Another episode this week that strays a bit from the pure video game angle of most Retronauts topics—but such was the request of patron Benjamin Swan, who asked that we talk about Nausicäa of the Valley of Wind. There were a couple of Nausicäa games, and we do touch on those, but really Nausicäa is more interesting as a work for its relevance 35 years later and for the tremendous influence it had on other media. So please join us on our journey to the Ark and S...
2019-04-15 14:00:04 +0000 UTC
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With the Sonic the Hedgehog live-action movie just around the corner, there's never been a better time to look back on all the actors who once brought life to Sega's little blue speed rat. Though improv master Ben Schwartz will play Sonic in the sure-to-be-great film, he's just the latest in a long line of actors—in both America and Japan—who convinced all of us that a hedgehog could speak. On this episode of Retronauts, join Bob Mackey and Henry Gilbert as they trace the surprisingly dee...
2019-04-12 22:09:46 +0000 UTC
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I mean, we couldn't not cover Game Boy for its 30th anniversary. Not us. It would be illegal.—Jeremy
Episode description: Jeremy Parish, Bob Mackey, Ray Barnholt, and Jared Petty look back at 30 years of Game Boy. The memories! The classics! The music! The inevitable eyestrain from trying to play games in the dark in the backseat of a car!
2019-04-08 14:00:00 +0000 UTC
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Yep, we're back on our Namco kick again. This time, it's the full Retronauts East crew talking up the magic and mysteries of the company's output in 1986, ’87, and ’88. As usual, this means we dwell on some beloved classics, lament some duds, and marvel over works we've only been able to experience through secondhand viewing. From Rolling Thunder to Hopping Mappy, we've got ourselves a live one here....
2019-04-01 16:00:05 +0000 UTC
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Our latest bonus episode marks another chapter in my ongoing quest to interview as many classic game developers as possible. This one's especially neat, because the interviewee—Rebecca Heineman—actually reached out to be after I produced a video about R.P.M. Racing for Super NES, which she programmed for Silicon & Synapse (later to be known as Blizzard). That was an unusual game that employed unusual Super NES tech, and in this episode she explains why it ended up that way......
2019-03-29 14:00:00 +0000 UTC
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Have we really never done an episode on Kingdom Hearts? Well, it's surprisingly old, and now that the long-awaited third game finally exists, there's never been a better time. This long-running Square franchise has a history as long and complicated as its plot, and we dedicate the first half of this episode to discussing the origins of Kingdom Hearts and just where it's been going for nearly two decades.
Then, on the other side, we take on Kingdom Hearts 3: a very new game that st...
2019-03-25 22:19:22 +0000 UTC
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So, is this the final word on Final Fantasy VII? Well... maybe. It certainly is the final word for now, however, as we need to move along so we can talk about the TRUE PS1 Final Fantasy masterpiece, Final Fantasy VIII.
(Oh, and I guess Tactics, too.)
Speaking of which—there's a mail bag call out for our upcoming Tactics episode! Heed the call! And keep an eye on the blog this week for more letter-writing opportunitie...
2019-03-18 16:00:03 +0000 UTC
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On April 15, 2019, Nintendo of America President Reggie Fils-Aime will step down from his role, bringing about an end to an era. But who was Reggie, and why was his tenure at Nintendo so unique? On this episode of Retronauts, join Bob Mackey, Jeremy Parish, and Henry Gilbert as the crew examines the life and times of Reggie Fils-Aime during Nintendo's highest highs and lowest lows.
2019-03-15 07:01:00 +0000 UTC
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We planned to record this episode about two years ago, back when Capcom published the Disney Afternoon Collection, but those plans fell through. And that's OK! Because this way, Bob and I were able to record with Nina M., the cover artist for the collection, and Chris Sims, who thinks way too much about vintage Duck comics. The downside is that the delay meant the games themselves ended up not being as fresh in my memory as they were right around the time the Collection<...
2019-03-11 13:33:20 +0000 UTC
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Just in time for the upcoming release of the game on non-Sony consoles for the first time, the usual Final Fantasy deep-dive crew (myself, Bob, Kohler, and Kat) dives deep into the biggest Final Fantasy of all. Yep, the seventh one. We went into this one knowing that there was no way for us to cover all our bases in a single episode, so what you have here is the first of two episodes on the game. The second part will actually be along later this month so that (1) you don't h...
2019-03-04 19:11:00 +0000 UTC
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Boy. So. This game is retro, huh? Yep.
