Games We Grew Up With

"But morning is when you're SUPPOSED to farm!"This is just ONE of the many nuggets of wisdom one can learn from this episode, along with the pros and cons of virtual gamified polygamy, giving weeds to people who are willing to buy them, and much, much more! That's the kind of high-octane, action-packed, information-fueled podcast we deliver over here!This time around, Hosts Chris and Katie are journeying back to the farm, going Back to Nature (see what I did there?), and ... Harvesting a Moon, or something? Either way, this dating-sim-masked-as-farming-game came out, it consumed hundreds of hours of at least ONE host's life, and you'll have to listen to find out who!From spreadsheets to sprites, romancing to roma tomatoes, this one's got it all... and to get even a slice of that "all", you've gotta click that play button and dive on in!

Let's all hop along, hop along onto the wagon... why? Because we've got a trail to ride my friends, a trail to O-re-gon! And what'll we do on our way way over there? Why, we'll...Get dysentery!Get robbed!Break limbs!Get stranded!Go hungry!Die of thirst!Get bitten by snakes!...and fail to ford a few rivers!Because that's the way it goes, down yonder O-re-gon way!Guess what this episode's all about? If you were in elementary or middle school around when we were, you'll be having flashbacks about now to the greatest text-based edutainment game located in every school in the country right about now!If not... hop on in and get your learn on! TO OREGON!

It's a-me... YOSHI! After 51 warm-up episodes, the hosts of the show have finally gotten enough podcasting under their belt, and are ready to tackle the most important game in history, SUPER MARIO WORLD!Why is it the most important game ever? Well obviously, because it was the debut of ME, Yoshi! Not some stupid horse, not a sidekick, but the hero of the series. Letting that bumbling Mario get where he needs to, protecting him, eating everyone he can't beat by himself... let's be real, he'd never have found all those level exits without me!Now, what did these two intrepid hosts think of my game, going back to play it? Did they like the new and expansive world? Did they love my auto-scrolling levels? Were they enthralled by the colored Switch Palaces? How did they enjoy re-visiting all of Bowser's minions?There's really only one way to find out... twirl-jumping yourself over to hitting the Play button and checking it all out, of course! And don't you DARE think about sacrificing me to my doom just so you can make a particularly long jump! I REMEMBER....

It's-a-me, AGAIN! Geno and Mallow (and, I guess, Mario, Peach, and Bowser) are back (tell a friend!)... in SUPER MARIO RPG! Not to be confused with Episode 5 of our dear podcast, Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars.The heroic journey is undertaken once more, and our favorite heroes and all their early-Nintendo snark are ready to save the castle from Mack... I mean, Claymorton, and Smithy. With the help of Frogfucius and his KeroKero Cola... I mean, Frog Sage and Croaka Cola...Ok, so there are definitely SOME things that changed, but overall? Like 95% the same game, and that 95% is glorious, and of the changes, beyond the renames, we got our very favorite thing... QUALITY OF LIFE improvements! (Sorry, Producer Lisa).Was this a joy to come back to and play? (Spoiler: it was). Was it beautiful? (Spoiler: it was). Do we miss needing to save manually? No spoilers, gotta listen to find out THAT important detail!A beautiful remake, an amazing original game, almost the entire script kept in-place, and a great Mario property... talk about a recipe for success! Jump in and hear the full thoughts!

Everyone remembers the lyrics to that famous song... "I come from a land down under, where rubies do gleam and lamps thunder..." -- that's the one, right? Well it should be, because the Cave of Wonder definitely qualifies.We're going far, far into the future (look it up!) and to the land of Agrabah, to join everyone's favorite street rat and everyone's even-more-favorite monkey companion... DISNEY'S ALADDIN (and Abu!), to defeat Jafar, and have very little interaction at all with Genie, which is a crying shame. Darn you, Disney, and your pissing off of Robin Williams by breaking your word to him!If ever there was a game that would do well with this crew, it's one with difficult platforming, stress-creating levels without save points, poor texture graphics, and significant differences depending on where you played the game. And this one's got it all!What did they forget while playing? Why, the number one rule in Agrabah, of course..Gotta keepOne jump ahead of the breadlineOne swing ahead of the swordOnly steal what you can't afford (that's everything!)Did they make it? Did they save the princess? Did they save Agrabah? Was Jafar defeated?THERE'S ONLY ONE WAY TO KNOW! Hop on for this magic carpet ride, and give it a listen!

