Dragon Age: The Veilguard Wants You to be Happy

Um, we haven't had a special guest on the show for a long time, and I am stoked to have sort of dumps dumpsta funk legend Dr.

John in the mix.

Toko, how are you doing?

Good, Dr.

John.

I'm so excited for you to bust it.

You're both in the right place at the right time.

That's right, Dr.

John.

So, Dr.

John, how do you feel about BioWare's latest?

Oh, I've got to say, um, I think it's pretty great.

Do you think it's funky enough?

Yeah, um, I think it has

kind of like a deep, like, kind of like a bassy kind of like vibe.

Yeah, bass is thick in this one.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You're getting like sun raw vibes or where are you coming at?

Oh,

yeah.

It's almost moon raw vibes.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Just to take everybody inside the bit, that is actually Chris Plant, and he's talking like that because he is fucking faded right now.

Yeah, this is not a bit.

That is a genuine voice.

I'm taking,

I don't don't even know what it is.

It's a cough medicine that doesn't work.

It's a cough medicine that makes me sound like this.

So a lot of people have criticized game journalists for being way too easy on this particular game.

Chris is faded on that cough medicine.

You are going to get the real skinny shit from him this episode.

No,

no, true.

By which I mean he's not going to talk very much because his throat hurts so bad.

Yeah, no, but I did, I do like hearing about cool video games.

So this, I'm kind of like a surrogate for the listener.

And also,

I'm here to lull you to sleep while I put on some nice midnight music on the radio.

If we had started this saying that Chris Plant's new character was RoboPlant, you might think it was a robot, but in fact, it's just Robotus.

Yes.

I like that.

My name is Justin McErhyde.

I know the best game of the week.

My name is Griffin McElroy.

I know the best game of the week.

My name is Christopher Thomas Plant, and I do know a video game this week.

My name is Ross Proshik.

I know the best game of the week.

Welcome to the Besties, where we talk about the latest and greatest at home interactive entertainment.

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

This week, we're going to be turning the history books all the way back to the Dragon Age for Dragon Age Valgard.

Chris Plant, what's that?

Dragon Age Valgard is the long in development, almost a decade in development, follow-up in the Dragon Age series, and

if you are to believe the rumors, a return to form in some capacity for somewhat faded developer BioWare, best known for making the Massowack Mass Effect and Bio

Jesus Christ, my brain.

They made the Mass Effect in the Dragon Age game.

They made a game on Sanskrit.

And then they made, you know, like Anthem.

And it's been a rough time for them.

So we're happy to have them back making a fantasy role-playing game, which answers your original question.

Thank you.

And we're going to talk about that and so much more right after this.

If I could try, I would love for you to start things out, Jews.

Allow me.

Dragon Age is a long-running fantasy RPG series.

There are three games.

Does it count as long-running?

Yeah, I'm going to say it's been around.

It's long running in the term in the sense of like,

there are four games, right?

There's Dragon Age, Dragon Age 2, Inquisition, the Veil Guard, four games.

Okay, I was not counting Vailguard in the calculation.

Okay, well.

Yes, it is four games.

No, that counts as long running.

You're right.

Yeah, it's a long-running franchise.

But it's one of the, it's a weird one, right?

Where I'm assuming no knowledge.

It's a weird one because this, this franchise has felt to me always as like

a lot of people's second favorite.

You know what I mean?

Like drag, and I, this is not to denigrate Dragon Age, but if you had asked me literally anything about Dragon Age before I started playing this game, I would have had literally nowhere.

I played all the games, played all the games, played all the games, finished Inquisition, loved it.

Yeah, I really like them.

Relekked Inquisition.

10 years passed, don't remember a fucking lick of it, man.

As the the game began going there was definitely some dark

some glints of recognition you know what i mean when when we ran into certain characters some faint some faint recollections and warm feelings but it's it's basically kind of an open slate but this is an action rpg this is uh structured like

balder's gate 3 for kids Wow.

I don't mean that.

Again, I don't mean that in a mean way.

It's just if you think about Baldur's Gate 3, and then you just really streamline it, like really

much more approachable, much more, but like structurally,

that is what you're getting.

With combat, that is a lot more action-oriented.

But that's the basic thing.

So the pitch narratively is

there's this thing called the Veil, and it's been imprisoning some evil elven gods.

It was put there by a guy named Solus, who you've run into in the other games.

Solas's veil cut off elves from some of their magic, and it's kind of thrown the world into imbalance so solas wanted to balance the world by getting rid of the veil which would have freed the gods but he said he had a plan for that basically yeah and you show up and and stop his plan you free the gods but you save a lot of lives in the process and then basically you've got to fix this mess that you started uh with kind of with Solas's help because his allegiances and his alliances are always kind of fluid But you go to assemble a team of adventurers who are going to help you basically put this proverbial genie back into the bottle.

This is going to be a long episode, I think.

I think we all have kind of a lot to say about the game.

I want to say this is my, this is the most frustrating thing for me.

Solas was a playable character in Dragon Age Inquisition.

You got to know him very well.

Maybe you romanced Solas.

I don't know if that was even an option.

But then in the DLC, it really goes into how he is actually this elven god called the Dreadwolf, and he wants to get rid of the veil, which separates the real world from

the fade, which is like this realm of chaotic dreams and magic.

And

it would fucking be very bad if that had happened, but it would reconnect elves to like their magic and their immortality.

So that's like interesting.

It's like, wow, a party member from an older game is kind of going to be the antagonist of this new game, which used to be called Dragon Age Dreadwolf.

And in the first, in the tutorial of the game, that is sort of

largely disarmed as a concept.

And instead, now we get these antagonists who are these two elven gods who are not as not remotely as interesting as it would have been to just like go against a former party member who is like maybe working in his best interest, but doing something that would be bad for the rest of the world.

Like that is an interesting conflict.

That's an interesting.

So you think it's a retcon is what you're saying.

I don't know if it's a retcon.

Yeah, maybe, right?

Because like

what Sola says is like, I wasn't trying to tear down the veil.

I was trying to move these two bad elven gods to a different prison.

And it's like, that's not actually, that's not really what he was aiming for.

It sounded like in the like Inquisition DLC and the story.

So like, I don't know.

It just seemed like a weird sidestepping of what seemed like a really promising idea for the game.

I don't want to go too deep in the weeds on any one thing in this.

I disagree with Griffin because I think that the idea that you are trying to stop an apocalypse that you in some way kicked off is a lot more interesting of a starting point than a lot of these games.

