who are like, finally, finally, it's back. And this time it is a Contra style run and gun and roguelike progression mix up.'s cute it's gory we're gonna talk about it more but before we do that i have kind of we're fresh and i'm we're like very close listener very close

i mean not proximity wise but yeah yeah but like heart wise heart. Heart-wise, soul-wise. It's like Feifel and his mom in the movie. Yes, except for mine is like whenever I look at a particularly concerning picture from near, I see you. You see me also looking at that same picture from near. Yeah, we're doing that a lot. We're very close, but there is like the sort of question that you can only ask after a certain point in your relationship. And that is, when is the right time to start celebrating Christmas season? When is it? I mean, I don't.

So it's, which you know, we've known each other long enough. don't so it's which you know we've known each other long enough but but you have a you are you are wait are you seriously telling me you don't have any opinion on when a store should put a christmas tree into i know a lot of people my wife included get upset at how early the these seasons start you know seeing uh halloween stuff in august that kind of thing i don't like whatever this is one area that i'm like if they're selling christmas trees in july more power to them good for you the only thing here's what i was like the only thing that really the seasons impact for me are when those peanut butter cups are sold so So like, I know it's Easter season because those eggs are out.

I know it's Christmas season because those trees are out. And that's the stuff I keep an eye on. Okay. I hear you. Let's put the ball in your court. Okay. It's Hanukkah in August.

This is the best. I know what you're trying to do. But like, first of all all hanukkah moves all the time so sometimes it probably is pretty close to august because the lunar lunar calendar and secondly i also don't care if they try and start celebrating yeah no you're right here can i share my i know this is a yes or a no but kind of answer but i'm trying to be honest in my life and as you as you should yeah you you do not pull out eight crazy nights in the middle of september because you just can't wait anymore for the sandman right um no i i guess i'm sharing this because i'm looking for

support and i feel like i'm getting it here and that I I've really become a. The clock ticks. Twelve oh one November 1st. It is Christmas season until the week of Thanksgiving in which you take a break. Right. And then you continue Christmas season until like Valentine's Day. Wow. Valentine's Day. Good for you.

I mean, it depends. Is that a laziness thing? I think it's more of like a depression thing during the pandemic. You know, it just kind of stretched. It really stretched itself out. But I am shocked, especially since living in California, how early I feel comfortable starting it. I wonder if maybe it helps in California too because it all looks the same. Time is a meaningless object.

Yeah, sure. Or a conceit. So why not just start putting up wreaths, which is what everybody has done all across the city I live in. Yeah, it's the new normal. Starbucks ticked over. We're good to go.

This isn't like a goof, as these often are, intro. It's's more of a i want to make you think you know like really look inwards and ask yourself why am i not listening to the soupy on steven's christmas music and if the answer is i don't know or i worry about how i would be perceived just pop that spotify open and be your true self. Yeah, man. Are there lights in California? I don't even know.

Do they put lights up there? Of course they do. You think there's not darkness in California? No, no. I mean Christmas lights. Christmas lights. Yes. No.

Of course. There's tons of Christmas lights. It just seems like without the snow, it seems like it doesn't have that panache. Have you never seen Mixed Nuts? No, I actually haven't seen Mixed Nuts, which I think is probably for the best these days. This is going too long. We can't get deep into the Mixed Nuts, so I'll link it in besties. Maybe people shouldn't watch that movie anymore.

People should. That movie is great. Is it good? I mean, it's offensive, but it's great. It's a great movie. Kevin Spacey like a big part of that movie anymore people should that movie is great is it good i mean it's offensive but it's great it's a great movie kevin spacey like a big part of that movie no it's steve martin oh what am i thinking of anyway swimming with sharks i think that's what i'm thinking of what people cannot tell is that fresh and i I, we're now off work. We have had the longest day of meetings imaginable. It's been a really long day.

And what you are seeing is two people actually physically unwind in front of you. That is what you're hearing. Mentally unwind as well. The brain juice is coming out of our ears and pouring through your speakers in your car and onto your nice upholstery. And let's get to the show. Rocking. That was a real anxiety attack we just had there. Yeah? We did. That was intense. Well, not the ad there, yeah? We did, yeah.

