Beat Every Game Boy Game - 2023

[Floating Platforms | 715]

19 hours ago, bronzeshield said:

I think the key point for me is that it's not just that Level 49 is glitched, but that -- according to tobiasvl's analysis of the game's code -- it wasn't even meant to exist at all.

Ah, I see what you mean. It's not bad coding, but totally incomplete for some reason. Not a bad port, and maybe not even laziness, since the screens aren't even on the cart. I do wonder what possible reason there could be for that.

19 hours ago, bronzeshield said:

As for me and Flipull, heh, not now, I don't think. I'm barely playing video games right now -- most of my free time goes to our baby.

Congratulations!  If ever there was a good reason to not play games, that would be it. You certainly wouldn't want to deal with Flipull during any relaxation time you get anyway.

[Splain | 2,569]

22 hours ago, bronzeshield said:

As for me and Flipull, heh, not now, I don't think. I'm barely playing video games right now -- most of my free time goes to our baby. 

 

Congrats dad! I remember one of my kids took a long time to fall asleep at night when he was tiny, but he'd sleep if I bounced him just right on my lap, and then I didn't dare move a muscle. I played a lot of midnight GB in those days

[Splain | 2,569]

On 3/11/2023 at 11:59 AM, Tantalus said:

Forgot to take a picture, but Donkey Kong Land 2 is done. I'm sometimes hard on this game because I would have preferred something more unique/original rather than what feels like a greatly scaled down DKC 2 port. However, it is still impressive what they were able to do with the Game Boy hardware and it is a solid game. The graphics fit the limitations of the hardware much better than the first Land game and the hit detection and controls also seem greatly improved. It was also nice this time around to scratch the DKC 2 itch with a game that I don't know quite like the back of my hand to the same degree as the SNES game.

Nice, I had actually played some DKL2 last month, but maybe I'll switch to a different DKL. I like the game, the graphics are both good and bad, the music is great but the game needs more sound effects. There's a lot of stuff you do that doesn't make a sound at all, and that makes for an odd experience. You get punished for taking leaps of faith, unless you're supposed to do it right there lol. Frustrating sometimes. And there's graphical glitches when you play on GBC/A, which I was. It's a good game though, maybe top 100.

[Floating Platforms | 715]

Quick little update on my side.  I was trying to do a re-visit of Chessmaster and beat it on the medium difficulty, but after a few days of trying, I decided I'm outmatched and need to learn some strategies first.

Then I had a vacation and now I'm back to try Dragon's Lair. After a couple nights, I think I've seen all of the screens and made it to the end (just trying to learn the general path without collecting stuff). It will still probably take a few more days, but with practice and luck it seems manageable - which is surprising.

I'm not sure if I've updated my soft dibs/upcoming games list in a while, but here's what's on tap afterwards:

Star Trek: The Next Generation
Final Fantasy Legend II
Oddworld Adventures
Ken Griffey Jr. presents MLB
3 games TBD
Simpsons: Bart vs. The Juggernauts, The

 

[Floating Platforms | 715]

Dragon's Lair: The Legend is done

Honestly, it's not a terrible game. It requires learning and patience of course, but there's a solid collect-a-thon here for the most part. The music is well done. The graphics look great for such an early title as well with plenty of different locations and detailed animated backgrounds. What holds the game back isn't even the 9 lives with no ability to earn more. It's the terrible jumping mechanic and unforgiving fall damage deaths. Sometimes you can fall from a great distance, and sometimes you can't even go half a screen before it's death. I never learned the why, but I learned where was safe. The jumps occasionally do not work as expected. I would go straight up instead of over or I would jump twice on accident, or I would land on something unexpectedly and slip off (because it's really hard to know what is a surface to touch/use without trying/failing). So, yeah, learning it can be mean but treating each section like a puzzle to figure out made it better.

Next week I'll start on ST:TNG and then dive into FF Legend II

[Floating Platforms | 715]

Star Trek: The Next Generation is done

The only hard part about this game was fighting the Romulans. Other enemies were push overs. The second hardest part was figuring out what to do until I was given the manual for the NES version. I got most of the mechanics and controls on my own, but I didn't guess the correct purpose of Geordi's little mini-game thingy.  All of the missions are randomized from a very small pool of objectives and a large pool of planets you can go to.  Most aren't too bad. I think the only one I never passed was saving people from an asteroid. I never had enough time.  To rank up, you need to beat several missions in a row. I'm pretty sure that losing once resets progress.  The graphics and presentation are absolutely fantastic. They have a nice version of the theme at the opening but grating sound effects for the phasers. I really enjoyed the experience overall, but later on it did start to get repetitive and a bit tedious waiting for the ship to repair in order to go back into battle. I liked the 25th Anniversary game more but this was solid.

