The Besties - We're Not Squidding Around with Splatoon 3

Episode Date: September 16, 2022

The great inkening is upon us once again. Join us for a discussion about Nintendo's third installment in their paint-wasting simulator Splatoon! Also, we break down the big announcement's from this week's Nintendo Direct, which is to say, we talk about like a hundred farming games.Also discussed: Dark Souls 2, Godard films, Severance, Melvor Idle, Slay the Spire, Le Circ Rouge 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!

A wheel fell off the stroller the other day while I was pushing it. Was there a baby inside? It should be. Let me, I'll say this up front. Russ is an eccentric millionaire in New York who carries around a baby black bear in a stroller. And we've all told him, like, you can't have a pet black bear. You certainly can't carry it around in a stroller. Yeah, I mean, mean we all it's great

that it talks right like we love that it talks and how you have a whole sort of stewart little fantasy that you're living right now and anytime he's in the middle of the story i love how he's constantly like now bear with me because that busts me up so hard fresh can you actually mute me for a second because i need to say something to audience. I just don't want you to hear this. Okay, sure. Yeah, I'm muted. For the audience, bears don't talk. It just goes, Roar! Yeah. And the freshman thinks that it's saying his name.

Yeah, and we just kind of humor it because you don't want to upset a bear. Or the owner of a bear. As much as you can never own a bear right yeah right yeah i'm waving to fresh so you can unmute okay good okay oh we're good yeah so but he's like really good at talking now it's pretty impressive yeah yeah for sure for sure what are some of the things he can say oh he says my name all the time uh-huh he says uh like he talks about like the top of a house uh brandon routh he talks about all the time it's just non-stop man who's his favorite indie comic it paul

rust road Rust? Road. Noted indie comic Paul Rudd. Ironically, this bit is rough. Anyway, a wheel fell off the stroller and it didn't go great. My name is Justin McElroy And I know the best game of the week My name is Griffin McElroy And I'm a squid I'm a kid

I'm a squid I'm a kid My name is Christopher Thomas Plant And I know the best game of the week. My name is Griffin McElroy and I'm a squid. I'm a kid. I'm a squid. I'm a kid. My name is Christopher Thomas Plant and I know the best game of the week. My name is Ross Froschek and I know the best game of the week. Welcome to The Besties where we talk about the latest and greatest in home interactive entertainment. It's a video game club and just by listening my friend you have become a member welcome welcome uh we are so happy to have you here today we're going to be talking about splatoon three which is i forget chris plant uh it's the third game in the splatoon series which began on nintendo wii u and was like hey, what if Nintendo made competitive shooters that got somewhat

regular releases, and they featured Squid Kids, and now we live in that world where they just keep making these things and they keep being awesome. That's true, and we're going to hear a lot more about it. Amazing to think there's more to say, but there is, and we're going to do that right after the break. Splatoon

3. I was going to start by saying I think it's a missed opportunity that splatoon 2 was not named splatoon yeah and then this one could have been called splatoon which would have been so awesome also um i once had a canker sore on my splatoon it was terrible uh i also think it could have just they could have just called this one Splatoon 2, which would have been great also. Splatoon 2, because nobody played the first one because it was only you. We're still very sorry about that.

This is a, this is a, this, man, okay. Can I get a general vibe check from the room vis-a-vis Splatoon? I know it's not Justin's cup of tea necessarily. That is true. I think it's fun. I know it's not justin's cup of tea that is fairly i i think it's fun i think it's fun i i i am uh i like some of what splatoon does so much specifically like painting as the central mechanic yes to claim territory i like that so much that i wish the the other sort of half of that coin the the combat um sort of felt better

to me or gripped me more than it does but i really like the core concept and i think that it's very fun yeah i have uh i've enjoyed splatoon games in the past but have never like sunk like 30 hours into one and like gotten up the rankings and like unlocked everything but i've really enjoyed myself splatoon 2 was really the first one that i played with any level of substance and because because notably it wasn't on the fucking wii u which is a huge like mark in the pro column for for me that it was on yeah a good piece of gaming hardware yeah as opposed to a bad one but i will say the the one aspect of splatoon 2 that kept me constantly hating it they fixed in this game and i guess we'll talk about it a little bit but i i do want to mention no why would we wait okay i'm gonna say

it splatoon 2 every time you booted the game or came out of sleep mode they would force you to sit through a very obnoxious minute-long cut scene where two idiots yammered back and forth about what the levels were easy easy easy now easy all right okay we're talking like this now for some reason anyway now you can just listen to it as a quote podcast in the background while you actually play the game which is a nice change of pace there's three idiots there's three idiots this time and one of them is like a really just a huge like fish fish man and i do enjoy that quite a bit i mean i have no problem with them as people i had an issue with the game and the game developers thinking it was a good idea to force me to sit through that cut scene every single time i booted the game there's there i want to frame this conversation by saying that i don't think splatoon 3 does

really anything huge and new and innovative but i spent a lot of time playing uh splatoon 2 like i finished the multiplayer mode i played some of the uh whatever the octo expansion was i didn't finish that one uh and i i i did play quite a bit of the multiplayer uh and this this one feels very very very very similar uh albeit with like a bunch of quality of life improvements that i think are are uh they range from smart to like pretty obvious like oh yeah that was a huge mistake you made in the last one it's wild that that that problem existed in the first place but i'm glad it's gone yeah i mean it's them making good on the promise of making a regular release shooter right like i i think like that's the i think because it's nintendo