That was intense. Well, not the ad. The ad was lovely. The ad was great. Whoever that was, they were great. But this week, we're talking about Alien Hominid Invasion, which is technically a sequel to Alien Hominid. Let me do it.

Let me do it. Tell me more about it because i everything kind of throws me off about this game okay because it's not even as it is now the third game kind of in the alien hominid series alien hominid started in 2002 as a flash game that was released on the website Newgrounds. Old people will remember Newgrounds. It probably still exists in some form, but it was a basically side-scrolling shooter flash game

wherein you played as an alien in like a cartoony environment and you'd run around killing, you know, like comical FBI agents and like other people that hate aliens, that kind of thing. It was very lighthearted and silly and kind of had like an invader Zim look to it. So that comes out in 2002.

And then some years later, they release Alien Hominid HD on a variety of consoles. And that was a more full that was like a fuller project with like a bigger number of

levels and weapons and all sorts of stuff but basically the same premise of a size growing action shooter in the spirit of Contra it had multiplayer I'm not sure the flash version had multiplayer to it but the HD version had multiplayer to it, but the HD version definitely did.

And it was kind of the first big project from the behemoth who would later release a game called Castle Crashers, which I think everyone at this point probably knows or has heard of. Like huge, massive success for them.

Definitely their biggest game by far. And since then. They've had a. Number of titles. But nothing has really matched. The height of Castle Crashers. And this is kind of a return. To one of their earliest franchises.

In Alien Hominid. But it does take a bit of a turn. Yeah this is a weird. Game for me. And I'm surprised that one, that I was not more hyped for it. And two, that I just haven't seen as much, I don't know, interest in it. Because this studio was huge. I mean, hugely popular. Castle Crashers was like a legit phenomenon. And then we had Battle Block Theater and Pit People. And those certainly did not like find the audience that I assume that they would have hoped. Or at least they didn't find nearly the audience of Castle Crashers.

And Alien Hominid, again, it's not quite going back. It's not Castle Crashers 2, which I guess is like the one that feels like the like, if you announce that one, it's going to make gobs of money and everybody will care. But when we started playing it, I was surprised how much it felt like a mix of Alien Hominid and Castle Crashers, how much it borrows from what I like about that. And I hope is what will kind of give this a bit more of a long tail now that it is out and people are able to start giving it a try. and replayability to a game like the original alien hominid was a lot of fun but there wasn't a lot of like juice to it i should say um you kind of play through the levels they were more or less the same every time you played through them it was very much a traditional action game and uh this feels like something a little bit more and structurally speaking very different from the

original game insofar as it adopts uh more randomized levels randomized objectives and more player progression so we can kind of dive into actually how it plays through but i do think for people that like local multiplayer especially although this works online it works quite well online this is like a really great game to keep an eye on and actually we have a second game to talk about in the second half of the show that is in the same spirit so i guess we have a bit of a theme going yeah yeah so i mean the game itself moment to moment feels very very contra-y um and for people who have not played contra because again it is also an old game it's very run around shoot uh enemies that just keep appearing and then in this case you have very simple goals so it will be like go find an object to bring

object a to point b. Very simple stuff. And after you complete enough of these goals, there is a, like, alien light tube? What would you call that? Oh, my God. It's like a gravity lifter thing. Yeah, sure. You know how aliens, like, suck people up?

Yeah, you can go hop in that, and you can exit the level, or you can keep going after, like like more and more loot and rewards. Most of the levels in Alien and Hominid Invasion actually take place in like kind of large, open, mostly flat areas. And you're kind of going back and forth completing objectives within these environments. But it's not so much a going from left to right to get to a boss kind of thing. Yes. Yeah, that sounds right. There are bosses and those happen. We'll kind of talk a little bit about the metagame portion of it, but most of the levels do play out in these big open areas, which I actually think is more conducive to the local co-op thing because it allows everyone to sort of work around these objectives rather than kind of doing their own thing, just like fighting random guys on a map,

if that's clear. Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, I think that's right. I mean, the the appeal of this game, I mean, the moment to moment is very pleasurable, the shooting feels good. They think that they've always been good as just animation and character design. Yeah. And the characters in this are And the characters in this are adorable looking and very much that like early Flash aesthetic. Homestar Runner aesthetic. I don't know. Yeah, it's 2D. It's very colorful. It's like frequently surprisingly gory. Like people get cut in half in this game.

