RPGFan's Retro Encounter

Once dubbed the official Retro Encounter game, 2000's Dreamcast classic Skies of Arcadia finally sails on to the show. It's a fickle ship to get your hands on, but luckily, four Retro Encounter regulars are onboard to discuss this RPG all about optimism, friendship, exploration, and adorable space blobs. Will the two Skies of Arcadia veterans be able to recruit two newcomers onto their crew? By th...

RPGFans? Not today, we're not! Here at RPGFan, we write and talk about RPGs almost nonstop, but that's not all of who we are as fans of video games. Today, five RPGFan staff discuss ten of their favorite video games or series that aren't quite RPG enough for RPGFan, in a self-indulgent sequel to a 2019 episode. To his shame, the host accidentally says Puyo Puyo when he meant to say Panel de Pon. B...

What will be the Final Fantastic game among our Personal picks? It's a new year, and Retro Encounter rings in 2022 with a bang, counting down a ranked list of fourteen PlayStation 2 RPGs, compiled from the panelists' own preferences, to eventually crown an official Retro Encounter Best PlayStation 2 RPG from the set. So what's the overall winner? How many Final Fantasy games make the list? How doe...

Happy Last Year! (Good riddance) A year has come and gone, and Retro Encounter has always been more about the past than the future. Four RPGFan staff discuss twelve of their favorite games of 2021, from remade trilogies to time loops to demon summoning to canine companionship. Listen to the end for a preview of the first few months of 2022 in Retro Encounter! Featuring: Michael Sollosi, Audra Bowl...

Three worlds, four (maybe five) characters, and a whole whack of potential jobs: That’s Final Fantasy V in a nutshell!  In today’s Retro, our four panelists will finish their exploration of the story of FFV, talk about some of our favorite jobs, and take a look at other versions of the game that have come out over the years. And now that the Pixel Remaster version of FFV is available on mobile and...

For those who loved RPGs during the SNES era, there was a game that forever seemed out of reach: Final Fantasy V. This unlocalized title was so legendary that it inspired the very first fan translation of a video game. Though Squaresoft eventually localized FFV for PSX in 1999, many still think of it as the black sheep of the Final Fantasy family. In today’s Retro, our panel will talk about their...

Husbands should be like Kleenex: Soft, strong, and disposable. Romance, drama, comedy, regret, and... rice? Impostor Factory is a visual novel of sorts that looks like a 16-bit RPG, the third game in Kan Gao's Sigmund Corp trilogy after To the Moon and Finding Paradise, and oh boy does it leave an impression. Our two Retro Encounter panelists love this entire trilogy and have a lot to say about it...

Remember us. Remember that we once podcasted. Emet-Selch, the principal antagonist of Final Fantasy XIV: Shadowbringers, is a unique blend of a foppish eccentric, a world-erasing psychopath, and a grieving survivor. He's a complicated, entertaining foil to the Warrior of Light, and Retro Encounter is going to examine him under the RPG Villains microscope as a last hurrah for Shadowbringers before...

Hiya, Hugo! Hiya, stupid! Whatcha wanna go get demon energy for?   Our two panelists navigate through Ys Origin's three protagonists in our second episode on the 2006 prequel!  Up for discussion is the Ys Origin endgame story, midgame boss battles, and family dynamic of the cursed Fact bloodline.  Featuring: Michael Sollosi, Audra Bowling; Edited by Michael Sollosi Opening and ending music by Mile...

Retro Encounter travels between 1989 and 2006 in playing Ys Origin, the prequel to the original Ancient Ys Vanished, Nihon Falcom's influential action RPG. In today's Retro Encounter the panelists discuss co-protagonists Yunica Tovah and Hugo Fact, the layout of the mysterious tower they're climbing, and how Ys Origin references Ys titles past and future. It rhymes with "Geese." Not with "Wise." F...

It wouldn't be Star Trek without an inevitable sequel!  The crew of the USS Retro Encounter is back after last week's Star Trek-focused episode. This time, we're taking a look at the follow-up to 25th Anniversary, the 1993 point-and-click adventure game, Star Trek: Judgment Rites. With the cast of the original series again returning to voice their characters, Judgment Rites looks to deliver an aut...

It's time to explore strange old worlds with the crew of the USS Retro Encounter! In this episode, our landing party of Trekkies beam into the 1992 point-and-click adventure game, Star Trek: 25th Anniversary. Featuring the vocal talents of William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, and the rest of the Enterprise crew, will this adventure game live up to the quality of the first two seasons of TOS? Or will it...

