The Besties - Baby Steps is Video Game Heaven and Hell

Episode Date: September 26, 2025

Baby Steps is the latest game from the creators of QWOP, Getting Over It, and Ape Out. This time, these connoisseurs of challenge have created a game about an awkward man who is transported from his parents’ basement to a fantastical mountain. His goal: reach the top. The challenge: learning to walk.Plus, Justin catches us up on the state of emulator handhelds.Like the show? Leave a review! Get the full list of games (and other stuff) discussed at www.besties.fan. Want more episodes? Join us at patreon.com/thebesties for three bonus episodes each month!

I fucked up pretty bad. You guys remember how I was talking about there's so many games out, too many games to play and master and complete. You were talking about that. I remember that. And how I was going to do, I was going to make a multiplicity machine

so that I could clone myself. Wait, are you the dumb one? And I didn't realize you were the dumb one this whole time. So I did it, I made it so I could platinum all the games. And I have forgotten which one was the, original sort of per the original guy you really i don't even know if i'm him which is like there's actually there is a trick to this um because i've actually seen the source techs yeah multiplicity um which is what you you study to be an expert in the multiplying in people um you need to look around and kind of

look like is there a sexy one because if it's a sexy one they're all pretty i mean they're all they're all they're all stop they're all pretty sexy that's true russ you can't say that you can't with that. I'm allowed to say it about myself. Yeah. Is there kind of like a clown one? It's always like getting into pranks. No, there's five sexy ones. One of them's just been grinding away on Silk Song

trying to platinum that one. And he looks sexy while he does it, but it's like me, but not me. Sweatier. Super duper, duper sweaty. Yeah, wet. I guess that's not the original one. Yeah. And I don't have a belly butt. Like, I don't have a belly button.

Uh-oh. So, and no nipples and smooth down there. Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, Griffin. Yes. You might just taking your headphones off for a second? Sure, sure. Hey, guys, this one doesn't have a belly button, so I'm pretty sure it's Griffin. Yeah, that's true.

Right, Justin, you remember. Okay, never had a belly button. Is it okay? Can I come back? Can you come back? Yeah. I have some great news for you. Okay, cool.

You're the original. Griffin. All right. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. No, that makes sense. Good. Awesome. Well, I'm going to go put the other ones in the incinerator. If I seem like I didn't know what you guys were doing, it's because I wasn't listen to that part. It's not part of the show, so I don't think I should have to listen to that right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, if I'm uninvited from the talk, then everyone can pre-law. Okay. Michael Keith was just fucking non-stop. Exuding it, dude, dude. I mean, literally, like, he was just like him and Andy McDowell just like every scene. Yeah, dude. With the hat on fucking bird man

he won my name, my name is Justin McElroy and I know the best game of the week. My name is Griffin McRoy and I know the best game of the week. My name is Christopher Thomas Plant and I know the best game of the, we know the best game of the week. My name is Russ Frusick. I know the best game of the week. Welcome to the besties where we discuss the latest and greatest in home interactive

entertainment. It is a video game club just by listening you, my friend, have become a member. On this week's episode, long in development is baby steps from the people that brought you quop and ape out. Getting over

it. Getting over it. And Majora's mask. That's not right. That's that one I made up. What's baby steps again, though? I've forgotten. Baby steps is a game where you take baby steps from the bottom of a mountain to the top of the mountain. One big problem.

This isn't your Papa's video game. You're going to have to take each step individually one leg at a time. Is that it? Yeah, that's traditionally how steps are. That is my strat for steps, IRL. Cool, cool, cool, cool. So baby steps. A game we're walking is hard.

Absolutely the funniest tutorial moment I've ever experienced my entire life. There is nothing funnier than when this game says press the stick to move forward and you press the stick to move forward and you fall in your face. You immediately be right in the mud. It's so good.

It's so good. But that is how Baby Step says hello to you. No longer will push forward to move forward that good old classic standard of ambulation in video games, it has failed you because you are steering the legs. Yeah, you will literally have direct control, one-to-one control over your two legs. You don't have to worry about the arms pretty much.

You can pick stuff up, but that's it. But all of it is in the legs, and the level of control you have is like every, there's the X, there's the Y, you've even got the Z in there. Yeah, it's really, really great. I had a fun experience, actually, yesterday, Travis and I did a stream where I controlled the body. Actually, we took turns.

One of us controlling, like, the tilt and the camera and the other person controlling the legs. That sounds horrible. No, it really actually dividing up the kind of like left brain, right brain like that actually made for a really unique. I've played quite a bit myself. I don't know. I really actually like the experience because it kind of really cements how much this game requires you to, I don't know, know, juggled, spin two plates very, very fast at the same time with, I will say, for a Bennett-Foddy game, fairly unpunishing at the beginning. Like, there's not a lot of, I mean,

getting over it is the quintessential version of this, where Bennett-Foddy is constantly taunting you with voiceover as you like each and every mistake that you make, you lose possibly all of your progress. I have not had any experience remotely that rough in baby. steps, and so it is fun to play a Bennett Fottie game and feel like I am progressing and not like that is going to be snatched away from me at a moment's notice the first time that I fuck up. There's a key difference between getting over it, for people who remember this the one, where you're the nude bald dude in a giant black cauldron with a hammer. He could be wearing a base suit. He could. We might have full pants on down there.

You might. That's so true. And you're trying to climb off like a mountain of trash. that game to me is a game about refining fast motions because you have to kind of sling yourself with this hammer. This game is you can go fast, but you're rewarded for going very slow and actually looking at the way that your legs flex and your feet take a grip on the environment. So if you kind of lift the camera up

or lift it far down either way, but wherever you can get a good look at your toes, You're going to spend a lot of time looking at them And you can see the ground give way beneath your foot So as long as you have purchased with like, let's say your right foot You can test out the environment around you with your left foot And look to make sure that you have some grip And then you can put the next foot in front of you

As you know y'all were saying with that X, Y and Z movement You can really place your foot down to an exact spot where you want it to be And you'll have to. Yes. Especially as you start climbing. Yeah. Yeah. I was not expecting to like this game as much as I do.

