The Besties - Resident Evil 4 Remake Has a Lot of Nice Things, Stranger

Episode Date: March 31, 2023

After glancing off the subject our last couple of episodes, we're finally ready to dive deep into Capcom's latest rejuvenation of their classic survival horror franchise, Resident Evil 4 Remake. Also, how buckwild does Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom look?!Also discussed: Octopath Traveler 2, Dredge, Psychodyssey 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!

Quick question, guys. Just to start things off on a good foot, as they say. Just a quick question, I guess that the question, if I had to phrase it, would be, What are you buying? What are you buying? Got a lot of good things, stranger. I do. I've got gadgets and gizmos aplenty, stranger. You have a thingamabob?

Who's it and what's his galore? Russ, do you want thingamabobs? No, I'm looking for a dinglehopper. I have a 20. You wouldn't have a dinglehopper, would you? Well, it depends on what you mean by dinglehopper, stranger. You know, something that they use to comb their hair. Depends on what you mean by dinglehopper, stranger.

You know, something that they use to, like, comb their hair. Oh, no. I have a sort of sexual aid called a dinglehopper. Stranger. That's got many good attachments for it, stranger, for five gemstones. I am selling things. Do you have anything for, what would you say to that? If I told you I was selling things? You i mean what have you got on listen i only got a dinglehopper so i don't need

two of those yeah i've got three kinds of herbs yeah all right i'll try it out what do we do like cilantro. No, no, I've got the yellow kind, and I've got green. Basel. And red. Red basel. I'll buy it for a nice price, stranger. Oh, nice, nice. Cool, cool, cool. And this is on the up and up, right?

We passed legalization a while ago. Absolutely not, stranger. I do not have lost my business license stranger oh shit you have to have a special license to sell a sexual aid to sell out of your cape yes stranger this cape is so heavy stranger my friend dennis he's also a merchant he's got like a wagon he keeps all his shit in but me i just do it sort of in my jacket, stranger. It's very heavy. Yeah, and you move around a lot.

And it's some of these things are wicked sharp, stranger, poking my tummy every time I take a step. And there's zombies fucking everywhere, dude. Yeah. Wait, hold on. I think we're losing it a little bit. The more he talks, the more I feel like we're losing it. No, he's just relaxed with us.

He's not formal. Zombies are all over the place, stranger. Bro. Give me that. Is it unhelpful to have a jacket full of vibrating dildos in a zombie world? Hold on. There goes one right there. Hold on. No, dang it. Not that one. Nope, not that one either.

Nope, not that one. Stranger, I'll tell you what. I'm going to take the jacket off. Okay. You just sort of root around in there. Grab one of them. That's strange. It's vibrating away.

Like it has its own... Fare thee well. My name is Justin McElroy, and I know the best game of the week. My name is Griffin McElroy, and 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 Christopher Thomas Plant and I know the best game of the week. My name is Ross Frusher and I know the best game of the week. Welcome to the besties where we talk about the latest and greatest in home interactive entertainment. It's a video game club, pal. And just by wandering into our clubhouse here and listening to this podcast, you've become a member.

wandering into our clubhouse here and uh and and listen to this here podcast you've become a member um we've got a new old game to talk about the latest in a series of uh resident evil uh remakes this is resident evil 4 chris plant what's so special about this one resident evil 4 remake continues capcom's thrilling remakes of resident Evil 2, 3, and now this one. What did they change? Well, they made them actually fun to play for people who are new. That's it, baby. That's it, baby. And it seems like there wouldn't

be more to say, but God, God, I hope there is, because we are going to see the real thing come back right after this. I watched some gameplay from OG Resident Evil 4, and I've played that game a lot of times. We recently replayed it for, I think, a discussion last year, and in that span of time, I forgot you can't move and aim a gun at the same time,

which is outrageous, which is bananas, considering that this is a game about being chased and shooting the things that are chasing you. Huge, just for that, Resident Evil 4 Remake, 10 out of 10. You can move while you aim. Perfect. So this is my first time playing Resident Evil 4, like, really in earnest right yeah because you

spent what five minutes playing not a whole lot with the last one because my immediate impression was this is a miserable experience because you can't move a name yeah right i mean it's it's valid it's valid yeah hey good news plant yeah the arrest is your opinion's valid hey i'm i'm gratefully does because i have a feeling there are a lot of resident evil 4 fans who still think not um this is a weird game as somebody who has played every resident evil game but this one even umbrella chronicles oh no i like the main line all the main ones yes and in code veronic and all that stuff it's a weird game in how um wow this must have felt like a really shocking departure after resume one two and three back in the day and i know that i i am here just to voice the buffoon opinions of

of the of i don't know i'm sure there's a 20 year old dozens of us yeah yeah yeah people that people that didn't experience it the first time around yeah this was the first time that there was a resident evil game with like you know not being able to move while aiming aside actually good controls and actually good camera this was the first time it ever happened so people were blown the fuck away yeah it's it's funny's funny to leverage that complaint about original Resident Evil 4 because compared to Resident Evil 1 through 3 with their tank controls, this game was fucking next level interaction, baby. Yeah, you were Jackie Joyner Kersey, basically.

