Retronauts

Can a podcast be self-indulgent if the topic was provided by someone else? The famous Dr. Sparkle joins us to fulfill Sean Clements' Kickstarter topic request: Chrongaming. Join us as we psychoanalyze our own obsessive-compulsive behavior!

It's been a wild couple of weeks for The Unlikeliest Things Ever: A single conference at E3 brought us the return of The Last Guardian, news of the long-awaited Final Fantasy VII remake, and Shenmue's glorious rise from the ashes. But just a few days before this madness, Nintendo had its own bomb to drop: The eShop launch of the 1989 RPG Mother, which the company originally planned to release stateside in 1991. So what's the deal with this NES installment of a series most of us know as EarthBound? Listen in for the next 15 minutes, and Bob will tell you why you should care... and come prepared. Be sure to visit our blog at Retronauts.com, and check out our partner site, USgamer, for more great stuff. And if you'd like to send a few bucks our way, head on over to our Patreon page!

This week on Retronauts, we're resurrecting two features from our older seasons that normally don't fit into the show's refurbished format: going over the best retro rereleases, and responding to your comments and questions. Those carefree days of 2013 and earlier are back, baby! (If only for 90 minutes.) On this installment, Join Bob Mackey, Jeremy Parish, Ray Barnholt, and Chris Antista as the crew plays catch-up with our digital marketplaces and handles the burning questions of listeners without any protective gear. Be sure to visit our blog at Retronauts.com, and check out our partner site, USgamer, for more great stuff. And if you'd like to send a few bucks our way, head on over to our Patreon page!

Jeremy looks back at the dark counterpart to Konami spinoff Ultra Games: Atari spinoff Tengen, who didn't so much bend the rules of NES publishing as shatter them into a million tiny pieces.

Jeremy and Bob are joined by Capcom's Brett Elston and Greg Moore to revisit a topic near to everyone's heart: the Mega Man legacy. (And also the Mega Man Legacy Collection, due later this year.)

Without a doubt, the music of Konami's NES catalog has a stellar reputation--if their stable of composers had only crafted the 8-bit Castlevania soundtracks, they'd still go down in history as some of the greatest video game maestros of all time. But did you know Konami applied the same amount of musical genius to all of their 8-bit games, regardless of their disposability? On this week's Retronauts Micro, take a listen some some of Konami's 8-bit tunes you might have overlooked--unless you're a roller derby enthusiast, I guess. Be sure to visit our blog at Retronauts.com, and check out our partner site, USgamer, for more great stuff. And if you'd like to send a few bucks our way, head on over to our Patreon page!

By this point, it shouldn't be a big surprise that we Retronauts are big fans of Japanese games. Each of us developed our love for the medium in a decade when Japan dominated the gaming landscape, after all--even if it took us a while to realize our favorite games came from outside the US of A. On this episode of Retronauts, join Bob Mackey, Jeremy Parish, and guest Henry Gilbert as the crew traces their love of Japanese games, and tries to figure out what makes interactive entertainment from The Land of the Rising Sun so unique. Ganbare, listeners! Be sure to visit our blog at Retronauts.com, and check out our partner site, USgamer, for more great stuff. And if you'd like to send a few bucks our way, head on over to our Patreon page!

Only '90s kids will understand the appeal of games published by a great studio under a different name! In the NES days, Ultra Games brought us tons of quality Konami creations, because Konami couldn't. Jeremy contemplates the whys and wherefores of Ultra.

At the behest of Kickstarter backer Chase (yes, we're still fulfilling Kickstarter episodes), Jeremy, Bob, Ray, and Gary Butterfield assemble to talk about "slow life games." You know, the ones about nothing. The Seinfelds of games.