Retronauts - Retronauts Episode 188: Netflix's Castlevania with Adi Shankar & Zillion with Funimation

Episode Date: December 17, 2018

An animated feature double feature! First, Funimation walks us through the decades-overdue English version of Sega tie-in anime Zillion. Then, Netflix's Castlevania creator Adi Shankar talks about indie games and preserving Belmont lore for television.

This week in Retronauts, we count to a zillion. And this is a pretty fun and interesting episode. While I hope it's going to be fun and interesting, it's at least an intriguing opportunity for me. I am on Skype with some folks from Funimation, and we're going to talk about the Zillion anime, which they've brought over for the first official U.S. release after more than 30 years since the series' original debut. And of course, that's relevant here to Retronauts, not only because the anime itself is very old,

but also because it has a Sega connection which becomes extremely obvious even if you have never played the game Zillion once you start watching the anime and you see Opa Opa floating around. It's a very Sega kind of show. So guys, please introduce yourselves and talk a little bit about your role

in the creation of the English version of Zillion. So my name is Gaudswell Agua. I am a social media coordinator at Funimation and what I do is I talk about anime on our channel. So, you know, Facebook, Twitter, all that. So I just get hype about it. And I'm Paul Bisnett. I'm a subtitler. So, of course, I'm in charge of subtitling shows whenever they come over. And we also do close captioning now on all of our digital releases for, you know, hard of hearing. So we'll also do that. Yeah. So we kind of get to watch the episodes twice,

at least. So he's a reason that we get to actually enjoy Zillion. Right. So, Paul, you're kind of the hero of this story because this is a subtitle-only release, which I think makes sense, given its age. And it seems like a very niche sort of series to focus on. Yeah, it's, it was a lot of fun to work on it. And we definitely, we can talk a little bit more about that process. but I was pretty, I was excited when I got picked. Were you guys familiar with Zillion before Funimation picked it up?

I wasn't. I didn't even notice the thing existed, but it's really cool that we got to dip our toes into getting more old-school anime. Yeah, I had a neighbor who had a master system. That's the famous story, and he had Zillian. So I had maybe played like the opening 10 minutes. when I was like five or six I didn't get very far but I remembered it

Right, okay I had a friend also a neighbor who had a master system and that's how I played Zillion for the first time back in the 80s and I feel like that's kind of the story of that game is that if you don't own it

and don't really play it seriously and try to figure it out you don't really get anywhere it's a really difficult and a very opaque kind of video game it is Yeah, I have recently gone and then played it and kind of did a very focused, you know, oh, now I'm, you know, in my late 20s, I'm going to conquer this game.

And it was still difficult. It seems like old school games were like honestly harder, not ever older. Oh, yeah, yeah. They made them tough back then. And we were very young and had lots of free time and patience. And also there weren't, you know, easy games back then for us to say, well, I'd rather just play this easy game. Everything was hard. just said, okay, well, I have to

suffer through this to get my fun. So that's how old video games were. But the anime, I think, is pretty different. It's sort of a light, frothy, easy. It kind of goes down easy, I would say, compared to the game. That's a good way to explain it. I like that.

You've seen, like, the whole show, right? No, I've only watched, like, the first disc or so. Okay. I was, yeah, I've been traveling a lot, so I haven't had as much time to watch as I'd like. But, you know, I've definitely seen the setup and the, you know, the first encounters between the protagonist JJ and the villain Ricks and so forth. And I've seen the tri-chargers, which factor into the second video game that Sega published.

So I feel like I've got a pretty good baseline for this discussion. But I definitely intend to watch the rest of the way through and see how it wraps up or if it doesn't wrap up, at least where they cut off. Yeah, I really encourage it, especially if you're enjoying the first section of it. It gets, I would say actually in the later bits, it gets a lot better. There's a lot more, like the villains, you get, they kind of pair up. You get some new villains, and they kind of pair up nicely with JJ, Apple, and Champ. So they kind of have, almost like in a Power Rangers-esque way, they have to fight, you know, their foils, which is pretty good. And the OVA is a ton of fun.

Okay. Yeah, I have to say, like, I'm getting, you know, kind of like wifts of other Japanese media from this era as I watch this. Like, there's a real hint of, like you said, Power Rangers, the villains definitely have that kind of look to them. Although, of course, I think this predates Power Rangers, doesn't it? Yeah. Yeah, I believe so. Yeah, I believe so. But it also reminds me a lot of, you know, Macross. And, like, all the stuff that they brought over. as Robotech. The transforming bikes is totally out of Mospeda. So there's, yeah, like there's, there's definitely some old school. Like, this is very quintessential 80s anime. And I love the character designs. Everyone's not like skinny or muscular. They're just kind of like that round, friendly kind of style that was very popular back in the 80s in anime. So yeah, it's definitely like hitting all the right points for me. Like the, oh yeah, I love this style. It's

great to see this again. So I'm really enjoying it on that level. Oh, yeah, I'm glad to glad you're enjoying it all. So let's talk about why you guys brought over Zillion to the United States in the year 2018. That's like, it's a very esoteric title, you know, if you look back. I could see, you know, maybe 25 years ago, 20 years ago, it would have been still sort of, you know, kind of newish, but now it's such a deep cut into the archives. I was really surprised to hear that it was being localized. Yeah, yeah. Well, one is always better late than never, right? But, you know, we're always working with the licensors to bring over more content and the best content that we can, right? And, you know, that's the amazing thing about U.S. anime, you know, like, we're trying to get a lot more content legally so that way more fans can enjoy, you know, whether you're a classic fan or a new fan.

And luckily, like, again, like forming Funimation, starting all this up, and here we are 600 titles later. we're always expanding our library. Do you guys know exactly who said, oh, let's go hunt down Zillion? Was that picked up because of the Sega connection, because of the Tatsunoko connection? I guess maybe to explain a little bit about the show, it's, I don't know. Should we talk about the actual history behind it now? Is that the, does that make sense to you? Yeah, sure.

Yeah, absolutely. All right, so, I don't know, I've talked about Zillion before on this show. So maybe I'll let you guys kind of put it into your own words and talk about what's interesting and what's, what's sort of significant and meaningful about Zillion. All right, I guess I'll take over. Yeah, so Zillion is, again, like you said, kind of a quintessential 80s anime. And one of the things that I love to do is I love to work on properties that we obtain that are older. Most of my favorite shows are from the late 80s, early 90s. and so yeah zillion is uh it's about a uh a group of teenagers who are kind of now like a special forces

sci-fi team and um their their planet is invaded by the evil nosens who are kind of literally faceless alien invaders um and the only way that they can fight back is they have these light phasers called the zillion that's fire like a special bullet and so there's only three of them so there can only be three of these kind of like elite guys and end girls that fight against the nozins and yeah you kind of have very very classic archetypes like the anime the main character is kind of a silly guy he's always late for work Um, he, he, he likes to talk brash. Uh, you have kind of the leader of the group who's a very, you know, by the books, sharpshooter. And then he's kind of, he's kind of the Rick Foker of the, of the group. Yes. And then, and then, and she's, you know, the cute anime protagonist, but she's also tough. And she's, she can hold her own, you know, with, with the boys. Um, and you kind of have their different adventures as they, they fight against the aliens. And then, uh, you got to, uh, you got to, all. Also, you get a few just fun ones where they have to go on dates, because why not?

Of course, right? Yeah, so I don't know if later in the series any of this is explained, but the zillion guns are, the intro says, granted to humanity. So the idea is that, like, they're, they just kind of appear out of nowhere from advanced civilization. You don't really see this happen. It's part of the backstory. And when the series begins, it's actually sort of in Medius Res, where the team is already together. So I don't know if they explain, like, how did they land on these, you know, high school kids, basically, to become the guardians, the, the users of these extremely rare, powerful weapons.

