The Besties - Resident Evil: Requiem is Two Games in One!

Episode Date: February 27, 2026

Resident Evil Requiem has the misfortune of following Resident Evil: Village, one of our favorite games of all time. How does a game live up to that high bar? It becomes more than just one game. This week, to avoid major spoilers, we talk about the first act of Requiem, roughly the first 5-7 hours set in a classic Resident Evil-style location. We also chat about the top-level shifts in tone and pacing. In the coming weeks, we’ll do a “full spoilers” segment digging into the unusual, lore-soaked places the game goes in its second and third acts. I suppose you could say it’s like a book club, but for video games. 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!

We might need to stage an intervention with Leon on his quips and when it is appropriate to bust one out. Okay. I didn't like bust one as you first phrased it, so I'm glad you adjusted yourself. That's why, yeah, I wanted to definitely sort of expand on that. If he blows up a zombie, if he blows up like a big monster squid, attack him in the sewers and he blows up the squid and the squid explodes,

and he's like, anyone for Kalimari? Sure. That's okay. Great. If a woman is torn in half in front of him by a big zombie, and then he's, and then, and the zombie is like a big doctor, and he's like, I guess she should have eaten more apples a day. It's like, that's sad.

Don't do that one. Yeah. That one, you just saw a woman get killed in front of you, and then you were like, uh, good, looks, yeah, it looks like the doctor is in. And it's like, you don't do one for, don't do one for, for that, I think. He should be alone, is what you're saying. It should just be him and a zombie.

There shouldn't be, like, another person that's suffering, and he's sort of like... I feel like I'm just, like, struggling with, like, wins the right time. So, like, he needs to do a number two. I'm being, I'm being courteous here. He goes into the bathroom. He discovers that the toilet is full of zombie guts. Yeah, yeah. That's fine.

Yeah, no, that's fine. Again, he's by himself and no one's being hurt. Okay. But like if he goes out and then he like sees a man and his daughter's a zombie and the zombie daughter eats him and then he says he's like, boy, kids today. You know what I mean? Like that's sad. Like don't do it for a sad, like a real sad one that's happened. What if he is taking a number two when this is happening?

If there's a person being hurt, then that's not a good time for equip Leon. Any other time I think is okay How much time after the person turns into a zombie is it okay? Because once the, you know, once the guy is eaten, can he... And he smokes the zombie, then he can be like, yeah, once he smokes the zombie,

if the zombie comes for him, and then he wants to say something like... Is there like a 10 second window? Yeah, there's a 10 second window. You have to see like the light go out of their eyes. And he blasts them and then he's like, you're grounded. Yeah.

Like that's... And I need to take a shit. I don't know why that's so, why you're so hung up on with you. Do you need to see a doctor? You know, I've never believed those who say they are brain rotting properties to video games, but now that I'm two weeks from my last play to hear you chaps speak, I'm afraid. They may be on to something. Really, chaps, this is the best you've got.

Oh, no, Dustin's a genius now. Wester! My name is Justin McElroy, and I love to read. It is Griffin Macquarie, 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 Russ Frasic. 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, and just by listening, you are a member officially, just like that. This week, we're going to be talking about Resident Evil Requiem, which is Resident Evil 9 also. But you shouldn't, but it's... Did they get a nine in there? I don't think they did. Is there a sneaky nine if you tilt it? I want somebody to finish it so you can tell me if at the end the logo tilts and there's a nine and you've like the FedEx era. The queue.

I finish it. There is no tilting. No, there's no secret reveal. The cue kind of looks like a nine. Is that what it is? I mean, I'm just saying a cue is a letter. Yeah. Okay, fine.

Fair enough. Chris, what's, I was going to ask you what it is, but I feel like that whole riff really is. the first mainline Resident Evil in like four years or something and the ninth in like 30 years. They don't make the mainline as often as the other games. They've made 30 Resident Evil games in 30 years. Can you believe

that? Anyway, we're going to talk to. Absolutely, I guess. A hundred percent. We're going to talk about that more right after the break. It's funny, man. We talked and played about RE8 for so long, about Village for so long. It feels more recent than that.

When you said it had been that long, it doesn't feel In my head, like, they just came out with Resident Evil 8. Yeah, it was also during COVID. It was a COVID weird time thing. This does feel like... One, they re-release the old ones too, which has the brain distorting properties. This feels like this. Tell me if you think this is crazy.

This feels like the sequel to Resident Evil 5 or like that era of Resident Evil. This does not feel like the sequel to Village. It doesn't feel like the sequel to 7. It feels like a sequel to the core, almost a sequel to the remake. It definitely, definitely felt to me the whole time that I played it, and I finished it. Like, there was a concerted effort to step away from the just wackiness of Resident Evil Village. All right. Please.

What's wrong? I can't play video games. I don't know if you know this, but I can't just what this is, right? Who is even in it? You know what I mean? Like, what are you even doing in it? You know what I mean? you skipped right ahead.

I'm looking around in the dark like, who am I in this game? You know what I mean? Are there power-ups? Are there points? I don't know. Oh, my God. So many points.

So many power-ups. There are points in power-ups. So you have two main characters, which is not unheard of in a Resident Evil game. In fact, I would say that's more often than not the case. You have Leon Kennedy returning. He is older. He is sick.

He's got some sort of infection that I bet is a team virus. He's broken down. He's tired. He sleeps. No, I mean, he's not. I mean, he's sick. But he also is like driving a sick fucking Porsche. Like he's like living actually his best life.

