The Besties - Unicorn Overlord and a God of War-like You Never Heard Of

Episode Date: March 15, 2024

This week, the squad puts on their armor, grabs their swords, and mounts their gallant steads to charge into Unicorn Overlord. The tactics RPG is the latest game from Vanillaware, the developer of niche masterpieces like Odin Sphere and 13 Sentinels. In the back half, Justin introduce the team to Banishers, a game that blends Witcher and God of War. How did we not hear about this one until now? And how often does a game depict a healthy marriage like this one?! 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!

I'll be honest with you guys. Shoot. I thought I would miss Rose. Oh, okay. Yeah. This is really hard for me. Cause he's not here this, you know, and I really thought I'd miss him. Right.

And it's just been really hard for me realizing that I don't necessarily. You know? Yeah, I, it's what I enjoy about these four person shows though, Juice, and you can sympathize with this, is it's like, you know, 33% less work that I have to do. That's true. When there's a four, so just even the warm body. By the end I might miss Russ, because of all the extra talking. The warm body in the room,

it means extra talking for us, that's right. And that's hard. That is hard. That's hard for me. The listener is, they're joining in right now, so they don't know that we've been chatting for like two hours, and I've been having to do double duty of me and my brush impression. You've been having to do Ross.

The whole time. So I think for y'all, this seems very easy and fun, but for me, this is a lot of work. Thank you, by the way. And Chris's whole impression is really offensive. Uh, got my Google and you're a man. Yeah, it's rough. It's like wild.

It's so wild. Yeah. It's really rough. People probably honestly didn't even notice that like, Frush was gone. Yeah. Yeah, because, yeah. Just to be clear, that was not Rush Frush.

That was not Rush Frush. That was me actually pretending. I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I He pretended, oh, but I got on the big scene. So it's sort of got a quagmire sort of energy that I don't know that our friend Russ Frushtick embodies or represents or would even enjoy being sort of applied to his name. Whole thing, yeah. Yeah. So you're saying it doesn't sound like him? No, I mean it sounds exactly like him.

It sounds exactly like him. It sounds like Danny. It's like listening to a mirror. When he sounds like Gaba- In the in the in the in the in the in the in the in the in the in the in the in the in the in the in the in the in the in the in the in the in the in the in the in the in the in the in the in the in the in the in the in the in the in the in the in the in the in the in the in the in the in the in the in the in the in the in the in the in the in the in the in the in the in the in the

in the in the in the in the in the in the in the in the in the in the in the in the in the in the in the in the in the in the in the in the in the in the in the in the in the in the in the in the in the in the in the in the in the in the in the in the in the in the in the in the in the in the in the in the in the in the in the in the in the in the in the in the in the in the in the in the in the in the in the in the in the in the in the in the in the in the in the in the in the in the in the in the in the in the in the in the in the in the in the in the in the in the in the in the in the in the in the in the in the in the in the in the in the in the in the in the in the in the in the in the in the in the in the in the in the in the in the in the in the in the in the in the in the in the in the in the in the in the in the in the in the in Yeah, but I love when he screams, Gaba Gura. GABBA GURU! GABBA GURU!

GABBA GURU! GABBA GURU! GABBA GURU! GABBA GURU! GABBA GURU! GABBA GURU! GABBA GURU! GABBA GURU!

GABBA GURU! GABBA GURU! GABBA GURU! GABBA GURU! GABBA GURU! GABBA GURU! GABBA GURU! GABBA GURU!

GABBA GURU! GABBA GURU! GABBA GURU! GABBA GURU! GABBA GURU! GABBA GURU! GABBA GURU! GABBA GURU! My name is Justin Macoron and I know the best game of the week. My name is Griffin Macoron and I know the best game of the week. My name is Christopher Thomas Plant and I know the games this week. Fuck. In the arms of the...

Did that happen again? Am I just not coming through? No, no, no, you're coming through. It's- There's a gap there where Russ normally says his name, and none of us knew what to do. We couldn't progress forward. And my name is Russ the Muscle Thrustier. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh uhhhh uhhhh uhhhh uhhhh uhhhh uhhhh uhhhh uhhhh uhhhh uhhhh uhhhh uhhhh uhhhh uhhhh uhhhh uhhhh uhhhh uhhhh uhhhh uhhhh uhhhh uhhhh uhhhh uhhhh uhhhh uhhhh uhhhh uhhhh uhhhh uhhhh uhhhh There was a contestant on Love is Blind this season who I thought looked like a strong. Hey honey, he looked exactly like,

he exactly, Jeremy looked exactly like a strong Russ. Jeremy looked exactly like a strong Russ Frustrate. And I took a lot of pictures wanting to, and hoping that I would get a good one that I could send to Russ and be like, look Russ, this guy looks like stronger you. And then every time I would attach the image, I would get the text ready to send,

and then I would catch myself like, this is not a good thing to send. It looks exactly like Russ. I said in the message chat, he looks like the guy they'd get to play Russ in a movie about me. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Russ is never gonna miss another episode of this show. No, no, no. Hey, listen, we're going to be talking about Unicorn Overlord this week. Chris Plant, the moral burden lies with you to tell me what Unicorn Overlord is. Unicorn Overlord is a tactical strategy game from the folks at VanillaWare. They most recently published 13 Sentinels, a game I loved. But did I love Unicorn Overlord? I don't know.

