The Besties - With Fire Emblem, Is It Finally Time to Buy a Switch 2?

Episode Date: September 25, 2026

Fire Emblem: Fortune’s Weave is the biggest exclusive for the Nintendo Switch 2 — quite literally. A completionist run of the new tactics RPG could take you 200 hours. For some fans, the epic length will be a decadent pleasure. For others, like Plante, it’s a threat. To guide us through the huge adventure, longtime Fire Emblem-lovers Griffin and Frush share what works and doesn’t. Meanwhile, Plante wonders if the current list of exclusives has made the Switch 2 a worthwhile upgrade. 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 don't care about winning the war and having the biggest, strongest army, and winning the tournament so I can make my wish to the emperor and save my dad. I don't give a shit about any of that stuff. All I care about is perfect bird time. This game includes an exciting new feature I've never seen in a video game before, which is you make your character and he does look like a handsome anime guy or gal. and then, but you're going to spend most of the game in the guise of a little bird. Yeah, you do become a bird. That's true. And sometimes people will come to you and they'll give you little treats and then you become the bird

and the people will say things to you like, I'm thinking about leaving my wife. And then you have to do some bird shit. You get a choice of bird shit, but they're only going to like one of the birdship. Yeah, you got to be really careful. If someone says, I'm thinking about leaving my wife and then you do a little dance, they are not going to like that. Big mistake. But if you, if they do.

like it and you get it right three times in a row, you get perfect bird time, which it says on the screen in big letters. And it feels so... And they're so happy. They're so happy. And then you can purve on them a little bit if you want to. If you get... You can do it even if you don't get perfect bird time. Yeah. But if you get perfect bird time, it's like... Yeah, you could do like a B-movie situation where you're just kind of like work your magic as a bird. A little bit. Perfect. Guys, the first fucking time. I just finished a chapter that was pretty gnarly from a content and gruesomeness perspective. And then the very next thing I did with my free time is get perfect bird time.

Fuck yes. And I busted out fucking laughing. It's so good. Fuck yes. Perfect bird time in every video game, please. Can I give you a recommendation though? Just a recommendation. It's not that I've been chatting with your wife over text or anything.

Yeah. But like let's say that she's trying to enjoy just a nice lunch and she's had a long day. It's like her one moment to herself. and you keep maybe leering and like kind of like Yeah yeah Yeah You can into the room and then you like maybe like yelling perfect bird time Perfect bird time

Like sometimes I dress up like a big bird And I'll come in where she's eating lunch And I'll be like hard day at the office huh And she'll tell me about it And then I'll tilt my head and flap my wings No You don't do that bird time crazy I was talking about a theoretical

I wasn't trying to confirm anything here But if you Oh yeah yeah yeah sure sure sure Sure, sure, sure. It's just a theory. I just think like she would like you to stop doing it. Okay. Well, just do the right thing, Griffin.

That's all you have to do is do the right thing. I mean, that's it. If she doesn't like when I do perfect bird time. You don't fucking tilt your head in that situation. You're crazy? That must be it. My name is Griffin McRoy and I know the perfect bird time of the week. My name is Christopher Thomas Plant and I know the best game of the week.

My name is Russ Frusick. I know the best game of the week. Welcome to the besties where we talk about the last year. latest and greatest in home interactive entertainment by listening to this show legally you've become a member of the club. This week we're going to be discussing Fire Emblem Fortune's Weave on the Nintendo Switch 2 console. Mario's home, you may be thinking, no, there's so much more to it than that and also it's not just Pac-Man anymore. Chris, what the fuck is Fire Emblem Fortune's Wee? How do I even begin to capture all the things that this game is, including perfect bird time? It is a tactics game

from Nintendo, the continuation of a series that has actually been going on since the Famicom days, but so much has changed. Now it's got story, now it's got Weeb's, now it's got anime cinematics, now it's got four and a half protagonist. It's huge, and we're going to talk about it right after the break.

Is Fire Amblem Fortune's Weebs anything? I like that. That's good. I don't think it's anything. No? Okay. Thank you, Russ. Okay. can we start things out by just checking in on everyone's feelings about Fire Emblem.

The franchise. I guess the franchise and specifically, I guess, Our Level of Experience. Three Houses was not the most recent one. Fire Emblem Engage was the most recent one, which I bounced off of pretty fucking hard. This one is a direct continuation of Fire Emblem Three Houses. Sort of.

Sort of. Yeah. So I have adored. Fire Emblem basically since the Game Boy Advance Days, which was the first time that they, it came to the United States. Before that it was a long-running Japanese turn-based strategy game. It came to the United States, first game, Fire Emblem. I think it was just called Fire Emblem. That was the one with Lynn and loved it. It's basically, you know, turn-based strategy like chess, but all the chess characters have like little crushes on the other characters and special abilities. And yeah. So that's really. really the core of the franchise. You also played about 50 million hours of Fire Emblem Heroes on the mobile devices. I did. Yeah.

To some extent, they do share some similarities, but largely they feel like kind of different things. I think for me, if it's helpful, I think Fire Enbleman Three Houses, which was the, you're right, not the last one, but the first switch one, I think probably my favorite of the lot. Before this one, we'll talk about this one in a second. And I think that really mastered a very careful balance between what I think is pretty excellent term-based strategy and character development with fun narrative. How am I going to spend my time? Persona-esque shenanigans. I would agree with that. I think that that game did the best with that half of the experience.

I think the combat in these games is always, like, fun. I will always, always enjoy just the kind of tactics of it. and especially since they got rid of the weapon triangle thing of, I can never remember it off the top of my head. Swords beat axes, axes beat lances, lances beat swords. Yeah, easy. Duh. That is not a thing anymore. Now it is much more, I don't know, robust.

We could talk about it later. Yeah, it's contextual and like, I don't know, spears are good against mounted units. That makes sense. You don't want to get stabbed by a spear when you're on a horse. That would suck. You're up so high. No thanks.

