Beat Every N64 Game - 2023 - 303/303 -- BOOGIE DOWN

[Jeevan | 8,921]

all I have to say is, that if we do it again, I'm not playing starcraft

[Nugfish | 652]

23 minutes ago, Splain said:

I've had a couple ideas over the years how we could collectively rank a library, it would likely start with a very general phase of sorting each game into quadrants/percentiles, maybe with a handful of games serving as benchmarks (is the game better or worse than Superman? Glover? Mario Kart? etc) and we'd need people to really play the games, not just fail for 20 minutes and call the game bad. Like @the_wizard_666 was saying, to weigh in you'd need to have beaten the game (or maybe some kind of defined "adequate effort" to beat it, since I feel like I could fairly review Brunswick with the hours I've put into it, even though I've never won a tournament. We can discuss it )

Ideally we'd have enough people who have played enough games to fairly sort everything into quadrants, then further divide into smaller groups. Like a Top 10, Next 10, Next 10, down to Bottom 10. The thread itself would be for discussing individual games and where they belong. We'd need a good process for what to do when one person loves a game but someone else hates it, and they're the only 2 people who have played it.

I think these are great thoughts! I would love to be part of this. Discussing likes/dislikes of each game is probably my favorite part of the annual N64 thread.

[Brickman | 4,008]

Great job everyone!!! And congratulations to the top three @ikk @Jeevan @ZeldaFan042.

Jeevan you are a true hero in my book, having played a bit of StarCraft on N64 I know how frustrating that game can be and the length is insane! 

Thanks @Splain for monitoring the thread and running it.

I won’t be playing much N64 next year (if any) but I vote that we just change the thread to beat the library and we can also include the Japanese games. 

I do like the idea of a VGS ranking thread as an alternative though. That could be fun and different. We have a lot of die hard N64 fans on the site so the list would actually mean something and could draw people to the site. I say we go for this option.

[Jeevan | 8,921]

2 minutes ago, Brickman said:

Great job everyone!!! And congratulations to the top three @ikk @Jeevan @ZeldaFan042.

Jeevan you are a true hero in my book, having played a bit of StarCraft on N64 I know how frustrating that game can be and the length is insane! 

Thanks @Splain for monitoring the thread and running it.

I won’t be playing much N64 next year (if any) but I vote that we just change the thread to beat the library and we can also include the Japanese games. 

I do like the idea of a VGS ranking thread as an alternative though. That could be fun and different. We have a lot of die hard N64 fans on the site so the list would actually mean something and could draw people to the site. I say we go for this option.

definitely not annually, if anything 2 years to complete the set, I think we got super lucky, with a very special shout out to the real driver of whipping us into completion....

@ikk you deserve that gold and thanks for prodding us to do the final push!

[the_wizard_666 | 1,325]

55 minutes ago, ZeldaFreak said:

Next year I'm probably gonna focus my efforts on the NES Completion thread, unless there's another timed library besides that one, in which case I'll focus my efforts on that.

I think the Game Boy thread is still annual.  

Honestly, I feel like most other systems should have a yearly thread anyway.  Removing the time limit removes part of the incentive to prioritize playing that system, and without that reset putting popular games back up, people look at the list and don't really see games they want to play, so they just don't.

Also, when I made the first thread all those years ago (before NA was even a thing), the goal was to get more people playing unfamiliar games, because I felt most gamers rarely strayed out of their comfort zone to try something new.  I feel a lot of people lose sight of that though...that the goal was never to actually succeed, it was to discover new games and enjoy the journey.

[Brickman | 4,008]

Now it is N64 gif time 

 

 

[ZeldaFreak | 3,601]

5 minutes ago, the_wizard_666 said:

1: I think the Game Boy thread is still annual. 

2: Also, when I made the first thread all those years ago (before NA was even a thing), the goal was to get more people playing unfamiliar games, because I felt most gamers rarely strayed out of their comfort zone to try something new.  I feel a lot of people lose sight of that though...that the goal was never to actually succeed, it was to discover new games and enjoy the journey.

1: It was this year, but I think it's being discussed to not make that one annual anymore since turnout for that one was very low this year.

2: Nah I'm a completionist by goal is to WIN, haha

[Jeevan | 8,921]

22 minutes ago, the_wizard_666 said:

I think the Game Boy thread is still annual.  

Honestly, I feel like most other systems should have a yearly thread anyway.  Removing the time limit removes part of the incentive to prioritize playing that system, and without that reset putting popular games back up, people look at the list and don't really see games they want to play, so they just don't.

