Shovel Knight is more than a retro-styled game made to make you wistful of a bygone era — it makes you wish that era had never ended, and gives a glimpse of what it may have been like if it hadn’t. From emulating an actual Famicom sound chip to sticking almost entirely within the capabilities of the NES hardware, Shovel Knight is nothing less than a work of art. It’s also pretty fun to play! And it learns lessons from the last three decades that its proper 8-bit brethren never had time to internalize. Vinnk and Sean share their views on Yacht Club Games’ maiden voyage, heap praises on the Metroid series and Sakura Wars in Future Retro, and try to talk themselves into taking some more games off their pile of shame.
Leave your own voicemail at 608-492-1923, or just share your thoughts in the show notes at FamicomDojo.TV: http://famicomdojo.tv/podcast/101
Physical game releases, and increasingly their digital versions as well, often get a hefty price cut as the game ages, but the price of the DLC never goes down. Should it? Vinnk and Sean backtrack on some earlier positions to talk about DLC they like, grapple with their feelings on DLC in general, and what alternatives publishers can pursue without giving up a revenue stream that helps to increase the software development tail of a game and its engine.
Leave your own voicemail at 608-492-1923, or just share your thoughts in the show notes at FamicomDojo.TV: http://famicomdojo.tv/podcast/95
This spiritual successor to the Japan only Namco X Capcom brings together characters from 3 different companies to do battle in Strategy Rpg Greatness. An ancient treasure has been stolen, causing rifts between worlds, bringing together characters from several different franchises. However, the storyline is all just an excuse to bring over characters from various Sega, Namco, and Capcom franchises. It’s not just popular franchises like Street Fighter, Resident Evil, and Tekken either (although those are included) but there are characters from God Eater, Sega’s Shining Force, Sakura Wars, and even Dynamite Cop to name a few. Since you’ll probably be unfamiliar with most of the characters you’ll encounter, the in-game Crosspedia tells you everything you need to know about whoever shows up. Characters are grouped together in teams of two, with some teams containing an optional support character. When you engage an enemy in battle, it’s a side scrolling fighting game style battle sequence when you try to do as much damage to the enemy as possible before using up all your moves. You can even call in a nearby team and support character for assistance. The game is incredibly casual, as a character’s turn doesn’t end until you end their turn manually or they engage an enemy. You can move freely within your characters allowed move area, and use items as many times as you want. If a character is knocked out, reviving them is as simple as going next to them and saving them. During the game, you’ll hear tunes from each of the games represented, and you’ll travel to somewhat familiar locations. While the storyline doesn’t make any sense at times, you’ll have to much fun with the characters to care. Fans of strategy RPG games will want to pick this game up, and if you’re familiar with any of the characters represented, you’ll enjoy the game even more.
We’re four generations deep into reasonably realistic 3D graphics based on nothing more than colored triangles, but if you go back to the first fully 3D console graphics the picture isn’t so pretty. And yet we loved these games all the same. Was it am amazing as we thought, or were we just kidding ourselves? Vinnk and Sean try to take off their rose-colored glasses and give a serious look to the Nintendo 64, Playstation, and Sega Saturn. What game franchises were born in that generation? Which ones met their untimely end?
Leave your own voicemail at 608-492-1923, or just share your thoughts in the show notes at FamicomDojo.TV: http://famicomdojo.tv/podcast/91
Does anyone of the generation who grew up with video games have an excuse to not understand how much (or rather, how little) video games affect people? So many buy Rated M games for their kids, completely ignoring the rating altogether. Which begs the question: just who are these ratings for? Vinnk and Sean go over a completely non-linear history of video game ratings, how Night Trap for Sega CD helped start the ratings firestorm, and they have evolved more into advertisements than effective parental warnings.
Leave your own voicemail at 608-492-1923, or just share your thoughts in the show notes at FamicomDojo.TV: http://famicomdojo.tv/podcast/88
In the ever-shifting landscape of video game development, there are major players and the scrappy underdogs. Kickstarter has given smaller studios a bigger voice, but back in the day before the Internet was a thing, which companies set themselves apart? And which ones have fallen apart since? Sean and Vinnk talk about their favorite publishers and developers of today, the classics of yesteryear, and ponder whatever the heck happened to them. Some evolved, some, disbanded, and some should be put out of their misery. Did your favorites make the list?
Leave your own voicemail at 608-492-1923, or just share your thoughts in the show notes at FamicomDojo.TV: http://famicomdojo.tv/podcast/87
Before EA, official sports titles were more spread out, and used in all kind of ways. Games like NBA Jam are hard to come by these days (barring updates to NBA Jam). Before annual installments of Year of the Same Game, you had crazy sports game ideas that were one and done. These weren’t simulators, like we have today, but imaginitive riffs on the sports to make up for any technical proficiency that hardware
of the time may have had. And that’s what makes them Rad Sports Games. Vinnk and Sean talk about their favorite titles, including the aforementioned NBA Jam, Punch Out, Bases Loaded (and a bunch of other weird baseball games), and even Scotti Pippen’s Slam City! If you’ve never played it before, why… it sure is something else. Will we ever see their like again? Aside from EA picking up the IP for NBA Jam from Midway, that is…
Leave your own voicemail at 608-492-1923, or just share your thoughts in the show notes at FamicomDojo.TV: http://famicomdojo.tv/podcast/86
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