Retronauts Podcast Thread

[residentgrigo]

Parasite Eve 2 isn't better or worse than PE1 ParsnipForest. I too had to start with the sequel but I finished it twice through emulation over the years. I finished the sequels only once but I got far enough into PE2 on my replay last year before calling it quits. The lack of story is the game´s biggest problem, not the "experimental" gameplay. Aspects of it even play better and the new art design is crazy well done too:

The "perfect" Parasite Eve would be a blend of the PSX games and both are 7/10s by today´s standards. The 3rd Birthday though... Thank Zodd it flopped, 4/10. How is Motomu Toiletyama still employed and more importantly co-directing FF VII? PE3 featured the scientist from PE1 which is weird as SE cut off all meaningful connections to things they didn´t originate with PE3 as they couldn´t be bothered to get the book rights back. Fuck the "Twisted". SE still had the book rights with PE2 but the overall lore/world barely carried over back then. Only Aya and the monsters continued into PE2 but even they changed a lot. On the book connection:

Hideaki Sena: There are several different media versions of Parasite Eve: a movie (not a TV movie, but a Big Screen film), a comic (manga), PlayStation game (part 1 and part 2), and a manga version of the PlayStation game story (the title is "Parasite Eve DIVA"). The manga version is the most faithful version to my novel. The story of the Play-Station game (part 1) is the sequel to my novel. But none of characters is identical to my story. The story was written by game designers, so I did not know the game story until it was sold. The project of the PlayStation game was between Square Company and my publisher. So far, there is no other pending version of the story.

Tech Flesh 4: Mitochodrial Combustion at Club Parasite:An Interview With Hideaki Sena | CTheory

That film is a tedious trainwreck and PE1 might as well be an in-name-only sequel. Some info on the 2 manga:

Parasite Eve (manga)

Five manga were created for the Parasite Eve series. The first was a manga adaptation of the novel while the other were adaptation of the video game. The artist is Fujiki Noriko, who also helped write the edited story for them. They were published in Japan in 1998 and have not seen an English...

parasiteeve.fandom.com

What a weird IP. I wonder if the FFVII remake(s) will reference the PE connection.

Hot-Blooded Detective Joe as he should look like. The wedding in the PE3 trailer you make fun of is in the game in a BIG way, Aya lives again by the end... kinda, the PE3 protagonist Eve Brea from PE2 isn´t Maya (she is and always was dead) and Eva is and isn't of age PE3. Don´t get me started on that.

Edit: Of interest and I too love prog-rock, thx:

Parasite Eve Author, I.G Show Tokyo in 2020 in Anime Short (Updated)

Hideaki Sena's TV short depicts future in NHK's Computer Revolution special

www.animenewsnetwork.com

 

[lazygecko]

The prog rock podcast has launched, for anyone who might be interested.

Libsyn page: http://ragtimeband.libsyn.com
Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/ragtimeband

Click to shrink...

I was all over this since I've been an avid listener of prog for about a decade now. Mildly surprised you didn't cover the origin of the term progressive rock itself though. People seem to take for granted that "progressive" is some kind of musical nomer, but that just strikes me as some very vague conjecture applied retroactively. There are "progressive" variants of various electronic genres as well but they have practically nothing in common with the qualities that set prog rock apart from its parent genre (ie odd time signatures and multi-faceted harmonies, concept albums, etc). To make things even more confusing prog rock refers to a completely separate musical movement here in Sweden, and when talking about "actual" prog the press will usually just refer to it as symphonic rock instead.
The most plausible explanation I've come across is that the term progressive is rooted in its political meaning and comes from a common radio programming template during the 60s and 70s which would discuss progressive politics inbetween playing more "challenging" music like psychedelic rock. There's other precedence for genres being named in this fashion like AOR (either adult oriented or album oriented rock is what people usually describe the acronym as) which was also originally a label for a radio template until it got adopted more as a descriptor for specific types of music.

So I take it the plan going forward is to chronicle the general timeline of the genre? I'd be stoked for whenever you get around to digging up some 80s deep cuts in prog rock. After it being catapulted into mainstream appeal during the mid 70s the movement saw a huge sudden slump almost to the degree of the American disco backlash, and by the 80's almost all of the big recognisable prog acts had either disbanded or moved on to becoming pure pop acts like Yes and Genesis. It was basically back to the underground again with people mostly just aware of the British neo prog movement happening at the time. By the 90s it saw something of a resurgence and has been going steady ever since. Which makes that pronounced dip during the 80s all the more interesting of an anomaly.