Fiiighting Trainers by moonlight... Maaaaking friends by daylight... Never running from a real fight... they are the ones called Pokémon!What do you get when you cross a senile old man who can't remember his own grandson's name, a pair of eleven-year-olds who are cast out into the world to fend for themselves in a never-ending Battle Royale of literal MONSTERS, a pair of people who are out there to destroy you for really no good reason, and the world's most powerful creature (Magikarp)?You get Pokémon Red and Blue, of course!Comin' at ya from the good old Game Boy, we've got Weedle, we've got Rattata, we've even got ourselves an ONYX! Come one, come all, and explore the glory of a world that's just totally ok with kidnapping countless creatures, tossing them into pocket-sized balls, and making them fight for their lives until you decide you're done with them and discard them!So grab your red-and-white ballcap, tell the old man what his grandson's name is, and go off and complete his life's work for him while he hangs out in his lab! IT'S POKEMON TIME!

Who's that jumping off the building up there?Who's that calmly walking amongst a group of courtesans as though he's not quite obviously not one of them?Who's that jumping into a pile of hay and saying "shhh, you can't see me in here!"?It's Easy-O! Etch-Ee-Oh! Eez-yo! No, it's EZIO!The hosts are back... err wait, what's that? It's an all-East-Coast VERY SPECIAL EPISODE? Featuring Host Chris and SPECIAL GUEST HOST PRODUCER HOST LISA? Woaaahhhh!Freshly back from a tour across the pond, wandering along the other ponds (obviously I mean "along the canals of Venice, across the Atlantic Ocean"), living the Assassin's Creed 2 life for a while, and they decided to share it with us all, after playing through AC2 upon their return!Where else can you get lessons on murder, technology, renaissance Italian politics and art, and relative comparisons of street widths in modern Venice, than on GAMES WE GREW UP WITH?So cut off a finger, jump off a building, commit random acts of murder, and listen to a discussion of watching yourself be conceived in the past! It's Assassin-in' time!

Oh Kirby, you're so dreamyyyy... or at least, your golf course is! And what better way for a character who's known for being mostly marshmallow-cloud and gains power through eating enemies to celebrate the great athletic event that is golf, than... to turn into a golf ball with a variety of strange powers trying to get you to whack him into enemies and/or the hole!This one's weird, but this one, at the end of the day, is also... golf. Golf with some power-ups and 16-bit graphics, and a decidedly Kirby tone to it. Yet another of the hosts' OG gaming experiences, and since they played it as kids on a cross-oceanic flight with no manual, likely almost as weird as Super Bonk at the time.Was it great? Was it, as the kids say, "mid"? Was it an Albatross or a Double Bogey? Was it something else punny? You, "dear reader", will have to convert yourself into "dear listener", and find out from our sporting hosts as they dive into this pink-gridded, club-wielding, golf-y adventure!

HAPPY 3RD BIRTHDAY, GWGW! It's our third birthday (how did that happen?!?), so we decided to put out a special Non-Rose episode that throws wayyyy back in our hosts' gaming lives!Where else can you go to turn $700 into $10,000,000 than VEGAS, BABY? Or, more often... where else can you go to turn $700 into a sad $0 and end up on a bus out of town than VEGAS, BABY?Welcome to Vegas Dream, where all your slow-moving text, badly-randomized cards, robbery-filled, chandelier-dropping visions of grandeur and glory can come true! Play Blackjack and lose to the dealer's high 20 & 21 rates, Keno where it'll take an hour to input your numbers that then don't hit, Roulette which... well, it works pretty much like a Roulette game, and Slots, where you can struggle to figure out what does or doesn't pay! It's Vegas in all its 1993 glory!Jokes aside, this is a fascinating game with a lot more depth than it seems at first glance. Random events, risks to take, shows to be invited to, weddings to get stood up at, and millions of dollars to win to make your VEGAS DREAM come true!And beyond that, this is one of the first games EVER that our hosts played growing up! On one side you had Super Mario Bros. (ed. note: Episode 15, check it out!), teaching you the nuances of platforming and patience (learned well by Host Chris), and on the other hand, Vegas Dream, teaching you the potential benefits of YOLOing it and hoping for the best (learned well by Host Katie)!How does this 8-bit gambler hold up? How well does the episode work without a rose section? How many other games did the hosts have to go through before figuring out this is the one they meant to be playing? YOU'LL NEVER KNOW! Unless you listen to the episode, of course...VEGAS, BABY!

