MageCast X

Latest Episodes:

#023 - "Casual Discourse on Somniloquy" (Shadow Hearts) Jul 15, 2019

Show notes

This episode we dive headfirst into the horrors of a cult classic: Shadow Hearts, discussing how to win a game of hangman, our take on Lovecraft's works and Lovecraftian themes present in Shadow Hearts, purple prose and classic literature, anti-anthropocentrism and cosmic horror, the technical word for fear of dolls (never use it, please), what the greatest scene in video game history is (hint: it involves a train), voice acting performances and how to measure their quality, actors treating their lines like they're in toy commercials, the distinction between loving something for what it is and critiquing a performance, good vs bad dialogue, the unique difficulties which translation presents in attempting to preserve original intent, the context of horror RPGs, favorite characters and their motivations, the harmony of ideas in the Shadow Hearts soundtrack plus Yasunori Mitsuda (!), sensible nostalgia for the 90s and what that decade accomplished in games vs crappy things that can be abolished to history books, the Judgment Ring and mechanical innovations in Shadow Hearts, and finally, why this game didn't do so great upon release.
Website: https://thewellredmage.com
Patreon: https://patreon.com/thewellredmage
Guests: @ArosElric and @TeacherBloke85

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#022 - "R3turnJ0k3r" (DC Universe Online) Jul 01, 2019

Show notes

It's time to get dark and gritty talking about DC Universe Online with fellow DC Comics fan, the Black Humor Mage!

In this episode we'll discuss the game that I played at the cusp of fatherhood, the superpowers of the game, swearing off MMOs, turning the Skype camera on accidentally when you have no clothes on, what to do when your wife becomes a pregnant narcoleptic, the endless pastime of the endless grind, video games as a former addiction and the bottomless pit of character creation, great voice acting and crap voice acting (plus impressions, unfortunately!), resisting guild tyranny, saving evidence on your phone, thoughts on a sequel, voice actors Kevin Conroy and Mark Hamill, dealing with roleplayers, Prof. Zoom and the worst person I've ever met online. Also, a bonus question at the end!
Website: https://thewellredmage.com/2016/03/05/dc-universe-online/
Patreon: https://patreon.com/thewellredmage
Guest: @blackhumormage

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#021 - "Midichlorians" (Parasite Eve) Jun 11, 2019

Show notes

I got to chat with my dad, the 16-bit one (@16bitdadblog), about Parasite Eve! We get into the differences in horror between the West and East and how Parasite Eve blends the two, how the story connects to the incident in Japan in the novel, and where the film, manga, and sequels figure in, theorizing why the game never came to Europe, combining survival and RPG elements, the weapons upgrading system and how to blow your hands off with a rocket-launcher-handgun, horrible, horrible body horror and John Carpenter's The Thing, mitochondria and real science, thoughts on remakes and remasters, the importance of preserving tonality, what Madonna has to do with this game, and the chances of P.E. popping up at E3. It's "ekshepshtional".
Website: https://thewellredmage.com/
Guest: @16bitdadblog

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#020 - "Super Poemcast Special!" May 25, 2019

Show notes

For our 20th episode special, we the mages are here to share 17 original poems of all shapes and sizes and styles, each one based on a single game of our choice from the 1000 Games list! The 1000 Games collab may be over now, but there's no reason we can't keep milking it. Enjoy this chill Mage Cast entry, a pantheon of poets for your peaceful perusal. Let us know which one was your favorite!
Guests:
The ABXY Mage - EarthBound (@ABXY_Reviews)
The Purple Prose Mage - Driver (@AlexSigsworth)
The Thunder Mage - Super Metroid (@BillTuckerTSP)
The Arcade Mage - Ms. Pac-Man (@TheArcadeCastle)
The Badly Backlogged Mage - Pong (@MrBacklog)
The Hyperactive Coffee Mage - Persona 3 Portable (@GameswCoffee)
The Sometimes Vaguely Philosophical Mage - Shadow of the Colossus (@overthinkery1)
The Mail Order Ninja Mage - Breath of the Wild (@mailorderninja)
The New Age Retro Mage - Mega Man 2 (@chrisbg99)
The Slipstream Mage - Titanfall 2 (@JTorto40)
The Valiant Vision Mage - Xenoblade Chronicles (@Lodestar_Valor)
The Regional Exclusive Mage - Resident Evil 4 (@TeacherBloke85)
The Bizzaro Mage - Persona 5 (@winstolf)
The One-Winged Mage - Link's Awakening (@GConsolers)
The Teal Time Mage - Suikoden III (@ArosElric)
The Blue Moon Mage - Hollow Knight (@wrytersview)
and The Well-Red Mage - Chrono Trigger (@theWellRedMage)

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#019 - "A Mist Opportunity" (Final Fantasy IX) May 05, 2019

Show notes

SPOILERS, y'all. The last of the PlayStation One Final Fantasy games, I sat down to talk Final Fantasy IX with my own real laifu waifu! There are two kinds of people in this world: Vivi and Kuja. Hear us discuss this game's major themes, its placement in the context of the PS1 numerical trilogy, its wonderful treatment of miniature stories for its non-playable characters, our favorite musical tracks, the in-game places where we'd most want to live, the notorious evil that was PlayOnline.com, making sense of Necron, the brevity of life, passing on your memories, how to make living life valuable, death as a natural part of life, you could say this podcast is about... the melodies of life.
Website: https://thewellredmage.com/2016/09/07/final-fantasy-ix/
Patreon: https://patreon.com/thewellredmage
Guest: https://twitter.com/OutMage

