Ep. 297 - The Thinking Man’s Gex

esper

Ep. 297 - The Thinking Man’s Gex

The same panel this show started with is whole once more, covering hype cycles, the real game console generations, and the Season 2 finale of Violence Island. Hosted by Alex Jaffe, with Frank Cifaldi, Tim Rogers, and Brandon Sheffield. Edited by Esper Quinn, original music by Kurt Feldman.

Questions this week:

merritt k asks: What are some games on 80s and 90s Japanese home computers you want translations of or official releases in the west? (05:32)
What causes hype? Or, how do games become “overrated?” (11:23)
Let’s talk about “game killers” (17:25)
Who makes the best monsters? (23:53)
What are the actual video game console generations? (30:32)
Insert Credit Quick Break - The Free Cheese (41:22)
From Winckle: What’s the best two button sequence in video games? (42:44)
What do you think was the most difficult game to QA test? (49:06)

LIGHTNING ROUND: Violence Island - Season 2 Finale (54:51)

Recommendations and Outro (01:12:58)

A SMALL SELECTION OF THINGS REFERENCED:

Recommendations:
Frank: clock out early
Brandon: hey thanks for listening and enjoying the show, we really appreciate it! And also, consider using your house like a Blockbuster if you keep collecting things.

This week’s Insert Credit Show is brought to you by The Free Cheese, and patrons like you. Thank you.

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hellomrkearns

esper Let’s talk about “game killers” (17:25)

UK publications did it a lot more than US ones. They also used “Mario Beater”.
I did a bit of a thread on them (not comprehensive)

https://archive.org/search?query=%22Mario+killer%22&sin=TXT&sort=date&and%5B%5D=collection%3A%22magazine_rack%22&and%5B%5D=year%3A%5B1988+TO+2023%5D

hellomrkearns

esper using your house like a Blockbuster if you keep collecting things.

Just like Barbra Streisand.

JJSignal

esper merritt k asks: What are some games on 80s and 90s Japanese home computers you want translations of or official releases in the west? (05:32)

I’ve been using Textractor to play most of them and parsing the broken machine translated english hahaha. But the Sword Dancer games are sick, and the original Popful Mail is different enough to the SegaCD/PCE versions that having it would be nice (I almost like it more). Also Night Slave is incredible. And a lot of the DiscStation PC98 games are really cool, not just Madou Monogatari, but stuff like Run Run Apple’n and Lady Bono are awesome and funny.
Briganty has some erotic scenes in it, but that never stopped a game like Yu-No getting modern ports (and remakes!). It’s a really fun side scrolling beat-em-up with some adventure elements in it between levels. It’s super fun and I can’t believe it never got a port anywhere else (apparently there’s a Windows 95 version? But I haven’t tried it).

The original versions of J.E.S.U.S. Kyofu no Biomonster and J.E.S.U.S. 2 on the PC-8801 are cool as hell and the first one was an inspiration for Snatcher apparently. There’s a Famicom translation patch for the first JESUS, but the art is drastically different in the original PC88 version.

Melpool Land is a lot of fun, a sort of Zelda-like game with a lot of cute humor and fun gameplay. It’s very close to Link’s Adventure or Link’s Awakening in that it has overhead segments, but also side scrolling ones. The goal in the game is to collect gold in various caves. Those caves are rock pushing pushing challenges where you need to get to the end of the cave to get the treasure, but also make sure you can get back out! Super fun game.

Exciting Milk and Jewel BEM Hunter Lime are absolutely ridiculous.

My first encounter with Jewel BEM Hunter Lime was in a Suncoast pickup long ago, I thought it was just an OVA, but it turns out it was a PC-9801 game first! I suppose these wouldn’t really be as exciting anymore since we have games like Steins;Gate Elite where the anime plays out as you’re playing it. But it’s a really impressive, clean look that’s running on an old computer system with limited colors and memory. Also a bit of anime history.

Jewel BEM Hunter Lime for PC-9801 is in the process of receiving a fan translation iirc.

Xanadu has multiple ports, but Revival Xanadu on the PC-9801 is good for just history sake. Thankfully that is already pretty much all in english anyway.