we expect them to be a bit more innovative but if the idea was looking at western shooters and saying what if we did that right having more of the same seems kind of like inevitable i'm not saying that that makes the game good or bad or anything i just think it's like well they committed to the bit i do think it is laudable that this is maybe one of the better online multiplayer sort of experiences that Nintendo has made. There is, rather than having to like navigate just menus to try and get into a match and then sometimes being stuck in this weird menu purgatory

when like matches take too long to load, there's a proper lobby now, like an online lobby where you can be doing stuff while you're waiting to match up um and then after a match you can elect to stay with the players that you are on a team with which is huge because uh finding a good team in this game is a challenge sometimes it is very easy to feel like um like your your team just can't get it together and then you lose like you only paint like 15 of the battlefield uh and get can we take a step back before we get to i would love to take a step back and let's just like

welcome people who don't understand necessarily what this is i can do that go for it yeah i mean the the basic premise here is you are a squid who is also a kid or i think it can be an octopi in this one too right and you there are kind of two big parts of the world there's one that's this big beautiful lobby which is like a city that you can explore and buy cool things in and you can see other players and you can share art um and it's just a delight it's a little social space and then there's the game uh which is in multiplayer trying to get the field covered in the most paint possible so it think of like long rectangles and you start on opposite ends and it's going to be pretty easy to get your side painted but getting into the opponent's territory or kind of the middle ground ends and it's going to be pretty easy to get your side painted.

But getting into the opponent's territory or kind of the middle ground is where it's really a challenge because everybody's going after each other. You can obviously attack each other like in any multiplayer game, but the real goal of this mode is to have more than the opponent's percentage. So more than 50% of the stage painted by the time time runs up. I always used to use the tony hawk turf war as a metaphor but i think that's maybe less applicable than like splatoon

would be the metaphor i would use to explain tony hawk yeah for sure it's really brilliant it it it is one of the cleverer i think like uh takes on an established genre that nintendo has ever made because it makes it so that you do not feel useless really ever right right even if you are uh just getting completely destroyed every time you get into combat with with the enemy team you can still like look at the map and see where people aren't and see where a bunch of enemy color is and then blast over there and get it done and potentially win the match even without having to engage in much combat. Yeah, I enjoy Splatoon the most when I play it as a role-playing game.

And the role I'm playing is Gary Marcuse's house painter. And I just go around and I don't even trouble myself with the, you know, I see some squid kids battling, but I'm just a dutiful, you know. I'm just a regular house painter. I go wall to wall and I have a big bucket of paint. Do you use the roll? Because, so we should also say there are guns that fire paint in different ways. There's also just a giant paint roller.

There's lots of things like that. I mean, there's a big, I actually like the bucket yeah the bucket is very great the bucket's great and i actually was getting pretty good coverage with the uh it's kind of nintendo's uh nes zapper in it which is so cool and i i know that that's it's probably not the best game gun in the game in fact they say as much when you're getting it it's like it's kind of weak actually but uh uh i got really good like it fires so quickly you can cover a lot of area it's a weird it's a weird va it's a weird feeling and it's very specific to splatoon that like when the match starts typically there's like a good 20 to 30 seconds where like most people

aren't rushing the middle to start fighting other people there's like this little segment where everybody's just like well i gotta I got to paint over here. It almost makes you wish that like some of your home area started out painted so you could get to like the engagements and stuff a little quicker. So I think there is a meta to painting your own area quickly.

Yeah, the more that you paint, like fresh area that you paint, you can build up a special move. So I think it's like, it kind of motivates you to do both, like both get this painted and accumulate your specials so then you can rush the center but what if they started you with your special and some of the area painted and you could just it would be a different game

it would be yeah it would be speaking of different games you should also mention we should also mention the fact that like there are basically two other full modes in splatoon if you are not interested in competitive multiplayer there's like a single player campaign which has like levels that you go through using your paint weapons but get to that like how does that start it's so just comically hidden i mean it's not really it's not really okay okay okay let me let me explain let me explain let me explain the way that you get to it at the very beginning of the game, it's like, hey, there's a little sewer lid over there. You should check it out. Well, and there's a guy.

Yes. There's an old man creeping on you from the... Okay, okay. Have you seen an old man peeking his head out of a manhole cover? And then they're like, or you can go over here and play Splatoon. Okay, okay, okay. I'll tell you, because I did this, and I remember it. They say, don't worry about him

we'll deal with that later and it's like okay good i'm assuming you'll tell since you're like on my nuts every 20 seconds to try to get me to go to the hat store to make myself more fresh i assume that if it comes the time for me to deal with this old man in his business that you will alert me to that situation also in justin's defense you start in this giant awesome cool looking city full of interesting stuff. And they're like, yeah, don't worry about that sewer cap over there and that creepy old man. It's only half the game. And also, that city is so wild because they're like, when I got to a certain level, they're like, go check out the ammo store.

And I, like a tourist lost in Shibuya, I spent like a half hour wandering store to store, like, one of these has to be the ammo store. And then I'm eventually like, oh, you can go from the menu, you can just press X and go to that store. You're not really, they don't want you to walk around

this weird town. Anyway, there is a full-on campaign. Is it fun? Is it good? I it fun is it good i mean is it good it's all right i actually think it's kind of a step down from the uh i think it's a step down from the octo expansion uh yeah i didn't play that so uh it added some like structural stuff that was kind of cool um but even compared to like the vanilla uh splatoon 2 single player campaign i don't know there's just some stuff in this that doesn't that doesn't feel great uh after after you get through the first few levels you show up in like a new hub world um and then there are these

like barriers all over the place that you have to destroy using this resource that you collect by going through the levels but once you show up in this hub world like it's so open and it feels like am i is this the am i wasting my resources by like blowing up this barrier to get to this level and um it's a it's i don't know it's a mechanic that i did not like at all um the levels themselves really feel like to some extent training levels they're a little more involved than that but they're not like that dying it's not like you're playing through a whatever a call of duty level or anything that involved i think it's a nice detour i do agree with you that is not the star of the show here but i think for people that like

want to get their feet wet a little bit, just learning how the controls work and how the game works. I think it's a nice option. Cause the controls are a little funky too. I mean, Oh yeah. You want to talk about, any of you guys do motion?

