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Episode 347: Aggressive Drilling

by Curtis Bonds, James Jones, Jonathan Metts, and Guillaume Veillette - August 25, 2013, 9:59 pm EDT
Total comments: 12

Curtdogg is in the house for this brisk and really fun episode of RFN.

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Hopefully you enjoyed the surprise NFL preview last week, but either way, RFN is back to almost-normal and on track for our upcoming milestone and even a fourth-annual telethon down the road. In this episode, we do unfortunately lack Jon but have an extremely capable substitute in Curtis Bonds, one of our most effusive new staff writers. Look out for his next live gaming stream at the NWR Twitch channel.

New Business could have gone for hours with two week's worth of game catch-up, but we focused on big hitters like DuckTales Remastered, Mass Effect 3: Special Edition, Kirby's Dreamland 2, Romance of the Three Kingdoms IV, Steamworld Dig, and Mario Golf (GBC).

Listener Mail is bulging with great questions, so much that we never seem to catch up on all the ones we'd like to discuss on the show. This week's batch covers Wii U curiosity Spin the Bottle, the best way to introduce young children to classic games, and the nitty-gritty details of putting GameCube on the Wii U Virtual Console. Continue the email onslaught!

Lastly, we ask you to please continue playing Pandora's Tower and discussing that game in its special RetroActive forum thread -- we'll be pulling quotes for the podcast feature in just a couple more weeks! There are lots of great deals on the game right now, and it's definitely not too late to join the conversation.

This podcast was edited by Guillaume Veillette.

Music for this episode of Radio Free Nintendo is used with permission from Jason Ricci & New Blood. You can purchase their newest album, Done with the Devil, directly from the record label, Amazon (CD) (MP3), or iTunes, or call your local record store and ask for it!

Additional music for this episode of Radio Free Nintendo is copyrighted to Nintendo and is included under fair use protection.

Talkback

I would like to say that I picked up Ducktales Remastered on Steam and the only crash I had was while I was trying to stream it well after I had beaten the game, and i think that was because of options I was screwing around with with Procaster moreso than the game's fault, because it crashed pretty much the moment I selected a level.

I'm also kinda gaga about pretty much everything Wayforward does and am a total apologist for thier shortcomings. Shantae happens to be one of my top 5 favorite games of all time, as a matter of fact!

You've talked about my incredible nerd mastery of Mega Man during the Mega Man 3 RetroActive.

Also, yeah. I have a history with Ducktales as well as both a TV show and a kickass video game.

Ducktales Remastered is something to me that I'd equate to like... Ogre Battle 64 with Vanillaware doing the graphics would be to James.

_______________

I am SO sick of Mass Effect. You have NO clue.

None.

like...

Okay, I have to explain this, because Mass Effect as a series that has not only made me incredibly bitter towards EA, but also towards my father and Microsoft's efforts in the console space entirely. It is a grand tale of woe, sorrow, multiple hardware failures, and thousands of dollars spent on the most superfluous bullshit -EVER-.

Pretty much, I rented Mass Effect 1 on a whim. I had never played a Bioware game before. My friend thought me insane for never having played KOTOR. So... I try this game. rent it. Then my dad starts watching me play it and thinks it looks "Cool as shit". He wanted to try it. and so I let him start a file.

And he played it

And played it

and played it

and wouldn't let me take it back to blockbuster.

And beat it before I did, but not before repeatedly getting stuck and demanding I play the most frustrating part of the game after he had been all but ignoring the leveling up and loot systems. or every time he couldn't open a box by playing simon says.

And then he IMMEDIATLEY started a new game. named Shepherd the same thing. Chose the same class, history... everything. and proceeded to play it again.

and again.

and again. Getting stuck in the same spots mind you and demanding I super guide him through the piss annoying parts each time.

Then my Xbox RROD'd. SWEET FREEDOM! at least for a bit. then we got it fixed by MS. by this time, ME2 was out, so he was constantly playing through that knee high barrier shooter over and over and over and over and over. then the CD drive went out on the xbox and he kept paying local dweebs to repair the thing, get it to work for a month,a nd something NEW would crap out on it. at this point I had sold all my retail games and just handed him the console because I was so sick of Mass Effect as a series. It had somehow degraded in quality with ME2's streamlining and got rid of all the crazy loot and wide open areas and things I had liked.

but my dad continued to play. this is when I got sick of the monotony a little bit and forced him to play something that wasn't the soldier class.

at any rate, he still plays Mass Effect 1-3 repeatedly to this day. he's gone through about 3 or 4 used Xboxes that he tried to pay people to repair on multiple occasions before giving up on them.

He still can't beat the Matriarch Benezia or the Simon Says puzzles for unlocking boxes in the first game. Also, a few weeks back he apparantly got enough war assets to see the green ending of Mass Effect 3 for the first time. he's currently got an Xbox 360 Slim with no HDD so he can't play his precious DLC or watch his extended ME3 ending. So that's nice.

Anyhow, I never bothered with Mass Effect 3. My dad effectively has ruined that trilogy for me.

___________

I've been playing KDL2 since 1995. it's one of those Kirby games made by what I like to refer to as the Hal B-Team. While Sakurai directly works on stuff like Kirby's Adventure, Kirby Super Star, and Super Star's ever famous spiritual sequel, SUPER SMASH BROS., the B-Team continued to make these shallow half-attempts at Kirby games with lazy level design, some lazy attempt at trying to do a mix n' match thing with copy abilities instead of just putting in the proper copy ability variety that has multiple moves, and a collect the chaos emeralds style final boss with goopey alien eyeballs of some sort.