Your character has culpability and the morality

by interrupting his

interrupting this ceremony, right?

So like your character has culpability and the morality of what you were trying to do is kind of up for debate.

But

I thought it was interesting, but

this game is going to be very, like, we're going going to disagree on a lot of stuff in this game, which is, I think you can see the macro version of that just by looking.

If you look at different reviews, like people are really loving this game and people are really not liking this game.

I think my biggest issue is just that I did not feel, I didn't care about the villains at all.

I didn't really, they just felt like kind of archetypical bad, bad guys who want to destroy the world.

And there wasn't, I would have much preferred to have a villain in there who like, I don't know, was actively, I was debating whether or not I agreed with him, whether or not I I wanted to, you know, how hard I wanted to fight him.

And so, like, I don't know, the main plot of the game so far, I've only played like 10 hours, has not had much propulsive force behind it.

I guess differently from Hoops and Griffin, insofar as I've never played any Dragon Age game.

I played like three hours of Inquisition, and that was it.

And the things that have pushed me through this are not the narrative, which I think people think of biowar games as like the narrative being pushing through, you know, pushing you through, but rather the combat and the like that aspect of it feels really fun and engaging and interesting to me can we talk about that a little bit kind of what separates a few of the little

yeah so the combat uh the combat's all real time uh you can like have your companions cast spells and stuff like that but what you're doing is all in real time so you're you're dodging you're doing uh counterattacks you're blocking you're um it's like very very highly mobile i played as a rogue i think we have a range of people on this podcast that did different classes, but I found it to be like really interesting.

It reminded me a lot of the combat in the deep cut analogy is Shadows of Amylur, which I know Justin felt the same way.

For people that didn't play that one game made by Kurt Schilling's studio,

it reminded me also of the God of War games, the re-Kingdoms of Amylor.

Sorry, Kingdoms of Amylur.

The Reckoning.

The Re-Reckoning was the remake that it was very good.

It did remind me of the God of War remakes, which is a total compliment.

Like, you really, those games were very well made, and this felt like really tight and responsive.

There's a cool, you have a,

it's a fairly small party, I would say, for a,

for a RPG, it's a small party.

For an action RPG, it's probably a big party.

So, like, I could see why they wouldn't want you to manage more characters than three.

at any one time.

Yeah, it's you and two companions.

It's you and two companions.

What's cool is there is a system in the game where there are certain like

stati stati, sure.

Stati.

Why not

stati that no?

Status.

This is the status.

There's certain statuses that can be triggered.

So like the

what's one?

Like

weakened state or the weakened state can be, they call it detonated.

So like one character in your lineup is one who can like apply sundered is one like it's a weakened state and another character can detonate sundered so like when you're on the fly calling for them to use their abilities you can call for them to use these two abilities that kind of like combo together which is really basically essential for like party makeup you want to have two that can do a combo together and that actually is a direct lift from mass effect two and three they've like introduced that concept very very similar yeah uh the way the combat i think is a little bit more action heavy with like timed parries and stuff like that.

It's not really cover-based anything in this game.

No, but when you pull up the kind of like context sensitive like wheel showing like this, and it'll show you like you have Nev on your party.

This one might actually will trigger this one.

It'll show you like with arrows.

Like if you use these two, it'll be good.

And what's interesting is I was having trouble with some of the spongier bosses and I realized sometimes it makes sense to not detonate those statuses because it can actually be pretty helpful to have them.

Interesting.

I hadn't thought about that.

Yeah, I was wondering that because the game kind of yeah, you let them build and count, they count down and then you knock them at the last yeah, right.

I think a way of describing the

these

your party is more like satellite weapons than characters.

They because they don't have health bars.

And the enemies don't really target them.

You don't have to really manage them.

It's more that you are choosing to use them as like your special weapons that go alongside your kind of traditional melee combat.

Yeah.

And this is something that's really cool that I did not realize until actually very recently.

There has been more writing,

I think at least, interstitial writing between characters whose abilities combo.

Oh, that's interesting.

So like I was doing a pretty banal like side, like not even a quest.

It was a little mission where I was moving around sprites, uh, wisps, spirits, you know, with two characters, uh, one of whom is a necromancer, and the other one is really freaked out by dead stuff.

They have this whole long discussion about how in

their culture, they burn corpses, and in the necromancer's culture, it's like a, it's a whole like ceremony thing.

But this is like dialogue that's just written that these two are delivering to each other.

And I think characters whose abilities combo also have like personality.

Like these two continue to talk about this.

There's also like two characters who are better at cooking than everybody else in the house.

And they, as you play, like over the span of hours, will bring up cooking to each other.

When they're in a mission together.

When they're in a mission together, right?

It's like, I really like that dish you made or whatever.

And it really like makes them feel like little teams that you're used to going out with, right?

And it helps to encourage play, I think, with characters that you wouldn't normally use.

Let's focus, let's like really drill into like the writing and the companions, because I feel like that is the thing I am most sort of torn about about this game.

I agree.

I like the combat and just the general playing, the game, like when you're out on a mission.

I think the environmental puzzles are a little bit weak, but like I always had a pretty good time when I was out in the world like fucking destroying the Vinatory or whatever.

I played as a fighter and just used a two-handed maul, which is like so slow and it felt very good.

But the writing is so strange in this game because I would also have moments like that where, you know,

the side quests in this game are mostly like companion side quests where you go and you learn a little bit about them as you go into the world and like do something with them.

And the writing in those are usually like pretty good, and you learn a lot about the character and their culture.

And then there will be times

where the writing just seems like the bare minimum kind of effort got put into it.

And I'm having a hard time kind of wrapping my head around how both of those things can coexist in the same game.

It seems like

my guess, and who knows, but my guess is I think it's easier relatively to write a smaller story than it is to write a bigger story.

So when I found myself disengaged with the story, it was mostly to do with the overarching

giant Elven God stuff and less to do with the individual one-off stories, which was the true, which was true of Mass Effect as well.

Like, the strongest Mass Effect game was Mass Effect 2, because you're building the team and learning about all the little people on your team, and it's like way more personal.

And then, obviously, like in Mass Effect 3, it turns into the save the world thing.

And in this game, you are bouncing between those two, between the main missions and not.

And I think that results in a lot of

conflict.

I will say, I do think it's fair, though, in the fantasy genre specifically, to have an like, I think that it's sort of inbuilt into the genre that there's an amorphous evil that is generally pushing the story, but it's really more of a framework for these smaller,

more human stories to be told.

