Retronauts - Retronauts Episode 241: The Return of Listener Comments Catch-Up

Episode Date: August 23, 2019

The curse of the podcaster means we usually have so much to say in our limited time that we often don't have space to let you get a word in edgewise. So, every six months, I (Bob) like to collect comments and questions from the last six months' worth of my episodes—from both the main site and Patreon—and respond to them with a guest. So this week, join me and Jeremy as we respond to your thoughts on Spider-Man games, Reggie Fils-Aime, Kingdom Hearts 3, Sonic the Hedgehog's many voice actors, Stardew Valley, Resident Evil 4, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles in the year 1989, and Nester (another mutant, but not a turtle or a teenager). Will YOUR words be read live on the air? Listen now and all will be revealed!

Hello, everybody and welcome to another episode of Retronauts. The topic for this one is the return of our listener comments catch-up episode. and I am your host for this one, Bob Mackie, and who is here with me today. It's your favorite old man, Jeremy Parrish. Favorite old man, indeed. And today, because I try to, every six months, I try to build a listener comments episode because I never have time to read comments during the episodes. And, Jeremy, you do mailbags too, right?

Just because there's never enough time to actually do the mailbag within the context of the episode itself. It's really tough to squeeze those in because we're just so gabby. We are. We talk too damn much. It's why we're podcasters. But Jeremy's here because we're recording in San Francisco, and also Jeremy's here because there were a few podcasts that I wanted him on, but we were both traveling a lot this summer, and he was not able to make it to a few of them. And my schedule was very complicated, too. So he's finally here to talk about some topics.

And also he's going to respond to some of your comments with me. I promise to be nice, though. Yes. From my episodes from the past six months. And the first of which, we're going to start with episode 204, way, way back in the wintertime. and that was Spider-Man Games Part 2. And Jeremy, you just released another Spider-Man podcast, right? Someone recently.

Yeah, that was me. That was a few weeks ago, and that was an interview with Jamie Fristram, the designer and technical lead on Spider-Man 2 for PlayStation 2, prefaced a little bit by some kind of like preamble with the Retronauts East Crew. But that was one of the episodes I put together with developers at Game Developers Conference this year. And it's always great to talk to devs and get their perspectives on the games that they created.

Although, having not really played a lot of Spider-Man games and not really spent a whole lot of time with Spider-Man, too, it was much more of a general conversation, just kind of like almost like shooting the breeze with someone who made a cool video game. I don't know if that's what people actually want from developer interviews, but sometimes it's nice just to, you know,

loosen up a little bit and take a different angle. I think it's a good companion piece to this. episode because we talk a lot about that game in this one. It's sort of one of the major focuses of that podcast because it's one of the best games ever made about Spider-Man up until the new one that came out last fall. Which is now the best-selling superhero video game of all time. Really? I believe it. So more than, I guess more than Batman then. It would have to be. Yeah. Interesting. I guess the Arkham games came out after, I guess they came out during the Knoll and stuff. Never mind. But that's cool. I'm glad to hear that. I hear it's a really

good game. I still need to play it. I will one day. But let's talk about comments for Spider-Man Games Part 2. I pulled a few from each episode just so we could fit them all in within an hour. And so Teams, Asu says, one thing I've always loved about Spider-Man games from this era is the level of care and fan service that appears

even in some of the mediocre entries. The first PlayStation Spider-Man really blew the lid off the concept with its bonus costumes and cameos. I know that you guys had to rush through some of them towards the end, but Shadow Dimensions really stood out from the pack, even though it was the first console Spidey game to take a step back from the open world concept.

Beanox even went as far as to cast each of the four different Spider-Men with someone who had previously voiced a character on the show, including Dan Gilvazan from Spider-Man and his Amazing Friends, and even Neil Patrick Harris from the short-lived MTV CGI series. I did not realize there was a Neil Patrick Harris voiced Spider-Man CGI series. That might be the, okay, it is the MTV one. So, like, when the Toby McGuire movies were coming out, there was an MTV series that was CGI, and I didn't know that was him because I never watched it, but there you go. So the story was created by Dan Slot, which a lot of comic fans should know.