 

[JeremyParish]

Nah, ARB isn't a chrono series. We're jumping around all over the place—the next episode I'm putting together will be a "best of the decade" show (which would have worked better if I'd had time to start producing these several months ago).

 

[xir]

animal crossing episode, jeremy saying he's glad he won't be isolated now that he has a new job when AC comes out.... hope the 'nauts are doing well.

 

[krae_man]

I wonder if the reason Soundgarden said no to Full Throttle, was actually due to Road Rash for the 3DO? That came out in July 94.

The Wiki says they were fans of the Genesis games and wanted to do it against the wishes of their management who didn't want to deal with figuring out a royalty structure for the new medium. Maybe they had a non compete clause, or didn't want to devalue their brand by having their music in 2 games(both being biker themed) at the same time.

Road Rash (1991 video game) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Edit: Well, I guess it was kind of due to Road Rash:

"but they quickly realized we weren't going to pay them any money and that we just wanted them to give it to us for free. So that didn't end up happening."

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Full Throttle

Hit the road in the rock 'n' roll opening to the classic adventure game Full Throttle.

www.artofthetitle.com

Who is going to say yes to free when you've already been offered non-recoupment royalties on a different game?

 

[JeremyParish]

Did... did they try to For Exposure one of the biggest bands of the era? Genius move.

 

[shoptroll]

Pardon my ignorance if this has been asked previously, but I finally upped my Patreon pledge and switched over to the Patreon feed and I'm seeing that the feed only goes back about as far as episode 41. I've been slowly crawling through the archive and this seemed odd to me. Is there a technical limitation on the Patreon feeds or some other reason the full archive isn't available through them?

 

[krae_man]

Pardon my ignorance if this has been asked previously, but I finally upped my Patreon pledge and switched over to the Patreon feed and I'm seeing that the feed only goes back about as far as episode 41. I've been slowly crawling through the archive and this seemed odd to me. Is there a technical limitation on the Patreon feeds or some other reason the full archive isn't available through them?

Click to shrink...

The RSS has a 100 episode limit.

 

[shoptroll]

The RSS has a 100 episode limit.

Click to shrink...

Good to know. Thank you!

 

[krae_man]

The LCD games I kill screened constantly were the racing games:

I had tons of these. You had to avoid the cars and there were like gas stations on the edges and you had to go from the far left to the far right and that's how you would level up and get bonus points.

Jeff Gerstmann brought up the Gamate randomly on a Bombcast recently and he pronounced it Gah-Mah-Tay. I have no idea which pronunciation is correct. Game Mate makes more sense to me. "It's a game and it's your friend"

The 2nd supervision went all in on just straight up ripping off the Game Boy:

The Supervision also had a third revision called the magnum which looks like a Game Boy Pocket and a Cybiko had a kid:

The original Game.com also had two cartridge slots so you didn't have to swap carts when you wanted to switch between RE2 and Duke Nukem.

The game.com gives me lots of nostalgia for EGM Live since I think it was Crispin had a drawer full of them and always brought one and played it on the podcast and you would hear Batman moaning constantly on the early episodes.

The original N-Gage also required a sim card be in it to play the video games. So they included or sold separately I'm not sure which, a N-Gage branded sim you could put in the thing if you wanted to buy a N-Gage just to play the games.

The Tapwave Zodiac was also used regularly in Stargate SG-1 in the end couple of seasons and I think Atlantis for the first couple of seasons. It was basically their tricorder:

And finally. Sticky Balls: Best video game into video ever?



I love how the orange ball gets more and more pissed off with the green ball blocking it from the camera's view and hogging all the spotlight.

A PSP version of the game was actually under development until Tiger Telematics bought the developer and it became a Gizmondo exclusive. What would the world be like if Sticky Balls had come out for PSP?

 

[dubc]

What would the world be like if Sticky Balls had come out for PSP?

