Retronauts - Retronauts Episode 315: Samurai Shodown

Episode Date: August 3, 2020

Jeremy Parish and Diamond Feit set the wayback machine for feudal Japan to learn about the secrets of the Samurai Shodown series from Brandon Sheffield, who trawled the SNK archives to research and write the Samurai Shodown Collection. Art: Shaan Khan.

You're listening to Retronauts, a part of the Greenlit Podcast Network, a collective of creator-owned and fully independent podcasts, focused on pop culture and video gaming. To learn more and to catch up on all the other network shows, check out Greenlitpodcasts.com. This week in Retronauts, it's the Showdown Showcase. Come on down. Hi, everyone, welcome to an episode of Retronauts, hosted by none other than me, Jeremy Parrish. And this week, we are stepping way outside my comfort zone to talk about a series that I think is really, really cool and that I have no competency whatsoever in. I learned this the hard way back in the 90s and said, all right, I'm glad this exists, and I will step away and let it exist and be happy that it does.

And it continued to exist and continues to exist. And there was a new game in the series last year. And this year, actually, just this past few weeks, actually, digital eclipse and S&K put together a really great compilation of the series. It's kind of historic past. And to talk about these things, we have. have actually what was your role in the the project uh why don't you introduce yourselves and explain why you're here better than i can sure i'm brandon sheffield hello i on this

collection i was a writer and researcher and i also directed all the video and coordinated the interviews and stuff so it's it's hard to just have the one title i also translated the release of five perfect which we'll get into more later i would describe you as a media curator, which is the title I gave myself at Limited Run Games, because I do a lot of things like that, not the translating part, but a lot of the other stuff. And it's kind of hard to put that into an existing box. So I made up a new box. And it seems okay. But you're not the only one here. And also calling in from Japan is the Retronauts contributor who loves S&K so much, he moved to Osaka. That is why you moved to Osaka, right?

Yes. Hello, everyone. This is Diamond Fight. And I'm actually Log and Disguise. Spoilers. No, I'm, no, I am here calling from Old Saka Japan. I'm wearing my fan gamer NeoGeo red t-shirt today because we're talking about a Neo Geo classic. And this is the most I can contribute in the presence of an actual expert. But I'm excited to talk about Samurai Showdown, Samurai Spirits. Let's go. Ah, and you gave away what we are talking about. Yes, it is, it is the Samurai Showdown Neo Geo collection specifically, but also the series in general. And like I said, there was a new Samurai Showdown last year. One of the very few kind of brand new games S&K has produced in the past decade or so. So it seems like they're

really, you know, they're really investing themselves into this property between the new game and the really comprehensive collection. And that's great. But I'm curious if either of you have insight into, you know, this sudden decision to like, hey, let's make Samurai Showdown a thing again. Well, I think part of it had to do with the director of King of Fighters 14, Oda-San just really wanting to keep moving the fighting game genre forward. And S&K has slowly been re-accumulating old staff over the years. They've just been kind of bringing folks that had good influences on their brand and properties before. in the old days, they're slowly

bringing them back into the fold. So like the illustrator on Samurai Showdown 2019 was actually an illustrator who had worked at S&K back in the 90s and they hired her back. And so I think that was the big drive is like

you know, S&K is back. They want to show that they're back. The degree to which they're back is debatable by all. But I think that's where that drive is coming from. And Samurai Showdown is really one of the pillars of S&K's library. Like, you know, as I was walking around Esaka,

the area of Osaka where S&K is based, the developers I was talking with were showing me, like this building right here, one of them jokes, like the whole building was built by Samurai Showdown. Samurai Showdown built this building. It was S&K's old building. And then another guy was like, well, maybe they built the first four floors or so. but you know there's a there's a real samurai showdown made s nk a lot of money it was a big

cultural phenomenon that they were not expecting like samurai showdown actually came about when there were a bunch of different pitches coming out uh from in like not out but internally within s nk there were a bunch of different pitches floating around and um samurai showdown was chosen although it was originally chosen as a beat-em-up, and then they switched it to a fighting game because Street Fighter was very popular. Street Fighter 2 is very popular at that time, and they were like, all right, we should try again

with this fighting game thing. So Samurai Showdown became a fighting game, and in so doing, killed all these other pitches that were fighting games. So several pitches got killed because Samurai Showdown came into existence. And then it became this huge, relatively unexpected phenomenon because, you know, it was a Japanese, very Japanese game.

It's based on Japanese history. It's, you know... And pretty esoteric parts of Japanese history at that. Yeah, and you've got, like, an iconic stage of two samurai standing on a coastal cliff shoreline and the waves coming up. Like, that was the very first image that came to the director, Adashi's mind when he was thinking about this. And they got a musician to do more traditional Japanese instrumentation and also have a lot of emptiness, empty space in the soundscape, which was not something that was being done at that time. So there were a lot of risks, and they just assumed it would never sell outside of Japan,

but they thought it could sell within Japan. So then when it became popular outside and became this huge phenomenon, they were shocked. Yeah, and I think it's important to kind of put the original game, the beginning of the series sort of in its historic context. You mentioned that Street Fighter 2 was a big thing. This game dates back to 1993 when the first game was released. So that was basically a little less than two years after Street Fighter 2 made its arcade debut. And I think by that point, you know, there were a couple of iterations on Street Fighter 2. But S&K had kind of come a little late to the fighting game game, as it were. And I think at that point, they only had,

had Art of Fighting? Was there another game? Another fighting game from... Fatal Fury would have been out and maybe by 93, Fatal Fury 2 was either out or coming soon. So Art of Fighting was 93 and had just come out. Fatal Fury was out

already. That was 91. But the very first fighting game from S&K was actually Street Smart, which is a terrible, terrible game. Yeah, I think that's one of those that we kind of look at like the original Street Fighter, it's like, oh, that was a nice idea, and they would eventually get it right.