People have like their skin melted off. But because it's all like cartoony characters, it's kind of okay for most people, maybe not kids, but you know, I think it's like 13 up is probably fine. Yes. I'd like that. You asked after besties,

the, this past episode, you asked Griffin, like, Hey, are you going to play with this? Your kid? And he's like,

no, like definitely not. People get shredded in half. It is. There are worse options. A part of me thinks that like Fortnite is arguably worse than this because Fortnite is like a little more realistic. Yeah, I agree. It confirmed for me that like where you are at in the your child is growing up phase.

Yeah. in the your child is growing up phase yeah and when you see your child watch something like that for the first time you're like oh that's why my parents didn't let me do it yeah now i get it because you're gonna try to cut me in half got it got it got it cool cool um yeah no it is i think you're right it's the type of game that a like nine-year-old plays and feels like they're getting away with something with that look. But anyway, the moment-to-moment, it looks great. It feels good. But I think the real hooks of the game are the meta stuff, the kind of stuff that is happening between stages as you go through your upgrade process. Do you want to kind of explain that? Yeah. So after a mission

you'll basically get thrown back to like a world map and you're basically selecting missions from there and you can kind of create your own path deciding oh i want a mission that'll give me more weapons or more loot or whatever more money currency whatever kind of akin to like a slay the Spire where you're making those choices. And as you make those choices, you'll slowly work your way up the map until the top of it at whereupon you'll do like a big boss fight at the end of the chapter. While you're making those choices, while you're completing missions, etc., you are, as I mentioned, earning currency, you find new weapons, stuff like that,

but you're also unlocking things. So you can unlock different heads for your alien to like customize it. You can change like the color of the alien skin to customize it that way. Everything you unlock has like passive perks to them. So for example, I found a gun that increases my run speed or, you know, a flamethrower that increases like the damage over time and it seems like all the items are randomized because i have found the same gun with different perks on it so there is kind of a little borderlandsy type i'm picking stuff up and trying to figure out what the best gear is for any given moment which is kind of fun like it it can be exciting

to like get like really ideal gear yeah and in the gear itself is just very silly again in that very early 2000s sense of humor that i don't know i'm i feel i am i getting old or is it like the retro cycle just coming around to this where you get a bee weapon? And I feel like we just talked about Psychonauts 2. We're like, oh my gosh, I don't want another joke about bacon. Right. And yet here I am being like, sure, it's kind of charming. You didn't like the bee weapon?

I like the bee weapon. No, I do like it. That's what I'm saying is something has happened since the bacon joke and the bee weapon that I have kind of come around to. No, I do like it. That's what I'm saying. Something has happened since the bacon joke and the B-Weapon that I have kind of come around to. You're not jaded anymore. I'm not. You know what it is? Yeah, I watched the Psych Odyssey documentary and I remembered that I need to have a soul.

No, it's very, very cute. Do you think there's a reason why this is like, it doesn't feel like it is blown up? Yes, I do think there's a reason. And I think it's a marketing challenge for this game. Yeah. And I don't know how to solve it. First of all, the game is very old, like the franchise, very old, hasn't really been touched in earnest in over 10 years. So, you know, there's not a lot of like modern day familiarity with it and secondly at a glance it

looks like an hd re-release if you if you're really not paying attention it just looks like an hd version which honestly they've done already like they did an hd alien hominid and so and and they actually alongside this game released like like an HD version for modern consoles. So it is kind of this weird thing where if you're not really paying attention, it would be easy to think, oh, this is not a new game, which is a bummer

because I think a lot of people would love this local co-op game, or again, online, but mostly I think it soars in local. And I think it would do really well but it is i think people are just kind of missing the fact that it's a brand new game and uh maybe by this podcast and other people talking about it people will kind of come around because i do love this franchise and i love uh behemoth stuff but you're right it does seem like it kind of missed its moment

it's also like the heart of holiday season which is brutal for indies here here's an idea call it alien hominid 2 you know what i think you're probably right actually i i i think it is like unfortunately that simple i really wish because i i i am the person that you described i mean when we loaded this up i was like okay ready to play this game I like again and was surprised to find something different. And that, of course, that's partly on me. But y'all, I look at this stuff all day, every day.

