Retronauts - 788: Retrogame Dreamscapes

Episode Date: August 10, 2026

Nadia and David Oxford talk about how dreams and dreamscapes shape stories in retro games.Retronauts is made possible by listener support through Patreon! Support the show to enjoy ad-free early access, better audio quality, and great exclusive content. Learn more at http://www.patreon.com/retronauts

This week on Retronauts. Dream yourself a digital dream come true. Hello and welcome to Retronauts. I am your host, the perpetually sleepy Nadia Oxford. My guest for this week is some weird rando who sleeps beside me on most nights, David Oxford. How are you, David? Hey, I'm doing all right. Just finished up a bit of a project earlier. Yes, it was a very exciting project. I don't know if you can talk about it. I guess you can, huh? I can mention that it exists for anyone who missed it. At San Diego Comic Con, Udon Entertainment announced that Mega Man Legends is getting a miniseries, a comic miniseries.

Well, gosh, darn. That's about the extent I can say of it. Well, that McFong is on art again, and I'm writing again. And that's about the extent I can save it. That's actually why we're recording this episode appropriately a little late at night because, yeah, you were working on. on that. And I was, you know, helping you a bit. But we have fun in this house. What can I say? Yeah, this week's topic, speaking of fun, is about dreamscapes in video games, specifically the ones that stand out to us, the ones that haunt our dreams, if you will. Dreams are probably the most fascinating byproduct of the human mind, that we spend so much time wandering around to them, and yet we understand so little about them.

Some people dream vividly. Some people believe they don't dream at all, even though that's not true. Literally everybody dreams, even animals dream. We've all seen our little kitty cats and dogs chase little things in their dreams and kill in their dreams, and, murder in their dreams. It's very sweet and touching. Much has been written about dreams, especially with people like Freud and young, but researchers best guests, like why we dream, like why it happens, their best idea, their best guests is we are doing basically a mind defrag in that our brain absorbs all this stuff during the day and then says like, okay, I need to

sort this all that when we're asleep. That's a defrague. It kind of goes like it puts everything together, pieces it all together. David, do you think kids know what a defrague? gives anymore? I may be in a very niche way, like the kind, like, I don't know, do computer nerds still exist? Hard to say. You don't really find kids who are computer nerds anymore. The algorithms and the closed gardens have decided what they are interested in in terms

of hardware and software. Yeah. So, yeah, that's a bit of a bummer. But, yeah, I think, I think, defraig, it almost sounds like one of those things like Gen Z would adopt, or not Gen Z even, Gen Alpha would adopt, like, you know, ironically, oh, man,

I got a defrague right now. They have to go to the bathroom. You mean, like, when they see a floppy disk, and they're like, oh, it's a 3D printed version of the save icon. I still think that's crap.

I still think that's not true. They can't be doing that. Or I'm just coping, but, you know, whatever. Even if we, like, sort out all of Dreaming's mysteries, it probably won't lessen its impact as a tool of inspiration

for the creative and spiritual side of humanity. dreams are the hotline to our destiny for it's always been that way for heroes, for weirdos, and for profits. That's what makes them great, great, great settings for video games, especially because, as it turns out, quote, It Was All a Dream is a perfect cover

for weird events and gameplay mechanics, but if you try to write It Was All a Dream at the end of your story, your teacher will yell at you, take it from someone who knows. So let's talk about a selection of our favorite video game dreamscapes while we're still awake, because it's kind of late right now, as I said. Obviously, we can't name them all.

And obviously, as something as widespread as dreaming, we can't mention everything the whole game that has been inspired by dreams. We will fall asleep long before that can happen. So let's take a selection between us, between the two of us, and just kind of talk about what we got here, because we got quite a bit. Even with the selection we have, there's a lot to go over.

So let's go to sleep. Let's let our heads hit the pillow. and begin. Well, first of all, let's talk a little bit about the dreams that we dream. I myself am a very vivid slash lucid dreamer. I don't know if you remember this, David, but like I am someone who dreams about like other worlds and cool things all the time and frightening things and and liminal things. But there was one time I punched you in the face when we were asleep. It was because I was having dream about looking for paper towels. And like, I was. reaching out for a paper towel on the shelf and I punched you in the face. Do you remember that?

Oh, gee, no, I have no recollection of that. I wonder why that would be. Oh, maybe something hit me in the head. I think it was more like I hate your phone and because you're reading in bed and it dropped in your face. It was pretty funny. Yeah, it was something like that. Yeah, I definitely remember that. Yeah. What about you? Like, I think we've talked about it. I'm sure we have. But like, what kind of dreams do you typically have? Like, are you, do you, do you, do you, I have garbage dreams. Um, my, like, used to, it'd be like, you know, there'd be like lucid dreams and things would make sense and I would remember them. Sometimes I could even like, you know, like become aware I was in a dream and kind of like, you know, take some sense of control. I don't know what the hell happened

since then because now it's just like garbage in, garbage out. I barely remember anything. What I do remember barely makes any sense in any kind of context. that I can't even, like, write down what I had dreams about. It's just, man, yeah, what was that about defragging? Yeah, that's interesting. I mean, the nature of your dreams just changed as you got older. I mean, they say that that kind of thing happens. That's why kids have a lot more nightmares than adults is because their minds are still developing.

Kind of hasn't really settled in yet in terms of, you know, how it was. works how it thinks. I guess maybe the same happened to you. Maybe. Like, weirdly, the most recurring things, like, that I can remember in dreams, like, I'll often end up in some sort of, like, sometimes it'll be like a grocery store or like, you know, I'll be back in school and it'll be like the last day of school and we're just like, you know, cleaning out lockers or like waiting for people to pick us up or something. Or sometimes I might be like in a really big hotel or something. But, yeah, beyond that, it's, like, just kind of a total, like, I have no freaking

idea. So sometimes they kind of, like, I don't know. I won't know if I'd say they'd bleed into each other, but maybe you'd see, like, more like, I don't know, retail in a school than normal, although you're around some of the colleges here. That's not necessarily untrue, but there's a, there's a, I don't know if the word, is it litmus test, is the word that, that I would use, but there's a test that kind of goes around. It says a little bit about your personality because it's a common dream that people have and how you react to it says a little bit about you.

Do you ever dream that you or we are in an apartment somewhere, not necessarily our apartment, but it could be? And you find a door that you hadn't seen before. Even you could be big, could be small, whatever, but you notice it for the first time. And you go in and you just find a whole bunch, just like a big room, a whole bunch of space, like an unexplored space. space that just kind of goes on and it's big and yawning. How does that make you feel if you would find it in your dream? Do you remember? Yes and no.

I've had something like that where it wasn't in like our apartment, but like where we were in some sort of house, like maybe we got a house or something. And I would find like, you know, a door that's just like, you know, like a passageway to like all this other space and stuff. And I mean, honestly, I found it pretty excited. I mean, like, if I, like, had my own house, I would want, like, hidden rooms and stuff. Yeah. Just kind of, you know, for various purposes.

Yeah, I kind of had the same reaction. And what it says about you, apparently, is that you are good at adapting to things on the fly and you don't stress out that easily, which I would argue otherwise. But, yeah, it's actually one of my favorite kinds of dreams where I've had a dream where, like, you know, in our bedroom of fun. Wait, wait, wait. sorry, are you arguing otherwise on your side or on my side? Oh, I don't know. Which one of us are you saying gets stressed out more easily? That's a good question.

I think we both get equally stressed out on different days. But I've had dreams where like, you know, there's like a tiny, tiny door in a closet, our closet specifically. And I go in it, there's just a huge room behind it. I'm like, oh, this is so cool. We have room. Yeah, yeah, that's part of my thought. It's like exciting. It's like getting to explore something and knowing that it's mine.

And it's like, I could do something with this. Like, you know, it feels like an opportunity. Well, there's a little bit of psychology for you before we get into all this. Here's another quick fun fact. I'm in my 40s, as are you. You never stop dreaming about school. You never stop dreaming about that exam that you are like supposed to take, even though you have never attended this class.