So I don't think that's that out of step with for me, it's a structural issue, I think, more than anything, where the main quests and the companion side quests are totally separated right like you are doing one or you are doing the other i think if they had been blended a little bit more i hate i i comparing this game to balder's gate 3 is not particularly fair but that game did a better job of like you're in the world doing your saving the world thing and then you see something that's like oh shit like actually this is kind of relevant this is relevant to this character's thing so we can go ahead and do this at the same time so like what what results is like when i'm doing the companion quest I'm locked in and when I'm doing the main quest, it's like, all right, let's let's fucking smash these bad guys and get back home.

I think there's two ways of putting that.

I think the issue is pacing more than like even necessarily quality of writing.

And I think the thing that you're talking about, Frush, about a long story being hard to, you know, write, I think it maybe that's true, but also it's hard to retain as you're like receiving it, right?

Like if you, if it's been a few hours since you last checked in on the main story you you lose interest naturally and i think something baldersgate did well that griffin was talking about is there are games within the game like each act felt like it could have been its own game and then even there are like chunks of the act that felt like they could have been their own game and yet all of them ladder up narratively into each other which i think this does a a bit.

I think the other challenge that has here, and Hoops, I'm curious what you think, because I know that you've played probably the most to this.

It feels like a game made by a bunch of different teams in a bunch of different places, because it has to be out of necessity.

And I felt like I was feeling that often in the writing, where it wasn't necess I wasn't wasn't the writing was bad.

It just was...

At one point, some characters would be talking kind of like a weed and sarcasm.

And then like in the very next scene, they would be kind of flat.

And then the very next scene, they would be be different and when i when i picked my dialogue i wasn't always kind of sure what tone i was going to get from them um but i'm curious like that again that that might be more of an early game thing no i think it no that's definitely fair i mean it's it's it's it's kind of scattershot as far as that goes um i i think that

i mean it's really hard right because a lot of what we're talking about also with like

pacing and like unevenness and dialogue.

A lot of that feels like where you have players interacting with it.

It's tough to figure some of that stuff out.

Like, I think that there is a problem in this game with like, I did a lot of early game stuff.

It was that, it was that same problem of like, I got deep into the early stuff and then I really lost track of the main plot.

I will say that

as you proceed forward, what this game does is those main quest storylines,

the big missions, they really turn into like set pieces with a lot of invented gameplay for those bits.

So, like, bits where like you might grab a ballista and take out some targets, or you might, like, there's a hide-and-seek one.

There's like some

other type, like little

individual, like also like set pieces, just like cool crap happens in the big missions.

So, that is something that is

to look forward to.

When you build to like actually getting to a point where you can attack these gods, it feels like such a one in a million shot.

It's really quite exciting.

I do think, though, that there's a problem with as the, when you have a big climax in the main story and then that beat ends like an after an act one, it's really hard to get that.

It's like, oh, we got to shop for some apples.

Yeah,

exactly.

It's hard to get that momentum going.

Especially because

in my experience, I don't know if this is true for the whole game, but like after one of those big set pieces, you get back to the lighthouse, which is like the hub for

this game where you can talk to your characters and build relationships and manage your stuff.

Everyone has stuff for it.

It's like you just finish this big fight and you go back and it's just gold question marks as far as the eye can see.

Everybody's like some shit they want to tell you.

Now we got some shit.

And so like, are you if you go through and do all of that?

It's gonna you're taking a break from the story of Dragon Age Vailguard for a long time.

That's every that's like everything.

Yeah, metaphor

is that too, to some degree.

I also don't want to sit here, guys, and pretend that as we were playing Baldur's Gate 3, if anyone had asked us a lot of questions about like, so what's going on with these guys?

We've been like, oh, yeah, interesting.

Let me explain it to you in detail.

Well, on that note, Justin, the question that I have for you.

Yeah.

How does it feel to adventure in this game?

And by that, I mean what I love about a big RPG is when you get get to like that 20-hour mark and suddenly you just kind of are let loose and it feels like you are truly having an adventure.

What is that?

What is that feeling?

I think that the

so the way the game is kind of built, it's very hub and spoke, like with interconnected hubs.

You know what I mean?

Like there is not a connected world.

You don't get the sense of that.

It's very much like you cannot walk from one end of this to the other, right?

You have to go to the central lighthouse that we talked about.

So I would often wait until I had two or three quests in a certain area and then go hang out in there in like the dock town area or in the

other regions that are like, and most of the regions are sort of like built around one of your side characters.

So there's like a sort of like a place called Treviso that's sort of an Italy stand-in that this like

a group of assassins called the Crows

hail from.

I'll tell you what's cool as you go on in the adventuring sense is you pick a background for your character that is tied to one of the, that's going to be similar to one of your side companions, wouldn't it be similar to one of your companions?

For example, I was one of the crows, and I was a mage who was one of the crows, and which is like this group of assassins that keeps the peace in this town.

So when I did these missions, there was a lot of dialogue that was just about that.

It was just about like, welcome back.

It's good to see you.

Changing the dialogue so when they did the exposition, they were even framing like, you know, this already, but for your companion, like, that was so cool.

And that sense is good as you adventure around, you really get a vibe of like coming back to these areas and they like they recognize you and they really remember some of the choices that you've you've made and it shapes it.

What I don't love is Dragon Age does both the

Dave will remember that you said that.

Yeah.

You know, when you say something, but then when it pays off, it has to come up with a UI element.

It's like, this is because you said that shit today.

It's amazing.

It's like, he's remembering this right now.

It's like, yeah, I know.

You don't need to.

Yeah, it's like a director slotting in an earlier scene into a movie just to remind you that

it's even more.

It's an editor leaving a little stamp to be like, we did the work.

Yeah.

Because they really want you to know that the machine is working.

Yeah.

I feel like the faction thing is neat in this game.

It did at times.

The game starts basically in Meteor Res, where your character, Rook, who you have created,

like busts into a bar with Varic to like fuck people up.

You're looking for this detective to help you find Solace.

And like that shit happens really, really, really fast.

And you are told sort of constantly, like, you are the right person to lead this team.

You are the only person who can get this done.

You have been chosen for all of these reasons.

I kind of wish this game does a lot of like, remember back in Havana, like all that sort of storytelling trope where it's like,

at the beginning of the game, I felt like I was a shadow dragon who was like this liberation front who worked to liberate people all throughout Monrathus.

