Retronauts Episode 186: Inside SNK's Archives

I hope Frank Cifaldi gets to curate another collection. He gives the games the reverence they deserve. This era of SNK is a little too early for my personal "sweet spot", but I'd scoop up a Konami action game collection in a hot second. Thinking about other companies, it's funny how there will never be a Sunsoft collection, as so many of their classic games were licensed. :/ Off topic: Did Retronauts ever do an episode on Disney games? While I'm certain Ducktales have come up a number of times, a dedicated episode on the many great Capcom, Sony and Sega Disney titles could be an interesting topic? Just Mickey Mouse had a killer platform trio in Mickey's Magical Quest, Mickey Mania and Castle of Illusion. Anyways....

Hearing you guys talk about which projects Frank could tackle next got me to thinking that I would love to see Falcom go back to making collections of their old PC-88 stuff. I think the last collection was on Saturn(?) with a Dragon Slayer set unless you count Ys I and II on PSP. I would love a legit way to play all the early Dragon Slayer games officially on modern hardware, and a few of them were already localized by Broderbund! I have a copy of Legacy of the Wizard in my house without a working NES to play it on.

Phazonmasher

This episode was so good I ordered a copy of the collection straight after. Would be great if all collections were put together with as much passion and effort.

Lucien Hoare

I hope Bob is doing all right, that sounds terrifying.

Yeah, I forgotten about a lot of that until I edited our episode and was like, "Wow..." — JP

Retronauts

I am so glad how Frank, a legit expert, verified so much of the casual speculation Jeremy and I made on the last SNK episode. Jeremy pointed out the Dexterity/Canvas Croquis connection months ago and now it's a fact.

Diamond Feit

It's me, I'm the person with fond memories of 2600 Vanguard. I still have a special place in my heart for all those rainbow blocks. Anyway, this was a great listen, and I definitely appreciate all the hard work that went into the SNK 40th. As a Johnny-come-lately who just fell into Neo Geo fandom last year, this collection was perfect timing for info on SNK's earlier titles. (now let me tell you about how SNK kept their commitment to story and how they were a localization pioneer in the 90s. I have proof they were doing simultaneous translation and release in 1993!) Thanks to both of you for all your hard work.

Marcus Drakken

That's the thing about trying to figure out "firsts" in history. There's no such thing. There was probably some Cro-Magnon sitting around the Lascaux caves contemplating the possibility of interchangeable ROM boards for his bison paintings.

Retronauts

So SNK may be the first company to produce swappable arcade hardware with the Micon Kits, but RCA seems to have developed the tech for it first with their 1975 microprocessor based arcade prototype units! You could change out these PROM daughterboards (pretty much cartridges) to run a different game on the same hardware.

Kevin Bunch

I absolutely love that cover art

Sounds good. This will make a good companion piece to the article on Digital Eclipse in Retro Gamer.

littleterr0r

Athena is obviously playing Micronics Ikari in that picture.

Normallyretro