What might change a person and person is what the, what the subject is that you always beef up. For me, the subject is always something like Jim. It's always Jim. Who fails Jim? How do you fail, Jim? I don't think I've ever had, or at the very least, if I have, it's been really rare that I'm actually, like, in class or taking an exam.

It's usually more like after school kind of stuff, just, you know, kind of hanging out or walking around the place or whatever. That's pretty cool. Like persona. High break, high break. That's one for the R.BG fan, I suppose. Yeah. So I guess a final question I have about the psychology of it all is, obviously, you're both creative people of a sort.

Are you inspired by your dreams? Like, I know you keep a dream journal, and you do say you don't remember your dreams, but I think you remember more than you think you do. So do you ever find yourself inspired in any way, shape, or form by your dreams? Maybe sometimes if I can remember something that, like, you know, might possibly be worthwhile, but it's few and far between. Yeah. I guess it doesn't help that Dreamscapes tend to be kind of like gelatinous, for lack of a better term, unlike the ones in games, which we are going to discuss today, barring one really interesting exception that I learned about when I was researching this. Yeah, but like I said, for me, it's like garbage in, garbage out.

So if I find something like sifting through it that like, you know, might work like, you know, devoid of all the other contexts of whatever the dream was maybe, but yeah, no, not often. I find it. I borrow vibes from dreams more than anything. I also find that this is very interesting. My dreams changed like the, I don't think how you describe like the flavor or scent or shade of your dreams. know how there's no way to really quantify it because it's not really quantifiable. But with the introduction of AI imagery, something about seeing that screwed up my dreams permanently and changed

that particular shade, that particular flavor, that particular scent of my dreams permanently. And it's just so odd that that happened. And I'm not saying it was, I mean, God, I hate AI, obviously, you know, the generative AI that's showing us all. But the fact that it changed my dreams, all. I find that very interesting. But that's just all psychology. I have had like three sleep tests. I have sleep apnea. I kind of fall asleep on the fly. I don't really have like narcolepsy or anything like that, but I do hallucinate very easily. I lapse into microdreams very easily. So yeah, I get a lot of inspiration from the weird places I go in my mind. And I am not alone if video games are any indication. So let's get into that before we fall asleep.

So first off, and I'm sure that you want to discuss this first and foremost, David. It is the game, the big game. We are starting with games that take place in dreams. That is like games that mostly or entirely take place in a dream or are a dream sequence. And of course, we have Super Mario Brothers 2. Did you know, dokey, dokey panic, et cetera, et cetera. David, you love this game. So, uh, oh, yes.

Let's talk. I'll just start off with a point that I find very interesting. This is the game that taught me what subconscious means in the word subcon, the name of the kingdom. Did you know the word subconscious before you played Super Mario, too, David? I am thinking, that was a long time ago. I think I did. But I think where I got hung up was, uh, I would not pick up on like, you know, like wordplay and stuff as much easily. back then because...

Right, of course. I don't know. I guess maybe... I don't know if it went over my head or I just felt like it was low-hanging fruit because it's like, you know... You're too good for puns as an eight-year-old. Back then, it's like I thought everything was like original. So, like, you know, the idea of something like, say, Ninja Turtles being derivative of

like, you know, Daredevil and X-Men and whatnot, like, you know, the thought of that or like April O'Neill's outfit being inspired by like Bruce Lee, and stuff like that. Like inspiration. I don't know. It almost felt like blasphemy to me because I imagine these things were like such original ideas and such creative that I did not tend to appear like, you know, beneath the surface. So, yeah, subcon, I think it's just like, you know, I just, you know, read it as subcon. And I didn't think much more about it than that, like, you know, for subconscious.

Like, you know, I don't think I connected the dots. I think I didn't connect the dots initially because like you, I didn't think it was. subconscious, but I think what made me realize was back then, you know, around that time, I, when, when newspapers had those big, fat, giant comics, like on Sundays, he'd have, like, pages and pages of comics. You remember that in the newspaper? That's what I would read, like, my parents would get the Toronto Sun, which was written in jumbo green crayon, and that had a really great comic section on Sundays, to be honest, and had,

remember, you can with Beekman, and that's where I learned the word subconscious. because someone asked about dreams and he mentioned the word, oh, dreams, blah, blah, subconscious. I'm like, wait a minute, subcon, sub, sub. And my mind was blown. I was a very smart little child. I wasn't. I don't remember when the dots were connected for me,

but then it was just kind of like, oh, okay, yeah, I guess. You didn't see, you'd have the same blow up as I did. Like, wow, I'm so smart. Nah, if anything, I probably felt stupider for not seeing it sooner. Well, in the case of Mario Brothers, too, of course, blah, blah, blah, dokey, dokey panic. As we all know, the game was adapted from dokey, dokey panic because of many, many reasons. But the thing that, of course, when we played Mario 2, you probably had a way of knowing that maybe, because you were like one of those nerds who had all the supplementary media and stuff like that.

I usually couldn't afford the games themselves even, so I didn't have anything to really tell me. You are playing a Mario game, and the reason it looks so freaking weird is because, It used to be a licensed game for Nippon TV. So when I thought about it, or when I think about it in the context of how I enjoyed Marta 2 as a kid, I think, okay, well, shy guys are weird. Everything's weird. Like all the rules are reversed. You jump on an enemy.

It doesn't die. Like, you don't really see the familiar sites like the cup of shells and whatnot, except like in very specific contexts. Oh, it is kind of like a dream, isn't it? It's kind of like a lot that's familiar, but also very warped. The context, like as far as dokey, dokey panic goes, didn't find out about that one for about three years. And I could pretty much pinpoint where and when, if I'm not mistaken,

which was, like, you know, a little footnote in the Mario Mania Player's Guide. Right, right, which you had. That's when I found out about, like, you know, the lost levels and that there was a different Mario, too, in Japan. and all that fun. But, yeah, Super Mario Brothers 2, that was, like, the first big release, like, after I became a Nintendo fan,

like, is almost, like, concurrent. Yeah, I mean, I've still got the box. I still have the manual. I believe they're basically right behind you as we speak. Look out. It's coming for you. I actually think that's really funny because, yes, you do have the manual,

and yes, you do have the box, and yes, they're all very neatly put together. And yes, you carried that with you to Canada. And I just vividly remember you going through my collection, as it were. Oh, no. Is this about your Mario 3 manual? The Mario 3 manual were like Bowser and Roy Cooper saying, Mario sure has some neat tricks.

I hope we can stop them. And either my brother and I took a crayon and wrote, oh, shit coming out of his mouth because we were very funny. A red crayon, if I remember correctly. A red crayon. And of course, the rest of the stuff that they had was like scribbled on or, you know, I cut up the boxes. I infamously cut up my Final Fantasy 6 box, sorry, Final Fantasy 3 box for a school project. That was one of my biggest regrets in life.

Yeah. My Super Mario Brothers 2 box is probably the worst shape of any of the boxes I have. Not out of like a lack of care, but maybe you could almost say too much care. Like it's definitely like worn out from like love because like like I said, that was like my first like you know big release game that the hype was around and getting my parents to grab it. Nintendo power. A kid brought his like first issue to class and like I was able to borrow it.