So, like, I find that that stuff is really, really, really solid and really great, and this game adds a lot of fun stuff into that mix. I do want to hear from Plant. Have you ever spent more than five hours in any Firemobile game? Oh, that's a good question. I might have spent more than that and engage, which I enjoyed the combat, and I found it very strange how I was walking around this. I wasn't a floating island or something, and I looked like I was like in a toothpaste commercial. Terrible.

Well, her hair was toothpaste. Yeah, the narrative in that game was awful. Yeah, the combat was really good. This game is so weird because people have been recommending three houses, including both the Ultimie, forever. It's like, oh, you like persona. You're going to like the people are dating and making children in this. You're going to love it. And it's like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Got really excited for this one, did an episode of post games, learning all about the history of the series. Got really into that Star Wars tactics game was like, this is going to be it. I've got my anime tattoos now. That's changed since three houses. Like, this is my time to shine. So that's kind of where I was before starting the game. That's good setup. Let's talk about the structure of the game.

Because I think people probably know what Fire Emblem is at this point. The real question mark is like, what are the trappings of the game? This game has more trappings than I think I've ever experienced. It has the most fucking trappings. But this is not a new Fire Enblem concept, right? Three houses, you were picking your house at the start of the game, and then you would play through that campaign. And it was a different campaign. They were separate.

There were three, and then I think they added a fourth one through DLC. This game, instead, you start out by creating this character called the Pale Raven. Not a ton of character creation options, but that's fine because you'll spend most of the game as a pudgy little bird, and that's fucking great also. Who is at basically the apocalypse? And you learned that in order to defeat the demon king who is destroying the world, you have to go back in time five years to a tournament. that happened at the heart of the empire of Dagda. Dagden? Dagden?

Dagden. Dagden? And the city's called Dagsyan. Yeah. Which is awesome. Really fun naming conventions for the world in this one. And you have to interfere. Sorry, to clarify, for people that are fans of three houses, this is set in the same world as three houses. Yes.

But on a different country. Yeah. I mean, it's like two whole continents of, it's a huge fucking world. So there's four characters. called the Flame Lords, who were sort of competing in this tournament, and you choose one to go back and relive their story as they enter the tournament. Well, first, you kill them all in the future. There's like a nasty future, and you kill all of them. Yeah, it's a pretty sick prolog.

There's like space lasers and shit. Yeah. What's going on? You fucking murk a guy at close range with like a shot to the head with a handgun. Pretty gnarly stuff. And then you go back in time and you play as one of these four characters as you see what happens in their tournament and occasionally dip into interfere with the proceedings to try and save them to bring them to the present where you will then play sort of the rest of the rest of the campaign

like two acts worth left of stuff once you have done the kind of core narrative conceit of traveling back in time to save these four heroes those are the four campaigns of fire emblem fortunes weave what it does differently is after you've gone back in time and done act one essentially as those four characters, then all the paths combine into one turbo story for the remainder of the game. You could theoretically, and correct me from wrong, you could theoretically just play as one and move directly to part two. You can actually just skip all of them and just run right up on it as the pale raven. For what I understand, I have to do. I do believe that there is a way to end the game just by like saying, you know what, I think I got it.

And I like the certainty of that. I think it's cool how they are combining the storylines. Yeah. I loved Fire Emblem Three Houses. I played through, I think, Dimitri's campaign first. That was the blue team. And then I played the yellow team storyline. I don't think I ever did the DLC or the Red Class storyline.

So, like, I think it is cool how the storylines combine because that makes me feel like, well, I'm not going to have to replay the same game a bunch of times. Yeah, it's very ambitious because my understanding is if you do do multiple. of the part one, you can pick and choose, like, which version of this character are you to carry forward to part two, which is, like, pretty fucking ambitious. Really, super ambitious, but it's super wise, I think. I have not reached that point yet. I am nearing completion of one of the Act 1 arcs of one of the characters,

and I've been playing for around 20 hours. So that's a big old game, in it? That's a big old game. Are we talking about, like, it'll probably take me about 20, five hours, I'm guessing, just to finish this one, Act one storyline up with. Am I going to be playing this shit for 100 hours before I reach Act 2? Probably not, because I imagine I'll move through the other storylines quite a bit faster and not being quite as like, I don't know.

I'm trying to do everything on Kai, who is the little boy Flameloar. Okay, okay. No, I've got an update on timing. Okay. This is, according to this, the internet, the internet says, if you're doing a single path directly, more or less just, focusing on critical story stuff, 20 hours. If you're doing a thorough single path, 40 to 50 hours of gameplay, just for one of the characters act ones. So like, I don't know, gang, I'm having a, but I will say that way, I do want to mention when you go and switch characters

to other characters, if you're doing side stuff in one of them, you don't have to do it again. It automatically completes. So other subsequent playthrus will be faster. I am very glad to hear that, right? I am playing in hard casual. So the difficulty settings are normal, which is pretty easy from what I understand, or hard, which just affects like how much damage enemies do and their stats and stuff. And then there is classic where characters are permade and then casual, where they, if you die in battle, they just come back in the next one. I am playing hard casual.

That is the sort of way I'm playing it. And so I want to make sure, like, my dudes are strong. I'm doing a lot of the stuff. Between the big set piece battles, which are all very cool as you're going through this tournament, and like each of the matches is big. based on some historical or mythological event from like the history of the Dagden Empire. Like, and it really gets into it.

I'm loving all that shit. Uh, the time you're spending between those things is kind of insane. Cause it'll be like, it breaks each day down into four, six hour turns. And so like one break time between set piece battles. It'll be like,

you have 170 turns to spin before you get back. And it's like, holy shit, man. At first I was being very careful about how I was spending my time and not wasting movement on the, world map and wasting time there is I went and did side quests and, you know, farmed for shit or whatever. And now I'm like, I'm actually pretty set. I've got a really good team. I'm not going to really stress out about it. You can automate the process in a bunch of different ways. So I think I'll

probably do it that way more with the other branches. But still, man, like, as much fun as I'm having with this game, but I've been enjoying it a lot. I feel weird about moving on and beating the rest of the game with only one quarter of the like act one's done. But the thought of, the thought of like a hundred hours before I even get to the next part of the game is like a very off-putting I think sort of time commitment. I got a question for y'all of people who've been playing the series for a while. I remember the series having multiple versions. Like you could buy two different versions of I think it was Fates or something, right?