It's not like I'm not making an effort. So yeah, it's a bummer. I hope that they find a way to get it in front of people because again if you liked castle crashers there's so much of that charm here i mean we didn't even go too deep into it but the the the kind of like playthrough to playthrough upgrades also reminds me a lot of that. There, there's, there's a lot of that. Yes. These are one-off actiony levels,

but, oh, you are also part of a larger world and the, the kind of colorful universes that this team is very good at creating. That's all here. It is a very textured game in a way that I, I, I completely did not expect. I also think that people who played a

lot of castle crashers probably got to points where it was like oh this level i don't really love this level but we have to get through it to get to the next level kind of thing whereas because of the structure of this game like you're kind of constantly getting tossed like new objectives new maps new environments stuff like that so i feel like it would stay fresh for longer if you decided you were going to play it for like many many hours yeah yeah i think that's right uh i love castle crashers i would love to see more of that game but i actually do think this like randomized hades almost hades-esque format uh would scale better for castle crashers than the traditional like here are these linear levels that are like gorgeous and handcrafted

but uh you know won't necessarily change from run to run oh yeah i i completely agree i would i would love to see this be kind of a figuring things out before they take this approach with castle crashers yeah i i would also say like you know we were talking about how the games since castle crashers haven't hit that level i hope and i kind of get the impression that they've figured this out given how many games they've released since then i kind of hope that they've figured out a way to make this a pretty stable studio such that like they're not dealing with crunch they're not dealing with uh you know having to like slam out sequel after sequel like it feels like they have a lot of freedom still to kind of do what they want

whereas i think a lot of studios will like have a hit like castle crashers and then over invest in like whatever fucking 3d engines and mmo whatever the fuck and it seems like they've been very focused on doing their own thing which is like responsible not only for them and their employees but also better for all the people that are playing their games yeah yeah no i i i completely agree i i really hope that they continue to be able to keep doing things. And also they've done like Castle Crashers Remastered. They have an HD Alien Hominid port also out this year. Yeah, that just came out.

There are other ways that, yeah, that like they're making money. So they also have very good. I haven't gotten it in years, but I remember I was at a PAX once, and they had amazing merch for specifically Castle Crashers, I remember, because I got a little Castle Crashers action figure. But their merch standard of quality was like I was blown away by how good it is. And I'm sure they probably have some really good stuff. So I guess check that out. Yeah, I love it.

Do you want to go to the break and then we can talk about Karma Zoo? Let's do it. Karma Zoo. Yeah. Karma Zoo. Yeah, most people will probably not understand why you're talking like that

because it's a pretty small game, but it's an interesting game um karmazoo is a another co-op game that i think you or justin would describe as co-op for babies uh yeah but that's i think diminishing as a compliment at unquestionably as a compliment yes so yeah do you want to do you want to give people the elevator pitch sure uh imagine a co-op platformer that supports and encourages up to 10 players at once in a platformer without it being total bonkers, unfollowable chaos. That is the basic elevator pitch for Karma Zoo. It is 2D, and you go through levels with a required partner. There's no single player in Karma Zoo.

You have to play with someone else, and most of the game is actually only online. You can't even play local. But if you're playing with someone else you're basically using that other person to get through relatively simple challenges in like various randomly generated uh platforming environments okay so yeah it looks like a very very old school platformer like NES bits but run through neon and a lava lamp and each character on screen has an orb around them that's where the kind of like a lava lamp effect comes from and that orb needs to be connected with another player's orb for you both to stay alive.