I will tell you off the bat, it is definitely in my top five and maybe in my top three of the year right now. I am completely fucking smitten by this game. I haven't, although I appreciate the artistry and the design of specifically Bennett Fottie's games, this is the first one I've like genuinely enjoyed playing. Yeah. And because, there's a few reasons. You mentioned at the top, like, this is not as punishing as any of those other games. There are moments in this game where you can lose a fair amount of progress. Absolutely, yes.

Yeah. But even in those moments, like, at most, you're losing 30 minutes. It's not a fall all the way down again with a single mistake. And I don't want to play this game anymore. I want to hear hoops your take because I, Frust just said a thing that was very funny. To me, he said, it's not a whole lot. It's just 30 minutes. Yeah.

So, yeah, that was like the experience I had right. before we started recording was like climbing to the top of a hill and then there was like a gap where there was a creek sort of and I took a wrong step and in the creek and I slid all the way down the creek and then through this like little waterfall person-sized gap where I just kind of like slumped down perfect yeah and then I literally I it took 30 minutes to walk back up to to those rocks and I actually went backwards because I didn't understand where I was. You know what I'm saying? So like, I went the wrong way around and ended up back where I started. And then as I was crossing the gap,

I took a wrong step and I went into the creek and I slumped through the creek into this person sized hole and slid back down to the exact that's great. I love that. I loved that. But it was like, but can I say though, I know my, I know my reputation.

it was a very I found it strangely Zen I found it strangely sort of like I felt like I was meeting the game it was if I like I was meeting the game on its own level I felt like it was there it saw exactly what happened

do you know what I mean like it knew exactly what happened that was exactly as designed the game is designed first of all it's designed for you to fall in those situations it's also designed for you to know for pretty sure when you do fall at certain moments how devastating it's going to be like it telegraphs that it's never a surprise if you fall in that creek you're like yeah that makes sense that's gonna go

bad oh i knew 100% when i saw and i did i walk up to that creek very carefully or did i walk up to that creek like what's up bitch i'm back i'm about to walk over you ah like yeah so i think the game is fair in that way yeah for ideally it and it's also fair because if you If you're just like the basic walking around, for me, it was very much like riding a bike, except if the bike changed in size free from time, every few minutes, right? Because I would feel like I'd get in a groove. Yeah. But it would not be fast enough for me.

And I would want to push the pace. And if I would just go slower, probably fine. I'd be making a good, but nope, I got to push it. Yeah. That's when I would get frustrated is when I would just stand up, fall right over. And I would feel like, why can't I get it? Like, I can't find the rhythm again. And that can be really frustrating.

So what I really like about the following of it, and this happened to me too, usually it happened when I was intentionally doing something very, very stupid. I'll give you an example. I was walking on a main path, very safe, no real threats around, and there was a swing hanging from a tree, a tree swing, if you will. You have to. And at the top of the tree was like a fruit or something. and I was like, I'm going to try to eat that fruit.

Now the tree swing situation. It uses that video game shit against you constantly. It's constantly like, oh, fruit, man. Look, there's a torch. Don't you want that? There was a cliff on the side of the tree swing. And when I stepped on the swing, I found out for the first time that the tree swing was actually a physics object

because there are apparently physics objects you can walk on in this game as well. Which means if you put weight on it It's going to start moving around It moves like a swing Yes And it was then that I continued forward Attempting to it And I fell

Now when I fell I had no way to get back to where I was There was seemingly no pathway To get back to where I was But I ended up just kind of walking And finding other pathways That went around different paths And took me to like weird fucking

I found a cardboard box fort that was full of like crazy-ass platforming materials. They want you to fall. They want you to walk maybe a different way than the way you walked because they want you to find the weird shit that they made. That is the game. It's not even though, yes, they're pressing. You're just saying, hey, get to the top of this mountain, whatever.

It's kind of not the point. It's more about having a fun, weird experience. Yeah. And so I think, yeah. Fresh a couple of days ago, after you had sent me a video of this, I, this will shock you. I found that exact same tree with that exact same swing. And I said, you know, not today's state.

And I know exactly what this little trick is. I've seen this before. And then I said, but what if I did pull it off in the video to crush? And there's like two stones before you get to the swing, right? And I was like, okay, just step on the stones. Turns out they had a little bit of moss, a little wet moss on them, slipped. Didn't even make it to the fucking swing. Didn't touch the swing.

Zipped right down this hill. I did find a way up. You want to know how long it took me? 45 minutes. It made my way all the way back there. And I was like, now I'm going to do it. Got onto the swing. And then what I realized,

fresh, did you go back to the swing ever? I looked at it, but no, I did not. Here's the great trick about it. When you put your weight on the edge of the swing, it lowers you just enough that your other leg can't get onto the tree. So basically you have to kind of do a hopscotch move if you want to pull that off. Easy.

Easy in this game. Oh, so easy. That is when I said, no, thank you. And that is also when I realized what the game is, which is exactly what you're saying. It is, you know,

you have to embrace the Zen. It's not about finishing the game. If you play this game and your goal is purely, I want to get to the end and I want to get there as soon as possible, you are going to have a miserable time, like a truly miserable time.

If you play this game and you say, I just want to see where it takes me, it's going to be up and down, I'm going to see this as a fun experience, you're going to have a great time. There is a moment, probably like halfway through the game where you are very, very, very high on this mountain,

and you will see in the distance a little ledge coming off and you will walk over to it if you so choose and you will discover that ledge is a diving board and that diving board encapsulated the entire game for me because you can either look at life as like punishment as a series of like falling down or you can look at at it as like this playground where you could voluntarily choose to jump off that diving board and go like pursue all the adventures that are in the wrong direction but are like the whole reason you're playing the game the whole reason you're playing the game is to overcome these obstacles and if yeah again if you're fighting it good golly is it going to be miserable for you okay but i really struggle with you with this plant because I'm split

I should say because I very much agree with you I think that's right I think that if this was most games what I would be complaining about is saying well if that is the experience that makes if that's the mindset that makes this pleasurable for me then the game should be doing more

to put me into that mindset to not you know what I mean to not make it look like that because I don't think I think there is a tension there because you do have to have the urge to move forward right and you do have to have you have to treat it as a linear experience in that regard a little bit and I feel like it does if the game came out and was like hey don't get frustrated don't worry about it this is just an exploration experience

that's a different thing right they want they want the frustration too but I think if they came out and said this is going to be frustrating just embrace it then it wouldn't I don't think it would feel the same feel as good to find that yourself i i think they actually very elegantly introduced this idea through the through the writing and the cut scenes that you will get with the characters which are so fucking funny like it has this game which is already that is the frustration for me is i wanted to see more of them that was the only sort of like i want more come on and falling will lead you to more yes absolutely way more from like yeah because you'll go different routes and you'll reach different checkpoints where you will run into these characters

