Retronauts - Retronauts Episode 404: Gravity Rush & Replicade

Episode Date: September 20, 2021

Todd Ciolek and patron Bill Nielsen join Jeremy Parish to tackle a request to slip loose the surly bonds of Earth and explore Sony's Vita masterpiece Gravity Rush. Also, New Wave Toy's Shilo Prychak recounts the history of the Replicade mini-arcade line. Retronauts is made possible by listener support through Patreon! Support the show to enjoy ad-free early access, better audio quality, and great exclusive content. Learn more at http://www.patreon.com/retronauts

You're listening to Retronauts, a part of the Greenlit Podcast Network. To hear more great shows or to learn how you could become part of our consortium of independently owned podcasts, check out Greenlitpodcasts.com. This week in Retronauts, a flipping great topic. Everyone, welcome to Retronauts episode 404 Podcast Not Found. Just kidding. Here's the podcast. You're listening to it right now.

This is episode 404, unless something changes. And we are, we're kind of breaking the rules of retronauts, actually. By patron request, we are breaking the rules of retronauts. So if you have issues with this topic, you can take it up with one of our guests this episode, one of our contributors to this episode. Please introduce yourself, person who didn't abide by the 10-year rule of retronauts. Hi, my name is Bill Nielsen, and it's not flying, it's falling with style. Exactly. And you can please feel free to heap all the scorn on me for breaking the sacred tenet of 10 years equals retro.

Yes. Well, it's close enough. And this actually makes a great sort of lead-in to coverage of the 10th anniversary of the PlayStation Vita, the 10th anniversary of both its life and its death, abandonment by Sony. It was a very brief, brief time in this world. And what better topic to begin with than Gravity Rush? And also here, this episode, returning to Retronauts to help usher in the era of Vita, meaning life, and also very short lives.

Who else do we have here? Well, hi, I'm Todd. I'm from Kit Fenris.com and Unsung Game Creators, the YouTube series. And I'm a huge Gravity Rush fan. So I'm very glad to be here. All right. And yeah, did I introduce myself? I'm Jeremy Parrish.

But you probably knew that because if you were listening to this podcast, you've probably heard my voice before. But I also really enjoy Gravity Rush. I don't know if I'm as big a fan of it as either of you two. Going back and kind of prepping for this episode, I was shocked by, how little of the storyline I actually remember of this game, like all the stuff in the back half. I'm like, wow, I finish this game and I don't remember so much of this.

But what I do remember is the feeling it evoked. And just like watching videos of this to prepare to discuss it, I was just swept up in it and just reminded what a gorgeous game it is and how great the mechanics are. Just the sense of freedom that it afforded you on a portable. system. Like, it was a really unique and distinct video game experience. And I can see why this series has a very small but devoted fan base, because it is kind of quirky and different. And it's not, it's not the kind of thing that is, you know, destined to sell 100 million copies like

GTA 5 or whatever. But the people who get it, like, they get it because it's, it is different and distinct and unique. And it's, it's got the spirit of an indie game, but with the budget of a Sony first-party creation. And that's an unusual, like, you don't, you don't see that combination very often anymore. Sony's really moved away from, you know, the, the sort of anything-go-freewheeling approach of the PS-1, PS2 era. And this, this game is really kind of, I would say, one of the last holdouts of, of that old Sony that has been swept away by new Sony. And so, you know, it really does kind of represent a whole lot of things all at once. And, you know, it's not a perfect game, perfect series, but it's really hard for me to

criticize much of anything about Gravity Rush just because it's trying to do something so different and, you know, be so unique and free-spirited about it that you have to respect to that. Oh, yes, I agree totally. And I do think that for their part, Sony did promote it at the time, But you could kind of tell that with, especially with Gravity Rush 2, it was kind of a case where the developers really, really wanted to get the chance and probably fought for it to finish it up. And it was kind of interesting to see how it almost became at the launch of the Vita. It was not so much a system seller, I guess.

I mean, I think the phrase killer app is a little outdated, but it was pretty much what the Vita really needed at that time. Yeah, I would say at the launch, Sony. really pushed uncharted golden abyss, which was, you know, like uncharted light, basically. Not that great a game, in my opinion. Gravity Rush was much more fully fleshed out as a game concept and much less, you know, kind of wrote following in the footsteps of something that had come before. But it's also harder to get the kind of appeal across. You know, it's it's a game about defying gravity. It's a game about, I guess, this teenage girl who can float

around and talk to her cat and fight shadow monsters and throw herself through the air to destroy things. It's, it's kind of weird. It's got this, you know, kind of this really unique art style to it. I keep saying unique. And I guess that's, you know, probably going to be an unavoidable buzzword at this episode. But yeah, this wasn't necessarily the, you know, the thing that's going to sell people on VITA, but I think it was a great example of what the Vita could accomplish when when you know developers really put their minds to it and had the time to develop something that was properly fleshed out and developed and uh you know it you look back and it's it's a real rarity like seeing a game with this kind of work and budget invested into it for a

portable system it's just not something you see a lot of i feel like with the series uh it's from the creators themselves to the game to the story to the character is all the way through its ambitious and idealistic. Like with the, you know, the creator Keizuro Toyama, this is an idea he had had for a long, long time well before he started on the Siren series and Silent Hill and with the artistic approach and trying to capture, you know, it's a little cliche, but the feeling of an anime in a video game,

like he went for that with full ambition. And even in the characters themselves, as you see, like, Kat is someone who is always striving to be the best, doesn't do it perfectly herself. I mean, the very first thing in the very first part of the game is trying to save someone into wrecking their entire home, always kind of budding heads with people and trying to make friends, but not succeeding, but ultimately finding joy.

And, you know, I think that Toyama himself, and I think the staff, even if the game didn't quite, reach the stratosphere they were looking for. I think they are, my impression is they're glad they did it. I'm glad they did it. Yeah, I think they had the opportunity to create a sequel and kind of refine everything. They remastered the game for PlayStation 4. And, you know, that to me speaks of, you know, developers who knew they had a good idea, a publisher who supported their good idea, even if the original release didn't necessarily move the numbers that they had hoped for and gave them a chance to kind of perfect everything and put a bow on it. And so there is a sense of

completeness about this that's very unusual for video games. Like I can look at gravity rush and gravity rush to and think, you know what, I'm good. This is great. Like I don't necessarily need to see this world explored more. Like these ideas, these mechanics, I'd love to see, you know, those resurface somehow, but it doesn't necessarily have to be this world, these characters. Like, let's branch out into a new concept, a new idea. It just feels whole, which, you know, again, that's very uncommon for video games. I think they kind of wanted to make sure everything was wrapped up and tied up with a bow by the end of the second game. Yeah, because they left things very happily ever after.

Like, everyone is super happy and great and they've grown from where they were. There are a couple mysteries left, but for the most part, it's like, okay, I know the whole town is doing good now. Right. And you're talking about the ending of Gravity Rush 2, I think. Yes. And how in the last leg of the game, you can kind of see how they basically took everything that they might have put in a third game, and they sort of, not quite compressed it, but made sure that they touched on everything, because by that point they figured they weren't going to get a Gravity Rush 3.

It's kind of similar to what happened, I guess, with Solato Robo and CyberConnect 2, how there's a point where you get in the game where you can see how they took all their ideas for sequel and sort of made sure that they got to everything in time just because they didn't know when they'd be coming back to it. Yeah, I've experienced a few works through the years where you definitely get that impression where you kind of see where the creator saw the writing on the wall and said, all right, I have all these ideas that need to be addressed, time to throw it together. And that can leave things feeling a little rushed, which I guess, you know,

that fits with the title of the series. But yeah, like, you know, going back to just kind of the launch of this game and kind of where it began, you know, I was talking about how this feels like one of the last works of the old Sony before the new Sony kind of stepped in and about how, It was kind of underserved by being on Vito, which was a platform underserved by Sony. But it was a really tricky time for game publishers, game manufacturers, to release a new portable system 10 years ago. Because it was really just as mobile gaming was heating up. And we didn't really know what mobile gaming was going to look like.

The form that it was ultimately going to take of basically exploitative gotcha games. that wasn't a given at the time. And so there was a lot of excitement around iPhone gaming and, you know, other mobile gaming. And it just seemed like that's where the boundless potential was. They were basically, you know, the iPhone was honestly, I would say in 2012 when the Vita launched, more powerful at that time than the Vita, which, you know, it's kind of hard to give it an exact comparison just because the hardware is designed very specifically to do specific things. but this was meant to be, you know, the Vita was meant to be like the PlayStation 3 in your pocket.

And it wasn't quite, but it was close enough. But at the same time, you know, the iPhone could do all that. And you also had the 3DS, which obviously wasn't powerful on that level, but did have, you know, actual 3D graphics. So there was a lot of fragmentation, a lot of uncertainty in the portable gaming mobile market. And it really just kind of hampered both the initial debuts of the 3DN. and the Vita. And Nintendo pretty much had to depend on the 3DS to be a success in order to survive at that point. So they went all in to resuscitate the 3DS and turn its bad launch around, whereas Sony didn't have that urgency with Vita. So they just kind of let it slide. And it's frustrating because, you know,

maybe if the system had launched a couple of years later or a couple of years earlier, it wouldn't have arrived at that bad moment in time. And we would have seen more games like this on Vita, more, you know, Sony putting its resources and its effort into something new and, you know, technically very impressive. And, you know, in terms of game content volume, pretty much on par with a console game. I mean, you know, like if you look at complete play-through videos of Gravity Rush on YouTube, those are going to be like 12 to 15 hours long. That's a lot of, a lot of time for a portable action game.

So, you know, this was basically, this was everything that the Vita was supposed to be. It used a little bit of the motion controls and the back touch and all that stupid stuff. Oh, yeah. But, you know, it also was like, here's a PS3 game. This is something you would have, you know, a year. This actually started out to be a PS3 game. Oh, yes. They just shifted it to the Vita.

I say just shifted. I mean, that required a lot of work, a lot of effort. But they did make that transition successfully. without really compromising the game. You know, there's like maybe some frame rate issues or some, you know, polygon draw issues or whatever. But, but on the whole, like, you, I don't know. When you play this on Vita, you don't think, oh, wow, I think it just slipped to 40 frames per second.

That's unacceptable, unless you're, like, one of those people. And you don't necessarily, there's not, like, really a lot of draw, like distance issues with, with the game, which is really impressive because, you know, after the first hour or two, You get in some really big spaces where there's a lot happening, like very complex worlds with free-floating objects and, you know, cats' abilities, they all focus around her mobility and about flinging yourself across space at pretty high speeds. Like, you pick up momentum. That's a key part of the gameplay. And the Vita pulls it off. It's, you know, this really is a portable tour to force.