Yeah, more or less. Let's talk about the beginning of the game, the very beginning, the entry. You go into the village. Some might say a Resident Evil village. That feels like a lot of confidence in hindsight where they were like, hey, you have so much control now. We can throw a trillion zombies at you. Yeah. And that will be, quote, fun.

And I, Griffin, you mentioned last time that you were not a big fan of that section. Shit talked it. Yeah, big time. Yeah, you roll up into the village, and it starts this. This game's combat encounters can be quite long. I just did one this morning that was just sort of one area, a horde of zombies, and it took me maybe like 25 minutes to shoot my way through it.

I can't even think of what area that was. It was, I'm still in the village. I have not made it too far through, but I'm on like chapter three, I think. Yeah. And they have improved it dramatically this time around. Being able to run away from the horde of zombies as they are and

by zombies i mean human beings uh as they are chasing you with farming implements that is already pretty cool the first time that i was aiming a pistol and trying to take out a uh you know one of these evil villager zombie guys uh and they threw an axe at me and I sidestepped it while aiming. I was like, oh, okay. I get it now. And then I ran through a barn and shot a lantern and set a cow on fire. And then that cow set everyone else on fire. And I was like, okay, they fixed it. They updated the game.

This is a good one now. Felt bad for the cow, but I saved a lot of ammo thanks to that beautiful beast so yeah it's funny because because the not to fixate on it but the moving while aiming thing it doesn't make a huge impact because you really can't move very quickly while you're aiming like you it's you're pretty glacial just the minor adjustments that you can make makes just makes the feel a lot world of difference yeah yeah it really is um other other than that though there's i mean the game looks phenomenal it's amazing how much capcom has like just crushed this engine yeah like and that they just keep remaking games in this engine and they all look gorgeous and feel

great and pretty scalable like it doesn't have huge uh tech demands like a lot of systems can run these games yeah apparently the ps4 version has some pretty gnarly issues uh that it's been getting kind of review bombed oh well that's never mind it does run on steam deck for what it's worth but it does runs great on steam deck the world is a lot bigger i i i would say this time around yeah it's also a lot easier to navigate i think because of some improvements to the map which is nice um but the original resident evil 4 was a little bit um hallway e it was yeah they kind of railroaded you in certain into certain areas and i think there's like three acts in the game and i think in each of the acts there's really no moment where you're like locked off from like going back to exploring another area within

a previous act whereas before i think there might have been some like hard walls where you couldn't and there's some there's some areas that are much much much more open like the lake doing somewhat of a god of war thing sure um which is which is very cool uh yeah i'm having a fucking great time man i i uh i love the original resident evil 4 because of that sense of exploration and the power sort of curve on that game is gorgeous. unarmed uh interloper uh who is just getting pursued relentlessly by an army of of uh zombie villagers uh to like i am now a demigod with a you know shotgun and shoots fire or whatever uh is is is really great and i'm you know i'm not that far in the game but i can already sort of feel that it has has been reinforced more yeah juice what what is your uh first impression i really dug it i mean i don't have a great um memory for these games that i've only played once which like re4 is definitely one of those like it was cool but i

i kind of got it and moved on with my life um I'm just so impressed by how sort of like, at least on like the standard difficulty setting, how like sort of generous it is with stuff like ammo and health and things like that. I wasn't really, the times when I was struggling with resource management was times where I was too up my own ass about it, where it's like,

I need to scrimp and save every, you know, I could, I could have five knives instead of four knives if I could just do this bit again. But if you can play that stuff, it's pretty generous with the resources. The pistol especially felt bad to me at first because I think that I, it's like really, the herky jerky movements of the guys really is frustrating if you're trying to pop off headshots a lot. But if you're patient a little bit,

which feels weird, but waiting until they are ready to be shot rather than just panicking about it, that really helped. If you stand still while you're aiming, that makes a huge difference. It's way more fun.

Let's pause there, because one thing I... No, I love this about Resident Evil 4, the original, when I did play it, which again, not a lot of love for many things. The red dot sight is great. Yeah. And that was really useful for me to tell when a shot was lined up

because obviously a big red dot, it's bigger on their head because it's closer to you. It's like basic shape logic. Well, it's bigger on their head because it's closer to you it's like basic shape logic well it's also precise it was yes it's both precise and where it's like the reticle like yeah whenever a big giant red dot appears on the screen because it's not in the distance you know to push the trigger and sure i i think the choice to switch to a reticle, I understand why it's done, but I would have liked to have both options. But I'm going to guess that there is some reason why they got rid of it. You know, some smart game dev reason of, oh, actually, it would have made it miserable.

Okay, so just to be clear, in the original Resident Evil 4, every single gun automatically had a red dot sight. Like shotgun, rifle, whatever, you name it, had a red dot sight like shotgun rifle whatever you name it had a red dot sight in this game there are guns that support the red dot sight but it's a separate attachment that you need to buy from the vendor and it only works on certain guns so i think the starting pistol and yeah it's not a default um i completely agree with you. I think it's more fun using it because it literally tells you where your shot is going to land versus the reticle, which, you know, has bloom now,

and like, you know, if you're moving, the bloom gets really big. There's like a late game gun that has like comically large bloom when you move at all, like even a step, but having a red dot on it is like a total game changer so it's an interesting balance thing but i kind of agree with you plant like i wish they would have just given all the guns red dots because it felt so freaking good the first time

