Now that Retronauts has transitioned to deep dives of single titles over the past few years, it's about time to focus on a genre we rarely touch: adventure games. That said, this marks the beginning of a limited series where I (Bob) will be covering the entire LucasArts adventure library—one game per episode—hopefully with new and/or rare guests.
Since I'm not covering these games in any particular order, there's no better place to start than The Secret of Monkey Island, the r...
2019-08-30 22:48:26 +0000 UTC
View Post
Another Final Fantasy episode already? Yeah, so it goes. We were planning to hold this one back for a few months, but then Square Enix had to go and announce a super-short lead time for the release of the remastered version of the game. What can ya do?
2019-08-26 13:00:03 +0000 UTC
View Post
Or should that be "Strider Hiryu"? In any case, I've been wanting to gush about Strider all year long, since (1) the game turned 30 this spring and also (2) rocks. So here it is: 90 minutes of gushing about Strider. Please do not be disconcerted by my effusive joy here.—Jeremy
2019-08-19 13:00:00 +0000 UTC
View Post
The curse of the podcaster means we usually have so much to say in our limited time that we often don't have space to let you get a word in edgewise. So, every six months, I (Bob) like to collect comments and questions from the last six months' worth of my episodes—from both the main site and Patreon—and respond to them with a guest. So this week, join me and Jeremy as we respond to your thoughts on Spider-Man games, Reggie Fils-Aime, Kingdom Hearts 3, Sonic the Hedgehog's many voice acto...
2019-08-16 18:25:50 +0000 UTC
View Post
Just as video game boss fights were becoming more sophisticated, Hollywood gave us 1987's The Running Man, a movie that—whether its writer knew it or not—exists as a 100-minute-long boss rush. Though other big, beefy action movies of the '80s inspired video games more directly, this lower-profile entry in the Schwarzenegger canon might have had an even bigger effect on the way we look at boss fights in general. On this episode of Retronauts, join Bob Mackey, Jeremy Parish, and Henry Gilbe...
2019-08-12 07:00:02 +0000 UTC
View Post
Greetings! Can you believe we haven't had a Super Smash Bros. episode in all these years? Or... that maybe we've done one and I've completely forgotten it? I don't know how these things work.
This was going to be a "classic roots" episode focused on the inspirations behind a current release, but we got kind of carried away with the "setting the context" section of the episode and never actually got to Smash Bros. Ultimate. Whoops! Despite the extreme distracti...
2019-08-05 14:00:00 +0000 UTC
View Post
This week brings us another developer interview, this time with a composer. I haven't done one of these in a while, but it was a pleasure to speak to Nathan McCree about his work on one of the most memorable and inventively crafted game scores of all time: Core Designs' original Tomb Raider. Nathan is currently working through the final phases of a Kickstarter campaign to produce an orchestral remake of his Tomb Raider compositions, which turned out quite lovely. Look it up ...
2019-08-02 13:00:04 +0000 UTC
View Post
Another patron request episode is coming at you this week. This time, we survey the X-Wing series at the behest of Victor Romero. That's just games with X-Wing (or TIE Fighter) in the title; no other Star Wars games allowed. Handily, we just happened to know not one but two ringers, Kat Bailey of USgamer and Jason Wilson of GamesBeat, both of whom were more than happy to geek out about their time with the Rebellion/Empire while Bob and I sat silent...
2019-07-29 12:46:11 +0000 UTC
View Post
We're living in the era of the gig economy, and now our apartments are hotels, our cars are taxis, and we even have to make Marios ourselves. But that's okay, because Nintendo's Super Mario Maker series has thrived over the past half-decade as not only a celebration of Mario's 2D legacy, but an amazing toolset that lets budding creators put together levels that aren't even in the wildest dreams of Nintendo's top craftsmen. On this episode, join Bob Mackey, Jeremy Parish, Chris Kohler, and Ray...
2019-07-22 20:10:20 +0000 UTC
View Post
You wrote to us, now we finally read what you had to say. This episode serves as a catch-up session for three of the six topics we currently have outstanding, unread letters about—some of which haven't seen their primary topics explored in a published episode yet. Consider this a preview. Those plucky kids from Retronauts East read your missives about Final Fantasy Tactics, your personal holy grails of video game collecting, and New Super Mario Bros.
