The Besties - Ghost of Yotei Slashes Through Open-World Filler

Episode Date: October 3, 2025

The Besties were mixed on 2020’s Ghost of Tsushima, but have found a lot to love in its new sequel, Ghost of Yotei. What makes this open-world Sony-exclusive stand out? Plus, Griffin updates the group on the brilliant remake of Final Fantasy Tactics. And we make some time to pick through the mailbag! 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 was, uh, I was, uh, cleaning off my porch. Yeah. And I, I, uh, I was sweeping. And then I do this, I always do this thing where I start sweeping my porch. I think, God, God, I hate sweeping my porch. Yeah. And I remember, hey, you got that pressure washer. Oh, cool.

That's like, that's like sweeping. Now you're sweeping with power, you know, turbo power. So I do that thing I always do where I should be sweeping, but it's it. I get the fire washer. And I just started spraying it off. And then I look at my beautiful ladder. Rondock chairs that I made so many years ago, and I thought, while these things have seen brighter days, I'm going to give them a bit of a spit and polish and get some of this old

dust off of there. Oh, geez. Well, guys, my afternoon project is I'm going to be refinishing some chairs today. Oh, no. That decision was made pretty quickly. I was like, wow, this is looking great. Then I was like, wow, that's a splittered. I made splinters in this.

Oh, you fucked up your chairs. No, no, no, no, no, no, Russ. When you know how to work your wood, it's just an opportunity. for a craft. For more woodwork, yeah. More woodwork. I mean, they sound clean. They sound like mission accomplished.

No bird shit on these for sure. No, no, no. It got worse than that, Griffin, because then once I started doing that, then I realized, oh, man, I have to do this everywhere. So now it actually looks worse than when I started because I really lost interest in about halfway through. Yeah.

Yeah. I'm realizing that strategy would mess up the game we are talking about today. the ghost of yote minus bird shit you would not have a fucking clue where to go in this game true thank you birds it is the the guiding light it is a blight on japan all of the bird shit and justin you just need to travel over there

and work your magic work your magic please don't you would be you would be asked to leave the country very very quickly the bird shit is very holy all these tori gates are absolutely lovely and you just missed a submerged right there let me just uh Whoopsies. My name is Justin McRoy, and I know the best game of the week.

My name is Griffin McRoy, and I know the best games of the week. My name is Christopher Thomas Plant, and I know the best game of the week. It's sorry, Justin, do you have a bug in your house? Russ, say it. Just take a picture of it. The world is in my office. I don't know. Okay, hold on.

Just like, chill. Yeah, I need to say your name. Okay, my name is Russ Fruschka. I know the best game of the week. Welcome to the greatest and greatest home entertainment. Welcome to the best season. We're talking about the latest and based. If I'm not here, I have to trust that you're going to be able to do this.

We're crushing it. We're crushing it. Yeah. Ladies and the greatest is the home entertainment. I need to see this bug. So, uh, it's a video game club. You come a long way since Pac-Man. Yeah, they'll be sure.

Video game pubs, just like you absolute gumdrops. What are we talking about today, Chris? Oh, well, thank you, Justin. Today we're talking about Ghost of Yote. It is the sequel to Ghost of Sushima, big open-world game. You're doing all sorts of stuff like hunting down the Yote 6. And also, you're using bird poop to figure out where you should climb in the mountains. And also there's a horse.

But back to you, Justin, and I can't wait to hear more about that big, beautiful bug. Check the slack, Chris. I've got a live image for you coming to you live from Soshabu. Dude, that's a Dark Souls boss. So what I'm saying is that's why the podcast stopped on my end, guys. How many legs is that? There are so many legs on this thing. You can't count them.

That sucks, dude. Get out of there. Poor Rachel, who is also in our Slack room, just like getting absolutely no context on this one. Also, it's on a Kleenex box. So, like, if you didn't know it was there and you went and took out a Kleenex and you tried to blow your nose, you would have a bug going up into your skull, turn into it and do it. He didn't do a send the out. Hey, Plank, guess what I used to pick up bugs to take him outside? Tish.

Tish. Yeah. He knows. He's like already one step ahead of me. Or like 30. Look at his legs. Like, by, I mean, like, 30 steps ahead of me. Just like, because of all the feet.

So, ghost. So, Ghost, so, Goose. I left the picture up on my computer and now it's like the bug is here and there. You have two bugs now. We'll talk about Ghost of Yotae right after this break. We'll put that bad boy bug in the newsletter, won't we? Got to Oh yeah

I like that shit Spooky season We'll get that Identified And then someone will say Justin You have to move You can't live there anymore

Just burn the whole house I get that power washer You just start spraying That power washer Blast that bug to hill Like in the unreleased Sega City game Bug Blasters

Shoot the tubes Dog meat That's the re-release Sewer Shark Hey what do you guys think About Ghost of Yote Can I say Well okay

Can I ask Real quick 30 second goes to Sushima. How did you feel about that one? My very quick take is that I thought it was really cool and I liked it a lot. I thought, but then I kind of lost interest in it. It got kind of samey for me and I kind of bailed on it halfway through. But I thought it was really gorgeous and everything. I just didn't have staying power with me. Same for me. I love sucker punch and their games. I have lost my taste for open world games almost entirely. So like I kind of knew it

wasn't going to be my bag, but it seemed very polished and the combat I thought was pretty fun, but yeah, I bounced off goes to Sushima pretty quickly. I love sucker punch, love open world games, love beautiful spaces, love visiting Japan, did not like that game whatsoever. I found it dull. I found it slow to start, and I didn't even find it that pretty. I didn't like it that much, but this game, hmm, yummy, yummy. What about you, Russ?

