NES Completions thread 2023 - 600/677 (bonus games - 75/100)

[McBryce | 375]

5 hours ago, TheGameDisplay said:

Nicely done! Surprised by your review, though. I beat Built to Win last year, and enjoyed the bite-sized 2 lap races as opposed to longer marathons of some other racing games where one mistake right near the end can ruin your whole day. I also don't remember having any issues control-wise, and thought the system for upgrading your car was neat. The last few races of the final tournament kicked my butt, but I built up enough points in the beginning races to be able to afford the losses. Having the battery back-up was also nice so you could easily take a break and come back to it. My one complaint was probably that the music wasn't too appealing to listen to. Combine Built to Win's gameplay and Ferrari Grand Prix's soundtrack and you'd probably have my ultimate NES racing game. XD

I’m not saying it’s a bad game whatsoever, the controls are great and the beginning portion was really fun.

The F1 portion is where it fell apart for me. It’s too easy to spin out when you really have to rely on the boost, and the rival racers are incredibly aggressive, plus they throw all those damn green racers at you.

I don’t know if this is the norm, but I also banked a lot of points early. The problem was that I had the same racer getting pole on pretty much every race, so I was never able to gain a comfortable amount of separation.

All in all, it is a great racer, but the odds are so stacked against you during the F1 portion that the fun was lost.

[LHCGreg | 111]

Battle of Olympus is done.

[Khromak | 769]

Mystery quest is done. Beaten it before, but still looked at a guide for some of the hidden stuff. It's not a terrible game, the controls are a bit janky but you get used to them. Beating it 4 times to get the ending is the miserable part. As a single playthrough, it could be decent

[Strikezone1 | 155]

M.C. Kids is beaten.

This game has been left on the board late into the year the last few years. That’s usually an indicator that it’s a real dandy to get through.

All in all it wasn’t too bad though. Some of the platforming and puzzle elements in the later levels did get a bit frustrating for sure.

I did also clear the 3 “special” levels. I figured they’d be required in order to get the best ending. Come to find out they’re not, they have no impact on the ending I don’t think; they only give you a measly 10 extra lives. So they’re a waste of time.

 

[Strikezone1 | 155]

On 7/22/2023 at 7:15 PM, Khromak said:

Mystery quest is done. Beaten it before, but still looked at a guide for some of the hidden stuff. It's not a terrible game, the controls are a bit janky but you get used to them. Beating it 4 times to get the ending is the miserable part. As a single playthrough, it could be decent

Agree. The game making you clear 4 loops just to get the single screen ending is totally obnoxious. IIRC nothing changes from loop to loop. Not a very fun game.

[NESfiend | 1,515]

33 minutes ago, Strikezone1 said:

M.C. Kids is beaten.

This game has been left on the board late into the year the last few years. That’s usually an indicator that it’s a real dandy to get through.

All in all it wasn’t too bad though. Some of the platforming and puzzle elements in the later levels did get a bit frustrating for sure.

I did also clear the 3 “special” levels. I figured they’d be required in order to get the best ending. Come to find out they’re not, they have no impact on the ending I don’t think; they only give you a measly 10 extra lives. So they’re a waste of time.

 

Played that one as a kid at a neighbor's house quite a bit. Really fun game. The SMB3 stealing never occurred to me until reading about it online a million years later. Played through it for this thread and it was great overall, but a real drag by the end. A kids mcdonalds game didnt need to be that long. 

[Khromak | 769]

1 hour ago, Strikezone1 said:

Agree. The game making you clear 4 loops just to get the single screen ending is totally obnoxious. IIRC nothing changes from loop to loop. Not a very fun game.

Some of the enemies get a little more HP in the later loops, but that's all I noticed.

[nerdynebraskan | 356]

@scaryice missed @LHCGreg's completion of The Battle of Olympus on the last update.

