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Name of the year.

I know that's not what we do here.

I know that we focus more on sort of the holistic package of a video game, but you ain't gonna beat Pete Pistrello.

You ain't gonna beat Peepistrello for Name of the Year.

It's a good name, man.

Peepistrello is

fun to say.

Is it fun?

Name, I mean, name of the year to say out loud, maybe.

Are you judging it as just like a person's name, Justin?

No, it's just like Peepistrello, does it help me remember?

You ain't gonna forget Peepistrello.

If I hear the name Death Spank, I'm immediately thinking Death Spank, right?

I'm like, I'm thinking about the heroic knight with the bad sense of humor and he loves bacon.

Death Spank, you know?

But Peepistrello, I don't know.

Who's Peepistrello?

Well,

are we including the subtitle in the name of the Peepistrello and the Curse Yo-Yo?

I mean, the Cursed Yo-Yo, like, it's fine.

It's not necessary.

Peepistrello.

Now, what about

Yismois, the oath in Felgana?

Because that's January 7th.

That came out.

That's a reason.

You might have forgotten about Yismois, the oath in Felgana.

It ain't no Peep Estrello, though.

You ain't topping Peep Estrella.

Turn up Boy Robson.

This title is better than Like a Dragon, Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii.

Really?

That's a good one.

That's a good one.

But it ain't Peep Estrello.

Peepestrello is more fun to to say than any other name I've ever heard.

The mouthfeel on this one is just out of sight.

Peeprello seems like you're getting away with something.

I agree with that.

I agree with that.

We should be allowed to say P.

Pistrello as much as we have, even in the intro of this podcast episode.

Yeah, I agree.

The Legend of Heroes trails through Daybreak 2.

No.

No.

Fair.

You ain't beating P.

Pistrello, baby.

My name is Justin McLoy, and I know the best game of the week.

My name is Griffin McIray.

I know the best game of the week.

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

My name is Ross Fruschik.

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, you, my friend, have become a member.

This week on the show, we're going to be talking about a new title called Peepistrello.

Peepistrello.

Peepistrello.

What is that, Chris Plant?

I'm really sorry.

Caught you by surprise.

I can't find the other game names, and I found one called Don't Tell Mom I Fed My Stepsister.

And let me tell you, it's not your finger.

You're not giving them sandwiches.

What is peepee strello christ i don't know it's like a it's a zelda game that's 2d pixels and you play as peepee strello uh a a thing with a yo-yo

okay thank you you know what we may have to reassign our jobs we'll talk about that during the break

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before we talk about peepee strello and the cursed yo-yo i just want to confirm because because in the intro the plant called peepee

are you saying peepee strello and the dissipated guy's name wrong are you saying no i need to clarify are you saying peepee strello and the cursed yo-yo peepee strello

and the cursed yo-yo

the cursed yo-yo and folks listening at home we are going to talk about the game that's that's going to be.

Sorry, I just need to note.

Yes, but frustrate, are you adding this like this fun second syllable to the word?

This is why, are you leaning into cursed?

Are we going with cursed?

I mean, cursed sounds.

I don't know.

That works.

I like that.

It does feel like

it.

Okay,

I need to clarify something.

Because a cursed yo-yo has a curse on it.

A cursed yo-yo is a yo-yo you really hate, which would be funny because it's like this cursed yo-yo, and then you throw it away and it comes right back to you.

That's a good bit.

That's funny.

That's a good bit.

What do you think to clarify, Russ?

Okay, at the beginning in the intro, when Plant was describing what this game is, he said a thing, specifically referring to Pipistrello.

And to be clear, Pipistrello is not a thing.

Pipistrello is an animal and a very specific animal indeed.

And I want to make sure that everyone knows what kind of animal he is.

Yeah, he is a Pipistrello.

He is the animal Pipistrello.

That's Italian for me.

Yes.

Thanks.

He's a bat.

He's a bat.

He's a bat.

Yeah.

I didn't realize that until maybe two hours into the game when someone referenced that he was a bat.

Because he doesn't look like a bat.

He looks like a little monster.

Or like a mouse.

What I thought the whole game is, I hate the way this ugly boy looks.

It is.

Can I try and set up what Pipistrello is for?

Because it has really charmed me.

Right from the jump,

the game opens by showing you what is essentially a 3D render of a Game Boy Advance.

Classic, not the SP, not the folding screen, a classic sort of, you know, long Game Boy Advance.

But like a knockoff you would find on like St.

Mark's Place.

Yes, yeah.

And you see the cartridge of Pipistrello and the cursed yo-yo go into this Game Boy Advance, and then it zooms in on the screen, and then that's, then you're in the game.

And I think that that is a really, really effective setup because this is

such a

love letter to Game Boy Advance games, that entire era, just from the way that it,

from a design standpoint, from an aesthetic standpoint, everything is sort of like

it took me a while to get used to how kind of like zoomed in everything felt.

Like it didn't feel like there's a ton of real estate on the screen that you are like navigating.

It feels like you're playing a Game Boy Advance game, but a really, really good one.

And I have so much fondness for that era.

So it worked on me.

Before we go too much further

yeah let's just say like what the game actually is yeah so it's like plant wasn't wrong there there is definitely like a uh night 90s Zelda 80s 90s Zelda overhead sort of vibe to this kind of a link to the past kind of thing but the thing that I think is cool and sets it apart is the Peepostrello's main thing is this this yo-yo and the yo-yo attacks you know like you would expect from like a star tropics or whatever lots of games have a yo-yo but what's cool about this is if you use the yo-yo to attack angles, like corners, there's

lots of 45-degree angles throughout the world.