Yeah, I pretty much feel the same way as plant, yeah, very slow, guided start in the first. game this definitely remedied that this one gets go in almost immediately which is really strong start really strong like kill bill style start of just like I'm gonna kill these fucking six dudes the game's going to start with me killing one of one of them they say Yote six but there's really just five because in the first 30 seconds you're killing one of them the tutorial is one of them and so yeah smoke this cat yeah it's about uh you see a family attacked uh by a group of warriors you have very little context for what's happening except that this girl's family has been

killed and they thought that they had killed her as well but they didn't kill her good enough because she's coming back to kill all of them and that's for a video game i think one of the best premises yeah yes and it really it hits it really well too because the first like bit of interactivity you have in the game is you you know flash forward and you are atsu the the main character in the game and you are painting the names of the Yote 6 on this sash that you're going to wear and you use the

dual sense, what is the controller you even called now? You use the touch pad use the touch pad to like form the kanji for these six villains names and it's really a really solid way to like this shit. I like it sparingly

I think it's used I think in a lot of first party Zodai games they do go a little bit too hard. Fortunately you can skip most of it in this game, which I appreciate. But I think that's a really, really, really, very strong start of like, here's the game, you're going to kill these six guys, and you're painting your hit list, and now it's time to get gone. And the thing is, this is not an original idea. One, it's not an original idea.

It's like so many Japanese movies, especially in the 60s and 70s. But also, games have done this. I feel like the most recent Assassin's Creed was doing a version of this. The most recent Assassin's Creed starts with you as a younger protagonist getting attacked by like a bunch of masked guys that you then have to go out and kill. I'm really glad to hear you say that because I thought I was like losing it a little bit.

The difference is this moves fast. That's the hook here, right? It moves boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. You are zipping through it. And it does a number of things that that Assassin's Creed game did. You are also going back and forth in time and kind of reliving experiences.

But here, again, all of these quality of life improvement. So when you want to go back in time and experience life before everything bad happened to your family, you will find a kind of like a ghost of a memory and you will press, I think it's the faceplate button, and you just instantly zip to it. They're finally using that technology from when they announced the PS5 where they were like,

you're going to zip, there's no more loads, you just zip everywhere. I will say, this is the, I'm playing on a PS5 professional. Nice. And I, for professionals. I don't know what you're talking about, man. The PS5 Pro for professionals

And Griffin didn't remember that a PS5 Pro happened With the rest of them It is uh The loading times are I will say that notably fat like Yeah I feel it not being there

Wait wait wait faster than what Like it feels fast I don't know how to say it other than when I start the game I'm playing the game quickly Yeah I think it's comparable for what it's worth To the normal PS5 because I also like did not. Right. I was just in case that is a factor.

Sure, sure, sure. I was what I played. You're on the professional I felt it. Like on the PS5 professional, for professional edition. The BS5 PE, as I call it, the interesting thing the thing that it is doing with the timelines

that I think is cool is that the flashbacks are used, they're very brief. You're not usually stuck in them for a very long time and you're jumping back and fourth to just when it makes sense right so you're not so uh they use it for tutorials a lot which i think is very cool like if you if it needs to teach you a skill it will have you learn that skill as a child and then it's immediately applied in your so you don't get that like kind of nonsensical

like learning you already know it right it's it's more framed like a refresher they also do smart stuff with like in one of the early flashback missions you're like trying to find this runaway horse and you're running around with your dad and at one point he places a charm in this hollow tree stump and it's like supposed to help the flowers grow nearby and then you go on and you do the rest of this little tutorial thing you can come back there later when you're playing as an adult and I was like oh I wonder what's up and if you get close to the tree stump out who says like I wonder if that charm's still there and it is so there's things where it's like you're hiding things in the past and you can find them in the present which is really neat but the game

So the game part, though, it's, I remembered the last one being more stealth focused, I think. And for me, I really feel like this even more than the last one was more of like a balance. This feels very, like, heavily into combat. Like, for example, when you are in a base and trying to, like, selfily kill the different soldiers and you pick them all, one by one, you almost immediately have a prompt that's like, hey, do you want to start a stand off and just kick this off and fight them all? Like, no, I don't. Like, clearly I don't. Why are you giving me both the assassinate prompt and the sword fight prompt? Like, no, I don't. Yeah, there's, skill trees where you can go down either way. Ghost of Sushima made such a big deal out of

the main character, I think his name was Jen, I want to say. Right, it was about the duality He was a samurai, an honor-bound samurai who had to learn to basically fight dirty so that he, you know, could make a dent in the opposition, which so heavily outnumbered him. So it was about, like, how does he, you know, integrate these stealth maneuvers or, you know, dirty tricks or whatever into his honor-bound samurai ways? And this game does not fucking care at all, dude. concerned about dirty ways she just wants to fucking kill these guys I love that shit I really really do appreciate that a lot and it's a

really good character it's a fun character who has you know obviously is has had a lot of stuff go bad but is really seems to enjoy what she does like like it like in a weird way is like taking

joy in this journey like she doesn't really have much of a plan she's just kind of let the wind guide her towards whatever person she wants to murder next

but like there does seem to be like a savoring of it because she's not getting her family back and I think

that there is a realization on her part that this is it for her like this the vengeance is what she

is getting out of this and she seems to enjoy it more than some characters I can't tell you how many dialogue sequences I've had

where she is fucking derrenched in blood head to toe drenched in the viscera of others and she's like Like, hey, did you have any hats?

