Ghost of Yotei Slashes Through Open-World Filler

I was uh I was uh

cleaning off my porch

and I

I uh I was sweeping and then I do this I always do this thing where I start sweeping my porch I think God god I hate sweeping my porch yeah and I remember hey you got that pressure washer oh well that's like that's like sweeping now you're sweeping with power you know turbo power so I do that thing I always do where I should be sweeping but instead I get the power washer and I just start spraying it off and then I look at my beautiful Adirondack chairs that I made so many years ago and I thought wow these things have seen brighter days.

I'm going to give them a bit of a spit of polish and get some of this old dust off of there.

Oh.

Well guys, my afternoon project is I'm going to be refinishing some

chairs today.

That decision was made pretty quickly.

I was like, wow, this is looking great.

Then I was like, wow, that's a splintered.

I made splinters in this.

You fucked up your chairs.

No, no, no, no, no, no, Russ.

When you know how to work your wood, it's just an opportunity for a crack.

For more woodwork, yeah.

More woodwork.

I mean, they sound clean.

They sound like

mission accomplished.

No bird shit on these for sure.

No, no, no.

It got worse than that, Griffin, because then once I started doing that, then I realized, oh, man, I have to do this everywhere.

So now it actually looks worse than when I started because I really lost interest in it about halfway through.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Realizing that strategy would mess up the game we are talking about today.

Ghost of Yote minus bird shit, you would not have a fucking clue where to go in this game.

True.

Thank you, birds.

It is the guiding light.

It is a blight on Japan, all of the bird shit.

And Justin, you just need to travel over there and work your magic.

Work your magic.

Please don't.

You would be asked to leave the country very, very quickly.

The bird shit is very whole.

All these Tori gates are absolutely lovely.

You just missed a Smudge right there.

Let me just

whoopsie.

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

My name is Griffin McElroy, and I know the best games of the week.

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

Sorry, Justin, do you have a bar in your house?

Rust, say it.

Just do it quick, Russia.

It's like taking a picture of it.

The whole world is in my office.

I don't know.

Okay, hold on.

Just like, chill, I need to say your name is the first time.

Okay, my name is Russ Fresh.

I'm of the best game of the week.

Welcome to Greatest and Greatest Home Entertainment.

Nine of the best season.

We're talking about the latest game.

I'm not here.

I have to trust that you're going to be able to do this.

We're crushing it.

We're crushing it.

Greatest and greatest the home entertainment.

I need to see this bug.

So,

whatever.

It's a video game club.

We've come a long way since Pac Man.

Yeah, to be sure.

It's just like, you absolute dumb songs.

What are we talking about?

Oh, well, thank you, Justin.

Today we're talking about Ghost of Yote.

It is the sequel to Ghost of Tsushima, big open-world game.

You're doing all sorts of stuff, like hunting down the Yote 6.

And also, you're using bird poop to figure out where you should climb in the mountains.

And also, there's a horse.

But back to you, Justin, and I can't wait to hear more about that big, beautiful bug.

Check the slack, Chris.

I've got a live image for you coming to me.

That's live from Tushish.

Dude, that's a Dark Souls boss.

So what I'm saying is that's why the bug has stopped on my end, guys.

There are so many legs on this thing, you can't count them.

That's the gaping dragon.

Out of there,

poor Rachel, who is also in our Slack room, just like getting absolutely no context on this one.

Also, it's on

a Kleenex box.

So, like, if you didn't know it was there and you went and took out a Kleenex and you tried to blow your nose, you would have a bug going up into your skull, turning into a symbiote.

Hey, Plant, guess what?

I used to pick up bugs to take him outside.

Tish.

I guess Tish Tissues.

Yeah.

He knows.

He's like already one step ahead of me.

So we're like 30.

Look at his legs.

Like

30 steps ahead of me, just like because of all the feet.

So Ghost of Yote.

I left the picture up on my computer, and now it's like the bug is here and there.

You have two bugs now.

We'll talk about Ghost of Yota right after this break.

This episode of the Besties is sponsored by Alienware.

A new era of power has arrived with the Alienware Area 51 gaming laptops, intentionally engineered to push more power to the CPU and the GPU for maximum performance.

Combined with Intel Core Ultra 9 processors merging CPU, NPU, and integrated GPU into one AI-optimized chip, it delivers fast, smart, and seamless performance across everything you do.

So no matter what you're playing, Alienware ensures that every game runs precisely as the developers intended.

A new era of power is here.

All you have to do is take it.

Discover Area 51 today at alienware.com/slash area-51 laptops.

That's alienware.com/slash area-51 laptops.

We'll put that bad boy bug in the newsletter, won't we?

Got to.

Oh, yeah.

I like that shit.

Spooky to get that idea fine.

And then someone will say, Justin, you have to move from your killer there anymore.

Just burn the whole house down.

Get that power washer.

You just start spraying.

Get that power washer.

Blast that bug to hill.

Like in the unreleased Sega CD game, Bug Blasters.

Shoot the tubes, dog meat.

That's the re-re-release Sewer Shark.

Hey, what do you guys think about Ghost of Yote?

Can I say, well, okay, can I ask real quick, 30-second Ghost of Tsushima, how did you feel about that one?

My very quick take is that I thought it was really cool and I liked it a lot i thought but then i kind of lost interest in it it got kind of samey for me and uh i kind of i kind of bailed on it halfway through the but i thought it was really gorgeous and everything i just didn't have staying power same same for me i love sucker punch and and their games i have lost my taste for open world games almost entirely so like i kind of knew it wasn't going to be my bag but it seemed very polished and uh the combat i thought was was pretty fun but yeah i bounced off ghost of tsushima pretty pretty quickly i love sucker punch love open world games.

Love beautiful spaces.

Love visiting Japan.

Did not like that game whatsoever.

I found it dull.

I found it slow to start, and I didn't even find it that pretty.

I didn't like it that much.

But this game, hmm, yummy, yummy.

What about you, Russell?

Yeah, I pretty much feel the same way as Plant.

Yeah, very slow guided start in the first game.

