Is Dragon Quest VII Too Easy? Is Nioh 3 Too Hard?

This is the one with the crystals and the dragons. No. It's not. So sometimes there's orbs. Okay. Eleven's got orbs. Do any of the orbs have points? Because if they have points, that's basically a crystal. No, they're usually pretty smooth. Final Fantasy, the crystals are quite jacked. I will grant you that. Sometimes they're like materia, I guess, is a perfect beautiful little sphere that you just want to pop right in your mouth. And sometimes they're like neat little geometric shapes, like an elongated eight-sided die or something like that. But in Dragon Quest, we're almost always talking about an orb, and the orb is prismatic, different colors of the rainbow. You do need to get all of them, usually to build a bridge to heaven, so you can get the sword from God. So that's my mnemonic device. I like Dragon Warrior. That game's sick. Dragon Quest sucks. That's interesting. I sound old school, so I only like Dragon Warrior and actually the kids that like Dragon Quest growing up, I thought they were kind of idiots and wimps. Juice the blonde flower seller from Final Fantasy 7, what's her name? Aerith. Oh. Interesting. Not what I expected. I'm so dumb. I think there was a promotion to get a copy of Dragon Warrior for free when I was a kid. That's the only reason I played it. Of course it was. The Nintendo Power gave it away. And second thing, I just love knowing that there's going to have to be like a Wikipedia page explaining this cold open 90% of the people. Oh, dude, it's nine layers deep. You got to know. You got to know your stuff, gang. This is a Super Bowl dip of a cold open for you right here. We'll talk about this contextually. Yeah, no. And if you're intrigued and confused by this cold open, stick around. We'll explain every joke we made along the way. Also, you're not supposed to be listening to this. This isn't part of the show. Rachel, god damn it. Again. We keep telling you, please don't put this in the game. We keep telling you this is not part of it. My name is Dustin Baccarat. I know the best game of the week. My name is Griffin McElroy, and I know the best game of the week. My name is Christopher Thomas Plant, and I know the best game of the week. My name is Russ Rushlick, and I know the best game of the week. Welcome to the Besties. It's a video game club, and just by listening, you are a member. This week we're talking about a freshening up of a classic beloved tale, Dragon Quest 7 Reimagined. Is that what we're going with? Yeah, crushed it. Reimagined. What's that, Chris Blant? Dragon Quest 7 Reimagined is the latest remake of the game. We got one about 10 years ago for the Nintendo EDS, and the original came out in America, which is a twist because not every Dragon Quest game used to. Dragon Quest, for people who aren't aware, is a fantasy role-playing game. Imagine Final Fantasy VII. Well, actually, don't imagine Final Fantasy VII. You don't imagine anything you like Final Fantasy VII. Don't imagine something else, please. The opposite of that. Imagine just a really traditional fantasy role-playing game, but this time you're on a boat. It's Madden 2045. That's exactly what it is. That's the exact opposite. Thank you. Dragon Quest VII Fragments of the Forgotten Past is the full name of it. That was the 3DS version. The Madden comparison I don't think is entirely wrong here from Justin. In the world of role-playing games, because Dragon Quest, unlike Final Fantasy, it likes to stay very similar game to game to game. Beyond just the slimes. It's not taking massive swings every game like Final Fantasy where you don't fully know what it's going to be. If you've played one Dragon Quest, you have an idea of what the Dragon Quest canon will be. Play Final Fantasy 1 and then go play Final Fantasy 16. Sure. Is that the most recent one? Like, play anywhere in between there, 7, 10, 12. Like, play any of the other. And it's like, that's a different genre, right? Like, Final Fantasy 7 even is sort of a steamy, steampunk, apocalyptic kind of fantasy. This is just Dragon Quest. And 7 is about as straight over the plate as this series really, really gets. Is there a special boy and it's a special day in this game? Okay, so there's a lot of twists on it. It's Pilchard Day. It's Pilchard Day. It's Pilchard Day. A special fish day at Pilchard Bay. It's a special Pilchard Fish Day. It's Pilchard Day at Pilchard Bay, and it's a special Pilchard Day. You've got to wake up early to help your Pilchard paw bring his special Pilchard sandwiches for your ma to your paw before he sets sail to collect all the delicious Pilchards. I think the closest thing you get to like a Destiny connection is that you're friends with a prince who is the biggest dipshit in gaming history and there's Gallarhorn is it Gallarhorn is also yeah you can buy Gallarhorn definitely can I try and set up kind of what Dragon Warrior 7 was so when it came to the stage it was Dragon Warrior 7 and this is a JRPG franchise and I mean most of the games are pretty beefy and like you said, it is very, very, very traditional JRP stuff because in a lot of ways, Dragon Quest 1 invented those traditions and so it is stuck pretty close to that. You're going to see slimes. You're going to see turn-based combat and leveling up. If you stick with it, I would say to about the 10 to 12 hour mark, you will finally unlock classes. There is a class system in the game that is actually pretty sick. It's pretty great and it's had some changes for this remake where you can have two classes equipped at the same time, which sort of opens things up and makes progression much, much, much faster. But aside from that, like very traditional turn-based combat, not many surprises there. I think the surprising thing about this game is its structure, which is very anthological. I don't know if that's a word. Sure. Anthology-esque. You are friends with this prince. Wow, what is the word? Anthological feels right to me, right? I like it. You're a little boy from a poor fishing village who's friends with a dipshit prince and the mayor's daughter finds out you two are on adventures, goes with you and you start to put together these tablets that let you travel into the past to these islands that have been lost in time. You go back and you'll do a little quest. You'll do a little quest in the past. You'll help somebody out. You'll do about 40 to 50 turn-based battles and you'll level up and you'll find some stuff and then you'll come back to the present and poof, that island has reappeared and now there's stuff to do there too. And then you go right back to the Shrine of Mysteries, my friend, and it's on to the next tablet and the next island of the past. You're gonna save somebody there and fix it and you come back to the present, poof, there's a new island. That is, it is just a sort of bunch of