The Besties Game of the Year Is . . .

Here's what I'm saying.

I think for Jeff, Astrobot is the right pick.

Jeff, very safe.

You might as well give the award to video games, Jeff.

I'm just saying you're not going to piss anybody off with Astrobot, huh, Jeff?

Yeah.

I mean, this is sort of our last chance to check in with the

VJA prediction episode that Russ and I.

This is part of the show.

This is just four guys.

Oh, I thought this was the intro to the show.

I just want to say russ and i beefed it about as hard as one could i mean in terms of guessing who's going to win what i think we crushed it actually yeah we did great uh in terms of what was going to be announced oh yeah we did bad what is the opposite we fluffed it we did so terrible we didn't

guess okami i need to find okami okami what are you talking about

okami got announced okami 2 got announced what Yeah, we're going to be able to see it.

I watched all the Game Awards, but I had super bad diarrhea.

So I kind of went in and out.

I didn't see Okami.

That's amazing.

Jeff cried when he announced it and it was a jealous

okay i can't keep the bit going you want because that was actually the funny the greatest moment of my entire life because i feel like the reason jeff got emotional yeah when he announced okami is not

just because of the moment because i feel like that is the real culmination of the jeff keely story is this man had 10 years of believing in the dream until he was like i really miss okami you know what i'm gonna spend 10 years trying to get them to make a new Okami.

And

this is the

prestige.

It's all good.

Do you think

he was the driving force that made that game happen?

Yes.

I think he is funding it.

I think if you look at the face, it is Okami.

I think he's doing the mocap on the face.

He's face capping Okami.

I don't think there's ever been a bigger oversell than Jeff crying and me thinking, oh, fuck, Half-Life 3 is about to drop.

And it's a guy playing a drum.

Like, I don't think there's ever been a bigger oversell than that.

Like, I'm sure he's jazzed.

How's it feel out there?

It doesn't feel good.

It doesn't feel good, I'm telling you.

You forgot your gloves and your scarf.

Come on in, pal.

Thanks, buddy.

We're all warming by the

fire of Okami.

By the fire of Amaterasu's flaming scarf or whatever.

It's been so long since Okabi came out.

Yeah, okay.

Give me a call me when there's a new Animusha.

Uh, buddy,

good news, Son of a bitch!

My name is Justin McElroy and I know the best game of the year.

My name is Griffin McElroy, and we'll find out best game of the year.

My name is Christopher Thomas Plant, and I'm prepared to figure out the best game of the year with you, my best friends.

My name is Russ Fresh.

I'm the best game of the year.

We

welcome to the Besties, where we talk about the latest and greatest in Home Interactive Entertainment.

It is a video game club, and just by listening, my friend, you are a member.

And today,

what we set out to do with the besties way back in 2012, well, we're doing it again.

This is the real reason we're here, and that is to rank art.

We're going to rank art objectively, ranking art with the best games of the year.

Chris Plant, what does that mean?

Well, art is an expression of the human soul, and ranking is to reduce it into just an arbitrary series of numbers that we pretend to be objective when in ranking.

I'm not going to sit here and pretend like what we're doing isn't important.

It is the most important.

It's silly at the same time.

But the problem is,

people get so excited for the game awards we even started talking about it at the top of the show we are older than the game awards game awards is ripping us off oh the best

i thought you meant us as people that also so if you want to know the origin the history the expertise of picking the true best game of the year this is the show you've come to i'm dead serious right now we're gonna pick let's do it right after this.

Okay, so if you remember last time.

Oh, man.

You poor guys.

Man.

Wow.

Guys.

I mean, they're all going to be bad.

These are all going to be a little rough.

They're all bad, huh?

Yeah.

I don't know that I did a good job on these matchups.

No, I think you did a pretty bad job in these matchups.

In fact, you know what?

I didn't get a hand on the matchups ball.

I've never.

I'm going to bump some things around because there's some frankly insane things.

Move stuff around.

It should be thematic, but otherwise, go wild okay um you set up what the top eight are here okay so the top eight as determined uh last week we have astrobot we have animal will we have ufo50 we have like a dragon infinite wealth we have steam world heights 2 we have crow country which was a reader pick well done we have helldivers 2 which was also a reader pick and we have balatro those are our top eight

Okay, Griffin, you've reworked the matchups.

Yes.

Okay, let's, I mean, we don't have to set them all up.

Let's get started with this first one and let's start getting nasty.

I hate it right away.

I hate it too.

I knew you were not going to like it, but this one is where the chips landed.

The theme here is games that start with the letter A.

Yeah.

That's a good one.

Astrobot and Animal Well.

This also has two cute little guy pies running around bouncing.

That's true.

I guess that's a theme.

Now, this is good.

This is the common man's game of the year and a true thinking man's game of the year for

the refined palate.

jumping there's jumping in both these are you know what i think the the theme of these two games for me and i think it's something you see actually a lot this year but there's a real generosity of spirit in both of these games it's somebody who was willing to put so much love into a thing yes and just trust that the person on the other end was going to be like into it

i think that that's really astounding with both of these it's it's i it's crazy that you could technically say these are the same genre.

These are loosely the same genre.

They are both platformers, sort of, a little bit.

And what's interesting, I think, is like, if you on the surface, they're extremely the same genre.

Like if you just sort of take Animal Well as like what it's giving you, it feels very much like Astrobot.

And then as you dig and dig and dig, you realize, oh, there's like a fucking Matrix style.

It's like the game that they play in the movie Hackers when you like go in

and they're in that

club scene.

Yeah.

That's what's laying underneath Animal Well's surface of a cute little like insect man.

That's a really good sort of description of Animal Well is it does, from just an outsider's perspective, does look like a video game they would play on a TV show about video games or a movie where a video game, like in her, the video game he plays where he like kind of walks his hands through this like

AR

temple.

This just seems like a i can't believe this is a video game but it it very much is uh

simple as it looks it is it is quite quite wonderful beneath the surface these two games do two completely different things so i don't really know how to pit them against each other i will say if we're if we're looking for comparison points um

i will say my my my little thing about animal well is i feel like

I love the thing that held it back from me just a little bit, and this is absolutely its own choice, and it's and it's like true to its own design.

But

I wish I could experience a bit more of that game in a vacuum than I was able to.

I think that

for the way I go at stuff,

I think that it really rewards a sort of like communal play, it rewards a sort of like deep, patient play.

I think it could do a little bit more just to make it like where you could see a lot.

It kind of reminds me of like Outer Wilds in that sense, where like I, what it's doing seems so cool.

I wish it was just a bit more accessible.

Yeah.

Um, and that, that is my only sort of thing that held it back.

But, like, I really enjoyed Animal Well.

I played quite a bit of it.

Same with Astro Bot.

It just,

I, I, I think Animal Well, like the genre of Animal Well for me is like, it is a mystery game.

And it just so happens to have like you interact with it as a platformer or a search action game.

But like that, if that's all that game was, it would be frankly pretty bad.

What it is, is a mystery game in the vein of a, you know, some of the great mystery games.

Like I think for what it's worth, I think it's a really good platforming game, even without the mystery stuff.

I mean, yeah,

it is good to move around that world.

It looks great, right?

But it's like, it is quite simple.

It is how it kind of like hides things within that simplicity that it makes it truly an unforgettable experience.

I say unforgettable, I wish it was forgettable because it suffers the same kind of pitfall as any mystery game, which is like going back and playing it again will not

similar to Outer Wilds as well, which is exactly.

Yeah.

Yeah, I wish I could wipe my brain of knowing, like, oh, there's that shortcut.

That said, like it unfolding and unfurling and revealing itself in the way that it did when I, when I played it,

uh, elicited within me a much, much magnitude stronger reaction than playing Astrobot did.

Astrobot's a great game, and

it's very generous.

I love that word that you used to describe it last week, Russ.

But for me, like, I don't know, Animal Well was so thrilling.

I could not stop playing that game because at any point, I had in my mind like four mysteries happening that I was trying to figure out.

I think we...

I think, yeah.

Can we talk about Astrobot for a second?

Yeah.

Is that okay?

Yeah, please.

Okay.

so I

really enjoyed Astrobot when it came out, but I couldn't shake that weird nagging feeling of this is a game that is effectively a giant marketing mechanism, which I don't feel in my heart to be true, but like it kept rattling around my brain.

So I thought about that, especially after it won the game awards of like, what does that mean for me?

And where I've come to really appreciate this game is, yeah, it's marketing, but also it is either a a reminder of like what we've lost with video game consoles or the direction that Sony needs to go if it wants to get through this.

