Intelligent Gamer 2 - Jumping Flash! 2 [S1E7] - FunFactor

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
So hey, Aidan, what was gaming's greatest year?

Speaker 2 (00:04):
Gaming's greatest year? Nineteen ninety five? Front of trigger.

Speaker 1 (00:09):
Okay, yeah, of course, well very close. This magazine is
more intelligent than you, Aiden, because they picked nineteen ninety six.
You've got fun Factor. Two old gamers reviewing old video
game magazine reviews. I'm Ty Shelter, He's Aiden Moher, and

(00:31):
we're two professional writers who grew up loving the video
games and video game magazines of the nineteen eighties, nineteen nineties,
and two thousands. Every episode we take a critical look
back on the games media that, for better and for worse,
inspired us to do what we do. First, go to
funfactorpod dot com and follow the show on your podcatcher
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(00:52):
or wherever you get your media. We'll read the best, kindest, funniest,
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Please consider become I'm a member of fun Factor Ultra,
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(01:16):
out on blue Sky at funfactor pod dot com or
anywhere else at Funfactor Pod. And it's been a lot
of news in the news about print magazines, the specialty
of our show, digital media, the past of which the
future of which are all colliding. We launched our podcast
the day that Gabe Informer announced they were coming back,

(01:37):
both as a digital and a print media magazine. We've
guessed it on people who've talked about print magazine's. A
good friend of the show, Darren Houpkey has a retro
game zine project I was proud to back, and I
know you've contributed to that collection. Can't wait to see
those magazines in print, hold them in my hands. I

(01:58):
wanted to talk a bit about that today, in the
divide between digital and print media and what would it
mean to have new games magazines today. Yeah, I mean,
obviously print media games media is so important to both
of us, but I've also found myself in recent years
trying to integrate it back into my life a little bit.

(02:19):
There's not a lot out there, but you know, I
picked up a print subscription for Wired Magazine. I'm supporting
Nintendo Force on Patreon and I get a physical paper
magazine from them regularly. There's you know, stuff like profound
Waste of time, Darren's work on retro as Retrozine, like
where I can tangibly sit and read something and that

(02:42):
changes my experience so much that I think it's something
we're really missing. For me personally, when I'm sitting there reading,
I never feels like work in the way that like
engaging with any online media where it feels, you know,
like work in a weird way, because I always feel like, oh,
how can I use this? Do I need to have
a take on like should I share that? Or should
I not? Really just consuming it for myself, and that,

(03:06):
to me is the big difference when I sit down
with an issue of Nintendo Force and like read through
their previews and their reviews, because it's not written in
a way that's trying to generate clicks at that very second. Right,
the lifespan of online digital media is so short because
it only cares about like intense, short term results reading
a feature and Wired is not that it wants to persevere.

(03:27):
It wants to, like you know, be something that has
a long tail and just exists as itself. It's not
in reference to a whole bunch of other things that
you're gonna have to click through. It's not trying to
keep you on the computer or in your web browser
or on that website for as long as humanly possible. Yeah,
and that feeds right into I was trying to think, like,
what does what would a periodical in today's you know,

(03:50):
monthly periodical in today's environment mean Obviously, news doesn't really
you know, track It's something I said for years about
newspapers or like, you know, the idea that people are
going to pay money for a printed version of literally
yesterday's news just doesn't make any sense, right, So I
don't think news as such can fit in a magazine.

(04:10):
But previews, you know, if you get long enough advanced
time right to be able to print out and stuff,
that makes a ton of sense. Reviews obviously, you can
review anything. You and I can sit here we're reviewing
these old magazine reviews. We could just as easily play
the games and review the games. And many people have
gone back and played games that they were they were
not alive they were released, right, Yeah, and like review

(04:32):
them like through a lens of like cultural criticism, not
trying it again. Like the previous episode where we talked
about game Fan, we talked a lot about, you know,
the idea of consumer style criticism versus like you know,
arts criticism, and we can look at these and talk
about these games in a way that is like cultural criticism,
that looks at them and their impact on the world,
not as a product that needs to sell.

Speaker 2 (04:53):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (04:54):
I think that's a great way to look at it.
Something that we've been talking about again with so many
websites being shut down and publications being just decimated or
hollowed out and reduced to just content shells or just
guides places, you know, really stepping back and going, let's
do this art as art, you know, let's look at

(05:16):
this media as media, and let's evaluate video games as
standalone cultural objects and just completely divorce it from this
is it worth the money aspect. I think that's something
that magazines can do really, really well. And I think
there are reviews that could stand alongside you know, film
reviews like put those get those writers, give them that

(05:39):
time in that space, and then give them that permanence.
Because I'm aiden, I Teamy would slap myself for even
suggesting this, but there is still something about holding physical
media in your hands. There is still that remove I think,
you know, and I've never been a and I will
never be a like, oh, you know, reading on the

(06:03):
internet is not really reading, or you know, reading on
your phone is like not really reading. Like, yes, it's
still really reading. So I'm never going to be a
snob about walking into a you know, a used bookstore
and like ah, this is you know, the archives and
the smell, like I like those things, but I'm not.
I don't fetishize it. I don't put it up above
reading great articles or great books on a screen. But

(06:26):
I do think there is something physical. Yeah, I mean
like we live in a physical world, and there is
something where you're connecting multiple senses to a single piece
of you know, whatever it is you're consuming that I
think is really important and you just don't get that
as much through you know, digital reading. I've obviously my
whole career is based off like writing online, so I

(06:49):
obviously think it has immense value. But I think that
there is something in our brain when we're holding something
in our hands and engaging with it deeply that just
changes the way that we experience that. And I think
like coming back to the idea of like what what
a magazine or a periodical look like. Now, well, they
exist and they're out there and they're great. Like we've said,

(07:10):
you know, Nintendo Force a profound waste of time. There's
lots of good examples of this. Sasha's Retrobites does a
great fanzine called scan Lines that I love, again bringing
up Darren's work. You know, there are books. Retro game
Books puts out fabulous books. There's you know, so many
like examples of how we can put out physical print

(07:31):
media about video games. It works, it's more about how
do we connect it with readers at a scale that
allows it to like support itself, not necessarily grow. But
when there's so like such a lack of infrastructure for
actually creating these at sustainable costs so that people can
make them, that's I think where things get a little harder.

(07:54):
But I liked I think it was Josh Rivera on
Blue Sky was saying, like, hey, if people are looking
at you know, making you know, new games media, like
understand that you need to approach it as a part
of culture, write about it as culture, and get it
into the hands of people who read about culture. Not

(08:15):
just stuff for video game fans, but write yes, criticism
and right features and interviews that somebody who loves movies
and books and film, I said, movies, but film, music, books, theater, writing,
Like I read about all those things because I like
all of those things. We need to do the same

(08:36):
with games and don't segregate it so much. Make culture
magazines that include and respect games as culture. And I
think that's an important step forward, getting beyond the idea
that any coverage of video games has to eventually lead
to this endpoint of selling video games. Whether that's because
you know, sites like poly Gone, uh, you know, they

(08:57):
put out great games criticism, but at the end of
the day they're supported by you know, ad sales from
companies that want to sell video games. And so how
do we break out past that? And that's where worker
owned sites and journalism and stuff comes into play. But
we'll see, you know what that looks like, what that
shapes out to over time. Well, for this week's episode,

(09:20):
Zif Davis publishing twenty nine years ahead of its time
and getting digital contact into print, because we're looking at
Intelligent Gamer magazine number two, which was literally a college
kid with a website that they hired and gave him
a magazine. It is time to open the cover of

(09:43):
Intelligent Gamer. I'm very excited to do this. Before we
get there, if you're not already a member of fun
Factor Ultra getting ad free episodes, hang tight through the break.
When we come back, we will flip through Intelligent Gamer
number two and their review of Jumping Flash two. Welcome

(10:19):
back to fun Factor, where two old gamers review old
video game magazine reviews. Of course we want you to
review us. Do we get a full five point zero
fun Factor? Leave us review on Apple podcasts or a
comment on YouTube, and we will read the best, funniest, kindest,
and most entertaining ones on the air. Aiden It's July
nineteen ninety six. The cover of the second ever issue

(10:42):
of Intelligent Gamer declares we are in the middle of
gaming's greatest year. The PlayStation and Saturn are not just out,
but already maturing consoles with some of the biggest games
they would ever see previewed in this issue. Nintendo sixty
four launched in Japan within like a week of when
this issue shipped, and their coverage fresh from E three.

(11:04):
It's right here in this issue Intelligent Gamer is rising
with the dawn of this glorious new era and aid
knowing what you know about me and my teenage drive
to feel like I am grown and smart and cool.
What do you think I thought about Intelligent Gamer. I
think you probably thought it made you look smart and cool,
and it probably did.

Speaker 2 (11:24):
No. No, but you like the next gen.

Speaker 1 (11:27):
I am almost fifteen years old, Aiden, I know I'm
an intelligent gamer. Do not pander to me. This magazine,
Intelligent Gamer is clearly for smart thirteen year olds who
wish they were as smart as me. Maybe fifteen year
olds who think they're intelligent but not as intelligent as me,

(11:49):
who is actually intelligent? Mmmm?

Speaker 2 (11:52):
Right, that's you should.