around true but i don't know kind of a minor quibble yeah um what did y'all think about the changes because that again that that part's relatively invisible to me yeah so the they added stealth which the first game really did not have so you can like sneak around and like stealth kill zombies now or whatever they are zombies uh and that is new they also added like durability to the knives which i realized like people that hate breath of the wild probably getting a little worried about this but that's a necessary balance for the fact that you can use knives to stealth kill you can use them to instant kill enemies that you have like toppled over in a certain way you can also use them and i've just started really utilizing this and it has changed the game for me there's a parry that you can do

now um which is great because most enemies are you know use axes or scythes or pitchforks or whatever and with the tap of a button in exchange for a little bit of durability of that weapon you can block the attack and if you do it with good enough timing you can uh set them up for a counter like melee knockdown attack uh which if you are struggling with the game i really feel like that uh gameplay mechanic is intended to be utilized a lot um also especially if you're playing on a harder difficulty the very first time you get to a shop you can upgrade all your weapons right you can almost fully upgrade your like main knife right at the top and then a lot of the headaches around this are not really headaches with the durability you can increase the durability and there are, there's another knife you can get.

And there are like more disposable knives. You'll find I never, for what it's worth my first time through, there was never a moment where it was like, Oh fuck, I just don't have a knife. I think I have five knives right now and I use them a lot. It's pretty,

it's pretty, it's pretty generous. I think the other changes were, they added like, John up hey i don't own that yes fresh the other changes they made were they added uh i guess like mini quests to like every area in the original there was like one find five coins so weird yeah in the original there were like 12 little targets you had to shoot and if you did you got a better pistol and then that was the end of that gameplay mechanic yeah they just never did

any more of them and here there's like 40 of them yeah which i actually am into because it encourages you a encourages you to like go through areas you've been through already and, like, be a little bit creative. And B, there's, like, a whole new unlocking mechanism where, like, there's a store that you can only use this certain currency in the store. And there's guns in there and different, like, cases and all sorts of shit. So, like, you know, it's weird and goofy.

But honestly, the whole game is weird and goofy. It is. This freaking game. Totally fits. This freaking game, y, but honestly the whole game is weird and goofy. It is. This freaking game. Totally fits. This freaking game, y'all. This freaking game is so weird. Like, what is the, like, the translation, I guess if you want to call it that,

the localization is good, but it's so boneheaded that it's like, okay, Leon walks up to a giant horrific hammer, and he's like, good luck finding somebody big enough to use that. He walks away. It's like, Leon, are you? Wait, go back. Look again.

You know this is going to be for somebody that's going to kick your ass here in a little bit. Have you been paying attention at all? Yeah. There's also this weird cut between chapter two and three where there's a really creepy guy in the room with you. And then it just cuts and he's gone. It's like, wait, did he leave? Did he give up? What happened?

Wait, Justin, you left out the best part of that, which is this giant man lifts you up, looks into your eyes. You feel like he's going to kill you. And he's like, ah, I see. It likes your blood. And then it cuts away. And the next time we see Leon, he's like, my blood. And then he never thinks about it again. Never thinks about it again.

He's so fucking dumb. The number of times that you will pop the head off of a human with a gun. And then Leon has these barks that he does where he's just like, nice. Hell yes. One down. That's a human. that's a human life can we talk about that for a second in a in a less joking way i i i know this is always a sliding scale and different things hit differently for different people so like this is just for me personally um the people in the game the enemies in the game don't look enough sort of like zombies

to me as much as they look like tired old poor people to me they look like it's right like i feel like and especially pretty early on leon is making some, let's say, snap judgments about who he probably needs to bury a knife in the back of before they can turn around. There's like right before that scene that we're talking about with like the all out, whatever. You can stealth kill an old woman that's just sweeping. Sorry, I know I said I was going to be serious about it, but it's so bizarre. It's like, man, and they're just talking in a different language. They're not like zombified. They're like yelling at you in a different – it just really – we always run this risk when the graphical fatality comes to a certain point where you are having to make more specific decisions about how an enemy is presenting. And for me, the dial was just a little bit too far towards like human and not enough towards like an abstracted zombie.

So the – I agree with everything you just said because 100 percent, that all felt very weird. Imagine my relief. 100%. That all felt very weird. Imagine my relief. There is an intentionality to that where, and again, I think this only lands if you think of it in contrast to Resident Evil 3, which came right before this. They wanted to have, quote, smart, non-zombie zombies because you've been fighting for the last three games these very typical shambling zombies. And so they were like, well, what if they were people but they are infected people and blah blah blah so that was the game design rationale from a like from a actual playing the game without any context whatsoever yeah it feels fucking weird and yeah i felt bad stabbing that poor uh woman who was like digging hay out of a bucket

but also just just for the listeners then to really emphasize what justin was saying this isn't a value judgment if you like this in a video no like it's it's it's so hard to pin down why one thing is comfortable i saw john wick four last night. Loved it. But I also agree with Justin in certain ways. That makes no sense. It's not about the violence for me. You know what it is? Let's keep using that old woman as an example because it's very early on.