2019-07-19 12:00:00 +0000 UTC
View Post
We've talked about Spider-Man games a few times over the past couple of years, it's true. But have we ever before gotten the designer of the most-beloved Spider-Man game of all time to recount his experiences creating the game? No, we have not. And that is why you should listen to this episode even if you're like, "Ugh, not Spider-Man again." As with several of episodes from last year, this conversation (the first of four for 2019) was recorded at Game Developers Conference ...
2019-07-15 12:00:00 +0000 UTC
View Post
Yeah, it's another one of our Final Fantasy deep dives. I bumped this one forward in the schedule because the game in question—Final Fantasy Tactics—has been in the air a lot lately. Most recently, several of Final Fantasy XIV's expansions have delved into the world of Ivalice, which made its debut here. And as always, people everywhere long for a follow-up to Tactics that recaptures the depth, accessibility, and sophistication of the game without weird...
2019-07-08 14:00:03 +0000 UTC
View Post
Mario might be Nintendo's big-time mascot, but for six years of Nintendo Power, one banana-haired brat served a similar role. In what amounted to one of the first manga series snuck into the hands of American children, Nester existed as the foil to the real-life know-it-all Nintendo rep Howard Phillips, who used his insider info to humiliate a small child through a few dozen very entertaining and expertly drawn installments. On this episode of Retronauts, join Bob Mackey, Henry Gilbert, and <...
2019-07-05 23:54:45 +0000 UTC
View Post
I think this is the last remnant of our Midwest Gaming Classic trip. We've talked about Game Boy, Virtual Boy, and uhhh... Game Boy? But also, I chatted with Anthony Schwader about Kemco-Seika, by his request, which it turns out he deeply regretted once we got into the topic. Not that Kemco's games were all bad, but the bulk of their lineup didn't live up to the standards of the games people remember them fondly for. Ah well!
Desciption: Jeremy Parish and Anthony Schwader look back ...
2019-07-01 14:00:08 +0000 UTC
View Post
Before the launch of the go-go '90s, a certain green foursome closed out the decade with a bang. Though the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles entered the comic book world in 1984 and debuted on television in 1987, 1989 belonged to the Turtles, with weekday cartoon episodes, a movie in the works, and, at long last, a chance to be the Ninja Turtles in both console and arcade forms. On this episode of Retronauts, join Bob Mackey, Henry Gilbert, and 2019-06-24 07:00:02 +0000 UTC
View Post
This week's episode has been in the can for a while, waiting for a quiet week for us to drop a low-key bonus conversation on you. I caught up with the guys from Retrotainment back at Portland Retro Gaming Expo last fall to talk about the challenges of creating all-new video games for defunct systems. What inspires that as a business model? What challenges does it present?
Description: Tim Hartman and Greg Caldwell from Retrotainment talk to Jeremy Parish about the art and science of...
2019-06-21 13:43:50 +0000 UTC
View Post
Another patron request this week—this time for a topic we actually covered with our very first relaunch episode back in 2013! Because we had already tackled the idea of console launches, we decided to take a fresh angle this time around. Besides covering the games that appeared at launch on systems ranging from Atari 2600 to Super NES, we also stepped back and contemplated the context surrounding those debuts. It's not enough for us to ask "What were these games?" We also want to consider w...
2019-06-17 13:00:04 +0000 UTC
View Post
This week is a patron request episode... sort of. The request was specifically to cover Konami's PS1 roguelike Azure Dreams, which dovetailed neatly with my intention to tackle console roguelikes in general one of these days. Thus, I decided to combine the two. Sensible, right?
Well, uh... the problem is that we didn't quite make it to Azure Dreams.
So, Andrew... we'll revisit this in a couple of months. Sorry about that. We tried! It's just, well, we...
2019-06-10 14:00:00 +0000 UTC
View Post
Now that Disney's live-action Aladdin movie is out, we finally have a great excuse to jump back in time 25 years to examine the animated version of that property—one that was oddly important to the 16-bit console wars. Virgin Interactive's Genesis game mostly overshadowed Capcom's SNES interpretation thanks to some still-impressive technical tricks, but the conventional wisdom about the Sega version being superior might not hold together 2.5 decades later. On this episode of Retronauts, joi...
2019-06-07 07:23:25 +0000 UTC
View Post
Resident Evil 4 has quietly been one of the most influential games of the past 20 years, and now that a shiny new port is available on the Nintendo Switch, there's never been a better time to dig into the game that redefined the third-person shooter genre. Capcom took an incredible risk by throwing out nearly everything that defined the series for its fourth iteration, and even though it took four attempts to get things right, Resident Evil 4 remains an intensely playable experience nearly 15...
