The Besties - Metroid Prime 4 vs. Ooo: Showdown of the Search Action Games

Episode Date: December 12, 2025

Metroid Prime 4 is actually here! After a long development, including years of silence, the first-person Metroid series returns in the form of the Nintendo Switch 2’s big holiday release. But does it feel like a game from 2025 or 2015? Plus, Plante finally played the pseudo-metroidvania Ooo and can’t wait to tell you about this short, but sweet treat. 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!

Chris, do you want to talk about how good cold open material here? Do you want to talk about how it took you two tries to count the six? No, I don't know if that's, wait, yes, and, yes, and I would also like to talk about something else. Something else. Yes, and another topic that it's not that. The problem is I don't have any good stuff. I'm freezing cold out here in California. It feels like it's like 65 degrees in my office, and I'm sure you all can relate.

I have the New York, are you just like completely, have you become completely climatized to California now? Are you now, because you used to live in a real place, like real places, you know, with weather and stuff. No, big time, dude. I'm one of those people now who I'm always carrying around a sweater. People looked at me. I went down to San Diego this weekend, was walking on the beach, wearing jeans and a sweater. I felt like I needed a coat, checked my phone, 75 degrees. What the hell is wrong with me?

How this happened? Unbelievable. California turns everyone into my wife. What is it about the sun out there? So have you ever noticed how wives, they talk about the weather like this. I'm cold. But husbands, they talk about the weather like this.

I'm a hot. War the roses, more like war of the thermostat. Remember right? Hey guys, it's me, Griffin. I just got here. I just sat down and just got here. I haven't been here before this. Hey, it's me, New York Giraff.

I've been here the whole time doing a Justin impression. Hey! Hey, guys, it's me, Justin. I just got here. Bradley. A character that was never supposed to come back. Okay, I'm going to walk away now.

You let me know when old M.B is punched out. My name is Justin McRoy, I know the best game of the week. My name is Griffin McRoy. I know the best game of the week. My name is Christopher Thomas Plant, and I know the best game of the week. Yeah, Russ isn't here, but the point is it's still the besties. It's a video game club, and just by listening, you, my friend, have become a member. This week, we are talking about, they said it would never happen, but it is.

We were talking about Metroid Prime for Beyond. Chris, what is so beyond about Metroid Prime 4? Beyond my expectations that we would ever get to play this. Metroid Prime 4 brings back the mostly beloved Metroid Prime series. It's been in development for what feels like, I think, 500 years. But it's actually here. Does it feel like a new game or does it feel like a game that has been made piecemeal for 500 years? you're going to have to stick around to find out.

It's the latter. It's the piece of all. I didn't want to, yeah, it's the. Can I set up Metroid Prime for Beyond? Because I suspect I had the most, I had the warmest response to the game of the three of us. I know Russ was looking forward to it as well, but he's traveling today and could not be here.

So we'll ask him about it next week. It is, the Metroid Prime series, has a very distinct kind of vibe. It has a distinct kind of thing going on that was divisive when it first came out, even though I think the original Metroid Prime was pretty beloved. Metroid Prime 2 and 3,

kind of like a little bit more middling, but still has its niche audience. And then that was 18 years ago that the last Metroid Prime game came out in 2007. And this game was announced E3, 2017. It was originally being developed by Namco Bandai, I believe, before like three years later

they announced that they were scrapping it, starting over with Retro Studios, the traditional developer of the series at the helm, and then that was fucking, what, four years ago that that happened and now it's here. That's a little history for folks who did not sort of follow the lore. Yes, the journey that got us here.

I like the Metroid Prime series. I usually don't find it especially helpful when people, like, try to hypothesize about what happened behind the scenes. But my main sort of takeaway playing this game is that it very much feels like a game that went through a couple different iterations and cycles and developers with support from different, it feels disjointed in a way that, I don't know, you can't help but think about how the development cycle of this game impacted the final result. that is that that is that the most positive thing we're going to get talking no i you know it's just oh man okay so i struggled with this at first i was looking forward to checking this out mainly because i wanted to try the sort of like mouse functionality of the thing of the switch two so i printed out like a holder for the for the mouse it's very sick put put the mouse in there and um it the moving around, the motion feels fine.

I don't really like using the buttons as much as you have to. That doesn't feel very good to use the buttons on the mouse. Even though the mouse movement is good, the action, the shooting and stuff feels bad. It doesn't feel good. But I feel like I spent so much time fiddling with that and not knowing if I was having, I wanted to have like the ideal experience.

right and I was thinking about that with this switch two specifically I feel like it's kind of a good snapshot of where the switch two is at right because I don't know what the ideal experience is for Metroid Prime 4 and I was trying to figure that out while I was playing it and I feel like the switch two is kind of in that same position right is this a game and this is this a world that is designed to be like put up on a big screen and immerse yourself in and really like get lost in the world or is this a game that is intended to be played on you know the switch screen you know is it intended to be played with a mouse and a and a and a controller is it intended to be played it feels it feels like that it feels very much like i don't know you can kind of do whatever

because we didn't have a lot of real concrete ideas about what this what this should be um i think it hues pretty close to the format right i think and and that's that's you can take that either way right I have noticed, I would say a trend among people who have really, really liked the game that they really also really liked the other Metroid Prime games. I think it sticks pretty close to the formula. With some variances that are kind of strange, like one big element is that Samus has psychic powers. But the psychic powers, there's like one that you kind of use to drag around little symbols along tracks to like unlock certain doors or...