It was Fire Emblem. Yeah, Fire Emblem Fates had like for each of the family. That was the 3DS one. Yeah, that was like awakened or yeah. There were three versions. There was like the, you go with this family version or you go with this family version. And then there was like the authoritative Pokemon Platinum, if you will, version. Again, I only played one of those.

And I was like, I just played this for 60 hours. Like, I'm so set. I'm so good. Thank you. Is that kind of like a thing for this series? Because Three Houses also, I know, had the multiple storyline. So is this kind of a game known for having multiple games at the same time? and they're being more generous now

and that you don't have to buy multiple copies? Is that a way of kind of reading this? So Fireman Fates was the first time they did this where they had like the multiple paths that was on 3DS and then three houses, they did it again. Fireman Engage does not have it. So it's not an exclusive.

Yeah, I think Fates was the only one of these that did like the selling it in separate skews. Yeah, but I think that was the origination of this idea that you can play more or less the same story from multiple perspectives. Yeah. I think that shit's really cool, right? I liked having to make that choice in three houses and then talking to other people and then playing the second, you know, play through, which I did quite a bit later. It was not like a back-to-back sort of situation.

It was cool because it's like, wow, this story is completely different. This is like this one a completely different route. And I'm enjoying the story of this game and the world building of this game, but I do want to see. I've heard the stuff in Act 2 and 3 is fucking rad. I want to see that shit really, really bad. I don't know. I guess I am, I know this is like a steak too juicy situation maybe, but like I don't want to, I would feel weird. There's a completionist streak in me that would feel weird moving on with the rest of the game and just like not having the other three kind of characters. But like I don't know if I can handle that much fire emblem. It sounds like the difference here too is like fates and three houses. If you did a run, you did a complete experience. We're knowing that these are all. episodic, it's like, no, you really didn't complete the game until you've done it all.

That is my sort of concern. What I will say, this game does a lot of stuff right. This game does a lot of stuff with this structure right. One big thing is that your character, The Pale Raven, hangs out in this obelisk chamber, where these four obelisks are, which represent the four different paths through Act 1, and at any time, you can drop back to that chamber and hop over to another path. You do not have to finish one all the way through before you can check out something else. I think that's pretty cool.

I know some people are playing it that way because you will run into the other main Flame Lord characters as you go through a route so you can say like, oh, that was awesome. I teamed up with them in this battle. I wonder what's going on in their story. The thought of doing that to me, like, I don't know, managing a whole army of characters

is overwhelming. I don't know that I could do four concurrent ones. But... Yeah, I will say, here's the challenge that I'm facing as hardcore fireman person that I am, And Griffin, maybe you can, like, edge me in the right direction. Sure. Literally nowhere near...

This game is way more complicated from a meta-game structure standpoint than anything that's come before it, probably by 5X. Wow. What is making you feel that way? The management of, like, the items that I'm getting, the how to spend my time, which, granted, was in three houses, the, like, open world map. the multiple characters at once. The whole thing were, you know, in three houses, largely,

like the group that you hang with, you kind of start with. Like, they're in your house. And then there are a couple other characters you can recruit if you give them gifts, whatever it is. You can recruit every... When I played three houses, I yoinked every single, like, person

from the other two houses that I possibly could. That's right. I did forget that point. But largely, like, it feels like there's a lot of systems in here that I'm not fully understanding. And maybe it's because I went in without, like, reading anything about this game. Sure. But I feel like I'm drowning.

Yeah, it really, for me, I preferred the way that three houses did free time, which was much more focused, I'll say. I mean, you were just in the castle for the most part. You were in Garrickmock and you were, like, running around. And there's a ton of shit that you could do. But there's not a joke, 10 times as much stuff to do with your free time here. And if you agonize over it, you will become very. strong, right? If you think very hard about how you want to spend all 170 turns until the next like big Keystone battle, like you're going to get pretty buff, but it's like, I think it's

way too much. I did not enjoy the act of going over the world map, which is fucking sprawling and you can only move a few pips on at a time. And you're going from point A to point B, maybe you're trying to like knock out some quests to earn renown, which is like a huge leveling mechanic of the game that unlocks new characters and mechanics and things like that in the game, maybe you are trying to find rare resources at this one specific node way down the map. Maybe you want to go do a turn-based RPG dungeon because there's those in the game where you go through and it's all of a sudden sort of a turn-based RPG and not a strategy game. Like figuring out like, am I going to be fine spending 14 turns running down to this lake so I can

find this rare fish for this guy that I could spend going around and leveling up in dungeon. Like, if you met a game at to a point that I feel like three houses kind of invited and games like persona really kind of encourage of like, you've got to be so careful for how you're, if you do that, it's fucking miserable. It's not fun to have 170 decisions that you're making before you do the next sort of like big rad battle. So like that, that feels way too unfocused. and I've found myself now like automating that process and like once I knock out, you know, the quests I care about and recruit the characters I care about and I have a hundred turns left over. I'll like, I'll do some shit on the week, like weekly activities and then I'll automate the rest of it.

The game lets you automate quite a lot of the pain points that you brought up, Russ. I only recently discovered the equip best option whenever you're looking at inventory. It's tiny little text at the bottom, I think right trigger. opens up a menu where you can remove everyone's items, automatically put on the best items, automatically put on the best abilities, automatically put on the best combat arts, automatically assign the best mounts. You're going out and capturing mounts for your mounted units and like managing their relationships. Like it's too much to not automate.

And so like I have been enjoying my route through Kai's story a lot better over the last few chapters where I've been like, okay, I know how much time I actually need to do this. and the rest of this time I can use these automated systems to kind of get through it to a degree that is more enjoyable. You can automate tactics battles if you want to. You can just turn it on

auto battle mode and choose like advance. I want you to move up and stay together and be sort of conservative. Like you can do that for the like random encounter battles that you run into on the map, which I've done a few times because I fought the same group of seven wolves quite a few times at this point.

