The panel reveals which console has quietly become the second Dreamcast, their honest feelings on how Sonic Frontiers is looking so far, which game Tim started 24 times before finishing, and much more.
**HEADS UP!**_During Question 6, beginning at 45:51, Tim starts telling a story that contains some pretty horrifying dental trauma. If you don’t want to hear bad things happening to teeth, please skip to 49:37._
Hosted by Alex Jaffe, with Frank Cifaldi, Tim Rogers and Brandon Sheffield. Edited by Esper Quinn, original music by Kurt Feldman.
https://youtu.be/C21I-cSdlNk
**Questions this week:**
1. Is a tech demo a video game? (02:36)
2. Are we getting a new Space Harrier? (13:41)
3. What are the best fonts and typefaces in video games? (20:22)
4. Design eight characters for a Street Fighter spinoff where each character is based on a U.S. state (26:31)
5. Mono asks: What’s the saddest sound you’ve ever heard in a video game? (35:06)
6. Do you or does someone you know have video game superstitions? (41:27)
**LIGHTNING ROUND**: GameFAQ&As – The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past (52:39)
Recommendations and Outro (58:15)
**A SMALL SELECTION OF THINGS REFERENCED:**
- [Mega Man / Rockman series](https://www.mobygames.com/game-group/mega-man-rockman-series)
**Recommendations:** **Brandon:**[George & Jonathan - The Best Music](https://www.georgeandjonathan.com/thebestmusic/), [Citizen Sleeper](https://www.fellowtraveller.games/citizen-sleeper), please [wishlist Hyper Gunsport on Steam](https://store.steampowered.com/app/1663250/Hyper_Gunsport/), watch the [PC Gaming Show](https://www.pcgamingshow.com/) on Sunday June 12 at 12:30p/3:30e to see Necrosoft’s new video game announcement **Tim**: Figure out what Tim is recommending yourself, I guess. Sounds like he likes HBO shows.
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Guys what‘s this thing with Frank trashing Symphony of the Night’s sound effects every other episode, I love the turning into mist sound effect! I love every sound effect in that videogame, they are ICONIC.
There’s also some decent former PlayStation DNA in the Apple Arcade, between Fantasian and Clap Hanz Golf. Also an exclusive Platinum Games title, somehow!
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The font that Brandon enjoys in Shinseiki Evangelion and several Japanese shooting games of the late 90s is Matisse EB (or slight Matisse variations of Matisse EB).
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Now is a good time to remind people of NFG World’s [arcade font engine.](https://nfggames.com/games/fontmaker/) I am a sucker for the iconic **Gradius** font, the *Sol LeWitt*esque **KOF 2003** font, the "classic cursive Capcom"-inspired **Ninja Master’s Haōninpōchō** font, and more than anything else the "classic cursive Capcom"-transcending **Vampire Savior** font (sadly not available on the NFG page), heavily inspired by the Arnold Böcklin typeface.
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I don’t listen to all episodes so I have to admit the GameFAQ&As section was pretty confusing at first.
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I think Tim’s recommendation was to not apply to his health insurance.
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So glad to hear George & Jonathan again! That made my Monday.
I‘m more confused by Brandon big-upping Castlevania Rebirth’s sfx every so often, they're even hammier.
Re: Japan and pixel fonts, the JP fandom recently flipped their shit over Legend of Mana HD's exclusion of the classic pixel font (and they were correct to do so, all those Mana team/Brownies fonts are fantastic), and to S-E's credit, they restored the old font in pretty short order.
How do I like Space Harrier? I‘ve tried, and I love its whole thing, but when I play it it’s too fast and I zoom around for 15 seconds before running into a bush and dying.
An alternate suggestion for a Florida based fighter would be an Astronaut. Have there been any astronaut characters in a fighting game before? Btw, the space coast area code is 321.
It's not a state but for DC, I'd suggest something wacky like Abraham Lincoln; maybe an alternate costume is just him colored like a statue.
If any of y'all are into old typefaces, letterform archive on Twitter (@lett_arc) is great.
While listening i had the unironic thought that something like Dark Souls level design would be a good sonic game, a big dense 3D maze like the 2D maze levels
Just so you all know, the combat demo hadn‘t yet come out for Sonic Frontiers, so we hadn’t seen that!
@JoJoestar they really do have that "free sound effects library" vibe in certain respects! Just some of them! I love the "WOOOOOO" that the one ghoul guy makes when you chop him in half though.
@"chazumaru"#p72842 thanks for the Matisse EB advisory! And good note that jaffe should explain the prompt each time.
@"gsk"#p72843 those are hammy against a soundtrack that's full of orchestra hits, so it makes sense to me. Though I don't remember praising the sfx so much as the soundscape overall (so, the music plus the sfx).
@"Mnemogenic"#p72853 Space Harrier isn't that good in itself, but the genre it inspired is pretty alright. Try Burning Force instead.
@saddleblasters tell that to these guys:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EVRcmnVYlLI
I have not finished the episode but thinking about Sonic Frontier and just watched the gameplay. The idea of an open world Sonic does sound pretty cool! They need to lean in to Sonic tho. Like grab those Archie Comics and go hog wild.
Thoughts: need to place a bunch of stupid rails and things everywhere? How about this? Dr. Robotnik turned Megalopolis or whatever his city is into a giant living robot city. It went on a rampage shooting wire tendrils and conveyer belts and stuff all over and then it was destroyed! So there's wires and ramps and dodads just scattered all over the place, some of them work, some of em dont. But they look like they are part of something and the environment reflects that they were there and caused some havoc. In the non destroyed places, lets get some valleys man! VALLEYS. Just tons of them. That you can basically run and skate back and forth on all the time. Let's have some moles who dig tunnels and you can go underground sometimes. Maybe you get a skill to run underground.
Back to Valleys. I don't like the movement presented that much. How about Sonic starts moving way faster but if you hold a button he can slow down a bit if you need to. I want him yo-yoing around these valleys. What if there was this big bowl in the ground full of stuff and you could just blast down it on your way towards the center. Think variety too. Moguls in skiing. Motocross ramps! Etc. Back to the drawing board on movement!
Along with the speed is the camera. It needs some tweaking. A lot of the perception of speed is how close or far away you are and how much stuff you're passing. The bland areas do not help. It's kinda cool for that bit he runs through the trees. get that camera to zoom in tight, put some directional assist in there and lets see some motion.
I also want some giant objects. GIANT. I want Egg Man's deathstar on the ground and its a level and it's so big you get a sense for how fast you might be moving.
Alright I got too many ideas I'll take em elsewhere!
@“exodus”#p72871 I admit that some of the sound effects can be goofy if you listen to them in isolation but the way they are integrated in the context of the game with the music and visuals also going on works! All those voice effects with the super echoey and exaggerated reverb are super charismatic and as you were saying to @gsk there wrt Rebirth, I think the general soundscape is really good!
And also if you think about it, doesn't it actually make sense that a game like Symphony sounds a bit like a carnival fair or a horror funhouse? I think it does!
@“JoJoestar”#p72897 I wonder if maybe you don't have the experience playing the exact types of flash games that all had that mist sound in them, ha ha. It definitely does stand out.
@“exodus”#p72916 I was there for the whole flash boom yeah (time goes fast :_D), but I personally hadn‘t thought about the sound of SotN this way before and I don’t think I would have realized if you guys didn't bring it up. There is definitely some truth to it, but I still like it!
IIRC the Final Fantasy VI font (also used in a bunch of classic fan translations including Bahamut Lagoon and Star Ocean) is a variant of Garamond. This is ancient forum knowledge and I've lost the source.
