The Besties - Scott Pilgrim vs. Millennial Nostalgia

Episode Date: March 6, 2026

Scott Pilgrim EX is a spiritual sequel to a Netflix animated series from 2024, a Scott Pilgrim movie tie-in game from 15 years ago, and an underrated beat ‘em up series that debuted on the NES. Or to put it another way: Scott Pilgrim EX is deeply nostalgic, not for one moment, but for the breadth of the millennial gamer experience. Is that… fun? It will depend on your love of Scott Pilgrim, Rivert City Ransom, and the ongoing renaissance of a long-dormant genre. 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!

How likely is it, I know we're going to talk about it later, but how likely is it that the Pombon is just going to be a big fucking man that's ready to fuck? So you're discussing the new Fire Type Starter announced for Pokemon Wins and Waves, and he's the Fire Type Starter. He looks like a big, cute-faced dog. He looks like a Pomeranian with Fire Pomeranian. A fire Pomeranian.

Spoiler. He's going to grow extra toes. He's going to grow different joints in his legs. He's going to stand up big and proud. he's going to grow boxing fists over his hands he will be part fighting type guarantee that is going to be a bipedal humanoid fighting dog if I've ever seen one

yeah you haven't talked about the bulge yet and that's really my biggest concern I haven't talked about the balls because I don't know what the fuck you're talking about man is is Pombon two evolutions from now from baby Pombon to whatever final evolution is going to be rocking a massive ball they gave in Cinerora a sort of chastity better

to kind of like cover up whether or not there's anything happening down there, which I appreciate. I think it's a little bit more tasteful than May Champ's underwear that he's just wearing. He's just wearing him. As for this dog, I don't know. They'll probably put pants on him. He'll probably evolve into pants. It's hard for me to get into your head sometimes fresh, but I, if I'm guessing,

you're picturing kind of a Chowaniki, like muscle man. Glist the dream Yeah That would be ideal Yeah I think Incinerore Is really like Where my head is probably going

Because that's their default I would rather Quite honestly I'd rather him Just be a cute little dog No dude No dude No dude

Level 36 that dude Looks like fucking RFK In the Salinas Absolutely Huge wall of beef man Absolutely Rule 34 is gonna be sick My name is Justin Macro

And I know the best game of the week. My name is Griffin Macroy and I know the best game of the week. My name is Chris Plant and I know a Scott Pilgrim game. My name is Russ Freshwick. I know the best game of the week. Welcome to the besties where we talk about the latest and greatest and home interactive entertainment. It is a video game club for friends. And just by listening, you have joined our illustrious ranks. This week we're going to be talking about Scott Pilgrim X. Okay, I was worried you guys are going to correct me and say EX. I was kind of guessing. But Scott Pilgrim X. You would pronounce it X. Yeah. So what's that, Chris, Plant?

Scott Pilgrim EX is a, I would say, spiritual sequel to Scott Pilgrim versus the world. The game, released in 2010. Very similar to that game. This is a beat-em-up. Very different than that game is the entire structure, which we're going to talk about. The other odd thing about this game is an unofficial sequel of sorts to the Netflix. Scott Pilgrim TV shows. Scott Pilgrim takes off. We'll talk about all that and more right after the break. Griffin, you played a lot of the original Scott Pilgrim game and probably some of the remake as well, right? They remastered it a few years ago.

Yeah, the remake didn't like do a ton. It was, you know, on the wide spectrum of remakes, it didn't, you know, do much. I really love that game. I read Scott Pilgrim in college, which is kind of like when it is most appealing, I would say, of a story. I love the movie. And yeah, I thought the game kicked ass just as a, you know, came out in 2010 where we weren't really in this kind of like beat-em-up renaissance that we are in, I would say, right now. And so it was very, very exciting to have this like classic style pixel art beat him up with a soundtrack by Anamonaguchi and art designs by Paul Rock. Robertson, like, just a really, really solid game.

That was, I would say, somewhat inspired by River City Ransom, the NES classic beat them up, whereas this one, Scott Pilgrim EX, is extremely inspired by River City Ransom in almost every way. Because the original game was a, they were linear levels, correct? Yeah, so it had a sort of level select, and you would go through and play through the different levels. each one was kind of dedicated to one of the different evil exes, right? So there was like the movie set level where you're going up against Lucas Lee.

And then there was a level on a bus that kept getting like sliced in half during the Roxy Richter sort of like ninja fight. There was a, you were constantly earning money like enemies would drop coins. And then you could go back to the first level of the game to like spend those coins at this marketplace, which was always kind of a weird sort of way of handling progression. Like you would just have to go back to level one and play through the last half of it. And that would, like, allow you to buy food and stuff that would upgrade your stats. Sounds like something they added very late. Sort of, but, like, I also love, you know, progression hooks in my beat-em-ups.

What's interesting is, like, in some ways, the game is structurally so different this time around because it does have a more open-world style where you are running around between little, like, side levels that you go off into to, like, unlock the next progression thing or whatever. and like these odds and end challenges, and then there's, like, different sort of shopping centers, like all around the map that you're running to. So in some ways, like, it's a more elegant solution than you have to go back to level one to spend your money and then maybe play through the rest of that again.

But I think the big thing that's different this time around is the, I would say, the pacing, because you are not playing through these, like, long, long levels. And if you die, you're going to have to start over. Instead, you are, like, figuring out where to go next in this, you know, wild version of Toronto and then going into do a few fights and then you're off to the next sort of location. Yeah, you're doing a bunch of beating up stuff on on the way between point A and B.

