RPGFan's Retro Encounter

I'm a sucker for a good podcast! 25 years ago, RPGFan started life as LunarNET, and five years before that, Lunar: The Silver Star released in the West. So, in honor of that, we got four of our resident Lunar fans together to chat about the various versions of Lunar: The Silver Star .  Are we fans of the Working Designs localization? How does the combat hold up? Are Jessica and Kyle the best coupl...

Quest Like A Dragon!  One Warrior, one Rogue, and one Mage separately traveled across Ferelden to recruit allies in order to stop a Darkspawn Blight, but how did it go for them? Our panelists explored the diverse societies presented in BioWare’s dark fantasy RPG this month, but to what ends? Listen and find out why Dragon Age: Oranges’s narrative is so engrossing, this podcast forgot to discuss co...

Dungeons and Darkspawn Dragon Age, a standout mini series from BioWare's golden age of RPGs, is a blend of high fantasy, dark fantasy, politics, and dating sim that made a big splash in 2009. Two Grey Warden veterans and one Dragon Age neophyte form a Retro Encounter panel to take on the Darkspawn Blight, save a group of mages, and confirm that Dog is a very good boy. Featuring: Michael Sollosi, A...

I think I heard a shot. We finished Bloodborne! Four very enthusiastic hunters suffered through hunters, Great Ones, Street Sharks, and many other horrors to conquer this PS4 classic. So what are our favorite bosses? What the hell does Insight do? How many times do we mix up "Great Ones" with "Old Blood?" Listen to learn! Featuring: Michael Sollosi, Gio Castillo, Aleks Franiczek, Zach Wilkerson. E...

Bleeding its horror / Creating my structure Welcome, good hunter! Retro Encounter discusses a From Software Souls-like in detail for the first time, with the Playstation 4's Bloodborne. Four panelists discuss the city of Yarnham, trick weapons, the Souls formula, and more in this episode about a bloody excellent video game. Featuring: Michael Sollosi, Gio Castillo, Aleks Franiczek, Zach Wilkerson....

Back in the 90s and early 2000s, the localization of JRPGs was never a given. We RPG fans would often wait with bated breath, a copy of GamePlayers or Electronic Gaming Monthly in hand, hoping Squaresoft and other Japanese publishers would announce they were bringing their incredible games to the West. And more often than not, we would be disappointed. While many of these untranslated games have s...

Only one person gets to be the hero. But is it always the right one? Just about every RPG has a main character that can be singled out as the hero of their story, but this is not about any of them. Quite often, there's a companion or even an NPC that is more fun or interesting than a video game's protagonist. That's who we want to discuss today - three RPGFan staff pick a few of their favorite les...

Boys and girls of every age / Wouldn't you like to see something strange? Halloween is a time to experience scares, eat candy, and also celebrate fandom through costumes. Costume changes in RPGs can take the form of in-game bonuses, clever references, or expensive DLC, but it's undeniable that a classy costume change can enhance the video game experience. Today, three panelists talk about their fa...

Could you imagine? A puppet seeing another puppet- and then making it work? Rhapsody: A Musical Adventure is... cute. Energetic. Pleasant. But also sort of twisted? Is Cornet an earnest puppeteer or an unsuspecting necromancer? Do we want to play the rest of the trilogy now? In today's episode of Retro Encounter we explore these topics and more, from sad pirates to frog centaurs. Featuring: Michae...

In Marl's Kingdom, the girl saves the handsome prince. Rhapsody: A Musical Adventure is remarkable for a 1998 RPG, in that it subverts a few traditional fantasy tropes, has multiple character-specific side quests, and punctuates it plot points with musical numbers. It also kicked off a trilogy of RPGs with multiple spinoffs, which received worldwide releases in 2022 and 2023. But how does it hold...

Through the Fire and Flames of Fate Dragon Quest hasn't had a main series release since 2018, but in the last five years we've had spinoffs, adaptations, and announcements galore. Three Retro Encounter panelists are joined by special guest Matt from the Dragon Quest Slime Time!  podcast to discuss the past, present, and future of Dragon Quest . Bring on Dragon Quest XII ! Featuring: Michael Sollos...

Mr. Blue Sky, please tell us why you had to hide away for so long. Where did we go wrong? Breath of Fire: Dragon Quarter is a bleak, unforgiving game that grants players tremendous highs when they emerge victorious from a boss battle on the brink of death, and threatens brutal lows if you lose all your progress far away from one of its limited save points. Three panelists played Dragon Quarter for...

