The Besties - Into the Aether of Hell with Hades 2

Episode Date: May 17, 2024

The Besties went through HELL to record this episode. With Griffin and Justin out, Frushtick and Plante prepared to record with a special guest. But after Plante spilled water all over his recording set up, Frushtick was left to talk about Hades 2 as the sole Besty. Fortunately, he had back up. Into the Aether's Brendon Bigley joined the show for the podcast crossover event of the year! 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!

So we have a interesting podcast today. It is going to be me and a very special guest in Brendan Bigley of the Enter the Ather podcast for really interesting reasons. We're going to we're going to pull back the curtain, so to speak, and let you in on what happened. So as some of you might know, Griffin and Justin are on tour this week. They will be back next week. And that's fine, we're gonna have Brendan here and Chris Plant was gonna join. In about 30 seconds before we started recording this morning, Chris Plant, with a heaping glass of what I assume to be cold, cold ice water, spilled it all over his mixing board and audio stuff. So it turns out that audio and water don't mix and his whole thing is fried. But that's okay. Because we have Brendan here. Hello. Hello. I'm so glad to be filling in

for three separate people. I'll try and do a bunch of silly voices maybe. I think that'll cover it. I think that's great. I'm excited to have you here. I also wanted to mention that I made a big parenting mistake over the weekend that I thought I'd share as well. And maybe you could give me insight on how to remedy this. I took my son who is not quite three yet, um, on a, um, uh, merry-go-round also known as a carousel, um, in, uh, I believe it was New Jersey. And I only realized halfway through

in looking at his face that I basically recreated that scene in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory where Gene Wilder takes them all in that boat. The boat ride, yeah. And I don't know how to walk this one back because carousels and like, they're kind of everywhere and it's gonna be like a thing. Do you have any advice for how to pull this one back?

I don't think so. I think you're doomed to just have to sit on carousels forever now. I think he had a great time is what I'm assuming. He, no, he was holding onto my wife's arm, really like it was going at 60 miles an hour. Yeah. It's regrettable.

I wonder maybe if I show him the scene in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, will it kind of pull him back from the edge and like they maybe cancel each other out? Or maybe show him it could be worse. You could be on this creepy boat with Gene Walton. That's what I was about to say. I think fighting fire with an even bigger, scarier fire might be the move in this case. Yeah. But I don't know if I would want to subject anyone to that movie before they're ready. Well, too bad, my son. My name is... I never go first.

I very rarely go first. Yeah, do you want to like think about how you intro the whole show by your onesies? No, it's gonna be great. Okay My name is Ross Ruffshank. I'm the best game of the week My name is Brendan Bigley and I definitely also know the best game of the week Welcome to the latest and greatest of home entertainment. It's the besties. It's a podcast and it's a video game club We're just by listening. You'll remember it's not a book club. It's a podcast and it's a video game club. We're just by listening, you'll remember, it's not a book club, it's a video game club. And it's all come a long way since Pac-Man. Thank you very much.

Very special guest, as I mentioned at the top of the show, we have Brendan Bigley joining us from the Into the Aether podcast, a very cool podcast that I enjoy quite a bit. No, thank you. A deep diving podcast. They go deep where we go shallow is the best way I would pitch it.

And we're very happy to have him. He is filling in for, as he mentioned, three people, which is pretty impressive and also pretty impressive because we have a major game to talk about today. We are talking about Hades 2, which is in early access right now. You can buy it, you can play it. It is, unlike a lot of early access games, incredibly good and in very good shape.

But obviously, they're going to be making a lot of changes and adjustments over the course of probably the next year. And yeah, I'm really excited to talk about it. Yeah, I am curious before we even get into playing Hades 2, the kind of like looming cloud of should you play Hades 2 right now? Should you wait for it to be released? So that is actually a good segue. We're going to take a quick break and we are going to jump into exactly whether

you should play this game early or hold off. Brennan, so you were saying whether you should play, and I sort of had this internal debate as well, though I guess I felt obligated because job, but yeah, there was a moment where I was like, I kind of just want to wait until the final version of Hades too, because I loved the first game so much. Yeah, I was really on the side of I'm going to wait

for 1.0, which I knew just considering, you know, Hades was our game of the year at least on Into the Aether and there was definitely a large contingent of our audience that was gonna want to hear us talk about it and I know my co-host Steven was definitely gonna play the game and I was really riding the fence until I read a couple statements from Supergiant talking about how feature-complete Hades 2 is already. From what they say at least, there is more content in Hades 2's early access than in the entire 1.0 launch of Hades. What? I didn't see that. That's crazy. Which is wild. And on top of that, the only things missing are a level, a weapon, and an ending.

And also, from what I understand, your save might, maybe, they haven't promised it, but like it might carry over from early access into the final release. Yeah, there's a note when you launch it talking about like what the next year is going to look like and you mentioned some of the things they're going to add a weapon, a level, things like that. And there is a note in there about saves and it is I think a little more than just a maybe, like it sounds like a 90% likelihood that your save will carry over to the 1.0 release, which yeah, you're right.

Like that does make me feel better. Most of these early access games, that is not happening. Like Baldur's Gate 3, for example, you need to start from scratch. Not a big deal, it's a great game. But I think with this sort of game, which is such a progressive game, starting from scratch can be a bit of a nut punch as a few.

So I get the reason why some people might hold off, but yeah, you're right. It does seem like there's all ton here. Yeah, totally. I feel like there's, there was a world in which I just had to listen to podcasts like this one kind of glow about this game and or skip those episodes out of fear of spoilers. But honestly, Supergiant kind of swayed me towards playing it. And I'm glad that I have because I mean,

this game is incredible pretty immediately. Yeah, I'm gonna try to put some guardrails a little bit on this. Cause I do know that people were afraid of spoilers. Actually the person who normally edits this show, Rachel was so afraid of spoilers that she gave the edit to Amanda who is doing it this week. So people I know are very wary of that.