No, I'm using the Hori Pro controller. Yeah, me too. So I do the motion. I like it. Do you? Yeah. I think I would like it more. It's hard too. So I do the motion. I like it. Do you? Yeah.

I think I would like it more. It's hard for me to get my head around stick to look left and right and the thing to go up and down. Like it's hard to get my brain around that. It's more that you use your stick to like move the – if you think about it like using your right stick to move your perspective around and move the screen around and then you can fine tune it with the motion controls. When you use them in tandem, it really does provide a good... I could see how it would be better. I just can't. I knew I had limited time here, so I just wanted to be halfway decent.

I don't know about you guys. I had huge problems with connectivity. And it was not on my end. Like, my Wi-Fi is fine. But, like, I mean, really half the matches were people would disconnect early. And then that would be, like, the end of the match. And it would kick you back out to the lobby. Or a lot of times I would say I want to stay with my squad it would look for like

30 seconds and then give me like a connectivity error and yeah i didn't run into that at all i know i mean that's why i want to bring it up because i didn't know uh you know maybe i just bad luck or or whatever it is directly beneath a mesh wi-fi router like it is it is not a signal issue um yeah maybe it was like that day or something i my okay so if i could just talk like why this isn't clicking with me real quick um and and and i would love to see what if if this is similar for you all um the two really the issue i have here and this is what what kind of makes me feel like maybe i've just aged out a little bit and that doesn't i don't mean that in a condescending way.

I mean, literally like I'm having a hard time parsing the screen and there's so much in the, in the aesthetic aesthetically, this is a very like, uh, jubilant, uh,

is, is a nice way of putting it. Like it's very like colorful and there's a lot going on on the screen. And I found it hard to like parse when there was an enemy there or like other things in the UI. It was just like so crowded to me that it made it hard to parse the action.

So a lot of times when the time to kill in this game is like weirdly short. It's extremely short. Somebody gets the jump on you and it's pretty much over and that's hard it was hard for me to keep track of that kind of stuff i also don't feel like i had a really good sense there's a you can solve this by getting in the habit of checking the map like when you get killed but i don't almost never have a sense of who's gonna win

a specific match i mean sometimes if we're really getting, you know, worked or I'm, you know, we're really doing a great job, I'll know. But, like, I didn't have a great sense outside of that. And the skill level, especially for as early as this is, man, some people have really been sticking with Splatoon 2 because I was just getting flattened. Yeah. When I tried to, to like engage with other people painting was the only thing where i felt like oh i'm having an impact here because i i really

struggled to feel that with yeah i don't think the onboarding for the multiplayer is very good i don't think it's ever like in the second game i didn't think it was very good either because you know not to bring up fortnite again, Fortnite is very smart because if you haven't played in a while or you're playing for the first time, they're going to drop you in a game and they won't tell you this, but they're going to drop you in a game with bots and you're going to feel like a fucking badass. And then as you play more games, they're going to slowly remove the bots and eventually it's just going to be you versus actual players. And that's going to be a lot harder but at least you have those moments here i played probably 10 games on the first day and lost eight of them and it wasn't for lack of trying and i've played a lot of shooters but it was pretty demoralizing eventually i started like getting my feet wet and like getting the vibe of it a bit better but even then like if you're getting matched with

randoms i think it's kind of a crapshoot in terms of like who you're getting i think this game is very much designed with play with your friends have voice going and coordinate because if you're not coordinating you're just kind of like running around painting and stuff like that i think more often than not you're just gonna lose there's just like not a way around that did any of you convert your save file from splatoon 2 i didn't even know that was an option yeah i only just read that this morning you're lucky that was a big mistake on my part so it incentivizes you to do it you get like rewards where you can unlock weapons earlier yeah but i think it forces you to also transfer over your rank and i got good at splatoon 2 like way i was way more into that than any competitive online shooter than i've been in a long time wow i didn't

know um so i was really looking forward to this game not a great way to get back into this because i haven't played it in a long ass time so i'm playing against people who are extremely good and just getting absolutely wrecked um and like to the point where i'm like do i need to like delete the game and try to start over is there anything i can do um because every once in a while i get competitive didn't wasn't skill based i thought it was just random unless you're playing ranked in which case it is skill-based magic. Well, I mean, maybe it's just because I got thrown into ranked.

It said that I was thrown into ranked. Do you guys find, what do you guys think about the speed of unlocks for the weapons? I thought it was really smart, because the system, the way it works is you can level up, and as you level up, you'll get tickets.

And to unlock, let let's say the zapper that you were mentioning before the nes zapper you need to be level nine but if you want to spend more tickets you can unlock that basically right away at level three once you have enough tickets you just have to spend more tickets to do it i think that is a brilliant way to do it because someone that like. Wants to like look up a tier list. I did this. What are the best weapons for newcomers.

