Gamers on the Go

Episode Link

Has it really been two months since our last episode? Well fear not! Gamers on the Go is officially back in podcast form (though, if you’re hurting for GOTG content, head on over to Games Are Evil to read our bi-weekly handheld games column!) 

Speaking of things that are back, Taylor Courchaine makes his second appearance on the show, this time to discuss one of the most interesting games to hit the PlayStation Portable: 2006’s LocoRoco.

Listen as we recount the game’s early development struggles, chat about how it compares to 2008 iPhone game, Rolando, and ask ourselves if LocoRoco might be just the slightest bit racist. 

Episode Link

GamesBeat newshound, Jeff Grubb joins Chase to talk about the Advance Wars franchise (and more than a little Fire Emblem). 

Find out how the games changed Nintendo’s view of the west, why the franchise is so well balanced, and how September 11 affected the series forever. 

Show notes:

• Here’s a picture of the hex-based Game Boy Wars
• Though it’s about the new Fire Emblem and not Advance Wars, this recent Iwata Asks is with members of the Intelligent Systems team.
• In that Iwata Asks, it’s mentioned that Intelligent Systems is often referred to by phonetically pronouncing its acronym, IS (like the word “is.”)
• It appears this “DS” naming crap goes deeper than just Advance Wars and Castlevania.

Episode Link

Jordan Allen-Baxter is the final member of World 8 to appear on the show, and he’s here to discuss a franchise he’s put 600 hours into: Dissidia Final Fantasy. 

Learn how Dissidia began life as a Disney fighting game, how the franchise found its way to the PSP and how little Chase actually knows about Final Fantasy in general.

Show Notes:

• Chase and Jordan both struggle over the pronunciation of the Odin summon’s attack, Zantetsuken. Here’s a better description of it.
• Chaos voice, Keith David voiced Capt. Anderson in the Mass Effect series and is a well-respected voice actor. His IMDB profile can be found here.
• I still don’t know much about Final Fantasy XI and 012 secret character Prishe, but here’s her wiki entry.
• Speaking of FFXI, Shantotto is part of the Tarutaru race.
• Chase mentions how Onion Knights differed between the Japanese-only FFIII and the DS re-make. Here’s a better description.
• It’s mentioned that three PSP games unlock additional costumes for Dissidia 012. We were able to name FF Trading Card Game and Kingdom Hearts Birth By Sleep Final Mix. The last game is The 3rd Birthday.
• Chase talked about how Tetsuya Nomura was the character designer for Dissidia, but the other concept artist for the main line series we couldn’t name was Yoshitaka Amano.
• Gilgamesh’s Missile attack sadly does not have a shark face on the side of it.
• Galuf is the other FFV character Chase thought might work for a Dissidia 012 sequel.
• Chase talks about some FFVIII character and Jordan tries to help talking about the blue mage Quistis Trepe. Turns out, Chase was just crazy, but here’s her profile if you care.

Episode link

Avid Dota 2 player and Sketch Match co-founder, Zach Fleeman brings an exceptional microphone to shame Chase’s meager setup to talk about the excellent iOS (and eventually PC/Mac/Linux) title, Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP. Hear about the fantastic music, the incredible pixel art and why Zach’s girlfriend thinks his tweets are weird.

Show Notes:

• Link to the Superbrothers website.
• Here are the links to the videos made by Superbrothers with music from Jim Guthrie: Children of the Clone (recorded on a PlayStation using MTV Music Generator), Dot Matrix Revolution and the video using parts of Jonathan Blow’s speech during the Design Reboot Lecture.
• Link to the official soundtrack appropriately entitled Sword & Sworcery LP.
• And a link to the remix album, The Scythian Steppes for the Japanese version debut (by the way, the Castlevania: Symphony of the Night composer is Michiru Yamane.)
• Speaking of, you should listen and subscribe to 8-4, specifically the episode where they talk to the creators of S:S&S EP (it’s about 93 minutes into the show).
• Superbrothers also made the album cover for SCNTFC’s Moon Grotto 7”.
• And if you like Sword & Sworcery, you might be interested in Kentucky Route Zero. It’s really quite awesome.

Episode link

Brothers Pierce and Taylor Courchaine take a seat on the GOTG couch for our 10th episode. 

Caution: There is a fair amount of nerding out in this episode with no clear direction. On the plus side, I can almost guarantee you’ll learn something new about the Pocket Monster franchise. 

Show Notes:

• Despite their super effectiveness later in the series, ghost-type moves don’t affect psychic-type Pokemon in Generation I.
• Night Shade does it’s damage based on the user’s level (and hits normal and psychics despite ghost attacks normally having no effect. 
• Upgrading a Feebas’s Beauty condition will eventually get it to evolve into a Milotic (In Gen V, it can also evolve by trading a Feebas holding a Prism Scale.)

Direct link to the episode.