Is that talked about in the show, or you just kind of have to just take it as it is? Well, without giving away too much, it does, the series will, it does eventually talk about how the zillion came, you know, to, it was granted to humanity. Um, and it does. There is a, uh, quite a few episodes a little bit later on that kind of talk about how the, the selection process of getting, um, you know, these three soldiers together. Um, but again, you kind of have to take it with a grain of salt that 16 year olds are in charge of saving the planet. True. And also, I guess like just a little hint from the first episode, like, I've seen that they really are the best in their class. Yes. Uh, and like, I guess like since it's like so apocalyptic, like, it's a sort of, like, it's a sort of, like, starts out pretty brutal, like where these aliens are just coming through running roughshod on humanity, and you sort of got to get what you can, right? Yeah, like

you see from the first episode, like, where JJ is running from most of the aliens and, you know, sort of picking up people as you can, it definitely seems that humanity's in the dire straits. So these guys might be the best, but also maybe one to last,

able to fight. Yeah, it's I guess you, like you said, you have to sort of take it with a grain of salt because it's hard to reconcile the fact that JJ is such a goofball with the fact that he's also amazing in combat. But they kind of, I've noticed they do kind of write that into the story where, you know, in his first encounter with the main villain Ricks, everyone's like, it's really hard to predict what he's going to do. So like the fact that he is kind of a flake actually works as a combat tactic, which I think is interesting. But yeah, I guess this was just kind of the way anime is a lot of times. It's just like, well, here's some kids and they're going to save

the world. That's how it is. And so, you know, when, when Evangelion came along 10 years later, it was kind of a revelation like, oh, they're actually explaining how the kids got to be the superheroes. It's really dark. Everything's terrible. I hate this. Yeah. And I mean, that's a sad story in itself. But yeah, this one's a lot more lighthearted. It is. Yeah, which is a nice change of pace. It's nice seeing the lightheartedness from the 80s, whereas now everything is almost hyper-realistic and a little bit of a bummer. Right.

Yeah, so that's why I enjoyed watching the show. Yeah, and the other thing that really I think sort of makes this series stand out is the fact that it was produced by Tatsunoko Productions, who, you know, they were really at the top of their game in the 80s. They were kings of the hill in terms of just their output. And I'm really impressed by how cleanly this television show from the 80s has managed to come over to an HD transfer. Like, you know, when I first popped in the Blu-rays, I was honestly really surprised by the video quality. Yeah, I actually have, that was one thing I did want to talk about was when we work on the show, you know, subtitling.

we have it running our program, we actually have a very low quality video, and that's just because if we were trying to run high quality video while editing and doing all the timing, you know, our computers would be very angry with us. So when the Blu-Rays came out and I actually put it up on a big screen TV to watch it, I kept looking over at my friend, and I went, I'm shocked at how clean and good this looks. And he goes, well, didn't you work? on that? I said, yeah, but, you know, we're using a lower quality video. So it is something to see it, you know, on a big screen and to see how clean and crisp the colors are.

Yeah, I agree. I actually wasn't expecting this to look too hot myself, but then when I did watch it, like, I watched the streaming and I didn't even, like, get to put in the Blu-ray yet. Like, I have the Blu-ray, and I'm going to check that out pretty soon. But, like, I watch the streaming, and it looked clean, so I'm really happy with that. So I take it you guys aren't personally involved with the, the, remastering process. Does that happen in Japan, or is that just a different department within Funimation? It's usually either-or a relationship, like, in case-by-case, I would say. Yeah, we weren't directly involved with that process, so we would have to look that up. But sometimes we

do it, and sometimes they do it. So, yeah, I think we should also talk about the non-game aspect of Zillion. I don't know how much, how much that factored in here, but I have mentioned that Sega was involved, but there's actually a third part to Zillion, and that is that it is basically like a tie-in to a laser tag-style toy, which is, you know, the gun, the Zillian itself is kind of like the product that this television cartoon was trying to sell. And the reason everyone wears those kind of chest pieces is that those were the light sensors that the light guns used when you were playing laser tag with Zillion. You know, given that sort of a multimedia franchise approach.

I'm honestly impressed and surprised by the quality of the actual content of the show. I mean, it's definitely like, you know, a cartoon aimed at a younger audience, but it does feel pretty solidly produced, considering that the ultimate aim here was to sell light guns to kids. Like compared to Laser Tag Academy, it just doesn't even compare. He agreed. I agree with you for sure. I wasn't expecting this to be as indefinitely.

but I was gripped by that first episode you know like seeing like just what these aliens are able to do but then the character the strength of the characters and even the side characters like what's that little girl's name that JJ Mary? Yes like that like a she oh oh in the very first episode yeah I don't remember the name of the girl

Andy Andy I believe I believe so yes but she was a strong character in herself like where Addie that's it yeah that's it yeah and then just even a combat that animation of it. It was a lot more enjoyable than

I was expecting, you know, because I didn't know about this being like a way to like tie in. And also I didn't even know that about the laser the laser gun aspect of it, but I didn't know about the video game aspect about it. And that was pretty cool to see how everything

tied together. Personally, you know, when you're watching through it and you have to watch you know, subtitling, we watch every episode at least twice, you know, sometimes three times. So I have a very, you know, you're very intimate with the content, but there's actually a section, and it's episodes 15 and 16. And I'm a huge Mecca anime fan. Everyone here knows me as like the Gundam guy. And that, I would say, I was so impressed by it because the,

the episode is just chalk filled with like Paca Paca Explosions and everything's on fire. And, you You know, planes are flying through the fire and, you know, all the wisps around it. And I kept thinking, this was a tie-in. Yeah. You know, wow, look at that. So I highly recommend those two episodes or getting to them. So did you guys, I don't know, like in terms of studying for this, researching it, did you do anything with the games, with the toys? Like, did you hunt down zillion guns and mess around with them or anything like that?

So I'm also a very, very big retro gamer myself. And I did. I hunted down. the master system light phaser, so I have one of those on my desk, and I actually did grab a copy of the game. There was a very nice retro game con right around the time I started working on it, and I saw a zillion for a few bucks, and I thought, oh, that'd be neat to have on my desk just so I can have, you know, kind of like original source material for it, and then that kind of opened up a rabbit hole of playing through the games and trying to trying to look for some of the products just because of how neat it was. Yeah, I've never really done much research into the actual products that were sold besides the video game.

But I'm wondering if there were like action figures or toys of the tri-charger, tri-changer, whatever they were called, the bikes that they rode. Like, were those also sold or was it pretty much just about like, here's a light gun, go play and pretend to shoot each other kids? No, there were. I know, I think recently a company also did some figures. I don't want to say specifically that it was like Figma, but it was one of those companies that does very detailed figures. They did a release when I was looking them up. And I found a few old figures of the tri-chargers, you know, that kind of very similar to like a transformer type. Right, right, right. Yeah. Huh. Okay. That's interesting. Um, so obviously the video game connection, um, I don't know if you were aware of this before you saw the show, but the, the Sega light phaser for the master system was actually designed to look like the zillion. So to me, that, that really says like, this product, this, this series was, uh, really big for Sega. Like they had, they, they, they penned a lot of ambitions

and hopes on it. Yeah, definitely. Um, especially, I imagine, like, at a time, like, where everyone was figuring out, like, what the future. of video games and animation would be right like this is when anime is starting to get more acclaim you know and like really starting to branch out you know from uh more types of you know having a deeper story right but then also you know you guys know more about like how gaming you know was so i think it's really ambitious for sure like to to do this but like a really cool tie-in um and really well done on both ends of how they did this so uh i i mentioned you know know, kind of at the beginning of the recording session, that this is a very old television series

in terms of, you know, kind of like the chronology of anime, dating back more than 30 years, does that pose any particular challenges for you guys when you're, you know, bringing it over to the U.S., bringing it to English? You know, things age, and I think part of the appeal of the show is that it has that sort of like fluffy hair 80s style that you saw in a lot of Hatsunoko stuff, but at the same time, like, are there things that, you know, you had to kind of step around because they were inappropriate now or, you know, just things that had to be changed to sort of modernize it? I'm curious what the, you know, the philosophical approach to localization is when you're working on something with this kind of legacy behind it, this,

this much, you know, of this vintage, I guess you would say. Yeah, there's actually even a story from the translation team about the main character team, the white, nuts you know like how like they had to go about that right um like where like in japan it's actually nuts instead of nights um you know like i had like the second release used but um they you know they they they went like with nuts to like sort of keep it to that like sort of original intent that um they had um and of course like there's going to be like other things but i think people enjoy that charm from the 80s like they understand and they did This is an older title and that times were different.