They're kind of just psychic puzzle powers. A little psychic puzzle powers, but then also it'll be like, you got psychic boost ball. And it's like, that's boost ball. Like, you, that's boost ball. You got psychic. Psychic beam. Psychic double jump. Okay, that's just double jump.

This, this, the franchise, I think, is at its best when it's like being very atmospheric and transportive. And I think this game does that pretty well. The individual, like, dungeons that you go off into, the game has kind of like a spoke and hub format where. You're going out into these different dungeons to collect keys that you need to, you know, beat the game, which I really appreciate how video game has a game that is as an objective to have the ancient alien species appear before me and say, these five keys hidden in our five wonderful dungeons for you to explore.

That stuff is great. I genuinely think the dungeon exploration and puzzles and all that stuff is really, really great. Really great. I mean, I think that, yeah, the atmosphere of it. great. I'm asking you to clarify if you think the exploration and stuff in Metro Prime 4Bion is really, as you just said, really, really great because that's what you said and I want to make sure that you feel that.

I think when you're in the dungeons, yeah. I really like the design of the dungeons, I think is very, very good. I think that you're going through it and... I found myself enjoying it a pretty more than I thought I would and because I don't really enjoy like I haven't I don't I didn't remember myself enjoying the Metroid Prime series it has been 17 years like it's been so long since the last one of those and I to me playing this it feels like it's basically successful in what it is trying to do but what it is trying to do feels so out of step with where everything else in video games is at it it really it to me me feels like a fan project in it and I don't even mean that in a demeaning way there's a lot of really incredible fan work that happens but it it feels like a tribute it feels like a like a make good a send off a contractual obligation whatever you want to say but like it is it feels like

even though it is on modern hardware with with the newest console that exists it feels like you are playing something that has been like, at least to me, it felt like I was playing something that had been emulated to like upscale on the platform I was playing it on. It did not feel like a 2025 experience in any meaningful way. The fan project comparison is so rich because I think it goes a step further than an aesthetic level or like a parody of the story. I think the actual feel of fan projects, which are often developed over the course of a decade or longer and it's a whole bunch of random people at different levels of talent and it ends up feeling like a piece together even the best fan projects can often feel like a whole bunch of great pieces but not necessarily a whole right the way that a traditional video game does in what's so strange about this game is it feels like it has been made over the course of years quite literally in that there are entire sections that just feel

different than other parts of the game. Yeah, that was the point I was trying to make. There was a core, if you look at this thing kind of piecemeal, I think when you're in a dungeon that is telling you sort of an atmospheric story and you're going through and there's a cool boss fight at the end and you get a power up and it's hitting like the loops that you expect and that you want from this type of game. Like, I think it's pretty great. And then you will go out into a desert that and on your motorcycle and you will just kind of like explore this. this pretty barren wasteland, running into crystals,

fighting the same, like, two enemies over and over again. Some parts are sick. Like, to hit Griffin's earlier point, some parts start to kick ass. Yeah. Like, the music will actually be better than you think it's going to be,

and it's kind of like, it feels pretty edgy. When you're going, the second dungeon is like this factory, this manufacturing plant, and when you're, like, working your way through the assembly line and, like,

like, seeing, like, this bike that you're about to unlock get put together. Like, that shit's really cool. but then like there's a loading screen and then you're in like a kind of a different game. It can't get momentum on it. Like it can't get ahead of steam going. Like it feels like constantly so aware of the mechanics and so like I think there is one cohesive thing that is very Metroid that this game gets.

And just I'm just going to repeat back to something that you said before we recorded, which is that feeling of going to an alien planet. and like actually discovering it that it's not just wallpaper it's almost closer to like a museum or something and it wants you to go there and feel like you are in a place that is not earth or not just another sci-fi place so i mean i was hoping you could expand on that a little bit of why that works for you there so like at first and again like this has been so so long since i played one of these like i had forgotten how little of it is like shooting Yeah, like first person shooter is not even accurate. Like, you can, like, lock right on.

It's, like, not really the focus. And the mouse, I think, makes that confusing because it does feel like something you're going to be, like, fine targeting, but that's not really what the game is. Yeah. I had to kind of remember, and especially that you're here, like, it's a game about scanning the environment

and, like, understanding the environment better and, like, what you unlock narrative and puzzle-wise through, like, that exploration and that aspect. aspect of it. And I think that like when you remove the combat, the shooting, and you just leave the exploration

part, that could be effective if it feels like an exploration. Like some of the nature of like walking around and scanning something and it's interesting and it has like an actual like zoological explanation for like why it is the way it is. And then it's not just a cool

animation. Every time you see it pop up, you understand like, oh, that's why it popped up like that. Yeah. But you are also being led through this game by someone who is like telling you what to do next and where it is on the map and asking if you understand the instructions that you were just given because they will happily repeat them for you. Yeah. And that if you have someone doing that, then they're leading you through the exploration. And if there's not exploration and there's not combat, I'm not sure where the game is. You know what I mean?