short stories that you are really cranking through a couple hours each. So I'm not big into these kinds of games, but because of our B-segment game, I decided to play this game some. And I, you really, A lot of games that have this sort of length, it feels like that because the first three fucking hours are you listening to two old princes talk about how the dragon king is almost dead. But the unicorn lands. You know what I mean? It's like, fucking bring your dad a sandwich. And then your dad's like, there's some tablets. Will you go look at them or whatever? And the episode, it is like a very logical sort of like small, low stakes thing. But it's easy to follow. you're not being asked to read a thousand lines of dialogue, but it's just like, and it feels very digestible. Like I played about five hours of this and I didn't feel like, well, when is it going to start or whatever? I had a beautifully pleasant, cohesive experience. You know, it didn't feel like I had just gotten a glimpse of the shape of the maybe thing. That is a new feature for this re-imagined version of the game. Dragon Warrior 7 famously, you would not engage in a turn-based battle for the first three hours of the game, maybe, because the things that you do, bringing a sandwich to your dad and then going to meet your dipshit prince friend to put together this tablet to travel into the past, that's about like, that is hours and hours of the PlayStation original that you get through very, very quickly. They have streamlined so much of the stuff, more than even the 3DS version did, which already streamlined some of this stuff this is uh by comparison people who play this and think it's slow might disagree but like a it moves at a fucking trot so is that them cutting stuff from the original game or is that them increasing the game partially but partially it's stuff like instead of going here and talking to your uncle and then he has you go off and do these nine things he just gives you one of the things that you should have gone hunting for in the past it's stuff like that where it's just like getting rid of backtracking and like they've added a lot of quality of life stuff too there's a lot more way point marking of things where if you need to find things like these tablets that send you into the past you have to collect a series of them and now you can just find them on the map see them on the map yes versus like oh i am going to have to go into every room in every house and break every single jar because there might be a tablet in them or I have to talk to every single person because there might be a person to chat with. It feels fun in a cheaty, not cheaty, but like you're just like getting good stuff constantly. Like you definitely, it feels like you're just kind of like people are just tossing the stuff you need at you. It feels very low, low friction is what I would say. They want you to keep going. Yeah. I mean, that's what I've been surprised by kind of the reaction to this because a lot of hardcore Dragon Quest fans who played through the original and played through the remake, I'm seeing gripes of, oh, you've honed it into nothingness, that the game now plays itself, that the pleasure of these RPGs was that you did talk to everybody, and finding out where to go was the fun. What's strange to me, and Griffin, I'm curious where your head is at on this. Yeah, sure. I also hear from Dragon Quest fans that the appeal is that it is relatively straightforward, that you don't have to think when playing these games, that it is comfort food. I think I've read a million pieces about how- A million people will tell you comfort. Yeah, I've- It's comfort food, right? So it's like, I don't know which one people want it to be. And I'm curious for you, like, did it lose something by trimming this down? I don't think so. I have played through every mainline Dragon Quest game except for the online one. Because I, yeah, 10, I haven't figured out how to do that yet. Yeah. Pretty curious about it. And seven, it earns its reputation for being pretty hostile, I think, to your time. And just a lot, a lot, a lot of unnecessary backtracking and hunting down these fragments. If you miss one, then you're going to spend a long fucking time trying to figure out where you didn't pick up this one of many, many dozens of plot important kind of items that you're supposed to be going. But like, I feel like there is, I don't want to disqualify anyone's comments or say that they're like bullshit or whatever. But like, I think that looking back at Dragon Warrior 7 on the PlayStation 1 when it came to the States and saying like, what was good about it is how hostile it was or how unapproachable it was or anything like that. Like, I don't know. For me, that game has a lot of other cool shit. Like the class system is really neat. and once you get into that, like all of a sudden, there's quite a bit more depth to the combat system. The character, the charm of this game is like through the fucking roof. The localization is great, especially in this reimagined version. It looks so good. What was that old show that like Team America World Police made fun of? Oh, Thunderbirds? Thunderbirds Go. Yeah, man, it looks awesome. It looks so cool. It looks like dioramas with like marionette puppet characters or even I think it looks like old guides, like a video game guide come to life it really does yeah that's a really good way of putting it so like jerry anderson's jerry anderson there's a ton of stuff about this game that i think is is really good and for me dragon quest 11 is still the like i think cleanest way to get into the it was the first game i played uh i still think it's like the most approachable because while this does trim off a tremendous amount of like unnecessary stuff that kind of got in the way of the original version and the 3ds version there's some stuff about it that is still pretty antiquated um and they haven't touched that stuff like what to me it feels uh i mean god i don't know the fact that in order to save you have to go to a church and talk to a guy and he gives you a long unskippable sort of like dialogue thing i mean that's all true life so if you're yeah no i mean that's true i guess yeah that's true that's not just the church guy actually kind of that's fine it's a statue that wants to talk to you that's a bit much for me you know what i'm here for refill the life refill the mana i don't have multiple saves this isn't a branching story i'm not going to backtrack here the game does auto save so like a lot of that stuff is is uh i don't know i still felt like i needed to save every time i could but that was mostly muscle memory from the like 120 hours i spent playing this shit on my device this is not a i'm not going to complain about this because like i said i think this is all by the charm but i think to be really