Ever wonder what would happen if a group of video game developers were told to just go wild and make the weirdest, most confusing, least story-driven, crazy game possible, preferably including a man-child that grows and shrinks, Alice in Wonderland-style, and occasionally shouts out a ride-able set of stone letters spelling "RAGE!"?Neither did we! But here we are, and we all get to experience the ... experience that is SUPER BONK for the Super Nintendo! Somehow the 4th game in the Bonk series, this one comes to us courtesy of a long airplane flight in the 90s that our intrepid hosts took. One can only imagine how much stranger the Bonk experience is as a child on a long plane flight. Perhaps this explains a bit more about the adults they eventually became... hmm...Run, jump, climb walls by biting them repeatedly, turn into a weird meth-kaiju hybrid, and never forget that ... wait, climb walls by BITING THEM?Ok, I officially give up. This game's insane. Maybe the hosts had more luck understanding it. You'll have to pop in and give it a listen to find out!

Kick, punch, it's all in the mind! Well, I mean... that's ONE example of this genre, but this time instead of Um Jammer Lammy, we're focused in on the behemoths of the rhythm game genre from about 2005 to 2015... Guitar Hero, Rock Band, DJ Hero, and all those rock 'n' roll, guitar 'n' drum, rhythm-music games!These games were the life of the party for a good chunk of years, and as it turns out, might still be fun to play today! Our hosts and ONE producer may be musically inclined, but it turns out these games aren't always about how good your ear is... much to Producer Kyle's relief!From Weezer to Grandmaster Flash, Mighty Mighty Bosstones to Babymetal, these games are a great catalogue of popular rock music of the late 90s to mid-2010s, and if you can find your way into getting the instruments... are they worth pulling back out and jamming out? Only one way to find out...A-five-six-seven-DOWNLOAD THE EPISODE AND LISTEN TO IT!

Three, two, one... it's space-lights out and space-away we go! It's time to rev up those hovercar engines, blast around the semi-epilepsy-triggering track, bounce against strangely rubbery walls, and entertain futuristic billionaires by racing other poor unfortunate souls... and occasionally blow up! That's right, it's F-Zero for the Super Nintendo!This one is a doozy, for many reasons, not least of which is that as it turns out, the computer is a ch... actually, you know what? You have to listen to find out what the computer is. However, you CAN find out that this game was an absolute legend when it comes to pushing the boundaries of graphics, racing mechanics, and driving certain (ahem) podcast hosts crazy when replaying it in 2023.But was it fun? Was it exciting? Was it MODE 7? Did it live up to its glory days and bring back all the joy it used to? Well, there's only one way to find out, isn't there? Hit play, let the green flag fly, and listen in!

Rise and shine, dear listeners - rise and... shine. It's another Random Non-Rose Episode! This time we are delving into Half-Life 2 for the PC! Looking back at a game many have said is one of the greatest games of all time is a challenge, but our intrepid hosts have their crowbars ready.Host Chris leads the squad in a live recording to talk about Gordon Freeman's second (NEVER THIRD... we see you, Valve... we see you...) adventure fighting the Combine, head crabs, and sometimes OBS. OH MY! A game that does not fall into a single genre leads to rambling, inserted comments, and lots of snark. From the innovative gravity gun to dumb AI “SORRY FREEMAN,” Half-Life 2 has a lot to offer and a lot to talk about.Even if you joined us live on Twitch (@gwgwshow), Host Chris added in a little extra cause there was STILL more he wanted to say! Time, Dr. Freeman? Is it really that time again? Take a listen and find out!

Float like a butterfly, sting like ... an unresponsive SNES Classic controller that disagrees with your assessment that you threw an uppercut instead of a body punch! That's how the phrase goes, right?We're in the ring for this one, the squared circle, not hitting below the belt, getting saved by the bell, rolling with the punches, givin' em the old one-two, not throwing in the towel... you see, because we're BOXING!From Gabby Jay to Bald Bull, Dragon Chan to Piston Hurricane, we're fighting our way through this cavalcade of racially-insensitive, overly-caricatured, or just weirdly-hilarious characters, trying not to break our controllers, and remembering that fighting games aren't always quite so well-made as, for example, Soulcalibur II or Street Fighter II. Side note, I just noticed of the 3 fighting games we've reviewed, all have been the 2nd main episode in their series. Weird!Mike Tyson's nowhere to be found to save us here, but drop in and give it a listen, and see if the game could stand on its own two feet, or if the ref called a standing 8 count and had the corner throw in the towel on it.INSERT ONE MORE BOXING PUN HERE.Enjoy! (Ding, ding)

