Four years ago, we undertook a pilgrimage to explore the world of the Final Fantasy franchise, and here we are still truckin' along. We've finally made it to the double-digit entries of the series, though of course their reliance on Roman numerals in their titles means we've somehow reverted back to single digits.
This week, Bob, Kat, and Chris K. (the standard Final Fantasy loadout) join me (Jeremy Parish, aka "Little Ronso") to talk about the good and bad of th...
2021-04-23 12:02:34 +0000 UTC
View Post
The summer of 1990 brought about the end of Back to the Future with Part III, which traded the frantic, high-concept time travel adventures of the second movie for a more grounded finale rooted in the Old West. Though it's gained a bit of a reputation as a lackluster final act to an otherwise stellar series, Part III remains a satisfying conclusion that picks up many of the more emotional beats Part II left behind. On this episode, join Bob Mackey, Jeremy Parish, Henry Gilbert, and Dave Rudde...
2021-04-19 07:01:01 +0000 UTC
View Post
April 18, 2011: Portal 2 delivers everything but cake
by Diamond Feit
Comedy is hard. Comedy in video games, though, is exceptionally hard. Not only do all the usual difficulties apply (timing, knowing your audience, actually b...
2021-04-18 14:01:01 +0000 UTC
View Post
We tackled the first Wario Land game and its unnumbered (but nevertheless essential!) Virtual Boy sequel a few months back, and now it's time to venture back into the games with numerals at the end. One Roman, one Arabic. That's Wario for ya, though. Always breaking the rules, even the ones he establishes himself.
But sequel indicators are nothing compared to the other rules these games break. Wario shatters the entire orthodoxy of platform action games here by being too stubbo...
2021-04-12 13:00:00 +0000 UTC
View Post
April 7, 2011: Japanese retro gamers flock to the Xbox 360?
by Diamond Feit
The Xbox will turn 20 years old in 2021, and the Xbox 360 turned 15 last year, so there is no question that Microsoft's early console work is decidedly retro at this point in time. The tale of M...
2021-04-11 14:00:04 +0000 UTC
View Post
Thanks to the generous patronage of Victor Hunter, on this super-size bonus episode we're digging deep into one of the few 16-bit RPGs from the Square catalog that's yet to see an official English translation. And that game is Live A Live, an ambitious creation that experiments with eight different types of RPGs all in one package. It may be a bit uneven, but this early exploration of episodic content stands as an ahead-of-its-time venture for director Takashi Tokita—though his further atte...
2021-04-09 07:00:03 +0000 UTC
View Post
Godzilla is depicted in many films as a being of chaos, an unknowable and uncontrollable force beyond human control. And that perfectly describes this episode! Or rather, the production of this episode. My original hope was to have this up in advance of the new King Kong Vs. Godzilla, but folks, trying to arrange a call with four people in three different time zones across the planet is not as easy as you might think. And even once we all managed to line up our schedules, our convers...
2021-04-05 14:08:29 +0000 UTC
View Post
March 29, 2001: Illbleed points at the survival horror genre and laughs
by Diamond Feit
How's this for a coincidence: Last week I had the pleasure of covering Resident Evil, one of m...
2021-04-04 14:00:05 +0000 UTC
View Post
I've spent a lot of time over the past couple of years journey back into the ’70s, ’80s, and ’90s to catch up with acclaimed or influential media that, for various reasons, have passed me by. Ultimately, I consider it research and education so I can be more informed when I mouth off about things here on the podcast.
This episode, I mouth off. Fortunately, here to provide a less mouthy and more nuanced opinion as seasoned fans, we also have Kat Bailey and (making his Retronau...
2021-03-29 13:00:06 +0000 UTC
View Post
March 22, 1996: Dawn of the Dread
by Diamond Feit
What makes a video game a horror game? There have been scary elements in games from the medium's earliest history: The dragons in Adventure. The end of 2021-03-28 14:00:05 +0000 UTC
View Post
Our next stop in the year-long journey across the history of Street Fighter is the main event, the game that turned 30 years old last month and inspired this entire trip through time: Street Fighter II. Specifically, Street Fighter II: The World Warrior. Yes, this episode is specifically about the very first iteration of the game—no sequels, spinoffs, updates, hacks, merchandise, media adaptations, or collectibles. We'll be covering the game's iterations and evolu...
