Episode 518: Mega Man Feature Phone Games (Patreon)

Even if we humans should truly orchestrate our own total demise by turning the rains into acid and the soil into toxic sludge, alien archeologists will dig up millions upon millions of Nokia feature phones that won't have a scratch on them. Feature phones (also known as flip phones and, best of all, "dumb phones") began mobilizing in the early aughts up until smartphones took over the cellphone market in the '10s. We said "Sayonara" to our simple games of Snake and moved on to Doodle Jump. And that's the single-page history of fliphone gaming, right? …Right?  

Not in Japan. Never in Japan. This week on Retronauts, Nadia is joined by special guests RockmanCosmo and Naoya Shinota, both of whom are deeply involved with finding and preserving Japan's extensive library of feature phone games. Turns out the country enjoyed a very fruitful era of mobile gaming that bypassed the rest of the world, an era that included Final Fantasy games, Mega Man games, and tons more. Unfortunately, far too many of those games are attached to specific networks and phone models that are now extinct, making feature phone game preservation a unique nightmare. Listen, learn, and if you can, lend a hand to these efforts!

Art by John Pading, edits by Greg Leahy.

• 11:20 - Before Crisis: Final Fantasy VII: Theme of Elfe
• 21:08 - Before Crisis: Final Fantasy VII: Theme of Turks
• 32:21 - Dirge of Cerberus: Lost Episode -Final Fantasy VII-: Flicker
• 46:48 - Rockman DASH: Great Adventure on 5 Islands!: Ilks Island
• 1:01:46 - Rockman EXE Phantom of Network: VS Cache
• 1:13:31 - Rockman EXE Legend of Network: Internet Area
• 1:22:57 - Rockman EXE Phantom of Network: Virus Busting
• Closing - Guns N' Roses: "Sweet Child o' Mine" (MIDI Ringtone ver.)