PPR Presents Limelight: Yakuza: Dead Souls

o, despite owning it for all of this time, George has never messed with Yakuza Dead Souls, and it’s been this weird oversight in his gaming repertoire that he has yet correct, well—until now that is!

Yup, we’re streaming Yakuza: Dead Souls on the crusty-old PS3, and we’re hoping to scope out what this one-off has to offer.

Be sure to tune in to our Twitch or YouTube  at 7:15 PM PST on 02/07/2026 to watch George wipe out the undead of Kamurocho! 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!

PPR Presents Limelight: Panzer Dragoon Orta

hen SEGA dug deep into their trove of properties to revisit on Microsoft’s 128-bit premiere, they went hard, and one of the big guns behind that effort was Smilebit Premiere, also known as Sega’s “AM6.” After Jet Grind Radio and Typing of the Dead, the studio set their sights on delivering action of the more “shooty” variety, with one of those games being a sequel to a cult-classic still beloved to this day, Panzer Dragoon.

George is picking right where he left off with Panzer Dragoon Orta, and there's a chance he might even hit the credits if he can get through Stage 5 and beyond!

Be sure to tune in to our Twitch or YouTube  at 7:15 PM PST on 01/26/2026 to watch Orta take flight with a new set of 4K paint to show off! 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!

PPR Presents Limelight: Panzer Dragoon Orta

hen SEGA dug deep into their trove of properties to revisit on Microsoft’s 128-bit premiere, they went hard, and one of the big guns behind that effort was Smilebit Premiere, also known as Sega’s “AM6.” After Jet Grind Radio and Typing of the Dead, the studio set their sights on delivering action of the more “shooty” variety, with one of those games being a sequel to a cult-classic still beloved to this day, Panzer Dragoon.

With Panzer Dragoon Orta being one of the most cherished Xbox exclusives ever made, Microsoft has naturally retrofitted the game with an official enhanced remaster patch for the Xbox Series X, and today, George is going to check it out!

Be sure to tune in to our Twitch or YouTube  at 3:30 PM PST on 01/13/2026 to watch Orta take flight with a new set of 4K paint to show off! 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!

PPR 154

ew year, same tardy nonsense—we recorded a few weeks ago, but life and technical issues got in the way of the production process, and for that, we sincerely apologize to y’all.

Before we get into the Golden Zonkies’ class of 2024, however, we wanted to have an old-school “PPR-ass PPR” round robin on a featured topic, and what better subject than the art and science behind video game box art?

Join George, Ed, and Andrew as they discuss the history, culture, and legacy of box art, such as the ever-changing motifs of design and the artists who famously brought them to life on shelves like George Opperman, Greg Martin, Bob Wakelin, Yoshitaka Amano, Tom DuBois, Ken Sugimori, Yoji Shinkawa, and more. Hell, have you ever thought about what the box of your favorite video game may have looked like in a different country? Raccoon Mario soaring against a yellow backdrop may be a Mount Rushmore type of pastiche here, but in Japan, the giant ensemble piece of characters against a teal palate is what tickles the nostalgia bone in that corner of the world, and that’s so weirdly fascinating don’t you think?

Every year that passes is another year closer to a fully digital media landscape, and while that can have huge ramifications on the preservation of software, something as innocuous as box art can sometimes be the little dumb thing that makes physical media truly that much more special. We hope you enjoy the latest episode of Press Pause Radio—and don’t forget to check out the next one, because we’ll be doing the Golden Zonkies for 2024 next!

Mail us at our new email Mailbag@presspauseradio.com, leave a voicemail at 469-PPR-TALK, 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 Twitch page and Twitter, and finally take part in our Facebook and Steam group!

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PPR 151

t’s raining diss tracks y’all, and ain’t nobody safe from the rhyming raids of character assault up in this BEE-yotch that we call LYFE…

Alright, that’s enough cringe—with all of the harrowing news we’ve seen out of 2024, we’ve decided to try our hand at some levity with a brainstorm-fueled feature topic that we think can bring out the sort of trademark fun the video games are iconic for. In the same vein of fantasy booking your favorite sport, we’ve decided to come together and choose one intellectual property to revive for a modern-day release from twelve different companies who have either dabbled in publishing or development for that property and make a case for why that given franchise is worthy of a new game over any other dormant franchises that have also been left in the gaming past.

