The Besties - Is Dragon Quest VII Too Easy? Is Nioh 3 Too Hard?

Episode Date: February 6, 2026

Dragon Quest 7 Reimagined makes one of the longest, most ambitious RPGs into something more manageable: a swashbuckling sprint through a book of fractured fairy tales. Whether or not you like that change of temp likely depends on your history with the series. Meanwhile, Nioh 3’s first boss is the skill check from hell. Why would game designers build a wall between the player and the fun? 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!

This is the one with the crystals and the dragons. No. It's not. So sometimes there's orbs. Do 11's got... Do any of the orbs have points? Because if they have points, that's basically a crystal. No, they're usually pretty smooth.

Final Fantasy, the crystals are quite jagging. I will grant you that. Sometimes they're like... Materia, I guess, is a perfect, beautiful little sphere that you just want to pop right in your mouth. And sometimes they're like neat little geometric shapes, like a long... gated, eight-sided dye or something like that.

But in Dragon Quest, we're almost always talking about an orb. And the orb is, you know, prismatic, different colors of the rainbow. And you do need to get all of them, usually to build a bridge to heaven so you can, like, get the sword from God. So that's my mnemonic device. I like Dragon Warrior. That game's sick. Dragon Quest sucks.

That's interesting. I'm old school. So I only like Dragon Warrior. and actually the kids that like Dragon Quest grown up, I thought they were kind of idiots and wimps. Choose the blonde flower seller from Final Fantasy 7. What's her name? Aerith.

Oh. Interesting. Not what I expected. I'm not so dumbs. I think there was a promotion to get a copy of Dragon Warrior for free when I was a kid. That's the only reason that play. Of course it was. The Nintendo Power gave it away.

And second thing, I just love knowing that there's going to have to be like a Wikipedia page explaining this cold open 90% of the people. Oh, dude, it's nine layers deep. You got to know. You got to know your stuff, gang. This is a Super Bowl dip of a cold open for you right here. We'll talk about this contextually. Yeah, no. And if you're intrigued and confused by this cold open, stick around.

We'll explain every joke we made along the way over hour long time. Also, you're not supposed to be listening to this. This isn't part of the show. Rachel, God damn it. Again. We keep telling you, please don't put this as a guinea. We keep telling you this is not part of it. My name is Justin Baccarat.

I know the best game of the week. My name is Griffin McRoy. And I know the best game of the week. My name is Christopher Thomas Planton. I know the best game of the week. My name is Russ Trush. I know the best game of the week. Welcome to the besties.

It's a video game club. And just by listening, you are a member. This week we're talking about a freshen, a, a freshening up of a classic beloved tale. Dragon Quest 7. Reimagined? Is that what we're going with? Yeah, crushed it.

Yeah. What's that, Chris Blant? Dragon Quest 7 Reimagined is the latest remake of the game. We got one about 10 years ago for the Nintendo EDS, and the original came out in America, which is a twist because not every Dragon Quest game used to. Dragon Quest for people who aren't aware is a fantasy role-playing game. imagine Final Fantasy 7

Well, actually don't imagine Final Fantasy 7 Don't imagine anything you like Final Fantasy Don't imagine something else, please The opposite of that Imagine just a really traditional fantasy role playing game, but this time you're on a boat Madden 2045

That's exactly what it is That's the exact opposite. Thank you Dragon Quest 7 Fragments of the Forgotten past That was the 3DS version, yes The Madden comparison I don't think is entirely wrong here

from Justin. Okay. And the world of role-playing games, because Dragon Quest, unlike Final Fantasy, it likes to stay very similar game-to-game to game. Beyond just the Slimes. It's not taking massive swings every game like Final Fantasy where you don't fully know what it's going to be.

If you've played one Dragon Quest, you have an idea of what the Dragon Quest canon will be. Play Final Fantasy 1 and then go play Final Fantasy 16? Sure. Is that the most recent what? Like, it play, and anywhere in between there, 7, 10, 12, like, play any of the other. And it's like, that's a different genre, right? Like, Final Fantasy 7 even is sort of a steamy, steampunk, apocalyptic kind of fantasy.

This is just Dragon Quest, and 7 is about as straight over the plate as this series really, really gets. Is there a special boy, and it's a special day in this game? Okay, so there's a lot of twist on it. It's Pilchard Day. It's Pilchard Day. It's a special fish day at Pilchard Bay. There's a special Pilchard Fish Day. It's a Pilchard Day at Pilchard Bay, and it's a special Pilchard Day.

You've got to wake up early to help your pilchered paw, bringing a special pilcher sandwiches for your ma to your paw, before he set sale to collect all the delicious pilchards. I think the closest thing you get to, like, a destiny connection, is that your friends with a prince, who is the biggest dipshit in gaming history. Gallhorn is it. Gallaghorn is also, yeah, you can buy Gallo.

Another huge Destiny connection. Can I try and set up kind of what Dragon Warrior 7 was? And so when it came to the stage, there was Dragon Warrior 7, and this is a JRP franchise, and I mean, most of the games are pretty beefy. And like you said, like it is very, very, very traditional JRP stuff because in a lot of ways, Dragon Quest, one, like, invented. those traditions, and so it is stuck pretty close to that. You're going to see slimes. You're going to see turn-based combat and leveling up. If you stick with it, I would say to about the 10 to 12 hour

mark, you will finally unlock classes. There is a class system in the game that is actually pretty sick. It's pretty great, and it's had some changes for this remake where you can have two classes equipped at the same time, which sort of opens things up and makes progression much, much, much faster. But aside from that, like, very traditional turn-based combat, not many surprises there. I think the surprising thing about this game is its structure, which is very anthological. I don't know if that's a word. Sure.

