The Besties - Stardew Valley vs. Fields of Mistria? Everybody Wins

Episode Date: August 21, 2026

Fields of Mistria has finally hit 1.0 after a couple of years in Early Access on Steam. Does the “official” release rise to the level of Stardew Valley? Or is this anime-inspired small town simulator doing something different? And is 1.0 just a new beginning? We discuss all of that and the hot new handheld! 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!

I want to be clear this is not a sex thing. Oh, okay. I always assume it's not a sex thing with you. But I want to be very, very clear that it's not. I mean, I'm glad. Don't get me wrong. Glad to hear it. Yeah. Stoked.

I do want to marry Dojee the dog in Fields of Mistria, and I'm worried that it might not be supported, but it's not a sex thing. It's more a life partnership thing. Yeah. And I just want to be really clear on that. No, I'm so glad you clarify that it's not a sex thing on that one. You do want to marry, you said you want to marry the dog in Fields of Mystery. Yeah. Why not the chicken?

Just, I don't know. Not my type. Is it because you want like cheaper visits to the bathhouse? No, it's not, it's not all transactional with me, Chris Plant. I want a life partner. And I think Dozy the dog is the perfect life partner. Well, it's all make believe, huh? Is it?

So like we can get, we can, me and Chris. can turn up our noses and we can make yuck faces and say why not one of the more traditional and in fact intended programmed in life partners that you can get in Fields and Ministry. But it's all make pretend, huh? Yeah. There's no difference if you marry a chicken or if you marry a human woman. It's or a dragon man. Oh, dragon.

It's all, it's all pixels. They're halfway there with the dragon point out. It's all pixels and sprites and animations and stuff. stuff? None of it's real. So marry a dog. And can we just picture for a second what Dozy would look like at a cute little veil? Cute. Right? Yeah. That actually

took it too far for me, but I'm cool. Yeah, I have a lot more questions now. I don't have any more answers. Like a runaway bride scenario. Can I just make one recommendation? Because I think this will save you a lot

of headaches. I think it's closer to what you actually want. Can you please open our chat right now and just look at what I found for you. Because I think what you're actually looking for is this. Oh, a dozy plush. This is a cute plush of dozy, yeah. I think what you're looking for, and I can see how you got confused because you're still learning about marriage, sex things, verbs.

You wanted, yes, you wanted a thing to cuddle during bedtime. Yeah. You don't have to marry to do that. You don't have to marry to cuddle a thing during bedtime, especially a toy. Unless that's part of your beliefs, Russ. Unless that's what you want to do. But if you've never really gotten too deep into what you believe. But if you're part of your beliefs.

Your yums or your deeply ingrained religious beliefs, I'm not here to do any, to point anything. Have we had a single episode ever yucked your yums? Fine. Never. Fuck the chicken. Are you happy? Okay. Yeah.

Now I'm pretty into it. I'm extremely deeply not. I'm not. I'm not. Eject. My name is Griffin McRoy. I know the best game of the week. My name is Christopher Thomas Plan, and I know the cuddliest plush toy of the week. My name is Ross Frustick.

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 game of the year club just by listening. You've become a member. This week, we are discussing the new farm sims slash. cozy life sim slash fantasy Stardue Valley game that is known as Fields of Mysteria. We've definitely talked about it before because it was in early access, but now we got that 1.0.

That 1.0 is out. It's been out for a couple weeks and we've spent a bunch of time with it. And so we're going to spend today talking about it. We'll talk about other stuff too. But Chris was Fields of Mystery. I mean, you pretty much nailed it. Imagine the Stardew Valley Harvest Moon formula throw in a little bit of like, 80s, 90s, anime, I would say specifically Shojo,

and you're there, baby. You're there. I'm always saying there's so much shojo and mistria. Always saying that.

You're always making that exact observation in that exact way. And I can't wait to hear more exactly like it, Russ,

shortly after this break. Can I, I want to frame this first up by saying, I really have been enjoying

fields of mistria. The, existence of the 1.0 kind of progress checkpoint for like where a game is in its development cycle has become more and more sort of functionally useless, the more companies kind of like pursue this exact model. Because, and maybe this is my own thing. And I think we all kind of are somewhat aligned where if we play a game and it's in early access, we don't want to spoil ourselves on it. And so we'll play it for a little bit and bail.

I want to say up front that like I've spent a ton of time of Fields of Mystery. I'm about in winter year one at this point. Okay. That's probably like 30 hours, something like that. Yeah, and I don't, from what I understand, the 1.0 stuff is mostly fairly kind of like

late game stuff. So if you've already played the early access of Fields of Mystery, I don't know, I've been struggling to think of what I can say other than like, it's great. I mean, I don't think we've really I don't think we've really tackled this game since it launched. Let's go back to the very beginning of the earliest early access, because that's when I played this game.

You were a big proponent. You were the one who got me interested in playing. Yes. And the hook of the game at that point was Star Do Valley with a lot of quality of life improvements and less stress. A challenge that I have with the Star Do Valley formula is that I feel like I am constantly trying to cram. as much work into a day. And for a game that is, in theory, about slowing down, never really felt that way to me.

