I always thought that James was my favorite person on the podcast because of his rants, but him naming Ogre Battle 64 as one of his top 3 favorite games just seals the deal.  ^_^  Especially with my PS3 out for repairs right now, I've been really tempted to pull out the N64 and give that game another replay lately (hell, either that or Baten Kaitos Origins, which I can never seem to get through whenever I try to replay it).

Can't wait to hear this! I really missed being on the show this week, especially since I was playing and enjoying Bangai-O Spirits. Still, I suppose a little time off is always good.

No Chrono Trigger love in their top 3..... It's one of my tops, first game I ever finished when I was 5 years old(I did have some help, but mostly I played it all). My brothers are much older so I grew up with an NES and SNES.

Ah my letter was read! But by James? I think this is my first letter not read by Greg! I am depressed.... But at least James got to read the "skillz"! That made up for it!

Wii Speak SUCKS! Give us a headset!

Mario Party 8 has sold over 6 million worldwide.

Lindy you haven't finished SMB3 or Galaxy! I don't think you should be able to be director of this site!

great show guys. I don't think you should limit the games to a specific console in retro active . keep it spicy.

i put a few games on the list in that topic that are varied and different . Neo Geo, Virtual Console Arcade, and Sega Master System don't have that many games on their perspective console so that rule may come back to bite you in the butt. Also limiting the console also limits the gameplay that can be shown off.

Not all RetroActive polls will be console-specific. That's just the current scheme. We'll have a mix for game #10 because that'll be a second-chance poll. And since some consoles don't have a big selection on VC, we may soon do a poll featuring games from all those "lesser" systems.

Final Fantasy III is my Chrono Trigger.  I still haven't really played CT, but I do have it for DS.  It's one of my summer projects, along with...

...Super Mario Galaxy and Super Mario Bros. 3.  I actually tossed three hours at SMG today.  I'm up to 27 stars and I just opened Rosalina's storybook.  It's getting better as I go along, but for some reason I found the first 15-20 stars just excruciatingly slow to get through.

I'd prioritize that one if I were you, as it's easily my favorite game of all time.  Frankly, I don't think Final Fantasy 6 has aged as well as CT (except for the music and Kefka), especially in the painfully-dull second half of the game.  I don't want to have to use a pun, but Chrono Trigger really is timeless.  I think if Jonny were there for this podcast it would have been in his Top 3, just based on his previous discussion of the game.

You left this out of my email.

James said something, I don't remember which specifically, that made me laugh to the point that I spilled hot coffee all over myself*. Then he insulted Super Mario Bros. 3, ensuring him a spot on my Enemies List.

* I'd like to unnecessarily point out that that was not a euphemism that referenced GTA: San Andreas 

When the "20th anniversarry" thing came up, I was sure Greg was going to mention The Wizard rather than SMB3 (which, if memory serves, actually came out in 1990 in the US). I expect there'll be mention of the movie in any SMB3 special, but I would like at least a Wizard segment on RFN.

This new Japanese correspondent seems decent. You should have him on more often.

When I was thinking of the 20th anniversary of SMB3 being at the end of this year, I was unfortunately mixing up its Japanese release (which was at the end of 1988) with the US one (February 1990) in such a way that I thought it came out at the end of '89. It's not that much farther out though, so it remains a possibility. I'll have to try and recall the previous episode where Jonny talked about The Wizard wth Karl and Mike and direct you to that if you haven't already heard it, yoshi1001. 

It's Episode 71: The Daily Weed.

Great show as always, gentlemen.

I enjoyed Matt's midwestern accent. And I don't feel bad about skipping out on Ninja Spirit.
I actually finally bought Cho Aniki instead of getting Ninja Spirit. Not that I think Cho Aniki would have generated much more discussion, but the amount of awkward "...And then I shot my MAN BEAM at a guy playing a harp and my friend questioned me sexuality" stories would be worth it.

Strangely enough, after my initial near silence on the Super Ghouls n Ghosts Retroactive that I made an appearance on, I played more of it with a friend of mine and while I think it is one of the cruelest games ever made, it's pretty damn awesome. Although I'm stuck on the final level the second time through now.

I got the Gamefly version of Super Ghouls and Ghosts on GBA two weeks after that episode. I beat it the first time, and then decided to send it back. I'll probably get it on VC once I get a Wii though.

Karl, what's the official link to your podcast? People were asking.