Yeah, you're given these many objectives that are like go to this beach or go to this haunted castle, fight a person there, that person might drop like a, like a instrument that then unlocks this thing. Yeah. But you're basically like being led pretty directly through this open world. You can kind of go in a lot of different places you don't have to go. There's not really an incentive

to go to a lot of different places, but it is an interesting structure that, again, as you said, very similar to retro city, what is that? River City Rampage, yeah. Yeah. In that way, like that open world thing.

Yeah, it's, it, I want to talk more about the River City Ransom part because what is really amazing about this game and it's released way back on the NES is it felt like what would become the open world. World Game because it motivates you to use all of the different parts of the city. So similar in this game, and Scott Pilgrim X, you will go into a boss fight and you will lose

and you will realize I don't have enough health or magic to get into this fight. And you could keep bashing it over and over again and keep losing. Or you can go to a restaurant and buy a hamburger or nachos and increase your health and increase your stats and you can go grind some enemies in this open world and you can get a few different buffs like a special belt that makes you stronger. If all of it sounds extremely old-fashioned and retro, correct. It is so loyal to that old-fashioned thing. It's also loyal to it in that it's difficult.

So Griffin's right. Like you aren't going through these humongous levels, but you are doing like, let's say, five or six screens of fights and then a boss. And if you lose, you're doing all that shit over the beginning. You do it all over again. You don't get to keep the stuff you have gotten since the last checkpoint. And I think you start with the health you had when you hit that checkpoint. And also you lose money as a penalty for dying.

So it's like bizarrely punishing whenever you die. It is not rogue light in any way in that sense of like, oh, well, if I keep grinding, I'm going to get better. It wants you to like have to figure out a different way to go in and like actually grind before you go into the fight. Yeah. I think for people, there's kind of two sorts of people that play beatem-ups. There's the people that are, like, deeply care about score and, I don't know, no hitting. Tech and shit and shit like that. And this game has a lot of that.

Heck out the ass. It is incredibly complicated, like way more complicated than I think I was expecting. Comparable, I would say, maybe not in the RPG settings, but close to Absalom's tech side, there's a lot going on. I have some feelings about that, but we'll get to, we'll get there. But I would say, if you're the sort of person like, me who is looking to jump into a freedom up game and just like fuck shit up and have a good time with maybe a couple people on the couch

you will want to play on the lowest difficulty imaginable. Especially if you're playing single player. Yes. It is I think completely and obviously sort of like geared for for multiplayer because like you fights where there's a bunch of dudes on the screen

it is not having someone to off tank the boss for like a second so you could catch your breath like stuff like that is like really, really, really tough. And I will say, playing on the easier difficulty, like, made the game what I was looking. It's manageable, yeah, for sure. Like, I was able to enjoy myself just beating shit up and increasing my stats and getting money and going on missions and things like that.

I don't really understand why the default setting, let alone the setting below that, is still so challenging. I think it's a mistake from a design standpoint, but, you know, whatever, that was their decision to make. Let's talk about the combat because the combat in this game is so good, and I don't think that's a surprise. The studio tribute, they have been making, they made that Ninja Turtles, shredders revenge, they made Marvel Cosmic Invasion, they made Panzer Paladin, a lot of games that we've really liked. And this is, it is hardcore. I mean, you have the traditional beat them up of just spamming punch and kick. You also have like a block system. You also have tons of

physics objects in the world. And they all react differently. So you might have, have various volleyball in a gymnasium setting, like a dozen of them. And you can get this chaos happening where they're ricocheting into each other, billiards ball style and just filling the screen with objects that will like knock you to the floor. Yeah. It wants you to experiment with all the different weapons that it has. There are also these support characters that you can call in, surprising number of them to start with that have a wild. Yeah, it's like a nice, nice hook to Yeah, these are side characters like

Young Neal and things like that, yeah. Yeah, can you explain how the Young Neal thing works? I'm trying to remember what his. I know I did one where like two guys, to the twins, the Kuzanagi twins, whatever they were named was. Yeah. Would show up and create like a healing area.

I forget what Young Neal's was. Yeah. Young Neal is a stampede of fans. Oh, yeah. Fills the screen. It's, I mean, the Pixar, it's, yeah, it's sick. I think it, uh, I think it, uh, I think the,

combat feels fantastic. I think you can play this game not having much experience of beat them ups and not wanting to engage much with like the deep tech stuff and like still have a really good time. I struggled to really sink my teeth into some of the like more techy sort of fundamentals. And it is stuff that is like native to the genre like clash like going up against an enemy's attack with your attack to kind of like interrupt it. There's a lot of stuff with grab attacks in this game. Like you are there are you get. I. frames during grab attacks. So you sometimes like that's the only option to, uh, you know, avoid some super attack that the, the boss is doing. There's a little side hop thing that you can do.

Um, but I, I don't know. I have a hard time sort of, uh, folding that into the regular ass beating stuff that I was doing with the character that I finally, uh, found that I, I, I really enjoyed. There's like seven characters. They all feel very, very different. Yeah. I was pretty impressed. Who did you land on? I did Lucas for a long time, but he's more of a grappler sort of slow style one that, uh, I don't know. I wanted something that attacked faster. So I ended up going with Roxy Richter, which is the ninja sort of build. And that's what I've been playing through the most. Yeah, I was playing as who is Jason Swarthman's character? Oh, Gideon. Grades. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, Gideon. It's fun too. Super fun. He has the katana and very quick. I think he's a pressure character.

