Welcome! This is a collaborative article between Peter Monks of Late to the LAN Party and Harry Fritsch of The Video Game Storyteller. Two writers who each hold a deep affection for the Sega of yesteryear–when the legendary Japanese company was still in the hardware manufacturing game, pumping out some of the most imaginative console titles of the 80s and 90s.

However, the way both Peter and Harry experienced this classic era of Sega could not be more different. One writer lived through Sega’s creative and commercial peak. The other only experienced it in retrospect.

Read on to discover how different generations of gamers came to appreciate one of the most colourful chapters in the history of the medium…

Growing Up During Sega’s Golden Age

By Peter Monks

When the nine year old version of me first saw Sonic the Hedgehog–specifically Sonic 2, Chemical Plant Zone–playing in a shop kiosk on demo loop, he was in awe. You have to understand where computers were in 1992 to appreciate that statement, though.

My only experience with such a device at that point was the school computer (note, computer, singular), an old BBC Micro, fantastic as a learning tool, yet each child naturally wanted to play games on it. Microcomputer games were primitive, basic, and graphically inferior to consoles, yet they at least showed potential of what was possible. This, however, this game on the Sega Mega Drive, was something else.

Sonic blasted my eyeballs with so many colours at once. The characters were expressive and clear and the music was far more advanced than the simple blips of a microcomputer. Most importantly, it was fast–I couldn’t believe how fast everything moved! That was the day I learned of something called game consoles–computers that specialised in playing only video games.

I wanted one. Specifically, I wanted a Sega Mega Drive.

For me, that would be a circuitous route. After my parents misunderstood my desires for a game-playing computer and bought me a ZX Spectrum–a popular microcomputer in the UK, though waning by the early 90s- I later migrated to the Sega family via the 16-bit Mega Drive’s younger sibling, the 8-bit Master System. While the Sonic games were not as zippy on that console, it did at least mean I could play with some of my childhood friends. I remember clearly playing the Master System version of Sonic the Hedgehog at a friend’s house and admiring the map screen between levels–a feature not in the Mega Drive version.

The Master System may have been less powerful, yet it holds just as many fond memories for me. As well as different versions of the Sonic the Hedgehog series, there were other games that really captured my interest. Wonder Boy III: The Dragon’s Trap was one in particular; a precursor to Metroidvanias, where you navigated a non-linear world and transformed into different creatures to progress with new abilities. It was also one of the first games I played where the first level was actually the end to the previous game in the series. Mickey Mouse: Castle of Illusion was another favourite of mine—in fact, this 8-bit port was my preferred version compared to the Mega Drive’s. The Master System also had a small bonus feature: a copy of a game built directly into the console with no cartridge required–Alex Kidd in Miracle World, or Sonic the Hedgehog for later models.

Still, I yearned for the big brother, the edgier Sega console that all the cool kids wanted. Since a child of around ten years old does not have a steady income, I had no choice but to trade in the Master System with all my games at a much reduced price than when I bought them, but at least I finally achieved my (limited) life goal: a Mega Drive console to call my own with a copy of Sonic the Hedgehog 2.

By now you have probably figured out my favourite mascot character, and I made sure to get his sequels, including the unique “lock-on” cartridge that enabled Sonic & Knuckles to connect with other games to produce different effects. Many games that graced the system were worthy of anyone’s time. I leaned more towards platformers like Vectorman, Ristar and Toe-Jam and Earl. Sega had many bases covered though. Thanks to their arcade lineage, there was a long line of action focused games, like Gunstar Heroes, Streets of Rage and Shinobi. This befitted the Mega Drive since it felt like it wanted to race along, throwing sprites and effects at you faster than you could handle, with music and sound that had a sharper, crisper edge to them than Nintendo’s equivalent 16-bit console.

None of this is to knock on the Super Nintendo–I was genuinely envious of Donkey Kong Country at the time–but Sega really wanted to hammer home its identity. They were about action, unlike the staid, family-focused Nintendo. They were cool, with attitude–90s attitude to be precise, the best kind. All of this came to a head through the fabled “console wars”, which were in fact the marketing teams of both manufacturers pushing their message across and slamming the competitor as often and as vocally as possible. This was inescapable at the time; games magazines were party to it, advertisements happily took pot-shots at the opposition, and any formal announcement from Sega or Nintendo (typically from the more brash American divisions) would merrily call out why their system was better and it would be a waste of your time to even consider the other.

And it worked. Young children in playgrounds would have heated debates about which was better: Sega or Nintendo. There were only two possibilities if you said you owned both a Mega Drive and a Super Nintendo: either your parents were rich and spoiled you, or you were a liar. Everyone else had to pick a side. My friends and I went with Sega, to the point that I cannot recall ever seeing a Nintendo system in someone’s home (Game Boys were a different matter, being the most popular portable console). This meant we would be able to play the same games, understand the control schemes immediately, and even swap games with each other to try them out.

Sega reached a high point in the era of the Mega Drive, with enough clever marketing to at least equal Nintendo’s earlier dominance. They even made some significant coups over Nintendo in a few instances. Having Street Fighter II on the Mega Drive be the faster, more up-to-date arcade version with a better 6-button control scheme certainly helped. And if you wanted the full, bloody Mortal Kombat experience–which every child did, government censorship be damned–you went for the Sega version and not the Nintendo copy which replaced blood with grey-looking sweat. Nintendo learned their lesson quickly on that particular case and did not repeat it with Mortal Kombat II. The fact was, Sega was a driver of games and a valued competitor within the industry, catering for a different audience; perhaps not the young adult demographic of today, but maybe the slightly older teenager who had “outgrown” the kid-friendly Nintendo.

What could go wrong? Well, Sega themselves, evidently. The Mega Drive was a force to be reckoned with, but Sega had a split personality; namely, two countries–Japan and America–which did not see eye to eye. Sega of America were keen to keep the Mega Drive going by introducing hardware expansions, like the Mega CD–to play the new CD-ROM formats for games–and the 32X, a 32-bit expansion you precariously slotted on top of the Mega Drive. The problem was that these peripherals just weren’t popular, and divided the audience. Apart from Sonic CD which intrigued me, even I, a Sega die-hard fan, could not really see a need for these add-ons. Earlier I said that everyone I knew had a Mega Drive; conversely, no-one had a Mega CD or 32X.

Sega of Japan did not like these either, instead wanting to focus on the true next generation, rather than prolonging the current. Along came the Sega Saturn, a proper 32-bit, CD playing, brand new console. Again, being a fan from the beginning, I started planning how I would upgrade to this new platform–another trip to the trade-in shop, I’m afraid–yet this time I was starting to notice changes to the landscape. My full experience with the Sega Saturn is a whole other story for another day. Suffice to say that a key reason why the Sega Saturn failed so badly–apart from Sega arguing amongst themselves–was a new contender: Sony’s PlayStation.

The PlayStation was everywhere, and it was in places you didn’t normally associate with gamers of yore. Advertising focused on older gamers: those who were children and teenagers with 16-bit consoles were now young adults and craved entertainment to match. The PlayStation was simply a powerhouse, with hundreds of games, and it caused even the old, wise Nintendo to stumble briefly.

For Sega, this was just a disaster. I would keep buying Saturn games and hoping that fortunes would turn, yet they never did. All the while, I was watching enviously as Sony snapped up many exclusives that the Saturn did not get. Sega couldn’t even sort their own house out. Thanks to constant infighting between Japan and America, they fumbled so badly that Sonic–their mascot, the character so closely associated with them, and the entire reason why I fell for video games in the first place–was just absent, with no true game to call his own, save for some ports of older games. And so, as the years went on, I started to realise this “relationship” (if you can call a manufacturer/consumer transaction that) had to end.

Sega tried one final time with the Dreamcast, though I didn’t join that party and only watched from afar. By all accounts, the Dreamcast could have been a success. It certainly had a lot going for it. It was simpler to build games for and was a really good-looking and stylish console. Some absolutely fantastic and out-there games–Crazy Taxi, Jet Set Radio, Space Channel 9, Shenmue, perfect arcade ports, two real Sonic games–and some really forward thinking features like built-in internet connectivity for online games, the first of its kind. It was the candle that burned its absolute brightest at the end.

Sadly, that end was nearer than expected. Sega were by that point a loss-leading company and the PlayStation 2 was all anyone wanted. Something drastic had to happen. When the news came that Sega were leaving the console business and focusing exclusively on games, it was jaw-dropping in itself. Then to hear that Sonic would appear on a Nintendo platform–that was unfathomable, I simply could not wrap my head around it. Imagine, if you will, one of the current big three console makers announcing they were calling it quits. You can’t, can you? However, this was what I witnessed, a true end of an era. It sadly felt inevitable, yet I also wished it weren’t so.

Sega showed so much potential toward the end. A sudden surge of creativity, and inspiration, recalling what Sega used to be: colourful, action-oriented, exciting, fun. Would anyone ever remember what that Sega was like? Would future generations care about this lost history?

Exploring the Wonders of Sega’s Past

By Harry Fritsch

I vividly remember Googling “What is the difference between a Sega Mega Drive and Sega Genesis?”. As a thirteen-year-old in 2012, I was interested in picking up the Sega Mega Drive Collection for PSP, but confused that all American reviews for the collection referred to it by a completely different name.

Such was my naivety around retro Sega back then that I didn’t even know their iconic 16-bit system had a different name in the American market compared to the rest of the world. In fact, I basically knew nothing about Sega at all. I wasn’t an avid gamer, and while my cultural knowledge was good enough to clock who Sonic was, basically everything else was a (blue) blur.

Fast forward fourteen years, and retro Sega is one of my greatest passions in gaming.

That passion is largely centered around the Mega Drive–or the Genesis or the Nintendon’t or the Blast Processing Wonder Machine or whatever you want to call it! But I have since also fallen down some specific Master System and Game Gear rabbit holes, both of which have led to their very own 8-bit wonderlands.

I was born in October 1998, a mere two-and-a-half years before Sega would finally close the book on their console manufacturing history with the end of the Dreamcast era. By the time I was first exposed to gaming–through playing on my friends’ original Xboxes and PlayStation 2s–Sega was already as distant a memory in the hardware space as Nirvana was to contemporary rock music. That is to say that neither my snotty nosed seven year-old friends or I knew or cared much about obsolete pop culture that dominated only a decade before.

Again, we knew about Sonic. I remember playing Sonic Unleashed on my friend’s Xbox 360 and thinking it looked pretty cool. I also remember watching Game Grumps’s legendary playthrough of Sonic ‘06 and laughing along at how dreadful the game looked. Yeah… the mid-2000s were a confusing time for Sega’s iconic mascot.

As for the rest of Sega’s storied legacy… well, it was hard to find. At least, it was hard to find in the kind of spaces that were being marketed towards my age group. Outside of Sonic, one of the most significant companies in the history of video games held little significance for the generation of gamers growing up directly after its golden age.

So when I first picked up the Sega Mega Drive Collection for PSP in 2012, I didn’t really know what to expect. I do recall I was most excited to play the Mega Drive version of Virtua Fighter 2, given I was deep within my Tekken phase at the time. Little did I know that the 16-bit port of the classic arcade fighting game stripped away basically everything that made the original so groundbreaking–containing no 3D graphics (obviously) and really slooooooow combat.

Luckily, one dodgy Virtua Fighter demake wasn’t enough to deter me from diving into the collection and experiencing the timeless magic several of its other games had in store for me. It truly did feel like I was stepping back into gaming’s past–not in the sense that the games had aged poorly (okay, maybe some of them had), but more like I was exploring a really cool interactive museum. This sensation was strengthened by the fact that this particular Mega Drive collection included some neat trivia on each of its titles as well as really insightful video interviews with the original developers. As someone who has always gotten a thrill out of investigating the history of the things I’m passionate about, this collection was the perfect way to immerse myself within an important part of Sega’s lineage at a time when my adoration for the medium was truly blossoming.

Of course, I wouldn’t have become so hooked if the games weren’t up to scratch. Luckily, a lack of interesting titles was never an issue. I quickly fell in love with the likes of Golden Axe, Ristar, Shinobi III, Comix Zone, Sword of Vermillion, and of course, the first two Sonic the Hedgehog games (Sonic 3 & Knuckles wasn’t on this particular collection). I have written before about how Phantasy Star IV: The End of the Millennium literally changed the entire way I viewed video games. It’s probably the most important gaming experience of my life and still my answer if someone asks me what my all-time favourite game is. And I wouldn’t have experienced it had I not been curious about this “ye olde” console from a Japanese publisher I knew nothing about outside of Sonic.