Speaker 1 (11:53):
Have been writing for Intelligent Gamer.

Speaker 2 (11:55):
Thank you, thank you? Yes, fair enough correct intelligent Gamer.

Speaker 1 (12:00):
Come on, What I did not know, could not have known, really,
is that intelligence Gaber was in fact, way ahead of
its time. In the summer in ninety fives, If Davis
relaunched Electronic Games Magazine as Fusion, trying to create a
multi media magazine that covered movies, TV and geeky entertainment

(12:26):
in general. I'm gonna drop this into the doc here.
I've already got it you'll see it if you're watching
on YouTube the visual version here, but in here in
the document can see now this cover Fusion, the Magazine
of Interactive Entertainment. This is so nineties in so many ways.

Speaker 2 (12:50):
That's really cool.

Speaker 1 (12:51):
We've got this like retro future, like remember the fifties.
Kind of the Fusion logo it self looks like a Nintendo, like,
you know, one of the weird Nintendo ads from that time.
We're like the you know, like Yoshi's making people explode
and stuff.

Speaker 2 (13:05):
But yeah, you've got.

Speaker 1 (13:07):
A guy with like retro future goggles to say, sensory overload,
sensory overload, and like you got Wi World in there.
X band, Yes, yes, there's water is a three to
zero on thin ice at this retro future man screaming
with his eye goggles, barely able to take in his
rocket ship trip through fat pipe cyberspace. Sensory overload, Oh

(13:29):
my gosh. Unfortunately, there was also an overload of just
sort of general entertainment magazines pitched toward geeks at the time,
So pivoting away from video games meant pivoting from being
a medium fish in a small pond to a tiny
fish and a Gigantic one, so after a year they
pivoted back to video games. I made the actually futuristic,

(13:52):
actually bold decision to hire Jeremy jer Horowitz Aiden. Can
you read for me these excerpts of a post that
they're horo. It's made to the Usenet group wreck dot
games dot video dot Nintendo. On April eighth, nineteen ninety five,
We're very proud to announce the official Www opening for

(14:15):
the first complete online video games magazine, Intelligent Gamer Online.
For the longest time, people on the Internet have been
saying what a great idea it would be if a
bunch of the nets game reviewers and news sources could
get together and work on a project in tandem. Well
it happened, starting back in January. Our temporary address is

(14:38):
http colon forward slash forward slash ig online dot escape
dot com. And though it might take a while for
your Www surfer to locate the address, it should indeed
find it. Escapes server and t one line have been
fritzen for a couple of days, so if you don't

(14:59):
connect quickly, try try again. We'll be at www dot
ig online dot com within a month, so keep the
address handy if you like what you see. The main
goal of Intelligent Gamer Online is to offer gamers and
articulate alternative to what's already out there. Please give our
pages a solid looking over and when you're done, leave

(15:20):
us comments so we can improve our upcoming issues. Incredible.
I absolutely adore the fact that they launched on like
their dev server before they could get the DNS switch
to like go through ww site. So good, brilliant sign
of the times too. And I also love that like
quote unquote, for the longest time people on the Internet

(15:42):
have been saying, like, it's nineteen ninety five. Man, oh yeah,
it hasn't been that long. Oh yeah, pretty pretty cool stuff.

Speaker 2 (15:50):
I like it. I like it.

Speaker 1 (15:51):
I do too. Horowitz had been running Intelligent Gamer as
a Prodigy site. If you were on the Walled Garden
that was Prodigy. He brought it onto the Capitol W
web and again it was with Capital W in that
post that used that post as well in the spring
of ninety five, running it as a bi weekly online magazine.
Other magazines and writers had web presences at the time,

(16:14):
as we've discussed, But if this wasn't the first major
web only gaming magot was certainly very early and did
grow a relatively big following. About a year later, Sendai Publishing,
a zif Davis imprint, buys Intelligent Gamer Online, gives Horowitz
the reigns of Fusion, and they rename Fusion Intelligent Gamers Fusion.

(16:36):
This lasts like two months before they throw out Fusion
and we get Intelligent Gamer Number one, a zif Davis
magazine with the sole branding dreamt up by its acqua
hired editor in chief, who, according to his LinkedIn and resume,
was a senior at the University at Buffalo at the time.
This lasts for eight issues. Hey hey, we're only on

(17:01):
episode seven.

Speaker 2 (17:02):
We can't judge yet.

Speaker 1 (17:03):
No no, no no no no, but hey. So Horowitz leaves,
pursues his MBA, goes to Cornell for law school while
still freelancing for zif Davis and other major outlets. He
edits the Cornell Law Review, Graduates cum laud, all while
developing like a serious foodie thing, apparently because he then
launches Buffalo Chow, a hyperlocal restaurant review site, and I Lounge,

(17:27):
a national, global sort of Apple ecosystem news review and
lifestyle magazine for Apple products. He ends up opening a
one hundred and twenty seat Tapas joint in Buffalo while
working as a senior editor for nine to five Mac
dot Com. In twenty seventeen, he inevitably moves to California,

(17:48):
where apple and food is as opposed to Buffalo, New York.
Then he first writes for Venture Beating games Beat. In
twenty twenty one, joins Allison Worldwide, a PR firm, to
create quote executive thought leadership content. He then jumps to
Adobe spends two years full time at Adobe creating more
executive thought leadership content focused on cloud and AI stuff.

(18:11):
At the time of this recording, is back at Allison
with a more senior title. But in case you're worried,
he got lazy in his old age approaching and probably
right about fifty thinking, he gave up the multi class
freelancer dabbler life. No. In twenty twenty four, he launched
oh C Alpha, a trusted guide to Orange County, California's

(18:32):
best dining, art, shopping, and attractions. This guy's career is
just like mine, except way better. Across the board. Fifty
eighten year old me has been utterly served. Jared Horowitz
was always the more intelligent gamer.

Speaker 2 (18:45):
That's a pretty impressive resume, like genuine genuinely, like it's.

Speaker 1 (18:50):
A lot And that's one of the things that stands
out from a lot of these like Masthead read throughs
that we do is like there are people on these
mask heads that go on to do massive things. You know.
I'm looking through the rest of the Masthead and I'm
seeing like, you know, senior editor for Intelligent Gamers, John
rich Yardy, who you know now works at eight four

(19:13):
and has forever and has probably translated and localized a
bunch of your favorite video games, from fire Emblem to
Zeno Blade. I'm looking further through. Mark McDonald is in there,
who I know from e GM and one Up, but
it's now working on stuff like Tetris Effect and a
bunch of big games. Chris Johnston, you know, who's Who's
a friend of the show, somebody who I've always admired. Like,

(19:33):
there are some pretty impressive names in there. There's also
one interesting name right at the end of the contributing
editors section that I'm curious about, mister David Rubin, And
I wonder if that's the same, if that's Dave Rubin,
a right wing political commentary person who came from sort

(19:54):
of an entertainment background, nothing on uh on Wikipedia, but
he's the right.

Speaker 2 (19:59):
A it's interesting too.

Speaker 1 (20:03):
Yeah, there's one I want to point out here that
we'll get to you later. Foreign correspondent Akira Kishimoto. I
cannot find an Akira Kishimoto. However, looking through issues of
Intelligent Gamer, I noticed, and we'll get to it. There
is a lot of Japanese coverage and a lot of

(20:24):
quality Japanese coverage that, at least in my opinion, doesn't
you know, fetishize or otherwise as much. Right, it's still,
of course talked a lot about this is what it's
like in Japan. We don't get all these games. Why
don't they localize our games? Et cetera, et cetera. But
it definitely reports on hate, like and there's a spread

(20:45):
in this. We'll get to it, like a report from Aikiabara. Hey,
this is how people buy games in Japan. Right, And
I absolutely cannot find any proof that this person exists
or wrote in any other other website or anything. So
I'm I'm gonna keep I'm gonna keep poking around at
that because this was an era where ah, there were

(21:10):
some white writers who uh pretended to be Japanese.

Speaker 2 (21:16):
I'm thinking of a.

Speaker 1 (21:18):
Marvel Comics editor who fully created a Japanese person from
whole cloth and just just pretended they had a Japanese
person on staff to kind of dodge questions of authenticity.
So I'm it's just interesting. I'm not saying, you know,
if a Kia Kishimoto is listening to this, I apologize
for throwing shade on you in any sort of way,

(21:42):
but I can't tie this to anything. And of course
the search results are all goofed up because Kishimoto is
the surname of a great manga artist, and then Akira
is a manga and anime, and then a bunch of
people have taken one name or the other for their
forum handles and whatnot. So it may just be that
the is so poisoned I'll never be able to tease
it out, but we The end result is intelligent Gamer

(22:05):
had some ahead of the curve coverage of Japanese games
and gaming. Very cool.

Speaker 2 (22:12):
Aiden.

Speaker 1 (22:13):
Uh, do you notice something about just this editorial page here.
We got the letter to the editor, we got the masthead,
we got the logo, we got the layout. Anything ring
a bell, anything ring a bell does ah? Look familiar
in any way to you. I mean, it looks pretty
Ziff Davisy to me, uh, for that era. But I'm not.