I tried to seriously beat M.C. Kids last year, and I found it much clunkier than it initially looks when you're just playing it casually. I struggled with it for an hour or two and moved on to something else. And I really consider myself something of a platform junkie. I don't know if I was missing something, or if many other players have similar experiences to me.

There are still many games on the board that interest me, but I've been pretty busy with more important adult stuff. I've mainly been playing Pipe Dream and Wario's Woods to relax, as I haven't had much nerve to learn new games lately.

Is anyone here working on anything for this thread at the moment?

[Khromak | 769]

I agree @nerdynebraskan that M.C. Kids controls kind of awkward and a lot of the mechanics aren't that intuitive, but it's decent. I've beaten it a couple times I think, maybe 2-4.

I've got a small list of 5~10 games still on the list that I'd like to tackle but I've been hardcore sucked into an MMORPG lately which has taken up all my free time.

That said, I'm working on NES Open Tournament Golf again this year, another game I discovered through this list and has become a yearly completion for me, because I enjoy it.

I might take a shot at some of the Famicom games as well, depending how much of my list I get through/how much time I dedicate to this. Might take a crack at the Zelda 2 "only 1 stat" challenge too.

[TheGameDisplay | 55]

Here are a couple of my recent completions:

Nigel Mansell's World Championship Racing. I enjoyed this one. It was quite similar to some other formula one games on the NES, but I thought the controls were good and the soundtrack was great. Just be prepared to reset a lot because from my experience you need to be near perfect to rank near the top.

 

Nintendo World Cup. Like most Kunio-kun games it's sports with a beat-em-up twist. This one was also fun, with the biggest issue being the awful camera which can make it difficult to find out where your player is at times.

I also beat NES Open earlier this month, but I won't take that one away from you, @Khromak. Just let me know when you discover a way to print out that $1,000,000. XD

Edited July 25, 2023 by TheGameDisplay

[Khromak | 769]

1 hour ago, TheGameDisplay said:

I also beat NES Open earlier this month, but I won't take that one away from you, @Khromak. Just let me know when you discover a way to print out that $1,000,000. XD

HAH! I wish. I do love how at ~200k or whatever it tells you to go buy a house in LA or something.

Don't worry, you should take the points, you cleared it. I am only like 100k in anyway, so it's NBD, was just doing it for this challenge I've already played my fair share of courses.

[TheGameDisplay | 55]

4 hours ago, Khromak said:

HAH! I wish. I do love how at ~200k or whatever it tells you to go buy a house in LA or something.

Don't worry, you should take the points, you cleared it. I am only like 100k in anyway, so it's NBD, was just doing it for this challenge I've already played my fair share of courses.

Haha, that was hilarious. It really was a different time. And only if you're sure! Otherwise, the points can definitely be yours. It sure does take a while to get up to $1,000,000. At the Professional level I was consistently golfing like 6 under par and still only making about $10,000 per tournament. I actually won one tournament where the computer opponents appeared to be slacking, otherwise the top guys usually golfed around 10 under par! The real money comes from winning the mini challenges and getting Hole-in-ones which grant you around $80,000 each. Cool game overall!

[nerdynebraskan | 356]

Hi no Tori is done.

I've long thought this was one of the more interesting Famicom exclusives (especially of the pre-1990 era), but this was my first time finishing the game. It's a fairly unique platform/puzzle hybrid. I did have to consult StrategyWiki for locations of the warps in particular. Navigating this game blind was a bit frustrating for my impatient adult ass who doesn't really have time to wander aimlessly in loops all day.

[nerdynebraskan | 356]

Wai Wai World is done.

It's a shame that we didn't get the Konami All-Stars game here, but I guess it makes sense given that four of the six heroes you assemble are from Japanese-exclusive games (and Mikey from the Goonies only got one of his two video games released here). I wonder what kind of drugs the developers were on when they had the idea of Simon Belmont, Goemon, and King Kong tag-teaming against an alien invader.