It is, it is one of the most impressive handheld games ever made. I mean, yes, obviously, we're going to. going to have steam deck soon. And we have, you know, Nintendo Switch and maybe someday they'll update that too to be more powerful. So, you know, compared to like Breath of the Wild, if you consider that a portable game, which it isn't really, I mean, it can be, but it's not, that's not the intent behind the game. Whereas this is, this was designed to be a portable game, like on a portable system. And, you know, taking it on those terms, it's, it's amazing. It's, it's a tremendous accomplishment.

Oh, yes. And I, um, if I hadn't, you know, read it somewhere, I would not have really suspected that this had started off as a PlayStation 3 game, just because it feels like something that was essentially made for the Vita. I kind of wish they'd stuck with the original title, which was a gravite, Gravete, but I guess that doesn't really, uh, get the premise across. But yeah, it really does feel like very much at home on the Vita. I think one of the designers did say that the.

reason. The game sort of ends, not really abruptly, but with a lot of things unresolved. The first game, Gravity Rush, it just ends with everybody eating ice cream together. It's kind of a happy ending. And he did say that they had to sort of cut it off at a certain point in order to get it done for the Vita launch. But even then, it's very much a complete game. It feels entirely satisfying and as a very much a whole experience. It's funny the way they designed the gameplay for Gravity Rush, too, where, you know, I think a decade later, we now have a greater sense of what is required for a portable game and, like, what types of gameplay elements work and don't work. Like, I think with Breath of the Wild, you can see that a bit in the shrines, which are small,

digestible moments of puzzle solving and or combat, and you can knock them out in, like, 10 minutes, and then put your switch in sleep and move on with your day. Well, they didn't quite do that with Gravity Rush, and I would be honestly surprised if they had fully thought this out at that point in just development history. But like with the way the gem collecting mechanic works is you can just kind of run around the city and, you know, scoop up some gems or go do a challenge, which takes three minutes, and then, you know, put your Vita in rest. And if you want to advance the story, you can. If you don't, it'll just be waiting there. You just go to some waypoint and then start the story. Yeah, I mean,

there were definitely, you know, some successful handheld games of kind of the previous generation that they could look at. Nothing is necessarily coming to mind on PSP. Because when I think PSP, I think like Monster Hunter, and that tends to be more involved. Like, you're going to go fight a T-Rex, basically, and it's going to take you half an hour, and you're committing to this. But I look at something like Dragon Quest 9 for DS, and you do have the story, you know, it's a very, like, you know, vignette-based approach to storytelling. where each town has its own kind of storyline that takes a few hours to resolve.

But you can also, you know, run around town or run around the world, collecting stuff to use in the alchemy pod and upgrade your gear. You can go on the little mini-quests that you get through street pass. There were just lots of little kind of side diversions. If you didn't have time to really go in

and tackle a dungeon, that was okay because Dragon Quest 9 knew what it was and, you know, gave you lots of sports, small tasks and big tasks. And yeah, I feel like this kind of works in that same mold. So the developers have been very open about their influences. And they've mostly been influences from outside of gaming. But, you know, people who are this media savvy definitely weren't sitting around saying, well, we're going to create a video game in a vacuum based only on, you know, French comics and, you know, American movies. That's just not how they would have worked. So they,

they would have been aware, you know, working on a Vita game, like, what has been successful on portable systems? What kind of approach should we take? And, you know, I think you do see a sense here of portable gaming kind of design philosophy and rubric adapting and evolving and maturing. And it definitely works, I think, to Gravity Rush's benefit. Oh, yeah, very true. And one thing I do especially like about the games is that the storytelling, it's carried

off as a lot of kind of comic book style. with the comic panels and the characters talking, so you're not really stuck watching on elaborate cutscene, like in something like, say, crisis core. You can really sort of take that as quickly as you can read it, and it doesn't bog down the player's time with a lot of that.

And that's something I wish a lot of games, whether on portable or on consoles itself, would really do when it comes to storytelling. I was trying to think of other games that used that, you know, comic book panel format, and I thought of Fantasy Star 4, and that was, you know, quite a while ago.

So I do appreciate that especially. Yeah, you had a Metal Gear Solid Peacewalker, you know, a couple of years before this. And that was, that was a pretty big, you know, hit, I would say, on a Sony portable system. So I don't know if that directly influenced this, but that kind of philosophy and thought of, you know, like it's a portable system. Don't go all in on the cutscenes, like respect the player's time, make it quick and digestible. You know, that was definitely a thing. And, you know, like Toyama and the rest of the Team Siren or Project Siren group who created Gravity Rush, Kojima was heavily influenced by French comics, Bon Designe, in creating his portable game systems.

I mean, they actually released the Metal Gear Solid, like, one and two comics in Japan on PSP as Metal Gear Solid Bond Designets. that's actually where I learned the term, you know, the French term for comics or graphic novels is from those Metal Gear games. So, you know, this was part of that kind of, I don't want to say art house movement in Japanese game development, but kind of. I mean, you look at the influence of,

or games that are influenced by French art and comics and media. And you have things like, an Andromeda team and the Panzer Dragoon games. Like, they even got Jean-Gerard Mobius, Mebius, to illustrate the covers for some of the Panzer Dragoon games in Japan. And, you know, Mebius was a huge influence visually, just in the design and even the style, like the idea of people kind of floating outside of gravity through the air. Like, that was all taken, you know, inspired by his work.

and the overall European flavor, the color palettes of this game, you know, kind of muted colors, lots of earthy tones, but also, you know, like colors that you don't really see in nature, like these tertiary colors, all of those things are really drawn from the French tradition of comics. And, yeah, again, that kind of puts it in line with Team Andromeda, with Kojima Productions. So it is definitely kind of more the art, house side of a big publisher, Japanese gaming, as opposed to, you know, the Final Fantasy approach, which is just, let's, let's Hollywood with some, some anime. And since you brought up Panzer Dragoon, I wouldn't like to also mention that. I like how they went to the trouble of creating an entirely new language for a gravity rush, and both in the signs that you see in the language that the characters speak. And that's another thing.

I'm really a sucker for that in video games when they do that. whether it's something like Cloanoa or Panzer Dragoon. And again, I think that goes back to the fact that it's something you would see in a French comic or in some of that sort of that sort of creative aspect of it that the game didn't necessarily have to do. I mean, they could have just had standard voice acting. But I think that the invented language really enriches it a lot. Yeah. Oh, actually, Bill, looks like you were about to say something.

I was going to add that I think that was also another deliberate attempt to, allude to the French influences because the sound of the imagined language is, is vaguely faintly French. And yes, Toyama definitely has gushed about Mobius in interviews and like said, like, you know, we are, we are sad for his passing. Like, he is very passionate about that his influence there. Yeah. When I first booted up the game, I thought that they were speaking in French. It just sounds, it sounds very French. Like the, the cadence and the, the pronunciation of everything is very, it has a very francophone feel. But then you actually like stop and listen and I didn't recognize anything they were saying. Not that I speak French, but, you know, I can,

I can like listen and say, well, I don't actually hear any words or phrases that I know. So maybe this isn't the real thing. But they did a good job of like coming up with fake French. Or maybe like pseudo Belgian. I don't know. but it does it does you know again feed into the the european vibe of like a north European vibe of this game and you know that that's that's what really influenced the cityscapes and the architecture and the costumes that everyone wears I mean it's it's all like weird kind of fantasy there's definitely a lot of mebius in the costume design especially cat who's wearing like a body suit that also has like these leg wraps and

then it has kind of like a tuxedo tail on the back. It's like, it's, it's kind of all over the place. It's a little weird, but it all fits within the world. Apparently the gold adornment, like, I was trying to find interviews with the character's designer, Shinske, Saito, and I just kept running across this tweet where it shows, like, the outfit, and apparently the gold's embossment on the outfit is meant to keep everything in place. Like, it's literally like a skeleton for the outfit.

Oh, wow. Yeah, so, Bill, you put together a lot of Bill, you put together a lot of notes for this about the dev team. Do you want to walk us through who actually created this? We keep mentioning Toyama and some of the other people, and we've kind of vaguely alluded to some of their previous works. But when you actually stop and look at the games that this team had previously worked on, you kind of have to step back and say,

huh, how do they get from there to this? This is definitely not a team that was caught in a creative rut, that's for sure. Yeah, you're totally correct, Jeremy. Yeah, it starts at the top with the director, Keizuro Toyama, the head of Project Siren slash Team Gravity Rush, and he had already been in the industry for about 15 years at this point. He'd started out at Konami.

He worked on Snatcher originally, and then he had found success on his own as a director on the original Silent Hill game. And then after that, he actually moved on to working for Sony directly and working on the siren games there. And I would need a chart to kind of figure out which of the siren games actually came out in the U.S. and, like, which regions they were. But there is a long history of those games being made. And, yeah, I guess he'd always wanted to make a game like this. And he didn't always want to make horror games.

And he kind of just felt like, this is my chance. I have all this kind of capital built up with Sony, where, like, I've done good work and like, this is where I can like kind of push and want to make my own project. And as part of that, he, you know, he brought in several others to kind of align with his goals there, Yoshiaki Yamaguchi, who is the artistic director on the original Gravity Rush, and also worked with Toyama on the Siren Games, and has now moved on to the mega blockbuster, more recently, Mac 2. Yamaguchi was also very familiar with an Apollo If I butcher the pronunciation here, the Bande designe of French comics, and he was looking to make, like, a living background.

Like, I assume that sort of is, like, expressed in, like, the unopened world type game where, you know, people are moving around. There's, like, a world of people in there going about their day, just as cat is. You also had the character designer and director for Gravity Rush Chu, Shinska, Saito, another longtime Sony employee. And then lastly, you had Kohei Tanaka, the soundtrack composer. And if you look up Tanaka's works, you know, he's been involved in the anime industry primarily since the 80s and worked on many, many well-known animas there. And I guess Toyama just heard his works and heard his, you know, classic, like orchestral sweeping, classic anime style. And it's like, this is perfect for what we need right here and recruited them just for that. looking at some of the older games

it does seem like a little at odds with what Gravity Rush is but I think that with the first Silent Hill and the Siren games one thing that they do have in common is that they're really very concerned with atmosphere not necessarily at the expense

of gameplay even though the first siren game is a little unwieldy but they're really concerned with evoking that atmosphere and I think that carried over into gravity rush at least in terms of of what they wanted to emphasize, how they've, really, it's a game that wants you to feel the presence of the world and, or just in the same way that a survival horror game really is concerned with making you feel the atmosphere and the pressure of it. So maybe that's something of a link.

