Sword of the Sea is Like Journey on a Hoverboard

I am so excited to talk about Sword of the Sea.

It is,

I think, kind of messed up to expect me or frankly any of us to have to talk about a game other than Bubsy 40.

Like, it feels fucked up that this, I see the rundown of the show.

I know that we're going to get to it later, but it seems weird to me to like suspend that conversation

until we have talked about another game.

Well, which is great.

It's a great game.

Excited to talk about it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah let me propose this yeah here's the deal as we all know time is the fourth dimension yeah and so in a way we are actually talking about bubsy 4d both now and later that's cool that's cool i like that i like that idea there's a there's a missing um piece here uh people can't see it but justin's face right now i would describe it as ecstasy i would say hey bliss bliss that looking into the eyes of the

Yeah.

No, never been.

No, no, no.

Oh, shit.

What's wrong with you?

I watched Song of the South.

I was so confused when the guy said

I was so confused.

Oh, my God.

Fuck.

You got that on 4K Blu-ray, do you?

It's on my plex.

It's the only thing on my plex.

My name is Justin McErhan.

I know the best game of the week.

My name is Griffin McRae.

I know the best game of the week.

It's Mubsy Courtney.

My name is Christopher Thomas Plant, and I know the best game of the week.

My name is Russ Rushik.

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, my friend.

And just by listening, you have joined our illustrious ranks.

Hello.

What a pleasure it is to have you.

This week, we're going to be talking about a little game I like to call Sword of the Sea.

Chris Plant, what is that?

Chris Plant, I don't care.

We have more towels to sell.

They're almost out.

If you want a towel,

I love it.

If you want a towel that says you dried instead of you died, like in Dark Souls font, now is the time to it.

Fill your stuff stocking stuffers.

Is that what people do?

Yeah, dude.

Because who knows if you're going to be able to get one for

one of these towels, that's going to fill up a lot of stocking.

Yeah, that's basically the whole stocking in one towel.

So you're good.

Yeah.

Also, what is Sword of the Sec, Chris planner?

Just journey, but you're surfing on a sword.

Perfect.

We'll talk about that right after this.

I can't believe there's more to say, but

so this is basically journey two, right?

Okay, okay, okay, okay, okay.

I want to pop in here and clarify.

Yourself.

Giant Squid.

Yes.

No, somebody else.

Giant Squid makes this game, right?

And I feel like they've been chasing the Journey 2 dream day one, right?

There are some people, I guess, involved who made Journey.

And then Giant Squid forms.

And then they make Abzu, right?

Remember that one?

Yeah.

Merry Journey 2.

We didn't play as much with the birds.

Yes.

Right?

I think it was called Bird Party.

I think it was called Bird Party 2.0.

Or the Pathways, but it may have been Bird Party.

Yes.

They were like, no, no, no, no.

What we're going to do this time is we're going to make a perfect game.

And like, I just think they should have tried that from the beginning, but hey, take the time.

Hey, listen.

And that is, yes.

I think that is how we get to what feels deeply like Journey 2 unofficial edition.

Yeah, if you're familiar with the, it was that game company, right?

Was the name of the device?

Yes, the original game.

They still make stuff.

They made Sky, which is great.

Yes, of course.

It's all very

contemplative, beautiful.

I don't know how to categorize it.

It's not quite an adventure game.

It's an experience.

Yeah, I mean,

it's interesting because it kind of.

If you think about what you would normally get from a video game and you think about like different sliders, right, in terms of like the visual inputs of the game and the like the challenge or the difficulty that you're getting and

that sort of thing.

It's sort of like backing off of challenge.

It's reducing that, I think, so that you are never, it wants to be, I think it never wants to put you in a place where you're like doing the same thing over and over again.

It's very much not about frustration.

I think it's very much just keeping you.

But it's not like fully...

It's not so hands-off that it like feels like a roller coaster.

There are moments where it is that, but for the most part, you are interacting with a thing, but it is propelling you forward at all times.

You're not going to get like stumped on a pipe.

This is the biggest difference.

Are we talking about Journey or are we talking about Sword of the Sea right now?

Which one are we talking about?

We're talking about Sword of the Sea.

I wanted to bring that up because this game does definitely slot into that archetype a lot.

If you're familiar with that game company stuff, I think this has much bigger flower vibes in that you are going around a world and instead of turning everything from ruined cityscapes into flowers, now you're turning the desert into the ocean and you're doing it on a fucking hoverboard.

That's true.

You're turning things into things.

So, in that way, I do very flowers.

I think the journey comparisons are unfair.

This is wet flour.

Yeah.

Also, it's kind of like burger time because you're taking the parts of the burger and you're turning it into a burger.

So, you're taking things and you're making them into a different thing.

So, it's

vibe with Abzu a lot, and I also didn't play Bird Party, but this one I think succeeds where a lot of those games kind of leave me a little bit cold in that it's also a kick-ass hoverboarding game.

It is also like

flower by way of SSX tricky.

Yeah, there's definitely a like you're

the I think in comparison to a lot of these games that feel like you're kind of like proceeding through a three-dimensional painting, this feels much more like a playground, like a big expanse they want you to sort of zip through and like experience but not spend too much time in but you are like you're the tricks that you're doing and the sliding and the momentum it feels much more like kinetic like you're much more in touch with the the things that you are seeing around you're not just kind of like on rails i guess it feels right you're feels more uh connected and it also like i think when you're playing through games like journey and abzu

exploration is not really i mean there's a little bit of it a tiny bit of it but largely speaking you're like moving from area to area very quickly.