And by that I mean you play Astrobot and you see all of these great franchises, these games, these weird experiments, this idea of like Sony making big games like God of War, making weird things like VidRibbon, that there's all this variety, right?

And now, you know, you're rebuilding a PlayStation 5 and you turn on your PlayStation 5, and that is not what I expect at all when I turn on a video game console.

I expect like the same games that I'm going to find everywhere else.

And I expect Sony to release one game a year.

And I think there's something kind of special about what the game is doing that is,

again, quite literally,

it feels like almost like a end point

of the Sony experiment as a video game.

Or again, a like, hey, y'all, this is a reminder to literally you of what made your thing special and if you want to get through this like this is why Nintendo stays around.

Yeah, like you need to get to it.

It's not an end point.

It's a beginning.

It's not a lake.

It's an ocean.

Okay.

Because not a sand lake

What Astrobot does as game of the year according to the TGAs is shows the world and shows Sony specifically you could spend seven years having the Audi Dog spend $300 million, whatever they spent on those games, games or you could get a team of 60 people and spend a tenth that and make also an incredible experience i'm not saying one is better than the other one but there is a way forward

in a more scalable frank out 10 games sorry like wait a minute

this is good russ slow down cancel naughty dogs new

obviously everyone hates it have them make 10 astro bots instead easy well here's what i'm gonna say industry fixed i would be shocked, and I'm going to call it now because I called all sorts of Astrobot predictions previously.

I'm going to call it now.

Astrobot 2, launch title, PlayStation 6.

Boom.

And it will come out before Intergalactic the Heretic.

Also, very true.

I, uh, yeah, Intergalactic's not coming out.

I just think it's a lot of fun.

I think it's a really heartwarming plant's comparison to Nintendo is great.

It's a heartwarming example of another company realizing that we can also capture the magic that Nintendo has been fucking.

And And I think it's incredible.

The game doesn't just have the trappings of like Sony's nostalgic brand identity.

The vibe of the game is very much like in that PS1 platformer, like Spyro, Crash Bandicoot, like kind of madcap

feel.

And I think that that is, I think that's very, very cool as well.

I'll say this one little stinker note.

I think that Sony intentionally had to let Little Big Planet die before

this Astrobot could become this.

And I think that it's kind of crummy that they could have had this with Little Big Planet.

They were building a sort of like

Sackboy as brand ambassador kind of vibe for a while.

And that could have been a brand about like user generation and creativity.

And I think that, if they had had the purity of that vision, it would have

served them a lot better when the tech caught up.

They needed this like

Fortnite era.

Yeah, they needed those games to be fun.

That was really the damage.

I'm not going to sit here and listen to that.

No, I'm just saying that I think it's a little, it bums me out a little bit that it's like we want to recreate this identity, but it's just sort of like so brand focused.

I think it's like the MCU, honestly.

That's how I view Astrobot is it feels like Endgame to me.

It's sadly insane.

It feels like Endgame because

games are smart on the ground.

Like if Astrobot is marketing, so is end game is what i'm saying but okay let's

round the horn where are we where where are we at i'm i am uh pretty firmly animal well uh

where's everyone else i literally am cool with either of these games moving on i'm astrobot oh my pick is probably astrobot okay that's funny how that worked that's funny how that just went down russ

well i was thinking about my top five and yeah sure i get it animal well for me thank you Okay, so we got two Animal Well, and we have two Astrobots, but it sounds like one of the Astrobots is kind of leaning either.

I am extremely pro Animal Well as well, so I would be totally fine with moving.

I'm fine with that.

Shove that little dinkus in a well.

Go to have fun.

Say hi to Yo Noyden spot for me.

Okay, so Animal Well moves on.

Astrobot gets kicked.

All right, next.

Okay.

Oh, he fell in the where's the beef lady?

Come Come on, beef.

Screw it over.

Next up, we have UFO 50 versus Steamworld Heist 2.

What was the rationale on this matchup there, Griff?

Well, originally you had UFO 50 going up against like a dragon infinite wealth.

So what was the idea behind that matchup?

Yeah.

These were all arbitrary.

Let's not pretend they weren't.

Let's all justify our arbitrary fairings.

They both have photos of perverts in them.

Both indie

games.

These are both indie games.

No, we couldn't get the indie game.

It came out too late in the year.

Okay.

You have to get 50.

We're going to make so many Indiana Jones indie game goofs in the episode where we finally cover that game.

So save those up.

Sit on them.

You're right.

You're right.

You're right.

We said a lot about Steam World Heist 2.

To me, that game fucking rules.

It's like so fucking sharply made and creative.

And I worry that it got kind of buried.

I didn't feel like there was a huge zeitgeist like uprising around it, but structurally speaking,

I think it's also tough, Russ, because honestly, like I my enjoyment of it was kind of like almost in spite of a lot of factors.

Like I didn't play the last one.

Yeah, I yeah, I mean I and I think that I think Steam World suffers a little bit from just being consistently pretty good that I think it can get, but like consistent, the consistency is maybe like makes them a little easier to to ignore or lose track of, I think.

Yeah, I think this

elevated the quality level compared to a lot of, I don't know if it's the best.

Oh, sure.

How is Theme World Dig 2 is maybe the best, but this one is that one?

Maybe

one of my favorite turn-based strategy games I've ever played for what it's worth.

Musically, it's great.

It looks great.

It does,

for somebody who doesn't like to think about a lot of tactical stuff, it gets too deep for me to enjoy pretty quickly.

This is such like a kinetic visual way of doing tactics combat that I really, I really minimal percentages, like chance the hit is like, oh, I can see the laser hits like directing at that guy.

Yeah.

It's so much more about physics and angles and that and that.

It's got hats.

It does.

A lot of different hats in it.

20 different hats.

UFO 50, I mean, we kind of breezed by also last time because I forget what it was up against.

But I think we all kind of decided pretty easily that it was UFO 50 was going to move on.

So, I'm not sure how much I have.

I know, I know Griffin's been extremely UFO 50-pilled.

I've played a lot of UFO 50 as well.

Plant and Juice, where are you guys at in terms of it?

Is it still purely like, wow, this is an incredible accomplishment, or have you like truly turned the corner into like, oh, fuck, I love this shit?

If I were more, I have spent a lot more time with UFO 50.

I have,

I can't say cherried.

I won't do it, but I have

achieved the highest ranks of success in several of the games.

Now, at this point, I think three or four.

No, it's three.

I know exactly how many it is.

I don't know if this will make sense to you guys.

If I was more the sort of gamer that I wish I was, I would just be playing UFO 50.

Yeah.

I really, really,

I, I,

the time that I spend with UFO 50, I always feel like it's very well spent.

It feels very,

it feels very rewarding.

Like it's a good experience.

I, I wish that I

was a bit more, I don't know,

a different person, but I like it quite a bit.

Did it even watch?

Wait, wait, wait, no.

Frushick did this very strange thing where he said, it's like a fine wine.

And

then he brushed his nose.

No, no, no.

I had my thumb out as well.

I was drinking.

Okay.

I thought you were kind of like, it's like a fine wine, you know what I mean?

A lot of cocaine.

Salt-aged cocaine.

Yeah, this one feels like

a bit of an easy one.

Not that Steam World Heist 2 isn't a great and special game on its own, but UFO 50 is the sort of game that we really privilege at Bessie's and have historically.

It's a game that is both good game design, but getting at something bigger.

I mean, we talked about Astrobot and kind of what it's saying about what's going on in the industry.

And the grand irony of UFO 50 is to play UFO 50 is to experience what it's like to play video games in the year 2024, which is to turn on your system and be absolutely overwhelmed by a ridiculous amount of choice.

The video game.

Except, in this case, most of them are very, very, very well designed all at once.

It's really tough to like,

there are so many factors working against Steam World

in a very crowded year.

I am still kind of amazed that I played the entire thing.

I did all of it.

And there's like a lot of opportunities for me to like not, like, we...

We talked about it in the episode, and it was just this thing of like, I think I'll play a little bit more.

And it was not because I was addicted.

It was not because it was like some power curve.

It's just like so good to play.

It's like

incredibly capable.

Yes, it's so capable.

It's so like rewarding.

You know exactly why.

It's just like so well honed and well refined.

Here's for me, I think the

narrative of it, there is so much time you spend in

like character dialogue and the world story dialogue and like it just doesn't accomplish a lot with the amount of time that it takes.

Like, it's just not very propulsive and it doesn't do really enough to keep the story moving.