That poor thing. There is not a moment where he's like, I'm not sure. You know? Yeah, yeah. Or like, ma'am, I'm putting you under You know, like, or like, uh, ma'am,

I'm putting you under arrest, ma'am. Like it's, it's, it's not, he's not processing that. There is a dissonance between Leon's reaction and like our reaction. I really struggle with,

it's not a monster. If it's cleaning its yard, know sure you know well can i pause can i pause for a second yeah there is one aspect that we haven't discussed is that before that scene starts you do see the villagers crowd around a pyre and burn a police officer to death that is true now granted the woman that we're talking about was behind the house. Pretty far from the scene of the crime. Relatively far. Yeah, she could have turned around and be like,

what the fuck? What are you guys fucking doing over there? And you with the knife, what's your problem? Yeah, this dissonance existed in the original game too. Yeah, it gets better, I would say, later on as they actually attack you first. Right, well, you also reach a point where, Yeah, it gets better, I would say, later on as they actually attack you first. Right. Well, you also reach a point where, and it's a great moment in the original because it is not really telegraphed at all where you pop the head off of one of these shambling villagers and a big fucking parasite worm shoots out.

And it's like, holy shit. That kind of recontextualizes the whole thing but then you've got to convince me that the parasite was like well may gotta get the hay out of the bucket yeah go clean up your yard bay for evil sugar water it's it's not like it doesn't ruin the thing. You get used to it. No, I know. But it is like, ugh. I think the conversation around this one got lost too

because Resident Evil 5 was so much worse. So racist. Wowzers, Bowser. Which is the one that you were in Africa. Yeah, that's fine. Just shooting mask-wearing, like, tribes people. I will be stunned if this is not, like, the last. I mean, we're getting to an inflection point, right?

Yes. Where they just have to be like, well, and those also came out. I would be very surprised if RE5 does not get remade. I think it would require, like, a total floor-to-ceiling. Wait, you'd be surprised if it5 does not get remade. I think it would require like a total floor to ceiling. Would you be surprised if it does or if it doesn't? I think it will get made. I think it will. I think it will.

Also, to confirm, it is an imagined African country in and around a town of Kijuju. I agree with you. I mean, let's talk about that for a second because i we had a lot of people ask the question you know what do they do from here do they do they remake five and six i think i think they definitely remake it i wonder well they remake it because it is an opportunity to do right and and yes i think I think if they quote remake five and especially six, I think they'll look almost entirely different.

Now, plan, I would say one small correction. I think they would remake five because it would make money for them. That's probably that. Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry. What if we put both of our ideas together? Yeah. And by remaking five five they will make money and

they continue to make money off of games that were formerly not making money you see what i mean yes i swallow i think they will remake five i think there's also an opportunity that a lot of people have forgotten to remake resident evil one yeah also, to some extent, Resident Evil 0, but certainly Resident Evil 1. Now, Resident Evil 1 did get a remake. That remake dates back to, like, the GameCube era. It had the original controls. It had all that stuff.

The graphics were improved. That is weird. But as gameplay, it was basically the same, which is to say, next to unplayable. Wouldn't that feel so weird, though? No. I mean, at that point... It would need to be a real rethink.

I mean, that's what RE2 was, be a real rethink i mean that's what re2 was yeah it was a real reason yeah but it would be so like going all the way up to this and then be like okay now we're gonna go back to you know like weird geometry puzzles i mean re2 was a total reimagining which had some of those puzzles but wasn't like extremely overwhelming and it was great i think there's i i i would love one if it was focused from the ground up as a first person game like the more recent stuff i think that would be cool but going yeah if the first one was like that that'd be interesting yeah yeah and not like what they've yeah i i think that would be fine yeah i i said it would be okay so so we got permission from let's do it all that said i don't think they're ever

gonna make six again ever it is so despised universally that and it's and structurally it's like such a mess because it's told across like three different stories like why are you like what of this are you trying to fucking wesker a spoiler alert wesker falls in a volcano in resident evil 5 like you're done that's the end of the story wesker's dead the end and so that was like a good breaking point and we can all just forget six and the giraffe there are as a game five does have some good stuff as a game it just needs massive that was a co-op one right that That was the co-op one, right? Yeah, it was the co-op one. It had some cool stuff. Wait, are you talking about 6? 5.

5. Yeah, 5. Gameplay-wise, 5 was fine. It was everything else that was bad. So I agree. I think there is maybe a way to rework it if you, again, floor to ceiling, examine the cultural implications of what that game was doing.

I am not super confident that's going to happen, but I think will remake it hey while we're hanging out here i mean maybe i should just raise another question we got a lot of which is does our list of the best resident evil games change it does for me i will say this is in my opinion the best resident evil game ever made like easily for me this and i've beaten this. I've played through the whole thing. I think it's definitely better than the original game. And the original game was my favorite Resident Evil game. The vibe of 8 is tough to top for me. They are doing some, here's what I'll say, though.

Some really, like, how can I put this? Generous, like, world building and, like, building out, like, when you go to the shooting gallery in this game, it feels like you're in some sort of, like, immersive theater environment. It is, like... It's a pirate ship. It's so cool.

And there's, like, weird, like, a Victrola-type music playing and you get this staticky announcement from the merchant and there's like uneaten plates of food on the just for no real like i don't know why who was here doing this but it's like it's such a like rich world um that they've built out it's really really cool to see yeah i i agree i mean eight is definitely my favorite i i still have a lot more to play of this, and it could change.