And here, what I found, like, and even in the first few areas, but this continues later on, if you go off the beaten path, there are like extra things to find, whether it's the currency that you're finding, or I found like a

fucking Tony Hawk score challenge for doing like tricks.

There's like genuinely side things.

I wouldn't say there's a ton of things.

There's not very many.

I only found one of those Tony Hawk.

I didn't like dive in, I think, 100% to explore every nook and cranny of the map.

I only found one of those Tony Hawk score challenge areas, but it did crack me up because

it's so unexpected of the genre to have an area where it's like, fuck yeah, man, I chained together Ollie kickflip into a Christair.

If it sounds like we have not explained what the campaign or like the overarching goal of this game is, it is because

it's very thin in a great way, in a way that I like, but it really is a go from point A to point B.

And there are different areas where you have a locked door where you're going to have to solve the slightest puzzles to get that door open and continue to move from point A to point B.

We're talking about all this like tricks and stuff, like Tony Hawk.

There is a scorekeeper.

It's in the pause menu.

It doesn't show up on the main screen except for in very specific times.

So like it is truly just a, we have given you the lightest amount of

an objective, and then we just want you to feel good in the meantime.

Puzzle isn't the word I would even use to kind of describe it.

It is like you're going to search, you need to follow this chain, follow these subtle environmental clues to go to this place where you will press the interaction button after, you know, surfing over a bunch of rad sand waves to turn this area into water.

And then some fish will appear.

Sometimes you'll climb on the fish and you'll ride them around, and there's a level where you're now you're a shark.

It's

it's it is, it's not brain teasers.

It's not puzzles in this game.

Yeah, if you can guide a cat to its food bowl using a laser pointer, that kind of means that you're ready for this game.

Yeah.

It's cool, too, because the lack of story, it's almost like anti-narrative or anti-real.

Buildings and other structures like that are used in this game as geometry, but they're very clearly not meant to represent like buildings that people are living in, right?

It's a very abstract sort of idea.

i mean i got the impression that like people lived in them at one time here's here's my read of the story and again it's very light there is dialogue you can find like tablets and things that kind of like give you poems about whatever the fuck happened i didn't fully absorb it but my read of is like you play as this being who is basically revived by the last drop of water in the world or something and you are trying to bring life back to this valley that has turned into a giant desert and to that end you basically find these points around the world and create oceans, and then the fish come back, and then you're riding fucking dolphins and stuff, and it's like turns into a paradise.

It's a Fantasia short.

It's about as much story as you would find in a Fantasia setting short.

Which honestly is not far off.

That's more, it's more story that was in Journey, which had no language whatsoever and really just a few pictures.

So it is interesting that they're slightly moving in that direction, but I prefer it because it just simplifies and directs what they're trying to do, which is, again, having this very cool, feeling, experiential thing that isn't mired by we're going to send you down dialogue crease and shit.

It's also the thing that I

really dug about this as compared to other games that, like, I think experiential, like, this is a genre at this point, right?

Like, it's a small sub-genre, but, like, there's other things like this.

I think it's in other perspectives or whatever, but what I think is

makes this work for me is that I never feel like I am being forced to slow down and look at everything around me at a pace where it's being dictated to me, right?

Like it's like,

I feel like in a lot of games like this, it's like you have to slow down and really appreciate all of the work that we put into this art because we made all this art for you.

And this game will just let you freaking truck through the art in a way that feels...

It feels magical.

Like it doesn't feel like someone made it.

It feels like, holy shit, this is all happening around me.

And I don't even need to slow down to look at it because I know something else awesome is going to happen around the corner.

And there are moments where like they will take control of the camera and like make sure you see the dope ass thing, whether it's the giant tower that you're going towards or the fucking dolphin, whatever, dolphins showing up, whatever the dope thing is.

They'll discuss it.

Don't dismiss me, dolphin.

I got so excited every time I saw that dolphin.

I knew I was in for a good time whenever that rascal showed up.

It's so like.

It's really, really sidesteps.

And this is going to sound really dismissive.

And I genuinely don't mean it that way, but I struggle with games, even at the height of the genre, even a journey where it feels like plotting.

It feels like, oh, okay, I, I'm really having to work to get through this beautiful experience that they, and in this game, I mean, shit, man, you hit a point where you unlock like a boost button, and then you also learn how to dive straight down into a, into a ramp or a half pipe, and it becomes like wipeout.

Like, you are going through it so, so i i think i finished the game in a few hours uh and i even went around and collected some of this stuff because there is like a currency you can find that you spend to unlock abilities like tricks or grabs or you know dives or completely optional uh not particularly uh you know game assisting abilities uh and i got through it real real fast and i never felt a moment of like boredom or uh frustration with the pacing of the game Yeah, usually in these games, they'll have the moment where it's like, you've been sapped of your powers and you're going to walk slowly for five minutes.

And then you're going to feel really fucking good when they give them back to you.

And here you just basically start with the dope ass powers.

Right.

Yeah, something that probably bears mentioning because of the name of the game, you're not actually like hitting much stuff.

There's not much hitting going on.

From the name Sword of the Sea, you might expect it to be sort of.