I think we can be very light in terms of narrative stuff because I know people like wanna know like surprise, you know, who shows up and things like that. Yeah. But we'll talk maybe about the first hour of the narrative and then mostly we'll talk about gameplay stuff after that if that helps people at all. But also if you don't wanna hear anything about Hades,

totally fine, we can kind of, you can skip ahead to the second half of the show and we won't give any spoilers. Yeah, all you need to know is it's good already and it'll be good when it comes out. Yes, for sure. So immediately, first thing that I think you recognize, uh, new protagonist, you are, and correct me if I'm wrong here.

You're the sister of Zagreus, the protagonist of the first game. Um, her name is Malinoway, I believe I'm pronouncing that right. Mal for short. She's basically a witch in training, if you will. She works under Hecate, the sort of head witch. And her number one goal is to kill time, which is a joke they make quite a bit, because you are fighting Cronos, who is the Titan who basically failed all of the, you know, gods that we're familiar with. Titans and, Titans and gods don't get along super well.

And so Cronos is our new big bad, if you will, in this installment. Yeah, Hades' father, technically, right? Right. Mel's grandfather in this case, who they don't, they don't say a lot pretty early on about what exactly Cronos has done, but it's pretty clear that he's done something

to the House of Hades. So the place that you loved and built up, all the friends that you made in that first game, they're in trouble in some unknown way, and you're gonna try and stop it by going down into the depths instead of fighting your way up and out. Yes, I guess that's true. You did go up in the first game and actually will get into it.

But there is an element of going up in this one as well. Yes. I'm curious what you thought in terms of the gameplay were like the most significant differences here. Yeah, totally. I think honestly, I went into this game just feeling like, oh, yeah, I beat Hades a million times. I beat it with a bunch of heats. I know exactly what I'm doing, and I'm going to absolutely crush it on my first run

and got just like rocked so quickly. And that all really stems from the big changes to Mel's moveset, because I find that although Hades 1 was more about getting up close and personal, you know, depending on the weapons for the most part, but getting up close and personal, being really aggressive, being relentlessly aggressive as Zagreus. Mel's whole thing is specifically playing keep away, or at least keeping track of where enemies are in the isometric plane that you're fighting on. A lot of her moveset, for example, her cast, which in Zagreus' case was just like a little kind of red dart that you would shoot at enemies and you could upgrade with different boons and stuff to have it do different things.

But Mel's cast in this game is just this kind of big arcane circle that she drops on the ground that holds all the enemies in place. And I think that being a core part of her moveset really implies that the game is mostly about just enemy placement and making sure that you're not near them. There are a couple of enemies even early on. mostly about just enemy placement and making sure that you're not near them. There are a couple of enemies even early on. There are these like kind of small ghosts that just scream at you when they get really close to you. They exist purely as tutorial enemies just to prove like

you cannot let these things near you. You need to use your cast. You need to understand how to use your cast. Yeah. And that was, I think, the biggest struggle that I had was because even when I was playing Hades 1, I like very infrequently used the cast, even like to my detriment. Like obviously they needed you to use it, but I just didn't use it very much. So I'm not really trained up in that methodology. And in this, I'm falling into the same routines and definitely it is a disadvantage,

especially when there are some incredibly powerful upgrades that you can get to that cast ability, that a we cast ability that will make runs so much easier. But you just have to kind of train your brain and realize exactly what you should be doing at any given moment. Yeah. And then on top of that, each move that you have has what's called an omega version of it, which means that instead of just pressing a button, if you hold the button down,

there's this kind of little wind up cast time before you use kind of a larger version of that move, which also is the introduction of one of the biggest surprises for me, which was like a manometer that you need to be cognizant of on top of your health meter. Um, and the manometer thankfully recharges from room to room. So you're really incentivized to use that stuff. But most of it is kind of area of effect or long distance attacks. So again, a lot of the gameplay revolves around you running towards an enemy,

dropping your cast down, getting away, and then using an Omega move to hit them from afar. You know, some of them will have like big shields and stuff that will take more damage if you hit them with these Omega moves. So things like that to just keep them away and then whittle them down without getting too close. Yeah, I'm curious what you thought specifically of... I guess one thing that I noticed while playing is that I wasn't getting the sort of like... satisfaction from some of the weapons that I would want. And this feels like the area that I think we're're gonna see the most effort put in during early access. I think the witch's staff would you start with is basically like a spear kind of weapon and it's got a dart very similar to Zagreus is ranged attack from the first game and then there's like a close range weapon which is more like, feels like a high skill weapon because you really do need

to get like up in the face of enemies. It's playing as Fox and Smash Brothers. Right, exactly. And then there's kind of this range like dual wand thing which I didn't like at all. It's like my least favorite of the weapons that I tried. And then the axe, which was the one that I ended up using mostly was like a heavy,

like Dark Souls, heavy dual axe kind of thing. It feels in that case, like those hyper, hyper designed weapons from the first game doesn't feel like we're quite at that point in Hades 2 where these feel like exactly as good as they should feel. I think an interesting thing about Hades 2 is that they give them to you so quickly. Like it's fast and furious

when they're unlocking these weapons and when you have the materials in you to unlock those weapons. Whereas in Hades 1, it felt like, you know, every 10 or so hours was maybe when I was unlocking a new thing. And I was like, wow, this changes the entire landscape of how I play this game.

Whereas this seems a little bit more inclined to just let you discover your own play style first. And I guess where it becomes a great sequel in that way by giving you all those options earlier. What I have found weirdly is I've unlocked all of those weapons that you just mentioned. And as I continued to make my way through them and try them all, I always found myself gravitating back towards the original base weapon, the witch's staff, which I was really surprised by because I didn't really like it that much at first and when I unlocked the kind of like dual scythe things that feel honestly a lot more like playing as Sagrius. They do, yeah

that's true. I was like wow I'm having a really good time with this and then I decided when I knew that we were doing this episode I was like let me go back and just put some more time into the witch's staff just so I can kind of have a better feel for it and I was like oh I me go back and just put some more time into the witch's staff just so I can kind of have a better feel for it. And I was like, Oh, I love it. This is like by far my favorite now, um, which I think maybe was just a learning curve of how Hades two differs from the first one. It does feel like it really comes down to, did you get a good build for the weapon?