I understand it feels very different for plenty of other people. You would get into Fields of Mystery, the earliest, earliest version, and you didn't actually need to farm that much. Farming comes later in the game, and when you do it, it is like a much smaller task. You can be managing a very small area of your land. What they really wanted you to do

was go out and start chatting with people and building relationships. And the romance part of it is a pretty big chunk. And that's where the early access struggled because you build these hearts, you know, acquire hearts however you want to describe it for your relationships. And they were expanding that across early access. So like, I think it was something like, I don't know, six hearts during the first time of like kind of key character beats. and then they added more. And I remember there were a few points where they expanded relationships,

and they expanded who you could have relationships with. I remember the dragon was not part of it, or at least I believe it wasn't early on. So this game, if you start to think about that, it is, you're both like, you're right, they've added a lot of stuff that's end game because they've been building out these relationships, even having and adding tons and tons of writing. But if you started at the very, very beginning, like, I did, there is probably, I don't know, it felt like 15 to 20 hours before you hit a pretty clear like, I can keep playing.

Now there's nothing left. But it would be pretty silly. Yeah. And that's what is even more confusing about in early access for a game like this is I don't know how you were supposed to play it during early access because it was like a snake that was just growing. It was extending. So were people restarting?

I don't know. I think there's a lot of people that really, really love. I really love the early access, but also stop because I knew that I wanted to pay more when it got finished. And I think there were probably people that continued playing, understanding that yes, I can't whatever increase the relationship with this person that I'm trying to build a relationship with. But spent that time like, I'm going to max out all my armor. I'm going to find all the stuff. I'm going to do my storage. I'm going to unlock the thing, you know, have like all the materials that I would potentially need so that eventually when early access did come out, you know, I would have all their favorite foods or whatever the fuck.

So like that's, I think people were able to find ways to keep themselves occupied, but it didn't necessarily like have in game dividends until those updates actually dropped. Yes. Yes. So I said for me the story stuff is is the selling point. I'm curious for y'all. Like, what about this game really clicked for you? I think the things that click for me are, you know, you mentioned it early on. And it really is Star Do Valley with a lot of the quality of life things that have been considered over the years, but not necessarily implemented in the final game.

Things like just simple stuff, like being able to easily jump over fences or swim in water or. or, you know, there's some item storage stuff that makes it very easy to do that stuff. So there's so much of that, I think, makes it a more, I would say, welcoming experience than Starty Valley does. But I would also add, I think it does a better job of making each of the occupations

feel a bit more fleshed out, where if you're cooking, like, that's an actual thing that you can, like, use to really make a lot of money and earn new skills while cooking and make dishes that, like, you no longer have to remember which characters love which items. Like, you can make dishes that everyone likes and things like that. Yeah, there's a lot of really, truly, truly hundreds of little kind of rough edges,

little burrs on the edge of an experience like Stardue Valley that I think they've done some pretty clever stuff that would probably go largely unnoticed by someone who hasn't spent a lot of time playing both games. But I think if you were to go back and play Stardy Valley, you would miss that stuff a lot. And I'm not necessarily saying that like it every game certainly even Starty Valley needs to be like an ultra smooth experience. I think burrs and issues like that can enhance an experience and maybe as you unlock the ability to like have a sprinkler for your crops and things like that. The fact that like watering them previously was a little bit of a pain in the ass is part of the power curve. Right. But I think here again, if you're looking for a relaxing experience and I agree with plant like this feels much for a relaxing.

than Starry Valley did. I feel like it is a game built in... How do I put this? Starved Valley came out a long time ago, right? And a lot has changed about how we interact with video games and what we expect from them. And there are quality of life improvements that are much more interesting than just,

oh, it's easier to water your plants. Like, we now know that people are just going to Google what should I give and not give to these characters in the video? game in Starlink Valley. As like preferred gifts, you mean. That's not a good experience. Like, that is not the ideal video game experience. And this game has a character that will basically answer in-game for you how you should take care of that while staying in the game, staying in the fiction without having to pull out your phone, without having to check your text messages

because you pulled out your phone. Those are the details that I think are the most interesting. Or it feels like a modern game in it, it understands how much. modern people actually play these video games. And maybe the shortcuts that they turn to that aren't actually making their experience better. No. And I also like struggle with, I've played Starkey Valley. I am hesitant to look up my exact playtime, partially because I played it on my phone

and Switch and Steam at certain like different points throughout its kind of like development. I play that game a shit ton and I never really give much of a shit about the social aspect of the game. I'm really into, I'm one of the sickos who loves to build up a farm and build like an automation engine that can be, you know, that can get me in the black as quick as possible so I can like go. These cows will never know the touch of a human hand. These cows, no. And I don't go the Joja route, but I mean, in all but sort of, you know, you create a competitor. Yeah, basically.

This game does some stuff that I think really is an interesting kind of way to. hook people like me. There are daily quests that show up, which again was a thing in Stardu, but I don't know, the quests feel a lot more achievable. They don't expire. So you can just like get a big list of like, here's a bunch of random shit that everyone in town needs and you can have a day where you just load up your inventory with that stuff, go around. The quests also in Stardu didn't have like meta progressions. I think it was just money that you would get mostly from those quests. No, no, no, no. There were definitely quests, especially one of the later updates added these like big quests that were really really.

really hard to do, but you would unlock like special machines for your farm that you couldn't get otherwise. So, I mean, there's also stuff like every Friday night, everyone hangs out at the inn. Every Friday night, everyone hangs out at the end. And it's not like the, you know, a tavern and startu where you can go and just like everyone's there. Every time you go to the end, there's like different scenes. Like there's the game of D&D that's happening and there's like the kids planning a heist and that stuff develops week by week. But it also means like you go and you build up relationships and you give a shit about these characters because you're like getting invested in these kind of like weekly story arcs so it becomes a thing that like is sort of appointment

you know television like that get to the end on Friday that is the thing where it doesn't feel Truman show ask like so many of these games do where every Friday night the characters are at the inn why are they at the end because we need to get you some story information so you should go there and talk to 12 different characters who don't seem to be talking like with each other, they're just here because we need a centralized space. Same thing with like a market, right? In this game, it feels like, with one very big exception, these characters are living a life without you and that they are a living life with each other, that the kid who

is running the heist is the sibling of a character that you can romance, who is also a really interesting character, who is also dealing with her own drama in the world. all of it is so interconnected. I will say the one problem that becomes more obvious in this game than it is in other games is that once you do partner up with someone, everyone just still stays single. Like, the world doesn't adapt to that. And like, I do, I know I'm asking for a lot of work, and maybe this is a thing that will come down the line.

