Beat Every Game Boy Game - 2023

[Gaia Gensouki | 1,073]

Speaking of which, I've finished Castlevania Adventure and Castlevania II: Belmont's Revenge.

[Gaia Gensouki | 1,073]

Space Invaders

Battlezone/Super Breakout

Centipede. This one took the longest. My thumb started getting numb, too. I once got to over level 50 and had this 91k store, but unfortunately died repeatedly in short succession. The next run however was successful.

Dropzone

[Gaia Gensouki | 1,073]

Chessmaster

New Chessmaster

[Floating Platforms | 716]

15 hours ago, Gaia Gensouki said:

I think that's because the yearly threads, especially the NES completions thread, are sort of the main attraction and just have the most people really invested in it. The people in the N64 thread were very dedicated this year and are very close to beating the library, but even that is most likely not going to happen every year from now on. That's usually the problem with spreading your ressources too thin.

Or maybe beating an entire library is a miracle to begin with and there's no way, that it's going to happen regularly.

Yes, very true on all fronts. I've seen how no one really even touches the SNES, Genesis, Playstation threads because there's no timed aspect.  I honestly would never expect the entire GB library to be finished in a year, but having the thread reset each year does seem to incentivize people to try out new games in a way that doesn't happen in the "beat it whenever" threads.  There's still a lot about the system that's undocumented, so I'm selfishly hoping that more people would be enticed to help explore some of the lesser knowns.

[Splain | 2,569]

Yeah, it definitely removes all of the urgency, but might also increase the value of each clear. For example there's not much incentive to beat anything in December if it looks like the library isn't going to be completed, and every clear will be reset soon.

Is there some other way we can change it? Establish a different timeframe that's longer than a year?

[ikk | 560]

3 hours ago, Splain said:

Yeah, it definitely removes all of the urgency, but might also increase the value of each clear. For example there's not much incentive to beat anything in December if it looks like the library isn't going to be completed, and every clear will be reset soon.

Is there some other way we can change it? Establish a different timeframe that's longer than a year?

Maybe do just 1 other console besides the NES and change it every year.
Adds urgency and more consoles may get a chance.

[PII | 1,886]

O.G. Gameboy seems like the one other large library that could potentially happen around here in a years time, in addition to NES and N64 but if history is any indication a year limit might be a bit of a stretch.  Either way it seems like a good approach to try and rally around a particular library on any given year.

[Floating Platforms | 716]

Yeah, there are pros and cons to doing yearly as well as leaving it timeless. I don't think there's any "right" answer. Again, I'm honestly speaking from a relatively selfish perspective where I'd love to see more attention to the Game Boy and learn more about the games that are still largely undocumented. Either way, I'll still be contributing as much as I can since the vast majority of my retro gaming time is trying to personally beat all of them. I'm just really slow.

From a site-wide perspective, I definitely like the idea of trying to rally everyone around a specific new console each year. I know I'd certainly try to help out if I can with my limited physical collection.

[Reed Rothchild | 9,528]

Just to add background on NA the SNES thread was reset annually, but was pretty lackluster on clears most years.  Other than the two years @BeaIankwent wild.

 

[BeaIank | 1,618]

9 hours ago, Reed Rothchild said:

Just to add background on NA the SNES thread was reset annually, but was pretty lackluster on clears most years.  Other than the two years @BeaIankwent wild.

 

The good ol' days when I still could play them vidja games.
These beat every game threads are tough to complete, specially these days with less participants. Not even the NES one is seeing completion.

[the_wizard_666 | 1,325]

11 minutes ago, BeaIank said:

The good ol' days when I still could play them vidja games.
These beat every game threads are tough to complete, specially these days with less participants. Not even the NES one is seeing completion.

The N64 one is about to be completed...

[Splain | 2,569]

Since we're discussing it in the N64 thread, would anyone prefer to keep this thread annual? (meaning, reset again on the 1st?) For what it's worth, I've been getting into RetroAchievements and re-playing lots of old games, and I've committed to beating 10 GB games I've never cleared, for the backlog thread. So I'll be logging a lot more games next year, after barely playing any GB this year.

I'm just worried that without any changes, this thread will continue to move slowly. The best years in NA/VGS history still showed less than 300 clears, out of a library of 566. So it might still be a lot of the same games getting cleared with a small handful of "new" clears. But if there are people who want to try and have a historical year, I'll support it.