There were times where I was like, that sounded, that sounds cooler than what I'm doing right now.

I would, I would, you know, I would rather sort of see more of that stuff, which they do give you through like the storytelling once you get in there.

But I I don't know, I feel like this, this franchise has had so many godlike characters in it that I never quite believed, like you, this newcomer, are the right one for the game.

They gotta let you create a character, though, don't they?

Right.

I would just reiterate that I appreciate when to make you care, things start small and then get bigger.

And I think this game, because it has the franchise, it's a struggle, I understand, but like there's a reason why making the entire first act of Volter's Gate 3 about how do I get this worm out of my head and not, oh shit, there's a giant mother god brain that's going to kill us all.

Like,

there is no slow build to

like pulling the thread or like, I need to rescue my dog is like a very small story, but everyone loves dogs.

So there's like a drive there.

And then slowly but surely, oh no, the big bad kills your dog and now you really hate them.

It just doesn't feel as earned to me to pull me in.

Again, the combat helped smooth that over for me, but I would just say it.

I hear that.

But

I do want to say for listeners of the show who really, really love Dragon Age, I think this is going to click in a way because it doesn't do that, because it throws you right into the fire of all of the lore.

And I'm just going off of our peers at Polygon, but we have quite a few people playing this at Polygon who are like hardcore Dragon Age fans and former BioWare staffers, I'm assuming.

Oh, Justin.

Sorry.

Can't feed that fire, my man.

Brutal.

No, because I can.

I want to say about

that.

It is just about the footprint of Dragon Age.

That is literally all I'm saying is like how deep of an impression it leaves.

And this is, and I think it's tied to, I'd like to make a shot at pulling some of these threads together.

I think that

I really love this game a lot.

And I could see why people wouldn't.

And I think that the thing is it's just so desperate for you to like it.

And it wants so much for you to like.

I'll give you an example because we didn't touch on the actual, like, I'm a mage, right?

So a mage has two different

sort of sets of abilities that you can switch between on the fly.

One is like you have a staff and you're shooting long-range magic, very much like you would think.

And then you can press a button and you switch into what's called the spell blade.

And you are using an orb to do melee attacks and then a sword to like detonate those attacks.

So like after three of those with this orb, you can use your sword to detonate those and they explode.

And you can switch between these in a moment, right?

So it doesn't, it doesn't even want you to have to choose between being a magic guy or a sword guy.

You can be both the guys.

It's fine.

And the choices that you make in this game, and I would say, this was, I went back and read my review.

This was true about Dragon Age 2.

When you make a choice in this game, it feels less like

an interplay between you and a...

a game master who's trying to create an interesting story and more like a game master friend who's like desperate to please and it's like like, okay, is that what you think happened?

Perfect.

Please build this

really, really, really good way of summarizing sort of what this game is.

And it starts to feel a little bit like you're talking to yourself because the game does anything I say, the game is like, yep, that's what happened.

He's right.

It feels safe.

And

I think game, structurally speaking, the game is designed in a very, as safe as an RPG of this scale could be designed.

Because we're talking about the hub and spoke system.

The maps, like when you're on a mission, tend to be very linear.

When you want to get to a mission, it's literally like, Daddy, Daddy, pick me up, pick me to the fun.

Yeah.

Quick.

Is it like, do you want to drop me off the waypoint or directly at the fucking mission start point?

Daddy, at the start.

Which is just a reminder of how fucking bad shit Baldur G83 was, structurally speaking, to have as huge open environments as they had and still have interesting missions within them.

This game is going to be all over the map for people.

It's like, I don't know how to recommend it, whether or not it's going to click for you.

It did not click for me,

mostly just because I didn't find the story or exploration that interesting.

But like this game really doesn't incorporate a ton of stuff from past Dragon Age game.

Like you see the characters, but it's not like a...

Yeah, I was able to follow it and I didn't know any lore.

Right, exactly.

It's not like a direct sequel to Inquisition.

It feels sort of like a soft reboot while still kind of incorporating like some of the other stuff.

And there's people who aren't going to like that.

The tone is profoundly different from, like, you look at Dragon Age Origins, which starts with you like doing this blood ritual that kills you maybe if you do it wrong and getting trapped in the fate.

And like, I don't.

The tone of that game is way more brutal.

Way, way, way, way, way more brutal.

And so there's people who are, I think, going to be bummed out by that.

I don't really care about that stuff because I don't care that much about Dragon Age.

I just think that this game's going to click with some people and it's not going to to click with a lot of other people.

Dragon Age is a Saints row of

holy.

Yeah.

It really is.

Because I mean, everything you're saying right now, like literally everyone's a perfect game this episode.

Everything you're tossing across the plate is like fast, right, right down the center.

I agree with all this.

I think it is

kind of a miracle that we have this and Baldur's Gate 3 because I think they serve kind of polar opposite audiences.

And I I know that's kind of where we started.

But

Baldur's Gate 3 is the one that had kind of unified positive glowing scores.

But let's be real.

There are plenty of people who Baldur's Gate 3 is not their game.

It is a big ask for a lot of people to.

It's harder to

pick a part, though.

Even though you don't dig on Barbara,

for sure.

But my point is,

if you like this one and you don't like Baldur's Gate 3, that doesn't mean you're a bad person.

It just means you have different taste and you're looking for different things in the game.

We have a lot of listeners, I know, who love games like their Horizon Zero Dawn series, right?

And I think if you are into that sort of game, I think you're going to like a lot of what you find here.

It is an RPG version of that sort of AAA experience, where it really does.

want you to have a great time every minute you're there.

And I think we might be a little bit of sickos who need a little bit of vinegar, you know, on our dish to make sure that we're not really.

I want to push back on that.

I don't think we are sickos for wanting like more friction to be like somewhat challenging.

It is this like a little bit of salt makes the chocolate taste sweeter.

Like there's very little friction between the characters in this game.

When you do, you can make asshole choices, right?

You get the radial wheel that's like, you can be the funny guy, or you can be just sort of a people pleaser, or you can be gruff.

this game takes the most liberty with the options shown that you can choose from versus what your character actually says because sometimes i pick the asshole option that's like shut up you idiot and they'd be like i don't think so when you pick the actual option i feel like uh

liking some of that stuff doesn't doesn't it's not like a i don't know that doesn't feel like a taste thing that just feels like a good good storytelling should have some friction between the characters and i don't know maybe i just haven't really gotten to that that stuff yet but it I this is what I wanted okay yeah you're extreme this is why I was trying to cut you off because you're extremely early and there's a lot of that like as you like go through in fact there's some interesting stuff with you make big choices that shift your characters skill sets to where they are unable to use like support abilities the hardened yeah the the hardened things there's like mechanical uh impacts to that too which is kind of interesting but you're right though.

