The Besties - Monster Hunter Wilds is Surprisingly Great in Single-Player

Episode Date: February 28, 2025

Over the past 12 years, The Besties have — one by one — fallen in love with the Monster Hunter series. The latest entry, Monster Hunter Wilds, is the most welcoming version yet. It’s still a tremendous multiplayer experience, but the group discusses how well this entry works solo. Plus, Plante talks about his new love: the new revival of Tokyo Xtreme Racer, an all-but-dead racing series from the 2000s 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!

Russ, why don't you tell everyone what you just told Justin right before we started recording. Just exactly, don't put any more mustard on it than it had. Just tell me how you told me. Okay, so Justin, next week we're doing a game called Split Fiction, which is the game from the team that made It Takes Two. It is a exclusively co-op experience.

You can only play it with two people. And I know that Griffin's gonna be traveling. Yeah. So... And you're gonna be playing with Plant, you explain to me. And I'm gonna be playing... And this was not even like... Not a conversation, not an explanation.

I want to be clear with this, like... Russ is like, I am playing it with Plant. And everyone in town is supposed to be like, yeah, OBS. And then you're like, and then go ahead, go ahead, Rez, go ahead with part two. And then you can play if you want. I guess I didn't get part two. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

And if I want, would have been quite the chocolate coating on that bitter pill. There was not a if you want. Bitter pill, it's a game, anyway. Just to what you'll be doing. I think I say you can play the Blendo game that you've been waiting for for fucking six years. Now is that kind of a one or two player?

Is that kind of like a flexible experience? Justin it's very difficult to coordinate multiplayer sessions. I'm not that familiar with it and I just didn't know if it was like something that people with friends can have their friends over to do like a friend activity with or Like is it something we're like if you know for sure the person doesn't know anybody Right that would play a game with them. You would pick this game You're implying that you don't have any I'm implying that you don't have any friends to play with Yeah, that's one of the like five hurtful things

There's like five five hurtful things that you said. There's like five very hurtful things. I think Russ, you should have to play split fiction with Chris and then play it again with Justin. I can always do that. No, no, no, no, no, no. You guys play split fiction and Russ and I are gonna play It Takes Two because that's closer to where we're at personally,

I think, in a relationship. This might've been a moment of pragmatism gone awry. Hey, you know what? That should be on your tombstone first. I didn't want to say that. Sorry, it's a really powerful phrase. Want to make sure it got etched into history. Secondly, I already asked my friend, Slice,

to play it with me, and he's gonna come over to my house, and we're gonna play it together on my big screen Russ and you know what you're not invited and they're gonna eat trash can nachos and drink sodas Yeah, and you know who else I'm gonna FaceTime while I'm playing the video games my friend slice You know I'm gonna FaceTime Russ. I'm gonna FaceTime my personal friend fucking Multi award-winner Lin-Manuel Miranda, okay? That's what I'm gonna do, Russ. I'm gonna FaceTime him on the phone,

and he and me and Slice are gonna play together, okay? I'll call some of the other many celebrities that I have by name saved in my phone. If we do not have Lin contributing a guest appearance next week, I do not believe that you are actually friends with one of the greatest musical writers of all time. Sorry, okay, I should have been more clear. I know there's plenty of other evidence.

I wanna be clear. I've been talking about Canadian Lin-Manuel Miranda. Sorry, I have, my Lin-Manuel Miranda is in Canada. Yeah. Yeah, he's like a,ate you guys wouldn't know him You know like Canadian Like yeah, it's like a different. Yeah, but it's like it's just as good in in Canada They call it Canadian Bacalton

That doesn't make any fucking sense Hey, you've got to put an A in his name to make him Canadian Linda Manuel Miranda, where is it the funniest? Because I've put it like five different places in my head and it hits every place. My name is Justin McElroy and I know the best game of the week. My name is Griffin McElroy. I know the best game of the week. My name is Christopher Thomas Plant and I know the best game of the week. My name is Russ Froshtey and I know the best game of the week. My name is Russ Froschka,

and I know the best game of the week. Welcome to Monster Hunter Wilds. Whoa, that's crazy. You usually say the name of the show and just put it on. I do, hold on, they swapped it around. Welcome to the Besties, which is a video game club. It's a show about the many ways in which interactive entertainment interweaves

with our day-to-day lives. But today, this one's about Monster Hunter Wilds. Chris Plant, what is that? Monster Hunter Wilds is a long-running multiplayer, grindy action RPG. It was most famously available on mobile platforms a long time ago, but now it's on consoles and it's bigger and better

than ever and you get to kill big beasts with your buds. When was it, it started as a PS2 game. What are you talking about mobile consoles? Yeah, but like its most popular period was when it was on like Nintendo portables and you could go play it, you know, outside with friends. But there's never been a better time. But there's never.

Is this the one? Let's talk about it. Is this the Monster Hunter? We'll talk about it after the break. Unfortunately, the best time to get on board Monster Hunter was Monster Hunter Generations. So you missed your windows. I wanted to say, Plant,

I'm not sure what long-running means, but I agree with you. The Monster Hunter franchise is long-running. Whatever it means, it feels very apt for this particular series, which has just been sort of like chugging along. I feel like the story of Monster Hunter isn't always like, is this the point? Is this the accessible one? And I feel like we've had that conversation enough times

that it's not really that helpful, because that is the trajectory, right? Sure. I think this Wilds is absolutely another round of smoothing off a lot of rough edges and bringing in a lot of quality of life improvement. Yeah, it's interesting. There is this conversation in the Monster Hunter community,

this theory, frankly, that there are two teams working within Capcom on the Monster Hunter community, this theory, frankly, that there are two teams working within Capcom on the Monster Hunter games, one of which makes the mainline series, one of which makes the, you know, used to make the handheld ones. And so the theory is most recently, Worlds was the most recent mainline game, and then Monster Hunter Rise,

which was on Switch and stuff, is from the other team. I don't think that's actually accurate. I think it's a pretty simple way of looking at it. But I do think that Monster Hunter Wilds is much more in the vein of Monster Hunter World, which is to say much more about story and characters and really getting down deep dirty with the ecology of this new world. So make of that what you will.