Like if I'm going to be a snob about the dual wands, I forget what they're called. But if I'm going to be a snob, it's because every time I tried them, I just didn't get a build going that really made them work. Yeah. You didn't get Daedalus in room one. Yeah, right. So whatever exactly is going to make me crush a run will invariably make me more attached to the weapons themselves.

I do think the weapons that are strongest aren't as reliant on those lucky roles. So again, I thought the axe felt pretty versatile on that front. I was able to, that weapon, each swing of that weapon is incredibly slow, but obviously very powerful. And then it's paired with a special ability that is basically a block. You can block projectiles and attacks, things like that. But if you hold that block down, you get like more of a ranged attack that

like kind of launches across the screen. And that I thought gave me like a lot of versatility that I wasn't necessarily getting from some of the other ones. Yeah. Uh, but I do agree. I think, uh, number two for me is probably the witch's staff. It felt really good, especially when, you know, I had like longer range attacks going and, and a bunch of other things, kind of

a building on top of itself. Yeah. I found one of the things that has been the most surprising to me about Hades 2 in terms of its like slight gameplay changes from up close to kind of far away is that it really changes which gods and boons I'm leaning more towards. I won't spoil any of the new ones or anyone new who shows up but like Poseididon, for example, shows up again. And in Hades 1 Poseidon's whole deal was if you got his boons, he would kind of allow your attacks to have these splash attacks that would move enemies away from you, which in Hades 1 made combat feel unpredictable in ways that didn't feel great unless you were continuing to upgrade Poseidon's boons. So splash damage or hitting an enemy into a wall with splash damage would do more damage,

and then that became your kind of primary way of attacking in Hades, too, because so much of it is about enemy placement. Having Poseidon's boons is hugely helpful because I can not only lock them in place with the cast, but then I can knock them further and further away when I use any attack with the witch's staff, for example. It's really, really helpful for me. Yeah, I think they've been really smart, kind of making previously non-viable options much more viable.

I was curious what you thought specifically about the onboarding. I actually thought this game's onboarding was a lot smarter than Hades 1 in the way that it handles the progressive unlock system. You didn't play the first game, you might remember, or you might not know, but there was basically a currency that you would spend between runs that would increase

your health when you start and damage that you deal and things like that. And that stuff was progressive. So a run 10 hours into the game would be much more successful and powerful than a run right at the start of the game. In this case, they made the smart decision of making it so that you have to walk through the portal

where you upgrade these abilities. I forget what it's called, but it's basically these arcana cards that you unlock using a currency. And these will make you dramatically more powerful as you unlock them. And when you start, you obviously have none, but very quickly you'll amass kind of a collection,

and then they have this build element to it, where the cards will have different costs to them. So one card might cost three, and one might cost five, and you have a maximum currency that you can spend on any given run, so that you can kind of adjust how your build works out. What did you think about that? I thought it was definitely a really good change. Yeah, I think it's fascinating.

It really, I think, adds to the what do I want to accomplish with this run side of Hades that didn't really exist for me, at least. I think in Hades, one, because of the drive of the narrative also, because you feel so personally connected to Zagreus as whole deal. Every single run is I just need to get out. And in this game, because there is that aspect, right, there are all these different arcana cards that can kind of build you towards different things. And you also have the

addition of needing to take a tool with you, which are how you accumulate different crafting materials that you use to unlock different things in the crossroads, which is like your version of the Hall of Hades this time around. You get closer to what I really love about Rogue Legacy, for example, which is like, you know, you're presented with all of these options of different people that you can play as in a run in Rogue Legacy. And you can say, you know what, I think on this run, I actually just want gold. I don't really need to beat the game.

I just kind of need to get more currency so I can unlock some more stuff. Um, and the ability to sit there and stare at this like big table of tarot cards and say, what do I really want out of this run? I think is a great addition of choice, which I think, you know, the more of those you compound on top of one another makes for a great rogue-like in a lot of ways. Um, so for me, it's a hugely helpful addition. And it also feels again, like just another way for them to reiterate, this is a sequel, you should probably play the first

one first, because we're now going to take your idea of how the mirror works in the first game, which is just like a series of progressive unlocks that just makes you more and more powerful and saying, we're just going to give you more choice here. When you unlock something that doesn't mean you always have it. You need to be careful about what stuff you're equipping. Yeah, 100%. You mentioned choice. I think the, uh, other areas that they really expand on, not only just like that

card system, but also they've got a, um, familiar system so you can get like a little pet that follows you around. This was in the first game, but it was something that I think I put in like 50 hours into the first game. And I don't know that I got any, um, because you have to like develop relationships with very specific characters that might only show up like one in every three runs and it takes a while. And here, once again, they have something else called the cauldron where you're doing these like enchantments.

And it literally will lead you to the different gameplay hooks in the game by like, oh, you can now do this. You should spend this currency on this character. For example, there's a frog, a very adorable frog named Freenos that you meet almost immediately. Obsessed with Freenos.