Todd, I think you're totally correct about that, actually. Yeah, like, I think, like, we, you know, we talk about Gravity Rush here as like this, you know, I think happy, go lucky, cheery game, but there are, you know, sinister elements, you know, there's like the, the Nevy, have like this horror aspect to them. There's like an air of unease at times with the world. Like, you know, at the start of gravity rush, like, three quarters of the known world has disappeared. So, like, that could be, yeah, definitely linked to Silent Hill and like the, like, what

mystery of what's going on here. Yeah. And I, you mentioned the nevi. And those, those kind of make me think, they've always made me think of like ascended versions of the shadow creatures from Eco, rather than just being kind of. of these like flickery half images that can drag away Princess Jorda. They've kind of taken a more cohesive physical form. You know, they're somewhere between the shadows and Eco and like the heartless and kingdom hearts where they can have multiple forms and have more of a physical

presence and, you know, you can interact with them and fight them directly. But they are kind of like this unknowable otherworldly appearance about them. They're, you know, kind of, you know, kind of black and seem to contain outer space of them or like a void or something. They're very interesting and definitely kind of sit at odds with the sort of warmth and kind of rustic look of the game world. But, you know, I mentioned Kojima productions earlier and the kind of common love of Bandesne among, you know, Kojima and Toyama. But I guess, you know, knowing that he worked on snatcher. I can see where, you know, maybe they rubbed off on each other or maybe they were just drawn to each other because they had common interests or something. You know, I feel like

Kojima is someone who really, really wears his influences on a sleeve and, you know, surrounds himself with the media that he loves. And I can definitely see him being like, hey, check out these amazing comics that we picked up in France and they're so good. You've got to read these. You're going to love them. Like just sharing that stuff with his team and, you know, wanting them to kind of understand where he's coming from. I don't know. I could just be imagining that. Maybe he's a jerk who keeps everything to himself and doesn't treat his team members like humans. I honestly don't know. But just kind of knowing there is that common point of reference in their histories, it makes a lot of sense. Oh, yeah, I definitely agree. And one of the

thing I think may have come over from the survival horror aspect is the sense of the main character in Silent Hill and Siren. You basically, they're not, you know, resident evil acts. And action heroes or heroines. They're basically very ordinary people like that. And the writer for Siren and for Gravity Rush, Naoko Sato, she did say that in an interview that she really liked how Kat had a sort of naive sense of justice about her. And since she's more of a superhero character, she's able to basically take charge and do what she needs to do. So perhaps after, you know, doing that on Silent Hill and Siren, it was refreshing for the team to make something where the character is much more focused and powerful, basically, even though she was.

doesn't necessarily understand her powers. Two things I know about Kat are that she likes to dismantle hierarchical structures and chew bubblegum, and she's all out of bubblegum. Crush the patriarchy. Yeah, and, you know, another thing this game has in common with Silent Hill is the heavy influence of outside media. I mean, Silent Hill, people love to kind of go through films and other media and places in America, like just Americana in general, and say, like, oh, this really heavily influenced Silent Hill, like, you know, this really shaped the design and philosophy. of that game. And you definitely kind of get the same thing with gravity rush, but more on the European media side of things. Although, you know, they did say there were some American films

that heavily influenced the concept of the game and the storyline. I can't remember off the top of my head what those were. Oh, I do know what you're talking about. It was Hancock. That's what it was. of all the superhero films to draw from. Like, this might be the only work of art that is inspired by Hancock. But I can see it where, you know, for those who are not familiar with Hancock and why would you be, it was a Will Smith movie where he played basically a, he was basically Superman, essentially, but he had lost his desire, his motivation to be heroic.

But at the same time, he didn't turn into a bad guy. He was just like, yeah, I'm checking out. I'm just going to be a bum and sleep on, you know, park benches and I just want people to leave me alone. And, you know, the film did an interesting job of presenting his powers. They tried to, even though they were, you know, working in CG with for so much of it, to give him a sense of weight and inertia. So, you know, when he's doing like super jumps and things like that and using, you know, super strength,

They did try to add a physicality to it and kind of a sense of like just, like I said, inertia that really does carry into the mechanics of gravity rush. When you start flying around and suspending yourself, you know, in zero gravity, it's not like you're just going point A to point B immediately. There is this kind of like hesitation and then you pick up momentum and, you know, again, one of the key mechanics for combat is you kind of want to get a little distance from enemies. like back up and and give yourself some space. So then you can home in on them and smash them, you know, from, from a distance because you pick up kinetic energy, basically, the more you fly. Wow, that actually really makes a lot of sense. I wouldn't have never guessed that.

But I can certainly see it, even in the way that Kat is sort of characterized because she essentially at the beginning of gravity rush starts off with basically nothing. She has to live in a pipe and gather all this old furniture. and things like that. One of their superhero thing, it's maybe a little obvious, but I thought it kind of reminded me of the original appeal of Spider-Man, basically, which is that she's misunderstood. She doesn't have an amazing amount of resources to her,

and that she's unappreciated a lot by the things that she tries to do because sometimes she does mess up, and she's allowed to mess up like that. Yeah, the sort of, I don't know if you'd call it culture, but the sort of context that she falls into unwittingly is interesting, and it evokes the sense that there is like history to this world and, you know, that she is not this superpowered character who comes from nowhere, even though she isn't aware until the beginning of the game that she has these powers, you know, immediately people are like, oh, gravity shifters, you can't trust any of them. We thought she was going to help, but she kicked our house into a pit and now we have nowhere to sleep. So she kind of unwittingly falls into, this category of people who can't entirely be trusted because, you know, they don't necessarily have the best interests of normal people in mind, or, you know, they maybe are kind of contemptuous of people who don't have superpowers because, you know, they're, they're so insignificant compared to the people who can basically fly around and smash anything they want to by

manipulating gravity. Yeah, I mean, she's definitely characterized at times as vulnerable or an underdog, but even in spite of that, she's always consistent in what she wants to do and what she's going to try and achieve for the people

around her. Like she helps people people will directly insult her to her face and she'll still help them because she's like, it's the right thing to do. You don't have the power, I have the power. I'm going to I'm going to go find your dog. I'm going to go find your dog and I'm going to play with it and make it happy and then we'll

take it back to you. Yeah, that's that's one place where you can really tell this is, you know, comes from a Japanese media tradition because that's very much a like a shonen manga kind of trope of, of the character who just has this, this sense of right of justice. And you see that some in like, you know, a character like Superman has that. But it's really prevalent in Japanese media. And there are some other kind of tropey elements that that seem very much like, Oh, this is definitely a work from Japan. Like, you know, there's the policemen who she be friends. And he's definitely presented in a Japanese concept of what a policeman is, as opposed to someone who is on a power trip or, you know, wants to bust criminals through force.

He's actually kind of overwhelmed all the time and sort of timid, you know, like more of a civil servant who just happens to be tasked with keeping law and order but isn't necessarily. good for it. And that's something you see very much in in Japanese media. And honestly, like, if you kind of have seen Japanese police in action sometimes, that's actually sort of how they, they are. I've definitely seen some examples of, you know, Japanese police trying to keep order very politely and not having much effect. Oh, right, right. And police in Japan, they're generally very good about presenting that aspect to it. I mean, they usually wait until after you get arrested that they, you know, violate your human rights and other things. But that's a story for another time.

But, yes, I can definitely say it. And Raven, too, I think, Kat's rival, you know, she falls into the traditional manga, soon-in-hero tradition of, you know, they have to have a rival, basically, who eventually becomes an ally. Yes, yeah, very, very traditionally, like the Vigida or the, like, the Hia, like, the moody second. banana character who, you know, shows up to help, but, you know, takes the first punch and then it's up the cat to step up to really save the day. Yes, definitely. And I do think that in the second game, they basically really tried to sell it as Raven being, you know, almost as prominent of a character as cat is, even though you don't get to actually

play as her nearly as much. But you do play as her some, right? Yeah, yeah, I believe so. And there's an entire DLC mission where you basically play as her in the backstory. story. But yes, you definitely do play. You get to sort of play as her, I think, because a lot of people in the first game, they were kind of probably expecting that she'd eventually become sort of playable, even if it wasn't an extra mode. And, like, Raven's presence in the story is probably, like, the biggest remaining, like, unsolved mystery because of where the DLC, like, exclusive

story leaves her and, like, her exact relationship to Kack, because, like, you know, by the end of the GR2, they sort of explain how Kat got her powers and where she came from, but they literally unravel Raven's entire origin story by the end of Gravity Rush 2. So it's like not clear exactly how they're connected anymore or how she got her powers to begin with. It's a little, you know, it's not necessarily meaning to be hammered down like with exact like X to Y to Z, but it is kind of an odd place she's left at by the end of the story. Right. And I think that was kind of deliberate. I do think Sato said in an interview that they deliberately kind of left that up to the player's imagination. And I do like how Gravity Rush doesn't necessarily try to explain everything, even at the end of it all. And it's always good to leave some mysteries from a storytelling angle. Oh, yeah. Like there's, at one point, you know, they meet The Other, who is like, appears to be the fusion dance of Cat and Raven, and she shows up and teaches them how to awaken.

their latent power and then leaves and they don't ever really explain was she like subconsciously like part of their backstories or like was she there by the creators or is she like an alternate timeline or it doesn't matter she's she's gone now don't worry about it yes Yeah, so we should actually talk a little bit about who cat is and what she does. We keep referring to her and talking about her powers, but we haven't really like buckled down and talked about the actual mechanics of the game, which is really a big part of what makes gravity rush so unique. I mentioned that she's called a gravity shifter, and that's pretty much what you do.

It's kind of like they saw the zero point gravity gun in Half-Life 2, and we're like, hmm, what if you could do that to yourself? And that's kind of the seems to be sort of the jumping off point for how this game was designed. I feel like they also were inspired in part by Douglas Adams' interpretation of flying where you try and hit the ground and miss. Right. Although you are often launching yourself at the ground and no ill effects there. No, no.

You make a Yamcha-sized hole, but then you just kind of get up, dust yourself off, and walk away. Which raises all sorts of questions about just how Hoot Cat is because she's obviously not as fragile as a regular human. And one thing I do kind of like about the mechanics and Graffiti Rush is. is how they are almost by nature a little awkward, but when you're just starting the game out, Cat herself is kind of awkward. She flies, I think, honestly,

I thought of the mystery science theater classic Puma Man. When she's flying through the air, she's sort of just flailing around and she falls whenever she lands. And so you're almost comfortable with the play mechanics being a little unfamiliar to you, how the camera doesn't always show exactly what you wanted to see

and how you have to constantly switch perspectives. but of course it grows eventually and you get more used to it and so does cat if i may i'll just briefly mechanically describe like the actual uh like movement like in the game it's just uh for people is so you you press a button to kind of cancel gravity around you and that causes cat to levitate a couple inches off the ground she also picks up any people or objects around her too uh you point cat in a direction and then you press another button and she just moves in that direction Like that point out in the distance becomes her new, like, a mass that's attracting her to that point. And she can, you know, sway in the air and she can speed up and slow down or just like cancel gravity again and floats.

But she's always like, in effect, moving from point A to point B. It's not like freely flying a la Superman. It's like this kind of mechanically laborious process. Like I assume partly by design too to like make sure. people don't end up nauseous from the swaying camera. Could be. But yeah, like her approach to flying is it kind of harkens back to how Superman used to be before he could fly when he was basically leaping, you know.

