The Besties - Deltraune Isn’t Finished Just Yet, But You Should Play It Now

Episode Date: July 11, 2025

This week, The Besties talk about Deltarune Chapters 1-4. Though a few more chapters are on the way, now’s a great time to try the Undertale follow-up. We explain why. Plus, the gang brings a bundle of indie games you shouldn’t overlook! 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 have a towel report. Okay. How's our stock? Good to start the show. We are no longer in the podcasting business. We are in the towel business. We're towel guys. We got marketing,

we got a marketing arm that is a podcast, this podcast. And we mainly make towels. We make one towel. So far it's a little bit steep. And we don't make it. Russ came up with the idea. The rest of us are wheezing, Russ is juiced, but he's not making the damn thing.

I'm HR. Home runs. I did, I was creative director on the towel. Yeah, sure. So at that point, I was making some serious, tough calls about the towel. The towel, just to refresh people's memory, the towel says, you dried on it in Dark Souls font.

Am I allowed to say that it says Dark Souls font? I wouldn't, but you already did, so. I just did it. There's no going back. It keeps selling out, because people really think it's hilarious. Yeah, it's a good one. Why won't we just make more, they say.

Well, we are making more. We figured out a way to do a pre-order page on the page that keeps selling out. Insane to start the show with this. Absolutely off the rails to start the show with this. This is a towel report that the people want to know about. Right, right. Right, an update that the podcast is gonna be monthly now.

That's gonna be hard to hear. We need more towel time, guys, because we've tried to think of a second towel. Guess what? We fucking can't. It's too hard. We can't think of a second towel. We've tried so hard. Sorry. Yes. We were originally gonna be monthly second towel. We've tried so hard. Sorry.

Yes. We were originally gonna be monthly, but we decided we needed more towel segments. I had one that said, I got that drip on it. And then people were like, but you don't, the towel shouldn't say that. And also it doesn't mean anything and it's not as good as you drive.

I gotta be honest though, Griffin, I kinda like that towel. I had one that said, Mega Man towel on it. I had one that said Mega Man towel on it, and it had a picture of Mega Man on it, because I was trying to get back into a gamer head space. I think that's a legally binding trademark. Yeah, no, I mean, you can't, obviously that one didn't make it to the factory floor.

Yeah. No. Is there a Yoshi towel you have in mind? No, but that's a good. It should look like his tongue. Yeah. Fuck. It could just be a dinosaur. It could be around everywhere, baby.

A regular dinosaur with that big beautiful tongue coming out of it. Yeah. Anyway, if you want the towel, there's a pre-order link now. You could pre-order it and it'll come to you. How much longer do we have to do the podcast is the question on my mind. This is the entire show. We at least have to finish this episode. Okay. Fair enough.

This is just all on towel stuff, so. Trying to think if there's any terrycloth, no, the terrycloth situation's fine. Yeah. No, we're good, we're good. That's it on towels. Awesome, well, that's been your towel update. Those of you who only wanted that

and don't give a shit about video games, tune out now. All right, get your towel out of here. Less towels from this point on. Tune out now. I already got through the outlaw. Get the fuck out of here. I'm getting less towels from this point on. ["Spring Day of the Deadly Sins"] ["Spring Day of the Deadly Sins"]

["Spring Day of the Deadly Sins"] ["Spring Day of the Deadly Sins"] ["Spring Day of the Deadly Sins"] ["Spring Day of the Deadly Sins"] ["Spring Day of the Deadly Sins"] ["Spring Day of the Deadly Sins"] ["Spring Day of the Deadly Sins"] ["Spring Day of the Deadly Sins"]

["Spring Day of the Deadly Sins"] ["Spring Day of the Deadly Sins"] ["Spring Day of the Deadly Sins"] ["Spring Day of the Deadly Sins"] ["Spring Day of the Deadly Sins"] ["Spring Day of the Deadly Sins"] ["Spring Day of the Deadly Sins"] ["Spring Day of the Deadly Sins"]

My name is Justin McElroy, and I know the best game of the week. My name is Griffin McElroy, I know the best game of the week. My name is Griffin McElroy and I know the best game of the week. My name is Christopher Thomas Plant and I know the best games of the week. My name is Russ Frushtick and I know the best game of the week. Welcome to the Besties where we talk about the latest and greatest in home interactive entertainment. It's a video game club and just by, my friend, you have become a member. This week we've got a potpourri, a grab bag for you

of great new hit releases, some new, something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue. Justin just opened a tablet on his computer that illuminated him like he was at the tanning spot. I forgot the other games we were talking about. Yeah, how do I work on my base while I'm talking? That's the light of the Google Doc shining upon you. that illuminated him like he was at the tanning spot. I forgot the other games we were talking about. I gotta work on my base while I'm podcasting.

