(That's Super Mario USA if you're nasty.)
Yes, this latest Retronauts episode marks a few special occasions. It's the fifth anniversary of the show's relaunch. Hooray! And yesterday was the 35th anniversary of the Nintendo Famicom/NES. Wow! So, fittingly, we got the band back together for this NES-centric episode — the very first line-up of our crowd-funded era has convened to talk Super Mario Bros. 2. That's myself, Bob, Ray, and finally Dr. Sparkle of Chrontendo. (The lin...
2018-07-16 13:07:52 +0000 UTC
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It's a more laid-back episode than usual this week, since it's two very laid-back people chatting about video game history and experiences. Back in May, I stopped by the offices of developer 17-Bit (of Skulls of the Shogun and Galak-Z fame) to talk to the studio's founder, Jake Kazdal. While currently based in Kyoto, Japan, Jake grew up in Seattle and got his start in video gaming as a teenager working the Nintendo Game Counselor tip line. From there, he went on to become invol...
2018-07-09 16:36:52 +0000 UTC
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For this Retronauts Micro, we're going for a community-focused approach as we respond to YOUR comments about Bob's latest round of episodes! This week, join Bob Mackey, Henry Gilbert, and Matthew Jay as the crew fields responses to previous Retronauts installments about video game ads, the Nintendo GameCube, Doom, television games, and Spider-Man games. All this, and a close examination of a video where Stan Lee excoriates Todd McFarlane and Rob Liefeld! Could you ask for anything more?
2018-07-06 15:10:19 +0000 UTC
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In 2004, Hideo Kojima restored his famous series' reputation with Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater. This third entry in the Metal Gear Solid series eschewed the excessively meta approach of the previous sequel for a James Bond-ish romp in an entirely new setting that still provided plenty of convoluted--and incredibly amusing--twists and turns. The result is a modern classic that's brimming over with so many great, unique ideas, we barely have time to scratch the surface in 90 minutes! On this ep...
2018-07-02 23:07:28 +0000 UTC
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Oh no, we've gone full anime!
Well, sort of. This episode features annual Midwest Gaming Classic guest Caitlin Oliver, who wanted to chat with us about Rumiko Takahashi's Ranma 1/2 manga/anime/games this time. So here we are.
This week's show consists of two halves: First, an explanation of what Ranma 1/2 actually is, for those of you who didn't experience the ’90s anime explosion in the U.S. and therefore didn't take the brunt of it in the form of Ranma<...
2018-06-25 12:05:47 +0000 UTC
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Well, this has been a pretty interesting couple of weeks where this episode is concerned. We've been meaning to record it ever since competitive gamer Billy Mitchell's records were disqualified back in April. We finally happened to have the opportunity to sit down and record Monday of last week, which coincidentally fell a day or two after Mitchell's somewhat strange and hostile press conference, chronicled on Variety's website. A few days later, Nintendo dug up the arcade code to D...
2018-06-22 11:46:26 +0000 UTC
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And here we are: The final entry in our tour through the history of the metroidvania genre. The metroidvania episode series was meant to be about two episodes, max, and I think this is our fifth. But I guess that's what happens when I bring about people who have a lot of opinions about these games… and the semantics of the word holding everything together. Sorry, pedants, there are something like 1.3 million search results for "metroidvania" on Google now. It's a real word whether you like it ...
2018-06-18 11:45:22 +0000 UTC
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This episode is appearing slightly out of sequence. The normal routine, as you've probably noticed, is a "core" Retronauts episode (e.g. a Bob & Jeremy joint) every other week, with one Retronauts East and one interview/wild card episode per month on the off weeks. This time, it's two core episodes in a row — GameCube and this one. That's because, due to some schedule disruptions, we didn't record the next Retronauts East episode until about [checks] an hour ago. But also... this episode a...
2018-06-11 21:47:47 +0000 UTC
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We're back with our follow-up to Retronauts Micro 87, which dives even deeper into the history of video game advertising. This time around, we leap from the "Have you played Atari today?" era of TV spots to the brilliant-but-now-amusing way Nintendo carefully worked around Americans' anxiety about video games with their focus on R.O.B. And, unfortunately, this era also sees basically everyone but boys being phased out of the marketing--a decision that had some pretty big effects we're still feel...
2018-06-09 00:06:03 +0000 UTC
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Nintendo followed up the modest success of the N64 with the GameCube: A small, sleek little system devoted solely to playing games. But in an era where the PlayStation 2's exclusives, backwards compatibility, and DVD playback features obliterated the competition, Nintendo found their nice little piece of hardware unable to gain any true traction. On this episode of Retronauts, join Bob Mackey, Kat Bailey, Jeremy Parish and Dave Rudden as the crew explores the console best known as "half of a Wii...
