This Month In Retronauts: September 2024 edition
Added 2024-09-29 14:45:02 +0000 UTCWith most of Retronauts in Portland this weekend and myself just getting back from Tokyo, this community podcast is a little later than usual BUT it is no less GOOD than usual! Stuart Gipp and I had the foresight to record this early—before TGS in fact—and now it's here, for you, our dear listeners and supporters.
Make sure you listen carefully to this month's question, I gave it a lot of thought and you should too.
Specific items mentioned in this episode include:
Monster Hunter
Castlevania Dominus Collection
as well as other, less celebrated Castlevanias
she also reviewed UFO 50 which we have both been playing
Master of the Flying Guillotine (獨臂拳王大破血滴子, 1976)
hololive Treasure Mountain
an online database tracking moai in video games
Shadow of the Ninja: Reborn
Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster
Lollipop Chainsaw RePop
Peacemaker and other John Cena projects
Lead Angle aka Dead Angle aka Gang Hunter, sequel to Empire City 1931
Mr. Mosquito on PlayStation Plus
Trivia: the late Atsuko Tanaka narrated the Japanese original
Mad Maestro!
Hollowbody
UFO 50 (originally announced in 2017, out now)
Concord (announced in 2023 but in development for eight years)
Nintendo's patent infringement suit against Pocketpair re: Palworld
Service Games: The Rise and Fall of SEGA
TekWar? TekWar.
things get a little heated when we chat about art vs artists (I drop an F-bomb)
Lisa Frankenstein, directed by Zelda Williams (written by Diablo Cody!)
one of many Steamed Hams rhythm game videos on YouTube
shoutout to Heidi Kemps and her zine Taitronica
Fantasia for Mega Drive
Grabbed by the Ghoulies
Sonic R
All Games are Good
Art & edits by Diamond (photo source). Music heard in this episode:
12:55 "Mitternacht" by Kraftwerk
21:54 "Lady Marmalade" cover by Meme Music
31:06 "Stage 1" from Shadow of the Ninja: Reborn
41:58 "Hey Mickey!" by Toni Basil
53:29 music from Ninpek, one of 50 games in UFO 50
1:01:07 "Choose the Crew" from Concord
1:23:20 theme of TekWar: The Series
1:34:26 "Ballad of the Goddess (Skyward Sword)" from The Legend of Zelda 25th Anniversary Symphony
1:45:01 title theme of SimCity (SNES)
1:56:24 theme of "Chief Wiggum P.I."
Finale: "Airwaves Arr.Ver." from Cross†Channel: Criss Cross…and Nanaca Crash
Comments
I'm sure I'm too late on this response but I'm firmly on team "mention a creator's shitty politics even if it seems unnecessary." For one, there is always going to be someone who is hearing the information for the first time and that person should be informed of the facts. Beyond that, making a fuss about possibly annoying people who "don't want to hear about politics" is just silly. Everything about the games industry is political, not just the creator's politics. In this particular case, it seems like it took more time on this episode to dither about this decision than it would have taken to simply mention the FNAF guy being pro-Trump and anti-abortion.
Tall Rob
2024-10-22 00:04:36 +0000 UTCI use a DualShock4 for all my Steam games so I presume it would work!
Diamond Feit
2024-10-19 23:46:31 +0000 UTCGreat episode as always guys! Diamond, I have a Hori PS4 DQ slime controller, I imagine it would work on PC (it’s a Bluetooth PS4 controller). Sorry I haven’t tried it out myself.
Kellen Taman
2024-10-15 22:33:05 +0000 UTCI agree with your guys take on the Five Nights at Freddy’s episode. I get that commentators politics will seep into discussion about creators, but I feel you all always strike a good balance, mentioning politics or issues around a creator without belaboring it. We’re here primarily for a video game analysis podcast and while political concerns sometimes arise, they should be secondary imo. The idea that it is your responsibility or some failing not to mention them I don’t agree with at all. Injecting politics Too Much into video game analysis will annoy people as well and I would hazard to guess a larger segment of the audience would be annoyed by it than the segment that it would satisfy.
