PODCAST · leisure
Abnormal Mapping
by Em Marko and Jackson Tyler
Abnormal Mapping is a monthly game club of Em and Jackson, talking primarily about old games with an eye to critiquing without nostalgia.
Episodes
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Abnormal Mapping 190: U.N. Squadron
Emmmeline had surgery this month so I am joined by Dia for another exciting surprise episode of Abnormal Mapping. We will not miss a month, come rain or shine. That is the pact we signed in 2013. Enjoy a lot of Metroidvania talk, and a classic Capcom Shmups Thank you for your support while we…
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Abnormal Mapping 189: OFF
We’re back with a bunch of games and gaming news, including a look back at one of the more influential entries in the RPG Maker sphere, Belgium post-modern RPG OFF! We had a really good time with this one. Thank you so much as always for listening, please rate and review the podcast, and tell all...
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Abnormal Mapping 188: Another World
Em is recovering from illness this month so Jackson called up Dia Lacina in order to preserve the streak. THE STREAK NEVER DIES. WE WILL NOT MISS A MONTH. Thank you so much as always for listening, please rate and review the podcast, and tell all your friends on whatever social media you call…
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Abnormal Mapping 187: Resident Evil 0
Jackson continues their Resident Evil journey as we play one of the least discussed numbered entries in the series. Is there a reason that’s the case? Turns out, yeah! Thank you so much as always for listening, please rate and review the podcast, and tell all your friends on whatever social media...
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Abnormal Mapping 186: Echo Point Nova
Our friend Molly returns to Abnormal Mapping to run, jump, grapple, dig, climb, surf, and shoot shoot shoot our way through one of the more cool and intense games we’ve played in recent memory. Please enjoy! Thank you so much as always for listening, please rate and review the podcast, and tell…
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Abnormal Mapping 185: The Chrono Jotter
We’re joined by our friend Kim to talk about a visual novel of the murder game and detective kind! Ran Ibuki is a very not normal girl who finds herself stuck in a timeless place where girls mostly fall in love and kill each other, and it’s up to us to get her out! We had a pretty good time with...
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Abnormal Mapping 184: Rabbids Go Home
We dig through the pile of trash that is the Wii library for one of the hidden gems of its lineup, the one Rabbids game that people remember fondly! It turns out the kids who said this was one of the good games of their childhood were correct! We also talk way way way too much about Resident…
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Abnormal Mapping 183: NiGHTS Into Dreams and DOOM (PS1)
We return to a game we played near the very start of the podcast, but … in port form? Much to discuss about the place of ports as transformative work and also the strange routes of design lineage, especially when we talk about NiGHTS and Sonic Team’s peculiar ideas about what 3D gaming should…
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Abnormal Mapping 182: Simogo Legacy Collection
We play a bunch of classic phone games and talk about an era of small games that feel like they vanished from the earth. This was a great walk down memory lane, even if we mostly talk about Device 6. Thank you so much as always for listening, please rate and review the podcast, and tell all your...
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Abnormal Mapping 181: Clair Obscur: Expedition 33
Surprise! One final Abnormal Mapping before the end of the year. Jackson is joined today by Erin to get thoughts down about the most baffling Game of the Year in recent history, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. It is a game that has kicked off a ton of discourse most of which talks around the actual...
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Abnormal Mapping 180: Mega Man 7 & 8
This one was in the can way before the new Mega Man was announced, but I’m glad they finally listened to us and made another one of these. But we went back to the first evolution of classic Mega Man with two of the less respected but surprisingly disparate entries in the Mega Man series. Hope you...
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Abnormal Mapping 179: Onimusha: Warlords
This Abnormal Mapping needed an extra week to cook, but it’s finally here for you to enjoy! We talk about a bunch of arcade games, Capcom’s inability to tell a good story (charm point), and Jackson is the one who brings up gacha this time??? Please enjoy the episode! Thank you so much as always…
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Abnormal Mapping 178: Persona 5 Royal
After months of chipping away at it Em finally completed Persona 5 Royal, which means she invited two of her most Shin Megami Tensei-brained friends to come on and talk about the game. And oh boy, did they ever talk about the game. Over two nights! This is a big one. Niamh podcasts on Export…
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Abnormal Mapping 177: Viewfinder
Some games are just very okay to the point where you don’t have too much to say about them, but thankfully we have some other gaming to keep us going as we poked through some photos and perspective puzzles this month. Thank you so much as always for listening, please rate and review the podcast,...
