So far I’ve listened to every episode for the first 3 games they’ve played and I have to say there is a lot of potential here, but for the most part the podcast is too overwhelmingly negative on these games. The intro says this podcast is supposed to be for people who like playing older games , yet the majority of these players seem to not enjoy the retro experience at all.
I let the overall negativity slide on the first game because it was Zelda II: adventure of Link. I get it. This game isn’t for everyone and a lot of it has aged poorly. I would be all for valid criticisms or explaining why things haven’t aged well, but that’s not what is on offer here.
Over and over again they just repeat the same things. “It’s just not fun.“ “It’s just bad“ “This isn’t good.“ it just comes off as somebody whining because they’re not good at the game. The exact same thing followed the show into the Star Fox reviews, which I was surprised about because Star Fox is a fantastic game. But over and over the same sound clips that really offer no new content. It’s not fun. This is just bad. This game isn’t good. Just repeated blank statements with no substance.
Sometimes the complaints don’t even make sense. Like complaining that Ecco the dolphin has a seizure warning in the instruction manual. Literally every game has this. Or saying that if you wanted dolphin facts you would just go to Wikipedia. Wikipedia did not exist yet!
It really doesn’t seem like this is a group of people who enjoys playing retro games. Right from the instruction manual episodes some of them are already going in with a negative attitude. Saying things like “this sounds like it’s going to be awful.” Well then don’t play it! You’re already in the mindset that you’re just looking for things to hate on rather than looking for a fun game experience.
I’m hoping things will turn around for the Banjo Kazooie episodes because how could you be overwhelmingly negative about that game? But then again I thought the same thing about Star Fox. If it sounds like they actually enjoy playing video games during that season I will come back and change my review. Maybe they just had a bad start.
The only exception is the host from Skeleton House who seems to actually enjoy the games and can appreciate them for what they were in the year they were released. Context matters. You wouldn’t review music from the 1950s and criticize the recording quality. You wouldn’t review movies from the 1970s and say that the special effects are unwatchable. If you’re reviewing video games from the 90s, you need to contextualize what video games in the 90s were. Pointing out things that haven’t aged well is fine, And having a valid analysis of WHY something isn’t fun or doesn’t work would be great, but you can’t expect a game to know all of the lessons we’ve learned from modern games.
For example, Star Fox is a game that can be finished in about two hours. It’s not a game you’re supposed to pick up and be instantly good at. It’s a game that expects you to replay over and over and hone your skills. This isn’t a common thing in video games anymore but back in 1993 this was completely normal. So when some of these hosts mentioned that they’ve never played Star Fox before, and then complain the entire game that this is bad because they keep dying, it’s like they don’t understand what the game is. Of course you keep dying. It’s your first time playing it.
I know this is a very long review but that’s because I feel like there is a lot of potential in this podcast. I just hope moving forward it feels more like they enjoy playing retro games even though they see some flaws, rather than feeling like these people are being forced to play these games. Because they’re not
