Retronauts Episode 224: Virtual Boy revisited

Anyone know the songs used in this episode?

Loved Caitlin Oliver on this podcast. I demand to have her on more often!

Miro Fink

If there were ever an episode I wish I could've been on... I'm so glad you guys brought a fresh eye to the Virtual Boy. I'm pretty fond of it and its tiny library. Great episode! Thanks for making it.

J.R. Raith

Loved the episode. As a kid I never got a virtual boy but after demoing one at a sears (I think?), it was all I could think about for months. I ended up getting a Tiger Electronics R-Zone hoping to scratch the itch. I assume the R stood for “don’t.”

DAMMIT

Retronauts

Love the Cthulhu Optimis Prime.

shea dewar

I really enjoyed this conversation about the VB, especially now that Jeremy is so familiar with the system and its games. Early on in my relationship with my wife, we visited her family and found that her old VB was in the back of a closet full of old toys and games, including four VB games - thankfully, Wario Land was one of them. When we got married, we proudly displayed the system on our retro gaming shelf. Unfortunately, a year later we moved into a new apartment, and before I packed up the system I plugged it in to give it a spin and the display wouldn't work anymore. I know the system is delicate, but it worked just fine before sitting undisturbed on the shelf for a year, so that was a disappointment. It's now sitting in my own closet of old games, waiting for my kids to get a little older so I can display it without worrying about it receiving any more damage.

Brian Rude

I had a portable carrying case for my virtual boy and tried to use it as a portable system. My dad would teach CPR classes and I would bring it with me to those classes to play every time. I did that for a 4 months and then went back to just bringing my Game Boy.

Christopher Hansen

I received a virtual boy for Christmas. It was the first Nintendo console I owned bizarrely enough. I had a Genesis (Sega CD and 32X, I was clearly all in), TurboGrafx-16 and an Atari 2600 prior and thought it would be great to have a console with a built in screen. I didn't find it to be the horror show people act like it is now and the headaches were never an issue for me. The biggest problem I had was that it was a pain to get in to a comfortable position to. Sitting at a kitchen table for hours with your neck in a weird position never was a "satisfying experience" to be sure. The other down side is nobody owned one so you couldn't borrow games from any one. The only kid I knew had the same games as me. Eventually the lack of new content forced me to get trade it for some Sega CD games, but on occasion a twinge of nostalgia makes me want to seek if the have a decent emulator for it now that I have a Vive just to show my kids what "Virtual" gaming was like when I was growing up. Then I remember the reaction I got from my daughter when I told her I didn't grow up with the internet until I was a teen and Netflix is a new thing and don't need to give her another reason to believe I was her age around the time of Shakespeare. Thanks for the trip down memory lane with this episode though. Love the show.

Pumpkinbob

Nice artwork for this episode! I had a VB in my parents closet locked and loaded for Christmas ‘95. At the last minute I changed my mind to DKC 2 & Killer Instinct for the SNES so they exchanged it. The couple of times I came across a demo unit in Sears the batteries were dead so to this day I’ve never played one. My one other time seeing one in the wild was at a summer scrimmage basketball game during Jr. High where a member of the opposing team was using one on the bleachers during the girl’s game. Maybe one of these days I’ll play one.

Eric Plunk