The Besties - What Genre Is Kirby Air Riders?!

Episode Date: November 28, 2025

Most people will tell you Kirby Air Riders is a racing game. But on today’s Besties, one brave soul dares to speak the truth. Plus, Sektori is the best Geometry Wars game since the original. We explain why you should make time for this modern-retro masterpiece in the busiest season of the year. 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!

Real quick, before we dive into the show itself, I want to do a big call-out. This isn't the cold open. I know. No, I know. I want them to know. This isn't the cold open. It's not going to be funny. There's going to be funny stuff later, but this is just an announcement.

Oh, you think it's going to be at the beginning of the show? This is a cold, cold open. Frusick, this isn't a cold open. So stop trying to make it. What is happening right now is, it is a- It sounds pretty cold. Okay, shut up, all you. We have a huge discount going on for Black Friday.

It's only going to be happening for Black Friday. through Cyber Monday. We have a big, big discount on our Patreon. It's an 80% discount for both tiers. So if you want to get the $5 tier,

it's only $1 for your first month. If you want to get the $10 tier, it's only $2 for your first month. Holy cow, that is a big discount. Yeah, so plant reminds me, we should probably put it at the top of show. So we've done that. Cold open coming at you right now.

Oh, and it's a cold open. This is, here it cut, and it's a barn burner. I don't remember what we said it was an hour ago uh Griffin I'm disappointed because we were uh just starting to record yeah oh oh actually I'm no longer disappointed because right before we recorded you took the toothpick out of your mouth like it was you were like a hayseed bumpkin hitching a ride on the side of the road and you've since decided no no no let's put that let's put it back in it's cool right

it is cool i want to get it out there to teens that it's not just vapes yeah there's so many things you can put in there and look cool and have it be kind of like an affectation sure sure sure like a toothpick i got out because i needed some leftover turkey um from a potluck dinner that my wife went to which by the way sweetest deal ever for me i did not go to the thing and yet i got to eat their succulent smoke turkey. Truly the luckiest of all. The luckiest of all, it got in my teeth a little bit, put the thing in there, the little toothpick, and you know what I realized?

It's cool to have it in there. It is. It is. What else can you put in there? Vap. I said that, right? Yeah, you said vape. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So there's vape, there's toothpick food, obviously one of my favorites. Turkey, because I already said I'd put that. Juice. Mm-hmm. And that's it. Juice, food, vape, toothpick. Those are the four major food groups. What do you think about like a long flower?

Okay, so if I'm doing a long flower, are we going in sort of cross, like across the mouth? Like, I can't have it sticking. Well, across the mouth, I think is the traditional way to do it, but I don't think it has the panache of just a long dangling flower, like a big sunflower coming out of your mouth. It has a bit kind of growing out of your throat. Yeah, no, that's not typically how one does a flower. I mean, it is cool and it lets people not like when I'm. out on the street and I have like a single rose clutched in my teeth it lets people know what a sort of passionate man I am it says hey everybody I ate a pickman I ate a pickman I'm well no okay again

you are still thinking of I have taken the flower straight down right down the barrel I am still thinking sort of class yeah yeah yeah long wise more of a romantic like I bit a romantic I'm letting you know hey look out I'm not going to seduce you or anything like that yeah but like I want you to know that, like, I am a romantic man. I aim all that romance at a single person, which is my wife, but I do, I have it to spare. Sorry, do you want to take that one more time. Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, my wife one more time. I am not some fucking puppet for you to shove your hand in.

Amen. To make me do whatever joke you want me to do. A more. Unless you want me to do, if you want me to do Bruno reference. I'll do Bruno. I don't do Borat anymore. I don't do Borat. And you know that.

So I'm not gonna fucking dance. I'm not your organ grinder monkey. You put a penny in the slot and I do my little dance. Unless it's Bruno. I'll do Bruno all day. Yeah. This reminds me of a

line. If you put a tooth pick in the slot, sometimes you got to put a toothpick in there. Now I get rid of the fucking toothpick. You made such a big deal. It reminds me of a line. of a line from a movie G-U-R-U-T-M

That's good shit, I love that. Let's get to the show. I love when you decide, like, and that's the quote from the love guru, it has to be the button. There's not even a question, not even a doubt. Such confidence.

My name is Griffin Macquar. I know the best game of the week. My name is Christopher Thomas Plannan. I know the best games of the week. My name is Russ Frucicke. I know the best game of the week. Justin couldn't play Kirby Air Writers. Not good enough at games. Made him scared. The Warp Star made him scared. He thought King DDD was going to come out and kill him. So it's just the three of us this week. Talking about Kirby Air Riders and some other fun, exciting games that took us by surprise, games like Sectori, which I'm very excited to talk about as well. But, Chris, before we get to that, what is Kirby Air Riders?

Kirby Air Riders is a sequel reboot, requal of sorts of the Kirby Air Riders game that came out long, long ago on a little system called the GameCube. You might not remember that old piece of junk, but you will like this new masterpiece from the director of the Super Smash. Ash Brothers series. That, the things you just said alone have made me very excited for the conversation that is to follow, which is going to take place right after this quick break. Important to know, the 2003 original was called Kirby Air Ride. Oh, very, a very, um, uh, I would say cult classic insofar as I never played it. It's so cult.