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#018 - "Clever Girl" (Horizon Zero Dawn) Apr 23, 2019

Show notes

We're looking toward the Horizon for a new Dawn with Zero regrets! Episode "Clever Girl" wrestles with options and an over-abundance of choice, conceptual science fiction and mystery driving a story, Asimov's Foundation novels, the difficulty of maintaining narrative pace in open-world games full of side quests, meaningless vs meaningful missions, other PS4 exclusives and ranking Horizon Zero Dawn, inventory management *yawn* and how to minimize it, whether games will get too big or not, unitaskers vs multitaskers in in-game tools, that sweet weasel meat, Aloy as other than a player avatar, feminism and the matriarchs, if Aloy is a Mary Sue and her development through the game, ideas and wishes for a sequel, ways to ramp up the tension when wandering the wilds, smashing together HZD and BotW into a single game, machine designs, and why Ted Faro is a jerk.
Website: https://thewellredmage.com/2018/09/05/horizon-zero-dawn-complete-edition/
Patreon: www.patreon.com/thewellredmage
Guests:
https://twitter.com/ProtoAvi
https://twitter.com/BillTuckerTSP

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#017 - "Go The Way of the Dinosaur Land - Yosh in the Shell, or: How I Learned to Love the Star Road Warrior" (Super Mario World) Apr 04, 2019

Show notes

I can show you a Super Mario World, shining, shimmering, splendid. In this detour into Dinosaur Land, featuring the inscrutable ABXY Mage and the ineffable Blue Moon Mage, we dig deep into this SNES launch title, its official story out of the original instruction booklet, our first time playing the game, challenge and incentivization, the benefits of competition in the industry (the Console Wars), whether Super Mario is really for children or not, why Mario is so enduring and the history of the character as the history of video games, the consistency of Mario's tonality, the underestimated significance of fun-factor, if Mario risks becoming an anachronism, the issue of timelessness and the question of immutable properties in games, methods to investigate game quality while circumnavigating nostalgia, innovations in Super Mario World, the origins of the names of the Koopalings, Tanuki anatomy, and all the best secrets!
Website: https://thewellredmage.com/2016/03/31/super-mario-world/
Patreon: www.patreon.com/thewellredmage
Guests:
https://twitter.com/ABXY_Reviews
https://twitter.com/wrytersview

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#016 - "Cowabunga Chronology" (TMNT IV: Turtles In Time) Mar 19, 2019

Show notes

Pizza time! Hey, dudes, check out to our biggest episode ever in terms of guest presence, featuring the Beer Mage, the ABXY Mage, and the Hyperactive Coffee Mage. Listen as we chat about Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles IV: Turtles in Time and go on about psychoanalyzing Twitter, which of us is Leo, Don, Raph, and dying on the hill of Michelangelo, the game's pros and cons, its expression of the differences between the turtles, how to get the most points for a high score, our favorite villains and time periods, voice acting in the original 1987 cartoon (Liquid Snake?!), nostalgia-talk about the 80's, what kind of game we would make if we could create our own TMNT game, finally laying the Turtle Van to rest, Teenage Mutant "Hero" Turtles, and asking how much a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle weighs.
Website: https://thewellredmage.com/2016/09/24/teenage-mutant-ninja-turtles-iv-turtles-in-time/
Patreon: www.patreon.com/thewellredmage
Guests: https://twitter.com/Retrogamebrews
https://twitter.com/GameswCoffee
https://twitter.com/ABXY_Reviews

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#015 - "Original Sin" (Final Fantasy X) Feb 24, 2019

Show notes

February is the month of love so for this episode, I brought on as a guest my very own real-lifu waifu, Blythe the White Out Mage! We talked on a game that impacted the both of us: Final Fantasy X, its firsts and lasts, its uniquely South Pacific influences, its characters, their themes and their development, coping with pain, overcoming prejudice, free spirits vs responsibility, voice acting in its infancy and the troubles of English localization, storytelling band-aids, outsider archetypes, falsifying religious concepts and the triumph of reason, and… voice impressions! We also take listener questions, address the sequel, FFX-2, briefly, and figure out exactly what Tidus really is.
Website: https://thewellredmage.com/2016/02/23/final-fantasy-x/
Patreon: www.patreon.com/thewellredmage
Guest: https://twitter.com/OutMage

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#014 - "Keyblade Runner" (Kingdom Hearts) Feb 04, 2019

Show notes

When you walk away you don’t hear me say pleeeeease listen to this episode! Featuring the verbose Chris of Overthinker Y (aka the Sometimes Vaguely Philosophical Mage), we dig deep into the labyrinth that is Kingdom Hearts, trying to untangle the maze that is the KH series while focusing on the first game. We also discuss the problems of online communication, Squaresoft and Square Enix, how Disney repelled or pulled us in, game rental stores, the similarities and differences between “heart” and “soul”, KH’s fusion of Western and Eastern philosophy, our favorite Disney worlds and films, the incredible compositions by Shimomura, and exactly why you need subtitles for Donald Duck.
Website: https://thewellredmage.com/
Patreon: www.patreon.com/thewellredmage
Guest: https://twitter.com/overthinkery1
Cited articles:
https://overthinkeryblog.com/2019/01/24/kingdom-hearts-is-light-the-under-the-radar-humanist-tale-part-one-humanism/
https://normalhappenings.com/2018/11/21/kingdom-hearts-the-game-that-defines-overthinkery/

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