And the writing is like, the gameplay is so fucking funny, and the writing is also very fucking funny. Like your main character that you're controlling Nate is this sort of like socially, deeply socially inept kind of guy who lives in his parents' basement and is like binging one piece when he gets sucked away, another world style into this climbing experience. And every character he meets, he does not want to talk to. He wants to get out of the conversation as quickly as possible. It also does his best to appease them without having to engage with them in the conversation. There's like a guy who's like an experienced avid hiker who's like, did you get your map? Oh, you got to have the map, man. And but, and like flashes it in your face and a little UI pops up for like two seconds and then disappears.

That's the best. Like that's so funny. It's really, really, it's good. And I think it introduces like, it shows you the different ways that people have of getting up this mountain. while also providing a little bit of, like, incentive because, yeah, I wanted to see more of those cutscenes. There's, the game is filled with, like, AAA jokes like that. At one point, he's like, oh, just use your grappling hook

and it, like, gives you a UI element of a grappling hook that you absolutely can never get. Yeah, yeah. My favorite of those is one that a lot of people probably won't see, but I had seen a couple cutscenes because I reverted a save. So I'd seen a couple cutscenes before, so I was skipping them. and when you're skipping cutscenes,

they change the interaction each time you do it. So one time you have to hold down the button. One time you're doing like a quick reload like gears a war. One time you have to tap the button a bunch of times. Just as like a fucking Uchibu-A games thing. So many funny little jokes like that. I started a little bit with that main character

because I couldn't tell if that was supposed to represent me as a player. Like if that was the way I was perceived by the creator of the game and that put a little bit more of a mean-spirited sort of thing in the initial, I think, stumbling that I had because it felt like I was the jerk for wanting to play it a little bit. And I don't think that was the intent, but that was definitely the feeling that I had early on. I have some great context for that.

But again, this is the tricky thing of it wants you to do the hard stuff to then get the story. But if you get hats, like did you see the hats around the world at all hoops? No. Wait, yeah. What do you mean? Hats? They're like hats that you can find.

I'm looking at the ground so I don't fall. Like, how would I see a hat? That's fair. They're like little hats on each stint of your climb and you can find in hidden places. And you'll put this hat on. And it's a challenge because the hat will come off if you fall. And we'll get back to that in just a second. But if you take the hat to a campfire, which is like the core checkpoint, you'll get the usual cut scene where like some,

a dude, climber, or a donkey who is not wearing pants and has a giant dong, which we'll talk about also we'll chat with you. Is that the nudity? Is that the nudity? That's the nudity. There are more cops in this game than I've ever seen. No joke in any other game ever. Let's circle back to that. Let's put a pin in that conversation, because I would like to circle back to it.

Yes, yes. But there's some spoiler or meat on the bone guys. Come off. Yeah, I guess so. Grab up the narrative part. So you go to the campfire, you're wearing the hat, and then it will cut to this Atari-style story where you are literally just bouncing around an RPG-like environment, Atari visuals, and you are, I assume, this guy in his real life. And that's where you start to learn kind of what this game is about. And it is very much about, like, dudes who are too online, do not have opportunities for

social connection, feel ostracized from society, and get sucked into, like, basically Manosphere culture. And the whole game from there opens up to be about masculinity and, like, the pressure to do certain things. And that is how we can loop back to the tons of dongs. Yeah, I just want to say, when you start this game up, it says, do you, there's nudity in this game. Do you want to turn it off? And I said yes, because one, I knew we were going to stream it. And two, like, I thought this was going to be a really funny game to play with, like, Henry, who is eight and Russ forewarned us like hey this game is 90% like super kid friendly and 10% like not kid friendly even fucking remotely at all I have not hit anything that feels like I don't

know that I wouldn't want to play it with him but have you seen a donkey I've seen a donkey he didn't have a like a big weener or anything oh no no you saw it saw a normal donkey you seen it didn't see a humanoid donkey no I haven't seen no I haven't seen Matt here I'm going to say, for people, I, I've played this game with my four-year-old, but in very, very selective moments. Okay. Generally speaking, if you're playing just the normal walking around game, you're fine. You might want to lower the audio.

You can lower the, like, talking audio because he does say, like, fucking shit sometimes. It's really funny because he doesn't do it every time, but then, like, he'll do a little spill and be like, oh, fuck, Christ. It's like he gets frustrated. It's not proportionate to whatever it happened. Like, it gets me a little tumble. It's like small balls. Yeah.

But when the cutscenes start, it's, I would say, odds on that you're going to see at least one large cock, if not multiple. And I don't know what happens when you do the nudity thing. It probably blurs them out. But still, you should probably know that there's a fair number of cocks in this game. So much. It should be noted. All the cutscenes are improvised, which I didn't realize until. Oh, really?

Yeah, it's all improv. That makes so much sense from the fuck. It feels like that. The two creators, all of the side characters are Bennett and then the main character is Gabe. Okay. I love this game.

I think it offers the level of like stuff that I nerd out about regarding like things that I felt like I earned, like I earned an experience because you were literally like deciding every step. When I play Death Stranding, even though I really love Death Stranding, especially too, there are moments where it just like automates the hard parts where it's like you're running through a craggy stream and the AI is just deciding where to put your feet.

And the fact that you are making all of those choices yourself in this game just makes getting to the other side of the stream such a fucking exciting experience. If you were playing Death Stranding and you were like, ah, easy mode, I just walking around is like, so this is the game for you.