So who took the inspiration from Beanox's groundwork and later created his own Spider-Verst storyline, but just got adapted into an Academy Award-winning movie. Talk About a Legacy. Speaking of writers, these games have also incorporated creators who have worked on Spider-Man comics in the past. That list includes Brian Michael Bendis, Dan Slot, Peter David, and even Christos Gage on the latest PS4 game. And that was from Team Zizzo. And I will say that before that podcast, I believe, I don't even, know if Spider-Verse was announced, but maybe it was just announced and we were speculating

as if it would be a good movie. Well, since then, it's won the Oscar for Best Animated Feature of that year. So that was episode 204. That would have been about like eight or nine months ago. We recorded it in October, though. So I don't know, like I recall that we knew about Spider-Verse, but it wasn't out yet. Yeah, it was known, but I don't think anyone knew it was going to be what it was. Yeah. And I'm a known, I don't really care about superheroes that much, but I love that movie. Have you seen the movie? Spider-Bers? Okay, it's great. I personally feel like superheroes are too stupid looking to work in anything but animation. That's why I like that movie so much. It's the perfect cartoon movie. And it also, up front, it's like, you know what Spider-Man is. You don't need for us to give you a 45-minute prolog as to, you know, the whole Peter Parker, Uncle Ben dying stuff. Yeah, it was, that was an interesting movie to me because, um, you know, they took the multiverse concept and actually made something that was basically a sequel to Toby McGuire's Spider-Man movies. Without it being explicitly that, it was pretty much like, you know, the main Peter Parker in there, the one who, spoiler dies, he's basically Toby McGuire.

Yeah, that's true. So it's like kind of puts a cap on, you know, that older set, the older trilogy of, uh, of Spider-Man movies while also feeling like it it could fit into the current modern Marvel universe. So it was a nice touch. I was happy with it. I went to it very skeptical, but I really liked it.

And we did a podcast about it for What a Cartoon if you want to check that up. But Jeremy, we got another comment here for Spider-Man Part 2. Teki says, I looked it up and apparently Spider-Man 2 got a PC game and it's completely different from the Trayark game and is bad and sucks.

Looks more like the PSP games in terms of how you interact with it. And given that the PC PSP, GBA, and DS games with the same name are all apparently distinct, methinks, part of the issue, is that Activision spread their resources way too thin. Genuinely surprised to find out that a PC port existed and wasn't like the same game as showing up on all the consoles, but then I think they targeted the PS2, and most middleware of the era didn't.

Yes, thanks for the info on that. I think I'm glad you forgave us because these games are just so unavailable that sometimes you have to assume a port is the same thing as, you know, another game. but in this case it is different and it sounds like it's not worth playing or buying used or whatever so screw that game I will say so the next episode is goodbye

Reggie Fisa May which Jeremy was on that was our retronauts about the departure Reggie Fisa May who has gone now still alive now on Twitter at Reggie how did he score that I don't know I think he knows somebody there but now we're in the reign of Doug Bowser and I think he's taking

advantage of that joke a little too much we thought does he know like he's the same name and now that's all you see on his Twitter account. So it's getting kind of boring now. Yeah. But hey, you know, it's the perfect, it's the perfect choice. So our first comment for that is gut sans saying, I'll always remember the

personality that Reggie brought to Nintendo presentations, particularly that several Nintendo direct moments where he participated like the famous Reginator when he fought with Iwada and smash or when he fired Bill Train and to replace him with his son. He did give NOA a distinctive personality. It goes to show that Nintendo really knows how to like people, particularly when comparing Nintendo executives

to the ones from other gaming companies like you exemplified with former Xbox executive Don Matrick. Right to show that there are some executives that one can respect even when they are not from the gaming business originally like Iwada and quickly quelled fears of a John Scully for Nintendo. Wow, deep cut, I approve. Which one is John Scully? John Scully was Apple's CEO.

He basically was the replacement for Steve Jobs when Steve Jobs got ousted in the 80s. And he was a Pepsi executive. who came in and tried to run Apple computer like it was a soft drink company. Those were Dark Times for Apple. Yeah, Apple did not do well under John Scully. Although Scully did, you know, he had some good ideas or at least kind of like spearheaded them, like the idea of a digital personal assistant, which is basically what we have now with cell phones and Syrians,

that sort of thing. Anyway, that's in the weeds, but that's the explanation there. I wasn't sure what that meant, but I'm glad to explain that. So he goes on to say, we can safely assert that Reggie is more. appreciated by fans and former NOA executives like Howard Lincoln. I mean, Lincoln was a successful executive for the company, but most gamers probably remember the Senate hearings where he buried Sega hard. He was a cop. He was. He's totally a cop. And he's not Howard Phillips, by the way, different people. We have to keep pointing that up. But in a sense, the letter says, Reggie was the kind of

admirable leader that Iwada was in Japan with how he stayed with the company during the difficult times and goes away on a high note on his own terms. And he also wants to know, by the way, why is the art of the podcast a Zardos inspired piece? Yeah, what the hell was that? I just told my artist, so the person who does the art for my covers is my friend Nick Daniel, and I just said, I don't have an idea for this, do whatever you want with it. And Reggie has a famously giant head, so I think he thought, what else is a giant head? Oh, Zardaz.