This definitely remedied that.

This one gets going almost immediately, which is so cool.

Really strong start.

Really strong, like, killbill-style start of of just like, I'm gonna kill these fucking six dudes.

The game's going to start with me killing one of them.

One of them.

They say Yote 6, but there's really just five.

Because in the first 30 seconds, you're killing one of them.

The tutorial is one of them.

And so yeah.

You smoke this cat.

Yeah, it's about you see a family attacked

by a group of

warriors.

You have very little context for what's happening except that this girl's family has been killed and they thought that they had killed her as well, but they didn't kill her good enough because she's coming back to kill all of them and that's for a video game i think one of the best premises yeah yes and that's really the best one it hits it really well too because the first like bit of interactivity you have in the game is you you know flash forward and you are atsu the the main character in the game and you are um painting the names of the yotte six on this sash that you're going to wear and you use the like the dual sense what are you what is the controller even called now you use the touchpad You use the touchpad to like form the kanji for these six villains names.

And it's really, a really solid way to

shit.

I do.

I like that.

I like it sparingly.

I think it's used, I think in a lot of first-party Zodi games, they do go a little bit too hard.

Fortunately, you can skip most of it in this game, which I appreciate.

But I think that's a really, really, really, very strong start of like, here's the game.

You're going to kill these six guys.

And you're painting your hit list.

And now it's time to get it.

And the thing is, this is not an original idea.

one it's not an original idea It's like so many Japanese movies especially in the 60s and 70s But also games have done this I feel like the most recent Assassin's Creed was doing a version the most recent Assassin's Creed starts with you as a younger protagonist getting attacked and by like a bunch of mask guys that you then have to go out I'm really glad to hear you say that because I thought I was like losing it a little bit the difference is this moves fast that really really

boom boom boom boom boom you are zipping through it and it does a number of things that that assassin's creed game did you are also going back and forth in time and kind of reliving experiences but here again all of these quality of life improvements so when you want to go back in time and experience life before everything bad happened to your family you will find a kind of like a ghost of a memory and you will press i think it's the faceplate button and you just instantly zip to it they're finally using that technology from when they announced the the PS5, where they were like, You're gonna zip, there's no more loads, you just zip everywhere.

I will say, this is the I'm playing on a PS5 uh professional, nice, and I uh for professionals, I don't know what you're talking about, man.

The PS5 Pro

for professionals, and Triffin didn't remember that a PS5 Pro happened existed, yeah, with the rest of them.

It is uh, it, the loading times are, I will say, that notably fat.

Like, yeah, I feel it not being

faster than it was.

Like, it feels fast.

I don't know how to say it other than when I start the game, I'm playing the game quickly.

Yeah, I think it's comparable for what it's worth to the normal PS5 because I also like did not.

Right.

I was just specifying, in case that is a fact, I was specifying what I played.

But you're on the professional edition.

I felt it.

Like, on the PS5 Professional for Professional Edition.

PS5 PE, as I call it.

The interesting thing, the thing that it is doing with the timelines that I think is cool is that

the flashbacks are used.

They're very brief.

You're not usually stuck in them for a very long time.

And you're jumping back and forth to just when it makes sense, right?

So you're not.

So they use it for tutorials a lot, which I think is very cool.

Like if you, if it needs to teach you a skill, it will have you learn that skill as a child and then it's immediately applied.

And you're so you don't get that like kind of nonsensical like learning.

You already know it, right?

It's, it's more framed like a refresher.

They also do smart stuff with like in one of the early flashback missions, you're like trying to find this runaway horse and you're running around with your dad.

And at one point, he places a charm in this like hollow tree stump.

And it's like supposed to help the flowers grow nearby.

And then you go on and you do the rest of this little tutorial thing.

You can come back there later when you're playing as an adult.

And I was like, Oh, I wonder what's up.

And if you get close to the tree stump, Atsu says, I wonder if that charm's still there, and it and it is.

So, there's things where it's like you're hiding things in the past, and you can find them in the present, which is right.

Okay, so the but the game, the game, so the game part though, um, it's

I remembered the last one being more stealth-focused, I think.

Um,

and for me, I really feel like this

even more

than the last one was more of like a balance.

This feels very like heavily into combat.

Like, for example, when you are in a base and trying to selfly kill

the different soldiers and you pick them off one by one, you almost immediately have a prompt that's like, hey, do you want to start a standoff and just kick this off and like fight them all?

Like, no, I don't.

Like, clearly, I don't.

Why are you giving me both the assassinate prompt and the sword fight prompt?

Like, no, I don't.

Yeah, there's skill trees where you can go down either way.

Ghost of Tsushima made such a big deal out of the main character who I think his name is Jin, I want to say.

It was about the duality.

He was a samurai, an honor-bound samurai who had to learn to basically fight dirty so that he

could make a dent in the opposition,

which so heavily outnumbered him.

So it was about like, how does he,

you know, integrate these stealth maneuvers or,

you know, dirty tricks or whatever into his

honor-bound samurai ways and this game does not fucking care at all she's not concerned about dirty ways she just wants to fucking kill these guys i love that shit i really really do appreciate that a lot and it's a really good character it's a fun character who has

you know obviously is is has had a lot of stuff go bad but is really seems to enjoy what she does like like it like it in a weird way is like taking joy in this journey like she doesn't really have much of a plan.

She's just kind of letting the wind guide her towards whatever person she wants to murder next.

But, like, there does seem to be like a savoring of it because she's not getting her family back.

And I think that there is a realization on her part that this is it for her.

Like, yes, the vengeance is what she is getting out of this.

And she seems to enjoy it more than some kids.

I can't tell you how many dialogue sequences I've had where she is fucking drenched in blood, head to toe,

drenched in the viscera of others.

And she's like, hey, do you have any hats?

This raises a question.

There are a number of modes in this game inspired by Japanese filmmakers and artists, one of them being Mikai mode, named after Takashi Mike.

Did you pick that mode?

Did you turn that on?

No, I was playing without that.

I tried it a little bit to admit what it was like, but I'm sure it's even more absurd.