Yeah. Some people are fans of it, but I think it's pretty pedestrian. But yeah, so Street Fighter 2 is this huge phenomenon. S&K had tried fighting games, and they were going okay, but Street Fighter 2 was a revelation for everybody. And the big important thing it was doing was we think about the late 90s is when arcades were dying. But arcades were also dying in 1990.

you know and street fighter two brought kids back to the arcade that weren't going there before like people had called the arcade dead at that time like before street fighter two um this is something that actually surprised me i i heard about this through you know interviewing the developers of samurai showdown they were like yeah uh we were worried about the the death of the arcade but then you know street fighter two came and showed us that we could still keep going No, I was, I was there for that. And yeah, I mean, the arcade, I wouldn't say it was dead in 1990, but it definitely was flagging. There was, there was kind of this, I guess you could call it stagnation, like creative stagnation and just kind of a sense of aimlessness. You know, double dragon and final fight had kind of made the brawler, the belt scroller, the big thing. But, you know, there's only so much you can do, like so many X-Men and so many turtles you can put into it, so many players you could have teaming up at a time, before you you kind of run out of like flashy, interesting things to do, and the monotony of the genre really kicks in. And then you had a lot of interesting experimental type games. You know, he had like Darius

with three screens and Ninja Warriors. And you had stuff like APB and, you know, Rampart and that sort of thing. And they were all very interesting, but they weren't, they weren't the kind of thing that brought people to the arcade. They were the kind of thing that you were like, you were at the arcade and you said, oh, that's interesting. I'll try that out. But it wasn't, it wasn't a draw. There There was nothing marquee style like Pac-Man or Dragon's Lair had been a few years before. So, yeah, Street Fighter 2 definitely was, you know, a shot in the arm. It really reinvigorated the arcades in a way that they desperately needed at that point. Yeah, and the big key there that they all realized was that, you know, this competitive thing,

having people play against each other and create this basically meta-rivalry outside of the game world was not only good for getting players in, it was good for getting quarters because when one player dies, another player has to put a quarter in. You're getting twice the quarters when you've got two people playing, and when someone gets salty from losing,

that quarter is burning a hole in their pocket, or a hundred yen coin in this case. And that burning desire is part of what led to the creation of one of Samarajodan's iconic elements, which was the Ikari gauge or the rage gauge which was this, you know, superpower thing. And you may have heard the story, but it came about because they did this 500 yen death match thing within S&K. They had a Street Fighter 2 cabinet in the office, and they would play it in off hours.

And so like the developers of Samurai Showdown, as they were making this game in the early days, they were doing these 500 yen death matches. and one of the designers, Fukui, who would ultimately go on to create the character's Genjuro and some other ones, he was kind of a troll with his fighting style, and so he decided to see if he could beat the director of Samar Shodown Adachi by using, I believe it was only Giles' top kick, the one where he flips upside down. Anyway, it was, he was just, he was just going to hit one button and see if he could win. And he did manage to win. And Adachi, the director, he sits there and he crosses his arms and, like, Fukui is worried he's going to get fired or something.

And Adachi just stands up without a word. It goes into his office and slams the door and just sits there and he can, he can still see Fukui through the window. And he's, like, crossing his arms and staring at him and just, like, with this terrible look on his face. And after like a few minutes, Adachi slams the door back open and says, rage in Japanese, which is Ikadi. And that was when the rage gauge was born. He was like, I need to translate, I need to channel this anger that I have about being, about losing to a total scrub into something in the game. The game has to be able to express this anger. And so that's why when you get-

I wish, I really wish today's gamers could channel their anger about video games in a productive way like that. That would be nice. So Diamond, you've been even a little quiet so far. I'm curious, where did you first encounter Samurai Showdown? You know, we've kind of talked about the origins of the series and the state of the arcade at the time. Is that where you first encountered the series? Yeah, the early 90s, yeah, the fighting game boom was definitely happening. I was going to whatever arcades I could find, and, you know, it appeared, and right away,

it looked different than everything else. I mean, I think at that point, I was already aware of the NeoGeo as being a little different and, in my, you know, in my personal opinion, super goddamn cool. But Samurai Showdown was, you know, a twist on what the other things they were already making. you know, but it had the distinct feel of it, you know, when you, when you look at the game, when you even just start the game, it starts in with, you know, the two characters are sort close up, and then they both sort of, you know, zooms back and they leap apart, and so you've got, you know, you've got this constant scaling in and out, which, you know,

other fighting games just didn't do. And of course, they're all carrying weapons, which was extremely rare at that point. I mean, it's, it might not be the very first fighting game to carry weapons, but it's, like, it's one of the first, and it's certainly the most popular one. It's arguably the first. That's what I wound up saying in the collection is that it, because I couldn't prove it, but I can't find an earlier one. Yeah, like, I know there were a few games that kind of made a big deal of that later,

like, weapon lord, but yeah, I don't think there were any in 93. I mean, the fighting genre was still just kind of, it was kind of, you know, the first wave of street fighter inspired titles that was hitting in 93. You had Mortal Kombat and, you know, S&K's games, and, you know, a few other things. things like maybe was primal rage 93 or was that maybe later consuming it was around there 93 maybe it was hmm 92 93 prime rage might have been 90 I was definitely playing it in 94 so it was definitely around that time um but it's not it's not even just fact they all have weapons in fact they all have different weapons you know every character and their like their weapons are just

unique as as the characters themselves I mean okay there's a lot of guys with swords let's let's put that out of the way but they're not all the same sword and some of them have two swords some have the spears, some of them just have, like, weird gloves. And as, you know, as the series goes on, it just gets weirder and weirder and weirder. I mean, uh, Wunfoo from the first game has like a big, I don't know what you call those, almost like a scimitar kind of thing. But then in the second game, he just got a big rock. He's got a big rock now.

I don't know why. But, uh, it looks, it looks great. You know why. I'm sure you knew. Okay. I do. I'll tell you. It's because, uh, originally, he was supposed to be like, you know, this, um,

this fallen Buddhist monk guy. And so they thought that it would be awesome for him to have a statue of a Buddha that he was fighting with or a giant Buddha's head. And then people were like, you know what? Some people are probably going to find that kind of offensive. Yeah, it's like hitting someone with a cross. Maybe not the best idea. Yeah, so they wound up having to go with that scimitar thing.

But then it still didn't sit right with the creators of Wanfu, which I think also was Fukui, the guy who did Genjuro, I'm pretty sure. And so he was like, can we at least switch it to a rock? And so just because at least it would demonstrate that he had the giant strength he was supposed to have. And so that's why it wound up being that way. Fantastic. Yeah. My earliest experience with Samurai Showdown was, it feels like one of those seminal game moments for me because I actually first saw it on the home console. I didn't see it in arcades first. So I was, you know, this was the era of Sega Genesis, Super Nintendo,

and I went to this local anime selling store called Beeman Company in Fremont, California. And there were some kids that were older than me, and apparently much richer, who had brought a NeoGeo home system. and a CRT television into the store, and they were doing their own mini tournament. And so I saw this big console, and I saw this big cartridge that they slotted in there, and I saw these huge characters and this big sound coming out of this thing. And I was like, wow, I had no concept that you could do something like this on a home console. That was just amazing to me.