It’s the type of “think-tank” discussion that we haven’t had on the show in some time! Join Andrew, George, and special guest, Joie of Super RPG Friends and Cerulean Skies as we wax nostalgia in the future tense as we plead the importance of a ninth-generation rally for dozens of cult-classic properties for y’all in episode 151 of Press Pause Radio!

Mail us at our new email Mailbag@presspauseradio.com, leave a voicemail at 469-PPR-TALK, 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 Twitch page and Twitter, and finally take part in our Facebook and Steam group!

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QCF: Air Twister

magine if Space Harrier was revamped into an absurdly stylized Rock Opera that cranked the dial on the Surrealistic fantasy themes to psychedelic levels of absurdity over its Sci-Fi roots for current gaming platforms. Well, don't strain yourself too hard because YS Net, the studio started by legendary developer Yu Suzuki, has taken all the guesswork out of the matter with their latest release, Air Twister. Where Team Reptile's Bomb Rush Cyberfunk was a modernized Love Letter to an iconic SEGA property, Air Twister is being presented as the quintessential sequel to the Arcade Classic in nearly everything but name, and the next big release from Yu Suzuki following the studio's crowdfunded debut with Shenmue III. Originally released as an Apple Arcade exclusive in the summer of 2022, the mobile exclusive has now been greenlit as a multiplatform release for digital storefronts on both Console and PC.

The twists (shitty pun intended) don't stop there, as Air Twister offers various flourishes on the shooter's foundation that set it apart from its source material—honestly, to a degree where it more often resembles a Hidden Caravan Level Mode from Panzer Dragoon than anything related to Space Harrier. Despite the inconsistent traces of Harrier DNA though, Air Twister still manages to deliver that trademark Popcorn Shooting frenzy that Suzuki had earned his pedigree on, albeit in a somewhat stunted execution that just manages to breathe a scant new gasp of life into the Arcade classic.

Air Twister is…well, intriguing, to say the very least.

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PPR 146

here are some events that we’ve come expect with the certainty of a season change. Whether it’s Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, The Super Bowl, or The Oscars—these annual institutions have operated for most of our natural-born lives, and won’t go anywhere anytime soon. The Electronic Entertainment Expo, or E3 for short, used to be one of those long-standing institutions, but has recently seen come rough days the couple of years, and has decidedly skipped out on 2023 altogether.

While writing has been on the wall, the language that E3’s parent company, ESA, has used over the future of the showcase is a little too ambiguous for comfort, and it’s likely that we may not see the event come back in the near future, or ever. Despite it going out with more of a whimper than a bang, there have been a ton of memorable years in Video Gaming where the event hosted some truly historical announcements, cementing moments that still occupy our headspaces to this very day, and we’re going to spend this episode talking about that, and so much more.

Join Andrew and George as they take you on a Post-Mortem of what George called the “Met Gala” of the Video Games Industry as they discuss the up’s and down’s of the yearly trade-show, and all of the notable footnotes it’s had in its run, bizarre pageantry and all.

Mail us at our new email Mailbag@presspauseradio.com, leave a voicemail at 469-PPR-TALK, 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 Twitch page and Twitter, and finally take part in our Facebook and Steam group!

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Late to the Party: Lost Judgment

eing a Spin-Off from a popular series is hard because you’re either as beloved as Family Matters, or as forgettable as The Cleveland Show—the reception to these ventures is rarely in-between.

Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio’s first foray into the Yakuza Universe outside of Kiryu’s story continuity, Judgment, fringes between both ends of that measuring stick. The crux of this weakness fell upon its failure to carve a meaningful identity of its own from the rich source material it pulls from, well, aside from a fickle protagonist who was charming one second and irritatingly cringe-worthy the next at the very least.

Inconsistent delivery aside though, the premise of an Ex-Lawyer turned Private Eye in the world of Kamurcho still carries plenty of merits to re-visit in its own right, especially with mainline Yakuza series shifting into the Turn-Based RPG Genre for the indefinite future. This is where the follow-up sequel to Takayuki Yagami crime-solving caper, Lost Judgement, comes into the grand picture.

The Private Eye’s latest case leads him to the rough streets of Ijincho, and the setting isn’t the only thing that’s new as Lost Judgment is a sequel that boldly builds upon its formula instead of trying to deliver a familiar formula with some forced twists, making for an immensely better experience this time around.

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