But it is a little weird of how rich the relationships are between all the other characters that they're like, oh man, we can't get Chris, I guess we'll all just stay celibate for the rest of our lives. Stardu does that too, right? Yeah, Stardu basically does. Even though everyone in Stardu has like a sort of narrative pairing that is like their suitor on the other side, I don't know that those go anywhere.

I don't think that they ever really work out. And you can get a divorce and pick someone else. So I think maybe they're leaving the door open in the future for Mistria to do that as well. I'm really enjoying the game. I'm going to play it when we're done recording here, and I'm reaching the bottom of the, like, there's minds in the game, of course,

so there's, like, that very familiar kind of hack and slash style thing as you go in and you look for ore and you bring it home and you upgrade your weapons and tools and what have you. They put the power to do that in your hands. You don't have to go see a guy and pay him a bunch of money and wait two days to, like, upgrade your shit. You can have a day where you just craft 50 pickaxes if you want. too. So like, I agree. The quality of life stuff is, is really, really great. I think compared to some

other games that have been in early access and have fully launched in 1.0, it was a little bit disappointing that the additions seem to be longer tail stuff rather than broadening kind of what is available to you and like adding stuff that you're going to see that's going to be new like from the jump. There's probably some stuff that is small enough that I, haven't really noticed it yet. But for the most part, I feel like I'm kind of playing the same game. Only until now when I'm getting to like the end of the minds thing and, you know, uh, further down the town repair storyline, which is like new stuff in 1.0. My biggest kind of issue is that I don't know that it does, and maybe it doesn't need to, but I don't think it does

really a whole lot to differentiate itself from specifically Starduvat. And I think maybe I'm feeling that way because I have focused a lot on like the mines, going into the minds and like making progress there and, you know, upgrading my shit so I can have an easier time with every other aspect of the game that requires tools. And like going into the mines and attacking things with a sword and hitting rocks over and over again until I find the ladder going down. It's like that stuff has been worthwhile from a sense of like I'm getting better. better tools and I'm making progress and, you know, all of this stuff that I care about in in a game like this. But it feels so, it feels really uninspired, truly to just kind of be doing the, the exact same shit. Yeah. I think, yeah, I, this is how desperate I was for different, slightly different is at a certain point, I was like, why isn't it just a tower? Like,

we're in a fantasy world. I understand that like that is so superficial, but the degree to which this does feel at times copy paste. You unlock elevator shortcuts every five level. Like it's fucking, this one part of the game feels carbon copied

off of Starkey Valley. And it's, it's, and it's, there's no reason it has to be like that. There's no reason that it has to feel this way. It is the weakest part of,

of Star do is like, it's not fun really to go into the minds and dig until you find the staircase down and you hit the same five enemies a bunch of times with your sort, Like, that stuff is not very exciting. It's not very good. And of all the places to, like, innovate and introduce something new, there's magic in the game, right?

There's magic that there's not a ton of spells, but they're interesting in that they sort of run the gamut of utility. So, like, there's one that can water your crops. So you don't have to go around and spend a bunch of energy, a bunch of stamina going around doing that. But that stuff isn't really anything you apply in, like, in common. combat. It's not like, it's adding more variety or like ranged combat options. Yeah, the combat is, I agree. I think it's slightly more palatable than what's in Stardu, but really, it's very, very close to the point. I mean, Stardu gives you like a slingshot for Christ's sake. At least Stardu gives you like another sort of option for for attacking. They also give you like different types of

weapons. And again, a lot of that stuff came later on in Stardu's development. And I, I, I don't know how fair it is to compare where this game is at at launch to a game that has been around for 70 years and has gotten a bunch of major updates. But it's, I don't know, it's, it is a part of the game that I, it feels like such a huge missed opportunity to like just add something, something to make it more interesting. What I've found is that when I decide like, yeah, I do feel like obligated to do the minds because that's how you get upgraded gear and pickaxes, tools, et cetera, when I realize that, okay, I'm more or less at a point where I can take a break from the mines for a little bit and I do other things and I mix it up and I spend a day fishing

or I spend a day like looking for archaeology stuff or just talking to people and finishing quests in town. Like that stuff feels like a breath of fresh air. So I agree with you. I think the mine stuff is the weakest part. But the fact that everything else I think is working pretty well, including like the livestock stuff, which I think feels more fleshed out than it did in Stardu. I think there is more holistic thought about the overall package, even though I agree with you.

That was one area that like take a little bit of time to freshen this up a little bit. I guess the way I would split the difference from me is I agree with all of that. I just wish, again, even if it's superficial, these games of you have the mines, you have the raise your cattle on your chickens, you have to take things to the museum. you have the general store shop, you have the town hall, even slightly different. Like, rather than a museum, can there just be an obsessive collector? Can it be the prince's dungeon? Can it be? And this is a problem that extends beyond fields of mystery.