Infendo writer and Infendo Radio co-host Harrison Milfeld sits down with Chase to discuss St. Louis sports, Tiger Electronics LCD games and maybe even a bit of Metroid: Zero Mission talk. Whether you want to know how the origin of the infamous “Justin Bailey” code or what it takes to cut it as a video game cartographer, all your questions will be answered!

Show Notes:

• There’s a decent amount of talk about the Super Nintendo’s use of Mode 7 graphics. If you’re curious as to what Mode 7 is all about, the Wikipedia page for it gives a good rundown.
• If you want to see the jaw-dropping 27-minute speed run of Zero Mission I watched, here you go.
• And remember when I said I “blazed” through Halo 2 in five hours? Yeah, someone did it in one-and-a-half hours. I’m going to go feel inadequate now.

Download the episode here.

Episode 8 brings us to the mobile space for the first time on Gamers on the Go, but thankfully, we have video game blogger and pakour aficionado, Corey Motley to help us through. Find out what platform Infinity Blade was originally going to be developed for, what ridiculous Swedish instrument features prominently in the soundtrack and whatever happened to that million dollars someone was supposed to win from Advent Rising.

Show Notes:

• You can find the link to Corey’s blog here.
• And look for his upcoming piece on fear in video games at GameCritics.com
• The trailer for Chair’s 2007 game, Undertow, can be found here. It looks pretty cool.
• This is a nyckelharpa. It’s insane. 
• If you liked the musical pieces played on the show, here’s the link to the Infinity Blade soundtrack.
• A demonstration of Infinity Blade FX, an arcade port of the first iOS game can be seen here.
• If you’re a total masochist, you can grab the Infinity Blade Awakening novel on Amazon.
• Got the urge to Rock the Vote? Check out Chair’s latest game, VOTE!!!! The Game on iOS. Why does it cost 99 cents? I have no idea.
• If you enjoy the Saints Row series, Corey has an iOS recommendation: Gangstar Rio. 
• And lastly, if you want to check out site where that mysterious Corey Motley profile showed up, well, you can just find that here.

Download the episode here.

Host of This Podcast Contains Spoilers and Gamesbeat Staff Writer Evan Killham sits down to reflect over the whole of the Professor Layton series (at least, the ones that are out and in English.) Learn what Professor Layton and Indiana Jones have in common, hear Evan’s incredible plausible theory on hint coins and come to find out that the blanket answer to everything is “they were tripping balls.”

Show notes:

• I did a terrible job of presenting Professor Layton developer Level-5 on the show. The studio was established in 1998 by Akihiro Hino. While Professor Layton is arguably their mainstay, the studio is also known for the Inazuma Eleven soccer/football series, White Knight Chronicles for the PlayStation 3 and their work on Dragon Quest VIII and IX.
• Here’s the Penny Arcade comic Evan references early on in the show.
• Professor Layton Vs. Ace Attorney releases in Japan Nov. 29, but as of this post, no U.S. version has been announced.
• While not mentioned specifically on the show, there is a little controversy surrounding the box art for Professor Layton in PAL regions. To see how Nintendo changed the art for the European market (against Akihiro Hino’s wishes) check out this article from Siliconera (Akihiro Hino admitted later that he should’ve trusted Nintendo of Europe on how to deal with the European market.)
• A dubbed version of the Professor Layton movie is available for free on Youtube here.
• Oh, and never play Professor Layton around Lisa Kudrow.

Download the episode here.

Fellow World 8 Podcast host Bryan Edelman joins Chase in an episode that originally focuses on Mega Man V for the Game Boy, but quickly devolves into general Mega Man-themed tangents. Hear the infamous “slide v. dash” debate, find out what ever happened to the co-creators of Mega Man (it’s not just Inafune,) and come to learn that there’s more than one Mega Man animated series. 

Show notes:

• It’s mentioned on the show that Mega Man V was one of the first Game Boy games to offer extra support for the Super Game Boy adapter. Here’s a picture of the special border you got while playing the game on the Super Game Boy.
• Chase talks about speed runs of Mega Man games. If you’d like to see a speed run of Mega Man V, you can find a great one on Speed Demos Archive.
• Video of the US-only, Game Gear version of Mega Man can be found here.
• Tango the cat (mentioned briefly on the show as a character that debuted in Mega Man V,) makes two more appearances in the Mega Man universe. The first is in the Japan-only, Wonderswan-only sequel to Mega Man & Bass. The second is a cameo appearance on the item screen of the downloadable Mega Man 10 when you play as Proto Man.
• To see the video that goes along with the closing theme of the show can be found here.

Download the episode here.

Chase goes solo for this one, enlightening you on the best game of the Game Boy Advance’s launch lineup (sorry Rayman Advance and Super Mario Advance fans.) Hear what other handheld games were made with the THPS2 engine, how terrible the Game Boy Color Hawk games were and a weird coincidence between Chase and the franchise.