And you can split apart for a little while. And as you split apart your orb, I think it kind of shrinks and it cues you that like, hey, it's going to break. And once it breaks, you're dead. You're gone. You're dead. And what that kind of forces is you to always be kind of in close contact with each other um but also to to use the mistakes of each other to progress through the level let me put that a different way in this game you there are spikes in the game right and normally in a

video game uh platformer there'd be spikes and you'd hit it and you'd die and game over here you can hit the spikes and when you hit them two things happen you get transported to back to where you were when you jumped and then the other thing is that spike turns into a safety block and so it's a gravestone they call them gravestones. A gravestone. You know, it's for the kids. Yeah. And with this gravestone, you can jump on it. If it's, you know, on the ground, you can use it to kind of get over an area. If it is on a wall where the spike was, now it's a gravestone, you can grip onto it and jump off of it. You literally, by failing, you are creating an easier game for all of the other players in your game. Yeah. Which is, I think, a really clever conceit.

And then we talked about this as a family game. I think there's something pretty brilliant about a platformer that is teaching, especially younger people, failing is part of the process. It's not just about like speed running it and getting it right the first time hey actually to get through this you you will get better things will get easier for you by trying and failing and doing that can also help other people that it's not just about being right a hundred percent of the time um i think that's like a very clever mechanic. For me, this game, I think I enjoy playing it, but I almost enjoy

thinking about it more than I do necessarily playing it. I didn't get a chance to play it with my son, and I wonder if maybe I would enjoy it more if I was playing with not you. I mean, I love you, but I think we're a little bit too... We have decades of bad hardcore gaming habits.

That's true. Trolling one another. You know, we played a game earlier this year, the Mickey Mouse game. Yeah. I forget the subtitle of that, but we described it, yeah, as a co-op game for babies or like babies first Metroidvania. I actually think mechanically speaking, this is more interesting and better for teaching kids how to play a co-op game because so much of this game revolves around communication and direct feedback between the two players or as many as 10 players really because you are constantly having to like loop back on someone else so for example i'm gonna say like oh plant i have to go up this ladder and stand on the switch for you to get in the door

and on the other side of that door there's a switch for you to stand on keeping in mind that like we need to do that relatively quickly because we can't be too far apart for too long. So there is some tension there where we're trying to coordinate a plan and then execute on that plan. But realistically, if it doesn't work out, one of us dies, whatever,

we can rush back together and not fully have to restart the run. And it's not that hard or that complicated but it does i think encourage a lot of back and forth which a lot of these games that are like designed for like young kids frequently they'll just make it easy on the kid like um mario wonder yoshi can't die from getting hit so like that's nice and i don't think that stuff is bad but i think this is like a a more interesting way to handle difficulty where you can ease someone through some challenges but only through like really good communication yeah it reminds me a

little bit of that game company and their approach to multiplayer yeah they made journey and flow and flower yeah and the sky and the sky people game yeah i think it's just called sky yeah um journey something that they understand there when you have co-op is sometimes it's just fun to engage with other people yeah or to you sure you might be helping each other in little ways, but it's more like a dance than it is like a tactical co-op in a shooter or plenty of other games or co-op in Mario where it's really one person is just trying to get to the other side, right? Like you happen to be doing it at the same time, but not a lot of even Super Mario Wonder is about collaboration. Not a lot of even Super Mario Wonder is about collaboration. We're here. Yeah, there's a little bit more of a you take your step, I take my step synchronicity to it that I think feels nice.

I mean, the game is designed specifically such that you can't beat it with just one person. Like the levels are impossible with just one person. So, yeah, I mean, you're right. They lean into that. And as you do little favors for people, it is constantly firing hearts from one character to the next. Yeah. So it really wants to teach you the power of collaborative friendship. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.