Like, don't, like, Animal Crossing has the museum, right? Like, it's just, it's very strange to me that they're, I get that this is a genre and it has its formula. I just am surprised how often these games are like, Well, the formula is museum and mines, so it's got to be museum and minds. I'll say this in defense of the game's museum. What this game does differently, that makes it a different playing experience as compared to a Stardue. And I think it's significant, is that the museum, it has collections of things that you are turning in, right? And it fills the same purpose as the community bundles in Stardue Valley.

There are some differences, though, one being that you are unlocking. things in a sort of set order as you complete sets. It is not like Stardu where it's like, well, if you want to fix the bridge into the city, then you need to do this, this, this, and this. You have to collect these specific things. And you better fucking hurry because if you don't get this stuff by the end of spring, then you're going to go the rest of the year without that bridge and that's going to suck shit. That is very stressful and it's something that is kind of constantly.

It is the reason I feel like I play Stardue Valley in the way that I do, which is like no time for love Dr. Jones. Like, I've got to get this spring bundle finished or else I'm going to have this big gameplay mechanic that I'm not going to unlock, you know, for a really long time. This game doesn't do that because you're just kind of unlocking rewards

as you go. So it's like if you complete one more set, you get this reward. If you complete, and then... And those rewards are like cosmetics generally. There is some meta progression with the town. They're not gating huge stuff. They're not gating a lot.

lot for you there. That stuff is gated usually by like quests that unlock as you upgrade your town rank or you do think. It's a lot more holistic and it is the biggest thing this game does that makes it a less stressful experience to play because you don't feel these, you know, I knew I hadn't caught all the summer fish by the end of summer and I was like, that's fine. Like it's okay. It's not like there's some big thing that's going to be gate kept from me. Flipside, it is the stuff you unlock doing that is a little bit. disappointing because you're not, I don't know, for your collecting, you're not being rewarded with, like, really great stuff. I like hats and stuff.

Yeah, the hats are fine, I guess. The museum is kind of busted, uh, because I don't know if you guys have actually gone into any of the, like, rooms. Uh, but you go into the rooms and it's just kind of like rows of tables with the shit kind of like set audit. And you can't even like read what they are. No, like, yeah, it's very, it feels kind of bare bones. You mentioned the, like, rush that you feel, like, literal rush that you feel when you're playing Stardu because you're trying to, like, keep you a schedule. I do want to mention this game also has some accessibility features, one of which is you can make the days longer. There's a warning that says, like, it messes up some pathing or whatever it was.

I did watch a video. Someone was saying that, like, they've played for 400 fucking hours and they'd never noticed any issues with that stuff. I'd make that shit to the slowest setting. So, yeah, you are free to do that. It takes all the stress out of filling everything in a day. at every turn, it feels like the game is trying to throw you a bone to make it easier to just do whatever you want to do within the game. And again, I think there is value in that. I also think it's really pretty.

It looks fantastic. Yeah, I've got the Steam page just like open here in front of me and it keeps going through screenshots. And I'm like, oh, man, this is so, it's very, very pastel. Yeah. Very, like, I don't know, very, very anime. There's a grimness to winter. Starter Valley that like I get, but it doesn't, you don't see that here. Like even in winter, it feels like a, it's like a charming wonderland. Very, very quick tip advice. If you are coming

back to the game from early access, here is what you should do. Take a breath, chill out. Don't worry. If you forgot everything, it's all okay. Use a day or two in the game to talk to everybody that you can find. That'll help you get back on track. Go to the job. board that is on the east side of town, that'll help you get back on track and go hit the minds just to like reaclimate to the controls. And after like two or three days in the game, especially if you were talking to everybody, you will remember what the game wants you to do and you will remember who all of these characters are. It is very tropey. I say it's a huge compliment. Like you will remember what type of person each of these characters are and all

I'm rushing back to you. And that's true. If you aren't doing early access, this is a game that, like, I really think is best when you're not putting pressure on yourself. I don't think it wants you to have that experience that so many of these, like, maximizing the efficiency of your farm or your business,

that's not it. There is so much original dialogue in this game. So, so, so, so much. About shit that is happening off screen. Like people commenting like, hey, do you see that new shit at the museum? That's crazy. So you really want to be talking with people. That is where I think the heart and the soul of the game is.

Yeah. Okay. So a final question for each of you. This game is about to get, probably, I don't think they've announced a release date, but invariably it's going to come to consoles as well. It hasn't come to consoles yet because it's been an early access. That's wild. Now it's 1.0.

It's going to happen. What life sim farming game do you recommend to people between, Stardu, Animal Crossing, and this. Oh, I think Animal Crossing is different, like, wildly different. I would not put Animal Crossing in the same category as this. Animal Crossing's, like, economy or whatever is, like, extremely, extremely sort of limited. For me, Animal Crossing is a much more multiplayer-focused sort of thing than this.

Sure, that's, well, literally, because there's no multi-part in this. It's also just a decoration game. Like, I feel like it's, for someone who I think wants to, like, set their aesthetic. They're different for each person, you know? I think between this and Stardu, I absolutely recommend this to most people first. And that's no knock on Stardu. It's just a much older game, and this game had the opportunity to do a lot of the things that that game does better and easier. And it wouldn't have had had a shot without Stardu providing that foundation of like, and before Stardue,

obviously Harvest Moon, providing that foundation. So it's all iterative in that way. I agree. I would give the opposite advice. I would say play Stardu. Partially because, like, I think it is a way bigger game that is towards the end of its kind of, like, life cycle of development. Although I've said that before and proved wrong time and time again. And it's, there's just like so much, there's so much shit to do, especially if you play the game on PC, you can really remedy.