Anthology-esque. You are friends with his prince. Wow, what is the word? Anthological feels right to me, right? Oh, I like it. You're a little boy from a poor fishing village who's friends with a dipship prince, and the mayor's daughter finds out you two are on Adventures goes with you and you start to put together these tablets that let you travel into the past

to these islands that have been lost in time. You go back and you'll do a little quest. You'll do a little quest in the past. You'll help somebody out. You'll do about 40 to 50 turn-based battles and you'll level up and you'll find some stuff and then you'll come back to the president and poof, that island has reappeared and now there's stuff to do there too. And then you go right back to the Shrine of Mysteries, my friend. It's on to the next tablet and the next.

in the next island of the past, you're gonna save somebody there and fix it, and you come back to the present, poof, there's a new island. That is, it is just a sort of bunch of short stories that you are really cranking through a couple hours each.

So, I'm not big into these kinds of games, but because of our B-segment game, I decided to play this game some. And I, you really, a lot of games that have this sort of like length, it feels like that because the first three, fucking hours are you listening to two old princes talk about

how the Dragon King is almost dead but the unicorn lands. You know what I mean? It's like fucking bring your dad a sandwich and then your dad's like there's some tablets will you go look at them or whatever. And like the episode, it is like a very logical sort of like

small low stakes thing but it's easy to follow. You're not being asked to read a thousand lines of dialogue but it's just like and it feels very digested I played about five hours of this and I didn't feel like, well, when is it going to start or whatever? I had a beautifully pleasant, cohesive experience, you know. It didn't feel like I had just gotten a glimpse of the shape of the maybe thing.

That is a new feature for this reimagined version of the game. Dragon Warrior 7 famously, you would not engage any turn-based battle for the first three hours. at the game maybe as you are, because the things that you do, bringing a sandwich to your dad and then going to meet your dipshit Prince friend to put together this tablet to travel into the past, that's about like, that is hours and hours of the PlayStation original that you get through very, very quickly. They have streamlined so much of the stuff,

more than even the 3DS version did, which already streamlined some of this stuff. This is, by comparison, people who play this and think it's slow might disagree, but like, it moves at a fucking trot. So is that them cutting? stuff from the original game or is that them increasing the game speed? Partially, but partially it's stuff like instead of going here and talking to your uncle

and then he has you go off and do these nine things, he just gives you one of the things that you should have gone hunting for in the past. It's stuff like that where it's just like getting rid of backtracking and like they've added a lot of quality of life stuff too. There's a lot more way point marking

of things where if you need to find things like these tablets that send you into the past, you have to collect a series of them and now you can just find them on the map. You see them on the map. Yes, versus like, oh, I am going to have to go into every room in every house and break every single jar because there might be a tablet in them. Or I have to talk to every single person because there might be a person to chat with.

It feels fun in a cheaty, not cheating, but like, you're just like getting good stuff constantly. Like you definitely, it feels like you're just kind of like people are just tossing the stuff you need it. It feels very low, low friction is what I would say. They want you to keep going. Yeah. Right. I mean, that's what I've been surprised by kind of the reaction to this, because a lot of hardcore Dragon Quest fans who played through the original and played

through the remake, I'm seeing gripes of, oh, you've honed it into nothingness, that the game now plays itself, that the pleasure of these RPGs was that you did talk to everybody and, like, finding out where to go was the fun. What's strange to me and Griffin, I'm curious where your head is at on this. Yeah, sure. I also hear from Dragon Quest fans that the appeal is that it is relatively straightforward, that you don't have to think when playing these games, that it is comfort food. I think I've read a million pieces about how the series.

A million people will tell you comfort. It's comfort food, right? So it's like, I don't know which one people want it to be. And I'm curious for you, like, did it lose something by trimming this down? I don't think so. I have played through every mainline Dragon Quest game. except for the online one because I yeah 10 I haven't figured out how to do that yet yeah pretty curious about it and seven like it earns its reputation for being pretty

pretty hostile I think to your time and just a lot a lot a lot of unnecessary backtracking and hunting down these fragments if you miss one then like you're going to spend a long fucking time trying to figure out where you didn't pick up this one of many many dozens of plot like important kind of items that you're supposed to be going on like I feel like there is I don't want to disqualify anyone's comments or say that they're like bullshit or whatever but like I I think that looking back at dragon warrior seven on the PlayStation 1 when it came to the states and saying like what was good about it is how how hostile it was or how unapproachable it was or anything like that like I don't know for me that game has a lot of other

cool shit. Like the class system is really neat. And once you get into that, like all of a sudden, there's quite a bit more depth to the combat system. Uh, the character, the charm of this game is like through the fucking proof. The localization is, is great, especially in this rematch and version. It looks so good. What was that old, uh, show that like Team America World Police made fun of? Oh, Thunderbirds? Thunderbirds go. Yeah. Man, it looks awesome. It looks so cool. It looks like dioramas with like marionette puppet characters or even I think it's like. Yeah, Jerry, old guides, like a video game guide come to life. It really does. Yeah, that's a really good way of putting it.

So like, Jerry Anderson's. Jerry Anderson, there's a ton of stuff about this game that I think is really good. And for me, Dragon Quest 11 is still the like, I think cleanest way to get into the, it was the first game I played. I still think it's like the most approachable because while this does trim off a tremendous amount of like unnecessary stuff that kind of got in the way of the original version and the 3DS version, there's some stuff about it that is still pretty antiquated. And they haven't touched that stuff. Like what? To me, it feels, uh, I mean, God, I don't know.

