The Besties - We Gotta Go Back in Time with Pokemon Legends Arceus

Episode Date: February 4, 2022

Wondering what's next for the Pokemon franchise? Just how many games could they put out that are basically the same thing? Well, we finally have something pretty dramatically different! The gang dives into Pokemon Legends: Arceus and whether this is finally the game to recommend to newcomers to the franchise. Also discussed: Vampire Survivors, Station Eleven and, yes, Roblox. 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!

Who's your favorite Pokemon? This is easy. Everyone's favorite is Bulbasaur. Nobody likes any other Pokemon more. Okay, that's wrong. I mean, it's fine for you if that's your favorite Pokemon, but... Yeah. I mean, it used to be Mega Rayquaza,

just because of his raw stats. Yeah. It's a good name, too. It's really big. Yeah, right? Like, Rayquaza was already like, ooh, that's good, but then mega rayquaza sounds like somebody who got kicked out of wu-tang for being too for being too raw for

making the other ones seem so weak uh yeah for sure i um yeah mega rayquaza for me thanks uh mine is probably far-fetched it changes but today it's far-fetched his evolution is so no i do not approve of the evolution i think it's only about base level far-fetched you don't you're saying let's just get it out there you don't believe in evolution correct just say can you just say that i do not believe in pokemon evolution no well i didn't no no come on come on come on be real now why we're gonna cut this into this into a political ad for me? It's not so much a political, it's not a bad idea.

It's not a bad idea. Politics comes into it. You just think that Flintstones was real and the people have fun with dinosaurs. Look, that's the only way to move a car, in my opinion, is with your feet. If you move it anywhere else, it's bullshit. Well, that's how it works now.

You step on the gas pedal and then there are little people feet underneath your car. That's true. Farfetch'd is great because he carries around a leak as everyone probably knows he's got this leak in his hand and he sort of marched around with it the reason he carries around the leak is because when he's killed and eaten he's made into a soup that uses the leak but honestly that is an alpha move to be like, no, dog, I'm going to fucking own this. And I'm going to take your soup leak that you're going to eat me with and beat you

over the head with it. Baller. That's dope. That'd be like if I carried around a big bottle of Perry Perry sauce everywhere I went. Just like, hey, whoever whoever does finally get me and you know who you know who you are. I'm going to be a little gamey. I'm going to be a little dry. And I want you to really enjoy. If I'm going to get eaten, savor the experience. You know what I mean? Have a nice meal with it.

And this soundbite is not going to help me sort of dissociate myself from a certain brand that I have been attempting to move away from. And so I will step away from the podcast for a few months. Bye, everybody. I'm a man and I like babes and sports. And my name's Griffin McElroy, and I know the best game of the week. My name is Christopher Thomas Plant, and I changed my answer. Cubone is the best Pokemon.

My name is Russ Frosch, and I know the best game of the week. What I said there was meant to be a button on the cold open and not the beginning of the show proper. How I introduce myself is not I'm a man and I love babes. I mean, that's how you first introduced yourself to me. So, yeah. But I am still riding high off that amazing Bengals win. I am still riding high off that amazing Bengals win. I've spoken at length about my passion for sport and my passion for the Bengals.

Oh, no. Who are your two favorite players, Justin? What? Who are your two favorite players? My two favorite players? Yeah. Love that kicker. Yeah.

On the Bengals. Yeah, that's a good one. A lot of attitude coming from kicker Evan McPherson. I heard the sound. Money Mac, I call him. My thing is I call him Money Mac. I heard the keys, E-V-A. Actually, I heard the keys, K-I-C-K.

Please, please, please. Bengals, please kick name now, please, for impressing my boys. kick name now please for for impressing my boys i mean adam venetieri will always hold a place in my heart oh who's my favorite who's my favorite fantasy kicker i'm just saying people always made fun of me for drafting a kicker early in my fantasy football league. But come on. For six rounds, the kickers. Him and his friend Joe Burrow. That's true. Anyways, good luck to the Bengals.

So excited for that huge win. What a thrilling game that was. But this is, in fact, the besties, where we talk about the latest in grace at home, interactive entertainment, and in what is sure to be the most whiplash-inducing transition in podcasting history, we will now go from a half discussion of sports to a full-throated passion discussion of pokemon legends

go for it you can get it arceus no arceus it's arceus arceus arceus arceus okay it's hard to tell because of the complete lack of voice acting um sorry i had something in my throat uh chris what is pokemon legends arceus arceus arceus arceus that also works um pokemon legends uh arceus is uh what if we made a pokemon game that just evolved a little bit from decades of Pokemon games that evolved barely at all. It is an open world, kind of riffing on Zelda, Breath of the Wild

Pokemon game where you go around and focus mostly on research. And we're going to talk about it more right after this break. Okay, I'm just going to get it out there. Okay okay because i was like at the end of the last i was i was like oh god because the name yeah really does it's not it's not a very good name just call it pokemon legends i was looking for like the other pokemon legends games

that would require them to put in this bunker's name anyway they're launching a franchise yeah just call it Pokemon Legends and then the next one will mention a specific Pokemon right right right yes they didn't call the first one Star Wars Retribution you know what I mean it had a subtitle it was called Star Wars A New Hope oh geek check got you

got you more importantly though they didn't call it Star Wars colon Greedo or Star Wars Colon Greedo Or Star Wars Stories Colon Also I don't want to Geek check the geek check

But they called it Star Wars A New Hope was like The name people started using Later on Yeah they added it At that time That is true