And to this day, that's why, like, I have this association between a big cartridge, and a lot of like data or like that game must be huge and so it's always there's a weird part of my lizard brain that looks at a switch cartridge or something and I'm like how do they get all that stuff in there wait until you see micro SD cards

they're going to blow your mind indeed so looking back at oh sorry go ahead I was going to say the initial spark for that weapons fighting thing that we were talking about so Adachi was sitting in his tub

which apparently was where he liked to try to get ideas. He was sitting in his tub and thinking about, what could you do differently in a fighting game? What could you do that hadn't been done that would differentiate it from streetfighter? So it wouldn't just be another street fighter-like. And he was staring up at the ceiling. This is how he tells it anyway.

He was staring up at the ceiling and water droplets were condensing on the ceiling. and one dropped and fell onto his forehead. And it was that moment of inspiration. He was like, what if you could get cut in half with a sword? That would really hurt. And so he wanted to show that pain and danger and risk reward of, you've got something really powerful,

but it can also cut you in two. And that was the genesis of the idea. And I think that it actually really came through in the final process. because unlike Street Fighter and its various fighter's history type clones, in Samurai Showdown, you really have to commit to your strikes. Like if you hit a strong or a fierce, what do they call it, slash, I forget, I'm forgetting the buttons now, but anyway, the strongest sword attack, it takes a while to do. It'll hit really hard if it gets there, but you have to commit to it because if you miss,

then you're totally open to getting hit by something. thing yourself. So, you know, with these, this game where three hits can kill you, you really have to play a lot more footsies, move back and forth, feel out your opponent, know what the length of the animation is of each strike. So you really have to kind of like become intimate with the characters in sort of a different way than a more combo based system would. And so yeah, it's cool to see how that weapons through line came all the way through to the end, or that weapon's inspiration, became a throughline for the series that differentiated it completely from other series just by virtue of sticking to that decision.

Yeah, and that really was an era of developers kind of saying, well, we want to do the Street Fighter thing, but it's got to be different somehow. And they didn't all pan out, you know, like we can use digitized graphics. But yeah, in terms of like play mechanics, Samurai Showdown really did feel different. And I didn't discover it myself until later, and I quickly realized that I don't have any aptitude for it. But, you know, part of the reason I don't have an aptitude for it is because I approach it mentally like Street Fighter. And you just can't do that because it doesn't work the same way. The combat, you know, there's a much greater danger element to it.

And you can't just jump in and fight with abandon because that's a really quick way to lose just instantly. Right. It's a very strategic, almost defensive fighter. but not in a sort of dead or alive grappling kind of way. It's, you know, more like wait for the moment, look for an opening, and then strike. And that's really, that really stands out, especially in arcades, which were about, you know, really about, like, constant action, just an onslaught of energy and, you know, pressing the attack. This really took a different tack, which I think really helped distinguish it. There was a pretty hilarious moment that happened relatively recently in a street fight, I mean a Samurai Showdown competition.

where there are two players and the commentators are, you know, talking about what they're doing, and the two players are, like, moving back and forth, and then one of them stops, and they're like, now this is the real, like, this is a real Samurai Showdown right here. We like this respect. They're, you know, they're feeling each other out. Only in Samurai Showdown will you have someone stay still for so long to make that perfect strike, and then they realize that actually someone's controller had disconnected. Actually, Brandon, if you don't mind, I just want to mention that one of the things I appreciate a lot about the collection is that there are just a few, there's some videos in there of just high-level Samurai Showdown play.

Oh, yeah. Which I found really interesting to watch just because, you know, certainly when I was a kid, you know, I saw strangers playing it, but good, bad, it was all the same to me. So to actually see some expert level, no, these are the actual. like champion level people, you know, messed around with the original Samurai Showdown. And yeah, and you see that. You see these moments where it's like, oh, what are they doing? They're waiting this out. They're waiting this out.

And, you know, the fact that it can swing one way and swing back the other very quickly because, you know, everyone's capable of like delivering a big hit basically at any time. Because, I mean, this is 1993. I don't know how much like super moves or even a thing yet. I mean, Fatal Fury 2 had like super desperation moves where you were low on energy and art of fighting. had the, you know, Ha'u Shokin, but that's kind of it. Yeah, these are pretty much the first super moves.

Right, and Samurai Shodon 1 doesn't even have like the special rage attacks, right? That started in two, I think, where you like, you get angry and then you can actually deliver one super powerful blow that, like, breaks their sword. Is that the first game or the second game? The first game definitely had super moves. I can't remember if sword breaking was in the first or the second.

I should really know that. But, yeah, they did keep, they kept it voluble. it. Those videos that you mentioned were from Mikado, which is an arcade in the Tokyo area that runs a lot of vintage tournaments. And so we secured the rights to those through S&K. S&K and Mikado got together so that we could bring those to the collection. I do think it kind of adds a bit of context for where you could go as a player, what high-level play looks like. And, you know, with that kind of joke about the controller becoming disconnected, the only reason that joke or that scenario works, the only reason someone could even think

that that was real is because that does happen in this game. People will dance back and forth to try to get their spacing right and make sure that they can land that hit. So it's one of those things where there's always a grain of truth in the joke. So I want to talk some more about the collection that you help put together. But before we do that, I would kind of like to just do a quick survey of the series. At least the games, you know, vis-a-vis the games that are included on the collection. Like, we could talk about, you know, hyper Neo-Geo-604 or whatever, but I don't know that that's necessarily productive.

I will say that when they said there was going to be a never-released Samurai Showdown game on there, I was like, they finally translated Samurai Showdown RPG. And I was a little disappointed that wasn't the case. But I realized that was probably way outside the scope of this project and what actually surfaced is more interesting in a lot of ways. But, you know, we've talked about kind of the origins of the series and how it kind of began to shift with Samurai Showdown 2. But one of the unique things about the series is that each game does bring a lot of changes more so than you see in other fighting games where it's more iterative. Whereas this is, like you were talking about with the Buddhist monk, you know, they basically just completely changed how a character plays from one game to a next.