The fact that in order to save, you have to go to a church and talk to a guy and he gives you a long, unskippable sort of like dialogue thing. I mean, that's rough. So if you're, yeah, no, I mean, that's true. I guess that is. Yeah, that's not just the, the church guy actually kind of, that's fine. It's a statue that wants to talk to you that's a bit much for me. You know what I'm here for.

Refill the life. Refill the manna. I don't have multiple saves. This isn't a branching story. I'm not going to backtrack here. The game does auto save. So, like, a lot of that stuff is, I don't know. I still felt like I needed to save every time I could, but that was mostly muscle memory from the, like, 120 hours I spent playing this shit on my device.

This is not a, I'm not going to complain about this because, like, I said, I think this is all by the charm. But I think, to be really clear about it, if you are used to more modern, there is not much in the way of modernization that has happened with, like, the gameplay systems. Like I think a lot of turn-based stuff have found ways of making combat more active, you know, even in giving you opportunities to like reduce some damage with a counter button or something like that. Something to like bring you into battles a little bit more. This is very much like it feels designed to put on autopilot. It's very easy to start auto-battling. You can actually set up like tactics for what kind of auto fighting you want your characters to do. like it feels very much intended for that to be.

This is not like a super engaging, like, gameplay experience. If that's something you are looking for. I will say this on the auto-battling side, that stuff actually makes me incredibly encouraged. Oh, yeah. I liked it. No, sorry, thumbs up from me. Huge, huge plus, but it is not an update.

It is an acknowledgement that some of this is, like, not super engaging. Yeah, the depth of it comes from the preparation for those battles, right? Like the class system has, like there's basic classes you learn. And once you learn a couple of those, you can move on to an advanced class. And then those, like, give you different spells and affect your stats in like a bunch of different ways. And being able to mix and match those is, it opens up a lot of doors. But then like, yeah, once you're in the fight, you can, it is a Dragon Quest thing to just turn on auto battle and press the fast forward button and roll the dice and see where they land and hope that you've prepared enough.

It is funny. As you progress through, if you're just auto-battling the whole time, it's just this thing of like, wow, this seems super easy. I'm just kind of turning through these. And then you'll watch this battle start to break bad in a way that, like, I don't really know how to help you guys. I haven't been playing the whole time. Wow, you guys are really getting your asses kicked. Ah, dangnapp. This fell apart fast.

I wish I'd done, I should have done something. I should have stopped this. I was watching an unfold. Yeah. I think it's different than like the most recent like a dragon which was turn-based or metaphor repentazio in that it felt to me more like an idle game meets a visual novel and that I yes all of the strategizing that Griffin talks about is there I didn't need to use any of that I put the battle speed on ultra fast I put auto battle on you get to a point where you are so above enemies that you can just slice them before you even get into a battle and you don't even have to have the battle. Oh, God, I love that shit. Right.

And it's just a matter of watching my numbers go up while I get these like great, somewhere between like outer limits and no Henry stories. Yeah, yeah. No random encounters either. No random encounters. You see the people, you see the enemies on the map.

Yeah. So you can choose when to. And you can spend around them. Oh, yeah. It ain't hard. There's some difficulty settings that I really appreciate. Like, and if you don't want to make battles easier for yourself or you don't want to affect like the stats of it,

you can increase how much experience or, gold or occupation vocation points. I forget what they're called. You can boost those so you just don't have to grind as much. And then you'll be over-leveled and you'll get into a dungeon and be like, I'm not going to fight everybody in here. I don't actually need to. You can really take this game at whatever pace you want.

And I think it is on, I think it's the best version of this game. I love this series and I love the original game. But like, this stuff that that made it slow was bad. I don't, I don't have much affection for. for that, I don't know, that stuff. Maybe I would if I had played it, you know, on the original PS1 and had that experience in its sort of intended format.

Can I ask a question as someone who did not intentionally did not play this game because we've historically, I have really jibed with very few JRPs in the past? Don't you think it's a bit of a sign that something is off with the genre when you, when expediting elements of the genre makes the game better? I see, I see what you mean. And then somebody was turned around on this genre a ton over the last few years is, yes, a long time ago it needed more honing. And it has since been honed. And that's why when I play Metaphorie Fantasia, where I play like a dragon, I do not skip the combat.

Yeah. I mean, for those games in particular, I think, are representative of like a more modern approach. So I do agree with that, but like, I mean, there's still. I mean, it is as old-fashioned as Dragon Quest 11 is still pretty traditional. Like there's no extra turn system from metaphor Refontazio. There's no Perry system from Expedition 33, right? But that is the stuff that if they would add it to this game, it would no longer be this game. It would no longer be this game.

No, I understand. I guess the question I would have is, would Dragon Quest 11 be improved if all these features that we just talked about were also ported to like other Dragon Quest Dragon Quest games. I don't think so. And I'll tell you why. It's because these are big games and they are big stories. Dragon Quest 7 especially. And I don't think the number of turn-based battles you would get into would be, would

make it a even remotely palatable experience if you had to put a little bit more time and energy into each and every fight, right? like I don't this game has so many scenes and so many settings and so many stories and chapters that it is moving through if you did not play it fast forwarding the combat on auto and I'm not saying that obviously everyone does it that way I'm speaking personally the idea of doing all those battles and having to actually spend some some brain juice on them it doesn't just don't sound great yeah so it's you got to you got to also think about it in the context of like just being gameplay just being one of the other things that is on offer especially with a package like this right you're talking about the the you're paying for the fidelity of having this like nostalgic experience like recreated for you in a way that makes it like super engaging but like if you had a story in a game that you weren't particularly like needing to you wanted to get the sense of but you didn't necessarily need to like read every single side story

and every single line. No one would think twice about kind of like tapping through that dialogue and getting a sense of it, right? And that's about what I'm doing with the story here, right? It's like, that's cute. I'm kind of like basically got a sense of it, but it's beautiful to look at and engage with and so relaxing. And I feel like if it forced me to slow down and do, like, be very specific about the mechanics,

it would be almost a betrayal of that, right? Because what I'm getting out of it is that it's so sort of like light and airy, I'm able to kind of like get a sense of this, what this experience is without like sinking 100 hours of my full focus into it. Yeah. A final question from me. If you could wave a magic wand and apply all of these speed up, auto battle, et cetera, features to older JRPGs,