He is closing in on 50. And I think canonically speaking. Rounding 50. You are also, the Leon sections, close your eyes. Imagine what they're like. Yes, that's right. It's Leon. He's got 100 guns.

And he gets in chains off fights and like big axe. And he just fuck shit up. But let me. He's constantly saying stuff. Let me just say something. If people are imagining a Leon section, they wouldn't necessarily assume he's going to be rockum, sock him, robots killing everybody because if you think about RE4, which the last time Leon was like a major

role and we're not counting six. Yeah. You know, it's a survival horror game. He's like pretty weak. Yeah, until the end when you have a fucking rocket launcher and a shotgun that like rips people. Yeah, no, I, I, that is what Leon sections are. Leon sections are much more action oriented. And then you are also playing as Grace Ashcroft, an FBI investigator and daughter of Alyssa Ashcroft journal Raccoon City journalist, survivor of the Raccoon City outbreak events, and her sections are presented in first person. Leon's are presented in third person. You can toggle those, I believe, based in the menu, but the game encourages you when

you start out like, you know, these sections were designed for Grace to be played in first person and Leon's to be played in third person. So they're kind of like mashing up what they did with, you know, Resident Evil 7 in the grace sections where it's first person and very claustrophobic and very atmospheric and sort of spooky in that way with the more Resident Evil 4 stuff that that Leon does and that is the sort of like main main structure of the game is hopping between those two kind of I got stuck actually this is why I didn't play the game because I got stuck in that second person mode where it's about Cliff Riddles

He's an agent Cliff Riddles And he talks to you To you the entire game It's like you turn left And he's like okay now I'm looking left Now I'm looking left You're looking left now What should I do?

The other important thing to note structurally speaking the game Follows much closer to like Resident Evil 2 Or even Resident Evil 2 remake Where you're in like a big house And there's a lot of rooms And doors and puzzles and things like that

for the most part. We'll get to the other parts in a second. But the majority of your time for a large chunk of the beginning of the game is spent in a large environment solving puzzles and running from zombies. How often are you like switching back and forth between the two?

Is it like you finish one and then do the other or is it chapter by chapter? What's the deal? So let's also one ground rule for people who are listening because I know there are going to be people who don't want major spoilers for like basically the second half of the game. There's a huge, huge change in the same.

second half of the game. We will talk about that in another episode. In this first core act, Grace is the main character. Grace is, I actually don't think it's that different than Resident Evil Village in that this is the manner that you play through in the first three or four hours of Resident Evil Village expanded. It's like a seven hour, huge chunk now where you are in this wellness center, old-fashioned wellness center, and you are coming across like the doctor who works there who has been performing experiments. And as most of that time, you are playing as grace and you are doing the slow, hey, I need to go to this area to get the crank that will help me open the door here. And then when I open that, I will get the jewel, which will help me open the door here. Very traditional horizon.

It's like 90% grace. And then every once in a while, you'll pop in as Leon and fuck shit up. Yeah. Now, I do want to say, not spoiling any like. major events or locations from the back half of the game, but Grace is not in the back half of the game very much. You will have a pretty, pretty huge chunk of the game. I played for maybe about five hours straight as Leon. And the gameplay is fundamentally different. The gameplay, well, we're not going to, we're not going to dive too deeply into the specifics of that. The pacing of

this game is fucking bonkers. It's bonkers. It is absolutely wild, right? I think it works in the first half of the game. I think the grace stuff is really good. Resident Evil 7 and Village are a couple of my favorites, especially those sections where you're tiptoeing around a place in first person and a big scary thing chasing you. And every little, like, thing you find that is going to help you survive in there feels like kind of meaningful.

And then, like, it is fun hopping in with Leon and coming across the stuff that you fought as grace and just like going beast mode on it like that's that is great and then just like for whatever reason they're like actually you know what let's just do leon for quite a long time uh and i don't know i got i as much as i enjoyed all the like the distributing violence as leon kennedy uh it it did get a little bit i don't know stale there's not like a ton of enemy variety. There's not like a ton of exciting weapons in sort of his part of the game. So I don't know. I wish they had stuck with the formula that I felt like was working really, really well with the first part of the game because I do think I enjoyed the gray sections a little bit more. Yeah, that's, I think, a fair critique. I am not finished with the game. I know that you are. And I really was, I think, pretty over the moon about the first half. And I've been enjoying the second half, but it doesn't feel quite as special. It feels. closer to like the final acts of what you would see

in another Resident Evil game but spread out over a longer period of time. My big problem is that like there's not that much exciting stuff in terms of like weapons right.

There's a system for like when you're playing as Leon you can like customize your weapons you get to a point where you start getting points for killing zombies and then you can spend those points to like upgrade your weapons. No.

But it's never in like a way that feels like especially meaningful. And so this feeling of like, well, I got this crank, I have to go back and open up this door that I found a while ago and maybe I'll find some cool thing. Like, I don't know, this stuff never felt so meaningful or exciting that I felt like the exploration was necessarily like worth the, the juice wasn't necessarily worth the squeeze for parts of the game. Yeah, it should be noted, though, that the beginning part, the first section, I don't know about you, Griffin, you're pro league gamer. It took me about eight hours to get through the first

sections. You've got like, you know, I was looking at completion rates of previous games. Village was like a 10 to 12 hour

game. R.E. remake was like an 8 to 10 hour game. So you've kind of got like a whole Resident Evil game

set in this hospital E type area. And then it feels like this extra part, which again, I don't want to like

go too deeply into. No. Is, I'm not saying, like, it just feels a little bit like a bonus. It's going to be

different everyone. I finished the game in 11 hours playing on standard difficulty, and I don't know. The breakdown was a little bit different for me. I think some of this is just maybe this being the last thing that you played might be impacting the overall feelings of the experience. Yeah, for sure. Absolutely it does. Yeah, I think so. I think the good for me, you know, has vastly outweighed like I am pretty over the moon about a very large chunk of this game personally. To exit the second person segments, you actually have to maintain unbroken eye contact for a straight hour.