2021-03-26 13:00:00 +0000 UTC
View Post
It's finally happened: a game once covered as a new release by this very podcast is now officially retro! And that game is Sam & Max Save the World, the 2006-2007 episodic release that brought about the grand return of Sam and Max 13 years after their original video game outing. Now, 15 more years have passed, and while Telltale has since dissolved, former members of the company scooped up the rights and released a spiffy new remastered version. On this episode of Retronauts, join host Bo...
2021-03-22 07:00:02 +0000 UTC
View Post
March 21, 2001: This castle is a creature of chaos—now in your pocket!
by Diamond Feit
Let's begin this conversation with a necessary linguistic declaration: "Metroidvania" is a perfectly appropriate descriptor for a video game. It may be an inelegant...
2021-03-21 14:01:01 +0000 UTC
View Post
You know what's nice sometimes? A low-stakes episode where we can just sit around and chat for a while instead of recounting the rigors of video game history. And that's what we have this week, as I summon Nadia Oxford, Diamond Feit, and Stuart Gipp to basically banter for two hours about which Mega Man games are good, and which are not, while quantifying precisely how good or not-good they are in relative terms to one another.
This episode will not make the world a signi...
2021-03-15 12:59:59 +0000 UTC
View Post
March 1981: The space-shooting genre goes sideways
by Diamond Feit
I miss arcades.
This sentence is one I could have said out loud at any point in the last 20 years, but it carries extra weight in our pandemic-laden world. I miss playing games in public. I miss be...
2021-03-14 14:01:01 +0000 UTC
View Post
In 1990, the innovative brawler River City Ransom was released to some acclaim, but mostly went forgotten until the late '90s emulation boom led to its highly influential Renaissance. And with this newfound attention came the shocking knowledge that River City Ransom belonged to a series known as "Kunio-kun," with most of the games remaining untranslated and stuck in Japan—until 2020. On this episode, join Bob Mackey, Jeremy Parish, 2021-03-12 08:00:02 +0000 UTC
View Post
Good thing we did the "gaming in 2001" episode a few weeks back to help soften the blow of this revelation. The Game Boy Advance doesn't seem like it should be 20 years old, and yet, here we are. We're getting to the point of the systems I cut my teeth on as a professional reviewer hitting 20, and I've gotta say, it's a doozy. But at least we'll always have our memories... until they start leaking from our elderly minds, anyway.
Description: Jeremy Parish, Bob Mackey, and Adam Pawlu...
2021-03-08 14:00:00 +0000 UTC
View Post
March 4, 1991: "I heartily endorse this event or product"
by Diamond Feit
Adapting works from one medium into another is, as history has proven time and again, extremely difficult to accomplish with any consistent rate of success. Taking a popular thing and trying to se...
2021-03-07 15:01:06 +0000 UTC
View Post
UPDATE: This survey is now CLOSED, thank you! We'll be in touch!
Hello! In 2021 Retronauts will celebrate its 15th anniversary and we are quickly closing in on our 400th episode, two landmarks we would never have reached without your generous support. We are grateful for your continued interest in our program!
That said, we have written a short survey to find out a bit more about you, our listeners & backers, in order to get a...
2021-03-03 23:57:11 +0000 UTC
View Post
Around here, 2021 is the year of Actually Finishing Things (including, one hopes, global pandemics). This week we make good on that promise by finally wrapping up the Indiana Jones film/game trilogy Retronauts East started a few years back with Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, the final film in the saga, as well as its games. Well, you'll notice one big exception here: The only good game based on Last Crusade, the SCUMM-driven Lucasfilm Games adventure, is not he...