So like I don't know, that part of the game it for me goes along with the there's so many routes and so much time that is asking you to spend that like I find myself pretty eager to get back into the big story fights the big narrative fights because those have all hit for me and I'm finding it really really really compelling. It's just I don't know man 170 turns. Are you sure man? That's so many turns. And I'm also remembering like in old school fireroom games like to recruit someone in a fire. Iron Moon game in days of your you would see them on the map. Maybe they were like a nasty thief and they were stealing gold around the map.

But if you talk to them, it turns out they're stealing gold because their mom is sick. So now they're going to join you because you're nice. And in this one, it's like bring me the meat of three sandworms. And it's like, I don't even know where to fucking get that, dude. Calm down. I'm mixed about this game. That's the thing is like I want to get to the point where you're at where like I've done duolingo enough that I know what the

fuck the language of this game is. And I know which things I don't need to worry about and which things I do. And I need to get over that hump. And unfortunately Besties as a structure, like we started playing the game on Friday. And it's just been a few days. So the idea that we would be 50

hours into this thing to the point where we would understand it and I'm just not quite there yet. So I want to play more. Like I like... It could still happen. You might turn around on it. Oh yeah. 100%. Especially the kind of I fucking love the combat.

I think it looks gorgeous. The music is fucking stunning. And every time I'm in a fight, I'm having a good time because I feel like I'm min-maxing the like bonds that the people are making. What story did you go with, by the way? Can we say what question. What chapter you ended up? I picked Lida, who's the musician with the heart of gold, but actually she's going

to kill everyone. Yeah, she has a revenge list. So she's going around. Her goal is to basically kill all the people that like burned her. family and killed her family, whatever it else. And she plays the Vuvuela, I think it's called it. It's like a Spanish guitar and it fucking rocks. Like the music in her section has been so, so good.

And I like the people that she's rolling with. And so I've been enjoying that part of it. I think the talking can be too much, in my opinion. I think it's overwritten. And we can certainly talk about that. But I think when she's talking about like her quest, I'm down with it, cool. When other people are talking about their personal backstories, down with it, cool.

The second people start throwing like seven or eight pronouns at me that I've never ever heard before becomes really weird. Not pronouns, proper nouns. Propererounce. Sorry. It's important. That's crazy, man. You just sounded like a fucking shock jock.

This became the... Enough already, guys. All right. No, yeah. Proper nouns. No, for sure. I will say this. You got a vibe with this shit.

Like, there's so... The storyline I'm doing. which is Kai's storyline, is really focused on this pantheon of gods who like exists in this world and you can go hang out with them. Yeah. Right. Like that and that was such a weird sort of thing. And it seems like the story is very focused on that. So it is a game that demands, I think, investment in this world, in the world that they have built.

And I have enjoyed that stuff. I found that stuff to be very rich and very interesting. But like if that does not sound like you're a cup of tea, I feel like the, the parts of the story that are maybe more easily relatable get a bit, get a bit drowned out. Here's my thing. I'm going to keep playing this game. I want to at least finish Kai's storyline and I would love to be able to go through and finish all the other storylines. If I do that, it'll probably, I don't know that I'll finish the game this year, right?

That's fine. That's a lot. I also don't have anything competing for my time presently. But, I mean, that's going to change. next week. So like there's lots of, there is lots of stuff coming out. I don't know. It's, I, I think if you like Fire Emblem, if you loved Fire Emblem Three Houses, I think you're gonna really enjoy this one. I think it's huge. It's much bigger. It's way denser. And I think it requires a bit more work to understand these thousand systems that they have tossed in there.

And I, I don't know, people have, fans of this series have been like, gaga about this game. Because I, I think if you like a tactics-based RPG, you're looking for a pretty dense sort of experience. But if you are a casual Fire Emblem fan, I want you to know at the front, like, some work will be expected of you to, like, really, really get on board with the game's structure and vibe. Yeah, I would say for casual fans and maybe Chris Plan is one of them, like either three houses, which is actually pretty dense, but not as crazy dense as this one. but I would even recommend like if you have the ability go back and play like fate's ruled

awakening rule yeah all all the handheld ones are like fucking pretty much great like you really can't go wrong so I think this franchise that's a lot of depth

I did write down like a little review my like a little review of the game who did you pick by the way Chris picked Lita and and yeah

my review is not my thing just not my thing. All right. You know, sometimes I'm shocked. I'm truly shocked. You know, the anime, yes. I don't know, man. I mean, I talked to plan about it.

I think it's a monster hunter problem to some extent. I think it's a monster hunter problem. I think it's a fantasy problem. I still struggled to get into fantasy and like, oh, in a world of yada, yada, yada with the whoever, whoever. who fought however many years ago. It's just for me, not my thing. I think it's also the threat of 200 hours.

For a lot of people, that's a great deal, right? For me, my situation. And part of that is my R situation doing the show, but also part of it is just any game that is 200 hours sounds like a non-starter to me. I can barely work my way through a persona in a year at, you know, like 100 hours. So it just puts me off from the drop. But then even the tactics combat, I was trying to figure out why this doesn't work for me

in a win the new Star Wars X-Com really, really works for me. And that game really has you on the ground with these characters. It is very seamless. It feels like a third-person combat game in a weird way where you're playing with action figures versus this where, I don't know, something about the shifting in and out

feels like a menu simulator. And I realize that's a weird thing to say when I'm, yes, do love persona. But I feel like I haven't gotten over the hump to your point, fresh. I haven't had that moment where it sparked for me. And with this game being so big

in so dense, I don't think that this will be the one. Like I almost think I need to go back and play three houses. if I want to try to get into this series. I think, I would say, yeah, either that or one of the other ones that are a little bit more digestible

and a little more linear. When I say Monster Hunter problem, I mean, like, if you've never gotten into a Monster Hunter game, it's difficult to understand why people like it because the systems are so dense and there's so much going on. Yeah.