[Gloves | 11,778]

22 minutes ago, Splain said:

I've been getting into RetroAchievements

Yo add me on there: Gloves · RetroAchievements

[PII | 1,886]

Following a look at past years percentages of beaten games and thinking to myself, there must be a lot of crap alongside the good stuff that people just don't want to play I was leaning away from annual w/reset, but after looking through the library again I did not see the excessive pile of crap I was expecting, but rather a library that looks intriguing nearly front to back.  That's my opinion anyway.  After that and also reading a couple of Wiz's posts (see N64 thread) I definitely think it would be cooler for the Gameboy thread to remain Annual.  This past year has been an exception to the general rule of a large chunk of the library being beaten.  All it needs is the big dog Game Boy fans to collectively decide or perhaps spontaneously come together to play every game and the more casual fans will follow, much like what happened with the N64 thread this past year.   

[the_wizard_666 | 1,325]

The biggest argument I see in favor of annual vs perpetual is the SNES thread.  The 2018 list had over 300 completions.  Since going perpetual in 2019, it hasn't even hit the 300 mark.  I think you end up with less interest overall with the perpetual format.

[Gloves | 11,778]

6 minutes ago, the_wizard_666 said:

The biggest argument I see in favor of annual vs perpetual is the SNES thread.  The 2018 list had over 300 completions.  Since going perpetual in 2019, it hasn't even hit the 300 mark.  I think you end up with less interest overall with the perpetual format.

Agree. Even if it's not completed, you still get the sense of progress. An endless goal creates zero urgency.

[Gloves | 11,778]

We could always do a leaderboard with badges per year, regardless of whether it gets completed or not. Might help to raise participation if people know that there's a little prize at the end of it for the top people.

[Matt 4120 | 240]

Late to the party but I did end up finishing a few more games.

Game and Watch Gallery

Mario’s Picross (No photo)

WWF Superstars (Also no photo)

I probably could have been on a pace similar to last year, but for whatever reason I felt no motivation whatsoever to really participate after I beat Kirby earlier in the year. The year isn’t over yet so maybe I’ll hit off a few quick ones tomorrow.

 

EDIT: Never mind, would just make more sense to hold off my enthusiasm until next years list.

Edited December 30, 2023 by Matt 4120

[Gaia Gensouki | 1,073]

11 hours ago, PII said:

Following a look at past years percentages of beaten games and thinking to myself, there must be a lot of crap alongside the good stuff that people just don't want to play I was leaning away from annual w/reset, but after looking through the library again I did not see the excessive pile of crap I was expecting, but rather a library that looks intriguing nearly front to back.  That's my opinion anyway.

I think that the Game Boy library has some problems that keep it from getting completed. First of all, there are plenty of games that are on a difficulty level similar to NES games, but at the same time somewhat downgraded, i.e. all in black and white with smaller screens etc.

Second, there are lots and lots of puzzle games on the Game Boy that can get really long and tedious on top of being challenging. It's one thing to beat a relatively short action game, but it's an entirely different beast to clear 100 puzzles or 99 waves etc.

On a personal level I'm also a bit disappointed by the lack of RPGs on the system.

[Sisor | 14]

Maybe instead of changing this thread to perpetual have a new thread instead for just the gamed that weren't beaten this year? 

Looks like there are 567 games on the list. Only 77 were beaten this year. Remove those from the list for next year and have a thread fro the remaining 490 games? Keep doing this for each subsequent year until the library is complete.

Points would be reset each year so it would be a fresh competition each year which will hopefully renew interest every January.

[the_wizard_666 | 1,325]

I think the problem is simply the lack of people interested in playing black and white GB games in the first place.  There were only two regular players this year.  That's a fast track to nowhere.  Basically, if the thread is gonna have any chance, regardless of resetting it or going to a perpetual format, you need players to come and play the games.  Honestly, with how short much of the library is to play, and how small the library actually is, I think having a half dozen regulars would be all that's needed to pull it off.  The trick is to bring them in.

[Gaia Gensouki | 1,073]

Gradius: The Interstellar Assault is done.

