The Besties - Chilling in the Grab Bag with Kingdom Come Deliverance 3

Episode Date: April 4, 2025

Usually, we talk about the latest and great video games. But this week, what if we try the greatest of the not-so-latest? That’s right, it’s finally time to talk about Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 and many other tasty delights. In the back half, we reflect on Nintendo’s farewell Direct for the original Switch. 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 got a question for you all. Okay. It's kind of a tricky scenario. You go to a movie theater, right? And it's nice and quiet. You're watching the movie. Are we you? Are we at a snobby movie theater that's showing some sort of black and white documentary?

Are there curtains at the movie theater? I haven't finished the premise yet. Oh, sorry. I'm just trying to skip putting myself in the feet. And you're already just dunking it down on me. Let me finish the premise and you can tell me who you are in this scenario. Okay, sorry. You're at a movie and there you're near the front there are a lot of people behind you and there are two people in front of you, but everybody else are all behind you in

front of you One of those people starts snoring And like at first it's soft. Maybe you only you hear it So what you're saying is you are at a black and white documentary boring Then they start snoring, right? But everybody is behind you so they think you might be part of the snore maybe like they think it's you or it's like it's your Responsibility to kind of yes him and and then you can kind of defend yourself by like well, yeah But I'm not the person that they're with like they surely have like the most obligation, right? They might be so yeah

I kind of like wave my hand around like a twirl in the air like a yes. Yes Yeah, but then here's the problem both of them Start snoring. They are now both asleep on each other, and you truly are now the divider between the awake and the asleep. Yeah. What? I know we give you a hard time, Chris, for the types of cinema that you do consume, but I would actually like to know the answer to what was the film that you were watching.

This was a while ago. This was The Monkey. Oh, okay. Well, never mind then. That's lit. That one tracks. It's actually Le Monkey. So it's actually not the horror. Wait, wait, wait. Is it the kick-ass one with all the violence and stuff, or is it one about like, you know, a French acrobat and they call him Le Monke? Oh, Monke. Okay.

My key. No, it is a monkey. It's where everybody gets their heads blown off. People just fall asleep right in the front. Oh, Twist, turns out I watch movies and people like, what a surprise. By accident, you just wandered in there. You're the worst. But what do you do?

I don't wanna wake somebody. That feels like bad. Well, you don't wanna wake somebody. Of course not, Chris. You have no legal right to wake someone up You could kick both seats at the same time. Yeah, man, you're right behind them. Yeah, I'm good. And then you'd be like Right in your ear and they'll be like, oh fuck we fell asleep in the monkey's movie. He's so mad He's gonna explode our heads. It's good What if I grab both their hands and then kind of made them like slap each other at the same time?

Yeah. Yeah, like they do in the monkey. Like they do in the monkey. Yeah. This is good. Yeah, no, this is really, I really just sat through it. They did it for like 20 minutes and then they woke up and left. Good for them, man.

Yeah, no, they got some good rest. They got what they needed out of that film. Maybe it was too scary, too violent, they had to fall asleep as a defense mechanism. That's so true. I bet that's right. Or maybe that was like their way of screaming and it just sounded like snores, right? That would be kind of like troubling if you were falling off a building and as you like splatted on the pavement.

It's the only time I can think of when people scream. Listen, I watched The Monkey. You have a new reputation and now it's not you watch art house films, is that you watch so much violent stuff that it has turned you into a real nasty little grim. Turns me on is what you're saying. Whoa. Jesus. The only way I can feel alive. Whoa. Can we talk about the video games now? I'd love to. Thank you.

My name is Justin McIlroy and I know the best game of the week. My name is Griffin Macaroon, I know the best game of the week. My name is Christopher Thomas Plant and I am awake and ready for this episode. My name is Ross Frustrator, I know the best game of the week. Welcome to the Besties, where we talk about the latest and greatest in home interactive entertainment.

This week. Well, not the latest. Now people, this is not the latest. Yeah, good point. Good point. You probably came here thinking, I can't wait to hear my boys get in here and discuss The Legend of Zelda, The Hero's Blade,

or Metroid 9, Sanisys gets it. I can't believe how much Kirby ate. Kirby ate so much. Kirby x Kirby. Wait, did you say Kirby ate so much? Because I'm into it. If it's a new Bloodborne. Kirby ate so much.

You wanna hear us talk about that? You wanna hear us talk about Mario Paint 2? Bloodborne 2, Switch 2, launch? I'm just gonna start jazzing. Yeah, these are all great games. I'm gonna start jazzing. We're not talking about today. I'm just gonna start jazzing

in case I get one of these right. And then people will be like, oh shit. Cause we were recording this before, before the, into the director, they talk about all the Switch 2 stuff. Dabby, dabby man. So you are playing a Switch 2 now, like if they're like, and everyone's gonna look in your mailbox, they're out there. Kind of Sega Saturn style, they're like,

look under your seat, you know, like, oh shit, how'd you get my house? What are we doing instead, boys? Instead we're gonna do a bit of a grab bag, a bit of a potpourri. And to be clear, it's because we didn't, we recorded this before the events. It's not because we don't get it. It's not some sort of weird protest, yeah.

Yeah, no, we're on tour, and so we had to record early. But we'll talk about the Switch 2 eventually, probably when it's out, right? And next week as well. And next week, yeah, probably, yeah. But today we're doing a potpourri, a grab bag. I'm not gonna ask Chris Platt what that means because it's insulting, we've talked enough.

But after the break, we'll talk about an assortment of games we've been enjoying, and so much more right after this. Okay, I'm looking at the top of this list and I see the series of words, Nubby's Number Factory. Yeah. I have a lot of questions, but I feel like I should get an explanation first.

