I've never heard of Kombo Breaker before. I have too many podcasts to catch up on right now (literally: 35 days, 20 hours, 57 minutes, 50 seconds). I will listen eventually.

I recommend that everybody check this show out. Brad's a good buddy of mine, and he does a fantastic job.

I've never heard of this podcast before, but I'll look forward to listening to this one.  Can you give us a heads-up on any other podcasts you'll be a guest on in the near future?

I was going to say something like, "I didn't know Tiger Woods was a podcaster!" But I'm not that hip.

No specific plans for anything else, broodwars (other than Radio Trivia). But maybe this will open some doors. Not that I want to be a podcast jet-setter, but it is fun to talk to different people on occasion, and it's an excellent way to expand RFN's audience.

Niiice, I'm definitely going to have to check this one out. Jonny is hitting the big time!

Good going Jonny. I actually have been listening to kombo breaker on and off since they started the show. Its pretty good, but I have kind of missed out on the last few since Garnett Lee was on though. I subscribe to way to many podcasts.

at first i was a little confused i thought Jonny was confessing or something.

Based on the title I thought this was about Greg. I was disappointed.

Pretty soon he will be too big of a fish for this little pond.

Will definitely give this a listen Jonny!

What he said.

YOU TRAMP!

Just gave this show a listen and I actually enjoyed it quite a bit. RFN is the only podcast I've ever listened to, but the guys on this show were quite good. It was interesting listening to Jonny in a different context. Also, is it strange that the guys on this podcast are far less cynical about nintendo than the RFN crew? Curious.....

They probably haven't been covering them for a decade.

True, I jest though. I think that Jonny characterized the pessimism of a nintendo fan quite well on kombo breaker when he said (I think regarding mario galaxy2?) that he has no doubt that it will be a great game and fun to play, but he worries that there won't be that sense of surprise in the game. I think that nintendo fans don't have to worry about 1st party efforts being shoddy, so we take the fact that the game will play well, be fun and by all accounts a great game as a given. So when we discuss the games the only thing to scrutinize are the other things that aren't givens, like the feeling of surprise, or whatever nits there are to pick.

The growing staleness of some of the classic series that nintendo has in their roster is a legitimate issue, but really, these are still great games. I was watching my brother play twilight princess today and I thought to myself that I really enjoyed it while I was playing it, but now after the fact, what I remember most is that I thought it was too easy and some other idea's I had about how it could have been better. But do you remember when the first magnet lifts you to the ceiling by your iron boots, or when you first get to zora's domain and you're all, this is it? and then you see them under the ice. Those were some holy shit moments that made that game awesome. I don't know, now I'm just going off on a tangent...

Back on topic, I found it interesting listening to other people. I feel like I know the cast of RFN, I know what to expect from each and who's tastes align with mine. One thing that this podcast made me think of is that the crew of RFN is really agreeable with one another, kombo breaker seems to encourage arguing more, and I think I liked that. For instance, I have been interested in little kings story for a while based on the word of Jonny and James alone, but then one of the kombo guys didn't like it and they incited Jonny to defend his claims that it was good. The argument gave me a better idea about the game (which I am still interested in because I am Jonny loyal) but it has helpful to peal back the reasons as to why someone likes or doesn't like something. Sometimes people just say, oh it has shitty controls, and it's nice to know that is a concern, but what if that person is just bad at the game or there are workarounds, these are the things that come out of frank discussion that you don't usually get from reviews. I suppose I wouldn't mind seeing a little more of that in RFN.

RFN is still my bread and butter though, and I'm not going anywhere ;)

The Spinner tool was a very memorable moment for me. I only get those moments on rare occasions anymore. The last time I can remember having that type of moment was in Metroid Prime 1 when I first used the powerball/grav track to climb a wall. Outside of that most of my 'wonder moments' I remember are from N64 and before.

I'll try to check out the Kombo Breaker episode, but I'm already pretty backlogged on RFN since my iPod broke.

Nice podcast, it felt very RFNish. I am going to have to listen to some more of their episodes to see it that was just because Jonny was on. This was actually one of my favorite podcast episodes I've listened to in a while.

Jonny your feelings on NSMBW are very, very similar to mine. 

Listening to this makes me with RFN had more guests on it. It seemed like earlier on in RFN's history it had more guests. Maybe thats just because it was more of a revolving door of staff and hosts. It's been the most stable its ever been since the new cast took over which is great. But you need fresh blood every once and awhile to mix it up. Which I guess has been happening since the whole cast hasn't been together in a long time it seems. But everyone on were staff who had been on quite a bit. The episode with Chris Kholer is a close second for one of my favorite episodes of a podcast recently.

Wow, what a different mix on things from you Jonny can bring up....