And I think that it actually assumes a little bit too much knowledge of the first one.

Yeah, I was definitely skipping through dialogue.

I think once you're in missions, or even once you're just like cruising around in the ship, you're constantly being given stuff to do.

And it really does feel like literally propulsive.

But I agree narratively, it didn't.

It didn't speak to me in any way.

I also agree that,

you know, we reward, whether fairly or not, games that are really trying to do something brand spanking new.

Right.

And it's ironic that UFO 50 is doing that, given the fact that it's inspired by games that came out 30 years ago.

Sure.

But it unquestionably is.

There's no idea.

UFO 50, then it sounds like.

Yeah.

I feel really good about that.

Okay.

Okay.

Next up, we have Crow Country versus Like a Dragon, Infinite Wealth.

This is going to be, this is rough for Crow Country.

I love Crow Country.

I think everyone should play it who is a fan of the survival horror genre.

I think I've played it more now.

Me too.

Oh, did you?

I'd like to last week.

I'd like to speak for Crow Country.

I'd love you to.

I think the thing that scared me off of it initially is I thought it would be a lot more, I guess, hardcore.

It looks like a game that is like for

hardcore gamers.

It looks very, like, it's a, it looks like a PlayStation 1 horror game and like it looks like it's going to control really bad.

You know what I mean?

Like when you look at it, it looks like it's going to feel bad.

What really knocked me over actually was like,

one,

if you play with normal controls for sane people, it feels just fine.

Great.

It does a really fun thing though with it.

Like running around is very good.

And then when you hold right bumper to start trying to aim, it starts to feel bad.

And that's like good.

Like I, in a way that's very like, it makes aiming at stuff fairly intense and scary.

Right.

Yeah.

I think it matches how people might have felt when they were playing the original Resident Evils.

It feels so much better than the original Resident Evil.

I mean, it feels better, but

the memory of it, right?

The memory, what you like of it.

And the puzzles are actually like...

much, much better.

They're one layer elevated from Resident Evil where it's like, it doesn't just say like, you know, you get the king key and you put it in in the king lock.

There's a little bit of lateral thinking, but not too much more than that.

And they have these like employee journals that are like basically laying it out in full, you know, detail exactly what the problems are.

And those are all really funny, too.

It's, it's real.

And also, I didn't realize, I guess it didn't click with me that it's set in a theme park.

Yeah.

And that's kind of rated E for extremely my shit.

So I, I, again,

I've spoken so much about infinite, infinite wealth and we'll continue to speak about it, but I did want to say, like, this is definitely one I was squeezing in a few minutes before we came on.

I definitely think that I will

keep up with it.

It's a lot of fun.

I haven't quite figured out how

resource balance, how much I need to be sitting on my med kits and ammo and stuff.

Yeah.

Is there an analog, like, are there other games that are set entirely in a theme park?

Besides, like, Roller Coaster Tycoon?

And obviously, like, like the disney game yeah yeah i don't know there was a pretty big chunk i mean like said entirely um because obviously like with final fantasy 7 there's like chunks and like there's like uh

i mean liza p had an extremely right usually has a level but i actually think there's something really interesting and like oh lots of horror games uh like other than this too you know i guess five nights and fight yeah

five nights and freddies is in a billy bob's wonderland but yeah uh i i think that this game, I think the vibe and story and setting of this game is really special.

It is like the monsters are all really fucked up and weird.

It's not like zombies.

It's much more kind of, you know, low-res body horror than

you don't have to kill them.

Yeah.

That sucks.

That's worse.

I want them to come after me more.

This game is really, really, once you reach the last hour of this game, I genuinely, I stayed up very late finishing this game because I couldn't put it down because I think that the storytelling and writing is it.

It feels fairly concise.

Yeah, I 100%ed it.

I don't think it took me more than like 12, 13 hours, maybe.

It might be a bragging thing.

It's very...

I think the amusement park setting is also very special because there's something very cool about going around

an environment that has props designed to jump scare you as an attendee of the park mixed in with stuff that is genuinely trying to hurt you.

And it also justifies a lot of the puzzle solving because it has like the sleep no more like kind of

you should be solving these puzzles because of course a person that was going through this park was also solving these puzzles.

So it makes sense in ways that like a police station having weird fucking keys does not make sense.

And if you are the type of person that loves hundred percenting like survival horror games, like it has systems in place to help you like achieve that if you want to.

It is actually a much more approachable, I think, survival horror game than it maybe looks at first blush.

It's also weirdly sort of like Riley funny in a way that you don't necessarily expect.

There's like one part where you find like an animatronic vampire and he pops up, and then I shot him and his head exploded, which is hysterical.

And then every time I checked the body after that, it said, I killed this vampire in his sleep the way you're supposed to.

It's like just like very silly stuff like that within the like scarier stuff.

It's it's really good.

Good on Steve.

Also, a great gateway game, which is what ended up being my favorite thing about it, is I finally went and revisited Parasite Eve.

Oh, yeah.

Literally the past two weeks because we were talking about this game.

And I don't know.

Sometimes you need to play something.

modern like this that reminds you it is possible that you're not so intimidated to go back and then you go back and you kind of have that language in your head and it works all fine also y'all Parasite, I mean, we can't go too far.

What a game!

You're going to go to the Christmas game!

I think like a dragon infinite wealth should move on, yes, but I'm really glad you guys played Crow Country.

I think it is genuinely a real sleeper

in a year full of big games.

If it had come out at a different time, I think it would have hit really great.

I think it came out fairly early in the year when there was still stuff off and popping.

But

yeah.

All right.

Last round of this semi-fight cornerfinals.

The last round is Helldivers 2 versus Bellatro.

Talk about two games that came out of absolutely nowhere, right?

I mean, both not on anybody's most anticipated lists.

I remember seeing the Helldivers 2 trailer last year at the TGAs and being like, oh, that was a funny trailer.

Helldivers 2 breaks my brain because we talked about this last time.

Griffin and I really really enjoyed Helldivers 1.

When I saw that Helldivers 2 gameplay trailer, whenever that was, my reaction was, why did they break a good thing?

Yeah, yeah.

Why are we getting another generic third-person shooter when we had this really interesting, cool thing?

And cool to be wrong.

Very cool.

I also want to mention the fact since we last recorded...

There was a huge update that was announced as part of the TGAs, which added like the entire, an entire new enemy faction in the Illuminate, which is like the alien Protoss style faction

that are now in the game.

And I booted it back up and played some more.

And that game is still fucking fun as shit and easy to get into games and no lag.

And the community is grand.

It's not the like Pokemon Go insanity that it was towards launch, but there is still like a very dedicated community of people that like, it's around like 200,000 active users at peak that are just kind of cruising along and hardly.

Probably closer closer to what they balanced the game for and hoped for.

Yeah.

I think as a live, as a live service game, I think it has been pretty impressive with how much it's exciting because it's

they made so much fucking money selling.

Like it did so well, insanely well, to the point where that studio can be really floated on that success for many years.

And I'm excited to see what they do with that.

Like how they grow the game in unique ways will be really exciting.

Right now, I think the onboarding experience is great, uh, and the first like several dozen hours is like super great.

I think I kind of hit a wall in terms of like fun goodies towards the latter part of it, and I think that's a common complaint.

But I'm just mostly just excited because there aren't many of those multiplayer games that you could just jump in and have fun immediately with a bunch of friends, regardless of how much you've played.

It is sort of the nature

of,

I mean, games with co-op games with sort of action-heavy elements and character customization that everything kind of naturally funnels to a point where it's like, you know, my problem with the game, I think when I first kind of stopped playing

Helldivers 2, was when the community was very much like, don't come in here unless you even got the drone.

If you don't have this, this one, if you don't have this,

what are those things?

What are they called?

The laser gun, whatever it was.

Yeah, that was that whole category.

I can't remember.

And that was like frustrating, but it was very much like, okay, if you went online, it was like, how to get better at Helldivers 2, which you kind of have to to play those higher difficulties.

It's like, well, you got to rock with this weapon.

You got to go with this.

This is by far the best one.

And it seems like they have

smoothed that out a bit.

But it didn't.

And I also think it.

does

if you're reasonable about the difficulty levels you're trying to conquer, like you're going to reach the right audience.

So if you're playing like a five or six difficulty rather than a 10 difficulty,

you're going to play with people that are like not looking to like fucking try hard their way through it.

Yeah.

You're going to play with casual people that have a good, that just want to have a good time.