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Abnormal Mapping 176: Star Fox 64
We played a classic of the greatest console ever made, the Nintendo 64, this month! How did Em find returning to a game she 100%ed long ago? How did Ace Combat superfan Jackson find Nintendo’s take on the genre? All this and more in this episode! Thank you so much as always for listening, please...
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Abnormal Mapping 175: Children of the Sun
A small and fascinating puzzle game gets us through a rough month this week as we talk about score chasing, the tone of indie games in aesthetics vs mechanics vs story, our feelings about short games, and more. This was a pretty solid little game! Thank you so much as always for listening, please...
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Abnormal Mapping 174: Parasite Eve II
We dig into Square’s attempt at survival horror as they hand Parasite Eve over to one of the creators of Resident Evil who proceeds to make a police procedural about being the bioweapon cops out on the streets. It’s very funny, but mostly pretty good? Glad we got around to this one. New podcast…
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Abnormal Mapping 173: No Case Should Remain Unsolved
We play a small detective game and come away with a nice appreciation of adapting the mystery story into mechanics, a discussion about light investment gaming, and our appreciation for genre work that thrives in their own little gaming ecosystems. Thank you so much as always for listening, please...
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Abnormal Mapping 172: Castlevania: Lament of Innocence
We’re joined this month by Nora Blake of Export Audio to talk about her and Em’s favorite dead Konami franchise: Castlevania! We’re playing the first PS2 game, a certified mid classic, a game that asks can you really get ten hours out of five rooms? The answer is: kinda????? Thank you so much as...
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Abnormal Mapping 171: Soul Blazer
We played an old SNES game today and talk about the elemental qualities of RPGs and action games. Also, Jackson keeps gaming, and Em makes ambitious plans to tackle a too-big game. Thank you so much as always for listening, please rate and review the podcast, and tell all your friends on whatever...
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Abnormal Mapping 170: Rising Zan: The Samurai Gunman and Croc: Legend of the Gobbos
We’re playing two not very classics of their respective genres today as we go back to the back half of the 90s to play an early action game and a relatively early 3D platformer. We’re kind of split on which game we prefer along lines I expect you’d predict, but we both had a pretty good time with...
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Abnormal Mapping 169: 1000xRESIST
We tackle a newer game this month as we talk about the critically acclaimed adventure game 1000xRESIST. We found plenty to love and plenty to pick at during our time with this one, but it’s exactly the kind of messy game we tend to like around here, so we’re glad we played it and I hope you enjoy...
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Abnormal Mapping 168: Sonic the Hedgehog (2006): Legacy of Solaris
We close out the year by playing one of the most infamous games we’ve ever covered, a game that has been a running joke and shorthand for bad game for nearly twenty years. And yet, do we find the judgment of history fair? Do we believe in redemption for a certain blue hedgehog and the anime...
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Abnormal Mapping 167: Shenmue II
We’re joined by Dia Lacina once again as Ryo continues the next leg of his quest to track down Lan Di, his father’s killer. What strange challenges will he find in China? How does Yu Suzuki follow up one of the most ambitious, incredible games of all time? We find ourselves surprised at almost...
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Abnormal Mapping 166: Racing Lagoon
One of the hot new releases of … wait, 1999? That can’t be right. Oh, it’s a fan translation. One of the hot new fan translations hitting the inter-oh I’m being informed the fan translation is from three years ago! How embarrassing. Well, we’ve been meaning to play this one for a hot minute, and...
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Abnormal Mapping 165: Mister Mosquito
Sometimes you decide to finally pick up one of those games you’ve always heard of but never got around to, the curiosities that you are pretty sure aren’t must plays, but stick in your brain anyway. Some might argue this has been the history of Abnormal Mapping at large! But this month we do one…
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Abnormal Mapping 164: Final Fantasy XI
Jackson is joined today by official Final Fantasy Correspondant Austin Walker to talk about Final Fantasy XI - specifically the base game and Rise of the Zilart. It’s been a busy MMO summer and we simply needed to get it out of our systems and into microphones somewhere. Please enjoy this three...