Stepping up to the plate here. Nubby's Number Factory. In the grand tradition of a pachinko sort of rogue, roguelike, yeah sure, a pachinko roguelike, with elements of Bellatro and Ballionaire and other games with ball in it. Here comes Nubby's Number Factory. It looks like a vaporwave calculator and it's my obsession.

I stayed up too late last night, partially because of a tummy ache and partially because of Nubby's Number Factory. We were actually turned onto this game by a few members of our staff who spotted it. And it is really scratching that itch for me of a belattro, of a go do this simple thing over and over again while collecting synergistic items of a Bellatro, of a go do this simple thing

over and over again while collecting synergistic items to make crazy shit happen and get very good scores. The difference here is Bellatro is made by a caring genius that wants to create an intricate series of puzzles for you to unpack and enjoy, and Nubby's Number Factory seems to be made by an insane dirtbag that sees knows, that sees you for exactly the numbers pervert that you are.

It's by Mogdogblogproductions. There it is. Is the David the developer of this one. So, Brass Tax, you have a board with a bunch of little pegs on it, and the pegs have numbers, and you shoot Nubby, he's a little bouncy ball from the top of the screen, you aim him, shoot him, Pegglele style he bounces off the pegs earning

points for the the numbers that he pops each time you hit a peg it gets cut in half and then and then if you beat the score that is required of you that round then you get more pegs that combine and make even higher numbers you can also really fuck up that score and make it re-rack those pegs like six or seven times before you move on to the next round. All of a sudden, you're way ahead of the curve. You've got numbers so high that you couldn't even believe it.

Every few rounds, you go to the shop, and you'll be able to buy stuff. This is where the game really goes bananas. You have an inventory of like seven items that you can have equipped at any given time and the things are all very Tactile they're all very physical and they come in sort of like different strategic kind of Columns you can find items that are like every time you hit the wall you double the lowest peg on the board or you double

the highest peg on the board or Sometimes it'll be things that actually help you hit more pegs. So like this one will shoot lasers out of Nubby and it will get you the score for the things without popping the pegs. So you can keep those high numbers on the board a little bit longer. But there's dozens and dozens and dozens

and dozens of these items. And there's little passive upgrades that you get each run. And I don't know, gang, it's one of those games where everybody was talking about it. I saw Northern Lion playing it a bunch. I was like, I'll check this out. And then I played it once and didn't get it, and I played it a second time and didn't get it,

and I played it a third time, and I was up until one in the morning playing Nubby's Number Factory. Is that because you weren't putting runs together or just the gameplay wasn't quite? It takes, yeah, I mean, it is a weird, it's a weird thing to strategize, right? When you start playing this game,

you are not going to know how to succeed. All of the usual kind of like, four brain shit that you would probably factor in while deciding what items to buy or what synergies to go for will end up actually screwing you over. It's a lot more about making sure that your numbers are high,

that your board is stocked, and that you are able to really maximize what it is that the board gives you instead of just going for like, oh, well this one shoots a sword out and it hits all the pegs around it. That's fine, but if those pegs are worth eight points, then it's not gonna do you a whole lot of good.

Talking about Numbius Number Factory is boring because it's a game about shooting bubbles at numbers to make them get higher. But- Does it have the like game feel that Peggle does It's a, because it's a game about shooting bubbles at numbers to make them get higher, but. Does it have the like game feel that Peggle does where it like actually feels good to like watch the ball bounce around? It does feel good to watch the ball bounce around.

It feels good when you can really trap it. A lot of the items activate at set intervals. So like this item is really strong but you have to stay on the board for three seconds. It activates every three seconds. So like, now all of a sudden, you don't want a bunch of items that pop a bunch of pegs. You want your nubby to just kind of keep bouncing around

helplessly as you kind of like accrue these like, other bonuses for these like, time gated items. So like, yeah, I mean, it's fucking satisfying. Watch it, there's a little meter that fills up bonuses for these like time gated items. So like, yeah, I mean, it's fucking satisfying. There's a little meter that fills up as you hit the goal for the round and then watching it kind of lap and go like times nine, times 10, times 11 as you like have these perfect, perfect synergistic shots.

It really is a tremendous dopamine hit. Um, and I don't know, I'm pretty self aware of that. Uh, but it is still very enjoyable. All the same. There's a certain aesthetic. I don't know if I would call it like elementary school library aesthetic that when I see it in a modern game, I expect there to be a secret game hidden underneath it at this point. Yeah.

It looks like snood. Snood? It does look like snood, but I'm more likely to like fucking imagine a game called snood. You guys, you down with snood? Juice, you're muted. I don't know if you were trying to rap about snood. It looks like snood. I mean, that's my incredible contribution that I was trying to say is that it does indeed look like snoodze. It was basically a confirmation of snoodeness.

It's I mean, I love it. I think I think this shit rules. I can't get- Who's the guy? Huh? I'm looking at screenshots. Who's the guy on the left? I think his name is Todd. Is it Todd? Tony. Maybe it's Tony. No, there's a Tony and I think there's a Todd. Anyway, it couldn't matter fucking less. It couldn't. You work at the number factory with Tony or Todd. You were kind of implying that the ball is Nubby. The ball is Nubby, yeah. Okay, so that's to be respected, because honestly that's like a CEO getting down in trenches

and working with his employee boss. Yeah, I mean, his name's right on the 10. One fun thing is that I can't get it to work on the ROG AliEx. The fucking power, the horsepower of this thing is not capable of handling Nubby's number factory, mostly because it's mouse and keyboard controls. So I have to scratch this fucking itch

while I'm seated at my desk doing my work, which is probably Honestly for the best if I had Nubby with me anywhere. I mean I lost Months of my life to Bellatro, so I'm not looking to do that again Mog dog blog productions, okay I'm gonna follow this developer so I can see what comes up after Nubby's Number Factory. It's like five bucks also. And they've already updated it like a handful of times. Yeah, I mean, you don't need a demo. I'll say this, you don't need a, I'll say this,

if you download the demo for Nubby's Number Factory before buying it for $5, you're wasting your time. Look at it, look at a video of anyone playing it. No instantly. Just a fucking gut check around the horn, looking at Nubby's Number Factory, yes or no? Yes, and I'll regret it. Yeah, yeah.