Yeah yeah yeah yeah George Lucas didn't have Any of this shit planned Let me just get it out there Get it out there This This is pretty fun Yeah

It's fun Yeah Yeah they The out there this this is pretty fun yeah it's fun yeah yeah they the the concept of this one is what if we made it kind of like like took okay i'm gonna try really hard to not be dismissive because now a lot of people love pokemon and i certainly have my time as a young man um it's just making it feels like making it all more kinetic and rewarding. Like when you're walking around this open world, you see the Pokemon. It's not like a random encounter. And rather than have to like get into a sort of like dull mechanical fight with the Pokemon every single time in a way that starts to feel rote really quickly you have the opportunity to just like just mark a pokemon just fucking snipe them from the tall grass and

you know what it feels great yeah yeah this pokemon doesn't even know i'm here i'm gonna bonk him on the back of the head with a pokeball end of encounter right this game has taught me i don't think i even wrap my head around how much of a drag i realize some people really really like it i'm sure griffin is one then you haven't been listening to me valid but i it didn't make me realize how much of a drag the pokemon battle system is such i mean it's he it's here a little bit's secondary. But having it totally de-emphasized is like such a major enthusiasm improvement for me in Pokemon games that I don't know that I can go back. It really is like it's fun. Like it's fun.

And it actually has the effect of making the battles when you decide to battle. Right. Because the way this research system works, and that's the other big plus, you're constantly sort of progressing in a way that like, has always sort of perplexed me once I had a full team of Pokemon. I don't know Pokemon. I don't know types that well. I try to have like a diversified team.

But once I got to that point, I wasn't exactly sure what I should be like working towards. And this game has these research goals for narrative reasons that we'll talk about in a second. But like, you have these research goals um for narrative reasons that we'll talk about in a second but like bad sorry bad narrative reasons the game is fun but the narrative reasons are no bueno uh narrative reasons that makes each encounter like you you need to capture a certain number of these pokemon to fill up your like research chart you need to fight a certain number of these pokemon you need to see them use different moves, whatever.

Like Pokemon Snap. So it really focuses it. Kind of, yeah. Kind of. It feels to me like, what if you put together Pokemon Snap, Pokemon Go, and normal vanilla Pokemon,

and you stirred it up? Now, Griffin, you talked about bad narrative reasons. Speak on that. Well, I also wanted to point out and one more comparison that i think works is um pokemon let's go the pokemon let's go pikachu pokemon let's go eevee which were a a remake of pokemon red and blue but using sort of the pokemon go mechanics of just like throwing a ball at a at and having that be it, having that be the way you caught Pokemon.

And then Pokemon battles were still proper battles. and sneaking up and using your items correctly and wisely and just taking out a Pokemon in one Pokeball versus you get caught and you're like, ah, fuck it, here's my level 90 Rapidash that's just gonna tear this shit apart anyway. Well, not only just one Pokemon, you can catch fucking four in a row if you're quick. You can throw a Pokeball,

and before that Pokeball has locked whether it's a success or failure you can have three or four other Pokemon. Oh, by the way, all your Pokemon get experience when you catch another Pokemon that way. Yes. Fantastic. It's fantastic. That has been in since, I want

to say like X and Y getting experience for catching Pokemon. That is is in my opinion mechanically speaking like the best thing that they have done because then it's not just you're not just farming you know battles and shit which is slow and boring you can just catch a shit ton of pokemon and level up your guys that way anyway um the narrative is uh delivered via, even at max text speed, what I would generously call interminable cut scenes that are unskippable,

and the first two or three hours of the game are just an absolute slog. That's the other, it's really, any time that you are taken out of the action, it is brutal. But you're transported into the past of Pokemon in what I believe is the Sinnoh region, which is where Diamond and Pearl took place. And sent back to sort of feudal Japan-inspired times. and what's fascinating about the setting and the story and everything

that I don't necessarily think they capitalize on just because they just didn't, is it's like people are fucking terrified of Pokemon. People are like, look, that monster has fire on him. It's fucking so great. It's really smart. It's really good. Especially if you're trying to bring in new people.

These people feel about Pokemon the way that I feel about Pokemon. I relate to these these people yeah they're like why does that duck have mind power i don't fucking know you're right it's terrible how about a bonk him for you and they're like get him also very relatable because when you play any other pokemon game and all the pokemon are like the same you know few pixels high or whatever a different experience when you crest a cliff's edge and you come across what's the giant horse that's on fire? Rapidash. The evolution of Ponyta.

Rapidash. Rapidash. Rapidash. Yeah, I saw Rapidash for the first time and I was legit like, I am going to get killed if I approach this thing. And that's a cool feeling to play a Pokemon game and be like, oh yeah, these things are scary. Yeah. Yeah, they tried to do it with uh sword and shield they had those like open adventure areas where you'd see the pokemon yeah but you would still like once you got close to them it just like engaged in a normal pokemon battle but having them like physically there and like someone you could actually interact

with and attack you and attack you makes a huge difference um but there man there is a lot to talk about in this game and i want to make sure that we like have time to talk about it all um the reason i said that the the narrative stuff is bad is just like the reason i said that the the narrative stuff is bad is just like it has that concept that is so cool and it like kind of betrays it constantly in like an effort to tell a story about these are these rival clans that feel different ways about the gods of the world and this this little kid is like this big pokemon's babysitter and you're going to talk to him for a long time about how he's the best sacred pokemon and then you're going to go and make a special ball that you throw at that boss Pokemon a hundred times and you beat it in a boss fight. And that's not that's that none of that has anything to do with the cool thing about this story, which is like it's the past.

