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Episode 566: I'm. From. France.

by James Jones, Greg Leahy, Jon Lindemann, and Guillaume Veillette - April 8, 2018, 1:58 pm EDT
Total comments: 13

Three words; infinite meaning.

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A brush with death can alter one's outlook on life. Jon, channeling his inner Steve Hewitt, very nearly died in a catastrophic event. He uses the start of New Business to vent on this definitely-not-oversold danger. Greg enters the final frontier of Stereotype Slugging with Arcade Archives PUNCH-OUT!!, which has finally arrived on Switch. Guillaume is playing the shipwreck adventure Burly Men at Sea. A mix of visual novel and adventure game, he has thoughts on the game's unique structure, just before it comes to Switch. He's also been playing Deep Ones, a Lovecraftian mash-up of game genres, sporting a ZX Spectrum-influenced look. James closes out New Business, still in Atelier Lydie & Suelle purgatory. His sins must run deep.

After the break, we tackle a duo of Listener Mail questions. This week we debate what Nintendo "needs" to do with their pay-to-play online service, and we then organize some video game free agency. You can slowly begin to recognize that all your Nintendo hopes and dreams are far too optimistic by sending us an email.

This episode was edited by Guillaume Veillette. The "Men of Leisure" theme song was produced exclusively for Radio Free Nintendo by Perry Burkum. Hear more at Perry's SoundCloud. The Radio Free Nintendo logo was produced by Connor Strickland. See more of his work at his website.

This episode's ending music was selected by Greg: Ideal, from Ikaruga. Composition by Hiroshi Iuchi. All rights reserved by TREASURE Co., Ltd..

Talkback

You managed to upload this JUST as the Wrestlemania kickoff show started.

I'll have to listen to this later.

Surely RFN beats two hours of creating separation.

Or just watch Takeover again, that'll let you listen to RFN twice.

azekeApril 09, 2018

ZX Spectrum nostalgia in CIS countries is very much a thing.

I've seen Sinclair ZX Spectrum Vega (Classic Mini type console with) selling alongside SNES Mini Classic at my books/gaming retailer. It was more expensive than SNES mini too!

MASBApril 09, 2018

Jonny's been absent from the hosting chair for over two and a half years now. Based on James's comments in this episode and many others, it's clear to me that it's time to invite Dr. Metts back for an episode entitled "The Corrections, Part Deux, Mon Dieu!"

Upon reading of Jon's near death experience, I must admit I took it too seriously and thought "What happened? Car accident? Hold-up? Mudslide?" I didn't hear any news about an earthquake so that didn't enter my mind. Glad all was well, though I'm sure the sense of powerlessness during an earthquake isn't pleasant and might be the worst thing about it (from a personal perspective).

We should do a study and see if Jon could safely use NES cartridges to shoreup his house against an earthquake. If effective, we could finally find a use for all of James's LJN "Classics".

James: "Restaurant." Once again, trying to impune Jon's reputation. Tsk, Tsk.

Nintendo should claim on the waiver wire all of Sega's Master System graph paper games. There must be good potential in some of those forgotten games.

Sell Ice Climbers to the Good Humor Man. It'd set off a revolution in the dairy confectionary industry.

the thing is, I don't actually have a WWE network account and I kinda went to my friend's house to watch Wrestlemania, and then watched Takeover afterwards.

Kinda needed it. Wrestlemania felt... very middle-of-the-road.

MASBApril 09, 2018

You too can have the WWE Network for only $9.99. 9 9 9 :)

I haven't seen a regular show in awhile. Do they still drill that into the viewers nonstop?

iMenchiApril 09, 2018

Just thought I'd mention, Xbox Live Games with Gold. When you attach them to your account they are there forever, even if you cancel your subscription. Basically they allow you to purchase the games for free. Since they are purchased you get to keep them.

Quote from: iMenchi

Just thought I'd mention, Xbox Live Games with Gold. When you attach them to your account they are there forever, even if you cancel your subscription. Basically they allow you to purchase the games for free. Since they are purchased you get to keep them.

I thought they split the difference - Xbox 360 games with gold are "keep forever", while the Xbone ones are "valid as long as you have a subscription" much like PS+. 

Regarding virtual console on Switch.


I don't really know how much I care about NES/SNES/N64 games on switch the longer it hasn't been on it.  There's such a wide variety of indie games and stuff like the Neo Geo or arcade archives that have filled in that gap of older titles that are also fresh in a way because they haven't been accessible like Nintendo's catalog has been the past two generations. 


