The Besties Besty of the Year 2024, part 1

Holy crap, guys.

This is the cold open, but sometimes we're all so bad at counting our sync to sync the show.

I don't think we should do a podcast anymore.

Like, I don't think we were meant to podcast.

I think we should get into psych visual arts or

sculpture.

Especially not a podcast that has counting in it.

Yeah, could the besties be a sculpture, is what I'm saying.

Could it be a visual arts project?

Now, hold on.

Audio.

We're locked into the audio

project.

The besties.

Russ has just raised a really interesting question, which is, can you do a goadie list without numbers and counting in it?

Oh, man.

And so it's more of a sort of free form.

All the games land instead of on a line, a sort of sphere.

A palette.

Sure.

Where they place on the sphere.

I like to think of video games as a palette.

And we're all just artists with our brush.

And we're just dabbing it in the Elden Ring.

That's cool.

Dragon Dogma.

And then we paint it.

And that's the goadie.

The painting is the goatee.

Yeah.

And maybe there's not a goatee.

Maybe it's just you look at the

goatie.

No, there is.

We don't.

Yeah, there's going to be pick.

There's concrete past.

The thing that is

there is still a number one best game.

That's the only thing that's different about it.

But if we could get this sphere idea going, then I think people could just look at the sphere.

Sphere when they're done for long enough, you will clearly be able to discern a numeral sign and then a one and then a triple A video game released in the year 2024 in it.

Like, that's the only thing

this year will be a clear number one best game.

This is literally the plot of Metaphor Refantasia.

You stumbled backward into it.

Spoilers.

Hey, seriously, Plant.

No, no kidding.

That is the BO

B A J O T Y, the besties joke of the year.

You will not make the besties show.

So glad that's what that stood for, J dog.

No, Griffin, now that's the BJO TY Congrats late late year entry Griffin swoops plant

with the BJ of the year

unless there's some more great BJs in this one we'll see baby we only just begun

Besties, we are back here with the besties awards.

Yeah,

we do this every year.

You guys, Justin and Russ look surprised, but this happens every year.

Yeah, plan always seems the cold theme.

That is the famous, the world-famous besties game of the year theme opening.

Welcome.

That tune can only mean one thing, and it's time for everyone's favorite time of year where the besties finally make it come due.

We're not going to fucking start the show with our start saying our names.

No, not this time.

It's a special.

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

I'm Griffin McRan with best game of the week.

You know who we are.

You're here for our game of the year show.

My name is Chris Plant, and I know the best game of the year.

My name is Russell Rushdie.

I know the best game of the wee.

My name is Justin McCarran.

I know the best game of the year.

We're choosing it this time with the besties.

This is how many years of power?

How many years of excellence is.

It feels like 11.

11 or 12, something like that.

2012.

We found it in 2012.

This is 12th, our 12th year of excellence.

We are going to be picking the best game of this year.

I think we might have missed a couple years in there, by the way.

It should be noted.

I think it's a good idea.

No, we've always picked a best game.

There's a full list you can review.

I'm so glad.

Yes.

There were times where we picked multiple games, and there were times where we deferred to, I think, the Chris Krant bottom.

The Chris Krant.

Yeah, yeah, Yeah.

Unfeeling, sentient video game criticizing device.

Which is honestly less funny in this world of AI now where we could create a Chris Granatron.

Oh my god, so much easier.

Yeah.

It's going to be, it's going to be a neat one, I think.

No, no clear frontrunners, no

Eldon's rings, which was a pretty anticlimactic episode, if memory serves.

Yeah.

No, no, no, Breath of the Wilds to breathe in.

We got a clean slate.

If I could just ask, just as a thought experiment, if you guys could look at the list of 16 games that we have and tell me how many games you would feel comfortable

being number one.

When you look at this, how many different number ones?

Because I don't have one number one where I could be like, yeah, that's mine.

I have

five.

I have five?

I have nine this year.

Nine?

Nine.

Nine where you're like, if we pick the best get, if we're number one, you're like, yeah, sounds about right.

Comfortably nine.

And I comfortably nine.

What a year.

What a year, guys.

I got at least six.

It's a good year.

Yeah, it's a good year.

All right.

So give me that structure, Chris.

Here's how it works.

We do a bracket of 16 games.

12 of those games have been picked by us, the besties.

Four of those games.

We don't say it enough, but okay, experts.

Four of those games have been picked by you, the besties listeners.

They show down in 1v1 matchups.

We do this in two episodes.

The first episode is eight matchups.

That will fill up the entirety of the episode, all of round one.

The next episode, we will be actually whittling down to the true bestie of the year.

We'll also be handing out some superlative awards, which is new this year, and we're really excited for you to hear more about that.

But first, we got to work our way through this.

Yes.

Beginning with round one,

what a year for video games.

Astrobot, also known as Rust Rushik, says it's the best platformer of all time, better than Mario, and certainly better than Sonic.

And Rise of the Golden Idol.

Yeah, this is what you want me to start on my

Astrobot knowledge from you, baby boy.

Look, back then, this is a few months ago when Astrobot came out.

Actually, we're going to

go even further back and say how excited I was after Astro's Playroom came out.

And I was like, damn, I hope they give them a full-on platformer to do.

And they've done it.

Astrobot comes out.

And there is not a single game on this list that was so consistently joyful and fun throughout the entire start-to-finish experience.

I fucking loved every minute of this game.

The music, the graphics, the art design, playing it, the actual platforming of it.

Can I ask a question?

Fucking rules.

To clear, to zero in on what you are saying about it, because I trust you.

As we've established an expert,

when you say it's the best platformer, are you saying that this is the best game that you would put into the genre of platforming?

Or if you divorce all aesthetics and other like non-gameplay elements no i no i add i add it all together i think they're all together so yeah the platform there's probably a better feeling let me just yeah there's probably a better feel whatever like jumping from platform to platform there might be a better game than that i think as a whole as a cohesive experience no platforming has done platforming better than astrobot has that's so fascinating that's so that's really interesting i i

i don't know that i agree with that being wrong?

Do you have a sense that you're wrong?

I'm just, that's a nihilist question.

I feel like

I'm saying, how do you, kidding aside, how do you, how do you say that over like

when you're adding a superlative like that?

I'm not disagreeing.

I'm like trying to think about it.

Like, how do you weigh that against like

Mario Odyssey?

Mario 64, Mario Odyssey.

Yeah, I mean, a lot of it has to do with consistency.

I think all of the Mario games, and there's a lot that are fucking amazing.

We'll look at like Mario Odyssey, which was mentioned.

And yet all of them have

excess at times.

Things that you don't necessarily want to do, but you have to continue doing because whatever you need to find a moon or whatever you got to do, it's not all fucking straight bangers as much as I wish it was.

Yeah.

And that, I think, really, for me, I always prioritize like, give me the purest experience of this thing, which is why I always blanch at, oh, you need to play 15 hours before it gets good.

That is like the biggest curse to me because it's like, just put, give me the good shit.

Don't, don't build it.

I'm so into this argument, Russ.

I genuinely am because I agree with you wholeheartedly.

For me, what this game accomplishes that is, I think, almost impossible to

define is a vibe and a tone that is

so pleasant and good and silly and clever in a way that I feel like when games try to go for, it gets a little too like twee for my tastes.

Sure.

But this game feels so authentically joyful.

And

I think that that is absolutely like it stands head and shoulders above certainly anything else that came out this year.

But I think I would agree with you that I can't think of a platform that is this, that makes me feel this good from a visual and an audio and a sort of mechanical kind of standpoint.

meanwhile over at rise of the golden idol

this is a late one did did did you finish it has everyone or i guess who played it i have not finished it i uh i am like halfway through the fourth of five like

acts case groupings however you want to say it uh rise of the golden idol is uh i think you could most accurately accurately describe it as like a point-and-click puzzle game where you are it is taking point-and-click adventure mechanics, but distilling them to

single-like situations where everything's contextual.

And rather than how

items in the environment interact, it's much more about like how the ideas represented by those items interact.

So you're looking at a sort of tableau that's lightly animated.

You are digging through all the clues and all the everything that you can find.

And then like, that's like one layer.

And as you play the game, what you're really collecting is words and ideas.

So as you explore the world, you might find like a test tube and you collect the word test tube.

And then to solve the scenario, you'll get basically what's like a mad libs where it lays out the story for you and you have to pull in the clues that you have collected in the world to lay out what actually happened in this story.