You know, everyone had that crazy hair and crazy style. And people, at least on our social media channels, have really enjoyed that so far. Yeah, I was actually kind of surprised that you guys went with white nuts as opposed to changing it to something that makes a little more, like sounds a little more euphonic in English. It doesn't have kind of like oddball connotations. But I guess that's also, you know, when you look at something like Metal Gear, you have a character. like the main the main bad guy is called big boss like that's you just kind of go with it yeah yeah from a from a translation point of view uh when are the subtitlers when we do work with um the the translation team uh i think for this show we wanted to keep it as true to the original source material um so yeah

white knights does sound you know that sounds pretty cool um but it that's not you know of course that's not their name. And so we wanted it to, we wanted to bring, the show in its peers form over, including some of the translation for the dialogue, where maybe in a line would be closer to, wow, that's incredible. But due to the fact that it's from the 80s, we kind of used woes and awesoms and kianuisms, as I jokingly called them in the translation. So you deliberately tried to sort of evoke the era with the English script, is what you're saying.

Yes. Mm-hmm. Oh, okay. And even with, like, the box art, like, our creative team, like, tried to get that era. You know, like, as if you're renting it from a blockbuster, you know, like, it's been, like, a pretty worn release. And, like, even, like, the DVD and Blu-ray art, like, has, like, a sort of handwritten, like, it was burned onto a disc. but, you know, like, it has like the old anime VHS tape feeling. It's really cool. Yeah, when I, when I took that slipcase out of the mail, I was like, man, this did not travel.

And then I looked at it more closely and said, well, okay, that's deliberate. Yeah. But, but, but yeah, you know, at the very first glance, I was like, whoa, this is, this is one of those that you have to send back to Amazon and say, try again, guys. Yeah, I hope not a lot of people freak out. No, I think, you know, once you look at it, you're like, oh, okay, I get what they're going for. Yeah, and I think we're really lucky in the fact that it seems like 80s pop culture is kind of reemerging. On the rise again. Yeah, you have, you know, almost every movie and TV show seems to take place in the 80s. So I think it's a really good time for a show like this because people kind of want to experience that.

You know, they do. They see the puffy hair. the shoulder pads for days and they go, oh, that's cool, you know? Yeah, and I appreciate the fact that whoever did the label design brought in like little echoes

of the Sega Master System sort of house style with the grid and the Times New Roman typeface. If you look at the label, there is the handwritten part of it that says, this is disc one. But then you also have like, it looks like someone did a photo stat

or something of the master system box. So it's a really, ties a lot of things together, which I think is pretty cool. Like, did they, was Sega even involved at all? Or do they care at this point? I'm curious to know, you know, when you're working on something, again, of this vintage, how active do the property holders want to be with it? I feel like they're probably less involved than with something that is a current release that they're trying to, you know, have blow up and become big. But I really don't know. So not too much information on Sega, but we directly licensed this from Tatsunoko, and they were heavily involved in making sure that we got everything we needed and to make sure that this is a good product. So it's a lot of approvals and talking to them constantly. So they were good partners, and here we are able to have this product out now. So we've talked a lot about the anime now.

I think it would be fun to talk a little bit about the games. You know, having watched probably like the first third of the series, I feel like I understand the games a lot better than I did when I just picked them up and, you know, played them on the master system. Yeah, the games do definitely, they closely tie in. I think even in the first episode, you have the key card, you know, that the

humans have to keep safe from the nosons. And when you look at the key card, it looks exactly like the key cards you use, you know, in the game. And later on in the series, there's a lot of like infiltrating the noson bases and blowing them up, which is, you know,

the exact plot of the game. And it kind of does feel like the game could just be another episode. Yeah, the game is, I would say it's probably inspired by Impossible Mission for, I think, Atari 800, you know, an old computer game. Maybe it was Apple 2. But that was kind of like a infiltrate and do sabotage in enemy bases. And Zillion for Master System definitely picked up on that.

But it also, you know, it ties the light gun in and it ties the nozun's in. And it also ties in the characters because you're trying to rescue Apple and Champ, you start out as JJ and that, or actually, maybe that's the second game. I kind of got them a little mixed up, but the other characters do factor in. And I think in the first game, you can choose between the different characters. In the second game, you're just like rescuing them. You guys can correct me if I'm mistaken, but that seems to be,

would I remember, the way they worked. Yeah, and the first one, yeah, you do, you just start as JJ, and you kind of, as you make your way through the base, you'll rescue, Champ and Apple, and then once you've rescued them, you can switch between them. And they kind of have different skill sets. So, like, Apple jumps higher and, you know, and... Yeah, that's right. That's right. It's been a long time since I made it past, like, the first base.

Because the first game is very randomized. Like, the layout of the bases is always the same. But in each area, you have to use a key card and input a code and the code is always randomized every time you play. So you can't just, you know, memorize it. You have to go around and find the terminals that tell you what the codes are, and then you have to input the card information. So it becomes, I feel like it's challenging every time you play.

It also, it's not a forgiving game. Like, there's minds on the floor that you have to jump over perfectly, and the enemies, like, shoot first and ask questions later. So it's rough. Yeah. I feel like I still have nightmares of the minds and inputting codes into the terminals because you're doing it so much, you know, throughout the game. Right. Yeah, it's a, it's an unforgiving game, but it definitely feels more, you know, like an adventure, like an action RPG kind of

game than you typically found on Master System. Sega was really into sort of the arcade-style action games. So having a game that was sort of about exploration and discovery and, you know, switching between characters, uh, that was, it was kind of a bit of fresh air for, for the master system. Yeah. And I, uh, replaying through it got a lot, it felt a lot. Like I, I, I've heard the Metroid analogy come up a lot. Um, but I also kind of felt a little bit of metal gear, uh, just with the key cards and then, um, also some guardian legend, uh, just with, you know, you know, trying to, like, go into different bases and set off the detonations. That's a good comparison.

The second game, on the other hand, is, like, it's totally different. It's just, like, a pure action auto-scrolling game where you start out on the tri-charger and then you switch to jumping over to fight on foot. So it's, it doesn't have the exploration. It's just, like, pure shooting. Yeah, I did much better playing through the original game than playing through the second, one really i thought that would be actually harder or easier to play a second one i maybe maybe for others i'm a very big uh metroid fan myself so i guess maybe that kind of the the that mentality

going in i felt familiar i knew what to do um i'm not very good at arcade shooters oh yeah um so i i had fun but i i was not very good yeah the uh the the shooter you know like i said it makes use of the tri-charger, so you're transforming. Like, you have the ability to transform. So you start out as a, you know, a bike on the ground and have to jump over pits. But you can transform to fly around. But the thing is that when you do that, you really raise your profile as a target. You become much, like a really tall sprite. And since it's a horizontal shooter, it's really hard to avoid enemies when you've transformed into the upright form. So there's kind of like a give or take, you know, do I, basically gain the ability to fly and not have to worry about pits, but then, you know, have a much harder time avoiding enemy fire, or do I stay small and have to worry about jumping over pits?