Same with the Incredible Hulk. Like you're basically taking measured steps as opposed to just maneuvering around through the air however you like. The difference is that instead of, you know, propelling yourself with your legs and being bound by, you know, eventually falling back to gravity, um, you are floating freely. So you just kind of point yourself in the direction you want to go and you go. Uh, but the, uh, yeah, the mention of how rocks and people and everything float up with you and fly with you when you direct yourself if you're not careful, it does kind of play into

the way people don't really like gravity shifters. I mean, I feel like if I were flung across town, uh, along with a, bunch of, you know, rubble and bricks and stuff, just because someone wanted to take a shortcut, you know, and fly through the air, I'd be a little salty, too. Or if you happen to even be tossed over the edge of the city or something like that, because I think we've said, there's nothing really down there except this weird energy nexus and a storm-like thing or something. So I guess it depends on how conscientious the player wants to be about that. I mean, do you actually fling people into the void and they

die? I don't remember that part. I'm not sure because one of the neat things about the game is that if you go too far down or too far close to this enormous pillar that the city floats around, it'll warp you automatically back to the city. So I assume that's what happens to the people, but happen to fall over. Yeah, but still a big disruption for your afternoon. You're not going to be able to pick up your kid from school at that rate. Sorry, I didn't make it to my job interview. Some stupid girl flung me into the void. And I respond. on, you know, half a mile away in the park. Yeah, but this really does kind of become integral to both navigation and combat. And the world really opens up. And they do a good job with the design of the game of kind of building up. You know, you start kind of fighting a few little enemies and then you have bigger tasks. And then once you really start to get comfortable with moving around and how you use gravity,

they sort of take it away by giving you, you know, stealth mission. where you're grounded and you can't fly around without being caught. And then, you know, after that, they, they really amp it up by putting you into spaces that, you know, don't necessarily make any physical sense. They're, they're just, like, pure platforming spaces. And then kind of combining all that together with, with big open areas in town and, you know, moving vehicles and things like that. So there is a real sense of progression to this, even though it's kind of an open world game. You know, it develops narratively and mechanics. as it goes along.

Yeah, especially in Gravity Rush, one, they were definitely inspired by crackdown and how the gem collecting would improve your performance, and then that, in turn, would let you get more gems, and that played out with all the different challenges and, like, improving your combat skills and your speed and your stamina, and, like, you could then score higher on the challenges and get more gems,

And they had a very good progression, I felt, for the core gameplay loop there. And that, like, you probably didn't need too many upgrades to, like, get through the main game. But it did certainly make the, like, the later sections easier if you had them. Oh, yeah. It's a game that really does a good job of encouraging you to explore, both in terms of how, you know, unique the setting is and, you know, how you want to find those gems to upgrade your powers and things like that. And, of course, the more you upgrade, the further you can go, which I thought. was the, like, a really neat impetus to progress, like something that really makes you want to see more of the world

and just, you know, test out the boundaries of it. Yeah, and I, I am very much a portable gaming fan, but I do feel like this game really benefited from the upgrade to PlayStation 4 when they did Gravity Rush remastered. Just having that much more kind of visual space and information, because you are dealing with such large spaces and, you know, trying to kind of aim at things with some degree of precision that are fairly far away from you. Going from PSVita resolution to PS4 resolution definitely was beneficial to the game,

and better frame rates and an overall smoother look to the game. I can understand why when it came time to create the sequel, they said, maybe instead of doing Vita, why don't we go to PlayStation 4, although that really did. To me, that really was the nail in the, Vita's coffin. Like, Sony had already, you know, within like six months a year of the Vita's release, made it seem pretty likely that they weren't going to give the system a lot of support going forward.

But, you know, we still had Gravity Rush 2 to look forward to. They announced it for Vita. But then when it came out a few years later, it was a PS4 game. And, you know, that, that move was to me kind of like the sign that this is. is it for Vita. Like, it's, it's all over. Oh, yeah. I mean, I can't really think of what other really major releases the Vita might have had besides Gravity Wars 2 at that point. It didn't really have, you know, I think I mentioned Crisis Corps already, but the Vita had no real equivalent of that. Like, it didn't have its own exclusive Final Fantasy game or

anything else that really would have cement, giving it a handle. Well, I mean, Nintendo wrapped up Monster Hunter. So, you know, Capcom was just making Monster Hunter on 3DS at that point. So that that was really like, that was a huge blow to the Vita, I think, losing, you know, the franchise that really pretty much was the reason a lot of people, especially in Japan, got into the Vita or to the PSP. So it's a shame. One thing I did not realize is that there's an animated series called Gravity Rush Overture made by Studio Car. according to the notes, who made the Evangelion movies.

Like, what the hell? How did I not know about it? Well, Sony kind of promoted it, but it was actually, it's overture. It's just a short, like a single episode. It was included with the Japanese release of Gravity Rush 2. But over here, I kept expecting them to give it away as a promotional thing, but I think they just uploaded it on YouTube and mentioned it on their blog. And it kind of introduces Kat to the unfamiliar.

but it's kind of important because it explains why Cat and Raven are no longer in Hexaville, the city of the first Gravity Rush at the beginning of Gravity Rush 2. So it kind of ties into that whole, you're supposed to do some reading for this element that sometimes we see in sequels. Yeah. And it's really very nicely made. I'm sorry, go ahead. No, I'm sorry, Todd.

I jumped in there prematurely. I was just going to add on like, yeah, I think, yeah, Gravity Rush Overture is like a 20-minute OVA basically and it felt like they had these cool promotional ideas for Gravity Rush 2 that didn't come to America like there's also this amazing commercial they put together where to hype up the game where it's like they use practical effects to literally turn a room 180 degrees upside down and like it to kind of like show like ah gravity you can mess with gravity and like walk on the ceiling and stuff and and they ended up winning a bunch of awards for for inventive commercial design, but, you know, we never got it here.

Was that before or after Inception? I'm going to bet after without remembering when Inception came out. I think it was after, yeah. Yeah, I need to check out Overture because I actually this morning was just, you know, jump back into the rebuild of Evangelion movies to prepare myself for the 4.0 showing up on Netflix in a few weeks and try to refresh myself like, what the hell happened in the third? movie. It's been a long time, like years since I've seen it, but I know it was really weird. So, you know, I'm in the, I'm in the mood for Studio Kara stuff because it's really quality

work. So I have to imagine that Overture is amazing. Yeah, it really does a nice job. It almost makes me wish that they're, I mean, if Gravity Rush had been a little bit bigger of a series, they could have gone and made an entire movie out of it or something like that. But alas, not to be. So is there anything unique about the series? I admit I never played all the way through Gravity Rush 2. I played some of it. But by that point, it actually came out right after I left the games press. And at that point, I kind of lost my incentive to play really big games. It also sort of collided with the launch of the Nintendo Switch. So, you know, just overshadowed in a lot of ways. So I kind of didn't invest a lot of

time into it. So, you know, what new elements or mechanics were added for the sequel that I'm forgetting about. Do you want to take this one, or should I? I can jump in on that. Okay, go ahead. So, yeah, they were, rather than having a cat develop, you know, her stats through collecting gems now, they kind of, they gated that behind story progression, instead now she would gain extra, like, skill in hand-to-hand combat in different styles of gravity use.

would show up. So basically now in two, in addition to the regular floating, she had two new modes called Lunar and Jupiter that would affect the how much gravity did or did not affect her. So Lunar was like she was even lighter and Jupiter is she's heavier and there'd be different attacks and techniques associated with each one. They also included a gem equipment system so you could equip certain gems that would give you different bonuses that you could find either by completing side quests or doing like a mining mini game where like at the start of the game cat is working with this rag tag mining company trying to survive and like at any point you can kind of just go on a mining mission and harvest some gems and uh later on in the game they

even unlock a thing where you can like kind of fuse different. different gems together, break them down into components and recombine them. It's a very involved system that, honestly, I never really interacted with too much. I found just like a couple gems that, you know, seemed to work okay. And I stuck with those most of the way. Oh, yeah. And the new fighting styles do change things a bit because I think the heavier, the Jupiter fighting style is a little more useful because you don't move around quite as much. And you focus more on the hand-to-hand element of it.

And Lunar, it's a little more awkward to fight when you're playing it, but Cat is much more, she's almost blowing in the breeze when she equips it. So it almost makes it more fun to just fly around with it because you skip and bounce off of buildings. And so it's a lot more fluid there. So I'm not even sure if a lunar works so much as a fighting style as it is just as a mode of transportation. But it really adds a lot to the game when you're navigating it and flying around.

they also really expanded the open world elements of the game in an effort to like make though the world seem more lived in like uh they added the photo mode which was you know not that uncommon among open world games but they added a lot of extra elements to it where cat can do different poses there are different i believe filters on the lens you can use and there are a bunch of different costumes you can pick up throughout the game or as DLC, like right at launch, they had a crossover with near automata, you know, where she could dress up as 2B. And so you can have her as, you know, 2B standing on a wall, doing a peace sign while Dusty stands nearby. And people would share those either in the game or like,

I believe there was like an online social presence you could have where people could share Dusty tokens. I did not play the game at launch, and that service has long shut down, but apparently there was a thing where you could, like, share photos and stuff and get dusty tokens that would unlock more gems or more costumes and such. Right. It was kind of like you would leave hints for other players in the game. So it wasn't really so much online multiplayer as it was just sort of a more almost a social media kind of element to it. And I do feel bad that they shut down that part of it, even though it wasn't really, at least it wasn't, you know, essential to the game. Yeah, I feel like Sony is very ruthless about culling online support for anything that isn't

insanely popular. So they don't, they don't really let stuff live a long time. I guess, you know, Nintendo's the same way, too, with stuff like Mario Maker and Meverse and that sort of thing. But it is frustrating that, you know, there was this period of a decade or so where everyone was like, let's add social features to our game. Oh, well, this wasn't as successful as we expected. So too bad. This thing that you, you know, fans really enjoyed, you can't have it anymore. It is too bad, too, because there are like certain items that are permanently locked

off now that you can't get without the online social media portion. Like, there's a small bit passionate group of people who will, I guess, hack your Gravity Rush 2 save file to unlock those items for you. Oh, yeah, it's always really hardening when fans step up like that and affix the things. Yeah, it's frustrating when they have to, but yeah, that's, I guess,

the gravity rush equivalent of fans running their own wow servers or something, or EverQuest Shards, whatever you call it. So, yeah, I don't want to belabor this episode. I feel like maybe we've hit on most of the points that are salient to gravity rush. So is there anything else you'd like to bring up or discuss before we kind of call it a day? I see there was a section of the notes for Gravity Rush 3 question mark.