It's not like, it does not get like super antagonistic, but there are definitely like people who remember choices that you've made.

And like that causes it.

Like people start to question your priorities.

I think I'm just, it's impossible for me to do this and not do this.

And I think it's fair to do this.

I'm holding this up against prior BioWare games.

Yeah.

Where like you look at any of the Mass Effect games, what was the fucking Sol,

the,

God, it was in Mass Effect 2.

There was like a character who was trying to like fight the genophage of his, of the Krogan people.

And then you also had the scientist who made that genophage on yours.

That was two.

That was two.

It doesn't all have to be like to that level, but I don't know.

I felt like

I felt a little bit detached from this stuff.

That's the end-of-hat game.

Not at the end, though.

No, but they know that beforehand.

Like, they talk about that stuff a lot, and they dissect that stuff a lot.

I know that I have not played enough of this game to like writ large.

I just want to try to keep it in in line with what we can like address.

And there are definitely like it, here's what I'll say, guys.

It feels like a shorter game earlier on.

And then as you play,

say, 30 hours,

there's a lot more.

It's like 50 to 90 hour game, right?

It's like pretty beefy, but it's not built that way.

It's not structured that way.

They also don't have any quests that I have found at least that are not in some way narrative so there's very little like right there's not a lot of like jump just find this chest yeah right it's they're pretty i don't know i can absolutely see like to to your all's point like

just not being to people's taste yeah like that i i always feel like i'm kind of serving two masters of the game like this where it's like there's the normal human besties co-host side of me that's like yeah interesting and very and then there's that part of me it's like hey if you like stuff like this i just found found a big old bucket of it

you know if you like this stuff like this if you do this is a big bucket straight up stuff like this this conversation i can't stop thinking about is such an interesting foil to our conversation about metaphor refantasio from like it starts out kind of slow but if you stick with it 50 hour it's just like we like that game because we like that game and you like this game because you like this game yeah i i it is rare i think to get a game this divisive i think and obviously there are some dragon age or metaphysicians

Yeah, maybe both.

I mean, the Metaphor Refantasio is like divisive in, like, you either know if you like JRPGs or not.

This one, I guess, is divisive in a sort of similar sense.

It's obviously divisive for like

shitty

capital G gamer culture reasons, also.

But I don't know.

It is interesting to me that we have gotten a couple of these games so close together.

Yeah, I think that is a great segue to the B segment because in the B segment, right after this break, we're going to talk about the amazing lineup of RPGs of 2024 and talk through which one is for you.

We're going to say this type of person will probably enjoy this type of RPG and we're going to get you set up with 50 to 100 hours of greatness going into the holiday right after this break.

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Chris Point, you sound like shit.

Do I?

Yeah,

I thought I was honestly sounding better.

I thought the cough medicine was kicking in.

You sound is this in the show or out of the show?

I think this is in the show.

I think it's terrible.

Yeah.

Okay.

Sounds terrible.

Well, I wanted to be that.

If it was out of the show, it would have been a lot more ginger about that.

No, no, no.

You sound terrible.

I just don't want to hear as much talking from you.

No, I kind of want to hear more.

I want to hear none.

So let's find a balance.

Cool.

We'll throw it right down the middle.

I like it.

I'll set this up.

Basically, we have so many delicious RPGs this year.

We have, let's go through the list.

Dragon Age, the Veilgard, Metaphor Refantasio, Dragon's Dogma 2, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, Like a Dragon Infinite Wealth, and Mario and Luigi Brothership.

The last

I don't think any of us have played.

Go ahead.

Can we do this segment with absolutely no negativity?

Yeah.

I agree.

I love it.

Absolutely none.

As we're helping you to decide your game is just from love.

It's going to be hard for me on Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, but the rest of them, I think.

I feel like we can guarantee you.

Negativity.

We will find the person.

I like that game, so I can't.

There

Awesome.

Let's go.

Let's do it.

Let's start right from the top.

Dragon Age of the Velga.

Who is the person who is hungry for this bucket full of delicious treat?

I legitimately, I think if you're a younger, someone who is younger and maybe like newer to this kind of like RPG genre, I think this is like a killer.

Again, I don't mean this to sound

how it does, but like babies first.

Maybe like a YA.

YA.

Oh Oh man, YA is actually very on point.

Yeah, aesthetically, it's very YA, isn't it?

It's very

the word that kept popping in my head was over-designed, and I don't know if that's it, but like every outfit looks like it took three hours to put on.

Like they're just trying to antagonize cosplay characters, but yeah, I think it's a great, super accessible, like first place to start if you, if you have not gotten into many action RPGs.

I think it's a great, or RPGs, period.

Like, I think it's a great first one that doesn't require much, if any, prior knowledge of it, of the franchise.

Yeah, I don't think it requires any.

Yeah, a little brush, a little

bit of a shit.

I didn't have any.

I mean, I got it.

I'm sure I missed some stuff, but I got it.

A YouTube summary will go a long way for it.

Next up, Metaphor Refantasio, Griffin.

I mean, traditional JRPG fans, but if you are one of those, you're probably already playing Metaphor Refantasio.

If you like big-ass stories with

politics and castle intrigue and secret assassination plots, and I would say of this list, this is the most maybe mature subject matter dealt with.

I think that's right.

Metaphor Refantasio is the game for you.

Yeah, one other thing I'll add to that with the politics.

Surprisingly thoughtful

and

understanding of the complexity of just the human experience.

The biggest surprise of that game, and I think Griffin and I might do a B segment or something later on this season, but that it does not have a lot of interest and easy answers, which I was surprised to see and really appreciated.

Dragon's Dogma 2.

This is the one for people who

really want to play the DD experience.

If you like the idea of going out

and living the adventure, if you want to have to worry about bringing camp kits out when you go into the woods at night, if you want to hike for

so long, guys.

I thought they were consumable for so long.

I was bringing four of those bad boys out in the woods.

When you go camping with Juice, he actually, when you finish, he rolls up the tent and he throws it in the creek and lets it go away.

He's like, this one's done.

I love the DM comparison that you made during the Vailguard discussion.