That's the light of the Google Doc shining upon you. What's a grab bag, Chris? A grab bag? Well, it is when we talk about all sorts of different games because there's just too much great stuff for us to put into one episode. We have to spread the word. It's not a cop out, you're a cop out. Okay, we'll be back right after this. I feel like Grab Bag diminishes some of the games

that we have on here. Absolutely. Specifically, there is one of them that y'all have been asking us to discuss for quite some time. Yes. Call of Duty. It's not finished, is the thing. Yeah, people have wanted Deltarune. I didn't know that, but you informed me last week. Like, hey, people are saying,

why do you guys hate Deltarune? And that's simply not the case. But I now have played through fucking all of it. Well, no, no. Oh, I'm sorry. I've played through the four of seven chapters that are currently available of Deltarune. You're at like a Winds of Winter, basically.

Yes, just past the halfway point. Who else checked it out? Me. Okay. I played through the first episode and then some of the second episode, which is quite good so far. Yes.

So yeah, four episodes are out. The first one came out a while ago. I don't know exactly when. It has this episodic structure. I was kind of not, I'm recapping a lot of stuff I mentioned in the honorable mentions last week, but I was not sold on the sort of episodic structure of it. And I was like, you know what?

I'm just gonna fucking come back when the whole thing is out. And now it's 2025 and the third and fourth chapters dropped about a month ago or so. And chapter five is due to come out next year. And then six and seven will be out at, you know, whenever they're out, I guess. But I am very genuine thank you to our listeners

for asking us to come back to this one because I'm very, very glad I did because now I've played through the whole, all that is available, the four chapters that are available and I am just gaga about this game. I played Undertale throughout and I liked it. It was fun and cute and good, did I was not bowled over and mostly That's just a genre issue with me as we know I turn based

RPG is not my necessarily favorite I am curious to know whether this is gonna hit differently for me or is it more or less the same with a new story? Did you play undertale? I had I made a couple of attempts at Undertale over the years and neither one of them was successful. I have never really gotten into it. I never really got the angle. I don't know why.

I will say that this, I will say, mechanically it's hard for me to compare. I will say narratively, it's a much more, or at least it seemed to me a little bit more linear and relatable story that was each. You're talking about this one. I found that's going to be easier to sort of follow and sort of parse what was happening

in a game narrative sense. And there's a really cool, I will say they do a really good job of introducing little mechanics throughout. I mean, constantly. When you're defending in this game, there's like, you're kind of doing like shoot-em-up style dodging as your- Bullet-held dodging.

Bullet-held dodging, I guess more accurately. Oh. And that's how you like, that's the dodging. So that's kind of cool. Every enemy has like different patterns. I guess that had a, that was a little bit an undertale. That was an undertale, yeah. It is just, it is extremely fleshed out in this one

and constantly evolving and constantly changing chapter to chapter. It's also cool, like, trying to figure out how to finish the enemies without attacking them. In Undertale, I just got the sense of, I don't know, it felt worse to spare enemies. It felt like you were doing something the game didn't want you to do, kind of,

but did want you to do, I don't know. I like to feel like I'm doing a good job. It telegraphs, I think Deltarune really achieves a lot of the stuff that Undertale, you know, conceptually went for and largely succeeded at. People adore that game, myself included. But I think that they do just about everything better in Deltarune. To that point, in Undertale, if you wanted to spare somebody,

it would give you a list of options of actions you can do, and then you had to kinda guess, I should be mean to this frog, but nice to this one. All the fights in Deltarune, they really telegraph kind of what is kind of the correct choice or it'll show you like, this one will make them tired. And if they get tired, you can use this spell and it will put them to sleep,

which is the same thing as, as, as, you know, sparing them. A lot of the time, almost all of the acts that you do to like build up the mercy meter require you to like, do some little mini game real quick, or like you're gonna dodge all these bullets, but pick up the Mercy meter, require you to do some little mini game real quick, or you're gonna dodge all these bullets, but pick up the green ones. So it's really very active and very involved, and you don't really feel like you're doing a ton of guesswork throughout it. Because of the episodic structure, does it change dramatically from episode to episode

in terms of what you're doing? The core combat mechanics? No. Everything else? Yeah, kinda. The reason I'm here for the episodic structure is one, I just finished episode four an hour and a half ago and it was five or six hours.

It was huge. For a chapter of a seven chapter video game, I think the chapters themselves are comparable in length to Undertale, right? So there's a lot of stuff happening there. The reason I'm so sold on the structure is that every episode feels self-contained and it feels so different.

The first one is kind of more Undertaly, it's sort of easing you in to kind of what's going on. And then the second one takes place inside of a computer. And then the third one is like kind of a bottle episode game show thing. And then the fourth one is like this grand like cathedral adventure fantasy thing. Like each one totally does a different thing.