This raises a question. There are a number of modes in this game inspired by Japanese filmmakers and artists, one of them being Mika mode, named after Takashi Mika. Did you pick that mode? Did you turn that on? No, I was playing without that.

I tried it a little bit just to see what it was like, but I'm sure it's even more absurd. You are just everything is covered in mud and blood. It is Goop the video game. Really quickly, on those modes, such a great idea because open world games, you spend so much time just being in the space and it kind of can wear out. It's welcome. It can get dull. I think that's why a lot of people listen to podcast when they play open world games, right? And it gives you these different options to change the vibe for whatever you're feeling in that moment. And most impressively, they actually work. Like the layers are not entirely. artificial, in my opinion. So there's a Kurosawa mode that makes things black and white. It's a hard way to play because you can't spot items as well, but it...

I would add not just black and white. It also adds like a film grain filter to it and also crunches the audio such that it sounds like you're listening to like an old fucking movie, which is very cool. That's pretty rare. Hey, Russ, did you have any problems with the colors and the period? Yeah, yeah. There's some colorblind issues in this game. There are accessibility features that make the game easier.

for people but there's like i think there's a yellow and orange that i like yes every single time on yellow yeah yellow attacks are like you have to parry them exactly and red attacks you have to dodge out of the way yeah sort of yellow attacks are disarm attacks that's right yeah you have to hold that it doesn't i just dodge play the gate play the fucking one of those i want to know how to counter the boss a level three i i really like the combat in this game uh a lot i tend to, you know, try to play it stealthy once I get into a place, but after I pick off a few people, I'll do that, like, standoff, which is very stylish, and it helps you take out, you know, one or two guys. But then the fighting feels very, um, it's, I, I would say it's sort of more

in the kind of, like, Arkham Asylum style, like you point one stick to, uh, sort of aim your attack at the enemy you want to attack, and then it's a question of, like, either breaking their stance or, uh, doing a perfect parry, or it's, it's less, about sort of chipping away at health bars, unless you're in a boss fight, in which case, it's very much about chipping away at health bars. But the rest of the time, it's very much like if you get a few hits off on a guy, you're going to kill him. And I really like the speed of that. It feels like a lot of dynamism in the combat, because you are doing a lot of, like, oh, that guy just died. He dropped his sword on the ground. I'm going to pick up the sword

and throw it at this guy for an instant kill. That's such a cool. That's such a cool. Throw some sand in this guy's face and get in there while he's not, yeah. closest yet to Bushido Blade as an open world combat system in that. I'd agree with that, yeah. I hope as you get advanced, you're able to go back to these places and just mow through. I really want more of like a tap, tap, tap, where I'm just like level in the place. Let me just say one other thing about the, that's really important to the base combat that we didn't touch on. You have to match weapon types.

So as you go through, one of the smartest things that it does is that it, ties weapons to characters in the game, right? So it really quickly establishes these characters and forces you to care about them because they are also the one with the gun. Or, like, they'll only talk about, like, there's this crazy guy, he lives out on this mountain and he has two swords, if you can believe that.

And everybody's like, no way, how does he not cutting his balls off every day? You're like, I'm going to go find that guy. They're like, really... So you're about the guy that fights with a long staff on an island? It's like, okay, I'll go check about. ...training montages, too. They really make you feel like you're earning. it's not like you talk to a guy and it's like a little you know badge appears and it's like you can use two swords now like you've got to do the two swords

is so clever I don't want to it's really good that is I know I think it's worth talking about just that one it's it's early enough in the game and I think it's useful so I want to talk about the two swords thing because a thing this game does incredibly is use your actual senses so Griffin already talked about the writing the kanji with it right and you can feel it there When you are making your cooking fish, you're flipping the controller kind of up and down to, like, move the fish around using the gyroscope. This isn't new, but it's just using them in all the right places. And then for the two swords, it is giving you QTEs that are basically impossible. So you're learning to use the left hand for the sword. So it's like, okay, you need to QTE within a second, L1, L3, L3, up, down, right? right left on the pad and it's just not doable

and it feels terrible it is a game that actually just turns how miserable using the L3 button is into an idea inside of the game and then as you progress you get easier and easier QTEs to the point that it starts to feel natural

it's so clever it's some indigo prophecy shit we can call what we want but it's quantum dream as hell but it's the good quantum dream shit yeah yeah I think it's great. Really tickled. How do you guys feel about, I really do appreciate how quick everything kind of feels like you figure out, you get a mission.

It's like, oh, go to this cave. There's a shrine there. You go to this shrine and it's like, you got a skill point. Now you can unlock one of these things for the tree. There's not a ton of shit that it makes you do in order to learn that idea. And then it's like, oh, you find maps and you sort of lay those maps over your map. And that helps you find the other shrines. You go there and you get a skill point.

point. That is streamlined in a way that I do appreciate quite a bit. I know when I see a hot spring in the distance, like I can run to that. If I see smoke in the distance, that's probably a camp with some characters or a vendor or something like, I appreciate how the game stays out of its own way for the most part. So you just kind of know like, okay, if I go there. And I think that's a staple of Sucker Punch's games. I think Sucker Punch makes great open worlds where you know if I go here, this will happen and I'll get this sort of like boost. I'll get this up. upgrade. I find the running from point A to point B to be a bit, a bit long in the tooth. You have a horse who is pretty fast, but anytime I look at my map and I'm like, I want to go there so I can like get this new thing, but it's going to take, it's going to be quite a bit of running through fields. That is like my own personal gripe. That's sort of, if I feel like my time is being wasted in an open world game, I feel it. I feel like a bit more intensely. But there's such, there's like instant fast travel like you only have to do that really once like once you get to a location like you are basically no i know for sure there's like beautifully rendered like and you only have to

go through it once i don't think that that i don't know it didn't feel slow to me there are i think there are pacing issues to this game that aren't that because justin's right like you really just have to go once and i know you didn't do as much of the main story stuff griffin but i think that's where this game wears a little bit two hats at points because I think the open world side mission stuff, you're right, goes incredibly quickly. You're doing side missions, you're killing guys, you get the skill point, blah, blah, blah.