And my dad was able to get the subscription. And I mean, I just read that like, you know, cover to cover. And you know, Super Mario Brothers 2 was just like my jam. I am not sure what I was more excited. for back then Mario 2 or Mario 3? Yeah, like, see, that era of hype bypassed me

entirely because I kind of came to the NES quite late. But thinking about it in retrospect, do you think, like, oh, Mario 2, obviously, Mario 3 is the bigger and better one immediately because it's the sequel, but it's not that simple. So that's just such an interesting,

interesting, different, like, interesting instance from Nintendo, I think. Yeah, if anything, like, you know, looking back, I probably favor Mario Super Mario Brothers 2 more than Super Mario Bros. 3 now in part because of how different it is. At the time Nintendo had gotten into quite the rut they would get into in the say 2000s

to the 2010s, where it's like, you know, Bowser kidnaps speech, Mario goes through eight worlds to rescue, fighting familiar foes, getting old powerups and some new power ups. And, you know, it became like, it's just made stuff like Super Mario Bros. 2 and Super Mario Land and Super Mario Land too just stand out all the more to me and just, you know, put them on their own pedestals. Something I still like to think about is a little bit of an inception going on where Mario

in the instruction booklet, as I recall, he and his friends go on a picnic and after he dreams that, you know, oh my God, SubCon is under attack. And then you finish the game and you wake up from the dream. So what's the dream? What's the reality? Was any of Mario 2 real? Yeah. That always threw me because, yeah,

Mario dreams about, like, you know, the voices coming from the door and the cave and all that stuff. And then he goes, like, they go on a picnic. And then they discover the world of dreams and stuff. And they go into it. And then at the end, Mario wakes up. And it's like, so, like, yeah, it was like, was any of that real? And he would say, okay, well, maybe not.

but hey, we got shy guys, we got ninjis, and we sure is how I got Berto. So, were they aliens? Speaking of shy guys, can I share a little anecdote from way back when? Of course. I've written about this on my website, Poison Mushroom.org, before. But basically, like, one of my earliest memories of Super Mario Brothers 2 was a little tiny screenshot on a poster that would come with, like, you know, games and the consoles and that kind of stuff.

I remember it was even displayed, like, on a window of a video rental. store when like I was first getting into this stuff. And it was basically Mario like, uh, I'm trying to remember exactly what he, I think he might have been throwing a vegetable or maybe he was throwing the shy guy itself. Either way, that, uh, shy guy was having a very bad day. Back then, like horror movies were like so much not my thing. They were much more my cousin's thing. So I had like some very peripheral tertiary knowledge.

And I don't know if I thought like all horror movies took place in dreams, but I knew that at least like, you know, one did. Yeah. Nightmare on Elm Street. And somehow like, of course, you know, you've got the two biggest like, you know, horror icons of all time. You got Freddie Kruger from Nightmare on Elm Street and Jason Voorhees from Friday the 13th.

Right. I don't know if I had that much distinction between the two. Somehow I thought basically what ended up happening was I thought Jason was, I thought Jason was the dream guy and that Mario was basically kicking his ass on the poster. Because the shy guy mask kind of looks like the Jason hockey mask in a way. I actually had a cosplay that played off of that one year. You did. It was actually quite successful, as I recall.

Yeah. It was like basically Jason Voorhe's shy guy. And I mean, when you think about it, that did officially come to pass. And was it Mario Land 2 where you had the Halloween Town order? whatever and little Jason where he's guys. Yeah, yeah, Pumpkin's on. What a great. Yeah, it was a few little hockey masks with eyes like peeking out and like they just had feet.

And there was like a knife sticking it on like from one of the Friday the 13th movies. I think it was part five. I don't know. I'm not, you know, I'm a little more into it these days, but I'm not like, you know, super well versed. But yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it was like I think it, in fact, I think it was whatever they based it on like they did that for the title screen of the NES Friday the 13th as well. Yeah, the knife kind of goes to the eye hole, and there's like a shink, and it's all lights up, and it's all cool and shit, yeah.

Yeah, and of course, Mario 2 had warped, and the thing is also, like, there's a lot that you can associate with Dream with Mario 2. Maybe some other stuff, if you stretch it a little bit further, but then you think, well, okay, what do frogs have to do with Dreams, Wart? probably nothing, although, well, that does kind of tie into another game that we will be talking about in a moment, doesn't it? Yeah, I believe so. But before we do that, if you don't have anything else you wanted to say about Mario 2, any observations, any extra cool tidbits or facts or anecdotes? Like, as it pertains to the dream thing, or because, I mean, I could go on, like, you know, for days about Mario 2. Oh, yeah, yeah, I know that. No, no, just the dream.

That's just dreaming of dreaminess of it all. Did the ending impress you, the Mario animation? I don't think we had a Super Mario Brothers cartoon just yet. So at the time, yeah, like, you know, seeing something like that did

kind of blow me away. Yeah, Mario, it was just a simple looping animation. Yeah, it was pretty impressive for the NES at the time, that's for sure. It's not a bad looking game. Yeah, I honestly think it looks better than Super Mario Brothers 3 in some respects. Yeah, I don't think you're wrong.

I think Mario's sprite, for one thing, it looks a lot better. And the fact that Mario and Luigi looked different, and that's where Luigi got his physical personality, argumentatively, if that's the word.

But let's move on to a game that came out a year later, ish. That's Little Nemo the Dreammaster by Capcom for the NES. Now this came out just as Capcom was hitting its stride. So that would have been around the Ducktail slash Mega Man 3 era of its legacy. Did anything else come out around like 89? 90, off top of your head that's worth shouting out around this era. When did Bionic Commando come out, for example? Woo. By the commando, that was late 1988, right around maybe just after Super Mario Brothers 2, as I recall. Wow, so the NES was just really hitting a stride. It's almost as if there's a dude out there who has a whole series about this on YouTube. I don't know.

You can look him up for something. Yeah. I hear he works really hard at it. It's a permi par-parish. Parmish. That's it. Sorry, go on. Yeah, yeah, my recollection with, like, Bionic Commando that was, I believe, in the second issue of Nintendo Power, which was like the later, the back half of 1988.

Ducktails, yeah, that came out the next year, 89. I forget when Rescue Rangers came out. It was around, it was around, like, that time. But either way, I don't think any of those games had anything to do with Dreams, sadly enough. but it's worth pointing out Little Neum of the Dream Master because of course that was based on Dream. I

did not play this game actually and I was surprised to found out you did not either. I thought you'd be carrying me on this one. Yeah, no. It's one I've always kind of wanted to check out but it just never quite happened and you know

here's the funny thing. It's never been re-released and there's a reason for that because it's actually based on a licensed property like Ducktails and Rescue Rangers that we mentioned. I did not know that at the time. This was the first I ever heard of a little Nemo and then found that out. And it's like, oh, okay, I guess that explains why they're not doing more with it. But yeah, my biggest encounter with it that I remember besides reading about it, Nintendo Power, like I do, it was when I went to an EB game, or I'm sorry, I wasn't an EB game.

It was an electronics boutique. Oh, pardon me. Yeah, as with my parents, like, you know, we were out of town. We were in one of the big cities back there and with the big malls and places I live didn't have the game stores quite like that. Like, if I was lucky, I could get my local rental place to order a copy of Ninja Turtles for me. Yeah. So I could buy it.

But, yeah, and I just remember it being on some sort of strange monitor. It wasn't like a flat screen I don't think it was a flat screen But it had kind of a overlay on it It was almost like a table But I think it was like slanted I don't know It's just such a weird thing

I only remember seeing it the one time And never again But I watched the gameplay on a loop And you know It looked pretty neat But I just never quite got around to it Back when it tracked me That's where a thing I suppose

The slanted The slanted monitor thing By your description I am confident that someone will give you the answer to what that was. And I think you told me the story before and you were saying how it was very boutiquey of the electronic store to have this piece of furniture. You go to an EB games now and it's just, well, even the ones in Canada are like mostly fun and co-pop at this point. Yeah. But they're all trying.

They're all trying their best out there. But Little Nemo the Dream Master, yes, that is based on like at the core. Yes, it is a newspaper comic that ran from 1905 to 1927. Now, that's obviously public domain by now. But I think where the rights issues come into play, there is a little... I know there is a Little Nemo remaster out there, or it is coming out, rather.

Is it a remaster? I can't... Maybe it's a new game. I'm sorry, maybe it's a new game. But, yeah, so this was actually based on a 1989 U.S. Japanese anime movie adaptation of the Little Nemo comic. That's what the game was based on.

And I have not seen this movie, actually. That would probably be part of the reason for the rights issues. But, yeah, so the reason I remember it at all, even though I didn't play it, is because I would watch video power, like reruns incessantly. And it was, since everything was in syndication, everything was just kind of run out of order and haphazardly. So I ended up seeing a lot of little Nemo again and again and over and over. And that just he kept coming back like the cat and the rhyme. And I was like, oh, that looks pretty cool. I should try that sometime.