You have to look him right in the eye. So that pads it out. That does pat it out a little bit. It's tough. It's really incredible. I want to talk about more of the first. I will say I love all of it. I think when the game changes into Sega's forgotten hit the club,

that is wonderful. But the first half is, I think, like, the, like, obvious showpiece. What did you all think of new character and the story in the setting of this? I think the setting is fine. I think the setting is, like, an obvious throwback to Resident Evil 2. Like, it looks like the fucking police station layout almost shot for shot. Yeah. I think, narratively, what I've learned, historically speaking,

you can basically not give a fuck about the Resident Evil story and be fine. Like, largely speaking, it's all kind of gobbledy gook and a justification for why you're in this scary place with zombies. I think character-wise, Grace is like

maybe the worst FBI agent I've ever seen. She's just like very not into being there. But, I mean, I don't know. As a character, they're all very archetypal. Like, they don't feel grounded in any way. The story's bad, but if you are a fan, if you've played these games a bunch, like this game dishes out so much,

I wouldn't call it fan service, but like a lot of nostalgia plays. And a lot of that comes towards the back half, right? A lot of that comes in that huge Unbroken Leon part. And that stuff is kind of a mixed bag, but like I feel like, as someone who's played all these games and loves most of them, that stuff did do it for me more than like the story.

I was not hanging on what's going to happen next. I was more curious like what is the next area, what's the next boss fight? Is this character going to like from past games going to show up? I feel like they deal in that stuff so much in places where they could have developed Grace out more or like a lot of the game Grace is trying to save a little girl. that she finds in this facility and, like, they don't do a ton to, like, build their relationship, but then they expect you to care a lot about that relationship at certain parts of the story. So, yeah, I mean, the story is not, the story is not, like, that spectacular, but the, I don't know, callbacks and the reverence that this game has for, like, the past Resident Evil games.

That is, that is kind of the narrative hook for me that did end up working. What I like is all of these games are like pick, it feels like three or four movies that they really want to be riffing off of. Like seven obviously was really influenced by Texas chainsaw massacre. Eight was really influenced by like Grimm's fairy tales. The gray stuff here is really influenced by Silence of the Lambs. And it feels like long legs, which I don't know how that's possible because this game was surely in development before that movie came out. But it's definitely playing with that kind of Clarif's FBI agent who's relatively new to the force and is coming up against this like very eccentric doctor type who is trying to control her every move. Yeah, I think that's probably.

I just was a little bummed to see Grace being like basically from the jump terrified out of her brain. Like there was no like I didn't get a sense that she was capable in any. any way, apart from the fact that, like, you do control her as she's killing zombies. Cool. But as a character, when she's in cutscene, she's just, like, very scared frequently. Which, I get it. I would be scared, too. But, yeah, right.

I didn't get a Clarice, like, quiet power vibe from her necessarily. Juice, you were not able to play much of this because of your recovery from the surgery. I mean, any of it? I didn't expect you to play that. Is there any sort of lingering, because you've played most of these games before. Is there any questions? Here's my question for you guys, because I've been listening to all this

and try to, like, ingest it. I like all the Resident Evil games, so, but I'm not, I don't like love any of them. But I, it feels to me a little bit like seven and eight have both kind of expanded the idea of what a Resident Evil game is. Like, it's, they're both kind of expansive titles, right? Like, seven, I know is traditional,

but there's a lot, it's doing that it has not tried to do before. and I think much more so with Village. This feels, to hear you guys talk about it, it feels a little bit regressive. Is that fair to say? Yeah, I mean, we played Resident Evil 2 remake, and I think that is incredibly similar. Way closer to this.

Yeah. Like, that's what this feels like, is Resident Evil 2 remake, not only in terms of gameplay, but in terms of just, like, narrative beats. So it is regressive in that sense. It is kind of going back to something that they've done before, whereas Village and Seven felt very, very, very new.

I also think that these games, 7, 8, and 9 are an Evangelian 2.0-style remake project of 1 through 6. Like, I think Resident Evil 7 is conceptually, thematically, playing with the same things that happen in Resident Evil 1 and 2. I think that 8 is very clearly inspired by Resident Evil 4. and going to that village. And I think this game is very, very inspired by five and six. Those are...

Only it's good. Only this game is... This game's much better. People forget. Five and six were bad. Really, really, very... Really bad. Yeah.