And if you strike one of those, it kind of like can extend your attack.

So like your attack will then go 90 degrees off of that and can continue an attack.

And you can use that.

There are sort of like what you might think of as like lines in a Tony Hawk game.

Similar to that, there are lines in the different stages and screens where if you hit this certain angle, you'll hit repeated angles that will extend your attack that may even like take out all the enemies in the room if you shoot at just the right point.

It feels very

it reminds me a lot of Minish Cap

to conjure a specific Zelda reference.

It's very simple to start out.

It did not hook me at first, but very quickly as you explore the game, you know get your objective to collect these MacGuffins from around the map and you get different power-ups that give you more options, things to do with your yo-yo, like release it from the string and just send it rolling forward so you can use it as like a far off range attack but then you have to go and grab your dumbass yo-yo off the ground before you can attack with it again you eventually you learn to walk the dog which is kind of like a locomotion power that like opens a lot of fun doors for you yeah that's really And there's like tons of, you know.

That's probably the moment I would say that it really unlocked for me.

Cause like once you get to walk the dog that lets you travel with the attack, then it really starts to feel a lot more like kinetic than you would normally associate with the sort of like isometric.

Is that right?

Topic, no, not isometric.

Bird's eye.

It's a bird's eye.

But I think it's important to also know that like all that stuff ties into combat.

Sure.

And there is a lot of combat in this game, but it also ties directly into like all of the puzzles.

So there will be puzzles where like you need to launch your yo-yo because you need it to land against a wall and then weigh down a weight.

a pressure plate.

And then there are times where you need to ride it.

And there are times where you need to like ride it and then throw it and then like do multiple combinations of the two as you're moving your way through a given puzzle.

So that stuff feels very,

you know, some of the later Zelda games where they have these like mini puzzles within that are totally optional, like that stuff feels very much clued into that.

Yeah, you're collecting stuff to like, you know, basically heart pieces to like extend your health.

There's a really, really, really clever way that this game handles upgrades.

You're collecting money from fallen enemies and by solving puzzles and stuff the whole time.

And you have this little home base that you can pop into basically anywhere you see a little manhole cover on the ground.

You pop in and then you're back in your home base.

And there's a vendor there who will sell you new upgrades.

But the way it works is it'll be like, okay, this one will extend your health bar by one thing, or this one will increase your attack power.

But

it's going to put you in debt for $300.

And until you complete that debt, half your money is going to get drained.

It's going to go into this debt account to pay it off.

And also, you're going to have a debuff on you.

So maybe the debuff is you take more damage.

But once you've paid off the debt, the debuff goes away and that power is yours permanently, which I think is such a clever way of like, I don't know, always making you feel like you are.

progressing even if you hit a wall and you aren't making money you still have the upgrade right you still have the power it's just a question of like how long it takes you to work off the uh the debuff debt that it puts on you yeah i thought that was very very smart um yeah they do a similar similarly like in a smart, small thing is the more, it's like a little bit of a extremely, extremely souls-like element where the more money that you're carrying with you in a given time when you die, you lose more of it.

So there's this incentive to like upgrade and like a stress that comes along with carrying a bunch of cash on your on hand.

There is an interesting twist to that, though, because unlike a souls-like, you're not sent back to like a save point or like the equivalent of a bunch of stuff.

No, yeah, it's just a clean restart you can restart right from the screen that you were on but again you're taking that punishment and there are upgrades that like diminish the punishment it's it's a good point though russ because i think that games like this have struggled with ways to like when you have this sort of like limited health bar whatever ways to make death feel meaningful and not just like a reset or kind of an annoyance and i think that this like this system of like dinging you a little bit it makes it it makes it so that you don't lose any progress really you're like right back in it yeah but there there is a little bit of frustration with like ah

you know i should be more careful than that yeah because the upgrades are genuinely really meaningful like you are you are uh i died a lot yeah in this game especially yeah you'll find some like arena battles and it's like oh there's great rewards you can earn badges which are basically like you know how they work in uh like paper mario or whatever you find them and they give you these benefits but you know you only have so many slots to equip with the badges but you can increase that with upgrades too all that stuff is like so meaningful and and so tracking them down and doing these like super tough puzzles or arena battles, like you're going to get your ass kicked.

And so I don't know.

I wasn't expecting that from my first few, you know, moments with the game because it seemed pretty like, oh, it's like a cute Game Boy Advance thing.

But there's genuinely a lot, a lot going on in here.

You can also get in trouble if you're playing it like you would another game that looks like this.

Like if you're trying to force it into, I'm just going to whack this guy with my yo-yo until he dies.

And then I did that so many times.

And then I looked around and found like the one line that they wanted.

Like if I had just looked for that one angle for a second, I would have found the one attack that would have like wiped the whole board clean in a second.

Yeah.

There's also a parry because it's the year of the parry, man.

Once you unlock that parry, it really gets, it really starts getting good.

I want to go back to that thing that you said about the nostalgia of the Game Boy Advance Griffin.

What I really admire about this game is it captures the actual feeling of playing a great Game Boy Advance game, not just like looking like it.

And by that, I mean when you have nostalgia for an Atari game, you expect kind of like a trifle.

They're going to play for like a few minutes.

It'll be silly.

With an NES game, you have different expectations.

For people who were not around when the Game Boy Advance came out, what was so incredible about that system is it for the first time felt like real games.

Yes.

Like when you played Game Boy, it was cool that you could play a game on the go.

