retronauts

Episode 640: How History Shaped the Games, Pt. I

Jeremy: Retronauts is about video game history, sure, but with this episode we finally take the "history" part seriously. If you watch my weekly NES Works (etc.) videos, you know that I always like to start each episode with a little clip of music, film, TV, or news reports from the month the games in question debuted. Well, this episode is the first of a two-parter that expands that premise into a m...

Episode 639: Building SimCity

Kevin: Since its debut in 1989, SimCity has become a cultural icon. This open-ended game that can best be described as Urban Planning Made Fun made Will Wright a famous game designer, caused the rapid rise of publisher Maxis and led to the wildly popular Sims franchise. But if you’re like me, you might be curious about just how the game works. What inspired Will Wright to make this in the first place, and what sort of background material d...

This Week In Retro: Voltron: Defender of the Universe (1984)

September 10, 1984: Activate interlock! Dynotherms connected! Infracells up! Mega thrusters are go! 

by Diamond Feit

Confession time: I'm not really a giant robot fan. I love stories about the robots themselves; The Transformers taught me all about good versus evil and respecting the lives of all sentient beings. Yet an alarming percentage of t...

Episode 638: Dreamcast Turns 25

Jeremy: A different take on a console retrospective this week. Instead of giving the usual breakdown of the history and library of the Dreamcast on the occasion of its 25th anniversary, Diamond and I have taken a different approach by having a more relaxed discussion about the system. What does Dreamcast represent for Sega's legacy? What place does it hold in video game history? Was the end of one era of gaming, or the beginnings of another?

Edits by Greg Leahy. Art by Joh...

This Week In Retro: Impossible Mission

September 1984: "Stay awhile. Stay forever!"

by Diamond Feit

As much as I appreciate the many conveniences afforded to us by the internet, I must confess I find the modern hype cycle exhausting. Studios and publishers want us frothing with excitement for their next big product and it does not matter if it's coming in a week, a month, or even multiple years from now. I d...

Episode 637: Zelda

Have you heard about Princess Zelda? Apparently there's a legend of her... or something. While she started the series as kidnap-bait, she soon evolved to be a capable hero—and, at times, even a playable one. On this episode of Retronauts, join Bob Mackey, Maddie Copp, and Kevin Bunch as the crew gathers eight glowing triangles in order to summon the wisdom necessary for exploring the many facets of this queen-to-be. 2024-09-06 07:00:03 +0000 UTC View Post

Episode 636: The 8-Bit Mascot Ranking Hootenanny

Jeremy: I regret to inform you that... our Retro World Expo panel a weekend was one of the best we've ever presented! Regret, because only a few dozen people got to experience it live and participate in the experience with me, Diamond, and Nadia. But wait—perhaps not regret, because... I recorded it? And it sounds excellent?! And the energy and engagement of the whole thing comes through perfectly!?!

Maybe you couldn't be there (though—big thanks to those who could!)....

This Month In Retronauts: August 2024 edition

"August? Shouldn't you call it Last Month In Retronauts?" Silence! I, Diamond Feit, am your Community Manager and you will respect my travel schedule!

Sorry, sorry, I'm still a wee jetlagged this weekend, but I managed to turn this episode—recorded in my Hartford hotel room on August 24th—around in record time. Since they were with me attending Retro World Expo in that very building, I had the pleasure ...

Episode 634, Part 2: Gail Tilden on Nintendo Power

Jeremy: The second part of my live-from-Long-Island recordings comes to us with a major assist from Lucas M. Thomas, EIC of Nintendo Force/NF magazine. I tried not to get in the way during this three-person panel, and that includes letting everyone bag on Power Blade! I deserve a medal.

Anyway, this is a great conversation in which the former editor-in-chief of Nintendo (and one of the marketing leads of the NES's American launch) recounts her me...

