The Legend of Zelda is perhaps most famous for being one of the flagship franchises on Nintendo consoles, expanding into the third dimension and consistently innovating as time has marched on. However, the franchise has also had its fair share of exploration on handhelds beginning with Link’s Awakening and continues to this day on the …
The story of Vanillaware, an Osaka-based Japanese game developer, is one that could’ve been showcased in failure. The company’s first game almost shut down the company, but they later would regroup and continue working on video games, putting out some of the most original and interesting titles on more recent generations of consoles. Today, we …
What do Karaoke Machines, bizarre PCM voice samples and shamisens have in common? They’re all points of discussion on today’s episode where Mike and Justin do a deep dive on Zuntata, the in-house composers and live band for Taito! Formed in 1983, Zuntata was largely carried by composers like Hisayoshi Ogura, though there were over …
With Sega’s arcade ventures dwindling at the time, the Japanese arcade game maker decided to try their hand at making consoles, and eventually this led to today’s featured console, the Sega Master System. Called the Mark III in Japan, this PSG-based audio system (which also featured FM Synth in certain games) has always had a …
There’s plenty of Konami classics that never made their way outside of Japan. We could probably do an entire episode like this featuring the Ganbare Goemon series! However, today we’ll be focusing our efforts on two shoot ‘em ups (SHMUPS, Shooters, Shmupdangos, whatever you wanna call them!) Falsion, a Famicom Disk System game that took …
Read more “Episode 47 – Konami Unleashed in the East! W/ Dan Laughton”
Sierra Games is heralded as one of the premiere adventure game developers and publishers that existed. Deep care went into the development of the games they created, thanks to a husband and wife creative partnership between Ken and Roberta Williams. Together, they formed Sierra Games, a developer and publisher which created some of the most …
Castlevania music has a special place in our hearts. But what about the wacky, wild world of Castlevania cameos, bizarre ports and side story games and other ‘Vania obscurities? Mike and Justin take the listener on a bumpy hayride past Dracula’s castle, and into his backyard to listen to some of the stranger versions of …
Mike and Justin Hosted their first ever panel together, and they did it at Retro World Expo in Hartford, CT on September 28th, 2019! The guys wanted to do something to attract a big audience, and what better way to do that then to have the ultimate retro battle when it comes to VGM: Super …
Read more “Episode 35 – Super Nintendo Jams vs. Sega Genesis Grooves (Retro World Expo Live Panel)”
Everyone join in now: Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday to you, Happy Biiirtthhhdaayyyy dear Sega Dreamcast, Happy Birthday to you! The Sega Dreamcast is largely considered to be Sega’s swansong and the final console to focus on arcade-based-ports to home-grown video games. Utilizing the NAOMI hardware, Sega was able to easily port games from …
Read more “Episode 33 – Celebrating 20 Years of Sega Dreamcast Music”
Following the N64 smash hit, Goldeneye, RARE lost the Bond license. But this didn’t matter much to them, as their spiritual successor to Goldeneye pushed the Nintendo 64 to its limits. Hailed as one of the greatest First Person Shooters of all time, Perfect Dark introduced gamers to Joanna Dark, the Carrington Institute, the evil …