Whatever it is. I was able to do that and be like. Oh I'm going to skip ahead and unlock this weapon first. I think that's really smart. Yeah. Very weirdly gates off. A lot of stuff until you hit level four. Which.

Yeah. I would estimate maybe a a dozen matches or so no i didn't think maybe i think it depends on how much you win really yeah right you you get experience whether you win or lose and then you get experience based on individual merits but you do get more if you win yeah there's a lot of guns in the game but it's not throwing like a bunch at you all at once and that's what i think is actually kind of cool about the the way they have it is it it's not so fast to level up where you you are still kind of forced to sit with a gun like if you buy a new thing it's going to be a few matches until you can unlock another gun and that's kind of cool

because it kind of makes you sit with it like Like, even if it doesn't grab you right away, like you are incentivized to, I don't know, try to work with it for a little bit. Cause you're not gonna, you know, you're not gonna like unlock four new guns and you're kind of overwhelmed and you try one and you stick with it.

Like it's paced a lot more deliberately than that. And I think that that's really good. Cause this is a game where like, I would say more than almost any other competitive shooter your weapon choice is like absolutely crucial for like what you are going to be doing in this like they feel especially each one has like its own super move can feel completely completely different yeah yeah they are pretty i i didn't finish the thought you have to get to level four before you can unlock like the clothing store or the whole salmon run mode which i've only really had time to play like one match of and

it felt a lot like salmon run which is uh sort of a wave based cooperative mode that is fine it is always it's like the zombies mode of call of duty for me which is to say like the mode i don't play the very much um and i i don't know i thought that was kind of a weird choice because the way that clothing works and style works in the game is is like way deeper than i think most folks would estimate once you start playing uh where like because there's clothing has different perks on it right that that that unlock as you level up that gear and then you can try and find gear that has the set of perks on it that you want

by going to these clothing stores. It's a neat system and it was just kind of annoying that I had to play for a while before I could get to that stuff. Also, the style is the whole point. The whole point of this game is that you look cool as hell yeah you shouldn't hold off on looking cool like yeah i don't understand the logic that they did where they tied and i know this is a carryover tying perks like oh i want this whatever i use less paint whenever i'm firing perk but i want to like i'd rather wear the dope hat

i guess this is like a souls you think of souls games with fashion souls where people like just wear the stuff that looks cool regardless of the stats and defenses it just like why don't they just decouple that because i would rather just equip the perks i want to equip and wear the clothes i want to wear yeah it's a weird a weird choice, especially since I like love, I mean, Justin, I know we were talking about how Justin is not this aesthetic, like,

but I love the look and feel of this game so much in the whole series so much because it vibes on the like street wear and everything you're unlocking just like feels very lively and colorful and interesting. And it doesn't really match anything else than the Nintendo canon of games that they've put out. So it's a nice change of pace. But I love the look and feel of it. I just wish it wasn't so tied to the, oh, I need this perk to do it. It's cool to see Nintendo do kind of like a sort of more youthful,

colorful, kiddie-looking game. I like that. I mean, you're being facetious. You can acknowledge how different this is from a Mario, right? From a what? Who is that? From a Mario game. Huh?

From a fucking Yoshi game. Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. What if he called him- There's one where he's yarn, and that's different. Yeah, that one's weird. I wish that- Can I say something?

Yeah. As an observer who's made my feelings clear, and I've been trying- Russ brought up the fact that I don't like Splatoon. I didn't bring it up. I didn't say that. I just said it wasn't your aesthetic. The way Splatoon looks, I don't like it. I want to like Splatoon. I didn't bring it up. I didn't say that. I just said it wasn't your aesthetic. The way Splatoon looks, I don't like it. I want to like this one.

As an outside observer, I'm feeling like a weird sort of, and tell me if I'm wrong about this or it's just a conversation, but I'm feeling a weird sort of hesitance to place a crown on this game's head. I'm sensing some sort of like, as Splatoon fans, is there something holding you back, something you're missing, or is this just like too much more of the same, or where are you guys at? For me, Splatoon has kind of always felt like, and I think this echoes your thoughts, Juice, where the core ideas are so great. They are so cool.

It just feels like they could do more with it. And maybe for me, like for my personal taste, that means like a more ambitious single player experience. Or maybe just, you know, more than a handful of maps being available at any given time. The hooks do not come anywhere near the hooks that exist in a Call of Duty or, you know, obviously, like a Destiny is a different thing entirely, right? This is not a looter shooter necessarily. But if it had, if the carrots were a little bit more appetizing and a little bit more appealing i think i would be playing splatoon a lot more uh than than than i am i don't know that i'm gonna keep playing it after after this episode because those the for me the the hooks aren't necessarily strong enough

for me that's that's what i like about it because i feel like I can play the Splatoon games kind of now and then for a year or two and be totally okay. How does that jive though with what you were saying about the difficulty? Like people – wouldn't that continue to come down over time? I think that's an issue of I picked an option that threw me way ahead. And if I restarted, I would get back to you know being paired with people i would one i would i think i would be out of the specific mode that i'm in in ranking play so i'm not worried about that based off of my time in splatoon 1 and splatoon 2 but also just the like the good and the bad of all the hooks that that griffin's describing

is they get me really obsessed with the game for the first two weeks. And then I get behind or I go through all the hooks and then I'm done. Um, and then I, it's like, I don't know. It's like, I got so used to being tricked into playing the game that I,