I should admit, at around the same time as I was exploring parts of the Mega Drive catalogue through this collection, I was also trying out some of the iconic games from its 16-bit competitor, the Super Nintendo. Through channels such as the Wii’s Virtual Console, I was falling head over heels for other retro games such as Chrono Trigger, Super Metroid, and A Link to the Past. I obviously never grew up during the famous 16-bit console war, so I can’t claim to have been “in the trenches” during those times, but I do have some thoughts on how the two consoles compare and contrast with each other.

For me, the Super Nintendo is quite possibly the apex of 2D gaming. Both Nintendo and several third-party developers were experimenting with perfecting gameplay design philosophies that had been established on the NES. The polish on the top end of the Super Nintendo library is off the charts–and there’s a reason you still see plenty of the system’s games appear on lists of the best games ever made.

If during the 16-bit era Nintendo represented classical music, then Sega captured the spirit of jazz. The company was experimenting with so many fun, zany, and creative ideas on the Mega Drive, even if the polish wasn’t always quite to the same level. The concepts for some of the system’s biggest games have a degree of improvisational genius to them that you just don’t see with Triple-A publishers anymore. Their developers weren’t afraid to throw anything at the wall and see what sticks, creating imaginative adventures where you may explore the panels of a comic book or play as a shooting star who likes to grab things or even run around as a blue hedgehog at the speed of sound.

I’ve since found that same spirit alive in many modern indie titles, where smaller development teams are more willing to take risks and flex their creative muscles with concepts that don’t fit neatly within the demands of a focus group session. But there is something so heartwarming to know that, at one point in gaming’s history, this ingenuity was core to the success of one of the largest consoles in the world.

For years after becoming a fan of retro Sega, I lamented how so many of their classic series were hardly getting any attention from the company. Here was this treasure trove of wonderful franchises in genres that spanned from run-and-gun-shooters to JRPGs… yet Sega wasn’t doing anything with them. Again, other than Sonic, it felt as though Sega had put up an iron curtain around much of their storied software legacy.

This has changed in recent years. Thanks to third-party developers such as Lizardcube, more of Sega’s older franchises have been resurrected in style. It’s hopeful to see new entries in the Streets of Rage and Shinobi series not only find critical adoration, but win over the hearts of gamers old and young.

Does this mean that the next generation of gamers are also likely to work their way back to the golden age of Sega? It’s hard to say, but if my experience with this company has proven anything, it’s that Sega’s brilliance has the ability to endure through the ages.

Do you have any fond memories of retro Sega? If so, at what point did you first experience this era of games? Let us know in the comments!

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Like the ghost of an old business partner on Christmas Eve, the shadow of your past writing never really stops haunting you. It’s always lingering there, in the long-unclicked folders of your Google Drive or within the weathered pages of bygone notebooks, waiting to lay on the cringe whenever you least expect it.

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I try my best to be kind to my younger self when it comes to writing. As long as I am confident that the work was the best I could produce at that age and with that level of experience, then there’s no real point beating myself up over it. Sometimes, there might even be certain passages I can still smile at and think to myself: you did okay, kid. You were on the right track.

But normally, my old writing makes me want to take a long walk in the mountains and reconsider why I never took up glassblowing.

I really do try to be kind to myself. Note, however, that doesn’t mean I have to be kind to the actual writing.

While recently clearing out roughly six thousand emails in a personal inbox I no longer use—sorry, Domino’s, but your promotional newsletters have fallen on deaf ears for the past eight years—I came across an old assignment I submitted for Year 12 English Extension. Upon seeing that attachment, memories came flooding back of my final year in high school, taking that class and discovering so much about the way I like to think about things and discuss them with other people.

I was so excited to have been selected for English Extension—a specialist class that only allowed up to eight students in Year 12—and it did not disappoint. This was largely thanks to our wonderful teacher. For her privacy’s sake, I’ll only refer to her as Miss B for now—although it’s crucial to note that she was a “Miss” and not a “Mrs” or “Ms”, because as she always liked to joke, “I am a ‘Miss’, as in missed the bus, missed the movie, missed the wedding”. Miss B had that great quality all worthy educators possess: of being deeply passionate and knowledgeable on the subject, while having all the necessary communication skills to ensure our young minds cared about it just as much as she did.

Those were the classes where I first properly learnt about literary theory, how to look at art within various cultural contexts, and how to be critical of texts in a way that was both respectful of the author’s intent while also kind of tearing it to shreds. It was so much fun! Even though I was coming to the end of my high school journey, I felt as though I was accessing parts of my mind that hadn’t been stimulated in a dozen years of education.

One of the first lessons in English Extension that blew my mind was that a text didn’t necessarily have to be a book. A text—at least from a theoretical point of view—could be a song, a movie, a meme, a poster, and yes, even a video game. When this revelation hit me, I knew I wanted one of my pieces of assessment to focus on dissecting a game through all the critical lenses we had been learning about across the year. In semester two, I got my chance. I was going to write an academic essay on BioShock.

BioShock was already one of my favourite games at the time, and I was confident it would make for an interesting text to analyse. The classic 2007 game is dripping in well, water, but also fascinating commentary on free will and class warfare and philosophy and political ideologies… you know, the kind of stuff that makes pretentious high school essay writers froth at the mouth.

I felt like I had completely gamed the system. Here I was, playing through BioShock in Year 12, and I could genuinely turn to my parents and say without a trace of dishonesty, “yeah, I’m just doing this for homework.” It was true! I was taking notes and everything during my playthrough, which I then considered alongside various literary theories and other articles on the game to create my essay.

And boy, was I proud of my work! I attached the final draft of my essay to an email and sent it off to Miss B, genuinely feeling confident that this was the smartest thing I had ever written.

And this was the email I found during my recent inbox purge. And, uh, yeah… after reading through the essay again for the first time in eleven years, um…

It’s bad. There’s no sugar coating it. This essay is kind of a mess from start to finish. And now, as some kind of demented self-deprecating process, I’m going to tell you exactly why.

To be perfectly clear, I am no educator or academic. There are far too many in that field—including some on Substack who specialise in games analysis—whom I respect too deeply to ever place myself alongside them. So, when I “mark up” my old assignment, know that I am doing this from the position of someone who hasn’t actually written an academic essay in about seven years.

Even so, I can tell this essay is lacking in several criteria.

If you would like to play long at home, below is a link to the PDF of my original essay, completely unedited from how I submitted it back in Year 12 (other than removing any identifying information of my old school). Give it a read if you are interested in slogging through two-and-a-half thousand words of complete filth. Otherwise, I’ll happily run through the, ahem, highlights.

Harry's Rather Bad Year 12 English Extension Bioshock Essay

355KB ∙ PDF file

Download

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The title of the essay is “Would you kindly show me free will”, which I won’t lie, might actually be the best part of the entire assessment. Oh, before we continue, I should flag that I will be talking about some spoilers from BioShock. If you have played the game, you will know that the essay title is already kind of a spoiler in and of itself.

I then spend the entire first paragraph waffling on about the words “Would you kindly” as if the person reading it has zero brain cells and cannot comprehend a fairly standard and polite introductory phrase. Is there a thesis statement to be found in this introductory paragraph? Not that I can find!

And I think that kind of sums up everything wrong about this essay. The writing is overwrought, but the arguments are underdeveloped. There is the kernel of a good idea here between all the repetitive rambling. I remember I wanted to link the perception of free will between the main character of BioShock and the game’s mind-controlling villain, Frank Fontaine, with the perception of free will between the player and the game’s lead designer, Ken Levine.

Like any overeager student who has just discovered literary theory, I bring up “The Death of the Author” by Roland Barthes in paragraph two. It’s a miracle I don’t mention “ludonarrative dissonance” at any point.

The essay meanders through various ideas and concepts that never really coalesce to form a comprehensive argument. Year 12 me certainly had a lot of thoughts about BioShock and its themes, but I lacked the skill to bring it all together and stick the landing. The result is a plane crash of half-baked observations packaged within indulgent writing.

Alright, here’s a lightning round of other things in this essay that make me cringe:

• Why do I use the term “common observer” in the first sentence like some kind of elitist brat?

• Come on, Harry. It’s BioShock, not Bioshock. Do better!

• Wow, I sure am obsessed with Ken Levine’s religious and political views in this essay. Which, I guess, is fine so long as I can find an appropriate way to argue their influence on the themes of BioShock. But like with most other elements of this essay, those are two dots I’m not able to connect.

• Yeah, I don’t think that’s what structuralism and post-structuralism are actually about.

• Why do I only have five sources listed?

· Why does my bullet-point formatting change throughout my bibliography?

• Hmm… are we sure that BioShock is a horror game?

• Saying that Rapture’s ultimate purpose was “adopting full socialist values” is just blatantly incorrect.

• Am I arguing that the author is more important than the reader, or the other way around? I am genuinely confused.

• Some of these paragraphs nearly take up an entire page.

• “Criticizing”, “Recognizing”, “Analyzed”?! Why is this essay submitted to an Australian high school written in American English?

Despite how awful this essay is, as I discussed earlier, I can’t be too mad at myself for writing it. At the time, I felt like it was the smartest thing I had ever written and that’s probably because it was for sixteen-year-old me. More importantly, this essay was the first time I ever wrote about video games with a degree of thought put behind the work. It was an activity I found a lot of joy in, and, hey, look at me now!

Don’t get me wrong, there is a lot wrong with this piece of assessment. But I still carry a strange fondness for it—if for no other reason than it technically kickstarted the journey I am still on today.

Thanks, Miss B. If you ever read this, know that I genuinely appreciate everything you taught me in that Year 12 English Extension class. Even if my assignment kind of sucked.

I think you gave it a C+.

Do you have any old pieces of writing that make you cringe? What grade would you give my BioShock essay? Let me know in the comments!

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Stuff From the Stack

Nintendo is Great

My Grandparents Played an Extreme Amount of NES Games in the '90s

Childhood is a wild ride. Everything seems at once very new, almost hyper-real and yet incredibly normal. Your world is the world of your family. Whatever world they inhabit or that they construct around you is what makes sense to you, it’s all you know. Only later when you go to school or to a friend’s house do you encounter new, often wildly different…

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12 days ago · 24 likes · 17 comments · Dylan Cornelius

This was a really touching and heartfelt read from Dylan over at Nintendo is Great, exploring the ways in which gaming bridged generations in his family and ensured that the hobby will always, in some ways, be tied to his relationship with his grandparents.

Want More from The Video Game Storyteller?

Australia has a proud history of developing great video games, but not many people—including Australians—know about the output of each of the country’s states. I look at what I believe to be the most iconic games to have come from Australia’s six states in my latest article for paid subscribers!

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The Video Game Storyteller is a Substack written and formatted by Harry Fritsch on the lands of the Jagera and Turrbal people, the Traditional Custodians of Meanjin (Brisbane).

All images were either captured directly by the author or sourced from publicly available promotional screenshots.

Want to see more from The Video Game Storyteller? Check out our TikTok channel @thevgstoryteller or follow our Bluesky ‪@thevgstoryteller.bsky.social

If you wish to contact Harry, you may do so by emailing him at harryfritsch98@gmail.com.

As a proud Australian gamer, I can say hand-on-heart that I had zero clue about my country’s game development scene growing up.

Part of this ignorance was due to our local mainstream media barely promoting domestic video games—or really any video games for that matter. And part of the problem is that Australian game development has ebbed and flowed across the decades as funding sources and global investment from publishers has been volatile at best.

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But, of course, I could have just done a bit more research.

I am now older and some might say wiser, which is why I want to share the knowledge I have curated over the years on some of the most iconic video games to have been developed in the great southern land. These are not necessarily the most critically acclaimed or bestselling Australian video games, and certainly not my personal favourites. But the games I believe you, dear reader, are most likely to have heard about before (and maybe even played).

Instead of just listing nine games from Victoria and Hollow Knight, I have instead decided to focus on the most iconic titles to have been developed in each of Australia’s six states. Yes, we have six states. You learned something new today!

We also have a stack of territories—the most populous being the Australian Capital Territory (that’s where you’ll find our Prime Minister) and the Northern Territory (that’s where you’ll find Uluru). However, I have decided to only focus on the games developed in the actual Australian states for today. Apologies, game developers on Norfolk Island.