Yes and we'll feel guilty. Yeah, okay, so like, yeah, I appreciate that there's a demo out there, it's Nubby's Number Factory, you should know how you feel about it. I bought it sight unseen, just based on the words Nubby's Number Factory. I mean, branding-wise, they fucking crushed it.

Yeah, they did. What else have you guys been playing? Who's talking sulfur? I'm talking sulfur. They fucking crushed it. Yeah, they did What else you guys been playing? Who's talking sulfur? I'm talking sulfur. I am curious about this game I feel like I was seeing it kind of lingering around and I don't really know why I haven't picked it up because it seems My shit. Can you explain top level what it is? Sure top level it is a FPS Extraction shooter RPG.

Basically you are going through randomly generated environments with various weapons and throwables and pickups and armor and shit like that. And getting as far as you can and bringing some of that stuff back and upgrading it and improving your runs with meta persistent abilities and things like that. I think this all sounds very familiar.

What appeals to me about sulfur, cause like the nitty gritty, you know, kind of fits with stuff we've certainly played before. Visually speaking, it looks like fantastic. It looks very much like a adventure time brought to life. So you have that paired with like, like these little goblins like showing up around the corner Uh, it looks very much like a adventure time brought to life. So you have that paired with like, like these little goblins, like showing up around the corner and they're charging at you. And you've got like a cartoon gun that you're trying to like desperately

reload and you're low on ammo. And you have all those moments, those like tense moments that you have in a, in a rogue like shooter, but because of the like playful aesthetic, it makes it much more approachable. I think why you've been hearing about a plan is just because they did a bunch of Steam Next Fest demos and they've been in early access for about three or four months I want to say and they've been doing updates in early access as well. So there's been some churn. It is not out of early access. I think it's pretty smooth for early access, but obviously there's still room to grow.

I was trying to remember why I didn't play this and I found the screenshot that that scared me away. Tell me what I'm looking at here. I just dropped it in the slack. Whoa. Hell yeah yeah baby. What are you talking about? That's my shit right there. Man, man, I see a skating pizza. This looks, and yeah man, good game.

Deus Ex ass grid based inventory system all day. Yeah, that's what Plant has shared with us. I see like three shotguns, a bunch of rifles. This looks fun. What game is this? I don't wanna listen now. What are you guys talking about? Hey sorry, I zoned out. I saw five guns. What is this? I don't wanna listen now, what are you guys talking about? Hey sorry, I zoned out, I saw five guns, what is this?

I heard Plant talking, I assumed it was French, what are all these guns? Everything has inventory space, as Griffin alluded to, it's like Deus Ex where things take up grids in your inventory, so a shotgun's gonna take up a lot more space than a little pistol. So you're making those tough calls of like, what am I bringing versus not? And then back at home, you have like a kind of a home base inventory

that you can stock up with random shit. Do I have to spend a lot of time in this or do I spend more of my time shooting and like causing chaos? I mean, that's up to you. Do you want to min-max your runs to the great success that you might see in doing that? Or would you rather just like kind of fuck around? You can do both. Okay, that's good. I want to fuck around.

Yeah, you might not find as successful runs there. I kind of like the satisfaction of like building a run out of like all this stuff, as you know, but it is not for everyone. It's not a boomer shooter. You shouldn't look at it like that. It is more like a tactical. What does that mean? Boomer shooter, are you for real? Yeah, I don't know what that means.

Justin and I don't work at Polygon anymore. So we don't work for jocks. You're the target audience. A boomer shooter is a shooter that is inspired by the era of from Doom to Quake to Unreal, but now we're getting modern versions of it. So I think like, what would be the classic? More of a Gen X shooter if you really want to.

Yeah, I think it's more that you do booming. It's not that you are a boomer. But that is a bad... add it up to another classic bit of video games industry slang that doesn't make a goddamn bit of sense. Put it on the pile with rogue lights. I kind of agree, quite honestly, but I mean it's a Doom-like. But it's not, in this case, it's not a Doom-like. That's good. If you said Quake-ish, if you said it's Quake-ish, then I'm with you. Hex-in-es.

Hex-ex. Hexagonal. Hexagonal, I like that. It's a cool game. My one minor critique, and I hope they kind of evolve this over time, is it feels like the level design is pretty simplistic, which doesn't allow a lot of, you're kind of churning through,

I wouldn't say corridors, but a little more linear than I would prefer. I kind of want a little more room to explore and find random shit off the beaten path. But it's cool. I've been enjoying it. Great. I've had a couple little small things that I thought were kind of neat. More public service announcement type things,

because I feel like this is another one that won't, these two don't require a lot of explanation. You're probably gonna know if you wanna play these or not. First is Spilled, which is a little independent game that is just very recently released, 26th of March, I think this was released, so it's fairly recent. It is a, I guess you'd say a cozy game where you play

the captain of a little a little Vessel that's cleaning up waste in a body of water so you cruise around these pools of water and you clean up oil spills and find trash with a big scoop and Then you push the scoop and the all the oil and the trash Into our cycling station where you are paid for it and given you push the scoop and all the oil and the trash into our cycling station where you are paid for it and given, you guessed it, a bigger scoop and a bigger tank to store the oil and some speed upgrades and stuff. And there's like, if you run across oil on rocks,

you could spray the oil off. There is no difficulty to this. It is, it reminds me of a little bit of like a game about digging a hole. This idea of just like a pleasant sort of bonsai tree that you can pluck away at and just unwind if you're in the market for something like that, then spilled by Lente, L-E-N-T-E, is the developer there.