And so I think there's part of that. I mean, the idea that, like, when I'm walking through the town and I see like a cool-looking character and I start talking to them and they're like, do you have a gift for me? In the back of my head

because I played 16 of these, I know, oh, if I bring a gift to this person and take them to the right lunch and say the right thing, they're going to join my team and they're going to be fucking awesome. I'll learn their backstory and maybe I'll take some of their abilities

and use them on other people and X, Y, and Z. So that's like I'm looking into the future of what that means, but if someone's coming to this fresh and some asshole in the street is like, you have a gift for me, they'll be like, fuck you, go away, and then you lose them forever.

And do you know what's fucked? You don't lose them forever. But do you know what's fucked? Is that that stuff doesn't even take turns. There's a lot of things you do in this game. Like, I'm going to have my friends out for a meal to use one of my 170 turns. No, that doesn't even take turns. That's a bonus turns you're taking.

It's really daunting. Every free time is pretty daunting. And I think Three Houses did a much cleaner job with it. And a game, I struggle a lot with like, I love persona. I'm really looking for it to Persona 4. I'm probably going to play it for around 100 hours when it comes out. So how do I justify like being stoked for that versus feeling threatened by the structure of this game? And I really just think it comes down to like it feels it feels like a cerebral exercise working through free time.

And like even with a not particularly min-maxy mindset, like it feels like, gosh, I mean laborious. Like it feels like a labor to make those decisions and run through those. I think that's what it comes back to for me is like 200 hours of that seems kind of kind of exhaust. Also 200 versus 100 is substantial. It's like it's substantial. It's almost like double. I think my goal, now that I've heard everything, I'm going to go online and I'm going to look up how best to basically optimize or at least automate this process between the things that I really, really enjoy and the things. that I do not enjoy it.

Because it sounds like there is a way to do it. It's just kind of buried in the menus. I'm optimistic that I've done that a lot recently, and I'm still, even playing on hard mode, like, really well set up for the, I've not struggled. I mean, I've struggled insofar as like I've gotten to the end of a fight with just a few characters who haven't beefed it, which is a good thing I'm playing on casual mode.

So, like, I do think you can kind of pick and choose what you like and sort of speed up the rest. Yeah. I will be excited to talk. about this game again. Maybe in a couple months after I've like maybe finished an arc or two. Yeah. Because I am enjoying it more and more. It put me off huge. The first time that I had a free time and it was like you have 100 or so turns. I was like, holy shit. I don't know if I can rock with this. And now I feel like I've learned the game to a point where I can, that stuff is not as off putting. So I will continue sticking with it. I think plant probably not. But that's fine. Plant, maybe you'll go home and do. some homework on a different one eventually. There's so many other games.

Yeah, I mean, I look forward to listening to y'all talk about it, you know? Like, it's nice to be like, listener. That's nice. Sure. Let's take a brief break. And then when we come back, instead of talking about Fire Enblem fortunes weave, I can't get the document open this fast guys. That's okay.

I got it. I got it. We're going to talk about, is it time to buy a Switch 2? And what? Is there enough? Is there enough going on there? We'll talk about all that right after the break. Okay, so we're not going to tell you like literally, oh, you should go buy a Switch 2.

Telling anybody to go buy hardware right now is unhinged. Hardware has never been more expensive. It's ridiculous. Unless you have your own ramp. Are you sitting on RAM that you can build your own Switch 2 like some sort of Christmas elf? Like Iron Man, just out in the cave making your Switch 2? Tony Stark built this Switch 2 in a cave. Um, yeah, okay, so let's go, let's go over.

This is the, the latest, uh, exclusive on Switch 2. And it's a good one. Uh, what other, what's the other big highlights? Okay. So for me, I think the answer of the very best Switch 2 exclusive at present is pretty clear. And that answer is Popopia. I, wow. I think Pocopia is the best switch to exclusive.

It is the best reason to own a. Switch 2, I think. Yeah, I'd agree with that. You would need to probably care about Pokemon. That is a stipulation. But if you care about Pokemon, I don't think there is any question that this is one of the best Pokemon games ever made. It's certainly... I think it's one of the best, like, cozy game world sim experiences ever made. I think it's fucking fantastic.

Even if you don't care about Pokemon and your interest in Pokemon begins and ends with, yeah, Pikachu is cute or Bobasaur is the best, this is still a great game. game to play because this is a game that will convert you into a Pokemon sicko more than any of the other Pokemon games. Yeah. I'll say for me, probably the other big name on this list that I feel like you are missing out on, if you do not have a Switch 2, is Splatoon Raiders, which came out earlier. This year, the roguelike sort of a PVE focused Splatoon game.

I played through all of it, loved it, was texting with Russ the other day about the ending of that game is so fucking buck wild. And then unlocks like a bunch of post game, super difficult shit like, that's one that I kind of

have been wanting to go back and play more of because I finished it but got to the like post game turbo hard difficulties and moved on to something else. But God damn, that is a fun game. Really, really good. And I think after that, probably Bonanza. Bonanza, yeah.

Probably makes sense. I really like Bonanza. I don't think over time, you know, I think there was some discussion of like, is this the like going to replace Mario Odyssey in terms of like 3D platform? I think Mario Odyssey is largely the better game. I think there's no doubt. But this is an excellent. installment, uh, which introduces like a really unique mechanic to 3D platforming where you can

destroy fucking everything feels really good to play as Donkey Kong. He doesn't play like any other character that we've ever really played as, including in Donkey Kong 64. Like this feels like a new take on a 3D platformer in a really cool way. I'm trying to figure out like a theme here of all of these games, especially as we head into some of the weirder stuff. Is it that this is the tail end? What would normally be the tail end of a Nintendo console where they are really picking out some of the weird stuff, they're making the unusual sequels, they're hitting series that you would normally miss, or is this, hey, at the beginning of the Switch 2, we want to really pander, I guess, to the hardcore base. And we want to make the things for the real sickos.