So, slip a prawn (not a shrimp!) on the barbie, slap on your best sunscreen, and let’s look at the most iconic video games to have been developed by each state in Australia.

L.A. Noire - New South Wales

It may come as a surprise to learn that a video game set in 1940s Los Angeles was developed by a studio in Sydney, but when you learn of that studio’s name—Team Bondi—it becomes clear where this game was created.

L.A. Noire was an ambitious title from this New South Wales studio, making use of facial-capture technology to bolster the immersion of its period-specific world and characters. Rockstar Games ended up publishing the game, which was released to strong reviews and sales while also nabbing a couple of awards along the way.

Unfortunately, that success didn’t translate into the coffers of Team Bondi—or at least, those of the employees who worked hard on the game. The studio went into liquidation barely six months after the launch of L.A. Noire, yet the game’s legacy continues to leave its mark on the history of New South Wales game development.

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Well, here we are!

After over 100 posts and roughly 20 months, The Video Game Storyteller has reached 1,000 subscribers.

Wait, let me just double-check the old dashboard here…

Actually, we’re on the verge of 1,200 subscribers!

So, yeah… after things had been steady with this Substack’s growth for the largest part of a year and a half, things have kind of exploded since the start of August. I’ve had nearly 350 new subscribers since the start of this month which has rocketed my subscriber count into the four-digit mark before I even knew what was happening.

And in a strange way, it’s a bit of an inconvenience.

Don’t get me wrong: I’m extremely grateful to have had this unexpected surge of new subscribers (even if half of you are secretly bot accounts!). I have no idea what has caused this sudden influx. So, if you are one of my newer subscribers, firstly, welcome! Secondly, let me know how you found me. I’m genuinely curious😊

It has meant that some of the plans I had in place for reaching this milestone haven’t been able to get realised because, well, quite simply we got here much quicker than I was expecting. I intended to finally get around to doing some of the things I’ve been dragging my heels on forever with the Substack. These included writing a new About page and Welcome Email, categorising my articles properly, and engaging with a local artist to redo my branding.

But yeah, that stuff is gonna have to wait a little bit longer! For now, you may continue to enjoy my bog standard, Substack-generated About page.

I think what doesn’t have to wait is recognising the community that has grown around this publication. I’m always in awe of the conversations and stories that take place across the comment sections, restacks, and interactions with members of the audience. There’s something genuinely beautiful about seeing such a dedicated and passionate community of gamers and writers in and around this platform, many of whom I don’t just consider colleagues, but friends.

There have already been some real highlights across 2026 so far. I had the wonderful opportunity of collaborating with Evan from Play Moore on a joint article. I contributed a piece to fellow Australian writer Harrison Polites’s Infinite Lives. And I have some more exciting collaborations in the pipeline that you’ll hopefully be able to read soon.

I’ve always wanted The Video Game Storyteller to be a warm and welcoming place that provides both analytical and personal perspectives on this wonderful medium, and on the completely unique ways it can build narratives and worlds that leave a lasting impression on our lives.

Also, quite frankly, I just love writing here. Whether I have 12 subscribers or 1,200, sitting down to write for this Substack always fills me with so much joy and energy that I don’t see myself slowing down any time soon. Even if I do need to take the occasional break from my weekly posting schedule, I know I’ll always have a home to come back to with this publication and this incredible audience.

So, while I do have some exciting plans for The Video Game Storyteller in the future, I might leave it here for now and finish with one final, resounding thank you!

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The Video Game Storyteller is a Substack written and formatted by Harry Fritsch on the lands of the Jagera and Turrbal people, the Traditional Custodians of Meanjin (Brisbane).

All images were either captured directly by the author or sourced from publicly available promotional screenshots.

Want to see more from The Video Game Storyteller? Check out our TikTok channel @thevgstoryteller or follow our Bluesky ‪@thevgstoryteller.bsky.social

If you wish to contact Harry, you may do so by emailing him at harryfritsch98@gmail.com.

Whether you love or hate TikTok, its allure is definitely an easy thing to understand.

The app champions short, attention-grabbing content through an algorithm that is constantly throwing new and engaging videos your way every few seconds. There’s rarely a moment to stop and ponder what you’ve just watched because the next video will already be in front of your face. And if you don’t like that video, then don’t worry! Just scroll on down to the next one.

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I have certainly fallen victim to the allure of the TikTok machine in recent years. Heck, The Video Game Storyteller actually started out life as a TikTok channel long before I made the move over to Substack. I could easily pass an hour (or more) swiping through videos of random historical facts, miniature horses doing cute and funny things, virtual cars jumping through virtual rings of fire, tutorials on how to do glassblowing (I have never done glassblowing), highlights from the 2019 Ashes, trailers for cool-looking indie games, the ending of The Dark Knight, the ending of The Dark Knight Rises, a simulated battle between one hundred Abraham Lincolns and thirty Terminators (Abe won), and mediocre comedians doing a bad impersonation of Jeff Goldblum ordering a coffee.

I’m not here to blast everything about TikTok, nor am I saying that spending your time on the app immediately equals a waste of time. Our lives are stressful enough. If you want to escape to some silly online videos occasionally to switch off for a bit, then great! You do you. But I personally did reach a point where I felt as though my time on TikTok could’ve been better used elsewhere.

If only there was a 2003 Game Boy Advance game about completing various microgames that scratches that same itch for consuming fast-paced short-form content, only with far more interactivity and creativity when compared to the often-brain-rotting void of the TikTok algorithm…

Why did no one tell me WarioWare was this good?! That’s not true, of course. I had read a fair bit about how insanely fun these games were and that they represented some of Nintendo’s most imaginative and experimental output this century. What I really mean is why did no one strap me into a chair, replace my phone with a GBA, and force me to play this game? The fact that I’ve only come into contact with my first WarioWare game at age twenty-seven is a failure of our education system.

So, yeah. I’ve been playing a stack of WarioWare, Inc.: Mega Microgames!—a game title with such obnoxious punctuation that I will be referring to it simply as WarioWare from now on. I have the Nintendo Switch Online GBA collection to thank for this, as I have never owned the handheld myself. And safe to say, I’ve been pretty obsessed with the game ever since.

If you don’t know what a WarioWare game is, here’s a quick breakdown. Wario (yes, that Wario) and his larger-than-life friends each develop a series of “microgames” in the hopes of capitalising on the booming success of the video game industry. You get to play each of these microgames, which typically only last a few seconds and have you perform a simple action such as jumping over a trolley or twirling spaghetti onto a fork. Finish one microgame, and the next one will begin almost immediately. You keep going as the speed and challenge of the microgames gradually intensify until you run out of lives.

Sound familiar? WarioWare was basically converting the TikTok model into video game form well over a decade before TikTok was even a thing. WarioWare is always throwing new ideas at you, forcing you to consume and react to each concept in quick succession before moving on to the next one. It’s an energetic tidal wave of short-form entertainment that leaves no room for boredom with just how rapid-fire its pacing is.

However, unlike TikTok—which often makes you feel like your intelligence is fading away with lizard-brain-activating content—WarioWare does offer some genuine mental stimulation. Each microgame provides you with a single prompt such as “Jump” or “Avoid” before throwing you right into the action. It keeps you on your toes with the eclectic miniature gameplay challenges you have to overcome, while also cutting no corners in presenting each microgame with eye-catching visuals that are just as varied.

From now on, whenever I get that urge to log into TikTok, I think I’m just going to play WarioWare. Instead of watching a video of a guy pressure washing a brick wall, I can play through creatively stimulating microgames that include such rich material as helping a woman suck up a booger, keeping a baby penguin in line with his marching family, or navigating Link to the entrance of a cave. A much better use of my time, if you ask me.

If, unlike me, you actually have a history with playing WarioWare games, what about it keeps you coming back for more? What are some of your favourite microgames? Let me know in the comments!

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Stuff from the Stack

Cosy Gaming Over 40

Coming Home to Grimshire

This week, I felt the first pull towards autumn. I remembered that this time last year I was playing the newly released Grimshire, while watching one of my favourite over-40 streamers, Play with Moxie, play it too. So I put the kettle on, and sat down to start a new save file. I also rewatched some of those old streams on YouTube, and I was reminded tha…

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24 days ago · 9 likes · 2 comments · Ellie

Cosy Gaming Over 40 writes passionately about their time with Grimshire, a cosy farming simulator that looks so darn charming. I mean, have you seen those character portraits!

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Unlike WarioWare and TikTok, the introduction of Final Fantasy VI did something pretty revolutionary for video game openings in 1994 and slowed… things… down. The result is one of the most moving sequences I’ve ever experienced in a game, and I explore why that is in my latest paid article.

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The Video Game Storyteller is a Substack written and formatted by Harry Fritsch on the lands of the Jagera and Turrbal people, the Traditional Custodians of Meanjin (Brisbane).

All images were either captured directly by the author or sourced from publicly available promotional screenshots.

Want to see more from The Video Game Storyteller? Check out our TikTok channel @thevgstoryteller or follow our Bluesky ‪@thevgstoryteller.bsky.social

If you wish to contact Harry, you may do so by emailing him at harryfritsch98@gmail.com.

Video games don’t like to make you wait.

At least, that was certainly the case during the early years of gaming. Most classic arcade games have you insert your coin, press “Start”, and then dive straight into the action. There might be a short cutscene of Donkey Kong climbing the level and taunting you like the total icon he is, but that’s it. These games didn’t have the memory space nor the financial incentive to delay players from reaching the actual gameplay.

The same was mostly true for early console games. Hit “Start” on Super Mario Bros and you’ll be sent straight to the beginning of World 1-1. A game like Mega Man 2 may include an aura farming intro cinematic to get you pumped before the title screen, but don’t worry—you can always skip that if you want to get to the Robot Master battles as soon as possible.

Even with a game like Final Fantasy IV—which signalled a huge leap forward for storytelling in video games and did include an unskippable introductory cutscene that sets the stage for the game’s characters and world—the developers make sure to keep things constantly engaging. The game’s intro cutscene throws a lot at you. There are flying airships and magical crystals and regretful knights—not to mention battles that take place within the actual cutscene. It does everything it can to sweep you up in its epic scope and to mitigate any potential boredom from creeping into your mind.

Then there’s the beginning of Final Fantasy VI. This 1994 JRPG for the Super Nintendo did something that was practically unheard of in gaming beforehand. This game’s intro cutscene ends with nearly two minutes of nothing but a group of mechs slowly trudging through a snowy field towards a distant town.

That’s it.

No cuts, no dialogue, no battles. It deliberately breaks all the rules that video game intros had established up until that point and makes the player wait.

And in my opinion, it’s one of the most moving gaming intros of all time.

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Whether it’s Michael Jackson’s Moonwalker or KISS: Psycho Circus – The Nightmare Child, there has been a long and, umm, proud (?) tradition of bands and artists branching out into the world of video games. I’ve previously written about how The Beach Boys attempted to benefit from the then-burgeoning medium of gaming in the early ‘90s—on the TurboGrafx-CD of all things!

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Today, we are making the rather blunt transition from the sunshine-soaked peppiness of The Beach Boys to the dark fantasy, leather jacket-clad, head-banging world of legendary New Wave of British Heavy Metal band, Iron Maiden. A band who, despite sharing very little stylistically or thematically with The Beach Boys, nonetheless fell into the same trap of licensing out a fairly mediocre ‘90s video game based on their discography.

Let me introduce you to Ed Hunter—the 1999 CD-ROM on-rails shooter from UK developer Synthetic Dimensions that was entirely based around Iron Maiden’s aesthetics, both musically and visually. Whether you’re an Iron Maiden fan or not, Ed Hunter is a rather interesting case study in how a band used the intersection of music and video games to promote a single product—even if, as I already flagged, the actual game isn’t anything too special.

But first, some context. It’s the late ‘90s and Iron Maiden are going through a bit of a funk. Two of the lineup’s mainstays who had contributed much to the band’s monumental success in the ‘80s—lead singer Bruce Dickinson and guitarist Adrian Smith—had left, and the output since their departure failed to capture the imaginations of fans in quite the same way. Maiden just didn’t really feel like Maiden anymore. Which is possibly why the band decided to release a new greatest hits album, complete with twenty classic songs as voted on by fans.

