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Leave Your Comments for Our Upcoming Pandemic Mailbag Episode! (Patreon)

Published:
2020-10-29 20:46:56
Imported:
2021-08

Content

It's time once again for me (Bob) to put together a new mailbag episode, which I like to do every six months or so. As usual, I'll be reading and responding to your comments left on some of my recent episodes—but this time, I'll also be reading and responding to your responses to the following prompt:

How has quarantine and/or the pandemic affected your retro gaming habits?

Have you been expanding your collection? Slimming it down? Have you finally started or finished an older game that's been on your bucket list? Whatever the case, please leave your response on this very Patreon post before Monday, November 1st. And since we'll be reading these on the air, please try to keep your responses succinct!

Also, because this episode will be posted on the free feed as well, please let us know what name we should use on the podcast if you don't want us to say your Patreon screen name (which may be your actual name) on the air. Thanks!

- Bob

Comments

Patrick McClafferty

During the quarantine my retro collection hasn't changed much. I have however finally played a bunch of retro stuff on Xbox One via Rare Replay (Conkers Bad Fur Day, Banjo Tooie, Battletoads) as well as the XBLA remakes of Secret of Monkey Island and Guardian Heroes.

Anonymous

Hey Bob ! My wife forced me to hunt down a Switch Lite for her because she wanted to play Animal Crossing and I fell down the rabbit hole of the Switch’s incredible library. I had little time before lockdown for the long RPGs that I played voraciously when I was a kid, but now I’m able to play FF 12 and DQ 11 without any problems. Here’s my 2020 resumed in one slogan: A global pandemic, terrible for your mental health, great for your video game backlog !

RoryDropkick

I went through a massive bout of depression from March-August for various reasons, and I barely played. I also was diagnosed finally at age 40 with ADHD/anxiety. Now that I'm coming out of it slowly and I am playing games a bit slower but I am enjoying them again. I finished Yakuza 3 remastered in a week, working on 4. Looking forward to Like a Dragon soon!

Anonymous

I've taken this time to get into games that I just didn't have the time or desire to jump into when I had my "normal" schedule. So far I've beaten a good few horror games including Silent Hill 3 (PS3 port....meh), The Evil Within, and started the Resident Evil 2 remake. On the complete flipside of horror games, I finally beat Breath of the Wild and dove into the AnnaPurna Universe by beating Donut County and Sayonara Wild Hearts. I've also gotten back into my Rock Band and Guitar Hero kick because I never caved and got rid of my guitars. Those games are just too much fun, and now decidedly retro as per "the rules." Remember when they made Lego Rock Band? Anyways, thanks to you Jeremy and Bob and everyone else for helping keep us listeners sane with perpetually awesome content. Much love to you all.

Anonymous

The biggest change for me over quarantine is that I actually had to sell the majority of my retro gaming collection. Hundreds of games from the Wii backwards, almost all of which were acquired around their original release dates. It was a lot of personal history to let go of but in the end I’m glad I cleared out the space and the money has been helpful. Fortunately I still have other ways to enjoy those pieces of history, but I do miss the artifacts some times. On the positive side of things, I learned to solder and have been repairing and upgrading some of my old hardware! Just fixed my Saturn’s power supply and it is humming along great now. Combine that with learning the ins and outs of MiSTer, and I’m able to enjoy retro gaming in a lot of new and fun ways. :)

Anonymous

The pandemic-induced slowdown of new games on modern consoles led me back to retro consoles to finish several games on my bucket list, mostly RPGs. Embarrassingly this included some real gems like FF6, Chrono Trigger, and Dragon Quest V. These would have remained gaps in my gaming knowledge without the shelter-in-place orders. I will take playing through these wonderful games as a silver lining to an otherwise miserable year.

Lorfarius

Madness for me... with all this free time I've spent a fortune on building my PAL NES and Master System collections. So easy to drop some money on all sorts of random junk to relieve the boredom. Was pure bliss getting this stuff in the mail and then having the time to play it properly!