This is where the real big dogs play. I don't know. You can joke about that, but I also feel like if you have too much shit or your weight is misaligned and death stranding, it is a genuinely unfun experience because it is different. It is so different from how it always, than how it normally sort of feels in this game, like, as hard as it is on purpose, as like antagonistic as it is sometimes with its like challenges that it presents to

you. I don't know, man. Like, I know how this guy moves. I kind of know what is expected of me and how to deliver on that. It's a question of like execution and strategy and routing and everything. But like, I actually, I don't know, I am really surprised at how approachable I am finding this game from. It feels fair in a way that stranding doesn't necessarily where like, and fair isn't the right word, but, you know, it's the same challenge that anybody else would have with navigating that. Real quick before we wrap, can I share my video game achievement of 2025? Yeah, is it related to baby steps? It's related to baby steps. So there is a point, again, around halfway through, where you'll come out of a case.

and you'll see this big, tall set of stones that you can climb up to get to the next area. And you'll climb up those set of stones. And then you'll get right to right before the top. And the final stone will be too high for your leg to be able to get up. And it's like, ah, you sucker, you fell for it. You're going to have to go find a different path. So I go and I find a different path. I do get all the way up there.

I'm now hiking somewhere else where I have a hoops moment. I slip, whoop, and I fall down and I fall... Is that sort of our slang term for fucking up that we're all agreeing on? Hoops smell? I wouldn't do that. Hipsmoom is something where like you've made a mistake

and embarrass yourself, is that the... Lock it in. And I, whoop, and I go falling down the side of the thing and my hat falls off. And I'm like, where the fuck is my hat? My hat fell on the top of that one stone, that you cannot reach. So I had to, if I was like, I'm going to get this damn hat.

So now I couldn't climb up to get the hat. I had to go all the way back around, go high, high up, and then I had to kind of walk down the side of a cliff to be able to get this hat. I did this for an hour, maybe an hour and a half. And it truly became that thing where I am convinced that I know how to do it and actually getting down the side of the mountain, doing the opposite of what the game wanted me to do,

to get this damn hat that I didn't even need, but I really wanted to see that little story beat. I have felt like a damn video game god. And like, even if I don't finish the game, though I think I will, like that was more rewarding than finishing a trillion other video games. Yeah.

There's also something very self-directed about it. Like, you can't get too frustrated because you know exactly what you're doing. Like our dad used to say all the time from the old cartoon Super Chicken, you knew the job was dangerous when you took it, Fred. and that, like, I felt that a lot playing this game. It's like, I mean, look at it.

Like, you know exactly what this is. If you're continuing to engage with it, you're doing that of your own accord. Like, no one's making it. I have one last anecdote that I'd like to share. There's a moment mid to late in the game where I've overcome a pretty sizable challenge. It's like a giant mind sequence that took, like, a while to figure out. I was very proud. I made it to the very top.

And at the very top, there is a. large girder sticking out over a ledge and at the end of the girder is a hat a construction hat and I'm like I have walked across these sorts of girders

a thousand times in this game I'm a fucking master at this I know how to do this if I fall I lose all the progress entirely but I know how to do that so I walk across the girder and as I'm walking across the girder

I'm like but honestly I'm gonna hard quit the game because I'm not doing this fucking thing again and I'll just like reload the save. So I made it to the hat. I go to bend down for the hat and I fall ass over tea kettle. I'm in midair losing all my progress as is happening. I quit the game. I reload the game. I am in midair falling. No way. It auto saved as I was falling and I was like, Bravo, I'm fucking doing this again. I don't care. Well done guys. And I had a blast. I found new stuff when I was down there. I found a new way up. It was great. That's the magic of the game.

The fact that I kept going is really telling of how much enjoyment I was getting out of it. It is like by making traditional progress so frustrating, it does kind of prompt you to kind of make your own, it's like prompting you to make your own fun in the sense that like, well, I mean, I might as well enjoy myself. I'm hiking all the way back up this way.

I might as well like, you know, you can't get too frustrated about it. So it lets you kind of, it's something beyond like the reward of progress. It's the sometimes you'll get in a groove. And that'll just feel really good. Like, it'll just feel, and if you think about it, if you notice you're in a groove, you will fall over. It's like signing your name. And someone's like, hey, think, what are you doing with your signature?

It immediately like, yeah. So it is another sort of meditative thing a little bit, like, because you are, like, if you think about what you're doing, it's harder sometimes. Like, if you can sort of zero your brain out, just kind of roll with it, sometimes it's easier. Yeah. Such a weird moment when you realize you're not thinking about walking anymore. after you spent so much time in doing it. Good game. We have a lot to talk about.

Can we transition seamlessly to an ad break? This was it. That was it. That was fucking perfect, yeah. Justin, our man on the scene, man on the street, man in the web has prepared for us a presentation that you've been teasing out for weeks now. Well, it's just, it's an extremely, extremely daunting time in the world. of handheld retro game consoles. It's a world we've dipped into previously a lot,

and there's just, like, so much happening right now, and it's such a really truly bizarre space. So I wanted to go ahead. I've linked you guys to the document. So are we going to make this available to the Patreon? Yes, you can find that here in our mailing list. We'll send that out. So this is kind of a big picture view of things

as we've sort of approached them on the show before. I've got the four sort of biggest players in the space laid out and what they're up to, and then I got some one-off, so we're going to check in with. So let's go first up to Amber Nick. Ambrinick is classic for releasing a ton of different consoles. The first one, and this is the first two I want to talk about are out right now. The 34XXSP is a really, this has been since this year they've released this.

can pick one of these up for between 60 to 100 bucks depending on what kind of stuff that you, what kind of things that you want preloaded in it, where you want it to ship from, et cetera, et cetera. All these game consoles have a lot of different options depending what you want with them. But this is

a flippy kind of guy. It's shaped like a Game Boy SP, but has the like dual thumbsticks at the bottom left and right. Do you have one of these bad boys? Yeah, I do. They're really cute. If you want to, you can get one of these right now, right? And the reason I want to talk about these that are right now is to kind of give

you a lay of the land for where we're at. The other one that's out right now is the 477M. This is from Retroid, and this is one that I really, really love a lot. It has a snap, well, it's the Domencity 8300, which is kind of up there in terms of like Android gaming right now. This is probably the most powerful chip set the there is an elite uh eight gen three i think it is it's in some of these that are coming out now but there aren't uh as there hasn't been as much work in like the emulation front with the apps and what is the chip this chip in particular like what platform wise what are we talking about so you could do everything like everything with it with this chip set and this device which is the 477 m again and that means metal shell stupid but it's

metal shell and the four set their RG is retro game so like to give you it's like that's what that's how much it's like a 4.7 inch display and it is a what's the second seven for what you said 4.7 inch display what's the second seven for the second seven is I will actually tell you

is for the generation of devices so if it ends in a six if the last number of an amber device is a six it's the generation before this this is the seventh generation so it ends with a seven. You can play anything in this. I've played PS2 games,

upscale 4X with all the shaders you, for, there is not a lot of work that has been done playing PS3 games on Android, but if you can do it, you can do it with this guy here. Are these all Android? I thought Ambernik was Linux.