That’s right—in the early days of the internet, Iron Maiden ran a poll on their official website asking their fanbase to name the band’s twenty greatest songs (up until 1998, at least). The results were curated into a shiny new, two-disc compilation album called Ed Hunter, featuring such iconic Maiden tracks as “The Number of the Beast”, “Aces High”, and “The Trooper”. Looking at the track listing, it’s an undeniably strong selection—although I’d gladly swap out “Futureal” and “Man on the Edge” for “Running Free” and “Infinite Dreams” any day of the week.

However, there was also a third CD included with the Ed Hunter album. Instead of containing more fan-favourite Iron Maiden songs, this third disc held something far newer and more daring. The band had created a video game for Windows on CD-ROM. This meant that anyone who bought Ed Hunter the album was also buying Ed Hunter the game. And just as how the album was conjured up to celebrate Iron Maiden’s legacy, this new game was also designed to be something of a nostalgia trip for longtime fans—just now through the lens of an on-rails shooter.

If you are one of those longtime fans, you’ve probably already guessed that the “Ed” in Ed Hunter refers to Eddie. If you’re not a longtime fan, Eddie is Iron Maiden’s iconic fictional undead mascot who was largely created by artist Derek Riggs. Ever since Eddie appeared on the cover of the band’s first self-titled album in 1980, he has graced the artwork of every subsequent release—drawn across a multitude of personas including the grim reaper, a cyborg, and my personal favourite, an ancient Egyptian statue.

Why isn’t the game called Eddie Hunter? I don’t know. Maybe because Ed Hunter rhymes with “headhunter”? To me, “Ed Hunter” sounds like the name of a local accounting firm that has their office sandwiched between a bakery and a daycare centre—a far cry from the hardcore metal vibes I’m sure the band was aiming for.

As you may have guessed by the game’s name, in Ed Hunter, you hunt down various versions of Eddie in what is a fairly middle-of-the-road on-rails shooter. The House of the Dead influence is naturally quite prevalent here, as Ed Hunter sees you progress through eight horror-themed levels, shooting zombie-like enemies while being stuck to a set path and trying to rack up a high score. The mechanics are as basic as you can imagine. Aim with your mouse, click to shoot. That’s it. Occasionally you get to choose which route to take through a level, but otherwise, movement is entirely automated by the game.

Of course, the element of Ed Hunter I’m sure was the biggest draw for fans is that the game’s visuals are inspired by Iron Maiden’s striking comic book-esque blend of horror, fantasy, and science-fiction. Each level is even based on one of the band’s album covers, such as a cyberpunk city for Somewhere in Time or the Pharaoh’s tomb for Powerslave. In theory, this all sounds great. Sadly, in practice, the game’s presentation doesn’t really walk the walk.

The 3D character models and environments are simply too gloomy and too muddy to capture what makes Maiden’s artwork so memorable. Sure, the band’s visual identity has always leant towards the macabre, but it often embraced this style with plenty of colour and vibrancy and eye-catching artistic details. Ed Hunter looks like any number of bland, washed-out early 3D shooters from the era. It leaves me wondering if the band would’ve been better off lending their aesthetic to a pre-rendered point-and-click adventure or, heck, a survival-horror game!

At least you still get to listen to classic Iron Maiden tunes while playing Ed Hunter. Or rather, you get to listen to highly sound-compressed, instrumental-only versions of classic Iron Maiden tunes. Honestly, I don’t really mind—I’m open enough to the novelty factor of hearing these songs processed this way. It kind of sounds like if Iron Maiden had scored the original Doom. And that’s an alternative reality I’m happy to inhabit for a couple of hours.

Which, yeah… I should mention that Ed Hunter isn’t a particularly long game. A playthrough should only take you about two hours to finish—or roughly nine complete listens to “Rime of the Ancient Mariner”, which is my preferred measurement of time. When viewed as a standalone game, this shorter length is definitely on the underwhelming side. But remember that this game was bundled as a bonus disc with the Ed Hunter compilation album. If you look at the game as a trojan horse that complemented over a hundred minutes of music, then I think its fleeting playtime becomes more justified.

And that encapsulates my overall thoughts about the wider Ed Hunter project. There’s nothing remarkable about this particular Iron Maiden greatest hits album (of which there are many others to choose from), nor is the accompanying video game worthy of your attention outside of its pure novelty factor. But the fact that these two pieces of media were bundled together and sold as a single product does make me warm up to the whole concept. I think it would’ve been neat to purchase this as an Iron Maiden fan back in 1999—even if I probably would’ve played the game once and then never again.

The Ed Hunter story doesn’t actually end there. Later that year, the band embarked on The Ed Hunter Tour, which saw the return of Bruce Dickinson and Adrian Smith to the lineup. Since then, Iron Maiden have rediscovered their mojo and re-established themselves as one of heavy metal’s greatest recording and touring acts.

You could say that this bizarre, largely forgettable computer game was actually one of the most significant moments in the history of Iron Maiden, serving as the catalyst that would return them to greatness. Of course, I’m not saying that. Or am I?

What are some of your favourite games that are tied to a band or musical artist? Have you ever played Ed Hunter or Iron Maiden’s more recent mobile game, Legacy of the Beast? Let me know in the comments!

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Stuff from the Stack

Scanlines’ Journal

This Game Might Go In My Top 10

I think I speak for all Switch 2 early adopters when I say that the wait for Nintendo’s next classic goes on…

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a month ago · 13 likes · 18 comments · Lawrence 'Scanlines' Lichfield

Fire Emblem: Three Houses is one of my favourite Switch games—not to mention JRPGs in general. That’s why I was thrilled to read Scanlines’ thoughts on the game. They enjoyed it as much as I did and did a wonderful job articulating the moral complexities that drew me so deeply into the game’s central conflict. Now I want to replay it!

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In my latest paid article, I look at two of my favourite things in gaming: JRPGs and handheld systems. It’s a pairing that has produced some incredible games over the decades, and I had a blast talking through the ten titles I believe to be the crème de la crème of this venn diagram.

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The Video Game Storyteller is a Substack written and formatted by Harry Fritsch on the lands of the Jagera and Turrbal people, the Traditional Custodians of Meanjin (Brisbane).

All images were either captured directly by the author or sourced from publicly available promotional screenshots.

Want to see more from The Video Game Storyteller? Check out our TikTok channel @thevgstoryteller or follow our Bluesky ‪@thevgstoryteller.bsky.social

If you wish to contact Harry, you may do so by emailing him at harryfritsch98@gmail.com.

Like many gamers, I’ve been thinking a lot about physical media recently.

As our hobby moves further and further towards a digital future, I find myself seeking out its few remaining tactile elements. Like reaching for rope in a misty sky, these physical components of gaming suddenly hold far more significance than I may have once attributed them. As video game manuals, boxes, cartridges, discs, magazines, guidebooks, and cables become a thing of the past (actually, most video game cables can bugger off), I’m suddenly feeling oddly sentimental about what we still have to physically represent this art form.

The console.

The screen.

And, of course, the controller.

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Have you ever stopped and reflected on just how magical a video game controller or keyboard truly is? I know I’ve taken it for granted basically every single day of my life. Part of the reason for this is because I am in no way qualified to understand the intricacies of microcontroller computer chips or data packets or radio transmissions. Basically, all the things that make the magic of a controller a reality. All I know is that when I am holding a controller and press a button, pull down on a trigger, or move the analogue stick, something happens in the game I am playing. And that’s pretty miraculous if you ask me.

Controllers are the link between our world and the virtual world of the game. They are the puppet strings we are given permission to pull to make things happen. The vast majority of video games are static artefacts without the direct input of a player or players. The controller is what transforms games from being passive pieces of art into ones we are directly interacting with—moulding and progressing them within the confines of their design and the margins of our imaginations. Controllers are what make video games a medium beyond observation, and one of play.

And all those hours we spend tapping away on our controllers, keyboards, arcade joysticks, or touch screens while playing a game build a sense of haptic nostalgia associated with those objects. At least, that’s been my experience. Picking up a gaming controller is enough to trigger a wide range of memories for me—whether it’s a recollection of the first time I unboxed the hardware or any number of the games I enjoyed with it in hand.

Interestingly, a lot of the time, the first game that comes to mind when I am holding a controller isn’t the one I spent the greatest number of hours with on that particular system. When I am holding the Nintendo Switch Pro Controller, I am not immediately transported to the worlds of Animal Crossing: New Horizons or The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, but to the scarcely remembered Game Freak RPG, Little Town Hero. Why this game? Well, I had to review the game for a publication back in the day, and bought the Pro Controller specifically because I was getting annoyed with long play sessions on the Joy-Cons. The Pro Controller’s large rubber analogue sticks and prominent face buttons will always remind me of playing this, honestly kind of underrated, side project from the Pokémon guys.

Pushing up on the rather uncomfortable analogue stick of the Nintendo 64 controller will always take me back to playing GoldenEye 007 in my high school friend’s living room. Tap the “R1” and “L1” shoulder buttons on the PS3’s DualShock 3 controller and suddenly I’m back at a neighbourhood kid’s house, playing Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune for the first time. And holding a Wii Remote turns me back into a fifteen-year-old, nursing a sprained left hand after an accident at football training, and playing Animal Crossing: Let’s Go to the City purely with my right hand, no Nunchuk attached, controlling my character simply by pointing at the television.

Perhaps most reassuringly at this moment in time, I struggle to think of a future where video game controllers, in some physical form, no longer exist. There will always be a need for us to interact with a physical object in order to input our commands for a video game—whether that’s on a handheld device, on a computer, or on our televisions.

Even with smartphone touchscreens, at least you are still touching the screen. And while I wouldn’t consider it my favourite way of playing video games, when implemented well—such as in games like Fruit Ninja or Temple Run—this method of interaction can still become intrinsically linked to your experience with and memories of these games.

Not to mention, the few times in history we have tried to take physical objects entirely away from gameplay have typically ended in disaster. Apologies, fans of the Xbox Kinect, but I doubt anyone who ever played with that device seriously thought it was a viable alternative to the way we play games in the future.

So long live the video game controller and its physical glory. Let there always be buttons to press, triggers to pull, and analogue sticks to move. Because in an age when a lot of the tactile magic of gaming feels like it’s being sucked into a nebulous void, the controller is something we can always hold onto.

What are some of your favourite video game controllers? Any controllers that you strongly associate with certain games? Let me know in the comments!

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Stuff from the Stack

Late to the LAN Party

The Inflection Point

"May you live in interesting times", so the ancient proverb goes. Well, the video games industry is certainly experiencing... something at the moment, though there are many opinions on how "interesting" they are. In all my years being an active participant of video games and dutiful watcher of its trajectory, I've witness…

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a month ago · 8 likes · 12 comments · Peter Monks

If you want to read a far more thoughtful and detailed piece about the state of the tech and gaming industry—one that is full of concern, but never devoid of hope—then I’d highly recommend reading this article from Late to the LAN Party.

The Video Game Storyteller is a Substack written and formatted by Harry Fritsch on the lands of the Jagera and Turrbal people, the Traditional Custodians of Meanjin (Brisbane).

All images were either captured directly by the author or sourced from publicly available promotional screenshots.

Want to see more from The Video Game Storyteller? Check out our TikTok channel @thevgstoryteller or follow our Bluesky ‪@thevgstoryteller.bsky.social

If you wish to contact Harry, you may do so by emailing him at harryfritsch98@gmail.com.

JRPGs (Japanese Role-playing Games) are typically long, epic journeys that take dozens of hours to complete, filled with grinding levels, deep character customisation, and plots that require your full attention to truly appreciate their emotional complexity. Handheld video game systems are designed for short and sharp bursts of gaming during fleeting moments on the bus, in a waiting room, or in bed before turning in for the night.

On paper, these two things should not work together.

And yet, some of my most treasured JRPG memories have been contained on the smaller screen and limited battery life of a portable gaming system. Despite their length, the pick-up-and-play nature of many JRPGs—where you can spend a spare twenty-minutes levelling up your party here or completing a dungeon there—is actually very well suited to the handheld format. At least, that’s been my experience.

And given my love for JRPGs as a genre and for handheld gaming systems as a style of play, I figured why not create a good old-fashioned listicle looking at some of my favourite handheld JRPGs from throughout the years.

There are only three rules:

1. While the JRPG didn’t have to be originally released on a handheld system, I’m not counting any that are simply straight ports of the home console original. The game needs to have been remade or retooled in some fashion for it to qualify.

2. No Switch games. Due to its hybrid nature, there’s debate over whether the Switch is even a true handheld system, but the main reason I’m omitting it from this list is because it simply has too many darn good JRPGs. I’d rather create a dedicated Switch JRPG ranking another time.