The dungeons are pretty linear. the I don't know like upgrade economy is not so exciting that it feels great to go back through an area you've been and sometimes you go back through an area you've been and you have a new thing and that means that you have a new key to unlock this door and there's like a whole other chunk of dungeon with like different stuff waiting behind it that's cool but like going back to get five additional missiles or 10 additional missile upgrade is like I don't know not super super thrilling so much anymore. And it just, it really feels like this genre, the search action genre has, has evolved a lot in a way that is not really recognized

in this game. Like using upgrades, upgrades being meaningful in a bunch of different ways, right? In, this is a super unfair comparison, but in Silk Song, when you get an upgrade, you can use it in combat.

You can use it in traversal. You can use it in like all of these different ways. And in this game, it's like, well, now I have the fire beam, which means I can unlock the fire beam doors and I can burn down the things that are fire. Yeah, I can't wait to talk about the tiny, tiny indie game. Oh, sorry, go ahead. Before you had a fire beam, you scan them and they said, hey, later on, you'll need something pretty hot wink to open this one up. Yeah, the very tiny indie game that we're going to talk about in the B segment. does so much more with basically a single mechanic than what this is thinking of the Metroidvania.

This is probably a bullshit theory, but the addition of all of this help and all the support, it reminds me of when, like, famous movies like Blade Runner, when the studio loses confidence in it and it gets too messy in the edit and they've trimmed it down and trimmed it down and they're not really even sure what it is anymore. And they're like, you know what you need to add voiceover. People aren't going to be able to follow any of this. And it's just, it's gone through so many notes and so many revisions that it needs that kind of superficial. We'll just tell you what's happening.

We can't trust our own game anymore. And that feels like so much of this game, sadly. It also feels, and again, this is editorializing, but. I don't think it's, I'm stretching too much to say that Nintendo of Japan isn't necessarily, like, obsessed with Metroid. Like, I think that, like, you can see the passion for the project and the fact that it took them 17 years to do another one. But this, to me, feels like also really a bad, this is separate from the, I'm not criticizing the game now specifically here, but this feels like a really bad showpiece for the Switch 2, right? It is, it feel, it looks like, it does not look like a game that was, like it does not look on par with other games released in 2025.

It is just not, it. You're saying like, visually. I mean, especially playing it on a big screen when you look at some of the textures and stuff like that, it's like, it's, it's not. I think it looks, I think, certain parts, again, what did you play it on? I played it on handheld and Switch 2. I didn't play it on a big, big TV. Yeah.

So, but, yeah, I mean, I mean, I, I, I, I, I didn't really. notice it until I saw it on a big screen. It's like, oh, yikes. Like, not, not great. I mean, good for Switch. Yeah, right? That's, that is the only way that I do sort of play. I haven't docked my Switch to play games on it in quite some time. It's not just the aesthetics. It looks old. It feels outdated. The ideas feel old. It's not capitalizing on anything

that makes the Switch to interesting, whatever that unique selling point is. I'm not sure Nintendo has told that story. But, like, Metroid is not, is muddying the waters. Like, I, I, I, I, I, to me, at least, plant, you, you, you, you follow industry stuff as well. Like, do you, do you feel like that's, that's, that's a fair representation? In terms of this, not being the thing that you want to release in December for your brand new console. Yeah. I mean, I mean, I can almost feel like an entire B segment on, on, on the, the, the, the first year of Nintendo, uh, or of the, of Nintendo Switch 2, right?

I think it is of a piece with a lot of very strange decisions that I think reflect the need to continue bumping the system back and back and back. And I think each game tells a different story. Well, what would have been sick is Prime Forra launch Bonananza in December. Then you got, now that's an exciting holiday season. Oh, Prime Fort is two bananas. Why not two Bonanzas? Why not double banana nanzas? Many banana nanzas.

I will say the things. that feel like the things that there's I will to be fair and this is like again if you're younger than me you may not have like the the same sort of like feelings because it has been so long since the last one of these

came out even though there's Metroids in between there but like there are still when did the remaster of a couple years ago yeah there are some actions that just feel good to do in Metroid games like hitting a bomb and then bouncing up on the bomb and then putting the bomb in a thing that always feels nice

turning into a morph ball in general in the Metroid Prime I think feels pretty the way the field of view changes when you go from morph ball like it's good that stuff feels good like I will say also tell me if this if you agree with this it felt sluggish like getting around the world it felt

slow to me and I didn't get the before you unlock the bike suit or whatever but like just running around and even being the ball it did not feel very fast no I would fully fully agree with that I found myself praying to find some sort of, you know, shine spark or whatever it was called from, yeah, no, I definitely feel the same way, especially once you start backtracking.