Yeah, there's no combat.

There's no combat, which maybe we should, I could have clarified up top because it's the sword is very prominent.

As soon as you get the sword, dude steps right on it.

And he's like, is it a sword as a scapegoat?

It's like this idiot's never seen a sword before.

Every time a big monster comes, this guy's looking at the sword like, help me, sword.

It's like, dude, you have to go to the side.

Let's go.

Talk to the Zelves.

Why don't you go to the heroic Zelda and ask that guy, like, what, you know, what is it?

He's jammed it into the ground a lot.

There's a lot of jamming.

That's out of frustration.

Like, because you can't figure out what to do with it.

And it's to make things wet.

Put the business in a man.

And it's to make things wet.

And when it's wet, when the ground is water, it goes faster, and that's really nice.

Oh, yeah.

That's very satisfying.

It's fun that we focus so much on not the art and music.

And

this is how the game looks and sounds.

I hate that.

It's pretty.

I don't have any vocabulary.

We can do it.

We can do it.

I'm going to try.

That's fun.

So beautiful.

Okay.

So I'm going to give you

watch a video of it.

Seriously.

You should watch a video of it.

But I'm going to paint a word picture.

because he's good at it.

This is our job.

Upward pictures.

You're skateboarding across a desert, and you go up a giant dune and jump high into the air and do a kick-flip spin.

And when you land in the desert, instead of it just going foomp, it leaves this ripple of sand around you.

And then you zoom off and ride a fucking dolphin.

It's really good.

It also has a dynamic soundtrack like those, you know, the best of that game code.

That as you like bring this world to life and as you, know

fix the world, the music kind of swells and picks up and adds you know instruments.

Can I just say I love an isolated flute?

Oh, dude.

I mean, give me an isolated flute.

Any of those high-pitched woodwinds, I'm right back in third grade listening to Peter and the Wolf

transported.

Austin Wintori is here for you.

You know, you found a perfect,

I guess.

Yeah.

Did he do it?

Yeah.

Yeah, he did.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I just need more.

Isolated flutes, everybody.

That's all we need.

That's all we need.

The game is very pretty.

The music is great.

It all comes together for me because it is a sensual game.

And not in a bounce-cabow-wow way.

I mean, we didn't use a different word than you feel.

I was really betrayed by you.

What do you want?

Sensory?

Is that good?

It depends what you're going for.

It depends on what you...

You can't say sensual.

You can't say sensual and then be like, not sensual, but wink.

Like, use a different word.

I'm saying it just makes you feel something it it it is

being able to turn hot into cold being able to like ring a bunch of bells being able to uh do all the various spins and everything it's all these little tiny good feeling things from other video games smashed into one place and i would say it's sensual cool i would say it

if i could attempt because it's and i kind of get what you're going for because i was attempting to to

summarize this in my head while i was playing but by getting narrative out of the way and making the game so like obvious which is to say you are bringing back the sea that's what you're always doing right you're bringing back the sea you've got the sea you're bringing it back to to this area by getting the game stuff out of the way it's like communicating narrative through gameplay in a way that whereas like the actions that you are taking Because there's not a story, the actions that you're taking, I think, are imbued with more meaning.

Because it's the meaning that you're like laying on top of them but there is a i guess my point is there is a story there is a story when i get frustrated by

you know

rpgs that take 15 hours to get going and things like that like this is what i'm talking about you can make someone you know what perfect example we just played mafia last week perfect example it took five hours of you slowly carrying wine for anything to happen

Here, you can make people feel things in a very short amount of time.

I think the Ori games are like an incredible example of this where they really get going very quickly that just requires like, I think,

precision and careful editing and thought about what you're including versus not.

I'm not saying games don't need narrative and dialogue.

And of course, a lot of games do need that stuff, but you just need to be very selective about what you're doing and making sure those first few hours for people are an incredible experience and not just a preamble for what is going to be an incredible experience.

I think it's great.

I was surprised by how sticky it was.

Like, I kept finding myself with time, and instead of playing other stuff,

I kept coming back to this one until I finished it.

And it is, I think, just the right length, just the right size, and

just really, just a really well-crafted version of this sensual of this thing.

Sensual

erotic, sensitive.

Hey, can I do a box quote?

Let me try a box quote from the besties.

This sword of the sea is extremely sensual

this sword of the sea is extremely sensual yeah one not too hard not too soft not too long not too short okay one star but leaves a leaves a trail of wetness behind wherever it travels this sword of the sea

let's get it wet this summer 2022 John Romero is going to make you his bitch in sword of the sea

Hey, there's a lot of other stuff to talk about, including but not limited to Bubsy4D.

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Okay, Gamescom's going on.

Should we just get into the heart of the matter?

The only thing that people care about?

Yeah.

And it should be noted.

Jeff looks great.

That's what I cared about.

He had a great suit on.

It should be noted, we are recording this a little bit early.

So if you're like, why are they not talking about the huge Silk Song announcement that just happened yesterday?

It's because we're recording it before that announcement.

And we asked Jason Schreier.

Jason Schreier's like, I got the scoop.

I got the skinny.

And we're like, give it, give it up.

And

he said it's the way it until next year.

No, he didn't.

Yeah, they showed Silk Song at the opening ceremony of Gamescom,

by which I feel so bad for Jeff Keeley, by the way.

Why?

I think it's okay.