I think I like the cheesy, corny, weird pulpiness turned up a little bit higher, and 8 does that for me. I also just like the chapter vibe of 8 worked for me really well and didn't wear out its welcome. I completely understand why this is the preferred best Resident Evil game. Because on a pure, like, historical level, if I think about, like, what did this do for games, it is a trip going and playing this and seeing how well it does the kind of Resident Evil, go here, solve a few things, shoot a few things in the head, go to the next place formula. It does it so, so so well i just i i just like a giant baby chasing me you know yeah sometimes reason i love it you can only get that in one game sure griffin how about how about you i i i mean i want to play more of it uh i didn't

have a ton of time to put into the game but i mean it's it's stellar and it's uh it's really catching all of the some of my favorite shit i'll tell i'll be honest i feel like my excitement for this is dampened a little bit by um the re4 vr that i played what feels like like a couple months ago yeah just because that was a really cool interpretation it's hard for me to separate like i loved the wii version of resident evil 4 like having motion controls and in that world uh made it feel like a lot more immersive um but that being said like there's there is so much improved here and it's a so much more sort of it is way more pleasant to play than it ever has been. And so I'm all about that. I do have a very special place in my heart for RE7.

Just because that game was such a weird little horror movie. That was such a departure from the rest of them. In the same way that 4 is. But yeah, I'm loving it it's great these games are good yeah i think that's really they're great games why why are more people not doing this like it just seems like it's right there well i think we are in the age where they're doing it so like fucking metroid prime remastered and dead space and this like this is the only the beginning I think, more and more people doing this. Just keep selling these games.

Justin, what you really mean is why aren't people making more good games? No, I mean, like, just take all good games and make them fun. Yeah, that one's pretty good, too. Yeah, that's good. only become more popular as people realize that like it's way easier to sell people something that they already love and you can make it cleaner and more fun um but yeah no i think this is going to be a model for the coming next 10 years is going to be like a bunch of these each year going from metal gear into this is definitely like has has has made me think about this like that disparity like and how hard that was to find and

play this is just such a nice like way of keeping what this game is alive and just having it in front of a whole other group of people like i i think it's so cool i know it's very different but still how bad do you want the metal gear remakes by a team like this. I mean, I'm really torn about it because it is such a specific thing, right? Like it's so, I don't know. It would be cool though. Yeah, it'd be cool. I don't know.

I don't know. Sure, I'll buy it. You win. You twisted my arm. Let's take a break and we'll come back and talk about other stuff. You know? There's other stuff you know other stuff Zelda's back and this time he's

got all kinds of new tools in his toolkit thank god Zelda is finally back we've missed him and it's basically this time folks this time they're doing a banjo kazooie nuts and bolts with it this time and i could not be more excited for breath of the breath of the wild two tears of the kingdom it's not called that

but go on it is called that it's not called the wild two it is called that now this game comes out in six weeks as we're recording this is about weeks. And I cannot think of a single example of a game, especially a game this big, that has waited this long to show actual gameplay of what the game is. Six weeks out, and this is the first time we're seeing actual, like, what Link does from a day-to-day basis.

So what we're talking about here is they just showed a 13-minute gameplay section earlier this week, right? And even that, it's hilarious because any other studio would be like, hey, here's a demo of the first level, and they're like, hey, Link's walking around. What if we mixed a stick and a stone and he had a giant-ass hammer to kill people with? Well, anyway, look at the sky. Hey, what if Link could reverse time and fly up objects into the sky there's like

it seems like no rhyme or reason i'm sure they thought a lot about it but it feels like they just listed off the first 10 things that came to mind and like oh yeah we didn't get around to showing you like levels or characters or anything i don't think that's the point let me just take a step back and i'm going to explain like what his actual things are. So in the trailer, they basically showed like three or four big tentpole abilities. So Chris Plant mentioned a few of them. One of them, you can reverse time. So an object, let's say a boulder rolls down a hill, you whatever, use your power on it and it'll roll back up the hill exactly in the same position that it was in previously.

roll back up the hill exactly in the same position that it was in previously so in this case link uses it to like levitate a rock that fell off of flying sky island back up to the skyline and he basically rides the rock back up to get access to the sky island so that was the first of maybe 18 times in this 13 minute presentation where i was like that's fucking cool yes that that's cool um another like more simple one was the idea that any time there's a ceiling you can boop your way right through that ceiling you just like melt melt your way up there which was odd but i guess could be useful certainly i mean it solves for climbing big cliffs right that seems to be the idea but but you need a cave so if there's no cave you still have to climb that cliff yeah the power can only be used if you have a ceiling above you so you can't just use to fly

200 feet up in the air um and these when we talk about these abilities what we what it seems like at least is that this is tears of the kingdoms sort of, uh, new stuff that is like the cry cryo power of the first, like the ice power is a block or the magnesis power or, uh, the, the time freeze power. Like these are, these appear to be just that.

And that's the reason this demo is presented that way is because honestly, people don't care about the levels. All they care about the levels all they care about is what sort of toolkit do i have to like fuck with this world because people already bought in shit yeah you have zelda the people who make the dungeons better than literally anyone else like yeah that's that's probably the least interesting thing that we've got going on i'm sorry do you guys feel like they're obfuscating anything by with these like weird sort of reveals?