So there is kind of like this, I guess, like, almost like a tactical approach to the game where you have to decide, like, what is better for me as a player? All right, so I guess I don't really have any more questions about the series. I don't know if there's anything you guys want to talk about before we wrap, like things that you found particularly interesting or enjoyable about the series that you haven't mentioned already or just things people should look out for

if they're watching? One cool thing that, like, we found out was that in Michael Jackson and Jan Jackson's music video for the song Scream, they actually featured the anime inside of it. Now, that's pretty cool seeing anime in a sort of mainstream function like that. So they beat, what was it, Todd Redgren

by several years then, huh? Hmm. Yeah. Wait, wait, was it, Todd Redgren? Who was it? There was someone who had a bunch of anime and the, I want to say, like, 1992, 93 for their song, Girlfriend. Todd Sweet, maybe that's who it was. I don't know.

Anyway, yeah, so I guess that was kind of like a cool sort of Japan as the future sort of thing to do in the 80s. I did not know that about Michael Jackson, though. That's interesting. Yeah. Yeah, and it's kind of neat being that, you know, some anime, you know, was coming over at that time, but that this was the one that was picked, you know, to be in the music video. It's kind of a, kind of neat. You kind of wonder, you know, who was in charge, who found that footage and this is it.

Well, you know, Michael Jackson had a really close relationship with Sega. He really loves Sega games. You know, they published the game Michael Jackson Moonwalker. So, and supposedly his music's in Sonic 3. That is a rabbit hole. I don't even want to go down. But, yeah, so he was really close to Sega for a long time. So that actually makes a lot of sense.

Like when I stop and think about it, because of his relationship to Sega and because Sega had some sort of stake in Zillion, I can see why that would be sort of the cartoon that he landed on for his video. So that's an interesting little tidbit I hadn't known about. That's great. Yeah, cool. And also apparently there was an English comic book adaptation in 93 that they released. Oh, yeah? Was that like Antarctic Press or something? I have no clue. I just know that they did it. I actually would like to find one myself and keep a copy of that at the office. Oh, yeah. That's, I feel like that would be hard to track down.

Yeah, I feel like that'd be the hardest thing to track down out of all the merchandise out there. Right. All right. Well, any final thoughts? You guys want to wrap up by letting us know where we can find you individually online or, you know, just throw in a pitch for Funimation, whatever, you know, whatever suits you best? Sure, yeah, I guess I'll do both for sure. Be sure to get Zillion on Blu-ray DVD now. You can get all 31 episodes and the Burning Night OVA. It just released last month, so you can get all that now.

And also, you can even stream it on Funimation.com slash zillion. And then, of course, you should always be watching. And then my name is Godzwell Agua. I am a social media coordinator, so you can find me on Twitter. And Instagram, and that's my name, Gadswell, Agua, Jr. So if you ever want to look at me talk about anime and whatever nerd stuff goes on, for sure, you can find me on those channels. Yeah, and again, I'm Paul Biznet.

I'm on Facebook and Instagram as Paul Biznet. I'm not very creative. So I don't post a whole ton. Usually I'm busy working on subtitling anime. If there are any questions that you want to send, then I'd be, I'd love to, you know, answer them. Yeah, definitely. And also, of course, you can always talk to us on Funimation channels. So we're on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, pretty much everywhere.

Tumblr, Pinterest, yeah, wherever you feel most inclined to find us, we're probably going to be there. You've got your bases covered. Yeah. All right, guys. Well, thank you very much for your time and for giving a little more insight into the surprising but very welcome release of Zillion on Blu-ray in the year of Our Lord

2018. It was a not something I would have expected beginning of the year, but I'm happy it happened. Yeah, great surprise. Thank you so much for having us on. Yeah, absolutely. Retronauts listeners, be sure to check out Penn's Sunday School on Podcast One, joined fame magician Pinjellet as he talks about everything and anything from news, religion and anything else that's on his mind. And if you know Penn, you know he's not about to go easy on anything that ticks him off. Check out Penn Sunday School every Monday on

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reading. All right. So for this segment, I am talking to Adi Shankar, who is working with Netflix on a variety of classic video game themed animation series, including you guys just launched the second season of Castlevania and just announced a Devil May Cry television series or I guess Netflix series, streaming series. And I think everyone has received season two really well. It's been kind of a pleasant surprise, you know, usually when you see animated adaptations of video games, they don't

turn out that well. But I feel Castlevania has a really distinct tone and really takes an interesting approach to the material. So I don't know. Let's talk about that. I think adaptations of video games in general, I wouldn't just call it animated adaptations of video games. I think just adaptations of video games in general have struggled. Right? So it's kind of like a blanket. It's been kind of a blanket issue for a few different reasons. And I think a lot of times the individuals involved in adapting video games in the past haven't really uh well one they haven't been gamers two they haven't really understand the culture of of video games and and and really what they and and why they work and why they resonate because fundamentally there are a very

different uh experience than than than watching the film so when translating it there's like different things to account for that makes sense there's there's different things to account for. So it's been kind of a, it's been a heartbreaking thing to have been a kind of a kid growing up in the, well, when I, when I grew up and watching, like, some of the, some of the best games turn into movies that became punchlines for jokes. Right. And that is kind of the challenge. Like when you play a video game, like, you know, Castlevania 3 Dracula's Curse, you have a very limited number of kind of like verbs that the characters can use. You can attack. You can cast. magic, you can jump, you collect stuff, and that's pretty much it. I guess if you're Alicard, you can fly. But, like, that's not a good story right there. So, you know, I understand why it's difficult to translate a video game into, you know, passive entertainment where something more than just the player hitting things and trying to avoid dying has to take place. But it's still

a challenge. It sounds like that's something that you're very sensitive to, though. So I, I'm curious, like what does your approach been to adapting this series? Well, hold on. Hold on. Hold on. I, I disagree with, fundamentally disagree with what you just said, right? Oh, yeah? Because if that were true, then there would be no good movies about sports. Because fundamentally with sports, you're picking up a ball, you're throwing a ball, you're catching a ball, you're trying to put a ball in a hoop, you're doing, you know, some variation of that. And if that were true, then there would be no good sports movies. That's true. But of course, you know, sports movies. generally look at the drama behind the scenes, the event on the field or, you know, on the

court is usually sort of like the climax of the story. So are you saying that's kind of the approach you took with Castlevania is to kind of treat it like a sporting event, like a sports drama? I wouldn't say it's to treat it like a sports drama. It's more really making the parallel that, you know, video games are a lot like sports in the, in the, to the extent. And I'm not really referring to e-sports, even though e-sports is a thing, is its own thing. Video games they're using the same part of your brain that sports is, right? Like, like entertainment, like passive entertainment, as you called it earlier, that's sitting around the campfire telling stories to your friends.

That's like an ancient tradition going way, way, way, way back. That's like cave paintings, right? Video games, it's sports. You're actively like trying to compete or win or pass some sort of objective. you're being taught some sort of a set of rules and you're competing. So it's using a different part of the part of your brain, right? So again, not a direct correlation to what we're talking about, but what I'm what I am saying is, you know, like if you're making a show just about like people jumping or casting spells, it's doomed to failure. right yeah that's that's why i'm saying like you know take the sports movie approach because like i said

you know the the big game in field of dreams is kind of like the climax of the story or remember the titans or whatever but really the the meat of the story there like that that that game that that conflict is kind of like the climax that that's where everything comes together and so i'm wondering if that's that's sort of you know where you started with with adapting in Castlevania. You and obviously Warren Ellis, the writer, is that kind of the philosophy you took? Or did you take a different approach to transforming, you know, an NES game about four people fighting through a castle to beat Count Dracula, you know, turning, turning that into a real story, a real drama? Well, there's also a big part of it is like I remember

being a kid, being obsessed with, with, with, with the NES games, right? And you had very little to go off of because the games were just so devoid of story, other than like key beats, but then, but then the boxes had like the most amazing, amazing, amazing cover art, you know, and then you would be, and there would be like an instruction manual and there'd be all this lore. There'd be all this lore behind the game, but you never actually saw a lot of it in the game. So I think Castlevania was its own exercise. exercise because, again, now thinking back, right? Because now I'm thinking back like a few years ago.