So yeah, they really do feel very, very different. One issue that I have is the progression stuff. I do, again, like that stuff in my games, but in this one, it feels fairly inelegantly sort of added where, like, there is equipment, and if you'll knock equipment on one character, you can use it on the other character, right? Which helps sort of bridge the gap a little bit. But also, as you are playing, you are constantly buying food for your characters to upgrade their stats.

You are constantly finding these pickups that permanently upgrade their stats. They're getting stronger and stronger and stronger. And sometimes you have to go do that shit in order to get through a boss fight. There simply is no other option. Like you're just not, you don't have the stats for it. You're going to get your ass kicked, right?

Which means if you want to play as another character to like goof around with them, they are going to be much, much weaker. And other games do versions of this that kind of like gets around it, right? Castle Crashers had a similar system, right? Castle Crashers did have a similar system, right, where you're upgrading their stats.

That was pretty intrinsic. But like a thing like the, I think it was the TMNT game, you were also unlocking new moves, right? So you're not necessarily like you have more health and you're not going to get beaten up so bad. And then like a lot of this game made me appreciate a lot of the decisions in Absalom a lot more and I know it's probably frustrating to like big fans of the genre

to hear me say that. But like the way Absalom would toss these options at you each run that forced you to like engage with the different mechanics. Like I am, I have to use clash. I have to try to clash my way out of attacks because I have a build that is strengthened by that. That stuff made those mechanics really fun and surprising to sort of engage with. And also got rid of the, if I want to play as this other character, that's fine.

Because they're not going to be like way, way, way, way weaker than the one that I've been sort of like playing as the rest of the time. Yeah, the other boon of Absalom that I found was that because you're working towards a specific build, you don't need to keep everything. everything in your head at all time. So as someone that can't remember all these special moves, encounters and whatever the fuck, I was able to do one or two things that I did really well in a run whereas here, it feels like I frequently feel like I'm doing the wrong thing. Or the suboptimal thing, right? Which is it, I do think it's fun to play. I do, I do have a great time playing it. My biggest issue with the game is the structure, because I would much prefer to just play through a long, fun beat-em-up level than, you know, the way this game handles it where you're running across

the map and then you're going to do like a not-so-long sequence of fights and a boss fight and then you, you know, get the guitar and that lets you go back and open this garage. Like, I'm spending so much time kind of spinning my wheels and running around the map, just like running past fights at a certain point because I didn't want to do them for the millionth time. And that is unfortunately, Henry bounced off of the game because like, because of that, Like the just the sort of interstitial parts that were not so engaging. 15 to 20 seconds of downtime where you're just looking for the word go.

Yeah. And like managing equipment, like stuff like again, this is like not, I think a objective critique of the game. It's just like stuff that a nine year old is not as interested in. But like, I don't know, that that that was enough to kind of. It's not a min-maxer. Yeah, it's enough to kind of bump him off the game. I've been, I've been enjoying it. but I do think that the dedication that they have done in following the River City Rampage format

maybe could have been modernized like a little a little bit more. There's some of the little mini games are kind of strange. There's one where you're supposed to get in a fight, but you can only throw volleyball. But whenever I throw a volleyball, it instantly fails the challenge. And I don't, I never like could figure out quite why. that was happening. Yeah, I ran into similar issues as well. I sort of agree.

I think it feels to me that the open world stuff was a way to pad out the experience because you are kind of in the more classic indie game format these days. The idea that you would create one level and you'd only run through it once and that would be the last time you saw of it is like not a very productive use of resources. So here they have very, very densely animated detail levels. that you are seeing more than once, but it did, you're right, feel a little bit like, eh, I don't need to go through this level again.

It doesn't bring me a lot of joy again. I think that's definitely the effect that it has. I don't think that was the intention because it is riffing on River City Ransom, and that's just how the game works. Yeah. I think what is tricky, and it's where this balancing act when you're trying to do old-fashioned genre gets messy is, in River City Ransom, you were exploring these different places and you would come across

fights and you would figure out gradually what to do. When you have the direction to go from place to place, on one hand, that makes the game much easier and more streamlined and less frustrating. On the other, it makes it weirdly linear, which is the thing that it doesn't want to be. So I don't know. This is the first game that Tribute has self-published since 2020. They did that Teenage Mutin Ninja Turtles game and Marvel Cosmic Invasion with Dot Emu. And I personally prefer those experiences. Both those games I think are a bit more appealing to a broader audience. One of the earliest games that tribute made was Mercenary Kings.

Do you all remember that? Hell yeah. Yeah. And it is a very, I would say, more hardcore experience. Incredibly, yeah. Incredibly hard metal slug style sort of. But weird meta mechanics that we're seeing in here as well. An awesome part by Paul Robertson.

Like there is a definite through line between these. I love this studio a lot for these exact reasons. What I admire about them and why I admire about this game is like they are, I mean, tribute is the perfect name for the studio. They are so dedicated to honoring and recreating and sticking to the early pleasures of these games. The problem is that's just. for me personally not wearing that but i think there are a number of people who are listening to this i hope this is the case where you're hearing our gripes and you're like that sounds awesome

like that sounds like what i am looking for and like yeah that that is what's interesting about this game is the things that like we don't like they're not bad they're just they're largely a personal preference juice i know that you uh were not able to to play this one because of the the twitchiness sort of aspect of it and your your your recovery uh but you You're kind of familiar with Scott Pilgrim stuff, I think. Did you... No, I like sports. I'm a sports guy.