For people who are new to this series, would you say that The Loop is a Destiny-like? In that, you as the character don't have like various stats and stuff. The whole point of the game is to grind out better and better weapons, better and better materials, and then to, before you go into each battle, pick the best weapons and materials

that align with the battle that you're going to go into. I think if like at a very clinical level, maybe, but it's not what made me fall in love with Monster Hunter. Yeah. And I come at this, this is the first time that I'm playing a Monster Hunter game after being Monster Hunter Pilled, which I was with Monster Hunter Rise. So this is a very weird, interesting experience

to be from the jump on board versus that like, I'm gonna spend 10 hours trying to wrap my head around this. They hit pretty hard when you're ready to accept them into your heart and you're like, prime for it. Like they're, they hit pretty hard. What I would say to Plant's point is, is this just like a number go up game?

I don't think it is. And here's why. I think the minute to minute of fighting monsters is completely peerless. There is no analog for it anywhere in the video game industry. This series, this game is fucking incredible for the way that it recreates what it would feel like

to fight a giant fucking chicken. And I don't think, I think it's easy to be like, oh, well, you get better armor from fighting the chicken and that's why you're doing it. That's not why I'm doing it. I'm doing it to fight the chicken. I do think though, it's a really useful as a starting point for something

that's a little bit more like well-known. I think structurally it makes a lot of sense. The only way, like the only major difference, I would say is the way in which you have to alter your play style to suit the situation, where I feel like in Destiny, it's much more about deciding what you're gonna go with and kind of charging through whatever.

And I feel like this game much more rewards preparation in getting ready for a battle. I wanted to say that I do, there is an element of this is a decent one to jump on board with, because it has been my experience. I've not had a ton of time with Monster Hunter Wilds. I probably put like seven or eight hours into it, which is I guess a decent amount of time,

but not in the grand scheme of how long I've put into other games in the franchise. Similar for me, I've only done like three or four hours because we were traveling and yesterday's servers were down. And it does not work on Steam Deck. Not fucking even a little bit at all. It is, I think, a bit easier. I think the difficulty has been smoothed down a little bit.

Part of that is because when you're playing in single player, you can get AI co-op buddies, and they're actually fucking good, like they're really good at killing monsters and warning you when attacks are coming in and helping you figure out what to do. I don't, I push back against the idea of it being a grindy thing.

I think it certainly gets to that point once you reach the end game, but this is way, way more a story campaign focused affair than really any other Monster Hunter game I've played. And so just by doing the story quest, going out, doing a hunt, you come back home, you can make a new weapon, you can make some new armor. I have not once had to go out and be like,

well, I gotta go fucking hunt this monkey a few more times. Or we have to find like three berries before I can do the, you know, to do this side quest to advance the storyline. That's not in the main campaign. What they have done narratively too, I think is so smart because I think that, so a lot of times when you wander into the town of Monster Hunter, there is like an entire ecology,

an entire economy, I should say, set up around monster hunting. And that's like every level of Monster Hunter. So no matter how deep you are in the systems, and it can feel so overwhelming. And by putting this on sort of like a, it's more like a frontier, like you're out as it says, wild, right?

The camp is much more like bare essentials. And I think that makes it easier as a player to kind of understand like what you really do need to pay attention to, right? Like it's a big deal when someone like has a fire going and they're the person who can do armor and weapons. And it's like very clear to you, like, this is that person. Everything's within like 30 feet.

Yes, exactly, right. It's very condensed. It's like, here's all you, there's the Monster Hunter stuff. My question for the long time Monster Hunter players here, is there a scenario where this is fun for me as a single player experience? Because here-

I exclusively play- Here, let him- Okay, okay. I was just gonna say, my experience with this is I bounced off these before. I like them moment to moment. I agree. The combat feels really cool. This one especially just looks beautiful.

It is a world that I want to like stay in but my fear as I started to put more and more time into it was okay I'm now starting to sink hours into this game. I'm going to 10 hours however many more and I'm going to hit a point where this won't be fun unless I'm playing with friends and I know my schedule that's just not going to happen so I should bounce off But if you think like there's a scenario where I make it to the credit single-player that here's what I say Yeah, it is. Maybe the best game for elder millennial dads or I'm not to gender it anyone but

The fact of that the game is designed in 20 minute chunks, that I played exclusively in single player. I think most people play in single player. I think the multiplayer is like a nice to have. And especially when you get to the late, late, late, late game, sure, if you wanna fight the strongest monster, it's probably easier with multiple people. But playing in single player, you've got like your horse,

which is now like a giant bird. You've got your Palico little cat friend. And as Griffin said, you can summon AI guys to help you out. Never at any moment did I feel like I needed people. Quite honestly, I feel like I'm more productive solo because I am like very directed in what I'm doing. It wouldn't, you know, it would be a more social experience, but like from a gameplay standpoint,

I think it's a better solo experience. I will also say that, and I love the experience in a lot of Monster Hunter games, but this one is really hitting it. The way that you can be so fluid in combat and like instantly sort of responding to, like you'll ride on your horse past a, like some sort of like special ammo

for your gun and you like whip your whip out and grab the ammo and then put it in your slinger. The way as you get better at that it's that that feeling of expertise being more and more pleasurable like your it's uh I always think of it like the fire swamp in Princess Bride right. Yeah sure. The lot by the end of it, they're like navigating it really easily. There's a pleasure in that. There's a joy to that. Like a Spelunky vibe to it.

Where you learn all the rules and then you know how to react to them. Or knowing that you feel like, and I think that this game is, in what I saw, it's great at that. And then Monster Hunter is always good, but like the personality of them and feeling like I know what he's gonna do.