2019-06-04 02:26:22 +0000 UTC
View Post
A long time ago, I created a Retronauts Micro overview of the Virtual Boy. Now, I've actually played the system's entire library (as you may have seen ) and have a much different opinion of the platform. Well, the console's still a mess. But the games? Some of them were alarmingly good.
Back at Midwest Gaming Classic, Bob and I got together with Caitlin Oliver and Brian Clark to reevaluate the console and its creations. This is our definitive take on the topic! Probably!
...
2019-05-27 14:00:03 +0000 UTC
View Post
This week's episode is one of those rare cases where the old "Retronauts Micro" appellation actually would have worked. This was originally recorded as a segment for what was going to be a larger production with the Heiankyo Alien talk from Midwest Gaming Classic, but since that presentation ended up not having a formal recording setup, I realized this conversation would work better alone than tied to a horrible-sounding audience bootleg.
Although this bonus episode doesn't quite ...
2019-05-24 14:36:32 +0000 UTC
View Post
You know, I'm just going to let this episode's description speak for itself:
Jeremy Parish, Bob Mackey, Ray Barnholt, and Caty McCarthy look to the present to talk about a game that succeeds by looking to the past: Sega's 2017 hit Sonic Mania. See, we CAN say nice things about Sonic.
Thanks to Cassie Hart for another poppin' piece of cover art!
2019-05-20 15:10:59 +0000 UTC
View Post
There's another media-focused episode for you this week, in celebration of the 40th anniversary of a film that has had a profound influence on video games: Ridley Scott's Alien. Of course, we also talk about the games based directly on the movie, too. Although somehow I had a giant brain fart while recording this and completely forgot to mention the very first game inspired by Alien—Heiankyo Alien. Whoops!
Content warning: We do talk briefly about the sexual...
2019-05-13 14:05:33 +0000 UTC
View Post
This time on Retronauts, we're talking about something that's rarely a featured topic on the show: ourselves! On this special Friday installment, Gary Butterfield and Kole Ross of the Duckfeed.tv network join us in our Midwest Gaming Classic hotel room to discuss the wild and woolly w...
2019-05-10 07:00:02 +0000 UTC
View Post
Hey, it's another "big picture" topic—coming right on the heels of last week's rental discussion. This time, engineer and Flip Grip accessory design Mike Choi joins me and Bob to look back on some of the most aesthetically appealing game consoles of all time. It's an exercise in using your imagination, since podcasts don't come with graphics! Whoops. Well, please enjoy regardless.
2019-05-06 14:00:04 +0000 UTC
View Post
Hi all, welcome to May! A few of you have contacted us to say that your advance RSS feed isn't working. You're not alone; apparently this is a system-wide issue. It's out of our hands, I'm afraid, but Patreon just send out this message that (we hope) will be of use to you:
Hey creators,
We've received some reports from patrons who use the RSS feature that new episodes are no longer appearing in their podcast app. While we haven’t changed anything on our end, we know...
2019-05-02 00:17:11 +0000 UTC
View Post
This one's been percolating for a long time. Like, a year, almost. But hey, here it is, and what do you know? Because we're talking about experiences from 20-30 years ago, the conversation hasn't aged a bit. Except the one part where someone mentions it being 2018. Well, we almost pulled it off.
Anyway! I always enjoy these conversations about matters tangential to (yet essential to) video game history. Rental shops were a huge part of gaming in the late ’80s and int...
2019-04-29 13:00:05 +0000 UTC
View Post
This week's bonus episode… makes me kind of glad we have the "bonus episode" designation. This was recorded live at Midwest Gaming Classic a couple of weekends ago, and that means the audio isn't exactly studio-grade. The first section (the 40-minute main event panel with myself, Bob, Kohler, and Caitlin) sounds pretty solid, thanks to Jason Gares of Video Workbench Productions. However, the second section (a 20-minute TED talk on Heiankyo Alien) is basically a bad audience bootleg...
2019-04-26 14:52:50 +0000 UTC
View Post
This time around, we're shining the spotlight on another newer game that, like Shovel Knight, feels like the platonic ideal of a specific retro experience. If you ever liked Harvest Moon, still like Harvest Moon, or fell off the series years ago, Stardew Valley is the game for you: it takes the fundamentals of Natsume's storied farming sim, sands off its many rough edges, and expands on the important parts in a meaningful way, all while having a personality of its own. This week on Retronauts...
2019-04-23 02:28:33 +0000 UTC
View Post