I guess I was saying more like as I played it, once I got the stuff that I was kind of grinding up the, you know, battle pass for.

Sure.

It's hard for me in a game to not feel like, well,

I beat it,

which is maybe counterintuitive.

And they have released a lot of Warbon since then, but you're right.

Once you have 50 things, it's hard to motivate to try to use something else.

But I think they did an amazing job.

That game fucking rules.

Bellatro is

a

deck building game.

It's a poker-based deck building game.

where you are basically playing poker, but then you're collecting jokers.

Jokers and pokers.

The oldest story, tales oldest time.

I started playing more on the mobile version, which is truly huge mistake.

Huge mistake.

I made a rule for myself.

Here's my rule.

Oh, yeah.

I can only play the mobile version when I'm on the subway.

That's the only time I'm allowed.

If I play it at home, I'm fucked.

Like, it's

hemorrhoid town.

I downloaded it and I started playing it.

And I was like, oh no.

I need to dedicate the next two weeks to just like beating this game to death and finishing all the shit that's in the game so that I can like get over it and so that it won't sort of be all encompassing.

I used to do that with Game Dev story every few months.

Yeah, I

see, I've actually been in a place with it now where it's, where I, I don't have that, uh, it's satisfying to play Bellatro.

I don't have, you know, there was definitely like an addictive impulse at first, and I think that that's part of it.

But like, it's, it's one of those things where after I play around, I really feel like, oh, that was fun.

I really got a lot out of that.

I had a really good time.

It's a satisfying game experience.

It doesn't feel manipulative or anything.

There's like a lot to think about and there's a lot of different components and it makes every playthrough like interesting and really rewarding.

What's funny is it is a little manipulative in ways that we don't necessarily knock, but I think in the way that like the haptics work on mobile and the way that like all the effects work together, like it's manipulating you into making that experience even more satisfying.

Like this is not a negative.

I'm not knocking it, but like they made the game feel too good?

Is that what you're saying?

Well, I'm not saying too good.

I'm saying it's extremely good.

Like there's a version of Bellatro that has no effects, no haptics, no anything that's really just the rules of the game.

It's very pleasant

to play brain share.

It's not like a cold

experience.

Like no, the haptics that they have when the game boots up of the shuffling, sort of, you know, the feeling I'm talking about.

It's like, whoa, it's Balatra.

It's not fun.

All right.

It's, it's, oh man, I have a real, talk about like a novelty bias combined with like also

one of the things that I spend the most time on in the past 12 months.

It's really hard for anything to go.

There's a Pavlovian sort of, just hearing you talk about the shuffle haptics.

It's like, I wouldn't mind having a little

shuffle while I cast.

One-hander while a cast is continuing.

Plant, where are you at on Bellatro?

I

will save it for the top five because I think that sounds go to the top five.

Which sounds edgy.

And I'd rather talk about it there

than like dig into my opinions of this game until then.

Enjoy.

All right.

So it sounds like pushing Bellatro forward then to the game?

Yeah.

No.

Yeah.

Okay.

I think we're pushing Bellatro forward.

Yeah.

I mean, if you want to make a case for Helldivers 2, I mean, no, no, no.

Bellatro of these two is definitely my pick of this.

Okay.

Cool.

That brings us to our final four, which is Animal Well, UFO 50, Like a Dragon Infinite Wealth, and Bellatro.

Now the question is,

do we, I mean, we should.

What do we bump up into fifth position?

Or not even fifth position, because there is precedent for this also.

It could land, you know, anywhere, probably not first.

That would be crazy.

But what do we bring back up into into the finals?

Let's, I'll tell you what, let's take a quick break, and then we'll come back and watch four best friends

battle to the death.

And I'm not talking about us.

I'm talking about the games.

That's right.

These four games all love each other, too.

That takes couldn't be higher.

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Okay, we've narrowed it down.

We've got four.

We've got Animal Well, Like a Dragon, Infinite Wealth, UFO 50, and Bellatro.

And we've said that we're going to bring forward a fifth from somewhere in

sucks.

This is going to be in Ghostbusters.

This is going to be the worst part of it.

This is going to be the worst part of it.

Oh, by far.

It seems to me the two games we've discussed doing this for is Astrobot and Metaphor Refantasio.

two games that the four hosts of this podcast could not be more diametrically opposed regarding.

Is that true?

I think so.

I don't know.

Here's what I'm going to say about

Metaphor Refantasio.

I think it's clear that the podcast is split down in twain regarding Metaphor Refantasio.

I don't get that sense about Astrobot, but tell me if I'm wrong.

Sorry, just to be clear, as much as I love, this must be what it's like to be a woman to have three men tell me how I feel about Metaphor Refantasio.

But

I will say that I feel exactly the same way about Metaphor Refantasio as I do about Astrobot.

I think that they're both remarkable, and I see the, like, that, the amount of, like, joy and delight that they have brought to people that have gotten deeply into them seems roughly equal to me.

And I appreciate both of, especially like after.

that episode that we had about Metaphor Refantasio and like looking at some of the other like

later game stuff and the feedback from other people like I I definitely see I had a real urge to go back and play more I won't but I had an

urge I feel about the same way as Astrobot very cool

can I make my case for metaphor in here really quick sure okay this would be my case is the top five for us is like our collective top five right

and when I look at our top four right now we have animal animal well like a dragon ufo 50 and bellatro and i think we all love like a dragon i wouldn't be surprised if it maybe gets number one i don't know the other three are games that i personally

they're like not my things i feel like they're like the other things here that like i know why they're here and i know why they resonate with all of you but there's i i feel like i personally do not have my like oh this is the game that means the world to me.

I don't have like the Indica or the A Thousand Exorcist or a metaphor in this case.

And of all the games that I think have the best shot of that, Metaphor is a game that like

I will be thinking about for the rest of my video game playing life.

Can you tie a bow on like what

I you have written about this at like the talked about it on this show, but like what is it about metaphor that like that that specifically that clicked and maybe do it in in reference to previous persona i'm just like that's where i'm getting hungry because every time it's been described it sounds like persona plus to me yeah and i don't think that's true at all because i've never finished a persona game and i finished this i think the big difference is as silly as this is to say this one starts much much earlier than persona and it has a series of hooks and additional gameplay loops that reveal themselves much deeper than a Persona game.

So, by that, I mean you start the game, you have a little bit of story, and it's like, okay, well, and here is how combat works, and it's actually understandable this time versus persona games.

Here is how the travel system works.

Okay, here's how the day

system works in relation to travel, and how you actually spend your time.

Here are all the activities that you can do with the players.

And because it balances both clarity and density without ever feeling like, oh, this is 30 hours of tutorials to start the game, that's the magic.

And that's where I think Persona, a game I really love, games I really love, can struggle.

Because for me, Persona sometimes feels like the first 30 hours are tutorials for all those systems rather than layering on of delicious flavors, which is what I got from this game.

I will say that in terms of

I only pushed through with Persona

because of the extremely

good feedback I got and also because it was the only game I brought to the beach that one time.

Yeah.

But like the this is Metaphori Fantasio is much more a video game that is engaging you mechanically early on and is not asking you to like do a lot of homework before it starts to get like interesting.

I think it is also, it stands out for me in this year of excellent RPGs,

of being a game with a really original world, with some really original kind of like

ideas behind it.

And obviously like fantasy and sci-fi as a genre pretty much exists to hold a mirror up to like real world stuff.

And I think this game at first blush seems like it's going to do a pretty clumsy job with it.

I think it does a pretty extremely good job, actually,

holding that mirror up and showing something that is surprising

with a surprising amount of nuance and

care.

I really, really got interested.

I never do this, but like I would read the

memos.

of like, here's what you need, here's what you should know about this tribe.

And here's, here's the history of this thing.

Like, I caught myself like voluntarily reading those things because I found myself like interested enough in the world to do it.

And I don't think that really happened with any other game this year.

Do you guys ding it at all for how much it is persona like without being like if I've always wondered about, I don't know, it's the kind of feeling I have about Destiny where like if you have the opportunity to do something wholly new and then you just kind of make Halo again a little bit.

Like I

don't because it goes in so many different directions.

Like it took it kind of would be like dinging a game for being a first-person shooter.

Like I think that they created a bit of a genre here.

You show up

in a room in a blue, pretty early on, you show up.

Blue room that is exactly the same thing.

No, it's personal.

That would be like if you're like, and Master Chief, here's your crowbar.

Good luck, sir.

Sure.

I think it's still different enough.

The other thing that I would say is the art, the design, the story are all going after different things.