very easily, like, the issues that you have with it with the extremely robust and user-friendly suite of, like, modding tools that are available for Star Dew Valley. I might, why I would encourage someone who has not played either game to hold off on this one is that it just feels like they're going to add more shit to it. Like, it feels like there are cavities in this experience that are, have to be filled out in some way. case and point like there's not that many holidays in the like the calendar is fairly sparse and it feels like that is a thing that is just going to kind of come come sort of later later on maybe i don't know what the roadmap for this i think they added a couple that you hadn't seen that were like there was a summer event that you didn't see because you were past it in early access and it just feels like they are going to this game is going to be expanded and if it is if it follows the same trajectories star do there there are probably times I wish I hadn't played Stardew because if I had just waited a little bit longer for

like the insane 1.5 update that added like the entire island to go explore and like I don't know, you'll want to come back and play that stuff. I think it makes some sense to play the game that's more or less complete. And even though this game's out in 1.0, it's still, it just kind of feels primed to be to be fleshed out to be expanded. I also know that the developer put a lot of effort sort of towards the end of early access development into transitioning it to a different engine. Oh, yeah. And I think that, if they did that,

which sounds like an insane amount of work, it has to be to future-proof this thing for expansion. So, yeah. I think this game's great, and I do think it is probably the easier, less stressful version of it, but strictly, if you've never played either one, I would still suggest to.

Okay. I take it. Let's take a quick break and then we're going to do a quick stop off in the Android retro gaming handheld market for a quick update from the borderlands just after this short, short quick break. Oh, boy. I mean, I would say we do this less now, less often now that Juice has left the show. He was our sort of primetime Android retro gaming hand.

held guy, although he has curtailed his interest in that world since the, since the surgeries on his wrists. But man, I feel like we got to talk about the Retroid Pocket Nova, because I'm enamored with this little guy. Yeah? Yeah. Crazy about it. For people that aren't aware, Retroids is a company that makes these handhelds.

They're pretty well esteemed. We've talked about some of their stuff in the past. They make good, what I would call, like, top of entry tier sort of stuff. Like the Retroid Pocket 6 is like the kind of recommended. It's got a great set of specs and it can run basically anything. And it's like, what, 250, something like that? Yeah, yeah, something like that. Which is, you know, a lot.

Not nothing, but it's a lot cheaper than like a, you know, the AYN Thor or. Or even the Steam DAC obviously. You're looking at a thousand bucks. Yeah. So, yeah. So the Retroid Pocket 6 came out, I believe, earlier this year or last year, late last year, I believe. And that was a widescreen device. and the new RetroiPocket Nova is a 4x3 device.

And what that means is, obviously, the aspect ratio of the screen is 4x3, which aligns perfectly with games, essentially console games from the 90s and early 2000s. So we're talking about NES, S&S, but we're also talking about GameCube, we're also talking about PS1, PS2, that era, Dreamcast, certainly. All these games ran at 4x3. So if you're looking for a device that is natively playing games at the aspect ratio that they were designed for, the Retro Pocket Nova is one of those devices. There are several. But there's, there are a few good 4x3.

I've been using until this point the Ioneo Pocket Ace, I think. Griffin is checking to see what is actually called. Yeah, the I nemo, I didn't see Ioneo Pocket Ace. Yeah. Which I don't actually think this screen is 4-3, but it's like similar enough. It's not 16 by 9 widescreen. It makes all the difference in the world because when you play, you know, an older game on a Retroid Pocket 6 with the 16 by 9 screen, some games have like widescreen hacks. Yeah.

Most of the big PS2 emulators now, there's a handful of them. They all have like for the bigger games like widescreen hacks you can download so you can play these games. And upscaled and in a different aspect ratio than usual. But most of the time you're getting black bars on the size. of the screen depending on what console that you're playing

and it doesn't look great yeah it doesn't look great how much that bothers you is obviously TBD it depends on the person but it doesn't look great and I would also say the downside for me

and part of the reason I decided like this is a reason to get back into this space is because I find that when I'm traveling especially and I don't want to

lug around a steam deck or a steam deck equivalent even another widescreen hand Handheld still feels like a pretty beefy boy to be carrying around at that point. Sure. And when you're talking about a 4x3 device, obviously, it is not as wide. So it's something that you could feasibly put in a bag or a fanny pack or something like that

and not have it be this lugging thing that you have. The Nova pushes the boundaries of pocketability. I would say it is just pocketability. I wouldn't describe it. I mean, yes, you could fit it in a pocket. I wouldn't necessarily put it in a pocket as much as I would like easily. slot it in the side of my bag and not feel like I was carrying anything. I've gone places with it in my pocket, like not remembering to take it out of my pocket before I left.

And it's very, like someone could clock it on you. Sure. They could point your pants and be like, you got a pocket Nova in there? Yeah. Were you wearing jeans? I mean, you wouldn't say, are you happy to see me? Because my, I don't have like a weird rectangular wiener that goes specifically like, you know, 45 degrees to the right. Someday Griffin, you can dream.

You're AYN Weiner. Yeah. The screen's amazing. It's an Amo-led screen, and the, I'm not, like, smart about tech specs and shit like that, but man alive, it runs games from a certain era in a way that just looks phenomenal. So you can run PS2 GameCube and anything before that in, like, 4X resolution native, like, it smokes those. games without even really breaking a sweat. There are a couple one-off exceptions to that, but for the most part, like, it just crushes those games, whereas I think when you're talking about, like, the Retro Pocket 5 and the Flip 2

and things like that, like they could definitely run that generation, but not without some problems here and there. A lot of it is also back-end, like, development on these emulators. Yeah. Has come a long way, even in the last year. getting certain PlayStation 2 games to work on like an Ather SX2 or now what's the new one is I think Arm SX2 is the new PS2 is the new PS2. I don't know. Now you're getting into it. The compatibility is like so much better and these games run like a dream.