The combat and all that stuff is roughly the same, but each boss fight will throw a different, weird mechanic at you. Like, for this one, to get your energy up, you're gonna play Pac-Man. It almost turns WarioWare-esque in the way that it shakes you. It takes it seriously, and that was something

that I got the sense with Undertale, where it was always kind of like, if you felt invested in the mechanics, I feel like it was almost a little bit like goofing on you. Like it wasn't taking its own mechanics seriously. So it felt sort of like it was harder to engage with because it all seemed like kind of a joke. This you, you, I'll give you a good example. There's a, at one point, a little, this little round guy, he's a cute little dude.

He's a checker piece. He's a little checker piece, and he puts on a crown, and he turns into a big checker piece. So he kings him, he turns him into a crown. And you can bow to him, and that will knock off, that will wiggle his crown a little bit, or you can, together, two characters can do a big bow, and then he'll do a big one and like bow more,

or there is a chance to throw a character at his hat and you have to like aim the shot exactly right. And if you hit the hat, then you'll do a large amount of damage to knocking off the hat. So it's like a risk reward thing of like, okay, I wanna try that for the big, like hat knocking off thing.

And that feels like a fully fleshed out mechanic, not like avoiding it. Like it makes it so clear early on, it says repeatedly like, in this world you don't have to attack stuff. You don't have to attack things, like combat is optional. Yeah.

And they really hit that pretty hard, but they make it fun, I think, to avoid it. Broad strokes, I think mechanically the game is genuinely very, very fun to play. The... Does it have jokes? The writing is spectacular. Yeah. And it is also as varied as the individual chapters are

from a sort of mechanical thematic standpoint. The first one is like, it eases you in, it's pretty funny, you get to meet some really great characters. The second chapter is the funniest fucking video game thing I have played in recent memory. It's genuine, I was playing it by myself and had moments of just gut busting lol guys out loud for real, genuinely hysterical, genuinely. I'll tell you what, to me, the the the the thing is, and what is so hard about games in our humoring games, at least as near as I've been able to tell, is that you really can,

like a joke to me is only funny the first time you hear it, right? And the problem with games is when you're doing a circuit, you know, you're repeating levels, you're repeating content, like you're gonna run into the same scenario and there's gonna be a pre-scripted gag, if you've heard it once before, it's instantly like-

The first dubstep is really good. The first dubstep gun, great, great. Hilarious. And then after that... I don't know how to say it other than like, every line in this game feels like it was written to be read once. Like it's just written for this one thing

that's happening now. And, but it is like, there's value to it, right? There's nothing where you click through some dialogue and it's like, well, that was kind of pointless. I didn't really get anything out of that. It's always like, there's always something there. And it's always like fresh and original and never recycled. And that really hits.

And there's not a reason that you would like have to replay a fight where you might see dialogue again? There's like super, every chapter has like a bonus boss who is like extremely difficult. And you will probably have to retry those a few times and see the same scripted dialogue. But I mean, if you're doing that. But I'm like, that's if you lose, I mean,

That's way off right. I'm saying like if you lose and you have to go back, that's maybe one thing, but like, I don't even know outside of that, like where you wouldn't see recycled content. You know what I mean? Like gags getting recycled, or things that are just like a stand-in for funny.

I'll give you like, a lot of games will have like a funny name for a prop or like a joke name for Different stats or things like that and that's like stuff You're gonna encounter over and over and over again where the novelty is completely worn off like you're not do it's not that kind of like comedy quote-unquote it's not the death spank rule of 1000 pieces of bacon is 1000 times funnier than one piece of bacon The only person who enjoys death's bank just hung up from the call so I'm kind of reference

but hey what can you do um I actually have some jokes for you oh you wrote some jokes yeah I'm like you know borrowed okay but I decided to share are you better read jokes from Delta? No, he's gonna read jokes from a joke book. What do you say when you lose a Nintendo game? What? I want a Wii match. That's pretty good.

So like that's it, like that's Deltarune. Right there, Chris got it. And you're only hearing that once, right? What game do you play after eating Taco Bell? What's that, Chris? Fart Night. Cool. What game do you play after eating Taco Bell? What's that? Fart Night. What are you reading? What are you reading?

I'm reading daddylife.com. Thank you so much for plagiarizing daddylife. 68 video game jokes. I hope you love them. And does daddylife cover any other topics by any chance? I'm actually afraid to find out. Because I'm very worried that it is not a good website. I think Deltarune is very, very funny.

It also, like Undertale, takes some swings at other emotions as well, and I do think it does it pretty fucking well. It is able to do the thing where it builds a very, very, very silly world through the first few chapters. And then in chapter four, when it starts like throwing haymakers, like it hits because it's catching you off guard and you're like invested in the, in the stuff. Um, and it does it like really well. It's kind of scary at times, kind of stressful at times.