Anonymous

I have recently slowed down on my retro gaming and collecting habits as life has kind of gotten in the way of that. I have however been able to use this time to really dive deep into some of my games backlog. I was finally able to play through the entire Gears franchise and AC Odyssey as gaming basically became the only thing I could really do for a while. So for me it's been less about collecting and more about playing and having deeper gaming experiences. One of my big retro highlights however was getting the Turbografx-16 mini and being able to experience that system for the first time for an affordable price. I also did what every other dutiful gamer did and poured countless hours into Animal Crossing

Everyday Patrick

Due to COVID immigration delays, my wife’s green card petition wasn’t approved until August 2020. Since being reunited and able to live together once again, we’ve been playing our Neo Geo Mini quite religiously. Real Bout Fatal Fury Special is our “go to” evening game. The first to lose 5 matches has to wash the dishes after dinner ; )

Anonymous

Since I got a Switch in May, I've tried to focus on only finishing one game at a time. It's been a great console to grab and pick up where I left off, and just keep chipping away at a game. It's the best quality gaming time I've had in years, and a welcome distraction in a year like this.

Phoequinox

I discovered Retronauts right before the pandemic happened, so my interest in retro gaming has actually doubled over the course of this year. I've always wanted to go back and play a lot of older games I missed, but thanks to this podcast (for better or worse), I have a much larger backlog. As an introverted essential worker, life hasn't changed much for me. But Retronauts is unfortunately forever linked in my head with that early panic as I restocked toilet paper overnight and listened to you guys wipe your proverbial asses with Fester's Quest.

Jason Lew

Pretty much affected my plans to do my usual visits to my local retro gaming shows like California Extreme and SoCal Retro Gaming Expo. As well as scrapped my plans to attend Portland Retro Gaming Expo which I've always wanted to go to. What I miss most about retro gaming during this pandemic is being in an arcade playing retro arcade games socializing with random strangers enjoying classic arcade games. Last July I was at California Extreme playing a 3 player Rampart machine with a buddy and a complete stranger having a great time. Can't do that at home. I hope we get back to a point to where we can do that again.

Eric Plunk

When the pandemic initially hit and everything shut down, that eliminated collecting games locally for a time. I then had this crazy idea about actually PLAYING the games I have instead of constantly acquiring them. I have since trimmed the fat on my collection and am sticking to keeping games with replay-ability and getting rid of games I know I’ll never touch again after I finish them.

Anonymous

Quarantine has created more free time in my life but has also inspired me to be more intentional about how I choose to spend my time. I decided to start a spreadsheet to track my gaming, with the idea that I wouldn't allow myself to capriciously start and stop games as I have in the past--I would either finish the game that I'm currently playing or make a conscious decision that I wasn't enjoying it enough to justify finishing it. This has allowed me to finally finish a slew of classics that I had started but never finished in the past, including Super Metroid, Metal Gear Solid, Link's Awakening, Rondo of Blood, FF7, and FF9. I'm currently playing FF8 and have my eye on squeezing in Mario 64 before the end of the year. I've really enjoyed playing games this way and I plan to continue tracking my play in this way as a result. 

Anonymous

Over quarantine, I've acquired a few PVMs and fell head-first into MiSTer. Most of my time is revisiting old favorites, trying the ones I missed, the ones I couldn’t afford (glares at Neo Geo), and experiencing all the amazing ROMhacks out there. After about 20 years, I’m finally playing through Final Fantasy V on the SNES (using the GBA translation patch). Next-gen consoles just don’t seem so sexy anymore.

Anonymous

I'm playing LESS often! As a Dad of 3 young kids, my commute to the office had been my opportunity to catch with 1st party 3DS titles I had missed... It's back to vicarious gaming for me, but I wouldn't change it for the world :)

Grant Baxter

I watched Hi Score Girl and it really got me enthusiastic about finally dipping into competitive fighting games and actually playing the PC Engine/TurboGrafx-16 for the first time. Lots of time has been spent with Neo Geo fighters and TG16 shmups plus Bonk.