2018-06-05 02:04:32 +0000 UTC
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Kept you waiting, hu—no, wait, wrong publisher.
I swear, if anyone ever whines again about Retronauts being more like Nintendonauts amirite, I will end them. This has been, without question, the most complex and time-consuming episode of the show I've ever assembled in 12 years of podcasting, and it's 100% devoted to SEGA. Hopefully, hopefully, that effort has paid off.
There are two parts to this episode.
First, we have an interview with Rieko Ko...
2018-05-29 21:10:33 +0000 UTC
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Hi everyone, Jeremy here with a quick note to let you know this week's advance episode won't go up until Tuesday or Wednesday. I had the rare opportunity to interview veteran Sega developers Rieko Kodama and Toru Yoshida for the show, which is a pretty remarkable event (you don't want to know about the weeks of email back-and-forth required to make it happen).
As they've apparently never sat in for a podcast before, one of the terms of the interview was that I'd let them listen to the se...
2018-05-28 13:39:39 +0000 UTC
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Hi all, here is the first of quite a few podcasts I recorded (seven total, some of which Bob was able to join for!) while we were in Japan for BitSummit these past few weeks. This first episode comes as a follow-up to last year's BitSummit interview with Tetsuya Mizuguchi. We made it through his work with Sega last time, and the intent was to tackle the second half of his career here… but we only actually ended up making it through Lumines. That's OK, though, because Lumines Remas...
2018-05-25 13:08:23 +0000 UTC
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Shivam Bhatt and Shane Bettenhausen join us this week as we revisit a topic last tackled by Retronauts a good decade ago: The first two Suikoden games by Konami. Rather than cover the entire series, we specifically explore the first two games in greater depth than our initial swipe at the topic (though, really, there hasn't been much doing in the Suikoden space since 2008).
Also this time around, we pay tribute to EGM editor and former Retronauts contributor Andrew F...
2018-05-21 05:41:33 +0000 UTC
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Hey folks, I'm traveling at the moment, hence the lack of new artwork for this upload. But the important thing is that I managed to get this episode up with clockwork efficiency. Hooray!
This episode is another one of our periodic media-focused episodes. We talk about Star Wars games this episode, but mostly we talk about the history and impact of Star Wars the movie. Just the first one. It was kind of a big deal, maybe you've heard? We're not sure how Solo is gonna ...
2018-05-14 11:08:36 +0000 UTC
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Whether you like it or not, advertising is everywhere, and it's always been everywhere—which is why the jingle for some now-nonexistent product has likely obliterated some important memory in your brain. And video games, being a product that's sold for money, have never been a stranger to advertising. On this first part of a two-part series, join Bob Mackey, Jeremy Parish, Matthew Jay, and Henry Gilbert as the crew explores the earliest days of video game ads, as well as the many baffling cele...
2018-05-11 12:12:42 +0000 UTC
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When Sega made their first true leap into polygonal gaming with the incredibly rushed Sonic Adventure, they delivered a fascinating and ambitious mess. Thankfully, the inevitable sequel saw Sonic Team working with more time, resources, and expertise, making it a much more polished game... but one that still has its share of problems. On this episode of Retronauts, join Bob Mackey, Henry Gilbert, and Michal (@Miexriir on Twitter) as the crew digs into Sonic's sophomore stab into the world of 3D g...
2018-05-09 20:29:55 +0000 UTC
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Hey folks,
Thanks to me being at the tail-end of a three-day-long recording marathon—and some back end issues that are frankly too tedious to mention here—this week's advance episode of Retronauts will go live Wednesday instead of today. But it's one worth looking forward to: this week, we're doing a full-length episode about Sonic Adventure 2 with a brand-new guest who actually grew up with the 3...
2018-05-08 02:31:07 +0000 UTC
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This one is fresh from Midwest Gaming Classic, recorded two weeks ago — a two-parter focused on Atari. First, we have an overview of the Atari 7800 from one of its foremost enthusiasts, followed by our live panel audio in which we explore the causes of the "Atari crash" and posit that mmmmaybe it wasn't completely something that happened because of Atari. I realize it would have made a little more sense to have the live panel first, but… it's a live panel, so the audio isn't studio-quality. ...
2018-04-30 13:32:10 +0000 UTC
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I've been looking for an opportunity to post this live panel from last fall's Super Famicon convention in Greensboro for a while. The time to strike is now! Mainly because we have a pretty interesting interview with former Midway designer Mark Turmell about the history of the NEMO system (which gave rise to the game under discussion here) coming up soon. Plus, there was a cold day down in hell this week when Night Trap was confirmed for release on a Nintendo platform. The stars have ali...