Don't be a D-Ratio. Breath of Fire: Dragon Quarter doesn't want you to have an easy time. A remarkable blend of PS2 visuals, tactical combat, rogue-like elements, and horror atmosphere set to a Hitoshi Sakimoto soundtrack, the fifth game in Capcom's signature turn-based RPG series is as unique as it is challenging. Three RPGFan staff of various experience levels tackled Breath of Fire: Dragon Quar...

The only podcast here is ours. And you can be its early witness! Final Fantasy XVI, one of the most-anticipated Square-Enix games of the 2020s, finally launched worldwide in June. And now, almost three months later, at least four RPGFan staff have finished playing and want to start talking. From favorite characters and fights to the future of Final Fantasy XVI DLC, this podcast delves deep into th...

She'll take you for a ride on a wagon train to Zoombiniville It's back to school week here at Retro Encounter, where we stay retro but mostly avoid RPGs in a discussion of classic edutainment games, from The Oregon Trail to Sim City 2000. Who among our illustrious panel dreamed of being on the Carmen Sandiego PBS show? Which educational game most deserves a Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio adaptation? Listen...

Time to go work on Retro Encounter! We're back with our discussion of the second half of Disco Elysium . This week we dive into some of our favorite late-game side quests, go over our favorite conversations with our neckties, and discuss the fabulously strange ending. Did we get Kim to like us? Do we continue to be a disaster cop? Are Phasmids real? Listen in to find out! Featuring: Zach Wilkerson...

This is the face of a late-stage Retro Encounter enthusiast. This week we get together to discuss a game inspired by Dungeons & Dragons , despite a complete lack of any dungeons or dragons: Disco Elysium . Listen in as we discuss the wild humor and politics of this strange, amazing video game, and find out just how many bad choices we can make while still solving a murder case. Featuring: Zach...

Off my podcast, jester. The commissioner sits there. It's fantasy draft season! And, well, it's been a while since our last draft episode, and even longer since we've drafted characters from the biggest RPG series around. So, we decided to pull a new panel together to engage in some Retro Encounter rules-based discussion nonsense with a supersized episode where we draft all our Final Fantasy chara...

Life... Dreams... Hope... Where do they come from? A new episode of Retro Encounter of course, that's where! We're back this week to dive into the second, more ruinous half of Final Fantasy VI . After the relatively structured and straightforward pacing of the first half, the latter portions of Final Fantasy VI are certainly much more open, and quite a revelation when the game released. Is the sec...

Think a "podcast" like ours could help you out in your quest? In honor of the recent release of Final Fantasy XVI , we got a few of our panelists together to play through the SNES classic Final Fantasy VI . Some of us have played it a million times, some of us are just running through it for the first, and we chat about everything from the story to the combat to that music . Who is the best charac...

What the hell, Yoko Taro? After our recently published "25 Years, 25 RPG Moments" feature, we decided to get the crew at Retro Encounter together to talk about some of the moments that made us laugh, made us happy, and most importantly, the ones that wrecked us. What moments did we choose? Which ones did we miss? Who got too emotional to talk for a little while? Listen in to find out! (Note: there...

Its gifts were mixed with good and evil both. This week we bring our panelists back together to discuss to discuss the second half of Lost Odyssey . While were were all pretty positive on the first half, some of us really like the latter portions, and some of us really don't. Did we do all the sidequests? Do the excellent short stories make up for the middling narrative? Are the environments still...

Okay it might not be called Final Fantasy XIII , but... This week on Retro Encounter, three first-timers get together to discuss Mistwalker's Xbox 360 cult classic Lost Odyssey . It certainly has some big names behind it, and we want to find out if it lives up to the previous works of the masters. How does it hold up? How brown can one game get? Does the turn-based combat work this time around? Li...

Thou shalleth listenen to thisen episode. Luckily, you won't hear any conversations about broken Early Modern English, because this time we're not talking about the original. Instead, we have a spoiler filled chat about Octopath Traveler II , a sequel that our panel loved even more than the first game. How does the game look? What about that combat? Oh, the music has to be good. What about any fun...

It's time to make history! This week, we're revisiting one of our favorites: Persona 4 Golden . After all, with the new release on modern consoles and Wes' glowing review for us at RPGFan, it seemed like the perfect opportunity to revisit some of our old friends. But there's an even better reason we're revisiting this classic! We're also joined by special guest, and friend of the podcast, Alex fro...