QCF: Pragmata

In recent years, generative AI has led a near-inescapable march through every facet of our daily lives. Whether you’re seeking service, information, production, entertainment, or even counseling, the tool has made its ghoulish presence known in just about every corner you can find, and despite the real-world ramifications its proliferation leaves behind, it’s only gaining more momentum.

In the previous decades before the advent of generative AI, however, the concept of Artificial Intelligence had a somewhat less destructive impact on daily living or the beauty of human expression in fictional storytelling, and instead mainly presented as a device to extoll the themes of playing god or asserting faith in the power of humanity. Enter Yonghee Cho of Nier Automata and Metal Gear Revengence fame, who was brought on by Capcom and their development team to approach a new angle towards AI using the Old El Paso answer to Hard Tacos or Soft Tacos—a story that would focus on both the old Sci-Fi roots of AI, and the current dangers of Generative AI, being navigated by the powers of human connection.

This imaginative effort would steadily evolve into a new IP, Pragmata, and much like the other original release from Capcom, Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess, the premise places a subtle, yet deceptively deep twist on an accustomed action genre. At the core of its Outré blend of logic puzzles and third-person shooting, Pragmata also manages to tell a surprisingly endearing story about a well-adjusted engineer who stumbles upon an effusive android during a recon mission that goes horribly wrong, and the wholesome bond they build along the way in a world led by AI.

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PPR Presents Limelight: Mina the Hollower Weekend

While we strive to never play favorites at Press Pause Radio, we would be outright liars if we didn’t cop to the fact that Yacht Club games is one of our favorite independent game studios out there, so yeah—you could say we’re a little excited about Mina the Hollower going gold, and now that it’s here, it’s an experience that’s so much more than we could have ever hoped for.

Our review of Mina the Hollower will hopefully be out in the next week or so as we prep our pieces, videos, and podcast to start the month of June off, and we couldn’t think of a better stone to kill two GameBoy Color-inspired bats with than to stream the new release from Yacht Club for y’all this weekend!

Be sure to tune in to our Twitch or YouTube  at 7:45 PM PST on 05/29/2026, and again at 6:30 PM PST on 05/30/2026, to watch what may already be the biggest contender for the Golden Zonkies’ 2026 Game of Year award! You can check out the streams here or directly on our Twitch and YouTube channels, and vibe along with us as we work towards ushering in a new age of Limelight for y'all!

Late to the Party: Mega Cat Studios Retro Game Trio!

Let's be real: there's a lot to loathe about 2026, what with our economic state of affairs, the increasingly robust perversion of the internet via AI slop and constantly shifting weather patterns. Hell, we can't even find solace in the little things anymore, like going down to the store and just buying a damn pack of Pokemon cards (but that's another feature for another time).

That being said, we can at least count on something: there are still plenty of stellar studios that continue to release retro-inspired classics. (And with physical copies to boot – literally!)

 Given the tumultuous curveballs we keep seeing through this already shifty year, Press Pause Radio (or myself, more specifically) is a bit late to the party on some of the early year releases from Mega Cat Studios. So join us as we dive into peeks at Plyuk and Old Towers for the NES, in addition to Super Fanger for the SNES.

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PPR 166

The mind sure is a funny thing—one second, you can find yourself tripping over the gradually increasing existential crisis of modern-day living in 2026, and the next, you’ll find yourself thinking about dumb ways to make peeing for a dog way more fun than it should have any right to be!

On this week’s episode of Press Pause Radio, we tackle some of the news bits in gaming and our current gaming shelves in another “What’s in your console” edition of the show.

Andrew and George are joined by Hugo Award-winning writer and all-around gaming journalist sweetheart, ‪Aidan Moher, who is also ½ of one of the coolest new video game podcasts to hit the web, Fun Factor: a show that takes a retrospective look at retro game magazines that inspired them to be games writers themselves!

In this episode, the cast will go over the news of the leaked internal Xbox memo that would rapidly become the “We Are Xbox” state of the union from Microsoft, and the details of the new Steam controller from a leaked review of the device, including its $99 price tag! On the games side of things, we get real weird with it as we discuss OPUS: Prism Peak, Life is Strange, Division 2, Froggy Hates Snow, Returnal, Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream, Under the Island, Cobra, ZX Spectrum Next, Saros, Pragmata, Mouse: P.I. for Hire, Invincible VS, Quest: Brian's Journey, and so much more!

We hope you enjoy our busy bodies of work as we have a whole lot more to cover with y’all in the coming weeks here at Press Pause Radio, oh, and be sure to subscribe to Fun Factor, and buy Aidan’s cool ass book, Fight, Magic, Items: The History of Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, and the Rise of Japanese...

Mail us at our new email Mailbag@presspauseradio.com, leave a voicemail at 42-GAMEZAP-4 (424-263-9274)‬, and be sure to stop by at our Forums if you haven’t already registered and post your thoughts about the show. Finally, make sure to rate and subscribe to us on iTunes and YouTube, follow us on our Twitch page and BlueSky, and finally take part in our Facebook and Steam group! This episode has been brought to you by our new friends at the SuperPod Network, be sure to check out all the other rad podcasts they host for Video Games and more! Finally, this episode was also brought to you by our new sponser, Dubby, a new, jitterless, friendlier energy drink made from a formula that contains a slew of vitamins, amino acids and nootropics including their patented NeuroFactor®. Click on the link listed or enter "PRESSPAUSERADIO" and get 10% off of your order right meow!