friendship yeah yeah yeah um yeah i it's called karma zoo by the way uh because uh you are a zoo of i think there's a bunch of different characters you can play as 10 people but i think there's like 50 different characters in the game yeah there's like an elephant you can play as a wolf when you start the game as like a little like a little ooze ball you're just like a little ball of goo bouncing around but each of the characters have different abilities and different like pluses and minuses like the bigger characters might leave bigger gravestones for example that make it easier for other players to like cross so there's always like reasons to you know play as different characters which i think is really cool yeah this is i i'm um excited to load it up on steam deck it's when we're talking about this the game is not fully out and i i think i will i'm very curious how i'll feel about it when

there's just a lot more players available yeah um i can kind of hop in whenever i want and play with like a full set of 10 um because i i think that is what they want you to experience. Yeah, I think you're right. So yeah, I'll probably pull that up, and I could see this being a good kind of like bedtime, cool-down, Steam Deck game, which again is kind of surprising for a multiplayer game. But yeah, I'm definitely going to revisit it again

before the end of the year, just to get a better sense of it. There's also another mode with dinosaurs. I don't know if it's exclusively dinosaurs, but I think it's like more racing. We didn't try this. This was the local multiplayer and we are far apart from one another. But

I think it's more of a direct competitive thing than the mode we tried, which was more cooperative. Yeah, I was just going to say we would have played so much of that in the office back in the day yeah uh it's also only 10 i think it's launching it uh with 25 off so it's only 750 but like normal price it's only 10 which again for like an online co-op game that's a pretty good deal. That's pretty solid. I normally wouldn't mention price, but I was kind of surprised at how cheap it was. Yeah, that's good.

Yeah, how about we come back to it and maybe we can check it out and talk more about it later once we've had a chance to play with a bunch of people. That sounds good. Cool. Okay, let's open the mailbag. We've got a few questions here. This first one, this is a big one from Lane. I'm curious if y'all have any favorite smaller indie games right now. I'm blind and I've been playing the crap out of Scarlet Hollow because I found out through watching a friend that it has full text to speech support. So it has been the first video game I have been able to play completely independently as a blind person. The game devs have been incredibly responsive every single time I have had accessibility questions or needed to report on accessibility issues, and it is the first time

I have felt genuinely heard and included in a game. They're the same devs who made Slay the Princess, which just came out this week, and I am antsy to get my hands on that one, as the demo is also pretty accessible. I know Halloween season is technically over now, but they're my favorite horror games right now, even though Scarlet Hollow is still in early access. That is a good question. Also, a very cool recommendation.

I have not... I have heard about the Princess game, but I have not... Yeah, it's like the Princess. Oh, Scarlet Hollow. I'm looking at this right now this also came out this no in 2021 okay yeah it's been out for a while okay i was like what how is that possible um yeah it's technically still in early access um but the look of these games is very cool, very visual novel. And I'm very curious now about the story of them and also these features.

I mean, I know we've talked about this throughout this year, but it is amazing how often accessibility features that may have not been meant for us end up just making games better for all of us? Yeah. And how often I end up relying on these. Had you heard about Scarlet Hollow or Silly Princess? No, I actually haven't. This letter actually made me look them up, and they both look really cool.

And I have been seeing a lot more games doing text-to-speech support, which is great. And yeah, I mean, even like big AAA games, like ensuring that that option is not only available, but also like the first thing you hear when you set up the game is like, do you want to turn the setting on? Which is great. And I want to see more of that but i guess to answer the question the smaller indie games question which was kind of what let this off i think we talked about two of them today uh karma zoo and uh alien hominid invasion are both like really fun and neat. I'll give you another one in just old, old school flash games. And I talk about it all the time.

You have to burn the rope. It's just a masterpiece. It's, it is the smallest of small games and, and you do exactly what's in the title. And there's a great song. Yeah. Yeah.