Episode 635: Five Nights at Freddy's

Nadia: This week, you WILL believe…that an antimatronic menagere containing a bear, a chicken, a rabbit, and a wily old fox is capable of making you pee your pants a little. Five Nights at Freddy's is officially 10 years old this month, which means it's retro by law. Join Nadia and special guest Mat Bradley-Tschirgi as they talk about the unlikely horror phenomenon that spawned several games (okay, a lot of games) and a movie that only just recently brought in a lot o...

Episode 634 (Part I): Super Metroid at 30 with MLiG

Jeremy: Friends! Something a little different this week. I have a few segments to post from Long Island Retro Gaming Expo a couple of weeks back, but this time around I don't want to jam a couple of unrelated conversations together into a single cumbersome episodes—especially bearing in mind that live recordings can be a little tiring due to the nature of the audio—echo and mic distortion and the like. I've done my best this time to edit out the worst of the sound pollution ...

Episode 633: Donald Duck

Stuart: He’s angry, dresses in a sailor suit with no pants, and is best friends with a mouse. Yes, that’s right – it’s Stuart Gipp, and he’s back with an episode about Donald Duck games. There’s a whole quacktastic spectrum of duck tales across multiple generations of gaming, though we’re not here to talk about either DuckTales or the Spectrum. For once. No, this is all Donald, that beloved duck whose name is in no way sullied by association to anybod...

Episode 632: Bitsummit ’24

Good morning, Diamond Feit here! I can say "good morning" because I'm typing this from the U.S. rather than Japan, hence it's no longer "good night." Speaking of Japan, last month in Kyoto I attended the always-thrilling BitSummit indie game festival, and this podcast serves as my report on what I saw.

But that's not all: you also get to hear from who I saw, including frequent Retronauts guests (but fi...

Episode 631: Ganon

Ganon's been the big boss of The Legend of Zelda franchise from the very beginning—even though he's taken a sabbatical from time to time. Whether he's a pig-man, or simply a dark wizard from some sort of sandy realm, Link's greatest foe always finds a way to break seals, cause downfalls, and generally be a real menace when it comes to enchanted triangles. On this episode, join Bob Mackey, Diamond Feit, Kevin Bunch, and Drew Mackie (from 2024-08-09 07:00:06 +0000 UTC View Post

Episode 630: Battle of the Master System Mascots

Jeremy: Well, it's the episode you've been asking for! It's finally here! Yes: We have, once and for all, presented the definitive word on one of society's most burning questions. Look here for the truth. Whomst amongst the Master System's putative mascot characters reigned supreme!? The contenders this episode: Alex Kidd! Wonder Boy! Opa Opa! Each of them appeared in several games! Some of those games were very good! Some were not! But only ONE of those l'il guys deserves to be...

Episode 629: Darius

Kevin: Perhaps unsurprisingly for an avowed arcade rat for myself, we’re heading back into the proverbial game center to discuss Taito’s seminal shooter franchise, Darius. Pronounced Da-rye-us (according to the Japanese kana), the series is a collection of aquatic-themed horizontally scrolling shooters (or shmups or STGs, depending on where you’re from), Darius has primarily been a platform for Taito to show off its technical prowess, combining the play i...

This Month In Retronauts: July 2024 edition

runs into room Hey, Diamond Feit here. I'mma keep this brief, dear listeners: The summer temperatures in Japan are getting uncomfortably high and my vacation cannot begin soon enough. Please enjoy this audio offering from myself and Stuart Gipp before I hit the road. We over the latest news, read your feedback, and I outline where you can expect to see me (and other Retronauts!) live in person in August. As if that...

Episode 628: Megami Tensei I & II

Jeremy: This one has been in the works for a while, and now... it has finally happened. There's a lot to be said about the Shin Megami Tensei series and its spinoffs, but before we tackle those games, I felt we needed to lay the groundwork by touching on the Famicom adventures that set the series into motion. Before it was Shin, it was just Megami Tensei. I have summoned my familiars (read: guest panelists) this episode to help walk us th...