Like Hi no Tori, this was a game I picked up pretty quickly after I started collecting Famicom games, but it's one that I'm just now playing all the way to completion. The final boss is definitely a tribute to Contra, complete with reusing the original music from the final stage, and I just learned today that this game was actually released before the Famicom/NES port of Contra. So what a tease that must have been for the Japanese players who got this one at launch!

I'll probably revisit this one at some point, but I'm going to try one of the newer English-language hacks. My ROM set on my Everdrive only has the really old one by Demiforce, which is not only incomplete, but it had some really obnoxious graphic glitches on the Gradius/Twinbee shooter stage which almost broke the game.

EDIT: This completion should also tie the single-year record for most completions on this thread. My next completion will give me that record as well as the single-year points record (and subsequently, make me the first player to ever score 900 points in a year).

Edited July 29, 2023 by nerdynebraskan

[NESfiend | 1,515]

On 7/25/2023 at 6:44 PM, TheGameDisplay said:

Haha, that was hilarious. It really was a different time. And only if you're sure! Otherwise, the points can definitely be yours. It sure does take a while to get up to $1,000,000. At the Professional level I was consistently golfing like 6 under par and still only making about $10,000 per tournament. I actually won one tournament where the computer opponents appeared to be slacking, otherwise the top guys usually golfed around 10 under par! The real money comes from winning the mini challenges and getting Hole-in-ones which grant you around $80,000 each. Cool game overall!

If you do the match play (I think, something like that) option and win against each of the CPU players, it doesnt pay money, but it raises your status from ameteur to semi pro then pro. The tourney prize money then triples for every tournament you play. Cant remember if the hole in one, closest to pins, and long drive prizes go up too. Either way, makes it way quicker to get to a mili 

[TheGameDisplay | 55]

36 minutes ago, NESfiend said:

If you do the match play (I think, something like that) option and win against each of the CPU players, it doesnt pay money, but it raises your status from ameteur to semi pro then pro. The tourney prize money then triples for every tournament you play. Cant remember if the hole in one, closest to pins, and long drive prizes go up too. Either way, makes it way quicker to get to a mili 

Ya! The first thing I did was bump my level up to Pro. I had a lot of experience from other games like black box Golf so golfing rounds at Par to get up there wasn't difficult. The problem was that when doing the paid tournaments the top CPUs were ending with like -11 or -12 so even my attempts which had me at -6 or -7 weren't paying out big because the CPUs were just so far ahead. One time I finished at -3 and somehow that won me the tournament which paid out $60,000, but that only happened once so I have no idea what was going on. Overall I found the level that the game requires you to golf at in order to win any serious money to be pretty high. Winning the Farthest Drive challenge could pay out up to $10,000, and winning the Closest to the Pin challenge could pay out up to $20,000, so winning those along with the occasional Hole-In-One which could pay out around $80,000 became my primary ways to earn money.

[McBryce | 375]

Ferrari Grand Prix Challenge

 

[Khromak | 769]

Just beat blaster master on famicom. I've beaten it before on NES but recently acquired the famicom cart because of the regional differences. I've gotta say, this time around i definitely would've had to start over from the beginning if i was playing the nes version.

The game is amazing for a multitude of reasons, but controlling the tank after getting all the wall upgrades is a nightmare, and some sections are brutally difficult. Still love the game though, it's a total classic

[bronzeshield | 293]

45 minutes ago, Khromak said:

Just beat blaster master on famicom. I've beaten it before on NES but recently acquired the famicom cart because of the regional differences. I've gotta say, this time around i definitely would've had to start over from the beginning if i was playing the nes version.

The Famicom version has unlimited continues, right? Blaster Master is on my list of games to beat legitimately (though the pause trick is arguably fair game) and the Famicom version would be a good way to practice. The pattern on the final boss looks really nasty to me. It's a beautiful game but desperately needs a password system.