Like I know what this guy is gonna do. He's about to bail. You watch, he's about to run. There is a tempo to the combat that, I've played Monster Hunter for a long, long time, but it's been a while. And so starting this one up, I really felt like I was getting my sea legs back under me. But once you get a feel for that tempo

and you get in there and you bob and weave and you stick them a few times and then dodge out of the way just in time and give them a big bonk on the head and knock him like It's the fucking best. It's though. It is the best I do would have returned to Justin's thing about you shoot your whip out to collect items while you're running around on the go It's never been easier to like there's an herb you just get it and that is I, a contrivance of the fact that the story involves a lot of just kind of following

people on horseback. And I think they probably realize like, this is a little boring. We do need to give them something to do while a Natas like. Sharpening your weapons on horseback is cool. It's great. That is fun to have some activities. I think the story is pretty lackluster.

I have gotten to the point now where I just kind of skipped the cut seeds because I have not gotten any. The cool thing about this game is the, is this like, almost annihilation-esque, like we're in a fucked up, like really, really, really strange landscape. There's a fight that you do, it's like one of the first big fights in this forest

against this spider monster that like, I was met with this moment of like, holy shit, like I'm fighting this already, this is a terrifying like thing in a terrifying environment. And it really does feel like you guys are, you are strangers in a terrifying environment. And it really does feel like you guys are, you are strangers in a strange land. If they had focused entirely on that, I think the game would have benefited from it,

because I do not care about anything else. It does lean in further into the weirdness of it, but I completely agree. The story, there are some very cool cut scenes, but anytime anyone is talking, I'm like, skip, skip, skip, skip, skip, I do not care. The story goes in places that are like truly insane. There's a character that's like,

don't hurt that monster, he's my friend. Shit like that, which really doesn't jive with, I've been doing this. But I need his jawbone, unfortunately. I wish there was a feature in games like this where it's like, hey, we noticed you've skipped 20 lines in a row and we have to imagine at this point, it is gonna be pretty hard for you to get back on board

with the story. Do you want us to just skip all of it from now on? We'll give you the very big bad guy, good guy stuff, but don't be on that. The shame of it, and I'm not dragging the game for not running on Steam Deck because I get it. I'll fucking drag it for not playing on Steam. I would play this game 100,000 times more

than I am now for this game. But at a certain point, I don't think it's fair. In the same way, we can't drag any game for not being on Switch, which is on ancient hardware. So I get it. That being said, part of the reason that I eventually wrapped my head around what Monster Hunter is, is because of Rise

being a portable thing that I could pick up and put down and not feel tethered to it when I was right in front of a screen. And I do think even though there have been a lot of strides with this game to make it more accessible, make it more approachable, it's very clear to me that if someone was going in raw with no information whatsoever,

they would have a really tough time, an easier time than past, but you're still dealing with the item box and the loadout and the blah, blah, blah, blah. This is what I wanted to, I've had kind of an on again, off again relationship with this series, there's some that I've played a lot more

and some that I've played less. I've never gotten to like where I would say an expert level of with any of these. There are weapons that I've learned before, right? Like that's very much Monster Hunter. I learned long sword. Like I look at it and I remember the like about two thirds of it.

Yeah. And I'm trying a different weapon. And I really wanted to try to go into this without getting on the internet because I have a terrible habit where I want wanted to try to go into this without getting on the internet because I have a terrible habit where I wanna min-max this and so I'm looking for the best weapon, the best combo, the best this, the best that,

and I lose the fun of it, right? So I got the dual- So you're saying you're not gonna look up guides? Is that the approach that you're taking? Don't be this, don't be like you don't have. No, I was genuinely trying to see how far into, like what that experience would be like, right? Because I think that's the metric,

because if you need to go start looking through the internet to get the most out of the game, it's just not, and for the life of me, man, I couldn't remember how to make the longsword stuff come together in a way where like a tutorial in 30 seconds would be like, here's the core combos, here's what you need to know. And I don't, there's probably an area

that teaches you some of those basics I know, but like not in the way that you need it to get like functional. In past games, they have had special hunts that you go on for each weapon that really go do a lot to like teach you some of the intricacies, right? Because as a new player, you're not gonna probably realize,

oh, I need to store energy in the long sword. Once this bar is full, I can charge it. In this game, those are not there. There are no specialized hunts there. There is a training area that when you have a certain weapon equipped, it shows you some of the basic combos. I play Hammer basically exclusively at this point.

Although this game does let you carry a secondary weapon around on your mount, so if you wanna switch in the middle of a hunt, you're able to do that, which is cool. But there's stuff that just doesn't get taught in the training area, which is kind of crazy to me because this game seems so, I don't know, tooled for beginners,

except for the fact that it doesn't teach you how to use the weapons very good. I wanna hear from Plant, because I know he struggled as a newcomer. Well, I think this is the challenge with the game, and I have a lot of sympathy for the developers in making this, is the game is just complex. Like that's just the reality of it.

It's just complex. This is like if we played Civ and I was like, why can't they just finally make it? So I just know Civ in three minutes. And like a lot of like ancient programs, you're building on structures that have been there for a long time. Exactly.

And I think the challenge that they run into each of these times is you can't erase the fact that the game itself is complex unless you just want to at some point start destroying parts of the game. And I think that is a challenge that they've run into here is this version of the game, I think, on boards you much faster than any of them. It gets you in there fast. It gets you doing cool stuff fast, it gets you not just doing the cool stuff in the tutorials but kind of feeling like you're playing on your own out in the world.

It has a lot of tutorial features in the options menu where you can select like, hey, do you want stuff to keep popping up in case you forget some of it? But along the way, it loses the things that Griffin's talking about. And I have just come to the point with a game like this. If you're onboarding, watching a YouTube tutorial is just part of it. I also am starting to feel like YouTube tutorials

are the new video game manuals, like when we were kids. And that you should just- They're offloading that to someone else. And they just assume that you will look at it because the reality is most players will. I think it just depends on the game. There are obviously a lot of games that you don't need to do that,

but certain games for sure. But you could think you know how to use a weapon in this game or in Rise or in World, and then you go to Gaijin Hunter or whatever, like YouTube or RXGaming, and then you watch a tutorial, you're like, holy shit, this weapon can do 50 things that I did not know about. That's interesting.