The more you know... about how we play co-op games, the more surprised you are we haven't hurt each other in real life!This very special episode of Games We Grew Up With is all about those magical moments on the couch, across the country, or both, when you get a group, perfectly in sync, working together on a puzzle, thinking as one... and then one person sets everyone else on fire, triggers a trap, and kills the whole group.If you were wondering, that person is usually Producer Kyle.From Super Mario Bros. on NES to Gunstar Heroes on Sega, all the way up through to Overcooked! 2 and Full Metal Furies (both of which you can watch us play on Tuesdays at 5:45pm PT/8:45pm ET on Coast-to-Coast Co-Op on our Twitch channel, https://twitch.tv/gwgwshow !), we have spent our lives playing these games together, working as a team to beat the boss, solve the puzzle, get the high score, and rescue one kidnapped friend or another.It's a unique form of gaming, especially when you can get 2 people on one coast and 2 people on another, all playing together, and in this episode, we do a deep dive on the different forms of it, how it's different, why it's fun, and why it means so much to all of us. And the producers even get involved (sometimes with similar outcomes to when we game together... ahem)Player 2: PRESS START!

Thank you Link! But our Princess is in another castle! ...wait, that doesn't sound right... wrong Princess and wrong mostly-silent Protagonist trying to save both the world and her! This is another LEGEND OF ZELDA, and this time we're finding A LINK TO THE PAST (for the Super Nintendo)!All the classics of Zelda games show up here... Link, Zelda, Ganon, the Triforce, a shortage of Rupees, a shortage of Heart pieces, long and winding dungeons with over-complicated puzzles, and some type of fowl to carry you around the world, of course!Listen in to our host's thoughts about our pink-haired (!) hero and his journey through the Light and Dark worlds, and this game as a cultural touchstone and defining element of what truly makes Zelda... well, Zelda!Gotta go fast! (Right?)

2022... What a year it was for Games We Grew Up With! We laughed, we cried, we screamed at entirely-inappropriate ratings predictions for SimCity 2000 (or at least, some of us did...)From Mario 64 to Final Fantasy VII, General Chaos to Starcraft, Crash Team Racing to Super Metroid, we covered 12 new (old) games, across GameBoy, Sega Genesis, Windows, Super NES, Nintendo 64, PlayStation 1. They weren't all winners (lookin' at you, Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers and General Chaos...), but some were just that perfect blend of quality and nostalgia!Shocking nobody, Host Chris had a full point higher in his ratings (8.4 vs 7.4), though the clear winner for the year score-wise was Final Fantasy VII, with each host giving it a 9.5... but was it their favorite game of the year, looking back? What might you have missed if you didn't stay caught up? Well, there's one good way to find out! Just click that "Play" button and listen to a re-hash of the year's fun!Let's-a-go!

Well well well, if it isn't the most aptly-named game of the show's history! Both for game content as well as what it took to even get the two hosts to be able to play (and stream) it to all our viewers on Twitch!This one digs deep into the archive, and pulls out a simple, complex, flame-torching, nut-punching, chaotic combat scramble that we're told ostensibly had some plot sitting in there in between melees and grenade launches.Pick a squad, throw all those cannon-fodder grunts against your opponent's, and see who comes out the victor and takes on some more land... a tale as old as time, and in this case, a game almost as old!So, how did this simple, colorful, action-packed, hardly-able-to-get-it-to-run combat sim hold up? Why, dear reader, you'll have to convert yourself into a dear listener to find out... hop in and hear what Hosts Chris and Katie had to say!

"GWGW, reportin' for duty!" It's time, it's time, it's finally time... IT'S RTS TIME! In this episode, the crew dove deep into the world of Terran, Protoss, and Zerg, in STARCRAFT! We collected minerals, we learned hard lessons about what dropships are, and we figured out that... well, the Zerg are just kinda weird and gross! Even better, we were able to have a 4-player online multiplayer game, coast-to-coast, and kick the snot out of some computer AI punks... Outstanding! This one throws us back to 1998, and into the heyday of Blizzard Entertainment really caring about making fun and engaging games, instead of simple money factories. Ahh, better times... Drop in, harvest some Vespene Gas, give it a listen, and enjoy... rock and roll! Ready to roll out!