It looks outstanding.

I mean,

they all do, but it's really cool.

And also, it's not pretentious.

And I say that in the literal definition of pretension, and that it is inspired by Hieronymus Bosch and Francis Bacon and Dolly, right?

But it's not doing that so that everybody who plays it is like, oh,

this reminds me of these things in the museum.

It's like, no, we're borrowing from that because that stuff is sick and it makes for good monsters in a fantasy setting.

Yeah.

And I think that's untapped.

Yeah, man.

A great, a great, like, and I, this is like everybody across the spectrum, like, please pull influence from places other than video games that you have played us.

Yeah, like Marvel movies.

Yeah, pull some Marvel movies.

I'll be honest, I wouldn't, I won't be upset if Astrobot makes the cut either.

And I think we should talk about it too.

But I wanted to at least give Metaphor its like share because

I also just think in the year 20, in this year, with this selection, a game that is asking what function should we actually expect of fiction and also how useful is democracy.

It's just bonkers that this game came out this year.

I cannot get over it.

I will make the case for Astrobot, and it's similar to the case that I made previously, I think last week, which is

I still stand by my this is the best platforming game ever made stance.

I think, again, when you look at like all of the elements, graphics and game feel and level design and art design and music and everything that Astrobot is doing,

it does not let up.

It is all fucking aces.

And I struggle.

And this is not a knock against Metaphor Riafantasio.

It's more of my brain thing is I cannot attach to the distance that you feel when you're playing.

turn-based RPGs.

And I felt the same way with Infinite Wealth, which we'll talk about in a little bit.

And so it is difficult difficult for me to make that leap in the same way that it's difficult for Plant to make that leap with a game like Animal Whale, where he understands why it's very good, but it doesn't like personally scratch his brain.

So I would, yeah, but it's mostly just the argument that like Astrobot is

start to finish, like so, such a curated and fucking stellar platform experience.

And you don't have to play for 85 hours.

And you have to play for 30 seconds and it's instantly fun.

Like that, I mean, forget 35 hours.

Like, that's, that was the struggle that I had with metaphor.

It was just like, it's a time commitment before it gets good.

And I think you guys were pretty, pretty direct about that.

That it's good.

I mean, I pushed back then, and I'll push back now.

Like, I think it's good.

I think it's good pretty fucking fast.

But obviously, I think it hits its stride maybe once some of the gameplay elements are.

I'll alter it and say, I think it's a, it's...

a time commitment for people that aren't already in love with the genre

to realize why maybe they should be.

genre preference is always the fucking like yeah uh trick stick stick in the spokes of of this entire process that's like unavoidable so what are we what are we thinking here i believe it comes down to me that kind of seems like it uh here we are again

everyone looking to me for guidance um i would if i had to pick between these two i would push forward

i'm gonna i'll just tell you

i would push forward metaphor refantosa because astrobot's a commercial

Sorry, man.

I know it's such a good commercial,

but they charge you for a commercial, brother.

I'm so sorry, man.

Wow.

I know it's so good, man.

I love the one ad where Jason Alexander is singing about the McDLT, but it's not the game of the year, man.

This is an incredible turn.

What a wonderful journey Justin has been on as a person, as a gamer, as a father, as a brother.

This is crazy.

I am moved by Chris's argument to have a little bit of Chris Plant represented on this list.

And I realize that that serves my personal list as well.

It's really not Chris Plant personally.

It is what I want to reward games for doing.

And I think that it's like,

it's really cool

what Sony did.

It's also like...

the safest bet you can do is like a self-aggrandizing.

So like even if it fails, people still got a lot of great brand messages, you know?

And Metaphor Refantasio is not only like spellbound so many people, but seems to be like actually has a message and trying to say something

other than, man, it's been a, it used to be really groovy to like PlayStation.

That said, Infinite Wealth is a Chris Plant-ass Chris Plant game, if there ever was one.

Yeah, I agree.

Hey, listen, Russ.

You shouldn't start spinning wildly in defense of Astrobot and accidentally clip someone you may not want to because you never know.

A stray's going around right now.

Yeah, yeah, don't let a stray hit my man eat you bot, okay?

Be careful.

Thankfully, Jeff and I are on the same page, and that's all that matters.

All right, yeah, yeah.

Oh, I just got an email from Sony PR.

Congratulations, Russ Freshdick, on your promotion to hit a

thank you, thank you.

He did it.

They set up direct deposit.

It's going to be great.

Yeah.

Oh, my gosh.

Okay.

So we're going to narrow, we're going to organize this.

We have Metaphor, Refuntasio, Animal Well, Like a Dragon, Infinite Wealth, UFO 50, and Velatro.

That is our final five.

Okay.

Okay.

So I think, in the spirit of this, again, being a list of all of us, like a group list,

let me go back and reiterate that I think probably Metaphor Refantasio should be five.

I think Animal Well, UFO 50, and Bellatro are dog shit.

And I think that they should all be five.

And then we should put the other two as one.

Okay.

In the spirit of

the Justin only likes metaphor because he read a Wikipedia entry.

I'm just just over here.

I explained it.

I started in the spirit, my head.

In the spirit of me dictating the list.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Mr.

I set the rounds and made sure.

Let me rest fresh to say what we're all thinking.

Oh, my God.

Justin, talk about the YouTube videos you watched to convince you this was a good game.

Which one?

I fucking love it, man.

A metaphory Fantasio is the fit.

I mean, it's

pretty hard.

Based on how it got here, I think it's

all right.

Fun.

Okay.

Let's do it this way then.

Number four.

I would, at number four,

argue for

Animal Well.

Oh.

Oh.

I think this, I think we're all going to, no joke, guys.

I think there's four games left.

I think we're all going to say a different one.

That's

going to say a different one.

We'll say and offer him louder until one of us is right.

I guess the question is, are we saying, right now, are we saying our personal number four or are we saying what we think the group's number four should?

We put a game at number five.

I scooted up to number four and I looked at four games.

I was like, which one of you guys wants to go here?

And I know some of them aren't going there.

No.

I understand.

But are we, when you're saying which one's going to go here, are you saying it like what you think the group's number four is?

I'm just opening the discussion on the number four bullet point.

That's all.

See what you guys think about number four.

Because I feel like number four should be a contest between UFO 50 and Animal Well.

I think that's right.

Okay.

I

personally would put Bellatro in at number four.

Absolutely.

Oh,

there's no way on earth.

I would have a hard time putting Bellatro at number four.

Yeah, okay.

Understood.

I think Animal Well, what did you say?

UFO 50 and Animal Well at four?

Yeah,

that's where I that's where I that for for me personally.

If I was sliding them, that is the discussion that I think would be the most productive.

But

I'm curious what you think on this, Fresh.

Animal Well,

this is like again, these are all excellent games.

I know I love themselves.

I feel like UFO 50 will

last longer with all of us.

I feel like we will be picking at UFO 50 even more next year, that you'll hear more about us, exploring what it has to offer.

And if it's a game about secrets, I think

it's a good thing.

I have not even started to peel apart.

I have not even started to peel apart that part of UFO 50, the like going to the terminal and find out the history of the thing.

I know that that stuff is there and is very cool.

And I am excited to one day get to it.

It's just so similar.

These two games, I really feel the same way about.

Like, I feel like they both do amazing things that I wish there was just a little bit more guidance to help you get to the things that are so cool about it and the things that are so rewarding about it.

To give you an example, I really wish for me personally

that UFO 50 did not like pop open to 50 games at once.

Like when I saw that, I didn't want to play it any, like I wanted to turn it off.

And that's just how I, I mean, for me, that's just how I approach this stuff.

And I found it kind of overwhelming.

And I feel similarly about Animal Well, where there's like so many cool things that I wish there was just a little bit more

help to get you to them personally.

Can I go hard for UFO 50?

Because I feel like we have not really had time to do that.

This is the first time before trying to really argue for it.

because I think it's my number one.

And I realize it's not going to be that for you guys.

But the relationship I have formed with this game is

truly unexpected and

quite powerful for me.

It's kind of the two days with Maury of our generation.

It is.

I think if you went through this list of 50 games, I think I could pick out maybe

20 so far of the ones I've played that would rank among my favorite favorite gaming experiences of the year.

I think that finally beating par on pin golf

was so fucking thrilling and so satisfying to get better at that game.

Finally cherrying Magic Garden on a flight home from Milwaukee,

just literally just banging my head against it until I could figure out how to be good at that game.

I did that so far.