That being said, I like Kirby a lot, so even the B-Team games like Crystal Shards, KDL2, and KDL3 have their charm.

Also, Johnny needs to play more KDL3 just so he can get to the Samus cameo.
_________

I got nothing on RotTK, but I'm putting a  thing here regardless because why dafuq not? I've decided I'm commenting on every segment of New Business in this post.

That being said, this was amusing to listen to how befuddled James was at this game.
________

The way Johnny describes Steamworld dig reminds me a tad of Terraria's progression, although with that game, ti's obviously not as thought out because procedural generation. Regardless, this game does sound appealing and I might have to try it out~!

________

Even if Mario is attached to it, Golf really isn't my thing. that being said, I can appreciate the RPG mode on these things because by comparison, I -LOVE- Mario Tennis, so I can appreciate all the banter about this one.

________

I'll do a different post for listener mail, methinks.

PlugabugzAugust 26, 2013

This isn't in iTunes :(

It is now, thanks for the heads-up!

GonjinessAugust 26, 2013

The mp3 feed isn't working. My podcatcher isn't picking it up.

pokepal148Spencer Johnson, Contributing WriterAugust 26, 2013

Quote from: Gonjiness

The mp3 feed isn't working. My podcatcher isn't picking it up.

mine picked it up but won't download it because for some reason its under 346's title

house3136August 26, 2013

It's nice to hear CurtDogg on RFN this week. Everyone sounds comfortable and natrual together.

Disco StuAugust 26, 2013

While I agree that the GBC Mario Golf has some issues, the ending of the game is so strange I can’t help having fond memories of it.  I mean, a Mario Golf game that ends with a conspiracy at the very top of the club management!  If you haven’t played it here’s what happens: after you beat Mario in Peach’s Tournament, the club management conspire to cover up the fact that you beat Mario (who is apparently, like, their God of Golf) because young golfers won’t have a dream to aspire to.  The club manager literally says, “Golf with no dream is no golf at all….”!!  Such an out of left field ending for the RPG mode, I love it. .

ejamerAugust 26, 2013

Great timing on the Mass Effect 3 discussion.  I've been strongly considering buying as the price drops lower, and getting a sweet RPG on Wii U sounded pretty tempting. But the "third party shooter with light RPG elements" that was described is not nearly as appealing.  Having to jump in at the third game instead of playing the the series properly (seriously EA, WTF were you thinking?) doesn't make it any more appealing.  Definitely not going to bite given what was said on the podcast.


Romance of Three Kingdoms is a different story though. Despite James' misgivings, I'm still intrigued by that game - partly because of being familiar with the source material and partly because I've spent time playing some pretty hardcore sims back in the day. Watching the trailer on YouTube was awesome (http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=sbgVZa8Q8l8) bringing up lots of iconic moments and characters. Hearing James throw out a few names made me even more interested.  But frankly there is just not enough time in my life at this point in time.  I wonder how many people playing or reviewing the game are familiar with the source material.  Doesn't make the game any better... but certainly would could some of the problems more bearable.

Quote from: pokepal148

Quote from: Gonjiness

The mp3 feed isn't working. My podcatcher isn't picking it up.

mine picked it up but won't download it because for some reason its under 346's title

Should be fixed now. Really sorry guys, I was incredibly tired when I updated the feeds.

PlugabugzAugust 27, 2013

Quote from: Pandareus

Quote from: pokepal148

Quote from: Gonjiness

The mp3 feed isn't working. My podcatcher isn't picking it up.

mine picked it up but won't download it because for some reason its under 346's title

Should be fixed now. Really sorry guys, I was incredibly tired when I updated the feeds.

No need to apologise. I will blame James instead.

I really enjoyed this episode.

Fiendlord_TimmayAugust 28, 2013

Yesterday I wrote up a very long and impassioned response to this episode, but terrible dorm internet caused me to lose it all when I tried to post it. :( So now you'll just be getting the abridged version, because I simply can't muster the will to type that all out again.

- Curtis was great on the show, he fit in really well.

- Glad to hear Jonny's positivity regarding Duck Tales Remastered. I've also had problems with Way Forward's past games, so it's good to hear that the original game is left largely intact.


- I also think it's absolutely ludicrous that reviewers knocked that game for being too hard. First of all, that's the point, considering it's a nostalgia-fest retro revival. Second of all, I beat the Gameboy version of Duck Tales (which is apparently even harder due to the claustrophobic view characteristic of GB games of the time) when I was FIVE YEARS OLD. And that was my first video game ever. Chew on that, reviewers. If you think this game is too hard, then you are worse at video games than a five year old who has never played one before in his life.

- My philosophy on getting kids into games is to gift them a good game to get them interested, and then just play games around them. If they are apt to remain interested in games, then they will likely ask to play with you or ask you to buy them their own copy of the game, etc.

That's how it worked for me. I received a Gameboy Color and Duck Tales for my 5th birthday, and from then on, I would see my friends playing games and ask my parents for them.

- I disagree with Guillaume that you should give a kid the most recent version of a game (i.e. NSMB2 instead of the original SMB). If a kid is completely new to games, they won't think of an NES game as outdated or obsolete. My first 3 games ever were Duck Tales, Tetris, and Super Mario Bros., and I think that really shaped my taste as a gamer. I do agree with Jonny though, that you should let your kid use the Virtual Console versions if possible, simply because that is more convenient and less frustrating to use.

Whatever James, no Johns for your scrub tactics.  Learn 2 Wavedash.

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