clear about it if you are used to more modern there is not much in the way of modernization that has happened with like the gameplay systems like I think a lot of turn based stuff have found ways of making combat more active you know even in giving you opportunities to like reduce some damage with a counter button or something like that Something to, like, bring you into battles a little bit more. This is very much, like, it feels designed to put on autopilot. It's very easy to start auto-battling. You can actually set up, like, tactics for what kind of auto-fighting you want your characters to do. like it feels very much intended for that to be this is not like a a super engaging like gameplay experience if that's something you're looking for i will say this on the auto battling side that stuff actually makes me incredibly encouraged oh yeah i liked it no sorry thumbs up for me huge huge huge plus but it is it is not an update it is an acknowledgement yeah that some of this is like not super engaging yeah the the depth of it comes from the preparation for those battles right like the class the class system has uh like there's basic classes you you learn and once you learn a couple of those you can move on to an advanced class and then those like give you different spells and affect your stats in like a bunch of different ways and uh being able to mix and match those is it opens up a lot of doors but then like yeah once you're in the fight yeah you can it is a dragon quest thing to just turn on auto battle and press the fast forward button and roll the dice and see where they land and hope that you've uh you've prepared enough yeah it is funny as you progress through if you're just auto battling the whole time it will it's just this thing of like wow this is seems super easy i'm just kind of churning through these and then you'll watch this battle start to break bad in a way that like i don't really know how to help you guys i haven't been playing the whole time wow you guys are really getting your asses kicked huh ah dang nabbit this fell apart fast i wish i'd done i should have done something I should have stopped this. I was watching it unfold. Yeah. I think it's different than like the most recent Like a Dragon, which was turn-based or Metaphoric Fantasio in that it felt to me more like an idle game meets a visual novel in that I – yes, all of the strategizing that Griffin talks about is there. I didn't need to use any of that. I put the battle speed on ultra fast. I put auto battle on. you get to a point where you are so above enemies that you can just slice them before you even get into a battle and you don't even love that shit oh god i love that right good and it's just a matter of watching my numbers go up while i get these like great somewhere between like outer limits no henry stories um yeah no random encounters either no random encounters you see the people you see the enemies on the map yeah so you can choose when to and you can spin around them oh yeah it ain't it ain't hard there's there's some difficulty settings that i really appreciate like and if you don't want to make battles easier for yourself or you don't want to affect like the stats of it you can increase how much experience or gold or occupation vocation points i forget what they're called uh you can boost those so you just don't have to grind as much and then you'll be over leveled and you'll get into a dungeon and be like i'm not gonna fight everybody in here i don't actually i don't actually need to you can really take this game at whatever pace you want and i think it is on i think it's the best version of this game i i i love this series and i love the original game but like this stuff that that made it slow was bad i i don't i don't have much affection for for that i don't know that stuff maybe i would if i had played it you know on the original ps1 and and had that experience in its sort of intended format can i ask a question as someone who did not intentionally did not play this game because we've historically I have really jived with very few JRPGs in the past. Don't you think it's a bit of a sign that something is off with the genre when expediting elements of the genre makes the game better? I see what you mean. And if somebody was turned around on this genre a ton over the last few years is, yes, a long time ago it needed more honing. and it has since been honed. And that's why when I play Metaphori Fantasio or I play Like a Dragon, I do not skip the combat. I love the combat. Those games in particular, I think, are representative of a more modern approach. So I do agree with that. But like, I mean, there's still- I mean, it is as old fashioned. Dragon Quest XI is still pretty traditional. Like there's no extra turn system from Metaphori Fantasio. There's no parry system from Expedition 33, right? but that is the stuff that if they would add it to this game it would no longer be it would no longer be Dragon Quest no I understand that I guess the question I would have is would Dragon Quest 11 be improved if all these features that we just talked about were also ported to like other Dragon Quest games I don't think so and I'll tell you why it's because these are big games and they are big stories Dragon Quest 7 especially and I don't think the number of turn based battles you would get into would be, would make it a even remotely palatable experience if you had to put a little bit more time and energy into each and every fight, right? Like, I don't, this game has so many scenes and so many settings and so many stories and chapters that it is moving through. If you did not play it, fast forwarding the combat on auto. And I'm not saying that obviously everyone does it that way. I'm speaking personally. the idea of doing all those battles and having to actually spend some some brain juice on them uh it doesn't just don't sound great yeah so it's it's you gotta you gotta also think about it in the context of like just being gameplay just being one of the other things that is on offer especially with a package like this right you're talking about the the you're paying for the fidelity of having this like nostalgic experience like recreated for you in a way that makes it like super engaging but like if you had a story in a game that you weren't particularly like needing to you wanted to get the sense of but you didn't necessarily need to like read every single side story in every single line no one would think twice about kind of like tapping through that dialogue and getting a sense of it right and that's about what i'm doing with the story here right it's like that's cute i'm kind of like basically got a sense of it but it's beautiful to look at and engage with and so relaxing and i feel like if it forced me to slow down and do like be very specific about the mechanics it would be almost a