Finishing up the annual viewing of Retro Core
For some bizarre reason, once a year following a few episodes of a retro cartoon I may be watching (going through the Thundercats box sets are the usual triggers!) I get the compulsion to watch all the way through the excellent Retro Core series available over at Segagaga Domain. I first came across the independant retro gaming show a few months prior to getting broadband connected up at home, but didn’t think much of it because I couldn’t justify downloading it on dialup, especially since there were quota limits even on that here in Australia. Then in 2006 I stumbled across the Segagaga Domain website when looking up Saturn gear, and realised this Retro Core thing was what I’d been looking at a while back! I promptly downloaded Yakumo’s awesome shakycam footage of a trip to Akihabara, then started from episode 1 and caught up to the show. After that, I made a habit of downloading the show each month and loved every minute of it!
For those unaware, Retro Core is produced by British ex-pat Japanese resident (and forum regular over at the Assembler Games) Yakumo. The guy’s huge fan of Japanese gaming, particularly retro games. Each episode features footage of him playing through games across all different platforms – Saturn, PC Engine, N64, MSX, Sharp x68000, NES, Master System, Game Gear, SNES, etc – and over the top of the audio it features commentary on what’s happening on-screen. Now, depending on how you sit with an opinionated British accent you’ll either love it or hate it – personally, I think it’s awesome 🙂
The cool thing about the show is the huge variety of games, many often released only in Japan. I have a considerably large pile of games in my collection I’ve tracked down after watching his show, and it also showcased systems I’d never had much experience with, like the PC Engine, MSX and Sharp x68000. The man also has a crazy passion for his Saturn and Dreamcast, which is something I can relate to.
In addition to that, he’s also gone on the move taking footage while out shopping at awesome Japanese video game stores and districts (like the aforementioned trip to Akihabara), independant and chain game centres (arcades to us Westerners), and has gotten kicked out of more locations than I can count off the top of my head for persevering with videotaping stuff 🙂
So anyways, a few months back he released a special summer 2009 edition of Retro Core which I downloaded as soon as I saw it, and before I knew it, I’d gone back to the first episode to watch them all the way through! Last night before going to bed I finished up the final episode of the second series, and as always, it was an awesome ride. I would highly recommend you check it out – the website’s linked throughout this post, but just to make it even more obvious, the URL is: http://www.segagagadomain.com/.
In addition to Retro Core, he also has a huge range of hosted, streaming videos of games across various platforms, all with excellent video quality and in stereo to boot! With the big Sega focus in Segagaga Domain’s main resources, it’s a slice of awesome and a site I make sure to check out regularly.
But yes, Retro Core – it’s awesome, and while I understand time commitments mean that it can’t be a regular thing these days anymore, I just wanted to put it out there that I think it’s an awesome show, and essential viewing if you’re into retro games or Japanese games in general.