No, it is weird. The only thing that strikes me is weird is like, I was thinking about the gap between this one and the last one, right? The 16-year gap. Mm-hmm. And it's like, is the nostalgia... Are we just sort of in this stage where, like, nostalgia is like a general sort of vibe? You know what I mean?

Because, like, now this game is hearkening back to a game that was hearkening back to another, generation before it. Is that like, is that the Scott Pilgrim aspect of it where you can just sort of like play in those time ranges? Is that like what sets this apart as a Scott Pilgrim game? Because I know what that meant earlier when it was like very tied to the comic and the graphic novel and that sort of like retro idea was very tied into like what that graphic novel is like.

Sure. I don't know that this game in particular is, even though obviously there's similarities in terms of genre and stuff like that. I don't know that this game is super in conversation. with the first game, I think it's more in conversation with just like video game history in general. And as Chris mentioned,

the Netflix series. Like I don't think it follows it in plot, but that series really dove into like the personalities of the different exes a lot more and you get to play as a lot of them this time around. I guess what I'm saying is like this has been folded back into nostalgia

rather than it being something about nostalgia, right? Because a lot of the people who would be playing this in the target demographic don't have nostalgia for this. You know what I'm like? Like that's different. Like people playing in 2010 are nostalgic for the generation this is talking about, you know, 16, 20 years prior.

But that, like, we're now a generation removed from that. So is this like, is this nostalgia for them or is it more of like a aesthetic? It will, in terms of story specifically, it is nostalgic for Scott Pilgrim in the way that like Scott Pilgrim was nostalgic for old video games and other stuff like that. I think that is what actually, I would have probably stick around longer if it had a story like Scott Pilgrim

where this is like, I hope you really care about these characters and get references. Because you're gonna need it if that's what you're here for. Oh yeah, man, this thing starts out with a fucking bang. If you have not,

this is the first piece of Scott Pilgrim media you've consumed. Do not expect an onboarding process. Also, in terms of the game, it is worth saying the team that would go on to file in the tribute, the studio that made this, worked on the original Scott Pilgrat games. That's where that makes sense. That's what that influence comes from. Yeah, yeah, I think it is a, I think it's a fun one. And I'm obviously like, I love this genre and I'm excited that it is continuing to get these like pretty high profile just bangor releases.

and it is fun always to see like a studio get kind of free reign or at least more than they have with other properties in the past. It very much feels like tribute was told like, hey, just go fucking hog wild, whatever you want with this thing. All right, well, let's take a quick break. And when we come back, I understand there's some developments in the world of Pokemon. So I can finally get a fucking handle on this well.

We'll be right back. Justin, this is the one. This will be the one, dude. This is the one. With the power of the switch two. You will finally be a Pokemoniac. I know you've been fighting the urge for all these years, but this one, let me. Sign me up.

Put me in, coach. I'll say this, Juice, if you get your kids into Pokemon, birthdays, Christmas. Every present face. You don't even think about it. No worries, dude. No worries. Just go with the merch. That's right.

You're covered. Obviously, big announcement. Pokemon wins and waves. The next generation has been revealed coming sometime next year with a simultaneous global release. Switch to exclusive. Yeah, this is the same thing where there's two

different kinds. You can buy Pokemon wins or Pokemon waves. Isn't that wild? What do you mean? You'd have to buy both of them to get them all. That's how they've been doing it forever. That's why I'm boycotting. Yeah, it looks really neat. It has sun and moon energy. It's like based in a new era or a new area. It's a tropical

theming. It's a southeast Asian sort of inspired. So like, is that a quote or is that you making that interpretation? No, that's, I don't know if it's a quote, but it is what they have said about the area. So a lot of like islands and obviously a lot of wands and a whole bunch of waves. Yeah. What is different about this, this one that you all tell so far. It's such a good question, Chris Plant. Here's the thing that's very different. When you start playing the game, there are three different Pokemon that you have not picked previously when you start playing Pokemon. These are new guys. New guys. New guys. We already talked about Palm Bombon. Brout and Gekwa. Brout is such a strong name for Brout. Brout is such a good

name. I don't even care. Brout's the water one, I think. No, no, no, no. Brout is a grass-type bean chick Pokemon? Justin, if you could pull up a picture of Brout and just talk about what you're seeing that would be helpful. Tell me the spelling on Brow. Justin's more of a Brow.

B-R-O-W-T. Traditional spelling. Yeah, I love this guy. This is going to be the guy for me. He looks like a Brout. He looks like if like if a lime came to life

and was your best friend. but also wasn't thrilled about the prospect Yeah What if an egg hatched And the thing that came out of it Was still kind of an egg That's Brout

Also Weirdly has the silhouette Of a Pac-Man ghost But with chicken legs Highly edible Not a ton of info Highly super munchable Dude absolutely

Super duper Not a ton of like Info about the game Has come out you have like a scooter that I guess you attach to your Pokemon to ride on them. That's kind of a nothing burger, I feel like, from a news aspect. I mean, better than the last time when you had to ride on a Pokemon who was also a motorcycle for some reason. Yeah.