The experience that I had with dual blades, which I've never played before, so I went in completely just trying it, I am completing the hunts without any problems, and I can understand all of the basic things that they have laid out with Dual Blades. I know there's gotta be more to it, because now I'm at a point where I'm bored

and I want another level of complexity. And I don't think it has a really good way of walking me into that, right? It got me into that first thing of like having fun, hitting guys with two swords, that's cool. But when it's like, okay, I'm ready for, hitting guys with two swords, that's cool. But when it's like, okay, I'm ready for this to be a deeper experience, it's not necessarily great

at saying like, okay, now that you're ready for this complexity, let us like walk you into it. They did add something that I think was maybe the smartest thing they added of all. Well, they had two features. I can't wait to hear what you say. I can think of it fine. So one of them is you can, from your radio menu,

it'll automatically pick either the best healing item you should use at that given time, or the best like support item, like, oh, I have poison, it'll automatically pick an antidote. And previously you had to like scroll through your fucking shit and have a radio of like nine things and oh, I have to, so they made that much easier.

The other thing I wanna call out kind of goes to Justin's point, the wound system that they added in the game. Oh, fuck yeah, it's so good. That's cool. So while you're fighting a monster, these wounds will appear. I changed it to colorblind settings,

so they're like bright purple for me, but they're probably, I guess, red, I don't know. Yeah, yeah. And all you have to do is hold down the left trigger and hit one button while pointing at the wound and you'll do a fucking bad ass thing. So depending on what weapon you're using, when I'm on a long sword,

I'll do like a giant slash slash anime style, whatever. I know insect glaive, you do like a somersault while spinning on your fucking glaive, things like that. It's cool. What's so cool about that is even if you don't know anything and you're just using like basic combos, you can see the wound and hit one button and feel like a badass.

Rather than having to, again, watch a YouTube tutorial. Now, it also lets you get like monster parts. Every time you destroy a wound, it drops an additional thing. So you are really, I've had times where I've been, you know, a monster's been on its last legs and then it'll open up that focus, sort of left trigger to focus to see all the glowing wounds and it'll have like six wounds and it's like,

okay buddy, I need you to hang in there for a little bit longer until I can stock up on some of your scales. But that is an approachability feature, like that. Yeah, sure. Allows people to feel like they're powerful even if they don't know those combos, which is a really great step.

It also makes a lot of the combos in Monster Hunter, there's like, it removes that terrible feeling of feeling like you built up to a big payoff of an attack and they move at the last second and you just like do your big attack to nothing. Well, I mean, that's still very much a thing if you play Greatsword or Hammer. No, but I'm saying the wound, you know, minimizes it.

Yeah, sure, sure. They've also clearly heard the feedback of, hey, this is a game about killing poor animals that just want to chill out. By going two directions, there's a lot more before a fight of, oh man, this one animal just happens to be a real piece of shit. Like all the other animals are pretty cool.

Normally these things are pretty nice, but this to be a real piece of shit. Yeah, like all the other animals were pretty normal I guess things are pretty nice I guess a real ass and then there and when you collect materials throughout the game using that that grappling hook feature Do you notice that with the animations you'll like take materials off of the animal and then let it go. Oh So there'll be like a key Yeah, it'll be like a thing that's covered in goo and it's like very sight, but if you look at the animation, you'll like pour, squeeze the goo out into a little jar and then just like flutter the little critter off. Be free.

That's beautiful. That's not true of the big monsters. No, no, no. Those you kill graveyard dead or capture. And then you carve them up. And then you carve them up, yeah. I feel, it still got on my nerves that there were still, there would be things that I knew I could do, but then didn't know how to do,

and that would make me feel like getting around, the map is still kind of like a nightmare. Well, it's, we haven't even talked about the fact that it is more open world than the series has ever been. It's like so confusingly open world. This is what I'm talking about. This is where it starts to feel that like cruft of history, right, where to give you an example,

if you go out into the open world, right, you charge out and you see an animal and like you're messing around and eventually you hit it a few times and a quest starts. And it's like, why? Like, why do you need a quest to start for this to be, like I'm just hunting this monster. But the structure of the thing,

it only understands in terms of hunts and quests. You know what I mean? It has to have that because that's how it's built. The getting around aspect is interesting though. I don't know if Rise had this, and if it did, I just never used it. The camps. I was gonna say, the fact that the secret,

which is your like horse thing, will just auto run. You hit one button and it will just like run directly to where you mark on your map. So if you wanna find a monster, previously you had to like, oh, there's a footprint. I'm gonna smell the dirt and see where the monster is. And you have to do that a bunch of times. And then eventually you find the monster

and they've like cut all of that out, and I know that pissed off a lot of like hardcore Monster Hunter people. Guess what? I fucking love it. Yeah, that stuff is great. It's like, especially the later maps, it gets so hard to navigate

if you're not just like auto targeting. Yeah. But it does take, I guess, some of the quote realism out of it. Yeah. I found myself missing the hub and spoke format of past and gone. The like main, like.

You have your main area and you do your shit there and then you go out on a hunt and it launches you automatically into one of a few biomes. And like that stuff is here in so far as like, sometimes you'll finish a quest and be like, let's go back to camp. And then the screen will go black and they'll be back at camp.

Like it's not making you schlep everywhere. There's a system where you can set up pop-up camps. And then you can use those as fast travel points. You have to like spend resources to like open them up. But monsters will sometimes find those camps and destroy them. And you'll get a little notification like, hey, your camp's under attack.