Thinking back, Castlevania has so much lore intrinsic to this entire gaming franchise, to this entire series. There's just, there's so much more, there's so much mythology. And ultimately, it's a story about multiple generations of a family who are handing down this responsibility from one generation to next. so so so that that aspect of the story was like already built into to the games even though that's not necessarily what the gaming format uh kind of showed right well i think it's interesting that you chose to adapt castlevania three first because that is kind of the point at which

you know conami the creators of the series sort of step back and said like there's a legacy here because the you know the castlevania three was actually a prequel by 200 years to the original Castlevania. And that's where they really started to say, like, what is going on here beyond, like, we're making jokes about monster movies? So what's your own history with Castlevania? What, I mean, you mentioned how you didn't have much to go on, but the box arts were amazing. What was it about the games that made you a fan and made you want to, you know, explore the world more? They felt darker than everything else. I don't know. Was that your experience with it, too? Yeah, I mean, I was so young, right? Like, I'm 33 now, so I was, I was

literally like a little, little, little kid. Right, yeah. So I'm a bit older than you. So I was at an older, you know, I was older when I first discovered Castlevania with the original game. But yeah, like definitely it had this, like the visuals had this really great detailed texture to them. It just had like a really unique look and the music was amazing.

And I don't know, like everything just fit together really well. There was a story within the game even though it was, it was an extremely simple story. But, you know, you watched Simon's progress. unfold across a map of the castle and you could say oh this is where I'm going this is where I need to go and I know that the Dracula is up there so yeah it was really effective at kind of presenting this very limited story in a very very simple but but clear concise way what was your favorite Castlevania game man I like so many of them you know I'm going to have to say probably Rondo of blood which you know I

heard hyped up for years because it never came to the U.S. And then that was, Symphony Night was a sequel to it. But when I finally got to play it, it actually lived up to the hype. It's such a, it's such a great game. It really kind of walks the line between the linear

Castlevania tradition and the action RPG, Castlevania tradition. It's got great graphics, great music. It's got a secret character you can play as. There's just so much to it. So yeah, that's probably my favorite. What about you?

I mean, it's probably symphony just because of where I was in my life. and when I played it, right? Because, again, I'm, I'm, like, squarely in that PlayStation 1 generation where all of a sudden, like, you know, all those games for the PlayStation 1, like, they were kind of this, they felt like this massive leap forward. So, yeah, I would say symphony, retroactively. Definitely symphony, yeah. So your love for symphony, that, you know, go ahead. But I don't know, it like, I think these things, like, is so much of them, they, they evolved out of their own historical context and really where you were when you were in your life when you played it. I think this is something that I'm understanding more now as I'm growing older and I'm watching things that I loved as a kid being remade or re-examined or re-explored for a new generation.

A lot of times, like, my gut level reaction is to be like, no, that's. not the right thing. You did it wrong. And then you're like, whoa, whoa, whoa, that's not for me. It's not for me anymore. Yeah, I've, I've definitely gotten better about, about being able to kind of separate myself from the things that I like and be able to say, like, it's okay if I don't like this iteration of it. That's cool. It's fine. It's kind of cool because I was, I was listening to your, uh, your, your episode on SNK, right? Which I, which I thought was just kind of fascinating because I mean, so much of the innovation in gaming. for so long came from

Japan and then it's just I think that's that's also cool by sorry the reason the reason I bringing it up is I grew up in Hong Kong Oh okay so so I I grew up playing Japanese games so I didn't know Resident Evil as Resident Evil I knew it as

as biohazard the longest time Until so for you Castlevania was always You know Akamajo Dracula or Dracula X I guess Yeah Dracula X yeah But I think it's interesting that you say Symphony of the Night is your favorite because, you know, watching the Castlevania series, I noticed that the series really strongly favors Alacard as a character. There's definitely like a heavy emphasis on him. And, you know, even the final battle with Dracula at the end of season two, like it's mostly a conflict between Alacard and Dracula and Rikter and Cyp are there. But they seem to have kind of, or not Rikter. Ralph, no, not Ralph. Trevor, Trevor, yes, geez. You can call them Ralph, though, if you want.

Yeah, I'm kind of surprised there were no kind of snide remarks about the name Ralph thrown into the series. It's such a... Well, they sent me over to, they sent me over to, Netflix sent me over to Japan to kind of do this whole presentation. And I made a bunch of Ralph jokes. Yeah, but anyway, as I was saying, yeah, Alicard is definitely sort of front and center in the series in a lot of ways, which I thought was interesting because, you know, in Castlevania, three, it's still very much a Belmont game. It's still very much like Alicard is one of three characters who can help you, but you're

always going to have Trevor on your side. Yeah. So is there something about that character you particularly find fascinating? Does it just make sense in sort of the way the narrative evolved to have him sort of placed front and center over Trevor? Did you just whisper a Richter? I almost said Richter and then corrected myself to Trevor and then like ruefully said Richter to myself. I don't know why I keep saying.

What's the, what's the, what's the, what's the, what's the obsession with, with Richter? You know, the fact that you, you know, I actually don't know. Maybe I'm just stoked for Super Smash Brothers. I have, I have no idea. I just keep saying Richter for some reason instead of Trevor. I have been playing a lot of brothers. Sorry, go ahead. You, you haven't. I've been playing a lot of Rondo of Blood and Simpity in the night lately. So maybe that's it. Well, I mean, it just, it just, they're just kind of re-released it, right? For the, I have you been playing the re-release? Uh, you know, I haven't. I, I, I was, uh, messing around with getting, uh, old consoles set up for streaming. So I, I ended up actually playing, uh, Rondo and Symphony on like PS1 and PC engine hardware.

Oh, nice. Yeah, there's something about, you know, playing a game on a, an old game on a, on a proper television that just, it just is different than playing it on an, uh, on an HD TV. No matter how good the emulation is, there is something about that warmth that I really, like. So I love going back and playing systems that way. Absolutely. Absolutely. Like, even like the, you know, the Marvel versus Capcom, the early Marvel versus Capcom games. Like, if you try playing it on an HDTV, you're just like, what is this? Yeah, you know, a lot of those

games were designed around the limitations and the abilities of Cathode televisions. So they do take on a different character when you play them on HDTVs. But, you know, for the most part, I... Do you play, do you play indie games? Indy games? Yeah, like Dead Cells, Hyperlight Drifter. Oh, yeah, yeah.

I play a bunch of stuff. Like, I'm pretty much using Switch as my main current system these days, and that thing is just loaded with indie games. So when I have time to play, it's usually something indie. Like what? Were you playing right now? At the moment, actually, I'm trying to catch up with Mega Man 11, but, you know, recently stuff like The Messenger and Hollow Night.

Actually, I've been playing a lot of Metroidvania-style games lately, you know, kind of in the spirit. Oh, yeah, they've made a, they've been making a massive, massive, massive comeback. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, no, it's really, I don't know, there's something, there's something in the air. What I dig about the Messenger is, is like, the perspective shift, you know? It's like games don't really do that, and I feel like they should. It's almost like a comic book halfway through the comic book, just kind of shifting our styles in a very drastic way.