And eventually, like just a full airplane. Just a full-blown airplane. We really just have the setting and the starters, I think, at this point. I think that is. Well, and I think the platform, right? A lot of people are pissed off that it is not going to be on the Switch 1. I think that's sort of out of touch with the history of how new platforms evolve. Eventually, they're going to stop making games for the older one,

but also Pokemon, Scarlet, and Violet suffered so much. I ran like dog shit on that. I was going to say they stopped making games for Pokemon on Switch 1 like five years ago. They barely run. It's, yeah, but this looks. I got a question about this one. Way better. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think there's a question on all the Pokemoniac's minds, really. and it's like there's 10 types that we haven't gotten yet type combinations that we haven't gotten right and four of those are normal combos so you roll those out you got five left I call them I call them the funky five okay these are the five funky combinations you have not gotten yet

and I would love to know which of the funky five you guys would like to see represented in Wednesday do you know of any of the funky five just off the top of your head as a Pokemon? Oh my Christ Is there I imagine dragon Is in there? Yes, bug dragon

I don't think there's been a Bug dragon Flygon is not a bug dragon Bug dragon is one of the funky five Okay I'm not going to be able to pull this in a way It's like the funky five The Funky Five or fire fairy

Definitely ground fairy right Ground Ferry Fire Ferry Ice Poison Bug Dragon Rock Ghost Rock ghost Crazy the coughing is on a rock ghost Fly dragon seems like it's gonna happen

This You know you're in this tropical environment There's a lot of crazy bugs Bug dragon Sorry Sorry bug dragon Seems like that's gonna happen That would be cool

But fly god realistically You go into a bug dragon Yeah Like oh I'm going to splunking in this tropical cave Oh oh rock ghost A bug dragon Yeah Oh rock ghost yeah

What if you found the ground fairy Just a dirty ass Ground Fairy running around down there in the dirt. I like that. You always think of them going plant to plant, but what if you saw a fairy just like, like a fairy digging out of the rocks? That'd be cool.

Rock fairy? Ground fairy. Put me in the pokey store. I want to cuddle. The tight matchups against that thing would be fucking gnarly, dude. That might be why it hasn't appeared yet. Yeah.

It might be O.P. Yeah, no, I'm excited for, I did not get into Z&A, Z through A at all. I'm now 85 hours into that game because it's the only Pokemon game my son will play and he fucking loves it. Henry got back into it. So I've like helped him out

with some fights that have gotten too tough. But it is not a situation like Scarlet and Violet where we both played the hell out of it and did trading and battling in like the whole nine yards. So like I am genuinely very excited for that to return even though this is not too surprising. It's, you know, look at the water in Scarlet and Violet and then look in the water in this trailer.

I want to say two things. The first is two addendums to my previous question about the Flunky Five. Our first addendum is, according to, this Reddit post that I'm referring to, it's worth noting that Dragon slash fairy is only used in

mega evolution with Alteria. And my second thing is, I'm sorry if that was a activation phrase for any assassins out there. I don't really know how all that works or what that means. So apologies in advance. Yeah, I did not know the lore around these Pokemon.

Somebody wants a disc, the disc, Pokemon to be one of these. The disc Pokemon is responsible for all of the Area Zero in the Great Crater. And has the power to bring thoughts to reality, hence the creation of the paradox Pokemon, and the paradox of their very existence. Is this tying into this game of the particular? This is about the Indigo disc. This is like a... Yeah, this sounds unrelated to wind and waves.

Yeah, it sounds like you're making shit. There was a request of like, oh, you know, who would be a great rock ghost, the disc Pokemon. Oh, you can't. He's already in there. No, he hasn't. Oh, he hasn't been shown yet. He's like a mystery force working behind the scenes.

Yeah, you can only read about the... I have Team Rocket comes back for this one. Yeah. I'll tell you what I am looking forward to is Pokemon champions. What if the... What if the... Okay, well, listen, listen, what if the final shot of the trailer where they reveal this game with these games is, and there's two trailers, right? Because there's two members of Team Rocket at two games.

Each one ends with James or Jesse. Hey, I was farting. That wasn't a gap for an answer, Russ. It was clearly a courtesy break. Sorry, I thought I was helping him out. That was my bad. What if the last shot of the trailer is you zoom in on their eyes and you realize like it's Team Rocket and then you heard them say, we're gonna kill every human being on Earth. Okay, man.

You're joking. Team Rocket is going to kill every human being like, it's like Jesse, James, we're going to kill every human being on the face of the earth. I mean, that is basically in a lot of the Pokemon games, the sort of Team Rocket substitute, like Team Oxygen. and Team Magma were basically like, we're gonna flood the earth. We're gonna create a new biblical flood and we will be the only survivors.

Like, holy shit, you guys, are you sure? The other guys just wanted to yoink my slow poke tails. But you want to fucking kill everyone in the... You want to collapse the dimensions? Are you out of your fucking mind, you? Pokemon Z-A actually tackles this because they deal with the Lysander

and whatever his team was on and that sounded pretty apocalyptic too. Pretty intense shit, yeah. So pulling from the headlines these days, Pokemon, well done. Pokemon Champions comes out soonish. That's just where they fight each other, right? It's Pokemon Stadium, right?