I mean, I don't think the things that we've listed don't feel like pandering per se. I mean, there are certainly franchises highlighted here. But, like, all of the things that we've listed don't feel like pandering per se. I mean, there are certainly franchises highlighted here, but like all of these games, Pocopia, Sputon Raiders, D.K. Bonanza, to some extent, Fortune's Weave are games that I think take like wild left turns in terms of these franchises. Yes, that's what I mean though. By like, like this isn't Mario, this isn't Zelda.

This isn't the, you know, kind of classic stuff that you started a console with. This is right. Even Splatoon Raiders is a big change for the Splatoon series. Pocopia is a big change for the Pokemon series. These are unusual games. And then we get into like the other stuff, which is... Yeah, so... Yeah, go ahead.

These games aren't bad by any stretch of the imagination, but shit like Mario Kart World, man, that one fell off. Like, it's shocking when I look back on how much of Mario Kart on the Switch, what was that, eight? Eight, Deluxe. Mario Kart eight on the switch,

like I played a fucking lot. And a big part of that was like, you know, living in Austin and having like more gaming buddies that I play games with. But like that was a staple on the Switch. And I really fell off of World very, very quickly. Same with Kirby Airwriters. And there's some solid games,

but I would say like nothing else that's come out, apart from those four that I think are like, oh, this is like really special and worth getting immediately. Switch one launch year was a hard yes. Like you have, you haven't played. Breath of the Wild, you haven't played Mario Audits. Like, you gotta have one of these fucking things.

It is, like, these are killer apps. I think that's, like, the term that is kind of maybe missing here is, like, are, is D.K. Bonanza and Pocopia and Splatoon Raiders, like, killer apps for the Nintendo Switch 2. I don't think by textbook definition they are. And the best Mario and Zelda games on here are the Switch 2 upgrades of Tears of the Kingdom, which, like, no shit is one of the best games on the Switch. I mean, I'm playing, yeah, you can play both of them. I'm playing Breath of the Wild Switch 2 version right now.

Yeah. Fucking rules. Fantastic. So good. But we got, I mean, coming down the pipe, Metroid Ravenous in January, that looks fantastic. The Ocreen of Time remake here in a couple months. What, the dusk bloods? Is that out this year?

Do we have a release date yet? They just did a test of that. That's the From Software game. It's this year, right? Like they've said it's this year. I'm pretty sure, which is so strange. I mean, at this point, if they don't have a date for it, I have my doubt. It's going to be this year.

It's scheduled for release in 2026, but there's no release date. We're running out a runway, I would say, here from Soft. The Switch Sports Resort is coming out. Like, I'm looking forward to all of these games. It's still, like, we don't have our Mario Odyssey or our Breath of the Wild. Like, those were such, I don't know, Lamey and Mark kind of. Games. New Animal Crossing would be amazing. Yeah. Oh, yeah, that Kirby game, I forgot to mention the Kirby Open World Kirby game.

Yeah, that's what, next April or something like that? I don't know. I'm not convinced. I think that this conversation changed also when they increased the price to 500, 500, half a 1,000 American dollars is like, that's a good chunk of change, man. As great as those games are, I just don't know that it's like, necessary. in the way the Switch 1 really was. I agree with you with like general audience. For the type of people who listen to this show, you are a certain type of sicko. You are more into weird video game design choices.

And maybe, maybe you are going to be into this. Because games like Yoshi in the Mysterious book, not a perfect game, kind of like a classic 7 out of 10, but a deeply weird game that is online. anything else that you're going to play, especially if you are playing games with kids. And I would say that about basically everything we've discussed here. In terms of family games, this is a murderer's row of options.

Like, these are all... Not fucking fortunes weave. I will say that. There's some like... Fortune's Weave gets into some body horror shit that I was not expecting. Yeah, it goes for it. It's sick, and I love it, but yeah. That's a big caveat.

Yeah, that's if you are somebody who really, really wants to either play a lot more new games with the kids, or you are somebody who really wants to see Nintendo kind of unleashed on weird design choices. Now, I will say this. There is another scenario of like, if you don't have a Steam deck or a Rog Ally X or like any kind of like handheld PC and want to play games on the go, uh, Switch 2 is getting a lot of its shit late, right? like the like I don't know Final Fantasy games seven remakes are coming late to it

Final Fantasy 14 just hit Switch 2 I'm very curious about that so like that stuff is delayed but in my experience and from what I can tell like you know looking at Digital Foundry reviews of like here's the new huge Monster Hunter game like it's good for 500 bucks like it is a beefy little boy that can handle

pretty much anything you throw out my understanding is developers that are making multi-platform games now, consider the Switch 2 to basically be the equivalent of like an Xbox S, series S, which is to say they need to make games that can still run on the Switch 2

because they understand how big of a market it's going to be and already is. It is not like the Switch 1, which was kind of a generation behind when it was released. And I love the Switch 1, but like it was not the thing

that I reached over to when I was like buying a game that was multi-platform. Yeah, the fact that, like, they were able to get Witch or Three running on it was like a magic trick. Like, largely most 3D, like, big, triple A multi-platform stuff did not come there.

Totally different story with the Switch 2. So I think if you have nothing, like, yeah, it's actually probably not a bad idea because most stuff is coming to it. And if you don't want to shell out, I think, 750 now for the Steam deck and like a thousand for the Rog L-I-X. Yeah, it's getting, it's getting pretty wild.

So, like, I don't know, 500 bucks is. Maybe not the worst kind of proposition. You can also probably count on more games and AAA games coming to the Switch 2 for much longer than they did in the Switch 1's life cycle. One, because of the power that it has, but two, because of all of these issues with RAM and GPUs. We're going to be here for a minute. We're going to be here for a while, and developers are going to probably start, if anything, going backwards in terms of the things that they're aiming for. Right now, if you want to buy a Invidia G4s RtX5090, which I think launched at like a thousand ninety-nine, you can get them for like, I don't know, $6,000 or something on Amazon. So like that's the world that we're in.

