Episode 560: Metroidvania's First Decade / The History of Epoch
Added 2023-09-11 11:00:05 +0000 UTCJeremy: Hello again! Another live presentation for you. The sound isn't quite as crisp on the first segment as the second simply because it involves so many people, but the tradeoff is that you get a recording with five Retronauts and friends of the show in a single in-person conversation. The banter, knowledge, and conversation absolutely justify the situation.
The second section takes a more modest approach. Rather than five people debating the evolution of an entire genre for an hour, it's simply two men (myself and Kevin Bunch) contemplating the history of weirdo gaming pioneers Epoch.
I had hoped to add video versions of this episode alongside the audio, but unfortunately the video recordings I was given don't seem to be valid files. Disappointing! But these conversations still come across clearly without the visuals, so it all works out.
Cover art by Nick Wanserski.
Music:
- 16:15 Toilet Kids "Stage One"
- 31:54 Wing of Madoola "Overworld"
- 46:06 Zork I [Sega Saturn] "Track 2"
- 1:01:22 Metroid: Zero Mission "Kraid's Lair" / Cyraid "Stage One"
- 1:20:29 Saburo Kitajima "Yosaku"
- 1:34:24 SkyKid "Main Theme"
- 1:50:34 Wii Sports "Title Screen"
Comments
I just want to thank Jared for giving a shout-out to Below The Root. It was (is?) one of my favorite games as I was growing up. My best friend at the time had constructed an entire map of the world, and let me make a photocopy of it. He'd figured out that the sprites had a common smallest size of 8x8 pixels, and used that as his base unit for drawing out the entire map on probably a dozen or more giant sheets of graph paper. It was an incredible undertaking in my mind, to devote that much time to making that map. I think that Below The Root was possibly the first game that pulled me almost completely into its world. Every time I sat down to play it, I was lost, fully absorbed in the immensity of the environment, and the incredible worldbuilding that was prevalent in almost every aspect. From the individual thoughts and feelings that the NPCs held for you to discover, to the incredible variety in the construction of each interior space -- almost as if each inhabitant had been present, dictating their tastes as the developers worked alongside them. I think that part of the reason that I have such an embarrassing backlog of games is some unconscious quest to find other worlds that are as immersive as I found this one to be, so long ago.
Tony Etienne
2023-09-21 00:19:19 +0000 UTCGlad to see the Sweet Home > Classic Resident Evil connection to Metroidvanias getting mentioned. As a huge fan of Metroid, Castlevania, and classic RE it’s always enjoyed the common threads between them.
JJR
2023-09-18 18:13:31 +0000 UTC
