The Retro Breakdown

TW recaps the end of Rabi-Ribi, the YouTube-exclusive series he's been playing, and begs the developers to give those girls some pants, while Tom is playing through Dragon Quest 11 in the 2D demake mode. Actraiser, meanwhile, is the third Quintet game we've played on the podcast, and also the first for that studio! It is a bizarre combination of Castlevania platforming and city-building simulator,...

This week, everyone learns way more than they ever wanted to about a neuroscientist who took a bunch of LSD and tried to get dolphins to communicate with aliens. Which is somehow less weird than the ACTUAL plot of Ecco the Dolphin, a game everyone thought was about swimming around with your dolphin buddies, but is actually a horror story about aliens harvesting all life on Earth to turn it into a...

Stories of awful travel experiences, games we liked but didn't expect to, and of course, me intentionally mispronouncing my wife's username feature today. Yoshi's Story is both a good game and also a bad game, with a structure that is unique, interesting, ambitious, and pretty much terrible. I don't know, it's hard to say it's bad, but it's just... I dunno, just listen to the episode, you'll see....

Why is there a new Popeye game? Why is it like that? Why does it cost TWELVE DOLLARS? We may never know the answer, except that we already do, because it's "money." Anyway, here's a classic Castlevania game that bridges the gap between the classic stage-based platformers and the later titles that made "Metroidvania" into a term. No, I will not call it Search Action. If you play this game, do yours...

TW recaps his Extra Life charity stream and attempts to explain why it has taken so absurdly long to finish Lost Judgment, and somehow we end up talking about Mario Odyssey? Thanks to Swoggles for this week's "Bait Mail" on how to introduce a new gamer to classic/retro games! Send us an email to read on the show! theretrobreakdown@gmail.com TW's Discord: https://discord.gg/dTrBruG Podcast games st...

A change of gears into a bizarre-but-fun puzzle game that Nintendo decided to drop on its NES Online platform a few months ago. It's hard to really recommend it, but we try anyway. Oh, by the way, this game is Solomon's Key 2 (the prequel), but they didn't call it that in North America for reasons we don't entirely understand. Also, we talk about NFTs and establish that if you think you understand...

This week, TW clumsily tries to explain his excitement for Altair, the streaming platform that is focused on mental health and equality, and we discuss our concerns and hopes for the platform. Check out Altair at https://altair.tv/ (this isn't sponsored, I just think they're cool, and I want to see them do well - I'll probably stream there after they launch). We also discuss mid-90s video game voi...

It's time to dig deep into the bag for one of the oldest and most obscure games we're covered so far! No but seriously, we didn't cover basically the entire Metroid series up to this point to NOT talk about the triumphant return of 2D Metroid. It may not be "retro," but that's okay, it's GOOD. Along the way, we talk about that one guy who decided to make himself the M...

This week, the multi-media sensation that wasn't: Vectorman! A game with great animations that they want to make ABSOLUTELY sure you see! Apparently they wanted this to be a movie, and it basically was, but unfortunately it was many years later and it wasn't about Vectorman and also the movie was Wall-E. Also, we talk Sora in Smash (timely, I know) and discuss the difference between good-natured t...

We interrupt this month's Metroid chain combo because we're busy playing Metroid Dread for a soon-to-be-released episode. This week, we complete the Donkey Kong Country trilogy and our bad opinions about them. Along the way, there's more Kusogrande talk, and we reminisce about our first forays into emulation on old potato PCs in the 90s, including the weird graphical bug that made Chrono Trigger u...

We spend way too long talking about the IGN "Best Game of All Time" bracket, and how impossible something like that is to even quantify properly. Later, we try to justify the existence of Metroid: Other M, discuss what could have been with Samus' character development, and what comes next for the series after Dread. Also appearing in this podcast - the trouble with asking for work on social media,...

Nintendo Direct! Bayonetta 3! 3D Kirby Game! Nintendo 64 and Sega Genesis games coming to Switch Online! And I guess there's a Mario movie being made or whatever, who even cares about that. We continue our run through of the mainline Metroid games this week by talking about the Game Boy sequel that nobody talks about but everybody should know about. Send us an email to read on the show! theretrobr...

After several podcasts of teasing it, it's FINALLY time to talk about Metroid! Or, one of them, at least. The ORIGINAL one. The one everybody always tells us not to play. So, the question is: Should you actually bother playing the original NES Metroid? Or should you just start with Zero Mission, the remake for GBA? The answer is... complicated. Also, TW gives a reluctant credit to Nintendo's madde...