Freenos is great. And they're like, oh, you can spend this frog named Freenos that you meet almost immediately. Obsessed with Freenos. Freenos is great. And they're like, oh, you can spend this currency on Freenos and Freenos will now join you on your adventure. And familiars in the previous game would just kind of be like things you call down. And they, I think were like stuffed animal versions of the characters in question. And this is like literally you've got your pal frog

like bouncing around. And in addition to combat, he can also like give you passive perks, like more health, and he'll also act as a tool. So if you want to bring like the pickaxe, for example Freenos will act as the, I forget what it's called. It's like a tablet and be able to like summon the souls back to your headquarters, even if you didn't bring

that tablet with you. So there's all sorts of like, just like kind of helpful hands that they're giving you to allow you to like, once again, customize what you're trying to get out of a run, which I do think really makes each run feel less like churning and more, Oh, I'm really accomplishing something here. Yeah. I think it also speaks more to what they're trying to do narratively with this game, which again, won't get too into specifics. But I feel like, you know, the first game was really about Zagreus trying to escape the House of Hades, but realizing that everyone who was down there were his family and that he really loved them a lot. And he loved the House of Hades. And you spent a lot of time customizing it and choosing what color the drapes are, where all of the furniture is going to be laid out and stuff. You know, and that's a that's a fun, interesting, I think,

progressive story and a fun arc for Zag to go on. And Mel's story, although I haven't I don't know the end, I don't know where it's headed, really. What I can glean from some of the earlier pieces of it are like everyone there is so invested in helping her that what happens is you play the first couple runs and the game, I think at least is immediately much harder than the beginning of Hades one. It's like pretty difficult pretty immediately, but because they're hitting you with so many unlocks

so quickly and because you can, you know, start to build relationships with all these characters, I think much faster than you could in Hades one. It means that everyone is kind of rallying around you much faster to be like, we're going to help you get down there and kill Kronos. Right. Yeah, it definitely feels like more of a gang than it was right at the jump. Because the tone is just way more dire in Hades too than it is in the first one. Like Hades one, the way I described it on into the aether, at least Hades one feels a little bit like you're playing as both Ferris and Cameron and Ferris Bueller kind of mashed together. And this is like much darker in pretty much every regard.

And I think you need to add levity to that with these extra characters pretty quickly. It kind of takes the baton from the end of Hades one piece. Eventually it does get very dark in Hades one, but it takes a very long time to get there. And this is really just continuing that story to almost directly on, which I think is, it's cool. Like it feels like a new era for them. I'm curious, were you surprised to see how quickly they went back to the Hades well as a studio?

Honestly, I mean, yes, because Supergiant is known for not doing sequels at all. And specifically when they said there was gonna be no DLC for Hades, which felt like wild considering how successful it was. It was like, oh, all you need to do is add like a couple more gods and some more boons and people would pay full price for that game a second time just to have more stuff in there. But the longer we went without hearing from them and the longer we went without knowing

what they were working on, it just felt more and more like Hades 2 was maybe in the cards hypothetically and no pun intended, I guess. But yeah, I mean, that announcement still made me rocket out of my seat when I watched it live. I was really, really stoked. And honestly, just the speed at which it showed up, like the fact that we are talking about it right now, I didn't expect it maybe until next year, the earliest. And also the fact that the developers know in the roadmap when you first open the game says, we're going to have this in early access probably to

the end of 2024. And it'll probably launch early 2025 at the latest is amazing. The idea that we're not getting years of buildup, but that super giant has said, Hey, we had a really great foundation here. We don't need to be in early access for that long. We just need some tweaks here and there. Like I've already seen them. They're talking a little bit about this is like such an in the weeds mechanic, but Mel as opposed to Zagreus, Zagreus has these dashes. So you can like dash out of the way of danger. Right. Mel has a dash and if you hold the dash down, you start sprinting and that's your main way of escaping from enemies. And a lot of people, myself included, feel like that doesn't feel as good as the dash does.

So they're tweaking that. And, you know, those are the kinds of kind of minute tweaks we're starting to get in Hades to, uh, versus the multi-year development cycle of Hades one where it's like, we don't even know what this character is going to be yet. Maybe they're a merchant. Maybe not. Yeah. I, this is definitely, I think more interesting and palpable than you would get out of a game that is like, like I was thinking back to the Rogue Legacy 2 early access.

When that launched in early access, it was like incredibly rough and incredibly raw. And it was playable, I had a good time playing it, but it was so clear how early it was. And this feels like they're like 90% of the way and everything else is like making sure that it's perfect in that 10% and they're going to spend a lot of time getting to that 10% and making sure that it's there, which is great

and really encouraging. I also, given how small that studio is, I don't know the exact count, but I know it's pretty small. I have to imagine that this was internally a pretty welcome decision, the idea that, hey, we're going to make more of this. I don't think people in the studio would push back on that. I think people were jazz beyond just like the money-making aspect of it. I think people having made this game previously were like, we have more to do. We have more to say here. And it turns, I mean, a lot of this turns into like more art and presentation

than it is like game design, because a lot of the game design work was made in the first game. So, uh, they can really lean into some of the stuff that they love doing. The voice acting, the music, man, there's amazing music in this game that I don't necessarily want to spoil. But the second boss that you face is like

incredibly musically inclined in awesome ways. And they just expand on that in really great ways on, on subsequent runs of that boss that I just love. Um, yeah, it's so exciting. Uh, and it kind of, uh, where does that leave you? So for me, here's where my head is at. I have so many fucking games to play for this podcast. It's like a lot, cause with Restes and with best's, it's at least one game a week, if not two

games a week that we're playing in addition to, you know, we all have jobs as well, uh, outside of the podcast. My druthers would be, I just want to keep playing Hades too, but I'm also aware that like, I'm definitely going to play 1.0 when it drops. And I'm also a little bit worried that if I play a lot of this,

but then I have to be pulled to other games, the narrative, I might lose the thread on the narrative because there's so many threads going on with like every NPC that you speak to and everyone's got motivations and what you're pushing towards that I wanna like almost get to a break point and be like, OK, this is

I could pick up from here and remember where things stood. And the further I get into the game, the harder that's going to get. Yeah, that's actually exactly where I'm at at this point. I've I've made it to but haven't been the third boss at this point. And that honestly feels like a pretty natural breaking point for me. I don't want to say too much about what happens there, but the the fight itself was exhilarating. And when it was over, I was like, maybe this is actually a good place to put this down until 1.0 hits, especially knowing it's not going to be that long. Yeah, you know, they're saying early 2025. There's a world in which this comes out at the end of the year.