Final Fantasy across the board. Do you think that's a net positive? Or are there specific ones where you think it would actually detract? I mean, I think overall it would be a net. positive. I also feel like in my gut, a game like Final Fantasy 6 is not as, is not quite as long as a Dragon Quest is. Like you are doing sort of some total fewer kind of random encounters overall. But Final Fantasy 6, to use that as an example, when you use the Blitz combo meaning and you have to punch in the actual command like you're playing Street Fighter or you're controlling

cyan and you have to wait for the meter to charge. Like, Dragon Quest undo any of that shit, man. The newest, like, gameplay thing that they have is each class has, like, a special ability that charges up that are actually kind of cool. Like, obviously, that is well-trod territory, but, like, it's kind of, the special abilities are pretty neat and pretty good reasons for you to consider using classes that otherwise are not so great. But, again, that goes back to the thing of, like, it's all the prep.

It's all the getting stronger. It's all the finding the stuff and exploring so that when you go and you look at these very fast, very low input battles, and they start moving at a nice clip, you're like, hell yeah, I'm doing the other part of the game super. Yeah, yeah. I feel good. I like that. Yeah. I think this rules. I think this game is great.

And I think it is the best version of a game that is obviously very, very nostalgic, but also like, I don't know, just a really very solid entry. Not my favorite in the Dragon Quest series, but like... Because of its story, you can pick at it over the course of like years. Absolutely you can. Yeah. Yeah. It's like a bonsai tree. Like a bonsai tree.

Let's take a break. And then when we come back, let's talk about a much less relaxing and accommodating experience. Neo3. Now, we all know that I'm great at video games. We'll start that segment there. I'm really, I play all the hardest ones and I do so. Play us the hardest ones and lots of his time, like lots of his time that he could have spent on anything. Anything else.

Carving, I could have been doing, but instead I play hard games. Yeah. I will say without hyperbole that Neo3's very first boss that you fight is harder than anything that I played in Song. Anything, not even close. Now, do you mean that in a. Fun way. I do not. But Russ, I'm confused.

Because you, as you say to me, all the time, even when I beg you to stop, you love it rough. So what was it about this game? Okay. Let me take a step. If I could just echo Russ, ditto. A hundred percent, but I suck. So, like, I get frustrated easy. I got others to someone who's legit before.

I got other things in my life. Let me take a step back real quick. So the Neo franchise has existed for a while now. It comes from the Team Ninja Team Koei, Tecmo, makes these games. They are Souls-like games, but Neo 1 and Neo2, notably, are relatively linear. Linear in the way that, like, Demon Souls was linear. Like, it'll have, like, levels, former levels, rather than, like, a big open world that... They feel a bit more action-oriented, I would say, and a little bit more, yeah.

Yeah, less about the exploring and shortcuts. It feels like a platinum game in terms of the combat, much faster than anything you would see in like Dark Souls or anything like that. I would argue it feels like a Team Ninja game. Yeah, Team Ninja. But good. That's a, that's just me. Because they made it.

But also, if you've played any of their games, very similar. This is notably the first time that they are bringing the open world format to the Neo franchise. The developers actually messed with this before they made a path of, the Ronan? Was that the name of that game? Oh, yeah. Wait. That was the one it just came out like three years ago, two or three years ago where you could like glide around the world. They've made so many

games in the past few years, yes. Rolong Fallen Dynasty, yes. Yeah, they've made a lot of games. But this one is the first time they're bringing Rise of the Rodan. Rise of the Ronan, thank you. I couldn't find the verb. I searched a lot of different verbs of the Ronan. This is the first time

that they've brought open world to the mix, which actually got me really excited, because I thought that Eldon Ring, by introducing an open world format in ways that were much more dramatic than Dark Souls 1 and 2 and 3, for that matter, made the games more approachable. Because you can really figure out the best way to approach something. Oh, I'm struggling on this boss. I'm going to go to a different boss or find new gear or whatever. So I was excited about Neo3 maybe introducing that to a franchise that I hadn't really clicked with yet. That's all the setup.

Here's the kicker. So they put you through a tutorial and they teach you the mechanics. And the mechanics, they do some interesting things. Justin, I don't know if there was anything in particular that you thought was interesting. I thought the switching thing where you're switching moving samurai and ninja. Pretty cool. Yeah, it's tough to contextualize it because we only made it as far as I made it. But it very quickly introduces you to two combat styles, one of which is samurai where there's a sort of like moment that you can restore your stamina.

after a series of attacks. You're sort of like, if you combo a sort of like breath in, you can like keep your stamina a little bit better. And then the ninja, you can add on to the end of a combo like a teleport away. So like if you press attack several times,

you can kind of shadow step rather than like actually dodge. And it's like part of the flow of the combat. So they both feel pretty different pretty quickly. Samurai's like more, you know, uh, combat full on and then the ninjas

a bit more stuffy. But you are specifically switching between them instantly. There's just like you pull a trigger and boom, you're the other character. In fact, it's actually tied into the like parry system of the game where the way you parry is by switching as you're being attacked by a heavy attack, you like that activates the parry mechanic. Okay, that's interesting. Like that super parry.