Once you start doing mission missions, like story missions, this is not a knock per se, but like that's where the bulk of the time was spent in narrative and cutscenes, none of which are skippable. It should be noticed. It should be noted.

So you are watching those cutscenes. And if you decide, as I did at one point, I was like, oh, I'm in this new area. I'm just going to like see through to the end of this storyline to see what happens, it's a lot of start and stop. Like, I wouldn't say Kajima level, but in the ballpark of Kijima level

in terms of start and stop when you're doing the main story stuff, which to me, I got to be real, there are definitely times, even though I like a lot of the cutscenes, there are definitely times I was like, I should be able to skip these cutscenes. Some you can skip.

You can skip some cuts. Just the like cooking food stuff you can skip. I don't know. I mean, sometimes if you're like in a conversation, you pause sometimes it'll say like hold X to but it's like almost it's very very very rare yeah you can yeah

and there's some you just can't but there's a lot you can pause it's like less essential usually side quest data stuff it is interesting because you have a lot of freedom in the order in which you do stuff right we kind of talked beforehand about sort of which of the Yota 6 we were going to push towards

because you really get yourself in a pretty long quest chain you know for a mission that i will say does start to feel like even though you could stop in the middle of one of those those they don't really feel like they want you to yeah they feel like they roll into each other each mission after it very much does once you're on one of those trails and it and that does start to feel like it starts to feel little itchy you know what i mean like i'd like to do something else and i want to go i want to go play the game and it's so enjoyable i feel like that is the one

I sort of struggled with that like, why can't I skip the... I'm 44. Why can't I skip the cutscene if I want to? They added a new game plus mode that let you skip the cutscenes in new game plus, which honestly makes me even more aggravated because they knew it was something that people

might have wanted to do, so just let me do it. The cutscenes are good. They're well directed. They're well acted. The writing is quite good. But it's just like, yeah, I want to see more of the game and maybe I have 20 minutes and maybe I don't want to spend that watching.

So having that option. That's the thing. It's like I realistically, I don't know if I'm going to get to the end of this or not, but I'd like to experience more of it. And, you know, I've been watching movies and TV shows a lot. I think the sucker punch folks are really talented. They're not exactly reinventing the wheel narratively. You know what I mean?

Like, I get it. Some of these tales. I've maybe heard some form of them before. Yeah. But, yeah, the linearity of it, too, is just of a different style and maybe even a different era. the game looks very open world. It does a good job of tricking it,

and especially without many load times, it can pull this off. But there are a lot of times where you are shimmying between rocks and you're entering a level. Or especially when you start to chase on the Yota 6, it's like, oh, I'm going to climb in the mountain, and then a cutscene happens

and suddenly you're in the mountain and you're in the mountain level. This isn't, it's not bad or good. It's just a style, But it feels so seamless. I want to be careful that I'm not knocking it because in the moment I felt like I was all in the same world. They do a good job of conveying that. But once you go down a path, you can get kind of locked into it.

My hang up with open world games, it's almost always like if I feel like this would be better served as a more linear experience, not completely linear. It doesn't have to be like a ninja guidance game where it's like you're going from level one to level two, the level three. I really like playing the game. I like the combat.

I like the cut scenes. I like the acting. I like the writing. It is the, and there is fast travel to places that you have been before. But I don't know. It always kind of felt like a drag to me

the moments where I wasn't doing that stuff. And that is, I wasn't doing which stuff. Very much a personal, a personal gripe. For me, an open world is. Would you like there to be a radio on the horse that you listen to a station or something?

A station or something. A, a, I think that the game, it gets out of its own way in terms of, like, not overcomplicating its systems or overcomplicating its exploration. But, like, I'm not having that, you know, tears of the kingdom moment where I'm like, I'm going to go there. And on my way, I get distracted by 50 things. And I discover so many things. And I get waylaid. And now I'm doing this dungeon. Now I'm doing this cool thing. Now I'm doing this cool thing. Like, it's a beautiful open world, but it doesn't have that sort of like vibrant density of like experiences that maybe i want out of this i've had

that moment for what it's worth i've had the like i'm riding to this mission and like three other things happen on the way that i like chased down so it's they do it pretty organically too you'll see like some wildlife the birds are cool like because a bird will like hove in your field of you and like where are you going pal if you follow him you will usually lead you to towards something interesting yes i think the difference between what griffin's talking about and what happens in this game is you're in Zelda and you come across a camp and then you just can fight in the camp where you can walk away.

Here, you'll find people at a camp and you will consciously decide to talk with them and initiate a new like mission sequence. You kind of like... I think Griff may want more like arrows maybe? Is it maybe an arrows? Maybe more arrows that were sort of like... That's it. Yeah, if I had fire arrows or freeze arrows.

No, I mean, Chris actually hit on it. It's like if I come across a camp with like three dudes chilling around a fire. It's like, I guess I can hang with you guys. I'm going to kill the people who kill my parents, but like, I guess I could grill fish with you and play some tunes around the campfire. Yeah, man, it's kicks out. Yes.

