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Episode 593: Moby and the Special Place in Hell

by James Jones, Greg Leahy, Jon Lindemann, and Guillaume Veillette - October 14, 2018, 1:47 pm EDT
Total comments: 1

It's entirely possible these titles are just being randomly generated. You can't prove otherwise.

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Episode 600 inches ever closer, not that we care. We only care about the present, and the present is Jon's New Business. His burst of thoroughly modern gaming is...WipEout Omega Collection. Okay, so it's an old collection of older racing games, but it is future racing and if you average "Past" and "Future" you get "Present!" It's a different vision for the "future racer" than a game like F-Zero, but it's well worth a look. Greg has some early thoughts on Octopath Traveler, but he's still quite early and will undoubtedly have more to say in the near future. Instead, he devotes the majority of his time to the Hori D-Pad JoyCon. It's got no battery, no motion control, no wireless, no rules, and can only be used in handheld mode. But, it sure does feel mostly authentic. Guillaume seems to have lost track of the calendar and observed Thanksgiving about six weeks early (pray for him). He used this time to play The Jackbox Party Pack 4. Civic Doodle was the standout, but unsurprisingly the fourth Jackbox is ultimately just more Jackbox. He also had some time with 3DS versions of Dragon Quest VIII and Sushi Striker, praising the former's localization. James concludes New Business by talking about the utterly boring Jettomero, and then falls down a deep depressing hole when Mega Man 11 fails to live up to his hype.

That's a lot of New Business, and maybe you've forgotten the opening promise that RFN is focused on the present, but we still are. That's why we answer two Listener Mail questions that serve as delightful foils: what game had a good idea that it failed to deliver, and what game fails to deliver but succeeds anyway. These actually are two distinct emails, one sporting a hilariously unnecessary alias. You can send us questions as "Colonel Mustard" by pinging the inbox.

Finally, it's time for some podcast business. Are your hands tingling? Are you feeling light-headed? You should call a doctor! But also, learn to block because we're about to fire up our next RetroActive, Punch-Out! Which Punch-Out!!? Every Punch-Out!!! We're going to especially focus on Super Punch-Out!! but all Punch-Out!!'s are fair game. Punch your favorite Pizza Pasta and join us for our RetroActive on Punch-Out!! as part of Episode 600!...!

Details and talkbacks will be provided soon.

This episode was edited by Guillaume Veillette. The "Men of Leisure" theme song was produced exclusively for Radio Free Nintendo by Perry Burkum. Hear more at Perry's SoundCloud. The Radio Free Nintendo logo was produced by Connor Strickland. See more of his work at his website.

This episode's ending music is the end theme, from Luigi's Mansion. It was selected by Greg. All rights reserved by Nintendo Co,. Ltd.

Talkback

I feel kinda guilty for halvanizing James' opinions here via the medium of Twitter. I've had a bit more time to think on Mega Man 11, and I came at it with a super critical eye because it just so happens that I'm still working on my own bet of Mega Man level design for a contest/collaborative fan game.


Mega Man 11 I would say is more solid than something like Mega Man and Bass where they just shit the bed or the worst of Mega Man X. That doesn't mean there aren't issues. There are HUGE issues in the form of wanting to push Speed and Power gear as the new hotness. Length of levels and lack of checkpointing that is gated by difficulty for some dumb reason (one of the most artificial ways to make a game longer that I've seen, by the way) become compounded with issues in the design itself. Often times, the levels will bombard you with do or die sorts of platforming challenges that measure to to trying to do the Quickman Force Beam Sections without Time Stopper to aid you.

There also tend to be lots of situations of being on perilous one-tile moving footing with lots and lots of bullets on screen. Both of these situations are to push the player into learning judicious use of double gear. This in turn creates both a narrative and gameplay dissonance, as most mega man players are hard wired to think that things that have a limited meter associated with them should be used in sparing use. Dr. Light even mentions that too much use of Double Gear can cause harm to a robot's systems. Dr. Wily berates you at the end, saying that Double Gear is the only reason Mega Man was able to overcome him.

I feel Mega Man 6 hit the ideal for this sort of thing with adding new abilities to Mega Man and then figuring out interesting ways to use them. optional routes crop up in the Mega Man 6 level design that are designed around the Rush Armor adapters while the normal routes up until the wily stages keep to promoting only those most core of abilities of jumping and shooting with maybe the occasional slide thrown in for good measure.

Power Gear is actually hella helpful with some of the weapons, particularly with Tundra Man's weapon turning it into a VERY potent screen wipe or making Impact man's dash go much farther. I also used power gear a lot with Acid Shield.

I wouldn't say "Don't Play Mega Man 11", but rather, I'd say "Play Mega Man 11 on the lower difficulties and be prepared to hit the R and L buttons a lot.

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