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Abnormal Mapping 163: The Forgotten City
Em is back from the month off to talk about the joy of a kind of cheesy mystery with a great sci-fi premise as we get to live out our Star Trek: The Original Series dreams by lecturing ancient peoples about how our modern world view is clearly the best one. This sounds like it’s selling The...
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Abnormal Mapping 162: Citizen Sleeper
This month it’s just me, Jackson, being joined by Crystal to play Citizen Sleeper. Em is currently in Hospital after major surgery and so I’m taking over and organizing the podcasts while they recover! Please send them well wishes. It’s time to talk about RPG systems, and the strange act of...
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Abnormal Mapping 161: Cassette Beasts
We enjoy one of the major modern attempts at making a Pokemon-style monster collecting and battling RPG with Cassette Beasts. We talk about surprising scope of the world, the intense battle system, what your numbers say about your priorities, the weirdness of dating mechanics, and much more! This...
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Abnormal Mapping 160: Myst III: Exile
We find ourselves doing grunt work for Atrus once more as our favorite self-published author and god of his own realms begins reaping what he’s sown over the last two games. We solve some puzzles, enjoy Brad Dourif, and talk about the kind of guy who keeps going around birthing entire worlds.…
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Abnormal Mapping 159: Dynamite Headdy and Beyond Oasis
We leap back in time to the Mega Drive to talk about two action classics back when action games meant jumping and avoiding and not perfect parries. Not exactly divisive that we enjoy these types of games, but the generational split is very real as we talk about these two classics of game. Join…
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Abnormal Mapping 158: Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth
We finish our long Final Fantasy adventure by playing Square’s largest single player Final Fantasy yet. But does size equal quality? Does it equal ambition? We have many thoughts about this and about where the entire Final Fantasy VII Remake Project has gone and is heading in this enormous…
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Abnormal Mapping 157: Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown
We’re joined by Molly for the return of one of the classics, a guy who just needs to jump over every spike in all the world, conveniently located in a beautiful palace. That’s right, we’re here to talk about the return of Prince of Persia, and the surprising ways Ubisoft have melded the last ten...
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Abnormal Mapping 156: Fabula Nova Crystallis Final Fantasy XIII
We interrupt your regularly scheduled coverage with a special announcement: Jackson has played the Final Fantasy XIII games, at last. Despite the frankly illegal amount of Final Fantasy content lately they were not going to let that go to waste. They are joined by Erin (@Woodabris, Woodaba on...
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Abnormal Mapping 155: 007: Everything or Nothing
We’re going back to the heady days of licensed multi-platform games in the early 00s this month as we play 007: Everything or Nothing and talk about the era of arcane save processes, weird genre mashups, awful final missions, and the ways in which the whole medium could turn on a relatively short...
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Abnormal Mapping 154: Final Fantasy XV
We close out the year with a podcast years in the making, as Molly joins us and we take a road trip with the king to be and his homies and play the much maligned but beloved by us Final Fantasy XV! This podcast will cover the main game and the first three episode DLCs (Gladio, Prompto, Ignis)…
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Abnormal Mapping 153: Grab Bag 2023
We keep gaming as we tackle a bunch of small games in a classic grab bag and talk through a whole mess of games that are interesting and worthwhile but often have one or two extremely obvious parts that hold it back. Some of them are reasonable critiques, some of them are just the unfortunate...
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Abnormal Mapping 152: The Legend of Zelda - Majora's Mask
It’s Jackson here with a surprise episode of Abnormal Mapping! This was meant to be a bonus anniversary surprise but scheduling woes got it pushed back a week, but that’s not important: I finally played Majora’s Mask. And I’m joined by my good friend Crystal to talk about it. Things Discussed:...
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Abnormal Mapping 151: Shenmue
We’ve been doing this for ten years! Damn, that’s a long time to be doing a monthly game club. But we’ll keep trucking into our second decade as we start a series that neither of us have played before. We’re joined by a guest, Shenmue superfan Dia Lacina, to talk about Ryo and his ridiculous…
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Abnormal Mapping 150: Demon Turf
We celebrate a century and a half of excellence this month as we talk about 3D platforming as we take a thorough look at Demon Turf and talk about platforming for sickos, designing games around the expectations of Nintendo Polish, and what that means in terms of expectations and the war within...