I think there's probably a pretty big contingent of fans of this franchise that are excited for that. I think that they would not consider it regressive to move away from the more expansive and experimental, you know, nature of seven and eight. For my money, it is not as fun as those games because it is, because it, there are certainly sequences in this game that are like fucking bonkers and they like jack up the like Leon Kennedy, you know, hymbo action star shit to 11 and tear off the knob. But I don't, I did not find it as kind of like, I don't know.

surprising as those two games. And I also like, I have, I think for the past few Resident Evil games, especially the remake of four, like immediately as soon as I finished it, I'm like, I want to play new game plus. I want to go in. There's like unlockables I want to fucking go for. I want the infinite ammo rocket launch. I want. I do not feel that compulsion here for 9. And there's a few reasons for that. My biggest issue is just like, I don't feel like there's enough stuff to explore for to like feel like you are getting stronger or have some like enhanced ability to kill zombies more. But I think it's mostly just that like, I don't know, it's it's a bit more predictable because it is returning to that to that more classic kind of Resident Evil

format. I feel like if you played Metal Gear Solid 4 and Metal Gear Solid Rising Revenience, then you have an idea of what this experience is like in its two half. And that it's literally like, what if you got a complete loyal throwback to the series, which is the Metal Gear Solid 4 part, and then what if you've got the full, we are breaking this all apart into full tilt, absurdity chaos, like the Revengeant's part. And what's weird is they happen to both be in the exact same game. You are buying two games. Yeah, in that way, yeah. Yeah, it's an interesting title. I currently where I'm at, which is not completed, but feels like I'm getting pretty close,

I would be like pretty jazz to start another play-through. So contrary to what Griffin was saying, I feel differently. I don't know. We'll see how I feel when the game actually ends if- Knowing where you're at, you are not close to the end. There is still a whole big chunk waiting for you. How did you beat this game in 10 hours? I beat it in like 11 hours.

And I'm a fucking leet gamer. Fucking late, man. I think I collected all the shit I completed most of the challenges Settle down I'm just fucking good at these games guys And you know why? Because I'm not scared of the zombies That's the secret

I'm so scared that's the problem Oh I should mention We talked about it earlier The Grace sections are in first person The Leon sections are in third person I turned off the first person Stuff for Grace Did you? Okay how was that

So you did play in second person No No Third person sadly So the reason turn it off with twofold. One,

first person's very scary. Just is. Two, I was having some motion sickness issues with first person. It's been something that has been an issue in basically all the games

since seven when they started introducing first person. They've gotten better over time at adding accessibility features to make things not quite as bad. Like they have a permanent reticle you can have on the screen, things like that.

But it was enough that I was like, why am I forcing myself to do this? They put this feature in anyway. I might as well play it anyway. Loved it. Genuinely, super fun. the playing third person is Grace.

It gives me more visibility. I don't feel quite as scared. You can see all the animations that they actually bothered to give her during all the sequences that you wouldn't ordinarily see when you were in first person. Yeah.

So it doesn't feel like an add-on. I understand from a pacing and tone standpoint, probably scarier and more tense when you're in first person, but for those like me that prefers it, it's nice. I think it is for the like claustrophobia of it. Yeah. Because Grace's sections are a lot,

more about like there's a big thing pursuing you and if it gets its hands on you you're pretty much dead and that I think the the sort of jump scary nature of that I think is why they you know made that made that stuff for yeah you still have some of that stuff like I definitely still had Josh sent me a video of him getting very badly jump scared pretty funny uh you so you still have that stuff but you don't have the like the only way I can see around this corner is by going around the corner yeah which is a nice benefit uh especially since there are some like stealth see I want to do a spoiler B segment maybe in a couple weeks so we can get into all that stuff. Yeah, that'd be funny.

And like what's going on in this story twist and turns. But until then, yeah, I really dig it. I do think Justin is on to something. I think it would just be much cheaper to make this game with the second person. You could just say you're scared and then you're kind of done. You're scared. Yeah, you find a greener. Do you all feel disappointed at all as people who really like 7 and 8,

that this isn't more of a direct continuation of, like, that story line? I know there was some DLC after 8 that kind of continued it, but... What's funny is, like, to echo what I said earlier about narrative, like, I do not give a, like, do not give a fuck about what the T virus and the S virus and the whatever virus is doing. There's a G virus. There's a G virus. I don't care.

What I do feel slightly disappointed about is I like the curveballs. I like the, this feels like totally. outside of the realm of anything we've seen before. And you do kind of get that a little bit in terms of the gameplay of the second half. But just like the fact that Village had a fucking ancient castle with a vampire in it and also

had like a fucking metal Mad Max style factory filled with crazy people in the same game. Like that variety was pretty fucking dope. So I'm a little bummed on that side. But from a gameplay standpoint, I love it. Like I think it's been a lot of fun. That's the stuff that's missing for me.

That's the, and there is like this game lets its hair down at certain points. I mean, only, sorry, Leon is the only one who lets his hair down at certain points of the game. And they do like some zany shit in there. But I was disappointed that that stuff was. There's also like, mercenaries mode's not in here. There's not like a, you know, shooting range mini game thing that you do. There's no gosh upon machines where you're getting like little trinkets that like boost certain things.

Like, uh, there is a, there are, there are, okay, yeah, but those are, they're so, they're almost to a T, all pretty, like, disappointing. Um, there's just, I, it felt like there's a lack of, of surprise, uh, in, in general. I think from an ambition standpoint, it's definitely not as ambitious as the whole package of RE4 remake was, which is like, that was like, that was like, pretty through the roof, like a big, big thing. Yeah, uh, mostly because they had to remake a game that came out 20 years ago when it was okay to make 20-hour Resident Evil games. So there's that, but yeah,

you know, this is not an excuse. I think Village added Mercenaries mode as DLC after the fact. Yeah, I think so. So I'm sure they were planning on DLC for this. Again, not an excuse, but... I'll suggest to answer to credit. As someone who does like the story in these games and cares about it,

fucking love this game. It's a heavy metal butt rock album of Resident Evil. For people who like good video games, let me be clear, Griffin and Frasic are right. For people who are looking for pure butt rock Resident Evil who say, you know what, I wish these were a little bit more like that animated film I saw on Netflix. You, man, you're living the dream. What was the Final Fantasy game that was similar to? There's a parallel of this in the Final Fantasy universe that I'm trying to remember.