I never did. Yeah, I think I saw it on like, sorry, video power as well. I did not know that it was based on a movie, which, you know, that probably speaks to how well that movie was marketed at the time. Yeah. Because I did not find out about that until years and years later, possibly not until like post-internet. And, you know, at the same time,

this is always the thing that kind of gets me with some of these licensed games. Something like that, where it's that obscure and it's like not in the cultural zeitgeist. How much would it really cost to renew the rights for that? Yeah. Like I said, there is the, and I feel back,

because I know they follow me on Blue Sky. There is the Nemo remaster coming out, or remake rather, or new game. But I think they had to deal with the rights issues as well before they could make it. I mean, undoubtedly, I imagine there's rights issues, but for a company like Capcom,

it's like, you know, you look back at some of the old stuff, like, you know, they or Konami have released, and it's just, you know, like, okay, there are people who are interested in Bucky O'Hare, and it's like, okay, Konami, like, you know, there's not a lot going on with this. Like, you don't have to develop a new game. It's like, you know,

how much does it really cost that you can't, you know, do something with this? Captain Buccio Hare, he goes where no ordinary rabbit would dare. I never watched it, but yeah, I remember the... And yeah, you're right, like, you know, the kids could do with seeing Bucky O'Hare again. Why the hell not? A little Nemo? They did get some new action figures a few years ago. I mean, if that, like, startup could afford the rights.

Oh, there you go. So that's the lesson of this episode, more Buckeye O'Hare. Not a bad lesson from what I hear I believe I was created by Larry Hamm of G.I. Joe fame. Oh, really? If I remember correctly. Huh.

So have you ever played any of the Land of Illusion games or slash illusion games like the Mickey Mouse, you know, the ones I'm referring to? Because they've kind of expanded. They've been on the master system. They've been on the game gear, you know, like Cal's Evolution, Land of Illusion

This is the world of illusion As I recall, Castle of Illusion And World of Illusion Are both on the Sig of Genesis mini that we've got So there you go Yeah, I've played them There was also a 3D remake of the first one

That I think I've got for something somewhere I can't remember if it was Xbox or Steam But I managed to snag it at some point Well, these games take place like as the name suggests and lands of illusion and with with disney you're kind of playing fast and lose the definition anyway because you're already talking about a mouse and a duck with no pants running around so how do you get more dream like than that the main reason i wanted to bring it up is because i have a really interesting memory tied to it uh it's the first like quote unquote foreign

game i played a crane friend of mine had a copy from japan he let me play it on the game gear for five minutes before class one day and i was just like wow game gear looks really pretty. I didn't want to admit it because I was a Nintendo kid, but yeah. I hear you. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. You've, you just put a strange thought into my head. You just activated my trap card. Sure. So you're talking about like, you know, the shirtless mouse and the pantsless duck and how dream like that is and stuff. Yeah. And now I'm wondering, if Mickey and Donald did a fusion

dance, would they be wearing a shirt and pants or would they be wearing neither? Either way, being in front to God, so it doesn't matter if their clothing would not affect the fact that they should not be an atrocity, clothes or naked is still an atrocity. Gorge. Here's another big one, I think we're both interested in talking about, and it's a no-brainer. Link's Awakening for the Game Boy, 1993. This was, I bought this game from a friend of mine in high school. And I just have a really cool memory of sitting in a bus station that I would, you know, just kind of sit in to go home and playing while waiting for the bus. And this, of course, is a game that is adorable, it's sweet, and it really manages to capture the eerie backdrop of a dream.

And I think one of the best ways it does that is, you know, you kind of wake up. but you'll think wakes up on the shore of Cold Tintland. It's a weird place where there's an egg on the mountain for some reason. But he just kind of like, other than realizing, oh, this chick kind of looks like Zelda, he just takes everything in stride. And until you reach the shrine, which is, I can't remember when you visit the shrine in Lex Awakening, but it's not too far into the game. And that's when things kind of get serious because you see that mural that explains in a,

in a vague way, the windfish. And human monsters see and sky, a scene on the lid of a sleeper's eye. And that's when you realize something might be kind of wrong here. What do you think? My understanding is it was inspired a lot by Twin Peaks. I don't know how much of that is a dream focused, but...

I have admitted on Axel of Blood God several times that I have not watched like any Twin Peaks, even though it would be exactly my shit. And this is really something I got to get to. I think the big tip off on the dream thing with me was some of the cameo appearances in it. There's a lot of those, isn't there? They're just kind of like throw in,

I love Mr. Wright from SimCity. It's probably my favorite. Yeah. And then you've got Kirby from Dreamland. And you've got Mamu, a.k.a, Wart, from Subcon, from Mario 2, as we discussed. There you go. Some other Mario enemies as well

My fan theory Has always been that like After being dethroned That Wart managed to escape through the like Dreamscape to Caholent To basically kind of Recover or Laylow or something Until like you could plot us next move

It's actually a more creative idea than what the Mario Galaxy movie did To be honest with you I think it's neat I think that's a cool idea I mean... Oh, thank you. Yeah, you're right. You know, I don't think I realized that, yes, those are all dream characters.

Wart is from a dream. I think the shy guys are there in some capacity, too, aren't they? I'm not sure. I remember there was the chain chomp. There was the Gumbas. I'm blanking on whoever else. Like I said, there was like the Kirby. I forget who all else there was in that regard.

Well, there were dream versions of like, you know, Gannon and the bosses from a link to the Yeah, the nightmares. I think despite the fact that this game is honestly one of the saddest Zelda games ever made and it has some really, it has like really impactful ending. For a moment, I'll speak of in a minute. It's also really funny. Like you mentioned, we were talking about these characters, right? And I completely forgot that Dr. Wright was writing to quote unquote Christine, who was, you know, depicted as peach in the photo.

Yeah, yeah. And then he finds out, or you find out, he's actually been writing to a goat the whole time. And the goat keeps eating the letters. And that's why it writes like, oh, no, she hates me. She loves me not. She's not responding to my letters anymore. It's like, I keep eating them. I'm in a real bind.

And it was a very silly, funny game. I think that's, um, Tizuka, Takashi Tzuka worked on that one. If I'm not mistaken. Like, he was the director. I can't remember if he was the fan of Trend Peaks, but. it's definitely a different Zelda game, but in a really good way. And go on.

Oh, you bring up, you brought up Peach Toadstool, and for that matter, uh, I believe, uh, Marin's, uh,

no, not Marin, um, shoot, what was her name? Malin and Tallin. Maron. Yeah,

yeah. Yeah, Talon was, uh, based or at least looked kind of like Mario, didn't he? Yes. Yeah,

and, uh, both of those for Mario, a dream game. Hey, connections. Hey, yeah, there you go.

And isn't, actually, I just thought of this, I could be wrong. Isn't Berto's preferred name Christine, or wasn't she called Christine elsewhere? And that's like the name that they used on the peach photo? I don't think so. In the U.S. manual, she prefers to be known as Bredetta. Right. And I believe it was Catherine for. Catherine, I was thinking a C word, a C name.

Yeah. C word. That's very inappropriate. Sorry. Sorry, Burdo. You don't deserve that. No, no. Funny thing about Link's Awakening.

I think that was the first Game Boy game I ever owned. Really? Yeah. My parents were not like, they were totally against me, like, owning a Game Boy. They said it would ruin my eyes. Shows what they know. My eyes got ruined anyway. Your eyes are so much better than mine.

But yeah, go on. But yeah, so the Super Game Boy was like a saving grace for me. Finally, I could play all these games. games that I've been missing out on that my parents just did not understand why I would want to play them like when, uh, you know, I've got like N.S and super NES and it's like, I mean, these were like missing entire like, you know, chapters and like lore and characters and just stories, you know? Yeah. I might know something about that. It'd be like, you know, why do you need back to the future part two? We've already got back to the future part one and part

three, you know, it's, you know. Oh yeah. Do you other kids all across a land? take it from me, parents, just don't understand. But yeah, I remember Zelda. I believe that was the first one that I ever got. And eventually, I got my hands on Metroid 2 and some of the Mega Man games and Donkey Kong, of course, the legendary. Which is funny, I didn't get that one because that was the one that was originally the selling point of it. But I came back around. I think Zelda took priority on that one.