And this is where, like, we haven't even talked about, like, the side characters, which, like, plenty of people have certainly talked about the side characters and the way that they are written and the fact that they are talking to a voiceless golem in the form of Samus Aaron, the whole game, which is like very weird. I think like criticisms about the writing and performance aside, it really detracts from the atmosphere of exploring this strange alien planet to have a team of plucky side characters who either tell you what to do or you will find an upgrade out in the world.

I found the fire chip. I found the ice chip. Cool. Now I can do these elemental shots. Once I return to base camp, which was in the first area that I explored, there's not like a teleport fast travel thing I'm going to have to hop on the bike tool on back there I can skip some of this area to get back to the middle talk to miles he's like cool now you can do fire shot get back out there Bronco it's like that's nothing guys

that's absolutely nothing and from what I understand about how sort of the desert exploration becomes a mandatory element to finish the game like that that is a problem that is only intensified as it goes on. And it just, it, it's a game that feels like there's just a few really, really bad ideas behind it, which is rare that that is like the thing that is holding it up. Like, I think from a performance standpoint, it's good and competent and everything. It's just, there's some ideas in this thing. They're perplexingly bad.

How about this? How about we take a break? And then when we come back, I want to tell you all about ooh. A game that I think is pairing with this better than I ever could have imagined. And also, I want to use that time to dig into Justin's question about what is the Nintendo Switch 2 after its first year? Because I think there's a lot of meat on that bone too. All right. Yeah, for sure.

Well, let's talk about that right after this. Okay, so I want to get into the Nintendo Switch 2 stuff. But I do want to tell y'all a little bit about ooh because you have set me up. so nicely. How am I spelling this? O-O-O. That's bad S-E-O right there. But it's how you're going to feel when you're playing it. There's an oomelot over the first O that's so important.

That is. That's so true. So what if I told you you could now just go play Metroid, 2D classic beautiful Metroid, and you are in the ball form dropping bombs the whole time? You like dropping bombs, popping yourself in the air and dropping more bombs? Well, don't worry. That's the whole game because you are a little dot, a little caterpillar of bombs. And it is being compared to Metroidvania's for that reason. But the game isn't really like anything else I've played.

The other comparison I've heard is Animal Well. Kind of, it is a game in theory about discovering season. But really, I think it is a game about having a conversation with a video game developer because it is all about learning exactly what they want you to discover at the pace that they want you to discover it. So you are in a little screen of a little puzzle and you need to go from left to right and there is a little wall. Well, you can't jump. Well, you realize that you can place a bomb and you can stand on it and it will fire you up. Congrats. You've learned how to effectively jump. You have hit another wall. Where do you go? You place a bomb and you realize that you can destroy invisible walls. Congratulations. You may now progress. It is three hours of these incremental discoveries over and over and over again. There will come points where you get into a room and you simply cannot go any further. So you decide that you're going to take a fork in the road because there's no way to solve the room. that you're in after you've bashed your head against it for 15 minutes.

And you will go down this different path and you will learn effectively the answer to that room that one seemed impossible. It is going to gradually teach you piece by piece how to actually go back to that room and solve it. So it is just literally, I don't know how to say this, like a story game. It is telling you the answers to all of its puzzles bit by bit by bit. and then sending you backwards to places where you simply could not go through now with this new information so that you can know how to open a new path. So I guess I'm saying it out loud, that's very Metroidvania.

Super Metroid. Except it's so linear because, again, it is like reading a book. You are being told the story of this game in a very linear fashion for beginning to end. There is not like a scenario where you're going to diverge from that path. The playthrough is the playthrough is the playthrough unless you already know everything and then you're speed running it. When I'm looking at the game, I bet the speed runs of this one are going to be pretty zany. And the other thing that makes it not feel very Metrovania is you get another bomb,

so you end up having two bombs and that's pretty much it. It is not about getting a whole bunch of different powers. it is about manipulating those powers to the furthest extent. To the point that you are discovering things that you would assume don't work in a game that looks this retro actually do work. For example, one of the things that you discover relatively early on is you can leave the bomb in one screen and then go to another screen. So if you leave it in one room and you go to another room, the bomb will stay there.

Well, there might be a switch that you need to use in one room and then you'll travel all the way across the world and then that will open a door in a room far, far away. Or you might need to, it's describing is describing puzzles. It's tedious. Right. But discovering it for yourself is really phenomenal.

I am utterly charmed by it. It looks very cute. Griffin, can you describe what it looks like if you're looking at it right now? I mean, simple kind of graphics, I would say animal well, or what it's really giving me is VVVVVVV. VVVVV. I don't know how we... How did we agree back when that game? I think it was one more, yeah.

Was it one less? Yeah, that kind of art style. Very, very charming. Yeah, almost Atari-esque in its simplicity. But what, yeah, it just feels nice, especially at the end of the year to play something that is a bit short. Oh, Baba is you maybe? Baba is you?

