MageCast X

We're looking toward the Horizon for a new Dawn with Zero regrets! Episode "Clever Girl" wrestles with options and an over-abundance of choice, conceptual science fiction and mystery driving a story, Asimov's Foundation novels, the difficulty of maintaining narrative pace in open-world games full of side quests, meaningless vs meaningful missions, other PS4 exclusives and ranki...

I can show you a Super Mario World, shining, shimmering, splendid. In this detour into Dinosaur Land, featuring the inscrutable ABXY Mage and the ineffable Blue Moon Mage, we dig deep into this SNES launch title, its official story out of the original instruction booklet, our first time playing the game, challenge and incentivization, the benefits of competition in the industry (the Console Wars),...

Pizza time! Hey, dudes, check out to our biggest episode ever in terms of guest presence, featuring the Beer Mage, the ABXY Mage, and the Hyperactive Coffee Mage. Listen as we chat about Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles IV: Turtles in Time and go on about psychoanalyzing Twitter, which of us is Leo, Don, Raph, and dying on the hill of Michelangelo, the game's pros and cons, its expression of the...

February is the month of love so for this episode, I brought on as a guest my very own real-lifu waifu, Blythe the White Out Mage! We talked on a game that impacted the both of us: Final Fantasy X , its firsts and lasts, its uniquely South Pacific influences, its characters, their themes and their development, coping with pain, overcoming prejudice, free spirits vs responsibility, voice acting in...

When you walk away you don’t hear me say pleeeeease listen to this episode! Featuring the verbose Chris of Overthinker Y (aka the Sometimes Vaguely Philosophical Mage), we dig deep into the labyrinth that is Kingdom Hearts, trying to untangle the maze that is the KH series while focusing on the first game. We also discuss the problems of online communication, Squaresoft and Square Enix, how Disney...

Hear us dance this Grim Fandango featuring Brent Mead the ABXY Mage and myself, the stuffy nose mage, talking this game's unique combination of influences, its concept of the afterlife, its interesting visual design, whether games as art is really the same thing as music as art, the difference between artistic and art form, the nature of jazz, death puns, championing memorable NPCs, personali...

Ape puns coagulate in this Donkey Kong Country episode, featuring the dudes at The Pixel Meditations podcast! We discuss how to help games be accepted as an art form, showing people that there’s something to learn from video games, DKC’s quality of physics and weight, its sense of rhythm, the immediacy of its two player co-op, the variations between Donkey and Diddy, its place as the first title i...

Gravelly voices abound in this Metal Gear Solid episode on the origins of TWRM and the pun name, the PS1 Classic, a Metal Gear franchise overview, what’s canon and what’s not, the unique pitfalls of cinematic storytelling, stealth as a genre vs a mechanic, messing with people after getting optical camouflage, our favorite scenes and characters in MGS1, the importance of ESRB ratings as a parent, t...

It's the MAGE CAST 10th episode mini-anniversary special featuring my biological anti-twin and second banana, Nathaniel Norton! Listen with rapture to the most melodious musical episode ever as we sing and belt our way through a Night on Bald Mountain, Zombies Ate My Neighbors, Sim City 2000, Storm Eagle, Monument Valley, Armored Core, Alabama Shakes, Olomana, and... a new MAGE CAST theme son...

Co-founders Red and Timely sit down to chat about Cosmic Star Heroine, buzzwords in the gaming industry, true substance to retro throwback games, doing more than pandering, consciousness toward length and lean game design, old versus modern JRPGs, the shift away from strategy to button mashing, sincerity and genuineness in indie games evoking the classics, the place for traditional good vs evil st...

So a red mage, a ninja, and a coffee guru walk into a podcast... On this episode, a tri-force of mages discuss The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, its place within the context of the franchise, both its 2017 GOTY and controversial status, its unprecedented focus on the princess, its treatment of the open world structure, the place of fans in defining a series by expectations, demanding ingenu...

In this EarthBound episode, I jumped last minute in front of the mic with Ryan the Hyperactive Coffee Mage and Brent the ABXY Mage to talk about a real SNES cult classic. Our discussion circulated around the idyllic vision of America, the death of innocence, the lost art of memorable NPCs, disturbing 16bit imagery, the meaning of the series title "Mother", successful video game humor, an...

Traveling back in time at high speeds to the first Sonic the Hedgehog game, Matthew from Normal Happenings and myself talk the blue blur's concept, design, and execution, Sonic's development history and future, Project Defeat Mario, the epic console wars, Sonic Tuesday, and Sega's legacy. This is our first episode ever to feature a 1 vs 1 discussion from two very different perspecti...

What ever happened to the Blue Bomber? In this episode, I chat about Mega Man X with Ryan from Retro Game Brews Podcast and Brent aka the ABXY Mage and we unpack our thoughts on the chronology of X and the classic Mega Man series, the distinguishing features of the X series, which robots get free will, literal verticality in level design, what kind of voice Mega Man should have, and our appreciati...

I am the night! This time, I got to sit down this time with the comics experts at Opinioneering to chat about Batman: Arkham Asylum. Our conversation turned to the literary and animated influences behind the game, Batman's humanity and vulnerabilities, the enduring versatility of the Dark Knight across media, remembering who the World’s Greatest Detective really is, the value in the focus of...

In this episode, the founding members of TWRM shiver in fear before Alien: Isolation by Creative Assembly and Sega, discussing the game in the context of the Alien film franchise and other Alien video games, the addictiveness of horror, the value of good lighting, AI that's smarter than you, lo-fi tech, and just why the Xenomorph is so terrifying (hint: pregnancy and childbirth). Read more: t...

In this primal episode, the founding members of thewellredmage.com discuss Journey by thatgamecompany, the meaning of minimalism and the risk of superficiality, spirituality and video games, the journey(s) of life and Journey as a mirror, the human need for friendship, and Journey's place in the gaming industry! Read more: the-pixels.com/2016/02/22/journey Patreon Join Buzzsprout Join our Dis...

In this episode you can enjoy our Final Fantasy Tactics talk with the Timely Mage and Nick-the-Employee-of-the-Month, wherein we discuss the Final Fantasy series and Tactics' uniqueness, Final Fantasy spin-offs, archaeology and the nature of truth, grounded dark pseudo-history, job classes, the Dead Sea Scrolls, themes of equality and corruption (there's a surprising amount of realism he...