Vidya Game News – August 30, 2018
Some of the biggest news we’ve heard in a while! From Polygon and a bunch of other sites, Streets of Rage is coming back with a fourth installment, featuring some pretty nifty visuals. Check it out here.- From Japanese Nintendo, a site I didn’t know existed but is wonderful, there will be a double pack of the Famicom and Super Famicom Classics available in Japan. It looks glooorrrrrious. Those systems always had way more style than their American counterparts. Read more here.
- The Verge has a good interview with Dragon Quest creator Yuji Horii, in the week before the series’ 11th installment hits American shores. Early reviews have suggested that if you liked the previous games, you’ll like this one, but that it is unlikely to convert people who don’t love JRPGs already.
- Because of course they would be into that, Capcom developers said they’d be open to remaking the remake of Resident Evil. Them sweet boys love their remakes! Read more from Game Informer’s Ben Reeves here.
- Per Gematsu and the offifical Sega twitter, Switch ports of Sonic and Thunder Force IV have been delayed to September.
- Hey, who DOESN’T want a snazzy watch with Pac-Man?
- The creator of the indie game Owlboy did a mock-up trailer for a Chrono Trigger sequel and it looks wonderful. Look at it here, via TwinFinite, and then cry, because it’ll never happen.
ON THIS DAY (OR CLOSE TO IT!) IN VIDEO GAME HISTORY…
- Former show subjects Crash Bandicoot and DOOM (for the Super Nintendo) turn 22 and 23, respectively! Hopefully those two crazy kids go grab a beer together. You can find our DOOM episode here, and our Crash Bandicoot episode here. (And Crash finally got knocked off the top spot of the UK sales charts.)
Video game history information comes from GameFAQs and Moby Games. When possible, we attempt to link to original sources for all reporting, and we don’t typically link to stupid multi-page galleries. And as always, if you’d like to support the show, do so via our Amazon link.
Vidya Game News – June 9, 2016
– A fun piece from Dany Roth of blastr, as he looks at 10 forgotten NES games that deserve a comeback. Included on the list is The Guardian Legend, which we covered a few weeks ago.
– Joe Juba of Game Informer spoke with Takashi Tokita, one of the directors of classic RPG Chrono Trigger. He’d like to see a “high quality, high end” version of the game. As a comment on the article summed up perfectly: *breathing intensifies*
– Obduction, a spiritual successor to Myst by Cyan, is scheduled for a July release according to Elise Favis of Game Informer. (And hey, listen to our Myst episode!)
– Director Rocky Morton tells Poppy-Jay Palmer of SciFiNow about the horrible experience he had directing the Super Mario Bros. movie.
– Anthony John Agnello looks at the development of story in the Metroid series for the AV Club. (And hey, check out our Super Metroid episode!)
– Jeremy Peel of the PC Games Network has an interview with the current management of Atari.
– Nolan Moore is trying to hack a Power Glove to control robots, drones and other things, which is awesome. Read more about his project here.
– The latest Mike and Bootsy game on Cinemassacre is Swamp Thing for the NES. Check out their video here!
ON THIS DAY IN VIDEO GAME HISTORY…
– Hey, the Game Boy Advance came out on June 11, 2001! It ended up selling more than 81 million units, which is pretty, pretty, pretty good. Castlevania: Circle of the Moon was a launch title. It’s a stellar side-scroller with RPG elements, and worth hunting down.
– Also on June 11, but in 2000, The Legend of Dragoon came out for the Playstation. It was a fairly mediocre RPG, but one of the first released for the system, so it sold fairly well as a result.
Video game history information comes from GameFAQs and Moby Games. And as always, if you’d like to support the show, do so via our Amazon link.
Vidya Game News – February 18, 2016
– Nintendo is finally bringing some classic games to the 3DS in North America, per Destructoid and other sites.
– From Gamespot, a dream of a producer from The Lego Movie would be a similar project with Nintendo characters. Unfortunately, no such project is in development… yet.
– A Chrono Trigger tribute album is now available.
– This week on Steam, Jet Set Radio, Golden Axe and Streets of Rage 2 are free for download! More games are also supposed to be unlocking. For some details, check out this piece on Fortune.