and they introduce things like the ability to break swords, which fundamentally changes how you have to approach a game that already was very unconventional. Like, you have this deadly weapon, now you may have no weapon, and you have to fight without one for a little while if you let it get broken. So, yeah, I'd love to hear you guys just kind of talk me through. What's unique and interesting about each of the Five Samurai Showdown kind of core games? Yeah, that's a good. I should have prepared a little more for that because, you know, this is all stuff that I definitely knew when I finished working on this a year ago. But right now, it's all a bit of a blur there. So the first one, you know, that introduced the rage gauge there, which was unique. And, you know, it set itself apart in all of those. ways that we mentioned. So in the first game, there was the clash where you could disarm

your opponent, and it didn't have the weapon break yet. But you could disarm your opponent, and then you had to just use kicks, which were much less powerful. And then in the second one, they did rebuild the game from scratch, and they love doing that in this series. They like to rebuild it from scratch every time. Two added the weapon breaker moves and the sword stun and taunts and the sword stun might

be the first example of a parry system in a fighting game, like in Street Fighter 3 how you have the just defend Perry. I think this might be the first of those, not totally sure. Then in

three, this was even more of a rebuild and it has like perspective shifting on the floor if you if you jump up it it does like a weird um what we call it like a skewed perspective and i actually asked the developers about this one i was like why did you choose to do that and then get rid of it it was kind of a cool feature and they're like oh did we do that they did not remember this also has this is where we get the slash and bust variance and so this this idea came from basically in samurai showdown to the creator of Nakururu whose name I don't remember was really really invested in this character and wanted

her to have two different styles they wanted her to be able to embrace her dark side and her light like the dark side of nature and the light side of nature and he wound up putting in a separate color two player color avatar for knockeruru in samurai shadow and two showdown two where she had like her eyes looked more angry and he did this without asking anybody and slid it in there at the last minute and and so everybody else was pissed and they're like well i want my character to have two variants and so that's how slash and bust came about in samurai showdown three because everyone was like i want to do that let me do that is that is that the first example of variable stances in a fighting game.

You know, I know that other series did that later. Like, Street Fighter Alpha had, I think it was Gen, who could do, like, the drunken style and some other style, like Mantis or something. I don't remember exactly what. But he could change his stance and it would completely change the controls. But it sounds like Samurai Showdown also came up with that first. Although you had to choose and commit to one or the other. You couldn't switch on the fly.

So it might not get to claim that one. Then there was Summer Showdown 4 This one's a little Less of a rebuild but it was more of a Back to Basics kind of thing It was less ambitious I guess Than 3

It had even shorter of a timeline But they added more characters And They killed some unblockables and stuff But I would say This one is a little less Out there as far as changes than some of the others then Samurai Showdown 5, that is like, let me see,

Samurai Showdown 4 was 96 and 5 was 2003. Ooh. Yeah. So the way that one came about is very interesting. Because it's a really different game. And it was the first Samurai Showdown that was built while the Internet was like easy to use, you know? So they were actually able to solicit opinions from fans. before they even got started, the whole concept of it really started in a message board of

Samurai Showdown fans. So to go all the way through it, there is a guy named Takaya who was an artist and designer on some of the earlier Samurai Showdowns. But he quit before Samurai Showdown 4 was finished because he was having a terrible time. And, you know, he worked on other stuff, But, like, around the time of Samurai Showdown 5 coming into existence, he was going on a trip to the Bahamas. He was trying to, like, get his mind right or whatever. So he was at, he was in the Bahamas, and he went to an arcade just to see what was there. And some kids, like, asked him for some coins to play a game. And he was like, okay, fine.

And, but they said, you know, let's play together. And it turned out what they wanted to play was Samurai Showdown 4, the game. that he had been so mad about. And so he sees that they immediately rush around to the other side. And he's like, well, what the heck? Why do they want that side so bad? Turns out the side they left him had only two working buttons. And so at first he was like, this little jerks tricked me.

But then he thought about like, these kids are willing to play this game under these conditions. Like it means that much to them that they're, they're regularly playing this game and one or the other of them has to play on a broken machine. And so that kind of stuck with him. And then as he was on this, it was basically a cruise that he was taking. As he got back on the boat into Japan cell phone space, he was like texting his friends and saying, all right, I'm heading back, let me know if you want to hang up. And one of his old friends called him up and was like, hey, you know, I know, I know you quit and all, but they're looking for somebody to make a new Samurai Showdown game.

And at first he was like, hell no, I'm not going to do that. But then he thought about those kids in the Bahamas, and he was like, well, maybe I could do it. And so he wound up forming this team. So Yuki Enterprise is the company that got the license to do Samurai Showdown. This is doing the S&K, Playmore, Arousee, confusing times of who owns what kind of situation. Yeah. And so Yuki gets the license, but they don't have a development team. They're really just known for putting out Shogi games and stuff like that. So Takaya has to build one. So he goes into this message board, starts building up ideas with other people, and starts building a team. And the only thing that he's got to go on are a ROM of Samurai Showdown 4 and a guidebook of like move list guidebook. And then had to rebuild Samurai Showdown. from scratch from that. So, yeah, that's what Samurai Showdown 5 is.

It's a total rebuild, lots of new characters, lots of new stuff. And then Samurai Showdown 5 special came about because Samurai Shadown 5 was a surprise hit in the West. Wasn't that also, I forgive me if I get this wrong, but I wasn't five overseas was zero day in Japan, and that was the final NeoGeo cartridge game, wasn't it? Maybe so. I actually don't know that. That might be true. I don't know if Special got one. Maybe it was. Yeah, well, we can go back to the tapes on that one later. I think it might be. Either that or the special. I forget which one it was, but I'm pretty sure the last NeoGeo Game of record is Samurai Showdown one or the other.

Yeah, if you mean home, it might be that. Yeah. Because Special definitely got a cart. So with, I mean, it got an M. VS cart. So with five, since it was a surprise hit, they were like, oh, we got to milk a little bit more out of this. And so they made special, but they made special too quickly. And so the demand for two games within like nine months of each other was not that high. So special wound up not selling very well in the US. So all the cartridges got sent back to Japan, at which point, S&K America was like, let's try one more time and make like a final version, but S&K America did not check with Japan. So the request from S&K America went to Yuki. Yuki was like, all right. But they were already working, the development team was already working on Samurai

Showdown 6 for the Atomus Wave. Yeah. So it was like a skeleton crew of two, three people that made Samurai Showdown 5 perfect, which is the game that we wound up finding and releasing. And so they did a new scenario for that. They changed some, like the overkill moves. And that was not because of censorship or anything like that, even though they did, it just wind up looking like it because people aren't like getting their hearts crushed or slice and half anymore. But it's actually because they needed to save ROM space so that they could put all the text and cutscenes in. Like, Kuroko has a new cutscene in there that tells you how to beat the boss and

invites you to the tournament and all this kind of stuff. So that was the big change in Perfect, which we just released right now. So that's kind of fun. I guess that's a whole rundown of those that are in the collection. We could go on forever if we want to talk about the rest of it. You know, Rank and Vile is a podcast dedicated to ranking every horror movie ever made from best to worst. Every single one of them.