What would you call the visual style here? Where I assume it was made in 3D, but it looks like it's pixels. Gosh, you know what, Plant, the nearest I can say is it kind of looks like, like a more detailed LucasArts kind of like, like it's like a more dialed in, but same aesthetic sense as like a day of the tentacle almost,

or like that kind of thing. Like a scum game made in three years. Yeah, there's a bit of a scum game, I think vibe to it a little bit, like Dirk Smallwood or something like that, if you wanna get real old school. But yeah, it's very nice relaxing experience if you're in the mood.

The other thing that came out this week is called the Chef's Shift. And it is- Oh, sorry. I'm just very glad that you're bringing this because I have a million questions about this one and like literally how does it work? Sorry, I cut you off. No, you didn't cut me off at all.

So it's like a, similar to like over cooked or other sorts of like, you know, keeping the different, you got a customer that you're in the, you're working a restaurant and you've got customers coming in. You're also trying to hide the fact that you're a criminal, which is story relevant, but like not really gameplay relevant. But the way that you're a criminal, which is story relevant, but like not really gameplay relevant.

But the way that you interact with the things in the kitchen with your customers, with like, for example, if you want to make an espresso, you have to go to the espresso machine and grind it. And then you have to go to the brewing machine and brew the cup and then you serve it. But from the moment the game begins, it's all keyboard. You don't, if you try to use the mouse,

it says use the keyboard, like you don't touch the mouse again, it's all keyboard. You don't, if you try to use the mouse, it says use the keyboard. Like you don't touch the mouse again. It's all keyboard. So all interactions, everything you're doing is through typing. So like you're practicing your typing, you're trying to type as fast and accurately as possible. And that is how you are like balancing and keeping everything going. So a word you chose to use there is practicing. And that's my big question around this game. Is this a game that is a game first or is it a teachers typing, practice typing game first? I think this is very much more about the balancing the different things

that you've got going on in the kitchen and time management, definitely. I think that the typing is like an added layer of interactivity where you're like, there are some extra, you know, some extra difficulty and it's a way for the game to balance difficulty and for you to feel like you're more involved in the cooking process and all these different tasks.

Some of it's a little bit more- It's more of a fun mechanic than like a, oh, we are doing this really as an exercise for you to learn typing. It feels like a hook in a real sense. But it does, it also feels like if you were good at typing, it would be more pleasurable to play. Like it would probably be a little easier to play.

This is not reinventing the wheel. It's not particularly like, you probably have a pretty good idea what it is. The art style is nice. It reminds me of It's a little bit like washed out pastoral a bit like professor Layton. I want to say sure with it with the aesthetics. It's like It's very nice pleasant to look at calm like diner-dash by way of professor Layton. That's yeah That's wow. That's such a good call. Yeah. Yeah. Professor Layton. That's, yeah, that's, wow, that's such a good call. Yeah, yeah, yeah, if Professor Layton started in a Diner Dash game that was powered by typing,

it would be, it would be the Chef Shift. This. Man, that's awesome. I'm definitely gonna check that one out. It's cool. Cool, hey y'all, I finally played a game that I've been wanting to play for like, I don't know, two months now it feels like.

Halo 3. Got it. Halo 3. Got it. Halo 3. Hell yeah. Kingdom Come Deliverance 2, which I will bash out the backstory here. We did not get code for this when it came out, which is a little unusual.

Polygon specifically. Polygon didn't, but then I don't think we did either, right? Yeah, but we get ignored all the time. That's nothing new. That's a little high top. You can't really tell much about a game from us getting passed over. But then I don't think we did either right yeah, we get ignored all the time That's a little you can't really tell much about a game from us getting passed over anyway There is a bunch of other games that came out and that's not an excuse to like not try something It's more that there was a ton of games. So now finally got a chance to play it and y'all Y'all are gonna need to play it. That's like the long Oh, I know it's it is I think you're gonna dig it quite a bit.

It is a role playing game set in 15th century Europe. You are, you might change characters at some point, I'm not sure, but you are basically like the right hand of who would be the hero in a traditional video game. And you two are on your first kind of like quest of sorts back in the day, you're going to deliver a message that might just stop war of some kind. And along the way, things go very, very far south and the game is basically like you untangling that original sin. So you go from being, you know, a student and all this amazing armor and all these powers to having to kind of work your way back up in this society, um, so that

you can find that original message, fight, you know, the evil doer who slayed your family members and deliver this and accomplish whatever it is you're about to accomplish in the first place. and deliver this and accomplish whatever it is you're about to accomplish in the first place. All that is a backdrop to, hey, we want to drop you in a really dense, really active recreation of this world. And that's the cool shit. This is as far as I can tell the role playing game for the people who play Elder Scrolls and are like, I wish I could spend more time working as a blacksmith. And they're like, great, we have that for you. You wanna go study, we have that for you.

You wanna go out and just fight people and have like some really, really solid sword combat? That's there too. Like we're not ignoring that type of person, but it is an all around sort of RPG experience. I wanna ask a question that has helped me to more quickly understand what a game is in this current landscape.