I've spent the most time playing, you know, I had my big Dragon Quest retrospective where I went back and played all the games in the series, but I never really played eight very much because the PlayStation 2 version I couldn't get to run on any of these. in the 3DS version, I found to be quite boring and not fast forwardable in any of the things that I had. But now it runs on this thing and it looks phenomenal and you can overclock that shit. So your little Dragon Quest guys run around 15 times speed like they are just zooming through these slime fights. It's anything I've thrown at this thing. It has been ready for.

It has been down down for. Here's the caveat. And part of the reason that I got this. why I got back into it was we've talked a little bit about this but the prospect of Steam OS natively running on this thing which theoretically it should be able to do when that actually happens

is very enticing to me because I fucking hate Android so so much I hate interacting with it every time I need to use the touchscreen for anything I get sad and so the prospect of it eventually just being a Linux device, which it can install Linux,

even past generations of Retroid can have Linux installed, is very enticing to me. I could theoretically install Rocknix, which is a Linux, blah, blah, blah, blah, and do that whole thing. But what I want is the official Steam OS running on this thing, and then suddenly, poof, I have a baby Steam deck

that, granted, won't be able to run most 3D new games. Well, yeah, especially because not every game is set up to support 4x3 aspect. Okay, so I was going to mention that. You're right. There are a lot of games. There's actually like steamboards that actually keep track of the games that support

4x3 native. Yeah, there's curators who specifically focus on 4x3 games. Which is great. That's awesome. Yeah, I love that. I will say, for me, I am able to play some widescreen games on this without a problem. And that kind of makes sense because if you look at the PSP Go, which was a version of the PSP that came out a while ago, that was also a widescreen device.

And from a screen real estate standpoint, it basically meant. matches in line. So you can, I would say, if you don't have a problem with small text, or there are certain games that don't have any text, I think widescreen games on this are totally viable, so long as you accept the fact that there will be black bars on the top and bottom of the screen. I think it's silly. I think there's way better ways to do that.

Like, I understand what you're saying. I don't want to carry two devices around is the thing. I think that's the differentiator. It's like, what's the best way to not have to carry two devices around? I don't know. I like the idea of, you know, I've got my Rog ally X that I can play my Y-X. Big boy. That's a big boy.

And it can handle the big boy games, right? Like most, I, this thing is so fucking diesel and it surprises me how much shit. Like when I got Beast of Reincarnation to run on it, I was like, wow, really? Okay. Interesting. So like, I, you know, I see a future. I have that for whatever. But then there are a lot of games that work in four by three that are not necessarily pushing

the envelope. you know, hardware requirements wise. Sure. Like, if I want to get dead cells, well, I could get the Android version, I suppose, but like, you know, those sort of lighter weight indie 2D games usually will support 4x3 resolutions if that's the direction you want to go with it. Yeah. I want to be able to use my Steam library that I have already.

Yeah, for sure. I don't know. It's all speculative because we have no fucking idea when Steam is going to release this Steam OS for armed devices. So maybe I made a big fucking mistake. but even if it doesn't happen, it's still probably the best time I've ever had playing that generation

of PS2 GameCube games. Like, it's a blast. Like, there's so, there are so many. This is my, I don't think I'll ever use another, you know, until some, you know, years in the future when some new shit drops, maybe. But like, this is the perfect console for me to play so many different, like, old,

old consoles, like from, from Game Boy Advance, like, I love Game Boy Advance. It's such a great library on a 16 by 9 screen. It looks a little busted just because it's not 16 by 9. So like, it were, it just works so well for almost everything, like almost everything before, you know, the PS3 or whatever. I think Xbox emulation, there have been some strides. I'd noticed that and some like setup guides for this one. I've not fucked with that at all. Not that that's a library that has so mini games that I'm like chomping at the bit to return to. You got to Blinks the cat. You got to go play Blinks the Time Sweeper.

Yeah, for sure. Yeah, I really, really, I dig this thing a lot. Which color did you go with, Russ? I've got the 16-bit S-NES-styled one. I got the clear one, the like crystal clear one with the, the see-through shell. Looks really cool. Yeah. We have a couple other reader mails I want to call out from our lovely readers.

This one comes from Brian. And hi besties, since you all love mystery games, you have to check out the mermaid mask. It's the third in the Detective Grimor series following the excellent Tangle Tower. And it's easily the best one yet. You can beat it in one to two settings and features incredible music and art. And the best voice acting since Baldersgate 3, it's on my go-de-list. So don't let it slide under your radar. I have not played any of these games.

And I feel silly having not done that because I know so many people who are big Tangle Tower. And what was the other one? I don't remember the first one. I have actually played about an hour and a half this game. And what I can say is both of you should play it. It is weirdly not a game for me because it is so puzzledance and I just cannot get into puzzles. But the writing really is as good as they're describing. The voice acting is fantastic.

It's very neat. Fresh. I think I messaged you already about this game of like this should be your Blueprints follow up. It's not the same type of puzzle mysteries, but I think this is a great game to do co-op with someone on the TV and play

together. Yeah, that's certainly seems like it is. So it's very enticing. We've got a long list of things to consider after we finish Blueprints. That's true. If we finish it, who knows. Okay, we have another bit of reader mail. This one comes from Colton. I don't know whether to thank Griffin,

or curse him for idle obelisk minor recommendation. I am completely hopelessly addicted, he says. And a big thank you to a listener who recommended Revolution Idol in the mailbag earlier this year. My wife and I played it to death. It's also excellent and respects the player. To a certain extent. Revolution Idol does a thing where when you finish it, it preaches at you for wasting so much fucking time. So I don't know how much respect you get from that, but it does.