Yeah. For the super unblockable thing, you have to switch forms and it's like, yeah. So neat idea. Okay, so we go, Justin and I, again, had the same experience. We go through the tutorial at the end, presumably, at the end of the story. You can try, but there's like 10 weapons. So there's like, you can try. It doesn't like give you something.

It's like get started with this. It's like there's a, I mean, I really, I, between like the bonus stuff that, I had like 20 weapons. Yeah. That's how I got to the first boss. Like I added every weapon. Not a problem. The first boss is a guy with a big stick. and there's a point at the end of it.

And man, is he mean? Shoo, this guy is mean. You get about two and a half hits, I would say, before you're dead. And you have three. Not an exaggeration. Three hit. Yeah, but basically three hits, maybe two and a half. Depends on where you're at.

And you have three heels. And the heels will like mostly heal you fully, but that's it. And two blocks will clear your stamina. So like you could block twice. and then you are completely vulnerable. Every combo, like, most of his combos are like four hits. So, like, you can't block. Yeah.

And there is a dodge, so you can dodge away. But it's really... Not recommended. It's not recommended. And also, but here's the thing that really sucks. It's not that hard to not get hit by the guy. You can keep your disses from the guy really easy. Yeah.

The way damage works in this game is you have to basically whittle down the guy He buys stamina. They have a name for it in the game, but it's basically stamina. Key, right? Key, until the key is low enough and then you can deal damage to him. But what you're dealing to him is like

basically what looks like chip damage. Like, here's 2% of his health off. Congratulations, do it again, 50 more times. Now, there are ways to combo where you're interrupting one of his heavy attacks, but you better not fuck up that timing because if you fuck out that timing, you're basically dead.

and there's very, very little room for error. And it's, when you're succeeding, it's just a very slow plotting process. It's triage. It feels like not triage. It feels like you're just... I'm watching a video of this fight. There's a YouTube video that,

because I looked up guides. You know how I feel about guides. We all do. I looked up guides for this fight specifically that was like, easy way to beat this. guy. And the easy way to beat this guy is spend 15 minutes being perfect fighting this guy is basically what it boils down to. I say, it is, if you think about the early stages of a game, and I think that you have to, right? Games are, every game is educational, right? Because that's what's fun about

games is the learning that your brain does when you figure out a mechanic. Your brain likes that, right? So the game is always teaching you. And this, what this game is teaching you in the early moments, is here's how I want you to approach bosses. I want you to approach them by figuring out the exact thing that I want you to do and then be very deliberate about that and then execute it perfectly and it won't be pleasant. And that's what it's teaching you about Neo3, right? So even if you engage it, like take it at face value. It is like so, it is telling you that it is going to be unpleasant.

Now, but here's the issue. And here's why I think it's interesting that they've made this choice about the first boss because once you get through the tutorial and the game opens up, what I've heard from people that have played much further than us is the game gives you tools to make boss fights way more of an intimate,

personalized experience because you're using this skill to parry or this weapons of whatever you're earning skills that allow you to focus how you're playing, which I find incredible. incredibly compelling about FromSoft games, for example, is being able to customize

that experience. Because this is so early, your only option for a customization, there's a couple options. You could summon a guy. There is a guy, an NPC you can summon.

You have a limited number of resources to summon that guy, and when you run out, there's no more of those. Also, the guy does no damage and barely attends his attention while you're doing the fight. The other option that I've heard online

is... You still get combo. Like, you could bring someone else, right? Like, which I did. I just used the resource not really knowing, like, I got, I got killed by the guy so badly that I assumed I was supposed to bring in somebody. And I brought in somebody and I used up the resource and it didn't help.

And if he turns his attention on you, which he instantly does, still three hits in you're dead. Yeah. I mean, does it? Yeah. The other option that I've heard online through digging through like Neo-redits is you should turn around and just start slaughtering like little soldier guys that are kind of in the area and just grind out souls for two.

hours until you're a high enough level that the fight is decent and that fucking sucks guys like that's terrible that's and i by the way i would have no idea about how i would level up in a way that would be meaningful right so i would definitely need to go like look up a guide for the best way to level up to exploit because that's what they want and and what it's hard is it just feels like trying to make a segment of a game like it is not intended for people here's what i can't say authoritatively It's not for people that didn't play Neo 1 and Neo2. I hope it's for people that did. I hope they're getting it.

Even people that played Neo 1 and Neo2, I was looking on the Reddit. The Neo Reddit, if ever there was a place where people would go. And people were saying, holy shit, this is dramatically harder than anything I've experienced. What I'm struggling with looking at this fight, one of my favorite games ever is Sekiro. And the way you describe the combat system,

the boss fight system, like it sounded similar, right? In Sekiro, you have a certain number of, death blows that you have to get off on an enemy and to do that you have to break their stamina either through like well-timed guards or attacks or you know any any number of basic kind of sword fight dueling activities in here it really seems a lot less I mean Sekiro you really had to wail on some people to break their stamina Bouchido blade it wasn't but when you break someone in this fight that I'm watching you get to deal a little bit of more damage than you normally do,

and then it's back to the grind. It feels like the tempo is, um, the tempo is very dramatically different. It is just not like the, the rhythm isn't fun, right? Like that's, it's not even like a difficulty thing because once you

understand what they want you to do, it's still unpleasant to execute. Like, yes. I think this is a big question I have about the souls like genre right now, which is this, the skill check boss fight. feels antiquated in some ways as these games get easier and they give you more and more options,

which apparently this game does a lot. As you mentioned, I read the Kataka review and from what I understand, it's these four big open worlds and you get a ton of new abilities and power-ups and advanced weapons that make the game easier and easier and easier. But just like this developer's previous game Will Long Fallen Dynasty, it has this skill check that's like, well, we want to make sure that you're good enough to play the rest of the game, that you won't be overwhelmed.