Is this a thing that you're gonna play on a Steam Deck that you could do a controller, or is this a mouse and keyboard experience? It's a controller game. I haven't tested it on Steam Deck yet. I think it does run, actually. I'm more interested in how one interacts with it. Yes.

I feel like that's two very different kinds of RPGs. It is not the true old school RPG where you can only play it with mouse and keyboard. It's working just fine for me with a controller. Because it's the first person. It feels very cinematic. It's a first person game. action game. The way that the sword combat works is it's a factually like you are leaning your sword left, right, up or down and

adjusting against like the person across from you. And the combat feels like really slick because you have to be watching the blade of the person who's attacking you. And if you get surrounded even by two people, which is like real life rules, if you get in a fight with two people, even if you are like really good at fighting, you're probably fucked. Yeah, it's not good. I think I can do it. And that happens. I know you could.

That happens a lot in this game where people will just get on your side or in your blind spot while you were watching a sword and suddenly you're getting your head cut off. It feels like a realistic environment. The really nice thing about this game is there are all these systems and yet the UI is extremely navigable, which I'll spare you like getting into it. navigable, which I'll spare you like getting into it. But just to say, it kind of introduces things to you right when you need to know them. And then it provides the explanation sometimes with like literal in game books, where necessary. It is a game that you have those games that are like a wave, like a big wave coming at you in the ocean. And you can choose to like, dive under it and just ignore the ocean and you can choose to like, dive under it and just ignore it entirely. Or you can try to like ride it and like just get on its wavelength.

And like, that is the way to play this because there is so much that if I, if I fought it or I worried like, well, what if I forget any of that? It would immediately overwhelm me. But if I just like, except like, I'm not very good at this, the game will like lend me a hand whenever I clearly need it. It's right there for me, which is say like, again, tutorials are always like, right there when you need it, whenever you need supplies that you like you again have been completely lowered in status in a society so it's Okay, that you suck and that you're like Failing a lot of like your dialogue prompts and getting the shit kicked out of you You have to go from like a rust fresh dick type to more of a like a draft on New York draft type Yeah, yeah, sure. All right. Is it like semi in the way that like you have to eat and drink and shit

No shit. Yes, there is a fair amount of that stuff, but again, not to the degree that I found it distracting from fun. The easy way of putting that is- That must be a really good pooping game than if it didn't distract you from the fun. Press F to shit.

It never felt like work doing any of those things. They're like the kin. We're getting a lot of fiber then. Everything is just working. I'm a psyllium husk man myself. They just didn't have that in 15th century Europe. So that's a real problem. That's actually all they had.

It's just all psyllium husk. That's all you can eat. It's really promising. I would like, how you can eat. It's really promising. I would like you all to play it. I'm trying not to go too much deep into it because there's like a lot of story and I don't really wanna spoil that for people who wanna play it.

But I think you'll dig it. I mean, I think most people here liked Witcher 3, right? Loved it. Yeah. I mean, you think the writing is on the pars the Witcher 3 writing?? Loved it. Yeah. Yeah. Do you think the writing is on the pars the Witcher 3 writing? I don't know. The cool trick that the writing does,

it's also just way more realistic than Witcher 3. It's not about fantasy beasts. But a cool trick that the writing does is I feel like the choices I'm making are having a tremendous impact on the story. Yeah. And I don't actually know if they are. They probably aren't.

But I think that is the trick of good writing is that it creates a sense that you are. It doesn't really matter if there are like five other directions that could go. So long as I feel like I am telling my story, it's working. And it does a great job of that. Where when things go wrong in the like top level story, I feel like it was because of decisions I made and that's to me a pretty great sign of writing and the title looks good like moment to moment it knows when to like get out of its own way well there's an assortment for you there's a bevy of a different

games you could enjoy after the break we, we're gonna kinda take a moment to remember a friend, look at his oncoming death, and consider his son's future. We're after this. So, once again, we are obviously recording this before the big Nintendo Direct you all are wondering about, but we did record this after the big Nintendo Direct you all are wondering about, but we did record this after the first Nintendo Direct that happened in late March that had a surprising number

of kind of crazy announcements in it. Yeah, I think crazy in sort of like every imaginable kind of like read on that word, every possible definition. There's a lot of shit in there I don't think anyone was expecting. Sure, yes. No, I will grant you that, absolutely. It is the, I mean, we were talking recently,

I don't remember if it was on show or not, about sort of like the swan song kind of games for a console sort of life cycle. Yeah, the last games that come out right at the end of the cycle that kind of show off all the hardware's tricks. And this feels like the Nintendo Direct where they kind of show what that is going to entail.

And yeah, man, there's a lot of stuff. A lot of it is known quantity like Pokemon Legends ZA and Metroid Prime 4 Beyond, which I guess we haven't seen like actual gameplay footage of until now, right? Yes. This was the first kind of debut of that. Yeah, I turned it off. Oh really? Yeah, I was like I don't want to watch this. I'm gonna play this game. So I turned that off, but I did know it was in there. Okay, well, I mean, earmuffs, I guess, Russ. No, earmuffs is fine.

I guess Samus has psychic abilities in this one. There's like psychic powers that you get. That looks fun. And then there's a new Rhythm Heaven. And then there's a new Tomodachi Life. Wait, wait, wait, I wanna hear about Rhythm Heaven, because that game had only one installment, right? No. Rhythm Heaven? No. Have there been multiples before this one? No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,

no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, got it in one. This is Rhythm Heaven Groove. It's a new Rhythm Heaven game, not a remake or re-release or anything. It's coming out on Switch in 2026. They showed it, and it's Rhythm Heaven. It's basically about as straightforward a rhythm game as you can possibly imagine. If only someone did an act out to prove exactly what kind of game it was. You just did, and you crushed it. You did so good. Thank you.