No, Ambernik does a variety of them. This one you can pick up to give you, again, a range. You can, between 270 and like 400, depending on what you want preloaded. All these devices, a lot of them at least, you can buy them with an SD card that'll come preloaded with a lot of games on them.

If you want to do that, you can certainly do that. In my experience, those cards are, one, filled with a lot of chromy ROMs, and the quality of the cards is really bad. So I don't normally think that's crap out. You're better off getting a cheap card from an established retailer. The other one that's kind of cool from Amberneck

that is on the way, It's almost exactly like that other device. The one we just talked about, it's got that same 4x3 aspect ratio, which is great for pretty much all the retro gaming stuff except for, you know, until you get into the true widescreen content. Like this is a great way to see your games without a lot of extra black space wasted on them. But this is the very same device, but the 476, H, the H, the H means horizontal. And what does that last six mean, Russ? The generation. The model degenerating.

Six generation. So this is less powerful than the last. What? Yeah, see, you're getting it. This is last powerful. Yeah, the problem is this only works for Ambrinick. All the other companies have different naming conventions. Oh, buddy.

It actually gets worse. That one you can pre-order now. It's available to pre-order now. I think it's going to be shipping out soon. But this one will be closer to like 140 bucks. So this will not be able to do. your upscaled

PS2 or GameCube you would be able to do with this most low-end PS2 stuff and most GameCube stuff at just sort of like a 1X a thing and it's always a trade-off

with these if you want more shaders that make it look like an old close to the old experience and that's going to slow your frame rate down or whatever but that's Ambernaic I Neo

another A company I NEO What is the difference between Ion and Iionneo. That's a different company. I.N. E.N.E.O is the they're the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, sleek Lamborghini of these devices, these are the one, they will put, uh, their, their device, the pocket S2 is probably the priciest, like, latest new thing that is out right now. So they, and that costs, like, $700.

dollars and and that's like a terabyte of storage can run everything like including most switch stuff like it's it's out there so INeo has a bunch of new consoles the two that are getting the most discussion right now and the reason

it will become obvious this is this is the year where flip consoles are becoming more of a thing where dual screen devices and INeo has two of them and this is confusing so I wanted to mention it so there is the Ioneo Flip 1SDS.

I shit you not. That's what it's called. I mean, easier to understand than the Ambernik naming convention. Arguably, yes, except for they have a device called the Ioneo Pocket DS.

So that does that does complicate things a lot. Which is from a layman's sort of perspective, nearly fucking identical. And it looks nearly identical. The difference is that the I&O Flip 1S costs about twice as much.

It costs over $1,100 because it is a Windows handheld. That's fucking crazy. It's a Windows handheld. It's a Windows one. So it's 7-inch OLED on the top. And then the bottom screen is not an OLED. The bottom screen is an LCD. And if that's going to mess you up, I think the most of the these are in the same.

I think there's an Android limitation, for what I understand. The Flip 1S is like a, it is Windows-based, so it is like a much pricier thing. These range from, let's see, here. The lowest is 16 gigabytes of RAM and one terabyte of storage. And you can get that early bird for 779. That's the pre-order price right now. And that's in the black configuration. If you want a 64-gigabyte one with two terabyte.

of storage, you can get that in the retro power color way for $1,500. For something that, like, it's wild to me because you look at the steam deck, which has been around, and obviously it's getting long in the tooth, but, like, has been around with since 2020, and, like, still can more or less do it. And the fact that these come out every single year, if not six months. I threw this, that one's kind of an outlier in the space. Like I threw that one in because that INAO is also making the Pocket DS because that is the one that I think is probably most comparable. And Russ, like, I know you're a flip, an owner of the Retroid Flip 2, which kind of kicked off this whole thing this year.

This is probably a closer competitor that you can pick it up for 500 bucks early bird. You have two screens, right? There's a 7-inch OLED at the top screen. It's 1080P. and then a four by three LCD This is for the pocket DS, right? The pocket DS, it's in the lower configuration.

And it also has two thumbsticks, a D-pad, four buttons on the right, you know, so you can play all of your, this is really making like DS and 3DS in a form factor that is closer to the original experience. That to me is I think why a lot of people

are excited about these. Is it Android as opposed to Windows? This one is Android. Yes, Android and two screens right now is still a little bit Yeah, it doesn't know what to do. They're still not quite sure how it works. And Android wasn't already

was kind of struggling with one screen to some extent. I've got quite a few of these bad boys. I simply cannot be bothered to fuck around with a Windows-based retro gaming handheld. That is a lot of, that is a lot of, of toggles to flip for a machine that is arguably not built for that. I mean, that's what the ROG is in the ROG that? The ROG is that right, but I switched over to Bazite because I couldn't fucking stand

like trying to navigate Windows and it really is a much better experience. The Windows consoles are on a different trajectory price-wise and power wise. Like the most recently, that new Lenovo thing is like, I think it's more impressive. It's like $1,800 and it's like twice as much as their last handhelds. The Windows handheld space, I think, is frankly kind of intact. It's fucked, man. It's crazy. The ROG ally is like $6.

$650 and I can play pretty much anything on. That's why we're hearing the sewers. Ioneo is, so those are the two flip things from Ioneo. They are also doing, this is great. The Conquer Pocket Fit guys is, this is the way it's pitched, the first masterpiece from Conquer. This is Cap, Capital K-O-N-K-R, Conquer. Who is Concor? The Conquer is a new company.

Now, don't be confused. because they are available at Ioneo.com. Oh, I see. And it is a sub-brand, right? It's a sub-brand because I-N-O's whole thing is that they're too expensive. So Conquer is the pocket, like the Conquer Pocket Fit is their first, under this label

that they're calling Conquer. This has a Snapdragon 8 Elite mobile platform, Snapdragon G3, Gen 3. That is the best chip in terms of what is available, right now, for the, the, the, uh, drivers that are available. So driver support, your turn up drivers, whatever. That is the best chip, I, in my opinion, is available right now.