Episode 627: Mortal Kombat 4

ominous gong sound Welcome back, Patrons. Diamond Feit here, returning to the well (or "pit" if you prefer) with another podcast about a famous fighting game franchise. When we last checked in with Mortal Kombat, the series hit the big time just as the seams began to show. What happened when they turned to 3D graphics? Well, we got 2024-07-22 11:00:12 +0000 UTC View Post

This Week In Retro: Silent Scope

July 1999: Position target in the center and pull the switch

by Diamond Feit

We all know how the medium of video games loves the military, because when you need a protagonist to battle their way through...

Episode 626: Asterix, Pt. 1

Stuart: I don’t think anyone, least of all myself, expected this Astérix podcast to turn into the odyssey it would ultimately become. The fact is, Audi, Thomas, and John are just too knowledgable of the series, though the real culprit here is the fact that there really are an enormous number of Astérix games. Many, many times more than I could ever really have imagined. “Hey, let’s split this into two parts”, I found myself saying. Then, during the second part...

This Week In Retro: Darkstalkers

July 1994: Teratophiles, rejoice!

by Diamond Feit

This might surprise anyone who looks at my enthusiasm for all things Resi...

625: Nicktoons Games

For a very long time, TV cartoons were bad. But in the early '90s, two cable TV executives posed the question "What if they were good?" And thus, Nicktoons was born. This brand of creator-driven animated programs shook the world with its effort to provide pure entertainment for kids with zero interest in spinning moral tales or selling toys—though eventually, they'd sell a hell of a lot toys. And that's where we come in! This week on Retronauts, join Bob Mackey, Henry Gilbert, and O.K. KO! ...

Episode 624: The Metal Gear Storyline, Pt. I

Jeremy: I have a feeling that this will turn out to be one of those episodes that a lot of people really enjoy but a handful of super-fans will find deeply annoying. Metal Gear demi-super-fans Shane Bettenhausen and Tomm Hulett and I have all spent a lot of time playing and thinking about Metal Gear games, but this is the kind of conversation that tends to be a little livelier if the participants don't memorize every detail in advance in order to spark a little ext...

This Week In Retro: Dino Crisis

July 1, 1999: Jurassic Evil

by Diamond Feit

Fun fact: no human being has ever seen a dinosaur. They lived and died millions of years before our species emerged on Earth. What's more astonishing is that ...

Episode 623: The Wario Land Ranking Hootenanny

Jeremy: Long, long ago (well, not that long), we recorded an episode in which we ranked the 2D Super Mario games. That conversation, while awesome, stumbled into a slightly awkward moment where we had to deal with the semantics of Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3. It's called "Mario," but the protagonist was Wario, and it played differently. Hootenanny shenanigans! So this week, we put a band-aid on podcast history by giving that game ...

This Month In Retronauts: June 2024 edition

Hi folks, Diamond Feit here, bidding farewell to June and Pride and sensible weather with this, our latest community podcast. Stuart Gipp joins me for an incredible amount of news items, Steam Next Fest demos, precious comments from you, and a surprise update on Hall & Oates. It'll all make sense once you press play, I promise. As always, we are gratef...

Episode 622: Retronauts Radio Summer ’24

Jeremy: It is time, once again, to pump up the jams. Here we are with a brand spankin' new Retronauts Radio episode—the longest of these to date! So much music!

I've tweaked the format once again based on listener feedback, dedicating the first third of the episode to a discussion of the music at hand with a few quick examples for context but relegating the bulk of the music to the back side of the episode where it plays uninterrupted. Since this is a patron-exclusive e...

Episode 621: Mad Max

When an Australian emergency room doctor set out to make a humble little car chase movie in the late '70s, he had no idea it would turn into an incredibly long-lived franchise that would light our minds on fire and cause us all to drive just a little bit faster. And now that nearly 50 years have passed, the Mad Max franchise has remained incredibly pure, with only five movies and a whopping two video games to speak of. On this episode of Retronauts, join Bob Mackey, Diamond Feit, and Stuart G...

This Week In Retro: Revolution X

June 1994: This arcade machine kills fascists

by Diamond Feit

I came of age in the United States during the 1980s, which means I grew up hearing about the terrors of censorship. America, I was told, ce...