I don't have love for the game itself sometimes. Yeah. And with this, it's just like, well, you either enjoy the game or you don't. You know, like you're here to play Splatoon and if you like that,

you can have a lot more of it for a long time. It's right. The only, I guess if I were to put what I was struggling with into one sentence, I feel like I did, you know, games really are like about learning right that's the fun of games most games is like learning and feeling like you're improving incrementally a little bit and just too often with splatoon i would like die or lose a match and not really

have a good or or or kill somebody right and win a match and not walk away with like a better sense of like why it happened like you know what i mean like i didn't feel like i was learning enough like about how the like uh how the game works and like what i can do to improve at it in in each individual encounter and that's not like about tutorials or whatever but i just found it so hard to parse that uh i found it hard to like see where i was failing and what i could improve on yeah to go back it's an onboarding issue i completely agree i think newcomers to this will feel like they're getting steamrolled and not know why they're getting steamrolled and that can be really frustrating it's nice that there are

there's the single player and the co-op mode that you could like you know feel like you're doing stuff but in multiplayer even in the like unranked like random mode there will 100 be moments where you'll feel like you don't know what you're doing wrong and maybe at this point i mean it's so this game sold so well that maybe they just don't super care about that onboarding it seems crazy to me because like that to me but i don't know i mean that it's wild to me as well because it is like like even the dumbest ai like if you threw in like ai that like barely shot and barely moved and that was your first three rounds and you just like really just steamrolled over everyone i think that would be a better onboarding because you can get a feel

for your special weapons you can get a feel for you know oh the painting mechanic and whatever it is or things like there's a lot of mechanics they just don't like what's the super jump i i what is the super jump uh i don't know what it uh it's a it's super jumping is an ability that inklings and octolings have a lot of them jump very high in the air and land somewhere else i mean i you tell me. I don't know. I don't know. There's a whole wiki. There's an Inkypedia page about Super Jumps. But a couple of times I won the Super Jump Master Award,

which is a hell of a thing. Good work, Justin. If you think about it, it's pretty impressive, actually, to not even know. I guess there must be something natural in me. It's how you respawn in the game. And so you can either launch yourself down to your starting area or you can super jump to... Doesn't that sound like a choice thing to tell people?

Don't you think that would be such a cool thing to tell people about? I think it's funnier to not. And then you're like, hey, I'm a super jump master. And they're like, oh, so you respawn the most? Yeah, exactly. I think that's what's happening. Splatoon 3 is a fun game that i bet you know if you will if you've played the one before i bet you know if you want to play

i think if you can get through those first five hours of multiplayer or whatever it is for a dozen or so matches you will start to like get your sea legs a little bit but until that happens it is i agree with justin a little rough But it's gorgeous, and there are no other native shooters on Switch, really. I mean, Fortnite runs on Switch, but barely. So kind of the only game in town, if you're looking for a multiplayer shooter on Switch. So enjoy it. Yeah, it's fun.

More, please, more shooters where you don't have to be good at shooting to have a good time. That paint roller is one of the bravest innovations more please more shooters where you don't have to be good at shooting to yeah that roller that paint roller is a is one of the bravest innovations in uh for in shooter technology in years where i don't really it is thrilling if you skip encounters entirely and your whole thing is like i'm gonna stealth into the back of your base and then we're gonna paint it while you guys are fighting that's really fun or if you can get the drop on if you like use your roller to like paint a wall and then you swim over somebody and then roll up on them from behind like every time you can manage to pull that off it is tasty and also

you don't really have to aim anything so perfect that's nice all right we got more to do but uh first we have to take a quick break and then we'll be right back after this earlier this week nintendo had their i guess it's annual at this point september nintendo direct it seems like they've been doing a september nintendo direct basically forever and they tend to be pretty big and this was no exception they announced a fuckload of games during this nintendo direct and uh i don't know i i was pretty happy. I thought we'd talk through some of the announcements, but I was pretty happy with the lineup.

Yeah, the quantity here is not in question. Yes. Especially if you are a fan of agriculture. Great news. There's so many farming games. To kick things off, what is the number one farming game that you want to play well let me let me say there are four of them direct yeah the the four were uh fey farm

rune factory 3 special story of seasons and harvestella were the the four that were i guess announced in this uh story of seasons is like a remake of, I think, like Harvest Moon. Yeah, the evolution of Harvest Moon, yeah. Yeah, and Harvestella is like a farming game plus JRPG, and Rune Factory 3 Special is, like, I don't know. We talked about Rune Factory on this show. Sure, yeah.

I mean, I think we covered Rune Factory 4 Special, which I thought was great, and then Rune Factory on this show. Sure, yeah. I mean, I think we covered Rune Factory 4 special, which I thought was great, and then Rune Factory 5, which I thought was a turd from a butt. And then Fey Farm. So Fey Farm is the one I'm most psyched for. It is from Phoenix Labs, who made Dauntless,

which is a free-to-play monster hunter action RPG game that I thought was really great. Solid. And also a clever game formula to apply that free-to-play kind of model on. I didn't stick with it for too terribly long, but I thought that that game was really smooth and fun to play and cool.

And the idea of them kind of applying that same logic to a you know cottage core fantasy farming game that looks pretty great is fey farm free to play as well i'm assuming uh maybe that's a maybe that's yeah i don't know i'm making an ass of myself but um i i yeah i thought fey farm looked fantastic um yeah we don't know a whole lot about it. I don't know. I tried looking if it was going to be on other platforms. I would be shocked if it wasn't, since that was kind of Phoenix Lab's strategy for Dauntless.

Like, that game was on absolutely everything. But I don't know. I guess we'll see. The big announcement of the Nintendo Direct, in case those missed it, we finally got a- You're going to say one of two things right now, and it's really going to change the way I perceive you. Go ahead.