Alpha, get me some teenagers with attitude! Well, we may not be teenagers anymore, but I think anyone who has listened to even part of an episode of this podcast knows there's plenty of attitude to go around. And hey, if you check the show's title out, we DID grow up, way back when! And the Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers were a formative part of that growing up. Whether the TV show or the SNES game, you've gotta enjoy Rita Repulsa, the Rangers, and all that goes along with it. On the other hand... what the heck are the putties doing with KNIVES? This one is a bit of a deeper cut, and you'll have to listen to find out whether that risk/reward gamble paid off... suffice to say, opinions were a bit divided, and we nearly set a new score record! Hit "play" and find out in what way! It's morphin' time!

Forty and three-quarters... a perfectly reasonable episode number, right? Really, if we're talking about "Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergrade INTERmission", I think 40.7 is quite appropriate! And who's that voice? That's not Host Chris! Well-spotted (heard), dear listener! That's Producer Kyle, dropping in to share some of his thoughts along with Host Katie on this special episode... so pull out your rotten fruits and veggies and get ready to review the backbencher in his debut starring appearance! We're talking FF7 Remake, from Cloud to Sephiroth to the epic dancin' Andrea, and everything in-between! We ramble (thanks Producer Kyle), we discuss shocking plot twists (thanks Host Katie), we fight houses (thanks battle arena), and generally speaking, we do that thing we do, and tell you everything that needs to be known about this newest-gen Game We Grew Up With! So sit back, relax, and enjoy this very special (decimal) episode!

It's here! It's here! 2 years later, and it's finally here! It's FINAL FANTASY VII DAY!!!! Rejoice, for it is a day of celebration across the entirety of the pizza. Err, across the entirety of Midgar. We laugh, we organize materia, we (*cough* Host Katie *cough*) snicker when one of the leading ladies gets violently murdered before our very eyes, and we SNOWBOARD! Final Fantasy VII, the game that spawned your very favorite podcast on the internet, has finally reached its place at the front of the line, and in this EXTRA, EXTRA-sized episode (especially when combined with last week's Episode 40.5), we dive in deep! SOLDIERs, Turks, Ancients, Jenova cells, HOOOOJJJOOOOO, stolen identities, terrorist groups, and once again... pizza cities. Download, stream, osmose, take in this episode in whatever your favorite way is, and remember... AVOID THE TONBERRY AT ALL COSTS! Unless you've got Knights of the Round and a spare 15 minutes or so. With Love, Sephiroth (on behalf of the GWGW crew)

HOOOOOJJJJOOOOOO!!!! We're back... but NOT back from the past... not quite yet! It turns out that, since Final Fantasy VII was the main game that this podcast was started for, our intrepid hosts have more than a few things to say about it! A few weeks ago, we all sat down to record the "Rose-Tinted Glasses" segment of this episode, and when we went back to listen to it, we realized that it was the length of a full episode! And rather than editing 2/3 of its content out just to fit into a regular episode, why not just put it out there as an "intermediate" episode, and let everyone hear the unfiltered, quite verbose, thoughts on this absolute classic of the Final Fantasy series, and Playstation gaming in general? Next week we'll be back with the "back from the past, back to the present" portion of this episode, and it'll have its own longer-than-usual content as well, since it won't have a Rose segment to deal with! Until then, sit back, relax, crack open a can of materia, and take a listen to the dulcet tones of siblings yelling about giant blocky forearms and what species an imaginary cat-thing is!

Power! Unlimited power! Or at least, that's what the Empire would have you believe. Join them in TIE Fighter, and work to exterminate all that Rebellion scum. Even more importantly, this episode we talked about this game LIVE, and streamed it to YouTube (where the extended cut is still available)! But just for you, our dear listener, we've made a handy podcast version, and distributed it to all your favorite platforms. Don't you feel loved? Good! In this episode, Hosts Chris and Katie pilot all sorts of Empire vessels, interrupting Rebellion trade routes, destroying transports, and in general trying to get rid of all those annoying Skywalkers and their like. Sometimes, being the baddies can be fun! How did it go? Was the game good? Was the live recording a mess? Are mid-90s space piloting controls easy to use in 2022? Well, give it a download and find out! Let the hate flow through you!