Doing that party house when I finally got my fifth random scenario in a row that I won to get the the cherry on that game by the fucking skin of my teeth with one night left was so, so, so good.

When I started to put the pieces together of like the finale of Night Manor, that shit was so good.

I could go literally on and on and on and on and on and on and on because I have had this experience now 34 times.

I'm at 34 cherries where I've been like, oh,

that's how they...

want you to do it.

That is how it is a the the term in conversation with the developer is so like played, but it's that, it's 50 conversations with

50 games.

I think of realizing, can I just finish?

Yeah, yeah, sure, sure.

Of just realizing, like, and I never felt this way about NES games.

I, there's a, uh, despite the fact that like I was born in that era, I don't really have much of a relationship with the NES era because so many of those games have put me off because they are not inviting and welcoming and accessible.

I feel like all 50 of these games, you can see the intention behind each and every one of them if you look hard enough.

And then once you start acting into that intention, the game,

each of the games really, really comes alive.

And I think that that is

a magic trick.

And I think it is truly, truly incredible how often it hits.

So

Animal Well and UFO 50 are both on my top five list.

Currently, my personal top five list, Animal Will is a two and UFO 50 is at three.

That

kind of convinced me to swap them because I think you're right.

I think they're both doing something very similar.

The conversation with the developer thing is very clear in both games.

Animal Well is doing that also, right?

Animal Well is doing it both.

And it's very, very satisfying.

And it's incredibly satisfying, but the ambition and the reach of doing it not only in one game, like you're doing, Animal Well is doing it very consistently in one game because there's one developer making the whole thing.

Right.

This is 50 games, and in each game, you're having that mini experience of that same exact arc.

I guess though, like, I'm this is where I'm really struggling, though, guys, because it's like,

okay,

hear me out before you push back against this, because this is not a reflection of my feeling about UFO 50, which I feel like I've been pretty

positive about vocally.

I'm having a lot of trouble engaging with UFO 50 as a entity in a game of the year discussion where

the game that Griffin is talking about, like, there are so many aspects of it I have not even

experienced.

And there's this part of me, and again, I'm not making an actual argument for this, but this is what is subconsciously tricking me up.

This game was announced a very long time ago.

They worked for a very long time to have a collection of 50 like really brilliant small games, but I'm having trouble thinking of that as one thing that i compare to a singularity of vision like if they had released this game three years ago and it had 25 games on it

yeah how would how would we consider like namco's arcade classics volume three and a bestie's goatee list i you know what i'm saying like and i know that that's unfair but it's like a completely unique thing right and that's it's it is But yeah, that's what I'm struggling with.

I agree with all of that.

The way that I can rationalize it is it does make so much effort to be a cohesive project.

That this isn't a menu of ROMs that you turn on on an emulator and you just have 50 new games to play.

It is presented in chronological order of the fake history, that there is all the backstory that can be found about the games, that the games have their own sequels, that

it is perpetually in conversation with itself,

makes it feel very holistic to me in a way that

Oops, you mentioned at the beginning where you turn it on and see 50 games, right?

It feels at first like the ROM issue, right?

It feels like when you turn on a new handheld emulator and you've put some games that you somehow found that are definitely not IP that are available for sale anywhere, games onto it, and you see a bunch of stuff to play.

But there is so much more going on.

I think it's also like a game about

how people used to make games and how people used to play games.

I think that there's a lot happened here.

That said,

your point of what if they had just released 25 of these, would it have done anything different?

Is true?

Like, I can't really argue with that.

It doesn't make any sense.

Plant, don't give it any more daylight.

This actually doesn't make any sense.

No, I mean,

I get what you're saying.

I think that the...

It's hard.

I'm saying it.

It's not that it...

It's that it feels kind of apples to oranges.

I think that is what I'm doing.

The forever video gaming problem, right?

Yeah, I mean, the forever this episode problem.

I think it's apples to oranges, but at the same time, like, I have gotten really into watching people play UFO 50 because it's been kind of cool to see people.

You know, I think there is a, I understand your argument, Justin, about turning on the game and there's 50 games, and that's like too, too much.

That's too overwhelming.

The process of going through and picking picking those games apart and figuring out what you like and what you don't like, and then finally unlocking games and saying, Oh, I'll stick with this one until I cherry it.

Like, that whole process is a lot of work.

And I like watching other people seeing the path they went through it, right?

Like, oh, what was the game?

What was the game that made UFO 50 click for you?

That's a conversation that I want to have with everyone who ever played UFO 50.

And every time I've ever had that conversation with people, it's always a different game.

Yeah.

And that's fucking crazy.

Yeah, I think that I think that is great.

It could have been UFO 25, maybe, but like I feel like the fact that it is so.

No, no, no.

They called the shot early.

It had to be a 50.

I would say then let's put Animal Well at four, UFO 50 at three,

and then move on with our lives.

I mean, I still think Balatro should come in under both of these games, but that is fine.

I think I'm fine with Animal Well at four for what it's worth.

And we can we can move on from there.

Well, okay, let's leave Animal Well at four and then we'll talk about three games instead of two games.

I think that makes it a little easier.

Makes sense.

yes

so uh

can i have like an honest moment with like a dragon please yeah

i am in love with the narrative in love with the visuals in love with the world i love all that stuff i don't find it super fun to play Which is part of the problem, part of the reason that I feel the same way about Metaphor Reifantasio.

The difference here is that I was immediately engaged with the narrative in this where I wasn't with Metaphor Reifantasio.

And that was enough to propel propel me like much further in this game than I was in Metaphor.

But I still, that is still my personal challenge.

Is like the turn-based combat is more fun than most turn-based RPGs for me.

But I still was not propelled to continue playing, even though I love the narrative stuff.

This will be the interesting thing about how we organize the Final Three, because I feel like

all three of these games have at least one person who feels that way about one of these games.

And I know that because I feel that way about both Bellatro and UFO 50.

I think UFO 50 is a game that I respect a ton intellectually.

Bellatro, we haven't even talked about.

Or at least

we could be

sailing through here a little bit.

I haven't.

Bellatro is a game that I admire a lot

because I think it's a chaos engine.

I don't feel it is a game that I thought I was getting better at as I was playing it.

I thought the game was revealing more of its mysteries and more of its power and more of its chaos, for lack of a better word.

But it was not

unlike poker.

I don't think that there is a like degree of skill that you find in like that sort of card game.

That said, I don't think that that is a bad thing per se.

It's just not what I...

Hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on.

Yeah.

I need to clarify.

Are you saying that you think poker is more a game of skill than Bellatro is?

A thousand percent.

A thousand percent.

The skill is not knowing the cards.

It's playing other people.

That's the skill I'm giving.

Yeah, that's a different thing.

The skill, yes.

And it is.

knowing the cards and knowing the numbers.

There's actually an ability to know the odds when you are playing hands.

Oh, okay.

Yeah, yeah.

Sorry.

Right.

We're like,

yes, yes, yes, yes.

Bilatro is a game about improvisation and reaction.

And sometimes you will get really great cards and you can improvise around them.

And sometimes you won't, right?

You're going to have rounds that are not as good.

Or poker, a round of poker is around a poker is around a poker, especially if you average it out over the course of, you know, 50 or 100 hands.

Yeah, there is way more luck.

tied to Bellatro than there is normal poker.

Especially if 100%

I would say my main criticism of Bellatro is that it does not

scale with difficulty particularly well or particularly elegantly.

Rather, you like

if you're going for a gold stake.

There's like, I can't say this, right?

Because there's like fucking Bellatro psychopaths out there who can win anything that gets thrown at them.

Yeah.

Personally speaking, and I've spent dozens, if not maybe over a hundred hours playing Bellatro on three different platforms.

There, I will just load it up and I will see what the like

skips are.

And I'll be like, nope, not this, nope, not this, nope, not this.

Make it to anti-3 with like out a great, like, uh, malt generator, and it's like, ah, this is net, restart, let's try again.

Like, I think playing Bellatro

as a whole is very, very, very fun.

Um, but I also feel like, I don't know, I, I kind of stopped playing it this time around on the very last challenge, which is the Jokerless challenge, which is obviously like this problem

viewed through a lens of madness

of just like, well, it just depends.

You got to get glass cards.

You got to get this.

You have to get this.

And I don't know.

For me, that puts a bit of a ceiling on Balatro that I don't feel with other games that I would put in the same category, such as Slay the Spire

or,

you know, Monster Train.

Like, I don't know why these are the only analogs in my brain with this of the like infinite replayable deck builder engine.