It's so cult that you were not in that cult. I didn't play. I had a GameCube definitely, um, but there's a, there's quite a few like games. that I didn't, that I guess I just missed out on, and based on everything I ever saw of Kirby Air Ride, it seemed like that was, I don't know, it made sense for that to be one of them. Do you think it hit at the worst possible time for you age-wise? Like, you are like 16-17 in the GameCube with Resident Evil stuff over here, right? Comes out and they're like, do you want to play this Kirby game? And you're like, I'm sorry, me, not baby. Yeah, I don't know. I can't remember what games came out in 2003. That was Tony Hawk's Underground. That was Cotor.

I don't think it was a cool guy thing. I think it was a definitely cool guy thing. Oh, fair. We had Mario Kart and like, do I need another? Kirby was so known to be baby that they had to give him like angry eyes to try to convince you. Yeah. I'm not sure that Kirby carried the kind of cultural cachet. Wow, the alliteration is so on point today.

Back then with me, like obviously I love this little creep now. A lot of that is because of the. the heavy lifting he did in Forgotten Land, which is one of my favorite platformers. Very, very strong. Very, very strong, a little gentleman. And so that's the history of Kirby Air Ride is like, I don't think I'm speaking out of turn

and saying it is a cult racing game for the GameCube. So can I give you my big take of why it's perfect time for it to come out right now? Yes, please. Probably not the most original take, which is, the director of this game, Masahiro Sakurai, is now much better known as the director of the Smash Brother series, the fighting games, right? And has even made this amazing YouTube series about how to design games is an icon in the Nintendo world, not of the Miyamoto status, but just right below it, is probably the most recognizable living Nintendo game designer other than him. The extent to which he plugged into the Smash Brothers world and sort of really showed his work is,

I don't think there's anything quite like it in the history of games, the extent to which he made the process known there. I think what has happened is this is a fighting game, y'all. This is just a fighting game. No. Yes, yes. Let me explain it. Okay, we haven't even talked about what this game is.

Well, I'm going to, in doing this is the way we get in. It's called a setup, my friend. It's called here we go. It looks like a kind of a cart racing game, right? And you're going to go around a track and you're going to do various laps and there are enemies that you can collect instead of items and you suck them up curvy style and you get their powers curvy style, right? But overall, if you picture Mario Kart with like blocks and you're getting special abilities,

it's that the humongest difference. And where I think that this is very, very similar to fighting games and very similar specifically to Smash Brothers is the difference in how each vehicle and character controls and how you mash them up is far more significant than it is in the vast majority of racing games where you are tinkering stats. The actual way that you control characters and how they get around the field is wildly, wildly different. I agree with that, but that doesn't make it a fucking fighting game. I'm sorry. Let's set up what the game is, okay, right? As Plant alluded to, one of the modes is a racing game. I think pretty straightforward.

You move forward on a track and you move forward automatically. Why not both? Well, it is, there's fighting, you fight while you do it. The big thing about Kirby Airwriters, I would say from a design standpoint, is that it is a game you play with the stick. and one button and then there's like one extra button that you do one thing with

right? The Y button activates your special ability when you've charged up your special ability. You use it like once maybe once or twice a race and then I'm pretty sure

most of the other buttons are the Kirby Airwriters it reminds me of those Tiger Electronics games where you would have like you know a up and down arrow on one side

and then on the right side there's a great one for the for Doug the Doug Tiger Electronics game where the two buttons on the right side are just called Doug and faster. So you have the

special button and then you have the Kirby Air Riders button which does fucking everything else. You break to charge up a boost dash, you suck up enemies with it, you use the skills afforded to you by those enemies with it. You break and

reverse with it. It's really you can get off your cart at times run around. I think you do that with holding The special button, actually. So that's another instance in which the Y button is used. That is one of the exceptions. They're framing this as a one button. Yes.

Even though it's not really one button. It's pretty close. Pretty close. I think that's the most annoying thing about it for me. Is this like adherence to this very unique thing about the original. It's very cool. Obviously, like, the ideas have expanded to a point where they needed to add a second button. So at that point, just go the fuck ahead.

there's a spin attack that you can do and you do that by pushing the left the stick to the sides real quick and it feels pretty bad every time you do it. It doesn't feel great to be... It doesn't feel great to be... Yeah, it's like you're steering and you want me to fucking real quick, do this little flick because it's

like the best way to smash open the ability blocks that you might come across while playing city trial mode or whatever. Let me put that on a fucking button. There's 16 other buttons you're not using y'all. There's a million other buttons. Let me use a fucking button, dude. I think there's a lot of people coming out this though, that are like,

a fucking Marriott just came out three months ago, whatever it was. Why are we seeing another effectively cart racer? So I think there's, it's a cart racer slash fighting game,

but 90% cart racer. It does feel, I wouldn't say completely different. I would say like significantly different from Marriott. The idea that you're constantly breaking to gain boost and then boosting,

and it has the pace of like an F-0 or something like that, it feels much faster than anything I've ever seen in MarioCard. Yes, this break boost maneuver is basically, I think the most common use case will be sharp turns, right? Sure. It is a drift that you do and you get a nice boost to speed. And obviously there is a drift in Marriott.