You are just everything is covered in mud and blood.

It is goop the video game.

Really quickly on those modes, such a great idea because open world games, you spend so much time just being in the space.

And it kind of can wear out its welcome.

It can get dull.

I think that's why a lot of people listen to podcasts when they play open world games, right?

And it gives you these different options to change the vibe for whatever you're feeling in that moment.

And most impressively, they actually work.

like the layers are not entirely artificial in my opinion so there's a kurosawa mode that makes things black and white uh it's a hard way to play because you can't spot items as well but it i would add not just black and white it also adds like a film grain filter to it and also crunches the audio such that it sounds like you're listening to like an old fucking movie which is very cool yeah that's pretty rich

did you have any problems with the colors and the the paragraph yeah yeah there's some colorblind issues in this game There are accessibility features that make the game easier for people, but there's like, I think there's a yellow and orange that I like, yes, every single time on.

Yeah, yellow attacks are like you have to parry them exactly, and red attacks, you have to dodge out of the way of sort of.

Yellow attacks are disarm attacks.

That's right.

You have to hold.

It doesn't matter.

I just dodge.

Play the fucking damage.

If you want to know how to counter the boss at level three, I play it.

I really like the combat in this game a lot.

I tend to,

you know, try to play it stealthy once I get into a place, but after I pick off a few people, I'll do that like standoff, which is very stylish and it helps you take out, you know, one or two guys.

But then the fighting feels very,

I would say it's sort of more in the kind of like Arkham Asylum style, like you point one stick to

sort of aim your attack at the enemy you want to attack.

And then it's a question of like either breaking their stance or doing a perfect parry, or it's less about sort of chipping away at health bars, unless you're in a boss fight, in which case it's very much about chipping away at health bars.

But the rest of the time, it's very much like if you get a few hits off on a guy, you're going to kill him.

Yeah, there's also some

feels like a lot of dynamism in the combat because you are doing a lot of like, oh, that guy just died.

He dropped his sword on the ground.

I'm going to pick up the sword and throw it at this guy for an instant kill.

That's such a cool

throw some sand in this guy's face and get in there while he's not yet.

He's closest yet to Bushido Blade as an open-world combat system in that.

I kind of agree with that.

Yeah.

I hope as you get advanced, you're able to go back to these places and just mow through.

Well, I really want to, I want more of like a tap, tap, tap where I'm just like

there.

Let me just say one other thing about the, that's really important to the base combat that we didn't touch on.

You have to match weapon types.

So as you go through, one of the smartest things that it does is that it ties weapons to characters in the game, right?

So it really quickly establishes these characters and forces you to care about them because they are also the one with the gun.

Or, like, they'll only talk about, like, there's this crazy guy.

He lives out on this mountain and he has two swords.

If you can believe that.

And everybody's like, no way.

How's he not cutting his balls off every day?

You're like, I'm going to go find that guy.

Do you feel like the guy who fights with a long staff on an island?

It's like, okay, I'll be like, super good training montages, too.

They really make you feel like you're earning it.

It's not like you talk to a guy and it's like a little

badge appears and it's like, you can use two swords now.

Like, you've got to do it.

Did you do the two swords?

Did you say

yourself?

I don't want to.

It's really good.

I think it's worth talking about just that one.

It's early enough in the game, and I think it's useful.

So I want to talk about the two swords thing because a thing this game does incredibly is

use your actual senses.

So Griffin already talked about the writing the kanji with it, right?

And you can feel it there.

When you are making, you're cooking fish, you're flipping the controller kind of up and down to like move the fish around.

You're using the gyroscope.

This isn't new, but it's just using them in all the right places.

And then for the two swords, it is giving you QTEs that are basically impossible.

So you're learning to use the left hand for the sword.

So it's like, okay, you need to QTE within a second.

L1,

L3,

up, down, right, left on the pad.

And it's just not doable.

And it feels terrible.

It is a game that actually just turns how miserable using the L3 button is into an idea inside of the game.

And then as you progress, you get easier and easier at QTEs to the point that it starts to feel natural.

It's so it's some indigo prophecy shit.

We can call it what we want, but it is quantic dream as hell.

But it's the good quantic dream shit.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

I think think it's great really tickled um how do you guys feel about i i really do appreciate how uh quick

everything kind of feels like

you figure out you you get a mission it's like oh go to this uh cave there's a shrine there you go to the shrine and it's like you got a skill point now you can unlock one of these things for the tree there's not a ton of that it makes you do in order to like learn that idea and then it's like oh you find maps and you sort of lay those maps over your map and that helps you find the other shrines you go there and you get a skill point that is streamlined streamlined in a way that I do appreciate quite a bit.

I know when I see a hot spring in the distance, like I can run to that.

If I see smoke in the distance, that's probably a camp with some characters or a vendor or something.

Like, I appreciate how the game stays out of its own way for the most part.

Uh, so you just kind of know, like, okay, if I go there, and I think that's a

staple of Sucker Punch's games.

I think Sucker Punch makes great open worlds where you know if I go here, this will happen, and I'll get this sort of like boost, I'll get this upgrade.

Uh,

I find the running from point A to point B to be a bit

a bit long in the tooth.

You have a horse who is pretty fast, but anytime I look at my map and I'm like, I want to go there so I can like get this new thing, but it's going to take, it's going to be quite a bit of running through fields.

Uh, that is like my own personal gripe.

That's sort of, uh, if I feel like my time is being wasted in an open world game, I feel it.

I feel like a bit more intensely.

But there's such, there's like an instant fast travel.

Like you only have to do that really once.

Like once you get to a location, like you are basically.

No, I know for sure.

And it's like beautifully rendered, like, and you only have to go through it once.

I don't think that that, I don't know.

It didn't feel slow to me.

I think there are pacing issues to this game that aren't that because Justin's right.

Like you really just have to go once.