And you can either go and defeat that monster or you can just spend, you know, a hundred license points or whatever back at home base in order to open up that camp. It's neat, but again, like my least favorite part of this game is when you're in town and they're like, okay, let me know when you're ready to go out on a quest. You're like, okay, let's do when you're ready to go out on a quest. You're like, okay, let's do it.

And then you're riding on sacred back for like a few minutes while they talk about some inane shit. When it's like, man, I would rather just hang glide off of a pterodactyl and then it's monster time. Like that's the part of the game that beats absolute ass. And I feel like they could get to it a lot quicker. I was confused the first time that a quest ended and I didn't go back to camp.

I had this like weird, like, well, what do I do now? I just have all these monster parts. Yeah, how do I get back to it? Where's camp? Like, I don't know, what do I do? You're supposed to teleport me. Why is there a button to make the quest end? What does that mean?

I'm just out here. Like I killed the monster, I took his back or whatever. Go away or tell him to bring me home. Pick me up daddy. For what it's worth, I did finish the campaign, which takes about 10 or 12 hours. Once that finished- Really? How many chapters?

We'll talk about it after this. Yeah, I don't know how far I am at it. The chapters are not a good rubric for knowing how long the game is. Once you finish it, the game just more or less turns into, like there's no like lead up, you're just like in it. There's no slow walking, talk to Nata, whatever. And that I think turns into like much more traditional

monster hunter, oh, I need to kill this monster to get his parts to build the armor, to make the armor set to get the perks that I need. So this monster to get his parts, to build the armor, to make the armor set, to get the perks that I need. So if you're looking for that, that does click in pretty dramatically, but I do think the first 10 to 12 hours is like more, as Plant said, more welcoming than it's been, so long as you can overcome the things of like,

oh, I just died and I need to like go in my box and get more potions because the little cats that follow me around can't just like fill my bag up again. But they do do that this time. And you, anytime you hop on your sacred back, it always, it has a supply pack that you can open up and restock all your shit. Right, but it's not like if I need traps.

Yeah, sure. They won't tell me. I need to like really refill and it's buried in like three different menus. And there's just still stuff that isn't fun in any way that doesn't really need to be as esoteric as it is. It starts to feel a lot of it starts to feel like perfunctory like in the way that like some Christmas traditions are perfunctory, like no one's really enjoying this.

But if you take it away, it won't feel like Monster Hunter. Like I think you're already hearing some of those in the community, right? Where it's like stuff that isn't fun, like isn't a pleasurable thing, but like it's part of the experience. I feel like Monster Hunter has so many of those. And I do feel like they are constantly pressing

to see how many of those they can whittle away to make it it more accessible. I think and hope they're going to get the message that they've whittled away the Palico cat kitchen and that is a bridge too far. What are you talking about? In Monster Hunter World, you had the Palico chefs that would cook your meals

and you'd get those great cut scenes. That system is still in the game, now you'll get invited to eat at these different villages, or you can cook on a portable barbecue grill. So in some ways- You sound insane. What sort of little tyrant is displeased with the game

because his cat chefs don't make his meals to his exact specifications? You're so in the wrong right now. You sound so wild, man. Do you know how hard they worked on this? And you're like, the cats aren't cute enough? Go buy a poster of them. Get a real cat.

You know what I mean? When you customize your Palico, you do get to choose if you want it to just meow and grumble, or if you want it to use human speech. And I thoroughly encourage you to go for the former. You should have to get into the fucking bios of your system to turn on a human Palico dialogue. It is a nightmare.

It should not be. It should be buried like hot coffee style. You should eat a game shark to make your Palico talk human language. I do want to mention one other thing that has only gotten better over the years. And that's like cosmetic customization. Sure. Um, you can fully, like basically once you get past the main campaign, any armor

set that you craft becomes like a layered armor set. So it acts like a transmog. So you can change any armor piece. That applies to armor you're getting for your Palico, and I dress my Palico up like a large farting monkey that carries around a giant banana. And that is peerless. Like, you cannot match that experience.

That's art. That's art, Mr. Ebert. I don't know, man. I can't, I do, I feel a little bit like we haven't, I don't know, man. I can't, I do, I feel a little bit like we haven't, I don't know that we have, I feel like in the sort of like Madden-esque iterative discussion on Monster Hunter. It is very Madden.

I was thinking that same thing. It is like very Madden. There is a Madden-esque feature of like, well, if you want these things to be improved, maybe we're gonna cut away some of the weapon training stuff because we're working on this other stuff. And maybe next time this will be, but like in this sort of like Madden-esque iteration,

I don't wanna lose sight of the fact that like, this is still very fun. Like it's really fun when you go out and the monsters look so stupid and they're walk around, not stupid, bad, stupid, like you just wanna beat them up. Like they're like idiots and angry and like, you're flipping around and you got your horse running around and you're, you can like run from a battle and like slingshots and better ammo

and then start shooting them with it. And like the environments are are very dynamic. Like you can the landscape really changes the kind of fight you're having. Which is literally a monster that it was clearly inspired by Wario. Like it's a large baboon who farts and then throws his farts at you. And then he's got like little baboon friends that also fart. And so they're like willingness to be so fucking goofy

with something that can like tonally feel very serious. I just, I think they continue to like, I'm just like so happy this franchise exists because I think again, there's no real analog'm just so happy this franchise exists, because I think, again, there's no real analog for it. And for people that love it, I think they're getting everything they want. And I do think eventually this franchise will get

to a point where it can welcome new people a bit easier, and it's getting closer and closer to that. Man, this is a very good installment. I think people are gonna really enjoy it. Yes, it is an extremely good video game. Let's take a break, and then what are we gonna do? I don't actually know. I've got a whole thing to tell you about.

