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Our Ten Favorite Episodes Of Replay
We've been doing Replay for two years now, and in the course of the series we've played over 100 games. Some of the best games of all time have received the Replay treatment, and so have some of the worst. To celebrate the beginning of our second season of Replay (beginning tomorrow), the crew has put together a list of our ten favorite episodes of all time.
Reiner, Tim, and myself also sat down to discuss the creation of Replay, some anecdotes you may not know about, and some hints at what the future holds. You can listen from the file attachment link at the bottom of the page:
Now on to the list!
Reader's Pick: Mario Party 3
Cast: Dan Ryckert, Joe Juba, Matt Helgeson, Adam Biessener
The fine folks over at the Overblood Facebook group are the most vocal Replay fans we've seen, so I posted a poll to see what their favorite episode was. Mario Party 3 was the clear winner, with over three times as many votes as the runner-up (MK Mythologies: Sub-Zero). For some reason, people seemed to love watching four of us agonize over mini-games for 90 minutes. We hope the group is happy, because their enthusiasm has resulted in yet another Mario Party episode, which you can watch right now.
10. Zone of the Enders
Cast: Dan Ryckert, Andrew Reiner, Tim Turi, Joe Juba
Roulette: Metal Gear Solid 2 demo
Many episodes of Replay devolve into sheer insanity within minutes, but this one managed to keep its cool for the most part. There are still jokes to be found, but we dedicate a decent amount of time to talking about Kojima's hyperactive mech title. As an added bonus, we spend about half of the longer-than-usual episode playing the Metal Gear Solid 2 tanker demo that came with Zone of the Enders.
9. Super Replay: Tail of the Sun - Episode 5
Cast: Dan Ryckert, Andrew Reiner, Joe Juba
Our complete playthrough of Tail of the Sun is one of my favorite Replay experiences ever, as neither Reiner or myself had any idea what the hell we were doing. We named and gave backstories to all of our cavemen, and things came to a head in this episode when Joe Juba murdered one of our greatest heroes (Ric Flair) in cold blood. Between my retribution, a fight in the Replay room, and the touching music video tribute at the end, this is one of our favorite episodes of Super Replay (and Replay in general).
8. Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!!
Cast: Dan Ryckert, Andrew Reiner, Joe Juba, Bryan Vore
Roulette: Amagon
This boxing title is considered one of the best games of all time, regardless of whether you've ever seen a single round of the sport in your life. It's essentially a series of intense boss fights, which culminates in the most intense boss fight of all time: Mike Tyson. Considering our video producer Ben Hanson was new at the time, he wasn't yet familiar with my NES-related freakouts. He seemed interested enough in my hyperactive behavior to bring cameras into the Replay room for some picture-in-picture action. I can't even watch this episode without twitching.
7. Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero
Cast: Dan Ryckert, Tim Turi, Ben Reeves, Bryan Vore
Roulette: Wu-Tang Shaolin Style
We try to inject humor into episodes of Replay whenever possible, but this one would have been hilarious even if none of our microphones were turned on. This awful offshoot of the legendary fighting series included enough random deaths, horrible cutscenes, and cheap enemies to have us cracking up for almost the entire episode.
6. Super Replay: Overblood - Episode 1
Cast: Dan Ryckert, Tim Turi, Matt Helgeson
Before Overblood, Super Replay was dedicated to only the best games in our industry's history. Thanks to an amazing Replay Roulette on our Revolution X Super Replay, that all changed. This obscure PSone survival horror title made us re-think what Super Replay could be, and this first episode was full of memorable moments. The best one? A statue falling on Tim's head, resulting in him losing almost 40 minutes of progress.
5. Jaws Unleashed
Cast: Dan Ryckert, Andrew Reiner, Tim Turi, Phil Kollar
Roulette: Azurik: Rise of Perathia
In the beginning, we weren't sure what our rapport should be like during the initial episodes of Replay. The first two episodes (Twisted Metal and Bushido Blade) weren't exactly filled with jokes, which may be thanks to the fact that they're both good games. Jaws Unleashed was our first attempt at a mediocre title, and it proved to be ripe for humor.
4. Pokemon Snap
Cast: Dan Ryckert, Andrew Reiner, Tim Turi, Phil Kollar
Roulette: Elmo's Number Journey
Pokemon was such a hot property back in the Nintendo 64 era, Nintendo felt comfortable releasing a game consisting solely of taking pictures of the creatures. Tim's nostalgia for the title proved strong in this episode, as did his hatred of Slowpoke.
3. Super Replay: Mega Man Legends - Episode 6
Cast: Dan Ryckert, Andrew Reiner, Tim Turi, Phil Kollar
Six hours into Mega Man Legends, the Replay crew started to lose their minds. To keep ourselves entertained during some slow sections, we resorted to listening to Tim's rendition of the "Space Jam" theme. Once that ended, we unintentionally started a tradition thanks to the invention of Super Replay "stamps."
2. Crystal's Pony Tale
Cast: Dan Ryckert, Andrew Reiner, Tim Turi, Jeff Cork
Roulette: Shaq-Fu
It may be billed as a standard Replay, but we accidentally created the shortest Super Replay in history in the process. Approximately 20 minutes after we turned on the Genesis, we watched the credits roll on a game that saw Tim collecting horseshoes as a purple pony. It also gave us one of our favorite sound effects - the awkward "Good job!" at the end of each level.
1. Revolution X
Cast: Dan Ryckert, Andrew Reiner, Tim Turi, Matt Helgeson
Roulette: Overblood
This episode will always be infamous thanks to our first experience with Overblood during the Replay Roulette. Our Super Replay of the game would have never happened if it weren't for our inability to conquer its very first task. While it may be remembered primarily as the birthplace of Overblood, the rest of the episode is fantastic as well. Teaming up with Aerosmith to take on a music-hating New World Order was ridiculous enough in 1994, but it turned out to be even funnier years later.
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