What they showed of Silk Song was like

30 seconds of new gameplay footage.

There's a demo that is playable at Gamescom.

That is the big sort of proof of life, I feel like.

You know, Jeff, king that he is of this industry and the power that he wields.

Back.

for sure.

Wanted it so flew to Sydney or whatever the fucking name.

He said, give me a pick.

I will go down to the game mines myself.

Just let me do the announcement that it's live now.

I want to say the words, please.

They showed up at their office one day and he was prostrate in front of their door with cups of coffee.

What can I do for you, Australian gentleman?

Jeff's outside again.

He's whipping himself with the cat of night's house.

That's a British guy who who works at the Australian

yeah sure and all they gave him was 10 seconds of gameplay and they let him announce that the game was coming out in 2025 even though they had already announced that fact okay but it's also playable in some way at gamescom and that is a that is a genuine it is escalation of evidence that this thing is i mean it's been playable before this is not the first time it's been playable

can i ask can i ask guys seriously yeah as somebody who like liked silk song and i like liked hollow night not silk song i liked hollow Knight and thought it was really good.

At this point,

is it more of like a meme or does this just frustrate you?

And people who are like actually looking forward to it a lot, I feel like this shit, I would be so annoyed if I really were very.

This has reached a sort of ironic level of, like, Hollow Knight, I think, is, can hang with the best Metroidvania ever made.

Like, it is way, way, way, way, way up there, top three easy masterpiece.

And I can't wait for Silk Song.

But seven years, by the time I hit five years waiting on a game, it escalates to a point of I have to distance myself from it to be like, it's not real.

I mean, there was an Edge preview of it like three years ago, maybe four years ago.

It's been in the works.

I'm excited to see anything out of this fucking game, man.

I think what's sad to me, assuming that it actually is coming out, which I assume the listeners know at this point, it will probably mean the death of the Silk Song subreddit, which has been basically dedicated to faking Silk Song news over the course of the last three or four years in increasingly dramatic ways.

Most recently, someone created a totally different subreddit that only had one post in it.

The subreddit was called Indie Grahams, and the post was Silk Song Announced.

And then they retweeted it on the Silk Song subreddit as an effort to fool everyone.

It's been just this escalating game of that community is going to absolutely melt down, I feel like, when this game exists.

I don't know how we're going to do it.

I'm happy for them.

I don't feel like this situation is their fault, obviously.

Like, this is not

the creators of the game, right?

I don't know.

It's a little bit.

A little bit.

There's a messaging issue.

There's a messaging issue.

Okay.

The Silk Song announcement is coming out after we...

The second, I guess, announcement is coming out after we record this podcast.

So hopefully by this point, by the time people hear hear this we'll know when the game's coming out i don't want to talk about silksong anymore

scratch

what

bubsy's back

yeah so that's how the trailer starts it's so scary seriously he yells at you like that he yells bubsy's back no the trailer starts with bubsy and he looks amazing and he's looking at all his old games and he's like these fucking stink but it's better now and then you see bubsy 4d and it's a cool way for a beloved IP to reintroduce itself to the new generation.

It's crazy that this is happening two months after the Gex trilogy was released on Steam.

Like, what is happening right now?

Well, I mean, it's all the same person, right?

Yeah.

Wasn't the Gex trilogy also part of Digital Eclipse?

Well, it's Gex.

Gex made all these games.

Oh, Gex.

I'm sorry.

I don't know if you see the logo, but Gex can sound confusing.

I just like that Wade Rosen, the current CEO of Atari.

And let me be be clear.

Gex Trilogy, that was limited run games.

There are other sickers in the world.

You get really rich, you take over Atari, and then you use all of that power and money to make Bubsy 4D.

I just think that is somebody living out their fantasy, living out their dream.

I am nervous.

and perhaps a little skeptical that this is going to transition cleanly from Bubsy being

something we all can have a good laugh about,

especially below 3D, to, hey, I'm back and I'm in on the joke too, Megi Bubsy 4D.

It's meta.

Hey, just out of curiosity,

for your guys, I'm just curious, without looking it up, how many Bubsy games have there been?

Are we counting like

this is the fifth one?

Are we talking about the game?

Okay, so 3D, Bubbsy.

Isn't there a Budsy games?

But there are mobile ones that are slightly different, and there's also the art unofficial Bubsy games.

Yeah.

So, like, what are you counting?

I was talking about the official ones.

I don't know, probably, like, six if you count the portable ones as different from the plain ones.

Yeah, it's six.

The number is six, which is fucking staggering to me that Bubsy's been in that many games, and now soon to be seven.

Yeah.

And I guess, like,

the irony.

How far does this go?

Okay, so here's, I think this game for it to work has to to actually be a fun game.

Yeah, I mean, I would argue that's the case for

all games.

It's got a bit of gameplay.

Yeah, well, I checked out,

you can see the developer, I think their name is Fabraz.

They're on Steam, and they've made a number of games that are quite well-rated.

I've not played any of these.

They're called Demon Turf, Slime Son.

Planet Diver, but they have

Slimeson?

That is a great game.

It seems like these people know how to make a game.

So they are trusting it with people who know how to make a game.

Right.

Like, I

can't go wrong with Bubsy.

Bubbsy always designed.

Like, his actual look.

I mean, he's grown up.

He's more mature.

He's wearing a suit now.

This is an adults Bubsy game for adults.

