In this week we bring you back to the late 1990’s to share what it was like to live through the birth of competent emulators for Nintendo systems and experience a flourishing “romhacking” community responsible for the first available English-language versions of some relatively important games from the NES~SNES era.
We touch lightly on some of the technical aspects of game fan-translations and general hacking of video game ROMs, and generally focus on the experience of being involved in the community.
This is a particularly nostalgic period for Matt, who credits it with solidifying his interest in computer science and that kind of stuff, and for furthering his interest in the more technical aspects of games, game history, and game hardware.
As always, top all of that off with some griping about parenting (if that’s your thing) and you’ve got yourself a podcast episode!
Anyone reaching into the depths of gaming history has surely hit upon gemsters and junkness, and probably games that could really qualify as both. One perhaps need look no farther than the original Ultima 1 (later, “Ultima I: The First Age of Darkness”… yeah, “darkness” for sure) for a telling example. We’ve come a long way since the early 80s. Games like Donkey Kong and the original Mario Bros remain replayable and endearing classics, while some of the more ambitious and trendsetting titles have sadly long since been eclipsed by modern experiences.
It’s hard to really say that Ultima 1 is ‘bad’ with any semblance of objectivity; it’s actually quite easy to appreciate the things it accomplished and the path it paved for the computer RPG genre, and even its own eventual well-loved sequels. This time around, we discuss our impressions of this first Ultima (and to a lesser degree its predecessor, “Akalabeth”) viewed from a modern perspective. We’re both pretty sympathetic to its status as an important piece of gaming history, but neither of us are too fond of the game (despite playing the more accessible DOS remake from ’87!).
It seems the game has soured Ultima overall for Steve, who no longer even intends to play the entirety of his Ultima collection for the forseeable future. Matt’s characteristically more retro, and is more likely to hack his way through the series some day to get to Ultima V ~ VII, which both boss nerds agree look to be much more appealing games.
Any parents listening might appreciate our lead-in where we discuss integrating our kids into our busy / nerdy lives; any childless folks are probably better off skipping a good ten minutes or so to get to the meat of the matter: why Ultima I might just beat Tetris on Stephen’s list of much disliked games that are supposed to be good.
The days of the classic arcade have come and (mostly) gone. Some people missed the boat entirely (anybody younger than, uh, 30? 25 maybe?), and some people never let go (like… us. Matt at least…).
This week we explore this classic place of entertainment and contrast it’s general disappearance in the west and lingering presence in the east.
Arcades do continue to exist in some form of course; they’re somewhat niche (good luck finding them in small towns), often full of import titles, or sometimes even intentionally going for a retro “vibe”.
As always, in addition to the subject at hand, you can expect some whining about parenthood and its destructive effects on our gaming habits and sleep, overt oozing nostalgia, and a rundown of our recent gaming exploits.
There were two main sources of gaming news, growing up in the 80’s and 90’s. We had the kid in our class who’s uncle worked at Nintendo and would tell us all the upcoming news months before it would ever find its way into print or on shelves… and we had access to a variety of print magazines each month that would tell us all the actual for real facts about the world of gaming.
It’s a little sad to notice that print media is so scarce these days, and so we spend this episode of The Vagabond Gamecast reminiscing about pre-internet life and how we got our news. Whether it was from Game Pro, Game Players, Nintendo Power, EGM, PlayStation Magazine, PC Gamer, or any of the other easily accessable magazines, we loved (and miss) all the wit, art, and tips that these papers contained. And not just papers! The demo discs and even VHSes were also awesome.
Take this one for example:
What more could an 11 year old hope for in the mail?
What were your favourite magazines?
This week we take a semi-deep dive into the “Rockman” / “Megaman” / call-it-what-you-will series and discuss our favorites, what makes each game stand out to us, and how the series incorporates into our personal nostalgia stories.
We focus on the mainline series and its evolution through the years, but do touch a bit on X and the other spinoffs, so this will hopefully serve as a bit of a nice mini history lesson for anybody not fully aware of the series.
As always, we touch on what we’re currently playing and finishing up playing. Matt’s been into FTL, while Steve’s completed Dragon Age: Origins lately. Reminiscing about Rockman has made Matt movie a couple X games up in his “to play” list as well!
You’ll find the Sprixelsoft Keiji Inafune interview transcription mentioned here!