It's so dense too. Like there's very, very little backtracking. Like it's, it, it very much feels like you're taking the one path through the thing You do the one gag or the one gimmick Sometimes there's like little mini games like that like that I wish there was more of just because it was that pleasurable to like there's a you know The word puzzle thing griff or you have to walk over the letters. Yes, fill out different codes Oh, man, I could have done a thousand of those Yeah, how nice is it to play a game and be like I wish there was more of it to spell out different codes. Oh man, I could have done a thousand of those. Yeah.

How nice is it to play a game and be like, I wish there was more of it. Yeah, I mean, that's good. I think that, I don't know how much I wanna really get into this, but like, Undertale has a huge fan base, right, and I think, and that has been the sentiment from them forever. And that is why you get these huge fan-made projects.

Someone made a whole Undertale sequel called, I think Undertale Yellow. There's a bunch of different games that people have made and obviously written fiction about. And I feel like there was a part of me that was a bit hesitant because the people who were super into Undertale had a reputation for being pushy or exasperating about it.

Yeah, I really like, I think the episodic nature really does help because for me, I really appreciate that closure and the sense that like I've gotten a full experience and I can return for more of it at some point if I want to. But I feel like this game was so curated, curated. The whole experience felt like crafted for me to enjoy and I was like excited to go into the next chapter. But I think having that off-ramp is a big engagement point, right? Like I think when you willingly choose

to start that second chapter, then you're really dialed in, I think. Yes, also something I didn't recognize, because I only played chapter one and then didn't pick up chapter two, your save file can like carry over. So like the stuff that you do in one game carries over to the next, which is, you know,

I'm very happy that there's some continuity there. There's a lot of great stuff before you go into these little dark worlds where most of the game takes place, you get to wander around your hometown, and you'll see from chapter to chapter how people's shit is developing, which is very, very enjoyable.

I guess for me, it's in the same way that I don't necessarily want to play... It's not a one-to-one, but why I don't want to play the early access version of Hades is because I'm going to fucking forget who these characters are or whatever, if the thing comes out in a year. It feels like this is more full, right? I mean, I'm talking truly out of my ass, but from the outside it seems like it's being promoted as you can join right now and you're getting like a pretty full experience. I just finished chapter four this morning and I think I'm clocked in at 21 hours total for the four chapters.

Like, it's a lot of shit. And I will also say this, and I really do mean it, I was also worried about that. That is why I wanted to hold off, right? It's like, well, I don't want to have to come back and keep replaying these things to remind myself what, I don't think I'm gonna need to. Like, I think I'll be able to go a year and play the next chapter and pretty much pick it up

where I left it off because of how strong the writing is and how genuinely great the characters are. And like, it is, I am not so worried anymore after playing What Is Available Now that the four chapters that I have played are just gonna like, leak out of my ears. I think it's got some meaning.

And for chapter seven, Hideo Kojima is going to be doing a kick-ass. A kick-ass. Can't even imagine. I think it's great, I think that, I can't imagine following up Undertale in a normal way, like in a traditional way, just making an Undertale 2. This game, you mentioned, is it gonna hit better for you because you played Undertale?

Like, the world is kind of familiar and the characters, there's some characters who show up who are in Undertale, but it's not at all plot relevant. Like you don't need to know shit that happened in that game to play Deltarune, it's not really a sequel. I mean, I barely remember most, I remember Sans being a silly old skeleton and his buddy. His brother.

And there was an evil flower. Yep. That's basically all I remember. Yeah, you don't even need to know that shit, but I think it's one of those things where if you have played it, you'll enjoy the cameos and what have you. Yeah.

So yeah. Cool. It seems like we should take a break there. That was so full featured. And then after the break, we've got more games to talk about. Yeah, the Grab Bag had one big front pocket, and now we've gone through that. Kind of a Deltarune episode.

This feels like it's now a Deltarune episode. A little bit. Yeah, I think so. It happens. Okay, I played two games. Look under this Deltarune. Ha, ha. I played two games.

I will play Deltarune eventually, but yeah, I don't know, I kinda wanna wait. I don't wanna talk about why you haven't played Deltarune anymore. I feel like I already know too much about it. I played Angry Birds Bounce, which is on Apple Arcade. Holy fucking shit. Yeah, dog.

Holy crap. It's Sega now, right? This is Sega shit. Meaning what? Oh, that Angry Birds are everywhere? No, Sega owns Angry Birds. This is like the first Angry Birds game made under Sega. Oh, I didn't know that.