And these people there are no like gym badges to collect because like a lot of people don't know what to do with these things. It's wild. They immediate my biggest problem with not my biggest problem there's lots of problems with pokemon for me but it is so off-putting to get into a game and it is like this whole world of pokemon that they expect that you already know everything about and also it's like the same sort of like rigid structure that's been set up for for developing that and like this game could be just like people out there on the frontier like trying to get by and figure out what's going on with pokemon and they immediately just start loading it down with bullshit right like they just immediately start loading it down with cruft that nobody cares about like and it's exhausting but i i i i'm not like the biggest pokemon story

fan here but i'll defend it in that one with the not knowing pokemon i actually like the way the game responds to that because you are it's what's it is a kai is that the type of anime i think so yeah where it's like you fell through a portal and you don't know why you're here and uh and throughout like regularly people are like hey do you know this and there were times i was like yeah definitely obviously i've been playing pokemon since i was a kid and then they like name a pokemon that's not in red and blue um and i'm like oh no i don't know what the hell you're talking about um uh so i i liked that i also didn't mind the story too much once i got past the first two hours i agree it could be way better they could do much cooler things with this

premise but like in the grand history of pokemon storytelling i don't find it like any worse than like any other pokemon game no of course this is of course this is where it really bought this is where i get irritated about it, right? Like these things that we're talking about that are good, right? The setting is actually a good idea. It's like cool to erase the structure to start fresh. That's cool. The gameplay is so much more fun to me personally than a traditional Pokemon game. But it's like, you can't shake the feeling,

or at least I couldn't, that they got, they got to that point and they just sort of like, well, that's enough. Like we've, we've done enough iteration to justify this thing's existence. And Pokemon games as an outsider,

it feels like Pokemon games are allowed to skate by with a lot less sort of like investment in the production oh yeah i was gonna say yeah yeah yeah but what then like other games like like even what you're saying plant like where it's like well it's no worse than like other pokemon like why why if you're like it just feels like they try they did some stuff and it was like all headed in a good direction but then it's just like not taking that last step towards like yeah we should make this comparable to other games that are that are currently in production getting around i will say like along these same lines and the specter of uh breath of the wild was summed up so i think it's a fair comparison. Getting around this open world sucks.

Like, it sucks. It's so, like, you see a cliff that is literally, not even a cliff, a vague mound, like a mound of dirt that you cannot, like, clamber up. My three-year-old could get up, but you can't. It wants you to go down over there to the bridge that they made. You can't just, like, walk around the open world and do what you want to do. It wants you to go down over there to the bridge that they made. You can't just like walk around the open world and do what you want to do. It's like, and it's so boring. Yeah, I mean, that's the frustrating thing about this,

I think is the core is extremely, extremely good. Like the minute to minute, great. It seems like for all Pokemon games, and this is only one of the examples, there has been this weird lag where Nintendo has like pushed the boundaries in other ways but specifically for pokemon games and pokemon company games the engines have always been like kind of behind um and uh you know that this open world engine

feels like uh not far off from like what a vita could pull off, quite honestly. That's where they are. So you put that side-by-side against Breath of the Wild, and it's a little bit embarrassing and unfortunate. And it makes me want them to just hire a company that has ever, ever made an open world and just have them make it and then keep all the Pokemon stuff, that's fine. But y'all, you don't know this engine cannot pull this off.

But also remember, this isn't, I mean, Nintendo publishes it. No, you're right. Game Freak is not a Nintendo studio. That is true.

So Game Freak, I mean, it is, but I also think that like Pokemon and Nintendo, you know, I think Nintendo and pokemon company hold these things at such high esteem and they treat them like so loftily but they do not get the sort of love that such a loftily high end product get like they just don't feel like triple a titles in that

way which is weird with regards to getting around the open world, I will say, just a pro tip, pretty early on in the game, you get a mount that's on some, actually some pretty dope, like Princess Mononoke shit, and you should just hurry to that point. Okay, okay, help me with this. Because it gets better.

Because it says, okay, if it's the one, the first sort of like, I don't know, divine Pokemon that you meet, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's like, it looks like he'll let you ride him. And then I never, is that, am I missing something? It's right after that. It ain't right after that.

Okay, well, it depends on, I guess, how much doodling around you do out in the open world, but it's fairly soon after that. Justin's a doodler. do out in the open world but it's fairly soon after justin's a doodler i it is so i've been playing this franchise forever and have played most of them have finished most of them uh and it's hard for me to even know like what what it takes to make a good pokemon game just because they release two or three of them a year at this point and they do iterate so slowly and so it's like well if you took the you know if you took some of the cool ideas here in pokemon legends arceus and you blended it with like the huge pokedex of uh uh sun and moon and you took this and you took that and you took this and you took the story of black two and white two which were dope by the way the story of those

games if you didn't play it was hey maybe it's not good that we capture and make pokemon fight each other uh that that was dope uh it's just it's just that i i couldn't help but feel like if this game had another year of like dedicated development to it a lot of these ideas like the core mechanics of playing the game and this story premise and the performance and the uh you know graphical fidelity which i would say leaves something to be desired uh could have been improved and i think this would have been a really fucking great game as opposed to a really uh a a fun game in short spurts that is just kind of on on principle like neat that they have changed up this ancient formula this this much here's my counterpoint to this this idea of

another year uh game freak the developer this game they released a game in 2016 2 in 2017 2 in 2018 3 in 2019 and then they took three years off for like the first time ever and made this so like in terms of taking time and focusing on one project this is like the most that i guess that's fair the the uh diamond and pearl that came out what three months ago was a different team yeah yeah i mean i i i agree with all this regardless it's not it more time would have made this maybe more time would have made this game better but at the end of the day like it ain't it is obvious some of the places where they could have improved if you took pokemon not to put a finer point on it but if you took pokemon out of this and it was the exact same gameplay but but without Pokemon, it would be shitty.