It's called.

Yeah, second divorce Bubsy.

Yeah.

Now I have to

Bubsy Adults Only is the original working game.

I have to watch the trailer to participate participate in the discussion.

This seems like such a betrayal, guys.

I don't know.

Yeah.

Bubsy.

Bubsy.

I don't know.

Atari's been doing interesting stuff.

Hey, speaking of Atari doing interesting stuff, did you see that Pac-Man Atari they did?

Yeah, I did.

You see that?

Which one?

That's good.

Look at that.

Look, just look up the Pac-Man Atari 2600.

They have a Pac-Man-themed Atari 2600 that has

controllers in four different colorways

represent the ghosts.

And it's like

it's gorgeous.

I mean, it is gorgeous.

But they're doing more, I don't know.

Atari's doing interesting stuff like that.

They were in a weird place earlier where they were trying to do a hotel and bitcoins and stuff or whatever.

I don't know.

They're

a little more interesting.

You can listen to a little show called Post Games.

Listen to an interview between me and a CEO, and you'll find out that that hotel is still happening, baby.

The hotel is still

Um, what other big announcements did we?

Oh, the Kirby Air Riders directed.

Yeah, this

wasn't really officially part of Gamescom, but they did spend 45 minutes of Sakurai talking about what Kirby Air Riders is.

And at one point, he's like,

you know, people might be saying that this is like Mario Kart, and it kind of is, but they still let me do it.

I could watch that dude talk about any game he's making fucking forever.

There's a bit where he's talking about how great the original Kirby Air Riders was because it only used a single button for all the interactions.

He's like, unfortunately, we've added a second button.

It looks so fucking fun.

I did not play the original at all, and I know it's a game a lot of people have a lot of nostalgia for, but just the movement, like, it's not a kart racer.

Like, it is.

I mean, it has elements of it, but it seems more kinetic, like almost like a bayoneta take on it.

Yeah, it's more about like charging up and dashing, like chaining together these like charged dashes and using special Kirby abilities and stuff.

It looks like a fucking blast.

I cannot wait for this one.

Um, hey, I haven't played the last few Call of Duty Black Ops games.

Have they always been kind of completely fucking unhinged?

What was the trailer for Black Ops 7?

We played one.

What was the one we played?

What was it last year?

That was quite good.

Just play Black Ops 6.

When did that come?

Yeah, that came out last year.

Okay, so I'm not.

We're not, they are wild, and y'all, there are a million reasons that you might not want to play a Call of Duty game over the last 20 years.

But I can't believe these games exist.

They have gone so far off the plot.

Every mission now is just a different type of game.

I don't know if that's what they're doing this time around.

I mean, based on the trailer, it's like you get super jumps and the world looks like how it did at the end of Inception.

You get hit with a fucking scarecrow gas and you and your squad all of a sudden are like in Venezuela, but all the streets go straight up into the sky.

It looks insane.

I think they've rightly realized that from a design standpoint, you can't make a grounded Call of Duty game for every single mission and have it really keep it compelling.

So they've figured out, as Plant said, new ways to sort of refresh it.

Last game we played had like a big open world mission, which was incredible, in addition to like fucking grappling hooks and shit.

And this one seems to be going even more in that direction where you get fucking superpowers for some reason.

And eventually, there's like an end game to the campaign where it's like a PVE co-op centric experience that's like very involved.

Actually, this whole game can be played in co-op, which is pretty cool.

I don't know.

I don't know if it's enough to get me back in the ecosystem, but it's always fun to see, specifically Black Ops, to see a trailer for Black Ops where it's like, we're on dinosaurs.

And it's like, what the fuck?

You are?

Cool.

It feels like the sort of game that like for people don't, that don't give a shit about the militaristic stuff.

Like, it's designed for them.

It almost feels like they should call it a different, like, make it a different thing, call it a different, like, just call it Mind Wars or something like that.

Well, but then the multiplayer is the militaristic stuff and the, like, free-to-play, whatever it is.

The battle royale mode is, like, all the basic militaristic stuff.

So, you're getting everything in that package.

It's how they've done Call of Duty forever, basically.

Yeah.

Sorry, are we just going to ignore the fact that Gryffindor came up with Mind Wars for free?

I thought it was anybody

in Mind Wars.

Yeah, so

the bad boyfriend from Gilmore Girls is the star of this.

Or the good boy from This Is Us.

Depending on how you look at him.

Yeah,

it's crazy.

Crazy.

How y'all feel about the new Batman game?

You see the

Lego Batman.

Lego Batman Legacy of the Dark Knight, which seems to be a combination of every Batman thing, like Batman TV shows, the Batman movies.

You got Nolan movies, you got Burton movies, you got the Reeves movie, but also looks kind of like it plays like a Rocksteady Batman.

It does.

Yeah, the combat looks like a Rocksteady game.

It looks like what they're doing here is what they did with the Star Wars Rise of the Skywalker Lego games.

Just mushing it all and

fucking all the hits.

Hey, listen, I'll just say, I'll just say this, okay, Lego.

I don't think we need anybody else taking all of popular culture and smooshing it into a big mooshy slurry.

You know, we get it.

You know, I don't think we need to just moosh everything up into one big gloopy pile and slurp it down in Lego form.

I don't think that's necessary.

I mean, I gotta be honest, they were kind of doing that long before Disney was.