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I'd like to see that marketing in a "watching a train wreck" sort of way given Sony's marketing in general at that time and with the PSP. Squirrels and sticky balls folks! lol

 

[bobservo]

Our episode about Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children is now live for $5 and up patrons: https://www.patreon.com/posts/episode-292-vii-35795660

 

[shoptroll]

I think I mentioned earliier in this thread that I've been slowly going through the back catalog and this week hit the "Slow-Life Games" episode. So I wanted to drop an appreciation to the Retronauts team that it feels incredibly rare to have a show where episodes 5 years later are still relevant to the current discussion around games with the launch of the new Animal Crossing and the upcoming localization of Moon Remix RPG. Thank you all for all the hard work you put into the show!

 

[bobservo]

I think I mentioned earliier in this thread that I've been slowly going through the back catalog and this week hit the "Slow-Life Games" episode. So I wanted to drop an appreciation to the Retronauts team that it feels incredibly rare to have a show where episodes 5 years later are still relevant to the current discussion around games with the launch of the new Animal Crossing and the upcoming localization of Moon Remix RPG. Thank you all for all the hard work you put into the show!

Click to shrink...

I am SUPER looking forward to Moon and will definitely plan an episode about it once it's out in English and I finish it.

 

[Avengers23]

Did Bob ever watch Advent Children? Did Chris break out his UMD copy of Advent Children? Now that FFVII Remake is out, will we finally get the FFVII spinoff episode?

 

[bobservo]

Did Bob ever watch Advent Children? Did Chris break out his UMD copy of Advent Children? Now that FFVII Remake is out, will we finally get the FFVII spinoff episode?

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I watched AC for the podcast we did about it and we'll have an FFVII Remake episode next month.

 

[JeremyParish]

And I'd like to do one on Crisis Core. The rest of the anthology can piss off, though.

 

[Avengers23]

That's good news. Looking forward to it.

 

[Man God]

Alex Kid in Shinobi World is the only good Alex Kidd game.

 

[chalkitdown]

Latest episode (291) brought back some horrible memories of loading Amstrad CPC games. I think Jeremy was being very kind when referring to 5 minute loading times when starting a game. lol Some would take 20-30 minutes. And 15 minutes into the load suddenly crash and you'd have to start again. Ah, the late 80's.

I was pretty much blown away as a 6 or 7 year old when we upgraded from the Amstrad to a NES.

 

[residentgrigo]

Advent Children doesn´t undermine anything in FF VII outside of bringing back dead characters who should have stayed dead.
Cloud had 2 years to reflect on all he has lost while driving around as a lone porter and it is only logical that an emotionally stunted man would have trouble building up healthy relationships. He never knew or experienced a healthy life during his entire lifetime. Even his childhood was gloomy and he is then supposed to just moosy along? Give the man a break. He is 23 in the film. These are his Wanderjahre. He is allowed to make mistakes and grow, which he does during the film and you can´t have a 101 min long film (the better DC is 127 min long) about a dozen+ people. That´s why the focus was set on who mattered the most for this story.
Cloud is most importantly dying and goes through severe physical pain that is brought on by the (corrupted) lifestream itself. How is a man who is being beaten down in every way possible supposed to react when life itself turns against him? He feels the end approaching. So he mostly left Tifa and the kids to basically die in the ruins of Midgar as he doesn´t want to burden them. This is the most Cloud thing possible and I am talking about his actual personality after his mind "heals" in the game.

It 100% sucks that the film is s sequel to a book where a lot of the building up and exposition happens (Cloud and Tifa visit Aerith´s mother, Barret´s disappearance is well explained, etc) and that the 2nd half mostly gives up the plot for rule-of-cool action scenes but Advent Children isn´t a situation like The Last Jedi (it´s ok) where a filmmaker(s) decided to do something completely different in a vacuum. The film´s prequel/companion:

Final Fantasy VII: On the Way to a Smile

A series of short stories filling the gaps between the hit video game Final Fantasy VII and its cinematic follow-up Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children, this is an absolute must-own for any enthusiast of the Final Fantasy franchise!Description Final Fantasy VII: On the Way to a Smile is a series...

finalfantasy.fandom.com

Convoluted releases and anime.... name a more iconic duo. The film further came out before the 360/PS3 hit. Games still had color but even that statement is overblown and this anime film is further B U R S T I N G with colors and hype AF music:


The time of day even changes a few times to accent the moods and the 2nd half is incredibly upbeat. So much so that every important death possible ends up being averted. The shift happens in minute 58 of the 127 minutes long director´s cut. The Vincent/Marlene scene to be exact. To say that his high adventure film is dour, devoid of colors/life or is depressing is flat out wrong. The Japanese VA´s are also much more emotionally layered and are exceptional all around. Cloud especially! The English dub, I saw it once years after seeing the Japanse original in 2005, is ok but it misses the point. But which anime dub doesn´t...