Ironically, we are testing the maximum of what you're going to face before you even get to that, though. And that just seems, I don't, I get why it was there with the original Souls games. I don't fully understand why we still have this. Here's the thing. It's not there in the original Souls games.

games because if you look at Dark Souls 1, Dark Souls 1 begins, you know, you go through the tutorial. The asylum deal. You die. Whatever. You die to the asylum dealing. That's fine. And then eventually you go to Undeadburg.

And the first like, quote unquote, true boss that you're fighting is what's his name on the bridge, whoever that guy is the big guy on the bridge. I'll never ever ever. Whatever his name is. But you have an entire level before that where you're like doing things and finding things and finding gear to determine what you're going to be able to. to do and there's different options. So without that here, because you're locked into the tutorial, it just doesn't have any options.

Bloodborn's first boss is a good example of this where like, Bloodborn's first boss, you have to beat them before you can start leveling. So it's this thing of like, it's this mental thing. But what Bloodbourne is teaching you there is that it is scary, right? Bobborn is high stakes because this doesn't even have that drama. You instantly get your souls back or whatever when you walk back into it. It's not like a, there's no tension. It's just frustration.

Yeah. Yeah. All I'm going to say is this. Is this, for me personally, this is not me saying Neo3 is a bad game. What it is me saying is Neo3 developers made a very, very bad decision for the beginning of their expansive giant open world game that otherwise, according to reviews, seems to be pretty fucking good. So I hope for their sake and other people's sake, people that buy it, that they think about patching it. because that's a lot of fucking effort you guys spent making this awesome game to have it gated behind

what is a pretty miserable experience and for people listening that make games as well like it's okay you don't need to throw people in the deep end early on in fact I'd recommend the opposite make them feel pretty good about your game before you make them die a bunch of times and maybe they'll keep playing I don't even mind if you want me to grind I don't even mind the skill test

But if you're going to do the skill test, make it one weapon and one boss and make sure that I understand your counter system, right? Like, make sure you're teaching me something with it. This gives you every tool. Like, and that's just more fresh. I'll just switch between the weapons and keep getting my ass handed to me. And that's the lesson that the game wants me to take away from it. It's not like, feel free to experiment. What the lesson is, get on YouTube and if I can find the one tutorial that'll teach you how to beat this guy.

And even then, it's too annoying to actually do. You'll just quit. Yeah. Anyway, that's Neo 3. For people that do get into it, if a game gets patched and that becomes easier, let us know. I'd be happy to try it again. Yeah. I don't know that I will.

I'll be happy to get us try it again. Neo has always been this franchise where I'm like, I like fucking everything about this. All these different ingredients, they've mixed it. And I just have never, I just have never really gotten stuck in one. Yeah. I like Rise of the Ronan. And that game actually has difficulty settings. So if you're interested in this kind of game from this developer, play that.

They make good games. Woolong, good. Rise of their own in, good. Fatal Frame 2 coming out this year, good. Looks like they also made another dead or alive extreme dating game. Haven't had a chance to play that one yet. Only released an Asian. But you know I'm going to figure out how to download it.

I'm just curious. Cool. Okay. Well, we have some reader mail very quickly from some folks specifically talking about Cairn, which is exciting. We talked about Karen last week. That was the mountain climbing game. This first letter comes from Arian.

Arian says, Rock climber here. While I've spent far more time in the gym than on crags, I've met many folks who do both. And I must say that being an asshole is not an accepted part of the sport. Yes, there are people who think

that being a highly skilled climber excuses any terrible behavior, but there are far more amazing climbers who are the nicest folks in the world. At the gym, advanced climbers will be the first to cheer on a new climber when they achieve their first send because we all know how it feels to hit the first wall.

Love the show, and this episode was super fun, but I wanted to share that rock climbers are more often than not a kind and welcoming bunch. Did we say that rock climbers were shit? I think the person, the character... The standoffish nature of the main character of the game, and it's like, well, yeah, because you're out there on the mountains, you're not.

We also might have alluded to the fact that rock climbers might not care about their loved ones because they think their pastime is more important. That is objectively. No, yeah, I mean, I think it's, I know a couple rock climber people, and they're always posting picks of them with lots of other rock climber people. And so it's like, obviously, they seem a friendly bunch. I hope I didn't. Speaking, I thought this might be a reference to, I came upon in the game bareproof, like, snack deposits with some items in them. And I didn't know if I should leave some of the items behind.

I've never experienced that in a video game before, but I was seeing like, I guess a normal hiker wouldn't clean this whole box of bearproof stuff. out. Like a normal hiker would probably just like take something. But in my video game, I'm like, fuck yeah, clean it out. But then I had a moment where I was like, no, wait a minute. Are there other imaginary hikers? Should I leave this mind for them? I don't know if you guys talked about the bear proof. No, we did. I guess we never come. I guess it's not story irrelevant. I was hoping to come back up. I did have a bear encounter in the game that is pretty great. It's pretty good, the bear encounter that I had at the game. But I don't want to spoil it in case. He was hungry. He didn't have snacks. Another one from Jack? Yeah, we have another one from Jack, another climber. Jack mostly just sent a giant list of terms that we thought would be useful. And I thought, don't look at the document. I can ask you guys if you have any thoughts on. What does Whipper mean?

Whipper? That's when you fall a little bit, but you're clipped in, and so the rope goes, whoa, Griffin. Is that right? That's right. Hey, I just guess it just made sense to me because it's like whipping. Secret little, we'll do one more. What is an Elvis leg?