Hmm. Yeah, and I honestly would not mind seeing one, a Gravity Rush 3. I do think they wrapped up a few things, but it also showed a lot of parts of the world that we didn't really get to explore. For example, not to give too much away, but you kind of see where Kat's homeland is, and you don't really get to fly around in it. And it makes me just remember that there are so many different things you could do with the world. And even if we never really get a Gravity Rush 3, though, I think, it's very much a satisfying conclusion to the series with Gravity Rush, too. So, again, it's something I would certainly appreciate, but it's not something that we absolutely need to, you know, feel complete. Bill, what would you want to see for the future of this series? I mean, I do agree with you both that I think you could just say the first two are a satisfying conclusion. I think you could go further in refining the gravity mechanics with, you know, the additional power of new hardware and with additional time to like kind of iterate on what they've done before, make the movement more fun, not to literally copy another game, but, you know, I think so much about how with Marvel Spider-Man and Miles Morales, they really, really nailed the web swinging and like the sense of,

of joy in the movement there. If they could even capture a portion of that with the gravity, which you know, it was fine. I enjoyed it, but it was, you know, sometimes work for different reasons to make cat go

where you wanted to in those games. That'd be awesome. Just unfortunately, it seems like the odds of a gravity rush tree right now are really slim with all of the entire team scattered to the winds and Toyama and some of his crew now working on

not siren kind of release dates to be determined. That's right. He has left us, Sony hasn't? He's in startup his own company similar to what Fumito-Awaita did. Do you feel like there's room for a gravity rush three in Sony's first party lineup? When you have, as you say, Miles Morales

kind of really nailing the non-traditional 3D world movement and you have the new Ratchet and Clink game basically giving you the ability to travel around and explore these little fragmentary worlds that are not sort of

structured like traditional 3D spaces. I'd still like there to be because I think Cat is a very endearing character. Like I think out of everything and then what primarily brings people into the series and like what

generates the continued fandom as cat. And, like, I think that shows in, like, how she keeps popping up as cameos and other games. Like, she was the representative in Astros Playroom. She has, you know, costume sets and, like, let it die in, you know, a soul sacrifice. She's, you know, the representative in PlayStation All-Stars. Like, but I think that's justified, too.

It's not just like she's the token gravity rush add-in. Like, her character arc is very enjoyable. like watching her grow and mature and into her powers and her sense of ideals. And I think you could still find a story of her continuing to be challenged. Like now that the world is kind of settled down and like working within the new changing power structures in the story world. All right. And even though there are some games that are similar to it, I still think that between, you know, the characters and the world and even the gameplay, grab pretty much still feels like nothing else on the market.

So I think we could definitely do with another game. And it might even do better now that we have other games pushing forward the same idea. Well, it seems like at least the fan base is keeping things alive. I know there's a lot of kind of media and just sort of grassroots support for the franchise just with its fan base. Beyond hacking Gravity Rush 2 save files. That's right. Yeah, I'm not directly affiliated with this, but if it's all right, I'll promote here. Yeah, please.

And there's an upcoming fanzine dedicated to the 10th anniversary of the original Gravity Rush called Gravity Memories that's currently in the works. Like they've gotten all the artists. It's Western inspired, but they did their best to like reach out to artists across the world to bring in, you know, artwork, cosplay and written material to show how passionate and how much love there is for Gravity Rush still. And I'm glad that unlike some other, you know, cult favorite series, the Gravity Rush games are both very accessible in terms of pricing. They're always going on sale on the PlayStation Network. So unless you want, you know, a physical copy of Gravity Rush Remastered, you're not going to pay a lot to experience the games. Even weirdly there, there's a weird thing going on with GameStop right now where they mysteriously found a bunch of like new copies of Gravity Rush Remaster that they're selling at $60. Almost as though they ordered a reprint of a bunch of new copies, took the plastic off them, and are selling them as pre-owned so they can get around the MSRP.

But what do I thought? That would be a scandalous thing for a company like GameStop to do. Yeah, I might have to check that out. I mean, I owned that one digitally, so I guess I don't really need the physical copy. But, you know, it is nice that, as you say, this series is accessible. I mean, I get frustrated with a lot of Sony's practices about supporting its franchises and platforms and services, but at the very least, you know, they have continued to support PlayStation 4 purchases, you know, that that platform is still going strong even though supposedly PS5 exists. I'm not convinced not ever having seen one in person, but, you know, supposedly it's the best-selling console. you know, fastest selling console ever. So, you know, someone, they must be making units and

someone must be buying them. But the PS4 is still going pretty strong. So yeah, it feels like there's no real urgency for people to rush out and buy these games. Maybe the Vita version, you want to like hurry up and download that before they kill those servers. But yeah, the PS4 games should be around for a long time. And yeah, they're both, they're both really enjoyable. I really need to play through the rest of Gravity Rush 2 someday. But like just, you know, talking about it, watching videos and refreshing my memory reading notes and interviews and stuff in order to record this podcast made me really want to just dive back into the original Gravity Rush. Like I've got my Vita right here. I want to, I want to play it. Not that I have time, but,

but in theory, I should be able to play it. And I always love just going back to the games just to, you know, mess around with them, just to fly around even, not really doing any of the missions or the challenges, but just, you know, exploring. And I think that's always the mark of a good game where it's just, you know, fun to lose yourself in it. Yeah, this is definitely one of those where, like I said, I don't really remember much of the latter half of the game narratively, but just the sensation of zipping around through space,

you know, poking around to see what's around, you know, this side of the structure. Can I get back there? What am I going to find? Oh, jims, all right. Um, it's very satisfying. Like, it feels like you're, it's one of those games that reward you in some way for poking around and seeing what you can accomplish, what you can find. And as someone who likes to poke around and, you know, kind of stray from the main path, I, I appreciate when games do that. Oh, definitely. Yeah. All right. Well, I think that wraps it up for gravity rush. And actually, we talked about it for quite a while longer than I thought we might be able to, which is great. Like it's a mark of a great game when you can a great game when you can lose yourself in the game when you can lose yourself in the

conversation, as you might say. So, Bill, thank you very much for bringing this topic to retronauts, even though it hasn't quite hit 10 years yet since Gravity Rush. The Vita's launch anniversary is coming up soon. And with it, games like Gravity Rush and I feel like there were probably some other games that we'll have to have to try to remember. But there's a ridge racer, I think. Oh, there was a ridge racer, yes.

I was thinking more like, you know, stuff. stunning original works for the platform. But I guess that's kind of what makes Gravity Rush so unique, is that it was really, you know, aside from the Uncharted game, and was there a god of war? At the launch, I don't think there was. No, I think they repackaged the two PSP ones for the Vita, and that's it.

Yeah, so this was really Sony, like, this is where Sony put its chips. And even though it didn't probably work out the way they wanted it to and didn't, you know, blow the doors off. in terms of sales, uh, I greatly appreciate the fact that they, they let Toyama's team do their thing and create this,

this game, you know, that really kind of pushed portable gaming to a new, a new level, really, like did something on a handheld system that no one had ever done before. And I guess no one has done since. So, um, yeah, it's, that's not a bad legacy. And, uh, you know, looking back 10 years later, it's still a memorable and very enjoyable game. Oh, I agree totally. It's definitely a game that pretty much sold me on the Vita. And I would always, when I first got it, I would just be telling myself, you know, if I don't like this game, I can always sell this Vita back and everything. But no, it cemented it for me. So I'll always have that. And I really do recommend Gravity Rush to people. I mean, some people do bounce hard off the gameplay and the way the perspective can be a little confusing. But I think if you stick with it, you know, and If it clicks with you, you'll love it.

Since I'm already in trouble, I might as well mention here. I have touched the original, but I'm primarily played Gravity Rush Remastered and Gravity Rush 2 on my PS5. Okay. To give you an idea of how, I love the games dearly, but that's my context for picking them up. So it's a much more recent interest for you. Yes. Yeah. Well, you know, maybe there will be a groundswell of support from people playing these games on

PS5 and Sony will say, ah, we've got to do more of these. So get out there and buy a copy, folks. All right. Thanks again, guys, for joining this episode. Thanks, everyone out there for listening. This has been Retronauts episode 404. So many episodes. I have been Jeremy Parrish, and you can hear me pretty much every week on this show talking about games that are usually more than nine years old. That's what we try to do. And you can find Retronauts at Retronauts.com on the Greenland Podcast Network on podcatchers all around the world. And of course, you can support the show by going to patreon.com slash retronauts. That's what Bill did.

He supports us at the one with the Lifstream level, which is kind of hard to get one of those slots. But if you can wing it, then you can request a topic and be on the show to talk about an old video game or a slightly not quite old enough video game, if you prefer, with us. as a panelist on the show. And anyway, that's patreon.com slash retronauts. Lots of bonuses for just signing up at a $3 or $5 level all the way up to like exclusive patron only episodes and access to the discord where I go and talk about progressive rock and other things that are sometimes video game related on a regular basis. There's also patron exclusive columns and mini podcasts. I don't know.

I'm not going to belabor at Retronauts.com. or no, sorry, patreon.com slash retronauts. That's my pitch. Bill, why don't you tell us about where we can find the work that you do on the internet? If, if indeed there is anything you would like to share. Sure, yeah. Garbage pelting can be directed towards At So Many Bits on Twitter. I'm on there pretty much far too much.

I do stream on Twitch so many bits there as well, usually Wednesday and Thursday nights. I have a podcast called, So many bits. That is on semi-hyaitis, but I did do a couple episodes this year, won a 13 centival spoiler cast. And Jeremy, that in theory is a retro game, right? Because, you know, it takes place in the 80s. And also it was in development for like a decade. Yes, exactly. He gets it. He gets it. But yeah, so many bits basically everywhere, Twitter, Twitch, and podcast. All right. And Todd. Well, I'm on mine mostly as a kid Fenris. I'm on Twitter with that, and I have a website by that name that I'm still keeping alive, despite all common sense

and evidence to the contrary. And I did, a friend and I launched a YouTube series called Unsung Game Creators that were hoping to use to chronicle a lot of behind-the-scenes stories about games. And they are, of course, all mostly old games, so they're right in tune with the retro element. All right. And finally, you can find me, Jeremy Parrish, on Twitter as game spite and doing stuff with limited run games and doing videos on YouTube under my own name Jeremy Parrish. There's only one R in Parrish. Don't believe liars who tell you there's two. And then, of course, you can find me doing stuff on Retronauts again, pretty much every week. Anyway, I think I'm going to go play some gravity rush. So without further ado, thank you again,

Bill. Thank you again, listeners and Todd. And yeah, that's that's it. Let's go fly through space. Jello, two-s-lis-sure-sure-o. And the law are lucky-tus-no-no-lan-usia. Plysses-lid-lid to-dochrancy-n-o dey. Doe-pitt, and pre-jubile, no shud-de-chri-churi. Yves-a-blood, noctu-do-do-no-o-o-o-do-no-o-do-no-do-no-a. Su-de-la.

