We are very serious, very powerful business type people.
Well hello there! I don’t like to toot our own horn too often, but this may be the best episode of Nerds Without Pants of the year. Is Stage Select a banger? Not even close. Is Video Game Cage Match one for the record books? Fraid not. But Consumption Junction is a blast, and hopefully you think so, too!
Heroes of Might and Magicite
As a late bloomer to RPGs, I was mostly ignorant of the Final Fantasy series until 1997, when that commercial for Final Fantasy VII caught my attention in all its epic CG glory. But it would be another two years before I finally saw a demo of the game in action, which sparked my love for RPGs. The point is that I missed out on Final Fantasy VI (originally titled Final Fantasy III in the US) when it was released in 1994. Fortunately, the Super NES Classic Edition's release several years back allowed the opportunity to play Square’s magnum opus of the 16-bit series. And boy, was it worth the wait.
I feel a draft!
Ten years. Ten. YEARS. It’s hard to believe that Nerds Without Pants has been around for an entire decade, but here we are. NWP co-founder Rob Ottone joins us for a trip down memory lane that makes ever so many pit stops along the way.
Final Fantasy gets a job.
When Final Fantasy VII appeared in the late 90s, my initial reaction was that of shock at the significant gulf in sequels for the US. It was a harsh reality to learn that, of the three mainline Final Fantasy releases we received, Japan had double that number by the start of the PlayStation era. As time marched on, Square (now Square Enix) eventually released the sequels we had missed. Meanwhile, I’ve been playing a nearly 30-year-long game of catch-up since 1997. A particular blind spot for me was Final Fantasy III- the last one to be developed for the Famicom. However, after finally getting around to playing it, I now have a new appreciation for this long-running series.
No, no, no.
Welcome back to Nerds Without Pants! We’re coming in a bit late this, time, because Julian got real dang sick after we recorded. Thankfully you won’t notice that in the episode, and it’s a pretty good one, even if we didn’t have much new to say this week.
Oh, Kenneth.
Welcome back to Nerds Without Pants! We don’t have anything new to talk about when it comes to what we’ve played, but Justin rises to the challenge by debuting not one, but two new segments. We also begin the semi-finals of the Video Game Cage Match championship tournament. Spread it on!
When Animals Attack
In the gaming days of years yonder, there seemed to be no limit to what developers could dream up as a basis for killing some time. And when they couldn't create a game revolving around humans playing sports, saving the world, or destroying aliens in space, they could always turn to the animal kingdom for inspiration. So in 1985, Ascii Corporation made a little ditty in the arcade called Penguin-Kun Wars. The player chooses one of several animal characters to fight it out using dodge balls in a small arena. It was a unique idea as no other game like it yet existed.
We did it! We listed every PS2 game!
No, I didn’t forget that we have this last part of the Nerds Without Pants PS2 list special to release! I’m just…really lazy, y’all. But here it is! Not sure if we’ll ever do another one of these, but there’s something kinda fun about just going through an entire console library, so never say never.
Justin's sister has some THOUGHTS.
Well hello there! Are you missing the Nerds Without Pants? Well…we miss you. Why you gotta waste our flavor? Damn! Aaaanyway, it’s our annual music special, so feast your ears, and we’ll be back with live episodes soon!
It’s all downhill from here.
In 1996, UEP Systems released Cool Boarders on the PlayStation. It was one of the few pioneers of snowboarding games on home consoles. The popularity of extreme sports was steadily gaining momentum in the United States, as were releases of snowboarding titles from other game developers. So it was only natural that UEP Systems would follow up in 1997 with their sequel, Cool Boarders 2.