An Elvis leg? That's where you have, that's where you have one knee stuck out one way and the other one that is like, is like straight, like he's doing his little dance? He's doing his little Elvis dance? You know, when you have a bad hold in Karen and your leg starts wiggling like Elvis? Oh, I see, Elvis leg. That's cool. I like that.

Also, also they write to say, Peton is that. the only way they've ever heard it, although I guess regionally could be different. Do we have any honorable mentions? DragGless 7 is really sort of absorbed by. I do want to call out that I've been watching Fallout Season 2, which I think wraps this week. I think the final episode of Season 2 just aired.

I am consistently pretty amazed at what they are doing within Fallout as a show. It's the first time that I can remember where the show acknowledges the canon of the games that happened effectively 10 years before the event. I think New Vegas, the game took place 10 years before the show. And all of the events in New Vegas, all the events in the other fallout games are referenced and acknowledged in like a accurate, canon accurate way. And not in like a nerdy like, hey, do you remember when there was operational ASCO? Like in ways that are like fully baked into the narrative of the show, which is an incredibly tough.

thing to do. So if you're a Fallout nerd, I mean, it seems likely that if you're a Fall Out nerd, you're watching the show, but I think Fallout Season 2 has really leaned even further into that and done actually a really good job. I really enjoyed, I know I enjoyed Fallout Season 1. And then Sidney

and I both did, right? Because that's her only exposure to fallout, but she really liked it. And I started Fallout Season 2 and man, there are like so many disparate plot threads that my brain melted and I don't, I didn't remember any of it. It's like, okay, this is actually

can't keep up. Good critique. I agree. The first episode of this season actually, I think, is not great because they want to like set up, here's the six threads that we're going to be weaving through the entire series, this season at least. And it's too much. I think they do a much better job because in later episodes, they'll just focus on like two or three of the storylines and then they just focus on. So you're not as distracted. Yeah, it was so like, yeah. Yeah, you're not the only one.

That way. It's like, yeah. My mom, for what it's worth, not a gamer, loves spy mysteries, has got into very into fallout season one and watched the first episode of season 10. I don't like it anymore. And it's like, I think it's worth at least watching two episodes of the second season. I think it finds its footing. I admire her certainty about that. That's really.

I know. She was very certain. It's inspiring. I know. Hey, do you guys, man, I just want to talk very briefly. about Star Trek Starfleet Academy if I can. Oh, yeah, please. Because it's like, it's so weird that this show exists.

Because this seems like a show that I've, I'm not unique and think, I've been thinking about this show existing for 20 years, right? This is like just a show that everyone kind of figured they would make eventually right. Like they've done all the other Star Trek things, so they're doing a Starfleet Academy one. This is, and, and I haven't watched any of it.

So tell me if this is wrong. My interpretation of it based on just like brief clips and things like that, is this is like Star Trek meets skins. Is that a fair assessment? Yes. So it is right. So it is way in the future,

very disconnected from like everything that has happened in previous Star Trek stuff, right? I'm not like, I've not kept up with the mini, Paramount Star Trek series that have been concurrent. I watched some discovery. I like Star Trek, like as an idea,

I've watched a lot of Star Trek stuff. I'm not a big nerd or a door. like a cool guy. Sure. No, but watch this show is fascinating. So here's the basic premise. There's this a guy named Caleb who is separated from his mom when he's just a young boy because she is taken into custody basically by Starfleet.

And this boy escapes from the custody of Starfleet. He is in the custody of a captain played by Holly Hunter at that time. And he escapes. Fast forward 15 years in the future. This kid is taken back into custody for Carlin. crimes that he's doing, you know, just trying to survive and find his mom who is separated from his boy, he has taken back into custody. And since he is still technically a ward of Starfleet, he has given the opportunity to instead of be imprisoned, he can join Starfleet Academy, a recently

renewed, refreshed Starfleet Academy that they are just starting to do this whole thing again, that is being led by Holly Hunter, who is the chancellor of the Starfleet Academy now. And the Academy is also a ship that can take off and go to space. Sounds good I like all of that By by the way Paul Gimani is a bad alien

who's super good at fighting and kind of was responsible for this boy getting separated from his mother but also hates Starfleet and maybe he's looking out for this boy too so Giamati in the mix

there is a scene in the very first episode where you get hologram Giamadi telling Holly Hunter who is folded up across the captain's chair about how life is like an or Gargami chicken and just screaming like the most bat shit stuff. Stephen Colbert is the ship's voice and he does like mainly ads for stuff.

It's all a little cute for my tastes personally, but it is fun Star Trek. It is in the fun Star Trek mold that is like, blow decks stuff. Not quite that level of like, but it is pretty, it's, it's, you know, not that level of cuteness. I would say, not that level of like irony or silliness. It's a little more grounded than that. It does feel though, you know, more in the like Joss Whedon mold maybe than a lot of things of the thing. Yeah. No.

Like it's, it's, it's, it feels like they are trying. I'm old now. Yeah. So when people try to appeal to young people, I don't know if it's working or not. Yeah. But I, it feels a little bit. Yeah. All I know is that it has become a, uh, internet discourse.

lightning rod and I can't I haven't bothered to do the research on like where that is all coming from and whether it's racist or not. It's an interesting. Assume yes. Assume yes. Right. Assume. Right.

Because Star Trek is always that dichotomy of like, its foundations are extremely liberal. Yeah. And it attracts some people who ain't. And that's just life. I mean, that's just the way I've been going to Star Trek conventions with my dad for 40 years. And it's always been that way. Yeah.

A hundred percent. So, but that it is, I'll say this, the first episode, like really good premise, interesting ideas, interesting performances. The second episode, it goes from setting up the expansive idea to like what an episode might be like, and that episode is about, it's kind of like a mock UN kind of thing, and then like a debate club kind of thing. And then because the war college of the Federation is like right next to start. Fleet Academy. So there's some like back and forth bullies across the lake.