Fuck yeah. I've got in my notes here, Chris Plain, you have a whole thing to tell us about that's good, and you put seven O's here, like good. Whoa, crazy. Good. Yeah, that's how I heard it in my head. This is like, I was at the birthday party and I saw the chips and dip

and I just put my whole hand in the dip and then put it in my mouth. Gross, don't do that. That's good. I'm telling you about Tokyo Extreme Racer. It is back and you're probably wondering, was it ever gone? What's Tokyo Extreme Racer? Did it ever exist is in your probably wondering. Was never gone what's tokyo extreme racer did it ever exist is my guarantee that all three of you as true gamers played a tokyo extreme racer game at some point in your life you are bored you are at blockbuster you had nothing else to do in you rented one of these

games for the playstation 2 the Sega Saturn or the Sega Dreamcast And you probably really enjoyed it and then you just forgot about it because it was just another racing game and an age of racing games But ladies, gentlemen, friends, countrymen, they do not make games like this anymore This is a racing game truly of a different era. I thought that's the whole point that you're making Chris Platt is that they do not in fact make games like this. Isn't that what you just said? They quite literally do not make this game anymore. But now they are making it now, right?

Now they're making it. Almost 20 years later, the mini members of the original team, Genki, have come back to make this game. And here's what I mean when I say it is neither arcade racer nor like full on simulation. It is a combat racing game. Here's how it works. You're on a highway in beautiful Japan and you flash your lights at a rival car and they say, OK, baby, let's race. I have a need. I have a need for speed. And you start racing and above the screen appears two full health bars, just like as if you were in street fighter, right? And as you bump up against each other, boom, takes a

little bit of that health down. If you crash into a wall, boom, takes a little bit of that health down. But the way that you really win is if you get far enough ahead of the other car, that also starts to deplete their life. So it's not about getting to the finish line. It is about getting as far in front of the racer as you can for as long as possible to deplete their health until it hits zero.

The brilliance of- Is it just like winning a race though? Are you saying? No. No. What Chris Plant is saying is Rubin is racing in this one. Or not Rubin. Being really far ahead. So, but the cool thing about this system is,

again, you also deplete life if you wreck. So if you are a player who's going like, I'm gonna go 150 miles per hour to get ahead of you, and then I have a whole bunch of hairpin turns ahead. Yeah. You could crash and then still lose. So it becomes a game of, okay, I really want to

get ahead, but do I want to like be a little cautious? We've got these turns coming up. Do I want to give them the chance to catch up on me? Or do I want to, do I want to go all out and I, cause I got that need, that need for the Fast and the Furious. It is such a cool game.

And despite being an Unreal Engine five, which is just comical overkill, it looks and feels like the rose colored glasses version of a Dreamcast game, which is to say it has that, you know, you know that type of reflection that cars had in video games in the early 2000s? Like fake reflection things? Yeah, but you're like, oh. Everything looks wet.

Yeah, and you're like, I can't believe, it'll never look better than this. It's so wet. It has that, it has this pulsing jungle beat that is just rolling through the whole thing. And the- So all the races are just two cars? Yeah, it's just two cars.

And then it also is set in this Tokyo, like nighttime Tokyo that I can only describe as Miami Vice the movie aesthetic, that like early digital video camera look where the light just like looks really specific. I don't even know a better way of describing it. It's like the lens flares. Yeah, kind of. It's like distortions but it it's such a specific thing and speaking of millennial

parents who can only fit in like 15 minutes of game time, this is that plus it runs on Steam Deck, which is even better. Right now, it's technically in early access. I think there's like 30 hours of gameplay here. So for most people, it might as well be full access, but for like the hardcore car nuts, I think the full release will be later this year.

And is the full release gonna add a third car, or are they good with two? I think, oh, that's the wild shit about it, is there's dozens of cars and they're licensed. Oh. I mean, you need a Nissan Skyline. If it's not, if that's not in there, I don't know what they're gonna do.

All of the cars that you expect to be in this game are in this game, I assure you. Yeah, it is great. You can also flash your lights at pretty much anybody. So, the goal is to... Whoa, are you kidding? That's a level of enthusiasm that I appreciate. Me too, man. I can do that with my car, no problem. People love it.

It's this new advanced feature. You can start a race with just like a crappy like a little you know truck And then just shame them for no reason other than like wanting to shame a random person on the highway What's a good game? What's the community like for this right now because I don't feel like I've heard anybody But you talk about it ever the community for this game is Losing their fucking mind. This game has- Did the community for this game just quadruple by you telling us about it, Chris? I'm feeling that way.

How many reviews do you think this game has on Steam? I couldn't even- Just take any guess. 5,000. 9,353. Fuck. Wow. Not a bad crowd.

People care about this game. 95% on Steam. That's a bad crowd. People care about this game. 95% on Steam. That's a good sign. I do think this is a game though where 10,000 people have been waiting for this game for the last 20 years. They're all playing it right now. They all are playing it right now. They all wrote it.

They all left their reviews. Good for them. But thank you for letting me talk about it because I just love this shit. I cannot believe they brought back one of these games. It was such a cool game on the Dreamcast and to get to play it again just a little bit better, it's living the dream. I love it.

We have a little bit of reader mail coming at you. This comes from S. Payne. For gamers on a budget, I recommend looking at Netflix again. When I first found out about games on there, it seemed like mostly mobile shovelware, but recently found out that there are quote real games now. Just finished the sequel to Curse of the Golden Idol

and it worked really well on tablet, Into the Breach, Civ 6 and other great titles. If you already have a subscription, it's definitely worth checking out. I can't make my brain, like I have a Netflix subscription. I, and I know I have played Netflix games. I can't make my brain wrap around

how one accesses Netflix games. You see the games advertised to you sometimes where you're watching Netflix on television and you can't make that happen. And I know that you can't access them, but for some reason I just can't make, like I don't know, it seems like a weird ecosystem. You just download them from the app store,

they have a little, the Netflix logo sort of on the thumbnail, that's how you know it's a Netflix one, and then when you start playing the game, you have to use your Netflix login, that's it. It's weird. It's fucking crazy, they have Into the Breach, they have Dead Cells. Man, it's good stuff.