Anonymous

I was born in 1982, so my nostalgia is primarily for SNES. I got Secret of Mana on the Switch. It is fun, but not quite as good as I remembered. I want to commit, but there are just so many new games calling my name that are inspired by these old classics. Do I finish Secret of Mana? Or jump over to something like Blossom Tales, Crosscode, Wizard of Legend, Hyper Light Drifter, Crossing Souls or The Swords of Ditto? I can't decide?!

Anonymous

Quarantine has increased my interest, time and money available for retro gaming. In the past few months I've acquired a Dreamcast, GBA, along with a CRT tv for playing older consoles plus added various games to my collection. Also bought an AtGames Legends Ultimate Arcade cabinet where I've been discovering new and old favorite arcade games.

Anonymous

Due to so many older physicians retiring, I’ve been busier since the start of the pandemic. I’ve been especially busy now that the courts are nearly back to full speed in Texas, since I do psych work for many of them. My total game time hasn’t necessarily lowered during the pandemic, but I’ve definitely moved towards some older titles. The Turbografx Mini and Collection of Mana started it, but I’ve been playing plenty of Genesis and SNES games on my Analogue systems. For some reason, I play my old copy of SNES Jurassic Park an awful lot. It’s one of the few SNES games with licensed Dolby Surround (essentially a 4.0 sound mode), and it still sounds pretty great on a modern setup. And yes, the Turbografx Mini has supplanted my PS4’s spot on the main TV. I knew that I’d enjoy replaying Rondo of Blood, but I didn’t expect to have so much fun with Ys I and II, Bomberman ‘94, and various shmups.

Anonymous

Like many others, I had no expectation that the pandemic would cause such a dramatic price increase across the retro gaming market as it did. Not that I considered it much, but I would have initially guessed that if anything, the market might stagnate, or even bottom out a bit as many people might try to sell off their collection during this terrible, uncertain year. I guess this is not a total negative however. It seems like since many people have been forced to spend more time inside (and some of which still maybe have the means), they are at the very least enjoying older comfort games when so many need a positive escape. Thanks all for continuing on with the show in this hell hole of a year…

Anonymous

I got a bug in the quarantine, the NEO GEO collecting bug, MVS, AES, NEO-CD ... trying to complete the full set by combining the platforms, as AES is usually unobtainium, my pocket cries so hard right now, but at least I am happy.

Sean Daniels

I have a small list of games that I’ve wished to see rereleased for years. It has been quite sometime since any of these have been available to purchase anywhere. Is there a particular reason we haven’t seen any type of re-release, remake or recent sequels to the following retro series, paperboy, eternal champions, clay fighter, and Haunting starring Polterguy by EA? With the eshop, PlayStation store, and Xbox store, and the hundreds of titles available, it would be great to have the option of purchasing these games once again! Thank you!

Anonymous

Two weeks before quarantine started I felt the itch to play a Dragon Quest game (having only played the XI demo, and started but never got more than an hour into the classic games), so I booted up the SNES fan translation of 1&2. Fast forward two weeks and I had beat both games, decided to start 3 as I left the country for the first time to Croatia and when I landed the country started going into lockdown.

Anonymous

Around the start of quarantine, I spent weeks playing a ton of Link to the Past Randomizer. Eventually, I made a list of the other games that I owned that I meant to get around to and made myself play them for a couple hours each, and ended up dismissing most of them. It felt nice to not have to think about them anymore. (You can say my real name.)

Anonymous

Quarantine has given a horrible realization: even with all the time in the world I will never complete my backlog. I have knocked out so many games that I’ve been meaning to play forever like FF9, Resident Evil Remake, Castlevania Rondo of Blood and a bunch more. And yet when I think about how many games are still on my list, my life feels like a combination of Sisyphus rolling the boulder and Burgess Meredith at the end of “Time Enough at Last.” And despite loving those games I mentioned, I still would’ve preferred to not lose my job and insurance, and be able to see all my friends safely again. Don’t feel too sorry for me, though. My cost of living is relatively low and my unemployment benefits worked out. I know many others are way less fortunate than me.