We'll have to find out. Wow, I love suspense. We'll find out right after this break. This is a weird one. This is a weird one, y'all. This is a weird one. This is a weird one. I've been practicing in my head how to talk about

like what this game does and accomplishes as a sort of like tactics game. Cause I don't know that I've ever really seen anything do what it does before. May I very briefly before you move on, describe my experience with Unicorn Overlord cause I have a different game. Sure. The beginning of Unicorn Overlord, because I have a different game. Sure.

The beginning of Unicorn Overlord, you turn it on and it looks really, it looks cool. Incredible. It's beautiful. And then you start the game, such as it is, and then they start having these incredibly, visually dense fights that were so many different numbers and effects and all kinds of things are popping up,

but you're not really doing any of it. You're just kind of watching it. And that's about, that's a couple hours. And then I messaged a group and I was like, I'm gonna find another game. This is it. This is it for me. I have to imagine for Justin,

it was like touching a hot pan out of the oven. The response was that fast. I tried to go with an, it was like touching a hot pan out of the oven. The response was that fast. I tried to go with an open mind and almost instantly, yeah, I had to bail. My first two thoughts when playing this game is one, this is pretty cool, and two, Justin's gonna fucking hate this one. Yeah.

Can I try and sort of like set up what the game does? Sort of just brass tacks. I think if Justin reached into the oven and then just tried to eat the pan itself. Yeah, that is really funny. You reached in with a glove and you tried to eat the meal. So yeah, I think that would be good. I've played maybe about 10 hours.

I think I'm rounding the end of the first sort of arc of the game. This is a tactics game, but it is not in the style of, at least mechanically, it's not in the style of a fire emblem where you're moving units around a grid-based map and then sort of smashing them into each other.

It's not like Final Fantasy Tactics, which is somewhat of a similar system. The big thing about this game is that there is an overworld map and it is gigonzo. It is huge and all the stuff you do between battles takes place on this overworld map. You'll go around and you'll you know go to a fort and you know maybe recruit some new allies there or you'll find someone who needs some help and then you'll do a little battle for them and then you'll maybe recruit

them maybe not. The overworld map is also the battle map. When it switches into battle mode, it's the same map. And that is a very, very cool trick. The fact that you are running around this world looking for secrets and allies and battles and stuff like that, and then when it's battle time, it's just like now all of a sudden a few spawn points pop up on this big overworld map and then you go.

The fights that Justin alluded to earlier take place between units, and the units are customizable, like fully. You can place up to five sort of characters in any given unit across two different rows of three, and the way that you arrange them really matters. You wanna put your super defensive units up in the front row and your weaker,

maybe your wizard or whatever in the back row to be protected. And there's so many different formations and strategies and the game does a really, I think, good, if not somewhat overwhelming job of showing you anytime you unlock a new unit, like, okay, you just unlocked a Griffin Rider. You can team them up with a hoplite. If you put them in the back row, like, okay, you just unlocked a Griffin Rider. You can team them up with a hop light.

If you put them in the back row, you get all the movement benefits of the Griffin Rider and you X, Y, and Z, right? And so like that is the main crux of the game is that you move these units around this overworld map whenever a fight is happening. And then when they encounter another unit, then this pretty much automated battle takes place.

Every character in your unit has active abilities that they will automatically execute once the battle starts, and then passive abilities, which are reactions. And so when two units meet in order, everyone does their active abilities and triggers their passive reaction abilities. And then if your team wins,

then you'll either knock out the enemy, the opponent, or you'll, you know, weaken them so you can sort of finish them off with a bit of a follow-up attack. But the main thing that this game does that is very, very cool is this, like, it's just one big fucking map and everything takes place on this one big map.

And that really helps it feel like a really cohesive thing. It's not like, you know, in Fire Emblem, like with each new chapter, there's a new battle map and some of them are like outrageously huge and it takes forever to get through them. Like fights in this game move at a pretty good clip, which I very much appreciate. The trade-off for that is the lack of like

super granular control while like the fight is happening. You don't get as much like, okay, well I'm gonna flank them with this archer and take the high road here and then, I'll use his attack to like pin down this guy. Like a lot of that stuff happens in the kind of automated battles, which isn't to say that there's not strategy taking place,

but a lot of it is set up, and how you arrange your units and spawn them in and stuff. It took me a beat to realize that when you are watching the battle, that you are no longer watching the game. The game actually happened before the battle. And the framework that, um, weirdly helped me out is did you all do pinewood Derby when you were in?

Yeah, sure. Yeah. When you're cares, pinewood Derby for people who don't know this, it was like in boy scouts and girl scouts and scouts in general, you get like a little block of wood and then you carve a car out of it and you put like weights on it and you put different types of wheels on it and the race like you making a good

pinewood derby car is all done in how you craft it because when you actually race the car you put it on a little track and you knock it down it and it goes down the ramp and you just see how the way that you built the shape of the car and the weights and everything else, how it performs. But like your success as a Pinewood Derby driver is in how you build the car. And that is the same thing here. The tinkering with your units and building out the strategy, that is the game.