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would have been like the final. official Neo Geo release, is that correct? If it had been, it had come out. So now that it has come out, it is technically, like, is there any talk of, you know, doing an actual MVS or ABS cart of it to... I can't say too much about that, but I can tell you that I would very much like to.

Yeah, let's leave it at that. But yeah, we consider it the last NeoGeo release because it's an official NeoGeo game that did come out. and, you know, there was a cart made, an MVS cart made. It's just like a MVS cartridge with a ROM on it, but the Samar Shodon 5 Perfect was on location test for about four hours in Osaka. And before SNK found out about it,

they found out about it because of the location test, went and shut it down. And it got shut down so fast that Takaya, the director, never even got to see the location test. he couldn't get there in time. It was already shut down. Wow. Okay. So definitely right-hand, left-hand, not communicating too well. Yes. Life in Osaka moves fast.

I know. Another kind of amazing thing about that is, you know, one person who was there took photos. And so there are these blurry photos of Sam Rochadown 5 with a red logo. So people were like, what is that? And there's been speculation. and one person's spotty memory of going to that location test and that is all that has existed about this game for 15 plus years.

And so, you know, when we went and asked about it, it's kind of, it's a miracle that they had it. It's a miracle that someone took a picture of it so that we knew that it exists or that anything existed because we didn't actually know what it was.

We knew it was a different logo Samurai Showdown. We didn't know that. We didn't know that it was Samurai Showdown 5 Perfect. We didn't know what it was called. Like, none of this information existed. We were just like, what is this Samurai Showdown game with a red logo that some people talk about? It was only rumors up until that point. Some people said that maybe it was just Photoshopped or doctored or something.

So, like, that moment we were sitting, when we were sitting there, I guess I'm kind of getting ahead of myself here. But we went and talked to the director of Samurai Showdown 5 because people usually don't. talked to him because he was sort of the beginning of a new line of samurai showdowns. The original team was not involved in it, although he was on the original team. Like the original whole group was not involved there so much. So we were talking to him about this and asking this question with really no knowledge of what we were asking about. We just are like, what is this?

There was another thing we asked about this cyber samurai showdown two thing that shows up in the collection. He had no idea what that was. But this red thing, he's like, oh, yeah, I believe we called that the Perfect Edition. And we're like, okay, what is that? And he's like, oh, just, you know, there was some tweaks and fixes, and we did a new story. And we're like, oh, okay, what's all of that about? We got to know about this.

And he starts getting antsy, you know, because, like, I'm sitting there with SNK, members of SNK who, you know, they don't really want to, like, he would think that he's not supposed to know about this, not supposed to talk about this, but luckily because I was with an S&K person, they were like, no, we want to know about this. If you have it, we want it. And so because of that, we're able to find out, you know, it was this perfect edition, all the changes that they had made. So we're like, do you have it? And he's still looking antsy. And we're like, no, no, we want to publish this. Well, you know, we'll make sure everything's right with you and your team and everything. But we want this thing. So he goes back and checks with his other devs and on somebody's,

musty old hard drive. The wrong was there. Wow. And it's always how it goes with these things. Like there's such a extreme string of, I don't want to call them coincidences, but happy happenstances that need to

occur. Like, there's so many places along this chain that the whole thing could have failed. Like, we could have never had this game, but for any of these tiny details not happening. And that's the thing that amazes me about game preservation and just researching these titles is it relies on such minutia and so many things that, like, nobody was supposed to have

that wrong. Like, you weren't supposed to have taken it home, you know? Like, that shouldn't have happened. But if it didn't happen, nobody would ever be able to play it. We would not be talking about it right now. And maybe no one would know it existed if no one had taken a. three crappy, blurry photos with like a disposable camera. So this stuff, it blows my mind that something can actually come together like this.

And then in 2020, we can release a translated version of this game that nobody actually knew existed at all, you know? Yeah, it sounds like there wasn't really any friction from S&K about actually bringing the game out now, even though they had been the one to put the kibosh on it 17 years ago or 15 years ago. It's a totally different management now and while the company is

pretty old and creaky in a lot of ways like you really have to there's a reason that I will be continuing to work on these collections and it's because there's that whole thing about showing face and building

the reputation and building rapport and it's like okay, you worked on the S&K 40th collection, that did pretty well, you didn't screw us over. Okay, we can start opening up a little bit more to you. And so that's why it was, this conversation was easier to have because before we went into any conversation, my people that I work with at S&K and I were like, okay, we're going to come to a mutual agreement that we're going to try to get whatever stuff we can get, right? And we're going to try to put it in the game, right?

So, you know, coming in with that agreement means that I can feel confident that when someone says, you know, like after three drinks at Enizokai or something, someone's like, you know, I actually have this thing. Then I can turn around to S&K and be like, okay, I heard about this thing. You can have plausible deniability because, you know, you didn't ask for it. I did. Can we do it? And so, you know, things can actually come through that way. It did take a few months because we knew it was going to take a long time to test and make sure it worked and do all this stuff. So, you know, maybe I shouldn't say this, but I acquired the ROM just to make sure that it worked.

And so we actually started working on implementing it before we knew 100% that it was going to work. Of course, if it didn't work, if the deal fell through, we weren't going to do it. but in order to actually get into the collection in time, we had to start working on it early. And so just having that kind of flexibility and trust in place is really helpful, and that's how any of this gets done. Yeah, I definitely have had my share of experiences where you kind of have to get inside.

You know, you have to kind of prove yourself with, when it comes to Japanese business culture. and once you get to that point, then it's like, oh, hey, you're cool, we like you, whatever you want, you know, we'll help you out. So, yeah. Do you want to hear a ridiculous example of that? Yes, please, by all means. So in the documentary footage that we took in the interviews, there's several sequences and we got a lot of B-roll of the developers flipping through documents and concept art sketches. And these are like originals.

They're like pen and paper, brush and paper, oil paint, whatever. They're all like pristine original documents that usually are sealed up in a climate-controlled archive in S&K's office. And so backing way up, I'm in S&K's office getting ready to work on all this stuff. And, you know, I'm talking with my people there. and I bring up the idea like, could we possibly get some of the documents that I know were scanned for the collection? Could we get some physical documents for the team to go through?