Yeah, of course, but it's a completely different feeling drift. And so far as like in this game, you really slow down a lot going around those curves because, you know, the drift in Mario Kart, it just feels like completely different. This idea of dashing and smashing into stuff is a kind of like tactile action that I think does set Kirby Airwriters apart, especially because like we've only talked about the,

you know, air ride mode, which is the sort of standard road. There's just a weird top-down mode that feels, I don't know, maybe the beloved feature of the game from the original, but feels like a bit of an. afterthought. Before we get into the other modes, I do want to mention one other big significant difference that we have. Yes, yes, yes. Is to gain boost meter or whatever speed. To gain speed as you're racing, there are multiple ways to do it. We mentioned the like drift, break and then get a boost of speed. The other way, which I think is very significant, is to attack enemies and deal

damage to enemies using the items that you pick up as you go. So what it ends up feeling is like closer to like a burnout almost where you are really trying to like fuck up the waddle d's that are making their way across this course and the various other people that you're racing against and that's really the only way you're going to gain on people is by like really fucking up people yes otherwise in mario cart like realistically it's mostly you use it as a way to like act as a nuisance to other people but it's not going to help your speed this is a this is I think the main offender of the single button scheme for me is the fact that the boost brake slide button is the same button as suck up and attack enemies.

So it becomes all of a sudden a sort of context sensitive thing where if you press the brake boost button and you are close enough to an enemy, you will suck them up and then you can launch them or absorb their power. But if you hit it when you're not close enough to an enemy, you bring yourself to a complete stop. Like it just seems so wild to me that they wouldn't just make that a separate input. But yes, I do agree that that sets it apart. And it does make it unique.

And when it works, it feels like really good to get like a good line of chugging between enemies and building up speed and going fast and all that. Like it is generally pretty thrilling. I'm so torn on the button thing. And my instinct is to just say they should let you remap and do whatever you want. That's that. I also do think that the longer you play, the more you start to have the feel for it. and it is it's just a very different thing than any of the cart racing games some might say it's closer to like a combat type of game i'm trying to think of the genre um the i want i want i do want to talk about the drifting though and like how it's different between each characters because i think that's that that's why yeah it's pretty significant well that's why the single button thing can work because you can have a character where okay you drift and it feels like yes like you're in a burnout game or an outrun game or an outrun game you're

You can have a character where you basically 90 degree angle on the dime. Yeah, like there's no, there's, you get instant friction basically. Yeah, yeah, you could have one where it's a really slow, but you have a powerful charge. You could have one that has no charge, but it raises all your stats. And that is, I think the appeal of the game is finding the machine for you. I think what is weirdly, I think it's like one of the best kids games and that a kid's going to tinker with that. and find that feel, I think adults are more likely to bounce off this game because that's so antithetical to what we're used to, that you have to unlock the thing that might actually

be how you like to play this game. I do like that, by the way. There's a ton of fucking stuff to unlock in this game, and it is distributed in a very smash bros manner. This game looks so much like Smash Bros. It's fucking crazy. And sounds so much like it. They brought the guy back.

Yeah. It's like you're in the game. game on and it's like achievement unlocked you downloaded kirby and it plays that bo-bang sound yeah it's it really is it makes it's itself known very very clearly i i i will say sort of anecdotally uh this game has not been a hit with henry who is a huge kirby fan uh because he first of all there's like a lot of tutorialization which is tough for him to hang with uh but it's kind of necessary because the control scheme is so weird. He likes the very smash brosy, like extremely dramatic anime Kirby story that is happening and like seeing all the characters and is excited about

all the unlocks, but it has very much been a game that he wants me to play while he watches, which is still fun, which is still like a cool way to do it, but it doesn't, I don't know, It hasn't been the can't put it down sort of experience that other Kirby projects have been. A recommendation to the grownups. I can't speak for the kids here. When you load this game, if you've never played in these games, it will want you to go to the tutorial. Do that. Don't play any of it. Just look at the menu and it will tell you everything that you were going to learn in these tutorials. The tutorials are so slow and they are literally turn left, turn right. you will get a feel for the game

the sooner you hop into the game having just read those tutorials. I think that's good advice. Doing the tutorials reminded me when I was doing admin work where my company forced me to like fill in the like IT security questions of like should you give your USB to someone

and there's like a slow meter of the video playing? There's also no amount of tutorialization I think that can really prepare you for what a Kirby Airwriters race is like as evidenced by the fact that the final chapter of the tutorial is, now do this little practice race and it took us like fucking four tries

to actually do it because it's insane it's so weird to loop all of these different ideas together. It is so unlike any other racing game and once it does click it does feel cool like it does feel good and I feel like there's a lot of depth that I am more

interested in learning about than I am in like a Mario Kart world which I picked up, played a little bit and never touched it again after we talked about it. Sorry, Just one final thing I want to throw in here. It's absurdly beautiful if you are into chaotic, curvy aesthetic. The second level of this game is a pirate shipwreck in the ocean, but the water has been split and is going in every direction.

Gravity is being busted. And you discover that if you are piping through this huge split, you know, splitting of the seas and you can go into the water. They're not hard walls. And that moment was, for me, that's when like the game just immediately clicked for me. I was like, I'm going to love this shit. Pure vibes. It is also notable because it is probably the only racing game I've played in recent memory that has like a pretty significant single player mode. Yes, so that's what I wanted to talk about is there's kind of two other modes that we haven't talked about yet.

The first is city trial, which was a beloved mode from the original and is so, I think it is the most inscrutable thing in the game. because it is five minutes on this open world map you're racing around you're picking up other cars you're doing little challenges you're picking up power-ups for your vehicle and then once the five minutes are over you do like a challenge yeah and the challenge lasts sometimes for like 30 seconds and then that's the end of the mat of the whole match it's like a weird uh i i think you have to be very very very into how how the game feels and works so that like all the work you're doing in the let's build up my car and make it super strong or air rider like to make that land. But the road trip mode, I do think is really great.