(22:34):
I don't know what you're uh, I don't know what
you're throwing down here. This is next gen, like, this
is next generation. The font, it's the same font like
the main font. I think I was looking back and forth.
I think the waiting or curning might be a little
bit different. But I was a huge next Generation fiend,
and when I saw this on you know, on the

(22:55):
news shelves, I was like, wow, this is the same
font as next Gen. And if you skip ahead a
couple pages, get to the letters section, same thing. Again,
it's the same font, and the editor's responses are in
blue to the letters that are in black, which again
is exactly the same as next Generation. And I need

(23:18):
to do I'm I had a whole moment reading this
first letter, and there's layers to this, Okay, but first
let's do the flip through. So aiden there's layers to this, right,
I'm having a moment with this first letter from your countryman.

(23:41):
Kwang Su read this for me, and I think you
and this letter writer share another very important aspect of
your personality.

Speaker 2 (23:52):
Okay, so the.

Speaker 1 (23:53):
Letter is titled I want my hand drawn graphics and
they say trilogy gamer. Way back when Paul Gone, render motion,
captured and digitized graphics appeared, I.

Speaker 2 (24:03):
Thought that they were really cool.

Speaker 1 (24:05):
Today I pined for the days of hand drawn graphics.
That's right, good old two dimensional some human, not a computer,
drew it graphics. What really irks me about the so
called quote unquote new generation of games is that their
graphics aren't really new, and neither is their gameplay. But
that's another letter. I mean, look at Loaded. The graphics

(24:27):
in that game are poor. The moment you zoom in,
the picture gets completely blocky. It's like I'm playing with
my Commodore sixty four, not to be confused with the
Nintendo sixty four. Let's face it, polygons don't work too
well for many types of games. Certainly they're about the
only choice for driving games, but why are so many
action games using those awful polygons. Rendered graphics are also

(24:49):
pretty sad. Donkey Kong Country was great the first time around,
and then the graphics got boring. There was no personality
in them at all. Personally, I think that hand drawn
graphic convey way more style and flare than any polygon
or rendered art. I just thought i'd bent that out.
Perhaps Titles like Virtue Fighter three and k I two

(25:11):
Killer and Sting two, Yeah.

Speaker 2 (25:12):
I couldn't tell. I thought it was K twelve.

Speaker 1 (25:14):
I thought so too.

Speaker 2 (25:15):
It's a killer in Thing two are going to change
my mind.

Speaker 1 (25:19):
But right now I'm going to be cynical. Quasu Calgary
Obert of Canada. You know, you say we might have
something in common, the two of us being both from Canada.

Speaker 2 (25:31):
This was actually my alter ego in nineteen.

Speaker 1 (25:35):
When I wanted to appear like I had authentic opinions
about Japanese games, I gave myself a non Japanese name
and presented myself. Now, yeah, I mean, I you know
how I feel about this era of polygon graphics. I
think that there was the same way we're seeing. You know,

(25:58):
remember the push to three D TV a few years ago.
Nobody really like needed it, but it was like they're
constantly having to push new tech forward, and there's sort
of that kind of capitalistic you know, push for new
adoption of new tech so that people are spending money
on new things.

Speaker 2 (26:14):
And and I.

Speaker 1 (26:15):
Think like three D graphics were obviously necessary at a
point at some point for video games, but you know,
it came with so many compromises in the mid nineties,
and like I've said, I've never really been a fan
of them now. That said, we could never have got
waver A sixty four, for instance, without polygonal graphics and stuff.

Speaker 2 (26:34):
So like, it did open up new.

Speaker 1 (26:38):
Opportunities for new game design and new game pla experiences
that never could have happened if we hadn't made that
transition at that time. But I it's very rare that
I go back to those games and think they look
good or hold up well. I agree with you. You know,
I didn't agree with you at the time, partially because

(26:58):
I was I got the PlayStation right, and so I was.
I was love with it, I wanted more of it.
But I obviously if you'd asked me at the time,
you know, what's a more mature art style, what's a
more mature graphical style, you know what looks better overall?
I would still tell you, you know, the best two
D pixel games look better than you know, even most
of the best three D games at the time. That's

(27:19):
kind of what the editor replies relative to hand drawn artwork,
rendered and polygonal artwork are still in their infancy. Most
three D artists today attempt to create realistic renditions of
what exists, or two D versions of previously two D
cartoon artwork. Few three D game artists have attempted to
be Picasso's dollies or Esher's, as it's far easier within
large game companies to be a Michelangelo or a text Avery.

(27:41):
Give the industry some time to catch up to the
new technology, and aiden. This is my Mandela effect moment
because that texts Avery. I didn't know who tex Avery was,
and I remember and I thought it was a next
generation letter to the editor response where it was a
similar complaint about three D graphics not looking as good

(28:05):
and them saying something very similar about you know, this
is a new maturing technology. And so my memory of
it is that they said something like, uh, you know,
so give the technology time because you know, there haven't
been any Michelangelo's or even techs Avery's, and I remembering like,
what's tech Savery, and then looking it up and going, oh,

(28:27):
text oh the one Looney Tunes got okay, Yeah, I
remember this guy. I remember those cartoons and thinking, oh, yeah,
I guess yeah. I remember thinking of them holding up
tex savery as a like, this should be achievable soon,
you know, cartoony but unique and standout right, But that
was grouped in with a like a goal right, like,

(28:49):
and then here it's a Picasso, Dolly or Escher yet
because we're still working on Michaelangelo and tex savery realistic
and cartoony, And I'm like, have I I completely misremembered
this comment A tie from the future here. I just
wanted to say I was totally making stuff up. Yeah,

(29:12):
I hallucinated this comment as being a next generation comment
and misunderstood who was talking about who in what context.
I cannot find any evidence. I still say that being
a text Avery is not being lesser than a Pablo
Picasso or whatever. A cartoony is still stylistic and interesting
and pure realism, and fidelity is not the only goal

(29:35):
in and of itself. But of course, thirty two bit
games at the first generation's launch could have been either
more fidelity or more cartoony, or any of these other things,
and it would have been an improvement, all right. So
I didn't give the numbers up ahead of the time
because I had this great transition all worked out. I
wanted to tell you, intelligent gamer, it's a little on

(29:57):
the short side. This is July nineteen ninety six, again,
second issue ever, only ninety eight pages of editorial, only
seventeen games reviewed, which is thirteen two page reviews and
four half page capsules. Only three systems reviewed for PlayStation
Saturn and PC Windows ninety five, as they called it.

(30:21):
So we're going to see this theme over and over
where they're going deeper on a narrower focus, and you
have a much shorter magazine and less variety than any
of its contemporaries. Right so even so then that means
we have a lot to get through. Really interesting. Just
flip forward one more page, we get to your high

(30:42):
end gaming hits the mainstream. And again this is all
coming out of E three. This is their E three coverage.
There's a ton of stuff here. And check out Nintendo
hosts Super Mario RPG Camp. You just want to read
like the first paragraph there. Yeah, anxious to educate the

(31:03):
press about the subtleties of role playing games, Nintendo of
America recently hosted a press event called Camp RPG, where
a group of reporters spent a day at Nintendo playing
Super Mario RPG and listening to talks by Nintendo executives.
This is unbelievable. We can't read this whole thing. Almost

(31:23):
every paragraph is a pull quote by itself. But they
like they have a Nintendo of America development manager Dan
Ausen come out and explain RPGs started with pen and
paper war games, eventually averging as Dungeons and Dragons by
Gary guy Dad, A bit of a Super Mario RPG
is not a pure RPG because of the many actually

(31:44):
data going on and on and on and on and no, no,
and I I am astounded. I keep being astounded aiden
how how great RPGs were, how big they are in
our mind. And I think we understood that they were,
you know, a niche interest. Yeah, a lot of times
magazine segregated rpg sometimes magazines segregated RPG reviews entirely. But

(32:05):
like the idea that they flew out a bunch of
game journalists for a full day conference, being like, this
is what an RPG is, this is where they come from.
Here's Super Mario RPG is astounding to me, and like
it's interesting. No, I don't want to like cross the
streams too much with old episodes. But the last episode,

(32:26):
we were just talking about game Fan and they were
begging for more like RPGs in their reviews. Half the
review was begging for Nintendo and Sony to put out
more RPGs. So you have these two sides of the industry, right,
like Nintendo not necessarily recognizing like how to tap into
the journalists who were covering these games and desperate for
them or just terrified interest. Weren't any seem exactly, But

(32:51):
you know, there's also like they give context here where
they say like, you know, quote unquote. Another example is
Super Mario RPG. Nintendo sold over seven hundred thousand copies
of the game in Japan. By contrast, a Nintendo executive
quietly admitted that he will be satisfied of the company
sales between two hundred and fifty and five hundred thousand
copies in the United States, And so like those are

(33:12):
you know, even at the time, those are relatively like
small ish numbers for like a big Nintendo game, where
other you know, games or series might be selling in
the millions. Uh, Dragon Quest six for instance, sold three
point five million copies in Japan. Of course, you know,
if you look back at sales data, it seems like

(33:33):
pretty much every RPG kind of hit that five hundred
to six hundred thousand copies sold, like all of the
kind of bigger RPPs FO six Corona Trigger, all of
those who more RPG and that seemed to be the
cap of RPG fans consul ARPG fans in the United
States at that point. Then Fom Fantasy seven hit and
it ended up selling whatever ten million copies or whatever,
which is crazy. There's also another wild quote that just

(33:56):
makes me laugh just below the sales data, and it's
from I'm not sure who this person is. Yoshi Subowiki,
which is a Nintendo Publications manager, says in the United States,
older players prefer action in sports games. Subiot Subowliki pointed
out in Japan, it is all right for adults to

(34:17):
play fantasy games. I am thirty eight years old and
I play Dragon Quest amazing, which just makes me feel ancient, ancient.
I I love another one here from Gail tilda and
Nintendo Publications director. According to Tilden, most RPG players need
a little help to complete their games. We just finished
a survey and found that approximately eighty percent of RPG
enthusiasts subscribe to a game enthusiast magazine, and eighty four

(34:41):
percent use a player's guide. But the eighty percent of
RPG enthusiasts subscribe to magazines, you know, versus at this
time action and sports and shooters and whatever, what percentage
of gamers were subscribing to game magazines. I think that
tells the a little bit, if that's even close to true.