And as the

situations get more and more complex, there's more and more sort of like lateral thinking required that gets you to, and sort of like less initial context presented where you are really having to establish a lot in order

pretty much every scenario will also have like a

one or two sort of like smaller bite-sized puzzles that you're trying to solve like a lot of times it's like pairing names to faces that's pretty common one in some you'll have to like pair for example like uh you'll have a diagram of different symbols and then you'll have to write what each one of those symbols means uh And sometimes that's a clarifying thing of helping you to understand what's happening.

Sometimes it's a way of like you proving that you understand what's happening without necessarily brute forcing it.

But all these different like cases are telling a cogent

super story across all the different cases and scenarios that are all these people interweaving and like the story, such as it is,

is like unfurls over the different cases.

And as you're playing them, you're seeing how they like jump around in time, how the stories interact, where the different layers of the story are.

Sydney doesn't play a lot of video games with me, but I downloaded this on the Surface Studio that I have that folds into an iPad.

And we did that with like a stylus.

And we played the whole thing together on a recent trip.

And for somebody that doesn't play a lot of video games, but does love like puzzles and mysteries, it was fantastic.

It's like such a good game to play together that way.

And we had like a fantastic time.

It's kind of its own genre at this point, heavily inspired by like

the return of the Oberden and things like that.

But like it really does with this one, feels like an even more sort of like self-assured, like this is what a golden idol game is.

And I think it's just fantastic.

The music is great.

It looks great.

It's so fun.

It is so cogent and fair.

By the time you get to the end of it, it almost, you don't even remember what the puzzle was.

It's so clear what happened

that it like, it doesn't even feel like a puzzle.

It's just like, oh yeah, I just sort of like, yeah, I understand this completely.

I just want to hammer home.

I think the story of this game is one of my favorite.

like pieces of storytelling this year.

You will do a standalone little mystery and think like, there's a mystery where someone has been killed in an aviary by a bunch of birds.

And you're like, what does this have to do with anything?

Like, what does this have to do with anything?

There's a lot of those that just come completely out of left field.

And then two chapters later, you figure out, like, oh, my God, like, oh, that was telling me this.

That was telling me this.

You'll see a character watching this like TV talent show that had nothing to do with anything.

And you realize, like, oh, that's what that was doing.

The dance.

The dance, yeah.

The whole story of this game really, really stuck with me.

And I think it's fantastic.

And I think it's free if you have a a Netflix subscription.

I think that's right.

I think they have both of the Golden Idol games.

These are two completely different kind of like

one's better than the other.

That's the besties, baby.

I guess the question I had, because

so I played a ton of the original Golden Idol, but didn't finish it.

And I was like intimidated to start the new one because I wanted to see the end of the story of the first one.

Mechanically speaking, are there substantial changes to the second one, or is it kind of more of the same great puzzle stuff?

Definitely more of the same.

I would say the place where it kind of stands apart is each chapter has like four mysteries in it usually.

And then once you're done with those four mysteries, there will be like a little booklet that is like, here is everything that happened in this chapter.

I think that stuff is a lot more fleshed out.

And that is good because it really helps you to start putting the pieces together of like what this entire story is all about, I and it is

such a story that I kind of have been tempted to go back and replay it already, just now knowing kind of like what was actually happening the whole time.

Um, I think that Sid and I will probably go back and play one together after we finish this one, which would be did you do the DLC for one?

No, I didn't do that.

Some of it's really, really good.

The I, what I, what I would say about the what I think is so

cool about what Griffin is saying about the story is like

it is it is layered onto you in a way that is not like literally told it is it is something that you almost sort of like absorb and find yourself understanding as you're playing through these levels you're like something in this is sticking in my mind like I remember it this game I think compared to the last one for me as somebody who like bailed in the first one I think that while the basic mechanics are the same The like connective tissue between the different levels, there's like little like extra bits that you get outside of the quests themselves.

They're like little bits of information that contextualize some of what you just saw.

But I think it's much better at like pulling you into the next mystery rather than the other one.

Kind of felt like once I finished one, I often felt like you didn't have the momentum.

Yeah, yeah, there's a loss of momentum.

I think this one keeps the momentum, and I don't know how they're doing it, like without directly looking at the UI, but I feel much more compelled to keep moving forward in this one.

Okay.

Is there anyone here that thinks

Astrobot shouldn't move forward in this matchup?

It's asking me what I think is more important, right?

Because I think Rise has a, I mean, Astrobot doesn't have a story per se.

The PlayStation 5 gets stolen by aliens and you have to repair it.

Yeah, so that's astrobot is more of an accomplishment from an artistic and like, I don't know, just ambition standpoint, maybe.

But

so I do think in my mind it is it goes a little bit higher um

but i do like rise

plant i want a million of these games and so if that means we have to give them the goatee to get there

so that's a price you gotta pay yeah plant where are you at oh i'm i mean i'm astrobot it's no fault of golden idol a recurring thing I notice when people really like Golden Idol is they say, exactly what you said, hoops.

I love it.

I was playing with somebody else.

I do think it's better that way.

I think it is such a game changer and that

I played both these games solo.

And especially the second time around, I found myself a lot more frustrated.

I don't think that's a knock on the game.

I think it is a game meant to be played with another person the same way that when you watch a detective movie, there's always like Sherlock and Watson.

I almost said it's Sherlock and Cinner.

But yeah, I think that is the missing piece for me.

So it's purely on personal preference.

It's Astrobot.

Yeah.

We don't have a good way of talking about games like that.

I think that like ostensibly single player games that are really better like as a shared experience.

You know what I mean?

It's not strictly a multiplayer thing, but I'm fine with Astrobot.

I think this game, I think Rise of the Golden Isles is freaking fantastic.

I really, really liked Astrobot a lot.

I could see where, in terms of like, if you got to pick one in terms of what's doing something that you want to like celebrate and honor, Astrobot feels a little bit more of like a

high watermark.

Achievement is a good, a really good way of putting it.

All right, Astrobot, bump it, bump it up.

Boom.

Next up, we have Animal Well and Prince of Persia, the Lost Crown.

Shit, yeah, man.

I'll talk Animal Well.

Is that all right?

Go for it.

Animal Well is,

I mean, I follow video game Dunkey on YouTube, enjoy his stuff quite a bit.

And

when you they announced, you know, he was opening his own publisher and this was going to be the game that came out of it.

It immediately, I think, just seized my attention just from a visual kind of standpoint because the game looks kind of unlike anything I've ever seen before.

Uh, it looks like a light bright video game, it looks like a light bright video game, yeah, like a super low, low, uh, lo-fi, neon kind of uh, uh, gritty animal platformer.

Uh, I, I have talked about this a lot when we talked about the game the first time around.

Uh, the experience of playing this game at launch, before launch, like in a group of, in a Discord of fellow reviewers, was truly unforgettable.

Uh, and I think the game definitely stands on its own apart from that, uh, as evidenced by the fact that it's pretty widely renowned, uh, even outside of that, that discord.

It is just a

platformer with a few ideas that it explores to the to the like molecular level

to a degree where

some of the basic puzzles you solve them, you're like, okay, I get it.

I kind of get what this game is serving up.

And then down the road, you realize like, oh my God, like this is the smartest.

This is the smartest thing ever.

I still feel uncomfortable talking about some of this stuff because I think those moments of discovery are so important.

And Russ will certainly bang this drum louder than I will.

But I like having a moment, I'll say one, I realized at one point, hey, that bush looks weird.

And then I got a barcode scanner app.

I downloaded it on my iPhone and scanned the bush.

And it turned out that it was a barcode with like a secret in the game for it.

That is one of.

50 like really, really, really neat things that this game does.

It has multiple sort of like strata that you can go into.

If you want to just play it like a platformer with some like kind of neat Metroidvania-esque mechanics and exploration, that's cool.

If you want to get deeper into it and, you know, try to find all the secrets, that's cool.

If you want to find all the secret secrets that are like really crazy universe brain stuff, like you can also go that far into it.

There's no game that came out this year like it.

There's no game I can really think of maybe that have ever come out like Animal Well.

And I think I think Fez is like in the ballpark, but I think Fez is certainly in the ballpark.

Yeah, I would grant it.

But I think Animal Well is doing that idea in a much more thoughtful

and cohesive way.

Also just such a labor of love and that comes through in like every aspect of it.

If you find the developer notes, just like just like incredible.

I think the story about this game is really, really fantastic.