And I know you didn't do as much of the main story stuff, Griffin, but I think that's where

this game wears a little bit two hats at points because I think the open world side mission stuff, you're right, goes incredibly quickly you're doing side missions you're killing guys you get the skill point blah blah blah once you start doing mission missions like story missions this is not a knock per se but like that's where the bulk of the time was spent in narrative and cutscenes none of which are skippable it should be noticed uh it should be noted um so you are watching those cutscenes and if you decide as i did at one point i was like oh i'm in this new area i'm just gonna like see through to the end of this storyline to see what happens

It's a lot of start and stop.

Like, I wouldn't say Kojima level, but in the ballpark of Kojima level in terms of start and stop when you're doing the main story stuff, which to me, I gotta be real.

There are definitely times, even though I like a lot of the cutscenes, there are definitely times where it's like, I should be able to skip these cutscenes.

Some, some you can skip, you can skip some.

Some kind of like cooking food stuff you can skip.

I don't know.

I mean, sometimes if you're like in a conversation, you pause.

Sometimes it'll say, like, hold X to

pause, but it's like almost, it's very, very, very rare.

Yeah.

You, you can, yeah.

And there's some you just can't, but yeah, there's a lot you can pause.

It's like less essential, usually side quest data stuff.

Yeah.

Um, it is interesting because you have a lot of freedom in the order in which you do surf, right?

We kind of talked beforehand about sort of which of the Yotase 6 we're going to push towards because you really get yourself in a pretty long quest chain, you know, for a mission that I will say does start to feel like even though you you could stop in a mid in the middle of one of those, those they don't really feel like they want you to.

Yeah, they feel like they roll into each other each mission after it very much does.

Once you're on one of those trails, and it and that does start to feel like

it starts to feel a little itchy.

You know what I mean?

Like, I'd like to do something else, and I want to go, I want to go play the game, and it's so enjoyable.

I feel like that is the one I sort of struggled with.

That like,

why can't I skip the?

I'm 44.

Why can't I skip the scene?

In the first game,

they added a New Game Plus mode that let you skip the cutscenes in New Game Plus, which honestly makes me even more aggravated because they knew it was something that people might have wanted to do.

So just let me do it.

The cutscenes are good.

They're well-directed.

They're well-acted.

The writing is quite good.

But it's just like...

Yeah, I want to see more of the game and maybe I have 20 minutes and maybe I don't want to spend that watching.

So having that option.

That's the thing.

It's like, I realistically, I don't know if I'm going to get to the end of this or not, but I'd like to experience more of it.

Right.

And, you know, I've been watching movies and TV shows a lot.

I think the Sucker Punch folks are really talented.

They're not exactly reinventing the wheel narratively.

You know what I mean?

Like, I get it.

Some of these tales.

I've maybe heard some form of them before.

Yeah.

Yeah.

The linearity of it, too, is just of a different style and maybe even a different era.

The game looks very open world.

It does a good job of tricking it, and especially without many load times, it can pull this off.

But there are a lot of times where you are shimming between rocks and you're entering a level or especially when you're checked on the yote 6 you you it's like oh i'm gonna climb the mountain and then like a cutscene happens and suddenly you're in the mountain and you're in the mountain level this isn't it's not bad or good it's just a a style but the

it feels so seamless i mean i i want to be careful that i'm not knocking it because in the moment i felt like i was all in the same world they do a good job of conveying that.

But once you go down a path, you can get kind of locked into it.

My hang up with open world games is almost always like, if I feel like this would be better served as

a more linear experience, not completely linear.

It doesn't have to be like a Ninja Gaiden game where it's like you're going from level one to level two to level three.

I really like playing the game.

I like the combat.

I like the cutscenes.

I like the acting.

I like the writing.

It is the, and there is fast travel to places that you have been before, but I don't know.

It always kind of felt like a drag to me, the moments where I wasn't doing that stuff.

And

that is

very much a personal, a personal gripe.

For me, an open world.

Do you like there to be a radio on the horse that you have?

A radio on the horse that you have a station?

I mean,

I think that the game gets out of its own way in terms of like not overcomplicating its systems or overcomplicating its exploration.

But like, I'm not having that,

you know, tears of the kingdom moment where I'm like, I'm going to go there.

And on my way, I get distracted by 50 things and I discover so many things and I get waylaid and now I'm doing this dungeon.

Now I'm doing this cool thing.

Now I'm doing this cool thing.

Like

it's a beautiful open world, but it doesn't have that sort of like vibrant density of like experiences that

maybe I want out of it.

I've had that moment for what it's worth.

I've had the like, I'm riding to this mission and like, three other things happen on the way that I like chase down.

So it's, they do it pretty organically too.

You'll You'll see like some wildlife.

The birds are cool, like because a bird will like hove in your field of view.

Like, where are you going, pal?

If you follow him, it will usually lead you towards something interesting.

Yes, I think the difference between what Griffin's talking about and what happens in this game is

you're in Zelda and you come across a camp and then you just can fight in the camp or you can walk away.

Here, you'll find people at a camp and you will consciously decide to talk with them and initiate a new like mission sequence.

You kind of like.

I think Griff may want more like arrows, maybe.

Is it maybe an arrow?

Maybe more arrows that were sort of like that's it.

Yeah, if I had fire arrows or freeze arrows.

No, I mean, what Chris actually hit on it, it's like if I come across a camp with like three dudes chilling around a fire, it's like, I guess I could hang with you guys.

I'm going to kill the people who killed my parents, but like, I guess I could grill fish with you and play some tunes around the campfire.

Yeah, man, it's kickstart.

Yes.

Like, why do you, do you not like video games?

Like,

I do like video games.

I like a lot of people.

You rest at camp sometimes, and characters that you know in the game will just come up and be like, hey, so good to see you.

Do you want to buy a map?

But if I hit a camp right after I camped with a young boy who's like, let me teach you how to cook mushrooms.

And then I run 100 feet and I run into a camp of traders.

I can't be like, sorry, guys.

I just camped.

I can't fucking camp with you guys.

I literally just camped a few minutes ago.

I want to hear more about Final Fantasy from Griffin, but one last thing on this game.

I just hope that more open world designers follow the lead here of you eyes are gross in open world games.

You're there because the world is beautiful and I want to spend less time in the maps.