A-2-1. Sue, what do we say? Oh, it's cool, l'u-la-na, no-a-l-l-l-lara. Hello, L'Hullet Soli, L'Lea, Jouroa, Tole prezori,

Lalea yuplei, lae a yuppolou L'est you. comic books, think again. We got romance. We got action. Romance. We got comedy. We got everything you need, man.

Come on down to superhero stuff you should know for all your superhero needs. I don't know about this romance. What part are you talking about? We've got all kinds of sketches. And then deep dives on top of that. Come on down to superhero stuff you should know. All right. So come on down to, wait, why did I say come on down?

To superhero stuff you should know. Part of the Greenlit Podcast Network. When it hasn't been your day, your week, your month, or even your year, we'll be there for you. I'm Ryan, the line is always a dot to me. And I'm Mark. How are you doing? We're a podcast of two friends watching Friends. We're living every episode of the TV show in all its glory, delving behind the scenes and discussing all our favourite moments. Join us as we get reacquainted with some old friends and hopefully make some new ones along the way, only on the Greenlit Podcast Network.

Hi, everyone, I'm Jeremy Parrish. Welcome to Retronauts. It's another fine episode this week, and that's just kind of a guarantee. If you're listening to Retronauts, you know, it's going to be a fine episode. But anyway, this is more an episode style that we haven't done in a while, thanks to this whole pandemic thing. Not a lot of interview episodes, but here we are. This is an interview episode. I'm talking to, well, actually, why don't you introduce yourself?

Well, hello, everybody. My name is Shiloh, and I am the founder of New Wave Toys, and I'm glad to be here. All right. And I'm specifically talking to Shiloh, because New Wave Toys, New Wave Toys keeps putting out replicades of really great arcade games that I love, a little miniature replica versions that are not just for decor, they are actually playable, although I do use them as decor and play them both. They're multifunctional. Anyway, I'm a big fan and have really taken a liking to these little mini systems that you've been making for the past few years, and they just

seem to keep getting better. That's always a good sign, you know, instead of getting shotier and cheaper. So I really appreciate the amount of work and just the high level of detail that goes into these. So I jumped at the opportunity to talk with Shiloh, just kind of about where these things came from, how they got started and maybe even where they're going to. So I guess the first question would be that I have for you, how did these things get started? Like what's, where did the replicate concept come from and, you know, what was involved in actually getting that kind of bootstrapped off the ground? Well, it comes from a love of arcade games and that's, you know, a lifelong thing for me.

I'm 50 now. And so I grew up right in the proper pocket of the golden age of arcade games. And, you know, I started going to arcades when I was nine or ten years old and I never really stopped my whole life. So I've always loved video games. I have a career that I started in the mid-90s in video games. And I kind of burned out a little bit to the modern consoles and the games and the sequels. And it was just time to do something that I've always wanted to do. and that is make a collection of products that that really pay a proper homage to these classic, super classic arcade games.

To me, that are the most important thing in video games and also what I like the most. So, you know, there's there's so many aspects to an arcade machine. I mean, it's everything from the shape to the cabinet artwork, the materials that go into making it, to the controls, to the actual game, and all the little details and in history that, you know, these awesome arcade machines have. and really replicate is kind of what we want to be like the criterion of movies, you know, like the criterion collection. They do a great job of getting as much information and putting it together in a really nice package. If you love a film, this is the same sort of concept, but for arcade machines.

So let me ask you, what was the first arcade game you played? You said that you're kind of focusing on games you love. And it's been kind of an eclectic mix so far. Atari games, Capcom games, mostly, but also, you know, there's Dragons Lair in there. And upcoming, you have Kubert from Gottlieb. So it's kind of, you know, stretching out a little bit. I'd love to know how you kind of got into arcade games in the first place and what really sort of cemented your love. Well, my earliest memories are actually playing death race.

And also Space Wars. Those are the two games that I totally remember playing after swimming at the YMCA, you know. And that just started it. I mean, that's kind of mid to late 70s type timing. And, you know, so to me, those were the first couple games that I fell in love with. As far as the games that we've made, you know, we started with Sennepie. And as you mentioned, we've done a few other licenses. But with each game, we try to find something that's unique about that game.

So, for instance, you know, Centipede's an Uber classic, right? But it uses a trackball. So cool. We want to make a trackball game. Let's start with that. And we look at Tempest. And Tempest is about the rotary dial plus the vector graphics. We definitely want to use some vector graphics.

games because I love them and, you know, we love them and lots of people love them. And in fact, you know, don't get me started talking about the Vetrax because I also, that's my favorite video game console. So vector graphics, absolutely got to have them. So, you know, doing all the development work for something like Tempest, you know, we tested many, many screens to try to get the best effect that we possibly could for the vectors. And that paid off later on when we did asteroids, right? So we were able to use the same screen.

So it saves some development work. And then you look at, well, we want to do a fighting game. So what do we need to do with that? Well, we need to develop microswitch controllers that are super, super accurate, right? Well, we got to do that in a miniaturized form. So, you know, nothing really that we use is off the shelf as far as controls go. So, I mean, we end up developing all this stuff pretty much from scratch. But the great thing is, is once we develop it, we can fine-tune it, make it better,

and then use it for future titles. So, you know, you look at each game, everything, you know, each one has a bit of a different story, even something like Kubert. Well, that's, you know, we haven't really done anything that's cute or platforming, right? So Kubert falls into that category, and he also swears. So, hey, that's pretty good to be, right? So, you know, each game has sort of been selected. And then, of course, when you...

So sorry to interrupt, but a question on Kubert, are you doing the knocker, like a little miniaturized knocker in the cabinet? Oh, absolutely, right. Okay. Yeah, for sure. So there's a small 12-volt solenoid in there that, you know, that was actually probably the hardest thing with Kubert was to develop that and make sure it's going off at the right time.

Yeah, so you've kind of given me a whole buffet of choices to talk about just in that, that little, a little spiel you just gave. I kind of don't know where to start. But I guess one of the big questions I have is just the process of miniaturizing things. So you're working at once. sixth scale, right? Correct, yes. Right. So, you know, something that I've found with toy collecting and action figures and that sort of thing is that replicating materials and, and, you know, simulating like the, say the flow of fabrics, capes and that sort of thing, it's really difficult once you actually start to scale down because, you know, a sixth inch cape flows differently. than a five-foot cape. Like the fabric is just different. And I feel like you must have encountered problems along those lines working with things like, you know, the trackball and centipede.

Because a big part of the experience of centipede is, you know, it is the track ball. But that track ball, it's like, you know, a billiards ball. It's got heft to it. It's got real weight. And when you scale that down to one sixth size, that's actually like 136th the math. If you're going by, you know, the what is it, the square inverse ratio. or whatever. So how do you make that convincing at such a tiny size? You know, to get that you can you can spin the trackball in centipede and it's just going to keep spinning for a while

because it's got that, you know, that mass to it just keeps going. And I've definitely seen some attempts to recreate that at, you know, more or less full size like the arcade one-up Artari cabinets. And, you know, even at like three-quarter size, it does, they didn't pull it off. It's, you know, it feels too flimsy and too light and it just, it doesn't have that kind of fluidity and that, that sense of kind of a life of its own almost. Yeah. You know, what's interesting is if you just start, first of all, looking at the scale, like one sixth scale, well, why did we pick that? And I think when you were talking about miniaturization with, with figures, one sixth scale is awesome to me you know it's small enough that it's very manageable but it's big enough that you can

recreate those details that you were mentioning with clothing or you know weapons accessories whatever it might be and that plus it's like the most classic play scale really you know um thinking back to you know Barbies and you know when I was growing up we had a toy line called big gym and G.I. Joe's and of course 12 inch Star Wars action figures. And so really it was the same type of thinking was like, well, you know what? We can cram a lot of detail into these games at six scale. It's manageable. It's a great size so that people can collect lots of them. And you don't have to allocate a whole bunch of space. Right. So I mean, I know that's not, that's not what you but I like to give some background on why we chose this, the scale.

Now, as far as miniaturizing everything and getting it right, I mean, it took a long time. A lot of trial and error. It's so funny. Every time we do a project, I go back and look at the initial couple first rounds of prototypes. And they're just, you know, we laugh because it becomes such a far, Such a long way, right, from when you first start to you actually launch. And, you know, getting it to feel right in its scale just was, you know, it was the goal. And our products, you know, coming from a long career working for large companies where it's very common that you're going to cut something out because of cost, right?

or you're going to maybe skip, skip something because, you know, just based on sheer economics. Well, with our company, it's, you know, I don't want to say it's the exact opposite, but we're definitely not going to skimp on anything as far as quality goes, because that was always something that bothered me in my past career. So, you know, it's a long process. and anybody who pre-ordered our centipede from Kickstarter knows just how much struggle we had, you know, to get it out. And then, you know, once we finally did get it out, well, great, because now we have a vetted trackball that we're basically using the same supplier and we're just, we're scaling it up for an upcoming new trackball game. which is Missile Command.

Yeah, I saw Missile Command on display at Portland Retro Gaming Expo a few years ago. And, you know, I assume that's also going to use the vector display. Was that vector or raster? I can't remember, actually. No, it was a raster. Yeah, now that I think about it, you're right. It was raster. But the thing that really caught my eye with Missile Command was that there was an alternate

cabinet there that was designed in the style of the sit-down cabinets, which at 1-6 scale is not really feasible, but it was really, really cool. And it does get into something that you've been doing increasingly with your releases. Not every release has alternate versions, but a lot have. Like, I was really impressed with asteroids, which, you know, it came with just kind of the standard, like, here is what asteroids looked like, very accurate.

But then there was also the option to buy sort of battle-damaged asteroids. like, you know, the asteroids that had been sitting in the lobby of a, you know, a pizza parlor or a convenience store or something for seven or eight years and it was sun bleached on one side and had cigarette burns and, you know, they had to replace the coin drop slots. And there was even like the third party replacement control panel decal, which was, you know, I looked that up and that was authentic. I'd never seen that in person before. But, you know, just the level of detail is amazing. But I would love to hear more about kind of how the, you know, the idea came around to offering these alternate versions, which I think, you know, have kind of reached a new apex with 1942, which you can also buy as 1943, which looks completely different, absolutely like two totally different machines. But they both run the same two games. And, you know, with that in mind, is there, is there a way for you to make that that really cool missile command sit down cabinet? thing. Yes. So good, good questions there.

So where do I start? Why don't we start with asteroids? So with asteroids, what you're talking about is the variant we made, which we call the overhaul edition. And one thing we want to do with the variance is make sure there's a story behind it. And with asteroids, it's the story we made up. And you told it perfectly, right? It's a, it's pulled it, we pulled it out of the pizza parlor, it's faded, but presentable, right?