And that's the thing that I've been enjoying the most. Yeah, I've played a lot of it as well. Story mode. You're constantly going down this track moving from event to event, but you get to kind of like choose which event you're going to do next. Like three different ones will be coming at you down a track. You get to pick the one you want to do. And it'll give you a certain reward.

It'll be either a race or like a drag race. right down a straight track or a mini-game where you have to fly- like a monkey target very like fly through these different gates and those are just short form enough and constantly unlocking shit that it is that is the right cycle for me of like dope it and it's also great like because henry only wants to watch me play it so he gets to see all the story stuff and gets all the unlockable characters and all that stuff like that i think that mode's really really great and kind of my favorite way to engage with kirby you're right it crushes me that Mario Kart World

doesn't have anything even close to the like depth and breath of it like if I was unlocking like customization items and characters and stuff like that Marriott World in a format like this where it's just like a bunch of mini challenges I would have been so fucking all over it and it just feels like all of

I mean whether it was a time limitation or whatever the decision was it just feels like all of the effort wasn't put there and it was put in this case I will say when I'm doing that mode and in general regarding the road trip mode. When I'm doing

road trip mode and in general for this entire game, when I'm presented with races or maybe like fun drag race modes, anything that's like feels like racing, I'm pretty into it. The second they drop me into an open world area and open world being like these are small

areas, but like third person you can go in any direction you want I think the game is not for me fun. I don't like doing that. It makes me feel like I'm not in control, I don't feel like it has the tight precision controls that the racing stuff does. It feels shoehorned, which is ironic because I know the original game also had the city trial. So that's not new stuff. I just, every time it comes up, I'm like,

I'm not enjoying this nearly as much as I am the racing, which is fine. It is similar conceptually to the fact that like Mario Kart has the battle mode, right? Sure. But it is much more about battling AI controlled bosses or enemies or whatever. And I don't, I agree with you that the like control scheme is not quite what I want to be. I mean, battle mode was always cloistered into its own like side thing that people barely touch. So it's not like that's weird for this. Like it's, I'm sure there are fans of it. And I'm sure there are fans of this mode as well.

It just did not click for me at all. Yeah. Yeah, it's the, it's, yeah, I, it's not my favorite. I feel the same way. If there's a race, I always go for the race when, when that is afforded to me. But then the bosses are pretty mandatory at certain points. Yeah, so you do kind of got to figure out how to, you know, work around it. And I think unlocking different characters also will help more with this because there's, like,

Metanite has like a three-hit sword attack that is completely different from Kirby's, like, inhaling and launching something forward, like. Can you play as other characters in the road trip mode? I was not able to figure out how to do that. Yeah, no, I'm pretty sure. You just switch them out before you get going before you get started. I can change my car, but maybe. Play it, where, do you, where is your head at in terms of the, like, open world versus

racing dynamic? Or you just, like, completely over the way. I mean, I don't have, like, a religion on it, mostly because I, I feel like I'm so early in the overall experience. Not in terms of, like, oh, I didn't play enough, but, like, this feels like a game of like you play this for a very, very, very long time and then you kind of like fall into its vibe. That said, where I'm at right now, I much rather be racing than doing any of the other stuff. It feels, oh, well, you know what? This is actually a segue to the game that we're

going to talk about in a second, which is sectory. But it feels like a game full of modes. Like they just kept making things. And some of them are good and some of them are bad and some of will have their hardcore fans and some of them will have their hardcore haters and I'm not sure it would have benefited. I'm not sure it would have benefited the game for all of that energy to have just gone into the racing. I think that would have been diminishing returns at a certain point to just have more and more courses or something, Mario Kart style. But yeah, I guess it's the second game this year, racing game this year from Nintendo where there's a lot of filler that I don't need. You can change your character in the road trim. Oh, great. Because I want to play as the

fucking hamster so bad and I just couldn't figure out. Everyone loves the fucking hamster man. I do want to mention you're talking about filler. There is one aspect of filler that I think a lot of people will miss because it's fucking really buried in the menus. But for every air rider, which are the cars, you can customize them in really awesome. Yeah. Really good. I love that shit. You can change the texture on them. You could slap fucking lights on them, dangling things. all sorts of aspects, the color that comes out of the back of it, like the whole range. The texture of each of the different components. You can really, really chop and share them online very easily and download other people's.

There's like, there's a square cube, a cube, if you will, that you, maybe a game cube that you can raise on from the very beginning. And like, there's already plenty of GameCube, you know, alt. Steam machine. I think that might honestly already exist. I've seen Xbox and PlayStation games. cubes too i'm sure i uh i am i am always very very charmed by games that are so clearly a a labor of love and like certainly all games have that to an extent because you get they have to be in order

to get a game is so fucking hard to make to get a game across the finish line there have to be people working on it who care about it a lot but this feels like such a and uh aided by the fact that Sakurai is the best in the biz at sort of communicating with niche fans of his shit, it is such a labor of love. There is so much about it that seems like it is being held up in front of people who have fond memories of the original Kirby Air ride saying like, hey, we made this for you. I think that's rad. I think parts of it are not anything I enjoy at all. I think there's enough there that I do really like that I will keep it, you know, and keep that virtual game card installed and pick it up and play it every once in a while.

And I am curious to see, like, what other unlockables? And I got to finish that story, guys. Holy shit. Yeah. It's really, who knows where it's going to go. Yeah. Just to close out this segment, I want to talk about one other fighting game I really like, which is Microsoft Flight Simulator.

It really dramatically changes based on which plane you're flying. And basically, I mean... Just like a fighting game. Sure. Just like a fighting game. Salient points made all around today. All the points we made today were equally good. I think so.