Um, and this, and it is in a, uh, handheld, widescreen presentation, two thumbsticks. Uh, it's a six inch 1080p LCD screen. So you're not getting the, the Oled thing. Nice and gigantic. Yeah, it's got the handles. It's got the inline triggers, uh, for all, you know, whatever games you want to play on. It's got an 8,000 million. battery which is I know it doesn't mean anything but it's pretty good and you can get this guy

you can get this guy for 240 bucks that's crazy why would I Aeneo partner with that I feel like that really it shows how crazy expensive a lot of I Aenea's other stuff is well are they all the same company like aren't they like there is some debate about this one is definitely absolutely the same company like this is a hundred percent the same company because it is okay a lot of these companies it is confusing because they are they're all kind of dipping from the same well in terms of parts which is like phone parts

that are not used anymore right that's like the source of this stuff like the panels and a lot of that the things that is where we're getting the hardware and everything this is phone hardware that is being repurposed so a lot of them are coming from the same place you see the same

screens and chipsets use a lot we just raise some questions about like how independent are these companies right whatever which is gets even more confusing because do we all understand this device right the conquer pocket fit is probably the best like in terms of like a deal but make way for the ionio pocket air mini a flagship DNA entry level price premium experience from ionio finally this is the tagline an ionio retro handheld that everyone can afford oh they're everyone is no man it's the same thing again they're just do it they're directly competing in this

case they're saying this is i neo the same company making a device very much like the conquer pocket fit which is being made by their sub brand but this is their own ionio bargain device yeah how much is that one this one is going to be start at and i've included a link because this isn't part of the pre-order thing this is just coming down i've included a link because the company just recently revealed the pricing. A lot of these companies are doing these press releases in Discord channels. That's where a lot, and like, they're just talking directly to CEOs. So like, but you can look at the pricing in this. But basically, you could pick this guy up for the early bird 32 gigabyte version is like 75 bucks. Now, oh yeah, that's not bad. This is much, much,

much, much, much, much less powerful than the pocket fit. In, in $70 is actually a pretty good price for what they're offering here, which makes it an even more confusing product. Right. I don't know, man. I don't know. AYN has two products. There's the Odin 3, which is in that same, like, high-end. People call it a candy bar. So if that is helpful to you, screen in the middle, controls on either side versus a handheld

where the Game Boy form factor where the screens at the bottom. How is candy bar relevant analogy? It's to help people visual a lot. Like, you hold it rectangular. I don't hold a fucking candy bar like that. Are you a crazy person? I hold a candy bar by the sides horizontally

and smash my face. into it. That's how I eat a candy bar. The Odin 3 is their big 6 inch 120 hertz OLED top of the line great guy and that guy is coming out for

let's see 330 is the base early bird price on that and you can I'm sure it goes all the way up but that is also that has an 8 elite chip in it which is interesting just because the Snapjack and Gen 3

chip that is in the other devices that we've talked about, there's been more work on the drivers and stuff available for them in terms of retro gaming, because a lot of this, like the gaming work hasn't been done on this hardware

because it's being used for phones and there hasn't been the same demands, right? So it'll be interesting to see if some of that work catches up when you have the Odin 3 out because that's going to be a big release because the Odin 2 is a huge one and then AYN is also doing their own

dual screen thing the AYN Thor if that's something that you want to get into if you want to try the dual screen thing this has a 6 inch OLED at the top and then a smaller screen on the bottom and this is that one out

are any of these dual screen ones out I don't think so right pre-order this is is on pre-order. Yeah. Optimistic. None of these dual screens are out. The only one that is out that I want you guys to look at because you're going to think,

Retroid hasn't done anything this year recently that is very interesting. They do have a dual screen add-on out for 70 bucks that Griffin mentioned he is waiting on, Griffin. Can you talk about this real quick? Yeah, it's been apparently out for delivery for the last two days because you order these things and I believe most of them come from mainland China. Hey, I think China is making exactly as many of these things. as we buy guys. I think that's the secret keeping the stars apart here.

Fair, fair point. It is $70, and there's two models, one that is made for retroid devices and one that is made for, quote, other devices. I heard from a few channels, Good Russ, specifically, I mentioned that it fits really nice on the I in the O Pocket Ace, which is my sort of like off-court buddy of choice, but it attaches, and it, from what I've heard, the hinge is pretty decent obviously adds quite a bit of bulk but you can turn your you know retrooid uh pocket five into a dual screen handheld uh it it is android based and so like there is uh quite a bit of you know tweaking that you're going to have to do to get it to work but uh it seems like a really solid option and considering how like none of these other ds style handhelds are out yet

it's kind of like the the only game in town and it's 70 bucks which is like for this This market, not too terrible. Yeah. So I'm excited. As much as annoying as I think it's going to be getting one of these handhelds to work with the second screen, I'm looking forward to getting it. I have a question about a thing I see in the list. One of these is just called game console. What is that?

Oh, yeah, that's the hottest new player. Well, you guys click on that one. This is the hottest new player in the space, a company called Game Console. That rule of it. How is that not taken? This company called Game Console. and this device is the everyone remember say it with me now

the XF 40H okay so all the I cannot get this website horizontal so nervous what's gonna pop up here's powered by rock chip you should look for this one on Ali Express that's how we're that's how we're playing with this guy okay

if you're looking for a game console this comes in like five different colors there's a pink one there's a blue one but I threw it in here because it's like crazy form factor for like 40 bucks and it's got tool you know it's got two thumbsticks it's got all the controls and it plays a lot of stuff it's not going to play like your latest latest and greatest uh ps2 and game cube upscaled but it's

it's going to cost 50 bucks they'll play almost everything yeah it's also it's got a unique one by one screen which i yes have no one that i've ever seen before yes it is a one by one it looks kind of like umberdick had a device called the rgcube xx it's in a similar style to that which is another uh one by one but this is a budget it's like 50 bucks is the I'm mentioning this is because it's, to give you an idea of what sub 100 bucks is going to get you, there's also the Mangami, M-A-N-G-M-G-I, AirX, which sucks that they, I have to read all these fake brands out loud. You know, people make up fake brand names all the time, but they don't think about the common folks like me, they're going to have to say them out loud repeatedly. But the Mang-Me AirX you can get for 80 bucks plus a free carrying case. It just like cones in there. It's got a really, it actually looks really, really, really. I like. the look at this thing a lot, yeah. This is one the... Actually, hold on, I have one here.