I think that's right. Yeah. It's kind of interesting. It's like Bustamove, where you're like flinging the birds on this like puzzle thing. And guess what? They do not like the pigs and you're attacking the pigs. But the way it plays out instead of like normal Bustusta move is you're building like a little mini squad of birds and you're deciding, oh, I want the explodey bird, the red bird, and then the white bird and they all get thrown at the same time. Wait, hold on at the same time? Yes. It's okay. Sorry. Sorry to interrupt. Go ahead. Not individually. Okay. Um, it's kind of interesting. I was kind of into it. I did. I was put off slightly because they literally do not let you quit the game until they've tutorialized

it for you, which I assume is like, how do we make this game as sticky as possible? And I found that a little untoward, but other than that, it was pretty good. The game that really stood out to me. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Were you financially, financially incentivized to tell me about the new Angry Birds game? 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, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, I can't believe. He's getting his value worth. I can't believe. I'm gonna shit out nine iOS games that I played five minutes of this week. Yeah, I didn't know you were talking about the toilet.

I thought we were talking about video games. If we're writing off every single thing we play from our taxes. You get that for free! It's for free! The game does look fun. I thought it was for fun. It's an angry farts!

I'm gonna spend a night over here for our boy, Fresh. The game looks fun. Yeah. You guys should talk about the iOS games that you play if you enjoyed them, and I enjoyed this game. Oh man. I'm gonna do it later in the show just to spy on you. Fucking assholes, Jesus Christ.

I'm not allowed to try any of the games. Hey, can I say when I do my iOS game later, Russ? I don't have a fucking leg to stand on. Yeah, no kidding. Yeah. Griffin's doing cut the rope, DX. The other game that I played is White Knuckle. It is a first person climbing game.

It has like one bit style graphics, like what's that fucking ship game with the detective work? Oberden. Oberden. Looks like Oberden. It's first person. You see your hands as you're grabbing onto things. You're basically climbing up like a big silo

and each of your hands has a stamina meter So if you hold on for a while that hand will get tired and eventually you'll have to drop off You have to switch the other hand you can use both hands to like pull yourself up onto a ledge but obviously that will also make you more tired and You're basically going through these levels that have some sort of random randomness to them like they're not it's not always the same path exactly, and there is a pit of slime that is slowly kind of following you up the tunnel, so there's some stress you can't like spend hours and hours kind of perfecting it. So that's like the basic stuff, there's, it gets more complicated because you've got an

inventory and you've got, you can find like a hammer and pitons that you kind of like hammer into the walls to like create more grab points. Sorry? No, they're like the spikes. Yeah, it's like a spike. If you're like a cliff climber, you would like- I've seen clips of this game. Okay.

Okay. I got you now. Sorry, I've seen clips of this game a lot and thought it looked very fucking cool, but I didn't know the name of it. Yeah, it's called White Knuckle. It's very hard, but I found it to be pretty addicting. I did get a little motion sick after my... I played for about an hour,

and I felt a little woozy after that, but that's more a me problem than anything else. Uh, but I really don't... The visual style, I thought, really stood out. There aren't too many climbing games that, like, do it like this. I can't think of a similar one, they're really tracking each hand's stamina rate at a given time.

And then you've got, again, how am I going to use these inventory items as effectively as possible? You'll get spikes that you can throw into the wall. You'll get a spear that has a rope at the end of it, so you can climb up the rope if you want. Just a really cool idea. And then there's also like leaderboards and shit if you get really good at it, which I'm certainly not.

Is there like an upgrade, progression? There's a perk system that I don't think good enough to unlock too much of. It's like tied to some of the achievements that I didn't see if any of the achievements I did get unlocked any. I got to like 500 meters, which was like four or five of the like individual

silo levels, but the levels, they kind of throw different orders of them at you and I think the inventory also switches around, so there's some strategy to it. It looks like a VR game, like it kind of, the movement. Well you're so up in it, so in that way it's kind of like almost like a horror game. Well and just the disembodied hands floating in front of you really feels. That's true.

Feels like Bone Lab, was that that game? Yeah, that sounds right. It's cool to get a climbing game. It's been forever. What's next up? A climbing game. Holy shit, is this a new trend? Guys, are we in the forefront of the climbing revolution?

I think we're late to the climbing revolution probably. I think we're late. Yeah Mine is peak which Have y'all seen this game? Yeah, it's popping off. It is I wish we had a term for this like Wobble likes is like the thing that he was bouncing in my head. Games where you play with friends and you play as these little characters who just wobble around.

Yeah, like a human fall flat. In some way, it like, No, more like repo. Yes, but like repo, I think is like one. Where the controls are a little loose and if I'm being generous, like, that's very intentional. Right. And it's not a way of covering up,

like really having to hone things in. And part of the humor is watching things go wrong with your friends. It uses local voice chat, like a repo does, to great effect. And playing with friends kind of covers maybe some of the game's weaknesses, if it were to be a solo player game.