And I think we should take a break and talk about other games. The face Chris is making. Such a grumpy face from Chris. Not called Microsoft Fight Simulator. I know why you're confused, Russ. Okay. The next game we're going to talk about is a game that I don't think any of us knew existed as of two weeks ago. Did you know Chris Plant before two weeks ago that this game existed or was coming?

no I can pretend no of course not so brutal to do that at the end of November to drop a fucking hot one on our lap like that's everything do you know how many games like I know I know I know but to to have a surprise this this late in the game I know man I know it's really really wild is sectori sectori so S E K T-O-R-I can't say the branding is super great the logo is basically illegible, uh, so a little hard to find on Steam. But if you do, you're in for a fucking treat. Sectori, in my opinion, is the best geometry wars like I've played since the original geometry wars. I guess retro evolved, not the side mode. Retro evolved. Uh, it is fucking fantastic and detail and has just so much content in it and ways to approach it. And so

if, if any of that is appealing to you, an arcade twin stick shooter, very basic how that works geometry wars which is sector they are more or less the same in a lot of ways you are the little ship on a 2D plane and you are inside a closed arena it's not infinite

and it is relatively tight it's not like vampire survivors and you have enemies that are flying at you and the different types have different strategies so you have some that just kind of float around randomly you have some that will try to get close to you but then when you aim at them they will try to evade and back away

Which one has a different movement. Where this game just expands so much on the Geometry Wars formula is everything is moving at all times, even the arena. So imagine you are in a square arena and then suddenly you see the outline of a triangle and everything outside of that triangle is glowing red. The arena is about to shape shift into that triangle and if you're out of it, you are gone. The arena might shape shift into four separate circles. So you want to get in one of those and you're going to be trapped in that circle with whatever is in that circle until it's your chance to get out. All of this is happening as it walks you toward a boss fight at the end of that world as this is also kind of a campaign. There is a campaign that is sort of happening.

that you are, like, I don't want to use roguelike necessarily, but RPG mechanics that build to boss fights. I'll say roguelike mechanics, and so far as you will, at a certain point, unlock ability cards, and you can change, you have like eight stacks of ability cards that you can select before you into the, you know, the campaign. And as you hit these, like, unlock points,

you can spawn those cards into your like drawing deck and then they will give you abilities like this is a bomb drone that will like shoot stuff so like I do think it wears its roguelike kind of nature on its sleeve. Yeah, there's also another character

customization aspect where as you're playing you'll pick up these pickups that give you a point, an upgrade point if you will and you can spend that upgrade point very quickly on the first tier which is just speed. It'll increase your ship speed. But if you collect more of them you can get higher tier upgrade

like your blaster, or you'll get rocket attacks, things like that, that let you, again, fully enhance and control how your character evolves over time. And those all play directly back into the card system, which, again, is like, oh, you're building a deck around charging around the map, then you're going to want to bring a lot of those cards. There's one more piece of the puzzle that I think really makes this game what it is, and it is what sets it apart enough from Geometry Wars that it feels like its own, aside from all the rogue like shit and the upgrade points and like all that jazz which is like not progressive when

you die it's all gone it's not like you're getting some sort of permanent upgrade cycle um the one other thing is there is a a strike maneuver that you do and once you use it it has to charge back up but you basically dash a short distance and cause an explosion that kills all the enemies around you geometry wars is very much a game about uh like mob management like you can't let too many enemies get on the screen at once you have to always be shredding through them because if they outnumber you too much, then they will kill you. The spawn rate is insane and sectory and you will have to use this strike to manage things. It is the thing where it's like, fuck, there's way too many dudes right over there. I got to strike into it. But if you strike into a power up that

is spawned, it instantly recharges your strike. So now all of a sudden you're deciding like, okay, there's a power up down there. If I get it, it's going to give me one of these power-up cards. It'll give me something sweet bonus that's going to be like really exciting. I have my strike ready. Can I get through all of those dudes to get down and strike that power-up so I can instantly have my strike recharge? Or am I going to have to spend that strike to clear out some of the enemies and make a path? And you are having to make that little micro-decision fucking constantly. And it is- While the literal world around you is changing, while a dozen characters are spawning in, while a boss fight is on the precipice.

yeah it's super duper uh it is super duper chaotic but i do think it still has the benefit that geometry wars had going for it which is that it is like easy enough to kind of understand what happened right when you get blown up it's like yeah i let too many i let too many guys get in there the boss fights get a little too like confusing i think from time to time where it's like what the fuck was i supposed to do how was i possibly supposed to deal with that there's one that every time it spawns in, I'm like, well, okay, that's the run, because I just simply don't know how to fucking beat this guy. But for the most part, it's like, if you blow up, you kind of know what happened and what you could have done differently. And maybe you invested your upgrade points.

You charged them all up for your blasters, but then you got to that boss fight and your ship wasn't fast enough. So you blew up for that reason. So all of that would be enough. And yet, they said, what if we give you many, many more modes, each of them also excellent and each of them unique. And that's the part where it blows my brain wide open. I mean, for us, you want to dive into one or two of them? Yeah, sure. So for the people that love geometry wars and are maybe a little bit stressed out at the

prospect of picking perks and stats and whatever it is, there is a mode that is pretty much Geometry Wars where it'll just constantly auto-upgrade you as you play. So you're really just score chasing, but you don't have to worry about upgrading anything. So if you want a very simple mode like that, that's in there. retro Geometry Wars fans might remember a mode called gates where you had to fly through a gate

and they would keep spawning in and spawning in and that was the only way to deal damage to the area that's in there. Let's see, there's a boss rush mode. There's a crash mode where you just use the strike attack and I think you can use it

like multiple times in a row. Yeah. My favorite mode is like oops all offense. I can't remember what it's called but you build up... You're very strong, yes, you're very strong, but then when you collect enough of your XP from killing things, you become like Super Sayan, right?