No, no, no, no, no. It would not be shitty. If you did this exact same game, the exact same thing, and you took Pokemon out of it, it would be Justin and Mai's game of the year. Oh, come on. Get out of town. No, I'm not. I'm like, I'm only barely joking here. I'm like, I'm only barely joking here.

The game itself, the whole research thing is such a like, you know, like sad, a puppy with a broken leg of like, hey, this is a really interesting idea. This feels really fun. There's like a lot of rough edges. And I guarantee it would have been in the game that just now I would be like defending probably a little more than it deserves. Let's talk about the research because that's one of the biggest sort of departures and there's no gym badges right and so the way that you progress through the game is by earning stars which are just just earned by doing pokemon research and what that means is like each pokemon has a pokedex entry the pokedex is a fucking book because it's feudal japan uh and instead of that entry being filled out the moment that you catch a pokemon there are like objectives so it's like

catch this many pokemon of this type without being seen or battle this pokemon so many times or see this pokemon use this move and you can achieve that one by catching the Pokemon and making it use that move yourself. Or, you know, catch a big version of this Pokemon. And by accomplishing those objectives, which have like different tiers of completeness, you earn these good boy stars, these good boy stickers that let you move on to new areas and unlock new crafting recipes. There's crafting in the game that is about as bare bones as it could be and still be called crafting in a video game. And so that's-

It's really rough. Yeah. You get a crafting kit and so it's like, now you can make potions and Pokeballs whenever you want to. Oh, nice, cool. It is literally like nine button pieces deep in

the menu it's like it's so it's so wild like it's like you have to really dig through the i feel like the menus and ui are like really quite bad um in this game i was constantly pushing the wrong like button to open up the thing that i wanted to look at and it's all in like really weirdly unintuitive places um i i thought that stuff was all really well the weird thing is the crafting looks like just any other item in your menu and then it opens the crafting menu which like versus we've all been playing dying light 2 and that game has a like just a page that you go to you pick the thing you want and it makes it yeah um but i don't know i think that's also just a difference in tendency of game design the flip side of that is i think the dying light thing

is almost like a little on the nose but here's here's what i'm going to say. If they never make another normal Pokemon game, fine by me. Just iterate on this. I'm totally fine with that. Fans would be so mad, though. I know they'd be furious, but sorry. That's what it kind of feels like. I don't know if it's like... I do feel like the voice acting thing is like...

I know that it's not traditional in Pokemon. And maybe it does play into this but um and again i don't make video games i don't know how to make a video game this is completely just like my impression as somebody playing it but and somebody aware of the this this history it feels like you know lawrence fishburne says to the to max in searching for bobby fisher you're playing not to lose, Max. You have to risk losing. You have to risk everything.

Yeah. Of course. That is what it feels like to me is like they want to evolve it, but they know that like any variance from what people expect will come under such intense scrutiny that it's probably easier just to like be a little bit more iterative yeah well i just hope they don't listen to pokemon fans on this one i hope that the main series exists for all the neuroses of like hardcore pokemon fans and i i mean like that seriously i hope they have joy. But this game, my biggest fear with this game would be that the esports Pokemon crowd is like, you know what, this just needs better combat.

Combat is not the point of this game at all. You could add it. I'm not saying don't clean it up. I'm just saying, like, I don't need all this, you know, we got to balance it this way and that way because, because you know the 500 people who play it competitively need the game redesigned for them i i played certain shield at a fairly high level and i did that is some of the most into pokemon i've ever been so i do think that there is a place for that in here as much as i enjoyed like going around the world and catching pokemon and occasionally you could keep it in the other Pokemon games. Well, okay. It felt inconsequential.

Like when I would catch a Pokemon, it's like a short burst satisfying thing. Like, oh, okay. Well, that's cool. But it didn't feel like, oh shit, I have this anchor for my team now. I can't believe I caught this Pokemon that has a pretty rare chance to appear in the first place.

Because when that happens in, like, a core Pokemon game, you're like, fuck yeah. Like, I just got over a hump because of this new Pokemon that I have on my team. And I think you can have both of those. I don't think you have to separate them into their own things, right? Like, if Pokemon Sword and Shield, if those open areas had literally just been like this game, then that would be fucking great. That would be an incredible fusion. All I want to do... I feel...

Sorry, go ahead. All I want to do is carve up a Snorlax belly and wear it like a hat. Okay, I shouldn't have paused for that. No. The distinction to me, it feels like this isn't a perfect metaphor for many reasons but it feels like the distinction between madden and blitz right where madden people

want that like iterative how what's the small changes because they're very impactful if you're playing at a high level and blitz is sort of like i don't know it's just a little bit more fun and accessible it's sort of like that except if blitz began with a glowing light without voiceover that was like, I am the god of football. Let me walk you into this. Oh my god, I want to play that game so bad. I'm the god of football. Take this cell phone that I'm going to text you on constantly.

I will hit you on your mobile. I will hit you on your Moby. You're going to be sick of my God ass. Like, hey, bro, did you try using an Oran berry? Yeah, God. Thank you. Thanks, God. Hey, dude, your guys are paralyzed.