3. The games listed here are my personal picks only. Don’t be mad if Defender of Oasis for the Sega Game Gear doesn’t feature (it was on my long list, to be fair).

Enough time spent fiddling in the party menus. Let the journey begin…

10. The Sword of Hope II

I promise this will be the last time I write about The Sword of Hope II. At least, for, like, the next year or so.

I have already discussed how this Game Boy dungeon-crawling JRPG has the vibes of some old medieval tale told through the threads of a tapestry or the brush strokes of a painting. Playing it evokes a feeling of stepping into a past much older than the game’s 1992 release date. And it’s that thick, anachronistic atmosphere that has cemented the game in my mind years after first playing.

But as a role-playing game? Yeah, The Sword of Hope II is still a lot of fun. The game certainly feels retro in certain aspects—if you don’t like random encounters, this one may not be the one for you—but otherwise, everything here is solidly designed and tailored to Game Boy gaming. Exploration is enjoyable without being overwhelming and while the game’s combat doesn’t reinvent the wheel, it offers enough strategy to keep you engaged.

Okay, that’s enough about The Sword of Hope II for now. Go and play it on Nintendo Switch Online.

9. Bravely Default

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There’s a moment in Uncharted: Golden Abyss when the game’s dashing protagonist, Nathan Drake, remarks out loud that a set of stairs has eroded away, meaning they need to find another way up to reach a certain door.

Drake says this to his partner, Marisa Chase. If you don’t know who Chase is, then that’s okay. Only the people who have ever played this, as of July 2026, still-PS Vita exclusive Uncharted prequel will know who Chase is. And even then, there’s a chance they’ve forgotten (she’s no Elena or Chloe, that’s all I’m saying). What’s important for you to know now is that Chase is an intelligent adult who is very much capable of seeing with her own two eyes that this set of stairs has eroded away and that they need to find another way up to reach the door.

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So why is Drake saying this line of dialogue? If it’s not for Chase, then it must be for us: the player. But we are also humans capable of (varying) levels of deduction. We have eyes that see the PS Vita screen displaying the level design and artwork from the talented folks at Bend Studios syncing up to give us strong visual cues. Visual cues we can then use our brains, reasoning, and logic to infer that this set of stairs in front of Drake has indeed eroded away and that we will most likely need to find another way up to reach the door.

We don’t need Drake to tell us any of this. Don’t we?

There’s been a pushback in recent years against games getting too chatty. The belief goes that our video game characters just won’t shut up. They always have something to say about every situation. Pick up an item. Funny quip. Defeat an enemy. Drop a one-liner. Walk in a straight line. Monologue like you’re opening SNL. “All this dialogue is overkill,” I hear people say in Reddit posts longer than the script for The Last of Us Part II. But I’d be lying if I said I never agree with this sentiment.

Truth be told, I don’t mind video game characters conversing during moments of gameplay—so long as it fits the mood and context of that particular level or area. I can truly get swept up in the back-and-forth of two characters who are simply traversing through a location, killing time like we all would in that situation. I’m less forgiving if the character is without a companion or is currently trying to navigate a particularly tense or scary scenario. Beyond context, strong writing and voice performance are naturally key for in-game dialogue’s ability to either bolster immersion or shatter it completely. Fail to stick the landing, and things quickly become annoying. I’m looking at you, Navi.

Things get even more complicated when the character’s dialogue is specifically written to help you through a section of gameplay. Usually this is the character offering a hint towards a puzzle solution or musing about where to go next. In these instances, we see the game’s script directly influence its gameplay, as the narrative designers are using their characters to help guide the player through potentially tricky sequences.

This is an even smaller needle to thread. On the one hand, I totally understand why a lot of games do this—particularly triple-A games that are mega expensive to make. If a quality assurance tester is struggling with a puzzle or doesn’t know where to go next, it’s a lot cheaper to write and record some lines of dialogue to steer the player in the right direction than to make sweeping changes to the game’s design.

But, like, isn’t it the job of game designers to create puzzles that appear difficult on the surface, but which the player should be able to solve through intuition and acquired knowledge of the game’s systems and mechanics? In a perfect world, yes. But let’s be realistic. No two players are the same, and it would be impossible to create puzzles that cater to every single person through their design alone. Some games are happy to take a step back and allow the player’s skill and patience to be the deciding factors behind progression. Others are more concerned about accessibility and are willing to offer some help. And character dialogue is an increasingly popular way to channel this support.

While many modern games have adopted this approach, it seems to be particularly rife within Sony’s studios—especially Naughty Dog, Santa Monica Studio, and Guerrilla Games. The Norse-era God of War games and the Horizon series have generated plenty of discourse around their hint dialogue, and you could argue that Uncharted was the franchise that popularised this trend in the first place. Some players appreciate the support these games offer through the vessel of character dialogue as an alternative to looking up a guide or walkthrough, while others find it obnoxious and unnecessarily hand-holdy.

Like a true coward, I sit somewhere in the middle. The constant barrage of “helpful” advice offered in God of War: Ragnarök did start to grate on me, especially since the characters would chime in with suggestions after I had been attempting a puzzle for barely a handful of minutes. Like, chill. If I need your help, I’ll ask for it when I’m ready. And you better believe that if they add such lines into the remakes of the Greek-era God of War trilogy—a trilogy all about Kratos’ growing personal isolationism and unwillingness to help anyone but himself—I’ll be marching on the Santa Monica Pier.

But then I play a game like Uncharted: Golden Abyss and am surprisingly delighted by the way it handles its dialogue hints—at least in the example I gave above. Drake says the line about the eroded stairs and the need for a new route up, blah, blah, blah. It’s textbook instructive dialogue blatantly pointing out the obvious in a way that can feel patronising to the player.

It’s the way Chase responds to Drake’s comment that really grabbed my attention. Chase is the woman with Drake, in case you forgot. I know I did. Sorry, Marisa Chase fans1.

Chase accuses Drake of lecturing her, arguing that she can figure out the deal with the stairs herself because… of course she could. It’s all done playfully and leans into the fact that, yeah, Drake can get a bit mansplainy at times. Not in a way that I think is problematic or anything. He’s just clearly the kind of guy who gets overexcited at the prospect of adventure and the challenges therein and can’t help but voice his thoughts—even when it’s pointing out the obvious.

I like this exchange because it achieves three things simultaneously:

1. It makes it clear to the player what their next steps should be.

2. It uses humour to poke fun at its own blatantly instructive tone.

3. It manages to do so in a way that is authentic to the characters while developing the rapport between Drake and Chase.

That’s a rather impressive feat for what is essentially ten seconds of dialogue.

I now felt like I understood Drake and Chase’s dynamic better while learning more about how they individually perceive the world.

I was now more engrossed in this particular moment of gameplay because the cheeky banter had made me smile.

And, yes, I now knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that because the stairs has eroded, I needed to find another way up to reach the door.

What are your opinions on hint dialogue in video games? Any particular games that you think handle this well or poorly? Let me know in the comments!

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Stuff from the Stack

Nerd Central

Sea of Stars - Thoughts

Sea of Stars was released on August 29, 2023 for Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, and PC. Developed and published by Sabotage Studio, the team behind the Ninja Gaiden inspired The Messenger, the game was designed as a modern tribute to classic 1990s RPGs. It wears its inspirations proudly on its sleeve, especiall…

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a month ago · 8 likes · 5 comments · John Murphy

Sea of Stars is one of my favourite indie RPGs of the past few years, so I had a blast reading through Nerd Central’s take on the game. They clearly enjoyed it as much as I did—possibly even a bit more—and their argument placing the game amongst the greats of the genre is both thorough and compelling.

The Video Game Storyteller is a Substack written and formatted by Harry Fritsch on the lands of the Jagera and Turrbal people, the Traditional Custodians of Meanjin (Brisbane).

All images were either captured directly by the author or sourced from publicly available promotional screenshots.

Want to see more from The Video Game Storyteller? Check out our TikTok channel @thevgstoryteller or follow our Bluesky ‪@thevgstoryteller.bsky.social

If you wish to contact Harry, you may do so by emailing him at harryfritsch98@gmail.com.

Guacamelee! is a game where your character dies within the first five minutes after failing to save his childhood sweetheart from a man so evil, he out-eviled the Devil himself.

It’s one of the funniest games I’ve ever played.

This 2013 metroidvania from Drinkbox Studios is renowned for adopting a tone that isn’t afraid to get a little silly. I mean, for goodness’ sake, the game is called Guacamelee! I didn’t even need to insert that exclamation point to emphasise how ridiculous the title is—the exclamation point is part of the title! ← I added this one, though 😊

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Despite the inherently tragic story setup of the protagonist, Juan, being immediately killed by the game’s main villain, Guacamelee! never takes itself too seriously. Its jubilant aesthetic, inspired by Mexico’s Day of the Dead, bursts off the screen—even within the afterlife levels. The dialogue is sharp and packed with gags. And there are enough references and nods to other video games dotted around the map to fill an Ernest Cline novel.

I’ve written before about how, as a medium, video games have a particularly challenging time sticking the landing for a joke or anything that’s meant to elicit a chuckle from the player. Humour is obviously subjective and even though we play games because they are fun, we don’t typically gravitate towards them because they are funny. Crucial comedic elements such as timing, writing, delivery, and joke construction are harder to translate to an interactive art form like gaming. As such, when a game does try to be funny, it opens itself up to further criticism given the high standards humour are held to—standards that are also going to vary wildly from person to person.

Guacamelee! has not escaped this criticism. Over the years, I’ve heard people call this game’s style of humour cringe and overly reliant on referential comedy. And if you are one of those people, then that’s completely fine! Like I said, what makes you chuckle and what doesn’t is completely up to you. What I personally know to be true is that whenever I play Guacamelee!, it always puts a smile on my face.

Let’s start by addressing the abundance of references and Easter eggs scattered throughout Guacamelee!, as that seems to be the main point of criticism when people deride the game’s humour. Rightly or wrongly, there’s an opinion that all the nods to classic 80s and 90s video games scattered throughout the game’s story and setting are a lazy way for the developers to add some colour to the experience. To which I say: I agree. Except for the part about it being lazy.

Yes, Guacamelee! references a lot of retro games—some in obvious ways, while others are more hidden. But these nudges and winks are almost always integrated in a way that feels organic within the world of the game. Instead of there simply being a Mega Man sprite front and centre, its silhouette is instead carved within the brickwork of a town’s wall. Rather than showing Mario and Luigi as, well, Mario and Luigi, they are depicted as a pair of Luchadores in a poster that organically adopts the game’s art style. Discovering these references feels genuinely rewarding while demonstrating the clear lengths the developers went towards weaving their passion for these older games into their own work.

I will admit that Guacamelee!’s references to various early-2010s memes do feel a bit, well… cringey. It certainly dates the game seeing allusions to Business Cat and Foul Bachelor Frog. Thankfully, these meme Easter eggs are nowhere near as prominent as those connected to video games, so I’m not too bothered. Any game that features a gag about one of the wanderers from Journey collapsing near the summit of a mountain gets a comedic free pass in my books, every day of the week.

It also helps that Guacamelee! is just a really solidly designed metroidvania. Yes, the tongue-in-cheek humour adds a lot to the game’s tone. But first and foremost, this game invests in making the act of playing it fun. The map design is superb, almost all mechanics have a dual purpose between platforming and combat, and the difficulty curve is as fine-tuned as any title in this genre. It’s always going to be easier for a game to make you laugh when you’ve already been smiling the entire time.

And when Guacamelee! does try to blend its sillier tone with its gameplay, the results are usually great. Juan’s ability to transform into a chicken is just as ridiculous as it sounds. But while chicken Juan is naturally more limited than Luchador Juan, it’s not like these poultry gameplay sections are devoid of interesting ideas. Many of the chicken-specific areas make smart use of your smaller stature, and by the end of the adventure, you’ll discover that what started out as a joke actually ends up becoming an integral mechanic of the game’s design.

I also love the running joke about Juan destroying the Choozo Statues (a clear parody of Metroid’s Chozo Statues). Every time you break one to gain a new ability, an old man disguised as a goat appears out of nowhere and berates you for property damage before remarking on the fact that he wants to date your mother. I promise I’m not making any of this up.