I thought this was going to be a satire on Tiger Woods.  Looking forward to hearing this show.  You should do a spot on the Giant Bombcast sometime, I'm sure they'd love to have you!

kraken, you should enjoy this week's episode of RFN. We have a very special guest with a strong Nintendo connection. I have some tentative plans for other guests, as well. However, it is often difficult to schedule guests on RFN due to our strict recording schedule. That regularity keeps the show consistent, but it also makes it harder to bring in some people.

I would LOVE to do an episode of the Bombcast, but the nature of that show would require being there in person.

Well now I am really excited for RFN. Even more than I am every Sunday! I want it now! haha

Are there tech difficulties in the second half on this episode? There are long periods of silence....

DSiWare has some good games, on my DSi I've got Little Red Riding Hood's Zombie BBQ, Mighty Flip Champs, Army Defender, Reflect Missile, Dragon Quest Wars, Sujin Taisen and those Art Style games. You guys only looked at Nintendo's own games.


EDIT: There was a demo for Go Go Cosmo Cops on the Nintendo Channel for a while when reviews were extremely sparse for it.


EDIT2: Zelda isn't the first major M+ game besides RS2, Zangeki no Reginleiv is coming out in February.

KDR, half the games you mentioned are Europe-only for now.

TYP, they record Kombo Breaker very differently than we do RFN. It speeds up the post-production, but the audio quality and sync are not as good. There are always trade-offs.

I'm talking about huge sections of static and silence here and people responding to a phantom panelist. Does the speaker built into the ipod touch not downmix stereo to mono?

Yeah but Europe doesn't have stuff like Pop Island and I'm sure there are a few other US-only games on DSiWare that are worth getting. Besides the only PAL-only titles I count are Reflect Missile and Zombie BBQ (which was a retail title in the US).


EDIT: Checking the list at Nintendo Life you're missing Suujin Taisen as well but have Pop Island, Thorium Wars, Castle of Magic, Ball Fighter, Art Academy, Pinball Pulse (it's by the guys who made Metroid Prime Pinball!) and Bookworm.

Well, there was one guy who had a very strange stereo position (seemed to be 100% left speaker)...

Yeah... I don't want ANY of those games. Sorry. If I did, I would be considering a DSi.

Finished listening to that podcast a few hours ago, and while it's no RFN it's fairly decent.  I was a little surprised that Silent Hill didn't get mentioned at all during the podcast considering it's a very core Wii game that had just recently come out, and that no notable WiiWare titles got a mention.  Still, that podcast might be worth checking out once they're done with these console-specific shows.

I actually had a whole list of my favorite WiiWare games from 2009, but we didn't have time for that. I have no interest in Silent Hill, but I guess it's odd that no one mentioned it out of five people.

You can also check out the thread I update after every update in North America, PAL regions, and Japan: here

Yeah but that doesn't come with ratings so you can quickly spot which ones are worth mentioning.

I'm still very much on the fence about Silent Hill BECAUSE I like the core mythos so much. SH2 and SH3 are among my favorite horror games, each for different reasons (they're very different games). That said, the series got stale very quickly after that. It's definately time to retool, and I actually like the way Shattered Memories is doing it, but did they really need to reboot the core mythos?

I eagerly await Andy's review. It's a shame you didn't get to talk about your favorite WiiWare games, Jonny. I, for one, would appreciate it if you could list them here, as I'm in the market for a WiiWare game (up to $10).

They talked for a few minutes on Silent Hill: Shattered Memories in the Invisible Wall podcast last week. The guy who reviewed the game seemed to love it, and especially seemed to recommend it to anyone who likes adventure games (and noted there is no combat, the only "combat" is shaking off those demons that jump on your back).

Best WiiWare 2009:

Bit.Trip Void
Swords & Soldiers
FFCC Darklord
LostWinds 2
NyxQuest

I eagerly await Andy's review copy.

Apparently Joystiq had to buy their own.  I'm going to give it another week or so before I resort to the same.

NyxQuest is indeed incredible.

I'd suggest considering Contra Rebirth. It's awesome.

If you've admitted your infidelity does this mean you'll be taking an indefinite leave of absence from podcasting to save RFN from the shame?

For the love of warm buttery camels, please dont.

That was great, Johnny. You definitely sounded like the most intelligent (and definitely the most articulate) one of the bunch.

Good work!

this site has podcasts? Way to advertise

Is it more approachable, better value than Contra 4? I'm interested in Rebirth, but the problem is that I'm a casual Contra fan at best.

It's WAY more approachable, Contra 4 was trying too hard to be like the old series or what the developer thought the old series was like. C4 is way too hard, CR is much easier without being easy (unless you play it on easy with 7 lives I guess, I never tried anything besides normal and 3 lives). As for better value, C4 has much longer levels (which IMO works against it) and those challenges plus the unlocks for 1 and 2, Rebirth doesn't have anything like that but I found it more enjoyable and it's cheaper too.