The film + book proved to me that FF VII can support an EU and that Nomura can direct. So did KH2. The EU then went on (Crisis Core is mostly good of course) and Nomura went from convoluted stumble to convoluted stumble. Then came more and more footage of the remake(s) and yeah... I was wrong.
FF VII could have stayed a singular game just fine but I am glad that we got this heartfelt epilogue. More of this and Crisis Core if we really need more FF VII.
Less of Dirge, Before Crisis and whatever the fuck SE is on with The Rebuild of FF VII. But FF VII 1.11 is a hilarious unintentional comedy at times, I´ll give you that. Few AAA games are as gleefully in their arrogance is it. Like, damn son. Can´t wait till we reach it´s angst for the sake of angst 3.33: You Can (Not) Redo period. Now that borderline cancerous anime and is exactly what the gang made AC out to be. A better comparison to AC is DBS: Broly.

Edit: I also like the inferior Kingsglaive and don´t mind TSW. Not that TSW is much of a FF film. More anime films please but do mind the budget.

 

[shoptroll]

Low bar to clear, but I'd gladly watch Advent Children again long before I ever decide to rewatch Cats.

 

[Bigkrev]

Inspired by getting the Turbografx mini yesterday, I went to the 1UP archives and listened to the Turbografx Episode, episode 75. You know how people talk about "boy, the old verison was better"? This episode made me appreciate the more focused version of the podcast we get today. The episode is fun, but it bascially comes down to being a series of tangents and ancidots- talking about working designs, forums of the era, terrible box art, the CD rom launch, the influence of anime... but there is no real structure to the episode, and it's more just "remember this awesome game?" and "oh god, that reminds me...", or "You Know that Misato doesn't shoot Kaji?" It was a -blast- to listen to, but i feel like I didn't really learn anything from the episode?

Really makes me appreciate the modern incarnation of the podcast, where I actually learn things. I'm going to listen to the Telenet episode next, but really hope we get some modern episodes on PC Engine/Turbo!

 

[xir]

Shadowgate interview was fun. Really want to know the deal behind Beyond Shadowgate (still an icom game at that point)

 

[xir]

SPQR - Senatus Populusque Romanus
the senate and roman people
Roman empire's motto

 

[krae_man]

Golden Tee always annoyed me because I could never manage to change clubs without starting a swing. I try to move the trackball left of right and I end up hitting the ball 2 yards in front of me wasting a stroke.

 

[Man God]

This is my take on the Sega Saturn:

Sega threw away their entire home console future with this one. In fighting not just between SOJ and SOA but between the arcade hardware and the home software markets. Disappointing people overseas by rushing the 32x out at the same time announcing a next generation platform in Saturn, which is more focused on 2D software than 3D hardware even as Sega is the leader in 3D graphics in the arcade. Then what games does Sega try to push on the world to get people to buy the Saturn? Bad ports of said hit hardware titles with few to no features not available in the arcade versions. Meanwhile on the cheaper PlayStation you had better looking games loaded to the brim with new features; unlockables everywhere, new modes, characters, dumb little features.

Sega kept making largely arcade at home experiences and while they were mostly better than the first release of VF1 or Virtua Racer they were still almost identical to the arcade experience in terms of features while the star franchises on the PS1 from the arcade were loaded to the gills with new stuff by the second and third versions.

Sega's games designed for the Saturn specifically were also a mess. They basically abandoned every single franchise that made the Genesis/Mega Drive and started over. The sports games were an afterthought after completely dominating that market over Nintendo. Sonic, well, everyone knows about Sonic and Saturn. But think of all of the other franchises that took a break on the Saturn, hell it's easier to list the franchises that had sequels on the Saturn as opposed to ones that never made the cut.