Do you think there's some sort of big thing that they're keeping a lid on? I hope so, man. Yes. Yeah, I think so. I mean, we don't we still don't know like the structure of the game. Are there like shrines? Are you spending like dozens of hours combing through shrines to get waypoints to blah, blah, blah, blah.

We don't know what the beat to beat is, which is super fucking to me it's really wild too that they're willing to put together like in this demo first off link's nipples i mean what are we doing oh i don't even see yeah link has nipples in this one and you can see them for free and the other thing about it is not even these weapons look so fucking stupid it's like a giant pitch fork looks so dumb yeah so there's a new ability called fuse which lets you merge two items together the first example they did was a stick like just a twig you find on the ground and you merge it with a giant boulder and it becomes a stick rock and now you can use a stick rock on people and yeah justin what was the

the big stick it was like a giant pitchfork that they put another stick on top of it looked like a some sort of like fan video like it looked like look at this it looked like he was gonna go clean the pool it did look like a pool cleaner and he just puts it on his back he puts this 14 foot long pitchfork just like's like, it is sheep. It's fucking hysterical. And it's like, hey, also, you can shoot homing eyeballs at birds if you want. Like, this is a Zelda game. What are you doing?

At one point, they put a big mushroom on a shield. And then when Link blocks an attack with it, the mushroom explodes and sends, like, smoke everywhere so that he can get a stealth kill. room explodes and sends like smoke everywhere so that he can get a stealth kill it like it's it that that is probably the thing that gets me most excited about it they also showed off an enemy that took like a big board and fused it to a stick and just made a huge fan that they used to just knock link all over like if if that's what they showed in this very brief sort of gameplay snippet, my mind is reeling at like the possibilities. And we haven't even talked about the other one. The machines. The Banjo-Kazooie nuts and bolts of it.

I just want to mention that all this stuff leaves me, like all that weapon and all the crafting, all that stuff leaves me feeling really cold. I don't want to be creative in video games. I'm not, this isn't a joke. But you know there's going to be like the scribble knots, like black hole solution that's going to just fucking dominate everything. And that's why it's kind of pointless.

Just tell me what the best, just give me the Master Sword, and I'll just use that on my enemies. See, I really like it. Polygon.com, come to our guides. Here's what you do. Come to our guides. Put them on your browser, and then just keep refreshing them for the rest of your life. I'm just not interested in all these sorts of like having to make creative

ways to go against problems in a zelda game like i want it to be a more curated experience uh for that's what i enjoy in games so it'll do both though right like? Yeah, 100%. Okay. That's my guess. Miyamoto-san, thank you so much for making me feel better about it. I understand that. I also feel like the best time I had with Breath of the Wild is when I played it on Master Mode, which really requires you to use those sort of survival mechanics in the game to progress.

If that's not, like, i don't think there's i don't know that i don't think that this is actually going to be the zelda game that that you you want it to be if that kind of like lateral thinking shit is does does not appeal to you uh for me that is what made breath of the wild so cool and i think it's what i you know based on what they showcased in this gameplay preview like it seems like they are taking all of the wild so cool and i think it's what i you know based on what they showcased in this gameplay preview like it seems like they are taking all of the shit that people goofed around with months after the game came out and you would see years of people saying like i'm gonna make a a raft a flying raft out of this wooden board and these four balloons that I can stick to it. Well, now you can do that and you can put a fucking engine on it and you can put a yoke on it to steer

and you can build like your own hot air balloons to explore with. Like they are, I am like mind blown that they are leaning as hard into that stuff as much as it appears like they are. Hoops, I can relate to you because this doesn't work for me when it takes a lot of time and you don't always get interesting solutions when you take a risk and make an idea and i think like the previous zelda game breath the wild maybe you've heard of it the cooking is what i feared this would be which is like okay

you have to collect items then you have to go to a fire, then you have to randomly cook, and you don't really know what it's going to make. There's like some logic between what you mix items wise, but not a lot. This one, it feels to me like everything is, I don't know, you just put two things together and it turns into something that you kind of would imagine it would. And some of that's very literal, like the, hey's it's a stick plus a spike and that makes it a really long spike um but i thought the stuff like eyeball plus arrow equals seeking arrow it's just very clever and and most importantly it's instant it's not the um the cooking thing which where i have to watch a

whole little cut scene to make it happen. Yeah, that's true. Yeah, I think they're going to be very smart about quality of life stuff as well in this, where like cooking, for example, in the original, you had to like keep a guide up to remember how to make like fish filet and shit like that. And I think here it'll be maybe just like a list

you pick from once you cook something once, it instantly like knows what to pull from. Yeah, I hope they don to pull from yeah i hope they don't do that i hope they still really need a guide that seems like a good idea yeah specifically a polygon but i think the building is always a better way right yeah sure the building stuff is just an evolution of like the toolkit that they made in the first game where they spent so much time making sure that objects like physically react properly were like metal conducts electricity and so on and so forth that this feels like a total like obvious evolution even though no

one necessarily called that this is what they were gonna do yeah and i love that i love that that stuff like the i'm gonna make a flying raft was like dumb icing on the cake stuff in the original Breath of the Wild. Like it's a thing you can do. Like you don't, instead of climbing this mountain, what if you could, you know, attach a balloon to this thing and just sort of float up it? Wouldn't that be silly?