Yeah. A little more colorful, but yeah. No, Bob if you had color, that's not the one I think, though. Yeah. But that feeling of just like talking with a game developer through the game where you constantly it almost feels like they're like playing jokes on you when you can't

figure something out and they're like oh don't worry we're going to explain it to you again that's where it's different from the animal well where it's so dense for the blueprints you're going to find it out in 10 minutes if you just give it a moment so I want people to check it out but now I want to get

into this question about the switch two in this year because it's a strange one what do you all think of the switch two after what? Hey, I'll say this. This is the most time I've spent holding it since July, and I still don't like holding it.

It's quite big. It's quite big and flat. I don't find it to be a comfortable experience. Once I had switched over the Pro Controller, I was a lot happier. Oh, man. It's really weird. I play it a lot, but that's mostly playing older stuff

with Henry. on it that now looks and runs better, right? I think all of the, a majority of the new releases that came out this year apart from Donkey Kong have not hit in the way

that I was sort of expecting them to in this house. Pokemon Legends Z-A we dropped fairly quickly. This one was never really Henry's Jam, but all of the stuff that we have been playing has been stuff like the Switch 2 edition of Tears of the Kingdom.

Hell yeah, it's great. It's amazing. It's really good. Castle Crashers. Yeah, sure. Like, yeah, we'll play that old jam. But in terms of sort of killer, at first party killer apps, like, I don't know that there is one yet.

Well, but Beninanza is a high quality product, I'd say. I mean, I don't. Yeah, absolutely. I would say it's probably the best of the original stuff. And I bet the Animal Crossing will be a big. deal. Yes. People seem to be

pretty buck wild for that guy when he arrives next month. Yeah, I'm so torn because so much of it

everything feels like I has a caveat. Like Mario Kart World is an excellent game that happens to be the sequel to maybe the best cart racing game

ever. And it's hard not to constantly compare it to it because when you turn on your switch you get to choose which one you're going to play and the further we get away from mario cart world the more

often i kind of would rather just play mario cart eight especially after all that dLC there's so much good stuff in it and then bonanza i really really enjoy but it it is the weird thing of it it constantly reminds you of the mario game that you're not playing whenever i boot it up i don't know everything feels like it is nintendo has an ability often to nail it that it is it's wow this is not only what i expected it to be it surpassed it that's the Zelda thing right that's super mario galaxy and it's weird that there is not a game this year that feels like that despite it being the launch year and if anything there are games like metrid prime four which feel like they had been on the shelf for a long time and it is filling a

release calendar need rather than like a creative sort of serving an audience Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I think the most, the disappointing thing for me is, like, I don't know what the fuck is next. Like, I don't know what's next. Is there, usually they have the, the lineup at least far enough out that you have an idea of, like, what's next year going to bring? And I guess, like, dust is confirmed, right?

You got Animal Crossing will be January. And then you got, it looks like Mario Tennis Fever on February 2nd. 12th. I mean, there's a bunch of other, like, third-party stuff. But then there's, and there's a bunch of, um, Resident Evil stuff out that month, uh, like expanded. Yeah. Um, and then, I guess I'm thinking like first, first part of that.

But yeah, I mean, not a lot. Yeah. I, I think it's tough because, uh, they, that isn't so unusual in that they kind of like announce a lot and then they empty the bag. And then once the bag is pretty much empty, they announce the next bag. full of stuff, but it feels more frustrating when there hasn't been like a good thing in a while. Well, and also I'll say like, Metroid Prime 4 was the thing in the back of the bag for a while, right? Like it was the, if you were to say, what's the, what's the big game that's going to come out for the

switch next year, I would have said like, well, Metroid Prime 4 is still coming, but now it's out. And like, I don't know what the, I don't know what the sort of shadow. line up behind the seeds is going to be. Yeah. Yeah, it's very strange. Well, that can actually toss us in. We have a few questions from the mailbag that relate to this. Should I go into those?

Yeah, please. Okay, so the first one, this one is from Wiley. I'm still mixed on how to feel about the new Animal Crossing update coming out at the end of the month slash early January. I love the franchise, but we were already told there wasn't going to be any more free updates. I was hoping that at least they stopped supporting Animal Crossing New Horizons to release a new one within the first year of the launch of the Switch 2, which is now clear isn't the case. And this goes on. What's the logic going on with this? I'm grateful and excited, but I can't get myself even as a superfan to launch the game to prep for this.

What is that? Yeah, what did happen? Because I kind of assumed that there would be a new Animal Crossing, too. Yeah. I mean, you would think, man, it's a, it was the biggest shit ever in a cultural sort of moment that is sort of unreproducible it would seem like you'd want to strike while the iron was pretty hot and i'm sure that they will get some new eyes on it when they launched the switch two version and they put all this dlc in the game but like at this point hasn't everyone kind of played it that's going to play it maybe i don't know it seems like it The comparison is Mario Kart, right? Because this is kind of what they did with Mario Kart before Mario Kart World,

where everybody expected Mario Kart, the new Mario Kart, Mario Kart 9, to come out, and then they just released level pack after level pack after level pack after seemingly being done with it. So this isn't completely unusual how effective it is, and especially what we just said about Mario Kart, which is like, that kind of cut some of the... the enthusiasm I had going into world. You know, you're giving people a taste of the thing, but not the thing. Yeah, it's a strange choice.