And then there's an option to just not watch the battles. You should still do it because it will give you an idea of what to tinker with next time. But the battles, you can tap a button and you just skip right to the end. Or I only think you have to load it. By battles, you mean like when two units meet on a map,

there are little skirmishes you can skip. You can't skip an entire encounter. Yes, yeah, yeah. You realize that when you zoom in to see your characters going up against their characters, that that is effectively an animation. That is not a thing that you are involved in. It kind of reminds me a little bit of Final Fantasy XII

in the Gambit system that that had set up, where you would go into a fight, and then for the most part, your characters are gonna execute commands based on how you have sort of set them up. This does a sort of similar thing with the sort of combination of active abilities and reactive abilities.

I am very, I have found myself very into that element of the game. Like I said, you can have up to five characters in a unit, but you have to spend this resource to expand it. Each unit starts at just two characters that can go in it. And so you have to be very decisive about, okay, these two characters work really well together, so I'm gonna build a unit sort of around them.

And like, okay, so I'm missing a bit of like magical damage on this one if these two run into any heavily armored foe like they are fucked so maybe I back them up or maybe I just make one unit that just is just nukes like armored folks with magical damage and then if I need them I can you know try and move them forward to the front of the the front lines of the battle. I am finding that element of the game really very, very compelling, and it's what kind of has powered me along, because you will constantly unlock new characters,

new classes, and sort of new folds to the game. I don't know if it is as compelling to me as the sort of like, you know, Fire Emblem style micromanagement on a character level of like, oh shit, if I can get their bow skills up to a B, I can upgrade them, this one character to this thing, and then they'll be able to do this.

Or Final Fantasy Tactics, like, okay, I just got enough AP on this character to like upgrade this one skill, which will unlock the Sage class. And as far as I have gotten in the game, that has not so much been the concern. It has been much more about how do you build a little fighting unit of up to five characters.

And that's very cool. I've never played a game like this before. It's just like, I have had the thought a few times of like, it would be nice if I, you know, maybe could focus in on a few, a few fewer characters and like really get granular about like how they individually are set up and how I use them individually.

And that is just like not what this game is, not what this game is built for. This game is a really good litmus test for why you play video games. And I think for like some of our listeners who really love strategy games and wish we talked about strategy games more often, this reveals why I personally struggle

to get into strategy games. I admire the hell out of this game. I'm so glad it exists. I do not play games for the tinkering. I play them to like escape into worlds. And that is not this. This is for, if when you're playing D and D and you're the person who's like, I love min maxing my character. I love the math of it all. I love the combat. I think you're going to really like this game. If you're the person who, when you're playing D&D,

you're like, I like it because I like role playing and I like escaping into worlds and I like the story that we're telling, I think this game is gonna be like a tough, a tough game. Yeah, yeah, yeah. To that point, like I have built a few units that like when they go into combat, they wipe out the enemy and end up like healing themselves. I have built a few units that when they go into combat,

they wipe out the enemy and end up healing themselves. They take no damage and end up healing themselves. And so they are able to steamroll most sort of things. That's very satisfying. That's very, very satisfying. I feel like I have cracked the code, I've figured something out, and I really enjoy that part of the game. Like Chris alluded to, the story of this game

does literally nothing for me. It is very... What's it like? What's the closest... Oh gosh. I mean, it's very kind of like a high fantasy castle intrigue sort of stuff. There's an evil emperor who has taken over the world

and you are leading a band of resistance fighters against them and that stuff that sort of spins around. Like the side stories and the characters that you meet, those are more interesting than the main story, but the main story is just not interesting to me. The main story is just like hard to follow and it's pretty overwritten. And I think some of that is like the localization

goes even further to really make it feel like silly high fantasy, which I don't think helps it. And then- There's a way of doing that. I'm not saying that that is inherently a bad, like Final Fantasy Tactics, I think, is legendary for the way that it tells a story sort of similar that is also really, really deep about politics

and also class warfare. And it has a lot of stuff to say about a lot of different sort of real world touch points. And I am not getting any of that from. Yeah. There's a difference between writing great high fantasy, which can be a wonderful genre and writing what sounds like high fantasy, which can feel like parody when you start getting into like just the voice of it. Um, and that is where I struggle.

But I do agree with Griffin that the more you focus on just these tons and tons of characters, that's a cool storytelling trick of learning about this world through individual people. And that's where I think the game shines. I just wish it was able to spend more time doing that. But again, that is me looking for the thing that I really like in games. Right.

And I don't think even the creators would say that was their priority. No, of course not, no. I think this game is going to blow a lot of people away. I think there's a lot of people who are gonna be very, very into this game. I'm into this game. There's a lot about this game that is working for me,

but there are just a few things about it that I wish were a little bit tighter, and then I feel like I would really be able to sink my teeth into it. I've been playing it on Switch. It looks fucking amazing on Switch. It runs really, really well, and it has actually fit into my day-to-day schedule

really well where I can just pick up my Switch, knock out one or two little side quest missions, do a couple battles real quick, unlock some new characters, tweak my units, run around the open world and look for secrets. That stuff is really, really fun in a really short-term burst, but I am not so much having the,

I gotta keep playing this to find out what happens next, or I gotta, you know, I'm this close to like, getting some new big mechanic that's gonna like change things for me. It hasn't really been that for me. But I do, I genuinely do think there are going to be a lot of people for whom that will, you know, suffice and, you know, be something really, really special for them.