We finally got news of Crisis Core Final Fantasy Reunion. There he goes, you little turd. Feudal rhythm reunion. I love that the remake of Final Fantasy VII Crisis Core got just the most scant announcement, just the briefest, like, oh, and by the way, the worst Final Fantasy VII game. Is it bad? I've not played it.

Yeah, boy, howdy. It involves Zack. So if you like Zack, and who doesn't, it was a PS, was it PSP or PSP? I think it was PSP. Yeah. Sort of side story to Final Fantasy VII, where you play as Darkhair Cloud. And there was like, everything took place in a like slot machine materia system that was so like, Materia system that was so like bad it was so like nonsensical and not fun uh and so it is wild to me that they are remaking that but I guess I don't know you know the Final Fantasy 7 remake was

great and so maybe they're trying to capitalize on that I really get a kick out of Nintendo's third party announcement it's like I never can guess if it's just like, so you've been waiting to play It Takes Two? Well, good news. You can now. It's only been a couple years. I'm sure it's still pretty cool. Just go in there and play it if you want.

You like Resident Evil? You want to stream them all? You heard your friends talk about that a couple years back? I mean, in their defense, Tunic did just come out this year, and now in September it's coming out on Switch and PlayStation. That's good. That's a really good one. And I think that's a great fit for Switch.

So good on Switch. That'd be really good on Switch. I really want to talk about all these games for sure. Can I sidebar for just a minute? Uh-oh. So the livestream didn't stream on Nintendo's UK YouTube channel. They did not live stream it. Okay.

They did not live stream it out of, quote, a mark of respect during this period of national mourning following Queen Elizabeth's death. Is that real? Yes. But they put it up after as a video. A video on demand. It's so wild to me that Nintendo imagines a world where they start streaming it,

and one of those guards with the big hats is like, hey, what are you guys doing live now? You're telling people about Fire Emblem Engage during this terrible period of our nation's history? Hey, can I check in real quick? Can I get the quick Russ Frushtick report? When they started, they opened up the direct with the new firearm game, fire emblem engage,

which I thought I would have bet dollars to donuts. They were announcing fire emblem heroes too, for the iOS, just because it was all about, I need to summon Marth to my side for 99 cents, US dollars. Uh, but no,

it's, it's like a proper firearm emblem game which i'll always i'll play every one of those thank you thank you for that also zelda zelda they also announced zelda what did you want to know of griffin specifically uh what you you said you wanted my gut i want to know if you also thought it was fire emblem heroes oh well here's the thing about fire emblem trailers in general i knew it was a Fire Emblem trailer, but at this point you don't know if it's going to be a Dynasty Warriors game I don't care about.

Oh, boy. I love being suspended in that fear of, is this going to be a game I give a shit about? Right. Or is it a true Fire Emblem game? This indeed looks like a true Fire Emblem game with probably the most shameless fan service I've ever seen, but that's okay because it is a true

turn-based strategy tactical firebomb game yeah and it's coming in january it's very soon and i'm actually genuinely pumped for it so i'm very happy but we will talk about the actual star of the show all kidding aside it is zelda tears of the kingdom which is the sequel effectively for breath of the wild can i say something yeah that's a fucking sick subtitle that's so cool well they've had us a bunch of bad ones i think tears of the kingdom rules maybe it's tears of the kingdom is it tears or tears it could be tears it could be both holy shit i mean bioshock already did that they've done it again yeah yeah it released 8 may 12 tears of the kingdom i don't know uh zerda zerda is back in tars of the kingdom uh this is the

what second or third like gameplay trailer that they've showed off that featured i would say roughly 20 seconds yeah very this probably had the least amount of gameplay in it compared to all the other trailers. I think it was just about revealing the date. Which, do you think that they are trying to hide? So Carrie Peach, my friend and collaborator, has this theory that Midna is going to play a big role in this one. Do you think that the lack of

gameplay footage that they're showing, Midna side, I'm not interested, I couldn't actually be interested in fan theories. That's what I'm wondering, if they're like You think they're doing a Metal Gear Solid 2 where you have to play as fucking blonde boy. Maybe? I mean, kidding aside,

There have been a lot of theories about that, right? That you play as that your arm is infected or something and you play as... Or you play as Zelda or whatever. I would, let me just say, fucking kill to play a full Zelda game as Zelda would be... Like, actually murder.

Like, actually murder human beings, yeah. To play a Zelda game as Zelda would be extremely cool. I know I've also heard theories of like playing as Ganon in a prequel scenario. I would never. You do right. My wife locked in on me playing as Ganon.

My kids tell you that? Daddy, that's Ganon. He's a bad man. I know, honey. I'm sorry. Daddy's so sorry. Why are you selling drugs to the Gordo? Well, honey, I'm Ganon.

That's what I do. I'm a bad dude. The only thing that jumped out at me gameplay-wise in this trailer was that it looked like Link was riding on an R-Wing from Star Fox at one point. Yeah.

I mean, it's all... It doesn't look anything like an R-Wing, but it was a full-on... It's stone. It's the same world... Just like an R-Wing. It's the same world as uh breath of the wild but with like floating islands and like more vertical shit going on so it makes sense that that's like all

that they focus on it what they showed looks fantastic i don't want to you know they don't need to show i mean whatever like they could show nothing like they don't need to show anything right it couldn't matter less in fact i kind of kind of appreciate it. You know what I mean? I feel like a lot of Zelda games are in the lead up. There's a bunch of like 30 minute long, like, and anyway, here's where all the apples are. And it's like, I don't need that. Like I'm gonna absolutely play the hell out of this. Just like everyone's saying.