And with that, we kind of took the concept from Todd Tucky, right? So what they do is they actually refurbish and overhaul old arcade machines at T&T amusements. And that's this exact same concept that this came in. We overhauled it. We put, you know, new T molding on it, made it look kind of nice. But still, you know, this coin. doors stuffed up and there's, as you said, battle damage. And Pantina, that, you know, that's really cool. Um, cigarette burns, et cetera. So that's, that's one variant. And now with

1942 and 1943, um, it's actually interesting because 1943 was a Capcom factory cabinet in, in, in the dynamo cabinet, right? So that that's the. dynamo cabinet, the same one that we use for street fighter. So it's like, well, how do we make this more interesting? And it's like, well, 1942 has this older low boy type cabinet that's like very legendary. And has a totally different types of controls too, right? So, you know, the 42 cabinet is more like our leaf switch type buttons, right? whereas 43 has microswitch buttons.

So there's all sorts of little upgrades. And then we took it another step further with 43. And we did make it into also an overhaul edition where, you know, we added little details like security bar on the coin doors with a little lock, you know, stuff like that. But it also has like, you know, the aftermarket team molding and some other goodies that we're throwing in. So I want to expand on.

to just a bit more and and talk about Hubert and you know, okay, everybody knows the Kubert cabinet, right? But not everybody knows about the Kuberd variant cabinet. The Warren Davis, you know, he's the creator, the programmer of Kubert. We learned of his pre-production prototype through Tony Temple's blog, arcade blogger, right? And it's like, this is a really interesting story here. You know, there's Warren Davis. He still owns this pre-production, you know, engineering prototype. And it has a lot of interesting aspects to it. You know, first of all, it's a engineering prototype. So that's really cool. Second thing, it has a lot of different artwork, different artwork treatments on the side. And then we took it another step further

and we're actually, we're doing our best to recreate, you know, all the distressing and Bantina from his cabinet into the variant cabinet. So it's really fun and we like it because, again, we can tell a story. Yeah. So with the Cubert alternate version, like you're literally selling people a replica of a single specific machine, not a machine style, but like an actual physical object that exists in the world. Is that right? Exactly.

It sits in his home in Los Angeles here. Yeah. So that's actually really amazing because I had seen the marquee on that, you know, the alternate marquee with instead of the name of the game, it just has like Hubert cursing, which is really cool, but obviously not very marketable. And I always wonder what that was from. I was like, I, you know, it kind of had a little bit of a barrenstain effect. I was like, did I really see that in person?

Like when I was a kid, I remember playing Cubert, but did I, did I see that? Yeah, maybe I did. But no, I didn't because it didn't exist outside of Warren Davis's home. So yeah, like I had to have that one for sure. So I put a pre-order down on that as soon as it came out. It's just such a weird, quirky, cool thing to do. You know what? Actually, working so closely with.

Warren has been really awesome because he's told us some really great stories. And one of the things was, is they didn't know what to call Cubert when they were testing it in the arcades, right? So you might have actually seen that marquee because, you know, at one time that that's what they were going to call the game, right? Was these curse words in the speak bubble. So some, I believe some early cabinets did go out. with that marquee, but with Warren's, it's even more special because there's, there's artwork on there, like on the control panel, there's a little extra instructions. You can tell some of the character drawings are a little bit early, you know, the really awesome characters

by Jeff Lee, so that the design is a, is a tad different. So all these, like, details, I think our customers really appreciate and I mean we really think it's cool and Warren's been great and he's let us come over and you know test the machine and play with it and in fact another cool thing about it is Warren was concerned when they launched Kubert that perhaps it was too easy and a lot of players would be able to just sit there with one quarter and play for a long time right so he immediately started working on harder faster more challenging hubert and um it's a basically it's acceleration of uh levels you know you just it gets harder a whole lot faster um hence the name right uh than the regular version and so we're like oh that's so cool we're putting that as the bonus

game on the cabinet and actually with the warren davis edition it'll boot right into that game, whereas the regular version will boot into the arcade version of Kubernetes. Oh, interesting. So I've heard of faster, harder, more challenging Hubert or whatever it's called, but was that ever actually released into the world or was it just a prototype that just kind of became famous? It never released. Okay. He finished the game and I believe about 10 years ago, he released the code in the main community. Oh, okay. But it was actually never released.

So he did a whole bunch of work that he really didn't have to. And we're like, oh, well, this is just a perfect type of bonus game for our product. Yeah, so going back to 1942 and 43, obviously those have two very different form factors, but both of those machines have both 1943 and 42 on them, correct? Yep, that's right. So is the play experience different? You know, you said that 42 has the leaf style controller, and 43 has microswitches. So are you going, like, if someone sits down and plays, you know, 1942,

with a micro switch, are they going to be like, wow, I'm better at this game than I remember. Or do you think it really makes that big a difference? It makes a difference for sure. I find in one thing that we really tried to take a lot of pride in is if you're playing one of our cabs, you play some games, you go to the next one, they feel completely different. You feel like you're, you've moved, you know, to the next machine in an arcade. And that's something we've strived for. And it's absolutely a different experience playing with the Leaf switch type controls versus the microswitch controls.

Do you think in 19443 suffers playing on Leaf Controls? Do you have a recommended way to play either of these games? I mean, it's funny. Honestly, we find playing 1942 is more. accurate playing with the Leafs style and then 43 feels better playing with the microswitches. It's almost like Capcom knew what they were doing. Yeah, you've imagined that, right? But you know what?

If you bought 1942, we still include a miniature arcade stick that is 1943 branded and, of course, has the micro switches. So everybody can try the different control schemes with the two different. games and figure out what they like the best. So that's a thing you seem to be doing with your Capcom replicas. You also included a second player controller for Street Fighter 2. I assume the 1943 controller is different than the Street Fighter 2 controller, you know, besides just the decor on it. But I imagine it's just a two button controller, right?

Yeah, completely different tooling. Yeah, exactly. Two buttons fire and loop. and actually we're constantly trying to improve our products, you know, and so what we did is we actually added the Coindore buttons onto this mini arcade stick also, which allow you to access adding credits and then also access the menus right from the mini controller rather than having to go over to the console and, you know, activate the buttons that way. But the other thing that is interesting has kind of been a progression with Dragon's Lair.

We actually did a Kickstarter with DragonsLayer, and we had different unlocked tiers of interesting features that we were considering. And, you know, those include external controller support, which you're just talking about. And also, HDMI, HDTV output. So you can, you know, plug into the big screen and use. are replicate cabinets basically also as a as a console and so um that turned out to be you know some people could care less and they'll never do it and they just like playing on the small screens and enjoying that experience but a lot of people really like that extra feature and we feel like it's a it adds a good value so I'm gonna see that more and more where it makes sense for us

And in fact, 42 and 43 both have the HDTV connectivity. Okay. So that's not necessarily a given on future releases from you, but definitely something that we'll be seeing some of. Exactly. It needs to make sense. And there needs to be an external controller that makes sense to play with the game. So there's a bunch of different factors.

And also, you know, some games, it's like, I mean, you know, asteroids maybe not so much, right? But something like 1942, 1943, it's a blast playing on the big screen. And it's just a whole different experience. Yeah, I got a kick out of using the Street Fighter 2, the external controller, you know, on other devices. Like I hooked it up to an emulator and was playing some NES games with it. And it was weirdly good. Like, you know, it seems like it's, you know, almost comical because it's so tiny.

But, you know, it's got good response. Yeah. You know, it's great. is a lot of pretty competitive streetfighter players have gone into competitions using that mini stick. That's kind of the opposite of a struggle stick. And they actually have done quite well. So, I mean, it's a feather in our cap, I guess,

that we can miniaturize stuff like that and make it work. So we always get a kick out of when we hear somebody, you know, oh, he came in second in a tournament using our mini stick, you know. So another question for you, going back to the to the Dragon's Lair cabinet. First, was there any consideration of putting Dragon's Lair 2 or Space Ace or something in there? Or was the parameter of that one just Dragons Lair? Oh, 100% just Dragons Lair. There's so much to accomplish just with Dragonslare.

And, you know, Space Aces are really great. standalone cabinet. So that might be something we're considering to do in the future. So we really had no interest on putting an extra game with the Dragon's Lair cabinet. Again, it all tells a story from the accessories we pack in. And I'll just use a laser disc player as an example. I mean, I don't know if you've seen it or not, Jeremy.

Oh, yeah, yeah, I've got it. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Yeah. So, I mean, that is. It's amazing. Like a tiny little, you know, like, oh, my Luke Skywalker can watch Star Wars.

on it, you know, like a little laser disc player. But it is a very first-gen commercial laser display, right? It's got that sort of brownish old PC coloring to it and a, you know, a clear top. And it's just a it's a first-gen laser display. And that's the first laser disc player that they shipped with Dragon Slayers. You know, so we just wanted to be completely full. focused on Dragon's Lair. We expanded our menu options with it. So it's just more of a deeper experience and making sure we capture as much detail and, you know, as possible. So again,

with the Dragons Lair question, how do you decide when you're going to just sell a product direct on your site and when it's going to go through the Kickstarter process? Because you've done a couple of Kickstarter, Centipede and Dragonslayer. But, you know, most of the time, most of your products have just gone straight to the New Wave Toys website. They're up for sale, pre-order, you know, and that's it. How do you kind of make that determination? Well, really, we started with a Kickstarter, right?

So that was a great platform to start the ball rolling. And then we started dabbling and like, well, you know what? Let's try to do pre-sell off our website. And slowly we're just getting better at it. And we actually much prefer. And I think everybody prefers that the pre-orders on our website are as much a better experience. However, with Kickstarter, it's still great for new concepts, right? So, for instance, we have some replica boomboxes coming out.

And so to us, that that's a perfect Kickstarter project, right? because it's the first one we're doing. It's a brand new category, et cetera, et cetera. Whereas, you know, with the replicate line now, we have a few years experience with it. We know all our vendors very well, and it's running more, you know,

like a fine-tuned machine, whereas a new project is a whole new learning experience and a whole new set of vendors, et cetera. And that's probably a much better fit for a Kickstarter. Yeah. Speaking of new ventures, you mentioned something earlier about scaling up the centipede trackball. Is that something that we'll be seeing directly from you or was it, you know, a project for

someone else? I'm curious to know more about that, although I'm sure you can't talk too much about it. Well, I think what I was trying to say was centipede has what you, you explained it very well. It's basically a cue ball, right? That's the original trackball. and missile command moved up to a much larger trackball. Oh, okay. Yeah.

So it's, if you look at the cabinet, you can see it. It's like a four-inch trackball. And it's a much different experience. So we actually, I have the prototype here right in front of me, and you can listen to this. We got the spinning. Oh, yeah, that's some good action. I can, you know, just listening, I can tell.

Yeah. So just you can just hear that. you know, the added size of the track ball. And we actually redid some of the underpinning and added some ball bearings in there and stuff to actually make it spin even better than a centipede. So really excited about that. Again, just trying to progress and get better with every cabinet we make, right?