Yeah, way, way, way, way, way.

How many of those beauties are sitting on your shelf right now, Russ?

You know, I'm not sure.

None.

Is that right?

None, yeah.

The answer is none.

I don't know.

None is the answer.

None.

None of those beauties.

i even kids get bored of those games every every game journalist alive has recommended a lego game to anybody looking for games to play with their kids and then without fail after 15 minutes every kill on the plan is like this is boring i don't i think lego's the last one genuinely is like a genuinely great game their hit rate is so bad i cannot get the kids to try them anymore because they are so i think there was a time when they were pumping them out like every six months and at that point i agree with you and i think what they've focused on instead like it's been two years since that star wars game at least yeah i think they are now spending more time on them i think they would need to do something for me to like separate it a bit more because in my head that's like a big just a big glump that doesn't really like an oversaturation sort of situation

uh i feel like the lego fortnite stuff has been more successful at like kind of capturing well it's like a separate brand kind you know what i mean like yeah for sure that lego thing this is not the shit on all of lego because that uh the lego thing that jeff shared with us last time that jeff had one of his special parties um the the one where you're a lego brick and you're rolling around

you know interacting yeah the cobbling that lego adventure i think is something like that look i can't remember the title maybe they do need batman

i did not i was not paying super close attention to the gamescom stuff as it was being announced and so i got a slack message from russ in the middle of the day that just said sekiro anime And it felt like a prank at first, but no,

they're doing one up on Crunchyroll, Sekiro Anime, adaptation of the plot of the game.

And I'm, one, wanting to play Sekiro again.

Thanks to that.

Two, excited for this anime.

Three, wondering if this is any kind of fuel for the fire, for the Sekiro to

finally come to me.

Because I'm ready.

I've been ready.

Do you think that Activision can get that to happen?

Yeah.

Yeah, no, I prayed really hard to the Lord.

I said, give me more Sekiro, give me Sekuro anime, give me more Bubsy.

And the Lord was like, you got it, man.

What if it's two together?

I just want to say, Griffin, what if it's both

in the anime and the game, where when it gets to a hard part in the anime, they turn to you and they say, Griffin,

please help with your skills.

I want you to take over in this scene.

And then you play.

You can fight this Monkey Man 60 times.

You can play the adventure.

Travis, Griffin, Travis in here.

Griffin, listen.

I'm saying you could play the adventure.

Like, you could play the anime.

That sounds cool, man.

Yeah.

That'd be great.

Do you think they're going to render the poop?

I think they'll render the poop for sure.

I think you try to start episode 10.

It's just called Sword Saint Ishing, and you try to start it, and a prompt comes up on Netflix on Crudge Roll.

It's like, nope, you're not fucking ready, man.

You're not good enough.

Watch the first nine episodes.

Watch the first nine episodes a hundred thousand times, and then you can come and watch the finale.

Yeah, a weird batch, a weird batch of stuff out of of Gamescom, but this is sort of the nature of the decentralized

news

state of the gaming industry where everyone, I feel like, I don't know, you don't get any huge fucking pressers anymore where it's like, and here's

the new Zelda,

because that's controlled entirely by Nintendo, or here's the new...

you know,

PlayStation joint, because that's going to be on their state of plays.

It's just left.

It's left press conferences in kind of a strange spot.

There's some ghost of Yote stuff, but yeah.

Yeah, they announced the DLC for Ghost of Yote.

When is that?

Is that game out soon?

It's this fall.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's weird to announce DLC for a game that's not out.

I agree.

Yeah.

I mean, I'm excited.

I'm excited for the game.

Yeah.

Okay.

Honorable mentions time.

Anyone got anything they want to talk about?

I, Justin, kindly gave me a handheld, the Ionio Pocket Ace,

which has really become

my off-court buddy over here.

It is

your new off-court buddy.

Where is the old off-court buddy that we have?

And so I have a, now I was adopting a sort of two-handheld system where I would have one for the big fancy stuff, and then I have the

Pocket Micro

Classic for, you know, I just finished FF6 Game Boy Advance audio remaster edition on that one.

uh but this is more of a mid-size guy this still fits in the old pocket and it can run like fucking anything i got um uh final fantasy 12 up and running i got celeste up and running on it and it's fun to have a little guy that i can take around and i don't know i just really really really like the form factor i also bought one of the retroid second screen attachments that just came out uh because it's supposed to fit really nicely on the um on the on the ace so that's looking forward to cool thing about the ace that is kind of different at this uh price point for a lot of these uh higher end android consoles is that it's a it is a three by two aspect ratio screen yes which is not the best if you want to like play a bunch of like uh high-end stuff that's already in widescreen but if you want to play anything that is at that like old school ratio like it's going to look a lot better it's going to take up more of the real estate on the screen and that's not super common in the vertical form factor to have this three by two screen yeah it's kind of neat neat place the ace slides in hoops hoops hoops can you tell people about your sneaker head theory about these things yeah i don't i don't know it's it's when you follow this space it's like very iterative right it's a lot about like latest and greatest and what is the newest hottest thing to a point where like People joke about the one feature that is missing from this year's thing or this year, this month's thing that'll be in the next month's thing.