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QCF: CAIRN

We all have a vision in our heads of something that we love doing beyond any reproach. A passion that we put on a pedestal, and fabricate this perfect version of what we aspire it to be, and when that drive reaches a fever point, no one else will ever understand your vision. Not family, not friends, and not even colleagues who share your love of the avocation at hand. Everything else starts to lose meaning—or worse yet—become a hindrance between you and the focus you need to lock the hell in for to achieve the goal at large.

Even though we’re all capable of that intense dedication to something we love, there’s a big gulf between someone striving to be the world’s best bowler and someone trying to be the first Alpinist to reach the top of the world’s only unclimbable mountain. A new survival-action title from the same folks who brought us Furi, in CAIRN, from The Game Bakers, aims to challenge the limits of human tenacity, both through the lens of Aava and the personal state of mind she finds herself in, and the symbiotic level of perseverance that players will need to guide her to the peak.

As simple as that all sounds, it’s the execution of CAIRN’s buildup and turbulent framing of Aava’s quest to surmount Mount Kami that sets it apart as an experience that’s unlike anything I’ve played before it—an experience that constantly teeters between being a tale of inspiration and a cautionary tale of self-destruction.

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PPR 165

Certain logos instill a sense of wonder and comfort the instant they shimmer onto the screens of our games. The branding of something like the Konami bacon strips or neon-styled letters of SEGA getting shouted out through the speakers invokes a fuzzy feeling of what’s to come. One logo, in particular, carries such weight behind its presence that the moment you hear a certain jingle ringing, you know the blue-and-yellow juggernaut has arrived, accompanied by its trademark chime.

After 40 years, Capcom remains a titan in the video game industry, commanding a plethora of software that has defined the medium, with several iconic video games that have made the Japanese video game developer and publisher a veritable household name among consumers and insiders alike.

So what’s a dumb Video Game Podcast to do but to try and hash out a casual “Best of” list from Capcom across forty years' worth of hardware? Well, we can’t help but give it the ol’ college try! Longtime friend of the show, Rob Rich of Unwinnable Magazine, joins George and Andrew to do a roundtable discussion of which Capcom games are the cream of the crop for their respective platforms of the era since the company’s inception in 1984. One HUGE caveat, though—the gang was restricted from choosing any MAIN-LINE entries (meaning that spin-off titles are eligible for nomination) from the following series: Mega Man, Street Fighter, Resident Evil, Ace Attorney, or Monster Hunter.

Needless to say, it made for one helluva chop-up of podcast, and the crew still found time to talk about other shit too, like the difference between saying Happy Easter or Happy Resurrection, and the Toby Fox translation drama for Undertale and Deltarune. We hope y’all enjoy this episode, as we’d love to apply this social experiment to other companies for future shows!  

Mail us at our new email Mailbag@presspauseradio.com, leave a voicemail at 42-GAMEZAP-4 (424-263-9274)‬, and be sure to stop by at our Forums if you haven’t already registered and post your thoughts about the show. Finally, make sure to rate and subscribe to us on iTunes and YouTube, follow us on our Twitch page and BlueSky, and finally take part in our Facebook and Steam group! This episode has been brought to you by our new friends at the SuperPod Network, be sure to check out all the other rad podcasts they host for Video Games and more! Finally, this episode was also brought to you by our new sponser, Dubby, a new, jitterless, friendlier energy drink made from a formula that contains a slew of vitamins, amino acids and nootropics including their patented NeuroFactor®. Click on the link listed or enter "PRESSPAUSERADIO" and get 10% off of your order right meow!

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House Show: The Return

Wow, sorry about the wait! What was it, four years or so? I don't think we missed much though, wrestling still be wrestling. After a long hiatus, Georgie and Toast got to watching an AEW PPV together and thought it'd be the appropriate time to talk about the graps once again. Revolution 2026 was certainly one for the books, with barely any time to catch a breath while witnessing rivalries ended, blood feuds settled and the prospect of some new challenges. This card was so stacked, we couldn't even finish it in one viewing. We will discuss our thoughts, our technical difficulties and our favorite moments on this episode of House Show. Thanks for listening and thanks for welcoming us back into your lives. We missed you!

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PPR Presents Limelight: Disney's Goof Troop

Before Disney Interactive, SEGA, or Virgin Games had their run of handling the video game adaptations of revered properties owned by the animation giant that is Disney, the Japanese powerhouse of the 8-bit and 16-bit generation, Capcom, was given the reins to several characters under the Mouse's umbrella. Chief among their Disney-licensed software are the titles that adapted the Disney Afternoon lineup, such as DuckTales, Darkwing Duck, and Chip' n Dale's Rescue Rangers. However, the 16-Bit entries are more of the darkhorses in that pantheon that didn't get their flowers quite like the rest of their 8-Bit offerings, and the one game that's more exemplary of that sentiment than Disney's Goof Troop, directed by Shinji friggin' Mikami...

Although this game is iconic for its rad Cooperative multiplayer, there's no way to really bring that to y'all tonight, so George will be navigating Goof through the treacherous pirate isles on his lonesome, and we're sure it'll still be a hoot and holler for y'all. This stream is also brought to you by the SuperPod Network Super Game Club, which George will be further contribuiting to over at their neck of the woods real soon!

Be sure to tune in to our Twitch or YouTube  at 7:15 PM PST on 03/20/2026 to watch Spoonerville's favorite Father-and-Son thwart the pirate scourge with the power of Sokoban! You can check out the streams here or directly on our Twitch and YouTube channels, and vibe along with us as we work towards ushering in a new age of Limelight for y'all!