Retronauts

Welcome to Retronauts, formerly the official account of 1UP.com, now the home of people who like to write about old games.

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Ever Oasis producer Koichi Ishii on building on (and standing apart from) Secret of Mana

Secret of Mana director Koichi Ishii on how Ever Oasis builds on (and differs from) Mana

The 3DS keeps chugging along despite the looming shadow of Nintendo Switch: The little handheld that wouldn’t say die. Nintendo’s latest release for the platform arrives tomorrow: Ever Oasis, an action RPG developed by Grezzo. Grezzo has been one of Nintendo’s most faithful partners for the 3DS era, though their name doesn’t get as much play as an independent publisher like Level-5, Atlus, or…

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Sega Forever launches today with F2P classics to your mobile! And the results are unfortunate.

Sega Forever delivers F2P classics to your mobile, and it launches today

A few weeks ago, I wildly (with tongue somewhat in cheek) speculated as to just what SEGA had in mind with the Sega Forever service, and what they meant when they said that they were going to bring some of their old IP’s back. Now though, we finally have concrete news about it: Sega Forever is, as was largely expected, a mobile games service that will feature classic games for download and play.…

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Hyperkin take it back to 1977 with their latest RetroN

Having written about the Ataribox yesterday, it’s only fair that the other upcoming machine with an Atari connection gets a writeup too. Last week Hyperkin announced that they plan to release the RetroN 77 this coming winter — it’s a new, reimagined VCS that promises to play Atari games in glorious 1080p through HDMI. While the shape is somewhat different to 2600’s of old, it is similar to…

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Arkanoid vs Space Invaders is the block-breaking puzzle shoot-'em-up you never knew you wanted

Atari created Breakout in 1976 as a single-player counterpart to Pong, giving one player a formation of blocks to destroy with their ball and paddle in lieu of a human opponent. Like many primitive game concepts—including Pong itself—it went on to be widely imitated, cloned, and ported to every platform under the sun, including a number of dedicated plug-and-play consoles in the late ’70s. But…

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Hide the children: It's NES Boy Works Gaiden #07

A few months ago, I received a patron request to create a video on a “controversial topic.” So I thought to myself, “Alright, I should so something on that sketchy corner of the NES rental section they used to have at Hastings.” I’d cover the Panesian trilogy, perhaps, and some other less blatantly objectionable material, like Menace Beach by Wisdom. As I began sourcing ROM files for the episode…

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What can realistically be expected from the Ataribox?

The news of Atari’s brand new console, the Ataribox, came out last week during E3 — I briefly mentioned it during my E3 round-up, but it’s obviously worthy of more detailed coverage. I mean, it’s a new console by Atari! The originators! Them folks who did the Pong machines, the heavy sixer 2600’s with all the wood panelling, and all of that good stuff — it doesn’t get much more retro than that.…

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Retronauts episode 104: Chronicling metroidvania

This week’s episode treads somewhat familiar territory, though we approach it from a different direction than usual. We’ve explored the Metroid series in fairly exhaustive detail, and we’ve also covered most of the Castlevania series. But what of their babies? What of — yes — metroidvania? As this is a genre near and dear to the hearts of the Retronauts East crew, we’ve spelunked back into the…

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The part in FFVIII where things get REALLY out of hand

In the words of Luke Harper, “It’s Monday. You know what that means.” it means it’s time for another Final Fantasy VIII video! There’s only one more left after this one, but this video includes some of the more extreme segments of the game — it’s the part where Squall and company go to the moon and back with a possessed girl for company, who just so happens to wake up as we get close to the other…

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Retronauts Micro 63: The Simpsons Arcade Episode description: On this very special episode synergistically (but not cynically) engineered to help launch the brand-new…

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The eternal saga of Final Fantasy VIII continues

Righto, with E3 done and dusted normal service can well and truly be resumed! Which means it’s time for me to go ahead and do some video promotion. If you’ve subscribed to the channel then you may have already seen this video already when it was released Monday, but it’s here now if you’re just following along on Retronauts — the third part of my lengthy Final Fantasy VIII review. Go check it out…

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Mario & Luigi and going back to basics

Nintendo has dropped some major bombshells at this year’s E3, but one story that’s threatened to creep under the radar is the announcement of Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga + Bowser’s Minions, the latest installment in the Mario & Luigi series of RPGs. It makes sense in a way, as it’s a bit of a rerun—updating Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga, the series’ 2003 debut, in what appears to be as staid a…

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With ARMS, Nintendo is smart to recognize that nostalgia isn't always best

When Nintendo revealed its first big, original, Switch-exclusive creation ARMS back at their NYC console reveal event in January, the reaction seemed to be more or less universal: Why didn’t they just call this game Punch-Out!!? ARMS appeared to be part of a frustrating trend we saw at the Switch debut wherein Nintendo took concepts clearly based on their classic properties, scrubbed away all…

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Sooo, who won that whole E3 thing?

Now that all the big media briefings are over, the flurry of all things news from that Electronic Entertainment Expo thing has started to wind down — today’s the last full day of it, and there’s just not all that much to say. There might be the odd conference in some closed off room, but on the floor people are just about getting ready to pack their stuff and leave. So, how best to sum up this…

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Developer, historian, and all-around Blue Sky Ranger: Keith Robinson has died at 61

Mere hours ago, friends of Intellivision’s Keith Robinson reported on Facebook that the industry pioneer has passed away. If your sense of gaming’s history begins with the NES, you may be unfamiliar with Robinson’s contributions to the medium, but he played an active role in the generation before that—and was vital to keeping its memory alive in the decades beyond. After Atari introduced the…

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Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus and the continued relevance of B.J Blazkowicz

Wolfenstein is an odd series in many ways — it’s had more reboots than Spider-Man, it’s always dealt with Nazis doing futuristic and/or supernatural-type stuff, Id gave their blessing to a Christian game studio to redo a SNES version of the game around Noah’s Ark, and it has a quite awesomely named hero — a grizzled, cropped-blonde hair veteran by the name of B.J. Blazkowicz — he’s escaped…

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Samus returns

This morning, Nintendo shocked Metroid fans with a teasingly scant announcement that Metroid Prime 4, the first Metroid Prime title in a decade, is currently in development. Not long after, they followed up that news with the reveal of Metroid: Samus Returns, a 3DS remake of 1991’s Metroid II: Return of Samus and the first 2D Metroid game since 2004’s Metroid: Zero Mission. This one-two punch…

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Capcom enters the ring on NES Works, falls flat on face

E3 kicks off properly today in Los Angeles, but the inevitable grind of video game hype can’t stop Retronauts Video Works from maintaining its steady schedule. In addition to the daily livestreams I’m hosting this week, I’ve also posted a slightly extended-length NES Works that explores a fairly momentous occasion in the NES’s life: The arrival of Capcom on the platform. Would that their debut…

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