But you can, a lot of these are funded through indiegogo it's kind of wild like if you look at when the pocket ace or the pocket pro a lot of these i neo products you do this ambernick does it sometimes i believe but they start on an indie crowdfunding platform so like if you go to indiegogo right now for

i neo i think is is doing one for a flip console a clamshell sort of ds form factor that they are which has really become the battlefront of that is where the market is who can make the best double screen clamshell right so you had the retroid flip 2, which is widely beloved.

A lot of people like that thing.

It's a really solid option.

One screen does not have the bottom screen.

And then you have Retroid releasing that second screen attachment that Griffin just mentioned.

And then we've got the INEO Flip DS that just got announced, I think, this week.

And that is a started with a crowdfunding campaign.

And then you can see on the crowdfunding campaign, like exactly how many people have

pre-ordered these things and it's like like the i neo pocket actually is the one the flip is the higher end windows based thing that is over a thousand dollars yeah that's a little much that's

a lot guys it's a lot it's kind of wild guys and i just announced the thor which they they teased the thor they have not told us what thor what the thor will be yet but yeah it is just wild

wild wild it is a wild space but you can see how many people have crowdfunded each of these things it's crazy Like, you can see the exact number of people that are purchasing each of these.

And I have heard people, like, on some channels, like, kind of bragging about like being number two or number three or even number one.

How do they have the time between all the fucking to brag about that stuff?

Russ frustic of all.

Where are we?

What are we doing right now?

A glass house.

You couldn't even dream of being in a glass house right now.

You wish you're in Wonder Woman's invisible jet.

It's like nothing.

Your house is made of candy floss, and you're spraying the fucking hose all around.

So they've raised a half million, $600,000 pretty much on

the Pocket DS, which is the world's first dual-screen Android handheld.

And that one they have.

You can see they have done, like, for example, at the early bird level, which is like $400 for your base model.

That's the cheapest one.

They have 54 of those have sold.

Step up from that, 257.

You can see exactly how many of each of these models have sold and how many are unclaimed.

And it's kind of a wild way of doing business because it's like, if the market's there, people will just keep like releasing it.

And

I don't know.

I guess from wild.

I guess from my perspective, the games that I loved on both the 3DS

and the DS, which I guess these devices are designed for.

Right.

Of the ones that haven't been like re-released in some format.

So the examples being like the Castlevania,

those GBA and DS games.

I think there's like 10 of those DS slash 3DS games that I like really would want to play,

which makes the justification kind of hard for me.

Can I say that's crazy?

Personally speaking, that's crazy.

The DS and 3DS is those live.

There are a lot of games on there.

A lot of great games on there, but like...

So to say you have 10 you'd want to play is I feel like there's a

lot of games that can't be adapted because of the dual screen format.

I don't know.

I don't know if one of these is going to become like my I think the dream is always having like the one the one true handheld that I can play everything on and like this is tough man because these

you really if you look at this space there are some consoles where like the best way to play it is still on original hardware right right The DS is like that, the Vita is like that, 3DS is like that.

Certainly, oh, well, home consoles, forget about it, but yeah, like even those old ones, that's still the best way of playing it.

And that's not easy to hack, too.

Yeah.

Yes, they are.

Oh, that's like well settled because nobody cares, right?

It's like, but from a preservation perspective, a lot of these games, you will not be able to have this experience like without some sort of hardware that can emulate it, right?

Like even

like in RetroArc, you can do a in the like MGBA emulator, you can do a

amount of solar radiation that you are receiving

on

for Boktai, right?

So like that stuff can be emulated, but that's the level, like to be able, but if you want to play Boktai,

those are your options.

You can play WarioWare, WarioWare Twisted on the GBA with the motion sensor.

Like there's weird edge cases that are.

My kids are obsessed with iCarly.

they've watched every episode of iCarly and the only iCarly games are on Nintendo DS so I have to like go dig out my pink Nintendo DS charge it up go find the iCarly games and and get and so it's like I

understand the edge case thing but like especially as like your kids get older The ability to say like, hey, there's 30, 40, 50 games on this thing that I got to show you because it's wild.

There's a real value to that.

Personally speaking, Henry is really wanting to play Ocarina of Time, and and I don't want him to play any version but the 3DS version because the game is not

especially approachable to an eight-year-old and it's in 64 fashion.

What about Ship of Harkin?

What about Ship of Harkin?

Quick plug, actually, for Sword of the Sea.

Again, I meant to mention this in the earlier discussion, but I played with Cooper, who is seven.

and does not play

almost nothing with like dual sticks and she loved sword of the sea Yeah, she loved it, and it was just enough of a challenge to make her feel like she was leading the experience.

But, like,

she really got it.

Only thing that I thought was interesting, I thought you guys would think was interesting,

she was over-manipulating the right stick because she's so used to roadblocks where there is no camera, third-person camera support, and you are completely manipulating the camera on the right thumb stick.

And she was getting frustrated with the game because she was wanting to control

instinctually, she was wanting to control the the camera constantly.

So she was like fighting the game until I told her, like, honey, in a good game, there's a camera and they're trying to help you.

You don't have to do it all on your own, hon.

The game will help.

It'll work with you.

I know you're used to having to fight Roblox tooth and nail to get any pleasure out of it.

Right.

I also wanted to shout out the show I've been watching on Netflix.

Big shout out to David Weiner, my father-in-law, for the recommendation.

It's called Final Draft.

It is a Japanese competition reality athleticism show where like 30 retired athletes compete in physical 100 style athletic challenges.