Yeah, I mean, you got me, Justin. I did wanna know in the trailer, I get pretty pissed off actually when games do trailers or any kind of promotional content, really where they don't tell me how to find all the apples and where they all are. Yeah, right. I do want to give a quick shout out to Return to Dreamland Deluxe, a multiplayer Kirby remake of Dreamland. Boy, howdy. That one's going right down the middle for me.

What was that? The SNES Kirby? Dreamland? Dreamland, I thought it was. Return to Dreamland? Oh, I don't know. One of them. I feel like if you're a Switch fan,

and I know that we've groused a lot about Switch releases not being really up to snuff, which I don't think is unfair. There's just been very few of them. There's been very few of them there's been very few of them yeah russ um i i feel like uh i really i like this there's not a lot in this nintendo directive that appeals to me but i do like seeing nintendo sort of like settle into okay we've got enough of these different franchises spinning that like we don't actually have to play with sony and microsoft in like the the arms race of keeping up like they definitely are showing here this almost seems like a statement of purpose

like we have enough of an ecosystem like we don't need to lure in you know the third party releases to have a chunky version on the switch like was so commonplace with the wii and wii u um i think i think that they've really like come into their own identity. This doesn't feel like a platform that's winding down, right? It feels like they've got a bunch more lined up for it, and it's this kind of specific stuff that makes sense. It's just here on Switch. Can I say the wildest announcement from the Switch

or from the Direct was the announcement of Various Daylight from square enix which was an apple arcade game that was i would say and this is rare pretty universally panned for being um not much of a game and now it's up on that uh e-shop for like 30 bucks yeah which is banana cakes uh don't know but they did announce octopath traveler too which russ would i get into factorio or or anybody i guess who's played it i feel i haven't played it actually but i i know it is a progressive building sim so those elements i probably would check your box but i would say the concern very, it's, my understanding is it's very, very complicated.

Like, getting a thing up and running requires, like, a lot of. I also read some concern that, like, it is pretty demanding hardware-wise. Like, you wouldn't think so looking at it. Yeah. But it is a lot of different. And there's some concerns that the Switch will not necessarily be able to do that but that is pure conjecture looks fun yeah it does look cool uh anybody been playing anything else yeah or experiencing anything else oh oh uh fresh how about you i'm still playing dark souls 2 i don't need to keep talking about it it's all i'm almost done

i'm very very close to the end which has been a delight i love it god i feel that way about uh guys i can't i can't stop playing slay the spire like i can't stop it's weird man i accidentally got back into it to play because you guys told me about the uh the release that like the um the fan made the fan made thing uh whatever that's what downfall that was called it's great um but the when i figured out that there were like ascensions and it just you could play like a little harder had you never gotten into that part of it i never want to do i've never wanted to do that in any any other game but man slay the spire it just it just gets me like it just hits me. I love playing harder difficulties.

When one ends, I want to get back in and just do another run. I think it may be inching up on becoming my favorite game. Like I've spent so much time playing it that it's like I play it in the way that people play. Binding of Isaac. Binding of Isaac. Okay. Or chess is what I was going to say I'm just playing it because I enjoy the playing of it, and that's rare for me

because I'm a very goal oriented, when it comes to games I want to unlock shit I'm not unlocking anything I just really enjoy the experience of playing it which is which is really really nice and maybe obvious and like kind of self-evident if your brain isn't fucking

broken but like i i really really love it anyway no jarvader if you haven't checked that one out i'm playing something else i can't talk about too oh here's what that is oh griffin i don't know uh i want to give a shout out I never talk about non-game stuff but me and Rachel have been just tearing through Severance which is very cool very cool show

Apple TV Plus Apple TV Plus Adam Scott Dystopian Office Sci-Fi show, thriller, drama, Ben Stiller direct. It's great. This, did you guys catch this week's Ben Stiller direct?

I thought that some of the announcements were huge, man. Are they going back to that Dannemora? Is he going back? Oh, you know it. No, it's Cable Guy 2. Oh, oh, Cable Guy 2. Any, um, I've, I've been playing, uh, a game on 2. Oh, oh, Cable Guy 2. I've been playing a game on iOS.

It's also on Steam. It's called Melvor Idol. And it is, it's going to sound like poison, I think, to everybody else on this podcast. So for the four people. Hey, I heard Idol, baby. My ears are perked up. So it is a Idol game version of RuneScape, the classic MMORPG where you have

something like 20 to 30 individual skills, like combat skills and non-combat skills like farming and mining and cooking and fire making and fishing and herb lore and all of those things. And it is just a game about sort of improving those skills and they are all connected in cool ways. And I played just a, not a ton of old school runescape but enough to like enjoy the

that system that is kind of what is the thing people talk about when they talk about runescape and this is just a an idle game version of it that i cannot stop playing uh so is there like graphics or you're just like tapping like harvest wood for three hours and then you come back after three hours and the wood is gone? No, there's no graphics. I mean, there's images of a tree. Cool. There's a cool tree JPEG. Hey Griffin, I love you.

And as your brother, stop playing this. No, I won't. Don't play this anymore. I'll get a book. I mean, Justin, you're one to talk. Yeah. No, I would hope that my brother would step in. Glass houses. With me. No, I recognize you're one to talk. Yeah, in crisis. No, I would hope that my brother would step in with me.