Perhaps the longest game we've made into a podcast (so far), Lufia 2 is a game with a bad translation but a good story, deep and interesting but also shallow mechanics, and an ENTIRE RANDOMLY-GENERATED ROGUELIKE DUNGEON AS A MINIGAME. Also, we talk about Hyrule Warriors, discuss the merits of a Metroid Musou game, weigh in on the surprisingly positive Apple/Epic court decision, reveal the depressi...

This week, TW and Tom talk way too much about Metroid, TW gushes about Atelier Escha and Logy, and we discuss how difficult it is to use items in a video game. Later, Tom surprises with a revelation that shouldn't be that surprising, but still kinda is. By the way, we're going to bumble around with a lack of classical music knowledge later on, but because of the magic of "being able to look things...

We get a sneak-preview at future Metroid podcasts, as TW has started playing not one, but two different Metroid games, and can't help but talk about them! Also, we marvel at how far the world has come in such a short time just by differences in what we feel comfortable making jokes about. Day of the Tentacle isn't a major offender in this, but it does get us thinking and talking about it, and hone...

Tom and TW struggle to come up with ANYTHING to talk about this week, probably because this game just sucked all the life out of both of us. But also, TW is into volleyball because of the Olympics, and we talk about the different flavors of speedruns. Send us an email to read on the show! theretrobreakdown@gmail.com TW's Discord: https://discord.gg/dTrBruG Podcast games streamed live at: twitch.tv...

In one of the absolute most bizarre narratives either of us has ever encountered, Tom and TW take their shots at the little-known Battle Golfer Yui, a game that is part-golf, part-RPG, part visual novel, and ALL WEIRD. Also, we offer a definitive answer to whether or not Breath of the Wild is a "true Zelda game." Thanks to https://twitter.com/romtranslator for putting in the work on this fan trans...

This week we toss in the quarters for an unlikely choice, Elevator Action Returns, which is, in fact, the sequel/reboot to 1983's Elevator Action, a game which I always thought sounded like something dirty. Along the way, we talk about Atelier Rorona, problematic elements of Rabi-Ribi, and how the battle music in Grandia 2 sounds like it's introducing an off-brand Monday Night Football broadcast....

I hate this game. Normally I try to be a little coy about our thoughts so as not to spoil the verdict. Not this time. I hate this game as much as it hates me. The podcast is just to find out why. (or you can watch it happen at https://youtu.be/qmA4z6RnhJw ) Send us an email to read on the show! theretrobreakdown@gmail.com TW's Discord: https://discord.gg/dTrBruG Podcast games streamed live at: twi...

This week's game comes as a request from stream viewer Alianin! Thank you for supporting the show! Earthworm Jim is a complicated game, in that its aesthetics are incredibly dated, and live squarely in the 1990s, and yet the quality still holds. Too bad the mechanics didn't. Also featured: TW complains about the ending of Fire Emblem: Three Houses, and Tom discusses what in the world is happening...

We're back to normal this week after recording a few episodes in advance, and we have a ton of stuff to catch up on! Tom and TW are both playing some new stuff, and we find time to dunk on Stadia for a bit before getting into the loosest definition of "retro" yet. We played the second Famicom Detective Club game, which TECHNICALLY only released a couple months ago for Nintendo Switch, but is a rem...

It has been one year of The Retro Breakdown already, and we wanted to do something really special for the podcast to celebrate. We decided it would be a cool to take on a true classic RPG. Thing is, Tom and I have already played Final Fantasy 6, multiple times. But you know who hadn't? Our wives! So, please welcome Jessi and Leticia to the podcast, as they talk about their first experience with th...

It's 8 games in one today, as we do a lightning round of games Tom made me play! The Typing of the Dead is the main attraction, but we probably spend more time talking about the N*SYNC game for Game Boy Color. Other games on the docket include: Captain Novolin (SNES) Snacks'n Jaxson (Arcade) Dragon Spirit: The New Legend (NES) LSD Dream Emulator (PS1) Screaming Mad George's Paranoiascape (PS1) Rex...

This week, Dean and Tom are shocked to find out they have a fan. It's honestly pretty cool. Thanks for writing in, Bruno! We do a super-on-time discussion of the Nintendo Direct from E3, complain about Mario Party, get hype about Mario Golf, and discuss why Nintendo is so hyper-protective whenever somebody wants to make a fangame (looking at you, Metroid). Then it's Alisia Dragoon time, where we t...