Tomodachi Life, I think that we should get into Tomodachi Life, which is. Yeah, I never played the original and I don't fully. I guess the Sims made by Nintendo. Is that a fair observation? That is a wild. I think it is, the Sims only in the sense that you have a bunch of little guys. And then in any other sense, it's not really that.

It is more akin to Miitopia, I believe was the name of that RPG that came out where you had all the Miis. In the original Tomodachi life, you used your Mii's and the Mii's that I think you could download over the internet, and they would live on a little island together, and you could make them date and get married, and then they would go and they would sing karaoke,

and you could change the words that they sang when they did karaoke, and it was just an infinite sort of like comedy It's a soap opera really really good shit Yes, that's a very about causing drama between you and all your friends who are represented as me's in this world and then also downloading Like lots of famous models of characters, so it's like you and Batman and prince. Okay. This all sounds like The Sims It's like I mean-ier version of it. It's less sim and more about the human interaction

and the stories and the narrative, right? You're thinking a lot more about bathroom breaks and hydration, where this is more about your interests. It's more like, think more reality show kind of, is if that makes more sense. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Less caring for an ant farm, more drama. More watching all the chaos sort of unfold

like a Rube Goldberg machine kind of. The hilarious shit about this is it is the final announcement. It looks at first a little bit like Animal Crossing, which is a great way of getting people excited and then throwing them off. And then- I was not fooled for it. It looks at first a little bit like Animal Crossing, which is a great way of getting people excited and then throwing them off. And then- I was not fooled for it.

Of course not. I do not think it looks like Animal Crossing. They announced Tomodachi Life, you're like, wow, great. I mean, this must come out tomorrow. It's that type of game, right? Like 2026. We needed to let you know early. We know that the hype is strong on this one.

So we got, Patapom 1 and 2 are getting a re-release. That's great. I'm here for that. The new Hotshots Golf game, absolutely. Okay, I wanna, this is, this was it. Yeah, Russ, go off-chain, go off-chain. You're ready, dog. Let him loose.

Of all the announcements that happened during this press conference, this was the one that I was most excited for. How obsessed am I with Hotshots Golf? In addition to playing through... Extremely. Extremely. I've played through both PSP installments, I've played through the PS4, Everybody's Golf, whatever that was called. I've played through all of them. How obsessed am I? I've been trying to count when was the last clap hands golf game, which was the developer of Hot Shots Golf, to figure out like when the next cadence would happen, which it turns out was folly

because they're not actually making this game. Well, they're not. No, they are not involved in this game. Sony hired, I don't remember the developer team, but they're working with Namco Bandai to make this game. Clap Hands has completely been cut out of the franchise they built from scratch. But I kind of hope that at this point, but they're working with Namco Bandai to make this game. Clap Hands has completely been cut out of the franchise they built from scratch,

but I kinda hope that at this point, there's enough Hot Shots DNA in the world that people know what a good versus bad game in the Hot Shots franchise is, and maybe they can make a good one. Okay, so this is a Resident Evil, it's called Resident Evil in America, it's called Biohazard in Japan, right eventually we got to biohazard Resident Evil and.

Resident Evil biohazard for the like the subtitle was that yes they were trying to unify the branding and that's I think what they're doing here cuz it's everybody's golf in Japan and hot shots golf in the West. I did not appreciate that it had been Everybody's Golf this entire time. Yeah. This is wild. So Clap Hands is separate from this. Yeah, Clap Hands is an independent developer. They've basically made every Hot Shots game since two. Because the first game was made by the Intelligent Systems, made the first Hot Shots golf game, incredibly.

So they've been making all of them since then and they've gotten very good at it and then they went and made, uh, what is it? Fucking easy come easy golf was the, it was the iOS version. It was also on switch. So that was their like spin-off, I guess, cause they don't own the rights to hotshots. Uh, so now, uh, Sony's doing their own thing. This is the first hot shots golf to be multi-platform.

So it's coming to Switch, it's coming to PS5, and it's also coming to Steam, which is also very exciting because there really aren't any great arcade-y golf games on Steam. I've really looked. How do you feel about it being made by people who haven't made these games before? I am cautiously optimistic.

I think there's enough on paper to know what a good Hot Shots golf game is that someone could kind of follow it if they were a capable developer, but who knows? It's kind of hard to say. It is funny though, because like Clap Hands was working off of someone else's work too. Clap Hands came in after Hotshots 1,

made by Talented Systems, which went on to make Mario Golf and all that stuff. So, sorry for the rant on this franchise, but there just aren't very many of these style games out there. So whenever one of them comes along, I get very excited. Is this attention to detail

that people listen to the show for. I guess so. Yeah. I'm so excited. I'm also thrilled. I love this series and I'm chomping at the bit for the new shit. Witchbrook, got a trailer. That looks great.

Little life sim. I want to talk about, I think it's very interesting, the virtual game card. Yeah. Yeah, help me understand this. So, the way that they are making it sound is the same way that you can take a game, a physical game cartridge out of your Switch, put it in somebody else's Switch and just play it.

They are going to make it possible to do that with a digital title where you can eject it from one switch and then and then put it on another switch what regardless of who that second switch kind of belongs to and so it it allows you to transfer over digital games I'm assuming it is like a license transfer thing right like the I imagine there's a lot of online connectivity. I imagine there will probably be some gating

in terms of how often you are able to do this. Yeah, so I have some of that background. You need a internet connection when you do the connection to the new console. So you're connecting to another console, you need a connection. And when you do that share, you need an internet connection. But when you do that share, you need an internet connection.