Oh, it worked, cool. In this one, it's like, hey, you can make a flying balloon raft. It's not like, oh, I wonder if I could do that. It's like, this is the system that we have designed for you. Enjoy. Yeah. I can't, I can't. could do that. It's like, this is the system that we have designed for you. Enjoy. Yeah.

I can't, I can't. I almost didn't watch it because I wanted to kind of go in like completely surprised by all of these things, but I'm actually really glad I did because now for the next six weeks, my brain is going to be like spinning on like, well, I wonder what other kind of shit I can make. I wonder what kind of shit i can make i wonder what kind of uh weapons

i can put together i wonder uh if that time reversal power works on like enemies or what other kind of big stuff can i use to unexplode a barrel like um i can't wait man yeah it looks super sick i will say the only thing that is slightly, slightly dulling my enthusiasm is that this Nintendo Switch chip is now, I don't know, almost 10 years old, 9 years old at this point. And there were definitely moments in Breath of the Wild where it was like really having a tough time running it. And I do not know how it's going to handle like all this new physical interaction are you confirming exclusively that the switch 2 will launch alongside tears of the kingdom here on this episode of the besties no i'm not confirming that because i don't think it will this is your your point for me really stuck out and it's not going to affect the game but the they're like oh look there's an island in the sky let's get closer to look at it and then there's a mountain between you and the island in

the sky and as you are looking at that island the mountain begins to pop in like all the foliage begins to pop in and it's not gonna break the game i know it'll be fine it doesn't really but but it's a thing where it's more just like oh yeah i i can really see the age and the compromise that they're having to make to get this thing out. And when the Switch 2 does come out one day, I don't know, 500 years from now, it's going to look great on it. It's called the what? The Mido Mitch.

He's friendlier. He has no pop-in problems. It's called the Mitch. I am super pumped. I don't know when Linkle's going to be in it, but I think it a pretty much a lot get there we'll get there yeah god willing um do we have mail yeah we've got some mail let me just open this mailbag one second okay we answered that one already okay we answered that one uh wow we actually just kind of answered every question so thank you to ghost cake lily little lamb and uh kuru run

because they ask stuff that we've talked about uh here's here's one we haven't talked about nano asked what other series would you like to get the same remaster treatment capcom is giving resident evil i already said metal gear solid so i'll throw it to everybody else i mean that's the obvious one is metal gear solid i'm glad i said it uh i mean that's the obvious one because middle you're solid i'm glad i said it uh i mean they're doing my like uh final fantasy i'm like uh i don't know obviously those games are at a much different scale than a resident evil game as evidenced by the fact that final fantasy 7 remake is like a little bit of final fantasy 7 um i've got it a legend of the river king oh now that would be hot shit yeah that would be hot shit where's that switch and we don't need a

lot out of that where's that switch remake though do you want to tell people what that is because yeah sure it was a game boy game on switch right it was like a game boy uh rpg fishing game where you just like go around fish and stuff and it fucking ruled i'll do that with journey of the prairie king i mean if i you know oh fucking shinmu in the like yakuza engine oh yeah that would go down real smooth um that's kind of i that's one of those things that you say out loud and i'm like how hasn't that happened yeah final like streets of rage is a moba streets of rage is a moba is a really bad idea it's just as good as yours no i think it's way better actually it's better maybe um hey that's that let's talk about honorable mentions because griffin you've been playing

octopath and i and i need to hear your thoughts on it a little bit yeah i've i've uh i i haven't unlocked everyone yet uh that's a that game is a bit of a slow start but it is it is finally clicking with me um it is are you talking about Octopath Traveler 2? Guys, this isn't like ScarJo. Like we do need to say the entire name of this fucking niche JRPG. Thank you. Um, it's great. It's very cool.

The combat I am kind of obsessed with. I am kind of obsessed with. If you didn't play the original Octopath, it has a system of elemental weaknesses or weapon-type weaknesses that every enemy has a few of. And you kind of figure out their weaknesses as you fight against them and you kind of chip away at their armor

as you hit them with stuff that they are weak to in an attempt to break them and make them lose their turn and open them up for like a counter attack meanwhile you also have this like energy system that you're accruing every round that you can just sort of like burn to do like a super super strong attack uh and that that those systems were in the first game but i i am finding them much easier to engage with this time around for whatever reason uh and the like constant like strategic decisions you're having to make in turn-based combat which is one of the more sort of brain dead ways to uh fight against enemies in a video game is is really really tickling my fancy

like trying to figure out like okay this guy has this super powerful spell that costs a lot of mana uh or a lot of mp but if i can break this guy then i can burn all my energy on the next turn and just fucking nuke him from orbit it is so satisfying uh every time uh they also have like subclasses in the game that like yeah essentially doubles the the amount of like strategic character building decisions that you're making as you go along um i still don't like the structure of the game i still don't like here's eight eight disconnected stories uh i just i i i will never i think click with that in the same way that i would click with here's the story we're gonna tell you but from a just pure game perspective it is uh i'm having a pretty fun time with it we are gonna do a deeper dive on that and also dredge which i know justin