Yeah, it's kind of like having, you know, the 8-bit Castlevania's and Symphony and the Night together in one game and you're like transforming between that experience. It's a, it's a fresh and an interesting idea. And I like the way the gameplay changes along with the visuals. Yes. It's great. Well, I think that's what's so cool about, and that's why I brought up the indie games. I think that's what's so cool about the indie games in relation to what we were talking about

earlier with, you know, having the old, the old school television with the old school consoles hooked up to them. Like the, the, these indie games now are, well, especially the ones that that are leaning into retro gaming, they take that aesthetic, they take that vibe and, and just kind of really amp it up in the most brilliant way. I mean, I'm kind of, I'm blown away by, by the indie game movement. I mean, it's just fascinating stuff. Yeah, I've been, you know, kind of following it as a journalist since it sort of had its inception about 10 years. ago and it's it's come so far like there were there were always really fresh ideas out there but i feel like you know if you want innovation and creativity you're going to find it more in

indie games than you will in you know big budget games once you once your budget gets over a certain amount then it's kind of like a make or break proposition you have to yeah be able to say well I'm going to make this much money or it's not going to be worth doing so let's go with what's safe whereas indies don't always have that restriction they can they can yeah you know, test things out. They can test the waters. And I also feel like, you know, like game journalism, like video game journalism, they kind of, I feel like everyone's almost leaned into this idea when, when with triple A titles with these blockbuster titles. Um, and obviously they get evaluated in terms of like their quality and whatnot. But it's like, it feels like everyone's

bought into this idea that we also need to like judge its success by its sales data. But indie games, Indie games are purely judged based off of quality, purely judged based off of innovation, and not so much on how well did it sell, or how many units did it sell? Yeah, I don't know. I feel, you know, having been in journalism and having pretty much gotten out of it at this point, I feel like the sales obsession is more on like the forum side. It's something for, you know, people to argue about and say, like, you know, the stuff I like is better, you know, sold better than the stuff you like. I feel like journalism is not so much focused on that.

But I definitely do think that games are judged by different yardsticks depending on how they're created and what style of game they are. So, and, you know, maybe that's appropriate. Like, I don't know that you can judge the messenger by the same yardstick that you judge Red Dead Red Dead Redemption, too, because one of those games cost a billion dollars to create and one of them definitely didn't. No, it's a, dude, it's an interesting, it's an interesting conversation because there are definitely parallels to the film business, right?

Like there didn't used to be an independent film business, and then all of a sudden it started, and then sex lies in videotapes, reservoir dogs, pulp fiction, all of a sudden in the 90s, like the independent film business just really blew up and took off, and all the innovation and storytelling was found in that world. And then it grew and grew and budgets grew, and then the distribution platforms grew,

and then we look at like the late 90s, a good number of the independent movies, sorry, a good number of the movies that are like most memorable from that era came from the indie space. And then fast forward to a few, you know, like five, five, six years after that, now of a sudden you take like the best picture race,

the Oscars. A lot of, most of the, most of the, most of the best picture nominees started becoming independent movies. So it's like, I'm saying, I don't know, I'm just seeing a lot of parallels between where the film business was at in the late 80s, early 90s,

and where the video game industry is now. Yeah, and I mean, if you look at film, like the kind of work that you do with streaming platforms, like that's also kind of changing the conversation and changing the way people approach things because the impression I get certainly is that there's a lot of, a lot of, a lot of attitude, for creativity and for risk-taking with the streaming platforms versus, you know, large

motion picture releases. Same with like premium cable, too. You know, I know Castlevania was in development for like 10 years before it actually happened. So to me, that's kind of a sign that. There was different, that was different things, right? I was offered Castlevania in 2012 as a live action series. Oh, yeah?

It's a live action film. Yeah. Okay. it down. I went down the road for a bit, yeah. I'd just been involved in a film called Dred, which was a remake of Judge Dread. That became a cult, that became like a cult thing down the road. It didn't do, it didn't do very well in the box office when it was released in theaters

that year. And it was around that time period where kind of Castlevania came to me. But it was made with that, with like a different mindset. Sorry, it was being positioned with a completely different mindset, if that makes sense. Like, it wasn't, I mean, my whole. in general is what was is and was to make something that feels like the games or you know like I'm a fan of Castlevania pretty much everyone that that that was brought on to the show is a fan of Castlevania so we really made a show by fans and we made this show for fans

but just to contrast it in 2012 when it came to me it was It was like, okay, so there's this game that a few people like, so we're going to take the, we're going to take the name Castlevania, but we're going to make something completely different in order to, like, get a big audience, get a big broad audience. Well, I mean, I guess that worked for Resident Evil, so maybe they figured that would work for Castlevania, too. I mean, that's, yeah, yeah. I mean, I think that's that, that was a prevailing blueprint, even if you look at like, well, I mean, a lot of things. It's kind of this blueprint driven by the economic model of theatrical releases, plus also how movies used to be built around movie stars. And I felt that Castlevania was the star, you know, the castlvania, the games, the characters in the games were the star of the franchise, not Gerard Butler. Right.

You know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah, I mean, yeah, like I look at, you know, say the comic book movies, I mean, who was Hugh Jackman before he was Wolverine? No one knew who he was. And it worked because you didn't know who Hugh Jackman was, but he got up on screen. He was Wolverine. And you're like, okay. So now everyone knows who Hugh Jackman is because the franchise elevated him. I mean, he's a great actor. But, but yeah, like, I don't think that would have worked if it had been, I don't know, whoever the hell, like, The Rock as Wolverine. I think there's like different expectations, too, on an actor. Again, I don't want to just, like, dog on the actors. And I've talked about this in past interviews about, like, kind of what went down in 2012 with this live action Castlevania thing that was, that I was being courted for, quote, unquote, courted for.

But just to be fair to the actors in that equation, there's a difference you hit up an actor to become a character, right? to like disguise themselves and sort of like to really understand the lore and the backstory and become like do the method actor thing right versus hey lean into your public persona that it's this it's like the same person you play when you're on jimmy kimmel and the same person that you know uh and and it's like hey play your public persona as this character yeah i i definitely see the distinction there for sure right that's just weird Yeah, I think it's best that, you know, Yeah, I think it's best that, you know, Castlevania ended up taking the form it did.

It's not going to maybe command as many headlines as it would if it were a major blockbuster motion picture released in theaters. But what you came up with is much truer to the spirit of the series. It took me a little while to kind of ease into it, but especially with the second season, you know, where you really lean into things like curse of darkness and some of the deeper, more obscure lore of the series, like that's really interesting. It's a creative approach. And it's, you know, even though I kind of know the major story beats happening, I don't really know where the series is going to go from here. Like there's been a lot of changes even though I kind of recognize the parts that are involved. I don't necessarily know how they're being positioned.

So that's, you know, to me as someone who's been following the series for so long, that's interesting and exciting. Dope, man. I appreciate that. Yeah, the way I described the series a lot is it's kind of like the, you know how the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It's set in its own continuity, its own timeline, its own paralleled universe to the Marvel Comics. In the Marvel comics, you have like the Marbles 616, and that's the 616 universe that has been around since 1963. Right, exactly.

And then you have the ultimate line that kind of came out in the early 2000s, and these are multiple parallel universes. And then you have the Marvel Cinematic Universe where events play out slightly differently. sometimes sometimes they're exactly the same sometimes characters look different right like like man the mandarin in the comic books was one character the mandarin that uh that ben kingsley played so famously in iron man three is a totally different character right um that's kind of the same approach uh or the same philosophy here with the castledania cinematic universe like our um certain events may play out exactly the same some might be slightly different some characters may I'd emerge with a slightly different appearance, with a slightly different backstory.

But I think the important thing here is we have this overarching plan that's been there since the beginning. And we've mapped out this whole thing. So, yeah, it's kind of like this interesting dream come to fruition. Yeah. So how far out does this map go? Are you able to say? I mean, is it like pretty well planned at this point?

Or is it kind of, yeah, okay. Yeah. Um, if you, yeah, it, yes, I, I, I, I plan everything to a T, right? And I'm not just, I, sorry, I'm not just talking about Castlevania. Just, just kind of, well, because I, you know, again, this is like, this is like lore. This is not, you know, some random video game that, hey, there, you know, there was a couple of video games and then it went away. Like, this is, there's actual lore here. So I think it's a disservice to, to, to the people that created this, to, to, to, to, to, to the fan base to not have a plan here, right? To just kind of. Like, take it, take it one step at a time. I mean, obviously, take it one step at a time, but have a master plan. Right? Yeah, I mean, I see a lot of opportunities in the Castlevania timeline to tell, you know, sort of standalone stories within a franchise. If, you know, if the opportunity works out that way, like Simon Belmont, obviously, Richter Belmont, the Morris is.

