Retro Encounter Archives | Page 3 of 14

Retro Encounter 380 – Disco Elysium Part I

Posted by Zach Wilkerson on August 10, 2023

This is the face of a late-stage Retro Encounter enthusiast. This week we get together to discuss a game inspired by Dungeons & Dragons, despite a complete lack of any dungeons or dragons: Disco Elysium. Listen in as we discuss the wild humor and politics of this strange, amazing video game, and… Read More »

Retro Encounter 379 – Final Fantasy Fantasy Draft 2.0

Posted by Zach Wilkerson on July 27, 2023

Off my podcast, jester. The commissioner sits there. It’s fantasy draft season! And, well, it’s been a while since our last draft episode, and even longer since we’ve drafted characters from the biggest RPG series around. So, we decided to pull a new panel together to engage in some Retro Encounter… Read More »

Retro Encounter 378 – Final Fantasy VI Part II

Posted by Zach Wilkerson on July 13, 2023

Life… Dreams… Hope… Where do they come from? A new episode of Retro Encounter of course, that’s where! We’re back this week to dive into the second, more ruinous half of Final Fantasy VI. After the relatively structured and straightforward pacing of the first half, the latter portions of Final… Read More »

Retro Encounter 377 – Final Fantasy VI Part I

Posted by Zach Wilkerson on June 29, 2023

Think a “podcast” like ours could help you out in your quest? In honor of the recent release of Final Fantasy XVI, we got a few of our panelists together to play through the SNES classic Final Fantasy VI. Some of us have played it a million times, some of us are just running through it for the first… Read More »

Retro Encounter 376 – Rollercoaster of Emotion: The RPG Moments That Moved Us

Posted by Zach Wilkerson on June 15, 2023

What the hell, Yoko Taro? After our recently published “25 Years, 25 RPG Moments” feature, we decided to get the crew at Retro Encounter together to talk about some of the moments that made us laugh, made us happy, and most importantly, the ones that wrecked us. What moments did we choose? Which one… Read More »

Retro Encounter 375 – Lost Odyssey Part II

Posted by Zach Wilkerson on June 1, 2023

Its gifts were mixed with good and evil both. This week we bring our panelists back together to discuss to discuss the second half of Lost Odyssey. While were were all pretty positive on the first half, some of us really like the latter portions, and some of us really don’t. Did we do all the sidequ… Read More »

Retro Encounter 374 – Lost Odyssey Part I

Posted by Zach Wilkerson on May 18, 2023

Okay it might not be called Final Fantasy XIII, but… This week on Retro Encounter, three first-timers get together to discuss Mistwalker’s Xbox 360 cult classic Lost Odyssey. It certainly has some big names behind it, and we want to find out if it lives up to the previous works of the masters. How… Read More »

Retro Encounter 373 – Octopath Traveler II Spoilercast

Posted by Zach Wilkerson on May 4, 2023

Thou shalleth listenen to thisen episode. Luckily, you won’t hear any conversations about broken Early Modern English, because this time we’re not talking about the original. Instead, we have a spoiler filled chat about Octopath Traveler II, a sequel that our panel loved even more than the first gam… Read More »

Retro Encounter 372 – Persona 4 Golden Revisited

Posted by Michael Sollosi on April 20, 2023

It’s time to make history! This week, we’re revisiting one of our favorites: Persona 4 Golden. After all, with the new release on modern consoles and Wes’ glowing review for us at RPGFan, it seemed like the perfect opportunity to revisit some of our old friends. But there’s an even better reason we’… Read More »

Retro Encounter 371 – Like A Dragon: Ishin! Part II

Posted by Michael Sollosi on March 30, 2023

More brutal murders than John Wick and more mistaken identities than Twelfth Night. Ryu Ga Gotoku: Ishin! plays fast and loose with the events of Bakumatsu Japan, with multiple historical figures assuming second personas, a legendary alliance forged through a drunken brawl instead of care… Read More »

Retro Encounter 370 – Like A Dragon: Ishin! Part I

Posted by Michael Sollosi on March 23, 2023

Kamurocho has nothing on the mean streets of 1860s Kyo. Ryu Ga Gotoku: Ishin! was probably a lost cause to most fans of the Like A Dragon / Yakuza series, but SEGA shocked everyone last year with the announcement of a full remake of the 2014 historical fiction samurai drama to arrive in Februa… Read More »

Retro Encounter 369 – Our Off-Brand Obsessions

Posted by Michael Sollosi on March 16, 2023

All RPGs and no fighting games makes Jack a dull boy. We don’t *solely* play RPGs here at RPGFan, and today is exactly the podcast to express that. Four RPGFan panelists discuss a few of their favorite games that can’t be classified as RPGs with even the most liberal interpretation of the term… Read More »

Retro Encounter 368 – Most Wanted Remakes

Posted by Michael Sollosi on March 9, 2023

Today we enter the realm of video game fantasies, but not Final Fantasies. Remakes are a regular part of the video game release schedule in the 2020s, and here at Retro Encounter we have a few ideas on a few that should come soon. A PS2 rogue-like, a Squaresoft RPG never released in Japan, and some… Read More »