So the thing that kind of makes Zelda, Link's awakening, a little bit tragic to me, is the fact that there's nothing forcing Link from collecting the windfish instruments and waking it up. The fish is dreaming. And yes, it's kind of in a nightmare. It is in the thrall of the nightmare. But Link could still theoretically be happy where he is with Marin. And she says as much of it, you know, just kind of suggested like, eh, eh? but he wakes up the windfish anyway, and it's not because I don't think he doesn't want to stay,

because he knows being linked, he has responsibilities out there in the real world. And it's a kind of sad, solemn little bit of character development for a little guy. Yeah, which is kind of funny, like, the way that works out, because, yeah, the reason he was on that boat in the first place was he was set out to basically, I guess, become, like, you know, get better training, become a better warrior, that kind of thing.

So he could better defend Hyrol. Yeah. I don't know that we ever get to see him do that again, although there's like rumors regarding the link between worlds so many years later. Right. Like that, like, you know, he's the old man. But I remember, I can't remember if a timeline thing has shown it or if they've retconned it or how that worked out. But there's talk.

You remember how similar that Oracle of Ages and Oracle of Seasons are to Link's Awakening, especially in the graphics? Yes. I believe the talk was. Again, I don't remember if that's ever been confirmed or retcon or I don't know. The whole thing's topsy-turvy to me at this point. But that like that was the mission he ended up going on. And Link's Awakening was him going back to Hyrule.

Ah, interesting. Oh, boy, Zelda timeline. Not confusing in the least. As far as the Windfish Awakening, though, it's one of those things where it's like, okay, Mario 2, like, I never believed it was just a dream. dream. Like, I believe that, like, Wart and Subcon and all that stuff actually exist. Just maybe, like, you know, a different plane of existence.

In the case of Link's awakening, I feel like maybe, like, does the windfish, like, would you consider it, like, a god of sorts? Yeah, I would consider it, like, a god or demi god, a force of nature even. Yeah, and it's like, okay, so maybe its dream is manifested into, like, reality, and that's why Link is there. Yeah. So it's not like actually a dream in the normal sense, but like, you know, it's like, okay, when God's dream, like, you know, what, what is the result? And maybe this is like an answer there. Like, you know, maybe we're all like in a God's dream. Oh, absolutely.

That is very, that would very much be the kind of thing that someone who likes Twin Peaks would write into a video game. So there's no surprise there. But yeah, I mean, my grandfather used to say that kind of thing all the time. What are we dreaming? What's reality? my dad said, yeah, that's the kind of thing that you would say after being in the death camps, to be honest with you. Moving right along.

Well, this just got dark. Like Link's Awakening. Knights into Dreams, aka the Nakaverse, which I wrote here, apparently. This is another game that I assume that you had played, that I did not really play very much. It is a 3D action game about saving a dream world called Nightopia from a monster called Wise Man.

This is designed by Naotoa Oshima and programmed by the one and only Yuji Naka. And they studied the works of Freud and Young for this game as well as other psychoanalysts and did more actual research about dreams and REM sleep. And they kind of smashed that together with Cirque de Soleil and created kind of a, I just to this day, I associate the look with Yuji Naka. for better and worse. It's such a, I just never dug the Piero look,

but he really does, apparently. I mean, I would think the look would be attributed more to Oshima. He was the designer, as I recall, so. Okay, you're right about that. Nica, like, you know, is handling the code. He sure was, and you want to talk about nightmares. Well, you can say that this, the Sonic Extreme crew that wanted that code

so that they could get Sonic Extreme done and yeah, Naka said, no, no, no, no, no, there's a nightmare for you. Yeah. I mean, one of the dudes on that nearly died, so. That's a sort of a geck story. Yeah, like, I know it's kind of silly and fun to dunk on Naka right now because, well, he's arrested and I don't know if he's in jail, but he's definitely in trouble. But it is really a bit of a shame that to hear it, to hear from guys for people who worked with him, Naka was a very difficult person to get along with.

To say the least. And at the same time, he's bloody brilliant, like brilliant, brilliant, plural programmer. There's no doubt about that. But when he put him side by side with, like, Iwada and remembering how much Iwada contributed because he didn't have that ego, he just wanted to make games better

and he wanted to make sure people knew how to make better games. Like, I really wish NAC had been a bit more like that, but you can't really change a person's personality. I guess. As far as Knights, I have not played too very much of it. I've played demos. Let's see. I had a Sega Saturn demo CD of Christmas nights that I just realized I am probably never getting back.

But I actually have the game on Xbox and possibly on Steam. Just haven't had a chance to play. It's something that I kind of got with the hopes of doing it on stream. So maybe that's something we can bump in at some point. my biggest exposure to it besides like you know playing it at demos and stuff was Archie Comics did two mini-series based on it My understanding is they were not very accurate So surprise surprise

Was this another incident where they had like They had no knowledge of the games and they didn't really even have the games They just said well good luck with that and make a comic with it I'm going to say yes and no and also that I have not read enough about the development of those comics to really say for sure but it would make sense on the first one but then the second miniseries probably came out

later enough that they should have been able to like you know figure something out but I guess not who wrote that one do you remember who wrote it unfortunately I do not I do not think it was He Who Shall Not Be Named, but I do, I remember Patrick Spassianti did the covers at the very least. I can't remember if he drew any of the issues. Right, right. It's definitely one of those, like, you know, long, obscure things, like, maybe just slightly more remembered than the Adventures of Bayou Billy comic that Archie made.

I feel like I remember the Captain N episode more than I remember. anything else about that game, especially since that was the episode that had no background at one instance, as I recall. Just like Kevin standing in a blank peach void. It was really scary. Yeah, that was like a screw up on someone's part and they like re-releases and whatnot have fixed it and people are like going back looking for the original, which I think has been found and maybe restored or whatever.

I'm not sure I haven't kept too close to track on that, but I've heard stuff about it. So yeah, the first airing of it was messed up. days when he had to like mail cells to each other like via FedEx. So if something like that happened, it's like, well, we're going to air like right now. So good luck to all of us. Yeah. Regarding nights, I know it got a sequel on the Wii, which like, you know, for all the people clamoring for a sequel, I've heard it, I don't think it's sold very well. And from what I've heard, maybe it wasn't very good either.

So, yeah. That probably doesn't help. But it's funny to see how just the whole dream thing, like Sonic and the various developers have really kind of stuck with that over the years. Yeah, they've always been very big into like dreams, as it were. Yeah. Sonic Shuffle was like in a dream, I believe. And more recently, the developers who do the mobile stuff, they did like Sonic Dream Team, which is like, you know, another kind of neat looking 3D platformer, like a dreamscape thing. It first really good.

It almost makes me want to get Apple Arcade and play it, but I'm not doing it jump on my phone. It's stuck on arcade. Yeah, that's right. Is that the game with Lanolin, the sheep? Okay. I believe the, let's just call her a Rosalina equivalent for the setting, for lack of a better term. I forget what her name is offhand. Lanolin is a different sheep from the IDW comics.

And also Garfielder friends. Dun, dun, dun, dun, done. Yep. If I'm not mistaken, yeah. You're correct. Bowen, Landlin, sheep from U.S. Acres or Orson's Farm if you're outside the United States. Yeah, I remember when he came up here and you saw Orson's Farm for the first time, like instead of U.S. Acres and he freaked out. Yeah, a little bit.

That was really funny. What, what? Do we want to mention the other Naka-Oshima joint that had kind of a dream thing going on, or is that coming up later? Oh, we can give that a quick mention. It's not really retro at this point, but it sure is something. And that is Ballin Wonderworld, which, when I look at Ballin these days, I'm like, he just reminds me of, like, I don't know what, like, a smiling friend character from, like, an episode about rejected game mascots, another episode about rejected game mascots. It's just got a weird smile. It's just so malicious.