betrayal of that right because what i'm getting out of it is that it's so sort of like light and airy i'm able to kind of like get a sense of this what this experience is without like sinking a hundred hours of my full focus into it. I get that. A final question from me. If you could wave a magic wand and apply all of these speed up, auto battle, etc. features to older JRPGs, Final Fantasy across the board, do you think that's a net positive? Or are there specific ones where you think it would actually detract? I mean, I think overall it would be a net positive. I also feel like in my gut, a game like Final Fantasy VI is not as, is not quite as long as a Dragon Quest is. Like you are doing sort of some total fewer kind of random encounters overall. But Final Fantasy VI, to use that as an example, when you use the blitz combo and you have to punch in the actual command like you're playing Street Fighter or you're controlling Cyan and you have to wait for the meter to charge, like Dragon Quest doesn't do any of that shit, man. The newest like gameplay thing that they have is each class has like a special ability that charges up uh that are actually kind of cool like obviously that is well trod territory but like it's kind of the special abilities are are pretty neat and pretty good reasons for you to consider using classes that otherwise are not so great um but again that goes back to the thing of like it's all the prep it's all the getting stronger it's all the finding the stuff and exploring so that when you go and you look at these very fast very low input battles and they start moving at a nice clip. You're like, hell yeah, I'm doing the other part of the game super. Yeah, yeah. That feels good. I like that. Yeah. I think this rules. I think this game is great and I think it is the best version of a game that is obviously very, very nostalgic, but also like, I don't know, just a really very solid entry. Not my favorite in the Dragon Quest series, but like- But because of its story, you can pick at it over the course of like years. Absolutely you can. Yeah. Yeah. It's like a bonsai tree. It's like a bonsai tree. Let's take a break. And then when we come back, let's talk about a much less relaxing and accommodating experience. Neo 3. Now, we all know that I'm great at video games. We'll start that segment there. I'm really. That's awesome. I play all the hardest ones and I do. Play all the hardest ones and lots of his time. Like lots of his time that he could have spent on anything. and spends it on these games. Carving, I could have been doing, but instead I play hard games. Yeah. I will say, without hyperbole, that Neo 3's very first boss that you fight is harder than anything that I played in Silksong. Anything. Not even close. Now, do you mean that in a fun way? I do not, Justin. But Russ, I'm confused. because you, as you say to me all the time, even when I beg you to stop, you love it rough. So what was it about this game? Okay, let me take a step. If I could just echo Russ, ditto. A hundred percent, but I suck. So like I get frustrated easy. I got other stuff going on. You got other stuff going on. You got other stuff going on who's legit before. I got other things in my life. Let me take a step back real quick. So the Neo franchise has existed for a while now. it comes from the Team Ninja team Koei Tecmo makes these games they are Souls like games but Nioh 1 and Nioh 2 notably are relatively linear linear in the way that like Demon's Souls was linear like it'll have environment like levels former levels rather than like a big open world that they feel a bit more action oriented I would say and a little bit more yeah yeah less less about the exploring and shortcuts it feels like a platinum game in terms of the combat much faster than anything you would see in like a Dark Souls or anything like that. I would argue it feels like a Team Ninja game. Yeah, Team Ninja. Good. That's just me. Because they made it. But also, if you've played any of their games, very similar. This is notably the first time that they are bringing the open world format to the Nioh franchise. The developers actually messed with this before they made Path of the Ronin. Was that the name of that game? Oh, yeah. Way of the Ronin. That was the one. It just came out like three years ago, two or three years ago, where you could glide around the world. They've made so many games in the past few years, yes. Roland Fallen Dynasty, yes. Yeah, they've made a lot of games. But this one is the first time they're bringing open. Rise of the Ronin. Rise of the Ronin, thank you. I couldn't find the verb. I searched a lot of different verbs of the Ronin. This is the first time they've brought open world to the mix, which actually got me really excited because I thought that Elden Ring, by introducing an open world format in ways that were much more dramatic than Dark Souls 1 and 2, and 3 for that matter, made the games more approachable because you can really figure out the best way to approach something. Oh, I'm struggling on this boss. I'm going to go to a different boss or find new gear or whatever. So I was excited about Neo 3 maybe introducing that to a franchise that I hadn't really clicked with yet. That's all the setup. Here's the kicker. So they put you through a tutorial and they teach you the mechanics. And the mechanics, they do some interesting things. Justin, I don't know if there was anything in particular that you thought was interesting. I thought the switching thing where you're switching between Samurai and Ninja. Pretty cool. Yeah, it's tough to contextualize it because we only made it as far as I made it. But it very quickly introduces you to two combat styles, one of which is Samurai, where there's a sort of like moment that you can restore your stamina after a series of attacks. So you're sort of like, if you combo a sort of like breath in, you can like keep your stamina a little bit better. And then the ninja, you can add on to the end of a combo like a teleport away. So like if you press attack several times, you can kind of shadow step rather than like actually dodge. And it's like part of the flow of the combat. So they both feel pretty different pretty quickly. samurai's like more you know uh combat full-on and then the ninja's a bit more yeah but you are specifically switching between them instantly there's just like you pull a trigger and boom you're the other character in fact it's actually tied into the like parry system of the game where the way you parry is by switching as you're being attacked by a heavy attack you like that activates the parry mechanic okay that's like that super parry yeah for the super unblockable thing you have to switch forms and that's like yeah so neat idea um okay so we we go justin and i again had the same experience we go through the tutorial at the