I also feel like, and we touched on this a bit before, but I feel like Nintendo is really struggling to tell a story of what the Nintendo Switch 2 is and why it is. And I feel like things like this, this Metroid Pride thing, just kind of complicate that more. I mean, you think about the things that were supposed to be distinguishing factors like I bought the camera. You know what I mean? I bought the camera.

There's a chat button on the controller. Like, none of that has even been, I mean, the one, they charged for the thing that had the new stuff on it. It's like every decision about it is like so not seeming to care of people. Not care, because obviously that's wild, but like not seeming to be able to put together a story

as to why you would want to buy it. I guess. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know that I need that story anymore just because I feel like with between like, you know, putting by the side on the Rog Ally X and like playing around with all these retro Android handhelds like, I feel like I just want to play the games, any game on the machine that I kind of want to play it on.

And I think that sales pitch isn't bad for Nintendo because the Switch 2 is a pretty capable like gaming rig right and it's it is of a of a good size for the power that it brings and it has all the first party Nintendo stuff on it anyways I think that the pitch that they have kind of shoehorn themselves into giving is like this is going to change the way you play games forever or this is this is we've entered a new era of gaming and I don't think it has I don't think it has that certainly it does all the cool stuff that the switch did and it It runs games pretty fucking well. But that's, I don't know, I guess it's harder to put a story together.

That's just sort of that. Which is industry-wide, right? You know, that's the Xbox, wondering what it is. That is PlayStation 5 selling a gazillion units, but then also seemingly having zero enthusiasm around it. You know, it's just a machine. And now this, it is, I think maybe that's why it is a bummer is. Nintendo has always been the last hope of, well, they get it. They get that the thing is as much a toy, as much of a novelty as it is a video game console.

And so far, this just feels like another thing to play slightly better looking game. They're also with the size, like, as somebody who fools around with a lot of handheld consoles, with the size of this thing, there are so many devices out right now that are, that feel more fun and are more pleasant to use and look at and feel like, more exciting and and and pocketable like then the nintendo switch too you know what i mean like nintendo doesn't have an offering that feels like you know i was looking there i went digging for mario paint because i wanted to show my kids mario paint i didn't realize that it was on the nintendo classics i but i went looking there's a bunch of stuff on there it's like a hundred uh nes games like a hundred uh ness games a bunch of stuff on there it's like it's in a virtual

in February. Yeah, dropping that. That could be a compelling little thing, you know what I mean? Like, you could still make a small device that there's a story, like, there's a reason for it to be, you know? Like, this still feels like a weird half measure. Like, you have a library, like, you could make a fun way of experiencing it, but it's just not this. I don't know. How much of this, I feel like we are still definitely in the window where you can, you can,

and attribute some of this to, like, COVID shutdown sort of impacting the entire bottlenecking sort of an entire sort of generation for a couple of years there. I wonder how much of this specifically like the weird launch lineup of the Switch 2 is sort of because of this. I think some of it's got to be, right? They've always been a conservative company. And there were a lot of question marks between this and the tariffs between COVID and the tariffs, I think, where they have a lot of reasons to play it safe. But as a consumer, that's not really your problem, you know, like it's No, sure. Yeah. The other, if we were giving excuses, is the reality of most consoles don't have great first years. But Nintendo is the exception, yes. Like Nintendo almost always has a game

that is an all-timer in its first year. I have one more Nintendo-related question. This one is from Patrick. Question, I held off on playing Metroid Dread until I had my Switch 2 because of the performance issues. Now I have time to dive into one of two Metroid, Switch 2's Dread, or Prime 4. What would you recommend for someone who hasn't played either? I think I know the answer to this. I think Dread might be my favorite Metroid. That or Super Metroid, obviously, is the other, like, big contender.

But I think Dread kicks ass. I think Dread is a great fucking game. That does, like, the Metroid-y stuff so well. that the sort of antiquated parts of its of its formula i i feel like aren't as big of an issue because it it like feels so good to explore that world and find cool power-ups and parry evil robots and shit yeah i like that stuff a lot hoops i have a final question here that i was like oh it's perfect this one's for you it is from jm so i need you to be honest with me if you wrote this question no i can guarantee before i even hear it that i don't think you're

it was me. Looking forward to the holidays. One type of game I'll know I'll be checking in on our idle incremental games in between holiday events and various family activities. We'd love to hear any recommendations from you besties about idle games that have kept your interest. For me, Revolution Idol and sells Idol Factory incremental have both stayed on my phone for a while. So from one JM to the other, what idle games should people be keeping their eye out on? I mean, there's Wizard Tower. Wizard Tower. I think that came out this year.