[Khromak | 769]

15 hours ago, bronzeshield said:

The Famicom version has unlimited continues, right? Blaster Master is on my list of games to beat legitimately (though the pause trick is arguably fair game) and the Famicom version would be a good way to practice. The pattern on the final boss looks really nasty to me. It's a beautiful game but desperately needs a password system.

Yeah, Famicom has unlimited continues. I didn't die at all for the first ~6 dungeons or so, was on a roll. Then towards the end I lost a ton of lives/continues. Especially the final section (because of driving issues) and the final boss.

Boss isn't too bad once you get a decent pattern down. I think the grenades do significantly more damage than even a fully charged gun, so I just run around and drop grenades when the opportunity presents itself.

Pause glitch (if you use it) makes most of the trickier bosses very easy.

Overall, the game is really great and everyone should play it. Famicom version is great for practice because you continue on the section you're currently working on, so you don't get set back very far when you die.

[Khromak | 769]

Spent the better part of the day working on zelda 2 single stat challenge. I'm up to the great palace now, just need to get back there again and put in some more tries to beat it. I got up to the room before thunder bird, but instead of a potion in the T room I got a red bird and he murdered me. Should be done tomorrow though. 

Also picked up one of the famicom games, the space harrier looking one, will play that when it comes in, and I've got a few more games on my to do list

[Khromak | 769]

Zelda 2 completed with only attack raised. Damn that was tough. The grand palace is really rough when most enemies 2 shot you and you need to have full magic for the thunderbird. Dark link also 2-hit kills you, and you can't shield or heal unless you get there with an extra life. Way harder than i anticipated, the life and magic upgrades are huge boosts. Also kind of weird but you can't use reflect to kill the maze boss until you've got max magic, which requires doing the ocean palace first, which i normally never do. 

Fun challenge though, if you like zelda 2 and are reasonably good at it, I recommend it

[TheGameDisplay | 55]

Nobunaga's Ambition both I and II are now complete. I spent the past couple of weeks playing them. On difficulty Level 1 neither is too tough, it's just a matter of going through the paces and building up your armies, moving them around, carrying out the battles. Everything really adds up time-wise. It's interesting to see how Koei uped their game as time went on. Bandit Kings of Ancient China feels like a more refined version of Nobunaga II, and it or Gemfire would probably still be my go-to NES strategy game if I had to pick one. I think in terms of Koei games left to play I still have Romance I and II, and Uncharted Waters. I'm honestly amazed they localized so many of them.

[scaryice | 589]

On 8/2/2023 at 11:53 AM, Khromak said:

Zelda 2 completed with only attack raised. Damn that was tough. The grand palace is really rough when most enemies 2 shot you and you need to have full magic for the thunderbird. Dark link also 2-hit kills you, and you can't shield or heal unless you get there with an extra life. Way harder than i anticipated, the life and magic upgrades are huge boosts. Also kind of weird but you can't use reflect to kill the maze boss until you've got max magic, which requires doing the ocean palace first, which i normally never do. 

Fun challenge though, if you like zelda 2 and are reasonably good at it, I recommend it

Congrats! It's quite tough, but it's still way easier than doing only magic or only life. Thunderbird takes 96 hits at level 1 attack...

[Daniel_Doyce | 475]

On 8/4/2023 at 4:53 AM, TheGameDisplay said:

Nobunaga's Ambition both I and II are now complete. I spent the past couple of weeks playing them. On difficulty Level 1 neither is too tough, it's just a matter of going through the paces and building up your armies, moving them around, carrying out the battles. Everything really adds up time-wise. It's interesting to see how Koei uped their game as time went on. Bandit Kings of Ancient China feels like a more refined version of Nobunaga II, and it or Gemfire would probably still be my go-to NES strategy game if I had to pick one. I think in terms of Koei games left to play I still have Romance I and II, and Uncharted Waters. I'm honestly amazed they localized so many of them.

Koei HYPE! Nice work!