And this game does all that so well.

And a fast start, y'all.

A fast start.

Make people have fun in the first hour of the game.

Don't start your game in a mine.

Come on.

This episode of the Besties is sponsored by Alienware.

A new era of power has arrived with the Alienware Area 51 gaming laptops, intentionally engineered to push more power to the CPU and the GPU for maximum performance.

Combined with Intel Core Ultra 9 processors merging CPU, NPU, and integrated GPU into one AI-optimized chip, it delivers fast, smart, and seamless performance across everything you do.

So no matter what you're playing, Alienware ensures that every game runs precisely as the developers intended.

A new era of power is here.

All you have to do is take it.

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Hey, we're back and I'm very excited because Final Fantasy Tactics is a game that I have always wanted to get into.

I've tried a few times.

I've I've bounced off every one of those times, and I've been hearing word that this is my opportunity to get into it.

Can I ask you a bear?

Alright,

is Tactics one game?

Is Final Fantasy Tactics one game, or is that a franchise?

So there's Final Fantasy Tactics Advance was the other big one, and then Final Fantasy Tactics basically advance 2 on the DS, I want to say.

But those are sort of like standalone.

Where it gets a little bit weird is the world of Final Fantasy Tactics is Evilise, which is also the world of Final Fantasy XII and Vagrant Story.

If you remember that little PS1 gem, but you don't need to know any of that shit.

It's completely its own story.

But this is a remake.

We're talking about a remake of the original game that came out on PS1.

Yes.

So a bit of backstory.

Final Fantasy Tactics came out in 1997 on the PS1

and was beloved.

Big, dense story.

It was the first Final Fantasy game that came to the States that had like a job system where you could like pick the different jobs and abilities of all of your different characters on your on your team.

This was before like Final Fantasy V and three and the other sort of ones that had those systems finally came stateside.

So it was like a it was a big deal.

And I would say,

in so much that a Final Fantasy game can be a cult classic, like was a cult classic on the PS1.

Then in 2000 something, maybe 2007,

they remade it for the PSP called called Final Fantasy Tactics War of the Lions.

There was also an iOS version that I think was based on War of the Lions that just added some extra content, but most importantly, had a re-translation because the PS1 translation had some issues.

This was much more

Shakespearean sort of text.

The original was or the remake?

The re-translation for War of the Lions.

It is a very, very dense story about a sort of war of succession following this like 50-year conflict uh between these kind of like uh rival princes and there's a lot of castle intrigue and there's a lot to follow.

This game, Final Fantasy Tactics, the Evil East Chronicles is what this new version is called, very wisely provides a lot of like memos and charts to help you like keep track of like, you know, who is Duke Larg and Duke Goltana.

And

I actually think that that stuff is pretty cool.

It seems like they're doing more of that after, what was it, Final Fantasy 16 where they have like wikis as you're playing the game to like yeah right keep you up to speed and it's i i think that is really really valuable in a game like this uh because it is clippy i want to

screen it all times like oh you want to know about zinny

it is a way more ambitious story than i think any of certainly any of the final fantasy games that came before tactics right final fantasy 7 and and and before which were very much like you know um there's a world of espers and it's leaking into our world and people want to take control and use them for magic to take over the world.

This is like, hey, there's this, there's a war of succession.

Like, it's going to be fucking kind of complicated keeping track of who's doing what.

And I really think that this game does a, this version of the game does a great job of helping you follow all that stuff.

It is a tactical RPG.

You have different units that you are customizing, picking their jobs.

As you play and do stuff with those units, they get job points that you use and you go through and say, like, oh, I want this white mage ability and this white mage ability, and then I'm going to switch over to black mage and unlock some abilities and match, mix and match the two.

And it's like a fireman thing where like this class is strong against this other class.

Is it stuff?

No.

No, it's more of a Final Fantasy type thing where it's like, this unit is weak to

Blizzard.

There's like elemental weaknesses.

But there isn't that like spear type units beat this type units.

It's more like you have attack and defense stats, like more traditional sort of Final Fantasy RPG sort of

fundamentals.

And all of the customization stuff is really fantastic.

It's really one of the best things about the game because you really can customize your units to make them

whatever you want them to be.

If you are noticing, like, hey, I'm actually lacking in some like raged combat capabilities, like you can make one of your units like specialize directly in that.

And experimenting with that stuff is really fun and really rewarding.

The

writing is, and they've done some expansion of, they used the War of the Lions translation for this version of the game.

The writing is really,

I think, heads and shoulders beyond any Final Fantasy

that has, that certainly came before tactics and maybe since.

It is a story about after this 50 years war came to this kind of like brutal stalemate, very costly war.

And after the war ended, all of the rich people and royals are like, fine.

They're like, okay, they came out of it pretty well.

And they're like, let's just get back to work.

Let's figure out who's going to be the next king.

Whereas all of the commoners and people who like fought and died and sacrificed in the war are treated like garbage.

They are not, they are, they are, a lot of them become these like roving bands of thieves and

scoundrels because like they weren't.

catered to.

They weren't seen to after they gave all of this like bloodshed for the

kingdoms in which they lived.

And so the story is set in that backdrop:

you are a royal heir, basically.

You are this member of this noble house, Beowulf, and you have a friend, your best buddy who is like a commoner.

And like, pretty much right away, you guys are sort of thrown into the thick of this class conflict.

And it's really interesting, really fast, and it makes you care about the characters in the game very, very quickly.

And also has a fucking lot to say, man, about about class and about fascism and about how we sort of

how people are treated who go above and beyond and give the most for their

society and the people who are in charge of them.

And I think it's great.

Really quick, would you mind if I read the letter from the original script scenario writer, Yasumi Matsuno, on the email?

I would love nothing more.

I'd mind.

It sounds boring, but okay.

It's not going to be.

It's so good.

So this is the writer from the original game, right?

Uh, nearly 30 years ago.

This is a press statement.

Nearly 30 years ago, the collapse of Japan's bubble economy engulfed the nation's financial institutions in mountains of bad debt, triggering a wave of corporate bankruptcies, a sudden extreme rise in unemployment rates, and stagnation of Japanese society as a whole.