Earlier, Hoops mentioned uh you know like how many games could you see getting our game of the year animal well is not even on my top 10 maybe not my top 20 but i'm thinking about a game that i would be happy to like literally take that crown as like what it represents for like the besties and what it represents for a game of the year and where i really admire a game animal well is that And I think that's a testament to something as a, I don't know, an object of creativity that it's not really for me.

I didn't really enjoy my time with it.

I admire the shit out of it, and I probably watched five hours of videos about it.

Yeah.

Yeah, it's the epitome of my like no guides thing is animal, like that is the core of that.

Only because it goes to the point of like, I think the best things for me when I'm playing video games is the feeling of ownership.

I made a choice or I discovered something and it wasn't like external force or whatever it is.

And Animal Well is a game about having ownership over like the things you discover and some of them are like very well curated and obvious and some of them are really really uh hard to spot and some of them you absolutely need to team up with a group of a dozen people to solve uh

that is a lot of dope

but but prince the purge of the lost crown you can shoot five arrows which is way more than at any point in animal well

let me tell you

this is i'm so if you want to slide underneath an enemy and then stab him in the back you can't even do it in Animal Well until you've played for like 10 or 11 hours.

You can get the sliding gem

and the murder frisbee.

I don't know.

Murder Frisbee is from Animal Well, for what it's worth.

Okay, but there is also

Murder Frisbee.

Sorry, they both have Murder Frisbee.

Care, fair, clear.

I'm glad this matchup happened.

I mean, I made the matchup, so I'm glad it worked out nicely.

These are totally

interesting approaches to the same genre.

um and i love both of them like these are both right i didn't even really think of them being the same genre but they aren't they effectively and

they're like coming at it from two completely different directions prince of persia is a much more guided directed um experience it borrows a lot of same tropes of unlocks and map discovery things like that

but i do want to say like i don't want it to become like

I don't want to cheapen Prince of Persia Lost Crown through the comparison because there is an amazing amount of work that has clearly gone into the flow of this game and making each like little tiny scrap of it feel like cogent and fun to get around like especially once you've gotten through a lot of unlocks like getting through this world and the different number of ways you can like approach like traversal and combat and like there are so many different like completely valid uh ways to to go at it and it's like uh uh there's a lot of love, especially for a game that like

you could see a world in which a Prince of Persia game doesn't need to be, doesn't get that amount of TLC because they're relying on, you know, whatever power the brand has to keep it going.

But

it is really well balanced.

It's a lot of just pure fun.

I actually finished it just because it was like

that enjoyable to play and stick with.

But it is like...

It is not

breaking a lot of new ground.

It's familiar.

It's It's definitely familiar for the genre.

And I don't think that's a bad thing, to Justin's point.

It's probably

combat-wise, I think it's a lot more fully fleshed out than a lot of search action games.

Absolutely, right?

It's a lot more about building your skill set and finding combos that work together, stuff like that, rather than finding a super weapon that lets you blow through stuff.

Yeah, no, I think the boss fights were fantastic.

There's great puzzles in this game.

Animal Well is like you're learning a new language from scratch.

This is not that, but I do think this game takes a lot of swings that it didn't have to take in really smart ways.

There's like amazing, like you're making clones of yourself to like weigh down switches and spin around whatever.

Other puzzles,

almost all the powers do something like interesting that I've never ever seen before.

And

yeah, it's it's fucking spectacular.

Also like refreshing when it came out.

I was not expecting.

It was one of those games that I feel like it happens a few times a year on Besties where it's like, what are we talking about next week?

It's like, oh, Prince of Persia, the Lost Crown.

And I'm like, I don't know.

I've never heard of that.

I don't know what that is, but it's probably not going to be very good because it's a Prince of Persia game and those have a pretty mixed track record in my book.

And then it blew my ass away at how fun it was.

And I don't know.

I feel like it was just what I wanted right when I wanted it.

If you didn't expect that Prince of Persia game, I bet you super, duper didn't expect another one three months later.

That was the real twist that kept you guessing.

Can we get that one into contention here?

Uh, just real quick, throw it in because it was

the rogue prince in Persia is also very fun.

Yeah, so yes, it's surprisingly, also weirdly good.

Um, I gotta put it as Animal Well, though, right?

I mean, it's it's it's animal well.

I think Animal Well

is pretty genius, even if I'm kind of closer to plant than you two.

Uh, I definitely dig dig it.

Uh, all right.

Next up, we have UFO 50 versus Fields of Mystria.

Ooh,

is this our first audience pick in Fields of Mystria?

Yeah, and I think the only

like in-progress game on the list.

Oh, early access.

Early access.

Oh, right.

Yes.

Can I be honest?

That's kind of, I really, really like Fields of Mysteria.

I think what they're going for kicks ass,

and the game definitely got its hooks in me.

It is hard for me with a game that is like a life sim, like Stardew Valley, like I know I'm going to put a lot, a lot, a lot, a lot of time into this.

And so there was part of me that felt like I should just wait for full release, which is not fair, I think,

when it comes to talking about these games.

But I did put, I mean, probably 20, 30 hours into Mystria.

Yeah.

And Fields of Mysteria, I think, will come back next year or the year after and be pretty, it'll make it far in the bracket.

I don't think this year is that year.

I will say, for folks who are thinking about trying it, if you are looking for a Stardew Valley light game that I think has a lot of the rough edges polished off, which is wild to say about a game that is one of the most successful of all time,

you can start playing it right now.

And they've added updates even since we talked about it on the show.

It is a very complete game, but

it almost hurts knowing what they have yet to add, right?

They have have been clear about saying this game is going to be that much better.

So

I'm really glad it made our Sweet 16.

I think it certainly already earns a spot there, but I agree that

it has a little bit more time to cook.

I do want to mention at this point, because we are having the early access conversation, there is a notable absence from this list, I think,

in the Place of Hades 2.

That's That's a game that I've been playing a lot because I continue to want to keep up with it.

But I think that is a game that, from talking to the other three, definitely something that we're going to return to once it's a little closer to like done, done.

From what I understand,

the mystery is a little closer to

what it was, you know, feature complete than Hades 2.

But we will definitely be returning to Hades 2.

I don't think Hades 2 won Godie the year it was released.

Did it?

Yeah, I think Hades 21.

It couldn't have been.

But was it 1.0 Hades or was it the early Axis 2?

At 1.0,

no, it couldn't have been because it was released during the Game Awards.

You're right.

Yeah, it was released on Epic Game Store during the Game Awards.

Epic and Awards.

During the Game Awards.

So it would have been the following.

Early Access.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I can I talk about UFO 50.

Yes.

Does it

make too much?

We all agree.

Maybe harder than any game I've ever talked about on the besties or maybe ever played before.

I fucking slingshotted around the circumference of this one and came back so, so hard.

Are you saying the besties got it wrong, Griffin?

Are you saying this one?

The besties got it wrong.

I'm not saying the besties got it wrong.

I am saying that this is a game that

more than any game I've probably ever played before,

it will sink its teeth into you if you

if you approach it with curiosity, if you approach it with like an open mind and you approach it with sort of like

a faith in the game's like ability to have kind of innovative ideas in all of these really

ancient looking packages.

UFO 50 is 50 games, not mini games, pretty much

full-size games.

NES era.

NES era games.

And that is like, I think the reason I was pretty quickly turned off by it is that I don't actually have that much affinity for NES games.

I think that most of them aren't particularly fun to play.

I think a lot of them have not held up especially well and lean on like difficulty curves that are like insane as opposed to meaningful ideas that you know would keep you coming back for the length of a full game.

I think UFO 50 at first blush does that stuff too.

But also I am now

I've gotten the cherry on 31 of these bad boys now, and I just kind of keep coming back for more.

It has gotten me to play genres of games I don't like, I'm not interested in, that I get into very, very deeply

because they are pretty approachable here.

Once you kind of give them a chance and try to learn it, once I sort of shed the idea of like, this is too complicated for me, this is too hard for me, putting that idea out of mind and thinking like this game was designed, and there are ideas that I can approach it with that will help me succeed at this game, has been like a truly exciting and like empowering journey that I have gone on with this game.

And I could speak about each of the 31 games that I have gotten the cherry on so far and why they all kick ass.

But I think that this game is

a genuine, mind-boggling accomplishment in game design, games design.

And I just like it so much.

I hate to take away more UFO 50 conversation, especially from Russ Rushdick.

But I think we're going to be talking about this game quite a bit more in the next episode.

So

how about we give UFO 50 the old congratulations and move it on to the next round?

Yeah, I will also say it's 50 games.