In a genre like metroidvanias which often take themselves very seriously, Guacamelee!’s goofy tone comes across as fresh and nourishing as the Mexican dip that makes up one half of its portmanteau title. The other half of its title is also appropriate, as this game hits you with enough wacky energy to ensure there should be at least some gags that connect. Or maybe not! Maybe it is all cringe!

And if that makes me cringe, then I don’t care. I’ve adored Guacamelee! since I first played it on the PS3 over a decade ago, and I will always have an appetite for its colourful world, colourful punches, and colourful humour.

Have you played Guacamelee!, and do you enjoy its sense of humour? What’s a game that always puts a smile on your face? Let me know in the comments!

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The Video Game Storyteller is a Substack written and formatted by Harry Fritsch on the lands of the Jagera and Turrbal people, the Traditional Custodians of Meanjin (Brisbane).

All images were either captured directly by the author or sourced from publicly available promotional screenshots.

Want to see more from The Video Game Storyteller? Check out our TikTok channel @thevgstoryteller or follow our Bluesky ‪@thevgstoryteller.bsky.social

If you wish to contact Harry, you may do so by emailing him at harryfritsch98@gmail.com.

When your apartment is being threatened by flood waters rising at an alarming rate, the importance of your material possessions quickly becomes secondary.

This was the situation my now-wife, then-girlfriend, and I found ourselves in during the Brisbane floods in February 2022. After three days of relentless rain, the creek behind our block of apartments burst its banks, meaning the ankle-high puddles that had been submerging our front lawn were now transforming into something far more dangerous. And fast.

So fast, in fact, that the window for us to safely evacuate on our own closed before we even knew just how bad things had gotten. The water was now too deep and too powerful, and we needed help to get out. I called the State Emergency Services, and they said they would send a rescue team within the hour. That gave us hope we would escape this flood and reach safer ground, but there was now the question of what to do with all our things.

As I said, in moments like this, your main priority immediately locks into getting yourself and your loved ones out of harm’s way. Everything inside our apartment could be replaced if the flood waters did reach inside. Everything, but us. So, while we waited for rescue to arrive, we set about moving smaller possessions to the top of shelves and kitchen benches with a kind of militaristic detachment. If I could spare my stuff from a soaking, then great. But ultimately, my number one concern was making sure we didn’t end up doing a reverse Finding Nemo. There was simply no space or time to be emotional about leaving behind these objects to their fate.

With two exceptions. The first were my books. The second were my video games.

As I went about relocating my games to higher ground, I couldn’t help but feel like I was saying goodbye to something meaningful. Many of these games—as was the case with my books—were a bridge to my childhood and a physical vessel for memories spanning most of my life. Yes, they were replaceable. But the meaning behind them was something I could never truly leave behind.

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***

Last week, it was reported that Sony will be ending production of PS5 discs from 2028 onwards. This news came after what has been a gradual decline of physical games over several years. The warning signs have been there for a long time now. And yet, this development still came as a shock to many—myself included.

There are plenty of very real concerns around the gradual eradication of physical games—whether they be on disc, cartridge, or some other form of removable media. This general air of anxiety has been heightened over the past week, with many voicing their worries over a digital-only future and the impact this will have on games preservation and access. If you want to read some of these thoughts and perspectives, I’d recommend checking out the latest Reconnect Recap and scrolling down to the list of articles Alex has curated on the topic.

Like with many things in life, I’m trying my best to look at this news with as much nuance as possible. Because in no way am I anti-digital games. The rise of online stores for video games has allowed the development space to dramatically democratise, opening the door for independent studios to thrive with games that would, likely, otherwise never see the light of day. A slowing down of disc and cartridge manufacturing also means there will be less of either of those things adding to the global waste crisis (although I’m sure we’ll find something else to fill that gap).

And to be perfectly honest, my purchasing habits have strayed further and further away from buying physical games in recent years due to some of the inherent conveniences of the digital format. So, yes. I am part of the problem.

But it’s hard not to get romantic about physical games, isn’t it? I can feel myself being pulled towards typing out flowery prose about the purity of strolling through the hallowed aisle of a games store, the smell of fresh plastic in the air, surrounded by all the magnificent covers promising worlds beyond our own, selecting the title you’ve been yearning over for months, poring over the manual on the ride home, anticipation building and building, powering on your console and sliding the disc in—smooth and welcoming, like it was always meant to be—before experiencing something that would’ve felt like magic for people living a century ago.

See! Couldn’t help myself. But it’s a cliché because there is a truth behind it. Physical games give us greater ownership over the piece of art that extends beyond the basic legal definition. It becomes something we can display, something that can represent a part of who we are, and, most importantly, something we can use to connect to others.

When I look at my physical game collection, I see more than just plastic rectangles and logos. I see some of the most important relationships in my life reflected in the story of each box. I see my parents buying me my first video games—both the ones I had asked for, and the ones they surprised me with on birthdays and Christmases. I see games bought alongside friends, games friends have gifted me, and the gaps in my collection left by the games I gifted them.

I see Mario Kart 8 for the Wii U, which I hurriedly bought one morning when a couple of mates from high school made the impromptu decision to drop by and do some gaming. I see Tekken 6 for the PSP, which, not too dissimilar to my story about Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, was a game I didn’t even know had been ported to the handheld until miraculously seeing it on an EB Games shelf one day. And I see not one, but two copies of Animal Crossing: New Horizons, the first game my wife and I bonded over on our Switches.

The move to a digital-only future has felt like an inevitability for some time now. Gaming will continue, in one form or another, regardless of whether those games are played on a disc or through a download file. And as I outlined before, digital gaming does have some very real benefits that will hopefully only become more pronounced from this point onwards.

But we are also leaving something behind here. And I’m worried we will never be able to return.

Because while our apartment was mercifully spared from the flood waters that day, it did make something clear about my relationship to my physical games: just because it’s not life or death doesn’t mean it isn’t worth saving.

What are your thoughts about the industry’s accelerated move away from physical games? Do you have any memories attached to your physical games collection? Let me know in the comments!

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Hey, everyone!

After taking a short break from weekly Substack posting, I am now feeling refreshed, recharged, and ready to get back to a regular routine with The Video Game Storyteller. This means you can expect a new free article to drop in your email and/or Substack feed each week, just as it was before. Paid subscribers will continue to receive their bonus fortnightly article as well.

And if you haven’t done so already, be sure to read my guest article for Infinite Lives which dropped last week, looking at the Queensland Games Festival and its significance to the local development community:

Infinite Lives

The grassroots games festival putting Queensland on the global stage

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2 months ago · 18 likes · The Video Game Storyteller

The Video Game Storyteller is a Substack written and formatted by Harry Fritsch on the lands of the Jagera and Turrbal people, the Traditional Custodians of Meanjin (Brisbane).

All images were either captured directly by the author or sourced from publicly available promotional screenshots.

Want to see more from The Video Game Storyteller? Check out our TikTok channel @thevgstoryteller or follow our Bluesky ‪@thevgstoryteller.bsky.social

If you wish to contact Harry, you may do so by emailing him at harryfritsch98@gmail.com.

Returning to an old relationship in life is always risky business.

While you may harbour fond memories of that person in your past, there’s no guarantee they’ll be the same when you reunite. It’s likely you’ve both moved on with your lives, you may realise you have less in common than you remember, or, worst of all, they may remind you of rough memories you have long since buried.

Back in 2021, over 30 years since Sega broke up with their original mascot, Alex Kidd, the company teamed up with developer Merge Games to try and rekindle this old flame. Alex Kidd in Miracle World DX is a remake of the 1986 platformer on the Sega Master System and, just like revisiting a past relationship that ended in difficult circumstances, things here are a little bit awkward…

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It’s 2am, early on an icy Brisbane June morning, and I am having a spiritual experience.

I’m curled up under the covers, the brightness of my university laptop turned all the way down so as to not completely fry my retinas. E3 2016 is on, and Nintendo is airing their presentation for this year’s event. Unlike a traditional audience showcase or a pre-recorded Nintendo Direct, this year simply begins with a live feed of Reggie Fils-Aimé, President of Nintendo of America, standing on the E3 showroom floor, promising that we are about to be shown “the world of a single game—the newest entry in The Legend of Zelda franchise”.

What plays next is one of the greatest video game trailers of all time.

The trailer is deliberately slow-paced and atmospheric at first, gradually introducing us to this new Hyrule through shots of scenic landscapes and gentle piano flourishes. A voiceover from Zelda then plays, simultaneously soothing and urgent, speaking, “Open your eyes. Wake up, Link.” We are then taken to that iconic scene of Link running off the Great Plateau, all of Hyrule at his feet, as both the hero and trailer take flight. After a thrilling two-minute montage of Link interacting with this seemingly endless new world in seemingly endless new ways, the trailer ends with a shot of the Master Sword, waiting patiently for us players to claim it as our destiny.

The title drops. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild.

I can feel tears welling up in my eyes. I have never been prouder to be a Wii U owner.

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After seventeen months, ninety-eight articles, and somehow only one accidental publishing incident, I am taking a step back from this Substack.

Kind of. Let me explain.

I have come to the decision to pause these weekly Thursday articles for at least the rest of June. Why? Well, there are some pretty big life things going on at the moment that, quite frankly, require more of my time and attention. I am also about to dive into some really exciting professional opportunities which you’ll hopefully learn more about soon but which I need to prioritise at least for the short-term.

With all this extra stuff going on, the last thing I want is to sit down at my laptop each week and realise that I have no words left for The Video Game Storyteller. This hasn’t happened yet, but I want to learn from some past experiences where I have come close to such a thing occurring. I care about this publication and this community too much to produce half-baked material, or worse, whatever slop I can get ChatGPT to spit out. If you ever see one of my articles with a title like “Video Games Are More Than Just Games—They Are Also Meaningful and Fun”, you’ll know I’ve fallen.

And so, I will enjoy a very specific kind of internet vacation away from these weekly articles—again, only for a month or so. A Substack sabbatical, if you will.

That doesn’t mean I’m going to disappear completely! I’ll still be goofing around on Notes and, of course, reading all the amazing work that’s being put out by my fellow writers.

Oh, and if you’re a paid subscriber to The Video Game Storyteller, you can still expect your bonus articles to drop on June 16 and 30. I want to make sure you’re still getting full value for the extra support you so generously offer me.

With that said, I do hope that you’ll stick around during what will be a quieter month for this Substack. In the meantime, feel free to dig through the archives of The Video Game Storyteller where you’ll find everything from musings on the thematic allure of JRPG towns to a one-act play about the perils of buying physical games in 2026.

Better yet, I encourage you to read (and subscribe to) some of the other wonderful gaming writers on this platform. You can start by scrolling through this article below where I list some of my favourites:

To be perfectly clear, this is not the end of The Video Game Storyteller. I mean, heck, I am so close to reaching one hundred articles, why would I stop now? I simply need to take a little break from publishing weekly to focus on some other projects before returning in the near future feeling re-energised and ready to give it my all once again. And maybe, just maybe, The Video Game Storyteller will finally have a proper About page written by then.

On a final note, I am planning on attending the Queensland Games Festival at the Brisbane Powerhouse on June 27. I’m stoked to check out some local video games and meet cool people—so if you’re in the area, come and say hi!

Never stop gaming and telling stories! I’ll see you all again very soon 😊

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The Video Game Storyteller is a Substack written and formatted by Harry Fritsch on the lands of the Jagera and Turrbal people, the Traditional Custodians of Meanjin (Brisbane).

All images were either captured directly by the author or sourced from publicly available promotional screenshots.

Want to see more from The Video Game Storyteller? Check out our TikTok channel @thevgstoryteller or follow our Bluesky ‪@thevgstoryteller.bsky.social

If you wish to contact Harry, you may do so by emailing him at harryfritsch98@gmail.com.

Gloom enshrouded the keep. Blood red and fire green tainted its stone walls. Its floors were covered with the bodies of those tasked with protecting it—their oaths incomplete.

Two souls remained amongst the wreckage. The mage and the prince. And as the keep succumbed to its final night, the prince’s eyes widened while the mage held the pendant close to their chest and spoke the forgotten words.

A flash of green.

“I can’t… my arms and legs. They won’t move.”

“So it would seem.”

“You foul… what evil have you cast on me?”

“I am only following orders.”

“Enough of this. Be quick with my end.”

“Your demise has begun, your highness. But quick it will not be.”

“Release me!”

“I cannot.”

“If I could only just reach my sword.”

“That is no longer possible.”

“Lucky you.”

“This is where we stay now.”

“What? Kill me now and take your blood money. I tire of your pathetic games.”