It was an era when many were robbed of hope, when dreams were measured by their price tag.

I'll fast-forward down the statement to the end.

And now, in 2025, a time when inequality and division are still deeply rooted in our society, I offer the story once again.

The will to resist is in your hands.

Wow.

Maybe the best fucking resist ever.

That's pretty good.

It's good shit, and it really, truly,

not an exaggeration, so relevant and so prescient and so...

Effective.

It is an effective thing to play a game that has a story that resonates with the current situation so clearly and so well.

There's a lot of of these stories that sound like things I'd like to experience, but I'm never sure what time commitment I'm looking at here.

What are we talking about for this?

I mean, it depends on how much you want to like get lost in the systems of

customers.

Let's assume it's you.

Yeah, let's assume it's you.

Can I tell you the truth?

I don't know.

I've never finished the game because it has been kind of

in for that.

There have been a lot of, I've had a lot of issues with the games.

Like opening difficulty curve is quite, quite steep because you don't have all these things unlocked.

You don't have your team of like specialists.

You don't, you're pretty weak when you start out.

This game offers you difficulty settings for the first time.

If you want to play on easy mode until you get like more of your footing and then you can switch it, you can do that.

I do appreciate that a whole lot.

So you can minimize some of the grinding and farming that you might need to do.

So yeah, you might have to Google to see like how long a time commitment you are talking about.

There are a lot of ways to automate combat.

If you do want to just kind of like farm, farm shit out and get stronger, you can totally do that if you so choose.

How long do you think?

Can we talk about graphics?

Yeah, sure.

I always think this is interesting because I think that anytime you're doing a remaster or reissue or whatever, there's a balance you're striking between preservation and, you know, right, modernity.

But what do you think?

I think they did a pretty good job, actually.

I think it is.

They have done a lot of work with the sprites to kind of like soften them

and make them look good on like an HD screen.

It almost looks like the vignetting.

It almost looks like CRT.

There's some CRT effect.

Yeah, it's a little grainy, but in like a purposeful way, it looks cool.

It is not on the level of like a 2D, 3D remake, Octopath Traveler, anything along those lines, which I think is like gorgeous and would have been a cool way to do this, but it would have been a, that would have been a full like skeleton like remaster of the thing.

That would be a much more ambitious deal.

I think it looks great.

I think I do enjoy the way the game works.

Unfortunately, if you want to play it with the original visuals, you can do that, but you lose all of the quality of life stuff.

Like the difficulty settings, there is a option to switch into a top-down camera for the first time, which is kind of important because this is a game where like you're going through these sort of...

uh what's the it's an isometric view and you know sometimes there will be a building in the way that you have to kind of like adjust the camera to get around being able to switch to this bird's eye view really does help with that there's there's a lot of little stuff like that that makes it a much more uh i don't know enjoyable experience.

You've smoothed a lot of the pixels.

Looks like these aliases have been anti.

I think it looks really, really good.

I do enjoy it.

I do kind of wish that it had that level of

polish that like Octopath and those more recent 2D, 3D games have had.

But I've gotten the furthest in it in this version of it than I ever have because I find that

the stuff that has always been really great about the game is

as good as it's ever been.

And a lot of the things that have

scared me off of the game

have been smoothed out.

The dragons, the spiders.

Yeah, the dragons, the skeletons.

Skeletons.

There's a fast forward.

There's a fast forward.

There's masks in there.

Group is not crazy about masks.

There's like a vacuum cleaner, weirdly, is one.

There is a fast forward button you can sort of like hold to toggle whenever you are like going through fights and it's the enemy's turn and you don't want that to take fucking forever.

Like, I don't know.

They've done a lot of really smart stuff and I think it's great.

There is some content from the War of the Lions that is missing, like a few additional classes, uh few like guest characters like Baltier from Final Fantasy 12 stopped in and could like join your team in

War of the Lions, and he's not in this one.

So that's like spawn, spawn, spawn, link, chief, Yoda.

Um, so like that's kind of disappointing.

I think that you know, you want it to be the definitive, authoritative version of the thing.

But I do think it's the most approachable version of a game that is truly

timeless.

And I don't use that word lightly.

I think that the story is important.

And I think that the gameplay, if you like tactics games, like Russia, I think this would hit for you, I think as much as you like Fire Emblem.

I genuinely think this would be the version of the game that you could sink your teeth into.

That's really the big question for me is like, can that Fire Emblem interest translate?

Because I've always had trouble keeping in my head the like Final Fantasy magic strength weakness thing, whereas

Fire Emblem was always so linear of like, oh, bow guys are always great against these guys.

And that's

it does actually keep the battles like on

using Fire Emblem as a comparison.

Like most of the time, you're going to be working with like four, five, six units on your team.

Tops.

And like you will know them very well because you have customized them and managed them.

Yeah, that's cool.

There's permadeath in the game.

If one of your units falls, you have three rounds to revive them.

And if you don't, they're fucking gone.

And so that's sort of like

adds a little bit of pressure, but it's like a very manageable pressure as long as you are careful.

And

I think it's great.

I think it's really, really great.

I was fully expecting to dip into this and be like, yeah, they've made these changes and it's cool.

But I keep coming back to it and I keep playing it.

And I think it'll probably be the first time I have finished this game and it's cool to.

Hell yeah.

I'm such a huge Final Fantasy fan.

And now I feel like I have finally unlocked this like big piece of the puzzle.

The final.

The final Final Fantasy.

I don't know.

It just kills me that this fucking thing came out now when it's like, oh, we're spending a ton of time on Yotay and Baby Stephs and so Silkson.

It's just like,

it feels like it would have been the perfect January mid-yeah.

Yeah, it would be a great January game for sure.

But yeah, that's Final Fantasy Tactics, the Evil East Chronicles.

We want to do some honorable mentions or mailbag.

What we got?

We can do a couple mailbags and then we'll go.

Oh, fuck.

I just opened up Slack to find our document working out of, and the bug pick was picked up, was pulled up, and it scared me.