So good luck, everybody.

good luck everyone else

because it's got 50 that's when wario needs to pop up like wow i got you i got 69

button i love wario so much what if the next uh micro games uh what i think a wario wear gabe is is just called wah69 and it's 69 awesome micro games

so funny uh what's the next matchup

We have Like a Dragon Infinite Wealth versus 1000 X Resist.

Can you confirm if it's 1000x Resist or Times Resist?

Because I've heard both.

So often the X in these things is just silent.

So it'd be like 1,000 Resist, like Spy Family.

So

it might be 1,000 Resist.

Are you telling me the name of that animated show is Spy Family and not Spy X Family?

Correct.

Yeah.

Shit, man.

Yeah.

And Godzilla Kong.

That's the name of that movie.

It's Godzilla Kong.

Godzilla Kong.

Can I say a quick word about like Dragon Infant Wealth?

Please.

I didn't ever finish one of these guys before.

I've played like four of these guys and I got like 10 hours into it.

And I'm like, this is cool, but it's just like, I don't know.

What do you mean by these guys?

These Yakuza games.

Formerly Yakuza games, now like a dragon.

These are these fellas.

I keep playing them.

And because like, there's a lot of things I like.

I love the idea of virtual tourism.

you know what I mean like sure I like the idea of being in another environment and exploring it and like picking up some cultural stuff and it's a it's a cool environment to be in um but I eventually just kind of get overwhelmed um by the amount of stuff that is in these games and the idea of like missing certain things and the idea of like uh

I think being overwhelmed by the amount of stuff that you need to keep track of, especially when it's like a culture separate from yours, I think gets kind of overwhelming.

They also can get pretty talky, et cetera, et cetera.

This is the first one that I've finished, and I've finished it

a lot.

I finished a lot of parts of it that you didn't need to finish, but I did finish those.

I think that

once I've sort of gotten to the wavelength of this thing, I will say, one, it is

really

generous and open-hearted in the way that it designs games and mini games and combat and and all of it really it's a it's a very uh player positive like uh wants you to have fun wants you to be engaged doesn't want you to like

i don't know it it's very open-hearted and generous in the way that like it'll lay out entire stories that it didn't really need to give you but it will give complete stories where one was not required right like nice stories it'll It'll make complete games like the, I'm thinking of Dondoku Island, like complete games inside the game when you really could have gotten away with something that was a lot more bare.

In the same way, it's got a protagonist who

is genuinely one of the like best heroes I think we've had in games in a long time.

It is so nice to play a character who is not an anti-hero and is not

uh cynical cynical or or any of it and is like really like someone who genuinely has morals and ethics and just wants to do the right thing and it feels good to be in a game and be able to be a person like that it feels nice to be in a world where people are like happy to see you and where you are not

uh like the most important person in the world you know like the world does not hinge on ichiban he is pursuing his

morals and what he thinks is right because they are his morals and what he thinks is right, not because destiny has told him he needs to do it.

He's just a good person.

And I think that's a really powerful message and a really engaging message.

And I just loved, it builds to, I think, one of the most moving

like endings to a video game I've ever seen.

I adore this game.

I adore it.

And I, by the way, like, I don't know that I'm necessarily going to play the next Like a Dragon game to come.

Like, I don't, I'm not like, now I get it.

You know what I mean?

Like, I, I, but this one, I got a lot, and I think it's really lovely.

Yeah, I feel like Ichiban and kind of the like a dragon games in general are about a great community organizer more than like a superhero.

He has this kind of gravity well that just pulls people toward him.

And so much of the solutions are not, I solved it, but like, oh, I brought the other people involved who could help solve this problem.

And that is such a refreshing change of pace.

And such a time rise ago, it's kind of like a Ted Lasso

open world RPGs in a lot of real sense.

It's so smart for open world game, though, because you're going to have all of these people.

The whole point of open world is that you're in this space with a ton of people and a ton of community.

So whenever you make it about one person, it just feels so, it's seeing this huge world through a pinhole.

And you compare it to GTA, where everyone around you you tends to either like double-cross you or is trying to screw you, you know, you're trying to screw them over.

And you compare that tone to this and it's really nice.

This game, people try to screw you over and you refuse to accept it.

Yeah.

Because you know that deep down they're actually a pretty good dude.

And then they think about it for 10 fucking hours and you go off to your own island and you come back later and they're like, hey, you're right.

I am a good dude.

I came to give you this bat.

It's on fire.

I'm going to turn some diapers into snow and change the lives of the people around me.

How's your APS?

How's your pervert collection coming?

That's pretty good.

Depends on which pervert collection you're talking about.

The one that fights or the one that farms.

Yeah.

Or the one you take photographs.

There's a lot of different types of

perverts.

Hey, 1,000 X Resist.

Thank you.

Actually, Chris, the X is silent sometimes.

Oh, Thank you.

Sorry, I'm glad that we have somebody who's an expert on the show.

Thank you to everybody who voted for this to get into the 16.

Once again, a game that I am so glad is on the 16.

Once again, not a game I can recommend going any further as the biggest fan of the game on the show.

For people who are unfamiliar with it, it is an absolutely stellar narrative game.

Maybe the best story I played in a game this year.

I think I compared it at the halfway point to the works of Ted Chang, who wrote the story that would be Arrival, the movie.

These are sci-fi stories that are much more about people and the decisions that we make and how the big questions of sci-fi force us to like reckon with uncomfortable truths about our behavior.

And this one, the best way I could summarize the premise without spoiling too much is: imagine if COVID had happened, but it killed or was set to kill everyone except for one person.

And what would it be like to be that person and all the responsibility that comes with it?

And now, more so worse, what if that person was a teenage girl and all of where your brain is at when you're a teenager, that that suddenly comes into conflict with something that is so greater than you and kind of where your ego is as a teenager?

It's a really good question.

And where they go with it with the game is wild.

It's also dealing with a whole bunch of other things

like immigration and protest and really the past five years of kind of global culture.

So much to put into one video game.

Caveat, or not caveat, I would say bonus.

Real anime vibes.

And I think this is what often intimidates people or scares people away.

The trailers for this game, I think, are a little intimidating.

You want to say what just happened?

Sorry.

Sorry.

The listener at home won't appreciate this.

But

the moment Plant said real anime vibes, Griffin literally stood up from his chair, spun around, and spread

out the door.

I think he's answering his front door, but he's doing a bit of a picture.

I think he's spamming pre-order.

He's like, oh, I need a new, I need a new pillow to enter.

I'm going to GameStop.

I'm going to run.

Don't walk to my local GameStop to buy.

It's worth considering about a month ago, because I knew how highly Chris Plant loved 1000 Resist.

I asked him, I was like, hey, so I have to play this game, right?

And I wasn't super eager, mostly because it's really rare that visual novels ever click with me.

And he...

specifically told me you probably shouldn't.

And I appreciate that for him.

And I also appreciate how much everyone who voted loves this game.

And I probably in a different time, in a different space where I had a lot of time and a lot of reading time, I would take the time to do it.

But this is a lot of fun.

How long are that

12 hours?

Yeah.

And it plays well on Steam Deck.

I think this is just the difference between like where we were when we started the besties and where we are now.

We always believed in subjectivity, but I think there was like deep down a part of us that believed whatever our favorite game was was objectively the best.

And now I am at a point where I can realize I can really love this thing knowing it is a relatively small portion of the audience that will love it as much as I do.

Where there are games on this list, like the one that this one's up against, that on the flip side, I actually think it's a crime if you do not play like a dragon infinite wealth, even if it is not my favorite game of the year.

Maybe it is.

To not play it, I don't know what, I don't know what's up.

Like,

there's something something there for everybody, in my opinion.

You have sold me on a thousand X Resist.

I have it downloaded on my Steam Deck.

I've not dipped into it because I don't know what kind of mood I should be in to approach this game.

It does seem depressing.

It's a good winter season game.

I think it would be great for us to revisit maybe in the slower January if folks are wanting.

There's no such thing as slow.

We have like five games that we could be talking about right now that we're going to have to talk about January 1st.

Anyway, let's move like a dragon forward.

Listeners, please play both these games.

They're fucking excellent.

So, okay, so those are the first four matches.

We've got four more matchups coming after the break.

Stay tuned.

This week's episode of the besties is brought to you in part by Rocket Money.

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I see four different cursors in this fucking Google Doc right now.

That is a sign that I'm for wall.

They're all gone now.

All the games are gone.

More volgames.

Mall games.

Yeah.

You boy, get me the finest game.

The finest game, sir.

That'll be 50 fins.

You heard me in the finest game.