3, 2, 1... race! Get your boost on, drift around the corners, and take out Mario, Bowser, and Peach! Oh wait... no... hold on, that's... Coco, Pura, and Dingodile! Why, that must mean that we're in the world of CRASH TEAM RACING! Why yes, you brilliant clue-deducer you, we ARE! We've gone back to the Playstation 64... err, I mean, Playstation 1, and we're hoppin' into our four-wheeled carts of fury to race to save the Galaxy from the nefarious hands of Nitros Oxide by proving once and for all that we, Crash Bandicoot (or Coco Bandicoot, or your favorite racer) are, in fact, the fastest racers in the Galaxy, and save ourselves from eternal parking-lot-based doom! (Trust me, this makes sense once you hear the episode). So join us as the hosts struggle with a "classic" mode that's maybe too hard, drifting that's DEFINITELY too hard, and a recap of a real-life Crash Team Racing tournament! Plus, more information about our upcoming LIVE EPISODE (ooooooohhhh)! Let's a-go!

Samus is a WHAT? Well, if you're out of the loop, you'll just have to listen in and find out... as the GWGW crew discuss Super Metroid for the Super NES! Exploring the wonders of the MetroidVania genre with one of its earliest and best variants, Hosts Chris and Katie wind their way back and forth (and back and forth, and back and forth...) through the planet Zebes, trying to plow through aliens, monsters, bosses, movie references, and even a René Descartes philosophical thought experiment, the "brain in a vat"! There's hidden rooms, puzzles without clues, platforming galore, and merciless penalties on death, so you just KNOW that Katie's going to have a rockin' good time with this one... This game has been called one of the best games of all time, so how about you click on that Play button and find out if this is one of the best EPISODES of all time? It'll just cost you an hour of your day (about how much Katie lost to badly-timed deaths). All that, and a TROPE OF THE DAY! What more could you ask for? Come on, start listening already!

WhatwhatWHAAAT? No rose segment? Wasn't that just a weird one-off thing that Host Katie did for Jak 3? Why no, dear listener, it was NOT! Our "Random Non-Rose" series continues, this time with BOTH of the hosts, playing through Dr. Mario… err, I mean, Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine, for the Sega Genesis! Not familiar? Well, think of Tetris… make it two-player… get rid of the weird shapes… fill it with awkward portraits of enemy "bosses"… add a Dr. Robotnik storyline… completely omit Sonic entirely… ok fine, so it's not like Tetris, jeez, it's a SIMILE, ok? Give a producer a break! Listen in as the Hostblings talk through this wordplay-filled, broken-difficulty-curve-having, battle puzzle "Sonic" game, including some modern-day references to it from the STHCU! PS Tails should have been included.

Its-a-us, GWGW! For our 36th episode, there was no better choice than a game with a completely DIFFERENT number in it, Super Mario two-to-the-sixth power! I mean, Super Mario 64! Back to the favorite console of everyone with three hands, the N64, and all its three-dimensional glory! Hosts Chris and Katie run, jump, triple jump, wall jump, side jump, slide jump, and... I don't know, probably some other kind of jump, taking everyone's favorite red-hatted, pipe-plumbing, badly-caricatured-Italian plumber, Mario, through adventures in 15(ish) worlds, fighting 3(ish) Bowsers, and saving 1(ish) Princess Peachstool. So act like Mario, and JUMP (Get it? Jump? Like him? JUMPMAN? See? Get it? Don't worry, you'll laugh at it when you think about it later...) Ya-hoooo!!!

KEFKA PLEEAASSSEEEE!!! We're back... not just back with a new episode, but back to our FINAL FANTASY series! This time, it's the Internet's number-one favorite of the entire series, Final Fantasy VI! (Or III, if you grew up in North America in the mid-90s...) The last iteration of the wrongly-numbered Finals Fantasy, the hosts finally got to have a rose-tinted glasses segment for this one, since they have finally caught up to themselves, and played this one growing up... very exciting times! With parties chock-full of dozens of characters, they worked with Magitek, found Espers, fought Kefka, and most importantly, BODY-SLAMMED A FREAKIN' TRAIN! Hop on board (but not on board the body-slammed train, that thing was freakin' evil, and also, we do not recommend being aboard trains while they are flipped upside-down, for the health and safety of all involved), click play, give it a listen, and then go ahead and leave a five-star review (hint, hint!) Let's do it!

"Aliens! Earthquakes! Riots! FIIIRRREEEE!!" At least, if you ask Host Katie, that's the plot summary of SimCity 2000... Producer Kyle might instead go with "Electrical grid, taxes, bond measures, and population growth!". Any way you cut it, SimCity 2000 changed the world of simulation gaming. An unbelievable level of depth, especially for its time, truly set it a cut above anything else of its era. It can be played a thousand different ways, from super hard and slow to cheated and money-filled and plowing through to the endgame, and you can see it in the DNA of all the simulation games to come, definitely including the smash-hit Sims from them later on. So hop in that Launch Arcology, blast off your podcast player, and just remember kids, nuclear power is a good thing!