No, I recognize my own faults, guys. I like to think that I'm my own biggest critic, as we've established here. I know that I'm saying as an outside observer, don't do this anymore. Am I installing it? Why would you ask that? Why would you ask if I'm installing it? That's so hurtful. It is an idle game, so you're not constantly really playing it.

Also, our baby has been a nightmare sleeper, and so I've been spending a lot of time rocking him in his nursery and having a one-handed portrait mode game that I can dive into anytime that I am doing that is really necessary, I would say. Fire Emblem,

good time to get back. I was gonna say, my honorable mention, I think, is a pretty good match for you. Just something to throw on your phone. So, as you all saw, Jean-Luc Godard passed away.

I didn't see that. Wait, you didn't see that? No. Yeah, fame. I'm not on Twitter, sorry. I miss a lot of deads because I'm not on Twitter. Did. I miss a lot of deads because I'm not on Twitter. Did you know he was alive, Griffin?

Did I know that Jean-Luc Godard was alive? He sounds like such an old dude. I kind of assumed he was. I thought he died in like the early 90s. He's like a movie guy. So yes, he was a film critic, and then he helped create. He made the professional Fifth Element.

Mm-hmm, mm-hmm the professional fifth element. Wow. Wow. He helped pioneer the French new wave. And he made a whole bunch of movies, many of them impenetrable. Some of them I think, I personally think downright bad. I loved him in college because he did really weird things. And he was a critic who was commenting on film with film which is the thing that i love um now i'm i still really appreciate him but i find his

movies kind of challenging to watch that's why i wanted to recommend some movies i think if people are curious about it because they see the name in the news they should check out and i broke them into three categories if you want something easy you should check out Breathless or Alphaville. Alphaville is kind of like a sci-fi-ish thing. If you want something in the middle, there's a movie called Masculine Feminine or Un Femme et Une Femme or A Woman is a Woman is the English title. They're both delightful and they're like fun and they have like really cool energy. They're very 60s.

And then if you just want to go like maximum art film his later work there's a film called neutro music which is like it's like post 9-11 movie and it is extremely difficult and it was the first movie i ever saw in new york i believe uh and it was like one of those like you know oh wow i am in new york now i am seeing art films in an art movie theater. I'm going to rush out to a post 9-11 movie. Now that I'm in New York, baby. He had a great run. I wanted to actually very quickly, because you said that, and it reminded me that we don't have to do video games.

Can I have 30 seconds to talk about a movie? Oh, boy. Sure. Thanks. It's called, I finished yesterday, it's called Le Cirque Rouge. It's French. Oh, wow. Yeah.

Le Cirque Rouge. That's the red circle. It's French. Oh, wow. Yeah. Le Cercle Rouge. That's the red circle. It's a fascinating, I've been watching a lot of high stuff for The Adventure Zone. And it is a French film about a guy who gets out of prison and somehow runs into a prison escapee. And they put together a plan to rob this impenetrable jewelry store. Really the centerpiece of this movie, and if you hear people talk about it, it's probably for this.

There is a 30-minute unbroken dialogue-free heist sequence. And it is like there's no speaking. It's one of the most tense things I've ever encountered. Why did I feel like I've watched almost the exact same thing, but it wasn't that movie? Weird. I don't know. Ocean's Eleven is what you're thinking.

No, it is. If that sounds like it's subtitled, you can rent it. I think I rented it from. Oh, Rafifi has the same exact thing. Yes, yeah. It's definitely nods towards Rafifi. Okay. It is within the same genus.

Got it. Yeah yeah it's great i saw delicatessen so we're all just going to talk about french film sorry griffin but you think i don't know about drop it drop some french film on us griffin come on bring it the french connection oh they got there you go um uh supersize me that's all about french fries and stuff I got another one here and it was Inspector Gadget 2 with French Stewart do you count

Holy Motors I'm gonna count Holy Motors my favorite film is a French film I'm so fucking erudite yeah my favorite film

is Inspector Gadget 2 a sweater thank you I'd love to wear one oh glasses yeah I wear these all the time I'm very smart about stuff yes thank you to'd love to wear one oh glasses yeah i wear these all the time i'm very uh smart about

stuff uh yes thank you to the following people for writing reviews for the besties on apple podcasts uh dragolator spunky comics k-void 14 and il dostino thank you for writing reviews on apple podcasts for the besties thank you to everyone else for sharing the show, talking about the show, writing reviews on other platforms, just spreading the word and the magic that is the besties podcast. Plant, recap. Next week... Not next week. This week we talked about Splatoon 3.

We talked about a gajillion nintendo games that aren't available yet uh including zelda tears for fears uh you're playing dark souls 2 uh justin is playing slay the spire and watched la cirque rouge um griffin is watching severance and playing melvor idol and i recommended some Godard films. And that's it. Oh, and next week we're talking about Dreamlight Valley. Holy shit, I am so excited to talk about this game. I know nothing about it.

I can't wait to do it. Just play it with the girls. Justin, how have you not heard about this? Disney fan that you are. I don't know. I'm thrilled. I'm surrounded by three Disney nuts, and I don't know that i can take it uh oh now i'm in yeah it's the stardew knockoff with disney characters basically or animal crossing

fantastic fantastic we're gonna see how this goes i'll be the grumpy one all right uh that is gonna be more of a dreamworks guy russ big boss. Yeah, for sure. Big Boss Baby fan. That's going to do it for us until next week. My name is Justin McElroy. Thanks for joining us for the Besties, and be sure to join us again next week, because shouldn't the world's best friends make the world's best games? Besties!