Kyle Labriola

There's this concept that gets brought up over and over on the podcast Into The Aether that I hadn't considered before.

It's something that they noticed when they looked up old reviews / discussions / opinions of games from decades past. Sometimes a game in a long-running franchise will have a reputation like "Yeah, the mechanics might technically be the best they've ever been in this franchise...but it's still extremely similar to previous entries, so it's not really original. Not enough new ideas. So I'm docking it a few points. 7 out of 10."

But, funnily enough...the company might stop making games quite like that after that point. Which the reviewers and the players at the time couldn't have ever guessed. So the 7-out-of-10, not-original-enough entry is now a totally reasonable, appealing entry to jump into if you're from the future and can just choose whatever entry in the franchise to play in whatever order.

Basically, the desire for an entry in a franchise to be "original" or "novel" or "move the franchise in a new direction" is only really relevant for people who play them in order, or who were eagerly awaiting their release at the time. Once you have the advantage of years of hindsight and know that this type of game might go dormant for years (their go-to example is Final Fantasy Tactics A2), it makes the game much more appealing than those lukewarm reactions of the time made it sound.

In other words, those people at the time might have been worn out by playing entries that were similar back-to-back, but now you (with the benefit of being from the future) won't be burdened by that and can potentially appreciate the game for what it is. I guess in a way this is the appeal of retro games in general, the knowledge that "they stopped making games like this one after this."

I'm the kind of person who always needs a podcast for when I'm driving or doing chores.

One of my favorite podcasts of the past few years has been Into the Aether. It's a video game discussion show where the hosts talk about whatever games they're enthusiastic about and interested in that week, no matter whether they're recent, retro, or anything in between.

The format is refreshing because they don't keep themselves beholden to recent AAA releases, and don't force themselves to talk about games that aren't clicking for them, so there isn't any knee-jerk complaining, or episodes where they're playing a genre they don't understand, anything like that. Instead they just bring games that are interesting to them, and chat about why. They still give balanced critique of games too, even if they're overall enjoying them.

Another cool thing they do is "console retrospectives" once a year where they'll try to play a console's whole library and then rank their favorites. It's a great way to revisit old stuff. They did one on the GBA, one on the Nintendo DS, and one on the Dreamcast.

You can pretty much jump into the podcast on whatever episode you want, so I suggest just scrolling through the episode titles until you see the name of a game you like.

I got to be a guest on one of my favorite podcasts!

Very fun to be a part of!

Some bonus thoughts on things I said under the Read More.

I'm the kind of person who always needs a podcast for when I'm driving or doing chores.

One of my favorite podcasts of the past few years has been Into the Aether. It's a video game discussion show where the hosts talk about whatever games they're enthusiastic about and interested in that week, no matter whether they're recent, retro, or anything in between.

The format is refreshing because they don't keep themselves beholden to recent AAA releases, and don't force themselves to talk about games that aren't clicking for them, so there isn't any knee-jerk complaining, or episodes where they're playing a genre they don't understand, anything like that. Instead they just bring games that are interesting to them, and chat about why. They still give balanced critique of games too, even if they're overall enjoying them.

Another cool thing they do is "console retrospectives" once a year where they'll try to play a console's whole library and then rank their favorites. It's a great way to revisit old stuff. They did one on the GBA, one on the Nintendo DS, and one on the Dreamcast.

You can pretty much jump into the podcast on whatever episode you want, so I suggest just scrolling through the episode titles until you see the name of a game you like.