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Abnormal Mapping 149: Mega Man Legends
We’re back with one of the obvious classics of all time, a game neither of us had played before this month but came like a lighting strike into our lives with its charm and brevity and interesting vision of early 3D RPG design. That’s right, it’s time to servbot up some exploration, with a dash…
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Abnormal Mapping 148: Muv Luv Trilogy
Em is joined by anime gaming expert Olivia today to talk about a classic of Visual Novels, the Muv Luv trilogy of games! We have a brief RPG checkin first, nothing especially spoiler-heavy so don’t worry if you’re not also 7 games into Kiseki, but the Muv Luv sequence is, of course, exceedingly...
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Abnormal Mapping 147: Final Fantasy XVI
We’re joined by post-gamer and friend of the show Austin Walker to talk about the latest and greatest in the long running Final Fantasy series. That’s right, it’s Clive time! Join us as we try to grapple with this large action RPG and talk mostly about its story and themes. Some mechanical talk,...
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Abnormal Mapping 146: Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge
We’re joined by blogger of the year and adventure game maestra Dia Lacina to talk about one of the most iconic games of the LucasArts era, Monkey Island 2! There’s plenty of other games besides, but it’s really mostly this one, because it’s worth it. You can watch Dia play Monkey Island 1 for…
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Abnormal Mapping 145: Chrono Cross
We’re joined by special guest Niamh to talk about one of the classics of video game, infamously one of only two games we bailed on playing in history, and one of the once most divisive RPGs of history now mostly considered one of the greats. That’s right we’re revisiting Final Fantasy VIII…
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Abnormal Mapping 144: Grab Bag (lots of Resident Evil talk)
Em’s been so busy gaming we had to break out segment 1 into its own podcast to spare our Chrono Cross episode the world’s most topheavy structure, but we ended up having a great time. Second half of the pod is all Resident Evil talk if that’s not your speed, but before that is more normal.…
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Abnormal Mapping 143: Potion Craft
We’re back to talk about a small game about chilling out and brewing potions and what it says for the act of gaming itself to engage in a relaxing sort of simulated labor. There’s a whole world of games out there we don’t really touch on, and it was nice to brush up against it for once. Also, as...
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Abnormal Mapping 142: Mutazione
We’re back with a normal episode of Abnormal Mapping as we dig into our backlog a bit and then talk about a very low key narrative adventure game and have a pleasant time digging into gardening, melodrama, and narratives about guilt and responsibility. Thank you so much as always for listening,...
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Abnormal Mapping 141: Phantasy Star 1-4
On this very special episode Em is joined by Dia Lacina and Emrys to talk about Sega’s iconic JRPG franchise Phantasy Star. We talk about the banging soundtrack, the innovations it brings to the genre, and the ways it has been forgotten by time. Because it’s four games, it’s a little lighter than...
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ABOUT THIS SHOW
Abnormal Mapping is a monthly game club of Em and Jackson, talking primarily about old games with an eye to critiquing without nostalgia.
HOSTED BY
Em Marko and Jackson Tyler
CATEGORIES
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Frequently Asked Questions
How many episodes does Abnormal Mapping have?
Abnormal Mapping currently has 197 episodes available on PodParley. New episodes are automatically indexed when they're published to the podcast feed.
What is Abnormal Mapping about?
Abnormal Mapping is a monthly game club of Em and Jackson, talking primarily about old games with an eye to critiquing without nostalgia.
How often does Abnormal Mapping release new episodes?
Abnormal Mapping publishes regularly with 197 episodes available. Check the episode list for the typical release schedule.
Where can I listen to Abnormal Mapping?
You can listen to Abnormal Mapping on PodParley by clicking any episode. We provide an embedded audio player for direct listening, and you can also subscribe via your preferred podcast app using the RSS feed.
Who hosts Abnormal Mapping?
Abnormal Mapping is created and hosted by Em Marko and Jackson Tyler.
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