I mean, if you had the opportunity to tell the war of 1999, the thing that happened that was never showing. in the games that fans are always like what happened with the war of 1999 is that something you'd want to do uh i i i can't i want to get into spoiler territory my man but but but let's just say like i you know let's just say you're talking to a fan okay right now right so so if you're feeling it and other fans are feeling it i'm probably feeling it too because i'm a fan and i think if there's one thing that the internet has has shown us is is i group think has this negative kind of But I don't mean group think in the kind of the negative business way of group think, but there's there's kind of like this, this commonality between a lot of, a lot of games.

I'm not just talking about Castlevania, like a lot of us were kind of feeling the same things. A lot of us kind of like remember the same, same moments. And yeah, like I think there's like a collective consciousness to, to again, a lot of games, Castlevania, Castlevania included. So yeah, going back to just talking about video games, like, do you think that there's a future in video games for Castlevania? I mean, not asking for like insider scoops or anything like that. I'm just saying, like, as someone who has been following the series for however many decades, like, do you think Castlevania has run its course? Or do you think there's still room for, you know, even though a lot of the, pretty much all the creative leads of the series have moved on to other pastures?

Like, do you still think there's something there that can be explored that can be done in a new and interesting way? Absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, again, look, we've kind of talked about this already when we're talking about like indie games, right? Like, Metroidvania is a genre called Metroidvania because of Super Metroid and Castlevania. Right? So, so Castlevania is really two things. When you boil it down, it's two things. One is a genre of gaming that this game series helped create, right?

And the other one is a storyline and a lore and its own history, right? So let's put the history aside for a second, and let's just talk purely about the Metroidvania genre. There are innovations happening in the Metroidvania genre right now, even without Castlevania, right? You mentioned a few titles. You mentioned Hollow Night. Right. Oh, yeah. And you know what? Monster Boy is out this week. That's a really fun and solid take on the Wonder Boy series. And that's very much in the Metroidvania style. So, yeah. Totally. Dead cells is not technically Metroidvania, but it's like a, it's like that cross pollinated with the rogue like and it's its own thing. But even that, I mean, it's an offshoot, right? I mean, it, Castlevania is an ancestor. Yeah, definitely. Right? Yeah. Yeah. So, so. So, so. When you say Castlevania, if you're talking about the Metroidvania genre, there continues

to be innovation in that genre right now, like it's happening right now. In fact, I would say that the genre is more popular than ever. Yeah, I agree. I mean, there's certainly more games coming out in the Metroidvania genre. I mean, just this year alone, it's been insane. Just on Nintendo Switch alone this year, it's been insane. And, you know, you start looking at PS4 and Steam. and it's just like, who can keep up with all these games?

That's, there's a lot happening there. There's a lot, lot, lot happening there, exactly. And that's awesome. And that's, that's awesome, right? Yeah, so I don't want to take up too much more of your time, but I don't think you actually answered what you're playing lately. So I kind of gave my side of things, but what have you been playing? What are you looking forward to?

So I beat Spider-Man, and I'm loving the DLC content. they're dropping. I'm really loving the DLC content. They're dropping on that. That game. You know, it's, I didn't find the game particularly difficult, which is okay. It was just kind of a fun exercise to play through it. And I like, and I like the story a lot. So that's super cool. I've been playing hyperlight again, hyperlight drifter. Okay. Yeah. Again. I spent, I spent way too much time playing dead cells. I spent way too much time playing dead cells. And I'm saying it like past tense, but that's not even true. Like I'm, um, I'm, um, I'm kind of like still, still playing it. Um, yeah, I mean, it's got that rogue like thing to it. So you can, you can kind of keep going. Yeah. It's kind of like that, that crack addiction thing. Not that I've ever been addicted to crack, but, you know, like, like it's got that crack addiction vibe, which is kind of interesting. Um, because you can just pick, and again, on the switch, because I played on

the switch, right? You can just kind of take it, play it for like 10 minutes. and then turn it off. And then, yeah, and then you, you know, you jump back in. I try to get into the new Call of Duty. But there's something weird about it in that it's like, I used to be very good at the other Call of Duties. You know, when Black Ops 1 and 2 came out, when Modern Warfare 1 and 2 came out,

like I was good. I mean, I would play online and I was like very good at it. I don't know if I've just gotten worse at FBSs, or if other people has just gotten better, I don't know what's going on, but I'm like horrendous at this new Black Ops game. Yeah, I find that that genre is one that you really have to constantly be immersed in to kind of keep your skills up.

Like I used to be a pretty big FPS fan and then kind of dropped off. And now when I go back to FPS as I'm like, I thought I knew how to play these games and I cannot. I'm terrible at these now. Right. And I don't know what's, like what's happening? What's happening? Is it is it that like just people are getting better? I don't or you know is I don't know. Yeah, I can't speak to it, but I certainly have gotten terrible at FPSs. So I'm I can relate to that for sure. Okay, good. I'm not now. Now I feel less alone. I feel less alone right now. That's good. Did you play Odyssey? Super Mario Odyssey or Assassin's Creed? Super Mario. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely for sure. That's one that I need to go up and play some of my

post-game stuff. But, yeah, great game. Yeah. It's great game. Great game. Well, and I love how, like, it really, you know, it created this whole new experience, but it had all these amazing nods to the past. Mm-hmm. You know, I loved it. I love it. I love anything that kind of pays respect to its own history. Yeah, for sure. Mario Odyssey was great about that. We had, we actually had a whole episode about a year ago, where we just, like, said, let's look at, you know, how Mario Odyssey sort of upholds the Mario legacy. I think we all came away saying, like, it's perfect at that. It does a great job of it. Yeah.

Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. It's like this perfect blend of innovation, like AAA innovation, mixed with like that indie, mixed with indie innovation and that indie reverence for the past that a lot of AAA titles don't have. Does that make sense? Yeah, no, absolutely. It has a certain warmth that tends to get sort of squeezed out by big budgets.

So it's, like, Nintendo's good about, about kind of keeping that soul of their games, even when they get really polished and big. So it's, it's always a pleasure to play a big budget Nintendo game. They don't come along that often, but they're almost always worth playing. Always. Always. Because they're like, they never sacrifice quality. Yeah, absolutely. I want to see a new metal slug game.

Yeah, it's been, man, the last one was, what, Metal Slug 7? And that was, geez, it's been at least a decade. That's, I can't believe it's been that long. Yeah, they need to get on that. Are you more of a metal slug guy or a Contra guy? I'm more of a... Even though they're really... You know, even though they're very dissimilar.

I'm more of a classic Contra guy, although I do really enjoy Metal Slug just for the sheer amount of detail and the goofiness in it. But I don't enjoy playing them quite as much, you know, as games as I do Contra. But, you know, it's a good time either way. You prefer Contra as a game.

Which art style do you prefer better? I love the metal slug art style. It's so detailed and so full of just all kinds of extra little extraneous things that don't need to be there, but they are. You know, everything from like the gigantic mechanisms you have to blow up to the prisoners of war showing off their striped boxer shorts when you rescue them. Like it's just it's just loaded with detail. And again, and again, this is, this goes back to, and again, this goes back to to where the indie games can really thrive. I mean, there's so many gaming. Look, my fear here, right, with games is the same thing that I watched happen to the film business, right? Again, Castlevania was not my first thing. I'd been doing it for a while long enough to see certain things go down, which now serve as cautionary tales.