It'll probably jog their memories and be really good, which ultimately it did. And so my S&K contact was like, no, it's not going to be possible. I'm like, why? And he said, well, the guy who's in charge of all packaged stuff at S&K, he's a real stickler about it. He doesn't let anybody into that room. He hasn't let me into that room, him as an S&K employee. I've never been in there. I don't even know what's in there. And I was like, well, just give it a shot. Like, can you just send an email saying, Brandon's here all the way from California? And he were doing this thing. And he'd like to, he'd like to at least say hello to you. And so he sends that email. And to his surprise, the guy comes back with, oh, Brandon, sure. And now this, this is a surprise to my contacts as well because he's like, this guy doesn't usually remember Western people's names. He's not, he's not into, he's like he doesn't have that connection there. So he comes down and we talk for a little bit and he, and he's like, you want to come up and see this archive we got?

And I'm like, holy crap. Yes, please. So I get to go up and I get to look in the archive and, you know, I'm trying to be like not moving. in there because I'm looking at this stuff and it's like the Samurai Showdown logos that you see that look like they're done with vector art like they're so pristine and crisp and clear and I'm like wow someone drew this with a dang pencil like this is this is all just hand done art of course they use like maybe um French curves and stuff yeah of course to to make it all work but it's so perfect and pristine and I'm looking at I'm looking at like thrown away versions of covers of

AES releases that they didn't use and I'm like wow this stuff is all here and it's real anyway it was great I wound up being able to secure this stuff but I'm still scratching my head and my friend at S&K is like I don't understand why he let you in there and and so eventually we piece it together so I worked on a previous collection called S&K 40th anniversary, and in that collection, there's an art book, and it's a tiny little art book, and I wound up editing it because somebody had to, but there was no budget for it. And so since there was no budget, I told NIS America, who is the publisher, I was like, since there's no budget for this, but I feel responsible for it being correct, you have to

at least put my name and also the name of whoever did layout and stuff, into the book just at least i get credit for it or something so what they wound up doing was not putting in everyone's name they only put my name in it and so when you when you go to the back of the book the final page is just my name with a halo around it like i've died or something like it's in memorial to me and and so we realized that what happened is the guy who's in charge of the archive he's he's a package guy like i said he he likes well-made packages, and that's what he takes care of for S&K. And so he liked this package, and he looked inside it, flipped to the back of the book,

and saw one name, my name. And because of that, we were able to get that moment in the documentary footage where the developers are flipping through the actual documents. And it's once again this chain of events that absolutely needed to happen in order for this to happen. But who could have predicted that that was the way that it was going to happen? So thank you, NIS America. Yes, indeed.

So, you know, there is a ton of supplemental content in this collection. What was the process of pulling that together? You know, besides sending emails to the archivist and being like, hey, can I come visit? Like, you know, I assume, you know, you just had reams and reams of stuff to sort through. How do you, how do you whittle it down and how do you land on 2,000 pieces? Like, that's kind of a lot. Yeah, it's really difficult, is the short version. We had a lot of stuff from S&K, which, you know, they had actually done a lot of scanning already.

It was a happy, not accident, but circumstance, because Samurai Showdown 2019 was coming out, you know, they needed to get all the documentation together because 2019 is very much based. It's like you could consider it a combo of Samurai Showdown 2 and 5. it's like in between those and so they themselves wanted to go back through all the documents and be like well what do we have what did we leave behind what do our notes say

and especially since it wasn't the original director who was making the 2019 one and so they had all this stuff collected and so they scanned even more of it for us so a lot of the scans actually did come from S&K directly before we even had to ask so we

started with a huge image dump which was great we then went to other neo-geo historians to get posters and errata all these kinds of things a lot of it we couldn't get legally approved so there's a lot of stuff that isn't in there but we wound up cutting it down to the most interesting example of x y or z so you know there's probably twice the amount of howmaru sketches but some of them are just ones that got fixed up and so we show you the fixed up version like sometimes we show you we'll show you an example of all versions but it's not really when you got 2,000 images you got to cut some stuff back and so you know there's a lot more spreadsheets

and flow documents that are available but they're only in Japanese and so we would only bring like an iconic version of that to bear I have a question if that's okay. Sure. And I don't mean to put you on the spot, but it's something I was thinking about a lot. Because in Japan, the series is called Samurai Spirits.

Yes. And I think it's outside Japan. In English, we call it Samurai Showdown. But it's conspicuously missing a W. And I've always wondered what that's about. Yeah. Like, why is it spelled funny? I cannot give you.

I thought maybe you might know. I can't give you a definitive answer, unfortunately. It's, there are many suspicions. but it was an SNK America like decision and that SNK America does not exist and in fact some of the folks from that time are kind of

persona non grata at this point so it would be impossible to find out the real final answer but there are some suspicions about like what was it there was a really plausible suspicion that somebody

had, but I'm blanking on it right now. I always thought it was supposed to be like a riff on showgun or something. There might have been some showgun in there, but I think also there was like a popular like WWF showdown or some other kind of showdown

or showtime rather that dropped a W, something in the 90s that dropped a W in the U.S. that was popular on TV for like a brief period. And that was the plausible one that I was thinking of, but I just can't, I can't place it right now. Yeah.

Sorry. Unfortunately. That's better than no answer, which I had in my head before. So I'll take it. Another interesting thing that I could mention is the translation of Samar Shadon 5 Perfect, which was, I was just about to ask about that, yeah. Oh, yeah. It was, it was an interesting exercise because we're releasing it in 2020, but even in 2005,

which is when it would have released, or, 2005, 2006, it was still using the NeoGeo. So it was still running by the rules of like 1993. So when you look at this game, you've got finite character space. For each bit of dialogue, you have three lines vertically and eight characters lengthwise. No, sorry, 16. 16 characters lengthwise, but the last character always gets cut off. So you only have 15 on that last line.

And so in Japanese, you can say a lot with that number of characters. You can actually get across nuance and character and, you know, emotion and feeling from the characters with the dialogue that you're writing. And in the original Japanese script, it absolutely does. Like, these characters are written with different voices. and totally different vibes and stuff. And then I had to figure out a way to translate that to something that I would estimate is maybe a quarter of the size, maybe less.

And it was a real exercise. Every once in a while, I could get something across. And there was one that I particularly liked, which I can't call it exactly to mind right now. But it was with the giant demon, the big... Kusadegedo? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I love him. I love him. Yeah, he's great. And he's one of Adachi's, the original director. He's one of his characters. He absolutely loves tragic characters who are anti-heroes or who have... Like, they're good now, but they were bad before, or they were good before and they're bad now. Just like a dark, tragic past.