Next week I'll be starting Final Fantasy Legend II and hoping I can close that out by the end of the month.

[koifish | 555]

ok, I've written something up for beating Cool World. I wish I could say more, but honestly I'm not an expert; I just put up with it enough to make it through.

 

How to Beat Cool World

Spoiler

The most important technique is just constantly having shots out. You have to time your shots so that you're constantly preempting enemies coming onto the screen, because they constantly surprise you. Don't forget to suck the enemies up into your pen after you shoot them too, or else they turn into worse enemies and you have to shoot them again.

Also, work hard to position yourself somewhere that you can hit enemies, but enemies can't hit you. I found staying at the bottom of ramps or slopes or underneath ledges works well. The enemies are really dumb; They just run forward and jump occasionally. If you find a spot where you can hit them and they can't hit you (or more likely, appear offscreen and surprise you), then you will be great.

Make sure that you roam around and get the random objects. You need to get them in order to finish the level.

For some reason, you cannot actually warp just by jumping into the warps as they claim in the game manual. Rather, you have to jump in/touch the thing, AND hold down on the d-pad at the same time.

Remember that you cannot just stay in place forever. For one, you lose a life if you don't get all of the missing items quickly enough (the timer for this is not shown, but you know it's close when the screen starts flashing). For two, not every enemy will come to where you are camping out. Sometimes, they will be stuck somewhere, and you will have to go find them.

One more crucial tip: When you jump through the portal for the first time, you refill your health. For that reason, you should only jump through when it's really necessary.

Level 1
immediately dodge because there's an enemy that lands right on top of you. Go left and down, hide under the spawn point (right up against the little ledge), face left, and just shoot until you get hits. After enemies stop showing up, go around and mop up remaining enemies. DO NOT let an enemy get shot without sucking them into your pen immediately after. Here they turn into evil floating angry faces that shoot fast projectiles from funny angles. They are a real pain, so don't let them show up; Shoot and suck the enemies in as quickly as possible.
 

level 1 house section:
just run through hallways and time your shots well. You want to preempt enemies because they are ruthless and always coming for you.

level 1 part 2:
house is the same. For cartoon world, you can stand at the low part of a ramp and just wait for enemies to walk into your shots. However, four or so enemies will bunch up on the one left side platform if you don't come by and clear them out periodically. It's slightly precarious, so try and clear it out rather than let them pile up.

Level 2
You don't really have to worry here. Just stay proactive about damaging enemies and stay moving.

For the "real world" I recommend staying somewhere that only has one staircase/entrance leading toward you. That way enemies will feed themselves into you and you won't get sneak attacked from behind. I like the bottom floor, because on the higher floors, enemies can jump and hit you through the floor by bumping their heads into you.

The cool world version is a bit more precarious and will involve jump shots. Practice getting the timing to jump and preempt shots for enemies, and try and stay close to small and/or stacked platforms or narrow ledges. The enemies are not good at ledges; If you hide under one, enemies will likely jump over you as they go on their merry way, leaving them easy targets for your ink shot.

Part 2 of level 2 is basically the same.

Level 3: The enemies are now extremely fast. You need to be really careful or they will drain your lives rapidly, and you NEED all your lives to get through level 4 (probably; I sure did anyway). Aside from being fast, the enemies in 3 aren't too bad. You can still find good spots to hide and shoot them. All the same strategies from the other maps work in level 3. The little ones suck more because they are tougher to shoot. Stay vigilant, however, and you should persevere.

Level 4: Nightmare!
This level sucks. The enemies are as fast as in level 3, AND they shoot projectiles, AND they turn into the same angry floating faceballs when shot and not sucked up as the enemies in level 1 did. This level is extremely tough. To make matters worse, the time limit for recovering the lost objects is very short; You can easily lose your last life just from not being quick enough to get them.

