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 Fa...
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...
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 excepti...
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 thes...
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 ...
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 ...
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 i...
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 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 les...
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 d...
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...
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 ...
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 declar...
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...
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...
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...
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 leak...
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 ...
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 wri...
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 ...
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 ...
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...
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, Hen...
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 "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 fo...
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 narrativ...
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 w...
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-o...
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 ...
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 ...
2021-02-01 13:30:01 +0000 UTC View Post
