Bummer. Hopefully future recordings work out.
To be honest, I'm more interested in some of the odd ducks getting some more complete coverage by the crew. I look forward to the V, VIII, IX and X episodes in 2019.
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Retronauts Podcast Thread
- Thread starter krae_man
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To be honest, I'm more interested in some of the odd ducks getting some more complete coverage by the crew. I look forward to the V, VIII, IX and X episodes in 2019.
ToastyFrog
Inexplicable Treasure Hate
Kat Bailey and I will give VIII a hagiography like you wouldn't believe.
UltraGunner
Banned
I'm kinda ashamed to admit it but I only started listening a few days ago because Bob Mackey hosts Talking SImpsons. I'm hooked after the Final Fantasy talk.
Fenster Mayhew
Member
I did a FFIV episode at 1UP before the podcast studio broke and no one would fix it, so that can hold you over in the meantime.
Ah yes, I thought I remembered an episode about IV. I didn't see it on the post-1up Retronauts site archive, so I thought I was just imagining things. It's insane that episode is already four years old.
And, lo, the Chicken-wuss came upon them, and the glory of Junctioning shone round about them: and they were sore afraid.
-Bailey 2:9
I own 3 copies of FFIV and I've never even played it. I bought my first DS used off a guy and the GBA version was in the bundle I got off him. When I bought my Wonderswan Color it arrive in the mail with FFIV in the cartridge slot. I then bought the DS version planning on playing it but never did. I probably have the PS1 version via PS+too.
Game is everywhere.
Game is everywhere.
JoeyJungle
Banned
I'd love to hear your guys' recommendation on how the game is meant to be played. The mix of enemies scaling with your level and most of your stats coming from junctioning makes it so easy to break the game's difficulty from the very start of the game, or to accidentally make the game way tougher than it should be. I could never figure out what the intended way to play the game was/how to play the game at the intended difficulty.
Also, I was wondering what your favorite Kawazu games are? I think you guys did an episode on him last summer, and that got me interested in his games. I've already played some of the FF Legends games as a kid, so and I'd like to play some of his newer/crazier stuff. I'm planning on Romancing Saga 2 when the Vita version comes out, and was thinking about starting Unlimited Saga, Minstrel Song, or Saga Frontier. Are those all good? Minstrel Song seems like it was panned in reviews by general JRPG fans, and also panned by Kawazu fans, but I've seen a couple positive mentions of it on GAF.
That reminds me of line in the latest episode about FFII and how players will find the most convenient way to play a game and if that's boring, they blame the developer. When I heard that I thought "oh, this is going to lead into a FFVIII discussion".
Fortunately, I've seen FFVIII's popularity increase in recent years, now that more people are aware of other ways to play the game than "draw everything for hours and hours".
ToastyFrog
Inexplicable Treasure Hate
I never took the "draw everything" approach to FFVIII, which is probably why I enjoyed it. I recognized that there's a tradeoff between stat-junctioning and the expendable resources that boosts your stats, something deliberately built into the game design. Rather than hoarding magic, I spent it as needed and accepted the consequences. If you play it that way rather than spending hours farming spells and completing the game with melee attacks and items in order to avoid using up spell charges and diminishing your stats by a point or two, it's an interesting and challenging game (and better-paced, too).
charlequin
Banned
Yeah, I recommend Pocket Casts personally, but there's a bunch of options. I have a half-hour commute each way and I usually have ten or so podcast eps queued up at any given time.
I think the big distinction I'd draw between FFII and FFVIII on this is that in both games the "obvious" way to play (if you're used to other FFs) is ineffective, but in FFII the "optimal" way to play instead is still pretty tedious and annoying, while the optimal way to play FFVIII is extremely entertaining once you know about it.
I think most people get around just fine playing FF VIII the obvious way, which is just keep equipping new GFs and raising their abilities.
Unlike FF 2 which can be quite the struggle if you go out there and just run around.
ToastyFrog
Inexplicable Treasure Hate
Your collective love for the FF discussion is noted, so I'll definitely make FFIV happen next time we record.
And I definitely want to do a deep dive into FFV, but only if we can get Revenant Kioku on the episode.