2021-03-01 14:00:10 +0000 UTC
View Post
February 25, 1991: Fighting comes to the NEO•GEO and...it big
by Diamond Feit
Before leaping into this week's column, it is necessary to address the 180-foot-tall lizard in the room: Godzilla. In a nation that has transformed its image through global exportation of its own pop culture, there stands no larger ambassador than Godzilla. He was one of the first pos...
2021-02-28 15:00:04 +0000 UTC
View Post
A new journey begins here! This year, we'll be exploring the span of Capcom's Street Fighter series (or at least as much as we can make time for), in celebration of Street Fighter II's recent 30th anniversary. Of course, just because Street Fighter II had a birthday recently doesn't mean we can just up and start with that game. To do this proper-like, we need to begin at the beginning... bumps and all.
It doesn't get much bumpier than the original St...
2021-02-26 14:00:01 +0000 UTC
View Post
Certain conditions have made time mostly meaningless, so it may shock and alarm you that 2001 happened 20 years ago. Yes, it's true. And while it was a monumental year in terms of events that shook the world, 2001 was also home to huge, industry-changing games, console launches, and so many other delightfully dated gaming moments worth remembering. This week, join Bob Mackey, Jeremy Parish, Henry Gilbert, and Axe of the B...
2021-02-22 08:00:02 +0000 UTC
View Post
February 15, 2011: Capcom finally learns to count to 3...again
by Diamond Feit
Does everyone know the expression "jump the shark?" It's a phrase made famous by a website in 1997 deri...
2021-02-21 15:00:00 +0000 UTC
View Post
Wow! Heck! Next week, the Nintendo Family Computer Disk System turns 35 years old. For those keeping score, that's pretty old. Chances are very, very high that you personally did not own a Disk System back during its heyday, since most of you did not grow up in Japan. Since the Disk System never actually made its way beyond Japan (even though the NES's unused expansion port seemed ready-made for connecting to it), and there wasn't exactly a booming import gaming scene in 1986, it went down in...
2021-02-15 14:00:05 +0000 UTC
View Post
February 12, 1991: Swapping bodies & snapping swords in Sengoku
by Diamond Feit
This just in: Video games are amazing. They can be plotless or contain a rich narrative on par with any tome. They can be deeply detailed, requiring players to adjust hundreds of variabl...
2021-02-14 15:00:01 +0000 UTC
View Post
After a decade of toiling away in the Ace Attorney factory, Capcom's Shu Takumi finally got to make something completely different—but still uniquely him—with 2011's Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective. Like his notable law-talking-guy series, it's an adventure game with a heavy focus on story, but instead of courtroom action, Ghost Trick revolves around creative puzzles that task you with going back in time and saving a person's life the moment before they die. It's a fantastic littl...
2021-02-12 08:01:01 +0000 UTC
View Post
Heck! How is the Nintendo 3DS a decade old? It doesn't make sense, and yet it's true. With this episode, we've very nearly completed our surveys of Nintendo handheld systems; only Game Boy Advance remains. I hear it has an anniversary coming up soon...
Given the relative recency of this anniversary, we approach this topic from a place of familiarity and something of a professional point-of-view, since all three participants in this issue covered the 3DS as Real Live Games Journalists. B...
2021-02-08 14:00:04 +0000 UTC
View Post
February 1, 2011: A Farewell to (Bionic) Arms
by Diamond Feit
The recent (ongoing) pandemic has made me consider my relationship with video games, specifically the sheer number of video games available to me at any time. Simply put, there are too many. I own more than I...
2021-02-07 15:00:00 +0000 UTC
View Post
In keeping with our pledge to follow up on multi-part episodes in a more timely fashion (well, my pledge... Bob doesn't really need to amend his ways), here is the sequel to our new year's episode on video game history in years that end with the numeral 1. We covered 1971 and 1981 on Jan. 1, and now here we are on Feb. 1 with the follow-up: A look back at 1991.
Expect 2001 not too far down the ...
2021-02-01 13:30:01 +0000 UTC
View Post