But the new Pokemon Stadium, you can pull your Pokemon from Pokemon home? I don't know. That does not appeal to me. Okay. I am incredibly excited about the game we're going to be talking about next week. This is a little bit of a spoiler, but we're going to be doing Pocopia next week. Yes. And this game has literally been on my fucking radar since it got announced, probably what was it, six months ago, something like that.

It looked fucking awesome, and the reviews have been very good. So I'm very excited to try it. I have not played it. Is this the great merger of the Frustic Griffin taste? I don't know, man. I mean, yes, I'm very fucking excited. Because you're a Dragon Quest Builders person, Griffin. Well, I love Dragon Quest Builders as well.

Yeah, I think it's just too great taste that are going to taste pretty fucking good. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We're there. We're also playing Vugenics at the same time. So that's also happening. I'm excited, but more excited about Pocopia than I am winds and waves. It's been a little while. Since I've really enjoyed one of the mainline Pokemon games,

I think they've gotten a little up their own asses. I hope they take some swings that I'm not expecting. I don't think that they will because they tend to play it a little bit safe. Fire Ferry, maybe. Fire Ferry would change the game entirely. They might have a nasty ground fairy in there. Thank you, Justin. Good point.

We have some reader mail, unless we had any other thoughts on Pokemon. Please. This one comes from Aslam regarding, I will take a hit on this one. I was knocking Grace as an FBI agent when we were talking about Resident Evil last week. Aslam says, one thing I will say, and I really only picked up on this because I watched the opening of the game three times, Grace is not an FBI agent. I do think she is an FBI agent, but we'll get there. Her wildly incompetent boss calls her a technical analyst.

That is a good precision note. And then sends her into the field alone, and her only companion is her constant PTSD for her mother's murder, which she is currently investigating the same location. She doesn't even get an FBI issued gun. Nothing about her being sent there makes any sense. You wouldn't even send an FBI agent into a weird murder situation by themselves, let alone some desk jockey analyst.

Wow. I mean, they're right. She seems wholly unprepared for this scenario. She has a badge that says FBI on it, and then when she does find a gun, she immediately starts capping. Residential has been in an uphill battle with plausibility for a long time,

now and this is just the straw that's like the proverbial camel's back. Also, I think the game's a pretty good job of explaining why this is happening. You just have to make it a little bit further. I don't actually think there's any excuse for the boss being like, hey, you know that room you watched your mother be murdered in? You got to go there to look for clues for a different. Oh, I have a theory. I have a, we will save it for the spoiler episode.

Which we're not doing today. I do want to say, though, she is not a field agent. and you wouldn't send an analyst into a random crime scene. I'm sorry, there's no justification for it. Where their mother was. Certainly, let alone the fact that her mother was murdered there. Okay. And we do this one about the least scary one?

Yes, let's do this one about the least scary one. That's fine. This is a question from Dustin. If I'm a scaredy baby like Frush, fair cop, but I am tired of feeling left out, what Resident Evil game should I start with? Good question. I don't think four is two.

scary. Like, it's more stressful than anything else, but I think it goes fairly light on the jump scares. Four was the one that I, as a scaredy baby, was finally able to get into. Yeah. It is most scary at the very beginning. That is the scariest part of the entire game

in my opinion. And then it gets progressively less scary as Leon gets fucking yoked. If you get like a rocket launcher. Eventually, yes. I find I find, I find Village unsettling for a lot of parts, but it's more creepy. And you do have a lot of agency and power. I think the controls are the big thing.

We're like, I don't find Code Veronica particularly scary, but when you have that limited control, I feel like that adds to the tension. The other thing I would say in favor of Village is post-launch, they added third-person mode, and third-person mode does make these games less scary. Sure. So I would say Village would be a good pick.

Village has like one level, the doll sequence that is tough, but yes, it is surprising because seven, on the other hand, that it would be like the number one place. too scary. I was way, I could not play seven. It was too scary. Yeah, it rocks. We have one more letter. This one comes from Zach. Did anyone try out morsels? It's a really weird rogue like with a neat art style. We did talk about it on Rusty's. Okay, I played morsels as well. That is a neat, a very, very neat game. I forget something else came out around the same time that kind of like pushed it off my radar, but it was one that I was very much enjoying, even though I agree with the sentiment here, a little light on what's happening. mechanics-wise. Yeah, they are probably too opaque. Way too opaque. And, like, I think that's part of the design of the game.

And I don't think it would have been as big of an issue if there hadn't been, you know, some competition for my gaming time. Cool game, especially if you like the Binding of Isaac genre. Yeah, style as well. Zach mentioned there are a few other Next Fest demos that they tried. You know the drill, which is a fun time-waster that would be good on portables. Wanderbug, which is a really fun bullet-hull building. Oh, sorry, Wanderberg. It's a fun bullet hell building on

In building on wheels Flock around a cozy birdwatching Good with Friends to hang out in And Cuppie Claw Which felt obtuse But fun to make the claw go up and down Okay I get it

So those are some Next Fest titles I have another Next Fest title That I could talk about An honorable mentions if anyone Yeah please I played a game called Rune Dice Which is currently in Next Fest It comes out Q2 of this year

Rune Dice is Okay, so imagine a tabletop, and on that tabletop, you spread like 20 six-sided dyes around, and each of them have numbers on them, and you have one dye that has a one on it. And if you shoot that dye, like Bust the Move style, if you shoot that die into another one, it'll transform into a two and launch up into the air and use physics to try to roll over to another two. and that in turn, if it becomes a three, it tries to roll to another three and you try to set up these cool combos. I really liked it. It was very quick.