A lot of movie genres went and just disappeared. They disappeared because there were a couple. genres that were really working and then all of a sudden everyone was trying to like replicate that that blueprint over and over again and then other things kind of got left it just got left they got forgotten right you know um and that's the beauty of the indie space like you know we may never get you know some of these some of these uh quote unquote defunct genres back in an official capacity tied with the lore of the game that we or rather tied to the lore of the game we grew up with. But the indie space can take what was amazing about that experience and upgrade it,

updated, while still retaining that experience. And what I loved about Metal Slug is it was such a, it was such an innovator in that genre. And that, again, let's call it the Contra, the Contra genre. Even though it really, I think the comparisons between Contra and Metal Slug you're religious, almost surface, surface level. You know, because Contra feels more like R-type to me. Sorry, metal slug feels more like R-type. It feels like kind of a cousin of R-type. Right, very methodical and slow.

Right, yes. Very precise. Yeah, I agree. And, you know, like when I was working in the Games Press a decade ago, I spent a lot of time lamenting the fact that everything was kind of being pushed toward the AAA space and all the kind of weird, inventive, off-the-beaten path games that you saw on, like, PlayStation 1, PlayStation 2, those were disappearing. But then indie games came along and said, hey, no, there's still room for that.

It just needs to happen in a different way, like digital distribution and, you know, self-publishing and things like that. And so now we have more of those games than ever. And there's, there are more fresh, interesting ideas out there being explored. It's just they're not in the same packages that they used to be. But that's cool that there's still that, that, that, kind of niche for them. It's not even a niche anymore. It's such a huge part of the market. It's just part of video games now. Yep. And I love that there's like an online marketplace for these things, right? We're not having to get your indie game into a brick and mortar store was this massive barrier to entry that the internet effectively, uh, uh, neutralized. Yeah, now, now having,

you know, sort of the retail version of an indie game is kind of like, the final premium step, like once the game is a success, then, you know, the publisher or limited run games or someone brings out the physical edition. So you can own that too if you want it, but it doesn't have to, that doesn't have to exist. Like a game can just exist as a download. That really opened up a lot of doors. Yeah. And it's great. It's, it's, I think that's, that's, I mean, it's awesome, right? Like, I think, I think the more we get rid of barriers to entry, the more there's the more there's innovation and to your point it then kind of the onus is almost on the media to to highlight and focus and draw and drive attention towards some of these titles just as much as there's hype around red dead two or spider man you know the the triple eight titles and the license titles yeah i agree one of the one of the greatest roles that the press can serve now is just discovery just shedding light on on great games that might otherwise go unnoticed.

Absolutely. Absolutely. And that's, you know, that's huge because this is like the, the, you know, I think one thing we did not talk about and what doesn't seem to get talked about a lot is where's this all heading, right? Like, is this just pure entertainment or is this the early stages of the greatest art form

that humanity has ever created? Well, have you played Tetris Effect yet? Not yet. Because I think that that makes a pretty good case case for video games being art. Give it a try for sure. It's pretty amazing. I think 100% think video games are art. I think anyone who doesn't view video games as art is on the wrong side of history.

And I also think like what is considered art in its time period is generally not viewed the same way through the same lens when history has a say. Right? Like a lot of the filmmakers that were considered, again, going back to film, a lot of the filmmakers from back in the day that were viewed as like kind of schlocky and not taken seriously today are looked back and been like, no, those were like the great. Those were the greats at their time period. Look at how John Carpenter, you know, for those of you don't, if you don't know, John Carpenter did escape from New York, the thing, big trouble in little China. Just look at how John Carpenter was treated. in his time period versus how he's looked at now. Just the appropriate example of this. Yeah, I agree. I mean, I studied a lot of art in college, and that was definitely the case with artists, you know, in the 19th century, 20th century,

lots of movements came along. The critics said, this is garbage, but now we look back at them and we're like, this is the stuff we want to see in the museums. Yeah, exactly. And it's not the stuff that was kind of revered, and which then kind of calls into attention, like, what does it mean to even be revered?

by the critics, quote unquote. What does that even mean? You know, and is that really a ploy to drive, okay, now I'm getting a conspiracy theory and not really conspiracy theory, but like kind of a weird... Kind of to your point, like, what is the future of Castlevania? You're talking about indie games carrying on that legacy, and I think that's, you know, it's just taking new forms and that spirit is still going to keep percolating through video game design.

It's influenced so many people, you know, you have people like you who play the games when you were a kid and now you're making you know film adaptations of it you have people who played the games and went into game design and now they're making spiritual successors so i feel like it all kind of you know totally it's like they're they're like the game design people like the the the people that went into to game creation they're taking this the spirit of the genre that was created and they're pushing it forward and they're you know they're they're upgrading it with more and more innovation using the tools you know because ultimately like what is the point of of this stuff all that movies are

it's really just to take like the stories the mythology the lore whatever and to uh to to to to protect it until another generation is able to come using the technology of their time period to tell it better yeah and you know that's what the that's what the indie movement is to me I look at it and I go the you know the indie um I don't want to call them indie game folks the indie game folks Like, that's what they're doing. They're taking this genre, this, this, this, this genre, and they're, they're using the tools of their time period in order to innovate and tell it better, to do it better. And then to your point, on the flip side, you have guys like me who are, you know, effectively like, I'm just, I'm a storyteller. And I'm not a programmer.

I'm a storyteller. And I'm a storyteller who loves the lore of Castlevania. And I'm like, you know what? I want to protect this lore. I'm not going to know. I'm not going to make your really silly live action like movie that has nothing to do with Castlevania called Castlevania, starring, you know,

Channing Tatum and Gerber. I don't want to do that. I'm here to, that's a true story, by the way. I'm here to protect the lore. I can't protect the gaming engine, but I can protect the lore. Right. And that's, like I said, you know,

the most recent season of Castlevania, I just completely nailed it. and I'm looking forward to seeing what you do with the next season and what you do with the Devil May Cry. Appreciate that, man. Appreciate that, yeah. You know, it's kind of a, I mean, all of it's a dream come true. You know, it's, I know you're a little bit older than me,

but it's like the video games are kind of the, it's like the art form for our generation. It's like it's like it evolved before our eyes. It's like this different language, you know? It's like, and as I was comparing it to sports earlier, it's like the language of movement. It's a language of motion. Yeah, absolutely.

And then there's a great lore behind, too. Yeah, all right. Well, I really appreciate you taking time out of your day to join the podcast. Do you want to tell people where they can find you personally online or just promote some of the work you've published recently and will be doing? Don't find me online. Honestly, what you should do is listen to another episode of Retronauts. highly recommend the S&K episode and also

don't follow them online follow an indie an indie game shop you know give them love I can get behind that all right Addy thank you so much for your time and good luck with your upcoming projects thanks man

I'm going to be able to be. Get ready. For hard work. For high expectations. For high fives. For you've got this. For I did it. For you're hired. You've got it in you. Now let us bring it out of you. If you're as serious about your success as we are, bring it. Visit rmu.edu today, Robert Morris University. Get ready. The Mueller report. I'm Ed Donahue with an AP News Minute. President Trump was asked at the White House if special counsel Robert Mueller's Russia investigation report should be released next week when he will be out of town. I guess from what I understand that will be totally up to the Attorney General. Maine Susan Collins says she would vote for a congressional resolution disapproving of President Trump's emergency declaration to build a border wall, becoming the first Republican senator to publicly back it. In New York, the wounded supervisor of a police detective killed by friendly fire was among the mourners attending his funeral. Detective Brian Simonson was killed as

officers started shooting at a robbery suspect last week. Commissioner James O'Neill was among the speakers today at Simonson's funeral. It's a tremendous way to bear, knowing that your choices will directly affect the lives of others. The cops like Brian don't shy away from it. It's the very foundation of who they are and what they do. The robbery suspect and a man police say acted as his lookout have been charged with murder. I'm Ed Donahue. Thank you.