Yeah. And the whole point is that you need to basically, at a certain point, be constantly in Super Sayan, which means you should always be pursuing the biggest, baddest enemies, diving head first into them, and then sprinting to the next power up and always landing that boost move

that Griffin's talking about. Yeah. It is so... It fucking rules, guys. It's fucking great. The music is... It just slaps ass and it really...

It is the type of game I would advise you not to play too late at night because it really will fuck you like it really will get you fucking psyched out of your mind in this like trance-like state where you will lose track of time

and you will stay awake too long and then you will get in bed and you will have that thumb, thum, thum, still just like fucking pumping in your ears as you try to fall asleep, it is not a good game for that. And the runs, even if you do the short modes,

because you can get 20, 30 minutes in a long run, but if you do the short modes, it's somehow more dangerous because it's like two and a half minutes, and you're like, and then suddenly you don't realize that you've played 30 of these things and that's an hour.

Yeah, there's a fun metal system where you're trying to like complete achievements and those in turn unlock like customizations for your ship. There are mutators, so if you want to play with like less enemy health or more enemy health or all sorts of variables. I think there's like 50 different mutators you can attach.

They just dove so fucking deep into this concept and just kept going and going and going. Did we mention who made the game? It's housemark devs, right? It's a former housemark dev, maybe, I don't know if it's multiple. But yes, housemark for people who remember a rezo gun, which we talked about, I think, very early. like maybe the first season of the besties. This is a PS4 launch title, right? Correct.

Yes. This is a studio that for a long time, this is what they were known for, games like Super Star Dust, ResoGun, and then more recently they have transitioned into, I would say, more traditional games like Returnal, third-person shooters, stuff like that. But this feels like the continuation of House Mark in the best possible. Kimo Factor is the developer, Lizard, who made a Barbarian, the bear-based hack and slash game. Oh, yeah. Which I do remember.

That was a fun. I do want to say, it is really fucking hard. It's really super-duper hard. And you unlock a lot of the cool stuff through the campaign mode, which even the easy mode is pretty fucking hard. and it is a game that, I don't know, you, you know what's funny, guys, is I feel like there's a lot of parallels between this discussion and the discussion we just had about Kirby Air Riders, because it's the same way where it's like, there's a rhythm to it and you have to play enough times to kind of like understand the rhythm to it. And once you do understand it, you kind of see through the matrix and that's like really, really very exciting. I think there's just so much familiar here with all of the like, I mean, some of the, and I'm pretty sure that pink square motherfucker that like dodges out of the way when you aim at him is the same color and shape and behavior as one of the enemies from geometry wars like it's it's uh it will take you back into that that trans like state very very easily um but there's just and there's a lot of stuff

to do here and it's all really really very fun yes i agree with all that the only thing that I will tweak on difficulty is they're games that are hard and you're not going to enjoy them for a long time until you get good. Where this game is hard, it's difficult to reach the end, you will be having fun from the drop. It is not about getting to the end of the level for you to like have enjoyment of this game. No, but there are some fun things you unlock by getting the medals, which, uh, like they're, there, I found myself. when I started a little bit frustrated that I couldn't just, like, do the different modes that I wanted to do because I haven't unlocked enough medals because I can't beat that fucking one boss that sometimes spawned in. Yeah, I kind of wish that there was like a half step more of a baby mode so that people could see more of the game earlier rather than having to like normal mode feels fucking legit. And I'm sure once you've played 20 hours, normal mode will feel easy and then you're up to a higher mode than that.

But I do think that people might bounce off a bit based on the difficulty at the jump. If you are willing to, if it sounds like something you want to play, right? Like I actually would suggest playing the campaign at the normal difficulty and bash your head out against it for a while and then switch to the easier difficulty. And it's like Luke Skywalker running around with Yoda on his back or Goku taking off the ankle weights. I don't think I ever tried anything higher than the lowest possible difficulty. Yes, it actually, I think when it's like tutorializing, it starts you on experience mode, which is the lowest difficulty setting. And then there's like the standard one that is like how sectori is intended to be played.

And it's like not how I intend to play sectory because it's beating my ass down, man. And also you should hold off from that mode outside of the training that Griffin is talking about. Because if you are a score chasing person, the game has not been balanced for that. So you're actually not rewarded for playing the more hardcore mode. If you're trying to, like, climb the leaderboard, you're going to climb it much faster. But if you are a sicko, if you're a sicko like that, you can spend your upgrade points on score points, which is like, I don't know. But pretty huge flex. I don't need to be faster or have my guns work better, give myself extra shields or missiles.

I just want the points, baby. I was wondering whether that upgrade increased the frequency you're getting other upgrade points. I've never gotten it. So maybe. It just seems like something for people who are better at the game. I wish I, this is one that I keep playing because I want to get better at it. And that's cool. That doesn't happen to me with a lot of games.