CUT! CUT! Little android man, born without a soul... Cut Man, along with Guts Man, Fire Man, Bomb Man, Elec Man, Ice Man... even the evil Dr. Wily himself... a long list of enemies for our hero, Mega Man, to defeat, on his way to saving the world. It's back to 1987 this time, for the start of a long-running series with blasters, androids, interchangeable weapons, and much to our hosts' chagrin, neither ducking nor sliding nor wall-jumping... just a classic early platformer with a weaponized twist! Join us as we dive into this Capcom classic, enter the year 20XX, and save the future! Never, never, never trust a little android man...

Look!  Up in the sky!  It's a bird!  It's a plane!  No, it's... it's... a giant multi-colored, winged whale with a kaleidoscopic paisley pattern all over it, that's for some reason named the Wind Fish!  Come on, how could you not see that?   For this one, we're headed back all the way to the GameBoy, and checking in on everyone's favorite green-robed (in the COLOR version), pointy-hatted, jar-smashing, rupee-stealing hero, LINK!  He's in need of some awakening, and who better to do it than Chris and Katie?  Nobody, that's who!  Katie on some retro-OG hardware (the new Nintendo Game & Watch), Chris trying out the remaster on Switch.  Time to go to... NOT Hyrule, but rather Koholint Island, and try to save the world, yet again!   Time to collect some instruments, play some music, fight some bosses, crack some eggs, meet up with a whale-fish, and in general, just Link the heck out of this thing!

“Bonk.  Bonk.  Bonk.”  What's that, you ask?  Is it fate, come knocking?  Is it a raven, rapping, rapping at your chamber door?  Why no, in fact, it's COMMANDER KEEN!  More specifically, Commander Keen constantly slamming his (helmeted) head into the top of whatever was above him, as Hosts Chris and Katie pogo sticked their way … Continue reading Episode 31 – Commander Keen In Goodbye, Galaxy! →

SALSAAAA!!!  It's in everyone's top-5 favorite dips for tortilla chips, and it's the very poorly-translated name of one of the lead characters in this episode's game, FINAL FANTASY V!  We continue our grand tour of the Finals Fantasy, and this is the very last one that will come WITHOUT a rose segment… VI and onward, … Continue reading Episode 30 – Final Fantasy V →

What's this? An episode of Games We Grew Up With… with NO rose-tinted glasses segment? With only HALF of the hosting crew?   Yes, my dear friends, your wishes have been granted! It's Host Katie, accompanied by Host Katie, with a dash of Host Katie for good measure, talking about Jak, Jak, and Jak again… … Continue reading Random Non-Rose 1: Jak 3 (Katie Edition) →

It's that time again!  Time to dive back into the archives and pull out another classic title to frustrate one, the other, or both of our hosts!   This time it's fire-blasting, boost-jumping, dragon-saving, key-fetching, and platform-gliding with everyone's favorite winged protagonist, Spyro the Dragon!  Back to platforming, back to the PS1, and with the … Continue reading Episode 29 – Spyro the Dragon →

It's a bird!  It's a plane!  It's… a giant baby?  Come to crush us?  As we try to save our neighbors from giant worms, roaming zombies, and 6-foot-tall ants climbing over the hedge maze that we really shouldn't have put into the backyard in the first place?  I know, I know, everyone loves a first-person … Continue reading Episode 28 – Zombies Ate My Neighbors →

MEIN LEBEN!  It's the start of year 2 (Season 2?  Are we doing that?) of the show, and what better way to kick off such a grand occasion than killing a bunch of Nazi scum, and destroying Mecha-Hitler with WOLFENSTEIN 3D, right?   It's time to go back to DOS, it's time for some Shareware, … Continue reading Episode 27 – Wolfenstein 3D →

Happy Birthday to us… happy birthday to us… happy birthday, dear podcast… happy birthday to us!   It's episode 26!  It's episode ONE YEAR ANNIVERSARY!  It's a COMBO episode!  It's a SPECIAL GUEST STAR episode!  It's an EXTRA LARGE episode!  Everything's coming up Milhouse today…   SONIC!  THE HEDGEHOG!  TWICE!  And also Tails, I guess… … Continue reading Episode 26 – Sonic the Hedgehog & Sonic 2 →