And I definitely want to do a deep dive into FFV, but only if we can get Revenant Kioku on the episode.
That is a great idea.
charlequin
Banned
Definitely. I guess this would be a good incentive to get you guys up to the $4500 goal for the Japan trip.
DarkConfidant
Member
Yes! That episode was fantastic!
This show is probably now, one of the best parts of my week. I listened back in the 1UP days, but stopped listening to podcasts sometime around 2010.
This past year, after getting an iPhone and conveniently having a podcast app on my phone, I got back into them.
I was going to look for old retronauts episodes when I saw that they were being made again, and so I listened to the CRTs&Upscalers episodes.
That episode may have single handedly got me into playing my old games again, collection ones I never got to play, and playing them in RGB.
I also purchased a super gameboy, so I can play the plethora of gameboy games that I foolishly sold off as a kid, or never got around to playing.
I might even get a famicom, just to play some japanese titles I never got to play.
That being said, I've enjoyed every episode since, and really liked the single game episodes as well as the topical ones. The Earthbound one made me hunt down Earthbound, to give the game a second chance (as a kid, it wasnt flashy enough for me. I know, I'm lame), which I'll be doing now that I scored a copy on the cheap.
The FF1 episode made me want to retry the PSone version, instead of the NES one.
I couldn't find it in this thread, but I'll be sure to donate to your kickstarter/patreon/whatever crowdfunding thing you guys are using to keep the lights on, and buy beer.
Keep up the good work, to all of those Retronauts folks who read this thread!
ToastyFrog
Inexplicable Treasure Hate
Thanks for the kind words.
This episode makes me want to buy a bunch of appealingly colored carts next time I'm in Tokyo. The exchange rate my put the kibosh on such frivolity, though....
This episode makes me want to buy a bunch of appealingly colored carts next time I'm in Tokyo. The exchange rate my put the kibosh on such frivolity, though....
Kats 50 year fire story reminds me of my Step Dad. Sim City was pretty much the only video game he ever played. He would come home from work at 1am and play until he fell asleep every night. Now if you don't already know in the original Sim City, fire stations are a waste of land and money. It's cheaper to have none and just bulldoze around all fires to prevent them from spreading. So the proper way to go is to build one at the beginning because the game requires you have at least one, then at some point later build 18 all at once to get the 3 Headquarters which do help with land values then demolish all the regular ones.
So what would always happen is my Step Dad would fall asleep while playing and a plane crash would happen that would start a fire and spread through and destroy every inch of land until it hit water. He'd wake up with 1/2 his city burned to the ground on a regular basis:lol
I played the crap out of Sim City on the SNES myself, I always used the infinite money cheat and was never able to get that Mario statue. The reason why turned out to be I actually cared about pollution and spread out my industrial zones with parkland. You cannot win playing that way. The only way to have enough jobs in your city to get the population that high is to just not care about pollution and put up with that Dr Wright yelling at you every 5 seconds.
I found this out because I started playing the game again as an adult doing the same thing I did as a kid, with only a slight tweak. I used to do donuts and put presents/police stations in the middle but I found out doing rows of two properties all the way down used less rail and gave you more room to build stuff. I still hit that 400k wall and decided screw it and started going industrial crazy and even though Dr Wright was getting mad at me, my population would increase every time.
Recently I tried and was successfully able to get 500k without the cheat and that game has a serious progression problem right after you run out of your start up money. If you start on Easy you begin with $20k and that money is going to be completely gone around 50k in population and at that population the game demands you build an Airport, Seaport, and Stadium all at the same time. You're also going to need a second power plan right at that point too. So all of a sudden you're broke and have $23k in demands on top of your normal growth financial demands and you're maybe making $1500/year at that point so you just have to sit there and do nothing for 20 years because your city won't grow properly until you build these things.
That part of the game made me want to say fuck it and use the cheat. It's so slow and so boring.
So what would always happen is my Step Dad would fall asleep while playing and a plane crash would happen that would start a fire and spread through and destroy every inch of land until it hit water. He'd wake up with 1/2 his city burned to the ground on a regular basis:lol
I played the crap out of Sim City on the SNES myself, I always used the infinite money cheat and was never able to get that Mario statue. The reason why turned out to be I actually cared about pollution and spread out my industrial zones with parkland. You cannot win playing that way. The only way to have enough jobs in your city to get the population that high is to just not care about pollution and put up with that Dr Wright yelling at you every 5 seconds.