They have Hades. That's crazy. Point P from the Makers of Downwell. That's crazy. Point P from the makers of Downwell. What's irritating is that is probably the most like, that's like the least irritating way of doing it, right? Right, yeah. But there is something about it being a Netflix login that my like-

That's for movies, J-Man. And sometimes- I almost wanna hub- Gabby's dollhouse. I almost wanna hub for like that, where I could just see all of the Netflix games. It makes it easier to conceptualize the benefit. if you can like see them all in one place I might be in the app. I've never looked there you go. Ted Sarandos. That one's free last note This comes from Noah. We were talking last week about

Reusing maps in future games as in tears of the kingdom From Noah on the subject of games reusing old maps in areas, trying to think of examples of this. And I realized in almost every case that comes to mind, I actually thought it was really cool. In Tears of the Kingdom, I was actually really excited to visit each familiar area to see what was different. I still have a crystal clear memory

of realizing the whole Kanto region was in Pokemon Gold and Silver. Still familiar, but new and different at the same time. It makes those places feel real to come revisit them after time has passed. And then Jacconian wrote, are you older maps? I love the inclusion of the original locations in Zelda 2 and Dragon Quest 2. Is that wait, Zelda 2 had the map from Zelda 1? I think it does have a few familiar like that are analoged to the original game.

I didn't know that because that game sucks so bad that I've never been able to spend enough time playing it. It's not great. There is a remake I've been meaning to play, like a remaster that someone did that made it good, but I have not done that yet. Really? Yeah.

Okay, honorable mentions? I played through a game I think we're gonna talk about in two weeks. So I'll sit on that. But I also have been playing a lot of Star of Providence. What is that, I saw that pop up. Yeah, so that is, it's a game that's actually been around for a while.

It used to be called Monolith. It is a top-down, rogue-like shooter, where you are this ship and you fly through this facility, basically going from screen to screen. Every screen is like its own little self-contained room with enemies and traps and stuff in it. But there's also a bunch of different ways to get stronger each run.

You find weapons, you find these cartridges that add these modifiers, you can find a skill that adds a bunch of stuff. It is very much a game that by the end of a run, you have probably done some stuff that you have not done before in the kind of Binding of Isaac style. It is fast and it feels fucking great to play.

I liken it to, and maybe this is just the aesthetic, but Downwell, like that kind of pace of the gameplay, if that was sort of converted to a top-down twin-stick shooter. And then after each run, you will unlock some new stuff that you can purchase, so weapons that will now start spawning in or skills that will become like available for you to choose

when you find like a skill upgrade spot. It is, it's just, it's just great. It's just really, really, really fun to play. It's not like the deepest like roguelike experience that I've ever had, but it is, I don't know, it's fitting, it is scratching an itch for me right now, where like, I'm not playing other games like this, where I can just pick it up

and do one like really sweaty run for like 15 minutes and then go on to something else, and I do like having one of those kinda in the rotation. So it's on Switch, and I've been playing it on Steam Deck and it works great and just rules. It's published by Big Mode, which is how I heard about it. I've been playing more of that too. Frosh talked about it a little bit on the Resties

and got into like the whole very weird history of the game and how it came to me. But I just, I got got a note here for public record Fresh on his first time playing it made it three Levels deep and I made it five levels deep on my first run So I do think we have a new resident best gamer. Yeah, that's good. Let me update Sure Hoops, what have you been enjoying? Yeah, that's good. Let me update. I wanted to make it in the document. Sure. Hoops, what have you been enjoying?

Um, well, I installed Linux on a laptop. Buckle up Russ and Chris. This was the whole tour. It's just a lot. This guy's could turn fucking Linux in such a major way. He's got code. Sorry, this is the penguin one you're talking about? What? This is the penguin one? Yeah, like the one that's tattooed

across his neck right now. That's why I have the black and white symbolizing. Yeah, you're just falling. No, okay, it all goes back to Good Russ. He broke my brain when he came on the show and he opened my world to the fact that I'm a computer man and I love these digital wonders and I have been interacting with them

in a much more meaningful and profound way. I know it was, you know, I've been messing around and a lot of the stuff that you do with the Raspberry Pi, it's running on, the OS of Raspberry Pi is sort of built on a distribution of Linux. And so like with the overlap there, I was like, I wanna know more about this, the Linux OS, because I wanna understand how to use that.

And at some point I just decided, you know, it's been, I've always kind of like appreciated the idea of open source computing and open source like software and all that is like an ideal, but never really did it like resonate with me. And seeing the way things have gone technologically in the past 12 months, 18 months,

I really, it became incumbent on me. I feel like there's a real value in understanding computing and not letting it be something that is completely controlled by oligarchs and billionaires. And I feel like that has been a concerted effort to make it something that is controlled by people. And I think that as somebody who's always been pretty okay with brands, it's always kind of made sense.

And then when you see how quickly people or companies make a heel turn, it really reminds you that it's good to take this stuff in your own hands. So I've been trying to learn Linux because it's more based on like open source. There's a community of people who you're relying on rather than, you know, whoever is running Microsoft

or Apple that week. So it's been really interesting. I got a cheap laptop, the cheapest one I could get, and I found a distribution of, so I don't wanna go into this very deeply, but anyway, I put links on it. I don't wanna talk about specifics because like 95% of the people will be bored.

I'm mostly curious about what the like, and what happens at the end, like what do you do with the laptop after you've done all this stuff? So what do I do with that? Put it in the garbage. I throw it away. No, part of it is learning, right?

I understand a lot better how computers work because I have this computer that I basically like put everything onto it. Sure, yeah. And because I have to understand all those parts in a micro, like on a very small system, I feel like I can understand on a larger level how it works. So part of that is the learning process. The other thing is this laptop that I made, I was using it on the road.

I was using it on tour and it was super stable and run super fast and would cost $200 and it's like it kicks ass. And you just like browse the internet and videos and. No, no Russ, I'm no okay. So this is the, this is, this was my impression, right? Yeah. Got Slack, got Spotify, I got Reaper. There are video editing tools. There are analogs, open source analogs to almost every program available.