Also, when I made the first thread all those years ago (before NA was even a thing), the goal was to get more people playing unfamiliar games, because I felt most gamers rarely strayed out of their comfort zone to try something new.  I feel a lot of people lose sight of that though...that the goal was never to actually succeed, it was to discover new games and enjoy the journey.

ya, I vaguely remember seeing no reset next year.  @Splain can confirm.

[the_wizard_666 | 1,325]

8 minutes ago, Jeevan said:

ya, I vaguely remember seeing no reset next year.  @Splain can confirm.

If that's the case, it'll be to their detriment.  They usually manage to knock off half the library, and that's with a small number of regular players.  They're two or three active competitors away from a breakthrough.  Look at how little love the SNES and Genesis threads get now.  That's the future of any non yearly thread.  

Edit: just confirmed via the archive that the SNES thread hasn't even reached the total number of completions that they had in 2018 (the last year it was annual).  While it's expected that there'd be a dip due to a reduced player pool at the start, the new folks finding their way here should be offsetting those losses and that they'd regularly complete at least half the library with the competition aspect  being there.

Edited December 29, 2023 by the_wizard_666

[bronzeshield | 293]

Rat Attack, Rat Attack...

Edited December 29, 2023 by bronzeshield
Double post

[bronzeshield | 293]

I'd love to be a part of a 2-year effort with all regions or a 1-year effort with Japanese games only. Wasn't able to contribute this year (relatively little gameplay at all in my house in 2023 TBH), but an effort like those would definitely be motivating!

[McBryce | 375]

Congrats everyone! It's awesome to be a (small) part of the victory this year!

I still have a ton of N64 games I want to complete, so I'll be participating in whatever form this thread takes next year.

I do like the time limit, but I also agree next year could be a letdown, so maybe taking a year off is a good idea, with a return in 2025.

[Tantalus | 459]

Congratulations to all! So satisfying seeing it actually done with a few days to spare.

I do tend to agree with @the_wizard_666 about annual vs non-annual threads. Even if there's a down year (which I assume 2024 will be), once that annual reset hits, so does the momentum. It seems like there's never much momentum with the non-annual threads - other than maybe the TurboGrafx, but that is mostly just @Crabmaster2000 taking it on single-handed.

That being said, I will personally be taking a bit of a break from the N64 and focusing on other systems. I do still have quite a few N64 games that I want to play/replay, but I think I'll save those until the Analogue 3D launches (supposedly 2024? So maybe 2025? Maybe 2030? Who really knows with them).

[Sisor | 14]

I've been lurking a long time and have enjoyed following this thread. Seeing the system complete finally got me to sign up for an account so I could congratulate all of you for this accomplishment! Great job!

I am looking forward to seeing a ranking thread in the coming year. I will be interesting to see what everyone thinks is not only the best but also what are the worst N64 games.

[the_wizard_666 | 1,325]

2 minutes ago, Sisor said:

I've been lurking a long time and have enjoyed following this thread. Seeing the system complete finally got me to sign up for an account so I could congratulate all of you for this accomplishment! Great job!

I am looking forward to seeing a ranking thread in the coming year. I will be interesting to see what everyone thinks is not only the best but also what are the worst N64 games.

Welcome to the party! Hope to see you contributing as well!

[Crabmaster2000 | 502]

Awesome job gang! Love to see these huge community goals get achieved, especially right in the final hours. 

[Nugfish | 652]

4 hours ago, the_wizard_666 said:

If that's the case, it'll be to their detriment.  They usually manage to knock off half the library, and that's with a small number of regular players.  They're two or three active competitors away from a breakthrough.  Look at how little love the SNES and Genesis threads get now.  That's the future of any non yearly thread.  

Edit: just confirmed via the archive that the SNES thread hasn't even reached the total number of completions that they had in 2018 (the last year it was annual).  While it's expected that there'd be a dip due to a reduced player pool at the start, the new folks finding their way here should be offsetting those losses and that they'd regularly complete at least half the library with the competition aspect  being there.

Would year 1: A-R & year 2: S-Z, or some variation of that be a fair compromise on the larger libraries?

[Dr. Morbis | 2,091]

31 minutes ago, Nugfish said:

Would year 1: A-R & year 2: S-Z, or some variation of that be a fair compromise on the larger libraries?

So if you play an S game in year 1, it won't count?!?

Either go annually or don't, don't half-ass it to try and please everyone, as that can't be done anyway.

I agree with wiz, all systems should be annual, even if they only get a tiny percent done, because you get renewed excitement every year and the great games people actually want to play get reset on January 1.  The lists that aren't annual are basically "before we all die" bucket list threads at this point, making them priority zero.