(35:03):
How you and me and RPG players and the common
threat of thinking about games and playing games and what
we like about games is very telling well, And like
I find it very hard when we're going through these
not to be drawn to issues, Like when I'm picking
out issues for the episodes that I write scripts for,
I'm always like drawn to the ones of RPGs. And
and I think that like we were also seeing like

(35:24):
within Game Fan and obviously the guys at Game Players,
like the staff, there were big fans of RPGs, Like
I do think that there was probably and it's I
mean supported by these statistics here that a higher average
number of RPG fans subscribe to magazines. But then like,
isn't that like Nintendo? I feel like the answer is

(35:45):
right there guys, like, you know, pour more money into like, yes,
these games that get an inordinate number of eyes on magazines,
and you guys should be able to start selling more
of them well, which again like then Square went, oh, yeah, right,
we'll spend forty million dollars. And then follow Meantcy seven
did what it did right, and so like you know,
the answer was kind of there, just like advertise these games,

(36:07):
you know, bet on them, and it worked out pretty
well for Square, it sure did, and in fact, one
box over the next thing I was going to point out,
Square changes incentives. Square, developer of the wildly popular Final
Fantasy series bit of basically profit sharing, has announced Japanese
teams will be paid according to how well their games
do in the marketplace. A designer who creates a game

(36:29):
that sells over three million units will be paid with
an annual income of one hundred million yen, which is
roughly one million dollars. There are twenty in house development teams,
each staffed with thirty two, one hundred and fifty people,
and like this is there's no sourcing for this report
or any of these numbers, and it's not in sync
with my understanding of where things were at the time,

(36:53):
Squareesoft has twenty in house development teams, each staffed with
thirty one and fifty people in nineteen ninety six. That
doesn't is that true? That doesn't sound right to me.
That sounds huge. I remember hearing there was like over
one hundred people working on Final Fantasy seven, which is

(37:15):
not out yet. There's although those on the Final Fantasy
team are almost assured of making some pretty healthy bonuses, right,
so Final Fantasy seven is coming. They have a screenshot
of the ancient temple here, like this just seems wild
to me, and I've never heard this before. And I
don't know if there's any follow up to this since,
I mean, I've never seen anything relating to profit sharing

(37:35):
at Square. Like when I was researching my book about
RPG's page sixteen, though I wanted to jump ahead a
couple more hot top ten. We don't need to run
down the whole list of top ten, but they have
a top ten for current release, top ten arcade games,
and then editors most wanted Okay, hold tight, I did
find I mean, this is Wikipedia, but it sources from

(37:58):
Matt Leone's oral history of Phone Fancy seven. Okay, development
of the Final version took staff of between one hundred
and one hundred and fifty people just over a year
to complete. As video game development teams were usually only
about twenty people at the time, the game had what
was described as the largest development team of any game
up to that point. That's what I remember is that

(38:19):
this was one and fifty people.

Speaker 2 (38:21):
Fifty would be language exceptional, huge.

Speaker 1 (38:23):
Team at the time. So okay, I remained skeptical of
this report. Thank you, though. Let's let's look at this
hot top ten. This is really interesting because they have
current released top ten no source arcade games Top ten
courtesy of Replay Magazine, May nineteen ninety six, and then
Editors most Wanted, and so is this. They also the

(38:44):
nineteen ninety six E three show Top ten. So it's
like this is just the editor's opinions for all of
these categories except arcade games, which comes courtesy of Replay Magazine,
which makes you think it's some sort of like sales
or play rate, like what's getting the most quarters right now?

(39:05):
Really really strange. And then we end up with you know,
Editors most Wanted, okay, number one, Super Mario sixty four
sure to Tetris sphere for Nintendo sixty four. Uh, that's
like it's supposed to be sphere like s yeah ere e,
but it's sbelt Tetris and then capital p h e

(39:28):
A R, So it's a sphere that you're afraid of
because it's Tetris. And then it's like Knights wipeout Excel
piloting six step that the Dark Savior. I guess number
eight Final Fantasy seven. All right, okay, very weird for
a magazine that otherwise is like super Japan focused and

(39:49):
and you know, intelligent gamer and like really wanting all
this you know stuff that's This is just really strange
to me because I bet by the time Final Fantasy
seven actually comes out and they get their hands out,
it's gonna be a little bit a little bit higher
up the list. Go forward super quick if you don't mind,
to page twenty, big, huge, almost entirely text, whole lall

(40:12):
of text on the three d oh M two next
generation around.

Speaker 2 (40:17):
Whoa whoa, whoa, whoa whoa. I gotta stop you.

Speaker 1 (40:20):
Yeah, we're going to talk about this controller.

Speaker 2 (40:24):
Yes, right, are.

Speaker 1 (40:30):
Like, how did that make it like any sort of.

Speaker 2 (40:38):
Meeting in credit? So okay, okay, yeah, carry on.

Speaker 1 (40:44):
Oh I wowah this this was the three M two.
There was a bunch of press around it. I think
it was people were expecting a physical unit at this
E three and it didn't happen. Next Gen right about
at this time, I know, had a whole issue, you know,
cover story feature interview with Trip Hawkins on the three
D o M two spoiler alert. It never came out.

(41:07):
It never happened. This graphic that they released of the
controller is basically, you know a Sega Genesis six button
controller two like ovals or circles, kind of merged shoulder buttons,
dpad six you know, ABC X, Y Z face buttons.

(41:28):
In the middle, there's what appears to be an N
sixty four style analog stick and a select and just
the middle prong of where you would consider an N
sixty four controller to be. Note that there is no
left or right prong, so you have two circles with
a big long prong coming out from between them. No

(41:52):
pun intended in the use of the word coming there.
What Ties trying to say is it looks like a
dick with some big it looks like it and then
with some big ball the analog stick in the starting
select buttons looked like a face. It looks like a
dick with a face.

Speaker 2 (42:06):
It's amazing.

Speaker 1 (42:07):
It's like it had to have been a joke that
somehow slipped through. Yeah, I would think this physical thing
never existed, like the bottom of the joy like the handle,
like the middle like handle on and then ten to
sixty four controller like this one. It's like it's even circumcised,
like it's yeah, like.

Speaker 2 (42:29):
I do not believe that.

Speaker 1 (42:33):
There's no way this wasn't a joke that somehow got
like slipped through quality control or like pr Yeah, Holly smokes, incredible,
it's a lot.

Speaker 2 (42:42):
I kind of love it.

Speaker 1 (42:43):
Yeah, I'm reminded of did you ever see the old
story about the Nokia en gauge being goatsy oh oh yeah.

Speaker 2 (42:52):
Oh gosh, yeah, oh I love that too. That's great.

Speaker 1 (42:56):
The designer, yeah, like, because they were trying to get
this through and nobody wrote this big blog post who
you know claimed to be the designer and people you
know backed it up or whatever, but was basically like
we were on like Design forty or forty one, and
every single design kept getting rejected and I finally, you know,
I was just so mad. I went okay, cool, and

(43:16):
I just made Goatsy a video game handheld unit, and
like the fingers are there, and there's even like the ring.
There's like a like a start button where like the
ring would be in the original Goatsy picture. And then
they went, yeah, actually, no, that's great and approved it.

Speaker 2 (43:33):
Ah never.

Speaker 1 (43:36):
Hotly smokes, you're blowing my mind here, toped. I was
absolutely still, this is not going to make sense to
anybody under the like a certain age, but this is
like the most millennial like mind blowing, like terminally online
millennial moment ever. So you're looking at the slide right
now if you're watching on YouTube, and if not, there'll
they'll be. I'll put it in the show notes real quick.

(43:58):
I'm actually gonna skip over most of what the meat
of this issue is, which is the E three coverage
of Nintendo sixty four Got except it's like page twenty
two oho the new Console War and they're talking, you know,
obviously they're super excited about getting the hands on pilot Wings. Mario,
we see nights. There's a great one hundred and ninety

(44:19):
nine dollars Saturn and one hundred and ninety nine dollars Modem.
Obviously that did not happen. Sonic Extreme very famously. This
game was shown at E three and was one of
several completely failed attempts to translate Sonic into three D
and put it on the Saturn. There's even a little

(44:39):
sidebar here called no shows most of Sega's arcade games,
Daytona USA CC edition, Virtua Fighter three, Sacred Pools, a
bunch of games that they were expecting to see at
E three that did not arrive. I'm going to keep
flipping past the the E three stuff, and now we're
going to get to what I kind of a louse

(45:00):
to number page thirty eight. Here a kiya Bara the
Electric Town and this I remember references to a kiya
Bara in other magazines, right, but this was like an
actual kind of like on the ground guide to Okay,
if you come here, this is the famous video game district,
what can you expect? And it's like a two page feature.