I do want to just say a little bit about vanilla where history before we wrap up on it, because I'm always impressed that they take these somewhat niche genres and blow them up. Or at least that was kind of like my thesis before reminding myself of their history. They don't actually do that many different genres. They do two. They do side scrolling beat-em-ups and then they do strategy games. They've actually done a lot of strategy games and they effectively, there was a game before this, but they launched in 2007 with Odin Sphere, which was a side scrolling beat-em-up RPG, which rules, and also Grim Grimoire that just got re-released. Oh yeah. Yeah.

And that was like a bizarre RTS, and they both came out the same year, and then they made Grand Knight's History, which was a PSP tactic strategy game, and I'm not even sure it came out in the US. And then 13 Sentinels, while being a visual novel, the other half of the game was RTS. So clearly they are really into these like heady strategy game formats and how you

can play with them. That said, they only released like a game every five, six years now. So I hope the next one falls in the side scrolling beat-em-up RPGs selfishly just for me. But for now I'm very happy that fans of the genre, which frankly they're served even less than side scrolling beat-em-up RPG people, that y'all got something because again everybody I know who is really into this genre who has been waiting for it, is it Ogre Battle 64? I think that was. Yeah, I mean, Ogre Battle 64 is a Final Fantasy tactics-like. Yeah.

I mean, honestly, I was gonna say this is not like that. This combines, honestly, real-time strategy and turn-based strategy in a way that I think is very novel. The way that you move characters around on a map feels very much like a war craft or whatever. And then it's just once characters meet, then the battle kind of plays out sort of automagically. But yeah, if you enjoy this game,

we would love to hear more about it. This is like a great thing. If you go to besties.van and hop in the comments, let us know what really sticks out about this game. And you know, we both said earlier, there are certain reasons that people play video games. And I think it's kind of a cool way to learn more about what you like and ask yourself,

like why do you click with a video game? Yeah, what's the clicking moment feel like? Is it like getting it all spinning at once? Is that one of those plates spinning type? Things we got like eight things working in tandem. That's very satisfying sometimes. Yeah, sure. Yeah Justin played something else and I would love to hear about that after the break. Yeah, okay Well, let's pause here and then we'll come back to it. No problem Hey, so I want to talk about

Bannishers ghosts of new Eden, which is a video game that was released. Let's see. Last month, I think it's been a recent release. I love when a video game has a title that I'm like immediately like great video games. Great. It's good. I mean, no one would have the guts to name a movie that, right, like you would write that.

Maybe a Kindle, maybe a Kindle novella. I can create one. I thought of... So, Vanisher's Ghosts of New Eden is, did either of you guys play Vampyr? Yeah, yes. Rack your memory banks, right? This is a Don't Nod, Vampyr was a don't nod game

where you were a vampire doctor in England, kind of like, and you had a clinic and you were balancing like fighting crime with being a vampire. You were like a vampire doctor that had to eat bad people to stay alive, et cetera, et cetera. Very story focused, but definitely like combat. This is the follow-up to that.

They called it a spiritual successor. Now, Dontnod is mostly known for more story-driven stuff. Like, I feel like, even though I still think of them as the Remember Me studio, because I was covering video games then, which was a, that was a much more action focused game. They do life is strange is I think their biggest like calling card. But they also do these lines of like 3d action adventure games.

So banishers is you play a pair of you would call them, I guess, ghost hunters. The best parallel for banishisher is probably the witcher, where the witcher is hunting down like monsters and animals. A banisher is who you call when there's a possession or a ghost issue that needs solved. So there's a lot of setup in the in the first part of this, but it might seem spoilery, but I promise it's not. It's just the setup for the game. Two banishers who are married, Red and Etna.

Red's like a Scottish clansman and Etna's history is a little bit more, it's not really delved into as much yet where I am at, but these two are married and they come to New England because a fellow banisher and their mentor, Charles, called them to help break this curse that is like plaguing the land. When they get there, they find that Charles has been killed by the curse, and one of the banishers is also killed by this threat in the town. So basically once the Etna, the wife of this husband, wife duo is killed, she becomes a ghost. And the repercussions of that for people who their job is to banish ghosts from the world is massive. ghosts from the world is massive.

And very early on, you are sort of posed the question of you. You discover that to bring Etna back to life, to actually bring her back to corporeal form, um, you're going to have to sacrifice a lot of people to do a, a ritual that will bring her back to life. do a ritual that will bring her back to life. So the game is kind of split up structurally into cases where you are investigating a story within this world. And typically it culminates in this decision of what are you going to do? And the choices are different every time, but there's almost always an option to basically sacrifice the wrongdoer in the story rather than offering them a chance of retribution. And the more people you sacrifice, the better the chance you have of bringing back your

wife who is very present in the story and is kind of complicit in this too. And how you handle this and how you, you make these choices is pretty monumental, not just like I'm sure for the end game, but like, as you're playing, like you will still be around these characters. So like I banish some ladies husband, we call it banishing, but you're in this case, you're really just killing them to take their spirit or what have you. And this lady or I killed her husband, who was the blacksmith, and then she's the blacksmith, and she's a shitty blacksmith.