And people really liked that cover. It was kind of inexplicable, though, but the giant head connection makes sense to me. Okay, yeah, I just kind of looked at that. I was like, huh, all right. I mean, I got that it was Zardaws. Yes. The important thing is it got people's attention. Right.

It's good publicity. And the important thing is that it wasn't like Nestor or someone wearing the Sean Connery Mancini. Yes, I'm glad he kept that out of there. It was tasteful. I'll say that. But yes, I totally agree with you. Got Sant. I do miss Reggie, but he's still out there on Twitter if you want to say hi to him.

Jeremy, do want to take this first one about Kingdom Hearts 3, episode 210? Oh, yeah. Jonathan says one thing you didn't touch on was. people's reaction to Lance. Is it bass or bass? Lance Bass. Bass, we must not fight. Okay, voicing Sephiroth and everyone going crazy. Now, someone from in sync could voice a guy like Seferoth. This might have been one of my earliest memories of internet controversy, though, to be fair, my family didn't get an internet connection until the very late 1990s, so I missed a lot of the early examples. And it was built around nothing since he did have an

amazing job at it, but because people are dumb at times, we can't have nice things. Anyway, I feel like that's the, like the preamble, the early version of Robert Pattinson as Batman. Oh, yeah, it's true. Yeah. And I mean, he's got a great chin, so it's going to work. It's a great chin. Yeah, it's all you need. A lot of chin acting. But I think like then we were in the we were in the boy band backlash after that craze has subsided. And I think now, thanks to Korean boy bands, everyone loves boy bands. Yes, yes. They're even prettier. I will say that. But yeah, I think you're right about that. Robert Pattinson as Batman. I think we are finally escaping the Twilight backlash, and those movies aren't his fault.

In fact, both people that starred in that movie, those movies kind of hate them. Yeah, and they're actually good actors. Yeah, they are good. They were just forced to be in terrible crap. And they made a lot of money for it, so God bless him. And I will agree that he was good as Sephiroth, and he's been to space too. So that's what Lance Bass does now. He's in space.

I'm not kidding. So Smug Porky says, I have an interesting relationship with Kingdom Hearts as someone who only recently played through the entire series on PS4, like within the past couple of of years. I am completely into this weird universe where Disney properties exist as their own planets and Mickey Mouse has to deal with anime drama on a regular basis. As the games went along, it could have used more Disney and less original characters. I'm 100% here for the Disney content first and foremost, but even the anime boys won me over by the end. While I generally don't have a problem with the overly complicated yet heartfelt plot, the gameplay is what polarizes me

most. Three-two and most of Dream Drop distance are the only games I can say I legitimately enjoyed playing. Three is by far my favorite one in the series, as far as the gameplay is concerned. It's the first game in the series that felt to me like it knew exactly what it wanted to be and I had fun playing it from start to finish. All of the other games, including parts of two in Dream Drop distance, came across like they were trying to test some new game mechanic that either wasn't fully thought out, could easily be ignored as part of the main game pay loop or was just plain old not fun, looking at you, chain of memories. And as a result, were a chore to play through. Three takes the best bits from those respective systems and

mechanics, simplifies them and combines them into a combat system that I actually have fun with and want to use to its fullest extent. It's a shame it took this long to truly refine Kingdom Hearts gameplay, but now I can say I am truly looking forward to whatever the next entry in this series may be. I mean, I totally agree with you. Kingdom Arts 3 is not the kind of game I particularly care for that much, but I played it just to close the book, just because it finally existed. Wow, there's going to be another Kingdom Hearts? There has to be. I mean, well, once the Final Fantasy remake is done, And once every Disney voice actor is recast.

So 20 or 30 years from now. Yes. So Haley Joel Osmond needs to survive until then. That's all I'm saying. Jeremy, so we did a whole episode about Sonic Hedgehog's many voices over the years. So this is what this whole thing was about, who played him in both Japan and America throughout the history of the character. So can you take this first comment? Sure.

Nathan Daniels says, hey guys, nice episode. You guys commented on Ryan Drummond's sonic performance as being really high-pitched. I'm guessing it was to mimic Junichi Kanemaru's Sonic voice. The first thought I had was how similar they sounded. I'm also surprised at Kanamaru's first gig as Sonic was with Sonic Adventure. I can't find the proof, but I swear that back when Sonic Adventure was still forthcoming, I read in Game Fan or somewhere that Kanemaru was described as the guy who did all the Sonic voices in Japan.