But the person that has it does not need an internet connection while they're playing that game, is my understanding. Yes, which is the change from right now. Which is like right share of games right now, you need the connection. So you could have like, you know, if your kid is in the back seat playing Switch,

they don't necessarily need an internet connection while they're playing it, but it does automatically revert the game back to you after two weeks. So you can reloan it, but that's sort of how they suspend it. Oh, I didn't know that part. Yeah, they also limit the,

you can only do one game at a time. So your kid is like, oh, I want to play Zelda. Here's Zelda for two weeks. You can play it whenever you want to. I can't play Zelda while that's happening. So it's on your thing. We can't play at the same time. So you can't permanently, like, sell a game,

a digital copy of a game. Correct. Yeah, there's nothing that would remove your ownership of the game permanently. Ah, okay, okay. It's very bizarre. It's also bizarre when you compare it to, um, like Steam, for example, which has the Steam family system, which is like way more generous and not as limited. Can you take it back from a friend? Like, can you ask for it back from them? With physical force?

No, but like, if you loan it to, if I loan a game to Griffin, I'm like, actually I want to play it. Yeah, I think there must be a way to revert it. That would be crazy if it was just locked on his system for two weeks. The whole thing just feels like, I don't know, it's definitely more in line with the way buying and playing video games is going, but it feels like typical Nintendo-like glacial shift that doesn't really seem to address

what the need would be. I mean, it addresses this, which is a family ownership of a Switch. You've got a, in this case, what's gonna be a Switch 2, let's say, and Griffin has the best and brightest, and then he gives the shitty Switch to his child, and he can give the games that he already owns to his child on that shitty Switch.

I think the difference is, though, when I do that difference is though, when I do that with my kids, and I'm like, here's this shitty iPad for you to mess around with, all the games, all the content is there. It's still just as usable. And it's hard, it's actually hard to get my kids

into other games because of all these hoops you gotta jump through, whereas with an iPad, it's it's like here you don't have roblox on there well here I can log into roblox in 30 seconds and now I'm on this device too because it's so much less about the device that you're using it on. Okay I think I've found one complication here if you have two Nintendo Switch and they are both linked to the same Nintendo account, then you can switch it permanently, not the tweak thing. So like exactly what you're saying, fresh, like Griffin has a Nintendo Switch that's,

you know, daddy switch, and then he has baby switch, and he wants to make it so that the games belong to baby switch, he can switch those over. This is an insane thing to say. I don't even know what I'm doing here they can that that will be permanent but if you do that previously like if you logged into the same account you could download any games you own yes but you would need the you would need a sign on online you would you could have it's insane you could have one default switch right oh

and now we're the more than one default switch? We should have to have a boring part of our podcast because Nintendo doesn't have a lot of fun. We are being punished by Nintendo. That's not fair. We are. It's not fair that we have to be boring because this doesn't make sense. Oh, can we talk about Nintendo today? Let's talk about a cool thing.

I mean, yeah, sounds good. I mean, that's what we can do. I'd rather talk about Nintendo in ten years when they figure out internet, but sure, we can talk about Nintendo today. How? Okay, Nintendo today. Have you all downloaded it? The app, Nintendo today? I'm trying to find my Switch first. They gotta come out with an app. No, it's on your phone. They would come out with a Steam app to help you find your Switch.

You guys are my Nintendo today, so I don't need it. I- I just like that there- I think it's a great idea for a company like Nintendo to make an app where they say, You know what, you want something to click on and to scroll, but you don't want it to ruin your life. And he wanted to only last for like two minutes a day. And he made an app that's just that you open it and like, hey, you know what, here's a cute Pokemon. Feeling pretty good. Here's a little here's a little here's a little bit of news. Here's a little trailer for the C button on the Nintendo switch to you have now you will I did hear about the fact that they are moving forward with the Legend of Zelda movie and trailer for the C button on the Nintendo Switch 2. You happy?

I did hear about the fact that they are moving forward with the Legend of Zelda movie and that did ruin my day. So I don't know how you guys feel about that. That will never happen. I like this era of Nintendo. I like the console transition because we get the like dump of truly some of the weirder stranger. I can't believe that they Decided to put money behind this. I did not think Tomodachi life would be Returning anytime soon. I kind of had given up on rhythm heaven to it feels like a clearing of the decks. I Mean, it's not yeah

I don't think it's I think it's different than that because you look at like a lot of these games are not coming out until after Supposedly when the switch 2 is coming out So they I think their intention is this is kind of like the next year of both the switch and switch 2 These are just games that will also work on the original switch. I just feel like it's frustrating to me because I I These ecosystems are getting easier to navigate everywhere else. And the idea that I'm gonna have to not only like,

I mean, that doesn't sound good to me because it's hard enough for me to keep track of my Switch as it is. I'm certainly not gonna keep track of my Switch and my Switch 2. Like it feels like so out of step with the way things are going. If they wanna keep both these platforms going,

I mean, I'm glad they're reducing some of the walls, but it just feels like, I don't know, it feels out of step, but maybe Nintendo gets to do that because they're Nintendo, I don't know. It's also insane that we're having this conversation without knowing what's going to happen in this Switch 2. Sure, yeah, maybe it's. For all we know, they could announce in there

all kinds of other wild, anachronistic shit. I think the question is gonna be, to what extent do I need to keep my Switch around if I have a Switch 2? That to me is like- Well, I think the, not. Why would you? None of these games are gonna be I think the, not, like why would you? Like none of these games are going to be exclusive

to the original Switch. You sure? Like what about No Sleep for Konami Date from AI The Somnium Files? Do you think that comes out in July? Do you think that'll be Switch 1 only? It's gonna be both. It's possible, yeah, you sure?