It reminds me of the amazing digital circus is viewed through Sonic Team Ones. Maybe that's what I'm thinking of. Maybe not thinking of smiling friends. I made a graphic once that was like, you know, Balin versus Kane, like, you know, in a death battle. Oh, okay. Yeah, that tracks. I can absolutely see Ballin being like, hey, kids, you're going to go into a fun adventure where we're going to burn you alive. Are you sure that's not Kane? I don't know. Balin's a weird-looking character. And it's a weird game. I never played it, so I'm not going to dunk on it too much. I just remember Fox Box being a meme that, like, when I saw what it was, like literal fox-to-box transformation.

I pretty much died inside in the best possible way. I can't explain it. Speaking of dreams. Yeah, there was like a Just Bad Games episode from Re-Rez on that. That's most of my exposure to it. That and playing the demo, of course. Oh, right, right. Oh, God.

I don't know. I feel kind of bad about it because, I don't know, I feel like there was something there, and it just did not land. It so did not land. Yeah, it's A for effort, E for everything else, I guess. That's like a level of not landing that Beck for Mighty Number 9 looks at and it's just like, damn, son. Ouch, that's pretty bad.

Yeah. All right, I want to move along to the PlayStation because there's a game here that I think is really interesting. And I only just recently discovered about it while researching this episode. And that is LSD, the Dream emulator, for the PlayStation, 1998. Now, dream sequences, as we've been talking about, are very common in games, but they're always like a lot more coherent than the, an actual dream is, because it kind of has to be if you're going to play a level, that you can't just have people randomly clipping through the, through the floor. That's just called bad game design. But Asmisk, do you remember Asmisk, the company Asmisk, it had the little pink dinosaur? Yes.

If I can just pull back the curtain a little bit here, I'm looking at the notes. And like in the first part, you mentioned LSD, Dream Ambulator. from Asmic. And my first thought was to say, Boomer! And then the next line, well, do you want to carry that? Yeah, I said the next line, do you remember the pink Donna mascot, Boomer? Yes. How does he still come to mind when I can't remember any of these games, any of Asmix games off by heart?

I just remember seeing their logo and that dinosaur, whose Japanese name, pardon me, is Boomer Coon, which is obviously 10 times better than just Boomer. But, yeah, he's a real kind of goofy looking cool. mascot. I think he's a neat design. No wonder I still remember who he is. Yeah, the Asmik needs to bring back Boomer and yeah, maybe bring back Asmick too. I mean, Asmick is still around. Oh, are they? They are, believe it or not. They're a media company, a multimedia company. And as it turns out, LSD was a game by a multimedia artist named Samo Sato, who was also a game developer and made the dream emulator for the PlayStation as kind of an interactive art project. And interestingly, they believed that the PlayStation was the place for this project, because by comparison, the Saturn and Nintendo systems, Nintendo 64 seemed like toys. And I didn't really know that kind of attitude was prevalent in the East as well as the West at the time, but it's just interesting that it was. But when you look at this game, quote unquote, it's based on a dream diary by an Asmic employee. They kept it for a decade.

And it's just goofy, surreal stuff that happens as you walk to a place and things change and warp. And, you know, as you go through these areas, you are given the opportunity to form, like, kind of a truncated memory of them. It's hard to explain. It's really something you have to, quote, quote, quote, play or watch for yourself. But what's interesting about it is it makes less sense the longer it goes on, which is, okay. So what I said earlier was like how, like, most games. games are, when they have dream sequences, those dreams have to be coherent enough to make a level out of. Whereas in this case, it was just like, whatever. What the problem there is that I think

that maybe this game was initially not so successful because, well, the reason, the reason dream surrealism works is because it is within the context of a dream and it makes sense within a dream. I don't know about you, but I've had dreams where, like, I invent the funniest joke in the world. And I'm telling this joke and this dream, everyone's laughing. And I'm like, since I'm a lucid dreamer, I'm like, oh, man, when I wake up, I'm going to say this joke. I'm going to be rich. I'm going to be the greatest writer who ever lived. And I wake up and I remember the joke.

And it's something like fart, just the word fart. Something that's like marginally funny, but not necessarily an actual brilliant kind of, you know, word. And I think to mess off, okay, well, that's just the nature of dreams. I guess something that's fantastic in a dream. It doesn't necessarily mean anything in the real world. And I guess it holds true for a game that's literally about dreaming as well because I think more people came out for this game in retrospect. What you're describing, besides like my garbage and garbage out dreams,

reminds me of Homer that time when, like, you know, they're having money problems. and he, everybody's congratulating him on this, like, you know, fantastic convention that'll change the world as we know it. And, you know, just he cannot see what it is. And like, by the time he wakes up, it's, like, gone. And that's like just like every brilliant idea I've ever had in a dream. It feels like. Well, I would you need to see this. You are the inventor of the device in question.

Yes, exactly. So was this game released outside of Japan? No, it wasn't. I think there was, there was, like, hope to do so. but they probably thought it wouldn't really fly with the Westerners. Not with a name like that. Yeah, I've seen a lot of comments about how you should just light one up and, you know, play it, quote unquote. But I really admire the fact that like, you know, this game tried to embrace the incoherence of dreams rather than the more prophetic, noble part of dreams that you tend to see in video games.

So good for you, LSD, the drug that you absolutely cannot take in Japan. If you don't unless you want to go to jail forever. Yeah, you know, it's crazy that they use the name there, too, for that matter, now that you mention it. Yeah, that is a little surprising. But I guess because since LSD is probably so unknown in Japan or underused, that is considered so harmless stuff just mentioned in everyday conversation, I don't know. Someone who is more reversed in Japanese culture will definitely come to my rescue here. I guess it's sort of like Grand Theft Auto in that regard, just kind of, you know. How so?

Yeah, it's a bad thing, but, you know. Oh, oh, right, right, right. We can talk about it as a game title or whatever. Yeah. I'm surprised they didn't try to be a little cheekier with it. Like, you know, like say lucid sleep destination or something. Yeah, that would be, that would really fit too. Let's briefly mention Mario Party 5, which apparently takes place in a dream entirely.

I did not, I am not a Mario Party person by extension. I don't think like by extension you are not either because I won't play them with you. So, yeah. I've played them. I've liked them. Getting together people to play them is a little more difficult. That's true. I kind of fell off at some point, but I mean, I like, I like them.

But this is one, I came into the series really late, like the last one on the GameCube, I think. Right. And it was like spotty, like, well, see, they did Mario Car, sorry, Mario Party 8 on the Wii. And have nothing else. I like the soda shaking game in that one. But then it's like they We did not get new ones for years And then Mario Party 9 came out

And I checked out that one and 10 And fell off again at some point But I like what I've played Oh yeah It seems perfectly fine It's just a matter of like Okay well you don't really need dreams To bring in like as an excuse

To bring wacky things into Mario Like it's it's Mario You want a pirate ship There's a pirate ship right there They're flying in the sky You know I mean we were just like praising Super Mario Brothers too

For you know dreams in Mario. Oh, yeah, yeah, I know. I'm just kind of, yeah, when it comes to Mario party, it's not exactly a franchise. I care much about, and I'm sorry that I said that because I look like a bad researcher. But I will make it up to you by saying that once I was, you remember when I did karate and used to have, like, birthday parties there for kids sometimes. And there was one going on one time when I was, or one starting when I was leaving my lesson.

And they had an N-64 as like kind of a thing set up in the corner if you didn't want to do karate, I guess. And this was 2010, 60, anyway. So they had a N-64. They had Mario Party. And they had a completely destroyed controller for reasons that should be obvious. And my favorite was they had Conquer's Bad Fur Day. Oh, my God.

Really? So I not tell you that. They had Conquers Bad Fur Day in a like a karate birthday party for like 10-year-olds. It was great. I'm like, okay. The kids are going to learn about the Great Mighty Pooh today, aren't they? But, yeah, the Mario Party games, they do have, like, some neat little, like, you know, story, like, you know, expositions for, you know, why things are different in this game versus another. Yeah.