We have a couple reader mails.

This is from a little while ago, but Bass Toad was calling out Pocopia as the only thing that they will think about until its release.

I am incredibly excited about Pocopia.

It will dominate my entire life.

That is the, for those that don't remember, the Minecraft Pokemon thing.

Oh yeah, it's going to fuck up this household in a major way.

I'm incredibly excited for that.

Josh wrote in to say, you guys got to try Clover Pit.

It's been described as Belatro-like, which was an instant buy for me.

Have you guys heard about this game?

I watched a Northern Lion gameplay video of it yesterday.

It's like a slot machine.

I believe Buck Shot Roulette, sort of lightly inspired kind of hell.

That's funny.

I would have guessed hell roguelike.

I would have guessed Luck Be a Landlord.

No, it's much more gritty and

it looks like there is a sort of constant threat of death.

And a lot of, you know, Satan stuff, which you don't, I don't love.

Yeah.

Satan's okay.

But yeah, no it looks pretty you don't love Satan I don't love the dark lord scary scary scary stuff you're gonna be you're gonna be mad when you just hear how much of Capcom he just bought

this letter comes from James

watching Travis and Griffin play baby steps was an absolutely surreal experience very funny probably won't pick it up myself but look forward to watching other streamers suffer

yeah I think our plan is to do it next next week me Justin and Travis trying to like split up the controls of the

I mean the game is hard and entertaining with one human being.

You don't necessarily need to add more variables to it.

But dudes, listen,

Justin can speak to this too.

Something really interesting.

This series we do,

I call it a series, but it's like a thing we do on Clubhouse sometimes called Six Thumbs, One Heart.

Playing games like that has been such a transformative type of thing.

Like playing Super Mario World, I think is when it was like kind of firing at all cylinders where one of us was jumping one of us was moving with the d-pad and one of us was like doing the other button it really playing a game with that kind of multiplayer experience is really fascinating it really is pretty interesting to see there's some things that you that get easier because you're only thinking about one thing right so you're not actually having to multitask what's weird is like the only way it actually works is if you know if you play if you were to play super mario brothers one right now you wouldn't think about how to play it right?

You would pick it up and just do the buttons.

The only way this works is if the other people's hands are doing what you assume your own hands would be doing.

Like you have to trust that they are doing what you would be doing, right?

But with a game like, and that's a game that's designed to be done by one person.

Baby Steps is designed to be hard when it's done by one person.

It's like too much to think about.

When you're just like one leg, like.

I know how to keep one leg up, maybe.

But it's fun.

It is truly fun to play a game.

Like Travis and I got into some grooves where like I was controlling the the pitch and yaw of the body and he was doing the feet and like we would get into a pretty stable groove and like it feels great like it feels really really good when you can pull that off I think it's a fun way to to play games that like if you set your shit up with you know whatever remote play software uh is is available to use it's not that hard to set up And I think even if Russ doesn't think our video sounds very good, we'll still do our best to make it

watch it even.

I was thinking that.

I wasn't saying it.

Yeah.

We have some honorable mentions.

Anyone have anything off the top of their heads?

Yes, but come back.

Okay, I'll go.

I beat Baby Steps.

Good segue.

I finished that game.

Nice.

It was.

Still feel strongly about it?

Unquestionably,

probably in my top three of the year right now.

Wow.

Okay.

I fucking love that game.

Just the player agency and exploration stuff.

It was just scratching every itch for me.

I hope more people do try it.

I think the demo is still live if you wanted to try a free version, but I've just been totally blown away by the whole experience.

A lot of dicks though, just a heads up.

The other thing I've been playing a little bit more of, Everybody's Golf Hot Shots, which has been patched a few times and now runs not perfect, but pretty okay on Steam Deck.

I know it runs a lot better on a more powerful device, but they are getting closer to like getting the bar to run smoothly to the point where I can actually play it.

And so I've been enjoying that quite a bit.

The other thing I wanted to call out was this video on YouTube.

The creator is Annie Austin.

And the premise of the video is, do Red Dead Redemption 2's power lines connect to anything?

Oh, I saw that thumbnail.

Really good.

I didn't watch it, but I saw it.

Annie Austin has been doing these like...

basically like land management videos about large-scale open world games.

And this is one of the more recent ones.

And what is totally insane is every single fucking house in Red Dead Redemption 2 that has electricity is connected to an electric wire.

That if you follow the electric wire all over the landscape, it will eventually lead into Saint Denis, which is the like big Louisiana city, New Orleans city.

And in St.

Denis, it leads to a fucking power station.

That's cool.

That's cool.

I like it.

So he did a really good job.

A lot of his other videos are excellent.

So I definitely definitely recommend checking that.

That's any Austin on YouTube.

I played a bit more Hades 2.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Have you been dipping back in juice?

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's really good.

It's good.

I feel like...

I still

am not hitting the stuff that feels so obviously new.

And maybe I need to put more time into it to get to that shit.

I know there's whole areas.

Do you think that's a mental thing, though?

Do you think that's a result of you having played it pretty much?

It's possible

so long ago you don't remember?

It was a really long time ago.

I tell you what I struggle with is that I feel like it is kind of hitting the same pleasure centers of my brain as Megabonk.

And Megabonk is all new, baby.

And it's all fast.

And

it's all good.

I played the fucking demo of Megabonk and I was like, I cannot play this game.

This is going to ruin my fucking life.

It looks good.

Megabonk will fuck you up.

It looks so fucking good.

I loved what I played, but it was just like, this is not the right time of year for this game.

Yeah, I've hit a wall in Megabonk where it's too, like, the further levels are too hard, and I can't make much progress in it.

Just a refresher, Megabonk was the 3D Vampire Survivors game.

Vampire Survivors game, yeah.

But it is very, like, it is very much a, you pick it up once and play it, and you're like, oh, I get it.

It kicks ass.

Travis has gotten into Megabonk, which is, it's not typically his style of game to dip into.

I also want to shout out, I've been watching Only Murders in the Building this season.

And it's been a really good season.