end presumably at the end of the you can try but there's like 10 weapons so there's like you can try it doesn't like give you something it's like get started with this it's like there's a i mean i really i between like the bonus stuff that i had like 20 weapons yeah That's how I got to the first boss. Like I added every weapon, not a problem. Yeah. The first boss is a guy with a big stick and there a point at the end of it And man is he mean Shoo this guy mean And you get about hate you two and a half hits i would say before you dead uh and you have not an exaggeration three three hit yeah but basically three hits maybe two and a half depends on where you're at and you have three heals and the heals will like mostly heal you fully but that's it and two two blocks will clear your stamina. So like you could block twice and then you are completely vulnerable. Every combo like most of his combos are like four hits. So like you can't block. And there is a dodge so you can dodge away. But it's really not recommended. It's not recommended and also but here's the thing that really sucks. It's not that hard to not get hit by the guy. You can keep your distance from the guy really easy. yeah the way damage works in this game is you have to basically whittle down the guy's stamina they have a name for it in the game but it's basically stamina key right until the key is low enough and then you can deal damage to him but what you're dealing to him is like basically what looks like chip damage like here's two percent of his health off congratulations do it again 50 more times now there are ways to combo where you're where you're um uh interrupting one of his heavy attacks but you better not fuck up that timing because if you fuck up that timing you're basically dead um and there's very very little room for error uh and it's when you're succeeding it's just a very slow plotting process it's triage it feels like not uh not triage it feels like i'm watching a video of this fight there's a there's a youtube video that because i looked up guides you know how I feel about guides. We all do. I looked up guides for this fight specifically that was like easy way to beat this guy. And the easy way to beat this guy is spend 15 minutes being perfect fighting this guy is basically what it boils down to. It is, if you think about the early stages of a game, and I think that you have to, right? Games are, every game is educational, right? Because that's what's fun about games is the learning that your brain does when you figure out a mechanic, your brain likes that, right? So the game is always teaching you. And what this game is teaching you in the early moments is, here's how I want you to approach bosses. I want you to approach them by figuring out the exact thing that I want you to do and then be very deliberate about that and then execute it perfectly and it won't be pleasant. And that's what it's teaching you about Neo 3, right? So even if you engage it, take it at face value, It is like so it is telling you that it is going to be unpleasant now. But here's the issue. And here's why I think it's interesting that they've made this choice about the first boss, because once you get through the tutorial and the game opens up, what I've heard from people that have played much further than us is the game gives you tools to make boss fights way more of an intimate, personalized experience because you're using this skill to parry or this weapons of whatever. you're earning skills that like allow you to uh focus how you're playing which i find incredibly compelling about from soft games for example is being able to customize that experience because this is so early your only option for a customization uh there's a couple options you could summon a guy uh there is a guy an npc you can summon you have a limited number of resources to summon that guy and when you run out there's no more of those also the guy does no damage and barely attends uh his his uh attention while you're doing the fight the other option that i've heard online you still get combo like you could bring someone else right like which i did i just used the resource not really knowing like i got i got killed by the guy so badly that i assumed i was supposed to bring in somebody and i brought in somebody and i used up the the resource and it didn't help and if he turns his attention on you which he instantly does still three hits and you're dead yeah he doesn't um yeah the other option that i've heard online through digging through like neo reddits is you should turn around and just start slaughtering like little soldier guys that are kind of in the area and just grind out souls for two hours until you're a high enough level that the fight is decent and that fucking sucks guys like that's terrible that's and i by the way i would have no idea about how i would level up in a way that would be meaningful right So I would definitely need to go like look up a guide for the best way to level up, to exploit, because that's what they want. And what it's hard is it just feels like trying to make a segment of a game. It is not intended for people. Here's what I can't say authoritatively. It is not for people that didn't play Nioh 1 and Nioh 2. I hope it's for people that did. I hope they're getting it. Even people that played Nioh 1 and Nioh 2, I was looking on the Reddit. The Nioh Reddit. If ever there was a place where people would go. and people were saying, holy shit, this is dramatically harder than anything I've experienced. What I'm struggling with looking at this fight, one of my favorite games ever is Sekiro. And the way you describe the combat system, the boss fight system, like it sounded similar, right? In Sekiro, you have a certain number of death blows that you have to get off on an enemy. And to do that, you have to break their stamina either through like well-timed guards or attacks or any number of basic kind of sword fight dueling activities. In here, it really seems a lot less... I mean, Sekiro, you really had to wail on some people to break their stamina. Bushido Blade, it wasn't. But when you break someone in this fight that I'm watching, you get to deal a little bit more damage than you normally do, and then it's back to the grind. It feels like the tempo is... The tempo is very off. I don't know, dramatically different. It is just not... Like the rhythm isn't fun, right? Like it's not even like a difficulty thing because once you understand what they want you to do, it's still unpleasant to execute. Yes. I think this is a big question I have about the Souls-like genre right now, which is this, the skill check boss fight. Feels antiquated in some ways as these games get easier and they give you more and more options, which apparently this game does a lot. As you mentioned, Frosh, I read the Kotaku review, and from what I understand, it's