So this town has a bad blacksmith, who, I gotta say, guys, hates my fucking guts. Can't blame her. Got a little thing on her shop that says, you, she hates your fucking guts. She's charging you twice as much because she thinks you stink. Combat-wise, like gameplay-wise, it's really cool. Red uses obviously like corporeal weapons.

He's got a sword and a rifle that he uses. But the more that you use Red in combat, you build up what's called the Spirit Meter, and you can switch on the fly to Etna who has, like, ghost spectral powers. And there are certain enemies where it's better to fight them, like, with the spectral energies, and there's other enemies, it's better to use the corporeal weapons and the two kind of like tag team together. So there are combos you can get where red does three attacks, then and then pulls in a finisher. If you pull her in at the exact right second, there's also like banishment where you can do stronger attacks once you've built it up with these different meters and also you're like, you know, increasing her skills.

She gets different powers, sort of like spectral powers that you can use. But that is the basic, that's the basic pitch. It's really, it looks great and it's like, I mean, it feels like a B game, I would say, in a kind way. Does it play like Vampire? Does it feel like that?

It's better. Vampire is a it feel like that? It's better. Vampire is a little chunky. This feels a lot better, I think. It looks very like God of War in videos. Yeah, the complexity and the smoothness of the gameplay is not there. The variety, I would say, is not the same. It is pleasurable. it is fun to do,

but it is not like super taxing, right? It is not more of a focus than the story stuff. I would say it's pretty like on par. So not the deepest on the combat front, but like it is just the right amount of like Complexity for for my taste and for the kind of game it is There's also a lot of stuff in the open world You know the types of like puzzles and you know stuff where you have to use your spectral powers to access areas you can before

And it's really well performed. It's really like I It is very rare, I think, in video games to see a married couple, like period, right? Yeah, sure. Certainly not at the heart of a game. And the love between the two characters is, like with all the other things going on,

the love between the two characters is like with all the other things going on the two care the love between the two characters is never in Question like it's it's it's genuinely like really romantic. That's not where the tension comes from No, the tension is not between the two of them. It's it's what the two of them are willing to do to be together And the it is seeing her Like you are you are with them as they're adjusting to their new normal as a couple. Like just very, very, like first couple of minutes, he, Red goes in and starts a fire and says,

okay, this should help to keep us warm. And then immediately corrects himself. Well, me, me warm. You can rest at campfires. Me warm. You can rest at campfires. It's not souls level, but there is a campfire mechanic. You can rest at campfires and you watch him sleep while you see her in super speed,

just hovering around him, lingering, watching him lying next to him, like a sped up time lapse because she's awake the whole time while he's sleeping. There's a lot of little touches like that that are just so fucking boring. I know, right? Like, and she can do stuff in the corporate, like, maybe go out look for resources, like, could you go? Could you go get some or, you know, I'm asleep. You don't need to sleep, go get some or honey. Wow. Yeah, it's,'s great. Like, the acting is really, really good. There are long cut scenes that don't feel long

because they're really well written and directed and performed. Um, it's... I love that Don't Na's out here. Yeah. Making stuff like this. I love that they're out here making stuff like this. I wish that they would spend a little bit more time and money on marketing Because the second time in like six months that they've released a really solid game that like

Most people have not heard about yeah, and that's not that's not great like not great. You're doing the hard part You're making them really good games You made you saw, you made this, and then like, I should not go to your Steam page for Banishers, a game that, Justin, you are really enjoying, a game that Polygon gave, Polygon recommends to, and it has 1,400 reviews. That's not, that's not great.

I found it. Like, I just found it on the PlayStation Store page. You know, like, I was like, oh hey That's not that is the last line Defense y'all you got well it is a folk. I will say though Don't not is not the publisher Focus is the publisher. So if that helps to like sure I should have actually said the first words out of my mouth should have been focus published this game

And I think that that like contextualizes a lot of stuff. To be clear, it is not. It kind of reminds me of Prince of Persia in that is extremely solid. And if you like that sort of game, it is extremely like pleasurable and like a great like you can just safe choice. It's not like necessarily one of those, like everybody has to come get their eyes on this cause it's so wild.

It's not like that level of, of game. But like, if you like action games that bring like a lot of story, like if you like things like Witcher God of War, this is like, it's such a slam dunk. Also, if you listen to the show, you should probably just bookmark the focus steam page I know yeah, and then check it now and then be like hey what cool thing came out that I wasn't they are the honorary There are like our mascot

Broken puppies, I mean evil a plague tale ship breaker That bolt gun that I love from last year. Yeah, so many great games that they just, yeah. Sherlock Holmes, I mean the entirety of the Sherlock Holmes canon. Yeah. Track Mania, I mean this is, the focus is out there, man. They're doing it, they're getting it done.

Oh, Chance of Sinar. Oh, wow, really? Yeah. Let's open up the mail bag. I'm excited to talk about this first question. Okay, one second. It's got a pretty big knot. Aggremate it if you like.