Cool. Why do you think you need your Switch, apart from like having a kid play it, why do you think you need your Switch? apart from like having a kid play it, why do you think you need your Switch? Do all my, like, are all my, so all my Switch games will carry over the Switch too? More or less, yeah. That's my understanding.

So I might just go ahead and wait for the Nintendo Directs and they're literally pulling it out of your ass as I'm watching in front of you on camera. I mean, I am pulling it out of my ass, but they have been pretty clear about, like, backwards compatibility being like a big deal. Yeah, but I don't even know what backwards compatibility means in terms of just the Switch, right?

Because there's games that don't work because you bought this mini Switch, right? And so the ones that require the free floating controllers, the free floating Joy-Cons, don't work, right? So there's already a fragmentation there. And I would just like to know if I buy this new thing, can the old ones go away, or will I need to keep them around to play some of those specific experiences? Yeah, I don't know.

I guess the listeners know, but we don't. Isn't that frustrating? Must be nice. Must be nice. Should we do some honorable mentions? Yeah. I wanna, this is a big one. Henry got really into Astro Bot.

He saw some videos. I don't know how these things happen. Some kids at school told him about it, or he saw a video online, and he saw about Astro Bot, and he was like, I wanna play Astro Bot. So I moved the PS5 out of daddy's office downstairs, and he played through fucking all of Astro Bot,

and got all the bots and all the puzzle pieces, 100% at that thing. Heck yeah. He did that really hard platforming sequence at the end? He definitely needed some help from his old man for some of the harder challenges. I did do that, whatever it was called, the master challenge that you unlock by doing.

It was like we turned screens off at a certain time at night so we can try and wear the boys out before bedtime and it was like a few minutes before that and he was like all stressed out. He was like, can you, please? And I was like, man, this level's super hard, I don't know. And I took it down, that shit feels so good. That's that good dad shit.

But yeah, just a delightful game to play with other people. I did not necessarily click with it when I played it myself but playing it with Henry and Rachel was enjoying watching it. Gus was really, really into watching it. He's still a little too young to play it but I just had a delightful time cruising through that whole game, seeing all the stuff it has to offer.

So yeah, that's not anything new, but that's where I'm at. I've been continuing to play Noita, which I know I bored you guys a few times about, but I do wanna do a shout out. Okay, so I had a clean run of Noita. I beat like a run without mods or anything, and it was very satisfying. I was like, yeah, that was great. And then I looked online and realized that there's so much hidden shit in that game that you could spend like nine hours of a run,

just going through and like finding everything. But you're always at the, there's always the potential of you getting one shot by fucking lava coming out from the sky or whatever it is. So I installed a mod called the meta leveling mod, which basically allows you to level up in the game, pick perks. If you level up like a bunch of time, like 10 times in a single run, you get a meta point that allows you to permanently increase a stat. I see Justin reacting. This is his shit.

No, it's just really, I'm, Russ, it's like really beautiful to watch you and this community try to make this game fun against all odds. You guys are killing yourselves to try to enjoy this fucking thing. And honestly, Russ, your determination to derive pleasure from this program, when by all external signs, it seems hard determined to keep you from doing so,

in despite a bevy of electronic entertainment options, is a daily inspiration to me. Almost as inspiring as your daily quest to try to rope me in to your fucking emperor's new fun situation that you have embroiled yourself in. Not since Binding of Isaac have you worked so hard to extract the sap of joy from a stone. I appreciate that.

Please send the links, we'll check it out though. The meta leveling sounds good. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. We'll have the link for the mod in the newsletter it's some links to like better help and some other resources if you just need someone to talk to or whatever Your particular cry for help is Man, I'm kind of I can't talk about blueprints yet Next week, baby. Next week. Yeah, my honorable mentions next week's episode Besties our first ever four hour long.

No, we're gonna talk about a lot. There's so many great games. There's so much fun. So much joy. Next week is gonna be also the Switch 2 because I'm going, I'm gonna be there and I'm gonna play it. Hands on. So, we'll see.

We'll see what I think. It's gonna be a big one. Perfect. Big one. And then I'm gonna not participate in the Blueprints conversation because I can't personally play that game right now. Yeah, hopefully they'll figure that out, Russ, because it's very unfortunate. We'll see, we'll see.

But that will be next week. Anybody, anything else we need to make the listeners aware of, Planet? Yeah, I wanted to thank some new members to the Patreon. We have John, we have Amos, we have Jenna, and we have Callie. Thank you some new members to the Patreon. We have John, we have Amos, we have Jenna, and we have Callie. Thank you for being members of the Patreon

over at patreon.com slash the besties. We love you, you're great. We also have a bunch of merch in the merch store if you want to check that out. Just like besties t-shirts, probably Google that. That might show up when you search it. Okay. And it'll also be in the newsletter.

And I think that's the business. Hey, fresh. I dropped a I dropped a game in the slack that I think you can play for next week. I think you'll enjoy it. Really? Yeah, I think it's called flight catastrophe. It gives you a unique opportunity to become a crisis management specialist aboard the passenger plane.

Wow, that is where they're like just designed. That's all the training was leading up to that moment. Thank you so much for listening to our podcast. Be sure to join us again next week for the besties because shouldn't the world's best friends pick the world's best games? Best friends. friends pick the world's best games best friends Besties!