He loves that. Just like, Ukio is great. Everybody loves him. All the girls love him, but he's going to die. Because he's got tuberculosis. He's 100% going to die. He's just making the best of what he's got with the time he has left. So I really have a hard time saying Kusag.

Oh, man, I can't say that. Cusadega at all? Yeah. I hope I'm saying it, right? Honestly. I always want to remove some syllables from his name because it's so dang long. Anyway, he's a demon who became a demon after the loss of his wife, but doesn't realize that he's the one that killed her.

and so there's one sequence where her name's like karagibi i think so there's a sequence where i was able to say something like oh karagibi i am tired i want to die and and just like giving him like a short haikuish kind of space to say something that was kind of like the most i could give that character you know um it's it's really really challenging to squeeze all that stuff into a small space and also I only had a very short amount of time in which to do it. But we did manage to get it all in there and it's

translated and it was really cool to just watch I don't know look at the the artistry of these past creators and that they were really doing so much more than I as a consumer

ever saw in English because they had so much more space to work with in their writing at least. And I was thinking like, you know, how much further does that evolve? And as I was talking to, you know, the original creators and thinking, realizing the kind of the worlds they had created for these folks and everything that they had put into it. And I don't know, it's really, it's really striking and it was kind of moving to actually be working on this. And one thing that gave me comfort about maybe not being able to do it perfectly, is that that's very, very fitting within

the Samurai Showdown canon. Within that series, there's a lot of poor English. So if I mess something up, it's like, well, it's kind of part for the chorus. There's a legacy of errors. So you actually worked within, as you said, the boundaries of the NeoGeo. You didn't go beyond the boundaries of ROM space or anything like that. 100% within the bounds. Like, There's no bite out of place. It's all 100% in there. So just to kind of wrap this up, were there any other, you know, notable experiences you had working on this series? You know, as someone working with Japanese creators on a series

that was, you know, so heavily based in Japanese history, but also Summary Showdown has a lot of non-Japanese characters in it. It's kind of like this sort of big historic mashup of disparate disparate influences and concepts. I don't know. Like, what was your perspective coming in and collaborating with the team on that? Yeah, it was, I don't know, they were still like, maybe this person won't understand what we were trying to do. And by the end of it, you know, Adachi was like, we should work together sometime.

Because we wound up having a kinship because he was like, you know, people say this game is unbalanced and it is. I have to admit that it is unbalanced. And I was like, but that lack of balance is part of what makes it so great because you, you know, real life isn't balanced and you really feel the risk reward of hitting someone with a really strong attack or missing it and then getting destroyed. And that's when he was like, oh, maybe we do have something in common. I don't know, it was, it was pretty nice and it felt very, it was a very accepting environment. One thing that I've found while doing these collections is people really appreciate when you appreciate them. When you look at their work and care about it, this was especially

true with S&K 40th because nobody has talked to those people in 20-something years, you know? Like they're like, I had no idea anybody would ever care about what I'm talking about. And so one of the challenges is to get people to say more. Like, you know, No, no, everything that you're saying is interesting. Please go on is one of the interesting challenges there. We wound up doing this walking tour that I mentioned, and that was kind of one of my tricks to inspire memory, you know, is be like, all right, we're going to go to this building where you used to work. We're going to stand outside it and see what you remember. And they remembered so much more stuff doing that and, like, rifling through the documents and being like, oh, yeah, do you remember when we did this?

um you don't see all of that on camera most of that is it happened off camera but it was it was definitely there like there's this one building um in esaka the first building where they worked and the parking lot next to it used to be a rice field and in that rice field there were cabuto shrimp which are these little bugs that have like a big shieldy kind of head and uh they were the inspiration for ships in ASO, which was one of S&K's earlier pre-NeoGeo hits. Right. And so I was walking around there with one of the, one of the earliest S&K devs, and she was showing me this building, and I had heard a rumor about that kind of thing, like they

modeled it after the shrimp thing. And I was like, where would those shrimp have been if this is your building? And she's like, oh, it's right about where you're standing now, like right there in that parking lot. And I don't know, it sounds kind of hokey, but it's like a weirdly spiritual experience to be like, this is the place where important moments happen. This is the physical location. And the people that are around me right now are telling me about it. They're all still alive. We can still learn from them the things that they figured out at that time. It's really, it's pretty awesome. It's a great thing to work on.

I don't think it's hokey at all. I can tell you that I absolutely go to Esaka every now and then just because I can go there. It's not that far away. And you stand in that corner and, you know, KOF fans know what I'm talking about. You stand in that corner. You see that bridge. And it's like, this is the spot. They look, you know, they walk past you every time, probably going to the train.

And it's like, oh, let's just put this in the video game. And it's just in the video game. This bridge, this spot, the underpass. And it's just there. And you can go there today. And I feel it. And, you know, that's just me. That's just me just showing up.

Maybe someone's with my son just walking there, and he doesn't get why we're there. And I'm like, look, I'll explain it to when you're older, I guess. I don't know. But it matters to me. Yeah, it's really something to be, like, there are spots in Esaka where you can stand there and you can be like, all right, this is S&K's first office. Down the block, that's their second office. Over here, that's where they did the sound. Way off in the distance, that peak of a building you can see, that is the hotel where.

they first unveiled the NeoGeo for the first time. Walked down the street, that sushi shop, that's the original site of the Neo Geo land. You know, it's just, it's all right there. And then you walk another four blocks and you're back at S&K's current headquarters. So we had this kind of amusing moment that I wish had been on camera, but there's no way it would have been, where we're filming outside of one of these buildings. And this dude comes down. He's, he's wearing a workman's jumpsuit. He's got a slicked back pompadour. He's about

55 years old. And he comes over all hunched up with his hands in his pants and I'm like, uh-oh. He's got a real cartoon-style yakuza stance coming over here. He comes over and he's like, so, what are you guys filming my building for?

And luckily Adachi was there and he's like, ah, well, perhaps you might remember S&K and the guy's like Oh, yeah, I remember that. And Adachi's like, well, we all used to work there. And he's like, oh, yeah, you had a lot of buildings around here. And then Adashi's like, yeah, we're just, you know, we're doing a film shoot with these foreigners here talking about the old times.

Hopefully that's all right with you. And the guy's like, no, that I know what's going on. That's okay. I'll see you later. And he just turns around and walks away. And it was like, I don't know, it felt like at any moment, this could be Kamurocho. or whatever in the yakuza series and something could break out. But yeah, I don't know.