Finally yes, 2D just wasn't in during the second half of the 90's. 2D games were seen as budget titles and even as the arcades were entering a golden era of 2D fighting games the sales were down across the board.

 

[Avengers23]

This is my take on the Sega Saturn:

Sega threw away their entire home console future with this one. In fighting not just between SOJ and SOA but between the arcade hardware and the home software markets. Disappointing people overseas by rushing the 32x out at the same time announcing a next generation platform in Saturn, which is more focused on 2D software than 3D hardware even as Sega is the leader in 3D graphics in the arcade. Then what games does Sega try to push on the world to get people to buy the Saturn? Bad ports of said hit hardware titles with few to no features not available in the arcade versions. Meanwhile on the cheaper PlayStation you had better looking games loaded to the brim with new features; unlockables everywhere, new modes, characters, dumb little features.

Sega kept making largely arcade at home experiences and while they were mostly better than the first release of VF1 or Virtua Racer they were still almost identical to the arcade experience in terms of features while the star franchises on the PS1 from the arcade were loaded to the gills with new stuff by the second and third versions.

Sega's games designed for the Saturn specifically were also a mess. They basically abandoned every single franchise that made the Genesis/Mega Drive and started over. The sports games were an afterthought after completely dominating that market over Nintendo. Sonic, well, everyone knows about Sonic and Saturn. But think of all of the other franchises that took a break on the Saturn, hell it's easier to list the franchises that had sequels on the Saturn as opposed to ones that never made the cut.

Finally yes, 2D just wasn't in during the second half of the 90's. 2D games were seen as budget titles and even as the arcades were entering a golden era of 2D fighting games the sales were down across the board.

Click to shrink...

How dare you?

This man did not fight the wars he fought for you to defame the Sega Saturn like this.

 

[krae_man]

I was actually at both the first PSX conference in Las Vegas where Square announced FFVII the PC game port and Sony's E3 2015 press conference where they announced the actual remake(along with The Last Guardian not being dead and Shenmue 3). The difference in audience reactions was priceless.

Adam Boyes came to the community meetup after the first PSX and he basically said "Square asked us if they could announce that(FFVII PC port for PS4) at our press conference and we knew it was a bad idea but we weren't going to tell them no"

 

[bananab]

Inspired by getting the Turbografx mini yesterday, I went to the 1UP archives and listened to the Turbografx Episode, episode 75. You know how people talk about "boy, the old verison was better"? This episode made me appreciate the more focused version of the podcast we get today. The episode is fun, but it bascially comes down to being a series of tangents and ancidots- talking about working designs, forums of the era, terrible box art, the CD rom launch, the influence of anime... but there is no real structure to the episode, and it's more just "remember this awesome game?" and "oh god, that reminds me...", or "You Know that Misato doesn't shoot Kaji?" It was a -blast- to listen to, but i feel like I didn't really learn anything from the episode?

Really makes me appreciate the modern incarnation of the podcast, where I actually learn things. I'm going to listen to the Telenet episode next, but really hope we get some modern episodes on PC Engine/Turbo!

Click to shrink...

Yep, modern eps are so much more academic. What's nuts is it's not a dig at at older eps. I love hearing the progression. Love love this podcast.

 

[Ultima_5]

So I've been catching up on Retronauts lately. Just wanted to say how much I️ enjoyed the retro movie episodes and how they tie into video game's. Hope you guys do some more at some point

 

[JeremyParish]

We have episodes on Die Hard and Star Trek: The Motion Picture in the can, and are recording one on Akira soon! We also need to finish up the Indiana Jones series with a Last Crusade episode, since it inspired the best movie adaptation of the entire franchise.

 

[chalkitdown]

Loved the Sega Saturn epsiode. It's really a fascinating and obscure console here in Ireland. I'm pretty sure I've never seen one in real life. I don't think I even knew the console existed until after the Dreamcast came out in 99, such was the Playstation domination.

 

[Curufinwe]

Wow. That AIDS comment form the old place was shocking to hear in 2020.

 

[JeremyParish]

There was some debate about keeping that remark in the show, but I think it's a valuable reminder that before a certain cultural schism centered around gaming happened in 2014, there was no real distinction between "lowlife channer hate speech" and "normal gaming discourse".