I found this out because I started playing the game again as an adult doing the same thing I did as a kid, with only a slight tweak. I used to do donuts and put presents/police stations in the middle but I found out doing rows of two properties all the way down used less rail and gave you more room to build stuff. I still hit that 400k wall and decided screw it and started going industrial crazy and even though Dr Wright was getting mad at me, my population would increase every time.
Recently I tried and was successfully able to get 500k without the cheat and that game has a serious progression problem right after you run out of your start up money. If you start on Easy you begin with $20k and that money is going to be completely gone around 50k in population and at that population the game demands you build an Airport, Seaport, and Stadium all at the same time. You're also going to need a second power plan right at that point too. So all of a sudden you're broke and have $23k in demands on top of your normal growth financial demands and you're maybe making $1500/year at that point so you just have to sit there and do nothing for 20 years because your city won't grow properly until you build these things.
That part of the game made me want to say fuck it and use the cheat. It's so slow and so boring.
Sounds good for the best final fantasy. Also sucks that I didnt get to complete the 4 job fiesta this time...
Gameboy eventually ended up with a decent range of colored carts, so did the SNES. Nowhere near as cool as the wild west of the famicom but I had a splash here and there looking through my Gameboy drawer. Black, Red, Blue, Gold, Silver, Clear, Yellow. Couple of interesting repro's/fan games too in pink and orange.
Pretty much. Except for the black carts which signified game boy colour functionality.
I tried to go back and reply to my comment on the Final Fantasy episode but the comments are now closed.
So just to follow up, I really liked the discussion all in all. One thing I was surprised never came up were some of the weird programming bugs that made it into the NES version.
Most notably spells that didn't do what they were supposed to:
According to the internet:
Tempr - Doesnt work
Sabr - Doesnt work
Lock - doesnt work
Lock2 - it actually RAISES the enemies acc. by 20%!
AMUT - only 4 enemies in the entire game actually cast mute, and rarely at that
I had a "The Usual Suspects" moment when I read about these bugs years later, because as a kid I remember using some of these high level spells and wondering why they didn't seem to have any effect. Little did I know it was probably because somebody forgot to add a semicolon into a line of code (or the japanese programming equivalent).
The Lock2 effect is particularly funny. I wonder how many times I actually used it.
So just to follow up, I really liked the discussion all in all. One thing I was surprised never came up were some of the weird programming bugs that made it into the NES version.
Most notably spells that didn't do what they were supposed to:
According to the internet:
Tempr - Doesnt work
Sabr - Doesnt work
Lock - doesnt work
Lock2 - it actually RAISES the enemies acc. by 20%!
AMUT - only 4 enemies in the entire game actually cast mute, and rarely at that
I had a "The Usual Suspects" moment when I read about these bugs years later, because as a kid I remember using some of these high level spells and wondering why they didn't seem to have any effect. Little did I know it was probably because somebody forgot to add a semicolon into a line of code (or the japanese programming equivalent).
The Lock2 effect is particularly funny. I wonder how many times I actually used it.
ToastyFrog
Inexplicable Treasure Hate
We did touch on that! I remember being annoyed as I was editing at some of the examples we missed.
I do remember you guys discussing some bugs, like attacking a slain enemy, etc. I don't remember discussion about the spells, but maybe that's just a result of listening after working too many overnight shifts.
Anyway, keep 'em coming Jeremy. The podcasts are much appreciated.
This episode inspired me to play though FF9 on Steam since I've never actually played it, and I've managed to avoid absorbing any information about it at all.
Other than the dialogue being quite bad, I get the feeling that if FF9 was released today instead of 2000, it might actually have been better received, since it scratches a lot of the nostalgic itches that may not have been so much in demand 16 years ago (because we hadn't lived through FF13 yet).
Fenster Mayhew
Member
Is FFIX really known for having bad dialogue? Alex Smith (Vagrant Story, FFXII) led the localization, and I remember it as being pretty high quality for the time.