Wow.

As you started inhabiting both of those characters plant, you really weren't leaving a lot of meat on the bone for the rest of us.

You were both Scrooge and the little boy it was impossible for i was trying to get in there it's just no room on the ball i guess i could be like yes i still have that bird i'll open up my shop on christmas day

we got tactical breach wizards and we have steam world heist 2 shit yes

good man good good matchup year for a genre that does not get maybe as much love as some people would love in the besties it doesn't matter when games this good come out because hot damn

Steam World Heist 2.

I know this isn't the order we have them written on here in.

Yeah.

But I'll say that that's another one that's exactly like Infinite Wealth where I've played, I think, almost every Steam World game, which is cross many, many genres, right?

And this one is so good that I just didn't want, I got it.

And I understood what was happening and I just couldn't stop playing it.

Wow.

It's just that.

It's just so fun.

I didn't really know.

Can you put a like a name on that, Juice?

Like, can you figure out what it is?

Steamworld Heist 2.

What is it that Steam World Heist 2 does?

Because I also know this is not like a genre you particularly love.

Yes.

Okay.

So Steamworld Heist 2, I think

a lot of tactical games.

are very much about like running math and doing equations, I feel like, in terms of I've got to figure out a really smart way of doing this.

And if I don't do it a smart way, it'll fall apart quickly enough that it's not going to be fun anymore.

Yeah.

For me,

this game felt a little bit more like worms, where

even when the things didn't pan out, right?

Like if I miss a shot with a laser, that's a bummer.

But maybe my laser went and hit a gas tank that's behind another guy and that exploded and blew this other guy to hell.

And all the characters in this you know if you don't if you don't haven't played one the specific sub-genre of steam world

it's a 2d tactics where you are going into a mission and usually stealing something and then exfiltrating or like killing something and exfiltrating uh turn based you go in with a crew of usually like i think one to four four is about as big i think as you ever go in with um and you

sort of a platformer perspective platformer perspective and each person member of your crew there's like like sort of different roles that they can play.

They can pick up skills from the different jobs and sort of like blend them together as they become more advanced.

So you're going in with like,

you know, a close-up weapons expert and, you know, somebody who's a little bit more about explosives and somebody who's more of a sniper, and then they can cross-train the different ones.

The cross-training shit in this game is outrageous.

The fact that you can pull any skill from any other character and spend resources to like make any character a part sniper, part dasher, part whatever, melee guy.

Like all that stuff is so smart.

And it didn't feel like you had to, when you would get a character to a certain point, you didn't feel like you had to like ditch them and start playing someone else to level them up because you could just sort of like

start.

pushing them in a different direction.

The real limiting cap is the gear that you have, right?

For like how many,

how many shotgun guys is not about like how many many characters you have, but more like how many good shotguns do you have that you can send them in with, you know?

Well, and that the

structure of the game also incentivizes you to use everyone.

Yeah.

Because if you can go out and beat a bunch of missions without having to go home to home base, like you get this streak multiplier.

And so you want to use everyone you have.

And so you gotta, but it's so quick and so easy to make each character what you want them to be and play the game how you want to play it.

And I think that is really the accomplishment of this.

It's also got great great great music i don't know of a game this year the music i've enjoyed more um although there's a lot of really good contenders on this list um

i uh i think the story it's like all like all pretty sharply written it's pleasant all the character designs are really good and i like the they they are evocative like you know what character you're looking at almost instantly like you get their whole vibe um from the design uh i just think i i think it's fantastic that last bit um that kirfin said about the streak multiplier, I think is the kind of star of the game for me and the year for me of getting me interested in things that I normally wouldn't, which is I was motivated to learn why the game is actually fun and try all the things.

Where I feel like often in games like this, we could talk about it with metaphor and RPGs or same with like a dragon, I find a solution that works well enough.

And it gets me through a chunk of the game.

And eventually I hit a barrier.

And during that time, I never learned the rest of the game.

So suddenly I just don't like the game anymore because it's not working how I thought it was.

When in reality the game's like, why aren't you doing blank, blank, and blank?

This teaching you to try so many things early on, I think is what saves you later in the game.

And again, the same thing with Metaphor's job class and Infinite Wells character progressions.

I think this game does a really good job of letting you get super duper comfortable with one or two characters and then nudging you to try others.

Because like you can never get too frustrated because in in the back of your head, they're like, well, I can bring in my guy.

I got this one guy who's a level five sniper that could just come in and level this entire fucking board.

But I'll let him sit on the bench while I level up these other dudes.

Let's hear about Tactical Breach Wizards.

Yeah, I can speak to it.

Yeah, please.

You know, I was talking earlier about holistic games, games that kind of cross-shut every angle.

And I think there aren't many games that do it as well as Tactical Breach Wizards on our list this year.

In addition to being like a really excellent isometric tactical game,

which has elements of like Into the Breach, it has that vibe to it.

It's also just so smartly written.

It was the narrative that clicked most with me for the entire year.

I was so invested in the small number of characters that you're interacting with because they are written humanistically, they're funny, they're like deeply depressing at times, but in like a very kind of welcoming way.

They're very like exposed, I would say.

And all of this is happening

among

missions that are like interesting and thoughtful.

Like, how am I going to overcome this unstoppable force of like 60 enemy guys in two turns using all the powers that I have at my disposal?

It is really quite a feat.

I adored this game.

Great defenestration, right?

A lot of defenestration in that game.

Yeah, you do knock a lot of people out of windows.

Yeah.

I think the writing is what stood out to me with this game.

I mean, the puzzle solving and the combat is great.

You're right.

It's hard to pick anything that's like not working, but the writing has really stayed with me and what has me wanting to go back to finish it.

I made it probably like three-quarters of the way through.

I think it's a good example of how a game can introduce very complicated concepts throughout and still

make sure that you're not losing the thread.

Because you literally at times, are connecting threads of all the different plot points using this like giant board,

which has been used in a couple games recently, and I think it's a really smart solution.

Yeah, there's both of them.

We should have had a best,

we need to get that

best murder board.

That can be one of our superlatives next week.

Yeah, right.

And I thought the moment-to-moment dialogue is really good in that it is a move away from the weed and esque kind of like

cheeky action dialogue.

And I don't want to dunk on that too hard.

There was a moment where everybody loved that, and I'm sure all of us briefly were into it.

But

the times have changed, and this reminds me of like a return to the

y'all remember that movie The Rock and like that era of Jerry Bruckheimer where it'd be like this movie's way more there.

This game's way more self-aware than The Rock is.

I don't know about that.

You have Nick Cage playing an action star at the time, which he had like never done.

Or Con Air.

My point is, it's movies where they are being earnest with their story but the characters have this kind of like laissez-faire attitude that makes them seem like both funny and cool and approachable and likable while still being somehow grounded and not like oh these people don't actually even exist in this world it's it's really nice to have a game that has like this where

It doesn't feel like it needs to jump out and punch you in the nose and say, this is what the tone of this thing is.

Because, like, it doesn't,

it doesn't immediately say, like, this is all a joke.

Like, this is a goofy thing that you can dismiss.

Because tactical breach wizards is obviously like kind of tongue-in-cheek a little bit.

And I think the tone is similar.

And then it lets you kind of decide, like, I don't know.

How, how much of a joke do you think it is?

We're taking it pretty seriously.

And eventually, this narrative goes to places that are like really tackling incredibly heavy themes of religion and totalitarian regimes and, you know, refugees and things like that.

Yeah.

It's, it's really, it's very impressive.

I, I, yeah.

I really like both of these games.

I, for, for me, Steam World, I think, does enough kind of

different stuff.

I, I'm very, very big into like progression systems in games, and I think the way Steam World handles it is truly, truly genius.

Uh, and so that, that kind of like kindling kept me coming back, uh, you know, a bit more than I think Tactical Breach Wizards did.

But I imagine this will be a pretty split vote.

It's so hard.

I know that we don't want to, I don't want to get into denigrating either of these games.

I will say for myself, personally, I know that I would have loved, I was loving like all of the narrative aspects of Tactical Breach Wizards.

And I think that had I pushed on through, I probably would have really,

I think I really would have clicked with that a lot.

So I'm having to kind of do a little guesswork here just because I, the, the, mechanically, it just didn't grab me in the same way that, that Steam World did.

I mean, I, between these, I love both of these games too, so it's incredibly difficult for me.

Between these games, of the ones that, of the one that'll probably like stick in my memory the longest, it's probably Tactical Breach Wizards because of the narrative.

