I’m a sucker for a good podcast! 25 years ago, RPGFan started life as LunarNET, and five years before that, Lunar: The Silver Star released in the West. So, in honor of that, we got four of our resident Lunar fans together to chat about the various versions of Lunar: The Silver Star. Are we fans of… Read More »
Quest Like A Dragon! One Warrior, one Rogue, and one Mage separately traveled across Ferelden to recruit allies in order to stop a Darkspawn Blight, but how did it go for them? Our panelists explored the diverse societies presented in BioWare’s dark fantasy RPG this month, but to what ends? Li… Read More »
Dungeons and Darkspawn Dragon Age, a standout mini series from BioWare’s golden age of RPGs, is a blend of high fantasy, dark fantasy, politics, and dating sim that made a big splash in 2009. Two Grey Warden veterans and one Dragon Age neophyte form a Retro Encounter panel to take on the Darkspawn B… Read More »
I think I heard a shot. We finished Bloodborne! Four very enthusiastic hunters suffered through hunters, Great Ones, Street Sharks, and many other horrors to conquer this PS4 classic. So what are our favorite bosses? What the hell does Insight do? How many times do we mix up “Great Ones” with “Old B… Read More »
Bleeding its horror / Creating my structure Welcome, good hunter! Retro Encounter discusses a From Software Souls-like in detail for the first time, with the Playstation 4’s Bloodborne. Four panelists discuss the city of Yarnham, trick weapons, the Souls formula, and more in this episode about a blo… Read More »
There are plenty of ways you can hurt a man / And bring him to the ground. Today we correct a podcast injustice, and publish Part 2 of Retro Encounter’s Ogre Battle 64 podcast duology. One podcast host with a lot of questions and two OB64 veterans with all the answers discuss the twisting story path… Read More »
Back in the 90s and early 2000s, the localization of JRPGs was never a given. We RPG fans would often wait with bated breath, a copy of GamePlayers or Electronic Gaming Monthly in hand, hoping Squaresoft and other Japanese publishers would announce they were bringing their incredible games to the We… Read More »
Only one person gets to be the hero. But is it always the right one? Just about every RPG has a main character that can be singled out as the hero of their story, but this is not about any of them. Quite often, there’s a companion or even an NPC that is more fun or interesting than a video game’s pr… Read More »
Boys and girls of every age / Wouldn’t you like to see something strange? Halloween is a time to experience scares, eat candy, and also celebrate fandom through costumes. Costume changes in RPGs can take the form of in-game bonuses, clever references, or expensive DLC, but it’s undeniable that a cla… Read More »
Could you imagine? A puppet seeing another puppet- and then making it work? Rhapsody: A Musical Adventure is… cute. Energetic. Pleasant. But also sort of twisted? Is Cornet an earnest puppeteer or an unsuspecting necromancer? Do we want to play the rest of the trilogy now? In today’s episode… Read More »
In Marl’s Kingdom, the girl saves the handsome prince. Rhapsody: A Musical Adventure is remarkable for a 1998 RPG, in that it subverts a few traditional fantasy tropes, has multiple character-specific side quests, and punctuates it plot points with musical numbers. It also kicked off a trilogy of RP… Read More »
Through the Fire and Flames of Fate Dragon Quest hasn’t had a main series release since 2018, but in the last five years we’ve had spinoffs, adaptations, and announcements galore. Three Retro Encounter panelists are joined by special guest Matt from the Dragon Quest Slime Time! podcast to discuss th… Read More »
Mr. Blue Sky, please tell us why you had to hide away for so long. Where did we go wrong? Breath of Fire: Dragon Quarter is a bleak, unforgiving game that grants players tremendous highs when they emerge victorious from a boss battle on the brink of death, and threatens brutal lows if you lose all y… Read More »
Don’t be a D-Ratio. Breath of Fire: Dragon Quarter doesn’t want you to have an easy time. A remarkable blend of PS2 visuals, tactical combat, rogue-like elements, and horror atmosphere set to a Hitoshi Sakimoto soundtrack, the fifth game in Capcom’s signature turn-based RPG series is as unique as it… Read More »
The only podcast here is ours. And you can be its early witness! Final Fantasy XVI, one of the most-anticipated Square-Enix games of the 2020s, finally launched worldwide in June. And now, almost three months later, at least four RPGFan staff have finished playing and want to start talking. From fav… Read More »
She’ll take you for a ride on a wagon train to Zoombiniville It’s back to school week here at Retro Encounter, where we stay retro but mostly avoid RPGs in a discussion of classic edutainment games, from The Oregon Trail to Sim City 2000. Who among our illustrious panel dreamed of being on the Carme… Read More »
Time to go work on Retro Encounter! We’re back with our discussion of the second half of Disco Elysium. This week we dive into some of our favorite late-game side quests, go over our favorite conversations with our neckties, and discuss the fabulously strange ending. Did we get Kim to like us? Do we… Read More »
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 »
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 »
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 »
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 »
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 »
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 »
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 »
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 »
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