Retrograde Amnesia is a deep-dive video game podcast dedicated to exploring classic Japanese Role-playing Games (JRPGs), chapter by chapter, beat by beat. The show blends structured narrative analysis, humor, and immersive production to guide listeners through the worlds, characters, and themes of the genre’s most beloved and strange stories.
Praised for its thoughtful pacing, encyclopedic research, and a blend of sincerity and irreverence, Retrograde Amnesia offers a cozy look back for players who want to engage more deeply with their favorite games within the medium. Play along with the hosts or reminisce your enduring thoughts as we trek through the stories we grew up with.
Each season covers a single game in exhaustive detail, using a a meticulous scene-by-scene format to reexamine every moment. Whether it’s dissecting the political intricacies of Final Fantasy Tactics, or unraveling the existential dread of Xenogears, the show approaches every game with a balance of critical insight and deep appreciation for the medium.
Listeners have described the show as:
“One of the best out there”
“If you love retrospective type podcast this is one of the best out there. They pick great games and take their time going through them. Just the perfect type of podcast for me. It’s like getting to live through these games from my childhood again without having to play all the way through them. Great job guys, I hope there are many more episodes to come.”
— SIumlord, May 27, 2024“What a gem”
“Discovered these guys when I was searching up stuff on Xenosaga, and saw a back catalog of amazing games. Started with [Final Fantasy VIII] and am about to do the next season. Chris and Eric are hilarious, insightful, and worth your time to listen to. Also Fakenet will you marry me.”
— laser canon death sentance, January 23, 2024“Witty, smart, and highly detailed”
“Chris and Eric rock. They play off each other super well, it’s like hanging out with a couple guys with a bottle of whiskey and even though you never have a chance to get a word in, you don’t really want to. Thoughtful and interesting with hilarious in jokes they are more than happy to bring you in on.”
— alinktreetothepast, October 19, 2023
Since 2019, Retrograde Amnesia has been a destination for thoughtful JRPG fans seeking to reckon with the games they grew up loving — while learning to love the ones they missed.
Retrograde Amnesia is hosted by Eric and Chris — two old pals who have been thinking about JRPGs for multiple decades.
A liberating invention needs a liberated world. On the New Liberation Army’s Founding Day, we’re receiving a non-electronic tablet to coordinate destiny, starting a cult, being watched in our sleep, seeing stars, sleeping in the dirt chamber,…
This is the fixed version, we hope! Here we go then, too late for regrets. And too early for lining up great walls, declaring false identities, seizing the moment to fake a temper tantrum, blaming fate for problems, finding skilled professionals with…
In any case, we have to go up. Let’s go. While there we’re investing in dad lore, finding Child Ted on the battlefield, plucking facts off The Cutting Room Floor, hiking up a snowy mountain, trusting a man with a bowl cut, remaining ignorant of…
Everything’s okay, make sure to hide your faces. Before we dry out, we’re trusting the scoundrel Viktor with our lives, dining and dashing, shifting rows for better attack, sharpening weapons, attaching runes, daydreaming about murdering…
Loneliness is a slow acting, but fatal, poison. Before we ingest the antidote we’re taking a dragon to see a play, becoming tax collectors, watering the seeds of class warfare, cheating Marco out of a million bits, reading epitaphs, refusing to…
Both magic sisters think I’m hot. While we admire ourselves in the floor, we’re losing our father to a border crisis, reporting to a Krazy boss, hiring a magician who looks like my wife, auto-walking home, playing a real guitar, defining a Gremio,…
In the first episode of our fourth season, we’re talking when where and how Suikoden first released, basic pronunciation guidelines, how the hell to play Suikoden in 2022, finding inspiration in anime soccer, identifying hot sound smiths, reading a…
The only Squall permitted here is you. As we sort through computer generated cut scenes, we’re trying to remember the power of friendship, completing the time loop, accepting sorceress power, talking to myself, wandering through the desert,…
Face my wrath for seeking thy sealed power. As we kompress time, we’re multiplying save points and sorceresses, stepping over dead SeeDs on the beach, fastening wings to a castle, sealing our powers away, evaporating a rainbow, deducing latin…
I have a lot to tell you, unless you don’t want to hear it. In which case I’ll understand. After we put a bullet in the head of Triple Triad, we’re identifying the father of the son, ramming Lunatic Pandora, parking our dragon at the base,…