It's interesting to hear your takes on the earlier Sonic cartoons. I stubbornly adhere to my own private head cannon that Sonic never existed outside. the games. Sonic was a lot less of an ass in the early games, especially without the obnoxious American Sega ads and mediocre dudo-dudero-canonical media. Hmm. That's a

GRE word he just used there. That is. It's worth memorizing. So apparently I miss a Sonic voice. I'll play that live on the show. He did talk in the Sega CD version. I'm not sure who plays him. Yes. Yeah. All right. I'm out of here. So that's all Sonic said in the... Yes. Sorry.

All Sonic said in the Sonic CD version of the game so there you have it just for the sake of thoroughness that is all the sonic voices to date recorded on retronauts that could be anyone's voice it could be anybody but according to youtube it's sonic so i trust i trust youtube uh so up next is stardu valley we recorded that here so that's episode 216 and john simon says thanks for mentioning the crazy protracted development time and what it's like for a single indie developer to devote themselves body and soul for years and years working in isolation and not knowing if it'll actually do anything on the market and disappear in a puff of smoke. Once in a lifetime is a cliche phrase, but someone really does

things like this maybe once in a lifetime. I write software for a day job and dabble with unity and quake moths on the side, but there's no way in hell that I've ever done the do or die wherewithal to build the entire game like Stardew Valley or Axi and Bird. Jeremy, you weren't here for that, but basically the Stardue Valley guy worked for years like an inhuman schedule to make the game. And as much as I respect and would like for my own life to have a good work-life balance, having a bad work-life balance made Stardue Valley happen,

so I'm conflicted. Yeah, I agree. I mean, you also have, he mentioned Axiom Verge, iconoclasts. I don't know the stories behind those, but I assume they're very similar. Yeah, and maybe not so much with Axiom Verge, but definitely iconoclast.

Like, people really break themselves to create these games. And, you know, Startero Valley was a huge hit. I don't think Iconiclast was nearly as, big and it's a shame because it's a really well-made little game but you know it's just I don't know throwing throwing so much of your life into a project like this and hoping for the best is tough yeah yeah but I'm glad it turned out well and I'm glad the episode turned out well too so we have one more on Harvest Moon and Strait Valley Jeremy so that's from Mike Gigi he says I missed out on Harvest Moon during the super NES days but would later become a big fan of Harvest Moon 64

I was disappointed by Harvest Moon titles that arrived in subsequent console generations. I know I should check out Story of Seasons, patiently awaiting the next title on Switch, assuming that day ever comes. Then Stardue Valley came seemingly out of nowhere and filled that niche. It doesn't necessarily do anything new, but it streamlines just about every aspect of farming sims and packages them into a cozy retro aesthetic. Maybe it's just me, but the graphical style reminds me of Secret of Mana, as does its fantastic soundtrack. I poured more hours into the PC version of the game than I would care to admit. it. Definitely my game of the year

2016. I recently picked it up on Switch and I'm hooked all over again. I still can't get over the fact that it was made by one guy. Hey, speaking of Harvest Moon 64, does anyone else have a soft spot for that plasticy, isometric graphical style? No? Just me? I think there is

some nostalgia for that. I would be surprised if some indie developer makes a game with like purposely poorly rendered CG sprites in the future. Here comes the Camelot Sprites. Yeah, yeah. I kind of it'd be kind of fun to see those again, but I don't know how my eyes would feel about that. I disagree.

I mean, I can still play Mario RPG because I like that game a lot, but it is hard to look at. And I will say, like, it's funny. So Starry Valley came out. It's been out for like four years now, but Story of Seasons and Harvest Moon still persist, and I still don't play them because Starry Valley exists. But what's funny is, Story of Seasons is so desperate for your attention that they have the Doremon license now. and they're bringing that to America. Which is weird because no one in America

knows what Doraemon is. And you're not even playing as Doremon. You're playing as a little kid, his friend. Yes, yes. So, it's weird. What's even the point? I don't know. I call him Blue Garfield.

Can you marry a Doroamone at some point? Maybe other characters from Doremon are in the game, but America doesn't know Doremon at all. Yeah. But it's a weird choice of bringing it here. I think it's just a stab at some sort of relevancy. But yeah, they have not really up their game in the way I thought they would.

I want Ultraman story of seasons. Ooh, yes. I don't know what he would just like tear down cities to like build crops or whatever? Yeah, like he would harvest by using the crossbeam. The weird or the license the better if you want to make these other farming games. Do it.