“We play no games, your highness. But if it brings you peace, know that I am killing you.”

“By shackling me to these invisible chains?”

“You are no prisoner. You are being assassinated.”

“Yet I still breathe. Do you actually know how assassinations work?”

“Your death continues on the same path it has always followed. Only, while the length of that path has not been altered, I have moved the destination far beyond your reach.”

“Great. You play no games but are happy to speak in riddles.”

“I speak only in truths.”

“Then put words to your actions.”

“All you wish to know surrounds your senses.”

“You piece of… wait, the fires. They have also stopped moving.”

“Make no mistake, their destruction continues. This keep falls tonight.”

“Yet their flames stand as still as my body.”

“Not stilled, only slowed.”

“It’s that horrid green necklace of yours, isn’t it? It’s somehow meddled with the flow of time.”

“Time continues to obey the laws of nature. Only, you and I now exist outside of those boundaries, and we pay heed to my rules.”

“I don’t like the sound of that at all.”

A passing of minutes.

“Let me get this straight, you foul hooded bastard. I have to spend the rest of my days standing in this very spot, trapped with you, growing old with nothing but each other’s company to pass the insufferably long decades I have left to live, as our lives flash by in a matter of moments for all those outside this wretched time pocket you have created. Correct?”

“Correct.”

“I’m going to kill you.”

“That is no longer possible.”

“I don’t care about possibilities. I can’t stand this for another second.”

“You will be standing much longer than a second, I am afraid.”

“Can’t you just burn me with your green fire? A knife to the throat? A sword through the heart? Something traditional, something quick?”

“My orders are to assassinate you via Meddling, the oldest and most sacred art of the Faded Flame.”

“I don’t care about that silly green candle you freaks worship. Who ordered you to kill me?”

“I am not at liberty to say.”

“How much did they pay you?”

“I am not at liberty to say.”

“Why did they choose this wretched form of assassination for me?”

“I am not at liberty—”

“Okay, I get the idea. Listen, I am first in line to the throne. If I ask for a mountain to be moved because it’s blocking my view, then a thousand workers will chip away at its stone until it no longer stands. Besides the king, there is no person in these lands who holds as much power as I do. You tell me what you want, it’s yours. I can make you rich. Give you titles. Elevate you to heights you could only dream. I could protect your order so that you and your people would never have to carry out these petty assassinations again. Forget the payment of my life. I am a man of honour. Name your price and I will make it so. What say you?”

“…”

“What say you?”

A passing of days.

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Let’s get this out of the way. I was a big fan of Transformers as a kid.

“Well, that’s quite alright,” I hear you say. “A lot of kids were fans of Transformers.”

Yeah, but, you see, um… I was a big fan of the Michael Bay Transformers movies. Specifically, I was obsessed with the second film in the franchise: Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. Yes, its script is as thin as a paper bag on Shia LaBeouf’s head. And, yes, there are plenty of, shall we say, problematic aspects of the film’s representation that probably felt dated even back in 2009.

But when the movie released, I was the perfect age demographic to be swept up in its epic story of transforming alien robots battling one another over (insert ancient source of all life and power in the universe MacGuffin here). Revenge of the Fallen was also the first movie I went to see in the cinema without my parents—I have a cool older cousin to thank for that—so it will always hold a special place in my heart for that reason alone.

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I then did the thing that Hasbro was desperate for all children to do and asked my parents to buy me the toys from the movie. Which they very kindly did (in moderation, of course). But my infatuation with Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen didn’t end there. You see, there was also an official video game adaptation of the film and of course I wanted to play it. One problem, though. The only gaming system I owned at the time was a PSP, and as far as I knew from my vantage point in New Zealand, there wasn’t a port of the game for Sony’s handheld.

Disappointed at not being able to play the video game adaptation of Michael Bay’s Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, I carried on living my life trading toys with other fanatical friends while watching the DVD of the film a truly unhealthy number of times. Little did I know, however, that a miracle was just around the corner.

The following year, my dad took me on a short trip to Australia where his parents were celebrating their 50^th wedding anniversary. Prior to the big event, I convinced him that we needed to visit the technology store JB Hi-fi (not sponsored) in Brisbane’s Queen Street Mall to see what kind of neat games and gadgets they had in Australia which had yet to make it across the Tasman Sea. I wandered over to the PSP games section of the store to check out what was on offer, and to my absolute shock and amazement, there it was. Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. The video game. On PSP.

It was like witnessing a mirage seeing that cover image of Optimus Prime and the villainous red eyes of The Fallen on a PSP games case. I simply had no idea that such a version existed. This was during my very early days of consuming games media online—early enough that I had never come across the fact that a PSP version of Revenge of the Fallen had been developed. Likewise, the game had never appeared on the shelves of any stores I was frequenting back in New Zealand, and during the research of this article I couldn’t come across definitive proof to suggest the game was ever distributed in that country.

But there it was. A PSP version of the film I had been obsessing over for the past twelve months. I could play my favourite movie. Better yet, the game was within my spending limit for the trip. Better better yet, I had taken my PSP with me to Australia.

Still in a haze of disbelief and euphoria, I bought the game, waited until Dad and I returned to our hotel, put the UMD into my PSP, and started playing a port of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen that I didn’t know existed a matter of hours before.

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen for PSP is one of the worst video games I have ever played.

The game is a horrendous demake of the home console and PC versions that plays like the corpse of a dead Transformer—all shell and no soul. After a pretty decent-looking introductory CGI cutscene, things go downhill almost immediately. The opening level in Shanghai has you take control of Bumblebee from a top-down perspective, similar to a game like Hotline Miami. You can move, shoot, evade, and strafe, but after only a few seconds of gameplay, you’ll notice a pretty unforgiveable omission. You can’t transform.

That’s right, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen on PSP doesn’t give you the option to transform between robot and vehicle mode at will. The one mechanic that you absolutely must include in a Transformers game to ensure it feels fun and immersive is entirely absent here. Instead, the vast majority of levels in both the Autobot and Decepticon campaigns have you exclusively play in robot mode, with only a handful of stages switching to vehicle.

It’s not like either level type is particularly enjoyable. The robot stages are long, tedious shoot ‘em ups with little gameplay variety and some annoying hit detection. Meanwhile, the vehicle stages are often over in a flash, albeit while still managing to frustrate thanks to some stiff controls. What both gameplay styles share is a bland, grainy visual aesthetic that includes laughable destruction effects with zero animations outside of explosions that look too cheap for Clip Art.

Cinematics are almost entirely replaced by poorly written dialogue. There’s little to differentiate playable characters outside of the colour of their bullets. And despite all the cut technical corners, the game barely feels optimised to run on the PSP without the hardware whining as much as a Starscream monologue.

Did these issues stop me from playing Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen on PSP as a kid? Nope. Quite the opposite, in fact. Sure, I was gutted at the lack of any real-time transformation mechanics, and I could tell that this version of the game was far inferior to what I had seen on home consoles. But I still poured a lot of time into the game. Far more than the quality of the work warranted. I put this unearned attention down to three reasons:

1. I was so fixated on the film that I was always going to play the video game adaptation for hours on end, regardless of how good or bad it was.

2. I only owned about five or six games at the time, so any new purchase would have every last drop of potential gameplay squeezed from it, again, regardless of how good or bad it was.

3. The game did have some really cool unlockables that required persistent gameplay to access.

Let’s focus on that third reason for a second. Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen on PSP also contained three episodes from the G1 animated Transformers series from the 1980s—those episode being S.O.S. Dinobots, Fire on the Mountain, and War of the Dinobots. On paper, this is a really great incentive to keep people playing the game. I was certainly desperate to unlock those episodes and have access to retro Transformers content that I could watch on my PSP whenever I wanted.

The problem was that the unlock requirement for those episodes was achieving twenty-five gold medals across all the levels in the game. This demanded finishing the levels in a certain amount of time while also accruing enough points. For some stages, this wasn’t too big a deal. For others, I nearly snapped my PSP in half from how infuriatingly precise you had to be to earn the gold medal. I spent months constantly replaying the same terribly designed levels trying to eke out that iota of gameplay optimisation needed to reach my goal.

It was exhausting and probably not worth the major time investment. But eventually I finished every level with a gold medal and celebrated by watching a handful of outdated, cheesy cartoon episodes—which, to be clear, I still had a blast consuming several times over!

That sums up my experience with Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen on PSP. A truly disastrous port of a mediocre video game adaptation of a film that most of the world despises. And yet, when I think back to that joyous moment of discovery in JB Hi-fi or the gruelling hours I spent working towards unlocking those episodes, I’m still filled with a warm fondness for this game and the memories it gave me. More than meets the eye indeed.

What are some of the worst games you have played that you were previously excited for? Any other disastrous handheld demakes that I should be made aware of? Let me know in the comments!

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Stuff from the Stack

Pixelshift

Nostalgia and My Favorite Video Game

I’ve been thinking a lot about the nostalgia I feel for certain games lately. Maybe it’s because I’m wrapped up in a project that has a lot of people commenting about their nostalgia or maybe it’s playing the silent hill 2 remake in my free time. I figured no better way to let that out then to share a story about one of the games I feel the most nostalg…

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3 months ago · 12 likes · 8 comments · Mario

Speaking of childhood gaming stories, I was fully engrossed with this article from Pixelshift about their personal origins with the Kingdom Hearts series and the Christmas that changed everything. There were so many delightful anecdotes sprinkled throughout this piece that the sentimental tone completely won me over. Even if, unlike the author, I still don’t really understand Kingdom Hearts.

The Video Game Storyteller is a Substack written and formatted by Harry Fritsch on the lands of the Jagera and Turrbal people, the Traditional Custodians of Meanjin (Brisbane).

All images were either captured directly by the author or sourced from publicly available promotional screenshots.

Want to see more from The Video Game Storyteller? Check out our TikTok channel @thevgstoryteller or follow our Bluesky ‪@thevgstoryteller.bsky.social

If you wish to contact Harry, you may do so by emailing him at harryfritsch98@gmail.com.

A part of me withers away and dies every time I hear a person or publication refer to the PlayStation 3 as a “retro console.” I mean, come on! That system only released, like, *checks notes* twenty years ago…

Oh God.

I am currently going through a period of denial that every gamer hits at some point in their lives. This onset of ageing-gamer-related-misery (AGRM for short) typically hits in your mid-to-late-twenties, when there is very little chance that the youth of today will be playing the same video game systems you enjoyed in your adolescence—therefore lumping it all into that nebulous category of “retro gaming”. It’s what the PlayStation 1 kids had to endure in the 2010s, the NES kids in the 2000s, and the Atari kids in the 90s. And now it’s my turn.

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The best I can hope for is that young people continue to seek out video game experiences from both my past and well before that. Because, well, that’s what I did when I was growing up. During my teenage years, I found that digging into gaming’s history was an enjoyable way for me to connect deeper to this artform. It allowed me to play older games in series and genres I really loved while identifying how design trends blossomed and fit into the ever-sprouting video game family tree I was gradually coming to terms with. Also, a lot of these older games were still just a blast to play, many of which quickly became some of my all-time favourites.

And then there was a game like The Sword of Hope II.

This Game Boy RPG was developed by Kemco for Japan in 1992 and released in America in 1996. I first played The Sword of Hope II after purchasing it on a whim off the Nintendo 3DS eShop sometime in the early 2010s. I was right in the middle of falling head-over-heels for JRPGs at the time, and I was interested in exploring one for the Game Boy that didn’t involve spending dozens of hours stuffing poor woodland creatures into cake tins.

There’s no denying that when I first played The Sword of Hope II, it was already considered retro. Heck, regardless of whether you go with the Japanese or American launch year, this game still precedes my birth—which I always feel like is a pretty safe line-in-the-sand indicator for how old a video game feels. But what struck me about The Sword of Hope II was just how old it felt.

I don’t mean that to come off as rude or insensitive. If anything, I was swept up by some magical aura emanating from this game that transported me to an age beyond that of even the Game Boy. It was as if the game were a dreamy vision of a forgotten medieval land, adapted into code for this handheld, and I was simply viewing these memories through the small visual window that appears at the top of the screen. There was some form of alchemy at play with the game’s visuals, atmosphere, and sense of immersion that felt more abstract and more antique than a typical 8-bit game.