There is one zone I can remember that is really good for survival: on the far right, there is a small platform over a pit. You can stand under this platform. Do so, and just wait out enemies coming toward you. They will jump past you and into the pit, leaving them open to your shot. Remember  you have to keep moving, however, as the game time limit for this map is really short. Don't stay here for long; Rather, clear out a number of enemies and then keep moving.

I wish I could give better advice for level 4, but really it just came together with enough practice to get through levels 1-3 without dying once, and then just surviving level 4.

Final boss:

of course the final boss exists, but thankfully it is really, really easy. The boss doesn't do much of anything, and barely can hit you. It's large and very slow, so it's super easy to shoot at it and avoid it. Just do what you've been doing, shooting and staying away from damage, and it will go down without much trouble.

 

Hopefully that is sufficient. Good luck in your own mission. The game, once you can run it through well, takes all of 20 minutes at most, it's just painful to get up the skill needed. Good luck and stay strong!

Edited April 26, 2023 by koifish
added spoiler

[Floating Platforms | 715]

Well, I can't read all of that since I haven't played it and I like to go in blind, but great that it's there!

I was wrong about getting FFL2 done by the end of the month. I thought there was another week. Oops. After almost 7 hours, I have 35/77 magi things. Haven't had to grind yet, but it seems like that will hit any day now. So, maybe end of next week this will be done.

[koifish | 555]

58 minutes ago, Floating Platforms said:

Well, I can't read all of that since I haven't played it and I like to go in blind, but great that it's there!

I was wrong about getting FFL2 done by the end of the month. I thought there was another week. Oops. After almost 7 hours, I have 35/77 magi things. Haven't had to grind yet, but it seems like that will hit any day now. So, maybe end of next week this will be done.

Good point. I'll go ahead and add a spoiler just in case.

[MegaMan52 | 2,443]

Beat Super Mario Land, Kirby's Dream Land (Extra Game), Double Dragon, and Mega Man II.

[Floating Platforms | 715]

Final Fantasy Legend II is done

Overall this is a stark improvement over FF Legend 1. I mean, there's multiple save files!  Plus, there's no potential for perma-death. It has a robot class now. There are a ton of different locations and characters to interact with. Fewer inventory slots taken up by garbage quest items you're not sure if you'll need again. Very little to no chances of soft locking. Better sprite work. More enemy types. It was mostly a great experience, even for someone who still gets irrationally annoyed by random encounters in RPGs like me.  Then the last sections happened and the final boss wasn't the final boss. It was the beginning of a series of hard as nails fights that you can't run from and mini-bosses that can wipe your entire party before you get to attack if the RNG doesn't go your way (even characters with 999 HP). I ended up saving relatively frequently and tried the true final boss several times, making slight adjustments to my approach. When I found a system that might have worked, I still had to try that 3-4 times to be sure since the RNG of the damage output caused some issues.  I'm sure if I had certain better items it would be different, but most of the stuff I really wanted to buy was unavailable by the time I had huge stacks of cash so there was nothing to spend it on. I had to play through FFL1 twice because I softlocked at the boss with an unwinnable build. This was more fun generally speaking, but there's still no way I would consider voluntarily playing this again.

Next up I'll be playing Oddworld Adventures.  If anyone's curious, here is my current soft dibs update for upcoming games

155    Oddworld Adventures
156    Ken Griffey Jr. presents MLB
157    Pyramids of Ra
158    George Foreman's KO Boxing
159    Wheel of Fortune
160    Simpsons: Bart vs. The Juggernauts, The
161    TBD on next poll after game 156.
162    Battletoads

[Floating Platforms | 715]

Oddworld Adventures is done

I don't have any experience with the Oddworld series, so it's tough for me to know how this actually compares to something on a more powerful console.  I was expecting a puzzle platformer and that's what I got, but I wasn't rescuing my fellow odd people. I was navigating ledges and enemies to light torches and go through doors. I didn't have the manual, so I probably did some levels the hard way, but it seemed like a couple of the mechanics were only utilized once.  For a bit it was interesting to learn how to get through levels, but the more times I failed on a particular stage, the more the game wore out its welcome.  Going with those cinematic platformer controls never feels good. Far too many inputs get eaten and too many jumps fail because a button was held a frame or two too long, causing you to do the stage over. Thankfully there are unlimited continues.

Tomorrow I'll be starting Ken Griffey Jr, trying to not only win the world series, but also take on the home run derby.