these four big open worlds, and you get a ton of new abilities and power-ups and advanced weapons that make the game easier and easier and easier. But just like this developer's previous game, Wolong Fallen Dynasty, it has this skill check that's like, well, we want to make sure that you're good enough to play the rest of the game, that you won't be overwhelmed. Ironically, we are testing the maximum of what you're going to face before you even get to that, though. And that just seems, I don't, I get why it was there with the original Souls games. I don't fully understand why we still have this. Here's the thing. It's not there in the original Souls games. Because if you look at Dark Souls 1, Dark Souls 1 begins, you know, you go through the tutorial. The asylum demon. You die, whatever. You die to the asylum demon. That's fine. and then eventually you go to undead berg and the first like quote-unquote true boss that you're fighting is what's his name on the bridge whoever that guy is the big guy on the bridge i'll never ever whatever his name is but you have an entire level before that where you're like doing things and finding things and finding gear to determine what you're going to be able to do and there's different options so without that here because you're locked into the tutorial it just has doesn't have any options bloodborne's first boss is a good example of this where like bloodborne's first boss you have to beat them before you can start leveling so it's this thing of like it's this mental thing but what bloodborne is teaching you there is that it is scary right bloodborne is high stakes because this doesn't even have that drama you instantly get your souls back or whatever when you walk back into it it's not like a there's no tension it's just frustration yeah yeah yeah all i'm gonna say is this is this for me personally this is not me saying neo 3 is a bad game what it is me saying is neo 3 developers made a very very bad decision for the beginning of their expansive giant open world game that otherwise according to reviews seems to be pretty fucking good so i hope for their sake and other people's sake people that buy it that they think about patching it, because that's a lot of fucking effort you guys spent making this awesome game to have it gated behind what is a pretty miserable experience. And for people listening that make games as well, like, it's okay, you don't need to throw people in the deep end early on. In fact, I'd recommend the opposite, make them feel pretty good about your game before you make them die a bunch of times. And maybe they'll keep playing. I don't even mind if you want me to grind. I don't even mind the skill test but if you're going to do the skill test make it one weapon and one boss and make sure that I understand your counter system right like make sure you're teaching me something with it this gives you every tool like and that's just more fresh I'll just switch between the weapons and keep getting my ass handed to me and that's the lesson that the game wants me to take away from it it's not like feel free to experiment what the lesson is get on YouTube and fucking find the one tutorial that'll teach you how to beat this guy and even then it's too annoying to actually do you'll just quit yeah anyway that's Neo 3 for people that do get into it if a game gets patched and that becomes easier let us know and I'd be happy to try it again yeah I don't know that I will I'll be happy to hear Russ try it again Neo has always been this franchise where I'm like I like fucking everything about this all these different ingredients they've mixed and I just have never I just have never really gotten stuck in one yeah I like what I liked Rise of the Ronin, and that game actually has difficulty settings. So if you're interested in this kind of game from this developer, play that. They make good games. Wolong, good. Rise of the Ronin, good. Fatal Frame 2 coming out this year, good. Looks like they also made another dead or alive extreme dating game. Haven't had a chance to play that one yet. Only released in Asia, but you know I'm going to figure out how to download it. I'm just curious. Cool. Okay. Well, we have some reader mail very quickly from some folks specifically talking about Cairn, which is exciting. We talked about Cairn last week. That was the mountain climbing game. This first letter comes from Arian. Arian says, Rock climber here. While I've spent far more time in the gym than on crags, I've met many folks who do both. And I must say that being an asshole is not an accepted part of the sport. Yes, there are people who think that being a highly skilled climber excuses any terrible behavior, but there are far more amazing climbers who are the nicest folks in the world. at the gym, advanced climbers will be the first to cheer on a new climber when they achieve their first send because we all know how it feels to hit the first wall. Love the show and this episode was super fun but I wanted to share that rock climbers are more often than not a kind and welcoming bunch. Did we say that rock climbers were shit? I think the person, the character, the standoffish nature of the main character of the game and it's like, well, yeah, because you're out there on the mountains. We also might have alluded to the fact that rock climbers might not care about their loved ones because they think their pastime is more important. That is objectively. No, yeah, I mean, I think it's, I know a couple rock climber people and they're always posting pics of them with lots of other rock climber people. And so it's like, obviously they seem a friendly bunch. I hope I didn't. Speaking of, I thought this might be a reference to, I came upon in the game, bear proof, like snack deposits with some items in them. And I didn't know if I should leave some of the items behind. I've never experienced that in a video game before, but I was thinking like, I guess a normal hiker wouldn't clean this whole box of bear proof stuff out. Like a normal hiker would probably just like take something. But in my video game, I'm like, fuck yeah, clean it out. But then I had a moment where I was like, now wait a minute, are there other imaginary hikers? Should I leave this mind for them? I don't know if you guys talked about the bear proof. No, we didn't. I guess it's not story relevant. I was hoping it would come back up. I did have a bear encounter in the game that is pretty great. It's pretty good, the bear encounter that I had in the game, but I don't want to spoil it in case. He was hungry. He didn't have snacks. Another one from Jack? Yeah, we have another one from Jack, another climber. Jack mostly just sent a giant list of terms that we thought would be useful, and I thought, don't look at the document. I can ask you guys if you have any thoughts on, what does whipper