Anyway... we all love Katamari so much that we broke new ground with this episode! It's the first time we've recorded an east/west coast episode remotely, with Bob joining the Retronauts East crew (Ben and Benj) via Skype to lavish affection upon Keita Takahashi's wonderful little garbage-rolling simulation. Wow! New and different conversational dynamics! Exciting!
There is, naturally, a lot of great music in here. And! Great cover art ...
2019-03-01 19:12:20 +0000 UTC
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We left you hanging for over a year after our first exploration of Spider-Man games (episode 135), and now we're back to see what the world of polygons held for Marvel's arachnid hero. Spidey had quite a bit of video game history between his 2000 self-titled game and his... 2018 self-titled game, and we're here to comb through the webs of the past to see if there's anything worth salvaging. On this episode of Retronauts, join Bob Mackey, Henry Gilbert, and Jeremy Parish as the crew activates ...
2019-02-25 08:01:00 +0000 UTC
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For this week's episode, we have another developer interview. This one means a lot to me personally, for reasons that are explained in the episode, so I'm happy to finally have pulled it together: A conversation with Martijn Reuvers and Collin van Ginckel of the now-defunct indie studio Two Tribes. This is one of those episodes that won't rack up crazy huge download numbers, but I'm glad it exists to give Martijn and Collin a chance to tell the story of their company from start to finish. It'...
2019-02-18 12:48:47 +0000 UTC
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It's been six months since Bob's last listener comments episode, and plenty of feedback has built up since then, practically screaming to be read live on the air! And in this episode, Bob and guest Henry Gilbert will be doing just that: reading and responding to various questions and comments (left on the Patreon and Retronauts dot com) on topics as varied as BioShock, Pokemon, Wario Ware, the PlayStation 2, and more! Plus: A song about Lou Albano that May surprise you.
2019-02-15 08:01:00 +0000 UTC
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We decided to try something a little different with this week's episode: A personal, softball kind of episode in which all four of our panelists (Bob and Jeremy, plus Gamespot's Kallie Plagge and USgamer's Nadia Oxford) look at some of their all-time favorite game creators—the reminisce about the games that made us fall in love with those developers. There'll be plenty of obvious answers if you've been listening to us for long, but there are a few curveball swerves to keep you on your toes,...
2019-02-11 16:00:00 +0000 UTC
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Well, here it is—episode 200 of the current run of Retronauts! Which is... I don't know which episode overall. A listener wrote in last week and said we're approaching episode 500 overall, which is probably true! Age is just a number, and podcast chronology even more so give the oddball naming conventions we've used before settling back on the idea of just calling everything plain ol' "Retronauts" regardless of when it publishes or how long the conversation runs.
Speaking of running.....
2019-02-04 14:55:44 +0000 UTC
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Another chronicle of a Retronauts live appearance has arrived! As always, apologies for the slightly hissy sound, but with any luck you'll find the content makes up for it?
Bob and Chris and I joined forces cross-country last month for a live panel at MAGfest, and give the musical focus of that event, we thought it might be best to focus on music for the panel, too. So we put together a survey of Nintendo R&D1's musical evolution as a studio, from the bloopy days of Donkey Kon...
2019-02-01 14:51:10 +0000 UTC
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Every once in a while, we like to focus our attention on (gasp!) modern games to see how well they've stuck to tradition over the passing decades. And there's no series more traditional than Dragon Quest, which still plays pretty close to how it did 30-some years ago. On this episode of Retronauts, join Bob Mackey, Jeremy Parish, and Henry Gilbert as the crew takes a look at how Dragon Quest XI--the newest entry in the series--thoroughly modernizes its many old-school qualities for one ...
2019-01-28 08:01:00 +0000 UTC
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Another one from the 2018 archives this week as we go back to Long Island Retro Gaming Expo to talk with Kurt and Rob from Hardcore Gaming 101 about one of gaming's more fascinating little parallel universes: Konami's prolific output on the MSX computer/console hybrid platform. Published almost exclusively in Japan, these roughly 100 games were sometimes unique and sometimes to familiar to those of us who grew up playing NES, and this week we take a glimpse into that alternate reality.
2019-01-21 16:10:53 +0000 UTC
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You've heard of Hudson's Adventure Island, but how about Hudson's adventure games? Though the developer was mostly known for platforming and bomber men, in their pre-console-development years, Hudson cashed in on the adventure game craze. And one remnant from this era managed to sneak over to American shores: the NES port of Princess Tomato in the Salad Kingdom. On this episode of Retronauts, join Bob Mackey, Jeremy Parish, Nina Matsumoto, and Chris Sims as the crew ponders this clun...
