The Besties Chris Plante, Griffin McElroy, Justin McElroy, Russ Frushtick
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- Leisure
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It's Game of the Year meets King of the Hill as four of Earth's best friends – Griffin McElroy, Justin McElroy, Chris Plante, and Russ Frushtick – rank and review their favorite video games. Because shouldn't the world's best friends pick the world's best games?
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A Souls-like for Fans of N64-era Mascot Games
Special guest Lucy James (GameSpot, Giant Bomb, Frames Per Second Podcast) joins Frushtick and Plante to discuss Another Crab’s Treasure. Have you ever wondered what it would have looked like had Rare made a Souls-like in the early ‘00s? Now you have an answer! Plus, the crew shares updates on other games they’ve been playing, from Stellar Blade to TopSpin 2K25.
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Falling in to the Fallout TV Show
Duck and cover! This week, The Besties discuss the first two episodes of the excellent Fallout TV series. Then, they talk through the ways the Fallout approach could alter the trajectory of video game adaptations. Plus: a bunch of great listener recommendations!
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Chicken Soup for the Gamers' Soul
This week, The Besties share their favorite “rainy day” games! These are the games we dig out when we’re feeling blue and need something that provides a quick dose of comfort. Turns out our list is quite long! In the back half, we do the rare Besties spoilercast with Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth — a.k.a. one of 2024’s best games.
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Pepper Grinder and Princess Peach, Together at Last
This week we've got a game inspired by the SNES era and a game that probably shouldn't have come out at all. We'll also find out just what Justin thinks about Dragon's Dogma 2, and what's going on with the Stardew Valley 1.6 update.
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Arise with Dragon's Dogma 2
Dragon’s Dogma 2 is the best game of the year? Or is it the buggiest? It might be the most divisive! This week, The Besties talk about the wildly ambitious (and difficult to run on most hardware) fantasy RPG from Capcom. Plus, we take a deep dive into the reader mail pool. Did we mention we keep all the letters in a pool, Scrooge McDuck-style? Because we do.
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Rise of the Ronin is Assassin's Creed with Killer Combat
Team Ninja has been busy!
In the past five years, the studio released Dead or Alive 6, Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3, Nioh 2, Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin, and Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty. Their latest game, Rise of the Ronin, compiles everything they learned into their most ambitious project: a sprawling open-world samurai adventure set in a recreation of mid-19th century Japan.
Rise of the Ronin takes the “something for everyone” approach, blending the exploration and loot systems of recent Assassin’s Creed games with the quick-reflex sword fighting of the studio’s Nioh series. This video game smoothie is quite delicious — if you can stomach the occasional funky chunk of game mechanics.
In the back half, we talk about our favorite under-appreciated open-world games.
Customer Reviews
Video game professors
The Besties is my #1 video game podcast— and still would be even if it wasn’t the only one I listened to! Due to a combination of life circumstances, monetary restrictions, and incredibly particular taste, my Steam library contains only about 20 games, and over half of them were games I learned about from this show. These guys are THE place to go not only to be introduced to something you love, but to learn through their discussions WHY you love it and gain an incredible amount of insight into how to discuss video games as the unique art form they are!
Final Fantasy X-2 has always been good
If people enjoy the combat system in FFVII:Remake, the job system in other FF's, and complained about the linearity of FFX, then Final Fantasy X-2 is the game for you. However, due to a lot of sexism at the time of release, it got dunked on for being too girly and written off, though it's been a hit among queer and female gamers throughout the year. It deals with a lot of nuanced exploration of reconstruction after turmoil and rejection of obligatory labor places upon female sacrificial archetypes.
One of the hosts flippantly said Final Fantasy X-2 was a bad game, and I couldn't find a way to email them, so I'm leaving this review. I am a toxic gamer.
Russ is truly awful
Please get rid of Russ