I mean, that's a solid one. Yeah, Idle Obelisk fucking rules, man. We got an email. I also think from someone who's like a mod in their, their Discord on the Dev Discord. And it's what's up? Shout out. What's up?

Hit me up with some gift codes. Okay. So I started two off of Griffin's recommendation. I started playing this game. And I was enjoying myself and continued to enjoy myself. It's quite a good game. But I did go as recommended by the game. I went on their wiki page and spent like a good 15, 20 minutes

entering every gift code on that page and ended up with like 500 gifts and then I activated all those gifts and now suddenly like the world is just flying by yeah no you you I kind of broke it a little bit yeah maybe too quickly don't worry pal it'll slow the fuck down yeah don't you don't you worry about a thing I'm sure I just think it's uh I think it is mathematically the best kind of idle game I've ever blade. Like it just, it has the perfect pace, the perfect, like, interconnected sort of systems where you always feel like you're making progress. Even when it slows way, way down, I don't know, you can reach, I like that there's some, and maybe all of these have these to some extent, but I like feeling like there's some strategy into what upgrade am I going to pick next to get the

best ROI. Oh, dude, it's so important. It's usually, hugely important because you will hit walls in the game and there are, you know, good ways. to try and get over those walls, and there are very wrong ways to try to get over those walls. Yeah, it's great. We want to do honorable mentions? Yeah, let's do it.

Yeah, I've been playing my emulator handheld. The true goat, the AY and Thor. I'm glad that you brought a humble competitor to the arena, but my AYN Thor or Ion Thor or whatever I want to call it has just been a delight. being able to have that clamshell where I can throw it in the bag and not get super stressed about it. Wonderful.

Being able to have Persona 3 reload on that and gradually work through that game the way I remember playing through Persona for Golden on the PSVita. Also wonderful. We have so many games that we're supposed to be playing right now that are embargoed that we can't talk about. But the game season is here. And yet, I still want to play persona before bed every night. Or whenever I am like, I go to get coffee and it's taking a while and I need something to just pick at, it's right there. It's waiting for me. And it is so damn good.

I really, really, really, really love that game. And I love that device and how it has kind of changed my gaming habits. Yeah, it's still great. That is the other one that I kind of cycle back through. Like, I'll never play 3DS and DS games on anything else, like obviously. Yeah. again, because it's just the best way to kind of do that, which I guess I'm further kind of pigeonholing myself into,

well, if I want to play this, I have to reach for this, this gaming handheld. And at that point, it's like, well, maybe I should just own all the original. Maybe I should just own all of them if I'm going to be that granular about it. I think now is the time of the show where we call out Chris Plant. Uh-oh. For committing maybe the worst crime in the history of cooperative gaming. Because we're going to talk about Big Walk. Oh, yeah, Big Walk.

I did great. We all played together. What were you talking about? Oh, yeah. No, we did play together. We'll get into it. Don't worry. Griffin and I played Big Walk along with some other friends, and it was a lovely time,

and I think we'll continue to play. It's been so much fun. Oh, dude. I'd love to. And we had some amazing moments where one person disconnected, and we used their frozen corpse to mark off a bad node in a puzzle, and it was just fucking delightful. lacking rules. This all checks out so far.

Okay, all great. So as we were playing, the last time we had played, I'd play with Chris Plant, we found a set of coordinates and we're like, oh, that's interesting. Chris Plan can't believe. You are such a whittle baby. The widowedlest baby inside. No, no, no, no, take the floor. You got to let it finish his story. For the widdleest baby. Okay. So we were all like Chris Plant. Write those coordinates down. So he wrote the coordinates down on the previous.

time that we had played. So when we came back, I said, Chris Plant, oh, we should check out those coordinates. Let's go to those coordinates. Chris Plant, you still have the paper, right? And he's like, uh, yeah, no, yeah, yeah, I have it here. Okay, yeah, yeah, I have it here. I have it here. And so we proceed to go on an adventure following Chris Plant's coordinates that he wrote down in his notebook from the previous session. And where it leads us to is a giant wall that we cannot actually crossover. Huh, that's weird. It eventually comes to light that Chris Plant didn't write, or at least didn't save the note that he had from the previous session. And when he realized his shame in not being a good note taker, he Googled the coordinates and wait for it, Googleed the wrong coordinates.

Okay, okay, okay, okay. We spent like 25 minutes looking for that shit, man. Let me explain. Let me explain. I was like, oh, the coordinates puzzle. Surely I can just Google coordinates puzzle. And then I saw a headline that was like coordinates. And I was like, I know Russ Frustick.

If I click this article and see any clues, he will be so mad. So I won't click the article. I'll just, those must be the coordinates. When I realized days later is guides are probably using coordinates to describe the position of every puzzle in the game. So I think I just picked a random. set of coordinates from like a list of, I don't know, like 50 of them. So I don't know why we went where we went. We're talking about a fellowship of the ring style hiking,

sky rim mountain climbing, like trying to get up this sheer rock face, looking for some way up that we never did find. And fittingly, we have our own Gallum right here who is working against us at every turn. Taking us into fucking she-lobs layer. It is a game about adventure. in surprises, and I think I brought that to the experience. In a way. Please don't kick me out of the group.