They did not feel like real games, barring maybe two or three exceptions.

No, they had this grand spectrum of like Game and Watch and Tiger handheld electronics are down here.

You knew you were getting methadone, right?

You knew you were just beeping on that until you could get home and play a real video.

It's sort of like Link's Awakening being maybe the only exception.

Yeah, I mean, there's exceptions to the rule, but for the most part, like, if you want to play Final Fantasy on the original Game Boy, you're playing like Final Fantasy Legend, which is not good.

And then Game Boy Advance comes along and it's like, oh, now you can just play, you know,

you're getting NES ports on GBA too, right?

Exactly.

Yes.

But there are these moments where you were playing a Game Boy Advance game and it just was shocking.

Like it was like, it surprised you how much the game opened up itself.

And I feel like that this game just captures that vibe.

Oops, like you were saying also, of like

there's more there there.

And if you don't go to it like expecting to kind of get your ass kicked and really have to like commit to the game, you'll you'll be caught off guard.

There's also a really fun tropical vibe to the game.

It was made by a developer.

Oh, what's their name?

Pocket Trap, a Brazilian indie developer.

And I don't know, the game seems to have a lot of cultural influence too, and sort of like the soundtrack and the design.

I used the word charming to describe it earlier.

It really is one that I was not expecting to,

I don't know, put a lot of time into, but we just had two extremely long coast-to-coast flights, and I could not put Peepostrello down.

They have previously worked on Dodgeball Academia and

Ninja on Cartoon Network and HBO Max.

Which is a cartoon, not a video game.

I also wanted to call attention to just the narrative beats, specifically the idea that Peepostrello is kind of like a shitty Nepo baby kid.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Like

the game starts and you're like coming back from a yo-yo yo-yo tournament where you just did like pretty poorly and your aunt is like

your aunt is very wealthy.

She like runs the energy company for the entire city basically.

And a bunch of villains.

She's an oil bear.

Like she's not great either.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Her whole family sucks.

Right.

So

the a bunch of villains show up and they're like, hey, you're stealing, you know, you're charging us raking over the coals over this energy.

And they like steal all her batteries and eventually, I think, accidentally suck her soul into the yo-yo.

But like they kind of have a point and that's right.

They're not wrong.

They are breaking up the monopoly of Mob L and like breaking up into five different things.

And she's like, the only thing that can save my soul is you have to rebuild the monopoly.

Yeah.

So it's a very clever, I think, twist.

I like that level of nuance you don't get in a lot of those GBA games.

I honestly also, at this point, I think it's really, I think if you're already going to do this retro aesthetic and you're going to do like, you might as well do something different with the narrative, right?

Like, why are we having to save the world again?

You know what I mean?

Like, just do something, do something fun, do something a little bit off the wall like this.

I dig it.

Yeah, I agree.

Um, yeah, a wonderful, wonderful little surprise, wonderful little treat.

I think I'm almost done with it.

Um, it's not like the biggest thing in the world.

It feels like it's like a gameplay deal, too.

Yeah, like, I've played so many monster games this year that have uh required so much of me having this little weird bat boy like in my rag ally like hey want to come want to come uh throw some yo-yos at some i will i will say griffin every episode of griffin's monster games on g4 this season has been better than the one before

i'm glad

i'm so glad that griffin's still playing the monster games for us the fans yeah when we last our lost our axe partnership um

i thought that that was going to be the end for us but uh yeah no we've we persevere you've been breathing really well though fresh air it is smelled great.

Yeah.

I do miss the stink, that good stink, though.

It's important.

This one isn't life-changing.

You know what I mean?

It's not one of those where it's like, you know what?

And you know, end of the year, I don't know.

This feels like the kind of thing that we'll, we'll, I don't know if we'll remember, but if you, if you want something like really solid and amusing and pleasant and fun, this is like, oh, it's just like all around.

And it helps a weekend game.

Yeah, great weekend.

Download it on a Friday, play it for the weekend, or if you have a long trip,

and very respectful of your time.

Yeah, it wants you to have fun.

It doesn't want to waste your time.

It's very pleasant.

If this game had come out in the GBA era, it would have been like nines and tens.

I have no doubt.

Like, it just is incredibly capable at what it's doing.

And I agree with you, might not make the goatie list, but like, I've had a blast playing it.

Yeah.

Let's take a break and then

let's go visit the man of steel in his crystal palace.

If I go crazy,

this one is a little Superman for you, a little sting.

I want to give you the whole thing.

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We've all seen

Superman?

The whole world has seen Superman, apparently.

I believe so, yeah.

A fair number of people saw it, yes.

Yeah, it's not right.

Why do you feel it's appropriate for us to talk about Superman on a video game podcast?

I have feelings.

I think I have an answer, but I want to hear it from you.

Geek shit.

Geek shit, man.

Yeah.

We just talked about a little video.

I have no other venue.

If I talk about it with my brothers on my other shows, they'll try to make me do boner jokes about it.

So I have to talk about it here.

What do you want?

Sorry.

Kevin Smith over here.

No, I don't want to do that.

I want to be taken seriously as a Superman critic.

Holy shit, I am Kevin Smith.

How is Carl Clinton

to it?

Why do you think we should talk about Superman the movie?

Because Superman is the original gamer, if you think about it.

Oh, heck yeah.

He's always in the guy.

Am I right?

Yeah.

There are so many good ones.

Wait, sorry.

Do you mean Henry Cavill?

Superman?

Because he is the original gamer.

He has LEDs on his computer.