It's time!  Final (final, final, final) Fantasy again!  Maybe they should have named the series The Neverending Story.  That's not taken, right?   Final Fantasy IV!  Where, unlike the previous games, you have to… fetch the four elemental crystals?  Deal with a sad backstory involving orphans?  Fly in an airship that Cid gives you?  Hmm, … Continue reading Episode 25 – Final Fantasy IV →

I'm sorry, Dave, I can't do that…  err, wait, wrong AI!  This time it's Guilty Spark, Cortana, along with the Flood, the Covenant, and everything else from 2001's OTHER evil-space-computer-themed action adventure, Halo: Combat Evolved!   This comes after the 24-hour birthday stream for Host Chris, during which the two hosts co-opped their way through … Continue reading Episode 24 – Halo: Combat Evolved →

Which way should we go now? I’ll give you a hint… straight to the “Play” button on this episode! Chris and Katie are checking into the haunted mansion of The 7th Guest for PC & Mac, and trying to puzzle (literally) their way back out again!   Cake slices, lettered tin cans, first-person mazes, flipping … Continue reading Episode 23 – The 7th Guest →

It’s a (fat) bird!  It’s a (pink) plane!  No, it’s KIRBY!  And he’s a SUPER STAR!  Here for an appearance in the final Super Nintendo game before the switch to Nintendo 64, in an 8-in-1 side-scrolling & platforming adventure, inhaling enemies and exhaling pure, raw, fluffy, pink power!   Hosts Chris and Katie hop back … Continue reading Episode 22 – Kirby Super Star →

Round 21… PLAY!  We’re headed to Japan!  And Brazil!  And Thailand!  And, apparently, the U.S.S.R.!  Why?  Because it’s Street Fighter II time, and we’re flying all around the world to fun fight locales, dragon punches, yoga fires, and tiger knees!   Across the arcade, Sega Genesis, and Super Nintendo, this game showed up across a … Continue reading Episode 21 – Street Fighter II →

Like blind hogs looking for acorns, we’re back to look for the best Final Fantasy games!  This time, it’s Final Fantasy 3… no, not THAT Final Fantasy 3, the OTHER one!  The one that only came out in Japan originally, and only came out on the DS in North America.  And you know what?  It … Continue reading Episode 20 – Final Fantasy III →

Let’s a-go!  This time we’re hitting the gas pedals on our 100cc karts and racing our way into 1997 and the game that took the Nintendo 64 by storm, Mario Kart 64!  Hosts Chris and Katie hop in (both with Toad, they’re definitely siblings!) to join the Mario crew racing through Kalimari Desert, Koopa Troopa … Continue reading Episode 19 – Mario Kart 64 →

It’s time to go back to the past!  Err… back to the future!  Or… oh who cares, it’s BACK TO THE JAK!  Chris and Katie are jumping into the pools of Dark Eco, picking up Precursor Orbs, and figuring out what’s new and exciting with the second iteration of the Jak & Daxter series.   … Continue reading Episode 18 – Jak 2 (Renegade) →

“Do a barrel roll!”  This episode, our intrepid hosts are hopping into the cockpit again for some classic space combat from 1997 with STAR FOX 64.  In doing so, they answer some of the world’s burning questions like: What’s the difference between a barrel roll and an aileron roll?  What really makes something an aircraft?  … Continue reading Episode 17 – Star Fox 64 →

GIMMEYOURWALLET!  We’re stealin’ cars, throwin’ molotov cocktails, and… turnin’ gangsters into hot dogs?  Well, it’s GRAND THEFT AUTO 2, what do you expect?!?   Hosts Chris and Katie are hopping into the driver’s seat and rolling back the odometers of their memories to check out this top-down, crazy, violent, tank-driving classic that helped spawn an … Continue reading Episode 16 – Grand Theft Auto 2 →

A big episode number calls for a big classic game… SUPER MARIO BROS!  In this episode, Hosts Chris and Katie drop down the warp tube allllllll the way back to 1985, and give the OG of classic console games a run-through for the first time since it was near-new!   Hundreds of tries on the … Continue reading Episode 15 – Super Mario Bros. →

It’s a very special NEW EPISODE DAY!   Check out the first episode of our new bonus series, “Chris’s Tech Talk”! In these episodes, Host Chris will be joined by various guests to talk about the technology that goes into video games, and the challenges that developers face bringing their visions to reality!   For … Continue reading Tech Talk #1: Flight Simulators →