Retro Encounter 367 – RPGFan Had a Farm

Posted by Mike Salbato on March 4, 2023

E-I-E-I-oh boy I almost went to bed without watering the corn. Oh, hello. On today’s Retro Encounter, we’re breaking out the farm equipment and digging into the ever-growing farm simulation genre. Many of them overlap with RPGs, especially as modern games have expanded their systems beyond crops, an… Read More »

Retro Encounter 366 – Zoda’s Revenge: StarTropics II

Posted by Jonathan Logan on February 23, 2023

You would expect that first-party game releases for a system would dry up three years after its successor is released. But that certainly wasn’t the case with Zoda’s Revenge: StarTropics II! Released in 1994 for the Nintendo Entertainment System, StarTropics II was a bit of an anomaly. Dev… Read More »

Retro Encounter 365 – StarTropics

Posted by Jonathan Logan on February 16, 2023

There are some first-party Nintendo games that became legendary franchises. This… is not one of those games. Released in 1990 for the NES, StarTropics was specifically designed by Nintendo R&D3 with Western audiences in mind. In fact, it was never even released in Japan until 2008 on the Wi… Read More »

Retro Encounter 363 – Ogre Battle 64: Person of Lordly Caliber Part I

Posted by Michael Sollosi on February 7, 2023

Did this Ogre need a decoder? Ogre Battle 64 occupies a curious part of RPG history, as a Quest game made after Yasumi Matsuno’s departure from Quest, as a hybrid real-time strategy game and traditional JRPG, and as an RPG for the N64, a system conspicuously lacking them. Today’s episode of Retro En… Read More »

Retro Encounter 362 – RPGs on Repeat

Posted by Michael Sollosi on January 26, 2023

“Do you think games are silly little things?” Most RPGs aren’t designed to be played multiple times. You take in the story, see a few numbers increase incrementally, fight a boss, and roll some credits. But that doesn’t stop a huge number of RPG fans from replaying their favorites multiple times, an… Read More »

Retro Encounter 361 – Xeno Series Fantasy Draft

Posted by Zach Wilkerson on January 19, 2023

Hey, at least there’s no gacha in today’s episode. While we might not love gacha mechanics in RPGs, we sure do love the characters in the Xeno series, and for today’s episodes we gathered four of our biggest Xeno fans on staff to draft our very own fantasy teams. Which protagonis… Read More »

Retro Encounter 360 – Year of the Pokémon

Posted by Michael Sollosi on January 12, 2023

Wild PODCAST appeared! The 12 months from November 19th, 2021 to November 18th, 2022 were monumental for the most popular RPG franchise in the world. The Pokémon Company had three major releases in that timespan, with a set of remakes, a groundbreaking prequel, and a new pair of flagship games. In t… Read More »

Retro Encounter 359 – RPGFan’s Guide to Style

Posted by Michael Sollosi on January 5, 2023

“If fashion were easy, wouldn’t everybody look great?” Today, Retro Encounter channels their inner Heidi Klum and Tim Gunn and discusses a few of the best and worst clothing choices made by RPG characters. What Persona character wore it best? Who has the best Mass Effect space suit? What oldschool a… Read More »

Retro Encounter 358 – 2022 Year in Review

Posted by Michael Sollosi on December 29, 2022

Should auld RPGs be forgot, and never brought to mind? No, that’s why this show exists, and auld lang syne. It’s that time of year again, where Retro Encounter lives in the very recent past and goes over several of the present panel’s favorite games of the calendar year. From remasters of 1994 Squar… Read More »

Retro Encounter 357 – Xenosaga Episode I: Der Wille zur Macht Part II

Posted by Michael Sollosi on December 25, 2022

It’s a Xenomas Miracle! Xenosaga is a game about humanity, starring a cast that rangers from an android unable to distinguish empathy from protocol to an artificial human clinging to memories of her human parents to a cyborg trying to reject his own humanity. But regardless of the biology or technol… Read More »

Retro Encounter 356 – Xenosaga Episode 1: Der Wille zur Macht

Posted by Michael Sollosi on December 15, 2022

KOS-MOS isn’t a doctor, but she’ll die-a-Gnosis. Retro Encounter recorded episodes on Xenogears, Xenoblade, and Baten Kaitos several years ago, but what about the series that put Monolith Soft on the map? Today one superfan and three newcomers discuss the background, themes, characters, and early st… Read More »

Retro Encounter 355 – Muppets Encounter

Posted by Michael Sollosi on December 8, 2022

It’s in the singing of a street corner choir / It’s going home and getting warm by the fire / It’s true, wherever you find love, it feels like Muppets. It’s the Muppets episode! Three RPGFan podcast hosts are lifelong fans of The Muppets, so in the grand tradition of A Muppet Christmas Carol and Mup… Read More »

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