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Episode 615: Tube Sliding Around Big Ape Cul-De-Sac

by James Jones, Greg Leahy, Jon Lindemann, and Guillaume Veillette - March 24, 2019, 1:51 pm EDT
Total comments: 10

My golden tongue will guide the way.

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Nintendo unveiled their latest indies presentation, and we mostly ignored it. We don't do news. Instead we launch with New Business. James talks games with Baba Is You. This puzzle game has you construct rules in order to achieve victory. James is enjoying it, but finds the game can be frustrating, and the lack of a hint system means a lot of Baba Is Stop. He also spent his convalescence reliving his youth in dystopian 90s Internet simulator Hypnospace Outlaw. He's solved the dreaded file sharing menace, stopped the spread of a virus that turns your computer into waves crashing on the beach, and waged a multi-hour war with a "helper" installed directly to his desktop. Jon has some concluding thoughts on Gris, which he still can't pronounce, but he's sure it's a damn fine game. He then dives into Castlevania for the NES. Guillaume has a whole lot of Wonder Boy with impressions of both ...in Monster Land and ...in Monster World. We spend a lot of time just trying to remember which Wonder Boy is which, get angry at a series that dares to have two distinct counts in the title, and realize this is a great series of games. Greg closes out New Business with more classic games, breaking down the recently-announced Konami 50th Anniversary collections. We try to figure out what Castlevania games belong in the last four slots, but we all know it's Judgement.

After the break we dive into a little bit of Listener Mail. This week we were inspired by Cadence of Hyrule to figure out what indie developer could take their game mechanics and apply a Nintendo franchise. We also explain where the remaining telethon audio went. It's not missing, it's just not been publicly released, and now you can find out why. You can ask us why we've deviated from over a decade of traditions by sending us an email.

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 Oppressed People from Final Fantasy VII. Composition by Nobuo Uematsu. It was requested by ClexYoshi. All rights reserved by Square Enix Co., Ltd.

Talkback

Just some business, we're looking for recommended games that fall into one of two buckets:


Zelda-likes: games that clearly "borrow" from 2D Zelda games
Handheld 2D Zelda games: ...2D handheld...Zelda...games

Normal RetroActive rules apply. Game must be currently available digitally OR procurable for less than $20 American on GB/A, GameCube, Wii/U 3/DS.

Game Boy era stuff not available digitally is up for consideration, but we might punt. I'll take recommendations for it so we can think it through.

Cool Uncle VinceMarch 26, 2019

My dream indie game would be for the Super Meat Boy devs (or any precision platformer dev) to make a classic Donkey Kong game that has hundreds of 5-10 seconds levels where you die a ton.  Mario might sell more, but Kid Icarus would be a fun use of a fallow license.

That, or Airtight Games (made up of former Portal devs) on a Zelda shrine game. Airtight's Quantum Conundrum was a fun take on the Portal formula, and the Breath of the Wild shrines were basically Portal test chambers.

Or...and this will never happen, Fortnite with the Punchout cast.


Telethon segments: I'd like to hear Dr. Metts' Dragon Quest segment and whatever chaos Syrenne wrought that's been alluded to.

Zeldalike:
Dragon Quest Rocket Slime is always a classic.
Adventure Time: Hey Ice King, Why'd You Steal Our Garbage isn't great, but it's a blatant homage to Zelda 2, and who makes Zelda 2-likes?

motangMarch 28, 2019

Zelda-like: Oceanhorn. Not exactly old, but it is available readily and I think a sequel was announced.

NullNoMoreMarch 29, 2019

I was considering an Oxenfree/Splatoon graphic adventure game by Night School Studios as something fun. This could interest people that aren't so much Splatoon players as Splatoon fans, and the Splatoon world has enough lore that you could go deep. Not sure how to handle those voices though.

But then ... James said Rune Factory Stardew Valley/Xenoblade Chronicles X, and I could only think, "Please take all my money, take it now." Yes, yes, farming. Yes, yes, monsters and caves. Yes, yes, story delivery in tiny tiny endless doses. He missed the main point: dating. Let us all look deep into our hearts and admit that, yes, this is very important and Monolith Soft needs to deliver that.

Order.RSSMarch 29, 2019

RetroActive thoughts:
-Neutopia is an obvious Zelda clone on the TG-16, it's on Wii and Wii U virtual console.
-Neutopia II is an improved sequel (now has diagonal movement, better storytelling, better hit detection). It came out a year after Link to the Past though making it pretty ancient already upon arrival.
-Crystalis is on the Switch.
-StarTropics is on Wii & Wii U vc, as well as the NES mini.

Not great candidates:
-Alundra never came to Nintendo systems I don't think. Bummer, because it has a good reputation.
-Golden Axe Warrior is pretty shameless, but only got re-releases on X360 and PS3, no Nintendo systems.
-Ys Book I & II were already the subject of a retroactive.
-Were any of the Soul Blazer/Terranigma/Illusion of Gaia games ever made available digitally?

Enix games don't get re-released digitally, it seems.

pokepal148Spencer Johnson, Contributing WriterMarch 29, 2019

There's a game called Anodyne that would work for retroactive. It came out on PC in 2013 and just got a Switch release. It's heavily inspired by Link's Awakening, and like all of the best retroactive games, it's likely to generate mixed opinions across the board. (NWR gave it a 4/10 but it has a 75% score on metacritic.)

KobeskillzApril 09, 2019

It really takes about 2-3 hours to get good at castlevania. Let’s get real. Save states actually make you worse since you don’t get to practice areas.

Honestly John holy water and you steamroll the game. Don’t lose that item. The game is average in difficulty. If you can play destiny for 100 hours you play castlevania for a few hours to plactice. Is just we’ve gotten soft.

Even without the famicon save once you get used to the game you can pass it in 18-25 mins. Super short game.

Quote from: pokepal148

There's a game called Anodyne that would work for retroactive. It came out on PC in 2013 and just got a Switch release. It's heavily inspired by Link's Awakening, and like all of the best retroactive games, it's likely to generate mixed opinions across the board. (NWR gave it a 4/10 but it has a 75% score on metacritic.)

We're aware of it but didn't consider it for discussion since I talked about it for two New Businesses (plus another NWR podcast).

pokepal148Spencer Johnson, Contributing WriterApril 11, 2019

Yeah, I was behind on RFN at the time.

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