Diamond Feit

The biggest shock of quarantine was my rediscovery of the PlayStation Vita, a console I never used much when it was "new" or "alive" but this year I played it a lot! Even more surprising, I found myself drawn to visual novels, a genre I never spent much time with before. They weren't all hits, but the ones I liked I really liked, and suddenly I am extra sad that Sony is tossing the console wholesale from their web store. (Yes, you can read my name on air)

Anonymous

As a “step dad” of two (5 and 7 year old girls), been gaming a lot less these past 5 months and I really miss it, but priorities. Just this past month I listened to the Akira episode and it inspired me to read all of Epic Comics in color in a span of a week. Such an incredible story and I am happy to be reminded by my favorite podcast to give it a read.

Anonymous

Lockdown has been a time of refinement for me. I've purchased an OSSC and I have finally got around to properly setting up the GameCube + GameBoy Player and have been clearing my GBA backlog like a madman. Since march I've managed FFIV, V & VI. Lockdown has kind of been good to me!

Anonymous

All during quarantine I've been throwing myself into my little electronics projects, and that includes projects related to retro gaming. The one I really enjoyed was a DIY ZX Spectrum 128k kit computer called the Harlequin 128k kit. It was the first time I ever did something like that on that scale, and it was so much fun to solder together and get working. I've spent a lot of my quarantine gaming trying out all kinds of games, new and old, and it's been a lot of fun discovering such a vast and varied library (I'm American, btw, so everything about the Speccy is new and strange to me). If you end up using this on the podcast, use Nate as my name.

Anonymous

The biggest thing I miss are my monthly trips to my local retro arcade. I live about half an hour away from one of those 15 dollars at the door, everything on free play places, and I haven't been there since February. He has been open since early summer, and i don't question the decision to be open, but I don't know when I personally will feel like it is safe enough to play arcade games in a space like that again. I hope they are doing enough business to still be open when I am. Same thing goes for my hometown retro game stores. I wouldn't mind visiting them, but since they are a part of my two hour trip home to see my parents and family, that's not exactly an option right now. Both of those businesses are the kind of things I hope can survive this. If you use this on the episode, I'll just go by "Scott B."

Anonymous

When the pandemic first hit, I found myself back on the NES playing a smattering of games on an old CRT. While I have no where to go, the shame of it is somehow I have less time to play most of the consoles I have built my collection around. That said, wii bowling has risen from the dead in my home office. If I need a little break, I knock some pins down and then get back to work. My current project--slow as it goes--is to try and finish as many mario games as I can during the "35th anniversary"... because why not?

Anonymous

Oh and Charlie Mulvey would be fine if you read my post. Thanks!

Anonymous

Let's not forget that our much beloved retro consoles are in a pandemic of their own: the capacitor plague. I've taken time from the dry husk of what was once an attempt at a social life to desolder, measure and replace capacitors in my machines. I got to my Xbox in the nick time as the infamous clock capacitor had spewed it's corrosive insides all over the delicate traces of the motherboard. Remember: capacitor failure is a function of time, not how MINT the shell of your Turbo Express is. Fellow gamers, I encourage you to act now before it's too late. Save your friends and family by staying away and save your systems by spending tedious hours with a soldering iron. They will certainly reward the effort. (And play Super Mario Galaxy 2 on Dolphin if you know what's good for you because that shit is flawless and the emulation is solid.)

Anonymous

Not much has changed overall, but working from home has definitely allotted me a lot more time to play games and dive deeper into my hellacious backlog. Retro high points include replays of Rez (in full VR), Mario 64 on switch, and Suikoden 2 on Vita via PS classics. I also played through Streets of Rage 4 with a friend through online co-op. I know it's not retro, but I'm also loving DQ11. Good times all around!

Anonymous

I started working from home in March and figured I would join the PC gaming master race so built my first PC in 15 years. Great, lots of older games to catch up on. I didn't realise until later that I was an idiot. Now my work desk and my gaming desk are the same and I'm feel I'm living in a very boring William Gibson novel. My parents always told me to go outside and play now nothing would make me more happy.

