10 Years of Jeremy Parish's Works Projects

April 22, 2024 1:08 AM

Jeremy Parish, dedicated game journalist and Retronaut, and creator of design deep dives, has been covering Gameboy (1989, gaiden), Game Boy Color (1998), Game Boy Advance (2001), NES (1985, 1986, 1987, 1998, 1999, gaiden), SNES (1991, extra, gaiden), N64 (1996), Sega, Virtual Boy and Metroidvania games now for ten years! His terrific and scholarly videos don't get nearly the views that much less worthy series get, so please give them a try if you have any interest in this area.
posted by JHarris (15 comments total)

Disclaimer: I'm finishing up a book that the company he works for, Limited Run Games, hopes to put out before long, and have communicated with him from time to time. I'm not an employee of Limited Run though, and he doesn't know I'm doing this. I just think his work is awesome, and I watch every one when it comes out.
posted by JHarris at 1:10 AM on April 22 [2 favorites]

oh man, he's become such a regular presence on YouTube nowadays that I kind of forget at times that he hasn't just kind of always been there

at least the Virtual Boy series gave him an opportunity to finish a console library, which he will never again be able to do
posted by DoctorFedora at 1:48 AM on April 22

Parish’s videos are easily drop everything and watch for me when new ones come out. He’s straightforward with his delivery, but he provides context in interesting ways and his videos are always solid. Happy to see him here!
posted by gc at 4:26 AM on April 22

I've always enjoyed these. There's something interesting about not just "game review" but the history and influences behind these games
posted by AngelWuff at 4:58 AM on April 22 [1 favorite]

I'm fascinated by what the console scene was like when I was a little kid. We initially had a Sega Master System (with the 3D Glasses!) but I was so envious of my cousins who had an NES which I thought was better that I had to have one too. Since then the SMS has always been a path not traveled and I've always wondered whether five-year-old-me was correct in judging the NES to be the better console.

Jeremy conclusively proves that yes, five-year-old-me was correct. Nintendo really did redefine console gaming. In 1988, there was no Super Mario Bros for the Sega Master System. Nor was there a Metroid (Zillion is not Metroid) or Zelda. No Bionic Commando or Blaster Master or Mega Man 2. At a time when Nintendo and it's third-parties were using console gaming to experiment with deeper, more varied gaming, Sega was still pumping out a bunch of arcade-derived score chasers with "multiple screens" that looped endlessly. As cool as those 3D glasses were, Missile Defense 3D got boring really quick.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 5:57 AM on April 22 [3 favorites]

I stopped following the Retronauts podcast and Parrish himself when he, without warning, spoiled the big, dramatic bits of the first Klonoa without warning. This was around the time of the Wii remake, when Klonoa was still an obscure franchise that very few people had played. At the time, I had become a fan of Klonoa via the second game, and was really looking forward to playing the first, which I hadn't before. I immediately shut off the podcast after the first spoiler, and later found out the second one was about the ending. This wasn't the first time he'd played fast and loose with such spoilers, either.

He knows his shit for sure, but at the same time, I'll never forgive him for that.
posted by May Kasahara at 6:15 AM on April 22

Retronauts is a retrospective series -- aren't spoilers sort of implied?
posted by alspacka at 8:04 AM on April 22 [2 favorites]

The episode was not about Klonoa generally and was framed in the context of the remake-- plus there was no reason to drop those spoilers so specifically.
posted by May Kasahara at 8:09 AM on April 22

Ah, totally understandable if it was not in a Klonoa episode.
posted by alspacka at 8:10 AM on April 22 [1 favorite]

I've been watching the Works series since near the beginning (back before Jeremy unified his branding and branched out beyond Game Boy) and it's a really great channel. Well worth your time.

In the spirit of surfacing good retro gaming channels like Jeremy's, I want to point out two other chronological series that scratch the same itch but have 10 times less subscribers.

Atari Archive is a chronological exploration of the Atari 2600. It is one of the most academically rigorous game history channels I've watched, with original research from interviews with the developers and executives who made the games. It also uses primary sources extensively to put the original game in the critical context as viewed at the time of it's release. I think this is very important, as many people today dismiss the 2600 era due to it's simplistic games compared to say, the NES. The videos are about the same length as a typical Works video.

With Jeremy dropping the Japanese side of the game libraries going forward, I highly recommend Random Stranger's FamiDaily series. Everyday the channel posts a short video (10 minutes or so) on a Famicom or Famicom Disk System game. The videos are mainly focused on gameplay, but there is a lot of historical tidbits in the videos for obscure Japanese only releases that don't get much attention in the West. The channel has already covered the entire Famicom library, so there is a ton of content there.
posted by Tasty Casserole at 8:27 AM on April 22 [3 favorites]

If we're bringing up other series, of course there's Chrontendo and its related side projects, which has been going for a good while now, and continues its quest to cover every NES and Famicom release.
posted by JHarris at 9:51 AM on April 22 [1 favorite]

I actually grew up with an SC3000 at one point (the computer version of the SG1000.... australia in the early 80s was kind of weird), and I bought his SG1000 book when I was at portland retrogame expo last year. It's honestly an incredible work.

In that context, I'd strongly recommend his sg1000 retrospective. While some of his nes/gameboy content can be very US-industry-centric (which makes sense, since that's his background!), his work outside of that is particularly through
posted by jaymzjulian at 11:51 AM on April 22 [1 favorite]

It's no surprise that I am fond of Friday the 13th for NES and I was tickled that he discussed the game's ambition and limitations rather than doing what so many retro reviewers have done in (frankly, justifably) dismissing it without a deeper look.
posted by Pope Guilty at 3:23 PM on April 22 [1 favorite]

Every time one of these Jeremy Parish posts comes around I'm glad he's still out there doing his thing.
posted by subdee at 6:09 PM on April 22 [3 favorites]

Pleasantly surprised to see this, and to hear that some Mefites were into the Retronauts podcast. My tiny claim to fame is that I wrote the original theme song for the podcast way back in the 1UP days. I don't think I've posted it as a standalone file anywhere — I should probably get around to that someday — but I used to email the MP3 to anyone who wanted it, and still have the file handy. (Actually files plural; Jeremy asked me to write a condensed version that IIRC did end up getting used in a few video episodes.) I'm sure the new theme song is an improvement over my meager composition skills! ;-)

As a prize, I won what seemed to be the result of Jeremy sweeping all the bric-a-brac off his desk into a box: a very odd and trivial assortment of items. But I still have the cute LocoRoco bag (storing my own bric-a-brac) and a Katamari Prince figurine (dangling from my chalk bag at the bouldering gym).
posted by cyranix at 10:20 PM on April 22 [2 favorites]