Wait. Do you really? A mang-me. He's going to get an original mang-me? Oh, here it comes. So this is one that a lot of people have been talking about because it is such, like, a great value. This device is another candy bar.

Two thumbsticks. This is our first offering from Mangami. It's powered by the Adreno 610 GPU, the Snapdragon 662, which doesn't mean anything to you, but it made... Beauty blogger for us, come on. Come on, show it.

Oh, it looks like a lot of other... It looks like a lot of them. Yes, okay, but if you hold the device, if you feel the device, it feels like a really good quality, the build quality on this is really, really good. And like I said, 80 bucks. And I'll get the sense of it.

Yeah, can you just imagine holding it? No, I'm feeling it. It does look a lot like other stuff, but not 80, 80 bucks. $80 stuff. They all look like each other. I mean, that's kind of the point. Oh, man.

This is preloaded with big ideas, Veggie Tales, Larry Boy, and the Bad Apple. It just has one PS2 game, and that's it. Veggie Tales. Crazy. Fuck yeah, man. But you can get one of these guys for $80, and it's going to play a ton, a ton of stuff.

And it looks beautiful. It's got really nice RGB sticks. The sound, look at this gigantic speaker in the back. I'm not normally the biggest fan of, like, I usually like an upward firing speaker, but it sounds really good. And it has different fan modes so you can, you know, increase the speed if you want to run something a little higher end and burn through your battery faster. It's just a lot of flexibility for not a ton of money, which has gotten a lot of people excited when you see what less than $100 will get you.

I want to make sure we have time for honorable mentions and we're going to put all these in the email. What are you currently to, can you lead off with like what are you currently fucking? Sorry, can you guys just real quick before we look? I do have to do my last one. It's the 1X sugar Will you guys Please look at the 1X sugar I've seen the 1X sugar

It's the fucking craziest thing in the world It's made by a company called 1X player It is It sounds like the candy plays at the airport Yeah It is the same chip as the 477M I hate it This trailer is making me dizzy man

G3 Gen 3 It will be It is a device that is all thanks to all people It has two screens And it's a transformer So you can have it, so you're holding it in a DS style with the controls at the bottom and the screen at the top. You can also flip the second screen around to the back. So it's just like a regular candy bar device.

You can flip it so the controls are on the sides and you just have an extra screen in the back. So if you're like one of the walk through or something. Everybody hates it. Everyone hates it. Everyone who's touched it despises this thing. That's the best thing about this space. It looks like the Game Boy, like that had that light and magnet. like magnifier attachment. It looks like a

Game Boy DMG with like all the fixings. Yes. It is wild. It's also like $700. Love it. And I've heard like the build quality is not that great either. It seems like a wild product. A truly, truly wild product,

a truly wild space. But Griffin, you're asking. What are you rocking with? What is your, what do you take with you if you are, when you are traveling? What is your current sort of go-to guy? The RG-4-7 7.M is a really nice form factor. It's a really nice. That's the one that was out in the more recent months, like 250 bucks. It's not so expensive that it makes me nauseous to carry it with me. Like I do have a case and I protect it, but it's not like, I don't know. There's some stuff that it makes me have palpitations just to leave the house with it. So I feel comfortable. And it's durable. It feels more durable in that sense. So I don't mind taking it with me. A lot of these devices, you pop them in your bag. And if it still has all the buttons when you've reached your destination, then it's, It's like a pretty big triumph.

But yeah, that one is the one I've liked the most. I have used that to like explore a lot of older game libraries that I wasn't really familiar with before. But that one is one that is out now. If you want to get one to start out with, I mean, a lot of those budget ones are great. And then the 476H seems like a really good middle ground if you don't want to spend quite so much as the 477M.

Where are we going to post this master list that Justin Oh, it'll be at besties dot fan. You just subscribe. If you get the newsletter, it'll be in this week's issue of the newsletter. What won't be in this week's issue of the newsletter, though, is Griffin, there's something that you missed in baby steps. I just wanted to make sure you had a chance to take a look. It's in our Slack right now, if you want to give a look at that.

No, it's not a wiener. Tell me what you're seeing. Yeah, it is a wiener. Thank you so much. You're welcome. I just wanted to make sure you saw it. Want to talk about other step we're playing? I don't think in today's modern

workspace, I don't think texting people, just messaging pictures of people. To be clear, this is not just a normal weena. It is the donkey from the game. And this is what happens when you restart the game. Okay, and it's useful that you're recording this. So we have a record from a, you know,

lawsuit standpoint to just, like, point back to it. Right. Thankfully, it was just sent to all of us and no one else. Thank goodness for that. that is a miracle i have been playing so much stuff this week uh it really is cup cup run a thrower i finished silk song 100% uh i know rusted i also did yes uh fucking fire absolute banger really really good i'm sure we will have much more conversations about silk song in the future but i'm i'm really happy with my time with it uh i've been playing a bit of final fantasy tactics the

Evil East Chronicles, which I believe we're going to talk about more extensively next week. Correct. So I can save some of it for that. But I'm really enjoying that, too. It's a game I've, like, tried to break into a lot of times, and it has never really clicked for me. That is the remake of the original PS1 Final Fantasy Tactics. That is correct, yes. So, like, some of the stuff from War of the Lions, the 2007 PSP game is missing, but what is there is really, I'm enjoying.

enjoying a whole lot and it has smoothed off a lot of the rough edges that have maybe bounce off the game before. Slime Rancher 2 is now out of Early Access as of this week. It's out in 1.0 and I don't, we probably did an episode on it when it was like first in early access like two or three years ago and I really, really, really enjoy that game. It's very, very chill. It doesn't ask a lot of you. It's like a farm management game, but you have this like vacuum gun.

you use to suck up slimes and you build little pins for them and feed them to get their plorts, which you can sell at the market that you then use to upgrade your pins and your tools and you go out and explore and do all that stuff. I don't really know how much is new in the 1.0 version, but I didn't play a lot of it originally because I was waiting for this and it's really been a lot of fun. My boys have been enjoying it a lot too. And the only other one I wanted to talk about is Megabonk, which Chris Plant posted in the Bessie's Slack. I think like yesterday or the day before, but God damn, Megabonk is a... Follow-up to AirBonk.