Relevant. Hey, folks, this is Bob interrupting your Retronauts podcast for a special announcement. Jeremy and I will be at this year's Pax West event for three separate panels, so if you've never seen us live before, now is your chance. So in chronological order, the first panel will be Saturday, August 31st, at 12.30 p.m. in the Sasquatch Theater, and that will be the cromulent world of fictional Simpsons games. That will be a talking Simpsons panel all about all of the fake video games within the world of the Simpsons. Then on Monday, Retronauts will be closing out the show with two back-to-back panels, both in the Raven Theater. The first one will be at 3 o'clock p.m. and that will be Super Metroid v. Castlevania Symphony of the Night, which is pretty self-explanatory. The next one, will be at 4.30 p.m. and it's titled the Dreamcast 20th anniversary necromancy jam. We'll be celebrating the 20th anniversary of the Dreamcast on this panel, and it's also the 10th anniversary of the Retronauts Pax panel from 2009. Again, that is Saturday, August 31st, at 1230 p.m.

In the Sasquatch Theater, that is the Talking Simpsons panel, and then on Monday, September 2nd, there'll be two back-to-back panels in the Raven Theater for Retronauts, starting at 3 o'clock p.m. And we hope to see you there. Thank you. So our next episode was, we recorded this in the Midwest Gaming Classic. It was my first episode without notes, and I wasn't sure I would go. It went great. And in fact, I got more comments from this than most of the other podcasts that I spent hours writing thousands of words worth of notes.

So what I learned was, don't try so hard. But I still write too many notes. So that's the ultimate lesson of the podcast about podcast. I don't try so hard. Yes, I'm trying way too hard. So our first comment is from Curtis Bostick, who said, Bob casually slamming the rock band mic as a piece of podcasting equipment really got a good laugh out of me.

Because once upon a time I recorded a let's play using one that I never released good times. And I selected that comment not because it praised me, but because I made fun of the rock band mic in that podcast because I used it for projects when I couldn't afford an actual microphone or anything else. So we all start there at some point in our lives. Everyone starts somewhere. Everyone's got a rock band mic floating around somewhere in your house. So you can be a podcaster too, but people won't want to listen to that.

But, yes, Jeremy, we have Resident Evil 4 up next. You were on that one. I was. So we have one comment from that. And it probably is more insightful than anything I had to add for the episode. Bill Nielsen says, great stuff here. Resident Evil 4 remains one of my all-time favorite games. And this episode really gets into the weeds as to why.

The RE2 remake is probably the closest any game has come to recapturing that feeling for me, especially in the extra missions that have some of the same action. puzzle feel. The main story is great, but only in the extras is there enough open space to try out some more advanced tactics. Yeah, the RET remake is a good model for a modern day remake, I think. I hope Square looks at that, but I don't think they are. That it keeps enough of the original spirit while saying, well, this is a game for modern players. Let's, you know, let's liven things up and let's make things more accessible to what people expect now for a game. But I'm totally with you. I will get around to it. I'm a huge chicken,

so I might need to turn all the lights on and listen to a podcast while I play, but it looks like a good game. Our next one, we're coming up to the end of our podcast here, but our next one is Aladdin games. So we talked about all of the Aladdin games that came out. So number one, every comment on this was telling me,

I mistakenly, so in my notes, I wrote down the developer Dave Perry's name is Doug Perry once. And because of that, I kept saying Doug Perry throughout the show. I know his name is Dave, but in the games press, there was a guy named Doug Doug Perry. Yeah, Doug Perry was an IGN journalist.

He's currently in PR. For a long time. Yeah, so it's just like, there are two Perrys, and their names are both four letters and begin with D's, so that's my fault, but I know his name is Dave. And I found out after the fact the master system was not a port, it is an original game that does not seem too terrible. So those are my mistakes. And I will say there was some blowback on this because we decided that the S&ES version

was better, and I think people have come around on that, but it's not because I don't like Genesis games is because I don't like Shiny games. That's where I'm coming from. I don't know Jeremy. Do you have a stance on this because I feel like throughout the podcast I was positing like Shiny before they made 3D games they made one kind of platformer. So that was

Earthworm Gym, Aladdin, and then like there were things made in that style like the Jungle Book and before that they made things like CoolSpot. But it's all the same. The characters feel the same. The level design feels the same. And they're just like one interpretation of platformer just with different

graphics. Yeah, I mean, Shiny made games that were beautiful, just absolutely gorgeously animated, full of detail, and not actually very fun. Yes. I mean, you know, Earthworm Jim has some hilarious sight gags, like, you know, launching cows with a refrigerator into space and using Jim, who is a worm, like, as a whip to attack enemies because he's, like, wearing this power suit that basically uses his body as an attack. But, you know, once you get past that stuff, it's just kind of like, eh, I don't really, I didn't really. I didn't really. play shiny's Aladdin game. So I can't...