Ram that costs $300, now approaching a K. Like, it's absolutely absurd. So this system is going to be here for a while. the only question that I would have about waiting versus not waiting with the Switch in particular is we know that Nintendo likes to do sometimes multiple mid-cycle releases. Yeah. And the OLED screen is not here on the Switch 2 like it is on the Switch 1. Maybe they'll release that eventually. But I don't know.

Like all of those kind of precedents are out the window right now when people are just trying to move the units and not let the, prices get totally out of out of hand yeah i love you know me i'm a sicko for buying nintendo hardware that like looks different um i still the switch light is still my by far preferred version of the switch uh to play it i would love a small form factor switch too but that seems like uh i don't know it will that is an act of compression that i do not know the market is kind of set up to uh to to allow So like, I don't even think you have to wait. I don't even, I don't know. It seems unlikely that there's going to be a Switch 2 Pro coming out.

Yeah, I would say, certainly not one that's more powerful, maybe an OLED in a couple years, but again, it's not going to be a super rush. The other thing I would shout out just in terms of the Switch 2 is like benefits. You mentioned like liking that it's smaller. The thing that I like about, because it is bigger, which doesn't make it super easy to hold, but it does make it super viable to play on a desk. Like I have genuinely set it up with the kickstand Something that I almost never did with the switch one

I do frequently with the switch two Because of that increased size So that is definitely a benefit I set it up on the front panel of my like Exercise bike Yeah And just like pop it there It fits perfectly and you can rock with the joysticks

Oh did you guys fuck with the mouse controls at all In Fireman? No I instantly rejected that offer to do mass controls It's pretty it works pretty good I mean I'll say this Not my thing not my cup of tea but credit where credits do, it works pretty fucking good.

I mean, the problem is the mouse, if you're using mouse mode with the joycons, it's not comfortable. Like, it's not a comfortable mouse to hold.

No, you don't want to hold a mouse that's this skinny. I mean, maybe if it was like a laser pointer, I'd be like more down, but yeah, I'm not going to hold that.

You're describing the wee boat. Yeah, basically. I mean, it can do that. It has that capability, but yeah. Do we want to do some emails? Yeah, we have one message that I wanted to call out.

This one comes from Zombra. I was hoping that Russ would have gone a little bit deeper on the steam frame, but the one big question I would have, hopefully this gets answered. How is the clarity? He referenced it to an IMAX screen in your living room, but is this just a reference to the size or is it like 1080P 4K clarity? I'm so excited to get one, but who knows when that will happen. Okay, I'm probably not the person to ask. My general opinion, I think it certainly looks nice of the Quest 3, just in terms of like screen clarity. maybe that's my imagination, but it does look nicer to me. They also do, sorry, I'm going to throw some VR nerd terms at you,

foviated rendering, which means that what you're looking at will be sharper than what you're not looking at as a way to save compute power. So to me, it looks a lot sharper because my eyes are basically deciding what to make super sharp. That being said, I am of the opinion that if you're in VR for three minutes, the shittiest VR experience and the best VR experience are pretty fucking close. They're pretty fucking close.

You kind of forget. It's like a brain thing where you just kind of forget. So if you're just in it for like an increasing clarity over whatever, I wouldn't necessarily do it for that. I think that's true now.

I think like the upgrade from like the original Oculus trip to like the quest or Quest 2. You can see the like pixels. As long as the frame rate is there. Yes. The second frame rate gets goofy is when you start to feel like you're going to throw up. Yeah.

Yeah. So I haven't had that issue. But again, I can run it wirelessly through my gaming PC. And because it's running on a beefy machine, like, incredibly stable. So, yeah. I got the email that I had been chosen to buy the purchase. You've been blessed by Gabe. But I didn't do it.

Okay. So I think I may have missed it actually. Yeah, probably. This email came in. Oh, 14 hours ago. Still have a chance. But I don't want to because it's so expensive. And I don't play with my current toys.

Okay, so maybe don't. Papa won't let me buy new toys if I don't play with my current toys. Yeah, maybe don't. It's okay. That's okay. Griffin, you don't need to play with all. You don't need to do it. I see what you're doing right now.

Pull your hands away from the mouse. I got picked. Papa Gabe chose me. He chose me to buy it. He'll make a knife for you. How about that? This is not perfect for a time. This is so far, guys, we are so far from perfect bird time that we don't even remember what perfect bird time was.

Do we have any honorable mentions? I just finished the third book in the Shadow of the Leviathan book series by Robert Jackson Bennett called A Trade of Blood. These are also known as the Anna and Den Mysteries, which I've talked about on this show before it's set in this world where Kaiju came up out of the ocean and challenged. the Roman Empire and then from their corpses, the Empire learned how to do all kinds of crazy shit, like enhance their own mental capabilities or build crazy bio weapons and stuff. How would the Roman Empire kill a kaiju?

It's not an actual Roman empire, but they kill the kaiju with the stuff they learn from the kaiju. So it's like this world of very kind of like plant and mutation-based sort of magic and stuff like that, which is a very, very, very, very. novel kind of structure for a fantasy world. I've been very into it since the first book, which I think was called The Tainted Cup or a Drop of Corruption. Those are the other two. But they are fantastic mysteries. The two main characters, Anna, is this just really kind of

psychopathic Sherlock-style detective with all of these sensory powers that require her to like wear a blindfold so as not to get kind of over-run by the rest of the rest of the of the world and din who is like her apprentice who can remember everything that he sees and hears so the structure of these books is din will go and do the legwork and like interview the people and with his perfect kind of mutated memory comes back and relays the information back to uh anna who is just like such a such a crackpot such a great character the books are so fun the stories are so the mysteries are kick ass and it really is just such a such a strange kind of of setting for a story.

This is the third one in the series. I just, Robert Jackson Bennett, my favorite fantasy author has done a bunch of shit to the Divine Cities trilogy and a bunch of other great books. But this is the most recent one. It just came out in August and I tore through it as I have done all these books. Point, you have anything?