There's no question.

They got a different guy now.

Can I start?

Because I had the most tempered excitement for this and we will avoid major spoilers as part of this conversation yeah we're not gonna bring up any spoilers I genuinely I have not watched a superhero film since I think Sheng Chi I believe was the last one that I uh that I did watch no that's not true we said we saw the Deadpool V Wolverine uh which was which was fun but like I don't know man I didn't care about DC at all I've never really found Superman particularly enjoyable as a character I thought man of steel is one of the first

Well, because I, I, that's a good point.

You got to knock him down before you rise him up.

No, no, no, Griffin.

Not to mention

him.

I think what they've done here has been very fun.

And I think that what they've done here is very iconic and very smart and very,

I don't know, just really canny to go back to kind of like brass tacks Superman as a beacon of hope without

really much complication on top of that.

Like the movie is very much about how the rest of the world reacts to him as this straightforward scion of

hope.

And I don't know.

I think that's a very, very interesting choice.

And I think that it probably wouldn't have played maybe 10 years ago before

the DC universe got the treatment that it got in cinema.

But this very much feels like a, I don't know, a response to that.

And

I really ended up liking it quite a bit.

Yeah,

this is always the kind of Superman movie that should be made.

I don't agree with, I want to reject the idea that Zack Snyder's Superman was the Superman for that time, and this is the Superman we need now.

The Zack Snyder Superman was a fundamental misunderstanding of the character, period.

The end, writ large.

History has proven that to be true, and culture will agree with me throughout the millennia.

I said it then, and history has proven me right.

I mean, this is a super

comic books that are authentic to what Zack Snyder was trying to do with that.

No, no, but that doesn't.

I don't think those movies are good.

No, no, no, dude.

Like the long-term plan for Zack Snyder was that like

Superman was or no, Batman was going to have sex with Lois Lane, and then Superman was going to turn evil and like kill him.

He did turn evil.

Yeah.

Anyway.

Yeah, it was not good.

I think we can all agree with that.

But I'm not saying good or bad movie.

It doesn't like whatever.

It's just that's not who the character is.

And it and people who defended it were people who never liked Superman and then they like Superman because they got Superman wrong.

That's fine too.

Freaking great, man.

I think that good for you.

I'm glad you got some movies you like.

This is a movie that recognizes what Superman is about and then asks a lot of interesting questions about it.

About what Superman is and who Superman is and why he does what he does.

And then, most importantly, comes up with a lot of interesting answers and has the strength of its convictions to say like,

this is sort of what we are thinking.

And by doing that, by like being willing to throw away like the convention or the things that have to be in a Superman movie or have to be part of a Superman story or have to be part of a superhero movie, I think, moreover, like that have to fit into that template are, you know, cast aside.

And I think that that's what, that's actually where I would say it's closer to Deadpool versus Wolverine in a sense, weirdly, because that movie was

specific to those characters.

Like, that was specifically that kind of the movie for them, and it wasn't in the typical formula.

And this is a movie for Superman.

Like, this is a movie to explore what he means and not a

franchise-starting, you know, superhero movie, even though it obviously is pulling Double Duty.

This, I think the thing that stood out to me most is just the overall tone of this movie from like all of the other characters delivering performances in this movie is blase.

And I actually say that in a good way.

There is like an accepting, just like, well, that's how it is, aspect to this universe that James Gunn is presenting that feels like it allows me to not only buy that Superman exists in this world, but also that he's like people sort of like sometimes like shrug at him and oh, he's being ridiculous.

And it all kind of works because everyone is just like...

That pre-current.

There's a scene where a conversation is happening that could be happening anywhere.

It could be happening in a windowless room.

And instead outside the window a giant galaxy tearing monster is being fought by other superheroes it's a tuesday nobody is for them it's a tuesday yeah exactly there's a really it's a there's a really smart like the first credit like not credit but like the first text scroll on the screen and not exactly this but it's some equivalent of

3000 years ago there were gods 300 years ago they were the first superheroes 30 years ago superman came to earth three years ago he came out as Superman.

Three hours ago, he started this fight.

Three minutes ago, he just lost the first fight of his life.

And it's so smart because it's like, okay, we're resetting everything.

Yeah.

This is it.

This is where we're at right now.

Okay.

And it looks exactly like, it doesn't look exactly like, but it reminds me of the scrawls that you find in the beginning of issues of comics that aren't the first one.

You know, because you'll get like a page of setup that's like, okay, here's kind of where we're at.

Now back to the story.

And that's what this feels like.

It feels like we're joining it like as it's already started because you don't have to introduce who's Superman.

Cork and Lois are already together.

Like you're, you're, it's in media res.

You, and that immediately engages you.

And also it solves the problem of like, Superman's boring because he wins all the time.

He loses a lot in this movie.

And not because, you know, they fall on the like usual kryptonite sword.

Like he's kind of.

just like much more, I think, vulnerable.

And literally, I mean, vulnerable in this movie than he is in other presentations because that's more interesting.

You want to think that he might lose.

What I think works best, both of what you, Fresh, and Hoops are saying, is it feels like a story of the week?

Like, this does not feel like the most important Lex Luther story to ever be told.

It feels small.

It feels like a Lex Luther story.

There will be more of them.

And the way that all the, like, I saw some complaints about the many, many extended universe characters who show up in this movie and how people are like, hey, I liked it, but like, I'm just so annoyed that it's going to be setting up more stuff.

And it feels like that's just not the case.

And I hope that that's not the case.