You played, you have to burn the rope, right? I have. It's been 20 years i want to say yeah i don't know if it runs on the internet anymore but yeah i'll i'll include it in the newsletter it's it's a delight um uh next up we got this one from nathan hi besties i have been thinking lately about sequels and why uh and what may make a sequel better or worse than the original

recent games such as horizon 2 and god of War 2 had better combat, more refined systems, more polish, but it did not feel as special as the first game and had weaker stories. I loved Cheers to the Kingdom while I was playing it, but it hasn't stuck with me like Breath of the Wild did. games if they are more fun to play or is the original more creative uh the original the more creative game that but or is the original more creative game the one you would go back to yeah uh that's a very good question uh i would agree with the assessments of the games mentioned the only one that i would disagree with is on tears of the kingdom which i think will remain as the like preferred of the breath of the wild tears the kingdom options but i think what we're starting to see is because these games are so expensive and especially sequels so expensive um the risks become very high so you're starting to see fewer risks being taken both in the gameplay but also in the narrative to make sure that like the

game comes off and it's like good enough like we got there we we reached that uh limit that would justify us doing a sequel but isn't as much of a huge huge swing and i kind of think to some extent god of war was a bit of a bit challenged on that front horizon 2 as well um i think it depends i think there are a lot of games that when the first entry comes out it has good ideas but a lot of it is like rough around the edges and there's things they should have executed better but didn't have the time and so they use the sequel to like basically refine the whole thing and make it much better overall and then you kind of have a more uh satisfying experience yeah but but again i think these days because the budgets are getting so high like that's a like you won't green light necessarily a huge game if you're not 100 sure it's gonna be

like a big success so kind of safe choices win the day a lot of times yeah i i also think i mean nathan mentioned you know, Breath of the Wild being the one that they feel will stick in their memory. I think it's like when you see a movie from a new director or you hear a band for the first time, whatever that movie or that album was, that's often the one that stays with you. Yeah.

Because it's just, it's like a shock to the system. It's like the defining entry. And like, it's why people often, the older you get, the more you tend to sound like a snob. Because you're like, I liked this band when they were doing whatever, how many years ago. Or like, I love the movie Bottle Rocket by Wes Anderson.

I adore it. In no metric, it is the best movie. But for me, it's like the thing that sticks with me or again you can do this like so many albums and i think i have that same thing with video games i can completely relate to this with um breath of wild versus tears of the kingdom where in my head i know not just that tears of the kingdom is like a better game in my opinion but that like I liked it more I enjoyed it more and yet I I reading this I immediately had that same nostalgia pain like yeah but Breath of the Wild it was really interesting um so I I I get it I think it is hard

for a a sequel to ever fully live up to that because yeah how are how are you going to surprise people unless you do something completely different and completely unexpected i think of risk of rain um going 3d right like those are the times where that tends to happen or even breath of the wild like honestly like that is Breath of the Wild is arguably a sequel. And nobody expected it was going to do what it did, which was like completely reinvent what a Zelda game is, or even what a third person open world action game is. So like, yeah, I mean, I think we see it. We just they're just very rare these days. They're just very rare these days. I'm going to read a question that is not going to help the person that is asking it. Ben, I'm so sorry. Your question is, any recommendations for idle clicker games, preferably iOS, but anywhere is fine. I haven't found anything that is near as good as universal paperclips,

even simply not filled with ads and trying to foresee to make a purchase every few minutes. I don't. I do not have anything as good as universal paperclips. But your comment was an excuse for us to say universal paperclips on the show and get a bunch of people who have not tried it already to go download the app on iOS. And you know what? app on iOS. And you know what? Let's bank this one to come back to it for Justin, because I am sure Justin surely is playing some sort of new idle clicker game, and we can get you some recommendations.

It's also worth knowing that Universal Paperclips is on Android as well. Yes, and on browser. And on browser. So you can play it wherever you'd like people sometimes complain rightfully that we only talk about ios stuff but i did want to shout that out as well yeah i've never heard those complaints um what what else are you enjoying are you enjoying anything else right now i uh have the movie club which i've mentioned in the past we we all have to pick a movie as it rotates around our little circle of friends.