It had an interesting roguelike mechanic to it where you were picking special dice that will appear on your board. You had like roons and things that would drop down. I don't know about the full game, but I really like the demo on Next Fest. This looks great. There was also a very good Northern Lion

a video of him playing it, and that's what convinced me to check it out. Yeah, that'll get you every time. The other thing that I want to talk about was not a Next Fest thing, but I did get to the DLC of Little Gator game, which is excellent. If you liked Little Gator game, this was the Breath of the Wild style kids game

where you're a gator on a tropical, like, a tropical, like, fun island. You're doing a fun adventure. The DLC happens after you finish the main game. Main game's like four or five hours, so not a long game. And it's basically the same length as the main game. So you're kind of doubling up on the game, and it's all taking place in these caves underneath.

The big difference is here is the items that you're getting like pretty dramatically change the way you can like attack or interact with the world. There's like a spider swing and a pickaxe and all sorts of shit like that. So if you like the little Gator game, highly, highly recommend the DLC. It's been excellent. I've been playing quite a bit of a game that came out four years ago

that I just missed. But now it's out on mobile and it's called Shotgun King. So Shotgun King is a chess-based game. where you are the king of the black team and all of your pieces have defected and left. You're the only piece remaining on the board for the black side. And you also do have a shotgun. That is how it starts. And when each match starts, the white pieces start on the other end of the board in the usual sort

of chess fashion, except there's only like four pawns and the king and one knight and one bishop. And you have to use your shotgun to kill the king to get up on him. And there's a lot of different sort of mechanics of like your shotgun shoots in a certain arc and has a certain range and you'll blast out this many pellets and each one does one damage. So if you get closer to a piece, then, you know, obviously you're going to do more damage per shot. But then also like you have to reload by moving around. You can't just stay put in one place and you have limited ammo and you can't move into check. And you can't most of the time you can't shoot while you are in check.

So there's also some chest shit happening to where if you get surrounded and you don't have a safe square to move to unless you have some other option of getting out of there, like you're fucked, you're just going to die. So yeah, it kind of like requires some chess sense, but mostly it's a game about having a shotgun on a chess board. Every time you kill the king, it moves on to the next round and matches run for like 11 rounds. And between rounds, you draft a pair of cards, one of which will be a benefit to you and your shotgun, usually making it like more potent, or now you get grenades you can throw, or now this one will save you from death once per round. But it is paired with an upgrade for the white pieces. So like as you are improving your own shit, you are also adding more white pieces to the board or making it so that like, okay, well, now the opposing knights can move diagonally, like bishops. So you have to be very thoughtful about your choices.

But that's pretty much it. There's like achievements to go for or new shotguns to unlock by like getting your current gun up to a certain upgrade point. But it is very short, very digestible run-based game that is, I don't know, just such a fun, weird twist on chess that I have been really enjoying it in my sort of. What brought you to this game? It just came out. Just came out on mobile. So it's like a new release. Yeah.

So it's been out for a while on PC. I think Russ mentioned that he had played it. Yeah, a while ago, yeah. But this is new to me, and it works great on mobile too. Speaking of games that are going to be new to people, mini shoot adventures is now available on Switch. Oh, that's a good format for that. That's a good game.

Yeah, it is the right spot. If you have not played this game, picture like a schmop mixed with Zelda. When I say schmop, don't let that scary it like it's not super hardcore. It teaches you how to play the form. I'm bad at schmops and I 100% of this game. You can do it too. Don't be thrown by the weird apostrophe that's just in the title for some reason. Very confusing.

It's unfortunate. The other thing I just want to flag is Starship Troopers' Ultimate Bug War. the game is coming out March 16th, I believe, but you can play a demo of it right now. And it is the follow-up to Bolt Gun, a game that we really enjoyed. And I think maybe talked about on Resties, but it's kind of doing boomer, shooter, and more of an open-world setting mixed in with all of that Starship Troopers goodness. And I'm very curious about the full game, but I would definitely check out the demo while it's still up on Steam. Juice.

I watched a very good TV show called Wonder Man. Did you guys talk about Wonder Man? I don't think we have you. I might have mentioned it in passing, but I... Who watched Wonder Man? I did. What about you, Chris Plant?

I have not watched it. What about Griffin? I've also not watched Wonder Man. Great. Can I tell you guys about Wonder Man? Please. Okay, so Wonder Man is a superhero. I just don't know about the show. So Wonder Man's a superhero.

We love him. It's named Simon Williams, but that's not really what this show is about. The show is a mini-series. It's part of what they call the Marvel Spotlight Banner. It's kind of like the way they're doing like mini-archs or one-offs or, you know. I think they're meant to be more grounded stories that aren't like MCU style stories. Both like grounded narratively sort of, but also like grounded, like separate sort of from the rest of the MCU. The connection here that's cool, the ties that are there, and this is very well explained in the show.