I think Bellatro kicks ass and obviously,

without argument, has consumed a lot of all of our time.

And we've all enjoyed that.

But for me,

it doesn't have that kind of special

something that I feel like.

Everything you're saying makes perfect sense.

I need you to go back and just...

find something other than Monster Train, though, because God love you, man.

It's an eight out of 10 at best.

There is no

slate.

But in terms of like the, the, the, the scalability and the variability and like engaging runs,

like, I'm, Griff, help me to, can, help me to understand how

the fact that after 100 hours, you were bored of playing Bellachre was a bad thing.

Like, legitimately.

No.

To me, the fact that it's like, I,

you want to keep playing this.

You played it twice as much as you could.

None of that is negative, man.

Like it's not, this is not, it did exact, the fact that you are not endlessly, hopelessly addicted to Pilatro and unable to move on to other things.

I feel like the fact that you can finish it

and then you did that once and Griffin, you were so down on that.

You fucking went and did it exactly again on your phone.

Like it's not, you can't, there's no comparison.

Please understand, these five games that we've come down to here are my top five.

These were my top five games, right?

I spent this much time also with Like a Dragon, and by this point, I've played a lot more UFO 50 than Bellacho.

I'm not saying, I'm picking at little, little, tiny things here.

I'm just saying that maybe

it sounds like a little bit closer to equal for you.

I guess the point I am trying to make is that Ellen.

Let's say if one person liked one of these a lot more and one of them a lot less, and then one person liked both of them equal, they would probably settle on, well, the one we all really like should be higher than the one that we

some of us like some of us are.

Much like Metaphor Refantasio, the importances of democracy, I think.

I think that's what I learned from

that video.

So then it sounds like UFO 50 is going in three

right, like I don't know.

I think it sounds like that.

I think

of the remaining three,

that's your Bellatro is your least favorite plant is that fair to say

um

Bellatro is my least favorite of the remaining three

same seas

I mean

are you trying to like math this out I don't think there's a way to like necessarily math it out I think that's the problem

you know what you know what might actually help here is

can I ask this

one second is Bellatro anyone's favorite game of the year is Bellatro anyone's number one?

No.

No.

The other two could be by number.

That is why I'm making the argument that I am making is because I feel like the things the other two games do here are so much more landmark

than Bellachro, a game I adore.

It's just not my favorite game of the year.

I think that's a great point.

I also think we should maybe try to just come up with the top three, and that will help us.

I think that if I were to say

like a dragon infinite wealth UFO 50 balatro and what animal well metaphor refantasio you're starting at order at number one.

What do you think about this?

Sounds good like a dragon infinite wealth ufo 50 balatro

animal well

metaphor refantasio print it print it

on a shirt I would swap one and two around at will with however we want to do it Russell you're more comfortable with that contrasting idea to that, leave them exactly where the fuck he is.

I would put what you have in that scenario.

Can I say something that is very challenging, Russ?

I'm going to say something to you.

Okay.

And then I think that it's pretty much so right that it'll be hard for you to.

So brace your ass, man.

So brace yourself, fucking Russ.

Because I'm going to say something, and the other two are going to agree.

If you had continued to play the video game like a dragon, infinite wealth, until you had completed it, sure, you would be agreeing with us right now.

Oh, interesting.

Chris Poyant disagrees.

No, I don't ask him this question.

Don't you think that when I got a game?

If you finished the game, you would be agreeing with us 100%.

And I don't mean that in a shitty gatekeepy way.

What I'm saying is there's many games that I haven't like enjoyed, but I hung in there and eventually it clicked and I finished it.

If you had

continued on, I will say also mechanically, it does get more dense and sort of layered.

And I mean it's more about a meta thing, but like tackle that argument.

Yeah.

Okay.

There is no greater crime to me in art than wasting my time.

I'm not saying that infinite wealth wastes my time, but I'm saying in the time that I gave it, which was like close to 20 hours,

it was not time that I necessarily was super constantly engaged with the work.

So I agree with you that like

it probably would have clicked in a Stockholm Syndrome, this became great kind of way.

I think that it would not have done.

I think you would have enjoyed it on its own merits had you gotten to the full ass Animal Crossing game that is built into.

I think the reason I struggle with that is obviously everybody has their own likes and dislikes when it comes to genre.

I think that this game, maybe more than any other RPG I've ever played, doesn't do, like, doesn't do that.

I think every few minutes it throws some shit at you that is absolutely.

It's so hard.

I'm trying to get there with you and be respectful of your opinion, but this is one where it's like, it's really tough.

No, there's so many different games in it, man.

I play, well, I played a lot of the mini-games, and I thought the mini games were cute and funny.

And like, I like taking photos of perverts.

What is that?

What did you think of the talking scenes, like, where people were like interacting together?

Like, narrative scenes?

Yeah, yeah, that's a good word.

Yeah, I thought they were very good.

Excellent.

I call it.

Even I thought it was very well written.

And you thought the mini games were good.

I thought they were fine.

Did you get to Don Doko Island?

I was just a few seconds ago, ago, said, but go on.

Go off.

I did not get to Don Doko Island.

So, look, realistically,

but I'm just telling you from my bike.

I just

a lot of time to spend with a game that isn't necessarily like.

I'm not saying you should have.

I spent two seasons of television with this game.

How many seasons of television should I spend it?

Not a house.

Not a house season.

Not a lost season.

Maybe a Yellowstone.

Yeah.

Whatever.

I think, look, it does.

How would you rank these?

Can I say...

Hold on.

Can we hear before we get into the...

We have not let Russ sort of give his argument.

How would I rank these three?

Or the five, really?

I'm curious.

I mean, the five is a totally different story.

The five is probably animal.

The five is probably

UFO 50, Animal Well,

the increpid workings of Russ's brain are not of interest to me.

I mean, it's just.

Here's, Russ, if I could say, sure, I don't necessarily feel about my list that like that is not my top five.

It is, but when I am looking, and I've, I completely, I have very, very, very frequently been in your exact position.

Yeah.

So I'm, I'm 100% understanding where you're coming from.

I think what is hard is if I,

as I try to entertain what you're saying, obviously I don't share it, but as I try to entertain it and I try to think of like, what is a top, what is a, a top one that we, a game of the year that we could all agree on as much.

It's probably the closest universally agreed upon, because you're right.

I didn't hate by any means that I hate Infinite Wealth.

So it's a very, very good game.

It would probably be on my top five if we had to put it in the top five, five.

It is, I will say this.

It is a game that I, here,

talk about your time being wasted.

Okay.

This is a game that I, I have not ever finished a Yakuza game because I felt exactly what you're saying.

It's like, ugh, okay, I get it.

You want me to run around and do all this garbage?

And I didn't, for what it's worth, like, I didn't feel like my time was wasted.

It's just a difference between being wasted and like just not clicking with me.

Well, and then also, I would make an argument that, in a real sense, it would have been a waste of your time to play a video game that you weren't enjoying.

That's kind of my thesis statement for

that.

For me, this was the rare example where i wanted to spend so much time on it and i and i kept spending so much time i was compelled to spend so much time on it and then the ending of the game was

so incredibly emotionally rhythmic cathartic and cathartic and in a way that like

was rewarding the time that I spent in it.

It was like respectful the time I spent.

It was happy to have had me there, right?

It's a crescendo of an orchestra.

I got what they they were building.

Like I understood, I could kind of envision the like gathering of all your friends and everyone kind of cheering, whatever.

I don't know what happens with the orchestra, but like I could envision

the semantic king coming down.

You see the magic setting and a big,

you know, you're getting it.

In a way that Chris Plant's favorite game ever is, what's the one with Ness?

Earthbound.

Earthbound.

Like, and everyone cheers you on and you believe in love again.

I get it.

I'm just saying like like those the 20 hours that I did spend just didn't get me there.

I think that

I think Like a Dragon deserves it, if only for the fact that it feels like to me, from my, from my perspective, this feels like a game that in past years, only I would have.

been championing and trying so hard to get in the top five at all for three other people who don't really care about the genre.

The fact that it kind of swept like wildfire through this, through most of this podcast, I think kind of

is a really amazing thing.

And sort of, I mean, it sounds like Chris, it kind of like activated you to this whole new, you know,

sub-genre of video games that had

been interested you.

Yeah.

You used to be so cool.

You used to be so cool.

Wow.

That sounded like you weren't.

That said,

Russ, if you want to make a really hard push for UFO 50 at number one, I would.

I don't think I can from the group perspective

is the problem.

