Square Roots - THE Classic RPG Podcast

Julian Titus from Nerds Without Pants joins Jim and John as they decide if the Miracle of Sound Commander Shepherd song deserves a Renegade or Paragon interrupt! This episode contains a careful review of the imagery used by Miracle of Sound, as well as a mailbag full of questions about Krogan genitals, Crossing Jordan, Asari babies, and Normandy crew slash fiction. Plus basic misunderstandings of...

Mass Effect - Part 6  Stay tuned through the end of the podcast for incredible dramatic readings of Matt's notes! We finish off BioWare's first venture into their epic science fantasy universe and decide whether or not we're Squarely Against or Roundly For Shepherd and their adventures. Also? Vanessa and Matthew turn out to be twinsies; Matt is obsessed with a geth ship with a face; Vanessa's Rate...

Mass Effect 1 - Part 5 Next game is announced! WARNING: JOHN MAKES THE VERY WORST JOKE EVER IN THIS EPISODE. Okay, now that we're past that, Shepherd and their crew head to Ilos to catch up with Saren! Also covered in this episode: meeting Lord Darius; Vanessa's Rate-A-Hunk; steamy Mass Effect love scenes; punching Ambassador Udina; the sexiest exposition-spouting VI; the terrible Pinnacle Station...

Mass Effect - Part 4 On this dangerously exciting episode of Square Roots and Mass Effect: We talk about the pros and cons of prefabricated space housing and office buildings; Matthew makes a reference to a commercial no one has seen; there is much bandying about of the term "Terminator Cthulus"; we make a difficult choice between crew members and one may get some smoking lazer holes; Matthew deci...

Mass Effect - Part 3 Things go from aggressive fungi to getting real cool as we descend on the Galt's Gulch that is the corpoplanet Noveria. Matthew delights in Matriach Brazzeria but somehow Vanessa isn't loving it; Ashley wants to put Earth first; aliens with New York cabbie accents; super space secretaries; further rating of hunks; Vanessa and Matthew tell teacher and SO MUCH MORE. You won't be...

Mass Effect - Part 2 We finally blast off the Citadel and get to explore the Milky Way with our favorite crew of misfits, rebels and space racists. On this episode: Matthew tries desperately to figure out who Tonya Harding is, we debate the physical properties and applications of OmniGel, Freighter Crane's tossed salad and spiked grenades, Liara's psychic head rubbies, birthing Asaris, and so much...

Mass Effect 1 - Part One Forgive sick Johnny's heavy breathing this ep, his nose was heckka plugged. It's Janu-Warey! Poor, poor hick Jenkins. BimJanks, Eden, Evil and Kimothy Shepherd unite to fight the evil, evil Nihilus after he kills… wait. Wait. Saren is the bad guy? But Nihilus is the bad guy name! What's the deal with the Epiphany Witch? Why is Jim's neighbour on a campaign of misinformatio...

Nadia Oxford from USGamer and Axe of the Blood God joins us to dissect the strange relationships between this visual novel / text adventure and Chrono Trigger, as well as its role as a map for Chrono Cross. Things to enjoy this week: Jim getting angry at Radical Dreamers and Chrono Cross yet again, self-insert Chrono fan fiction, Radical Dreamers as a management parable, fashion montages, fushigi,...

The Bard's Tale 2004 - Part Four Things draw to a close and we try to end on a positive note on what we liked about this strange game. We track through the three endings, discuss the stated theme of the game, and give long, long sighs as we hit one of the most weirdest endgame of any RPG we've seen. This Week: We play Chapters 11 through 14 of The Bard's Tale. Next Week: We radically dream! Twitte...

The Bard's Tale 2004 - Part Three Hi! I'm Hal Sparks. Do you remember the 2000s? What a wild and crazy, yet somehow more innocent age. Snooki? Tatu? Eminem hair? We dive into a time of Urbz: Sims in the City and gay panic in this wall-to-wall-awesome episode of Square Roots. Questions asked in this episode: why does Jim hate Chris Pratt? Does Jeff Goldblum have an orgy ship? Will Vanessa stop sing...

The Bard's Tale 2004 - Part Two The tables are turned as Jim, John and Vanessa lighten up a little on The Bard's Tale while Matthew goes ballistic. John finds solace in an undead horse, Vanessa loves the Crone, Jim doesn't get the performance issues, and Matthew realizes the game may be tuned to encourage in-app purchases on iOS. Why would Matthew start singing the Bodyguard song? What's a Kunal T...

The Bard's Tale - Part 1 Yes, that's not a typo. We're covering the, uh, classic? RPG The Bard's Tale, and by that we mean the 2004 release that first came out on PS2 and Xbox. You might have a few questions, like: why are we playing The Bard's Tale? Was it written by Adam Carolla? Will we ever see Spiderman: Too Many Spidermen? Why has Matt never seen Big Bird's legs? Is Infamous an RPG? Does the...