Stranger of Paradise Final Fantasy. Oh, yeah. Yes. That's a very good comp for a chunk of that. It does go quite that far at certain points. There's a sequence in this game that I'm so fucking excited to talk about. It is the thing that people are going to talk about and remember from this game, you know, years down the line when like the next Resident Evil stuff comes out that fucking rules.

Russ, I think you've already, I think maybe you just did this sequence if you are at the point in the game that I think you're at. Yeah, I think I know I'm talking about. Man, I wish there was honestly, I wish there was more of that stuff. Yeah. I think it is a, I think it's a good Resident Evil game. I think Capcom makes fucking great games in this franchise that are sort of like mechanically very sound, atmospheric. The detail in the world is like really, really, really, really bonkers. It falls a bit short of some of the last like few games that they have come out with in this franchise, in my opinion.

But I do still think it's it is totally worth playing if you are a fan of the Resident Evil. Can you imagine having to make a game after Resident Evil where it's like, oh, we made a game where you fight. Dracula, Frankenstein, Pinocchio, and the creature from a Black Lagoon in Eastern Europe. And you have to make something after that. I think it's also hindered a little bit because I really dug Silent Hill F a lot.

Yeah, very different. Very different, but like this spot in my brain has been tickled recently in a way that sticks in my memory really well because it had such a distinct sort of like look and aesthetic to him. I think R.E2 remake is the template and if you like that game,

you will really enjoy this game, in my opinion. Let's take a break. We'll come back and with more right after this. Okay, we have some reader mail that we want to jump into just for people that are unaware if you want to send reader mail,

the best way to do it is probably through the newsletter, which is at besties. You can drop a comment in the last, this episode of the newsletter, and that's a good place to drop some reader mail. Or you can go to patreon.com for the slash the besties,

leave a comment there. Yeah. That was the other thing that I was going to suggest. But for people that are not subscribed already, the only way, because you can't, I think, leave comments if you're not subscribed. So for people that are not currently paying and you want to drop us some mail,

you can do it at the newsletter. Otherwise, Patreon's a great place to do it. This first one comes from Will, talking about Metal Gear Solid 4. Metal Gear Solid 4. So, thank you. I appreciate it. For those that aren't aware,

Metal Gear Solid 4 is returning to us in the form of a, what is it called, Metal Gear Solid Volume 2 collection of games that includes Peacemaker and all sorts of stuff. Peace Walker. Peace Walker, thank you. Will writes,

Metal Gear Solid 4's controls are so clunky and awful, but as a visual novel, the game is legit art. I was in grad school when the game came out and I wrote a whole paper about how he engages with memory and identity when your growth over time isn't aging, but also progressing through technological milestones. For my money, the themes it explores,

and the way it explores them are as interesting, if not more than what we get in Death Stranding. I get not being able to cover it on Busties. We'll see. Maybe we will. But it seems like a great candidate for Plant and Post games. Chris Plant, you could cover it. Pass that buck on over Plant's way.

I mean, it does do some interesting things narratively. I just wish that... I have a fond place in my heart for that game that I played once fucking 20 years ago or whatever. Whether that stuff holds up or not, I don't know, but it does do a lot of Metal Gear Solid-ass stuff pretty much all throughout the span of the game. Justin, you weren't here when the collection was announced

and we sort of talked a little bit about Melodyar Solid 4. What do you think of it returning? And would you want to replay it? I like Metal Gear Solid 4. That was the one that I didn't finish Snake Eater because I disliked it so much. Four was the first one for me that was like just the right balance of playability and nonsense. But that was, I mean, that was one of the first examples I could think of of like a game being intentionally unpleasant for a section, but that being like narratively important, you know? Like I think that it does cool stuff like that.

I really almost never replay anything. But I love the idea that it is, I think it's an important series. I think that anytime anyone's like trying to be revisionalist about Metal Gear and like actually to be an apologist for the mechanics of Metal Gear I tend to take a pretty hard line there because the greatest script in the world doesn't do you any favor if it's not an enjoyable gameplay experience that's my point of view as like a video game critic so I I don't think it's worth being like well you know it's it's actually a great game because the story's great because it's still, like, the failings are the failings.

Yeah, I don't think Will is saying that per se for what it's worth. No, I'm saying that about three personally. Oh, got it. Yeah. Yeah. Also, for post games, I probably shouldn't say it here, but it is going to be a three-hour-long episode exclusively focused on the compiling shaders screen with guest Mark Merrin. Awesome.

I can't wait, man. I know you and Mark have been looking for a podcast. You know, we've been trying to find something to get together on, you know, a lot of lunches. It's just time to unlock the gates. That's my favorite. But that's my favorite joke. One of my favorites is this joke is when Barney has the Mr. Plow theme song and Barbara Mandrell sings the theme.

He said, yeah, we were looking for something to work on together. This next question comes from Big Five, and this is for Justin. Yeah, hit me. Last year, you mentioned your carpal tunnel was severe enough that was impacting your enjoyment of some more extraneous and reflex necessary games, leading you to trend toward slower-paced and turn-based strategy options.