There’s more I could add, but a lot of these are just off the top of my head…

saddleblasters

Not at all an original opinion, but Run and Jump is definitely not the best two button sequence, since in most games that have it you are holding down the Run button at all times, so for all intents and purposes it’s just a single button press.

I feel like a good podcast question (if it hasn’t been asked already) is how to design a platformer with a run button that you have to use skillfully. Maybe this ends up just being a dash? But dash and jump is already more interesting than run and jump, I think.

exodus

saddleblasters a d-pad direction is a button!

progn

Regarding Policenauts on PC-98: the game was reprogrammed almost entirely when ported to console, so none of the existing console tools would be useful for making a translation patch. Additionally, voiced dialogues are not subtitled in the PC-98 version so you’d need to do some engineering work or provide a guide for following along manually.

I’ve done some work on reverse engineering the PC-98 version, mostly for my own entertainment and as a way to recover from burnout and depression after having spent time in an abusive games industry job a few years back. I wouldn’t advise getting your hopes up on a full translation patch coming from this work, but who knows.

TomoftheFog

Great episode! Would love to hear one day the Insert Credit Console Generation list and their respective machines - and how it differs to what other lists are out there.

Chopemon

“Ghost Face Killer” is this week’s “bringing Gexy back”. Underappreciated banger.

Jonks

I enjoy the different models being used for determining console generations. I’d love to hear an older game designer like Will Wright, Richard Garriot, or Miyamoto give their take on it as well to see what felt like major changes for them on the ‘making’ side of things.

I wonder if Frank’s day to day work at the VGHF is what has him focusing more on how games are acquired (single game systems, cartridges, discs, digital) than on other aspects of how they’re played or made.

A model I considered while listening to the episode was how save games are treated. With generations being something like:

1) no saves
2) battery backup on cartridges
3) removable memory cards
4) built-in console wide storage
5) cloud storage

I like it because it both changes how the games are designed and how players are able to interact with them while also somewhat mirroring Frank’s division.

I enjoyed “Tires of the Kicking” way more than I should have and I hope it was the runner up for episode title.

GigaSlime

Just want to say Tim is slightly overstating things by suggesting Yuji Horii designed the Slime, there was definitely some back-and-forth there

exodus

GigaSlime whoa yeah that is a real big difference there, ha ha.

gsk

GigaSlime Tim is slightly overstating things

what

Mnemogenic

Why do we even have “generations”? Is it because processors have them? I feel like other arts talk about “movements”, not “generations”.

Jonks

Mnemogenic I blame the tone of 90s advertising coexisting with Star Trek TNG influencing the minds of gamers before the “art-ness” of games was being argued for on a greater scale.

buy-frank-lewd-mags

Mnemogenic And my biggest pet peeve about generations: what about PCs and portable consoles!?

Those generations are strictly the remnants of old 90s marketing, make no sense today when a Series X runs the same OS and games as an Xbox One. To conclude, the Game Boy was released in the third, and had massive relevance during the fourth and fifth generations of consoles. Which generation is it supposed to be in huh ?

bnn

My fav two button “sequence” is typical igavanias’s short jump tap, then attack. Feels the best way to fight around, esp. when you jump attack > attack > backdash cancel. Short jump > shoot > land shoot is acceptable too (games with very low min jump height that kind of require you to hold jump while attacking, like Hollow Knight, or have too many landing/recovery frames don’t quite get this joyful mechanic).

Mnemogenic

I totally forgot about all the “the taste of a new generation”, “the Pepsi generation” stuff. Hell, “generation X”. There was a lot of generationing going on back then.

Jonks

Mnemogenic There was a lot of generationing going on back then.

That’s what I was alluding to by mentioning Star Trek TNG. It’s interesting how much ad agencies and corporate executives can inadvertently affect the way we think about things.

I absolutely welcome an “art movement” approach to classifying game history but it seems like that history may be too short at the moment to justify it. How long were some of the shorter movements in art or film?

kyleprocrastinations

Best part of the episode was when everybody was grunting and screaming for a few seconds.

Mnemogenic

Frank being bewildered and very quietly saying “heavy rain?” was very funny

Jaffe

Mnemogenic metal gear?