Like there's a world in which this is way more complete than we think it is like a game awards announcement. Like it's now kind of thing. Yeah, it's exactly what I'm thinking. Yeah. And I love the first one so much that I don't want to kind of spoil myself, I think, with a with a early access version of it. And as you're saying, burn myself out on what this game is before it's like done, done and before I can get that full catharsis of an ending, because I I know multiple people in the discord for our show who have already gotten to the end and have seen like most of what this game has to offer, which is like unbelievable. But I understand that compulsion and I think it's actually a blessing that we host video game podcasts where we have other things to do because it kind of does give us like a natural reason to say, maybe, maybe not now, but for you, dear listener out there listening to this, I mean, chase your own bliss.

If you feel like you want to get to the end of this, by all means, go for it. There's a lot of video game here. There's unbelievable amount of video game here for an early access. Yeah, I was looking at my Steam friends list. I have about eight hours into this game. My friends list had like people that were like 35 hours in. I get it. I get it. It's so compelling and it's hard to not pick it up.

The one thing that's preventing me from picking this game up more is that it's pretty much the only game I'm using my Steam Deck for right now. So I literally need to charge this one Hades 2 device to play Hades 2 and only Hades 2, versus picking up my Switch or my PS5 controller or any of the million retro handhelds I have. Yeah, totally.

Cool. Well, that's pretty much Hades 2. We're going to take a quick break, and we've got more coming back in a second. Cool. So we're back. We're talking to Brendan Bigley. I don't know why I'm doing a table set or like we're on a fucking radio show, but that's fine.

I'm going to do that anyway. Thanks, Ira. We just talked about Hades 2. Hadesades two, obviously coming off of a game that was pretty universally agreed to be that game of the year when Hades one came out. Yeah. And I don't think anyone walked away from Hades one being like, we need a sequel and we need it in two years or however long it's been, uh, how long has it been three years at this point?

Years. Yeah. Okay. So actually not bad. But still, like that being the first game coming out of that studio, I don't think anyone was expecting that being the sequel to Hades. Are there examples that immediately jumped to your mind as being games that like were sequels for games that no one was like, oh, we desperately need a sequel for that game. Yeah, I think honestly, a lot of other roguelikes are games that I

really like never need a sequel to, especially considering the whole conceit of the genre as a whole, you know, roguelikes and roguelites are like you just play them infinitely. I think Spelunky is like maybe one of the best ever examples of this. Spelunky is a game I've dumped over a thousand hours into and love dearly. And in no world was I expecting a sequel announcement for that game. Um, and then a sequel came along and I think there are interesting questions to be asked about how you even make a sequel to a roguelike in a lot of ways.

Um, but Spelunky 2 kind of nailed it in that conceit of we're making you feel like you're playing the first game for the first time again, um, making everything feel marginally the same, but almost as if you had dreamed it. And this is actually what it is, I think was a really smart decision. Unfortunately, it came out the same week as 80s. Yeah, pretty brutal. Crazy. But I feel like a lot of Roguelikes, you know, Spelunky is a great example. Rogue Legacy, which we've already talked about and the upcoming Slay the Spire is another game that like I don't know if I needed a sequel to Slay the Spire,

but I'm excited to see what that studio is going to do when they release it. Yeah, it's an interesting approach because the alternative for a rogue like is doing what Binding of Isaac has done, which basically is just doing expansion packs forever, forever, essentially. And I think it depends on the game, obviously. And I do think on certain games, like A Slay the Spire, for example, you can get to a point where so much content has been added,

you get into the Hearthstone problem, where it's like, how the fuck am I going to keep track of all of this stuff? And even Binding of Isaac suffers from that. There are so many items you can possibly get that I think the only way to really successfully play that game now is to play it with mods that identify the items before you pick them up, which is a great way to play.

I definitely recommend it. Instead of having the Wikipedia page open and pausing the game every five minutes to search for stuff. Yes, which is what I did for many, many years. Yeah, same. But that was a game where I know for a fact that there were items and characters that Edmund had specifically planned for a sequel

and eventually got to the point where it was like, no, we'll just put it in this game and figure out a way to do it. Yeah, that was why we got a complete rewrite of that, right? From like kind of the flash cartoony style to the pixel art style. Well, beyond that, I mean, those were two different, those were separate games.

So the original Binding of Isaac came out as like a flash game basically. And then Rebirth came out and that Rebirth was, in a lot of ways, it felt like a reboot, if you will, a recreation of the original game with some new features thrown in. But over the course of Rebirth, with all the expansions, we saw characters that like had, you know, were, would start with passivabilities that were like on a special slot instead of whatever. It just reached a level of depth that I think, I don't think anyone expected to be in this main game

because the expansions just like got so well versed. It got kind of crazy. I think that the example, when I think of sequels that I didn't think needed to exist, but I'm glad they did was certainly Portal 2 is like the one that jumped into it. It's obvious, you know, the first game ends, I guess on a cliffhanger,

you're effectively being dragged back into the facility by robots. So there was certainly room for it, but I don't think anyone when they heard Portal 2 was like, oh, this needed to happen. And certainly no one was expecting, oh, it's gonna be better, in my opinion, than the first game, which it was.

And then with the co-op and everything like that, they just expanded on that idea in such amazing ways that I was just so thrilled. Yeah. I think specifically for Portal 2 deciding that the reason there needs to be a sequel, outside of just like, hey, we have more gameplay ideas that we wanna test out,'re going to be really fun.

But doubling down on the weird bread crumbs of narrative from that first game and saying, yeah, actually, we're going to fill in those blanks a little bit in ways that don't like ruin the surprise or ruin the mystery, but instead expand upon and make you ask even more questions. And of course, the J.K. Simmons of it all. Great. Incredible video game. Maybe maybe the best video performance I've ever heard in a video game was the J.K. Simmons of it all. Great, incredible video game. Maybe the best video performance I've ever heard in a video game was the J.K. Simmons performance, incredible. It's also an interesting idea for a sequel,

specifically because they give you, as the player, no new abilities. I mean, there are abilities within the environments, orbs and goo and things like that, but as the player, you really just have the portal gun and jump still, which is interesting because the cliche of a sequel is we're just gonna like layer in all sorts of new power.