Like, do you not like video games? Like, I do like, I do like video games. I like a lot of parts of this video game. You rest at camp sometimes and characters that you know in the game will just come up and be like, hey, it's so good to see you. Do you want to buy a map? But if I hit a camp right after I camped with a young boy who's like,

let me teach you how to cook mushrooms. And then I run 100 feet and I run into a camp of traitors. I can't be like, sorry, guys, I just camp. I can't fucking camp with you guys. I literally just camped a few minutes ago. I want to hear more about Final Fantasy from Griffin, but one last thing on this game. I just hope that more open world designers follow the lead here of UIs are gross in open world games.

You're there because the world is beautiful and I want to spend less time in the maps. And a fast start, y'all. Start, make people have fun in the first hour of the game. Don't start your game in a mine. Come on. Hey, we're back. And I'm very excited because Final Fantasy Tactics is a game that I have always wanted to get into. I've tried a few times.

I bounced off every one of those times. And I've been hearing word that this is my opportunity to get into it. Can I ask you an embarrassing question? Is tactics one game? Is Final Fantasy Tactics one game or is that a franchise? So there's Final Fantasy Tactics Advance was the other big one. And then Final Fantasy Tactics basically advanced two on the DS, I want to say. But those are sort of like standalone.

Where it gets a little bit weird is the world of Final Fantasy Tactics is Evalise, which is also the world of Final Fantasy 12 and Vagrant story. if you remember that little PS1, Jim, but you don't need to know any of that shit. It's completely its own sort of. But this is a remake. We're talking about a remake of the original game that came out on PS1.

Yes, so, a bit of backstory. Final Fantasy tax came out in 1997 on the PS1 and was beloved, a big, dense story. It was the first Final Fantasy game that came to the States that had like a job system where you could pick the different jobs and abilities of all of your different characters

on your team. this was before like Final Fantasy 5 and 3 and the other sort of ones that had those systems finally came to stateside. So it was like a, it was a big deal. And I would say in so much that a Final Fantasy game can be a cult classic, like was a cult classic on the PS1. Then in 2000 and something, maybe 2007, they remade it for the PSP called Final Fantasy Tactics War of the Lions. There was also a iOS version that I think was based on War of the Lions that just added some extra content. But most importantly, had a retranslation because the PS1 translation had some issues. This was much more Shakespearean sort of text.

The original was or the remake? The retranslation for War of the Lions. It is a very, very dense story about a sort of war of succession following this like 50-year conflict between these kind of. of like rival princes and there's a lot of castle intrigue and there's a lot to follow this game Final Fantasy Tactics, the Evil East Chronicles is what this new version is called. Very wisely provides a lot of like memos and charts to help you like keep track of like, you know, who is Duke Larg and Duke Goltona and I actually think that that stuff is pretty valuable. It seems like they're doing more of that after what was it, Final Fantasy 16 where they have like wikis as

you're playing the game to, like, keep you up to speed. And it's, I think that is really, really valuable in a game like this. Because it is, it's a clipy. I want to, right, it's created all the time. It's like, oh, you want to know about Zinny. It is a way more ambitious story than I think any of, certainly any of the Final Fantasy games that came before tactics, right? Final Fantasy 7 and before, which were very much like, you know, there's a world of

espers and it's leaking into our world and people want to take control and use them for magic to take over the world. This is like, hey, there's this, there's a war of succession. Like, it's going to be fucking kind of complicated, keeping track of who's doing what. And I really think that this game does a, this version of the game does a great job of helping you follow all that stuff. It is a tactical RPG. You have different units that you are customizing, picking their jobs. As you play and do stuff with those units, they get job points that you use and you go through and say like, oh, I want this white mage ability and this white mage ability. and then I'm going to switch over to black mage and unlock some abilities and mix and match the two.

And it's like a firearm thing where like this class is strong against this other class? Is it stuff? No. No. It's more of a final fantasy type thing where it's like this unit is weak to blizzard. There's like elemental weaknesses. But there isn't that like spear type units beat this type units. It's more like you have attack and defense stats, like more traditional sort of Final Fantasy RPG sort of

fundamentals. And all of the customization stuff is really fantastic. It's really one of the best things about the game because you really can customize your units to make them whatever you want them to be. If you are noticing like, hey, I'm actually lacking in some like raged combat capabilities. Like you can make one of your units like specialize directly in that. And experimenting with that stuff is really fun and really rewarding. The writing is and they done some expansion of they used the War of the Lions translation for this version of the game the writing is really I think heads and shoulders beyond any final fantasy that has that certainly came before tactics and maybe since it is a story about after this 50 years war came to this kind of like brutal stalemate very costly war and after the war ended all of the rich people and royals are like fine. They're like, okay, they came out of it pretty well. And they're like, let's just get back to

work. Let's figure out who's going to be the next king. Whereas all of the commoners and people who like fought and died and sacrificed in the war are treated like garbage. They are not, they are, they are, uh, a lot of them become these like roving bands of thieves and, uh, scoundrels because like they weren't catered to. They weren't seen to after they gave all of this like bloodshed for the, the, the, you know, kingdoms in which they lived. And so the story is said in that backdrop of you are a royal heir, basically, you are a member of this noble house bail. And you have a friend, your best buddy who is like a commoner. And like pretty much right away, you guys are sort of thrown into the thick of this class conflict. And it's really interesting, really fast. And it makes you care about the characters in the game very, very quickly. And also has a fucking lot to say, man. about class and about fascism and about how we sort of how people are treated who go above and beyond and give the most for their, you know, society and the people who are in charge of them.

I think that shit is great. Really quick, would you mind if I read the letter from the original script scenario writer Yasumi Matsuno on the I would love nothing more. I'd mind. It sounds boring, but okay. It's not going to be. It's so good. So this is the writer from the original game, right?