I don't know if you guys have, you know, still fuck with that show, but it's so fun.

The like swings they take with the mysteries are so big, and it moves at like a really nice clip, which I appreciate.

There's no episodes that feel like, oh, they're just kind of spinning their wheels.

Like they, they are constantly kind of like, you know, raising the stakes and putting the three main characters into increasingly,

you know, sort of outrageous situations.

So, yeah, been liking that.

Nice.

Anyone else?

You know,

not really.

Should I get a power washer?

Justin?

What?

I mean, power wash simulator for real.

Should I get one?

Seems like fun.

Seems like fun.

You live in a male calculator.

Like it's a lot of fun, but you got to have a hose to plug into it and generates a lot of water.

You have to have to get somewhere for that water to go.

You have to figure out a balcony.

I think your neighbors would be wicked pissed.

No, it's not.

I'll use my time here to say

there are a lot of YouTube channels that I've been enjoying lately that are not focused on consumption of games, but rather on like creation or like not consumption of new stuff, I'll say.

So I just wanted to mention a few of those channels I've really enjoyed lately.

One that me and my kids have liked a lot is Sayaka's Digital Attic.

It's a woman who restores like old consoles and old games, like cartridges themselves.

It's very relaxing and soothing.

And you learn learn so much about how these things are like assembled, and you see her process for going through.

It's very satisfying.

The girls, even though they have no awareness of these old consoles, find it really interesting and enjoy watching it.

So, that channel has been great.

Of course, Retro Game Core.

We love our friend Goodrus over there.

He's always doing great stuff.

If you want to get into that, I have also been enjoying a channel called Tech Dweeb, as embarrassing, as that name might sound

to the uninitiated.

But one thing I he does a lot of retro game coverage of like Android game consoles and things like that.

But

like every other video on the channel is something about like a creative project.

Like he put out that like just this week,

while a lot of channels that are in the retro game space or in

the tech space, I would say writ large.

He's using this and a lot of technology.

People seem to just be looking for an excuse to put out affiliate links.

So it's very biased towards like the new, the latest and greatest because if you click through their video to buy the thing, then they get a little bit off the top.

So you're not really incentivized to not make videos about new products.

But like half of Tech Dweeb's videos are creative things like the newest one is Make Your Own Retro Style 4x3 Monitor.

And it's like a absolute step-by-step, bare bones from the beginning, like DIY process of making like a cool repainted monitor yourself for very cheap.

He made a

practical version of Bellatro that you may play with physical cards, and that's one of the videos.

But it's at like three videos a week.

It's wild that this guy's output.

They're all a joy to watch.

But those are the few, I, when those channels pop up, I really, uh, I find it very relaxing.

It's something I really

look forward to.

So, yeah.

What another, the last one I'll mention is cultured vultures.

They do a lot of like

console-based like things you may have missed on certain consoles, hidden gems, videos.

And they're some of like the best produced and really fascinating.

I always find a lot of great recommendations to stuff I should go back and check out.

So that sounds good.

Those are some, if you want to just experience games rather than buy games, that's a fun way of doing it.

Cool.

Very quickly, Frank Lance, friend of the show, has a new video game coming out.

And you can play a demo of it right now.

And let me tell you, you all are going to want to play the shit out of this.

It is called Q Up, the letter Q Up, and it is the future of esports.

I'm serious, y'all.

Coin flipping, heads or tails, esports.

It's coming at you.

And let me tell you, this game is committed to 50-50 fairness every time.

And can you also get upgrades that make it, you know, a little bit easier for you?

Yes, you can.

But does the game also evolve to guarantee at all times 50-50, 100% fairness.

Yes, it does.

Okay, Frank's gonna be really pissed at how terrible that pitch was.

No, I don't think he will, man.

I think that's what the game is.

It's about 50-50 fairness 100% of the time.

100% randomness 100% of the time.

So, is it a joke?

This looks fucking insane.

It's about coin.

It's the future of esports.

What do you mean is it a joke?

It's coin flipping.

It's the future of esports.

If it says it's part clicker.

In what way would it be a clicker?

It's about having 100% fairness and 100% randomness 100% of the time.

I don't know what else you want me to tell you about this game.

It seems like you're trying to figure out if there's maybe something else going on.

And I don't know what you're talking about.

I always got to try to break this.

Is it Frog Fractions 3?

Like, is that what's going on?

Oh, dang.

Is there Frog Fractions 3 now?

Maybe.

This is a coin-flipping esport video game, and I think you should play this.

Is there actually multiplayer in this, or is it like a meta-verse?

I'll be honest with you about that part.

I'm still not sure.

It both has told me that there is and there isn't.

Okay, I don't want to spoil much of this game.

I'll just say, read the full terms of service when you're playing the game, and that'll give you a very clear idea of what you're getting.

It's from Universalclips.

Yeah, right.

I forgot Frank work on Universal Paperclips.

That's right.

So, yeah, it's from that team.

I think they are not allowed to say multiplayer on the Steam page if it doesn't have multiplayer.

So, it probably does.

That's a good point.

I don't think they're allowed to fuck around with that.

Gabe would get so pissed with his knives.

I would say there is a point in the game where it tells me that it is single player, but then also at a point where it tells me it is single player.

When is this game coming out?

It just says coming soon.

I don't know, but it's always been out, man.

Or it's not out.

It's never going to come out, or it's always been out.

It's one of those sort of games.

games wild it's okay

uh i think we did it uh i wanted to thank some members of the patreon over at patreon.com slash the besties uh we have paul s we have benjamin w we have david d and we have teresa s thank you for being uh patrons of the besties uh just as a reminder we have a new ten dollar tier if you wanted to have uh ad-free episodes of the main feed uh in addition to all the bonus content that you were getting uh on the five dollar tier you can definitely do that as well throw us some extra bucks we really greatly appreciate it.

And I think next week we're doing a very scary game that I'm scared of, Silent Hill F.

Just say fuck.

It's actually pronounced Silent Hill.

I'm looking forward to that.

Be sure to join us again next time for the besties.

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

Besties.