There were so many awesome little moments like that throughout the development where there were just these things that happened that felt like they could only happen at that moment. Yeah, I'm definitely going to have to steal your walking tour technique to interviews because it sounds great. And, you know, as an interviewer myself, you know, talking to people who made games 30 years ago, those moments where you could get that breakthrough, you make that connection. And it goes from being like, I'm just telling this guy about some stuff that he's asking about to like,

I'm sharing my experiences in my life with this person because he gets me. Yeah. Like, he's connected. Like, that's, that's where the magic happens and the great stuff comes out. Like, yeah, I can think back to, you know, just a handful of experiences I've had like that talking to retire Japanese devs who go from being like, who, who's this guy to like, Oh, okay. All right. He gets it. This is awesome. I'm going to just spill my guts. I love that. It's so exciting. You got to get people out for drinks after it. Like, the thing that works so well about a collection like this is, you know, when I go out to Japan, I'm not like, okay, I'm going to interview you today. It's like, I'm going to interview you across these three days. Because the first day, you know, there's some stiffness. There's some like, who is this guy? um is this on the up and up is every what can i say what can't i say and then you know go out for drinks or have a nice lunch or you know whatever kind of thing the next day everyone's feel like everyone including myself is feeling friendlier and that's how you wind up on day three

finding out about a game that you didn't know existed or like knowing that right like by the way have you talked to this guy people don't really want to talk to this guy but you should talk to this guy or whatever, you know, like, there's, there's always like that kind of parting blow from people. And then if I, if my stay is planned for extra days past that, then I can actually follow up on that stuff and then, you know, do my boots on the ground detective stuff and hunt people down and be like, all right, so what's up with this? And there aren't so many chances to do this sort of thing. And, um, there are plenty of things that I've found that I've not been able to reveal because I can't put them, I can't put them in a collection. There's no money to put them

anywhere. They're up here in my brain, but I can't, you know, I don't want to betray the person's trust until I know that S&K can do it or Capcom can do it or Konami can do it or whoever else. So until then, it's just stuck in my dang brain and we're all going to have to think about what that means. Yeah, well, I, you know, I envy those experiences. That's something I've never really had the opportunity to do being in the press. It's always just like in-out. I was really looking forward to being able to do that kind of thing working with limited run. But now no one will let Americans into their country. So I guess I'll do it. Got a darn pandemic. Yeah. Got to cool my heels for a while. But, you know, the dividends, you can definitely see them in projects like S&K40

at the NeoGeo Collection for a summary showdown. So keep up the great work once you're allowed to do it again. Thanks. Yeah. Yeah. Like, you absolutely need to be there. Like, if I have to do a collection over, like, Zoom calls or whatever, it's just not going to be as good. Yeah, no, it won't be the same. No. Totally understand.

Well, in any case, thanks for your time, Brandon, and Diamond also, just for sharing your thoughts and recollections and experiences with the series and this compilation. I hope everyone will check it out. I would say, buy the limited run games version of the collection. but unfortunately by the time this podcast goes up, it will no longer be on sales, so you'll just have to buy it digitally.

I've failed as a shill for my own company. It's terrible. But speaking of shilling, this is your opportunity to shill for yourself. So Brandon, I'll let you go first since you did the heavy lifting here. Tell us about where we can find you on the internet and what other cool projects you do besides, you know, bringing lost games back into the universe.

Sure. So you can find me on Twitter. Twitter at Necrosofti. I'm also the creative director of Necrosoft Games. That's my main deal, an indie game developer. And we're putting out a game called Gunsport pretty soon on Stadia. So for, you know, all 500 of you that are going to be ready for that, please do enjoy my game. No, in seriousness, I hope people pick that up. That game was like canceled multiple times, publishers closed. We have been working on it often.

on for seven years you'd never know but that's true i believe i believe i i believe i first played it in 2013 yes i oh yeah you totally did you totally did and maybe was it in the sony office yes yeah that was the very very earliest version oh i remember that cheese wow i know it's so that it's finally finally coming out so there's that and then also i would love it if you all checked out my own podcast called insert credit which is based on the website that i started in 2011 It's with Tim Rogers, recently of Kotaku, and Frank Sefaldi, who was previously on this show and also runs the Video Game History Foundation. So it's pretty good show. You can check it out.

Yeah, we've got a Patreon for all that. If you search insert credit on any of your Spotify's or Apple Musics or whatnot, it'll show up. You can have an enjoy. All right. And Diamond. Well, first, I just want to say, Brandon, I still consider, oh dear, my favorite driving game. Oh, great. So I do hope that project lives in somewhere, somewhere in your brain.

I do too. We really want to finish it. We're just trying to find someone to get us the money to do it. I still have it on my Vita, and I still play it every once in a while because it's so good. Thank you. What platform are you trying to finish it for? Oh, Annie. We just need money.

Okay. Interesting. Yeah. Like, if we finished it, it would be on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox, Xbox. Xbox, whatever, just, yeah, any, any platform that has a controller that is contemporary. Got it. I love it. Yeah, for me, my plugs are kind of Jeremy's plugs, I guess, at this point, because I write a lot of

stuff for Retronauts these days. I'm writing a monthly, weekly column. It's exclusive to the Patreon at Retronauts. But I'm also a freelance writer besides that, so I am available. But yeah, most of these days, I'm working on Retronauts things, so you can look me there. And if you want to find me on Twitter, that's Fight Club, my last name, F-E-I-T, and then club, the normal club. Yep. And Diamond already kind of paved the way for me here. So yes, Retronauts, of course, is a podcast supported through Patreon. Patreon.com slash Retronauts.

Go there. Subscribe to us and you get episodes a week early. And if you subscribe at the second tier, not the bottom tier, but the second tier, then every week you get to read diamonds columns. And also every other Friday, you get at a Patreon exclusive episode, which I think is a pretty good deal. So check that out, patreon.com slash retronauts. Of course, the episodes that come out every Monday are free for all when they hit the public feed. And as for myself, you can find me on Twitter as GameSpite. And that's, you know, doing the limited run thing, limited run games, doing videos, books, newsletters, just a ridiculous amount of stuff because I just have to to create things. It's a sickness.

So please enjoy my sickness at Limited Run. Anyway, I'm grateful. Well, thank you. And thank you both for being on the show. Brandon, look forward to your next project, your next compilation. Heck yeah. And yeah, that's it. So

thanks everyone for listening, and we'll be back next week. Thank you. Thanks. I'm going to be able to be. Thank you.