Or at least they used to. I don't know if the newer ones do because, like, you know, now it's, like, best of type stuff. But, yeah. There's some, like, neat little moments, too. Like, I just remember one where Bowser's trying to do something. And like, I think it was the first meeting between Bowser and Daisy and just like he startles her. And she just like smacks them into the horizon team rocket style. So look it up on YouTube.

That is like definitely an all-timer moment. That's a good way to meet. That says Daisy is not like, you know, your typical Mario princess. Anyway, let's move on to a game that I think that I only know about. David, you've never heard of you may Nikki, have you? I am not sure. It sounds familiar, but at the same time, it's probably, like, Yumae means dream or something, doesn't it?

Yeah, basically. Because, like, you may, you mean something, I'm blanking, dokey, dokey panic, like, you know, Dream Factory, dokey, dokey panic for Mario 2. And, I don't know, Nikki just seems to come up a lot in games. So I probably haven't heard of it, and I'm just conflating it with, like, other stuff. Yeah, basically Umi Niki came out. I find an extremely

interesting part of game history as someone who grew up with a different generation of quote unquote free games versus the millennials that came after me. To me, when I think,

when I thought of a free indie game, I thought of K-Story. I thought of Star Control 2 slash Erquan Masters. But things got a lot more accessible when stuff kind of when Java was a thing, when games became, you know, easy to download, easy to make.

Yumei Nake from 2003 is an RPG maker game that is one of the most inspirational games for many RPG to date. It is developed by someone who calls themselves Kikiyama. They're kind of mysterious. They're not much as known about them. They're a bit of a recluse. They're flowing around out there, though. They're fine. They're chilling.

They're living their best life. But the game Yumi-Niki is about a girl named Madotsuki who can't or won't leave her apartment during the game's quote-unquote waking hours. But when she writes in her dream diary, she enters a surreal and pretty much incomprehensible world. And there's no combat here. The world is as opaque as a brick wall. It's really, it's one of those games, like really from the, that are ironically old school in the way that our games are. old school and that they encourage people to get together and talk and say, hey, what is up with this crazy-ass game? What am I doing? Whether it's over in a message board or in the playground.

Same thing. And you win the game by navigating it successfully and finding the 24 effects. And when you win the game, well, it's not really much of a win. I'll just say that. It's a spoiler to say much else. So Yumi Nikki's influence, like I said, it inspired. millennial gamers, many of whom, like, for example, a good friend of mine, Katie McCarthy, who used to work with at US Gamer, it was a major inspiration for her because she said she played it when she had no, you know, when she was young, she couldn't really afford games. Well, here's this free RPG maker game that everyone's talking about. This was a game that it's, you can probably tell by looking at it, but it inspired Undertale, it expired like Amory,

inspired dokey dokey literature club. These are all very important, very big. games in the RPG space, the slash visual novel space, slash adventure game space. And actually, I want to give its soundtrack its own shout out because it's so haunting and eerie that to this day, kids on TikTok use it for like

their creepypasta stuff. And I don't even know if they know it, but they're doing it. I'm just kind of wondering, like, what would happen if somebody swapped Matosuke and Lighty's notebooks on them without them realizing? Oh dear.

I don't know what the Yumi Niki death note would look like. It would be terrible. It'd be the end of the world, basically. I mean, like Igami is a monster, but at least he had, you know, his desire was for order of the worst kind, whereas Yumi Nikki is about chaos of the most devastating kind. Huh. Well, it would be a crossover event for the ages, that's for sure. Coming to Gashapot next year. I was going to say, maybe somebody all will take it up as a job.

challenge and we'll get something as good as the uh colombo meets fraser colombo meets fraser is such a masterclass in crossover literature if you have a listener if you know what we're talking about look up fraser meets colombo is a comic it's brilliant it's everything you want out of a comic but moving along shout out to marian luigi dream team i played this you did not if i'm not mistaken uh i played it did you play it yeah way back when did you like it i don't I don't remember if you liked it. I remember finding it enjoyable. I think that Bowser's Inside story was better.

Yeah. Because, yeah, it was very much in the same style of Bowser's Inside Story where you have like the two-screen gimmick where in this case, you're manipulating Luigi in the real world so you can affect his dreams in the way that, like, you know, you would be running around Bowser's gut. Yeah, you still have a lot of fun stuff going on here, for example. like you had the tiny Louigies. I'd forgotten about the tiny Louiginos.

Luigiinos. I forget what they were called. Luigiinos. Yeah. And I always just like messing around for the sleeper's dreams. I'm pretty sure there was more than one comic slash parody at the time that would had like the old hand in the container of warm water joke going on, much to the detriment of the person who was committing the prank usually. Well, one thing that disappointed me about Dream Team, and it's just kind of a common thing with Nintendo and Mario in particular, I guess, is when they have a theme recur and they just completely ignore what came before.

Yeah. So, like, one example would be, like, you know, you've got the UFO at the start of Super Mario Galaxy. And for that matter, just the entirety of Super Mario Galaxy and Super Mario Galaxy 2, and not a single peep out of Totanga, the space. I agree. Or in this case, Mario and Luigi have been to a Dream World before, and don't tell me it's not Canon in Japan, because they've re-released it and remade it enough times

that it is damn sure canon. And like, I don't think there's a peep of that here either. I think you're right. And yeah, I never even thought about Dream Team and Mario, too, having a crossover, but it should.

There should be a crossover going on. Just some kind of, just some kind of linking element. I'm not saying they have to like make a Mario 2 RPG but I don't know, just something to kind of you know solidify it somehow. No, I agree with you.

There's still some funny humor in here like Mario and Luigi games are like consistently hilarious. Did you ever check out Brothership? I did not. I just did not have the time. But looking back at Dream Team, I love some of the puns they had like Pillow Castle

but it's like P-I-Postrophe L-O Dr. Snuse Moore is a good one. I like the Zeekeeper with Z being ZE because the localization wouldn't work otherwise. It's like, what the hell is a Zedkeeper? But yeah, Zeekeeper is pretty funny. Of course, Bkeeper.

So yeah, Martin Luigi is great for that kind of stuff. And I know Brothership apparently wasn't great, but I hope they try again. I really, really do. I hope it was at least funny. I hear it was. I mean, some people don't like the punny humor. So they didn't like it then either, but I say they're wrong.

They're wrong. Those are good puns. Those are quality puns. Mario games do good quality puns. I like a good pun. I also like a bad pun. Yes, you do. So that's it for games that have, like, that are based in dream sequences.

And as it turns out, those are most games that have dream sequences. They are usually based, like the whole thing is just based on dream. half the time, but not all the time. Sometimes it's just, you know, a little bit, a smear of a dream, a little bit of a dream as a treat in it within the grander scheme of an adventure. And I just want to mention a couple of quick ones here because it is getting late. And I am getting sweepy. I do have one. I'd like to chime in when you're ready for it. Of course, but first, I want to talk about Final Fantasy 14.1.0, which was infamous the game that was so

borked up, so screwed up, so awful that it nearly ruined Square Enix. They had to literally throw a meteor onto Final Fantasy 14 to start again. But that didn't really happen overnight. The apocalypse of Final Fantasy 14 was actually implemented

into the story and the gameplay, which was fascinating. I think it's still one of the most fascinating examples of that being of a game like being turned off and restarted. It's really cool if you ever want to to the history and the mechanics and everything, the rest of it. But one of the things that new director, Naoka Yoshida, wanted to do to kind of

insinuate what was coming and make people uneasy was one way you could kind of, one way you can log out of Final Fantasy 14 is to go to the inn and go to sleep. And your little person, your warrior of light, does a whole animation to like, they go to sleep, they curl up, they go to sleep and, you know, you have the nice little music. Like I play Emikote, which is a cat person and a cat boy specifically who is very, very cat like when he curls up on the bed. And it's really cute and funny. But anyway, some players for 1.0 during this, the changeover period, they would go to sleep. But when they would log in again, they would find themselves in the midst of a nightmare where they would see like dead monsters around them, dead bodies.

and they would see one of the bad guys from the game. I won't say who, but they're one of the ones who orchestrate the downfall of the moon that basically smashes into the world and resets everything, or rather, Hatchez Bahamut, who resets everything for them. So it was just a really nice, creepy bit of foreshadowing because, you know, it ends very suddenly, like, with your death, you wake up, you fall out of bed,

and the very peaceful, nice, happy, you know, in music is playing when you wake up, which is a nice juxtaposition. Okay. I think that's just a really neat bit of storytelling and not one that you expect. Like, when a game kind of pulls the rug from under me like that, it always makes me a little bit like nervous. Can I just say that I appreciate that Square Enix came up with the same solution for resetting the world of Final Fantasy 14 as Killer Croc did for taking out Batman and Batman the animated series, almost got him? It was a big rock. Throw a big rock at them.

or throw a rock at them. He's a big rock. Yeah, yeah, no. Although in the case of Final Fantasy 14, like you said, it hatched Bahamit, who lay waste to much of Yarsia and et cetera, et cetera, it's the whole thing. But that was just a really interesting amalgamation of Final Fantasy tropes, by the way. You have the meteor, which is falling, but what comes out of it is Bahamit. So you have a Final Fantasy 7 trope mixed with just a Final Fantasy trope, which is Bahamai. it.