I didn't think the narrative in, uh, I didn't like the net personally, like the narrative in Steam World.

I thought it was a little eh, but

I do like the gameplay probably more in Steam World, so it really is just, it's kind of arbitrary.

I love both of these games, but I guess I'll.

Yeah,

I would lean Tactical Breach Wizards, but my,

I'm so close and the arguments here are so strong and passionate for Steamworld that I think we move it along to the next round.

Yeah, I would probably feel differently.

I'm fine with that.

I would probably feel differently if I had like finished.

the narrative in Tactical Breach Wizards, which again, to Justin's point, I really want to do, but I haven't finished it yet.

And it probably could have used a few more progression hooks to carry people along.

So I'm cool with Steam World being the...

I do hope that we get a sequel to Tactical Breach Wizards.

Not that everything needs a sequel, but it feels like a game that similar to Steam World Heist 1,

where

just a little bit more is going to take it over that edge.

Yeah.

What a game, though.

Good game.

We have another very thematic matchup here.

We have Crow Country, which was a reader pick, and the Elden Ring DLC Shadows of the Erd Tree.

I'll hit Crow Country.

Cool.

That shit rules, man.

I forgot that game came out this year.

I didn't, actually.

I think it was in the top 10 that I submitted for our own sort of like perusal.

But it did come out, I think, pretty early in the year.

Man, Crow Country is a...

It is a...

PS1-inspired, Resident Evil-inspired survival horror game game set in an amusement park where something absolutely horrible has happened.

And it is kind of up to you to figure out.

Is it tank controls?

It looks like tank controls.

No,

you can change it.

You can make it tank controls if you want it to be.

There's several different control schemes.

It is set in an amusement park called Crow Country.

And

I mean, when you start the game, you know nothing.

You know that

something bad has happened.

There was an accident.

And you are there as

an officer of the law and you are there to find somebody.

That's about it.

That's about all they give you.

And as you go through the game, it makes you second guess basically everything.

I think the narrative of this game is very, very cool.

I think the

way this game kind of like suspends you in a state of unease the whole time is

a really, really cool.

kind of vibe that it accomplishes.

I really love this genre of games, and I think that Crow Country doesn't just like, you know, really nail what made Resident Evil 1 and 2 feel like as revolutionary as it did when those games first came out.

I think it does like

a better job in some cases.

Really great writing, really great puzzles, a lot of really great like secrets and hidden things to go around and collect that, you know, make your character that small percentage stronger that they need to kind kind of like balance out the economy of the of this survival horror genre.

Just visually, I don't think it looks like anything else that I've, I mean, I guess it kind of looks like Final Fantasy VII.

Yes.

I think the comparison I made is it feels like the

ghost sector of the gold, the gold saucer in Final Fantasy VII a little bit.

But at the same time, like it does get genuinely quite scary at times, times, which I appreciate.

And the story takes all kinds of twists and turns.

I think this game flew way, way, way under the radar for some folks.

I think

it kicks ass, and I think it is one of the more memorable games that I played this year.

But again, like, it also kind of hit me right in my, like, right in the sweet spot of like the exact genre I like, executed to the

top of its form while also kind of like doing this PS1 era stuff better than a lot of other games that I've seen

attempt at.

Something interesting, just for people that should be aware, if you like the puzzles of these sorts of games but don't like the combat, there is an option to play through this game without any combat at all and just puzzles, which is kind of an interesting approach.

How do you do?

What does this research not do?

It just removes enemies from the game.

So you're just left with like exploration.

So it's just like a house.

It's just like somebody's house.

It's like someone's house.

It's like somebody's house.

Like it's my house has no enemies.

It's like my house.

I'll add that where I think Tunic was a game that was trying to recreate the feeling of importing a game and also going through an instruction manual.

This feels like a game about what it was like to see and read about and see the guides for games like Resident Evil back in the day.

So the actual visual of the game, yeah, it looks like a game from the 90s.

But on top of that, it has kind of visual artifacting layers that look like screenshots of a game from the 90s.

So it doesn't, it looks like it is being almost filmed off of a crappy 90s TV or a photo had been taken of that screen.

There are actual like guides items placed throughout the game that feel like stuff you would see in the pages of those sorts of magazines.

I think it just does a great job of...

creating a holistic experience of playing this sort of game or really remembering the experience of this sort of game versus, you know, when you go back and you play Resident Evil 1 and while it's still fun, it is not your memory of sitting down with a game pro next to you and a bottle of cherry coke

when you're a kid.

Yeah.

No, it's very much hitting that for me.

I don't know if somebody who was born after,

who was not of gaming age in the year 1997, may not, like, it might not hit with him as well, but it, it really, really,

it felt like a game that was made for me.

And I like, it's, it's, I mean, yep, you got me.

It's, you, you hit my goate list for that very reason, Crow Country.

Well done.

Um, we also have in this category, we have for this matchup, we have Elden Ring Shadows of the Erd Tree,

which was the DLC to Elden Ring.

It is the only DLC that we have in our bracket.

I think that's okay.

I played a ton of this DLC.

50 hours of the deal, something like that.

I think when it first came out, there were very reasonable

critiques about the structure of this DLC, specifically the idea that you had to find these esoteric items to make yourself arbitrarily powerful enough to fight the boss.

And good for from software because they heard that note very loud and clear and rebalance a lot of that stuff such that you only have to find a couple of the items, which if you're playing the game, you will just kind of stumble upon as a matter of course.

But if you bought it on the disc.

But if you bought it on the disc.

That's correct.

I don't even know if they had a disc for this game.

Probably not.

I cannot imagine, right?

This game

is granted, it's a lot more Elden Ring.

If you played Elden Ring, a lot of this is going to feel familiar to you, but it is also at times a refinement of what Elden Ring was doing.

There are moments in this game that hit harder than anything that happened in Elden Ring.

Can you give me an example of one of those moments without spoiling it?

Cursed you, Bale!

There's a moment where you fight a dragon on top of a mountain that is the coolest fucking thing ever.

Oh, yeah, but you do fight it.

Yeah, that dragon fight is pretty kick-ass.

Yeah, that's pretty good.

I apologize for the attempt at the best voiceover performance I've heard all year was from the guy who says, Curse you, Bale.

I hereby vow you will rue this day behold a true Drake warrior.

So fucking cool.

The game is filled with like really, really cool moments that do dope shit to the point where I really do kind of wish that it was just released as a standalone because I think it has a weird relationship with the main game and the baggage that like your character brings from the main game.

It just doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me to make people go through a very esoteric process of accessing the DLC and kind of juggling through all the gear that you've already found when, I don't know, I feel like it would have been a better experience to have a standalone.

But as a game, it rules.

I had a blast.

I asked you that, Russ, because I genuinely,

you know, as we got closer to this episode and,

you know, it hit the VGA Godie like nomination, like I started to think about it.

And I feel like I can't remember that much about it.

I beat it.

I like played through all of it.

I did all the bosses.

I explored the hell out of it.

And I feel like I don't remember a ton about it.

And I don't know if maybe that's, maybe I rushed it.

Maybe if I rushed through playing it.

I think it might be also a consequence of like

it melds with your memory of Elden Ring.

Well, I don't know.

Maybe, but I remember a lot about Elden Ring.

Of course, I did replay Elden Ring to get ready for this DLC.

Yeah.

I remember some of the bosses being very, very cool.

For me,

I feel like unfortunately, like the things that stick out in my memory are the things that I did not like about it.

Well, we don't need to get into that.

No, I'm not saying I.

I don't hear you now.

Yeah, I'm not going to die.

I don't like either of these, but you don't hear me going around.

No, I didn't play Crow Country.

I might have liked it.

I don't know.

For those of you who have played,

where are you leaning with these?

I would honestly go Crow Country.

I have just so many.

There are so many things that the Elden Ring DLC did that I wish they had done

pretty differently.

And these are two different things completely, different scale, different ideas.

But I don't know.

I feel like Crow Country hit more often than it missed.

As someone who

played some of the Elden Ring Del C

and also didn't play any of Crow Country, I and also doesn't want to say negative stuff, I would say that Crow Country should probably go on through.

I'm cool with that.

I loved Elden Ring,

but I would agree.

I don't think it did enough differently from the original Elden Ring.

to justify like a repeated presence.

Now, Russ, if we're going to start talking talking about negative stuff about it, you'd want to open those doors.

Allow me.

I got lots of stuff if you want to.

Okay, let's keep going.

Let's keep rocking.

Congrats, by the way, to the readers for pushing Crow Country.