Like because you're chatting, you know, things don't have to be always happening. Peak, I did play solo even though the whole premise seems to be like play it multiplayer. And let me tell you, great, great as a solo game. Because this sort of game is perfect for climbing climbing because it's all about the awkwardness of like getting around these massive environments and the loneliness is kind of the point in these sorts of games where you just want to go exploring. And I don't remember, if you all remember

Grow Home, the Ubisoft game. It is very, very much pulling from that vibe where you start at the bottom of a mountain and you look up and you see what looks impossibly high, this humongous mountain, and you say, okay, I'm going to, I am going to climb that thing. And the game is not going to show me how to do it. And I don't know how I'm going to do it. And moment to moment, I'm going to make decisions that are going to get me from point A to point B. And the fun of that like, oh, I'm kind of starting to go off this route and now I'm at a point where I'm going to the only way up is to do this really precarious

leap grab onto a vine, crime over the vine and then hope I can get on to like a get my footing before my grip goes out. That's fun. Or you do that and you're like, I could go a different direction, but it's gonna add probably 10 minutes to my hike. Do I really wanna do that? And making those decisions where when it goes wrong, you realize, I was just so greedy.

Like why did I do that? I knew it wouldn't work. Feels so, so good. I wanna play it with friends because I think it will play like a very different game, but I, similar to like Death Stranding, there's something so meditative about these climbing games where you can just like really find a flow and get out of your own head for like a half hour or an hour. Um, the really cool thing about this game is you get to the top of the first mountain and then the clouds break and there's just another mountain on the mountain.

Love it. And they become increasingly like ridiculous. So like the second one is a mountain side with these just like a unspooled ball of yarn of wooden branches that are all spiky and dangerous. So you're kind of having to like dodge the branches that are like intersecting, you know, all the different parts of the climb. And yeah, it's just a good vibe. There's other stuff in it, you know, like you're managing your health, there are poison traps, and if you get injured, it reduces how much energy you can spend, and as your hunger depletes you, that reduces how much energy you can spend. So you're constantly looking for items to manage those things.

But the real bulk of it is just go up, like find a way up. It's only first person right? Yes, though in a great choice of the again the whatever these wobbly games are you can see your shadow and You look like a total clown. Yeah, so even in single-player you get to enjoy Seeing your your little bud just wobble through the environment Yeah, the only reason I ask is because I do I don't know I guess there's a place for both of them, but I do really like seeing myself and but some of that might just be a motion sickness thing. Like I really enjoyed Juicent, which is that climbing game. Oh yeah, third person. So I'm glad that you said this because it's a perfect setup for the other game that I played this week.

Metro Gravity, which looks like Indie Gravity Rush. Oh, I thought it was a Metro game. It's not. Yeah, same. So, no, I was so excited for this game and I still am. I'm enjoying it. But it is a third person platformer, gravity manipulation, puzzle, actually kill us. And you play as a witch who can basically any direction that you walk, you just gravity shifts with you.

Oh God. So if you walk to a wall and you keep pushing forward, you'll just whoop and start walking up the wall. And if you get to the ceiling and you just keep pushing forward, whoop. Now the ceiling, you have to make the sound. just keep pushing forward, whoop, now the ceiling is- You have to make the sound? Whoop. No, you fortunately don't. And at any point you can lock the gravity.

So if you say you're on the ceiling and you say, okay, now lock, you hit a button and suddenly gravity is locked in that direction. And now when you bounce into a wall, you're not going to suddenly stick to it. You're, it's going to act like a wall. But it is third person environment does. It, you would think, I think it actually might've been easier in first person. This is, I do not get motion sickness from video games. This is the first time in a while where just looking around was making me kind of queasy because you get tools that further elaborate,

like further complicate the way gravity works. So you are changing your gravity and then you will get say like a pillar of gravity that goes in a different direction and you'll throw that at the wall. So you can make it so that like a entire pillar of gravity in the environment is going one direction While your gravity is going in another direction And just wrapping your head around Literally what way is up, but where you should be going and how to get around It is it is a game that requires a real Zen this where you are just You're enjoying the confusion in the being lost.

Uh, because if you try to like really have an understanding of the environment, like you would in most video games, your brain just, you get a headache. Um, I really dig it. It is, it feels rough in a way that I think is smart, because I don't entirely know how you fleshed this out into a high touch game. But yeah, it is truly an evolution on the Gravity Rush idea rather than just kind of a fanny remake. And for that I'm really digging it.

Awesome, cool. What else is going on guys? The iOS game I've been playing is Archero 2. I don't know if anyone played the first Archero. Oh, yeah. It's like Archer Hero. It's a survivors, it's a vampire survivors, but with like a bunch of hooks and customization progression stuff.