Nerds. You know, kind of rival-ranger. Yeah. And everyone's in love and kissing and stuff. And that's all, if you like that kind of thing. I don't know. I've watched two episodes. They're wildly uneven. I don't know if I'm going to go back for a third, but I thought it was really interesting

that there's this show that is out there. And Paul Jiamadian is having a great time. And Holly Hunter is fantastic. But she's Holly Hunter. So she has to be that's the law right yeah i thought of something i can do uh the most recent episode makes some noise on the dropout platform so this sort of improvie comedy game show uh it's got this episode of zach reno jess mckina and paul f tompkins on it and boy howdy it is a barn burner

folks this one had me ruffling all the way to the bank as a as a a big super ego fan if some of the some of the bits felt, I don't know, true to the spirit of that program, which I don't think is around anymore. And it's just been a really fucking funny season. There's an episode that had Angela and Lisa and Isabella, who've all been, or Izzy, who've all been on stuff on it before. And they just spend the whole episode just tearing Sam Rashes but apart. Poor guy. It's good TV. That's my recommendation.

They make good stuff. Oh, here's what I have. Nirvana, the band, the show. Now's the time to catch you. Now is the time. Because Nirvana, the band, the show, the movie is going to be opening in theaters in like a week. And you're going to be mad at yourself that you have not caught up on Nirvana, the band, the show. You might be wondering, how do I do that?

Good question. It's a little difficult. You can find the first season of it on Amazon Prime right now, I think. I think you can still pay for it. The trouble with Nirvana, the band The Show, is they push the boundaries of copyright law to their breaking point. They really, really test what you can and can't use as free use,

down to using like the Home Alone music and titles in an episode and using Mario music. People who are notoriously litigious, they have no fear of running right of. up against. I mean, the name alone. Yes. The, true. The show is great. It's just about two buffoons who want to get a show at the Rivley Theater in Toronto, and they go about that in every imaginably terrible way possible, and that is what the movie is about, too. You will be able to see the movie and love it without having watched any of this, but I think if you are listening to

the show, that means you like video games. And Nirvana, the band, the show might be some of the most loving media about video games that you will find out there. The We Shop Channel song with lyrics. Oh, I forgot that was them. That's like, that is a, that's a genuine cultural touchdown for me. Yeah. Across the worlds of comedy and video gaming.

You all right to yourself to at least brush up on that. It's true. I think that's it for honorable mentions. I have some folks to thank over at the Patreon, which is patreon.com slash the besties. Before I thank them, I want to mention that we have a new episode of the bracket battles

that just dropped. It's very, very funny and cool and we enjoyed making it. Thank you to supporting us for allowing us to make it. Here's a clip from that episode right here. Fucking love to live in Incopolis.

But like, Blood-Born or Dark Souls, I don't really want to be there. No matter how good the Hubworld is, there's werewolves and stuff. So, it sucks. Generally not in the Hubworld. Usually no world.

Maybe let's just do objectively the best hub worlds. Like as a gaming, as a video game thing. Instead of which is the best one to live in. How do I do that? Well, I don't know, Russ. When we decide what the best game of the year is at the end of the year, we're not saying the best game to eat the disc of. We're talking about the games as an objective, critical sort of look.

Okay. I want to keep... Why is that challenging in the abstract? You've been doing this for so long. I can't rubric out which is the best one. I think we're here. I think better amenities, better amenities stays.

Yeah. Because I think you're going to want that no matter what. Your neighbors, I think also can stay. I'm just saying that. I want in friendlier neighbors. I don't know if there's a different way of saying that, but I want to reward hub worlds that have people you want to go back and talk to for some reason, right? Versus just like, you know.

Be they real people or video game characters. Sure. Yeah. Yeah. I think that we can judge that objectively without having to imagine ourselves. I just think we need to agree right now that we're not going to get weird about friendlier later. Like they're not friendly, they're mean. Like we know what friendly means.

Interesting neighbors. Compelling neighbors. Like you're living in the. Oh, look at you. Rogey over here. Unpack your adjectives. Thank you again. That was a lot of fun.

Some members to thank, Jack M, Chris T, Alexander B, and Diogo G, thank you very much for supporting the besties. Thank you to everyone else who has supported the besties. You allow us to make this show possible. So thank you. Let's recap the games we talked about today, Chris Plant. If you're up to it. Man, what didn't we talk about? We talked about Dragon Quest 7 reimagined, Neo 3, and then we got into the other stuff.

We got some make some noise on Dropout, Fallout Season 2, Star Trek Fleet Academy. and Nirvana and the band-the-show. Star Trek, Starfleet Academy. It's a lot of stars. I'm not a dork, though. I just have heard my dad say it a bunch. Sorry. Star Wars, the Phantom Menace.

Cool. Next week, we're doing Mujanics. I will not be here for that one, but I will definitely. Diffins doesn't like cats is what it boiled down to. I'm going to say, here's a little preview. That's the part of the title that he doesn't like. Yeah, that part. That's the part.

I have not legit. We've been doing this show for 12 years. I have never played a game more before

recording an episode of the besties. Damn, I thought this is about to be a bigger reveal. Shit, dude,

I thought this is a big one. I've never played a game. What? I've never played a game more than I've played Mugenics before

recording the episode. So take that what you will. So, I'll take it for my opinions will not be welcome or valid. Correct. There will be no space

for them. Look forward to that pleasant exchange. And more. Next week on the Besties. Be sure to join us again. The Besties, because shouldn't the world's best friends pick the world's best games. Besties!