I like thinking about the DM for Dragon's Dogma 2, who is just

a stickler for certain elements of the player's handbook that maybe other DMs would eschew.

Yeah.

And then at other times you ask him a question and he's not in the room.

He's like in his fridge looking for something.

He's like, you're still walking back?

Jesus.

I, I, all of this.

I say as a compliment.

We are still in positivity zone.

Absolutely.

Oh, I absolutely.

You are.

You know, one of my favorite games of the year.

I adore it.

I think it's also a great game if you just,

if you're the type of person who loves to see people pushing up what a game is and you love a bit of jank,

this game.

Oh, man.

It really hits it for me.

I also would say of all the games on this list,

this one perhaps the most, maybe Infinite Wealth is close, but my, our dad will get into games in a much deeper way than any of us get into games.

Like, he will really, like, move in.

That man has lived in Elden Ring for six months.

like you guys seriously longer than that man he's yeah longer than that my dad has gotten his save wiped twice no in elden ring i don't know how he keeps doing it but he just keeps going back and starting elden ring again that man lives in elden ring

but the point but if you're going to move into a game i think dragon's dogma 2 yeah is like

sometimes people who play fewer games are a lot more accepting of like that kind of stuff because they're not thinking about the next game they're gonna play they're really willing to just like live there yeah my best memories from a game this year come from Dragon's Dogma 2.

Final Fantasy VII Rebirth.

I guess I'll take this.

I think I like this the best of everybody here.

Yeah, you go ahead and I'll finish.

I think if you like,

if you like action in your RPG, the action in this game is fantastic.

It is a fun game to like go out and get in fights in

and to manage your character.

Like the progression of this game is also wonderful.

And if you like, you know, Japanese RPGs with huge set-piece moments,

you could do much, much worse than Final Fantasy VII Rebirth.

And then I, whoop, here comes Till Chris Plant.

Oh, and hey, what up?

I'm in the midair, ready to put that dunk down.

It's also just beautiful.

The world is a really lush and beautiful place to be in.

at times and the music is that classic symphonic you know fills the the room score?

I quite enjoyed it.

And I think this is a little bit similar to Vailguard in that if you are the person who plays maybe just a couple games a year and you want to get in and you can have something that you come back from work and you just dive into and let it kind of wash over you, I think this is a good game for that, especially if you have a lot of nostalgia for the series.

I will say, and I don't know if this trends into negativity, I do think it would be wild to play this game without playing Final Fantasy VII Remake first.

Yeah,

that's a very good point.

That's a really good point.

That's a great point.

Like a dragon, infinite wealth, baby.

Anyone.

Like yourself?

Anybody.

Do you like life?

Do you like...

Do you like a dragon?

Do you like Hawaii?

Yeah.

So good.

Do you like a dragon?

That's thank you, Plan.

A great point.

Do you like a dragon?

Do you like a bunch of mini-games?

Do you like an RPG rpg with a billion things to do do you like immersive sort of travel uh simulation characters who are deep and thoughtful and very funny uh with

just the this game's so good i would literally recommend it to anyone who has ever played an rpg before i think it's got a little bit of something for everyone uh and i i it is hard for me to find fault it really is the only threshold is if if you don't like RPGs, it's an RPG.

Even then, though, like, it's got turn-based combat, but that turn-based combat also incorporates

movement.

This was the crossover game for me as a person who doesn't like a lot of turn-based RPGs.

Very few.

Because of the characters, because of the writing, and because of the combat still feeling a little actiony,

all of that stuff was enough to power through my general dislike of the genre.

It is so winsome and just full of mirth

that you cannot deny it.

If you also have wanted to get into persona or metaphor, but you are turned off by the density of it, by the rigorous schedule, by all of the dialogue.

And the tone is

but Infinite Wealth really captures literally the structure of it, of play some missions, go do some silly things, bond with your team.

The bonding system in Infinite Wealth with each of your characters is very, very similar to the bonding system in the Persona games.

It really borrows a lot of what makes Persona special, but puts it in a world where you have a lot of freedom to just move around and find it.

Also, I will say, unlike Rebirth, I don't actually think you need to have played.

other Yakuza games.

Correct.

You are rewarded tremendously for doing so, but I think most of the people on this call.

And

there's a half of this game that's like going to be a lot of skipping dialogue.

You don't have to like Cosmic, are you?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Like if you don't like Cosmic.

So I...

Listen, I did it.

It's valid.

I think if you have at least a little bit of knowledge, you can instill enjoy that.

I also think the cool thing about the back half of this game is it's kind of a primer on the history of all the other games.

So if you play this game and you play nothing else, you're good to go from.

Honestly, not a bad idea.

Yeah.

I went back and played a little bit of Yakuza's Zero after this, and I was like, oh yeah, there's that dude who I saw.

This is the only one of these I've ever finished.

Yeah.

So

the ending is something I will think about for a long, long, long, long time.

I will also say he is the best video game

hero.

Ichiban is the best video game hero.

I mean, he's top three.

Like, I mean, like, legitimately, the way they do his character in this game, you forget how much of your life, in your adult life, you have gotten anti-heroes.

Yeah.

Like, you forget how many characters that you have been forced to follow in a lot of video games are actually like

bad people just trying to get something done.

Or not even that, just like flat, like a mastery.

Yeah, or nothing or a cipher.

Yeah, right, exactly.

This is an actual good hero in a video game.

Yeah.

I wish he could be your real friend.

You're real.

I would love to go hang out with this dude.

Or have him

or whatever.

Yeah, but everyone should play this game.

And then who is this game?

Russ, what about this game that's not out yet?

And we don't know.

I have no idea if this game is good or not.

I'm going to guess that it's like all the other good Marion Luigi games.

And if that is the case, this is the game.

This is also a very good crossover game for people that don't like traditional RPGs because they tend to be very silly.

The combat tends to be very action and timing oriented, which based on trailers, this looks like it is.

A lot of it is going to hinge on the writing, and it's kind of hard to say whether the writing is going to be good or or not.

It's like a coin flip for this franchise, whether it's going to be like witty and fun and clever.

It's like individual missions in Tree.

Yeah.

I was going to say, the good news is we're going to do an episode on this in two weeks.

So you'll know for sure if it's for you.

I'm very excited.

I hope that this heralds a new age for this franchise.

But yeah, kind of wait and see.

If it doesn't, the Super Mario RPG reboot, remake a perfectly violent.

Also, like, pretty big demographic here.