PosiVibez4evr
2024-10-05 07:11:08 +0000 UTCQotM: Daikatana. And not only because the game itself essentially hobbled Ion Storm from the get-go and dealt a big blow to John Romero's mojo. There's also the infamous "Bitch" ad which, as the story goes, was in way a setup: reportedly the whole thing was marketing's idea and Romero didn't like it when it was proposed to him, to which someone in the team responded "Come on John, don't be a pussy". This eventually convinced him and, well, the rest is history.
Guillermo Jiménez
2024-10-04 04:56:37 +0000 UTCKids gotta learn about Tek War sooner or later
Craig
2024-10-02 18:22:13 +0000 UTCThis Gin In Retro
Guillermo Jiménez
2024-10-02 04:25:50 +0000 UTCYou all work FAST. I did in fact delete my Simpsons game comment because I both remembered Tapped Out, AND enough time had passed between the episode and my commenting that I had COMPLETELY forgotten that Jeremy also suggested a SimCity-like. I remembered literally a few hours later and deleted the comment. But in those few hours my comment got added to your notes for the episode. I stand by the game idea though. Tapped Out through the lens of Jeremy Parish with the added bonus of boards with nails in them. Winner of a game. Love the community episodes. Keep it up, friends!
Shel Freezes Over
2024-10-02 00:36:55 +0000 UTCTruly, the most “Stop or My Mom Will Shoot,” game ever is “Mighty Number 9.” It was a tremendous miss-step by Keiji Inafune, who was riding high at the time. The follow-up to the blue bomber’s adventures could have been very entertaining—but even in previews & trailers, it looked like a dog. Unlike Stallone, however, Inafune never really recovered from his Kickstarter failure, which is a real shame. Maybe the former Capcom creator could redeem himself by making a Golden Girls RPG., where Bea Arthur can turn into a fire breathing dragon…
Devon Dale
2024-10-01 22:11:29 +0000 UTCI'm honored that my name could inspire a musical interlude. QotM: I can't think of a more "Stop or My Mom Will Shoot" parallel than the franchise faceplant that was Double Dragon 3. Much like Stallone, Double Dragon was a force to be reckoned with in the 80s, but part 3 hit the breaks on that in a big way. With its awkward controls, proto-micro transactions, and miserably difficult NES port, Bimmy and Jimmy's first 90s adventure seemed to go out of its way to make fans miserable. Double Dragon soon found itself being overshadowed by newer, more dynamic competitors like Final Fight and Streets of Rage (much like Sly fell behind guys like Arnold Schwarzenegger and Bruce Willis). The Dragons and Italian Stallion would drag themselves through the 90s becoming bad parodies of themselves despite the occasional good entry. Then, they'd inexplicably see a resurgence in the 21st century, playing to their bygone era charms and staying in the public eye despite most of their output being just okay. Wow, it hadn't occurred to me that Double Dragon and Sylvester Stallone had so much in common. Though I'd argue that Battletoads and Double Dragon is a better action team-up than all four Expendables movies combined.
James Couche
2024-10-01 19:50:28 +0000 UTCYou want comments? How about four in one? hololive and baseball: Earlier in the year, amidst Anime Expo in Los Angeles (and the massive interest in Shohei Ohtani), the Dodgers held Hololive Night at Dodger Stadium, featuring Hoshimachi Suisei, Usada Pekora, and Gawr Gura in Dodgers uniform, with Gawr Gura singing Take Me Out To The Ball Game. Dead Rising: I'm sure, here in the UK at least, the original Dead Rising for Xbox 360 had a big honking disclaimer on the cover stating how the game was completely unrelated to Dawn of the Dead. A zombie outbreak in a shopping mall? Total coincidence. Days Gone: r.e. Deacon St. John in Astro Bot, apparently the creative director of Days Gone was reported as 'Upset' that Deke got a Bot in Astro Bot. I suppose being a Sony property gives the developers carte blanche to put Deke in the game, and yet Square-Enix fully refused to let any of their characters appear. Art vs Artist: Whenever I see the Harry Potter franchise being so beloved here in Britain, it makes me ashamed to be British, and I'll leave it at that. Phew! Now, if you excuse me, I'm going to go to the shops to buy a notebook. I've always said to myself that when I get around to playing TUNIC, I would buy a notebook and dedicate that notebook for taking notes while playing TUNIC. But I feel, having listened to this podcast, I may also need a notebook for UFO 50...