[Floating Platforms | 715]

Ken Griffey Jr. Presents MLB is done

First I tried the All-Star game to get a feel and see if it would have its own end screen. I lost 22-1. Then I moved on to the Home Run Derby and after watching the CPU Griffey's turn with no way to skip or fast forward, my choice of Frank Thomas won first try.

I switched to Griffey's Mariners for the World Series mode. There are no other rounds of the playoffs, just a best of 7 and you can pick any teams. I chose the Phillies who had one of the worst records in '97 and won in game 7.

This game is awful and made me mad, mostly because of the terrible programming of the defensive side. Batting is okay in that you can hit virtually any pitch but I didn't have much control over fly balls vs grounders (despite what the manual says). Pitching is blah. I was able to get some strikeouts, but there are very few speed and location options and the CPU will hit most things. There's no such thing as multi-base hits. It's either singles or homers. I managed 2 doubles with Griffey but in 7 games that's it. All players have rocket arms. Thankfully the CPU also rarely tries to advance more than 1 base at a time, which is weird because there were a lot of opportunities for them when I lost track of my outfielders.

Defense is broken in a logical sense. There were a lot of hits that, based on their field position, should be handled by certain players but the game forces you to use someone else (so you're moving the wrong way instantly). Other times, there are line drives past the shortstop but you aren't allowed to control him, so you watch the ball go past your statue player while you scramble to re-orient yourself to the outfielder that needs to get it. There's a mini-map that shows you where you are and where the ball is and where it should land. Many problems with this. 1) It's wrong. Actual fly balls that give you time to position yourself are very, very rare. Almost every hit is a screaming rocket. When you do get time to react properly, you can put your dot inside the target on the mini map, but the ball drops far away from your guy. There were a couple times where the mini map showed the ball would land foul and it didn't. My best bet was to get close and then hit B to dive/jump and hope it worked. 2) the runners are also the same dots. So is the ball on the ground. It's very easy on infield hits to not know what you're controlling and what you're chasing.  It's all a huge confusing mess which caused me to lose multiple games and stress out while I finally managed to squeak through game 7 after being up 3-1 in the series.

I don't know if it's the worst baseball game I've played. Probably yes. I think Sports Illustrated's baseball side was tougher to get a handle on, but in a different way. This game I never got fully used to the defense because so much of it makes little practical sense from a baseball strategy perspective and from a UI/gameplay perspective.

Next week I'll be starting Pyramids of Ra. I have no experience with this one and don't have the manual so I have no clue what to expect. My target is to get it done by the end of the month

[cj_robot | 540]

Beat a game of Baseball. About as basic a baseball game as you can get. I never got a good handle on pitching in this one, it seemed I could only either struck a guy out on three pitches or he would hit a double off me. But I survived for the win.

Also finished Extra Bases. Man, this is one broken baseball game. Hitting is pretty easy since the CPU pretty much throws it over the plate every time. All you need to do is get the timing down and you'll consistently make contact, resulting in a hit about 30%-40% of the time. The CPU also makes tons of bonehead plays in the field which makes it pretty easy to get extra bases and score.

I found a trick to pitching. With a RH pitcher, just throw the ball and hold right on the D-pad to throw a pitch that sails right of the plate. Even though it would definitely be a ball, the CPU batter will swing and miss on this pitch like 95% of the time. Once I found this I never gave up another run. My best performance was a perfect game with 27 strikeouts

Edited May 15, 2023 by cj_robot

[MegaMan52 | 2,443]

Beat Kirby's Dream Land 2. Even though I still have it for Game Boy, I decided to play it on the Switch because I didn't want to delete my files on my Game Boy cartridge. In addition to getting the Rainbow Drops, I also completed the Bonus Chance games.

Edited May 22, 2023 by MegaMan52

[Floating Platforms | 715]

I'm making progress in Pyramids of Ra, but it's slow.  I don't know what floors have the exits (and I'm purposefully not looking it up), but I'm on tomb #4 and got to room 5800+.  Scarabs and those moving tiles that stutter step can go to hell.

Anyway, I discovered a trick that is helping me move up a bit more without essentially "save scumming" passwords.

Spoiler

I noticed in tomb 3 after failing so many times that occasionally the energy would act nearly as it does when you start a fresh room.  I learned that every 16 tries it sort of resets the energy for a couple tries. So the 17th and 18th will get you more energy than 4-16.  On tomb 4, it's every 13 tries for some reason.  So I've been able to learn the levels and then intentionally fall to cycle back around. I feel that's a quicker way to still make progress beyond 1 or 2 rooms (usually 50-80) without having to reset and type in a password.