I mean, even with Hades too, layer in all sorts of new powers and upgrades and other things to like keep you engaged with it. Assassin's Creed 2, another example of like, we're gonna give you a ton of powers. But with Portal, they really did keep it very pure. I think that was to their benefit. Yeah.

I'm curious about Hades in the long term, because one of the things I think about when I'm considering Supergiant Games is how much all of their games have led up to Hades, right? When you look at Bastion, Transistor, Pyre, and Hades, right? When you look at Bastion Transistor, Pyre and Hades, it feels like a pretty straight line. It does. What's that?

So Hades 2 feels... Pyre is the one that I'm not sure about because of the basketball, but other than that... I'll shout out my co-host, Steven Anantather, who has played a lot more Pyre than I have. From what I understand, at least, based on his talking about it, it sounds like Pyre is a game where once you beat it, you're supposed to play it again and again and again.

I was a pretty pretty big narrative choice at the end of that game that asks you if you want to play the game a second time and a third time and a fourth time or not, which feels like a natural progression. Yeah, that's true. Roguelikes. And I'm curious to see like is super giant turning into a Haiti studio. I'm not like totally against that because Hades 2 immediately I think speaks to, you know, why it should exist and I'm glad that it does. But I'm curious if Hades 2 is similar to maybe the Binding of Isaac, going from the original Flash version to Rebirth, building a foundation upon which they can kind of

build upwards forever if they want to, you know, maybe Hades 1 never got any DLC, but maybe Hades 2 is going to get a whole bunch. I'm curious to see what happens there. It's interesting. Yeah, it's possible. I mean, I think because of the narrative hooks of Hades as a franchise, it's not as... It's certainly not as simple not to diminish game development and not as simple as like adding new items or new boons or whatever it is. Like, you would need to progress the story in an interesting way. Not as simple as adding new items or new boons or whatever it is.

You would need to progress the story in an interesting way. I'll be honest, as much as I love Hades 1 and Hades 2 at this point, I would be disappointed if that happened because I love what they do and they always really take huge swings that studio. And it would be kind of a let down if they just made Hades forever. Because I know that they have some really interesting genre takes in their heads and just world design and aesthetic differences.

I mean, Hades 2 obviously takes a lot of different swings in terms of aesthetics, but it still has like a base familiarity with the first game. And when I think about a game like Transistor, which is obviously like Transistor, which is obviously like a very, very different look and feel, I know how much range that that studio can really have. Yeah. Man. Don't you want to see them do sci-fi again?

Oh my God, I'd love it. Cool. Well, that's that thing. We actually had a few bits of reader mail relating to the last episode, specifically the conversation that we had about Animal Well. Brendan, you've played quite a bit of Animal Well at this point. Loving Animal Well, yeah. We are obviously not going to spoil as per our requirements on this show. I insist that no one

spoil Animal Well for at least 15 years and then we can open up a time capsule and spoil it for everyone. There are animals in that well, dear listener. Yes, indeed there are. Sadly. Okay. So this question comes from Ben McCown. Okay.

I know you guys have switched to search action games. So as a reminder, we started using search action game because it is the Japanese translation of what the genre is called in Japan for the genre term. But hear me out. Metroid Brainyah, which Ben says is not his original idea, of what the genre is called in Japan for the genre term, but hear me out, metroidbrania, which Ben says is not his original idea, just started playing Animal World today and y'all's insistence, at y'all's insistence,

and man, is it good, last game I got into that felt like this was tunic last year, what a treat. Ben mentions metroidbrania, which is a term that was, I believe, invented by Nick Sutner. I have a tweet that dates back to 2015, referring specifically to Witness, the game by Jonathan Blow, as a Metroid Branya, which I actually am not sure is a Metroid Branya in my personal definition of it, and I'm curious if you feel differently. As somebody who got 100 percent of everything done in that

video game, I would say it turns into one in the, in the post game. Okay. So may I, I might not have gotten to that point. Um, yeah. So for people that aren't aware, my definition at least is metroid brain yet, and the ultimate version of this is outer wilds, is the game has everything sitting in front of you. You don't get new powers, you don't get new abilities to unlock the game. All you're getting is knowledge about how the game works.

So, you know, secret passages that you would never ever spot when you were first playing the game might be hidden in plain sight. Oh, if you just walk through this bush, there's like a cave and this leads you to a shortcut. But the only reason you knew about the cave was because you read a piece of dialogue or a note somewhere that informed you. And so eventually all the upgrades, instead of being physical upgrades, are just in your head. So hence Metroidvania. Yeah, I think it's easy to call this one Metroidvania just because of the map.

Like the map just looks like a Metroidvania map. But at the end of the day, the games that I compare this to are closer to games like Tunic and Fez and The Witness in some ways that that feel to me more like they're just asking you to sit there and stare at a screen for a really long time before you figure out what's going on, which is, hey, that's my whole jam. The Fez is like maybe one of my favorite games of all time, definitely one of the most important games of my life.

And this is one of the first games that's made me feel like Fez since Fez. So I'm eating real good for a listener. Yeah, I think the first six hours, basically the first ending of Animal Well feels like much closer to a traditional Metroidvania when in fact it isn't because once you have knowledge later on in the game it actually will change subsequent playthroughs of those first six hours pretty dramatically. But I do think it offers more of a bridge

for people that are like familiar with Metroid and familiar with Symphony of the Night but aren't necessarily familiar with this sort of game and I think it does a better job of introducing people Better than even I would say Fez or tunic to some extent in in kind of easing you in And and telling you hey this there are secrets here. I think Fez Buried the secrets a little deeper than most people would even consider, because that game didn't really have an analog to it. There was really no comparison.