With this surgery, do you expect to be able to return to these other games in the future with more ease? Are there any specifically you are looking forward to giving another try with more physical accessibility? Okay. This is a complicated answer, but it's actually not that interesting, so I'm going to try to get through it as quick as I can.

I had the surgery on my left hand and my left wrist, it was a carpal tunnel release and a cupital tunnel surgery where they did it on your shoulder and your wrist. So that was on my left hand. I started this as my non-dominant hand.

So the right hand still has those issues. The recovery for this, I'm two weeks out today as we're recording this. And I can use it basically, but I still can't lift things, really. So no we for you. Yeah, no we.

No, you'd be surprised how often the left hand comes in like a support buddy. You don't really appreciate old lefty. So you're really key to it. Like, think about opening a jar, right? It's, wow, you need that left hand.

But I, so that, I'm going to have to get the right hand done before I would actually see an improvement. At this point, currently, it still hurts quite a bit from the swelling of surgery or whatever. I've got another couple weeks to four weeks before it's like fully recovered. So it's a long process by which I mean, I don't know when I'm going to get the right one done. I know I need to, but this has been a big, huge pain in the ass. I'm not in a hurry to. What I will say is this, and I think this is really important and not a joke. And I know it makes me sound old, but I'm going to say it anyway.

I've been playing video games my entire life. And I have never taken the time to do proper stretches afterwards, to take breaks, to stretch your wrists out, to shake it out, to please do that. Because in between the gaming and the computer use and later on, the woodworking, but really it's the lifetime of video games and typing. I did not take the time to do those stretches. And if I had taken better care of my wrists, I might not be in this exact scenario. So kids, don't be like me.

This sucks. Do your stretches. Google how to do stretches after you get your game on. Because it's not a joke. I'm going to do all the stretches now instead. You can catch up. A lot of people won't admit this, But if you have never stretched, if you stretch for like seven hours straight, you will catch up.

Awesome. The besties are going to start hosting stretching retreats, four gamers. I love it. Four gamers only. You will come and we will, there's a lot of very sort of, you know, fish oil just to sort of lubricate the pipes in there. And then it's just a lot of stretching, guys, seven or so hours of it. I tried to play Resident Evil Requiem because I thought that I could

I mean I have the ability to use the thumb you know but the moment I was like holding the thumbstick for more than like 30 seconds in a direction you know it started to like really ache and throb and I was looking down at my hands and I was just thinking like

I can't I can't play this game I can't do it and I told my wife I thought she would cry. Yeah. But she acted like, she was so brave. Can I just say?

I want to take this moment to congratulate her. Not a crack. Like, she did not let it show. That was so hard for her to see her big, strong hero, can't even pile it around the Resident Evil lady, you know? And she did it, not a hint. Like, if I didn't know any better,

I would think she didn't give a shit that I couldn't play Resident Evil. But I know that can't be the case. I mean, hearing it out loud, guys, I know how crazy it sounds. Leon's hand is pretty fucked up in this game. So it might just be, you know, immersive. This has given me, I will say this, it has given me such appreciation for every action movie. When you see the hero get, like, beat up real bad, and it's like, they're cut all the ribbons, and it's like, they're still kind of chugging on through.

I had two small incisions in my wrist and elbow, and for two weeks, I have been tired. Like, how are these guys recovering? from this. It's impossible. They might have left a spoon in you. Did you check? I have not checked for a spoon. I have staples in my elbow, though. Isn't that wild?

It's crazy. Okay. I think we have some honorable mentions that we wanted to talk through. Thank you for the reader mail, folks. I have a bunch. Should I go first? Yeah, please. Okay.

Steam Next Fest is happening right now. So there's a ton of demos on Steam Next Fest worth checking out. I did play briefly the Vampire Crawlers demo. This is the game from the Vampire Survivors team Ponkel. They're making a card-based game set in the Vampire Survivor's

IP. It's pretty fucking fun, y'all. I'm terrified of it. I'm so scared. I played for like 15 minutes just to see what was going on and I was like, I can't play any more of this demo because I'm going to play a lot more of the actual thing. But they basically made like an incredibly fast

card game. Like incredibly fast. Like you just blaze fucking through it and it's got all the like crazy like graphics and pixel chaos that goes on in the normal vampire survivors thing where like shit is flying at you uh so it feels really good fuck dude you know how sometimes the ticot algorithm gets you with one so good that it feels like a divine presence this is like that for me it scares me a little bit like i feel like i'm cooked with this is out i'm done yeah yeah uh the two other things i want to call out uh i've been watching Pokemon Season 1, that's the Indigo League episodes with my son.

He was a little scared starting off with because he doesn't watch a lot of narrative television. He mostly watches documentaries about the zoo. But it finally did click with him. And we had a snow day the other day, which doesn't happen in New York City very often. And he had a little bit of a fever. And we were like, fuck it, TV time. And I think he absorbed like 12 episodes. I think that show, it's hard for me to divorce nostalgia from it.

I think it's like pretty fucking good. It's fun. It's fun. Especially that those early seasons are, uh, they're just, they're just kind of a hoot. Do you watch? There's a reason why it is the biggest sort of media property, uh, on earth. It is because they have done all the different ones. Henry has been reading the Pokemon Adventures manga.