I saw the new Resident Evil movie. Oh man, I want to see that so bad. I so want to see it. Don't tell me anything about it. I will not say anything. other than it is fantastic. Freshick, I am talking with our mutual friend Jordan Hoffman for post games this week to do a bit of a spoiler chat. It is, once you both have seen it, we should talk about it.

It does something that is so fucking clever, so clever that you are. We should do a spoiler episode of you. You don't lose your minds. Yes, I'd be very happy to. You are going to. Is it the same kind of tone as barbarian and weapons of like... It is a slapstick comedy horror. Okay.

Scary? What's the scare factor? Fear factor like? Quite scary. Okay. Okay. Extremely gory. Fuck yeah.

Yeah. Fuck yeah. Absolutely. Here for it. It rocks. I love it. I hope Zach's doing okay. I hope people aren't being too mean by him about his movie.

I don't think you need to worry about it. Once you'll have seen the movie, it's... I think people's tunes change. I'm talking about the people who are so fiercely embroiled in the culture battles that they are now saying like, actually the Milojovich Resident Evil's. Those are my Resident Evil's?

Are you guys fucking sure? Are you so not self-aware that you can't take a look? Listen to the things that you're saying and be like, wait, that was fucked up. Like what? I'm so deep in the paint that I'm defending the Milojovich Resident Evil movies and talking about how that's my era.

Am I okay? No, I've gone too far. I will say as somebody who enjoys the W.S. Anderson Resident Evil movies, this is actually a more loyal adaptation of the series than those movies are. And not like hyperbole. So everybody was acting like they were so worried about. This is a, I think, fiercely loyal adaptation of the series, just not in the ways that people thought it would be.

I am stoked. I'm really excited. I've continued to play Breath of the Wild with my kid. He is, this will be the first game that like really introduces him in a serious way to Zelda in general. Cool. And it has been fucking perfect. Delight. There's just so many approaches that you can take with a young kid while you're, I mean, I'm mostly playing, but he sometimes takes a controller and jumps in the lava.

He likes that. But the idea that you're taking pictures of everything you find, you're reading a bit of, about it, they all have descriptions you can read about. There's just so much that's not just push blocks around or fight things. Look, I love Zelda to death, but because of the variety and activities, you can

really just maintain a kid's level of interest for much longer than you would, I think, in a traditional Zelda game. It's been such a huge hit. To the point where we continued our annual, we do it once a year, annual pilgrimage to the Nintendo store in Manhattan.

Ooh! And he got to pick out something and he got very overwhelmed. There's a lot of choice there, but he left carrying a plush bocoblin with a skull necklace and a big stick and it was just like,

perfect. We have the same bocoblin in our household. Such a good bocoblin. He gets a lot of playtime. We did have to explain to him he had some homework last night. It's like his first homework he's ever gotten and it was named things that start with B and we had to explain to him that the teacher might

not know what upoconoffice. Or maybe they do. Maybe they're cool. Maybe they do. I got a question for you, Fras. Yeah. The Nature versus Nurture here. You sent me a video of your child, and I hope you don't mind me sharing this on the show.

I don't actually even remember what the video was. I think your child might be at Target or somewhere. Yeah, that was in a target. Yeah, that was in a target. I was buying slime supplies, and he found the video game shelf. Standing in front of the Switch section, and he starts at the first game and he goes, I need this one. And then just kind of waves his hand down the entire aisle,

then goes back to the beginning, waves his hand over the rest of the games. One by one, the entire row, then just goes, I think I'm going to need all of these games. And I'm wondering, is that just part of, like, is that a DNA thing? Or do you think that you've just kind of really raised your kid well? I think I must have raised him well.

I did have to, I kept saying we have all these games because of my job. And he was like, I want the game. games. So he wants his own copy. And I said, I tried to explain to him that like, look, when I die, all of these will pass on to you. And then he cried and got really, you know. Why would you do that? Yeah, that was that was tough. I get that instinct, though, at this, at the Target or at the video game store. I think every kid wants to live that. Do you guys remember video power? No. Do you guys remember the game show video power? Do you really not? I think so.

I remember Nick Arcade. Nick Arcade. It was like Nick Arcade, but it ended with kids running through like an obstacle course covered in NES cartridges, and they would have to stick them to their body where they were wearing a Velcro suit and then go down a slide at the end. That sounds amazing. And get to keep all the, man, did I dream this? Hold on. No, this existed. How, yeah, no, I don't remember that at all.

Oh, weird. It was sick. How did I just not know about this? Yeah, he picked up one of the demo boxes and opened it and it was empty. And I was like, yeah, they're all empty. And then we left. Close call. That is going to do it for us this week on the Besties.

Thank you all so much for listening. Chris, can you give us a quick recap of what we discussed today? Oh, my gosh. We talked about so much. We talked about Fire Emblem, Fortune's Weave. We talked about all of the exclusives on the Nintendo Switch 2, which you will be able to find a list of on the newsletter at besties. We also talked about the new Resident Evil movie

Shadow of the Leviathan book series Specifically, I believe the book is a trade of blood And then The Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild And the Nintendo Store in New York City I wanted to call out the folks over at the Patreon That's patreon.com slash the besties. We have a new episode of Restes We talked about, in my opinion, the excellent Silent Hill Townfall, which I thought was a really, really good game,

A plan also talked about Metal Gear Solid 4 and a number of other things, which is really good. That episode's live now. We also have a new bracket battles coming at you in early October. Some backers from our Patreon. We have Jacob D. We have Janet.

We have Kenneth H. And account name Nothing Ventured. Thank you for being supporters. And thank you to everyone else. Keep in mind we have a live show coming up October 9th. Get your tickets. Last shot. It's getting there.

We're just a couple weeks away. So if you want to join us, please get your tickets, ASAP. It's bit.l.L.Y slash besties on Broadway. We're going to be in New York City at the town hall. October night. Come see us. It's going to be fun. Next week, we're going to be talking about control resonant, which means I'm finally going to have to learn what control resonant is.

I'm excited to do so with you and everyone listening next week. So please join us because shouldn't the world's best friends play the world's best games? Estes Estes