You should use a Chesto berry. Thanks, God. I appreciate that. No problem. Hey, you up? You up? Your guy's confused. He might hit himself.

Thank you, God. I appreciate the help as always. Thank you for your son. In other stuff that is just like, like we're just, you have these like battles that are forced sometimes. And it's like, you know, if you want to do this thing,

you've got to get past me and my Pokemon. And it's like, okay. And so far I'm like, I don't know. Quite a few of these I've encountered. And every time the person has one Pokemon. And I have six. And it's like, I don't know what their plan is. Like, you'll never bring down my squad.

It's like, I have six Pokemon. What are you talking about? This isn't even in the neighborhood. And then if you do it it's like why did we do that like why did we have to do that it is a great point that again kind of like takes away from the conceit of what they are going for in this game where it's like we're afraid of these pokemon nobody knows what the fuck they're doing we have this whole team trying to figure out like what pokemon are and how we contain them this is a pokeball apparently these

motherfuckers can shrink and you can put them in the Pokeball and they level up? What? This is crazy. And then like 10 minutes later, it's like, battle me. It's like, what? What?

It'd be like if a new type of animal appeared, if a new kingdom of beings appeared on this planet and we were like, holy shit, what's going on? And then we're like, we learned to communicate with them. And then somebody was like, I can to them and they we work together as a team to accomplish things and i'm like a superhero and then they walk down the street and somebody was like battle me you're like what the what are you talking about we just found these guys hey hey all this is interesting and the goods and the bads but here's's the fact about this game. You can stand on the top of a mountain

and see a Geodude in the valley, and then you can just snipe it with a Pokeball and collect it. Well, it can't go too far. It disappears after. I understand what you're saying. It goes pretty far. It goes pretty far.

Don't get it twisted, though. There's much of this that is not fun. You are going to have to push for a while if you're uh you know it it i don't even know who i'm recommending i don't either it's like i was glad that i played it it's neat um but it anyway hey hey hey sorry one one more thing one more thing the music in this game y'all is good is very very very very good okay wait no and It's very, very, very, very good. Okay. Wait, no?

There's just not very much of it, I felt like. It does a lot of like, especially when you're out in the open world, it feels like, I don't know. They didn't want to cover up all the boys. There's a huge part of this game that we haven't talked about yet. And I don't know if you're trying to move on.

Oh, I am trying to move on, but please go ahead. I think that there's a big change to the battle system that is worth addressing, and that is that the game is not broken down into even turns. It's not like every other Pokemon game where each turn, each Pokemon gets to go in the moment the fastest speed gets to go the most. So in this game, if your Pokemon is much faster than the other one, you could attack multiple times in a row and and and vice versa uh and to intensify that new thing is you can once you have mastered a

move which is a whole nother thing moves are the way you learn and change moves and all that is different in this game uh you can do a strong version of that move that is slower but hits a bit harder or an agile version of that move that is slower but hits a bit harder or an agile version of that move that is weaker but you can get in faster and if you use those uh you know if you use agile style moves you might end up hitting them a few times in a row uh which is it's on paper sounds like who cares like that's not that big a deal. But for Pokemon, that is a huge deal because while they have added things like, you know, two-on-two fights or, you know, mega evolutions or whatever, like, this is pretty foundational stuff that they are, like, disrupting with this.

I really, really, really did enjoy that. And it is why I wish that there was a little bit more of a hardcore sort of uh battling thing in this game i have not reached the end game which i hear has a bit more of that kind of stuff but yeah that was a huge thing that i would encourage like that's what pokemon needs is not stuff on top of the stuff that's already there it needs it needs to scrap some shit and and completely change the bones of it. Anyway. Let's take a break, and then we'll come back and talk about some of the games.

Yeah. Why not? Everyone has thoughts about Pokemon, and we'd love to hear yours. We asked you for your thoughts and questions. And let's do it. Plant, what's up? What's going on? Okay, up first.

And I'm sure we've answered this question at some point in the decade, but we should answer it again for new listeners from Darren. I've never played a Pokemon game other than Pokemon Go. Which game do you guys think would be the most fun way to start?

It's tough. It's tough. It's really tough. I mean, it's either probably Let's let's go evie right or i mean that is the simplest i would i would say um you know sword and shield might not be a bad place to start just because it is one of the newer games it looks pretty good it has some it has some cool shit in it um i mean if you're kicking around with the nintendo ds still if you can find a used copy of heart gold and soul silver which should be pretty easy just kidding that's like 80 bucks

or something now uh that's like my favorite one you asked sorry i forgot what the question was you were asking me what my favorite pokemon this is a good place to start this is accessible it's it's there's not it's not bogged down by a lot of history and stuff yeah it's good this game for me felt like what i remember it felt like playing the original pokemon when i was a kid like rks rcs feels like pokemon in my nostalgia brain and that seems like a good place to start uh next up from mo what is your least favorite pokemon i don't mean mild annoyance like finding a Bidoof, but pure rage. I love Bidoof for what it's worth.