Cody C.

My partner who has largely been interested in indie games has finally been a bit more interested in the building blocks of the medium, so we’ve been trying out things on my classic consoles as well as the switch online app. We were also quite taken with how absurdly ahead Super Mario 64 was for 1996.

Anonymous

I completed several games that I’ve wanted to play for years, many of which Retronauts inspired me to dive into. Castlevania: Rondo of Blood, Symphony of the Night, and Aria of Sorrow, Resident Evil 1, 2, and 4, Pikmin, Super Mario 64 (finally, after more than 20 years!), Luigi’s Mansion, Katamari Damacy, and Super Mario Land 1 and 2, as well as retro-inspired games and remakes like Final Fantasy VII Remake, Streets of Rage 4, Chasm, and DOOM (2016). But for every game I finished I started 5 others.

Michael Castleberry

Because money is tight i haven't been able to get too many new games, but I have been getting through my backlog. Finished Kingdom Hearts: The Story so Far, as well as played through Final Fantasy VI, VI, VIII, IX and am currently on X, while also having a blast with Super Mario Bros 35.

Anonymous

[Announce my name as "Super Boy Alan," if you could, in accordance with my old pseudonym from the 1UP.com days] During the summer I decided to tackle "The Mutant Virus" for NES, because, well, 'tis the season. It's a brutally difficult and barely comprehensible cross between John Conway's Life algorithm and an arena shooter; I don't recommend it unless you hate yourself or you're trying to beat every NES game released in North America (in my case, the latter). Aside from that, I'm just sneaking in sessions with Igavania titles in my extraordinarily limited free time; I'm a PhD student in music theory in my final year of coursework, and I'm looking forward to the day when I can focus on my dissertation, which will be about musical meaning in retro video game music. (A small sample of my work from a conference presentation this past summer is available at the link below, if you're interested.) Thanks for keeping me company through many hours of grading undergraduate music theory assignments. I hope you're staying healthy and sane during this weird and difficult time. ---------- The Mutant Virus longplay: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8kz8zGyjZJM&t=2503s Research presentation from last summer (form and musical meaning in Japanese RPGs) (apologies for a few moments of clipping—I think it's an issue with PowerPoint's "export" feature) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Fj2gx4mslg

Anonymous

Quarantine has caused me to be thousands of miles away from my videogame collection, so besides the 3d Mario All-stars collection on Switch, I haven't been really playing a lot of retro games. Traditionally, I mostly game on PC, but since quarantine I have been playing a lot of the Nintendo switch. It's actually been really fun to go through all the Nintendo games I wouldn't normally play. Since quarantine, I have played through Animal Crossing, Mario + Rabbids, Luigi's Mansion 3, Super Mario Party, Hades, Paper Mario and the Origami King, Mario 64, and Mario Sunshine. I've always considered myself a diehard Nintendo fan, but the last 7+ months has made me realize there are a lot of Nintendo titles I have overlooked.

Anonymous

Like many others, I've had more time for gaming during quarantine, although not necessarily retro games. While you'd think the warm embrace of nostalgia would be welcome during these times, I've instead taken this time to catch up on some of my Switch backlog: New Super Mario U Deluxe, Celeste, Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night, and Shantae and the Pirate's Curse (the latter two being discoveries from previous episodes of Retronauts).

Kevin Bunch

I've certainly been catching up on games I've wanted to go through for a while now, which has been quite nice - stuff like the Darius games, Celeste, Game Center CX 2, and so on. But pre-pandemic one of my favorite activities was getting together with friends to play games and to go out to the local fighting game events, and I've been missing both of those a lot. The death of social lives has hit pretty much everyone hard, I'm sure, and all the online sessions in the world just can't make up for it.