That's one of my favorites. You manage a little wizard tower as it grows, and you build different rooms that increase certain currencies, and eventually you fight the gods of the sky with your wizard magic. It's a good one. The Norp analog, I believe it's called. That's a good. I don't know if you count that as an idle game.

like right on the line and that's like kind of a really interesting idle game because it does start to border on requiring something of you like it requires something approaching like thought and strategy and and that kind of thing uh norbanalog is one that's actually i think worth worth checking out um i'm sorry the game is called tower wizard not wizard tower universal paperclips is an idle game where you learn something yeah for sure we like Caldron, does that count? Caldron, I think... No, I mean, Caldron has a lot of interactivity.

There is, like, different modes that sort of more focus on the idol stuff going on in the game, but regardless, you're going to have to play, like, the five different mini-games in order to, like, get yourself to the point where you can sustain yourself that way. I mean, I like Melvor Idol.

I'll return to that one from time to time. That's the runescape. based one that was then purchased by the, I believe it was acquired by the developer of RuneScape because it was just so RuneScapey. I feel like a lot of the things that made Iola Games hooky have been like adopted

into real games. Like there's been a lot of that has been like brought into the mainstream. Yeah for sure. Um, cool. Well that's pretty much it. Uh, who's, are you, y'all got any, any um, other other stuff you've been

enjoying? Some honorable mentions, even? Some honorable mentions you might say. Don't be afraid to say it, Chris. Don't be afraid. Don't be afraid. I really have enjoyed pluribus. I know that it has gotten plenty of people pushing it, but it is. I read about pluribus on my gusers. What? What? Wow, I'll talk about pluribus, huh? I read about it on my gusers, bud. What are you doing? I want to know more about this.

Yeah, it's, it's sad. Griffin just seems really angry lately. I don't know, I really, it's a, it's a show. I, you know, if you, if you, if you, anything you learn about it makes it less enjoyable. I think that it's, it's, it's much better to go in without knowing the details. But it is a sort of post-apocalyptic story about, uh, one woman who finds herself kind of left behind. in a sense, but rather than physically being gone, people are sort of mentally joined together and she finds herself on the outside and how she processes that and what it means and the

mystery of how that all happens is what the show kind of delves into is created by Fence Gillian who did Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul. And while it is not connected to those stories yet, no, it's not. It does have a similar setting and it looks, I would say similar if more if more cinematic um it's if you like the vibe and the tone and the pacing of those shows i think this is another one that you will very much enjoy um i've been playing rhythm doctor uh which just came out i believe in early access gosh just a couple days ago actually december 6th uh and it is a one button uh rhythm heaven inspired rhythm game uh that a studio called Seventh Beat Games has been making for a really, really, really long time. I think this

game was first launched as like a flash game back in 2012. And they've just kind of been like iterating on it and adding to it for a long time. There's like a community of people who are just crazy about this game because it is very faithful to the Rhythm Heaven formula. And it's made by people who kind of like know how to make a good version of that. You play as an intern. at sort of like a, sort of a hospital, and you run a remote defibrillation device, which is the sort of story reason for why you are hitting your space bar in time with the music. But the music is really fucking great. And the way that they kind of like task you with keeping up with different rhythms,

like it starts out with, you have to hit it on every seventh beat. And then it will switch to like, okay, now it's going to do sort of a swing thing. it introduces those ideas in a way that feels really good and then sometimes just goes absolutely insane there's boss fights in the game where it will start to do weird shit with the screen

or like it'll switch it to windowed mode and then move your window around your desktop monitor if you're playing that way it's I don't know I never really stuck with the rhythm heaven game that much because it was I don't know I found them sort of too punishing even though I like hard rhythm games

and this seems more accessible very like lovingly crafted charming story and writing and the music's great and uh it's it's it's a great it's a perfect little uh bite size game that you can just kind of pick up and play a couple songs of and uh i've really been liking it a lot uh i'm perpetually interested by the year of too many games and what that uh causes to happen example of the year of too many games two games inspired by rhythm heaven came out just yesterday. Rhythm Doctor and also bits

and bops a game by Tempo Lab games that is also more rhythm heaven and it's beautifully animated it is a full rich cool game and I don't know how we got two rhythm heaven

inspired games on the exact same damn day I will also just second the plural of this is absolutely fantastic. I do not watch much TV and I am... There you go back to how little TV you watch.

That's what I want to hear more about. Come on. I'm sorry, I do other things. Here you guys. The podcast, which you should do. To me, sad movies, kick you up a TV. If that lobster guy, that Yorgo's Lanthromo would stop making so many damn movies, Chris Plip I'm able to watch Better Call Sot, you know what I mean?

No, thank you. I don't need any more of his stuff. I'm good. Do you hear Chris Fleming talk about? Chris Fleming's been about it. He's trying to help Emma Stone discover her clown. Oh, man. It's really good shit.