You play Earthworm Gym though? I did play Earth World Gym. Yeah, it's the same game kind of. I mean the same, it feels the same. And I played some of their PlayStation stuff like Wild 9 and MDK, and neither of those grabbed me. They just felt kind of like, what am I doing? Why am I playing this? I'd rather be playing something else. I am thinking about doing an Earthworm Gym podcast. Let me know if you guys want to hear that. I have concerns, though. I don't want to elevate the creator in any way. He's already getting too much money to get a book published and he sucks.

Look it up on your own. I won't tell you why. I don't want to bring you down here. But yes, I'm thinking about doing an Earthworm Jim podcast. But we have a comment for the Aladdin Games episode, and this is more about shiny games in general. So Billy Norby says, many games had rough edges, but I do admire the sense of style shiny had. I don't like that aimless open platform philosophy either, but something clicked with Earthworm Jim.

That game really had his fun sense of punk anarchy and humor for its day. In the same rebellious spirit of gross-eye cartoons like Renan Stimpy, the snobes. Bunchy Rope and the Hamster were spectacular set pieces and you kept on through grueling difficulty just to see the next wacky event, even if it meant pulling your hair out. I also think MDK is a very fascinating game, probably some of the most interesting art direction in any sci-fi game has ever had to this day. Kurt Hectic and Black Leather and his pterodactal helmet was something like out of Dune, filtered through German expressionism in a French heavy metal comic. The combination of a sniper rifle and wingsuit made for really compelling gameplay too. I wish some studio would revisit that property again someday. Yeah, I mean

I respect... There was a sequel. It was developed by BioWare. That's so weird. Yeah. I don't get that at all. But I see where you're coming from. I do like certain aspects of shiny games except playing them. I just... They're very hard to go back to... But Jeremy, we have one more on Aladdin games. Guts Sant says,

I wholeheartedly agree with the premise and opinions of this podcast. Unfortunately, in gaming, as in most other entertainment industries, quite common that form overtakes substance in the minds of the public opinion. I'd say that Final Fantasy 7 is not that good in comparison with 6, 5, or 4, but the form encompassed by the next-gen visuals and audio was far better, and this has, in a sense, condemned Final Fantasy to prioritize form over substance in many instances going forward. We also saw something similar in reverse with the Wind Waker,

with the Aladdin games one wouldn't know unless one actually experiences playing both Aladdin games from beginning to end. Besides Japanese humility, I'd imagine that's the reason why Shinji Makami commented that he prefers the Sega Genesis version. I highly doubted that he ever actually played it. In fact, I believe he specifically praised the visual presentation, not the gameplay. But I do remember that Perry said the opposite, that if he didn't create the Genesis version, he would have bought the Super NES version. There's too much humility in game developers. Gosh, darn it.

Just be cocky assholes. Make us your bitch. I saw a lot of comments on this. And outside of the people that said, I just am biased against Sega, I do think we are, as a society, we're moving towards the idea that, the S&S version is more playable because, I mean, Shinji Makami made it. It's a good game. So our next podcast is Ninja Turtles in 1989.

So I did an entire podcast. It's number 230. It's about Ninja Turtles in the year 1989 because, Jeremy, I wanted you on because I wanted to know where you were. So Henry and myself and Ray Barnhold were all like the audience for this. And my grand theory for Ninja Turtles was 1989 was the biggest year for them. The movie was 1990, but this was the year that the country. cartoon finally was an everyday cartoon, not like two 13 episode series, and the toys were coming

out and two games had come out because I will say 1989 was Ninja Turtles and 1990 was Simpsons. And Ninja Turtles kind of shared with Simpsons, but Simpsons dominated in 90s. So 89 was like peak Ninja Turtle mania. That was my theory on that podcast. I want to know where you were in 1989, much older than Henry and me. I was in Lubbock, Texas. And were you like, was like that considered for younger kids, like Ninja Turtles? Or were you like, that's cool.

Yeah, so for me and my friends, Ninja Turtles was this kind of, I don't know, we were in this sort of weird, liminal in-between space. Like we, none of us watched the cartoon because that was way too childish for us. None of us collect the toys. Some of us would read the comics, like the Eastman and Laird comics, because those were pretty hard-edged and cool. I think we all went to see the movie, and we played the video game. So it was this kind of, like, weird in-between space.

There was a pretty clear demarcation between, like, things that were acceptable for, what was, like, 13, 14-year-old kids, and things that were not. And basically, the, you know, things that were kind of built around the toy empire, the cartoon, like, those were just a little too childish for us. But the other stuff, you know, like the crazy animatronic. with Corey Feldman and the NES game. Those were great. But you did play the games then. Oh, yeah, yeah. I mean, I played, I recently, I guess it's been a few months now,

streamed the NES version and my muscle memory came back. I think that's what gave me the idea to do that. It's like, oh, that's 30 years old. And 1989 is 30 years ago. And everything Ninja Turtle related came out around that time. Yeah, I mean, I had a friend who picked up the NES game and I borrowed it from him. And in the course of like, I don't know, a week,

I actually managed to finish it and that is a high degree of self-hatred and self-abuse that I just don't have the patience for now. Did you get 99 scrolls per character? I sure did, and I blasted the shit out of all the robots in the final corridor and made it through to Shredder and blasted him with scrolls. It was great.