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

It was an era when many were robbed of hope, when dreams were measured by their price tag. I'll fast forward down the statement to the end. And now in 2025, a time, when inequality and division are still deeply rooted in our society, I offer the story once again. The will to resist is in your hands.

Wow. Maybe the best person I've ever. That's pretty good. It's good shit and it really truly, not an exaggeration, so relevant and so prescient and so effective. It is an effective thing

to play a game that has a story that resonates with the current situation so clearly and so well. I there's a lot of these stories that sound like things I'd like to experience but I never I'm sure what time commitment I'm looking at here right we what are we talking about for this I mean it depends on how much you want to like get lost in the systems of you know customization it's me yeah let's assume it's you um I can I tell you the truth I don't know I've

never finished the game because it has been kind of there have been there have been a lot of I've had a lot of issues with the games like opening difficulty curve is quite quite steep because you don't have all these things unlocked. You don't have your team of like specialists. You know, you're pretty weak when you start out. This game offers you difficulty settings for the first time. If you want to play on easy mode until you get like more of your footing and then you can switch it, you can do that. I do appreciate that a whole lot. So you can minimize some of the grinding and farming that you might need to do. So yeah, you might have to Google to see like how long a time commitment you are talking about. There are a lot of ways to automate combat.

If you do want to just kind of like farm, farm shit out and get stronger, you can totally do that if you so choose. How long? What do you think? Can we talk about graphics? Yeah, sure. What do you? I always think this is interesting because I think that any time you're doing a remaster or reissue or whatever, there's a balance you're striking between preservation and, you know, right, modernity. But what do you think?

I think they did a pretty good job, actually. I think it is, they have done a lot of work with the sprites to kind of like soften them. and make them look good on like an HD screen and add some subtle vignetting. It almost looks like CRT. There's some CRT effect. Yeah, it's a little grainy, but in like a purposeful way.

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

That would be a much more ambitious deal. I think it looks great. I think I do enjoy the way the game works. Unfortunately, if you want to play it with the original visuals, you can do that, but you lose all of the quality of life stuff. Like the difficulty settings, there is a option to switch into a top-down camera for the first time, which is kind of important because this is a game where you're going through these sort of, it's an isometric view. And, you know, sometimes there will be a building in the way that you have to kind of like adjust the camera to get around. being able to switch to this bird's-eye view really does help with that. There's a lot of little stuff like that that makes it a much more, I don't know, enjoyable experience to play.

It's a lot of the pixels. Looks like these aliases have been anti-D. I think it looks fan. I think it looks really, really good. I do enjoy it. I do kind of wish that it had that level of polish that, like, Octopath and those more recent 2D3D games have had. But I've gotten the furthest in it in this version of it than I ever have because I find that. that the stuff that has always been really great about the game is, you know, as good as it's ever been.

And a lot of the things that have, you know, scared me off of the game are, have been smoothed out. The dragons, the spiders. Yeah, the dragon, the skeletons. There's a fast, there's a fast forward button. There's masks in there. There's not crazy about masks. There's like a vacuum cleaner, weirdly, is one. There is a fast forward button you can sort of like hold to toggle whenever you are like,

going through fights, and it's the enemy's turn, and you don't want that to take fucking forever. Like, I don't know, it's, they've done a lot of really smart stuff, and I think it's great. There is some content from the War of the Lions that is missing, like a few additional classes, a few, like, guest characters like Balthier from Final Fantasy 12 stopped in, and could, like, join your team in, in War of the Lions,

and he's not in this one. So that's like, kind of-spawn, Link, Master Chief, Yoda. So, like, that's kind of disappointing. I think that, you know, you want it to be the definitive, authoritative version of the thing. But I do think it's the most approachable version of a game that is truly timeless. And I don't use that word lightly. I think that the story is important. And I think that the gameplay, if you like tactics games, like Russ, I think this would hit for you.

I think as much as you like Fire Emblem. I genuinely think this would be the version of the game that you could sink your teeth. That's really the big question for me is like, can that Fire Emblem interest translate? Because I've always had trouble like keeping in my head. head the like final fantasy magic strength weakness thing whereas like a fire emblem was always so linear of like oh bow guys are always great against these guys and that's no but it does actually keep the battles like on uh using firearm as a comparison like most of the time you're gonna be working with like four five six units on your team tops and like you will know them very well

because you have customized them and and managed yeah that's cool there's per there's perma death in the game if one of your units falls you have three rounds to revive them and if you don't they're fucking gone. And so that's sort of like, adds a little bit of pressure, but it's like a very manageable pressure as long as you are careful. And I think it's great. I think it's really, really great. I was fully expecting to dip into this and be like, yeah, they've made these changes and

it's cool. But I keep coming back to it and I keep playing it. And I think it'll probably be the first time I have finished this game. And it's cool to, I'm such a huge Final Fantasy fan. And now I feel like I have finally unlocked this like big piece of the puzzle. The final. The final. I don't know.

It just kills me that this fucking thing came out now when it's like, oh, we're spending a ton of time on Yote and by 80s, and so exciting.

It's just like, it feels like it would have been the perfect January mid- Yeah, it would be a great January game for sure. But yeah, that's Final Fantasy Tactics

the Evil East Chronicles. We want to do some honorable mentions or mailbag, what we got? We can do a couple mail bags in them. Oh, fuck. I just opened up Slack

to find document working out of and the bug pick was picked up and was pulled up and scared me. We have a couple reader mails. This is from a little while ago, but Bass Toad was calling out Pocopia as the only thing that they will think about until its release.