I have yet to go back to previous passwords and retry for a better energy score. I'm just taking what the game hands me with the energy I end up with but keeping some older passwords in reserve in case I run into any unwinnable rooms, which I guess can potentially happen?  I don't know how this game has so many potential puzzles. It's fun most of the time, but I haven't had the mental energy this week to make as much progress as I hoped.

[MegaMan52 | 2,443]

Beat Mega Man: Dr. Wily's Revenge. Decided to use my blue Game Boy Pocket, which was connected to a Mega Man Speaker.

[Floating Platforms | 715]

Pyramids of Ra is finally done after 28 hours or so

Even with the trick I mentioned earlier to gain more energy without resetting and re-entering passwords, this was simply far too long with far too many puzzles. Even with perfect play and jumping 100 rooms at a time it would be too many. Eventually the rooms got to be derivative, which was good for recognition but bad for engagement. I don't feel like the difficulty really increased much, if at all, past tomb #3 either so it really became a slog.  I absolutely hate the super precise timing for the scarab jumping and those moving tiles that will stutter step sometimes instead of going along their normal path are the devil's work. I've heard that there are potentially unbeatable floors. I didn't run into any of those, but I did get a password that refused to load a level. It only played music on a loop so I had to backtrack to an older password once. Of the two jumping related puzzle games I've played, I think I prefer Lazlo's Leap, even though the presentation in this one is better.

I can't find a copy of the manual anywhere. Does anyone know anything about the prize that it mentions?

Next up for me is George Foreman's KO Boxing

[twiztor | 850]

beat Mega Man V today. played the eshop version on my 3ds.

decent enough game. the slowdown and timing is different than the NES series, so that took some adjustment.  pretty much all the bosses have super simple patterns and this is on the easier end of classic Mega Man games i've played.

[bronzeshield | 293]

Just to keep things on track (and in case it helps @Splain), here are the 16 games beaten since the first post was last updated:

Baseball (cj_robot)
Donkey Kong Land 2 (Tantalus)
Double Dragon (MegaMan52)
Dragon's Lair: The Legend (Floating Platforms)
Extra Bases (cj_robot)
Final Fantasy Legend II (Floating Platforms)
Ken Griffey Jr. Presents MLB (Floating Platforms)
Kirby's Dream Land (MegaMan52)
Kirby's Dream Land 2 (MegaMan52)
Mega Man: Dr. Wily's Revenge (MegaMan52)
Mega Man II (MegaMan52)
Mega Man V (twiztor)
Oddworld Adventures (Floating Platforms)
Pyramids of Ra (Floating Platforms)
Star Trek: The Next Generation (Floating Platforms)
Super Mario Land (MegaMan52)

[Floating Platforms | 715]

George Foreman's KO Boxing is terrible.  Expect a rant when I'm done with it. Currently 6 of 9 (if the manual lists them all) boxers are done.

[Splain | 2,569]

Sorry I've been lazy. Both updating the thread and actually beating games. @Floating Platforms is knocking out games that have never been beaten and I want to get in on that.

Great job on Pyramids of Ra. I had fun with that one for the first few pyramids, but then the evil stuff you mentioned made me slow way down. I kept passwords, but they didn't all work and I didn't want to repeat stuff, and I just never came back to it. I have 400+ manuals, but not Pyramids of Ra yet, so I just bought one on ebay. I'll report back when it arrives.

[Floating Platforms | 715]

25 minutes ago, Splain said:

I have 400+ manuals, but not Pyramids of Ra yet, so I just bought one on ebay. I'll report back when it arrives.

very nice.  I forget if we're allowed to share links here, but I have a google drive with almost 350 scanned manuals found through scouring the internet. If you have anything I don't and vice versa, it would be great to fill in the gaps. I know there's a community that's also looking to build a database of clean scans across all regions for GB.

[Splain | 2,569]

Yeah, I've run into some people on Reddit working on manual scan projects. My scanner is cheap and temperamental but I should at least try to get some scans done.

[MegaMan52 | 2,443]

Beat The Jungle Book on normal difficulty. Played it on the Switch in Disney Classic Games Collection.