Going back to the "Famicom Rainbow" podcast, I feel like it should be noted (and appreciated) that the boxes containing Nintendo's "Pulse Line" carts are/were pretty darn rainbow-rific all on their own. Photographic proof:
Stack of Famicom games by Bryan Ochalla, on Flickr
Stack of Famicom games by Bryan Ochalla, on Flickr
JoeyJungle
Banned
I remember they mentioned stuff like stats not doing anything, which I guess might be kinda common in the pre-PS1 FF games? In the SNES release of FF6, Evasion stat doesn't do anything, and instead the calculation is determined by Magic Evasion.
http://finalfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/List_of_Final_Fantasy_VI_stats
The localization seems fine, I meant the dialogue itself is just really drab. Mind you I didn't have high expectations for a PS1 JRPG, but it really does come off as something written by a high school student's English Lit assignment. Everything that comes out of Steiner's mouth, for example, is pretty unbearable. To me at least. Even the quirky cast of FFVI seemed to have more depth than anyone in FFIX.
For context, I'm nearing the end of "Disc 2". I'm hoping it gets better from here on out, though again I never really had high hopes. I'm just looking to level up and cast Firaga on some fools.
I remember learning that too years later and having my mind blown. I think that's around the time I started questioning the Bible.
BocoDragon
or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Realize This Assgrab is Delicious
Ever thought of using an avatar Jeremy? Haha
ToastyFrog
Inexplicable Treasure Hate
What, and end up with tons of empty space after my pithy one-liners?
The only real issue with FFIX's translation (and I believe this has been written and/or podcasted about by Jeremy at least once) is that a lot of the references to the previous Final Fantasy games were lost. A big part of that was surely because of the early games' translation restrictions and problems, though.
You can fix that by quoting only longer posts!
Just finished the FF episode and thought I should mention this--Jeremy, we can totally change your username for you if you want.
But what would Shane call him then?
Secret Best <insert title here>
RadarScope1
Member
OK, I just listened to the game show episode ... and I loved it. Made me grin. I certainly wouldn't mind more of those every once in a while.
Polioliolio
Member
Wat? Retronauts has been back?
Retronauts left?
ToastyFrog
Inexplicable Treasure Hate
Bob never left, but I spent a year dead for tax purposes.
brianmcdoogle
Member
ToastyFrog
Inexplicable Treasure Hate
The Dyack pog is killin' me.
Just listened to the Wonder Boy Vs. Adventure Island episode and it was the most fun my ears have had in weeks! An informative, jovial discussion. Can't beat that Bob, Jeremy and Ray combo (especially when there hasn't been a No More Whoppers episode in weeks...I don't blame Ray).
I loved the original Wonder Boy as a kid because it was one of the few games I inherited when my uncle gave me his Master System in 1990 (along with Alex Kidd, Hang-On, Double Dragon and Black Belt). It's such a great-looking 8-bit game - cute, colourful, and Wonder Boy himself was really expressive. The hip skateboard action topped it all off. I even like the music because, while it is repetitive, it's also fun and catchy, and the boss tune was scary as hell back then.
To my mind it's the quintessential 8-bit arcade platformer...one that I only managed to finish for the first time on the Wii Virtual Console. It's a surprisingly long game, too, though most of the levels are simply repeats with slightly tougher layouts.
Also I love the fake McDonald's fries power-ups. Best.
I loved the original Wonder Boy as a kid because it was one of the few games I inherited when my uncle gave me his Master System in 1990 (along with Alex Kidd, Hang-On, Double Dragon and Black Belt). It's such a great-looking 8-bit game - cute, colourful, and Wonder Boy himself was really expressive. The hip skateboard action topped it all off. I even like the music because, while it is repetitive, it's also fun and catchy, and the boss tune was scary as hell back then.
To my mind it's the quintessential 8-bit arcade platformer...one that I only managed to finish for the first time on the Wii Virtual Console. It's a surprisingly long game, too, though most of the levels are simply repeats with slightly tougher layouts.
Also I love the fake McDonald's fries power-ups. Best.
Fenster Mayhew
Member
There was only one set of footprints in the sand because Denis was carrying us.