Like, really, really love Bidoof. Bidoof is dope. Yeah. Bidoof is, like, pretty strong for where you find Bidoof. I like that Griffin goes immediately to, like, whether they're meta or not, but I just like Bidoof. Well, no, it's like Rattata, right? And people are like oh god another fucking

ritata but like you put a little love little tlc on that ritata turn them into eradicate with hyper fang fuck you're gonna trash anything like not typed against it you know what i mean um so what's your least favorite pokemon i mean they're all like loved in god's eyes i don't understand the question. Yeah. I understand how you don't like a Pokemon. There are some legendaries that I really dislike. I don't know what generation they're from,

but I remember trying to catch them in Pokemon Go. I don't know. One of them looked kind of like a horse thing, and there was, like, four of them. And then there was, like, a big genie guy in, like, a cloud. The legendaries i think kind of go off the rails after i tend to like pokemon less as they evolve yeah i think that's oh that's interesting yeah i like the cuties interesting um i think the worst is jinx i think

i don't like goomy just because of his'm glad I got to add so much content to my opinion. Gumi is, I feel like, why don't you like Jinx, Justin? I have actually just realized by saying that I might extend the amount of time I've talked about Pokemon and just think Jinx is racist. Okay. Okay, so the next one is from Artnod. Rujiara. Do you think Pokemon. What did Justin just say? Rujiara. Rujiara. That's you think Pokemon... What did Justin just say? Rujia-ra.

That's what Jinx is called in Japanese. Rujia-ra. Okay. Good context. Do you think Pokemon... I'm glad we stopped for that extra context. It really... I wanted to look at pictures of Jinx to make myself angry.

And that's... Make yourself horny you mean uh nope nope nope it's in blackface don't like it it's a bad pokemon it's got hands hate it any pokemon hands the worst do you think pokemon should do similar to final fantasy and dragon quest and go a little away from regular turn-based gameplay i thought that that's what this game would be initially i thought i was going to get some action game in here right because you can move around uh-huh in that even that is a very big that's like you can walk around the fight while it's happening and that shouldn't be it feels kind of like um being able to do something while the screensaver is on you know what i mean like

being able to click something it's like oh i know i'm not doing anything but like at least something's happening while i'm doing this fight it helps i feel like you can never fully get away from this because animating hundreds of individual characters plus all their moves is just like it's a big ask i mean but not really they've done they've done Pokemon action games actual video games do it all the time and they just pick like a generic flash for like every cut or physical attack I mean they've animated all this stuff

so it wouldn't be that hard I mean yeah I make video games all the time he says Russ I've made like 6 Pokemon games while this podcast has been going on so it's fine I don't i don't i don't think they need to do anything huge like that i just think they need to make a a

like an online pokemon like some sort of uh games as service pokemon game it's insane that that aside from pokemon go which is you know does not scratch the mechanical itch that i want like people have been asking for that for so long, and it's fucking bonkers that they haven't tried to make it yet. This one's from Drew. Why hasn't there been a Pokemon Kart Racer, and would it be a dud or a whip ass? It would definitely be a dud.

Pokemon spinoff games, the hit rate is not so high. There are. I mean, this is a Pokemon spinoff game, and also mean this is a pokemon spinoff game and also uh spinoff game they both are absolutely i would i do i know this is not a pokemon spinoff game you don't you don't spend three years making a new version of pokemon with the main studio that's not a spinoff game i'm talking about like it's only a spinoff game if it's not you know what I mean. Like, yeah, sure.

Yeah, if Game Freak said, you know what, we're going to take three years off and we're just going to make a Pokemon kart racer, then sure, maybe different story. But my feeling is that they would be like, we're going to find some like formal, former mobile studio and have them, you know, make this. I agree that would probably be very bad. But, you know, every once in a while, there's a Diddy Kong racing that's pretty good. That's true. Or, hey, that Sonic Sega All-Stars racing game is like the best kart racing game ever.

Yeah, it's possible. It's possible. Thank you. Yeah, they shouldn't make that game. They should make another Pokemon Puzzle League. Or Pokemon Trading Kart game. Not like a games... That one I don't want as games as a service.

That one I just want to be like the Game Boy Color Pokemon TCG game, which beats ass. The next question is from Joey Salami, and I'm just kind of curious with the name Joey Salami on Twitter if he asks versions of this question for every topic. His question is, or their question is,

which Pokemon do you think would taste the best? Have we not answered this question before? I feel like we have. I feel like we did. I think we've covered this ground. You're saying Fart, but you're- Vanilluxe, but go on. Oh, fuck, that would be good.

Wouldn't that be good? I mean, just ice cream. Vanilluxe has a straw in its head. Like, go to town, buddy. Go for it, yeah. Come get me. Y'all are forgetting what about uh freshest friend with a leak yeah here's the thing about farfetch'd i think farfetch'd is more like shark fin soup insofar as it's like supposed to be like a like a status symbol but it's actually

just like horrible poaching but that's my read on it at least oh is that like what's that bird that people eat where they put like uh the napkin over their head oh yeah uh or oralon or whatever it is it's horrible yeah and you like it break the bones yeah yeah i don't want to talk about this anymore okay so uh this question is from eat slow poke tails like oh yeah slow poke tails canonically the people are like yeah it's the best shit ever and every crab pokemon every crab pokemon that there is there is some like pokedex entry that's like fuck them up you can you can make like a crab curry dish in pokemon sword and shield that has like a a crabby claw sticking out of it like uh no crabby and then you get a ghost pokemon out of it and then you get a ghost pokemon this one's from uh and the last one from 2021

speedrun if you could have one pokemon for real for real living in your house with you what would it be this is very important. This is a stupid question. Sorry, whoever asked it is stupid, but it's Ditto, because that's every Pokemon. Next, please. Oh! Wow.

I guess Ditto would need, okay, I guess Ditto, technically speaking, would need the Pokemon that they are mimicking. Yeah, they need a second one. To be present but in the anime also that's my guy yeah also that's my new guy yeah this doesn't hold up because this is like saying that like you could just put pokemon masks on your kids and be like oh i have every pokemon now but it's not. It's your kid. What if you woke up and Ditto had copied your face?