2018-04-27 13:33:17 +0000 UTC
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Today has been kinda nuts for me, so I'm just gonna leave this here. I think the topic really speaks for itself, honestly. I mean… Tetris. Yeah. And the fact that there's still a lot of uncertainty over the finer points of the history of this extremely popular and well-documented game among four highly read game history experts really speaks to the challenges of documenting this medium!
Music here comes from the BPS Game Boy and NES versions of Tetris, Tetris 2, an...
2018-04-23 20:32:42 +0000 UTC
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Last year, we dug deep into SEGA's arcade history; this year, it's Namco's turn. Benj Edwards and Chris Sims and I begin a journey through the Namco library this week, which we'll revisit every few months going forward. Of course, Ray produced an overview of the Namco Museum PS1 series waaaaay back in 2013, and we've also done deep-dives into Pac-Man and Dig Dug (both of which are covered here), but this comprehensive overview of the Namco catalog touches on greats tha...
2018-04-16 14:06:29 +0000 UTC
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Thanks to the magic of planning, I (Bob) have scheduled three episodes in a row about 3D Sonic games. Earlier this week, we talked about Sonic Adventure, and next month we'll talk about Sonic Adventure 2. And as for this episode? Well, if you're one of those weirdos who reads the title last, allow me to inform you that this Micro is fully dedicated to YOUR thoughts about the 3D Sonic games. So sit back and relax as Henry Gilbert and myself read and respond to listener questions about Sonic's pos...
2018-04-13 07:00:01 +0000 UTC
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Sonic the Hedgehog essentially sat out the 32-bit generation, which dealt a serious blow to Sega's financial situation. But by the time the company was ready to launch their new hardware, Sega finally delivered what a generation of gamers had been screaming about for years: a TRUE 3D Sonic game. On this week's episode of Retronauts, join Bob Mackey, Jeremy Parish, Ray Barnholt, and Caty McCarthy as the crew digs into Sonic's first 3D outing and decides if it's a stellar success or an ambitious f...
2018-04-10 00:01:23 +0000 UTC
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This week's episode made for kind of a tough edit, since both segments involved remote (international!) interviews via Skype with some significant audio issues to overcome… but here we are. Both interview segments involve games inspired in large part by Metroid Fusion; I hadn't originally intended to put them together, but it really just makes sense for these segments to coexist. Both Scurge Hive and Iconoclasts draw on Fusion for inspiration and feature liv...
2018-04-02 23:17:57 +0000 UTC
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Aaaand we wrap up March 2018 with one final Micro episode. This one's a little closer to home, at least for me — it consists of a conversation with Retronauts East regular Benj Edwards. Benj recently posted a photo to Twitter announcing an upcoming move to a new home and, with it, the need to clear out a portion of the massive vintage computer collection he's been amassing since 1993. What does co...
2018-03-30 14:31:54 +0000 UTC
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Hi everyone, looks like this episode won't be late after all.
This show comes to you after we received nothing but positive responses after last year's examination of Breath of the Wild's reinterpretation of classic Zelda concepts. We saw lots of requests for more episodes along the same lines, and Super Mario Odyssey seemed like a logical follow-up. (Don't worry, I've already begun planning a non-Nintendo episode like this for our next recording session.) This...
2018-03-26 17:06:42 +0000 UTC
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By patron request! This episode covers a lot of ground we've explored already in our Apple II, Myst, and metroidvania episodes, but again: This is by request. Plus, Brøderbund deserves a dedicated episode — especially one that goes beyond just their games and explores their productivity apps. I think all people of a certain age can't help but see that triple-crown logo and be taken back to their childhood days of mucking around in a computer lab with The Print Shop…
Despite the unha...
2018-03-19 18:07:35 +0000 UTC
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With Metal Gear Survive flopping and Hideo Kojima absent from Konami, the future of Metal Gear is fuzzy—or completely nonexistent. But, thankfully, Retronauts is a past-based operation, and there's plenty of Metal Gear behind us to look back on and discuss. On this episode, join Bob Mackey and Henry Gilbert as the two-man crew tackles you most burning questions about Metal Gear.
2018-03-17 19:09:22 +0000 UTC
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Doom is back in the public consciousness thanks to the stellar 2016 reboot, but when was the last time you thought back to the 1993 original that changed the face of PC gaming? From the fascinating behind-the-scenes development stories of plucky computer geniuses/Diet Coke addicts, to the sheer impact it had on the gaming landscape, there's enough going on with Doom to fill an entire podcast series—yet we tried to fit everything in a single episode. On this installment of Retronauts, join Bob ...
2018-03-13 01:45:05 +0000 UTC
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