Oh, no, no, no, I was opening it. It's just a big knot. Okay, I've opened it. This one's from Ben. Hi there, besties. With the very sad news of Akira Toriyama's passing, I was wondering if there was any games that Toriyama worked on or was influenced through his mini works that were special to any of the four of you. And maybe could you share a fond memory of

any of those games on your next episode? For people who are not familiar with Toriyama, he is responsible for the character designs in Dragon Quest, things like Chrono Trigger, Blue Dragon, and a bunch of other games, including Sand Land, which comes out, I think, next month, and I am looking forward to. Yeah, it looks great. So, any of these have a big impact on you? I mean, Chrono Trigger is the, is the, and I mean that game is, I think the more time it passes since that game comes out, the more sort of like miraculous

of a thing it is, just the like dream team that came together to make Chrono Trigger and just how timeless the sort of like designs and storytelling of it is. I think like I am somewhat of a latecomer to the Dragon Quest series, but I spent the last like couple of years sort of like going through the whole series

because I really, really liked Dragon Quest XI. And it is absolutely remarkable how much the kind of like, artistic eye and sort of singular design ability that this dude had was able to define like an entire series of games. As the series sort of made the jump into 3D like how those designs were able to make that jump

sort of effortlessly. I think there are probably few designers in video games, like character designers, art designers, who have had such a like outrageous impact on a genre and certainly a series itself than Akira Toriyama. Yeah, I would go so far as to say entire mediums. I mean, can you imagine you're responsible

for Dragon Ball and Dragon Quest? Yes. Like, I mean, two defining works of entire mediums. It's incredible. I'm gonna throw this in the newsletter too, I mean, two defining works of entire mediums. It's incredible. I'm gonna throw this in the newsletter too, but our buddy Mike McWhorter over at Polygon wrote a piece on the Dragon Quest slime and how it is the perfect character design

and could not agree more. It is worthy of a room in the MoMA. And I say that like in all sincerity, it is truly perfect. Yeah. I'm really excited for Sand Land too. I think that game looks really, really neat. Yeah, I'm really, really hoping it lands

because it looks awesome. And the manga for it is really cool too, if anybody is just looking for something to read right now. Let's see, what else do we got? You wanna grab one of the letters? Justin kind of alluded to this, but is it time to start just referring to rogue-like deck builders as spire-likes?

It's been a full five years since the one point it released the game, and it seems to still be impossible to discuss this genre without name dropping it. As someone who has played roughly 2000 hours of the game, it is possible that I'm biased, but it just seems like the efficient choice to save everyone from saying it's like Slay the Spire.

So- That one's from Andrew. I mean, I struggle with it because it is a... Okay, Slay the Spire to me, when I say it's like Slay the Spire, I mean two things. The first thing I mean is that it is a deck-like, it is a deck building game where you are building a deck in a run. The other thing I'm thinking of is the like branching pathways where you are choosing what the flow of that looks like. And I feel like there's other games that do,

that have done those separate components previously. And so I don't know, sometimes games have one of those, but not the other one. And I still think about Slay the Spire. Like, I don't know. It's like those two components are sort of like the pillars. Yeah, I mean, but at the same time,

there's so many games that have aped that. Like, and to varying degrees of success, it also feels like Slay the Spire is like a genre in and of itself, like it establishes a genre in a way that it like doesn't when, you know, um, I think like, well, Monster Train's not a great example. Monster Train kind of does a lot of the same stuff as Slay the Spire, but the kind of like core mechanic of the game is, is that's what's so that's what's tricky for me, right? Like if you think about

Griftlands, right? That's a game where you are building a deck and it is run-based and you're building a deck, but you don't have the same branching structure. It's a more open, fluid, like quest-based structure. Like, is that like Slay the Spire? I don't know. What I will say is if you go on the App Store, there are a blue million like Slay the Spire likes

on there. I would be hesitant to apply that same sort of logic to like another game just because it is a rogue-like with like branching pathways and you know, maybe some relics that you unlock. I mean this is true, it's tricky though right? Cause like Grifflands I wouldn't say it's like Slay the Spire, like I wouldn't draw the connection

between the two of them, I don't know. No, I mean yeah, I wouldn't say it's like Slay This Pyre. Like, I wouldn't draw the connection between the two of them. I don't know. No, I mean, yeah. I wouldn't say that about inscription either, right? Even though inscription has some of the same TNA there. Mm-hmm, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Hey, can we do honorable mentions?

Yeah, yeah, what else are y'all enjoying? I think we can, Griff. I've been watching Shogun on the FX channel. Well, I've been watching it on Hulu. I don't even know how I could find, how I could find FX on my television. It is a sort of historical, piece of historical fiction

that is based on the kind of real story of William Adams, who is, who was an English sailor navigator that is based on the kind of real story of William Adams, who was an English sailor navigator, who was the first Englishman to find and arrive in Japan in the middle of this sort of period of political intrigue, these five sort of regional lords are sort of secretly vying for control after the death of the following, the previous ruler. And the way that the sort of fictional version of William Adams' famous John Blackthorn

kind of aligns himself with one of these leaders, and they kind of like form a friendship through a somewhat impermeable language barrier. And it is dope as hell. It is good as hell. I was not particularly, I didn't read the book that this is based on, called Shogun by James Clavell,

which was a huge bestseller. I think it came out in like, 19, in the 1970s or something. But it is really, really, really everybody and it is absolutely fantastic. I'm trying to remember, Hiroyuki Sonata plays the like leader that John Blackthorne kinda teams up with,