I am incredibly excited about Pocopia. It will dominate my entire life. That is, for those they don't remember, the Minecraft Pokemon thing. Oh, yeah, it's going to fuck up this household in a major way. I'm incredibly excited for that. Josh wrote in to say, you guys got to try Clover Pit.

It's been described as Bellatro-like, which was an instant buy for me. Have you guys heard about this game? I watched a Northern Lion gameplay video of it yesterday. It's like a slot machine. I believe Buckshot roulette sort of lightly inspired kind of hell. That's funny. I would have guessed. I would have guessed Luck be a landlord.

No, it's much more gritty and it. It looks like there is a sort of constant threat of death. And a lot of, you know, Satan stuff, which you don't, I don't love. Yeah, Satan's okay. But, yeah, no, it looks pretty good. You don't love Satan? Yeah. I don't love the Dark Lord?

Scary. Scary. Scary stuff. You're going to be mad when you just hear how much of Capcom he just bought. This letter comes from James. Watching Travis and Griffin play baby steps was an absolutely surreal. experience very funny probably won't pick it up myself but look forward to watching other streamers suffer yeah i think our plan is to do it next next week me justin and travis trying to like

split up the controls of them i mean the game is hard and entertaining with one human being you don't necessarily need to add more variables to it but dudes listen Justin can speak to this too something really interesting this this series we do uh i call it a series but it's like a thing we do on Clubhouse sometimes called six thumbs one heart playing games like that has been such a transformative type of like playing Super Mario World

I think is when it was like kind of firing at all cylinders where one of us was jumping one of us was moving with the D-pad and one of us was like doing the other button it really playing a game with that kind of multiplayer experience is really fascinating it really is pretty interesting to see

there's some things that you get easier because you're only thinking about one thing, right? So you're not actually having to multitask. What's weird is like the only way it actually works is if, you know, if you play, if you were to play Super Mario Brothers one right now, you wouldn't think about how to play it, right? You would pick it up and just do the buttons. The only way this works is if the other people's hands are doing what you assume your own hands would be doing. Like you have to trust that they are doing what you would be doing, right? But with a game like, and that's a game that's designed to be done by one person, Babysseps is designed to be

hard when it's done by one person it's like too much to think about when you're just like one leg like I know how to keep one leg up maybe but it's fun it is truly fun to play a game like Travis and I got into some some grooves where like I was controlling the the pitch and the off of the body and he was doing the feet and like we would get into a pretty stable groove and like it feels great like it feels really really good when you can pull that off I think it's a fun way to to play games that like if you set your shit up with you know whatever remote play software is able to use is not that hard to set up. And I think even if Russ doesn't think our video

sounds very good, we'll still do our best to make sense of that, Justin. I was thinking that, I wasn't saying it. Yeah. We have some honorable mentions. Anyone have anything off the top of their heads? Yes, but come back to me. Okay, I'll go.

I beat Baby Steps, good segue. I finished that game. Wow, nice. It was... Still feel as strongly about it? Unquestionably in my... Probably. my top three of the year right now. Wow. Okay. I fucking love that game. Just like player agency

and exploration stuff is just scratching every it for me. I hope more people do try it. I think the demo is still live if you wanted to like try a free version, but I've just been totally blown away by the whole experience. A lot of dicks though, just a heads up. The other thing I've been playing a little bit more of it, everybody's golf hot shots, which has been patched a few times and now runs not perfect but pretty okay

on Steam Deck. I know it runs a lot better on a more powerful device but they are getting closer to like getting the bar to run smoothly to the point where I can actually play it and so I've been enjoying that quite a bit.

The other thing I wanted to call out was this video on YouTube the creator is Annie Austin and the premise of the video is do Red Dead Redemption 2's power lines connect to anything? Oh, I saw that. that thumbnail.

I didn't watch it, but I saved it later. Any Austin has been doing these, like, uh, basically like land management videos about large scale open world games. And this was one of the more recent ones. And what is totally insane is every single fucking house in Red Dead Redemption 2 that has electricity is connected to an electric wire that if you follow the electric wire all over the landscape, it will eventually lead into St. Deney, which is the like big,

Louisiana city, New Orleans City. And in St. Dene it leads to a fucking power station. That's cool. That's cool. I like that. So he did a really good job. A lot of his other videos are excellent, so I definitely recommend checking him out. That's any Austin on

YouTube. I've played a bit more Hades too. Yeah. Yeah. Have you been dipping back in, juice? Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it's really good.

It's good. I feel like I still am not hitting, like, the stuff that feels so obviously new, and maybe, like, I need to put more time into it to get to that shit. I know there's whole areas and stuff. Do you think that's a mental thing, though? Do you think that's a result of you having played it previously, like, so long ago you don't remember? It was a really long time ago. I tell you what I struggle with is that I feel like it is kind of hitting the same pleasure centers of my brain as Megabonk.

And Megabonk is all new, baby, and it's all fast. And it's all, it's all good. I played the fucking demo of Megabonk and I was like, I cannot play this game. This is going to ruin my fucking life. It looks. Megabonk will fuck you up. It looks so fucking good. I loved what I played.

But it was just like, this is not the right time a year for this game. Yeah. I've hit a wall in Megabonk where it's too, like the further levels are too hard. And I can't make much progress in it. Just a refresher, Megabonk was the 3D vampire survivors. The Empire Survivor's game. Yeah. But it is very, like, it is very much a.