Parasite Eve Part 3 Planes explode! Boats sink! Daniels catch on fire! Parasite Eve's Disc 3 Crazy continues as we wrap up the bonkers story line with an insane finale. Really. Babies are shot. Mermen emerge. The statue of liberty is covered in goo. This brings up a ton of questions this week: is Parasite Eve some Ghostbusters II fan fiction? Or is Parasite Eve's Manhattan the world liberals want?...

Parasite Eve Part 2 We're back and still crushing more mitochondria! It's a dog-shooting, sperm finding episode of Square Roots as we get over halfway through Square's bizarre survival horror visual novel JRPG masterpiece. Questions asked today: do you know the Meatball Man? Is Carl Winslow actually in the game? Was Lorraine's death preventable? Does Matthew really think sentient poop is a good su...

We've got a buildup of groovy letters from our awesome listeners! And heck, we've also got a bunch of questions from our Facebook group! So today we're gonna answer: Is Final Fantasy IX overrated? What game do you love but don't want to play? What's the Square Roots special sauce for picking games? Are you going to retire from gaming? And so many more! So join us for talkin' back to youse folks!

Parasite Eve - Part 1 Parasite Eve: survival horror JRPG? Or is it a visual novel? This is the first of many, many questions we have during the first chunk of this bizarre game. Others include: What the heck are the rules surrounding Eve's power? Should we be calling her Melissa? Has Vanessa won Best Character Name of All Time? Why won't Jim plug his podcast at his church? Did Daniel really shoot...

Chrono Trigger - Part 5 Finally! Vanessa has [REDACTED] the [REDACTED]! CONGRATULATIONS!  But! Also! We finish Chrono Trigger and pretty much all get the same ending, except for Matt, but Matt got removed from the timestream and can't maintain his presence in this timeline. This is an all-singing-all-dancing episode featuring Memories of Chrono, Mama Don't Take My Chrono Chrome Away, and also some...

Chrono Trigger Part 4 Chuck Charles hosts the premiere show for dating fictional video game characters - Create-A-Combo! Who will our contestant Vanessa choose? Her new romance chosen, we start asking a whole bunch of questions about this chunk of Chrono Trigger, including: building a machine that harnesses the power of Lavos couldn't be a terrible idea, could it? Does Giga Gaia have a giant dong?...

Hello, fellow lovers of the macabre and / or mouse-based action combat! Are you ready to be spooked? Are you in the mood for hyper-gory VGA-era RPG adventure games? ARE YOU? You better be, because Mikel Reparaz from Vidjagame Apocalypse joins us and he darn well finished this first person dungeon crawler for our benefit. So you'll play this creaky game from Horrorsoft and YOU'LL LIKE IT. On this s...

Chrono Trigger Part 3 We're into the thick of things with Chrono Trigger as we hit everyone's favorite part of the game: Magus's Castle! Yep, that's right! Flea! Slash! Ozzie! Our panel of experts including noted pervazoid Jim Banks, loveable curmudgeon Matthew Van Zandt, mysterious genius Vanessa Girl and Manic Pixie Dream Bear John Brandon ask the questions you've always wanted answers to: is Ay...

Chrono Trigger Part 2 After a very, very long Blade Runner talk and Jim gets the future year wrong, we settle in for our usual expert panel on all your burning Chrono Trigger questions, such as; why does Matthew constantly misquote Judge Dredd? Did they get wet after being squirted out from Heckran's Cave? Is Vanessa using jet bike racing as some kind of euphemism? Why is Matthew heck-bent on gett...

Chrono Trigger Part 1 We start our new time-hopping adventure in a talk that gets very, very mired in discussing what would and wouldn't be ethical to do with your inert clone. Other questions raised: Is this a total palette swap of a game? What floor does Lucca live on anyhow? What is the technology level of 1000 AD Crono Trigger? Should we advertise for companies on spec? Is Secret of Mana the d...

Final Fantasy XII Part 9 Vanessa and Matthew don't like the idea of playing Darkseed 2 and Beyond the Beyond at the same time and take steps to change history as we settle on what to play next. As we hit the end of Final Fantasy XII questions are asked: Is Pennywise a total CILF? Is Venat a creepy life coach? Is Vayne the Justin Trudeau of Final Fantasy? Do many good games end with terrible muscle...

Final Fantasy XII Part 8 The next game is announced! And it's real bad. But maybe Matthew and Vanessa can have a chance to put right what once went wrong. We go deep inside Pharos which, as must be pointed out, is a large building and not the ghost kid from Persona 3. Questions addressed in this episode: do scarves cancel out fedoras? Is a boss really called Slit the Fish Monster? Have you tried a...

Final Fantasy XII Part 7 We dabble in converting the podcast to pure ASMR after Matthew was swept away in a hurricane. Questions asked in this episode: Is Daddy Cid really just Fancy Auron? Is Port Balfonheim a pleasant hive of scum and villany?  Will  Jim and John out themselves as Vayne Supporters after C** Fest '94? What the heck is a Manse? Can a three wheeled car really work? This week: We tr...