Yeah.

Maybe before next episode, you guys could try Crow Country a little bit.

Oh, that's a really good idea.

I will play it.

I will play it.

Okay, next up, we have 2-2s.

We have Dragon's Dogma 2, and we have Helldivers 2.

Dragon's Dogma 2, what a game if you like living the D ⁇ D experience.

And by living, I mean you like to go to shops and not always have money for what you need.

You like to go on a quest and actually have to walk every step of it.

You want to go adventure?

You can't right now.

You're too tired.

You just walk the whole way.

To adventure.

You got to lay down.

Take this horse cart.

That'll get you there faster.

Except

you were attacked and everybody you know and love was killed.

It's a fucking, it's, it's like you should have taken your horse's road.

Why did you take a cart?

It's like the Oregon Trail.

It very much is, there's a lot of stuff that happens between leaving and getting rich.

I love this game so much.

I love how many memories I have of this game and how often I felt like a true hero and that like I got by by the skin of my teeth quite literally.

It was dark out.

I thought that I had finally reached sanctuary after just the most brutal slog towards a glowing castle and only when i got to the front of the castle did i realize oh it was glowing because it's infested with skeletons what a gift this game i love it and it is going up against helldivers 2 and i would love somebody else to honor this game which i also liked a lot

I stand by this.

They're going to come out with a Dragon's Dogma 2, Dark Arisen.

Like, they're going to, I pray to Christ they will come out with an enhanced version of this game.

Or they'll make an Oregon Trail game.

And I actually want that now.

Imagine it's like, when up, you died again.

Back to Boston.

Helldivers 2, I can't think of a lot of like big multiplayer zeitgeists that I got swept up in at least.

And Helldivers 2 is probably the peak of that.

It came out in like in February, right?

This is like pretty early on.

I loved the original Helldivers.

I didn't play a ton of it, but it was so mad cap and so silly.

It was

like if overcooked was a twin stick shooter.

Uh, and when I found out that this was going to be like a over-the-shoulder third-person shooter, I was like, I don't know how I don't know how those ideas translate.

I think we were kind of bummed, right?

Yeah, we played a fair bit together in Austin and really got into the movie.

Yeah, the idea of like, I have this Gatling gun and I turn around a circle and I got to dive under it every time.

How is that going to work in three-dimension?

Well, it does because there's so many ways you could kill yourself and other people with helldivers 2 and it is uh it's so much funnier than the first game so so so fucking funny uh i i i don't know why i bounced off i guess i played it for a couple weeks right and with games like this i have this unfair expectation of like if it doesn't sink its teeth into me for two to three months like a destiny does like it's maybe i i looked at my play clock for helldivers 2 people talk about the fact that oh helldivers 2 is a moment flashing pan whatever i looked at my play clock i had 75 hours played in hell divers 2 yeah that's wild i'm checking you played metaphor refantasio in hell divers 2 i love this yeah that rules and and it's just because that experience of like the that 30 minute however long a mission takes somewhere that loop You know, Plaint, you were just talking about that like feeling of like surviving by the skin of your teeth.

The entire game is designed around that same mentality, and you're constantly doing that loop over and over again because you're fucking out of ammo and a giant fucking uh pterodactyl appears out of nowhere and you have to shoot it with a rocket launcher and it's your last shot before you die and you do a crazy diving move like those experiences happen time and time and time again and it was so great to get people together again it felt like a throwback to like my college days when i was actually playing multiplayer on a regular basis you mentioned such a delight you mentioned the loop and i and i think that that's that's actually one of the things that i thought was really cool about this game is that you, for me, at least for the amount I played it, I'd never really got the sense of the loop.

It feels so dynamic that you're constantly sort of swinging.

It never feels, to me at least, it never got like mechanical.

It always felt like the situation was always sort of spinning wildly out of control and you're just barely kind of keeping up with it.

But it always felt dynamic.

You know what I mean?

Like things were shifting so quick.

The weapons that you have access to feel like such momentum shifters that it's very cool to have the ability in a game to know: like, I'm going to input one sequence and I'm going to turn this entire thing around if we can just hold on for, you know, a few more seconds.

Yeah, it has that DD feeling of like,

if I can make this role, even though you're not making roles, you're actually aiming, like, I can be the hero of the moment.

And if I don't, we're all fucked.

Like, we all.

Yeah.

Fresh, you did a good job here with this matchup because they both are kind of chasing similar things.

And and in terms of creating a story that you are telling yourself yeah i do think helldivers 2 is much better at getting to that with more players and faster um dragon's dogma 2

i mean yeah we joke but like i i wouldn't be surprised you're right there probably will be a better version of this game released in the next year or two um i i would not be surprised at all if we got that and there will be a okay yeah there might be a version of this game released, Dragon's Dogma 2, that we would say is

better to play.

I guarantee there is this tiny sliver of Dragon's Dogma 2 perverts, excuse me,

who are getting exactimente what they want from Dragon Dogma 2.

And if you change a stitch of it, they're going to go salt.

Every single one of them, I guarantee.

They're getting it exactly how they like it.

Yeah, sure.

Can I spoil where dragon's dogma 2 goes at the end absolutely not don't you dare please i don't play this game

don't you dare they're gonna fix it like i've been said they're gonna fix it and i'll play okay okay yeah and i'm sorry advanced the nasty dogs it'll be less cold let's advance helldivers 2 and get to the next one because this next one's gonna suck oh no

I don't know I don't know how this happened to do this I didn't know what to do this got to the end okay this ran out of games how you ran out of games I ran out of games

okay this is go ahead.

Bellatro versus Metaphor Refantasio.

This fucking sucks.

This is like...

This could be the final round.

There are two similar games you can't really come up with.

Are there clowns?

I'll do metaphor.

Yeah.

That's the closest I can think.

You're the case.

I'll do metaphor Refantasio, you guys do.

Oh, God.

Bellatro.

Let me start with Bellatro.

Please.

Okay, because I've been playing Bellatro again

on my phone.

Yeah.

For no reason.

I don't have any reason to play it.

I've done the things I've done before in Bellatro.

I'm doing them again on my phone.

Guys, I'm probably playing hands.

I've done exactly before.

I don't care.

Bellatro

is

in 20 years,

we will have conversations about the best games of all time.

Bellatro should be rushed into that conversation.

Bellatro should be in the Smithsonian.

Bellatro is a game where you play poker and you collect incredibly powerful jokers and enchanted cards to play the devil's poker.

And you play poker with gods.

You go up to the cosmos and you play poker so hard, you're not even using cards anymore.

And I'm not really joking.

You go beyond cards at a certain point, but it is also a poker game that your grandpa could maybe get at first until until it makes him insane from all the numbers that it has in it.

It's the only poker game that'll make you worse at poker if the more you play it.

Yeah,

it'll make you it'll make you better at poker until you start saying like, so five of a kind beats, no?

Well, how many points is Flush House?

What do you mean I can't get a flush house?

I am reminded of the conversation we had about Hades when it first came out, which is what that game did great.

It's that it's fun instantly.

And the first time you do the tutorial of bellatro and then it's like okay um

you know how to play now so go for it do you want to do this for a million years do you want to do this forever and ever and ever the answer then is yes and then also you keep unlocking

and everything you unlock like you see these these different avenues that you could take a run down

and

then you get excited about like oh shit can you imagine if i ever got those two jokers in my hand at the same time and then you do And then all of a sudden, just Hulkamania runs wild.

And you have these, there, there are these revelations that you have about how Bellachro works that are as much a like unlockable item as you would find in any search action game.

And you'll have these realizations as you're playing.

And it's like, for example, there is a card.

This is going to seem very obvious, but I'm using an obvious example.

There is a Joker where

clubs and spades are counted as the same suit and hearts and diamonds.

So it's basically reduces it to red and black.

And you're like, well, wouldn't that make it too easy to get flushes?

It's like, yeah, it does.

So you should probably do that.

And then the game a little bit later is like, oh, by the way, if you play any flushes right now, I'm going to fucking kill you.

Like, but wait, you told me flushes were like so easy, remember?

It's like, yeah, I tricked you into just doing flushes.

And now you're sunk.

And you should have read ahead.

You should have read ahead and seeing what was was happening.

Because, of course, I was.

And you forgot again, didn't you?

That you can look at what the last blind is.

You forgot again to check.

Stupid.

What's great about Bellatro is that it is the first time there's been a game that other people, normies, can play that explains why I love Binding Visa without making them having to learn Binding Visa.

Yeah, that's a really good point, Russ.