– Next week, the neat Gameological column on the A.V. Club is devoting itself to The Legend of Zelda. However, it has started out this week, so be sure to check out the link!
– From The Sun Sentinel, a southern Florida museum now has an exhibit on video games. Exhibits include Piftall!, Space Invaders and Super Mario Bros.
– Although it’s been mislabeled on a bunch of websites, Hat-Loving Gamer has made an animation of what Super Mario Kart would look like with 101 racers. Check it out on his Facebook page.
ON THIS DAY IN VIDEO GAME HISTORY…
– Historically, it’s a weak day for game releases. In 2009, Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II came out for the PC, which might be of interest to one of the SBBs of YPB. (Huell.)
– Dark Chronicle, better known as Dark Cloud 2, came out for the Playstation in 2003. It was very well-received and a cult classic for years, and it’s now out for the PS4.
– Coming out in the same year was Breath of Fire V: Dragon Quarter, which got a so-so reception. As a result, the series pretty much went dormant. Per Wikipedia, the sixth installment is coming out next week in Japan for PCs and cell phones, with no news of a translation.
Video game history information comes from GameFAQs and Moby Games. And as always, if you’d like to support the show, do so via our Amazon link.
Vidya Game News – November 25, 2015
This week’s news post is a day early, because of Thanksgiving on Thursday. If you’re feeling grateful for YPB this year, give back via our Amazon link. ❤ It won’t add anything to your Black Friday purchase! Shop by using it here.
– The AV Club’s Annie Zaleski has an incredible roundtable interview with three Nintendo game counselors. It’s really long, but totally worth reading. Highlights: Nintendo would pay for limos and tons of booze at the annual Christmas party, counselors got free systems and discounts on games, and it was hell to answer the phones the entire day.
– One of the newest Rifftrax movies is vidya game “classic” The Wizard! You can purchase it here. It has Fred Savage, Rilo Kiley and others in full glory.
– From a Reddit user, it’s an old school ad from Electronics Boutique! At one point, Donkey Kong Country 3 was $69.99. A new SNES with Killer Instinct? $79.99.
– John Markley of The Escapist has a feature on the history of Nintendo’s religious censorship in games.
– Rollin Bishop of Tech Times has an oddly named feature, Licensed to Kill, although he has a nifty review of Chip ‘N Dale Rescue Rangers here.
ON THIS DAY IN VIDEO GAME HISTORY…
– Depending on what country you’re in, Donkey Kong Country came out for the SNES either on Nov. 21, Nov. 24 or Nov. 26 of 1994. It’s renowned as one of the best vidya games of all-time, and re-established the vibrancy of the series. It is yet another strong game released by Rare. (Past YPB episodes on their games include Goldeneye and R.C. Pro Am.)
– Speaking of Rare… Killer Instinct Gold, the Nintendo 64 version of the arcade game Killer Instinct 2, came out this day in 1996. While the first game was seen as revolutionary because of automated combos, the sequels had diminishing returns.
– Chrono Trigger came out in 2008 for the Nintendo DS. The re-release added a bonus dungeon, and made the game much easier to play and purchase than past versions for the SNES and PSX.
Video game history information comes from GameFAQs and Moby Games. And as always, if you’d like to support the show, do so via our Amazon link.
Episode 020 – River City Ransom (1989)
Episode 020 – River City Ransom (1989)
This week in Your Parents Basement, we are trying to rescue one of our girlfriend’s by fighting through hordes of high school gangs and potentially murdering them! From 1989, we’re playing River City Ransom by Technos Japan.
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TIMESTAMPS
- 0:00 – Intro. This is a sweet cover of the “Boss Theme” from River City Ransom by Sergio Elisondo. He also does a cover of past YPB topics Contra. You can find our episode on that game here.
- 49:20 – Emails. The gang talks motion games (and mostly slags on them), and the past games from 20 years ago, in honor of Show #20.
- 1:05:00 – Snifferoo.
SHOW NOTES
– Todd Brisket mentioned that he does Twitch from time to time. You can find his account here, which has the benefit of providing some peeks at his play sessions for past and future YPB games.
