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 2019-04-15 14:00:04 +0000 UTC View Post
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 Am...
2019-04-12 22:09:46 +0000 UTC View Post
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...
2019-04-08 14:00:00 +0000 UTC View Post
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 view...
2019-04-01 16:00:05 +0000 UTC View Post
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 ...
2019-03-29 14:00:00 +0000 UTC View Post
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 ...
2019-03-25 22:19:22 +0000 UTC View Post
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 o...
2019-03-18 16:00:03 +0000 UTC View Post
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 F...
2019-03-15 07:01:00 +0000 UTC View Post
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 vint...
2019-03-11 13:33:20 +0000 UTC View Post
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 ...
2019-03-04 19:11:00 +0000 UTC View Post
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 l...
2019-03-01 19:12:20 +0000 UTC View Post
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 throug...
2019-02-25 08:01:00 +0000 UTC View Post
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 episod...
2019-02-18 12:48:47 +0000 UTC View Post
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 Retronau...
2019-02-15 08:01:00 +0000 UTC View Post
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 ...
2019-02-11 16:00:00 +0000 UTC View Post
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 ...
2019-02-04 14:55:44 +0000 UTC View Post
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 i...
2019-02-01 14:51:10 +0000 UTC View Post
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, Jere...
2019-01-28 08:01:00 +0000 UTC View Post
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 rou...
2019-01-21 16:10:53 +0000 UTC View Post
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...
2019-01-18 15:00:03 +0000 UTC View Post
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 a...
2019-01-14 15:00:00 +0000 UTC View Post
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 c...
2019-01-07 14:45:03 +0000 UTC View Post
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 prov...
2019-01-04 15:00:02 +0000 UTC View Post
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 Pa...
2018-12-31 08:01:00 +0000 UTC View Post
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 f...
2018-12-24 13:30:30 +0000 UTC View Post
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 Christm...
2018-12-22 00:20:37 +0000 UTC View Post
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 y...
2018-12-17 14:00:02 +0000 UTC View Post
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 g...
2018-12-10 13:36:42 +0000 UTC View Post
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 Adva...
2018-12-07 16:01:02 +0000 UTC View Post
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 ...
2018-12-03 14:54:42 +0000 UTC View Post