And it's really great because the, I don't know, it's an older base of competitors who all have quite a bit to prove and most of which have reached the end of their careers.

And this is sort of like their last way of using these skills to try and win a big prize pool.

And it's, it's, that is a cool concept for a show.

My father-in-law sending that to me would be the most fucking loaded thing possible.

You know what I mean?

Think about it.

It comes up.

It's a bunch of old dogs with one last fight left in them, just in case they got one last scrap in there.

In case you think they don't have it anymore, Griffin.

It hits different from a David Weiner than it does from a Tommy Smarl, but I can see the point.

Not fighting for physical dominance as much, I understand.

I played a game called Super Mario 64 on the Nintendo 64.

I played it because I owned that version that came out on Switch that they stopped selling for some reason.

I forget what they called it.

But I was looking for games because I beat Mario Wonder with my son more or less sitting alongside me and he was super, super into it.

And I was looking for games that we could play next and

went there and he loved it.

He was incredibly into it, not afraid of the eel, remarkably,

loved all the swimming.

We ended up beating that.

and then I was like, What could I play next?

And I tried booting up um

Odyssey, which is also in that game pack.

It's Odyssey Sunshine, which I skipped because it's dog shit, and then straight to Galaxy.

Galaxy was way too overwhelming.

Yeah, I think he was just like, it was too much for him.

Scare, it starts with the scary, like Bowser fucking mortaring the Princess Peach's castle, and then suddenly you're in space.

And it's just there's he doesn't mean that metaphorically, kids.

Uh, he means that literally.

Sorry, literally, yeah, yeah, it's a shame.

Um, And then, so I jumped over to Yoshi's Island, which he was into, but then now he just wants to keep going back to Mario Wonder, which I guess is not a failing.

But not ideal is the fact that the only levels he wants to see are the Wiggler races.

Wiggler, as we all know, is the caterpillar that runs along and is very friendly.

There are only two Wiggler races in the entire game, and he just wants to replay those over and over again.

It's fucking boring as hell.

So I just want to play Yoshi's Island with him because it rules.

Yeah.

You said have the kids be easy.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's true.

Chris?

Yeah, I'm just going to use this as a chance to plug something related to that, which is I guested on The Ringerverse over at The Ringer.

They have a game show called Button Mash, and with Joshua Rivera and Maddie Myers and the host Spinlinberg, we picked the best Mario games of all time.

And it's a really fun episode.

I did research ahead of time.

And let me tell you, I learned so much about Mario sewing games.

Oh, yeah.

So much.

They made two of them over a decade apart.

And you can learn all about it on that episode.

Did you do every single Mario game or just like the core?

It was a draft.

So there were like categories.

It was very ringer, very sports, you know, focused.

You know, we talked a lot about baseball.

They do love sports.

Although we do do a bracket as well.

We know about sports.

Sports go about sports.

That's true.

Justin, you got anything besides your nerd-ass handheld shit?

No.

No.

I don't.

Thank you.

I want to hear about your nerd ass.

No, no, no.

We've talked.

We had a good segment about that.

I think we did.

We did.

We did.

We've done our due diligence.

Let me scoot away some of the things that I had within reach to.

Hold on.

Just got to scoot away some of these handhelds that I had within reach to

this is actually a fun game.

How many within reach right now?

I've got.

How long will you give me?

I've got

two.

I legitimately don't have any within reach of the studio because I need to.

It's a workspace.

Because it's a workspace, right?

All I have is my Marvel stickers for when you guys do a good job.

That's it.

That's all I have within reach.

No stickers.

They might have a channel out today, I noticed.

What?

No stickers today, I noticed.

In a while, Griff, actually.

He's a stingy gentleman when it comes to stickers.

It's got to mean something when he does it.

It does.

That's the show, I think.

I think we did it.

Piant, you want to recap games we talked about?

We talked about so much good stuff today.

We talked about Sword of the Sea, but we also talked about Hollow Knight, Silk Song, Kirby Air Riders, Call of Duty, Black Ops 7, Bubsy 4D, Lego Batman, Legacy of the Dark Knight, and we talked about stuff that is in video games too.

We talked about Atari 2600 Pac-Man Edition, the Sekaro anime, I and Eo Pocket Ace, TV shows like Final Draft, and then there was a bunch of retro Mario games thrown in there in Lego Voyagers.

It was just a full, wonderful episode.

Yeah, Lego Voyager is the the name of that co-op game we were trying to remember.

Lego Voyager.

There we go.

All of the details, all of the links, and so much more are available to you at besties.fan.

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We have some new members to shout out.

We have Kelly, we have Brian, we have Steven, and we have NJ.

Thank you for being members.

We have a new episode of the Resties coming at you on Tuesday.

We're talking about

Stick It to the Stick Man, which will be a fun one.

And we also

have a game that we're talking about next week, which is hurdling a very cool game from the makers of Far.

That's it was called Far

and from the publisher Panic, who you know for Untitled Goose Game and Despalote.

This one is like

imagine Babe,

but it's with like Babe or Babe Pig in the City, which one?

No,

more original Babe, because it's about hurting creatures.

Is it about hurting, though?

Hurting, hurting.

I don't want to hurt them.

I want to hurt them.

Yeah.

Sounds hurt.

But the game is called Herdling, which I think is that's what you are.

That's going to do it for us for this week.

Until next time, my name is Justin McElroy.

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.