We pick a movie that no one in the group has seen. That's really the only stipulation. Sometimes we do themes, but in this case, not. And the movie that was picked was Pompoko, a 1994 animated movie from Studio Ghibli. Yes. And it's pretty fantastic and I really, really would recommend it. It is the first movie

of the Studio Ghibli lineup that I've seen that wasn't directed by Miyazaki. And I was just like really kind of blown away by it. The premise is it follows the story of Tanookis in japan who are being forced out of their forest home which is on the outskirts of tokyo because of development in modern day japan and buildings are being built where their trees are and slowly but surely they're

kind of getting like wiped out. And the idea is they decide that they're going to use their innate Tanuki powers, which go back to Japanese mythology pretty deeply, to transform into a variety of things that will scare people and maybe encourage them to not build in their forest. If you watch it in Japanese, they very openly talk about testicles a lot. So you should maybe know that if you watch it in japanese they very openly talk about testicles a lot so you should maybe know that if you're going to watch it with a kid and you don't want them reading too much about testicles if you watch it as the uh english dub which is well done like they got some good people to do it jonathan taylor thomas is one of the main characters in that um they refer to them as pouches,

and I guess just hope that people don't notice that there's a lot of visible balls in the movie. But it's great. I really, really loved it. It really has a style of all its own. It feels like a documentary, which is rare in animation, and has just a really funny tone to it.

The director is Isao Takahata, who unfortunately passed away, but is really one of the most well-known Studio Ghibli directors outside of Miyazaki. Did Grave of the Fireflies and Only Yesterday, which are some of his more well-known projects. And it was great. I loved it. It's streaming on Max if you're interested in watching it. And again, remember the difference between the two versions, balls in the Japanese version and, quote, pouches in the dub version. Yeah, that is a great recommendation and really any of takahata's movies neighbors the yamadas is on there too um the tale of princess kaguya i mean miyazaki is immensely talented which we'll talk more about in two seconds. But these are like lesser seen Ghibli movies,

and they shouldn't be. They're just as good. They're just heavier. Like they're movies for teenagers and adults, especially in the case of Only Yesterday, which is one of my favorite movies of all time. I just adore that movie. My thing is also Miyazaki.

I talked about this, I think, in the spring or summer, Spirited Away live on stage. They did a limited showing of the recording of the Tokyo stage show in theaters. And now you can buy it on Blu-ray or watch it uh streaming on demand on like pretty much any streaming service you want and i can't recommend it enough one because it just rules i mean if you like spirited away this is a a truly awesome, emotionally overwhelming adaptation of it for the stage. Two, it actually just looks great. Filming theatrical shows is not an easy task,

and capturing the essence of what it feels like to see a show on stage is really tough. I think they do a good job. And three, getting video of an active show, this show is like opening in London next year. They're still very much producing this show. Getting video of a show that is open, really any show, is so rare and so precious. And I am really glad that they decided to put it out and make it available to so many people. There have been so many stage adaptations of movies and video games and anime in Japan. It is not unusual. It is unusual, however, for us to get to see them and it is unusual for one to be directed by

someone who is best known for directing like labohem and hamlet uh across the world getting somebody that immensely talented on this project uh certainly didn't hurt in making it really really special so if you heard about that earlier in the year on the show you can now watch it and i strongly recommend you do that's awesome is the duck in it um the everybody's in it like you know when they're in the spa and those ducks with the like the towels on their heads are walking around i believe the ducks plural are, are in it. I believe. Okay. Again,

it's been a few months since I've seen it, but I think I remember. Because that's my favorite part of Spirited Away is those ducks. I have a feeling that you're going to be happy.

Okay, great. Yeah. Cool. We did it. I think that's another episode. Awesome. Hey, thank you all for listening.

It is always a treat recording this show, and we appreciate that you give us the time and space in your lives to listen, especially this time of the year when things are so, so busy. you can also subscribe to our newsletter at besties.fan that is the place to get links to all of the things that we discuss and a full list of all that stuff too so you don't have to listen with a little notebook and a pen

and jot everything down, we got it all for you and also links to other stuff that we're enjoying and every now and then some codes for free games none this week I'm going to be real hey, you know what? None this week. I'm going to be real honest with you. There's none this week. But maybe down the line.

I guarantee down the line there will be. I guarantee it. I guarantee it. Says Russ Froshtick. That has been another episode of the Rusties. I am Christopher Thomas Plant. I'm Russ Froshtick. And this is The Resties,

where the rest of the best discuss the best of the rest. Resties!