(45:23):
And again this is all done very much with a
like you know, on the ground. There's original photos, this
original reporting. Again it's it's credited to A. Kia Kishimoto,
and it's just it's really interesting. We also immediately to
the right here have this ad for Shining Wisdom for

(45:46):
Sega Saturn with like a just the most nineties anime
ass are. It's it's for sh Yeah, it's so good.
It's for Shining Shining Wisdom beautiful. Yeah, like that's not
papyrus font, but that's like that one papyrus adjacent font
here Wining ten thousand dollars. I guess if you pre

(46:07):
order something with e Ga ten thousand frames of Iangi animation,
it's the most working designs add you can possibly. Oh yeah, yeah,
it's good though. It's like I really like the artists,
like watercolor, which was kind of unusual to see in
magazines at this time. It wasn't literally like the style
that you would see for art. Yeah, and the I
remember the suit of armor too, being like it almost

(46:30):
looks like like Mega Man armor and it's like, you know,
kind of like robotic. Yeah yeah in its proportions, and yeah.

Speaker 2 (46:38):
It's very cool.

Speaker 1 (46:39):
That said, of course, we also have an elf princess
who apparently has nothing better to do with her time
than stand behind the very very brave fourteen year old
in his robot shiny armor and where a low cut
bodice or his in our enjoyment. I guess, but anyway,

(46:59):
get to the pre here page forty six, and again
this just screams the next generation to me, including like
the color bars on the left hand side with the publisher,
platform developer, and of course I didn't know at the
time the next generation was also significantly just Edge from
the UK at the same time. You know, that was

(47:21):
literally the same people or some of the many of
the same people creating this content preview for Command and
Conquer Red Alert, which just got I hear a very
nice remaster that I'm super interested in playing. Fantastic game.
We played a lot of Red Alert back in the day,
me too, have a lot of fun me too, so
that one's very cool. Hyperblade, I remember loving the previews

(47:45):
that I saw this. It's like sports extreme sports. I
don't even know if this came out. This is like
everything I hated about three D, like Polygon great video games. Well,
I wanted it to be what it wasn't yet to
write I can't. I mean, what it is is it
looks like a bunch of like ketchup and mustard, like

(48:06):
falling down a drain or something. It looks like, you know,
because they sacrifice textures for speed. Is what's happening here, right.
They can't make it. They can't make it smooth enough,
they can't make it fast enough, so there's just no
texture polygons. Yeah, so no, it's it's I understand, you know,
I understand the critique, right, and it's like, uh the

(48:28):
I think it was Pete Townsend from the who was
talking about Peter Frampton being obsessed with like you know,
midi and synths in the seventies and being like, oh,
come on, guy, let's play along with the computer and
all the band numbers being like, dude, this is not
what you want it to be. We cannot play along
with the computer. The computer cannot do what you want
it to do. It does not sound good. Knock it off,

(48:52):
and like that's exactly what we have here. Uh, Dungeon Keeper.
As much as they want to look at it looks
super cool and talk about it, I want to flip
pass because we've got limited time. Here's Legend of Oasis,
which we talked before about in our last episode with
game Fan and beautiful. It looks, it looks gorgeous, it

(49:12):
looks great. Dragon Force. I didn't another working designs one.
This is the one that we just saw the ad
for or no, that was shining wisdom, right, So here's
another working designs one and you can put just like
a ton of RPG battles with like dozens of mobs
on screen at the time. Very cool.

Speaker 2 (49:33):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (49:33):
Dragon Force was one of those games that I thought
looked so cool, but I didn't have a saturn and
it just did so many interesting, impressive things and it
still does, like I think, it's still absolutely a game
worth going back and exploring if you want to see, like,
you know, some interesting things that were happening in the
mid nineties. Get to page sixty four if capsule previews,

(49:55):
and these are half page previews Crash Bandicoot, Star Gladiator
and that's just two capsule previews. Not sure why all
these others were one page previews that we have two
half page previews. Whatever. And then we get into the
reviews section. So lots of talk about here an intelligent
gamer and how they approached reviews. But first we have

(50:17):
to take a break and get a chance to hear
about your reviews of our reviews in the letters section.
When we come back, we'll review Intelligent Gamer's review of
Jumping Flash to you right here on fun Factory all right,

(50:49):
a time for our favorite section, the letters section, where
we read the best, funniest, kindest, and most fun factory
Apple podcast reviews, YouTube comments, and kind notes that you
folks drop us live on the air. You some more
if you feel kind enough, if you feel like giving
us five stars on Apple Podcasts, please go leave a rating,

(51:10):
leave a review. Tell people why you like you love
you want to keep listening to fun Factor because we
want to do it for you. Aiden, Why don't you
go ahead and read Tempest's amazing five star Apple podcast review.
Yeah so from Tempest, who's one of our favorite discord members.
It's super active in the fun Factor community, Tempest says

(51:31):
in a review titled Urn based Sports. Fun Factor is
my return to the love of the written word, my
sanctuary away from repeated YouTube video reviews. With a wide
mouthed face aligned to the right or left of the thumbnail.
The review of reviews in the magazine give insight into
the time and art of writing for games. Introspection from

(51:53):
the hosts connects the then to the now, placing history
into modern context. Thank you so much, Tempest. We really
appreciate that, and we really appreciate you and your partner
being so active on the discord. It helps keep the
fun factor community fresh and active and fun. We also
really appreciate Jason wfd on YouTube. Your comments are great

(52:14):
this one on the EGM Doom episode. Neither Aiden nor
I remember actually saying this or how we set it,
but it makes sense so I don't know why, but
who I'm sushi X, I'm radical absolutely sent me cry
laughing emoji. Keep up the great work, folks. Absolutely love
what you're doing here. We absolutely love you commenting on

(52:37):
our YouTube videos. Again. It helps us get engagement, helps
spread the word Aiden. Why don't you read the next
Apple podcast review? Five stars from JP snow eighty five.
Let's wrap this up with JP Snow's review, A love
letter to games media of yesteryear. What a fantastic concept,
brilliantly executed by Ty and Aiden. Whether the game catches

(52:58):
your attention or the magazine being spotlighted, it's a delightful
trip in the wayback machine for the zennial crowd and
older gen z, as well as providing some fascinating insight
on the evolution of games media for younger audiences. Makes
a great accompaniment to my makes a great accompaniment that's

(53:18):
a hard word, makes a great a companyment makes a
great accompaniment on my commute to work, and I highly
recommend it to any folks looking for more gaming themed
podcast to add to their rotation. Thank you so much,
JP snow eighty five. If you want to get your

(53:39):
review red on air, remember mention that Aiden's your favorite
host and do not use the word accompaniment in your review,
and your odds will go up dramatically.

Speaker 2 (53:49):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (53:50):
I'll just say some of us had piano teacher stepmothers,
and others of us did not. And it shows. Okay,
it shows, hey, whether you can say the word accompaniment
on demand or not. Stick with us through the break,
we will come back and review Intelligent Gamer number two's
review of Jumping Flash to here on Fun Factor, a

(54:12):
podcast whose name does not rhyme with the word all right,

(54:36):
we are having five out of five stars with fun today.
As always, if you are to leave us a rating
and review on Apple podcasts, we will read the best, funniest, kindest,
and most entertaining ones on the air. Let's just see
how intelligent this review of Jumping Flash two is very
interesting set up here because let Intelligent Gamer used a

(54:59):
letter grade system for graphics, sounds, gameplay, lasting power, and
then an overall grade. It doesn't look like the grades
directly influence each other. Like the overall grade, I don't
know if it's an average. If it is, they don't
say so. Like a lot of other magazines, there's a
one to three plus or minus bullet points in each category.

(55:21):
A's and A minuses were highly recommended, b's are recommended.
C plus's and c's were average, C minuses were below average.
There isn't a DAR below in this issue. I looked
up a couple others and didn't get a D. I
don't know. I don't know how often they gave DAR
below or F, so I don't have the actual grade.