2019-01-18 15:00:03 +0000 UTC
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This week's episode is a patron request that comes courtesy of Bobby Najari, and it's a pretty darned good topic: A loose and approximate history of software piracy. We discuss our own experiences with the grey market, the history of digital theft, the tricky preventative measures developers have employed to prevent it, and attempt to weigh the moral and ethical ramifications of piracy against the fact that much of game history would be lost forever if not for the fact that those games were c...
2019-01-14 15:00:00 +0000 UTC
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Another interview episode, yes indeed, with another key figure in North American role-playing gaming. This conversation with Interplay and InExile chief Brian Fargo isn't quite as leisurely or intimate as last year's Robert Woodhead and Michael Cranford interviews, since it was recorded remotely, but it does make for a nice companion piece to those chats. This time, it affords a little more insight into the evolution of games from the management and production side as opposed to the design an...
2019-01-07 14:45:03 +0000 UTC
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For our first (bonus) episode of 2019, here's, uh, an interview from nearly a year ago. Ah, well. Consider it an early spring cleaning. Anyway, lots of cool stuff in here from a guy who's had a hand in many interesting and beloved games through the years. So it's all worth it, right? Right.
Art for this episode was provided by Cassie Hart Kelly!
Description: In an episode that's nearly retro itself, we go back to GDC 2018 for an interview with Zynga's Mark Turmell on his historic ...
2019-01-04 15:00:02 +0000 UTC
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Wario started out at literally the anti-Mario, and his platforming series did a great job of playing with the tropes of the genre. But in 2003, Wario would have a much bigger task: subverting the ongoing trend of bloated game design with sheer minimalism and absurdism. On this episode of Retronauts, join Bob Mackey, Jeremy Parish, Ray Barnholt, and Henry Gilbert as the crew examines the subversive brilliance of WarioWare series on its 15th birthday.
2018-12-31 08:01:00 +0000 UTC
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Season's greetings, everyone! This week we have a new twist on an old standard. The "new twist" being that, uhhh, the Retronauts East crew gets sidetracked a lot and we only made it halfway through this episode's outlined notes... like always, come to think of it. But it's a fun episode all the same — perhaps all the more fun for its digressions, or at least that's what I'm telling myself.
This marks the first time the entire Retronauts East crew has recorded together. Benj, Ben...
2018-12-24 13:30:30 +0000 UTC
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It's that time of the year again: when listeners brave the harsh climates, territorial wolves, and malfunctioning home security devices for a chance to visit the Retronauts Holiday Cabin in parts unknown. And, just like in past years, we'll be using this holiday getaway as a good excuse to discuss a video game-related Christmas cartoon. For 2018, we set our sights on the long-running Pokemon cartoon's first Xmas adventure: "Holiday Hi-Jynx." Along with featuring perhaps the most controversial...
2018-12-22 00:20:37 +0000 UTC
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The news that Neon Genesis Evangelion—the landmark anime that changed everything—will finally become available for worldwide streaming next year prompted us to sit down and talk about the show. This episode came together at the absolute last minute, so it's extremely off-the-cuff... as you'll discover for yourself. It's also totally crammed with spoilers, too. It's a rambling discussion that goes everywhere... except the directions I wanted it to. You may or may not find th...
2018-12-17 14:00:02 +0000 UTC
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And now, back to your regularly scheduled podcast.
This week we have a pair of phone interviews, both of which concern recent animated releases with deep video games ties. First up, I talk to the folks at Funimation about their decision to bring over Tatsunoko Pro's surprisingly good Zillion (a tie-in to both a Sega game and a toy gun whose design was used for the Master System Light Phaser) to the U.S. for the first time ever, more than three decades after its original debut. After t...
2018-12-10 13:36:42 +0000 UTC
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After Pokemon took off in a huge way, developer Game Freak didn't exactly have the time or incentive to dabble outside of their cash cow. But all that changed in 2006, when they created Drill Dozer: a fun, compact little game built entirely around the concept of drilling. Unfortunately, Drill Dozer's release on the Game Boy Advance well into the DS's lifespan means very few people got a chance to experience Game Freak's inventive platformer. On this episode of Retronauts, join Bob Mackey, Henry ...
2018-12-07 16:01:02 +0000 UTC
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Hi all, Jeremy here again. This week's posting schedule is going to be a little screwy—Bob is in the process of recovering from having had his computer and other equipment stolen at gunpoint and didn't have time to put together today's episode as planned. So I've bumped forward Friday's bonus episode into the Monday slot, and if all goes well he'll run the full episode for the week on Friday. With luck, everything will be back to normal next week!
This episode is the companion to the recent ...
2018-12-03 14:54:42 +0000 UTC
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