I realise that all sounds pretty airy-fairy for a game with a title so generic, it sounds like it could be a parody of retro JRPGs. So let me try to ground my thoughts around The Sword of Hope II a bit more. Because, at its core, this game contains all the standard RPG tropes for its time. There is a great evil threatening to devour the land and a young prince destined to save the day, a bunch of random battles, character customisation, turn-based combat, interactions with NPCs, and some pretty sweet tunes to score the adventure.

One of the ways in which The Sword of Hope II does feel more unique is that it adopts a dungeon-crawler-style approach for its world structure. Each screen is essentially a different grid on a map that encompasses towns, dungeons, and the fields in-between. Using the arrows at the bottom of the Game Boy’s screen, you move around the map with each location containing various interactive elements. This may be a person you can talk to, a chest that can be opened, or even some innocuous environmental object that could potentially be hiding a secret.

This presentation of The Sword of Hope II’s world is one of the big reasons I felt a sense of surreal anachronism while playing. Even in spite of the Game Boy’s simplistic black-and-white graphics—or potentially precisely because of the system’s limited technology—when flipping through these different screens, I felt like I was walking through an exhibition of scenic medieval artwork. Yes, the game’s depiction of a river flowing by a forest or an ancient crumbling temple may have been minimalist by design, but the effect was still highly evocative. At least, until one of the game’s constant random battles interrupted my gallery tour.

But even those battles reinforced the antique atmosphere in The Sword of Hope II. The monster sprites have relatively little animation and obviously no colour. They therefore appear as sketchbook-like interpretations of evil fiends, the kinds of which I found reminiscent of children’s fantasy novels like The Hobbit or Narnia. And the way in which battles play out, with all the actions being described through text, felt as though I was witnessing a great orator telling me the story of a timeless conflict—even if, in reality I was just beating up some lowly goblin.

Whenever I hear the opening music of The Sword of Hope II, I am listening to a bard pluck away on the strings of their lute. Whenever I discover a secret in one of the game’s screens, I am an archaeologist uncovering a mystery from the deep past. And whenever I play the game, I am stepping into a world that feels far older than the 1989 handheld it was first developed for.

No, The Sword of Hope II obviously isn’t the oldest game that was ever made—it’s not even the oldest game in The Sword of Hope series! But, for me at least, it does kind of feel like it. So the next time my AGRM has me in its grips and I’m lamenting the fact that Batman: Arkham City is now as old as Super Mario 64 was when Batman: Arkham City first launched, I can boot up The Sword of Hope II and take comfort that some things have—seemingly at least—always been.

What game defines “old” for you, in whatever definition you attribute that word? How old were you when you first realised the games of your childhood are now considered “retro”? Let me know in the comments!

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The Video Game Storyteller is a Substack written and formatted by Harry Fritsch on the lands of the Jagera and Turrbal people, the Traditional Custodians of Meanjin (Brisbane).

All images were either captured directly by the author or sourced from publicly available promotional screenshots.

Want to see more from The Video Game Storyteller? Check out our TikTok channel @thevgstoryteller or follow our Bluesky ‪@thevgstoryteller.bsky.social

If you wish to contact Harry, you may do so by emailing him at harryfritsch98@gmail.com.

Of all the things that attracted me to play Mixtape—and there were many, including the fact the game comes from a renowned Australian developer, its John Hughes-style storytelling, and, of course, the banger of a soundtrack that scores the adventure—the main one was that the entire experience can be completed in roughly three hours. I know. The thing that a lot of people have been complaining about online when it comes to Mixtape was actually a major selling point for me and my tastes.

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And that’s because I like a short video game. Sue me. In particular, I think there’s something magical about starting and finishing a game in just a single sitting. We all know how immersive gaming can be, but for me, that level of absorption is amplified whenever I can leave behind the real world and interact with an entire virtual story all in one go. Like watching a great movie or reading through an entire novella across a solitary afternoon, playing through a full game at once can help elevate memories made within that world in ways that splintered sessions can’t quite capture.

Naturally, most games are too long to make this a viable option—though that doesn’t stop some of us attempting marathon play sessions here and there. But I have done this with enough games that are of a suitable length to appreciate the holistic experience that comes with the activity. As such, I thought it would be fun to share some of the games I have finished in just one sitting and how those one-and-done stints shaped my memories of said titles.

Before we begin, a big thank you to everyone who commented on my note from a couple of days ago that asked what games all of you had finished in just one sitting! Who knew so many people marathoned classic Resident Evil games?

Gone Home

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When I first started getting into Sega’s retro catalogue in the early-2010s, it was slim pickings when trying to find newer titles in all these classic series.

Sure, there was a new Sonic the Hedgehog game releasing every second Thursday, but for all those other retro Sega series? Other than a quickly forgotten Nintendo 3DS Shinobi game here and a quickly maligned PS3 Golden Axe game there, I was left wanting. Through various Sega Mega Drive collections, the Virtual Console, and even some cheeky emulators, I had grown a deep appreciation for many of these iconic franchises. But from what I could tell, most of them had died off alongside Sega’s withdrawal from the hardware race at the start of the century. And the few attempts that had been made to revitalise them barely moved the needle critically or commercially.

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However, over the past decade, one Parisian studio has made it their mission to fix this. While they are technically an independent developer, they have nonetheless formed a strong working partnership with Sega that has allowed them to breathe new life into many of these beloved series. And yet, nostalgia isn’t their only goal. Their games manage to strike the perfect balance between respecting Sega’s past while bringing these classics into the twenty-first century.

The studio is Lizardcube, and they are making retro Sega nerds like me very, very happy.

Lizardcube was founded by Omar Cornut and Ben Fiquet, with the two of them sharing a deep love of Sega’s past. The first project that their team worked on was a remake of Wonder Boy III: The Dragon’s Trap, which was initially developed by Westone and published by Sega in 1989 for the Master System. The game is a proto-metroidvania where your main character is transformed into a “Lizard-Man” after barely five minutes of playtime, with the remainder of the adventure seeing you gradually explore a vast world by acquiring other animal transformations.

Alongside frequent collaborator and publisher DotEmu, the Lizardcube crew went about remaking The Dragon’s Trap in a manner that honoured the original while making sure it felt fresh and accessible for a new audience. And (wonder) boy, did they pull it off. The 2017 remake of The Dragon’s Trap captures the joyful energy of the 8-bit game by layering on a gorgeous water colour-inspired art style that is simply dopamine for your eyes. Under the artistic leadership of experienced illustrator Ben Fiquet, the game finally had a visual identity that matched its whimsical charm, while finding a unique way to take on the aesthetics of an older, 2D game beyond adding complexity to the existing pixel art.

Best of all, with the press of a button players could swap out The Dragon’s Trap’s old and new art styles just to see how much of a difference Lizardcube’s visuals had made. Otherwise, everything that made The Dragon’s Trap so special nearly three decades prior was kept intact—from the game’s physics to the original password system. This culminated in a retro remake that felt equally reverential and refreshing while giving the Wonder Boy series its first significant boost within the collective minds of gamers since the mid-90s.

After the success of The Dragon’s Trap remake, Lizardcube was even more ambitious for their next project. Instead of simply taking an old Sega game and giving it a new coat of paint, why not take an old Sega series and create a brand-new entry? The only question was: which series should they do this for?

Well, after Sega ended up licensing out the IP to DotEmu, Lizardcube had the ability to finally create the fourth mainline entry in the iconic beat ’em up series Streets of Rage (known in Japan as Bare Knuckle). These games had been a core pillar of the Sega Mega Drive experience back in the early 90s, bringing players around the world a sense of pure joy as they strolled across the crime-ridden streets of Wood Oak City, beating up bad guys and taking down evil corporations, all while listening to Yuzo Koshiro’s absolute banger of a soundtrack.

Despite its popularity, Streets of Rage basically began and ended on that 16-bit system, having not seen a new entry since 1994’s Streets of Rage 3. LizardCube decided to finally do something about that. And once again, they absolutely nailed it.

Streets of Rage 4 is absolutely packed with fan service and nods to the past games—from its character selection all the way through to being able to play the game with the original 16-bit soundtrack. However, Streets of Rage 4 also makes important strides to bring this franchise to modern audiences. The beat ’em up gameplay is as slick and accessible as ever, while still containing enough complexity to make it interesting whether it is your first time playing or your twentieth. The combos flow together in such a seamless way that anyone can pick it up and have a fun time, while the harder difficulty levels still genuinely pack a bare knuckled punch.

Of course, that incredible art style Ben Fiquet and his team created for The Dragon’s Trap remake is back in full swing in Streets of Rage 4, with these filthy streets never having looked more stylish. They even managed to get legendary composer Yuzo Koshiro to jump back into the studio and record a couple of new tracks for the game’s music.

Overall, Streets of Rage 4 was another big success for Lizardcube and proved that the team could create new works through existing Sega franchises that bridged past and present game design philosophies in ways that were previously thought impossible.

Now that Lizardcube had hit a home run with Streets of Rage 4, many retro Sega fans were wondering which series the studio would take on next. You cannot believe my excitement when, as a longtime Shinobi fan, it was revealed that this studio would be developing a brand-new game in the ninja action platforming series. Released in 2025, Shinobi: Art of Vengeance is arguably not just Lizardcube’s best game to date, but also probably the best Shinobi game that has ever been made. And that is saying something.

Art of Vengeance comes incredibly close to perfecting slick 2D combat and even slicker 2D platforming, with level designs that constantly find new ways to surprise and boss fights that feel larger than life. It is also packed with so much love for the entire Shinobi series that the whole thing almost feels like a theme park attraction built for long time Sega fans. It is easily one of my favourite games of 2025, and in many ways, it was the game that finally confirmed to me that retro Sega belongs in Lizardcube’s hands from now on.

My Five Retro Sega Games I Want Lizardcube to Resurrect

Lizardcube simply understand the assignment and nail it each and every time, no matter the franchise, no matter the genre, and no matter how long it has been since we last played as these characters. It means so much to me, as someone who values Sega’s past so much, to see their older—and often forgotten—games brought back in this way. No matter what Lizardcube decides to do next, I have complete faith that they will do it justice.

That said, here are my five retro Sega franchises which I would love to see Lizardcube bring back from the dead.

1. Ristar - Lizardcube has already proven that they can do a 2D platformer, and I would love to see this starry-eyed Sega Genesis mascot finally return for that long deserved second game.

2. Ecco the Dolphin - To be honest, I am not even the biggest fan of Ecco the Dolphin when it comes to this era of Sega, but I would still love to see Lizardcube’s take on an underwater adventure, as I am sure they would have some interesting spins on it.

3. Beyond Oasis - This is another Yuzo Koshiro game from the Sega Mega Drive that I think Lizardcube would do a really fun job reinterpreting. I would especially like to see Beyond Oasis’s Arabian-themed setting come to life within Lizardcube’s painterly art style.

4. Gunstar Heroes - This one might be a bit trickier, as the original game was developed by Treasure. But Gunstar Heroes is another 16-bit Sega classic that is desperate for a comeback, as its frenetic run-and-gun, weapon-mixing gameplay feels primed for further experimentation. And I know Lizardcube could pull it off.

5. Phantasy Star - Of course, I would love to see this series come back in its classic, single-player, story-driven fashion. Lizardcube has yet to make an RPG, but I am sure they are more than capable of doing so. And if they need anyone to help with story development or narrative design, my DMs are always open!

What is your favourite Lizardcube game? What retro Sega series would you like them to tackle next? Let me know in the comments!

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Stuff from the Stack

MusicEXP Newsletter

Game Music Digest | Mixtape is a Great Game About Music Supervision

MusicEXP is a weekly newsletter exploring the intersection of video games and music, edited by Mat Ombler. Subscribe to receive weekly round-ups of the latest music and gaming stories, and monthly deep dives into trending topics. For more music and gaming news, make sure you listen to the…

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4 months ago · 3 likes · 2 comments · MusicEXP

Regardless of how you feel about Mixtape, I had a great time reading MusicEXP’s take on how the game explores being a music supervisor through its story and soundtrack. A great read for anyone who appreciates how video games use music and sound design.

The Video Game Storyteller is a Substack written and formatted by Harry Fritsch on the lands of the Jagera and Turrbal people, the Traditional Custodians of Meanjin (Brisbane).

All images were either captured directly by the author or sourced from publicly available promotional screenshots.

Want to see more from The Video Game Storyteller? Check out our TikTok channel @thevgstoryteller or follow our Bluesky ‪@thevgstoryteller.bsky.social

If you wish to contact Harry, you may do so by emailing him at harryfritsch98@gmail.com.