– Patrick Klepek of Kotaku had the most recent update on the sequel, River City Ransom: Underground, in October. Although the status of the game was up in the air after Arc System Works acquired the rights for River City Ransom and Double Dragon, the only thing unknown now is when the sequel will actually release. Siliconera had the original article on Arc System Works acquiring the licenses.
– Juese Cutler submits a piece on Cultured Vultures about the demise of X-Strike Studios, which had planned video game adaptions of things like River City Ransom. It’s very… long, but hey, maybe you’ll find it interesting?
– River City Ransom is available for $4.99 on the Nintendo eShop for the 3DS, Wii and Wii U. At least according to most reviews, it’s faithful to the original NES version, and not the Game Boy Advance version that changed a few aspects here and there.
– According to Price Charting, actual carts for River City Ransom are fairly pricey. The game itself for NES runs between $25 to $40. The box and manual ups the price range, $60 to $80. The Game Boy Advance version, which isn’t held in such high esteem, goes for $15 to $25 for just the cart, but the box and manual only ups the range to $20 to $40.
– The list of prominent games from 20 years ago can be seen here on Wikipedia. There is also this REALLY long list here on IMDb.
Episode 011 – Secret of Mana (1993)
Secret of Mana (1993)
This week in Your Parents Basement, we are playing one of the highest-rated RPGs of the 16-bit era, Square’s Secret of Mana! Follow along as we lavish praise on the fighting system and music, and do our best to overlook the truncated dialogue in the fight against ebbing mana.
You can manually download this week’s podcast here, or subscribe to the show via the iTunes store. To manually subscribe, use this link in the device / podcast player of choice. You can also follow us on Twitter, or ‘like’ us on Facebook.
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Want to have an email or comment read on the air? We’d love to hear from you! Send us a message on the ole Twitter or Facebook, or, shoot that mail to parentsbasementpodcast@gmail.com. We’re also looking for future show guests, and future show ideas! You can leave those in comments here, or on Facebook or Twitter.
TIMESTAMPS
- 0:00 – The intro, which features music from the flying portions of the game.
- 47:40 – Emails. More dark thoughts from Butterscoot.
- 54:00 – Snifferoo.
SHOW NOTES
– We don’t get into heavy story spoilers for Secret of Mana, since the iOS and Droid versions are still good, and thus, hopefully some of you will be interested enough to give it a try. Basically, any story aspect we talk about comes up within the first five hours (about 10 percent) of the game. However, it should be said that at one point, you do get to save Santa.
– We somewhat on the development history of this game, which is pretty interesting and has been written about several times. In addition to the always-reliable Wikipedia, 1-Up has a column about how the series actually began in 1987.
– As far as the translation specifically, Wikipedia has a transcript of a September 1994 interview with Ted Woolsey, the poor bastard who had to do all of Secret of Mana in 30 days. In the 1990s, he was a controversial figure because his translations really morphed the intent of some text and plot, but opinion has softened on him over the years as people have become aware of the programming and time limitations he faced. He did the translation work on Mana, Final Fantasy 3, Breath of Fire and Chrono Trigger. He has his own page on TV Tropes, Woolseyism, and now works for Microsoft.
– On the show, I (Steve) said that I thought I could probably work my way through this game in 10 hours or so. Well, on YouTube, there is a speed run done in about 3 hours. Ye gads.
– Also on the show, as usual, we talk about how much the game costs now. As mentioned several times, the iOS version is well-reviewed, removes some translation errors and only costs about $10. On eBay, loose carts go for about $30 to $70, and complete packages (game, box, map and manual) go for around $100 to $200, depending on condition. There are also tons of Secret of Mana 2 carts on eBay in the $45 to $60 range. These are not official though; they’re simply the fan translation dumped on to a cart. They’re still playable on your SNES, though.
– We talk briefly about Secret of Evermore, which plays a bit like Mana, but is otherwise completely unrelated. We might cover it more in-depth on another show. Via the Internet Archive Wayback Machine, Super-NES.com has a great interview with Brian Fehdrau, the lead programmer for Evermore.
– Hat tip to co-host Todd Brisket, who found this story about the newest boss additions to the Japanese-only Vita game, Rise of Mana.
Your Parents Basement 