You pick it up once and play it, and you're like, oh, it kicks ass. Travis has gotten into Megabonk, which is, it's not typically his style of game to dip into. I also want to shout out, I've been watching Only Murders in the Building this season. It's been a really good season. I don't know if you guys have, you know, still fuck with that show, but it's so fun. The, like, swings they take with the mysteries are so big, and it moves at, like, a really nice clip, which I appreciate. There's no episodes that feel like, oh, they're just kind of spinning their wheels. like they are constantly kind of like, you know,

raising the stakes and putting the three main characters into increasingly, you know, sort of outrageous situations. So yeah, been liking that. Nice. Anyone else? You know, not really. Should I get a power washer, Justin? What?

I mean, power wash simulator, for real. Should I get one? Seems like fun. What? Seems like fun. You live in like an apartment. I mean, it is a lot of fun, but you got to have a hose to plug into it. and generates a lot of water.

I have a balcony. I have someone for that water to go. You've got a balcony? I think your name is would be a good idea. I think your name is going to be wicked pissed. No, I want, I'll use my time here to say. There are a lot of YouTube channels that I've been enjoying lately that are not focused on consumption of games, but rather on like creation or like not consumption of

new stuff, I'll say. So I just wanted to mention a few of those channels I've really enjoyed lately. one that me and my kids have liked a lot is Sayaka's digital attic it's a woman who restores like old consoles and old games like cartridges themselves it's very relaxing and soothing and you learn so much about how these things are like assembled and you see her process for going through it's very satisfying the girls even though they have no awareness of these old consoles find it really interesting and enjoy watching it so that channel has been great of course retro game core we love our friend good Russ over there he's always doing great stuff if you want to get into that I have also been enjoying a channel called tech dweeb is embarrassing as that name might sound to an initiated but one thing I he does a lot of retro game coverage of like Android game consoles and things like that but like every other video on the channel is something about like a creative project like he put out

that, like, just this week, while, you know, a lot of channels that are in the retro game space are in, in the tech space, I would say writ large, you see this in a lot of technology. People seem to just be looking for an excuse to put out affiliate links. So it's very biased towards like the new, the latest and greatest because if you click through their video to buy the thing, then they get a little bit off the top. So you're not really incentivized to not make videos about new products. But like half of tech. week's videos are creative things like the newest one is make your own retro style four by three monitor and it's like a absolute step by step bare bones from the beginning

like DIY process of making like a cool repainted monitor yourself for very cheap he made a practical version of balatro that you play with physical cards and that's one of the videos but it's like three videos a week it's wild this guy's output they're all

a joy to watch. But those are a few when those channels pop up, I really I find it very relaxing. It's something I really look forward to. So, yeah.

The last one I mentioned is cultured vultures. They do a lot of like console based like things you may have missed on certain consoles, hidden gems, videos. And they're some of like

the best produced and really fascinating. I always find a lot of great recommendations to stuff I should go back and check out. So those are If you want to just experience games Rather than buy games

That's a fun way of doing it Cool Very quickly Frank Lance, friend of the show Has a new video game coming out And you can play a demo of it right now And let me tell you you all are going to want to play This shit out of this

It is called Q Up The letter Q Up And it is the future of Esports I'm serious y'all coin flipping heads or tails Esports it's coming at you and let me tell you this game is committed to 50 50 fairness every time

and can you also get upgrades that make it you know a little bit easier for you yes you can but does the game also evolve to guarantee it all times 50 50 100% fairness yes it does okay frank's gonna be really pissed at how terrible that pitch was no i don't think you will man I think that's what the game is. It's about 50-50 fairness, 100% of the time. 100% randomness, 100% of the time. So is it a joke? This looks fucking insane.

It's about, it's the future of e-sports. What do you mean? Is it a joke? It's coin flipping. It's the future of e-sports. It says it's part clicker. In what way would it be a clicker? It's about having 100% fairness and 100% randomness 100% of the time.

I don't know what else you want me to take. tell you about this game. It seems like you're trying to figure out if there's maybe something else going on. And I don't know what you're talking on. I mean, he's always got to try to break. Is it Frog Fractions 3? Like, is that what's going on? Oh, dang.

Is there Frog Factions 3 now? Maybe. It's a coin flipping e-sport video game and I think you should play this. Is there actually multiplayer in this or is it like a meta first? I'll be honest with you about that part. I'm still not sure. it both has told me that there is and there isn't the the here here okay i don't want to spoil much of this game i'll just say read the full terms of service when you're playing the game and that'll give you

a very clear idea of what you're getting it's from universal yeah right i forgot frank work on universal paper clips that's right so yeah it's from that team uh i think they are not allowed to say multiplayer on the steam page if it doesn't have multiplayer so it probably does I don't think they're allowed to fuck around with that Gabe would get so pissed with his knives I would say there is a point in the game where it tells me that it is single player but then also at a point where it tells me it is

When is this game coming out? It just is coming soon. I don't know, man. It's always been out, man. Or it's not out. It's never going to come out or it's always been out. It's one of those sort of games. Wild.

It's so good. I think we did it. I wanted to thank some members of the Patreon over at patreon.com slash the besties. We have Paul S. We have Benjamin W. We have David D. And we have Teresa S.

Thank you for being patrons of the besties. Just as a reminder, we have a new $10 tier. If you wanted to have ad-free episodes of the main feed, in addition to all the bonus content that you were getting on the $5 tier, you can definitely do that as well. Throw us some extra bucks. We really greatly appreciate it. And I think next week we're doing a very scary game that I'm scared of.

Silent Hill F. Just say fuck. It's actually pronounced Silent Hill. Hif. I'm looking forward to that. Be sure to join us again next time for the besties. Because shouldn't the world's best friends pick the world's best games. Besties!