It feels more like

if you, I mean, again, if you read the comics, this is how it just works in the comics.

It's closer to The Simpsons, actually, where...

characters are always just

in and out and maybe you get an episode where they're important but for the most part they're just there because

of the moment.

What you're talking about is actually, I think, a huge part of the reason that Marvel ran out of steam because the fun, once you gave us the fun of seeing 20 superheroes interacting in one movie, it is so hard to go back to just one guy running around.

Who cares?

And Ant-Man's super small.

Like, how can he compete?

It feels that way.

Like, you're missing a lot of those.

I thought we were going to go more in that direction when you had like

Civil War was a good example of this, where, like, it was a Captain America movie in title, but it was doing a lot more.

But that's so hard to communicate.

I can't imagine, like, unless people are bought in for every movie.

When the stakes are just too high, right?

Like, that's the other thing with Marvel.

I don't think I consciously realized that.

One of the reasons I enjoyed the movie so much is because it wasn't trying to splinter off all of these different, like, the idea of there being a full feature-length film about Nathan Phillian's Hal Jordan is so unthinkable.

He's Guy Gardner, actually.

Guy Gardner, sorry, yes.

It seems so beyond the realm of possibility.

Now that said,

we're going to get a Mr.

Terrific show.

A Mr.

Terrific show does feel, it definitely feels like anything.

I also want to call attention to the performance of Nicholas Holt, who plays Lex Luther,

because in every memory that I have of any Lex Luthor, and this is probably not,

I haven't read a ton of Superman comics, but in the movies that I've seen where he's been featured, I've always seen him as like a force of greed.

Like he wants a shitload of money.

Like Gene Hackman, the whole plot of I believe Superman 1 was a real estate plot to like get more money by

basically Chinatown.

Yeah.

His motivation in this movie has nothing to do with money, has nothing to do with power.

It is purely a ego, like envy.

Superman fucking sucks.

And I kind of love that.

The simplicity of that.

That is who Lex Luthor is.

Like it's like that is that that's speaking right to the soul of the guy.

Yeah.

It's what makes him compelling.

He does this.

Nicholas Holt does a speech towards the end of this that I think like about envy that I think speaks to Lex Luther so elegantly.

It's like fucking great.

It's like outstanding.

I also

want to shout out Rachel Brosnahan.

I think is the best Lois Lane that I've ever seen in a live-action Superman thing.

I don't know that she's a good reporter, but that's not a knock on her performance.

I think she makes it.

I mean, let's talk about the journalism in this movie because it's wild.

Yes.

It's very cool.

It's really bad.

Well, okay, so it's really bad and it's really good, and it's very critical of it while not always understanding it.

So the problem is Superman as Clark Kent interviews himself.

And Lois Lane is rightly like, that seems like a bad.

But then Lois Lane interviews interviews Superman slash Clark Kent who she's in a relationship with which is also bad

they also publish information

without ever like vetting it or like asking for comment which is weird the the thing that I did like though in this movie and I think it's like almost the point of the movie is it's really easy to let a system trap you and to prevent progress.

And by that I mean like there are conversations throughout the movie where Superman's like, I want to do good.

And Lois Sane's like, yes, but did you go through all of the right steps?

Did you go through the government?

Did you do all this?

And what we see is Lex Luther in the movie use that like

process

to grind down Superman.

Like that it is, he is literally using the apparatus of the government and the media to like punish him, which doesn't feel so different than when you will open the New York Times and see something that is clearly like it's the classic Trumpy thing of like people are saying, and then suddenly it's like a news cycle.

I don't know.

I just found the journalism in this movie

really weird and really interesting.

Also, they publish a story in the climax of the movie, and you get to see the CMS.

And I just, I live for that.

It's basically not since Shattered Glass has a CMS had so much attention on screen.

So it's great.

Yeah.

One thing is, can we lose the dog?

We can't.

We absolutely couldn't.

Wow.

There's a lot of dog stuff, but it's a little too much dog stuff for me.

It feels a little thirsty.

Are you saying it's like that your dish came with too much salt and pepper on it?

Like it was a little too much of the spice?

I'm just saying they probably texted the dog name registry, saw a lot of cryptos in there and thought, maybe we could pick up a few milli at the box office if we slip the dog in a few more scenes.

They're going to love this dog.

The test, the test sculpture.

I think how many dogs are going to get adopted, though, over the next few months.

They're going to need so many cryptos.

And I am not, I am completely vulnerable to that.

Crypto is also the only character outside of a very brief cameo that I won't spoil that is setting up a future movie that is coming out next year.

Like, well, I mean, guaranteed crypto is going to be featured in whatever the next movie is.

Is this the best PR for crypto?

Like just the word crypto in a long time?

It is with a K.

It's a D now.

It's with a K.

What I think about the crypto stuff, which

I joke about.

What I'd like about it is that it feels like a non

It feels like a personality choice rather than an authoritative choice.

It feels like the decision to say like with this Superman, which is how Superman has been in the comics the whole time, right?

With this Superman, we're trying something different.

This take on Superman does this.

I feel like this is a movie that has the courage to kind of say, this isn't every Superman ever.

This isn't the definitive cinematic Superman.

This is this Superman.

And honestly, that's the answer for

all Supermans in a way.

He's gone through so many transformations since 1930 that if you were to say, point that this definitive Superman, like some people would say Christopher Reeve, definitive Superman.

Some people would say, I don't know, fucking Lois and Clark, Superman.

Like, there are so many approaches to it.

But they're trying to, like, if you look at Superman Returns, that was not a movie about establishing a take on Superman.