and he is absolutely fantastic. It's just full of cool moments of, one of the first best scenes is Toranaga, who is the leader, who's kind of on the back foot when the show starts, asks John Blackthorne, draw a map of the world as you understand it. And in doing so, like, kind of learns a lot about like what the Portuguese Catholics

are actually doing in Japan and how he can use that to his advantage to like gain a foothold in this battle of these five regional lords. It is just absolutely full of cool moments of these like two people, you know, coming from two completely different parts of the world,

realizing, hey, if we work together, if we work together, maybe we can accomplish a lot. Sorry, someone is really, go ahead, and let's talk about what Russ is into this week, though, because someone has put him in here. Did he leave something? Or I didn't see if he left anything. I guess Russ left this, yeah.

Plant, can you, you are probably closest to him. You wanna just read what he left? Oh yeah, what Frush left. Frush, sorry, I'm gonna, I wanna be really clear. This is actually me doing an impression of him. Yeah, this is not the actual him. Oh ho ho! This this is actually me doing an impression of him. Yeah, this is not the actual This week I'm a little bit of that purple space man And when I'm on the weed, you know, I'm listening to my boy

And when I'm on the wait, you know, I'm listening to my boy Joe Rogan every episode point fire speed You gotta slow it down because he talks so fast the ideas are so rich You gotta put the crush into the soil and swirl it around Thank you us the real rest fresh go man. Thank you Russ, the real Russ Freshdick. Go Mets! Thank you real Russ. Thank you Russ. I also wanted to give a shout out to, I downloaded a bunch of stuff on Game Pass to play with Henry and the game that we downloaded that he absolutely went head over heels for

was Superliminal, which I had never really gotten into. That is a cool fucking game. It's cool as hell, man. My seven year old was like obsessed with it and we played through all of it over the course of like a few days, and had a really, really great time. Yeah, it's got some real moments of like,

where you can physically feel brain expansion. Like you can feel your brain trying to stretch to meet the limits. And it's great, because I thought it may have been like, above his pay grade a little bit, just because like a lot of the puzzles are very complicated, but it was neat watching him kind of work to figure that stuff out.

Did you have to do the manipulation in the 3D world or is he comfortable with it now? No, no, he is comfortable with that. He's a very, I'm a very proud Papa. Yeah, he's really gonna be a success. You guys should watch Shogun. I don't know if I did a very good job selling it No, I wrote it on my list, but it's I just added it to my list as we were talking

I'm excited. If you played Neo you'll love this one. Uh-huh probably can't play it That is that is why I'm excited to watch it because I am playing rise of the Ronin which we're going to talk about much more next week, but there's a preview embargo that allows me to talk a little bit about the beginning. And that's just to say, hey, have you ever wanted Assassin's Creed Odyssey meets Nioh meets Dark Souls? Because I have, and that game exists now in the world. It takes place in Japan, I think, centuries after Shogun. It is like as America is getting involved in conflicts there

and it's wild and I really cannot wait to talk more about it. One thing I did wanna say about Shogogun because it's one of my favorite stories of Hollywood is a fickle, fickle place. The right, one of the writers of Shogun is a guy named Justin marks. And Justin marks has been writing in Hollywood for a very, very, very long time, and yet despite having written for a very, very long time, he has three film credits. The first one is from 2009 and it is Street Fighter, the Legend of Chun-Li.

All right. Okay. The second one is the Jungle Book, that remake that they did, the weird one. And then most recently he did the story on Top Gun Maverick. And now he has this amazing, rich, dense, awesome show. I mean, if you crush something as hard as they crush the story for Maverick, I feel like you probably get to do whatever you want after that. Blank check, yeah.

Most, definitely. And I think it's also a reminder of when people write things, the original script for Street Fighter The Legend of Chun-Li is nothing like the movie that got made. And it also turns out that when you have, you know, like a part of the cast of American Pie doing your movie, it's not gonna turn out great. I'm so excited when somebody has just been like working

in this for decades and now their career is is finding it, I don't know. That just makes me very happy and have some more faith in the process. Real quick, I finished Prince of Persia. It's been my bike game. I'll play it for a half hour. It's solid. That's why I was in it on my mind earlier.

It is solid all the way through. The story is nonsense. But if you can get past that, like tracking down on the little collectibles and stuff and the way that the powers like layer as you as you go, I've really not had a game that has had this satisfying with power curve for a really long time. It's so fun. By the end of it, You have so many different acrobatic abilities that you're really like, it starts to border on like Tony Hawk levels of getting around the world.

It's great. But the main thing I wanna talk about, and I know Griffith is gonna agree with me on this one. If you have ever watched the TV show, Survivor, if you have never watched the TV show, Survivor, if there's any part of you that feels like, ah, maybe Survivor, y'all gotta watch the TV show Survivor, if there's any part of you that feels like, ah, maybe Survivor, y'all gotta watch this season of Survivor.