And it is also one of those games that after you beat a level, it's like, great job, here's a limited time offer. For $100, you can get 50 wish coins. Yeah. At every time it pops up, it's like, man, you've already got me, I am playing the game and I'm enjoying it, I'll drop a buck or two here or there. We'll just drop this fucking-

How many wish coins, pal? Yeah, $100, do you wanna spend a hundred actual American dollars so that you can get more dice for the dice game? It's got all these little slots, it's got like 50 different basically slot machines. And there's no way to like just buy out of that stuff so that it doesn't show up. No, it doesn't show up.

You don't have to do any of the shit. No, I understand. Yeah, but it is a good version of the survivor, you know, vampire survivor's style, and there's a shit ton of content, and it's been an okay, like, I've got five minutes. I'll just do a level of this here. I also finished season four of The Bear.

You guys watch that? No. No. But I have been waiting to see if I should cause I really didn't dig the last season. The third season was so bad. Yeah. And this one. Was it so bad because I didn't watch it

and I didn't know if I should or what. I didn't care for it. It's rough, man. It's a rough ride. It's a lie. If you did not- What's wrong with that? I'm not being defensive. I didn't watch it, and I didn't know if I should or what. I didn't care for it. It's rough, man. It's a rough ride. So why? What's wrong with that? I'm not being defensive, I didn't watch it, so I'm just curious.

No, I know. It... It feels like a season of Set Up is a month. It does feel like a season of Set Up. It has a cliffhanger ending, basically. But nothing really gets accomplished. There was one really standout episode that was a backstory episode,

but otherwise it was just kind of just trotting in its own weight of it. It had the obligatory bear, like Emmy worthy episode. This season's got one as well. Sure, yeah. And it is quite good. But I think the big issue with season three is that one, everyone was miserable all the time.

They made the lead character of the show completely fucking detestable and not relatable or enjoyable in any way. And like nothing happened. So I think season four gets a lot closer to the highs of season two. There's some really, really good stuff in it. There's some great moments.

And they do stick the landing on a lot of the things they have been setting up for a while. It still feels like, I believe it's 10 episodes and of that it feels like there's a good seven episodes of story happening here, which isn't to say the standalone episodes aren't worthwhile. There's a great one with Sydney, just like babysitting someone, and it just sort of only takes place there,

and it's great, but there's just, it doesn't, it didn't feel like it had 10 episodes worth of stuff to say or do, so there are a couple episodes that are just kind of very frustrating, very wheel spinny. Did they kind of learn the the fact twins lesson of like maybe ease off a little bit on the facts? Oh no, they're they're they are the highlight.

I also sort of like was mystified when they were like, why are they spending so much time with these people? But And here's John Cena. And here's John Cena for some reason. John Cena doesn't cut back at the season. No. But yeah, no, it's it is really good A minus stuff.

And I believe they've left it open for season five. I think they could have ended it here. I think they have worked their way back into my good graces, because I was so frustrated with that show after season three and ready to do certain things. At this point, I imagine Jeremy Allen White kind of just wants to go off and do movies. Ready to do I mean at this point I imagine Jeremy Allen white Kind of just wants to go off and do movies movies. Yeah, I mean all I mean all of them Yeah, there's a franchise first. No my god. This is legitimately I think he doesn't bail until he has a franchise he needs his franchise before he can it's killing movies get made anymore

He'll be okay. He should have been wonka. He's been wonka. He's the boss Yeah, that could be a franchise. You know, watch the wrestling movie he was in? Yeah, it looked like the most surprising thing I've ever heard of. Hey, what else, guys? I beat Death Stranding 2. How long did it take you? It ends.

It concludes? It does conclude. There is an ending. It's fucking ridiculous. It's more ridiculous than the first game's ending if you manage to get to that. I'm not gonna spoil it. It does end. I think my play clock was like-

They made a special edition copy of the game and I'm 99% positive it spoils the end of the game. Like the actual toy statue. And I'm not a big spoiler person. I cannot believe that they made this. I was also surprised that that was there. Yeah, strange. I mean, it's, yeah, weird.

But as an ending... What was your play time? It was pretty epic and silly and touching at times. And I thought it was... How long am I going to have to play Death Stranding 2 to see this? Oh, well, this is a good question. Thanks. Because my playcock was like 85 hours long.

One, one, one more time. We may have just ended the besties. We may not be able to move forward from this. I've never even thought about measuring a penis in our length. That's cool. I don't know that we can recover. Anyway, did you say something about a penis? My friend, you did say game cock.

You said my game cock is 85 hours long. We all heard my game cock is 85 hours long. I mean, it's both my game clock and my game cock, so. No matter what you actually were saying, I'm disgusted. No matter whether I misheard or not, I'm equally disgusted by this segment. What I was going to say was, if you don't super duper care about unlocking all the connection prizes

that you get from leveling up your different people, I'd imagine it's probably beatable in like 45 hours. Did you like make an effort to? Hey, in the future, sane people might just save you some time. I really enjoyed this game. I really like it. I definitely don't 85 hours like it.