Like And that's not a problem.

I just think that the math of it does not make sense because realistically,

no, you can't.

I don't know.

It seems like two of us love UFO 50 and three of us love like a dragon infinite wealth.

Yeah.

Here's what I, the only thing that I will say is if you all could get it together to love UFO 50 enough,

there are the only There are large parts of infinite wealth that I basically did not engage with because I did not have the historical

kind of thing

as a character, and I've played a lot of these games.

This is

blasphemy.

That's the one that always breaks me.

He's just like a sad emo guy.

Well, regardless, I don't care about it.

There's a lot of that game that I did not care about very much because it was about Kiryu.

So if you guys...

Isn't that like half the game, Justin?

Sorry?

Isn't that like half the game?

Not the way I played it.

Yeah, that's true.

When I was in Hawaii, it was fucking party time.

When I was back in Japan, it was...

Let's just fucking go.

I was a salary.

I was a salary, man.

I want to look at Japan.

I was just

budge off.

I want to look at these memories one last time.

I don't think so.

I don't think we're going to look at those memories, Kiryu.

We got fucking boss fights to do, dude.

Any...

Oh, you got bandages.

Nice.

I do think it won me over by the end of it, but I think once you kind of realize the split nature of the narrative, there was a moment of coping that I had to kind of go through.

Okay, I just feel like the Kiryu segments fall into all of the like Yakuza traps of like, there's a bunch of like clan drama that I don't care about and I'm not going to learn about.

And by the time I realized that that's what they're doing, they've already said so many names.

And I don't know.

That's what scared me.

Plant scared me off because he was like, oh, Kiryu is going to be a big focus of this.

Well, yeah, because you just don't like him even as a person.

You said you like him.

I just don't like him.

I was like, boring character.

So, what are you going to do?

What are we doing?

Whatever.

Mathematically, it should be like a dragon at one, UFO 50 at two.

This isn't math,

this is our hearts.

On my own personal list, UFO 50 is number one and like a dragon is two.

So, like, I'm, I'm, I'm obviously fine with like a dragon taking number one, but I, I do, I mean, I think UFO 50 is.

It's really down to plant and hoops and how they feel about UFO 50.

I just personally feel like it's, I wish that UFO 50

was more of a video game and less of a

project.

A museum piece, a creation.

For me, it is really hard to say that the game of the year is like 50 different incredible like thoughts about video games.

Like it's it's it's amazing.

It's a huge accomplishment.

It's really hard for me to say, like,

I want the game of the year to be a game that I don't know.

I know that's amorphous, but like, it's tough.

I do think there is a comparison to make here between UFO 50, which is a fictional

biography of a game developer from the 80s and their complete body of work

comprising 50 games of, I would say, varying levels of quality, but on the whole, like pretty, pretty brilliant, clever stuff.

And like a dragon, infinite wealth, which is also kind of a bundle of video games, if you think about it.

There's one main one where you go around and you beat the shit out of people with bicycles.

And like, that's that game kicks ass.

Well,

that makes it so easy for me because then it's like a dragon with a bullet.

Because if we're talking about which of those games has better games inside of it, UFO 50, intellectually wonderful.

I am, come on, I'm going to play Dondoko Island way more than I want to play.

Well, that's not fair.

A lot of the games in UFO 50 are bad and boring, okay?

And they look bad because they look like old games, and they're really hard, and you die all the time, and they're not fun.

So you go try to find a different one.

And there's a lot, there's too many games that aren't fun.

Hey,

I'm gonna, I'm gonna make a choice for you.

You can play this game where you're like, I don't know, like a dot bouncing around, or you can play a game where you go take pictures of perverts from your tribe.

I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I said I could see UFO 50 at the top.

Fuck no way,

okay.

I have a compromise.

Here we go.

You ready?

Yeah, I've got it.

This is this is the best solve that I can come up with.

I'm gonna give you the order.

You ready?

Yeah, number one, like a dragon.

Number two, UFO 50.

Number three, Balatra.

Number four, Animal Well, number five, Astrobot.

No, I knew you were gonna.

No fucking way to

that.

No.

Hey, you know,

I think

as As we know, we all agree.

How many games I didn't like should be on this list?

I like the idea.

I don't mind.

Russ is such a

mascot.

What if we did a top six this year?

Listen, I'm just saying stuff that makes sense.

Russ is basically the mascot of the besties, right?

So once I think that it would be nice of us, since he doesn't like our favorite game, that we give him a little pinch on the tukas and put Astro Ball back in there.

And just to make it more representative of all of our collective tastes, we get a little bit more rust in the five slot.

And because he's not getting much English on the one spot, he's getting two, three, and four.

Three of these games are incredibly rust-frusted games.

So I will be fair and say that.

I will, as an act of kindness, I will let you choose UFO 50 Balach for Animal Well.

Which one do you want to kill in exchange for getting Astrobot on this list?

What a brutal.

Fuck.

Fuck.

I hate that.

Yeah.

It won't happen.

I mean, it would

won't happen.

I mean, it shouldn't happen.

It's probably.

Yeah, it shouldn't happen, though.

Probably Animal Well.

Oh, wow.

It doesn't feel good, does it?

No, I hate it.

We're coming to my house.

Are we locking it up?

Yeah, you can lock it.

It's fine.

We'll do like a dragon, UFO 50.

I think the vibes would be better if we took out Metaphor Refantasio and put Astrobot there.

I'm serious.

Justin.

Does it make me feel great that Russ doesn't love our first game?

And I think if we get

historically, it has

last year.

I was the grump because

Tears of the Kingdom got beat by Baldur's Gate 3, which I did not think

should.

We have this every year.

There's always at least one person.

Yeah.

I don't know.

I kind of feel like an older brother to Rose.

That's very sweet, Justin.

I appreciate it.

All right.

Well, okay, I'll say it out loud then.

Here we go.

Is there a version of Like a Dragon that just cuts Kirio out?

Like we could just completely remove it.

Yeah, it's called Like a Dragon.

It's called Yakuza Like a Dragon, the first game in the RPG specific.

All right, let's play that.

And number five, Metaphor Refantasio.

Number four, Animal Well, number three, Bellatro.

Number two, UFO 50.

Number one,

Like a Dragon, Infinite Wealth.

Did it?

Congratulations, everybody.

Is Project Sentry a Like a Dragon game?

Unknown.

Yeah,

but probably.

But probably.

Okay.

Great.

Hey, very quickly, would y'all like to share your personal top fives for the listeners?

I mean, I already did mine.

Mine one to five is UFO 50, Like a Dragon, Metaphor, Animal Well, Bellatro.

So these five games in all different order.

Fresh, how about you?

Mine was Astrobot, UFO 50, Animal Well, Tactical Breach, Wizards, and Bellatro.

In that order?

Yes.

Cool.

Mine is Like a Dragon, Metaphor Refantasio, 1000 Hex Resist, Dragon's Dogma 2, Tactical Breach Wizards.

Juice?

I don't know, man.

I don't know.

I think

you submitted a numbered list.

I didn't submit anything.

What was your number one, Juice?

What?

What was your number one?

Bellatro,

I think.

With Infinite Wealth at 2, because I skipped so much of it

um

i'd probably put steam world

in there

yeah you know we did something like that i don't i don't know

oh i love it i love it yeah we did it we did it we did a year of the show

weird list

weird fucking list i think weird year if you had told us

January 1st, 2024, that this was going to be our goatee list, I don't think any of us would have believed you.

I think we've done it.

Thank you to everyone.

Thank you, especially to the folks over at the Patreon, which continue to support our

lovely work.

We really appreciate it.

We have some new members I want to shout out.

We have Landon, we have Blight, White, we have Bathroom Snack, and we have Fiction Bug.

Thank you for being supporters of the Patreon.

Thank you to everyone else.

Exciting news coming next week.

The members of the Patreon have been

benefactors to everyone else, insofar as they're letting us put one of the bonus episodes up on the main feed for everyone to enjoy.

That will be coming next Friday.

You'll get one of our currently, I think we have 10 published, one of our 10 bonus bracket episodes

in addition to a whole bunch of rest of these episodes that are behind the Patreon paywall.

But this will give you a taste of what you've been missing if you haven't subscribed yet.

It is the episode that is dedicated to the best console ever, not including the games.

So good.

So good.

It's crazy.

So thank you to all the Patreon members for making it all happen this year.

We really appreciate you.

So that's going to do it for us.

Be sure to join us again next time on The Besties.

Because should the world's best friends be the world's best names.

Besties