Abnormal Mapping
Abnormal Mapping is a monthly game club of Em and Jackson, talking primarily about old games with an eye to critiquing without nostalgia.
Episodes
We return to a game we played near the very start of the podcast, but … in port form? Much to discuss about the place of ports as transformative work and also the strange routes of design lineage, especially when we talk about NiGHTS and Sonic Team’s peculiar ideas about what 3D gaming should look like. A TRULY action packed episode.
We play a bunch of classic phone games and talk about an era of small games that feel like they vanished from the earth. This was a great walk down memory lane, even if we mostly talk about Device 6.
Thank you so much as always for listening, please rate and review the podcast, and tell al...
Surprise! One final Abnormal Mapping before the end of the year. Jackson is joined today by Erin to get thoughts down about the most baffling Game of the Year in recent history, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. It is a game that has kicked off a ton of discourse most of which talks around the actual game itself, which is what this podcast is about. I could not car...
This one was in the can way before the new Mega Man was announced, but I’m glad they finally listened to us and made another one of these. But we went back to the first evolution of classic Mega Man with two of the less respected but surprisingly disparate entries in the Mega Man series. Hope you enjoy!
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This Abnormal Mapping needed an extra week to cook, but it’s finally here for you to enjoy! We talk about a bunch of arcade games, Capcom’s inability to tell a good story (charm point), and Jackson is the one who brings up gacha this time??? Please enjoy the episode!
Thank you so much as a...
After months of chipping away at it Em finally completed Persona 5 Royal, which means she invited two of her most Shin Megami Tensei-brained friends to come on and talk about the game. And oh boy, did they ever talk about the game. Over two nights! This is a big one.
Niamh podcasts on Expo...
Some games are just very okay to the point where you don’t have too much to say about them, but thankfully we have some other gaming to keep us going as we poked through some photos and perspective puzzles this month.
Thank you so much as always for listening, please rate and review the p...
We played a classic of the greatest console ever made, the Nintendo 64, this month! How did Em find returning to a game she 100%ed long ago? How did Ace Combat superfan Jackson find Nintendo’s take on the genre? All this and more in this episode!
Thank you so much as always for listening, ...
A small and fascinating puzzle game gets us through a rough month this week as we talk about score chasing, the tone of indie games in aesthetics vs mechanics vs story, our feelings about short games, and more. This was a pretty solid little game!
Thank you so much as always for listening...
We play a small detective game and come away with a nice appreciation of adapting the mystery story into mechanics, a discussion about light investment gaming, and our appreciation for genre work that thrives in their own little gaming ecosystems.
Thank you so much as always for listening...
We’re joined this month by Nora Blake of Export Audio to talk about her and Em’s favorite dead Konami franchise: Castlevania! We’re playing the first PS2 game, a certified mid classic, a game that asks can you really get ten hours out of five rooms? The answer is: kinda?????
Thank you so ...
We played an old SNES game today and talk about the elemental qualities of RPGs and action games. Also, Jackson keeps gaming, and Em makes ambitious plans to tackle a too-big game.
Thank you so much as always for listening, please rate and review the podcast, and tell all your friends on w...
We’re playing two not very classics of their respective genres today as we go back to the back half of the 90s to play an early action game and a relatively early 3D platformer. We’re kind of split on which game we prefer along lines I expect you’d predict, but we both had a pretty good time with both games anyway! Also, before that, Jackson gives the MOTHER o...
We tackle a newer game this month as we talk about the critically acclaimed adventure game 1000xRESIST. We found plenty to love and plenty to pick at during our time with this one, but it’s exactly the kind of messy game we tend to like around here, so we’re glad we played it and I hope you enjoy listening to us talk through it!
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We close out the year by playing one of the most infamous games we’ve ever covered, a game that has been a running joke and shorthand for bad game for nearly twenty years. And yet, do we find the judgment of history fair? Do we believe in redemption for a certain blue hedgehog and the anime princess who loves him? We’re going to try our best, as we finally pla...
We’re joined by Dia Lacina once again as Ryo continues the next leg of his quest to track down Lan Di, his father’s killer. What strange challenges will he find in China? How does Yu Suzuki follow up one of the most ambitious, incredible games of all time? We find ourselves surprised at almost every turn as Shenmue II goes big and goes small and goes adventuring!
Thank you so much as always for listening, please rate and review the...
One of the hot new releases of … wait, 1999? That can’t be right. Oh, it’s a fan translation. One of the hot new fan translations hitting the inter-oh I’m being informed the fan translation is from three years ago! How embarrassing. Well, we’ve been meaning to play this one for a hot minute, and when Em finally tried it they were so instantly in love with it they insisted we cover it for the podcast. So we did! Turns out, we had a ...
Sometimes you decide to finally pick up one of those games you’ve always heard of but never got around to, the curiosities that you are pretty sure aren’t must plays, but stick in your brain anyway. Some might argue this has been the history of Abnormal Mapping at large! But this month we do one of the epitomes of this style of game as Em chose one of the big PS2 curiosities from the era of “I can’t believe they localized that!”
Tha...
Jackson is joined today by official Final Fantasy Correspondant Austin Walker to talk about Final Fantasy XI - specifically the base game and Rise of the Zilart. It’s been a busy MMO summer and we simply needed to get it out of our systems and into microphones somewhere. Please enjoy this three hour tribute to a game that’s still around and still good as hell.
Thank you so much as always for listening, please rate and review the pod...
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