This is going to continue to be a problem. The specific puzzles in this game are so fun, and the moments that those puzzles kind of, like, create are so incredible, and I would be really hesitant to talk about any of them in any amount of detail, because it is the surprise of, like, that one puzzle we found in the barn. That's all I'll say.

Right? The surprise of that and trying to like then unfuck that situation. Like it's so good. It's such a brilliant like pearl, just a condensed like moment about, uh, coming up with new forms of communication, uh, that I don't think hits as hard if you are expecting it. If you like think, if you know that something is coming up. Uh, but man, alive. It's really, really, really unique. It's a really unique game that is pulling off stuff that I've, never seen a game really new before. And you did get the sense that like do you think it started really clicking more so when you played with I guess three or four people? Yeah, I've played with y'all and I played with another group of friends and it's truly like you need a you need a bigish group. I don't think it's it's fun in two player but I think four plus is kind of even three I think is passable but yeah four starts getting pretty zany. I would be curious to know how it plays if anyone at home wants to write in how it plays if you've got like 12 fucking people and they're all like scattered around the map that seems like chaos to me but could be fun yeah yeah that's a good

fucking game uh the last thing that i will mention is i've been playing a game called blueprints this is house uh the uh yeah i'm i'm have you made significant progress since last week have you yes okay yes i got to something that would be i think for most people considered an end end Okay. That I'm not going to allude to. We'll talk after this show. But yeah, I got to that. And then I'm chasing this other thing that is like, I think, for the real true,

dedicated sickos of the world, like the Jason and Griffins of the world. And that is the thing I'm chasing. And we have a very, very strong lead on that thing. So I'm very excited. And it feels like, who fucking knows, it feels like 20 hours from now, maybe we'll be able to stop playing this game. Yeah. But it's fun.

I've been playing a little bit of a game called Offbeat that is out in early access, and it is a music-making game. You run a music studio that is basically just like your home office with a desk, and you get calls on a phone where people give you jobs to make songs, like make my new ringtone or make a jingle for this thing. And for filling out those jobs, you get people. money and you can use that money to buy new instruments, but the instruments are like basically toys that you are connecting into a music sequencer, like a very, very, very primitive

sort of doll. So like the first thing you get is a keyboard that's a cat and it has a few different sounds on it. And then like the first percussion thing you get is a symbol monkey. And you can connect that to like be the be the percussion track and you can fuck with it in certain ways. But it's a game that, I mean, you truly are making actual music using this, this kind of, like, sequencer tool and, you know, trying to follow the instructions that get more and more sort of arcane as, as the game goes on. Does the game know if you're, like, making, I guess, good stuff?

So, yeah, well, not good stuff, right? But it'll say, like, someone will call and be like, we want a jingle for our commercial for our, you know, use car dealership. And we want it to be, you know, plucky, and we want there to be lots of claps. And so you know that, like, notes need to be kind of short. It will identify, like, okay, there's plucky sound. And then the claps is, like, you have to go into the monkey

and change certain settings so that it, like, outputs the clap noise, and you put those in there. And then as you, like, play the song, it shows you the tags that appear that are kind of, like, that your song sort of achieves. and then you can turn them in and get money. It's very neat. And then it also saves a copy of the songs you make to your computer.

That's great. Play around with those later. I really, really have been digging it and also think I'm going to stop playing it until it's out of early access. Because I think that it's a game I would have a lot of fun getting deeply into. But I just want to wait.

Wait until it's more there, you know? Taylor's old as time. True. Cool. We're doing a live show. October 9th, if you haven't heard about it, seems unlikely since we've talked about it a lot, but we are. It's happening in New York City. You can go to besties.com. We have a giant post at the top of besties. We can click through and buy tickets if you want to join. That is the week of New York Comic-Con.

So you could do a two-fer if you wanted to do that. It'll be really fucking fun. We are planning some very fun stuff with our very own executive producer, Justin McElroy. And it's going to be a blast. So please join us if you haven't yet. I think orchestra seats are all starting to sell out. We're pretty close to selling out. So if you wanted to get some of those going, but please join us because, yeah, again, it's going to be really super-dipy fun. Cool. Over at Patreon real quick, we have patreon.com slash the besties. We have not forgotten about you, friends. You make the show happen, including some of the new members that want to call out.

We have Robert M. We have Morgan H. We have Lucas. And we have Sarah S. Thank you for being members of the Patreon. Thank you to everyone else. We have a new Resties episode up most recently And then we have another one coming at you

This coming Tuesday So, yeah, it's awesome Do you want to go through the games That we talked about real quick? I most certainly do We talked about Fields of Mystery And we talked about Sturidu Valley A very bit there too

We also talked about Big Walk, offbeat And would you believe it? Blueprints And I mentioned my precious I AY in Thor That's how it's pronounced and Persona 3 reload. And the Retroid Pocket Nova.

Did you say that? Oh, yeah, the Retroid Pocket Nova. Thank you. I feel like you're putting a thumb on the scale of not. A little bit. A little bit. Next week, brace your freaking asses. We're doing Blood Dungeon.

Hell, yeah. The new game from the new auto shooter roguelike from the studio that brought you Nidhog. And it's going to be a fun one. It's going to be a fun one. Going to be bloody. Play that. My favorite experience at Summer Game Fest was that game, was that demo, which I don't know if you got a game itself. You can find out if it holds up.

It does. Will we talk more about it next week? So join us again next week for the Besties because shouldn't the World's Best Friends play the World's Best Games? The Besties is executive produced by Justin McElroy. You're welcome. Besties! Thank you.