has been playing um on resties uh which goes up on tuesday so just keep an eye out for that but um yeah justin you you've been playing dredge i know yeah bud uh dredge is fucking good it's a uh oh man like explaining it over it's a it's a game where you're piloting a small fishing boat in a sort of uh you can say lovecraftian it's in all the trailers world right where um at first it's very uh there's a lot of um it's a very crunchy interface i would say there's lots of like uh the the fishing is very uh it's it's fairly rote i would say but it it feels tangible like you have to find places in your boat to store not not just your equipment, but your fish and the fish have to fit around the equipment that you have installed. And you can catch different fish and better fish that let you upgrade your fishing accoutrement. sort of like fishing concerns that you would expect. There's also this aspect of trying to manage the horrific environment that you

find yourself thrust into, which looks like a better protection for your boat, better lights to keep whatever is hiding in the dark at bay. As things get darker, you start to wrestle with your sanity in a very sort of Lovecraftian fashion. It's a really good juxtaposition that sounds weird, but once you're in it and you realize this idea of like what's below the surface and like the isolation of being alone in the ocean in this boat,

it's actually a really good match for that sort of Lovecraftian setting. It is also really interestingly open-ended. Like Russ and I have been texting back and forth about this. It doesn't necessarily show you everything it's going to be doing right up top. And that's really cool. Like the deeper you get into it, it starts to like, it slowly peels back the layers in a way that never, or at least has not to this point for me,

started to feel like sort of, um, you know, checking the boxes, like, you know, exactly what each sort of like loop is going to, uh, to provide. Um, but it's a, it's a really cool, uh, experience that is not super intense. Like it's sort of, you know, you can play it safer or, you know, a little riskier, but it is fairly chill. But it's a it's a cool counterpoint to the fishing to have this like this horror element involved. But it's called Dredge. It's really, really neat. Yeah, I've been playing the Steam Deck.

It's it's a great Steam Deck game. Yeah, but it's coming out to basically all platforms. And again, we are we'll plant and I do a bit of a deeper dive into it on Tuesday. So look out for that. I do also want to mention, as long as I'm doing mine, on Plant's recommendation, I've been watching Psycho Odyssey, which is the follow-up to Double Fine Adventure. It is a – I don't want to over – I don't think I can oversell it. Like, honestly, y'all, it is a, it is a staggering achievement.

It is. And beyond that, it's like so valuable. Like it's like such a valuable artifact to exist. I've been writing about games for my entire adult life. Like even beforehand, like I started doing video game reviews when I was 13 years old. even beforehand like right i started doing video game reviews when i was 13 years old i learned so i feel like my understanding of how games are made went from like five percent to ten like it doubled the amount of understanding i have of this process it is so valuable i think that you should have to watch this entire series before you're allowed to like write anything about

video games on any forum on the planet it made me feel here here's the weirdest thing about it this entire series before you're allowed to like write anything about video games on any forum on the planet. It made me feel here. Here's the weirdest thing about it. It made me feel retroactively guilty for being a video game critic. And like the, the amount of thought that you see that goes into like every aspect of a game.

And I know this is just one studio, so it's a narrow sliver, right? But in a world where we have very limited insight into the process of how video games are made, it's still incredibly valuable. But seeing how much thought goes into like art was a good example for me of like,

I never had a good vocabulary for when I was a critic of like how to write about the aesthetics of a video game. And it makes every time I wrote, like, it looks really good, but sometimes it's clipping. Like it makes me feel like such an asshole in retrospect for not being sort of like,

uh, not putting one, one thousandth of the thought, um, a lot of people put into, um, these games. It is dramatic.

It is humane. It is a pleasure to watch. I mean, it's fucking 20 hours long or something like that. I mean, it is massive in scope. Like, it covers many years of the development process. I'm so, so thrilled that it exists. And I can't recommend it enough.

Cool. Well, I'm playing Dark Souls 3 again. It's great. And I'm playing Octopath Traveler 2, and I absolutely love it. Griffin, we'll have to talk about it later, of which class you started with. Have you gotten to the Pokemon class?

No. See, I started with the Pokemon class. Griffin actually teaches Pokemon classes. Yeah, I teach it. Pokemon 101, teach it at NYU, no big deal. No, it's a wildling who lives on an island. And starting the game by capturing any enemy you want and then using them against everybody else feels pretty cool.

I like this game a lot. Cool. I think we've done it. I wanted to thank the following people for writing reviews for the besties on Apple Podcasts, BoyerBoy, Jjsjs 84 and little pig boy thank you thank you for writing reviews for the best i can't make those up uh plant recap what we've talked about okay this week we talked a lot about resident evil 4 remake and just kind of all the resident evil games in general we also talked about the new breath of the wild 2 tears of the kingdom it's a zelda sequel and we uh we answered your questions about you know what other games would we like to see remade we also recommend

octopath traveler 2 and dredge both of which we will be talking about on resty's next tuesday uh psych odyssey from double fine which we talked about on uh resties like i don't know like two weeks ago if you want to get like a hour of summary on that and why it's so awesome for literally everyone to watch i'm going to go one step further than justin i think if you want to have a job in any creative space you should watch this it creatively energized me like i felt more grateful to be in creative meetings after it like i i don't know man it it is i i already said my piece yeah you learn like lessons that could take years to learn i like in an office for this sort of job in this documentary

it's incredible and then also dark souls 3 because why All right. That is going to do it for us for this week on The Besties. 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!