It is an onboarding for this genre in ways that no other roguelike has ever been able to accomplish.

All right.

What do you think is better?

Moby Dick or chess?

You know?

I think

it's a good question.

You know, this is the worst possible showdown.

Lays bare the broadness of video games and how absolutely silly.

The futility of the exercise.

We have a game

that is probably the best mechanical.

If you made a fine machine

game of the year,

maybe of even more than that, as Hoops is getting to, versus a game that is about feelings and stories and characters and ideas.

Not to say it doesn't have mechanics.

It does, and I think they're quite good.

But what makes Metaphor Refantasio special

is the people you meet along the way, right?

And I think that makes it damn near impossible to talk If we had any integrity, this is the exact point where we would retire the exercise.

Like, this is the exact point where we would have to say, if we had any integrity as, like, creators, we understand the dissonance.

Like, we get it.

Let me see.

If we had any integrity, this way we would say, like, we shouldn't do that.

We should open up the vault door, walk outside, see the daylight.

And we don't have the integrity.

We won't do that.

Yeah, that won't happen.

But we're acknowledging the dissonance.

We're looking at it.

Can I just lay out Metaphor Refuntasio?

Just to make a case for it.

I think Atlas has done this type of game a lot of times now, right?

Like all the Persona games,

I think some of the Shin Megami Tensei games, like this formula is something they've messed with a lot.

I feel like Metaphor Refuntasio is as close to nailing it as they have ever gotten.

Persona 4 Golden is probably my favorite game of all time.

Other entries in this franchise are in my top 10.

I think the way that Metaphor Refantasio allows you to, you know, customize your characters to the nth degree and build a party and engage in combat in ways that feel meaningful to you.

I think the stories that it tells with each of its characters, I think the options that it gives you on how to spend your time, all of this stuff is literally firing on all cylinders better than they've ever, ever, ever done it before.

And they do it in an original fantasy world that tackles

really heavy real-world concepts.

And the story is also about that

pretty explicitly.

It is a game in conversation with itself, which is a really annoying way to describe a game, I understand.

But the fact that they were able to accomplish that much narratively in this enormous fucking framework is, I think,

a staggering accomplishment.

This was a year of RPGs for like, I can't believe how many great RPGs we got this year.

And this was kind of the

pinnacle for me.

I keep, I have trouble kind of like comparing it to

Infinite Wealth, which is maybe not a super fair comparison because they are like about as diametrically opposed as two games in the same genre could be.

I feel like there's

some pacing issues with the game that

hit pretty hard when you spend 80 hours with a thing.

But I think that what this game does right is

really, really fucking spectacular.

I think there are a number of people too who maybe have held off on this game because they know it's about like democracy or racism or other complex issues and avoided it under the assumption that it would not handle those things well.

And what really knocked me over with this game is that it does raise questions like, hey, you know, like what is the point of democracy?

How can it be used?

And it doesn't come away with like easy answers.

A big part of the game is there's a setup of a book in the game, a novel that two of the main characters return to again and again.

And this idea of like, can fiction and can art improve or change the world?

And it's so easy to imagine the most facile, annoying, you know, RPG-ass conclusion from that.

And the game resisted

at every turn.

And that, that's what will stick with me.

This is a game where I will remember every character.

I will remember every town I visited.

I will remember every beat of the story.

The problem.

It is also a game that I feel like will have its own Atlas,

you know, side sequel, Persona 4 Golden, Persona 5 Royal, and that will probably fix some of the...

There are parts of this game that feel like they ran out of time and so they omitted like an entire dungeon.

Like there's some pretty, there's some gaps that I, and I adore this game, but there are some parts of it that made me very, very frustrated.

So wait, Griffin, you're telling me that in this 80-hour game, there are parts where you're like, why all the rush?

Honest to God, Justin.

Slow down.

The midpoint of this game, I think it's hurtling out of control.

At the midpoint of this game, I would stick with it for as long as it want, as long as it would have me.

Absolutely.

We always adjust the rules in situations like this.

I think this would be a good situation where we could pick a winner or whatever, but I really think both these games are going to be in the top five.

It feels really, really weird to

force a decision now and not say that for the top five thing.

I also think the really challenging part for us as a group to like make that decision, and it'll be easier when we're slotting it into the top five is

the dark side of this conversation is if you are not the type of person who can invest who invests yourself in this.

So for me, like Bellatro,

I admire it.

When I am playing it, I'm so locked into it.

And then I feel just like

almost gross afterwards because it feels like it literally is like a parasite that takes over my mind.

i feel a lost control when i play that game are you saying you have pac-man fever i'm saying i have a case of pac-man fever it's i think it's hard for me to do that and i know the same thing goes probably for some of us with metaphor where it's like this is a waste of my time uh yeah

the yeah so we can't do that so bellatro is better than metaphor refunds asio so it goes through i mean we're not gonna we're not gonna send it through with a pat on the back because you guys like it It's not as good as Balato.

That's not how this works It's a system.

We have a system of laws.

I think the problem is the system would be a tie But no, it's not one of them one of us didn't like it all and we all like Bellatro so Bellatro

goes on through right?

I I feel

I'll even let Bellatro lose, but I'm not gonna send two games through guys.

Come on.

Well, we've done

better.

Bonus bracket episodes.

We do carry stuff forward.

We could drop.

Not from 16 to 5.

That's true.

We've never done that.

Here's the argument.

My brain, and I think Hoops' brain to some extent, is not the proper shape and size to absorb a game in a fun way, like a metaphor Riafantasio.

To the same token, like I also struggled with Infinite Wealth, which is a game I think we all loved, but like didn't click with me in the way that everyone's here did.

The question, I think, is, is the Besties Game of the Year list the Basties game of the year list, or is it,

you know what I mean?

Is there like a bigger, a bigger, broader thing?

Yeah, no, that's always the thing.

I am fine with Bellatro.

I'm fine with Bellatro moving forward and Metaphor not moving forward.

I'm uncomfortable with Metaphor Refantasio coming in 16th place or whatever.

I don't think it deserves that, but it's also not my favorite game like this this year.

Can we, can we, can we make a, can we make a

like a concession here?

If we get to the end

and we still feel this way, then we can absolutely bump it up.

I don't feel good about saying right now it gets a stay of execution if it wants to come back from Exile Island after it's been, but it does.

I feel like the list is not where it should be.

I think, yeah, that's it.

We'll get down to four and then there's always adding one more.

Here's what I'm saying is there's a lot of really good games on this list and I am uncomfortable saying it is in the top five right now.

At this point, that's fine.

Because it isn't.

That's the only reason, though.

Other than that, there's no other reason.

Looking at my sheer playtime at Bellatro across the three platforms I have played it on now, it's yeah, like, yeah, let's do Bellatro too.

I'm fine with that.

That's a good fucking game, man.

Okay.

Bellatro.

Congratulations.

All right.

Top eight.

We got Astro Bot.

We got Animal Well, we got UFO50, Like a Dragon Infinite Wealth, Steam World Heist 2, Crow Country, Helldivers 2, and bellatro.

Wow.

Heavy hitters.

And we're going to pit them all against each other next time.

I can't wait.

Let's try to play.

I'm going to try to.

I feel like I've spent a good amount of time with all these in the top eight.

I probably need to go except Crow Country.

Yeah.

I'm going to try to spend some time.

That is a, that is an audience selection that I can cop to, but it did get through.

So

I'm going to give it a shot.

We should revisit Helldivers 2 to see where it's at.

That's actually a pretty fucking good idea, too, Plant, because it was marred early on by a lot of

technical hiccups for me.

And the fact that there wasn't, is there transportation now?

I understand there's bikes.

That's all I ever want to say.

There are mechs.

Mechs.

Fucking great, dude.

What?

Yeah, game of the year.

It's easy.

Okay.

Okay, so we have our top eight.

We're going to be doing part two next week, which is very exciting.

I'm pumped to narrow it down further.

To that end, I want to thank the patrons who have been with us through the year.

Thank you so much.

We have a new bracket battles episode, which is live currently, but I wanted to thank these patrons.

We have Killer Andreas, we have Kevin, we have Matt, and we have Holly.

Thanks, y'all.

We really appreciate you.

You can go to patreon.com slash the besties

and sign up if you haven't yet.

We're a ton of great content there waiting for you.

And I think that's going to do it.

Yes, Justin had to leave to go pick up his kids because this episode is ungodly long.

So join us again next next week for the besties because shouldn't the world's best friends pick the world's best games?

Besties.