So we have one comment from Darth Under X. It's a bit of a longer one. And so he says, I also found the first TMNT games to be pretty much impossible. until probably decades later when I learned a simple strategy that never occurred to me and that's making use

of the fact that you can switch between turtles at any time. When I was a kid, I would just play through a level until the turtle I was using died. Then I'd have to go back to the checkpoint, though I did at least figure out that I should play another turtle

up until a boss, then switch to Donatello for the boss fight. When the better way to play it is to play until your turtle is almost dead, then switch to another turtle and keep going. Because pizza to refill your health is a way more common than a one-up to revive a dead turtle.

like the way most people would do the bomb disarming in the dam you'd have to have almost flawless play in order to make it to the end within the time limit and without dying but then I learned that the much better strategy is to basically go as fast as you can eat the damage where you need to

then switch turtles before you die and have to start the whole sequence over so wow I can't imagine not knowing you could switch yeah like that's just holy crap it sounded like he knew you could switch it just didn't occur to him to use that strategically yeah yeah that it was like

something you would implement into the game to be like, oh, I should use Donatello here. Right. Yeah. Yeah, but that does make a world a difference for sure. So our final podcast topic is Nestor, and this is one that I definitely was inspired by Jeremy's work on a virtual boy works,

the YouTube series. You reminded me that there is a Nestor game, and we looked into the character of Nestor. You did a lot of Nestor research. We talked a lot about Nestor with Bill Mudron, where the character came from, the Japanese artist behind the original comic, who eventually took

over. There were two artists after that. One was like Man in his 70s who worked on like Roy Rogers comics in the 50s. It's a crazy story. But I want to know before we answer these questions, what was your Nestor? What did you dig up in your Nestor research on the character? I didn't dig up any of that stuff. I didn't go that deep into it.

I was mostly just, you know, like was Nestor in any other video games? And, you know, there were a few references to Nestor and some localized versions of like, what was it, to the earth or something? To the earth? like there's a general Nestor the commander of the galactic fleet or something. There's a football game where he makes an appearance and Howard

and Nestor or maybe just Nestor is in the localization of Dragon Warrior. There's a character called Nestor that people are trying to find and it's got to be a reference to Nestor for Nintendo Power. Yeah. Yeah. But his shining moment was definitely Nestor's funky bowling which is kind of sad because

it's not really that much of a shining moment. It is a kind of janky and weirdly animated rolling game. It has that sort of weird, super smooth CG style with the animation of the characters. It looks like he and his twin sister, who appears here for the first time, Hester. We noted that. Yes. She shares a similar animation style. They're very like CG rotoscoping. I don't know exactly what, but then

it cuts to scenes like close up portraits of the characters responding to things and they're very awkwardly drawn. They're unpleasant. Yeah. And horrible. things happen to them like they suddenly lose all their hair. It's their teeth fall out. It's so bizarre. It's such a weird game. It's weird and it came like two years after the comic was retired.

Yes. And it was the next to last virtual boy release in any territory in the world. By that point the virtual boy was dead. They'd stopped making games for it in Japan altogether. And it's just such a strange choice. Like, why did that happen? And the weird thing is it's not even the best bowling game on virtual boy. Is there one more or there are two more?

There's another virtual bowling game called Virtual Bowling, which was published only in Japan by Athena, and is a really, really good bowling game. And unfortunately, it's also extraordinarily rare. It's the final Japanese release, and it solves for like $2,000 now. Wow. So, yeah, I was going to use the music from Nestor's Funky Bowling

because that's his one game, but I was like, there's no way I'm making people listen to this. So instead, I use music from Pile Wing 64 in that episode, which is nice and soothing. And he appears as a character, named Lark. Lark, because they're all named after birds. Right.

Yeah. But I mean, we all know it was less. It's another weird choice. I guess it's like, well, I don't feel like designing a character. This one exists, so I'll go for it. Or someone was a fan of Nestor. But we have a comment from Nestor the Lark himself, Jeremy, if you could take that one. I was actually a big fan of Nestor back then.

Well, clearly. I even eventually borrowed his name for my regular internet handle, which I've been using for more than a decade now. A couple of notes not mentioned in the podcast. The original strips were written by Nintendo Power Editor, later managing editor, Scott Pelland. He was with the magazine from 1988 to 2008. That's a long time to work on Nintendo Power.