And now we can say, oh, Animal Well has a lot of Fez in it, has a lot of Tunic in it, because there are comparisons. But there are still very few types of those games around. Right. Yeah, because Fez, for its first however many hours for each individual player is going to be just a platforming and exploration game until you realize that there's maybe something beneath the surface. Indeed. Cool. We have another letter. This comes from Matt. I feel it's been overshadowed by these other closures, but it's sad to see Roll7,

the creators of Besties slash Griffin's favorite, Ali Ali series and roller dome have been shut down Also a recent acquisition by major publisher at this time take two. I was super bummed. That's a that is a good call out, Matt I was super bummed to see the studio close. I love Ali Ali as a franchise. I thought those games were great It was really cool to see how they expanded on that franchise And just really kind of sad that it's another studio closure by a big, by a big company. It feels. I, this is like a downer, but it feels like that studio was probably looking for a branch in the way that, um, double fine was looking for a branch to stay open because being a studio, being an indie indie studio specifically in these really tough times where you're not one person

like a Billy Basso making Animal Well is incredibly rough. And in those situations, sometimes it does require acquisition. But again, with acquisition comes that risk. Yeah. Yeah. I feel like Roll 7. I loved Ali Ali. I loved Roll the Drum. I loved Ali Ali. I loved Roll of Droom. I think those

games are spectacular. That studio to me felt like it was on the trajectory that we were just talking about with Supergiant, where they're working towards whatever the real core video game of that studio was going to be. Yeah, I felt like we were so close to getting there. Yeah, big time like 3D skating game that like did some really, really interesting things. That's it felt like totally going to that. Yeah. Yeah, big time, like 3D skating game that like did some really, really interesting things. That's it felt like totally going to that. Yeah.

Um, yeah, such a huge bummer on it. I mean, every week there's 10 more and it's, it's increasingly, uh, increasingly dire. Yeah. We have one more letter. This comes from Eric, uh, has Russ played La Mulana, one of Derek,

view one of Derek use inspirations for Spelunky. I have played La Mulana, one of Derek Yu's inspirations for Spelunky. I have played La Mulana, I played it on the Vita, and I don't know how I feel about it. I feel the same way actually, also having played it on the Vita. I played it after having played Spelunky and knowing it was one of the inspirations for Spelunky. La Mulana is so bizarre because you can definitely see like the DNA there cause it is like, you're like a little, you know,

spelunker and you've got like a cow, you know, one of those Indiana Jones hats and you've got a whip and you're exploring these environments and it's very dangerous. It's not a roguelike. So you do have like save points and things like that. It's incredibly opaque about how it presents its world and how you progress in the world and very unforgiving.

There's like very intense platforming sequences that require like perfect precision and the controls feel pretty terrible. It feels like Castlevania one controls, but there is something there that is very interesting. I'm curious what you think, Brendan. No, I think you hit the nail on the head. I bounced off.

I got into it because of my deep love of Indiana Jones as a franchise and because I also loved Spelunky and started to do some deep dives into Derrick and his whole deal and read his book and everything about the making of Spelunky. So La Mulano felt like an obvious thing to jump into, and I also bounced off of it for exactly the reason that you just named. I'm not a huge Castlevania fan and it felt just like Castlevania to me. Yeah, it is worth noting, though, that this game is available for everything. Yeah. If you are interested in La Mulana one and two, I think there's a combo of both.

It's available for like literally every single platform. And it's worth jumping into because it might end up being your favorite game. Yeah, I would say don't play it like I recommend you play Animal Well, which is for Animal Well, don't look anything up. Llamalala do not feel bad because it is so opaque about how it works that I think you need to understand even the language that's trying to communicate to you before you can get anywhere in that game and I could see it being very frustrating as it was for me, for people kind of jumping in. Totally cool.

Well, we have some honorable mentions this actually, you want to go first, do the honors as a special guest? Sure. Man, honorable mentions. What do I even want to bring up? I should have prepared something. You know what I'm going to talk about? I'm going gonna talk about the playdate. I got a playdate semi recently So I'm still in the throes of the first season of games Which is wonderful to wake up every Monday and have two new games to play and the first season is like Different people have different games right the way it rolls out. Yeah. Yeah, exactly

So every every week there's two new games from two new developers and that has been a joy by itself But also what panic has done in terms of opening the the quote-unquote catalog up There's now just like a web store You can go browse and buy a bunch of games and on top of that you can head over to places like itch.io Buy a game and they have this amazing Handy little tool on their website where you log into your account and then you just drag and drop a game onto the website and it just uploads it to your playdate immediately. That's great. It's amazing. I'm having just the most unbelievable time with it and it feels like an alternate future for

video game hardware that I get to play every single week. I love it so much. That's so cool. Well I guess we'll keep it in the realm of handheld gaming. I'm going to talk about two handheld devices that I've been playing around with that are basically identical in a lot of ways, but I think one is a little bit better. The devices I'm going to talk about are the MIU A30 and the Andernik RG28XX.

Oh, hell yeah. You got both. I have both of them. One of them was sent to me by Miu, the other one I bought from Anbernic's store. So both of these devices are tiny. They use a 2.8 inch screen, which is not as small as a Game Boy Micro,

but it's pretty damn close. And I'm a big fan of like very small devices like that to an extent. There's like a number of devices that go even smaller. Ambrin Excel is the RG Nano, which is like a 1.4 inch screen, which is buck wild. That's too small for me. Even the micro is too small for me.

I think that's two inches. 2.8 is probably the smallest I can go because it allows me to play like SNES stuff and GBA stuff and not have to like really squint. I've enjoyed these devices specifically for the rationale that like I wanted something that I could throw in my bag for the subway or even like a back pocket and not have it be this like cumbersome thing.

I had used a MIU mini for a very long time. Before the plus came out there was the MIU mini which is still I think kind of hard to find. But I like that form factor but because it was a vertical device you end up feeling very cramped because your hands are very close together. And what I liked about these devices specifically was that it was a horizontal form factor. So a little taller than you would find on the MIUI mini, but definitely skinnier and your hands are further apart. So you feel more comfortable hitting the triggers and hitting the buttons in general.