Can we do a quick check-in on our sort of Goody Backlog playing? Oh, man. I've been playing some of that road trees. It's pretty intense, guys. I've been playing a lot. It's good. Indiana Jones. great circle.

Yeah, that's a good one. We got a good one. You know what that one's kind of like. What? It's kind of like watching a football game with your dad. When it starts, you're like, Frick, this is freaking awesome, man. I'm going to do this forever.

And then after three hours, you're like, yeah, I get it. You know? Oh, boy. Oh, boy. This is going to be a good conversation this year. I've done that three times in this game where I'm like, hell yeah, why didn't I play? Oh.

Yeah, okay. I remember. I have just gone back to it, and I think I might be in a very similar journey. It looks so good, though. It was when I started slugging through snow. I said, good day, Dr. Jones. That'll do it to you. Tip my hat to you, good sir.

Farewell on your adventures. I will be cutting my own path through the snow. here. I'm ashamed that I took so long to really dig deep into root trees are dead. A game that is so clearly my shit. And people would recommend it to me. And I think I had even said like, I'm going to get around to it. I'll get around to it.

I'll get around to it. I'll get around to it. I finally did. And I'm so excited to talk about it during the show because it is just journalism, the video game. And by journalism, I mean, not sureing exactly what. what you're looking for it. So just Googling random-ass people's names and praying that it gets you at least some thread to pull on.

Root Chaser Dead is exactly how I do tech support for my in-laws. It is literally just like, what is the error code? Doop, do, do, do, do. Okay, here's the best I got. It's really, uh, kudos to them for like coming up with a new form of that type of, of, of game. Yeah. Because I think that that's obviously pretty hard. I remember there was this beautiful period in the earth.

early web when games would do this like on the actual internet things like this isn't since january and evidence last ritual where they would like all the the the interwebs the inner uh what's the word i'm like right like the intranet of the game would be uploaded onto the actual internet so like the the answers would be searchable like on your real web browser um yeah but now it's a hell the whole thing is there's no bees to search uh anything else i uh i uh I finished dispatch, which I really fucking liked. Laundry game, Laundry game of the year. I have really been pacing it to laundry.

Interesting. Oh, it's perfect, dude. It's perfect. You're enjoying it every once in a while, you sit down the shirts, you beep, boop, beep, back to folding. It's amazing. Where have you gotten, can I ask?

Yesterday, I finished episode six, I think. Oh, okay. Two or three episodes left. Five, the bar fight is in five, right? That might be the hardest, I think a game has made me laugh in a sort of solid two-minute-long chuckle party. It's really fucking funny. I'm in just finished episode three, so I'm slowly catching up. I've also been playing some more Death Stranding, too, which has been tough to get back into.

But I think would also be a great laundry game just for some of the cutscenes. but it's it's it is stuck on my PS5 he's right he's right lodged in there and they won't let him go they won't let Norman go but I I do like that game quite a lot I also play baby steps more because Russ is so wild about it and I had to replay stuff that the three of us played while we were streaming and so I like got caught back up yeah me and Justin and Travis I got caught back up to that point and now I took a little break because that was that was sort of spiritually exhausting but

Now I've gotten to some of the news stuff. I don't know that me going back and I don't know if me going back and playing more baby steps by myself is giving baby steps a fair shake or not. I really don't know what is the fairer thing to get to baby steps. Like, I don't know what will. Because we played it in such a wrong way. Yes, I don't know. But I also with the game itself, I don't know if it's the kind of thing where the more you play it, the more you're like, I am loving this more and more. I don't know.

I really don't know what the Not just the game of the year But like the top five is gonna look like for us Because I think we're all Spreading out in different directions It's all over the fucking map y'all All over the place in terms of like I don't know

I put together my top 10 I was like I don't think Half these games y'all like Which is like good I think that makes for a good conversation Yeah But I don't know how we're gonna pull it together I'm excited

It almost feels like we're going to need like a bracket rubric in the way that we do for our bonus episodes on the Patreon feed but have it like boil down to like arbitrary tiebreakers like which one has the most letters in the title of the game. Yeah. Yeah. Which one can you throw the farthest?

So next week we'll be our game in the year. That'll be kicking off next week. That's true. Crazy. Is there anything you want to try to spend time with before the next time? More Death Stranding More, oh, Citizen Sleeper 2 Made the...

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I need to play more of that. I ducked back into that. I really, really like that one. I bounced to play something else, and it's a good candidate to return to it. I also think that they might have balanced it a little bit more. I think that was an issue for us

when we played at the beginning is it was maybe a little too unforgiving. So I'm one of those games I'm glad that we're revisiting late in the year. What were the other audience picks? for the four... Indiana Jones, Root Trees. Citizen's Sleeper, too.

And then, of course, dispatch. Hey, should we wrap things up? Yeah, thank you. We got to get back to playing video games. Yeah, we've got a lot more games to play. Thank you so much for listening to our podcast. Be sure to join us again next time for the besties. Because shouldn't the world's best friends pick the world's best games?

Besties.