Retro Encounter finished their star-studded journey across the cosmos this month, but does Cosmic Star Heroine live up to to Zeboyd's influences and fan expectations? The panel loves the visual design and battle designs of the game, but has issues in other places. But which boss was designed by the podcast host? Listen and learn!  Brought to you by the founding members of the Psybe Appreciation St...

Retro Encounter is blasting off again with two episodes on Cosmic Star Heroine, a 2010s crowdfunding success heavily inspired by specific 16-bit RPGs. The panel loves the visual style and battle system of Cosmic Star Heroine, but isn't 100% sold on the story, characters, or soundtrack. How exactly do they feel about this science fiction Japanese-style RPG? Listen and find out! So is CSH a worthy t...

The Church of Retro opens its confessional booth again, and three RPGFan panelists discuss the games and series for which they are the most embarrassed not to have played. So which RPGFan staffperson has never played a Suikoden title? Which Mega Man fan has never played Battle Network?  Listen and find out! Retro Encounter encourages confession, but unlike Catholicism there is no shame in this pod...

Persona 2: Eternal Punishment is about a teenager assuming a world of responsibility, adults confronting their worst selves, and stopping a demon from the Cthulhu Mythos from swapping the magnetic poles of Planet Earth. Four Retro Encounter panelists reject their own adult responsibilities to talk about this cult hit RPG from 2000, from the highs of Persona 2's themes to the lows of the Undersea R...

Retro Encounter brings the band back together in a brand new timeline, reuniting most of the team that podcasted on Persona 2: Innocent Sin in September 2020 to discuss its sequel, Persona 2: Eternal Punishment one year later. Converging timelines, video game grownups struggling to find their place, and comedians named after eggplants all enter the Velvet Room in today's episode of Retro Encounter...

Our fourth RPGFan Quiz Show in three years comes with changes to the quiz show landscape. Jeopardy!'s longtime host Alex Trebek has passed, and RPGFan's audio quiz show inspiration, Ask Me Another, announced that its final episodes will air later this year. But Retro Encounter is still here, and another quiz show arrives to challenge four contestants and crown a fourth Retro Encounter Quiz Show Ch...

Football season has seized North America, and four Persona-loving RPGFan staff decided to reject the sports-industrial complex to draft their own teams of teenagers battling their inner demons by confronting actual demons. Which protagonist is drafted first overall? Which participant picks not one, but TWO motorcycle-riding student council presidents? Listen and find out!  ARE YOU READY FOR SOME T...

Two recent entries in Capcom's Ace Attorney saga of part-visual novel, part-adventure game, and all-courtroom drama video games were in localization purgatory for a few years before finally releasing worldwide as The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles in July 2021. Three of RPGFan's preeminent anime lawyer enthusiasts discuss the story, characters, themes, puzzles, and handsome boys and dads of this pa...

Three Retro Encounter panelists played Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne in August 2021, and each came out with different opinions and Reasons for those feelings. So which Reason is The Matrix and which Reason is The LEGO Movie ? Listen and find out. You'll have plenty of time, climbing those massive tower dungeons Is Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne one of the PS2's best, or lacking compared to it...

300 episodes! Retro Encounter always celebrates 50-episode milestones with new podcast gimmicks and a public vote on a future Retro Encounter game, and in 2021 we deliver with a Retro Encounter elimination tournament! We took sixteen suggested games for a future Retro Encounter episode, then voted them down to a final four. Now it's time to rely on listener votes for an overall winner. The winning...

Podcasting is a harsh, unforgiving world that struggles between freedom of expression and survival of the fittest, but it's nothing compared to post-apocalyptic Tokyo. Three Retro Encounter Demi-Fiends survive The Conception with two friends, two strangers, and their favorite teacher (with an oddly close relationship to her students); but how do they find this recently-remade PS2 Atlus classic? We...

The samurai and demon boys are back in town, as are our panelists as we finish our discussion of Hakuoki: Memories of the Shinsengumi for Ladies Otome Month here on Retro Encounter. This time, discussion centers around two more specific routes: one where Shinsengumi antagonist and demon Kazama helps you out (wow, so historically accurate), and the titular route where you get to know the tragic fig...

It's Ladies Otome Month on Retro, so our panel is kicking back and getting lost in historical Japan with a bunch of deadly samurai. Some of us are otome experts, some of us only know the genre from second-hand accounts, but we've all made our choices and been throughout at least one route. Many of us had a surprising amount to say about this intersection of otome, horror, and historical fiction. H...