If you're talking about TAWK-112, we decided to dissolve it. Switchpod.com, which is what we were using as hosting, decided to close up shop. Also, the amount of shows we were doing and the amount of traffic we were getting kind of demanded a proper setup, with paid hosting and a domain and such. We entertained the idea, but eventually decided against it. A couple of us are going our separate ways (as in moving, not as friends), too, so it just wasn't going to be what we wanted.

I can never seem to get the radio bug out of my system, though, so I doubt it'll be the last you'll hear from me. I'm doing a one-off special for RFN coming up soon (recording it this weekend), and in the next couple months I'll be starting my next web project - still sort of throwing stuff together.

EDIT: Oh, I forgot. Anyone who wants the last couple unaired eps of TAWK-112 should email tawk112@gmail.com. I'm gonna throw them up on MegaUpload.com or something for people who're interested.

I have been trying to work out for the longest while what region Greg is from.

The region where people play difficult old-school games like real man.  And smell of Old Spice.

I think that I might be from that region (except for the Old Spice part). I got Super Ghouls And Ghosts because I thought that it might be a game that took me a while to complete. I also got the original Metroid on GBA and I am working on it without any help. I might also try for a record speed run through the GBA version of Super Mario World.

Not pertaining to this episode but I am listening to some of the old ones. Episode 15: The Four Horsemen. You foretold The Beatles: Rock Band. Well you said Guitar Hero but Harmonix was still doing GH back then.

But you laughed it off....

So follow the scent of teeth-crunching and despair?

I'm glad to hear Neal has joined the ranks of the Super GnG Stockholm Syndrome-sufferers, as it shows that the game's diabolical powers remain in effect even 18 years after it was originally released.

Plugabugz, your difficulty placing my accent is a product of me having spent the first twelve years of my life in the Midlands just outside Birmingham, and then the next twelve in the South East of England in Hertfordshire, so my voice is a weird composite of the dialects from those areas.

That makes sense :) You have a very "region-less" voice. It's undeniably British, but you can't narrow it down from there. Like nobody can ask you ARE YOO FROM LIVERPOOOOOOL?

LOL Don't worry Jon, I laughed about the "Household pets are buying them now" comment even if no one else did.

All British people sound the same though.

Hahaha, I'm glad somebody did.  I don't think anybody heard it at the time.

I think people would be surprised at how much we don't catch during recording due to Skype issues or good old-fashioned cross talk--which is of course why we record our audio separately in the first place. When I edit the show I often hear a bunch of stuff that I must have missed at the time, and on some occasions I'll deal with cross talk to ensure that the listeners have the chance to hear a particular remark more clearly than we did at the time.

Johnny, I have been listening to some of the older episodes. You need to say "Hi" in your Elmo voice next podcast please.

I had wondered about this too, although it's fairly obvious you're southern - as someone who goes back and forth regularly between Birmingham and London I can fairly confidently say that the litmus test is simple - is it ass or arse for you Greg? Grass or grarse?

Also just wanted to say that Matt was a very good guest on the show!

I've often wondered this myself.

Balancing everyone's audio to make sure we hear as much as possible from each person must be an absolute pain when it comes to editing. I suppose it's easy after a lot of editing experience, but still, I bet it's fairly time consuming to separate out all of the overlapping bits of speech. Do you all use Audacity or is there superior recording software I don't know about?

I just got HAWX because a retailer here is going out of business (no pricedrop yet outside of the 50% blanket discount that one gave)...

There is more than one speed, hold the triggers down to go faster or slower. It's not a large difference but it's more than one speed. I find slowing down useful for getting more time to shoot at ground targets.

Failing the first mission gotta be fairly pathetic, I ran it on Hard the first time and then on Expert, no real difficulty. The reduced ammo of Expert makes no difference since you won't use nearly 100 missiles and the increased damage doesn't matter if you've got the tiniest bit of skill and just avoid getting hit (it's trivially easy anyway and that's without safeties off). I did run into the ground once when I tried to gun a ground target to death, after that I just learned not to do that and went with missiles instead.

HAWX just never felt challenging.  The enemy A.I. never put up a fight, and the quantity of enemies was never so high as to counter their relative impotency.

Dunno, it's plenty challenging for me, trying to juggle 4-5 enemy fighters at once while having to worry about not accidentally veering off into a SAM area and still wrecking the sams in the path of the bombers... All that with 25 health at the last checkpoint so one missile hit means game over. Just fail to dodge one missile and boom.

This sounds like something that I'll get from Gamefly eventually.