So yeah, Sectory is a damn, a real late, late game, Dark Horse. Genuinely, I haven't for sure put it in my top five, but it is a genuine competitor. I'm definitely going to update my top 10 list for sure. I don't know how else it ranks above that. Yeah. I'm not saying that this is a recency bias game because I agree with that statement, but the sheer number of games

that are coming in at the wire that could make a play for the top 10 is... Yeah. Can I read this reader mail from S&S Chalmers who said, I'm surprised no one mentioned Metroid Prime 4 for the list of games still yet to come out that could potentially be contenders for some godie list? Did it slip everyone's mind?

Are you just not really excited for it? I am excited for it. I have never finished a MECD Metroid Prime game. It's not my favorite way to play Metroid. But, you know, I play all of them, and I think they're solid games. I am excited for this one.

I just don't... It's coming in so late in the year. I don't know how to... Be in real with you. I was so certain that game would get delayed at least one more time that I had fully written it out of my brain as a game that's coming out this year. It's very late. It's very late. It's very late.

I am super duper. I am super excited. be an Indiana Jones situation where we have to consider it for contention in 2026's deliberations because I don't know we haven't scheduled out our recordings for the rest of the year but this game's out December 4th so I think we will have time to include it for at least for contention I think we will have time probably not to finish it I don't know I'll say but I mean realistically we're not going to finish every game we put up anyway like finish a bunch of them but I think it will be something to keep an eye out for obviously we have no idea from a quality standpoint. Is it going to be neck and neck with some of the other games we've talked about? We don't know. But I do like Metroid and I do want more of it. Absolutely. A letter from Eric here.

Where did you get the idea that Expedition 33 is a persona length 70-hour affair? I beat it in under 40 and I'm very slow with games and I played it on hard. How long to beat has it under 30? Which is honestly, this is only making me more excited to play more of it. Sure, sure. Um, it's, Griffin, you beat it, right? I did. I logged, uh, 51 hours into it.

You just bad? Is that what's going on? I did everything. I, I really, uh, I really wanted to do all of this stuff because I was, uh, but I also had a point with it where, I don't know, I had grinding my characters out to be these like demigods. And so the challenge wasn't necessarily there so much for me, but there's like a lot of different little odds and ends you can go do.

And the story kind of like takes some, uh, pretty dramatic twists in the final act of the game that I feel like you can really only get all of the context for if you go and you do the additional stuff. And so like in doing all that stuff, I played it over 50 hours. So yeah, it's not, I mean, it's not persona length, but like that is, I still think a pretty significant amount of time to invest in a, you know, in a game. But it is, I will grant you that if you don't want to do all that shit. And you do want to play it at a, at a, you know, lower difficulty, especially, you can, you can, that's me. You can definitely blaze through it pretty, pretty quickly. While we're on this, I know we did some expectation setting last week. I want to do a little bit more here for Expedition 33, which is, I think whatever game wins game of the year, this year, there will probably be one person who did not love it. I think that's, like, basically bound to happen. Yeah.

So I would prepare for that, whether that's Expedition 33 or any other game. game because I can say right now I'm not super into it didn't like the story you have played in and have not been grooving on it yeah I mean I was very I think I was the first person to bring it to the show and I was vibing with it at the very beginning but ultimately I'm just not a big paper Mario fan uh sorry that is like what it's like the core mechanic is like going after and in the story ultimately did not click for me I completely get why it clicks for other people it wasn't really like what I was searching for it's a game about grief and I think games about I think any fiction about grief it's like gonna either click with you or it's really not going to

but I also don't think that rules it out at all for the Godi this year because I don't think that there is a consensus game um yeah actually pip pipier Mario um and yes I agree I agree with you I think the ending and sort of like I don't know twist is like not exactly the word I would use but, like, where the story goes, I think has been pretty divisive, and I really loved it because I sometimes like a very kind of, like, I don't know, philosophical sort of thing. You like a big swing. I like a big swing. I do.

I do like a big swing in a story. And I also like people kind of, like, debating. There's been so much debate about the ending. And not in a, like, Mass Effect 3, like, this was shit kind of way. But, like, you know, people talking about, like, which. one do you think is the true what do you think is the real thing i don't know i find that stuff really yeah i also think like this it matters when it hits you because i don't think near automata is so unlike this in some ways and i think it hit me at exactly when i needed it and that's yeah for sure

the nature of games that take big swings like these yeah um but i'm so excited for that conversation um hey have you guys been playing in anything else do anything else dude dude i i i would think we'll talk about this more on Resties, but I need you all to play News Tower. I desperately need you all to play News Tower. This game is so, so good. Okay, so News Tower. It is a management sim where you are managing a newspaper in like the 1930s in New York. And you have to build it up while also building up the tower. And it is everything. Like you are building up the floors, you are buying the desks, you are putting vents in there so people are comfortable, you're assigning out all the stories. You have like a telegram that is letting you know that like, oh, there was a boxer

passed away in the rural Midwest. Is that worth covering or do you want to cover these questions about the stock market in New York? Do you want to stay local? You move out through all the different points of New York and New Jersey's neighborhoods. It is so expansive. And also, So genuinely, the closest a video game has ever gotten to what it feels like to actually manage a newsroom. Like very, very much, like, are you going to choose this story or that story? Here are like the, what the goods and the bads of choosing each. Are you going to choose something that's going to get you a lot of readers but makes you feel gross? Are you going to publish an unfinished story or a story that needed more sources?