Uh, that's what he's moved on to now that he finished all the Zelda ones. And, uh, doesn't fall apart of the games, doesn't do any of that shit. But like, if you like Pokemon, stuff. They do a lot with that in there. And I remember the anime doing a great job with that as well. The other thing I want to call out is Little Gator Game, which is another Snow Day activity. We played for like an hour of Little Gator game. A great open world game. We've talked about it on the show before. No fall damage. No enemies to really worry about. You're just sort of exploring this big open area. Great for kids. It's so much so because the game is about creating these characters

on this island and they create their own interactive game using like cardboard and to create monsters things like that and after an hour he was like I want to make my own monsters and then we'd spend an hour like... Be quiet Daddy is gaming

be quiet and look at the screen son and then we went and made cardboard monsters which was lovely there is DLC it's out I have not gotten to the DLC yet is that cave story is it something like that called in the dark.

It is set underneath all of the, in the caves underneath the island that you see in the first game. Apparently it like is basically as long as the main game. So if you loved Gator Game or haven't played it and you want something to play with kids, fucking spectacular. Great. Excellent writing just through the roof.

So good. I haven't been playing much else other than Resident Evil. I just finished it yesterday and sort of spent all my time on that. I just started playing eugenics again while we await the next. the next besties game. I did the other day watch rental family with my wife on, I think it's on Disney Plus now streaming.

It is the Brennan Frazier picture where he is a sort of unsuccessful actor living in Japan, living in Tokyo, and he gets hired by this company who basically clients hire actors to come in and play people who are not really in their lives anymore. So there's like a, there's a woman who hires Brennan Frazier to be a journalist

to interview her dad, who is an actor, an author, who is struggling with dementia. And there is a woman who hires Brendan Frazier to pretend to be her fiancé so that she can stage a wedding and move, move to Canada. and it is a pretty far-fetched, I would say, plot for a film. And it is extremely like, you know, feel-good movie stuff from basically from start to finish. But for what it is, it is an immensely charming feature film. And it is also, I learned while watching it, the first Brennan Fraser picture that my wife had seen. Which is the most shocking? I had the same reaction.

Griffin. What's the most shocking omission in her? I mean, Mommy is the most, obviously, the most shocking omission. Like, haven't seen mine. Not Encino Man, because I think culturally... Encino Man is culturally important. That's why it is at the Library of Congress. But, yeah, imagine hopping on the fucking Fraser train now.

Like, can you imagine what a world of... What a wealth of opportunities exist before her. It's like starting with a PS5 and you've never played video games before. Yeah. Brennan Fraser does a great job in this movie. He plays a very, very sad sort of role and he does it with a lot of appeal. I don't know. It's not a great flick, but it is, it makes you feel real good throughout almost its whole runtime.

That sounds like a great flick, Griffin. I got to be honest. Low bar. I guess that's a good point. I guess that is true. What do they say? I don't know what your stares are. And no bad scenes.

That's the rule. There's some bad scenes. There are some bad scenes. How many? What's the percentage? Yeah, it's, it's just a, it's, if you vibe with it, if you're willing to kind of like get on its, it's level, it is, it is, it's a, it's a feel good flick. And a lot of, you know, beautiful, beautiful Japanese scenery and stuff like that.

So that, that was, that was my other sort of not resident evil thing. for this past week. I'd like to tell you about a night of the Sandbin Kingdom, if I could. It is a new Game of Thrones spinoff. I say new, just in comparison to the other Game of Thrones spinoff, which I try to watch, House

of Dragons, I try to watch maybe three or four, and I found that just kind of like a pale imitation of Game of Thrones. It felt like they're trying to recapture the magic a little bit in a way that was kind of dour. I heard that it picked up eventually, but I just couldn't again with that. There's too many machinations

and stuff, and I don't really like prequels to begin with. But my in-law said, Justin, you got to try on the Seven Kingdoms. You got to. Trust me. And it took a lot of pushing because I was kind of like, oh, Game of Thrones. I only kind of finished Game of Thrones out of, like, obligation a little bit.

You know, guys... That's how we all did it, yeah. Yeah, we all... Cultural moment. Okay. Now of the Seven Kingdoms takes place, sort of splits the uprights, splits the difference between House of Dragons and Game of Thrones. It takes place like 100 years before

Game of Thrones, I believe. And it follows one guy named Sir Dunk the tall, or at least that's what he calls himself. He's a squire of a knight named Sir Arlen, who is kind of a knight for hire, which people call a hedge knight in this world. And the hedge knights would go around and just work for whoever would have them. And Dunk was the squire of a knight like that. And who always promised that he would make Dunk his a knight someday. And anyway, this knight dies. and Dunk hears about a night tournament happening nearby

and feels that if he can win the tournament, that he'll be taken seriously as a knight. On the way to take on this fairly quixotic task, he meets a little boy named Egg, who he takes on as his squire, who eggs see something in Dunk that he respects, and he wants to serve him. So the two of them set off together to this night's tournament,

It is a really constrained story. It is very much just this one cat. And the scenes that are not about this guy are informing his story in some way. It is not expansive. The episodes are like 40 minutes long and there's six of them. So to give you it,

it's very much feels like the, this is like, it's like the Mandalorian of Game of Thrones, if that makes sense, right? We're following one guy in a universe we like, but we're just kind of following this one story. It's not a Wikipedia, like, a dictionary that you have to follow to understand who is. Well, it's not like Game of Thrones, which had, you know, two dozen storylines that it was following at any given time.