So part of the end goal is, I am trying to adapt to a community that is self-sustaining rather than be in a system where it is like spoon-fed and all of it is like owned by corporate interests. So I'm trying to transition as much as I can to take control of that back, right? So I've been doing it at my house too, trying to get like, I started trying to do

some smart home stuff and then I realized the first time the internet went down and the whole thing sucked. And I was like, okay, I'm starting over. So I've been putting like Zigbee radios, anyway, trying to take that out of the cloud, right? To bring it into my house, to put it into my control. But anyway, that's what I've been doing lately.

Wow, look at you. That's really cool. I genuinely think it's a valuable, even if nothing comes of it, like a valuable sort of endeavor. What do you mean nothing comes of it? What is that? This is what I'm saying, Griffin. You heard what I'm saying, how smart I am? I know everything about computers, Griffin. That's what I'm saying. That's what comes of it. So what did you even mean, nothing comes of it? You're being a real Russ right now, and not good Russ, I'll just say, I don't wanna, Nuff said.

We really fucked things up by bringing another Russ on this show. Yeah, it was a mistake. I've been playing Slay the Spire. I beat it three times with three different characters and I felt really good about it. So glad it finally got you Russ. Wait, is this like your first time?

I mean, I've played Slay the Spire. You've played it, but like, I'm getting texts about it now. It's working. It's working. I don't feel, now that I've won three times, and I know there's more I could be doing, I don't necessarily feel a pull to like keep doing it. Can I ask, what did you beat it with?

I beat it with the first three characters. Like one time with each of the first three. Yes. I know there's more. I know there's like another act and you have to do special stuff, but like. I mean, if you don't feel the pull, I really got to a point with Slay the Spire.

So I understand what you're saying. And I think that is like a completely valid, if you're saying like, I feel like I've reached my off ramp and I've gotten what I'm gonna get. I think that's like. I just don't, I don't see what the 300 hours, how the series has changed.

Honestly, Rush, for me, it was, and I never feel this way about games, but it's so robust that every time, it was genuinely for the joy of playing it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's genuinely like, every time that I would build a new deck and I would feel that feeling of like, it's just so well balanced at being able to like,

pull a working, when you can pull like a working model out of something that was not working, like it's really, that is the motivation. It really is not a, there's no achievement for me. There's nothing I'm chasing. It's just, I like playing it. And realistically, that's what Binding of Isaac did for me. Yeah, yeah, for sure. Yeah, yeah, for sure.

Yeah, no, I totally. Yeah, it's a very good game. The mobile interface is, I'm playing on a phone. It feels a little cramped and maybe not the best. I'm sure on an iPad, it would be better and probably even better with a mouse keyboard. But from a convenience standpoint, like having it in my pocket and being able to like,

do a hand fucking clutch, you know, it's good stuff. They should make a sequel. They should make like a follow up to it. I don't know. That seems ambitious, but. What about you, Chris? They're making one. I mean, yeah, Star of Providence was my big one.

And then have you finished it yet? Have you beaten the like, I guess, no, no, no, the only problem with that game and it's not even a problem is just the runs are long. The runs are like 35, 45 minutes. You can't stop it any time, you can like stop and go save the bug. Yeah, it does let you, just turn the game off, next time you turn it on it's like, do you want to continue your run? I need to do that, that sounds much better.

But yeah, I was really enjoying that. And then there's a movie coming out that I just recommend people check out if it happens to be showing in your area called EFIS. Have you heard about this? How do you spell that? E E P H U S. And it is about a bunch of like older dudes who have been playing a game of baseball forever and ever and ever.

This is in like the 1990s and their very small town baseball stadium is about to get demolished so that they can build a local middle school there. And it's basically just a movie about the last game. If you said we want to make a geriatric sandlot, you would be very close to this. That sounds great. And just as charming as that sounds, it is truly weird who is in the cast. There's a guy named Frederick Weissman who is a documentarian who is 95 years old. He's one of like the most important long feature documentarians alive. Just happens to be in this movie about baseball. I don't fully know why. But yeah, if you like good vibes and just a chill hangout movie, you

really can't do much better than this. I'm looking at a trailer and it looks like a Wes Anderson movie the way it's shot. Kind of. It's not quite as... Tweet. ...composed, but it definitely has... It has that very delicate vibe. Do you think if Wes Anderson had never become a filmmaker, the word tweet would have fallen into the dustbin of his tweet?

Probably. This tweet? Would we have lost to the ease of it? Yeah. Okay, I think we did it. Well done, us. I wanted to thank some patrons over at patreon.com slash the besties. We have a new episode of Resties.

As Plant mentioned, we talked more about Star of Providence and kind of went deep on that, as well as a game called Keep Driving, which is very cool. Thank you to new subscribers. We have Sam, we have Aiden, we have Paul, and we have rubber chicken with a polly in the middle. Thank you for being supporters of the Patreon. We greatly appreciate it.

Justin, what are we doing next week? Oh, well, we're gonna kind of do like a split, kind of a two tiered thing for friends and others. I guess like there's a friends version where they're gonna be doing split fiction and then there's like others. It sounded like you made plans with your first slice before you knew what you were doing.

I made up Slice, there's no Slice, Russ. Obviously there's no Slice. There's gonna be a person named Slice, Russ. I mean, you go by hoops. So we're gonna be doing split fiction and some sort of sad painting, movie, maybe, I don't know. I don't know what I'll do. Do your computer shit.

You'll be fine. Ha ha ha. Ha ha ha. Ha ha ha. Ha ha ha. Ha ha ha. Ha ha ha. Ha ha ha. Oh, Justin, I love you. Oh man, how can I make other friends Oh

Man how can I make other friends when you're already my best one right there? It's gonna do it for us on the message to be sure to join us again next week on the besties Should the world's best friends pick the world's best game? Besties!