So we feel this is a better trackball experience than what we had with centipede. okay so i guess i misunderstood i thought you were saying that you were building like at a larger scale like you know moving up to a third one third scale or something i was curious about that but that sounds a lot more sensible right yeah um no it's just just just a just a larger one-six scale trackball got it um so one of the things that i thought was really interesting about dragons's layer was the inclusion of the score like the separate score display um which is something you tended not to see on games really after Dragon's Lair came out, that was

it was kind of a relic by the time that happened. When I think of, you know, those separate score displays, I do think of, you know, sometimes laser disc games, but also some of the TTL games from like Sega, you know, like think back to Monaco GP or Zoom 909 or something or I guess, you know, Planet of Zoom in the U.S. Has there been any consideration of going back to, you know, some pre-transit or pre-motherboard type games,

pre you know micro chip games TTLs and then things like that discrete logic um not too not too much actually um i think the lessons we learned from doing the secondary scoreboard um will be applied more for um later on with stuff we're working with for instance with pinball hmm okay so um that we we want to get right and we want to we definitely want to have the secondary scoring and you know the digits in the right spot stuff like that and with dragon slayer i'm you know again every game has something that's kind of a challenge and it was a challenge getting that the miniature scoreboard working and and looking as good as it does i mean it took a it took a lot of trial and error so yeah so is that is that an lcd screen or

is it actually LEDs no it's an LCD screen. Okay. It's very convincing. Like, it's got the sharpness and brightness of LEDs. That was the goal. So thank you. It's an accomplished. Yeah, it's a shame Nintendo is so persnickety about licensing things to basically anyone because I'd love to see You know, that sort of secondary screen concept applied to something like punch out or like a miniature play choice tin or something or, you know, like versus ice climbers. That would be, that would be amazing. But, you know, the chances of Nintendo saying, oh, yeah, sure, do that. We seem to be somewhere less than zero.

Yeah, boy, they sure are protective of their games. And good on them, you know. it's kind of the exact opposite with a lot of other licensers, right? So, yeah, they're just very protective and yeah, you're right. It's a pretty long shot that we would ever be able to do something

like a punch out of all that would be so awesome. Or, you know, arm wrestling or something. You know, some of those games that you never really see Nintendo would do anything with anymore. I mean, that's, to me, that's kind of the appeal of these cabinets. It's like, if I want to play Cintipede, I can get, you know, arcade classics or whatever, you know, and buy by a PS4 or switch game that has like a hundred Atari games on it. But, and, you know, that's going to cost like 15, 20 bucks. Whereas this, you know, cost five, six times that, one of these little miniature arcade cabinets.

But, you know, it is, it is really much about the, very much about the sort of tangible experience about recreating, you know, even at a smaller scale like that, that, that, that. hit of that dopamine hit of memory. Like, oh, yeah, this is just like I remember it. And, you know, it's tricky with going back and looking at, you know, old games, things that you played as a kid, you're like, I remember this being one way. And then you actually experience and you're like, oh, yeah, actually I remembered it differently. But I feel like there's something about the physical form factor and like actually having these tiny arcade machines that really, I don't know, But it makes it more in line with what I actually remember, except obviously the scale because I was tiny and the machines were big and now I'm big and the machines are tiny.

Yeah. Yeah, exactly. So, I mean, that's a really nice compliment because, I mean, at the end of the day, that's what we're doing. We want to get that dopamine hit to everybody and we want people put a smile on people's faces. And the way to do that is just we have to layer and layer and layer and layer all the details because you're remembering everything, right? You're remembering the look of the cabinet shape, the feel of the vinyl, you know, side panels, the proper materials on the control panel, you know, the correct artwork, the illuminated marquee, you know, illuminated coin buttons, you know, metal on the coin door. All these things add up to what we would like to think is arcade art.

And yeah, we're not the cheapest thing. There's definitely cheaper options. And like you said, you can play these games for next to nothing. But we're very happy that our products are not only retaining their value, but growing in value. And, you know, for instance, I mean, a lot of cabinets now are going $6.6.50 on the secondary market. Oh, I didn't realize that. Yeah. So they've really, you know, grown in value. And that was always something that we wanted because it sure is a lot better than the flip side of, you know, people selling them at the garage sale or Craigslist or whatever for next to nothing, you know.

so it's also great for anybody who's invested in one you know you can turn around and sell it and you don't make a really great profit off it yeah but then you don't have centipede well exactly so why would you do that right but i mean i guess it's a good you know an emergency escape hatch like oh i'm desperate got to sell my tempest yeah exactly right hopefully that's not the case but if you had to do it you could you could do it you could do it. So, you know, just to kind of wrap up here, you've talked about, you know, some of the hurdles you've had to jump and, you know, the things you've learned along the way. Looking back, you know, over the past four or five years, however long you've been doing this,

what would you say was the single biggest challenge to really get right in all of these different cabinets? I think each one has its own unique challenge. The first one, I would say, was the hardest because it's a brand new company starting out. Although I've had connections and different licenses and stuff like that, it was still the biggest challenge because, you know, you're a new company and you're starting out and, you know, you got to convince a big licensing company to, you know, work with you, right? And then also be able to afford the license that you're getting so definitely it was the first one and then just you know building the community from nothing you know so there was a whole lot of aspects in the very beginning for the first game

and definitely a lot of things got easier going forward but again still each one like I mentioned kind of a few things right with dragon's layer I mean getting Daphne to run properly was also you know a real challenge right but getting the scoreboard to work Another huge challenge. And we spent so much time debugging and trying to get things right that I could probably sit here for the next hour. But that wouldn't be very fun to listen to. I don't think me just going through all the problems that we've had to work through. But definitely each one has its own set of challenges.

But once the product comes out, those seem to be the things that people appreciate the most. So, 1944, 1943 are pretty much done shipping soon. Kuberd is in the works, you know, pre-sales been happening. And you've talked about missile command. I'm curious, like, can you talk anything at all or even drop hints about some of the machines you have lined up for, you know, the coming next two years or so? I mean, I assume you have stuff lined up. You mentioned pinball, but I'm curious to know if there's anything more, you know, more concrete that you can talk about. it's a really hard thing to talk about because I don't want to reveal too much we're trying to keep our releases the smallest window possible from pre-sell to actually shipping the product we want to keep that window tight and so when we're going to announce a game we don't want to what to happen with missile command where we announced it two years ago

we still haven't done a pre-sell on it, right? So we're trying to keep things a little closer to a chess, but I will tell you, we have some really great games coming next year and actually you'll hear about some of them by the end of this year. Like you mentioned, 1942 is done. It's actually on the water right now. There's containers filled with 1942s.

our 43 production got a little sidetracked because of I mean there's a lot of issues these days with global logistics of getting containers and the price hikes of every raw materials and securing chips and screens I mean it's a very challenging year this year but that's kind of put a little bit of a delay on 43 but we're going to have it done by the end of September and shipping. And then Cuberd actually is in the tooling phase, and we hope to start Cubert production right after we do 1943. And then with Missile Command, we listened to the trackball, right? We're really excited about that. You mentioned the environmental cabinet model we did at E3 a couple of years ago when we used to have real E3, right?

Right. Yeah, we also did a cocktail table version. I don't know if you ever see. Oh, yeah, I've wondered about that. Like, that seems like a natural kind of next step for you guys, like going to the cocktail table model. Yeah. So, and we have another surprise for Missile Command.

And if you do some homework, you might be able to figure out what it is. And I'll leave it at that. But we're really excited at Missile Command. We have these different form factors we're working on. And we have different categories of products that we're also will be revealing in the near future. And everything kind of works together with replicate. But it's definitely some, there's going to be some eyebrows raised because we have some really interesting things in the pipeline.

All right. And then, you know, like pinball. Is that actually going to be like sixth scale pinball with like a tiny steel ball? in there like can you even talk about that yet i wish you know that uh something we've been looking at and it's not very feasible right to do the real ball with the miniaturized bumpers and everything else is very challenging so pinball um will most likely be a digital um screen right digital playfield and um you know we want to do it right so we're going to take our time before before, you know, we officially announce anything,

but it's definitely something we're working on. And it's, it just goes with the whole concept of replicate where, you know, if you found it in an arcade, you know, you should, we should add it to replicate line. Well, I'm, you know, it's an exciting idea because at the scale you work at, you could actually do a replica Hercules pinball cabinet. And it wouldn't, you know, it'd be like the size of a desk, but it wouldn't be, it wouldn't be impossible. it'd be like the USS flag of miniature arcade toys like the rich kid gets one yeah exactly right

and the other thing great about the scale we do is we can pull off doing these environmental cabinets they're quite big but it's still a very manageable size and it's a great size for displays so it's another thing we're definitely looking at is doing like the environmental type cabinets and different form factors. Yeah, good stuff. All right, well, I think that's about it. Like, I mean, I could just sit here and, you know, gush about this, but I don't know how much value there is in that for most people. But I will say that I am really looking forward to 1942 and especially 43.

Like, I have a lot of memories of playing 1943 Sundays after church. My family would go to a pizza place and I would either play that or Robocop or the Goonies on versus system. And so, you know, I'm looking forward to reliving those memories. I got to get the kind of the pizza aroma in the air to really pull that off and then a little tired from sitting in a church pew for a couple of hours. But, you know, it's going to bring back some good memories. It's a favorite game. So, yeah, I just, I really enjoy the, the amount of detail that's put into these. And, you know, I work at limited run games as my day job and do a lot of work with physical goods and production and things like that.

And so I definitely understand the logistics issues and the challenge of, you know, really workshopping things, do you get it right? And the importance of, you know, accuracy and quality and how it's, it's kind of a, you know, it's kind of an ongoing learning experience. Like you try something and maybe it doesn't work out perfectly and you take your lumps and you take your lessons from from those lumps. and apply it to the next thing. And that's something I've really appreciated about replicate is that, you know,

each cabinet, each miniature cabinet has been, you know, an actual improvement on the last. Like, you know, I can see the change in quality. And it's great. Thanks. I really appreciate that, Jeremy, and appreciate you. And it's so good to hear your story of the pizza parlor and playing 1943 because, again, we're doing this for those memories. you know, to activate those memories.

And like I said before, hopefully our products put smiles on people's faces. That's the most important thing. All right. So to wrap, this is your chance to tell people where they can find you or they can find your products or whatever you want to promote on the internet. So go for it. Yes, you can find us at new wavetoys.com.

Sign up for our newsletter. It's the best way to learn about. new products coming and discounts and special things. So visit us and sign up and, you know, there'll be more news coming here in the coming weeks for Missile Command and also new cabinet announcements. All right. Well, Shiloh, thanks again for your time.

And like I said, looking forward to getting 1943 in hand. I'm even going to try to play it on the Leaf Controller, just to see what it's like. Sounds good, Jeremy. we'll have to talk again and you'll have to give us a report on what you think. We'll do. Thanks again. Thank you.