It's one, it's one tall dude who is so affable and lovable, and the relationship he has with the kid is great. And it is a show about, like, the one, it's one of the, it's a show about one decent person in an, in an arrow. where that didn't mean anything. And if this, and it's kind of a show about, if this guy believing in the precepts of knighthood strongly enough

is enough to sort of like change the people around him and the kingdom around him, if his will is enough to sort of like shift that and rebuild that tradition. It's pretty lighthearted. It's funny.

It's, it feels very real. I don't know. I really love it. It's great. It's, like I said, I heard it has a big,

cool fight scene. I heard it has a fight scene that's like big and cool in like a whole episode. It, I will say this. It is, uh, it also in some ways reminds me of band of brothers in the way that it brings you into what like the front line experience of that would be like or like the sort of like the real like what it would feel like on like a daily basis to be this person. Um, I think that is, it is fascinating. Yes. The battles are great, but it is, I'll tell you it is, it's

interesting. People got really amped about the big contest that everything's building to, but I found it so tense. I was like my heart was in my throat the entire time. It wasn't one of those where you're watching the hero like, and you're certain that he's going to go and beat everybody's ass. It's more like, oh man, if he, I hope he doesn't die, because this guy has really is not done well so far. It's great. It's great. Cool. This guy works really hard for every inch and that's really satisfying to watch but it can also be very very tense but i it's a it's a great counterpoint to a lot of the other uh game of throne stuff and it's it's i loved it so check it out check it totally i have been hesitant because i don't know if i need another lone wolf and cub story

but this sounds like it's more than just doing that thing is that fair to say yeah the the um the the their relationship is nice but it's not a case where he is like learning how to care from this kid. It's like they kind of need each other a little bit more, if that makes sense. Like they're, it's, it's a solid, healthy relationship from the beginning, really. Yeah, not just like stoic dying, cute, small thing. But there's a lot of visual parallels between him as a young boy being a squire for Sir Arlen, and Egg being his squire.

They parallel those scenes a lot. And I, and it's very much a story about that, like, cyclical nature of what you learn and what you pass on to the next person and what you keep. and what doesn't carry on. And like once you've seen the entire cycle play out as Dunk has now at this point, he's followed, he was a squire and he followed Sir Arland to his death. And now he has begun that cycle.

It's sort of like you're watching him decide what that means for him. And like what? And everyone is asking that in the kingdom. Like what am I going to do differently than the person who came before me? A lot of people are thinking about like legacy and change in that sense. That sounds good. It sounds very good. I got one very quick thing.

Super Battle Golf. We all need to be playing. Oh, fuck yeah, dude. I'm so eager to play this game with me played. It's so good. It is the latest of whether or not you like the term friend slop. It is golf with friends. And you and up to three other friends go golfing on a course.

And it's kind of fastest to the hole. Though also you get graded on the number of strokes that you take. you hit the ball and then you just sprint towards the hole. It is riffing on that Mario Golf mode that I liked quite a bit, except for unlike in Mario Golf here, you can shoot other characters with a variety of weapons. You can lay landmines right where their golf ball is. You can fire an air horn that forces them to hit it like a trillion yards in the wrong direction.

It is pure trolling the golf game. and it is a delight. The controls are a bit fussy right now. Also, the game cost $8. So it's not a huge investment for you to have a whole bunch of fun with buddies, knowing that like, yeah, it's a little rough round edges, but not enough to be a deal breaker. Cool.

I'm going to download that now. Awesome. Thank you, everyone, but especially thank you to the people. Patreon backers over at patreon.com slash the besties, a new Resties episode up as of this past Tuesday. We also have a new Brackett Battles episode coming up beginning of March, which is really super dupe of fun. Some recent subscribers include Matt O, Ashley A., Nicholas E. and Zorak.

Thank you for being subscribers. Wow, that's huge. Thank you to everyone else for being backers and supporters of the show. We love you. I prefer giant bomb. I'm a Brack. Van. That's really good, actually.

Oh, whoa, whoa, whoa. Brack is way harder. Zorax fun. Next week, I believe we're doing Scott Pilgrim EX, which is a beat him up. It is not a remaster. It is not a remake of the other Scott Pilgrim game. It is a new beat him up. A two would have been.

Wouldn't a two? Like, I feel like a two or something. EX just feels so much like a. Yeah. But it's like X, like your ex-girlfriend. I guess when you're gonna be an ex is a new, I don't know. Yeah, but they're doing a pun. They're doing like a pun.

Oh, it's X. Oh, it's like, okay. Oh, is it like, okay. Yeah, because the evil X's. Okay. You can play as some of the evil X's. Okay. I think you chose cleverness over there.

It also means 10, though. It's extremely confusing. E-X. E-X. But X. X. E-X. Anyway, X.

That's what we're doing next week. Scott Pilgrim, E-X. Let's end the show. Is he in it? Yes. Is Michael in it? Is he doing the voice? Michael Sarah?

Michael Sarah, is he doing the voice? No. Not, man. Then what's the point of the game if it doesn't have Michael Sarah doing his famous voice? I wish you would stop saying that about every game we talk about. We had to cut it out of the Resident Evil Requiem discussion. What? Just because it doesn't make sense?

That sucks, Gryphid. That sucks. The show used to mean something. Thank you so much for listening. to our podcast. I'm sorry things got like they did. Again. Be sure to dress again next week for the besties. Because shouldn't the world's best friends pick the world's best games.

Besties!