Anyway. That's kind of Final Fantasy 14 in a nutshell, from what I understand, isn't it? Yeah, yeah. That's how basically things work in that game. It's all a bunch of references, but some of them are pretty clever. Pretty clever. It kind of reminds me of the 2012 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle series where they just kind of took stuff from like just all over the history of the franchise and put it together

into one new pretty dang good entry. Yeah, it lasted for a while too. Yeah. So the last thing, I'm going to mention. is from the esteemed mother slash earthbound series, which is Magicant. Magicant appears in the first two mother games. It's a shared world between Ness's bloodline, which I guess is one way of looking at it. In both games, they serve up the means to defeat Gygess in the first game in Earthbound

beginning slash mother. It is the eight melodies, which you get from Queen Mary. and in Earthbound, basically your reward for getting through Magicant is a huge, huge boost, which is what you need to go up against Gygus, because going up against Gygus is not a matter of sheer power. It never is in these games. There's always some sort of trick. Like in the first game, singing the eight melodies would stun Gygus, and it would upset him so badly that he couldn't fight you, and then he would come back in Earthbound, and it was a real freaking mess.

But the point is, Magicant is the way to get to these powers. And in the case of both of these games, like the initial area is a very kind of, kind of a very fantasy-looking world where with like cotton candy clouds and, you know, swirly things and candy-looking areas and these guys who help out nests and Nintan called the Birdmen. And I like the earthbound version, though, because you also get to visit the Sea of Eden. And this is the location of the Mani Mani statue, which is the kind of the worldly incarnation of Gygus that is corrupting humanity as the game is going on. And I guess that includes Ness because he has to take down the Mani Mani statue. And this is a hard fight because this is just him and this stupid statue. And Earthbound has like a rolling HP mechanic. And this is the only time I think in the game where it really becomes in like handy.

Whereas like if an enemy hits you with a fatal blow, your head point start counting. down quickly, but they don't go to zero immediately. So you have that time to heal yourself before they hit zero. And this becomes a very, very important mechanic in another three especially, but it's used to use a pretty good effect here in the Sea of Eden as well. And I want to give the Sea of Eden a shout out as well because it has like just some of the loveliest, most discordant music I've ever heard in a video game in that particular area, which is supposed to be the center of Nesta's mind, the center of his dream, the center of everything that he is. And that's just interesting that they give you a piece of music that kind of sounds like almost angelic, but in a harsh way.

It's just such an interesting game. It's such an interesting use of dreams. And interestingly enough, I think Mother 3, if I'm not mistaken, takes place in a dragon's dream. But, God, it's been a while. I am tired. Talking about dreams has made me so very sleepy. David, do you have any final thoughts about dreams before I fall asleep? Well, I did want to add one others.

I don't know if it counts as a dream or a daydream or just imagination, but... Of course. One I've always enjoyed is from the Japanese version of Mega Man Legends 2, Rockman Dash 2, or rather the demo that they got for it as opposed to here. And it's got a scenario. It's basically... The demo is called Episode 1, and the full game is Episode 2. And in Episode 1, there's a scenario where, like, Tronis captured role.

and she basically makes Mega Man the offer, like, you know, join me or don't. Yeah, and Mega Man imagines what it's like, you know, if he joins with Tron. And, like, you know, the two are basically running in this, like, kind of like, you know, like pink, like, you know, lens flary, like looking. The dream scape. Yeah. And, like, they're laughing and, like, you know, enjoying stuff. And then Mega Man, it's like, you know, breaks out as like megabustering. It just like starts opening fire on people you can't see, but you can't see.

can hear and eventually shakes it off like, no, that's not for me. But that works a popular GIF, gif, whatever. That, I always wondered about that. Like, is that something he actually wants deep down? Or is that just something like he was, as you say, like, no, I don't think I want that. I mean, he shakes it off. And that's like if you pick the option, like, you know, two joiners. Oh, okay.

I think overall he leans like, you know, like, no, not. he's like he's like oh actually that'd be kind of messed up wouldn't it yeah wait a minute but yeah that's actually that's a pretty funny moment so I recall yeah and with that that is it for this dreamy episode of retronauts if you like our blah blah blah yackety schmackety please visit the retronauts patreon at patreon.com for slash retronauts and support us there $3 a month gets you episode a week early and ad-free. $5 a month gets you all of that plus Discord access plus two whole bonus episodes a month. Oh my God. The Oh my God Nintendo 64 tier gets you all of that plus the chance to set a topic once every six months. And if you are one with a live stream at $100 a month, you can guest on the show. Restrictions apply. See Patreon for detail. David, where can people find you? I think I know where I can find you. You're in the bedroom. I'm in the, I'm in the the dining alcohol right now. Where can't other people find you?

Oh gosh, where can't they find me? I'm on social media. I usually post or retweet stuff under the MM network, the Mega Man Network accounts. And let's see. Also, LBD, NYT, T-R-A-Y-N, that's my personal account. I don't do as much on there. Let's see. I really need to get the link for the thing that links to all my other links in whatnot. The MMnetwork.com, that's the Mega Man Network. That's where I post my stories that I don't get paid for and various other Mega Man stuff. Poisonmushroom.org, that's like basically a lot of articles and stuff that's not related

to Mega Man. Also, you and I, we stream every couple of weeks on Twitch. TV forward slash Nightworks. Yes. And we have YouTube archives of that for Mega Man's stuff. Nadia and David's Mega Man Mayhem. We just finished doing the Wiley Wars this past weekend. We sure did. Did the Wiley Tower. And you can find that. And everything up to that point in the classic series that we've done on the Mega Man Network, one word, YouTube channel. If it's not one word, you're going to get a bunch of battle network stuff instead.

For Nadia and David ruined video games, which is where we play basically anything else that's not Mega Man. You can go to the Nightworks, NY-T-E-W-R-K-S YouTube channel, and our archive of stuff is there. We're currently playing Super Mario Brothers Wonder, although last time we took a detour for Star Fox. And, you know, hey, maybe we'll play some of these dream games at some point when we wrap up Wonder. Super Mario Brothers 2 sounds pretty good. And like I said, I bought Nights for the purpose of us streaming it. So maybe we could get to that at some point. I can't wait for the devotion sickness.

It's going to be great. As for me, my name is Nadia Oxford. I don't know if you knew. Other than here, you can find me mostly at the Axis of the Blood God podcast. We talk about RPG's old and new Eastern and Western. That is at patreon.com. We're slash Blood God Pod. You can also find my book.

Now, I wrote a book. It is called From Pistles to Prose, but video games taught me about storytelling. That is available. at retrogamebooks.com. It is also on Amazon. So please like, please review, please read, please do all that good stuff. If you're truly my wife,

you will say the thing. What's the thing? From the critic. Buy my book. Buy my book. That one. That's the one. All right.

I did it. The marriage is saved. Woohoo. So, until next time, may your cheek always find the cool side of the pillow.