We recorded a really great episode, which I’m not just saying because our work typically ranges from “man, this is pretty bad,” to, “yeah, but why is this three hours long?” Mark Shepherd joined us for the fourth time in Flap Jaw Space’s four year reign and first time in 2014! We called upon his tremendous insight and deep-reaching appreciation of the 16-bit era to power rank our favorite ten titles from the Super Nintendo’s library. The following games enjoyed considerable discussion:
Act Raiser, Act Raiser 2, Breath of Fire, Breath of Fire II, Captain Commando, Castlevania: Dracula X, Chrono Trigger, Contra III: The Alien Wars, Cool Spot, The SNES’ inferior Aladdin game, Donkey Kong Country, Donkey Kong Country 2, Donkey Kong Country 3, EVO: The Search for Eden, Earthbound, Earthworm Jim, Earthworm Jim 2, F-Zero, Fatal Fury 2, Final Fantasy II (IV), Final Fantasy V, Final Fantasy III (VI), Final Fight 2, Hagane: The Final Conflict, Illusion of Gaia, Joe & Mac, Killer Instinct, King of Monsters, Kirby SuperStar, The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening, The Lost Vikings, Lufia II: Rise of the Sinistrals, Mario Paint, Mega Man 7, Mega Man X, Mega Man X-3, NBA Jam, Ogre Battle, Pit Fighter, Primal Rage, Rock ‘n Roll Racing, SimCity, Soul Blazer, Secret of Mana, Sparkster, Maximum Carnage, Star Fox, Star Fox 2, Street Fighter II Turbo, Stunt Race FX, Super Adventure Island, Super Bomberman, Super Castlevania IV, Super Ghouls ‘n Ghosts, Super Mario Kart, Super Mario World, Super Mario World 2: Yoshi’s Island, Super Mario RPG, Super Metroid, all of those Super Star Wars games, Super Punch-Out!!, Zombies Ate my Neighbors, and Steve’s endearing favorite, Uniracers.
It’s important to note that Steve spent like eight hours editing this, specifically injecting contextually appropriate air-raid sirens, along with music from many of these games in the background of their respective discussions. Episode 82 is also mixed in stereo to accommodate the incredible amount of music, so don’t just listen with one ear-bud and let Steve’s insane work go to waste, you animal.
The thematic current game tie-in for all of this, of course, is Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS™, which three of us bought and have played at length. We detail the merit of items versus no items, go over the best and worst stages, DLC speculation, our early favorite characters, the necessity of assist trophies, omega stage satisfaction, how character movement influences and propels the hardcore crowd, and Smash 4’s chance at ascending Melee.
NOT DONE YET. We also found time to talk about Persona 4 Arena Ultimax, Nintendo’s iterative design process, Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor, Watch Dogs, Unseen 64, A Link Between Worlds, Steve’s regret over his dog’s extensive mortality, Dark Souls II: Crown of the Ivory King, somehow more Diablo III talk, amiibos, the relationship between politics and sports teams, Ebola, and craigslist videogame collecting. Eric also tried to talk about The Vanishing of Ethan Carter but as that was happening Steve ran up the stairs like an NPC with no modelling or animation for individual steps, which stymied any apparent discussion.
Duration: 3h, 15m. Recorded: October 6th, 2014.
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