That's awful. Oh, my God. I really, the next, okay, we have Pokemon Detective Pikachu. The next Pokemon movie I want is you come home and you see your wife in bed with, wait, you? That's right. The ditto that lives in your house is taking over your life. And he's like, I think that would be a fucking great talent. Is this just annihilation?

Is annihilation just a movie about ditto? The talented Mr. Ditto. That's fucking great. Just Jennifer Jason Leigh. What did you say, Jennifer Jason Leigh? Ditto. That's fucking great. Just Jennifer, Jason, Lee. What did you say, Jennifer, Jason, Lee? Ditto. Oh, shit. I'm all awesome.

We did it. We did it again. We talked about a whole Pokemon game. What else have you guys been playing? I want to have you guys peer into the void that is Russ Frustik's brain and talk briefly about fortnight save the world yes russ frustick played the wrong fortnight so you remember a couple weeks ago how i

talked about how great fortnight is uh and i think fortnight save the world if i could just set up no no i'm gonna get there i'm gonna get the world is a game that was so eclipsed by its spinoff they had to add another name to it because you wouldn't because people didn't know what you were talking about so i i've been playing normal fortnight that everyone plays the battle royale fortnight and i've been really enjoying it but i remembered many years ago that i purchased the original like save the world bundle because i don't know i was covering it or something and so i had it and then i heard from someone that within that you can um level up your battle pass

in normal fortnight and also earn v bucks in that what are v bucks that's like the currency that you buy like skins and stuff in you don't play fortnite no i don't i'm anyway i basically set up a very complex automated tool that runs for two hours and generates v bucks and experience for me and i just touch it once and it just goes but getting there uh took a while so i wouldn't recommend it but you are destroying so much electricity yeah i'm basically crypto mining my way through fortnite by the way can we have a new segment on this show called hey guys we got exciting announcement we got we're doing nfts oops never mind we could do that one is just like every week this week this week troy baker and team 17

fuck up so bad and they totally don't have to but they did it anyway because they like that picture of that monkey and they go make them a hundred thousand dollars or something um that's wild russ but i'm so proud of you thank you hoops i want to hear about this game because i've been watching streams of this and it's good why'd you just play it i i'm like i'm waiting no no it's not it's not that it's like oh i'm i'm like eating lunch and i'm like i i'm curious what this new thing is that all the kids are loving okay vampire survivors is a uh roguelike similar to if you can imagine like a dual stick shooter without the second stick

it's really the control is just walking around and what happens is you are 2D top down 2D top down thank you you are attacked by waves of enemies that increase in both number and ferocity.

And you get different weapons that are automatically firing or activating or whatever to help you fend them off. So at its very basic level, you start out with a whip. And the whip just fires every, I don't know, second or so. And you want to arrange yourself. So the whip is going to damage the creatures that are coming for you. And then after that, you might get a Bible that like spins around you and attacks enemies, or you may get a magic wand that targets the nearest enemy for you. And then as you continue to kill monsters and level up, you get like a choice between three different power ups. So that can be a new ability or it can be like leveling up one of your current abilities.

And the game is really about like making sure that like finding a build that will help you and like work in concert with your other powers. So, like, you can get garlic that provides this sort of, like, damaging aura around you. And then a long-range thing like a magic wand or whatever. And, you know, those two are then working together. So you can get stuff at a distance or get stuff close to you. Then there's, like, lots of other uh abilities there's different you can increase your speed increase your health increase your shields whatever uh and then when

you die on a run and eventually the runs get the screen gets so incredibly dense with enemies that it's really more about like uh managing a crowd and finding openings in it where you can get a little room to breathe almost like a shmup it feels like a shmup shmup for people who might not be familiar with that term it's like those chudi

Japanese often shooters where you're like a little ship a galaga is like not a shmup but you can picture it and the screen is covered in bullets. Right? Ikaruga is... Yeah, and the whole point is that

these bullets have patterns. And once you learn the patterns, you can actually navigate a wall of bullets. Yeah, they're bullet hell games. Bullet hell, yeah. And that's how this looks whenever I watch advanced play, is people just zigzagging

through the patterns of enemy waves. And it feels great. Like when you can get a – you're about to die and then you find a treasure chest that like suddenly makes you overwhelmingly powerful for a little bit and just gives you enough room to keep your run going. It feels like great. And the game is about like how long you can last. And there's tons of achievements. You get gold in between runs that lets you power up and like your individual like speed or refresh time on weapons or whatever.

And then you can unlock other characters that each feel really different and have a different starting weapon. And it looks very, very retro, retro i guess i don't even know that i don't know it's bits sprites sprites doing their thing but it's uh it's great it's so it i mean it's like i will say this it is painfully addictive it is like it is one of those where you'll finish a 10 minute run be like um i can squeeze out another one real quick uh or like you're about to record the besties

and you're like, yeah, I could probably leave my laptop here and just bang out a quick run while I'm talking about Pokemon. I did not, but the temptation is there. It's really, really, really good. It's great. It's great. It's $3. Seriously, play it. Oh, you have to have a controller, by the way. Don't waste your time.

I don't even know if you can play with a keyboard, but don't waste your time. There's probably a hardcore audience that can only do it with WASD. That's always my experience. If you talk about a computer game, you're like, oh, you got to have a controller. There's people who are like, nah, man, you got to feel the clicks. You probably could. Now that I think about it, it's eight directions.