(55:42):
But then again, like other magazines, there's also a bottom line,
one or two sentence takeaway for the whole thing. But
you know, for as much as this game seemed to
be aping to me next Generation and being like this
is z if Davis's next generation, Right Next had very
concise reviews, you know, usually a couple hundred words at most,

(56:04):
a half page, one or two screenshots tops, and then
a five letter system. This is a huge two page
spread with a bunch of smaller screenshots, a couple of big,
varying sizes with captions, tons of words, very small font
there's captions, there's pull quotes, there's sidebars. This is this

(56:27):
is over fifteen hundred words of a review lavished onto
our game for the day, Jumping Flash two, and I'm
that's really cool again, smaller focus. Though they only review
thirteen games, they're capsule reviews, which they literally call capsule reviews.
If you flip ahead to page eighty eight, there are

(56:47):
four literally titled capsule reviews, are still a half page
each on two pages, which is still longer than most
Next Gen reviews, you know, like those are like their
big featured reviews or like the three hundred four hundred
word half page reviews. So they really went deep on
these reviews, really went in depth. But like next Generation,
we don't have a byline. We don't have who actually

(57:10):
wrote this review. So that's there's a lot of contradictory
and interesting things there. But first in what's your history
with Jumping Flash Too, and if not too, then the series. Yeah,
I didn't play a lot of Jumping Flash Too, but
I played a lot of the original Jumping Flash and
as one of the early PlayStation games. Again, I've brought

(57:30):
this up a few times. I didn't get a PlayStation
until Fullnas seven came out, but my friend had a
PlayStation and he had a lot of these early games,
and we played the heck out of Jumping Flash. And
it was one of those three D games where, you know,
as much as I kind of dog on early three
D games because I don't really care for the visuals,
some games like Super Mario sixty four obviously, like showcased

(57:51):
a future.

Speaker 2 (57:52):
That was worth getting excited about.

Speaker 1 (57:53):
And I love super Mario sixty four. I don't think
I love Jumping Flash, but it was another game that
showed me that three D could do stuff that two
D couldn't. And so just the verticality of these levels
and the way you jumped up and kind of looked
down at your feet as you were like launching, you know,
one hundred and fifty feet in the air, was something
that I had never seen in the game before, and

(58:14):
so it made me think about game worlds and three
D space in a way that was interesting and was
different than what Super Mario sixty four was doing. Wasn't
a classic, you know, it didn't create genres and set
precedents for video games going forward. But it at least,
like a llaid a bit of my like frustrations with
the shift to three D graphics for a lot of

(58:35):
these consoles. See I did have a PlayStation early, and
I did have Jumping Flash and I loved it. I
thought it was really really cool and it was maybe
compelling as much in terms of this combination of the
much derided word cute, I was like, hey, here's a
company who's not Nintendo giving us charming, colorful visuals that

(58:59):
are still compelling and you know, again pre Super Mario
sixty four, this is about as good as it got
in that vein at this time, right, and like go ahead,
Sony was really heavily leaning into like, oh, PlayStations for
older gamers, yes, Like you're not a kid anymore and
these games aren't for kids. So like Jumping Blash did
stand out that way, it also felt to me very

(59:21):
like you know, japanesey and without me really realizing or
understanding at the time, that's what it was, and that
felt you know, fun and interesting as well. It was like,
you know, if it was a fun game to spend
time with because of how different it felt yeah, and
it technically a first person shooter. Oh, but actually it's

(59:42):
a platformer and it's three D and it's jumping, and
you know, the camera worked great, the ability to look
up and down, the ability to double jump or hit
like like jump pads or catch up drafts in Jumping
Rush too. You know, you could get really really high
up and look down and see you know, the draw
distance and the fog coming like wow, and then look

(01:00:03):
down between your feet. I remember getting it for Christmas
this year nineteen ninety or well it would have been
ninety five for the Jumping Flash one and showing my
grandma and her looking at the TV and I'm trying
to explain, see, like these are your feet, that's the
see you're looking into and like she could not get
the first person perspective concept, like she didn't physically understand

(01:00:24):
what she was looking at. And that was funny. But
as as much as I loved Jumping Flash, you know,
there's a one personality everything. It was a huge quantum
leap for Jumping Flash two for me, which came out
one year later, and it's it's wild. I didn't realize
it's like exactly one year later, Jumping Flash one released
April twenty eighth, nineteen ninety five in Japan and the

(01:00:46):
US on November two. Jumping Flash two was like April
twenty sixth, nineteen ninety five in Japan and November first
in the US. In I did eighty six, so wild,
Like that's wild to think about this turnaround. Yeah, I
mean nowadays, as we wait years and years for sequels,
that time was.

Speaker 2 (01:01:04):
Was quite an astounding time.

Speaker 1 (01:01:06):
For video games sequels and series and stuff. Yeah, And
as I looked it up a little bit, they just
took the same engine and mechanics. I went, Okay, this works.

Speaker 2 (01:01:15):
It's almost like a level path.

Speaker 1 (01:01:16):
Let's just update the graphics. And you can see in
Jumping Flash too, the draw distance is way farther, there's
way more detail, there's a lot more mechanics and stuff
to get you high. There's different physics. There's like fans
that kind of blow you around and springs, and you know,
there's a lot more advanced stuff happening there. You know,
it all just looks really amazing. The full title in

(01:01:39):
the US, I am physically incapable of saying without mimicking
the narrator, Jumping Flash too big Trouble in Little Moo
and Uh in Japan. That was a jumping flesh to
the tale of the Greatly Troubled Baron Aloha. And you know,
we've talked about do we revisit games I revisited Over

(01:02:01):
the last you know, ten to fifteen years, I've done
a lot more revisiting of games I played and go
back and beat them, you know, games that I owned
and wanted to get, or sequels to games that I
didn't have, you know, like I played the original wanted
to get the sequel, that kind of stuff, and jumping flash.
I remember One and two like blurrily in my mind
because they were similar and they had a lot of
the same things. But like the cut scenes in two,

(01:02:24):
there's all these pre rendered cut scenes. A lot of
this game story is being told again very charming, and
and the bad guy from the first one returns in
the second. But then there's a twist and it turns out, oh,
the bad guy is getting controlled by an even worse
bad guy, Captain Kabuki, which you mean the final Fantasy

(01:02:45):
series plot, Yes, game exactly exactly. So oh, now we
got to team up with the bad guy to defeat
Captain Suzuki, which is actually Captain Kabuki. I don't know
why it's captioned Captain Suzuki an intelligent gamer. Here, it's
definitely Captain Kabu. Very weird. But so we have like
cut scenes of the moomous baron Aloha's minions, like getting

(01:03:10):
drunken bars, being like, oh my gosh, we have to
face rob It again, Like how why won't he leave
us alone? You know, there's all sorts of this stuff
that we just didn't that was actually cut from the
first game. And then not only are those scenes present
again in Jumping Flash two, they also included Jumping Flash
one with the original cut scenes in Jumping Flash two.

(01:03:31):
So one of the reasons it's blurry in my mind
is that I played and beat Jumping Flash one. I
played that a bunch, but then when I got two,
I played two and one and I saw the cut scenes.
So in my mind I remembered one having cut scenes,
even though it didn't originally in its US release. It's
an interesting like approach, especially for a game that comes
out like so close together, Like you might have had

(01:03:52):
people who were worried about playing Jumpy Flash two without
having played the first one, and you can kind of
hand that to them and be like, nah, just like
play this plays better. You get the story from the
first one you get to. And also I think shows
we're starting to get into this era of Japanese companies
being aware of Western records and how maybe the difference
between Western and Eastern is not that great. You know

(01:04:16):
that maybe American North American gamers and European gamers will
buy and enjoy this stuff that they think of as well.

Speaker 2 (01:04:24):
Only we like this stuff.

Speaker 1 (01:04:27):
Yeah, however, intelligent gamer. Again, fifteen hundred words, I can't
have you read all of it. I have a little
piece here if you don't mind reading, because I think
they fell victim to their own critique here a little
bit like some of the other launch titles, though, Jumping
Flash was victimized by the media in that it was

(01:04:48):
impossible for this fabulous new experience to live up to
the hype that was created prior to the game's release. Nonetheless,
its inclusion on the sampler disc and endless rantings by
some of the same people who panned phenomenal games like
Yogi's Island ensured the game's quick success as one of
the first generation titles on the new platform only.

Speaker 2 (01:05:09):
A year later.

Speaker 1 (01:05:10):
The sequel lacks one of the key factors it pushed
the original game to such heightened popularity, novelty. So this
review then goes on to spend the next longer than
many game reviews were at the time, repeatedly bashing it
for being the same as the first game but better, which, okay,

(01:05:30):
I guess as an artistic you know critique, we're talking
about a direct follow up a year later, where that's
all most people whind from video game sequels. Give me
the same thing with better graphics, better sound, you know,
news story and like that. That's exactly what's delivered here. Yeah, yeah,

(01:05:51):
I mean, like one of the greatest, some of the
greatest sequels of all time came out in this time period,
and I'm thinking of stuff like Doom too, yeah, which
is just Doom with a shotgun and a bunch of levels. Right.
You have Street Fighter two and Turbo and like all
of those games, right, which are iterations on formula that
already worked. And so that was you know, that was

(01:06:11):
kind of the thing at that point. Even on the PC,
you were looking at stuff like Boulder's Gate or Diablo
Diablo two, like Dioblow two was it wasn't you know.
Dieoblo two is not a great example because it really
did blow up the scope of Diablo one. But the
point being that, like, you know, we weren't seeing wholesale
like reinvention, especially when the games came out of your
part and people were used to like expansion packs that

(01:06:32):
gave just more of an already great experience. And I
don't think that's necessarily a bad thing here with Jumping Flash,
like improved things around the fringes, polish stuff up, and like,
you know, let's go, especially because it probably you know,
I remember my friend had the game, But that demo
toss they're talking about, that's how I mostly played Jumping Flash. Like,
even after I got my PlayStation in ninety seven, I