They are two episodes in, and they are two of the wildest Survivor episodes I've ever seen my entire life. No exaggeration. Everybody- The energy is- It's out of control. Everybody is playing like so incredibly hard

Everybody is playing like so incredibly hard that when one person is like slightly less aggressive, they are dead immediately. I've never seen anything like it. Everyone is doing buck wild stuff. No one's playing it safe. It is and they have I mean, half of the people on this show are absolutely unhinged. Like there's not like a little bit of color, you know, thrown in personnel. Everybody's a maniac.

It is supremely entertaining and wild to watch. If you're a lifelong fan, like I am, the past like few years, I don't know if something has happened with like casting or the way it's edited or whatever, but the show is so fun. It is like, it is at its peak. It is not jump the shark.

It is like the best Survivor has ever been has been the past few years. It's on a hot streak, the likes of which, I mean, since- Since post-COVID. Season 40, since like post-COVID, yeah. They've shortened the season. The first couple are post-COVID are a little chunky,

like as they're trying to like reacclimate, but the past like four or five seasons. Really, really, really, really good. The last episode features a tribal council where somebody has a like full meltdown in a way that I've never really seen before. Whoa. Where they're not like up, like super upset.

They're just, their emotions are set to a million and they are just saying every first thought that enters their head. I've never seen a worse. It's the worst. Here's how wild this season is. It's the worst tribal council performance I've ever seen in my entire life. And I'm including the time when the guy gave his idol to the girls that promised they wouldn't vote him off. The worst I've ever seen and he doesn't go home. It is an absolutely unhinged season. Only two episodes.

Please watch Survivor. Something happens in the second episode where the person who goes home in the first episode was kind of a tool and everybody like who wasn't even on his tribe could pick up like, this guy's kind of a tool. Just the way that he like talked before the challenges and stuff.

When they show up and that guy has been sent home in the second episode, the other two tribes rag on his ass. Rag on his gone ass. And the other tribe is just like kind of chuckling it off. I've never seen- It's hilarious. I've never seen people rag on someone

who has been sent home in a way that- It was because this guy insisted that several meant seven. It's fucking great. Y'all gotta watch this. Watch this, watch Survivor, watch Survivor. I am so excited. It's fucking great. You all gotta watch this. It's great. Watch Survivor. Watch Survivor. I am so excited.

Chris, plant, what have we, can you recap the games, the things we talked about? Oh yeah. Real quick, do you mind if I make a correction kind of thing? Yeah. Or an indented? Yeah, I've noticed a couple of quick corrections have taken place here. No, no, just a small thing. When we were talking about Shogun, I wanted to shout out the co-writer of it, because I don't wanna just talk about this one dude.

The other co-writer is Rachel Condo, who is immensely talented on her own, wrote a short story called Girl A Few Seasons, which people should read, and was an O. Henry Award finalist. So just everybody involved in this show, so amazingly talented. I thought you were gonna talk about the fact that the names of the things we've been talking about So just everybody involved in this show, so amazingly talented. That's all.

I thought you were gonna talk about the fact that the names of the things we've been talking about have been edited a bit, so that now I've talked about Superliminal and Rougun, and you talked about Rise of the Rougun. Um, so there's, I don't know if he's sort of spread in his seed. No, I hadn't noticed it.

Yeah, that somebody had made some changes. I think it's not that Fresh isn't here, but he's apparently in here changing our honorable mentions. I don't know why he's in the dock. He's not even here for the episode, it sucks. Here's what we talked about this week. We talked about so much stuff. We talked about Unicorn Overlord.

We talked about Banishers, which has a sub title. Ghost of Nui, and it doesn't matter. If you search Banishers and it doesn't come up, throw your PlayStation away. It's broken. We talked about the works of Akira Toriyama, everything from Dragon Quest to Chrono Trigger. We talked about Spire Likes. We talked about Survivor and how the season rules, Rise of the Ronin,

Shogun, Superliminal, and of course, Frush's two favorite things on the planet, apparently Joe Rogan, which I personally don't endorse. I would recommend you don't. I don't, no way. I wanna be clear, I don't think you should listen to it. And he also wanted to make sure that we talked about purple spaceman OG Kush.

But wanted to really be clear that not the carts, flower only, and only if you are in a state where you can legally enjoy it and are of age. And that's our week. Yeah, read Torek Mus's post on the review of Vanishers on Polygon. I think it does a really good job of explaining what's cool about it.

I'll put that in the newsletter for everybody. Cool. Cool. Also, thank you. So yeah, you wanna take those, Griffin? Yeah, I wanna thank everybody who's been supporting us over on Patreon. You can go to

patreon.com slash the besties you'll find all sorts of stuff there you'll find our most recent bracket episode which was Super super fun to record we have another one coming up the best first the best first level best first level was our most Recent one and then we have one coming up next month where we're going to be talking about the best twists in video games. And then we also have a fresh Resties up there where Froshchick and I talked about two extremely trippy, trippy games. He must have been on that OG Spaceman Kush. We talked about Ultros and Window Kill. So good stuff over there right now. Thanks to the following patrons for their support,

Grayson Morley, MilkToast, Rachel, Adam Varley, and Choza. Thanks, Choza, and everyone else. Next week, we are gonna do this. Yeah, next week, Rise of the Ronin, it's coming at ya. I cannot, I'm really looking forward to talking about this game. I hope y'all enjoy it as much as I've been enjoying it so far Well that is gonna do it for us folks be sure to join us again next week

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