You know what I mean? So it would be a little tricky to nail that, but yeah. Shit's been a disaster over here, so I have not had much time to play game but um we downloaded ipad on this we downloaded roblox on an ipad um because we needed we just needed something you know to fill the time and robe hey hey you guys when you say you guys check out do you mean you as an adult, or do you mean for your child? Yeah, dude, I downloaded adult Roblox.

It's a cool Roblox that's just totally unsensitized. Triple X. I mean, they made $6 billion last year, so someone's probably playing it. Yeah, and do you want to know how they made $6 billion? Hey, you guys know about Roblox? You guys play Roblox yet? Yeah, I fuck with Roblox. You fucked with Roblox? Cool, cool, cool.x you guys play roblox yet yeah i fuck with roblox you fucked with roblox cool cool cool any russ chris roblox you guys

fuck with it yeah i haven't oh sick sick dude it's based i do want to do a roblox episode at some point in the very near future i almost don't want to talk about it now so that we can just get like i want i almost want a live react video from russ and and Chris turning on Roblox and then trying to do fucking anything. It's basically the same sort of four idle games, but with different, I would say mostly stolen assets just sort of super glued onto them. to them uh and so like this is a this one spongebob empire builder and you wait for your clicker to earn money and so you can buy all this lightsaber uh or you can spend three dollars of your dad's money to get the lightsaber now or five dollars for this magic carpet or a two times boost for ten dollars it's like okay cool come join the spongebob pet collector maybe you'll get a rare spongebob but if you want this magic carpet it's five dollars

okay so why would you boost it it is so fun there's one that charlie plays called rag dolls where you basically like the whole bit is you climb up a tall structure and then you rag doll and fall down it looks funny and then you do we did this and climb up a tall structure and then you ragdoll and fall down and it looks funny. And then we did this and climbed this incredibly tall building and we ragdolled and it was kind of funny. And then you get to the bottom of the building and it's like, hey, you want jetpacks? Five bucks.

It's like you can just fly up there, no big deal. Imagine if every game had that. Like, hey, you want jetpacks? Five bucks. Because that's pretty much Roblox. That's pretty much Roblox. That's pretty much it. In this platform.

You can get a grappling hook. It's $3. Here's a floor is lava, Obby. And let's see who can be the last one. You're going to play against other people. We'll see who can climb this ladder the fastest to get away from the lava. Hey, you want a magic carpet? It's $5 for a magic carpet or $10 for a jetpack.

Get your dad. Get your dad to type in a special code to give us the real money to buy the jetpack. An Obby is an obstacle course, by the way. We don't have slang for obstacle course that's an obby there are four decades of video games why why would you do this why would you invest the next generation that make money the easiest and they and they like warp little kids brains like little kids not gonna look at it and be like oh i know what a clicker idle game is and i and it's playing me i'm not playing it you're handing for charlie it's been largely like a social thing like her and her friends will just like look it makes it really easy when you

first start the game you see what your friends are doing and you can just hop in and be like hey what are you fucking doing here like asking our parents for money yeah to get the magic carpet there's a magic carpet guys but if you need any household chores done, Roblox is a good scam to have going. Let's do a Roblox episode later this year once we're out

of the busy season. Very quick, I finished Station Eleven. It rules. I cried a lot. Don't know if I can recommend it to everybody because it's a real heavy watch

during a pandemic, but it's very good. And real heavy watch during a pandemic but it's very good and if especially if you're a theater kid oh then then it's really gonna make you cry that it's it's just it is gonna make me realize how important my art is to the world finally how my and and maybe my cousin became a doctor and my family is still a little miffed about that I didn't follow that path. But damn it, mom and dad, don't you get it? It's the art of the thing. The value of our town.

The value of our town is more important. Okay, it's actually about- I had to drop out of med school. Oh, okay, well, whatever. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Anyway, actually, I think y'all would really, really love it. As recovering current theater kids, I don't... Yeah.

Are you both? I'll scoop back on that one once Fauci finally whips this thing. And we don't have to... Watch a pandemic show in a pandemic. Frosh, who are we thanking this week? I wanted to thank the following people for writing reviews. Oh, these are good names. We got some good names. We've got some good names.

We've got Poop1. We've got Sawyer. Spelled that way. We've got Vaporblade Patron. Or Patron, probably. It could be Patron. Patron? Lux and RunRabbitRun1962.

Cool. Wait, is that a literary reference that they're going i thought it was a don delilo book but it's not i to dom deli there is a song called run rabbit run i don't know what the run rabbit run but i don't know what the reference is so yeah it's a it's an updike novel it's rabbit run but that's that's 1960 i don't know know. Anyway, this is great audio. Hey, hey, everybody. Here are the games that we talked about this week. Pokemon.

That's it. That's what we talked about. We talked about Pokemon. I guess we also talked about Fortnite. Save the world. Not to be confused with Fortnite Battle Royale. We talked about Roblox. We talked about Vampire Survivors.

We talked about Station Eleven, which talked about vampire survivors we talked about station 11 which is available right now on hbo max and next week we are talking about dying light 2 a game that when code came in i said you know what i think this is going to be something special that we're not really prepared for and fresh dick was like no you're wrong and now fresh is gonna eat his words on on podcast for a good hour and i i stared at the start menu screen for a good 90 minutes not wanting to start this game but it has gone places for me so we'll see i'm excited that's it justin take us away okay that's gonna do it for us thanks for listening to our show be sure to join us again next week I'm excited. That's it. Justin, take us away. Okay. That's going to do it for us.

Thanks for listening to our show. Be sure to join us again next week for the besties. Because shouldn't the world's best friends pick the world's best games? Besties!