(01:06:55):
played that demo so much because novelty doesn't go away.
The first time you experience something like that, it continues
to feel you know, it continues to feel good. There's
still no other game like Jumping Flash. Actually, I think
there might have been an indie like Jumpings inspired game
that came out recently or is coming out, but there's like,
you know, more or less like Jumping Flash still feels

(01:07:15):
novel and Jumping Flash two still feels novel because it didn't.
It wasn't Super Mario sixty four, which can feel derivative
to new players who played and are like, oh, well,
you know what's so special about this? It feels like
every other three D platformer. It's like, well, yeah, because
every other three D platformer crib from it, whereas Jumping Flash,
you know, there's two of them and that's it. Yeah,

(01:07:36):
And you know, novelty is an interesting thing to sort
of like dog on without without being able to contextualize
what comes afterwards. But I also do, like, you know what,
in like, I actually like that perspective of like critiquing
and turning a lens on the media and how they

(01:07:57):
kind of you know, use their platform maybe to you
know what, did it say pan phenomenal games like Yoshi's Island,
Like when we talked about the game player's issue with
Yoshi's Island, Like I was critical of their take on
Yoshi's Island because it's a classic game, you know, but
they say it looks like a game for five year
olds and it looks like it looks like a first

(01:08:19):
gen Superintendo game or something like insane like that, and
they gave it a five out of ten on graphics,
and it's like, like, I know there's a subjectivity in
games criticism and there should be, and we talk about
why that's important, but at the same time, like you
need to like there was also that feeling of that
hype cycle. And we talked earlier in this episode like

(01:08:40):
three D was pushed because they, you know, companies wanted
to sell new hardware and they wanted to sell new
development tools to developers and stuff like that, and you
could kind of feel that, like there was a push
away from games like Yoshi's Island towards stuff like hyping
up jumping Flash And in hindsight, how much of that
was sort of like games media into the hype cycle

(01:09:01):
of these new generations, and how much was like, you know,
more like you know, like criticism for criticism's sake, and
like contextualizing and placing these within context of other games
at the time or what games we're trying to do,
what technology did, how technology evolves and matures, rather than

(01:09:22):
being like, oh, this game's no good because it's not
three D, which happened a lot of them. Yeah, absolutely,
and you know, you get the sense. Ultimately, I think
that this game is not their viewer's cup of tea,
even though they praise it quite extensively for what it
does well, they're kind of like, hey, my colleagues, you

(01:09:44):
guys went nuts for this and hyped it up at
like super cool, but like it's short and it does
kind of the same thing over and over, and I
didn't like it that much. And now here we are,
and I was hoping to get something that evolved the
concept more and instead we have more of the same.
Even if I don't agree with the reviewer, I think
it's well put, and I think it's a fairly advanced argument,

(01:10:07):
but I still want you to read this next bit.
I just dropped it into the dock here as long
and also intelligent gamer. I think we have a little
bit of a we're leaning on ten cent words, a
little bit that kind of, you know, spice up how
intelligent we are. But go ahead. These graphical enhancements underlie

(01:10:28):
the backbone of improvements in Jumping Flash Too. Nearly every
object or concept created for the first game appears in
the sequel, but in Flashyr form. The roller coaster that
Robit could ride to reach different parts of a level,
and the old game is present in the new game too,
but this time water slides and rainbows accompany the coaster tracks,
which are lined with colored light and give a more

(01:10:49):
realistic sense of motion reminiscent of the racing game wipeout.
Even the details one would so often take for granted.
We're enhanced. The sky is more rich and flowing, the
shadows are more real, realistically placed, and the ground texture
seems less repetitive in every way. The small island levels
are packed with the graphic intensity that make it one

(01:11:10):
of the most beautiful games yet to offer a three
dimensional playfield. If the effortless snow and rain aren't convincing enough,
one special effect seems to never get old again. Like
the first game, small mazes appear here and there throughout
the levels where players can explore, but this time the
mazes are found underwater, as breathtaking as in the movie

(01:11:31):
The Abyss. This one effect is easily the most incredible
experience in the entire game.

Speaker 2 (01:11:38):
Okay, so I feel.

Speaker 1 (01:11:40):
Like if a direct sequel a year later takes every
single object and concept created for the first game and
brings it back in flashier, better form, you're gonna achieve
some of this stuff. You're like, the motion looks like
wipe out, the water effects look like the abyss. You
know this is this is very, very very high praise

(01:12:03):
for a game that you spend eight to nine hundred
words trashing for its own originality. Yeah, And I think
like something that's really hard about criticism is recognizing how
to look at and communicate about something like a video gamer,
book or film or music and say this is why
this wasn't what I wanted versus this is why this

(01:12:26):
doesn't succeed at what it wanted. And I think this
whole review here spends a lot of time reconciling like, hey,
I didn't love the first one and this one didn't
change my mind about that, Yeah, instead of saying, hey,
this is what the first one wanted to do, this
is why it was effective, and now the second one

(01:12:49):
improves upon that, or it takes something that I didn't
really love but you know, made things better. But ultimately
I think that's reflected in the score, like a B
plus is a pretty good score, And I think the
overall tone and tenor of the review is like, hey,
you know, I feel like this should have been more.
I feel like the concept for this game or the
execution could be so much more. I wish it was

(01:13:10):
something bigger or more suited to my taste. But and
landing on a B plus and saying basically like, hey,
if you're like Jumping Flashes is Jumping Flash but more
is an okay.

Speaker 2 (01:13:22):
Place kind of the land.

Speaker 1 (01:13:24):
But how different would it have been if they had
designed it to a different reviewer who kind of grocked
a little bit more with what the original Jumping Flash
wanted to do. The one really really substantive critique they
hit it is how short the game is and how
easy it is. How you know all the bosses can
kind of be beaten the same way. You know, there's
a gimmick halfway through again where you switch who the

(01:13:46):
bad guy is and there's more levels and you kind
of got to beat him again plus a bonus level. Right,
you got to play all the way through faster, you
have less time to complete.

Speaker 2 (01:13:53):
It, you know.

Speaker 1 (01:13:54):
So, but it's it's still not that hard, right, and
so it but they give it still a bus for
lasting power, which if you're saying, this game is only
six to ten hours at a time when replay value
and game length was something that people were desperate for
for how expensive games were, right, it's kind of weird
to me. And then the bullet points the graphics and

(01:14:15):
atmosphere make the game worth exploring fully, that's positive minus.
This process of exploration won't take too long though, and
no two player options are included. So like, if that's
your biggest hammer you're hitting and it's B minus, everything
else's graphics A sounds A minus gameplay B plus, that
lasting power kind of has to be I feel like

(01:14:36):
that should be like a C or D to drag
the whole score down to a B plus, right, you know, yeah,
that's interesting, I it is. Yeah, how they wait these things,
or if they even wait thembout all is always interesting.
But I mean, like considering too, they don't break down
their scale, but a B plus is still recommended two yeah, right, yeah,

(01:14:56):
and I do wonder like, so, you know, B B
minus isn't that far off from a B plus that's recommended,
and so I think we also have to recognize it,
like in this scale, a B plus is probably still
a pretty good score. B minus is still like you know,
middle of the road or slightly above score if they're
using that full scale. Yeah, and the flip one page.

(01:15:16):
Victory goal ninety six gets an A highly recommended, and
I feel like history is kinder to Jumping Flash and
Jumping Flash to the victory goal ninety six. I think
I remember like one or two stills from this from
another magazine. But you know, Jumping Flash, if you were

(01:15:37):
alive at the time or have done any kind of
retro gaming, you know, you know, Jumping Flash. It's a
big game. It is a big hit, you know what, Yeah,
you know it's interesting though. I mean the review before
was Space Hulk, which also got a B plus, which
I think is interesting because it's another game that I
think is like, you know, I'm very memorable for me,
even if I haven't ever played it, and it's you know,

(01:15:59):
it's a good like yeah, it's probably fine, but a
B plus kind of putting into that category of like
interesting recommended.

Speaker 2 (01:16:05):
It's an experience you.

Speaker 1 (01:16:06):
Should check out, but you know, don't mortgage your house
to buy it. But something else like we haven't touched
on in this review, as there is in the bottom
left corner, so which is a strange place to put
like a wrap up right blurb, it says the sequel
to Jumping Flash makes a graphical leap from the original
game without altering gameplay enough to lose the small captured audience,

(01:16:32):
nor to become more attractive to those who had skipped
over the first one. As such, Jumping Flash two is
highly recommended to fans of the of its prequel and
moderately recommended to fans of platform games in general. And
I think that's kind of an interesting distinction to make
because I think the reviewer here, the unnamed reviewer, probably
falls into the second category. You know, likes platform games,

(01:16:54):
wanted this to be more and that's moderately recommended. But
if you really liked what the original Jumping Flash was doing,
this is highly recommended. And so it's kind of sliding
in the you know, just right down the middle with
that B plus recommended average. And I think there's kind
of room because there's so much space here, there's room
for a bit of nuance or identifying, like, hey, if

(01:17:15):
these things sound kind of like bothersome or not worth
the money, you're probably gonna be disappointed in the game.
If this stuff doesn't bother me, because you just want
more Jumping Flash, like, go for it, you're gonna love it.
And because I do, and did like and love Jumping Flash.
That comes off as a little harsh to me, you know,
my teen self is going, yeah, what other Oh, I'm

(01:17:37):
a PlayStation owner who's a big platforming fan. Eh, Jumping
Flash too. I don't know if I'm gonna bother, Like
what what other three D platforms are you buying that
are so much better than Jumping Flash too? Right, Like
what other options do you have? You know, Like me
and my RPG thing where the other last episode we

(01:17:59):
were saying Lufia two, I was busy playing Beyond the
Beyond and hating it, you know, like there there weren't
too many other RPGs out there, but I was playing
every single one for PlayStation because I was like, come on,
give me the big, glorious thirty two bit RPG, give
me Chrono Trigger. But we have a CD worth of

(01:18:20):
space and you know, more colors and more pixels, like
let's see it, you know, And I wanted every game
to be that.