Like, it goes so deep. Well, then also being like, hey, have you, have you remembered to hire a janitor? Because, like, someone just took a dump in the, in the closet because you didn't build a bathroom. I look the look of it. It's, uh, it's somewhat, uh, I don't know, it's somewhat like a Fallout Shelter, except everything kind of looks like sort of sticker paper, like everything you're putting on. The games they've made. And the music is that very, um, uh, I don't know if you ever watch Fantasia 2000, but they

have, what is the famous, it's just like beautiful, classic New York piano music. Bangabus. Yeah, that was the one that I was looking for. Thank you. It's, it is so, so unbelievably good. A Rhapsody in Blue is the name of the song that I was looking for. But yeah, I really hope that you will take a moment, check it out. Also, this might get you on board for a stick. It runs perfectly fine on a Mac laptop.

So it's a game But it probably doesn't have controller support Would be my guess No you're gonna want to play this with the mouse Yeah definitely want to play it with the mouse But that is enticing that it runs well on a MacBook air Because you know

There aren't enough games Necessarily that can push the hardware in that way I don't know that I have anything necessarily new I've been playing a lot more Hades 2 On the on the AY and Thor Which feels does that feel appropriate? No, those are different mythologies.

Yeah, Thor's a different guy. Thor's a different guy. It's, I mean, it's pretty fucking great. I still haven't, like, finished it. I've, like, finished the routes, but haven't kind of finished the meta-narrative, I guess. But there's so much shit to, I am so deeply in the new stuff now,

and it's, I am glad that I burrowed through kind of the shit I was familiar with. because, like, it's, it's definitely got its hooks in me and definitely warmed its way up my list. And just Rachel and I are on the finale of Physical Asia, which I know I've also talked about on this program, but really, really, really beats ass, really fucking cool challenges, great, like, camaraderie and kind of spirit of competition between, like, the eight different nations represented. and I don't know, I love, man, I don't really, aside from, you know, St. Louis Blues hockey, we watch every game of that, and I'm familiar with the roster or whatever, I don't find myself being particularly interested in general in the, like, story of athletics or athletes. Like, I don't watch a lot of the 30, whatever.

30 for 30, like all of those things. But there is something about this show and the. original physical 100, and especially that final draft show that came out of Japan, of just seeing athletes kind of like interact with each other and talk shop in a way that is not like Instagram influencer like, are you fucking cramming your prout? But just like, I don't know, looking at each other's technique and talking about how like Turkish wrestling, sometimes you actually would send your serum wrestlers over there so they can learn these different to, It's just so fascinating.

And again, the production value is unrivaled. So I'm definitely enjoying it. If you're listening to this, and normally this is a part of the show where we talk about the Patreon, heads up. Because we are going to be doing a Black Friday sale starting this very day that you're listening to this, which is indeed Black Friday. It's going to be running through Monday. I guess you would call it Cyber Monday. And the sale is a big one. It's going to be, we're going to set it up so that it's only $1 for your very first month of Patreon support on the bottom tier, the tier that includes resties and bracket battles, et cetera, et cetera.

And if you want to get the ad free, which includes all that other stuff, it's only $2 for your first month, which is an absurd. I think it's an 80% discount, which is wild to me, but you know what? You think that $2 is 80% off of $10. It's not? You know that. You think that, too, is eight-tenths smaller than ten. You know it. In your heart.

I don't know it in my heart. I'll be honest. I really have to make sure. Anyway, really big discount going on. In theory, if you're not already a member, you can sign up for this. I don't think it works for existing members, but this is for new members, a good way to get people in. Have we talked about what the most recent bracket episode, or I guess maybe the next Sprocket episode. It will be the one that is coming up this coming Tuesday after you listen to this

is, oh, a very exciting one. You can tease it if you want. Yeah, it's, we talked about our favorite aesthetic, basically, character creators in games. And it basically kind of turned into like a pretty much every game we talked about was from Monster Factory. So it did turn into a bit of a retrospective on that end also. But, uh, yeah, a super duper fun one. I wanted to send some love to the Liberty Science Center, which is in New Jersey. It's a bit of a drive for me, but, uh, some friends were visiting and we synced up with them. And man, if you have a young one with you and you want to have a really great day and you're within spitting distance of the Liberty Science Center, just really great facility, very spacious, didn't feel super crowded even on a weekend, great, like, live animal exhibits and fucking dinosaurs, they had a big Sue the T-Rex exhibit going on right now, a giant volcano exhibit, et cetera, et cetera. So I really highly recommend it if you're looking for some kid activities.

amazing. Props for folks over at the Patreon that are already members, thank you to Adeline, cartoon henchman, four-eyed forecast, and Elias W, thank you for being patrons over at patreon.com slash the besties. It's gifting season.

If you want to buy a gift from someone, you can do that, you go to patreon.com slash the besties slash gift, and you can gift your favorite besties fan, a chunk of time as a patron. Get all those bonus features. Thank you all so much. Thank you for listening.

Next week... I think we're going to make some fun game awards predictions, because next week is going to be right before the game awards happen. Yes. We will not have Metro... I know that next week, Metroid comes out. We will not have it by it. Yeah, we're going to be playing that on launch day,

which is indeed when that episode would go up. So we'll talk about Metroid the following week. Yes. Game Awards, big time a year. And you know what game? We might talk a little bit about maybe, maybe, maybe. Can't guarantee this. Routine.

which has been in development for, I think it's 48 years, 49 years. It's been in development forever. The closest indie games have to a Duke Nukema's Vaporware game. It is actually coming out on December 4th. It was very confident that we would be talking about, especially if it's coming out of December 4th, we're not going to be ready for that, but I'm going to keep an eye on, certainly. Game Awards predictions at the very much.

We're definitely going on the Game Awards. So join us again for the best season. next time it comes out because shouldn't the world's best friends pick the world's best games Besties