Like, if you're younger, this is a good, this is the one for you.

I also think it's like, yeah, thousand Year Door also came out this year.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Uh, and I see here we have one addition to yeah, Elder Scrolls VI.

Oh, yeah.

You never know.

I mean, as long as we're guessing, um, I think that's going to be

if you like fantasy and stuff, like, I bet you'll like that too.

Or maybe you won't.

I don't know.

Is it going to be compatible with their O-link when it comes out?

There's no way of knowing.

Because my left eye will be fully compatible, but my right eye, I don't know.

It might be a late 2024 drop.

We do not know.

Here's what I'm going to say.

Do you think announced they're going to be able to do that?

This is what I was saying.

Look under your chairs.

It's Elder Scroll 6.

And the bad DLC for Starfield was just like a throw, just to throw you off the trail.

Yeah.

It's at the end of that is a QR code to die on Elder Scrolls 6.

Todd shows up like, okay, true believers.

You've served your time.

I

we're goofing.

I think we're going to see Elder Scrolls at Game Awards.

That makes a lot of sense to me.

I think Microsoft is on a hearts and minds PR tour coming out of this year.

And I would not be surprised if they were like.

I mean, they'll show a fucking elf face.

Yeah.

No, yeah, but they'll show something just to be like, don't worry.

Sure.

Because now they can.

They're like, Todd's like, I don't want to show it yet.

I'm worried.

And Microsoft's like, go fuck yourself, Todd.

Well, they already did that to Todd when Bethesda was trying to get sold.

Remember?

Remember that

E3 where they're like, here's the next 30 years of our video games.

I sure hope somebody buys it.

I heard that.

I heard that.

Todd wants the cat people to be schlung out from frame one.

That's what he said.

And

Phil and the gang are like, you can't do it, Todd.

And he's like, you bought me, but you don't own me.

Yeah.

Oh, we did it.

Do we have any honorable mentions?

Oh, yes.

I'd like to mention something.

May I?

Yes.

Okay.

I want to mention a podcast called The Rest is Entertainment.

And I know that we don't often do podcasts on here.

But if you like the entertainment industry, this is hosted by Richard Osman, who's a very well-known author and

panel show host in the UK, who's also on Taskmaster, and Marina Hyde, who's also an entertainment journalist.

And the two of them, just there's two episodes a week.

One is like a news rundown, and the other is like a QA.

And both are really interesting.

And the QAs are a lot of like behind-the-scenes specifics about the entertainment industry.

Like, for example, when you're cursing in a movie that is funded by the UK and America, how do you decide what slang to use?

Or like, how do they film scenes in cars?

Or who washes dishes on Great British Bake Off?

And the two of them are really great because they're funny and

witty and smart, but they are also like insiders.

She's currently writing, for example, on that new HBO show, the franchise, about the behind the scenes, like a Marvel type thing.

So they are both in the, and she's a huge columnist in the UK, but they're both in the industry

and they're both super enthusiastic about the stuff stuff they're covering.

It's not a cynical take.

They're fans of like everything.

So when they talked about, for example, the

Concorde debacle, it was from a very like well-educated, positive place about why that happened and how it went down in the context of it.

The video game.

Yes.

Yeah, yeah.

They talk about like, you know,

when something large happens in the gaming industry, they'll cover it.

They do a really good job.

So

it's a fascinating listen.

and if you if you like that kind of thing uh what's it called again it's called the rest is entertainment there's two episodes a week they just launched a like a vip

thing where you can cut out the ads if you want um this week but it's it's a really really good it's only a year old you can go back and listen to all of it it's great um i have a similar i have a few of these but on a similar note uh mega 64 is a a uh video game video making outfit that I've been following since I was like in high school, maybe.

I've made so many amazing videos.

They, I think, I don't know if they just launched the Patreon or if they've just done a big ask because they've run into some financial issues.

And the idea of a world without Mega 64 makes me very sad.

So if you're also a fan, think about supporting them there.

I have a new bike game, and it's Diablo 4 Vessel of Hatred.

Oh, boy.

Really good bike game, y'all.

Oh, Christian.

It's so easy to turn the brain off and launch a bunch of lightning quills at hordes of.

Did you start with a new...

How do you do it?

Do you start with the current?

So

there's a new class, the Spirit Born, which is sort of like a druidic monk type class.

I've made one.

That's everything that loves God together.

Yeah, exactly.

Jerusalem!

Can he be a priest too?

Maybe.

When you start the game, you can choose whether to start with the Vessel of Hatred campaign or to do the other campaign.

I already did the other.

Oh, sorry.

I thought you were saying you could choose whether or not you want to start with the Vessel of Hatred with a God in your hands.

Because I want it.

I get it to Timmy, from the beginning.

It's vulnerable.

You could walk through walls.

The way it works in Diablo is they have seasons, and the seasons have like different quests and different flavor, different rewards.

And so when you make a new character, you make a seasonal character who, when the season's over, becomes an eternal character you can play anytime.

It just won't be in a season.

Anyway, great game to bike to.

And also,

I have had...

more time to kind of like play some stuff on the Steam Deck.

I got way into UFO 50.

Way, way, way more into than ufo 50.

uh been playing enough that i texted him like why are you playing

so much uh finished house party uh loved it uh and then i've been bouncing back and forth between pilot quest which i think i'm almost finished with and grimstone the like very dragon quest rpg yeah because by the time you do some shit in grimstone go back to pilot quest you have a lot of stuff waiting for you anyway uh i am excited for the possibility for that game to sort of fulfill the thing that i wanted it to fulfill which is just like a thing i keep on my steam deck forever and keep returning returning to and keep exploring it.

That game is now supported officially on Portmaster.

So if you've bought the game on Steam and you follow the instructions on Portmaster, you can get the game running on like a variety of emulation handhelds.

Which you have.

I have it running on one.

Did the cross saves work?

No.

Okay.

You need to be okay with the idea that you can get it.

Impossible.

No way, man.

But it's great.

I mean, I was playing Mortal and

a bunch of other ones that I didn't necessarily feel like I needed to play on a giant Steam Deck.

And so, yeah, fucking UFO 50 rules.

I wanted to call out

the new stand-up special from Seth Meyers, which is on Max.

It's called Dad Man Walking.

Funny.

If you saw his last special, that was the one where

he

his wife gave birth in the lobby of their apartment building.

It was called Lobby Baby, also an excellent special.

But I think they're both great.