That was a movie about trying to recapture the take that Richard Donnelly.

That's true.

That is true.

Right.

So it's like not, you don't have the personality.

It's a fate.

It's a, it's an imitation act.

I think it also immediately says, like, there's a certain degree of silliness and lightheartedness when

crypto fucking him up at the beginning of the movie after he's been beat up and he's in the snow.

This happens in the first 30 seconds of the movie.

Crypto runs up.

You think crypto is going to save him.

And crypto fucks him up real good.

And crypto being a bad dog, like a shit, like literally they say multiple times he's a bad dog.

He's like a troublesome.

It's a good thing.

It's great.

It's like so smart and such an adjustment of what you expect, not only from Superman Dog, but also from any dog in any movie ever is usually like a pretty fucking good dog.

Like there's not a lot of asshole dogs in movies.

Cujo, maybe.

So nice.

Yeah, but the thing is, with all these choices that it's making and the personality and stuff, what's important is that it gets at, it uses that original perspective and that original insight to get at the central question with Superman and the central thing of his character, which is always about helping people and being assembled and doing good.

Those fundamentals of who the character is, those are still there.

Those are unchanged.

And I think that that's really why it works so well.

Do you

feel like we're going to be getting, you know, more of this type of like DCU for the foreseeable future?

Or do you think that they'll commit to the, hey, we have this, and then we have Robert Pattinson as Batman and a totally different thing.

And then we, maybe we have another Batman that's Silver Age Batman.

Because that was always like the promise of James Gunn.

But, you know, the promise is easy to make when you don't have the most successful movie in the world.

And then suddenly people are like, I want a million of these.

I do not know how the fuck.

First of all, I think James Gunn walks if they start forcing him to do things he doesn't want to do.

I don't think there's no incentive keeping him there if they like really pull the thread on him.

Secondly, I don't think there's any way to meld Robert Pattinson, James Gunn, Robert Pattinson and Batman with this movie.

I think they would need to be separate.

I think it could be five to seven years before like Batman gets injected to this world because it is so vastly different.

And honestly, I'd be cool with them never getting injected into one another because they're such different properties.

That's fine with me.

But I do think that anything anything that involves the super family, if you will, and they've already announced the super girl movie, has to be at least in the ballpark of this tone.

I would

maybe.

I don't know, right?

Because it's like you see some things that come back around to where the tone makes sense again, right?

Like you have, I mean, Deadpool and Wolverine is a good example where the Wolverine of some of those movies, who was also Hugh Jackman, would not make sense.

The two movies wouldn't make sense smooshed smooshed together.

But if you take the character, you might be able to make something happen with just the, it's about taking the character out of the world and putting him in the other world, right?

Like, you have to commit to one of the tones.

Smashing up the movies wouldn't make sense.

That's fair.

I think you could put one of those characters into the other movie.

I was going to say, they also did that with Thor,

where they changed tones dramatically from one movie to the next.

We will find out how weird it's going to get very quickly because no more DC movies this year.

Next year, Supergirl comes out in June.

In September, Clayface,

the movie,

written by Mike Flanagan of all people.

Fuck yeah, man.

Actually, yeah, actually,

actually,

writer of Haunting of Hill House, Haunting of Blind Manor, Midnight Mass.

I am very curious about what that means.

Yeah, that sounds like a lot of standalone stuff to me.

There's also another Batman movie in the world.

Well, that's what I'm saying.

So maybe that's the solution.

Yeah.

Maybe.

Is just have it go as long as you can, stand alone.

Don't stress about building up to a fucking Justice League movie.

Just make very, very good movies until people really care about DC again, which they do.

Isn't this part of the, you know?

I don't know.

I feel like this impulse is part of the problem, right?

Like,

the impulse to say, okay, now I really like this one.

Give me funds.

Yeah.

Like, I feel like it's part of the issue, right?

Which, which maybe, hopefully they've learned the lesson, right?

Hopefully they just do the movies that people want to do, that people are interested in doing.

Like,

Matt Reeves, Batman.

I feel like history will be very good to Matt Reeves' Batman.

I feel like the first time I watched it, I thought,

this is kind of boring in a lot of it.

But I think when you go back to it, it's like he really likes Batman a lot, and he really has a very specific idea about Batman that is kind of funky.

Like, I kind of dig it, man.

He seems like he really wants to make the next Batman movie.

He just wants to take time to do it.

Turned in.

Yeah.

Big

LA Town.

I prefer he take a long time with it.

That's good.

Cut some parts out of it.

That's time, Matt.

I think I'd be much more excited for another Matt Reeves Batman movie if I hadn't got that Joker stinger, which really made me worry about anything after that.

Now, listen, if you could give me, what about Matt Reeves, Batman, Mr.

Terrific?

That would be a hell of a film.

Watch that.

What if we had Joaquin Phoenix Joker and Jared Leto Joker in the same movie?

Just do it.

Just do it.

Sorry, can we do

one more Superman thing and then we'll wrap?

The Mr.

Terrific Fight Sequence.

I wrote a Superman rap is what Glant is referring to.

The man of steel really makes me feel like...

Sorry.

Yeah.

The Mr.

Terrific Fight Sequence is amazing and the best use of the Guardians of the Galaxy type of...

thing.

It is the only needle drop in the film that did not annoy me.

It was the only needle drop I enjoyed.

First note out of Superman.

We walk out of it into the beautiful California sunshine.

So happy for this film.

And Griff was like, could have done without all the needle drops, James.

Like, okay, Griffin.