It is the follow-up to Bonk, Bonk. No, it is... Bunk's adventure? There isn't a bunk. What are you talking about, man? Bunk-Bank. The original name in Japan was Bunk-Bank. Bong-Bank. No, Megabonk is... M-a-Bong. is a vampire survivors, but it's in 3D, uh, a la Risk of Rain 2, I guess.

Uh, I didn't play that much of that one, so maybe I shouldn't make comparisons to it. It has a sort of low poly sort of aesthetic. Chris compared it to EverQuest, which is close enough. And I, I feel like, uh, it looks like if they were making a PSA about games like EverQuest, it looks like the game that would be in the PSA or like. Yeah, or like a If it was a toothpaste commercial about video games, that's kind of what it looks like. But it weren't, when you're like... Checks Quest. It looks better than Checks Quest.

When you're like in it and you have a swarm of, you know, fucking nasty little skeletons or whatever coming at you and playing and just tearing ass through all of them, it feels so good. It's so fast. And there's so much shit to unlock. My God, there's so much shit to unlock. So, yeah, I've only played a couple hours. of it but it was like one of those like i'll check this thing out that chris posted in slack and then

like uh-oh i was supposed to get shit done today um so so you got megabonked i got i got megabonked in a big way also hades two is out out and i downloaded that and played a little bit and i was like i can't i don't have space i can't right now like i will but i can't right now there's too much other shit popping um have did anybody else hit that one for i did yeah i downloaded at Hades 2, 1.0, and I've played a lot of Hades too, but I did kind of stop, like, back in April or so, because I knew that eventually the 1.0 release would be out. I mean, it's so, I don't know how to talk about this other than to say, like, if you like Hades, then you should probably play Hades, too, and it's really good. And there's a lot of, there's a lot of stuff

in Hades, too. And I wonder if you were walking into this, like, fresh, how it would hit you, because there is a lot of currencies and upgrades and different stuff to keep track of in Hades 2 and I've been following those kind of organically as the game has been updated and even I'm kind of like, I don't know but there's a lot to keep track of. I do wonder about that

if that's going to be kind of overwhelming for people that haven't been sort of like following along but maybe it'll be less confusing because they'll get like tutorialized in it in a way that like I wasn't as I came up through it. I played the last time I played was like a year and a half ago when it first launched on Early Access. And so I booted up again.

And I ended up starting from scratch because I only had like five hours or so worth of progress and ended up like getting back to where I was very quickly. And I haven't really had a problem because it's just like, oh, I need more flowers and I'll just see when I get more flowers. Like I'm not mentally internalizing like, oh, I really need this currency, so I'm going to chase it. I'm sure that might happen later.

But early on it hasn't really good. I'm in my head a little bit because I did the same thing. I didn't want to play it after we played it and talked about it originally because I wanted to wait for 1.0 and now I'm playing it and I'm like constantly second-guessing like was this how it was when I played it a year and a half?

Like I feel like I'm looking for the things that are new and obviously I think it's probably like later game areas that you unlock that simply were- They tweaked a bunch of stuff in the whole game. I watched a video of like biggest changes and a lot of it is just like balance tweaks and the way like powers go out. It's also massive. You got to remember like you got to know also

that there were throughout the process massive chunks of the game that were coming out. So there were whole big areas that were not available. So those have been the biggest updates. It's been like, now you can get to this. When you started playing, you'd hit a lot of walls. Yeah. I think it's, I've bounced off it a little bit genuinely because there's so much

shit out. And I feel like Hades is a game that completely envelops my time and energy. And as much as I'm looking forward to that, like, I don't know there's there's a lot there's a lot Chris to piggyback off that uh because it's the only other little thing that I had because I wanted to pick a deep rock galactic survivor also hit oh yeah Jesus Christ and it's really great so we will probably be talking about a number of these games as a or B segments in episodes to come because like hearing about Hades too

it's just kind of wild that we have not had time for it so we'll get to a lot of this dear listeners. Related to that, I have been playing Silent Hill F, which is so interesting. And I think we're going to talk about that in two weeks. I won't go a whole lot further other than to say, like, hey, if you've been thinking about this game, two pseudo words of warning, not very silent hillish, but very much its own thing. There's no fog. It's loud and flat. A lot of fog.

A lot of fog. But you are a teenage high school girl in Japan, and it's... And everyone's really happy. And, hey, for a moment, they are. And also, the combat is, like, atrocious. Okay, so you've described every Silent Hill game. Okay, great, great. Then as long as you have that in your head, you are going...

Yeah, that's pretty much every Silent Hill game. The music, I'm like just blown away by the cam work, like, the framing. The way this game looks is... cinematic gets thrown around a lot in games because they like want to be movies but this is like holy holy moly this is a gorgeous looking video game so if you're thinking about checking it out

check it out because we will be talking about it in the coming weeks I have nothing else to add everything that I've played Tokxong, Hades, etc. has been mentioned in some way go with God I love it

I do want to add actually there is one thing go over to patreon.com slash the besties we have some members I want to shout out, Giuseppe, Lily, Bo, and Mary Queen of Scoffs. Thank you for being members over at patreon.com slash the besties. We have a new tier in case you haven't heard, a $10 tier, which includes ad-free episodes of the main feed. But if you stay at the $5 tier, you get all the bonus episodes.

So you're not really missing out. But if you wanted to experience ad-free episodes of the main feed, and if you wanted to throw us some extra bucks, we certainly appreciate it. We love all of you equally, though. And I think that's going to be it. Juice, what are we doing next week? Well, Russ, that's a really, really personal question. I feel like we've been working together long enough now that you know that I do have some, I mean, boundaries that I'd like to, I guess, kind of respect. Next week we're doing ghost to Yote.

Fuck, yeah. Yeah, man. Because like ghosts to Shishima, but now and later, and different. It's actually very different. A lot of different stuff. So lots of ghosts, though, really scary. The ghost from what I heard is so scary. Yeah.

We'll be back with that and so much more next week on the besties. Be sure to join us again next week for the besties. Because shouldn't the world's best friend with the world's best games. Besties.