I'm constantly really impressed by his ability to host a fucking nightly late-night show and also put out like really, really strong stand-ups.

So he also has a good podcast right now with the Lonely Island.

Oh, yeah, with his brother.

With his brother, what?

Yeah, he does a podcast with his brother.

Wow, he does two podcasts.

What's the other one?

Whoa, whoa, crazy.

That's crazy.

Who could possibly pull that off?

And one's with his brother.

Whoa.

Yeah, you know, it's just him and Lonely Island, and it's kind of like looking back at their sketches, similar to the It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia podcast, but it's enjoyable.

I've been sick, obviously.

So I watched Doctor Sleep, the director's cut.

And

I had avoided it for a long time because of Rose the Hat, who is the villain in the movie.

And she wears a hat that looks very silly in all of the trailers and the promotional images.

But then she kills kids.

And it's like,

and then she kills kids, and you're like, oh, actually, it doesn't matter what you wear, you're terrifying.

It's a pretty great movie.

I'm late on board that train.

Mike Flanagan directed it, who did

Hill House and Fall of

Midnight Mass.

But

it is very loyal to the Stephen King of it all, in that there are entire scenes where we get to hear people talk about your shine or your fog or ether or whatever.

I mean, it is the sequel to The Shining, correct?

Yeah, but mercifully, Stephen King didn't have long, long scenes about whether or not you're going to continue to have that beautiful shine

because it sounds so silly when said out loud and not read quietly to yourself in a book.

And yet, and yet, it does get through it quite well.

It is

honestly like a great merger of King's books and Kubrick's vision for the film without kind of taking a side in the war between those two.

And I recommend it.

The only caveat is it's like three hours long.

And you definitely want to watch the director's cut.

And I believe it is streaming on Prime or Max.

And how much Tussen should you take before watching?

Oh, a lot.

Yeah, I took a lot lot of DM

and I watched it at like,

I think like five in the morning because I had gone to bed so early the night before.

Cool.

Perfect.

Perfect scenario for that.

You should see a doctor.

I'm

sorry, guys.

I just wanted to, this is so, I hate to do this, but I did, I, I have two Hades 2 updates.

I just want to show everybody now.

We've had two patches since the last time we talked.

One got like weirdly released like at an opportune time for Bessie's recording.

And then the next was like a smaller kind of update to it.

But they finally dropped the last weapon, the last

nocturnal arm is now available.

What is it?

Go ahead and get that?

No, I don't want to spoil it.

Oh, spoiler, spoiler, sorry, spoiler.

Sorry.

It's okay.

I mean, you can go look at it as soon as you load the game, but yes.

But you have to, and you got to get into...

There's another area up,

up.

If you go up, upwards instead of downwards, towards the bad guy down there if you go upwards there's a new up area if you keep going up past Eris there's another is it time to return then would you say or can I keep holding off until there's a little bit more juicy stuff this is a big one I doubt you'll hear they named this update the the Olympic update um

uh

so because you're going to Mount Olympus

um uh and uh it's a big one it feels like it'll probably be a while before you get another one and this is like the last weapon there's still some placeholder art, but I love seeing the placeholder art.

And it bums me out that if you wait a really long time, you're going to miss a lot of this like placeholder stuff.

How do you know if it's placeholder art?

So when you look at like the characters in the open world, like when you're in the zoomed out view, you see a lot of people who are in like these long cloaks.

Oh, yeah.

Sort of like hiding them.

But then when it goes into their actual character, you see like an actual design.

So the assumption being that that's a placeholder until they have an actual like character art, and then it will be depicted.

There's a way to do it.

And there's some of the character art that is

more like a sketch.

It's not as finalized.

And there's not a lot of effects and stuff.

And so it's very cool to see that kind of evolve in real time.

But yeah.

I think this game has a chance.

I think it might just make it.

Okay, I think we did it.

I wanted to thank the following people for being patrons of the besties.

You can go to patreon.com slash the besties and support us.

We have Enrique, Duncan, Brandon, and Vanya.

Vanya.

Vanya.

Uncle Vanya.

Thank you for being patrons.

Roger Culture.

We just recently recorded.

It's not out yet, so I'm not going to plug this thing.

It'll be out next week.

We have a new episode of the Bracket Battles, which is Best Party Games.

So we did that.

It's coming next week for all subscribers.

So stay tuned for that.

And thank you for being supporters.

Let's recap everything we we talked about.

Sick plant.

Can you do that?

Yeah, I'm going to do it.

Thank you.

So we talked about Dragon Age.

I'm overdosing on Vitamin Russia.

I'm loving it.

We talked about Dragon Age, the Vailguard.

We also talked about a bunch of other RPGs, including Metaphor Ray Fontasio, Dragon's Dogma 2, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, Like a Dragon, Infinite Wealth, Mario Luigi Brothership, Elder Scrolls VI,

and we also talked about the Seth Meyers special on Max, which is called Dad Man Walking.

I also mentioned Lobby Baby, which was his previous special.

Plant mentioned the movie Doctor Sleep, the special director's cut.

Griffin mentioned Mega64, who I believe has a Patreon and they do great stuff.

He also talked about the Diablo 4 expansion pack and UFO 50.

And we have Justin coming in with The Rest is Entertainment, which is a podcast.

Justin also mentioned the rest is entertainment which is a very good podcast which you can find on various platforms uh that's it next week we are going to be doing an episode uh we recorded this a little early but we're going to be doing an episode that's none of their business well that you guys are going to be on tour they don't want to you know none of their business anyway

uh we graded our predictions from 2024 so we went back to the episode at the beginning of this year we took a look at some of our picks for what we thought were going to be hot as shit games for 2024.

And guess what?

Some of them were wrong.

Some of them were right.

Some of them we didn't fucking know what Balatra was.

So don't mark out.

Some of them didn't come out.

All right.

So

go and listen to that episode.

It's a fun one.

If there's mention of there being no Hades 2 updates in that episode, now you know.

And if I mentioned that I'm going to get way into Alone in the Dark, I didn't.

Oh, boy, we never put out like a secret cipher before the episode.

Like a fucking personality.

Because it is

got a lot of David Harbor and Jodi Coberry in it.

Absolutely.

It's a huge amount.

Okay, close it out, Juice.

Yeah, thanks so much for listening, buddies.

We hope you've enjoyed yourself.

And we hope you are looking forward to joining us again next time on the Bessies.

Because shouldn't the world's best friends pick the world's best game?

Besties.