I played R-Type a bit, but I'm not sure if it counts as beaten. First of all, there are only 6 levels. Second, the game only has an easy and a hard mode. If you beat it on easy it says that you've only gained a temporary peace and that you should prepare for the "ultimate challenge". It then starts a second loop on hard mode, I think. But I got a game over there, got back to the title screen and just started the game over from scratch, but on hard mode. Then you finally get the good ending. However, I'm not sure if you have to do both loops of the game or if just this one counts?

On a side note, I tried beating R-Type on the TurboGrafx-16 and it was way too difficult. That game has all 8 stages and is ridiculously difficult since it only gives you three credits total. And I don't know how you're supposed to beat that game on just so few lives and continues. Especially the final boss is so crazy hard to beat unless you have both of those Bits, i.e. those little helper ships above and below you. Then he's a total pushover, but without them it's just ridiculous. Those Bits are also extremely rare and you only get a few of them. So you pretty much have to no death this game. I couldn't do it, but it was good practice for the easier Game Boy version. However, some strategies didn't work on the Game Boy version. The best stretegy here was to just throw your detachable weapon at a boss and let it do the whole job while you're just trying to survive.

[Gaia Gensouki | 1,073]

R-Type II is done. At times the game was running at a snail's pace, which made it easier, but it's still too ambitious for a GB game, imho. R-Type I and Gradius were running a bit more smoothly. Still an admirable effort on part of the developers to see such a complex game on the GB at all.

[PII | 1,886]

10 hours ago, Gaia Gensouki said:

I think that the Game Boy library has some problems that keep it from getting completed. First of all, there are plenty of games that are on a difficulty level similar to NES games, but at the same time somewhat downgraded, i.e. all in black and white with smaller screens etc.

Second, there are lots and lots of puzzle games on the Game Boy that can get really long and tedious on top of being challenging. It's one thing to beat a relatively short action game, but it's an entirely different beast to clear 100 puzzles or 99 waves etc.

On a personal level I'm also a bit disappointed by the lack of RPGs on the system.

All good points.  I generally play Gameboy games on a Super Game Boy since I'm not trying to beat them on the go or anything like that so that's a good way to overcome the limitations of using a handheld.  As far as the puzzle game factor goes, I can only admit that I hadn't really been thinking of it that way as I personally consider the abundance of puzzle games on Game Boy to be a big positive.  But here's another positive the library has going for it: Not too, too many sports games.  I'm not saying there aren't good ones but there's a reason they always make up the vast majority of any library's bottom dollar games.  I was looking at that bottom portion of the SNES library yesterday for that matter and 40 out of the bottom 48 games were sports titles with the other 8 being oddball genres like "game show", casino, mario paint etc. before I came to the action plat-former "jungle book."  I just did a quick rough count of sports titles (not including Racing, pool, pinball or typical fighting games like mortal kombat for example) in the GB library and came up with ~67 which is only 11.8% of the library.  Again, not looking to rag on sports games here but having only 3 games that start with "Madden" is big plus compared to say the PS1 which has 9 or the PS2 which has a whopping 16 Madden games.  Similar comparisons can be made for games that start with NFL, NBA, NHL, MLB, FIFA etc.  Also, just my opinion but I really like checking out games that made it to GB after the NES and there are a lot of those.  If I love a game, I tend to want to play every port I can, and at least some of those that are particularly challenging are actually a bit easier on Game Boy.  Anyway I just wanted to throw a few more pesos into the fountain because I think the Game Boy Library is the best candidate for completion after NES and N64 by a significant margin.  I also really like that the PAL exclusives are included, although I've only got a couple at present.  And yeah, it should have a few more RPG's, for sure...

Edited December 30, 2023 by PII

[Floating Platforms | 716]

Hey all. Sorry I've been silent. I feel like I kind of lit a match in this thread and then walked away due to holidays/life stuff.  It's great to see that others share the enthusiasm for the yearly threads generally.  I agree that the amount of puzzle games can drag, and there are a couple that are rumored to be completely unbeatable (for example: World Bowling - although maybe that will help collectively understand what a win condition is if the coding is that broken), but I also agree that with some additional participation, we may have a real shot because the library size is in that sweet spot of not too long and most of the games are generally achievable and short on average.  I'm looking forward to seeing what 2024 will bring overall!