Speaker 2 (01:18:26):
If I'm a.

Speaker 1 (01:18:27):
Platform fan and I have a PlayStation. To me, there's
no way I'm not buying Jumping Flash Too if I
can afford it, And there's no way I'm not having
a good time with it. If I do. But in
where do you come down on this review? Jumping Flash too, I.

Speaker 2 (01:18:41):
Actually think it's pretty good.

Speaker 1 (01:18:43):
As somebody who was a big fan of the first game,
not too much like not too much experience with a
second game, I think that there's enough space here that
it's able to sort of air its grievances without overwaiting
them to like drag down the entire review and make
it into a negative review. Like as somebody with no
emotional attachment to this game, I get and understand that

(01:19:04):
they're saying, Hey, if you like Jumping Flashes, is more
Jumping Flash, go for it. If you're new to the series,
or you just like platformers, or you're lukewarm on the
first game, just you know, be cautious. I think that's
pretty good. I'm actually quite impressed by the quality of
the writing here and how it you know, it spends

(01:19:25):
too much time saying, oh, you know, this game is
the exact same as your first game, you know. I
wish it would say that once or twice at the
beginning and then get into what's kind of interesting or
you know about this game against not Jumping Flash one,
but other like you're saying other, you know, three D
platformers or platformers or action games or adventure games at
the time, rather than continually going back to the well

(01:19:49):
with with the first game, and so I think there's
some missed opportunity there to do that. I'd probably put
this at like, probably about a seven, Like it's a
pretty good review, but I don't think it really necessarily
like teaches me anything new about the game. I think
it does its purpose of trying to write sort of
a you know, a review that recognizes the game's pretty good,

(01:20:11):
even if it didn't work for the critic, which can
be a tough thing to do.

Speaker 2 (01:20:15):
Well.

Speaker 1 (01:20:15):
I am going to give it nine out of ten
root beer fhizzies, and I'm gonna explain because as much
as I dogged, though yeah, I don't know that exactly.
You know, I dogged the reviewer for digging too much
into Jumping Flash one and its similarities and the fact
that you know, I can tell palpably. You know, this
reviewer was disappointed by Jumping Flash one. Didn't feel it

(01:20:38):
lived up to the hype, thought it had a lot
of promise, thought it was way too short. Okay, was
hoping Jumping Flash two would fix some of those didn't
but instead just really expanded on its original strengths. The
fact that they caved on and you know, gave it
a B plus recommended explained you know how, And again
part of it is just the editorial decision to go,

(01:20:59):
We're going to give this sixty hundred words. We're gonna
give every game that we review the space and the
reviewer the space to maybe include a little bit of
historical context and what they're and explain bringing this baggage
to the review right, because in any other magazine, yeah,
we don't get those first eight hundred words, we might

(01:21:19):
not get those first thousand words right, And so that
gives me the key to unlock it and go, Okay,
seeing through all that, as a big fan of the
first game, I'm gonna freaking love some big flash Two. Okay,
two things that you know, what you were saying just
kind of stuck out to me. I think I need

(01:21:40):
to go a little higher on my review of this
review because I think that one thing that's sort of
interesting is I think I've been sort of looking at
this reviewed, reading this review because it's long, because it's
more complex through sort of a modern lens, and I
you know, as a modern review, I'd probably give it
something like a seven out of ten when I contextualize
this against other nineteen ninety six like this is a

(01:22:01):
phenomenal piece of like in depth criticism of a game
that you didn't get at Length and other similar magazines
outside of like Next Gen or whatever, And that part
of it is pretty impressive. The second part was that
I think what you were saying about the length, allowing
them to have a little bit more of that like
own experience or voice or subjectivity in here, is really smart.

(01:22:25):
It is really sharp. There's a lot of personality in
this review, but because they don't have a byline, yes,
that's a good point, doesn't hit very well for me.
I think you need one or the other. I think
you sort of need institutional like not objective criticism, but

(01:22:49):
I think if you're writing from an institutional voice without bylines,
having that personality driven writing come in is a really
hard sell because I need to know what other games
this guy likes, or this you know, like he or
she likes, to be able to tell whether this is
going to be close to my reaction. Yeah, And at
a time when other games were leaning into that and
I'd say, oh, I really like all the games that

(01:23:12):
so and so likes. Jeff Flundergrin from Like Game Players
loves the same games as me. Chris Slate likes the
same games as me. If he likes this, I'm gonna
like it. That falls apart when you don't have those
bylines and so I think that's maybe why this review
is feeling a little conflicted for me. I feel like
it's it's really impressive in his depth, but at the
same time, it's just missing that element of like, Okay,

(01:23:35):
now I can take this opinion, weigh it against this
person's other writing and understand how it matches up with
my own personal experiences.

Speaker 2 (01:23:43):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:23:44):
Well, and I definitely want to know more. I do
want to know who wrote this review. And I'm very
curious to continue to look back at Intelligent Gamer that
I did not give it a chance back of the
day because I thought I was being pandered to, which
you know, exposes exactly how immature I was at the time.
And I want to explain root beer fizzies, that is

(01:24:07):
what they called the brown liquor. The mom Moves were
very clearly drinking at the Japanese bars that they were
very clearly inhabiting, because as much as we were now
getting more and more of the original Japanese market flavor,
apparently Sonny was still making sure that we didn't know
that the mumves were drinking themselves blind at the idea

(01:24:29):
of having to fight Robit again. And I said it, said,
bring me another root beer fizzy, and a friend of
mine and I ended up having a whole thing where
we bought there were these root beer fizzies that were
like Alka Seltzer's. You could like drop them into water
it would fizz and turn brown. And so it was
this whole thing with Jumping Flash too. So anyway, I
love Jumping Flash. I love Jumping Flash too. I really

(01:24:51):
appreciate this review, even if I disagree with the reviewer.
Do you guys agree out there and listener and land
leave us a review on Apple podcast or comment on YouTube.
We will read the best ones on air, and go ahead,
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(01:25:13):
thanks to Millennium Falc for all our amazing original music.
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(01:25:34):
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Speaker 2 (01:26:07):
Twenty.

Speaker 1 (01:26:07):
In house development teams each staff at thirty to one
hundred and fifty people. I mean, even on the low end,
that would put yet six hundred staff at Square in
nineteen ninety six, I can't remember how many were working
on Final Fantasy seven. But does that sounds big to you?

Speaker 2 (01:26:23):
That sounds big to me.

Speaker 1 (01:26:25):
Yeah, especially because at that time, like their games hadn't
like blown up worldwide, Like they were selling a lot
in Japan, but they weren't selling a lot outside of Japan,
this was pre EnEx merger, so they didn't have that
Dragon Quest money. And this is pre I mean, and
they weren't really doing the thing now where you know,
they publish a lot of third party developed titles as

(01:26:47):
far as I know, like Squaresoft, they were making their
own RPGs and a handful of other genres and that's it.
So I'd like, they're not released in twenty games a year, right,
I just this just seems like a wild combination of
claims to me, Well, without sourcing, it feels like hard
to really rely on any sort of data like that.

(01:27:09):
I'm trying to do a quick little look at what
the staff size was on Final Nancy seven. But at
the same time, I don't think that, like as if,
like this is if David's Magazine would make up a
bunch of very specific data points like that, Like it
was one thing when they would like make up rumors
in EGM and like you know, like publish them under
Sushi X's name or whatever. But like, I don't think

(01:27:32):
that they would write a whole sidebar based off information
or data that they just like completely made up. I
don't think, Yeah, that would surprise me too, So maybe
behind the scenes, they're they're you know, sourcing they thought
that was valid. Definitely keep you posted if you get
to the numbers, paipe. Or is this a recycled I

(01:27:55):
was trying to I was looking through the letters section
of Old Next Gens, trying to be like, uh, I
did I hallucinate this? Is it a different magazine that
I read because I did not know tech savery before
reading that magazine comment. And now I'm looking at this
and going is this just am I hallucinating? Or did
they just rip off basically a letter to the editor
answer from a different magazine or did editorial staff move

(01:28:21):
from one to the other that you know that that
same opinion, or maybe you know, like maybe it all
spawns from some you know, e three barroom conversation as well, right,
Like the industry was very small, and so maybe that's
just you know, there's touch points that people were were
using from similar sources or the exact same source at

(01:28:41):
some point

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Intelligent Gamer 2 - Jumping Flash! 2 [S1E7]

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Intelligent Gamer 2 - Jumping Flash! 2 [S1E7]