TheLupineOne
2024-10-01 16:27:48 +0000 UTCStuart doing his jay Sherman impression at the end of the episode was great
Langdon Alger
2024-10-01 07:12:32 +0000 UTCHonestly, Diamond kind of nailed it out the gate in mentioning Grabbed by the Ghoulies. The next best thing I can think of are the more recent Alphadream Mario & Luigi games, none of which were terrible, but seemed to strike most as being a bit unnecessary. Being released thick and fast at the end of the 3DS' life didn't help. As a Nintendo second party we'll probably never really know what exactly shuttered them, but they likely weren't cheap to turn out and when they presumably underperformed Nintendo seemed to leave them out to dry.
Shrunken Shrine
2024-10-01 00:44:53 +0000 UTCI don't know the episode that you drank in, Diamond, but what I would recommend is to do a This Week in Retro, while drinking! A "Drunk History of Video Games" if you will.
Anthony Rubbert
2024-10-01 00:16:56 +0000 UTCI don't disagree that in this particular case it probably should've been brought up. As someone who's gone out of his way to avoid FNAF, even I'd heard about it. But if it was mentioned there would be someone complaining they didn't dig into it enough, or it was covered too much, or the fact there's an episode at all. They'll never make everyone happy and this is one thing of many they're all doing, so if it's that big a problem for folks they should unsubscribe and get upset about a bigger issues then something as frivolous as this.
Andrew O.
2024-09-30 23:46:57 +0000 UTCNah, you are on the Internet, my dude. Every single device that connects to it and manages it is built with shoddy labor practices so your “high horse” statement makes no sense. Even if you typed your comment from a PC, your motherboard, RAM, graphics card, etc. are made by humans struggling through awful tech sweatshops. You are not above reproach with that argument not to mention that this stance has absolutely NOTHING to do with the discussion at hand. Besides, the person you are talking about has as much right to raise their point about Scott Cawthorn and FNAF as you do with yours. To bring it back to the discussion though, I do agree with you and believe that Retronauts does a good job at not beating a dead horse when it comes to problematic creators on any given episode. However, nearly every time that I am able to recall, the problems of said creators ARE mentioned. Sugiyama’s issues are raised every time they are mentioned, despite their excellent music in the Dragon Quest series. Notch’s issues are also always mentioned, just as it was in this episode. A piece of art is going to have some mark of its creator left behind on it, to include their politics. It is worth mentioning, even briefly, because the game/art/output is impacted. Nadia and their guest go a bit into Cawthorn’s history of games prior to FNAF and perhaps that would have been a perfect point to mention the issues surrounding him in that episode. Yeah, I believe it should have been brought up, but it didn’t, so here we are. Is it not the job of historians to discuss the artist as much as the art since their background and upbringing shapes the output of said art? Retronauts is a podcast about the history of games and the people who made them. As such, we should absolutely be discussing all angles of the history, even if briefly.
Jeff Peterson
2024-09-30 21:08:10 +0000 UTCPersonally I don't care if problematic people/things are called out or not, but I hate when it's dwelled upon and repeated throughout an entire episode. (Not saying you guys do this, but I've noticed it on other podcasts.) People are imperfect and the world can be ugly, that's just life. 🤷 Whomever complained surely did it from their iPhone built with child labor, but they're fine overlooking that from their high-horse. Ah, the harmony of dissonance. (That last bit was for Stu.)
Andrew O.
2024-09-30 13:29:46 +0000 UTCooh and it DEFINITELY impacted its developers
Diamond Feit
2024-09-29 23:42:35 +0000 UTCI bought a similar yet much more Japanese shirt at TGS.
Diamond Feit
2024-09-29 23:41:46 +0000 UTCOh snap! I've been trying to grab that Typical Mega Drive User shirt
Normallyretro
2024-09-29 18:31:19 +0000 UTC“…nah, not really!” Love it.
Kormakur Gardarsson
2024-09-29 17:51:21 +0000 UTCI'm in Portland too and SAW most of the Retronauts. Getting ready to head back to PRGE for day three while listening to this podcast!
littleterr0r
2024-09-29 17:17:49 +0000 UTCQotM: Since Grabbed by the Ghoulies is off the table, I'll pick another of Microsoft's follies: Too Human. That game shifted from platform to platform, company to company, til it eventually got shit out on the 360. At least that is now lost to the ages.
Patrick McClafferty
2024-09-29 16:47:57 +0000 UTC