I might 45 hours like it. I'm glad to hear that that is possible. I do 85 hours like it and I am finally getting to the point where I'm like, hear that that is possible. I do 85 hours like it, and I am finally getting to the point where I'm like, there's a point about halfway through where it's not a spoiler, I will just say you meet a pizza chef, and you can really get lost in that. There's so much stuff to be done, so many highways to be built,

so many monorails to be built, so many highways to be built, so many monorails to be built, so many different people to help out, and I literally last night was up late playing it, and I was like, what the fuck am I doing? Yeah. Like, I'm not really unlocking much of anything at this point, but I am, I'm just like in it. I mean, you do unlock fun stuff from leveling up the people, but none of it is required. This is not me shitting on the game. I like Death Stranding 2 a lot.

If it was on Rock Allie, I'd be playing it nonstop. It is just, it is tough for me to plunk down in front of it. It's a commitment. Where plant is that right now? You could probably main line it and beat it in 10 hours, if I had to guess, maybe less. Although the ending is like a classic Kajume ending where it just keeps going. Yeah, also once you meet the pizza chef,

let me tell you this, you're gonna wanna max out the pizza chef. The pizza chef has some good stuff in him. You're gonna wanna take the time to spend with the chef. Hey, should we start doing a game tips segment of the besties? We should. Because I think that would go real smooth. Max out the pizza chef.

It's a great game. It's my game of the year so far. I still haven't played Blueprints, so maybe that'll change, but. Listen, I don't normally do this, but I want you guys to click on the link that I just dropped in the chat for you. I wanna talk about a controller real quick.

It's the Game Sur, Teganaria Lite wired game controller. Works on Switch, Android, iOS, PC, Steam. Game Sur is one of the producers. It's kind of hit and miss. It's usually better than it isn't. But the Game Sur Teganaria Light Wired Controller, I heard about it from Sex Weave and I watched, I went and got this controller. It's 15 bucks is the wild thing about this thing. It's got Rumble, it's got Hall of Fx sticks, it feels amazing. It's got two back buttons that you can program. Looks like a PS4 controller.

Looks like a PS4 controller, except I would say it is literally, it's probably the best feeling video game controller that I have ever used. It is 15 bucks. Oh my god God. Christ. It's wired. If that is a problem for you, then whatever. But like if you like that form factor and you need like I like to have a controller like a wired controller that I could just like plug in whenever when I don't want to screw around with with dongles or whatever. This is the best for that.

They've got two color ways. One is like a white with a light gray and orange buttons. And then there's like a much more PlayStation light. Classic PlayStation color way. Yeah. Gray. Gray, but like if you look at the buttons, there's like a little bit of accent color

that hints at the PlayStation buttons, what they used to be. And the gray also looks cool. The lights on the also looks cool. The lights on the controller look cool. The buttons feel really good. It's highly customizable, very malleable. You can press button combinations

that let you activate like turbo for different things, or there's like an Xbox and PC mode, so you can switch between those. It's a really great controller controller and it is 15 bucks, or 16 bucks right now. My Xbox Series X controller that I used to play Fortnite, I went through like a few of them where I just started getting stick drift

and I ended up getting a Game Sur replacement and I've been incredibly happy with it. Game Sur and 8-bit though are usually pretty legit. 8-bit though is almost always on point. Game Sur is pretty good. Sometimes their designs are a little bit like Mad Cat circa 2006 but yeah this one's amazing. Some people like that. Yeah. Yeah. I dig it. Is that it? That's it for this week. That's it for this week. Okay next week we are doing Peepee Strello and the Cursed Yo-Yo. I don't know if I pronounced Peepee Strello right.

Peepee Strello and the Cursed Yo-Yo. Came out back in May. We're a little late to it, but it'll be good. Should we make it clear? It's because we don't got Bonanza yet. The episode comes out when Bonanza comes out. Yeah, we will be getting Bonanza when Bonanza comes out. Is it Bonanza or Bananananza?

We gotta figure this out, guys. Is it Bonanza or Bananananza? Before we wrap the show, I do wanna thank a few members of Patreon at patreon.com slash the besties. We have Cecil, we have Jam, we have Emmy, and Sefi. We have Sammy, and Towel Report, we have still got those pre-orders available for towels, just a heads up.

Boy, we promised them, we promised no more towel content. We promised them. Yeah, I mean, everyone needs towels. Apparently, man, apparently, you invented towels, that's how they're selling. You're selling like these are the only towels in town. We're done. Let's get into the besties.

Be sure to join us again next week for the besties. The plate clock has run out. Because the plate cock has run out. We've come to the tip of the plane. Hey guys, I think I might have another towel. Hey, grab your towel because your plate cock is exploding. Be sure to join us again next week for the best news because choose the world's best friends, pick the world's best games.

No, actually, I don't think they should be allowed to. Besties!