mean? Whipper? That's when you fall a little bit, but you're clipped in, and so the rope goes... Whoa, Griffin? Is that right? That's right. Hey, I just guessed. It just made sense to me because it's like whipping. Secret little... We'll do one more. What is an Elvis leg? An Elvis leg? That's where you have... That's where you have one knee stuck out one way and the other one is like straight, like he's doing his little dance. He's doing his little Elvis dance. You know when you have a bad hold in Karen and your leg starts wiggling like Elvis. Oh, I see. Elvis' leg. That's cool. I like that. Also, they write to say, Pitan is the only way they've ever heard it, although I guess regionally it could be different. Do we have any honorable mentions? Drag Race 7 is really sort of absorbed by I do want to call out that I've been watching Fallout Season 2, which I think wraps this week. I think the final episode of Season 2 just aired. I am consistently pretty amazed at what they are doing within Fallout as a show It the first time that I can remember where the show acknowledges the canon of the games that happened effectively 10 years before the event. I think New Vegas, the game took place 10 years before the show. And all of the events in New Vegas, all the events in the other Fallout games are referenced and acknowledged in like a accurate, canon accurate way. and not in like a nerdy like hey do you remember when there was operational asco like in ways that are like fully baked into the narrative of the show uh which is an incredibly tough thing to do so if you're a fallout nerd i mean it seems likely that if you're a fallout nerd you're watching the show but uh i think fallout uh season two has really leaned even further into that and done actually a really good job i really enjoyed i know i enjoyed fallout season one and then sydney and I both did, right? Because that's her only exposure to follow, but she really liked it. And I started Fallout season two and man, there are like so many disparate plot threads that my brain melted and I didn't remember any of it. It's like, okay, this is actually can't keep up. Good critique. I agree. The first episode of this season actually I think is not great because they want to like set up, here's the six threads that we're going to be weaving through the entire series, this season at least. and it's too much. I think they do a much better job because in later episodes, they'll just focus on like two or three of the storylines and then they just focus on, so you're not as distracted. Yeah, it was so like, yeah. Yeah, you're not the only one. It's like, yeah. My mom, for what it's worth, not a gamer, loves spy mysteries, has got into, very into Fallout season one and watched the first episode of season two and was like, I don't like it anymore. And it's like, I think it's worth at least watching two episodes of the second season, I think it finds its footing. I admire her certainty about that. That's really- I know. She was very certain. It's inspiring. I know. Hey, do you guys- Man, I just want to talk very briefly about Star Trek Starfleet Academy, if I can. Oh, yeah, please. Please. Because it's like, it's so weird that this show exists. Because this seems like a show that I've- I'm not unique in- I've been thinking about this show existing for 20 years, right? This is like just a show that everyone kind of figured they would make eventually, right? Like they've done all the other Star Trek things. So they're doing a Starfleet Academy one. And I haven't watched any of it. So tell me if this is wrong. My interpretation of it based on just like brief clips and things like that is this is like Star Trek meets Skins. Is that a fair assessment? So it is right. So it is way in the future, very disconnected from like everything that has happened in previous Star Trek stuff, right? I'm not like – I have not kept up with the many Paramount Star Trek series that have been concurrent. I watched some Discovery. I like Star Trek like as an idea. I've watched a lot of Star Trek stuff. I'm not a big nerd or a dork. I'm like a cool guy. Sure. No, but watching the shows is fascinating. So here's the basic premise. There's this guy named Caleb who is separated from his mom when he's just a young boy because she is taken into custody basically by Starfleet. And this boy escapes from the custody of Starfleet. He is in the custody of a captain played by Holly Hunter at that time. And he escapes. Fast forward 15 years in the future. This kid is taken back into custody for crimes that he's doing, just trying to survive and find his mom who is separated from his boy. He is taken back into custody, and since he is still technically a ward of Starfleet, he is given the opportunity to instead of be imprisoned, he can join Starfleet Academy, a recently renewed, refreshed Starfleet Academy that they are just starting to do this whole thing again that is being led by Holly Hunter, who is the chancellor of the Starfleet Academy now. And the Academy is also a ship that can take off and go to space. Sounds good. Okay. I like all of that. By the way, Paul Giamatti is a bad alien who's super good at fighting and kind of was responsible for this boy getting separated from his mother, but also hates Starfleet and maybe is looking out for this boy too. So Giamatti in the mix. There is a scene in the very first episode where you get hologram Giamatti telling Holly Hunter, who is folded up across the captain's chair, about how life is like an origami chicken and just screaming like the most batshit stuff. Stephen Colbert is the ship's voice. And he does like mainly ads for stuff. It's all a little cute for my tastes personally. But it is fun. Star Trek. It is in the fun Star Trek mold. The like Glodex stuff. Not quite that level of like, but it is pretty, it's, you know, not that level of cuteness. I would say not that level of like irony or silliness. It's a little more grounded than that. It does feel though, you know, more in the like Joss Whedon mold, maybe than a lot of these other things. Yeah. No, like it's, it's, it's, it's, it feels like they are trying. I'm old now. Yeah. So when people try to appeal to young people, I don't know if it's working or not. But it feels a little bit. Yeah. All I know is that it has become an internet discourse lightning rod. And I haven't bothered to do the research on like where that is all coming from and whether it's racist or not. Assume yes. Assume yes. Right. Assume. Right. because Star Trek is always that dichotomy of like its foundations are extremely liberal and it attracts some people who ain't and that's just life. I mean, that's just the way I've been going to Star Trek conventions with my dad for 40 years and it's always been that way. Yeah. A hundred percent. Yeah. So, but then it is, I'll say this, the first episode, like