That's his deal, and I get it, but it does feel like you've just gotten your uncle's car and he's like, plugging in the awesome table sound.

It's so good.

Somebody I read mentioned that it looked a little bit like a theater staging where the actors, the villains are like kind of like, they're almost dancing in their way that they're getting thrown across.

But I love that.

I love that style.

There's like, there's a lightness to the whole movie that just feels like a throwback.

That, I don't know, I feel like safe watching it.

I feel good.

Can I, oh, okay.

Very tiny thing, like little thing to that point.

When we're with the Justice gang, the Hilarious Thames gang,

Guy Gardner says at one point,

what I'd really like to do is hit you all with a giant hammer when he's frustrated.

And there is such a canny cut to Hawk Girl smiling at Guy being Guy that shows that he is like, that is like defusing the situation.

But it's like, it's really smart because it's like, wait, how does Hawk Girl?

Okay, she's fine with it.

Like, this isn't a bad situation for her.

And it's totally, it's a half a second, but you do cut to her.

She's good.

Back to the, like, that's a really smart filmmaker.

That's somebody who's like thinking about how do these characters live in this era?

Because in the 1990s, no one is getting a guy cutaway after Guy Gardner.

Guy Gardner is probably the hero of the whole thing.

It's played by Dolph Lundgren, right?

Hey, anybody been watching or playing anything else?

Oh, man.

Video games.

What have y'all been playing?

Did you play anything

while traveling?

I played a bunch more Monster Train 2.

I don't really have a ton to add.

I've been unlocking more of the different clans and the way that you combine them to make different decks really does make the runs feel pretty dramatically different in a way that I'm finding very compelling.

It hasn't quite got its hooks in me as deeply as a Slate Aspire, but I don't know.

I feel like I will play

a run with two of these clans in it, and then I'll have this idea of like, wait a minute, if you use the Pyreborn clan with the one that buffs the magic, then I bet you could get into some pretty nasty shit.

And I don't know.

I've been theory crafting that game in my off time,

which has been very intriguable.

I also finished Murderbot, and I think they did a great job with that.

I think the last episode is really strong and really sells Scarsguard as the titular Murderbot.

That's another good example of tone and like really diverging from like what you view as like a quote sci-fi tone in a very interesting way.

I thought they did a great job.

I have been playing a game called Maze Mice, which I'll probably talk a little bit more on Rescues, but i'm dropping here so people know to check this out hoops i think this is definitely yours

maze mice is a uh vampire survivors like

meets pac-man so you are in a you are in a pac-man map and you have enemies

or are you one of the mice you are the mice and you're being chased by cats and they are they are following you following you following you and they follow your path exactly so in a way way, it also kind of has that snake vibe where they become your kids.

Oh, you know what?

That's also kind of like

Deep Rock Galactic Survivors, right?

Is that the simple, where like you're setting up, is it like traps and stuff that you're trying to load them into?

Yes, but instead of it being a big free-for-all map like Deep Rock, it is Pac-Man stages.

And to get your upgrades, you are collecting pellets that, you know, reset after you've collected them.

So you collect a line of pellets, and then they'll appear somewhere else in the map that you have to find a way to get to without you know running into your own tail of monsters

Oh, it is I was gonna say I didn't realize it's the same is it the same developer as luck be a landlord?

Uh is it trampoline tails looks like it maybe

oh yeah, it is um but

Yes, a really cool thing that it does is you

You move the enemies move the like kind of classic rogue system

So when you watch trailers of it, it it looks like it's moving fast, like Pac-Man.

But the reality is, down to the frame, you are choosing to move.

So if you want to make a sharp corner and you're really worried about nailing it,

you can down to the frame move without the enemies like swarming on you.

Or you can stop at a intersection and decide which way you want to go without having to just like constantly be zipping all over them

and inadvertently, you know, creating a situation where you run into your own tail.

It is, it's really neat.

Seven, seven bucks right now, folks.

Get out there and grab it.

What a steal.

It's a deal.

$7.41 with that.

Come on.

Oops, how about you?

Anything else you've been enjoying?

Yeah, I played a lot of Tron Catalyst,

the new Tron thing from Biffel Games.

The last one was a lot talkier.

This is more action, but

Tron Gamer.

The last Tron thing that Biffyll did was more Tron.

What was it called?

Like a visual novel almost.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Help me with the title of some of that.

It was Tron Identity.

Yes.

Yes.

Tron Identity.

So this, yes.

So Tron.

This is, yeah, that was more of a visual novel.

This is

a new one that is much more action-oriented.

The combat is probably closest to like a Hades, something like that, from that isometric point of view, where you are like throwing your disc and using your disc to attack enemies.

There is also, it's all presented in like an open world where you are able to take out your light cycle and like travel around the world at any time independently.

If you know Tron, you're a computer program.

And this is a story like that, where at the beginning of it, you're a computer program that is delivering, you're like a delivery program.

And in the middle of your delivery, this...

delivery that you're carrying explodes and creates a glitch.

And the glitch is represented through a time loop.

So you're living through the same time loop to try to solve.

And when you wake up, you're told by the first person, like, hey, we don't know who did this.

We don't know what was in there.

But because of this glitch, you are able to live certain chunks of your time over and over and over again.