That's almost the entire run. Good Lord. Nestor was given a friend named Stu who appeared in just a few strips right after Howard left. I think he was supposed to be the new straight man, but there wasn't anything remarkable about him, and he was quickly dropped and forgotten. Yeah, we didn't actually read too far into the non-Haward strips

because they're just not very good-looking. They're really bad. Yeah, they're ugly, and Nestor has no foil. He's just, like, kind of like a Bart Simpson-style character almost, like a bad boy. He's basically just like, yeah, he's basically an unchecked asshole. The whole thing that worked with Howard and Nestor, and so people really took exception to me saying this in my video. I got some, like, grouchy comments about this,

but there's a sort of goofus and gallant element to them where Nestor is, like, goofus and doing stupid things and they're screwing up in his video games, and Howard is like coming in and kind of nobly saying actually what you should do is this and he's very good natured about it you know he's not like

negging on on Nestor anything he's just like correcting Nestor in a good amiable way and Nestor is very like no I'm said in my ways I'm going to do this thing and then waste his time

or fails or something and I don't know why people really took exception to me making that comparison but that's absolutely the idea it's like good cop bad cop Like here's the example of the screw-up You don't want to play a video game like this

Play it like Howard says And I reread all the comics, they're all in the line They're easy to find But it's like Nestor represents like What would a, what kind of brute force solution Would a kid try? And here is the counter to that Here's the actual solution to the problem

That you might not have thought of And it was very well done And the original art was very good We talked about the original artist there So go back to that podcast and check it out But we have one final comment From Toad 64 who says I remember at least one other comic

Where they showed what Nestor had been up to For issue 100 of Nintendo Power, there was, I think, a one-page Nestor's adventures that showed him now in college. He'd been out of the loop for a while and was introduced to the N64 and its Rumble Pack by his roommate. A quick search on Google tells me this one has been largely forgotten, and I guess we forgot it too. So I thought the only look to the future was Bill's very good comic that he had very little time to make. But I guess there was another one looking into Nestor's future. But I'm glad that there was a closing the book on Nestor. You saw Nestor and his child, and I guess they were going to try to work Howard in,

but they didn't have time to find out if they had permission to do it. So Howard might have been in Bill's final strip, but they were just like, he had like a weekend to do it. I think he told us. I think it worked out well the way it was. I think adding Howard to that would have been just, you know, too many things. There's like a bow tie like in the room somewhere, like a framed bow tie. So like part of him is there. He's the bow tie guy.

It's like Sean Connery's portrait in the fourth Indiana Jones movie. It's like, oh, he's dead, but we still love him. Yes. He'll get like a character payment, I guess, for this movie. But that is our listener comments catch-up episode, the second one I've done at these with that title. But I'll be back in another six months to read some of your comments on this podcast. But as for us, you want to support the show

and get every episode of this podcast one week at a time, ad-free and at a higher bit rate. Please go to patreon.com slash retronauts. And for three bucks a month, you can get just that. And you can help support the show. You can help us continue renting out this very nice studio space in San Francisco. You can help Jeremy fly down. Help us make appearances at places like Pax

where we will be very, very soon after you hear this podcast. So yes, please go to patreon.com slash retronauts to help the show. Jeremy, how about you? You got stuff going on? Oh, yeah, you can find me on Twitter as GameSpite, and Bob mentioned my video series earlier.

Virtual Boy Works is over. I actually managed to complete the entire virtual boy library, which admittedly is not that difficult because it's only 22 games, but still, it's nice to have that put to bed. But now I'm back over to NES Works, chronicling the library of the NES in America, and also Game Boy Works and Game Boy Works Color, where I'm traveling back and forth in time across a space of eight years

to look at monochrome and color Game Boy games released in all regions. And if you like learning about the history of old video games in the chronological order in which they appeared to get some context, that is a thing to watch. And all of these video series will eventually appear as books. a couple of books next year, Super NES. Virtual Boy, maybe NES. I don't know. A lot of books. So many books.

So look forward to those. Cool. And as for me, I'm on Twitter as Bob Serbo. I have other podcasts you might have heard, and those are Talking Simpsons and one a cartoon. I talk about old cartoons that you probably love. So check them out wherever you find podcasts. I have a Patreon too. That is patreon.com slash Talking Simpsons if you go there and support those shows. You get a ton of bonus podcasts, including exclusive mini-series.

We just did one about the entire first season of King of the Hill, and there's a new one. this fall that will be exclusive to patrons so again that is patreon.com slash talking simpsons to find out about my other podcast how to support those but as for us we will see you again soon for another new episode of retronauts thank you Thank you.