The Besties Chris Plante, Griffin McElroy, Justin McElroy, Russ Frushtick

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.

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.

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.

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.

This week, the squad puts on their armor, grabs their swords, and mounts their gallant steads to charge into Unicorn Overlord. The tactics RPG is the latest game from Vanillaware, the developer of niche masterpieces like Odin Sphere and 13 Sentinels. In the back half, Justin introduce the team to Banishers, a game that blends Witcher and God of War. How did we not hear about this one until now? And how often does a game depict a healthy marriage like this one?!

The Besties take a trip into the not-so-distant future of video games, digging into a batch of awesome demos from Steam Next Fest. Whether you want to live the life of anime-style Duke Nukem or an alternate reality 19th century nun, you will be satisfied!