Anonymous

I’ve been having a really hard time staying focused on games with lots of story during these high stress times, so I decided to pick up just about every arcade collection on PS2. Buzzing through the arcade collections of Namco, Atari, Capcom, Midway, SNK, Taito, Gottlieb, and Williams has been a joyous distraction. The stakes are low, and whether I play something for 3 or 30 minutes my distracted brain always has something new to discover. Aside from these being about 5 to 10 dollars a piece, the best part is playing a round of Bubble Bobble and other classics with my seven year old daughter. -Kevin

Anonymous

I work retail at a used bookstore that also deals in electronics (in Tucson AZ and thanks for the awesome Cowboy games episodes btw!). I've taken the opportunity of so many people selling classic consoles and games to pay their bills to beef up my collection. I've acquired a Channel F, Atari VCS, Magnavox Odyssey2, numerous NES, N64 and Gamecube games, as well as an SNES classic and a Famicom mini. A "small" price to pay for working with the public through most of the pandemic. The thing I miss the most is getting together with my friends to explore these old consoles. There's just no way to socially distance while playing these consoles. -Jorbus

Anonymous
>>46817049

Thank you for keeping up with all yr awesome Atari Archive episodes! It's your excellent series (along w/ Dr. Sparkle and Jeremy Parish [natch]) that keep us retro gamers going in these trying times.

Victor Hunter

Every summer I like to find a sunny spot that I can visit to play Boktai and pandemic times were great for that. Fewer people than usual in the nearby parks meant I had free reign to grab a bite from the taco truck and sit in the sun. So much time inside on the computer with nothing to do also meant that I've probably spent more money on online orders than ever before, for better or worse. I've probably added half a shelf worth of Saturn imports and DS RPGs that I'll never get around to playing. But for a brief moment it distracted from the ever-present darkness of 2020 so whatever I guess.

PurpleComet

Mostly I've had a chance to play through some games in the Castlevania, Contra, and Mega Man X collections. I'm pretty mediocre at the old-school Castlevania games, but they're also punishing in that "Nintendo-hard" way of the 80s and 90s. I plan to come back to Castlevania III eventually but after the first game, IV, and Bloodlines I just couldn't take being repeatedly knocked into a pit by Medusa heads again. Thank goodness for save states. I also played Mega Man X8 for the first time, having heard good things. It certainly has a lot of clever ideas, but the vehicular segments drove me crazy. And of course I picked up Super Mario 3D All-Stars, where I could switch between Sunshine and Galaxy, allowing me to fully appreciate how lackluster the former was.

SilverHairedMiddleAgedTuxedoMask

Hey Retronauts! I've been working for the United States Postal Service and as you can expect I've been working an ungodly amount of hours overtime between the panic online buying at the start of the virus to the current deluge of political mail. I haven't had much time to play home consoles but found use of my Switch at breaks/lunches to play Animal Crossing and all the free Retro games on Nintendos online service. I have the Sega Genesis Collection on Switch and I have to say, Sonic 1 doesn't hold up at all since every stage after the first is a slow boring maze stage, but Sonic 2 and 3 still hold up nicely. Super Mario Brothers 3 is still the best game of all time, and its bite sized levels are excellent fodder for my 15 minute breaks - Eric

José Jacob

Just wanted to say thanks to Diamond for the audio versions of his This week in retro segment. I have really been enjoying these. They are great whilst waiting for the next episode of retronauts to download.

Jason H.

While in quarantine, I was inspired by the recent deep dive into Silent Hill 2 Episode to finally play this survival horror classic. I went so far as digging out my old Sharp standard def tube TV I've kept around since college just to get the full experience. So I dusted off my PS2 and tracked down a copy of the game disc and discovered for myself what makes this game so great. Playing through from beginning to end felt less like playing a video game and more a case study examining human guilt and suffering. I liked that there was no connection to the original outside of exploring the namesake town. It felt fresh and new and allowed the designers to go deeper with exploring more mature themes than the original did on PS1. The way each of the characters deals with guilt in their own way and the repercussions it causes is both sad and beautiful in the game's presentation. This is Konami at the height of their powers and I often think what the Silent Hill franchise would have been if the creators had kept with this anthology style approach to subsequent games in the series.

Anonymous

it would just be wild as hell to have someone mention vampire the masquerade bloodlines tbh