 

[OnePointZero]

I guess the Worst of the best episode was recorded a year ago or so. Listening to JeremyParish be like "I've heard that Saga: Scarlet Grace is great", knowing that he ended working on it, is soooo serendipitious it might break the karma meter.

Great work guys, and thanks for keeping it up on this trying times.

 

[JeremyParish]

Ha, I actually did my work on Scarlet Grace during the summer of 2018, so that was more like me dancing around an NDA...

 

[OnePointZero]

Ha, I actually did my work on Scarlet Grace during the summer of 2018, so that was more like me dancing around an NDA...

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OMG you got me! Well acted man!

Summer 2018 for a December 2019 release, that's a loooong time! BTW great game and great localization, as soon as I knew it was an 8-4 x Gamespite joint, I was IN. Would really like to know what your role was as an editor.

 

[JeremyParish]

I handled localization editing (rewriting the basic translation, giving characters their voices) for several chapters of story dialogue, a ton of incidental trade items, and what felt like several thousand smithy menus. 8-4 gives multiple editing passes to every bit of text... not really how much I can actually say about their process, but I learned a lot about how involved it is and how much they try to go above and beyond even the original text when possible. It was an honor to work with them!

 

[OnePointZero]

Thanks Jeremy! Feels like it was both an arduous and fullfilling task, hope to see your name on future games.

 

[Midgarian]

What's the total running time of is the FFVII Remake episode?

 

[bobservo]

What's the total running time of is the FFVII Remake episode?

Click to shrink...

1:47:43

 

[Midgarian]

1:47:43

Click to shrink...

Thanks.

 

[bobservo]

Thanks.

Click to shrink...

Was there some reason you needed to know?

 

[Midgarian]

Was there some reason you needed to know?

Click to shrink...

Weighing up whether to pay for it or not hehe. Sounds like it is definitely worth it.

I haven't listened to Retronauts in a while, so this "Exclusive episode through Patreon" thing is new to me.

 

[bobservo]

Weighing up whether to pay for it or not hehe. Sounds like it is definitely worth it.

I haven't listened to Retronauts in a while, so this "Exclusive episode through Patreon" thing is new to me.

Click to shrink...

All of our exclusive episodes are produced the same way we produce the free ones, and may run under/over 90 minutes depending on the topic.

 

[residentgrigo]

I agree on Monkey Island 3 being the best in the series. You can actually figure things out without a guide and it is charming and gorgeous to this days. A shame Disney or whoever said no to a remaster. Zak McKracken hasn´t mattered to the German gaming public in at least 3 decades but the fan game Zak McKracken: Between Time and Space, the only one from Germany to my knowledge, got a bit of coverage by the press as GameStar.
It wasn´t the only high profile adventure game fan sequel from here. Broken Sword 2.5: Return of the Templars, the original is my favorite 2D adventure game, is also from Germany and they ended up with the German voice of the protagonist George Stobbart. A solid 3-hour game.

Let´s see. Capcom is my favorite developer which then makes Umbrella Corps their biggest stinker when it comes to consoles games. I wouldn´t even care but that very game mucks up the admittedly murky canon beyond believe despite barely having a story and it´s worst of all the 20th-anniversary celebration of the IP. The Spencer Mansion is even offered as DLC. I can´t believe that the first 8th gen only RE game was so bad but look at us now. 3 winners and an actually ok online game in a row.

PS: The Saturn was indeed alright. I don´t care for the Dreamcast which sure didn´t care for Europe but the Saturn had some bangers. We need more Saturn ports Sega! Not just the usual Genesis roms.

 

[Gloam]

The Etrian Odyssey episode was great. Atlus was on a big dungeon crawling kick with EO and The Dark Spire on DS.

 

[Morfeo]

Monkey Island 3 is good, but the second game is in another league imo. And the first game is better as well. Part two of MI2 is the best in any point and click ever imo, when you travel on the three islands, and can pursue any of the four map pieces. Gives a lot of freedom, and room for great puzzles.

 

[chalkitdown]

During the 'worst' episode I was just waiting for Jeremy to mention a game by Rare or some other beloved N64 game. Had my rant ready to go n' all.

But the moment never came. So disappointing.

Fuck Gouls 'n Ghosts, though.