But Ben Kingsley is, if you don't know, was previously in the Iron Man franchise playing a guy named Trevor Slattery, who was the Mandarin, pretending to be the Mandarin. He was basically an actor pretending to be a terrorist. And it was kind of not great. None of it was great. it was all pretty bad and that sort of like whole part of Ironman three is sort of a dark mark on the Marvel like that era it's like kind of a bad choice that nobody really liked anyway this series is about a guy named Simon Williams who is the same it was named after the character uh from the Wonder Man series uh that's not really

talked about or addressed but it is important he is an actor uh And he grew up in the watching the Wonder Man movie that exists in this reality, this Wonder Man movie with his dad. This Wonder Man, this Simon Williams is played by Yaya Abdul Matine, who is breaking great. He's maybe like awesome. Fantastic in Watchman as well. He's great. Basically, he, this guy has superpowers. But because of an incident that has explained in a standalone episode,

superheroes can't work on movies. Basically an insurance problem. It's an insurance issue, right? So superheroes can't work movies. So this guy is an extremely serious actor who is trying to hide the fact that he is a superhero. Or has, I shouldn't even say superhero,

has these abilities, has these powers. Meanwhile, he is under investigation by the government who wants to track and monitor people with these kinds of abilities. So the way they do this, that is they rope in the Trevor Slattery character who got out of prison before his time, basically, and they say, hey, unless you want to go back to jail, you need to help us keep tabs

on this guy. And the way they do it is Trevor taking Simon under his wing in like an acting tutelage sense, him coaching him how to become a more successful actor. And of course, his big dream is that he finds out that there is this Wonder Man movie being made and he wants to audition for the role while hiding the fact that he is Wonder Man and not that he's Wonder Man hiding the fact that he has these abilities but the show itself is about acting it's about him wanting to be an actor it is like the two of them like Trevor sort of like rediscovering a love of acting through Simon's eyes and it's very much not about like

abilities and powers and stuff except in the ways like that makes it sense thematically but it's not a show about that if you don't care about like acting and show biz stuff and that sort of see it as like a craft and that like it is

probably going to seem sort of desperately up its own ass but I found it really like charming and the two of them together Yaya Abdul Matine and Ben Kingsley together are unbelievable. I mean like Like the two of them are fantastic. But I just, I think it's a fantastic show that is one of the best things that Marvel has done in a long time and they are not doing pretty much anything to promote it.

So there's my, there's my best. It's also worth noting that Wonder Man is the admission by Marvel that Baby's Day Out exists within the MCU, which is like an important thing. That it does canonize. Sometimes there's shows on that feel so specific. When I actually texted Travis about the presence of Joe Pentleano in the show. Who plays himself? Who plays himself as a miserable asshole. And it's fantastic.

And I texted Travis like, I cannot believe the show includes the line this guy yelling at him like, baby's day out, suck Joe Pentleano. Like, I can't believe that line is in a real TV show that I get to watch. But it's great. It's really good. I had a lot of fun watching it. I agree. I hope they do more. Do you need to know nothing?

Like, you don't need to know literally any Marvel stuff. I mean, like, none. It has more to do with Disney than it does to do with Marvel. Like, there's, like, more stuff about Josh Gad and Olaf than there is about, like, Marvel superheroes. Cool. That's a lot of fun stuff. We already talked about what we're doing next week.

Oh, I want to thank the patrons over at patreon.com slash the besties. We have Chase B. We have Azure D. We have Corrin, and we have Rise. with two eyes. Thank you for being members of the Patreon. I want to call attention

specifically because we have a new Bracket Battles episode that is live right this second. You can listen to it. It's about bespoke controllers and in fact we're going to drop a clip in right here. It had no buttons.

Yeah. And was one of the worst games I've ever experienced to an extent where my review on joystick or Polygon was just me asking other reviewers, did this work for you

and then reporting what they said? because I couldn't engage with it at all. Like it was truly, truly a nightmare. Yeah. One other thing I should add about the Tony Hawk ride, that press event, which has nothing to do with the bracket, but they were so desperate because so few people showed up. They had a giant stack of real skateboard ducks signed by Tony Hawk, and there weren't enough people there to take them. So they just gave me, like, a stack of skateboard decks.

Now I Being ethical journalist I can't keep these I will just go donate them Let me tell you Going to the Salvation Army And trying to explain to them No you don't understand

These are real Tony Hawk signed decks And they're like no no no no We don't want these It was a sad moment I had to play that game I'm looking at you folks Can't see the video feed

But Plant is sitting on a chair Made of Tony Hawk Made of Tony Hawk Yeah we try not to talk about that I played it during E3 in like one of those hotel room kind of like press previews. I think they probably were doing them in a hotel room

so that you could play Tony Hawk ride and nobody would look at you while you did it because it looked pretty silly. Wise. Which has less versatility for other games. I don't I don't know. You could play any game with Stampton. Basically. I bet you

if you really jammed around there while you were playing you know braid or whatever, you would fit that one of them would make the guy go. One would make them jump for sure. Yeah. If I could do a plug, I've got a book coming out this next week on Tuesday, on March 10th. It's called The Stowaway.

And it's a choose your own adventure book from the Choose Your Own Adventure Company. It's great for middle grade readers, but for anyone who likes a rollicking outer space survival adventures, 10 bucks. And you can pre-order it at bit.ly slash Griffin's Stowaway. Are you also going to release a walkthrough? That will be in the audiobook version. Are you going to do a let's read? I've got to do, yeah, I've hired some of my favorite streamers to do let's reads. I've hired some of my favorite readers.

That is going to do it for us for this week, right? Yeah, that's it. That's it. We did it. Polkopeia next week. Yeah, be there. Be there, be square. That's going to do it first on the besties.

Be sure to join us again next week for the besties, because shouldn't the world's best friends get the world's best game? STs