If you are interested in like small devices, these are both good, but I do think the RG28XX is the better one. I played a bunch of the MIUI 30, and I like it from a like a feel standpoint, like the production value and the like look and feel of the device, I love it. It looks a lot like a game and watch. I think maybe they don't have enough juice in the machine

because I tried playing like Mega Man X, for example, and the thing was getting like genuinely warm. It could not seemingly run an SNES game smoothly without like getting like warm. Which is a- I've been hearing that a lot about the A30, which is really disappointing because I feel like MiiU as a company,

they've been kind of building towards a couple devices specifically after the hit of the me you mini. Yeah. And then the me you mini plus, which is my subway device right now is a mini mini plus. I was looking forward to the 30 because I like you I'm more keen on the horizontal handhelds and the vertical one. So I've been really looking forward to that one. But that's what I've been seeing in a lot of those reviews and it seems like Ambernik is kind of eating their lunch on that front with the RG XX or 28XX. Yeah, it's the RG 28XX, which yeah, I think it does everything that the MIUI 30 is trying to do. The only thing it doesn't have, it doesn't have a WiFi if you care about WiFi for, I guess, retro achievements, things like that. It also doesn't have a left analog stick,

which the A30 does. So if you wanted to play games on like N64, things like that, you can use the D-pad for the analog stick, but obviously not quite the same thing. But honestly, what I play on these devices, especially on the smaller screens, almost exclusively is like SNES and earlier, maybe a little bit of 2D PS1 stuff. If there's anything on like Dreamcast 2D, maybe, but mostly it's like SNES and earlier

or GBA and earlier, I guess I should say. Yeah, I will say there's a there's another me you verse Anbernic situation brewing right now. Anbernic is announcing and releasing I think on the 17th, which is maybe the day this episode comes out. They're going to open up for pre-orders the, they all have terrible names, the RG35XXSP, which is essentially just the Game Boy Advance SP, but it runs Linux, which is going to be exhilarating. And from what I've heard from people I've talked to who have gotten hands on with the

device are stoked about it. It feels like kind of one of those like once in a generation, like they just nailed everything. There are really no compromises here. Simultaneously, MiiU is working on something called the MiiU Flip, which is similar, but in the exact same case as the A30 versus the 28XX, the MiiU has an analog stick as well.

And actually dual analog sticks on that one. Which is a weird choice for a Game Boy Advance SP-style device, has an analog stick as well. And the analog. Actually dual analog sticks on that one. Which is a weird choice for a Game Boy Advance SP style device, but I'm excited to use both and see which one I like more because I am just all about clamshells. I have just desperate, ever since I got into this scene in like 2020 or whatever, I've just desperately

wanted more clamshells. It is a case and a gaming console all in one. What do you want more than that? Absolutely. I love the SP form factor. I think given that I'm kind of drowning in handhelds at the moment, I'm going to wait and I'm going to see, uh, what, uh, me you puts out. I obviously, yeah, you're right. Like I think me, you needs to kind of win back a lot of this audience.

And I'll be curious to see if they fall into the same issues as the A30 using that very old chip for the flip. But yeah, it's exciting to see a mini console war brewing among these handheld designers. It's definitely a new era. It's really great, honestly. I'm having a great time covering this for both A30 and my blog, Wavelengths. It's been really fun to just like go really deep into what's going on with this scene

because like even Aion who makes the Odin and the Odin 2, they just announced this week something, I forget what it's, I think it's the Aion Odin mini is what they're calling it. And it's straight up just a PlayStation Vita that runs Android. Oh my god. Exhilarating as a concept. I'm stoked about that. There's apparently IA Neo is releasing something that's supposed to be like an analog pocket competitor. It just feels like all of these companies have kind of hit their stride in industrial design

and are just like making the wildest stuff they can think of. Yeah, it's really fascinating and very exciting. Cool, I think we did it. We did it. Awesome, thank you so much for joining us as our very special guest. Of course, thank you so much for having me and no one else. I already plugged to the top of the show,

but I'll do it again here. Definitely listen to Into the Aether, which is a great podcast on various podcasting platforms. I would highly, highly recommend it if you're looking for deeper dives. Any teases for upcoming content on Into the Aether? Yeah, the same day we're recording this, we're also recording our Uncharted bonus

about the entirety of that franchise. So every game and maybe also the movie will be included in that. And the other big thing that we're working on is a retrospective on the entire library of the Nintendo GameCube. We're playing every notable game for that system and talking about all of it. I'm sure that episode is going to be probably eight hours and just buckle up. Love it. That's sick.

Cool. Thank you. I want to thank everyone at the Patreon, which you can go to patreon.com slash the besties to support us. We have a episode of the resties to support us we have a Episode of the resties coming at you. Oh, it just went up actually it's live This earlier this week. We talked about Some interesting games we talked about scarlet maiden and we talked about mini shoot adventures So some nice some really good stuff there I want to thank the following patrons. We have Fofo the crow. We have spooky

spelled S P U U K I we have pseudonym Johnny and the long men and Big with a bunch of be a bunch of G's big five and and that's it I will recap the games that we talked about, because Chris Plant is not here. We talked about Hades 2. We talked about a bunch of sequels that didn't necessarily need sequels, Portal 2 and a bunch of other ones that I am now currently blanking on, because I wasn't taking notes, because Plant... Rogue Legacy. Rogue Legacy was another one we talked about. Spelunky. Spelunky and Binding of Isaac a little bit. We talked about the handheld with the crank,

known as the? Playdate. Playdate. And we also talked about the Ambernik RG28XX, which is, I think, my chosen one, and the MiU A30, if you're looking for 2.8 inch horizontal handhelds. A very narrow window there Cool next week. We're gonna be talking about Lorelei and the laser eyes, which is the new game from Samo go

Justin Griffin will be back Chris plant if he gets new equipment that isn't covered in water should be back The gang's all here. Thank you again for joining us. This has been the Besties, because shouldn't the world's best friends pick the world's best games? I think they should. Thanks for watching!