So basically, you're able to repeat time to try to solve your own.

murder to see who caused the glitch who blew it up and you can use this ability to reset time where like you'll get a code in your identity of this for a door right and then the next time you do the loop you've already got that code so you don't have to meet the guy you got the code from you play this you play that game minute where you had one so yeah a minute is a really good example narratively it's it's a lot like minute um except uh it's not always the same beginning right you'll eventually get through a chunk and then you'll move on to the next sort of chunk and then you'll start doing that chunk over and over again so unlike like a death loop where it's always the same day or always the same time once you sort of like piece together how a loop is supposed to go or like your ideal thing you'll move into the next segment and the next loop and it'll sort of like flow into the next chunk um but like a lot of times like for example your progress will get blocked because you'll trigger an alarm so you'll restart the time chunk to try to do it you know quicker or differently or whatever not a lot it's not usually like um

specific timing based.

It's not that death loop thing of like in 30 seconds this person's going to be there.

So make sure you're ready.

It's not that complex.

It's it's it's a little more fun and and open-ended than that, but uh, it's it's really well written, uh, looks cool.

I love the Tron.

I've always loved the Tron aesthetic and all that stuff.

So, if you like uh Tron and you like being in that world with something that's a little bit more like tactile, this is a really uh cool way of doing it.

It's neat

if you like Tron,

real quick.

I also played Meroy.

What is that?

If you guys want to do something really weird, go to Steam,

just get maroy or

m-o-r-o-i

it is you guys send a code so you can't get mad at me it's the strangest damn thing that i have downloaded it is so weird it is like a

dark fantasy

surrealist

action game

where you wake up without a memory, but the entire thing looks like a gothic like nightmare sort of.

And the whole thing is surreal.

You like meet the moon and the moon is mad at you for taking all of its energy.

And you meet like these, the, the, there's, it's extremely violent.

So when you wander around the world and attack guys, you basically turn them into like guts and blood everywhere.

And your character doesn't know why any of it is happening.

The whole thing is like so surreal.

Um, if you

watch like a trailer of it, and if you like this aesthetic, I don't even, I'm struggling to like compare it to anything just because it feels, it feels so weird.

My, my, my touchstones for stuff like this is often things like, um,

like those weird ace team games.

It feels like that sort of like surreal, a little bit, not Dark Souls with like that edge.

It's a little bit more like.

funny French surreal, you know, that kind of like European surreal.

I don't know.

Sure.

It's really, it's, it's very strange, but I kind of dig it.

Like it's, I don't know.

It's worth, it's, it's worth trying.

It's so, like in the opening moments of the game you have to Find a corpse to feed to a machine that loves to eat people and the machine is so happy that he grinds the bones of the corpse into a dust and you give the dust to a woman who makes a potion and then that potion lets you create a sword in a nightmare and you use the sword

A duck gives you its teeth, and the teeth give your sword an extra edge.

So Dark Souls.

And you can use that to to use.

That sounds normal.

It sounds like a

fucking

give it a whirl.

Give it a whirl.

Sounds interesting.

Don't say I.

You know what?

Go to Steam, look at their reviews.

It's mixed.

We love to see it.

Mixed?

Yeah, please.

It's been a while since I just got a little broken puppy to take care of.

Oh, this one's broke as fuck.

Real quick, I've been playing.

It looks like if the Neverhood was made by somebody, it ain't absolute dipshit.

Real quick, I've been playing Tears of the Kingdom 2 on Switch.

I have a bunch of stuff that I haven't done in that game, despite spending, I don't know, like 150 hours the first time I played it.

Tears of the Kingdom 2.

No, it's just Tears of the Kingdom.

I don't know what I'm saying.

Did I say?

I mean, well, I'm playing it on Switch 2.

That's probably, I probably misspoke.

But I'm finding the Ku Rocks and I'm building the signs for that guy.

Apparently, there's a hundred of those guys around, and so I'm finding them.

And it's like a great, oh, I have five minutes.

I can build a sign, or oh, I have five minutes, I'm going to ship this Ku-Rock.

I would play a game that's just making signs for that.

So much fucking literature.

Yeah.

And the bummer of the original game, and honestly, I still think this is a bummer, is like there's no real way to find all those guys without being a total psychopath.

Like you would have to draw a grid or whatever, use an online like screenshot.

And now with Switch 2, if you get the upgrade, you can use the app and it like guides you to the different guys that you're missing.

Which isn't as, I don't want to be using an app.

I wish it was in the game.

Do you,

I like it.

Do you ever have moments where you're like, listen to me?

You know what I mean?

Like, my dad was in the war.

You know, all of our dads were in the war.

You know, think about that, guys.

All of our dads were in the war.

And we're like, the Nintendo Switch 2 app will let you find all the guys.

So finally, you can realistically find all the guys.

That's what they were fighting for.

That's what they were fighting for.

Yeah.

Well, good news, our children will also be in the war.

So it all comes back around.

Yeah.

But then their kids, they'll be fine.

Zelda 3.

They're going to be stoked for that that one.

Okay, I think we did it.

I want to thank some.

World War IV will be fought with Splitter.

Go over to patreon.com slash the besties.

We've got some great ass content over there.

Resties episodes.

We've got new bracket episodes.

Wait, sorry, not great ass content.

I mean.

No, there's some.

There's some stuff.

We haven't done that ranking yet, but maybe.

We'll do that.

We haven't covered Butt Night yet.

Yeah, we'll do that.

Thank you to some new members.

We have Nathaniel, we have Jason, we have Robert, and we have Julija.

Thank you for being members.

Uh, next week,

we are playing big one, Donkey Kong Bonanza.

Hell yeah, he's here.

Yeah,

he's back.

Here we go.

Exciting.

That's gonna do it for us on this week's episode of the besties.

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?

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