really good premise, interesting ideas, interesting performances. The second episode, it goes from setting up the expansive idea to like what an episode might be like and that episode is about it's kind of like a mock un kind of thing and then like a debate club kind of thing and then because the war college of the federation is like right next to starfleet academy so there's some like back and forth bullies across the lake nerds you know kind of rivalry situation yeah uh and everyone's in love and kissing and stuff and that's all if you like that kind of thing um i don't know I've watched two episodes. They're wildly uneven. I don't know if I'm going to go back for a third, but I thought it was really interesting that there's this show that is out there and Paul Giammatian is having a great time and Holly Hunter is fantastic, but she's Holly Hunter, so she has to be. That's the law. Right, yep. I thought of something I can do. The most recent episode of Make Some Noise on the Dropout platform, It's a sort of improv-y comedy game show. It's got this episode of Zach Rayno, Jess McKenna, and Paul F. Tompkins on it. And boy howdy, it is a barn burner, folks. This one had me ruffling all the way to the bank. As a big super ego fan, some of the bits felt, I don't know, true to the spirit of that program, which I don't think is around anymore. And it's just been a really fucking funny season. there's an episode that had uh uh uh angela and lisa and isabella who've all been or izzy who've all been on stuff uh on it before and they just spend the whole episode just tearing samurais's butt apart uh and poor guy it's good it's good tv uh that's my recommendation they make good stuff uh oh here's what i have nirvana the band the show now's the time to catch up no way time because Nirvana, the band, the show, the movie is going to be opening in theaters in like a week and you're going to be mad at yourself that you have not caught up on Nirvana, the band, the show. You might be wondering, how do I do that? Good question. It's a little difficult. You can find the first season of it on Amazon Prime right now, I think. I think you can still pay for it. The trouble with Nirvana, the band, the show is they push the boundaries of copyright law to their breaking point. They really, really test what you can and can't use as free use down to using the Home Alone music and titles in an episode and using Mario music. People who are notoriously litigious, they have no fear of running right up against. I mean, the name alone. Yes. The show is great. It's just about two buffoons who want to get a show at the Rivoli Theater in Toronto. And they go about that in every imaginably terrible way possible. And that is what the movie is about, too. You will be able to see the movie and love it without having watched any of this. But I think if you are listening to the show, that means you like video games. and Nirvana the band the show might be some of the most loving media about video games that you will find out there the We Shop Channel song with lyrics oh I forgot that was them that's like that's a genuine cultural touchdown for me across the worlds of comedy and video gaming you owe it to yourself to at least brush up on that it's true I think that's it for honorable mentions I have some folks to thank over at the Patreon which is patreon.com slash the besties. Before I thank them, I want to mention that we have a new episode of the Bracket Battles that just dropped. It's very, very funny and cool, and we enjoyed making it. Thank you for supporting us for allowing us to make it. Here's a clip from that episode right here. Fucking love to live in Inkopolis, but Bloodborne or Dark Souls, I don't really want to be there. No matter how good the hub world is, there's werewolves and stuff. Sucks. I'm generally not in the hub world. Usually no world world. Maybe let's just do objectively the best hub worlds, like as a gaming, as a video game thing, instead of which is the best one to live in. How do I do that? Well, I don't know, Russ. When we decide what the best game of the year is at the end of the year, we're not saying the best game to eat the disc of. We're talking about the games as an objective, critical sort of look. Okay, I want to keep friendlier. Why is that challenging in the abstract? You've been doing this for so long. I can't rubric out which is the best one. I think we're here. I think Better Amenities stays. Because I think you're going to want that no matter what. Friendly Neighbors, I think, also can stay. I'm just saying that. I want, and Friendly or Neighbors, I don't know if there's a different way of saying that, but I want to reward hub worlds that have people you want to go back and talk to for some reason, right? Versus just like. be they real people or video game characters sure yeah i i think that we can judge that objectively without having to imagine i just think we need to agree right now that we're not going to get weird about friendlier later like they're not friendly they're mean like oh yeah interesting neighbors compelling neighbors you're like you're living in the oh look at you yes Roger over here. Unpack your adjectives. Thank you again. That was a lot of fun. Some members to thank. Jack M, Chris T, Alexander B, and Diogo G. Thank you very much for supporting the Besties. Thank you to everyone else who has supported the Besties. You allow us to make this show possible. So thank you. Let's recap the games we talked about today. Chris Plant? If you're up to it. Man, what didn't we talk about? we talked about Dragon Quest 7 Reimagined, Neo 3, and then we got into the other stuff. We got some Make Some Noise on Dropout, Fallout Season 2, Star Trek Fleet Academy, and Nirvana the Bandit Show. Starfleet Academy. Star Trek Starfleet Academy. It's a lot of Starfleet. I'm not a dork though. I just have heard my dad say it a bunch. Star Wars The Phantom Menace. Cool. Next week we're doing Mugenics. I will not be here for that one. but I will definitely doesn't like cats is what it boiled down to I'm gonna say I'm gonna here's a little preview that's the part of the title that he doesn't like yeah that part that's the part I am I have not legit we've been doing this show for 12 years I have never played a game more before recording an episode of the best damn I thought this was about to be a bigger reveal shit dude I thought this was a big one I've never played a game I've never played a game more than I've played Mugenics before recording the episode. So take that what you will. So I'll take it for my opinions will not be welcome or valid. Correct. There will be no space for them. Look forward to that pleasant exchange. And more. Next week on The Besties. Be sure to join us again. The Besties. Because shouldn't the world's best friends pick the world's best games? Besties!