Finally, congrats to all you N64-heads on getting it done!    It might only be 303 games, but a bunch of them are really loooong...

[Reed Rothchild | 9,568]

36 minutes ago, Dr. Morbis said:

because you get renewed excitement every year and the great games people actually want to play get reset on January 1

That's the crux of the problem with SNES.  Most years, you have people tackling the Mega Man Xs and Donkey Kong Countrys in January, and then everyone flees.  In fact, the year I beat 100+ games, I accumulated 5x the next person's lifetime total.

And not only that, even with the annual resets, we still tracked the list of games that needed a first time clear.  And across 8 seasons/resets we still didn't beat the whole library.  And that is with me producing 150 clears one season, and @BeaIank producing 200+.  It's just the perfect storm of NES library size, and longer N64ish clears.

 

I like the idea of an annual SNES reset.  That's why I did it so many years.  The hope it would mean something.  But in general it didn't.

If someone wants to start a new thread and a new push on January 1st, be my guest.  But set expectations accordingly.

[Brickman | 4,008]

I just don’t think VGS has the user base for the annual reset. Ikk and Jeevan really pushed hard this year and that’s why I think we got it over the line.

If we had a larger user base and more N64 fans I reckon we would be able to get it done more often.

The ranking sounds really cool to me and I would love to hear more from Splain on that one.

[a3quit4s | 4,122]

Like not to brag or anything but I did Perfect Dark 

lmao

Can I reserve Winback for 2024?

[the_wizard_666 | 1,325]

As I've said, the original goal was less about actually finishing the list and more about getting people to play and discuss the games, find new favorites, etc.  And the annual threads generate activity, which in turn drives participation.  The perpetual ones, quite frankly, do not.  

That said, there are some lists where an annual run is simply not realistic.  Beating every PS2 game in a year is highly unlikely due to the overall length and quantity of the games, unless we have like half the site's user base actively playing.  But Game Boy is maybe 5 competitors away from a breakout year. N64 is entirely doable, though it may not happen again immediately afterward.

Another thing is if a new user comes across the thread in December, they could be hyped for the games they could start off the year playing come January.  On the perpetual threads, they may not have that same excitement because there's nothing new to drive it.  So someone who might be excited to start beating games for the list in January might not be anywhere near as excited to post in a thread that sees activity once in a blue moon.

At the end of the day, it's up to the person who puts the time into the upkeep to decide, but IMO the annual threads are just a better overall experience.

[BeaIank | 1,628]

The yearly reset is nice, but I feel that the usual suspects always go for the their usual games at the start of the year, clearing the famous games and never straying into strange waters. There needs to be something to incentivize these people to try new things.

That pattern also hurts new members participation because the famous games everyone plays are gone within hours or days of the thread being posted and they don't get the chance to beat a game they know well and feel part of the whole process because it was cleared right away. And they won't try the unusual games, usually.

I know I was guilty of often beating my favourites right after the bells of midnight, not letting people experience GnG, Ikari Warriors, Punch Out and others.

Would be nice to have something to incentivize or force the usual people into doing games other than their usual suspects.

[the_wizard_666 | 1,325]

50 minutes ago, BeaIank said:

The yearly reset is nice, but I feel that the usual suspects always go for the their usual games at the start of the year, clearing the famous games and never straying into strange waters. There needs to be something to incentivize these people to try new things.

That pattern also hurts new members participation because the famous games everyone plays are gone within hours or days of the thread being posted and they don't get the chance to beat a game they know well and feel part of the whole process because it was cleared right away. And they won't try the unusual games, usually.

I know I was guilty of often beating my favourites right after the bells of midnight, not letting people experience GnG, Ikari Warriors, Punch Out and others.

Would be nice to have something to incentivize or force the usual people into doing games other than their usual suspects.

I actually tried that when I ran the first couple years.  I would actually only count games if that user didn't beat them the year prior.  That just made a lot more work for me to cross reference the previous year, with no real notable uptick in participation.  Sadly I'm not sure how to get people to try the harder/less popular games that doesn't involve prizes or something along those lines. 

[Jeevan | 8,921]

What about a 2 year time frame with all the regions in the list?  Is that something everyone could get behind?  Still gives a "limit" on time and maybe also, for points, half for the second clear of the same game?

**edit**  I know @Gloves has thought about doing an everdrive for top member, maybe something like that could be implemented into this?  for the top contributor?  IDK, just a thought.

Edited December 30, 2023 by Jeevan