I do not necessarily think the NES/SNES classic's booming sales are a lesson that there's a huge market for virtual console on Switch.  It's a package that largely banks on nostalgia, is a simple turn-on-and-go console that isn't confusing or requires updates like current consoles, and is a great value proposition ($1-2 per game).  I think it's more proof of concept that there's a larger market for this product itself than Nintendo's mainline current-gen consoles.


Regarding Nintendo online:


They really screwed the pooch, IMO, when it comes to them not having an online subscription service at the START of the generation.  I don't know what features they could offer that'd be a good value proposition for me to feel good about paying for it, even at a fairly inexpensive $20/year.  I can't tell if the silence on their part is fear based on the criticism of their original plans, or if it's silence until they can do a big splashy announcement, but my gut is that it's the former rather than them having some big way to sell us on it as anything other them dipping-into the other console's cash flow they feel they've been missing out on.

Regarding Spiritual successors:

Shovel Knight
Freedom Planet
Mighty Gunvolt Burst
Gunvolt in general?

YoshidiousGreg Leahy, Staff AlumnusApril 10, 2018

Quote from: ClexYoshi

Regarding Spiritual successors:

Shovel Knight
Freedom Planet
Mighty Gunvolt Burst
Gunvolt in general?

The spiritual successors I had in mind when posing that question were those involving a prominent developer of the original series working on the new IP, mainly because developers are more likely to become "free agents" in reality than the properties they've worked on. The Gunvolt series fits into this category due to the number of Mega Man games Inti Creates have developed in the past, while Freedom Planet and Shovel Knight (which I like very much) would not. Apologies for not being more clear about this during the show. 

Quote from: Yoshidious

Quote from: ClexYoshi

Regarding Spiritual successors:

Shovel Knight
Freedom Planet
Mighty Gunvolt Burst
Gunvolt in general?

The spiritual successors I had in mind when posing that question were those involving a prominent developer of the original series working on the new IP, mainly because developers are more likely to become "free agents" in reality than the properties they've worked on. The Gunvolt series fits into this category due to the number of Mega Man games Inti Creates have developed in the past, while Freedom Planet and Shovel Knight (which I like very much) would not. Apologies for not being more clear about this during the show.

That's cool, Greg. if you want a really neat example, Fallout was a spiritual successor to Wasteland, an old-school CRPG... InExile games of course , are a break-off of staff from interplay that eventually brought Wasteland 2 to Kickstarter, which now stands as the closest thing these days you can get to a 'classic' fallout experience!

Richard Garriott broke off from EA after the company sank Origin and proceeded to make a kickstarter for "Shroud of the Avatar: Forsaken Virtues", which is a spiritual successor to Garriott's Ultima games. that's sitting at... middling reviews, I suppose.

There's also more popular contemporary examples, such as Bayonetta being a spiritual successor to Kamiya's work with Devil May Cry. Or Ken Levine working with 2K for bioshock as a spiritual successor to System Shock 2. those however, fall under the purview of still being games created under the traditional publishing system rather than crowdfunding.

One more I can think of that's VERY recent is Fighting Layer EX. Arika was formed by Akira Nishitani, AKA the Man who programmed Street Fighter 2. in the late 90's , he got to work on Street Fighter again after doing some work with SNK. the game he made was Street Fighter EX, a weird quasai-3D fighter  that introduced a TON of new characters to the franchise that Arika retained the rights to, while Capcom kept their character rights.

cue April 1st, 2017, when a joke trailer for a fighting game featuring Street Fighter EX's Hokuto, Garuda, and Kairi pops up on the internet. fanboys get VERY upset that this is an elaborate April fools joke/PS4 tech demo and not a full on game. Arika sees this reaction around the internet, and thus they decide to take the risk of self-publishing "Fighting EX Layer", a fighting game featuring many of the new characters from the Street Fighter EX games and sporting a very similar 2.5D-ish fighting system. although there are characters from the previous games that weren't copyrighted by capcom, it is a 'spiritual successor' of sorts to Street Fighter EX.

nickmitchApril 16, 2018

Quote from: ClexYoshi

the thing is, I don't actually have a WWE network account and I kinda went to my friend's house to watch Wrestlemania, and then watched Takeover afterwards.

Kinda needed it. Wrestlemania felt... very middle-of-the-road.

This has me thinking I should go back and watch Takeover.

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