NES Completions thread 2024 - 662/677

[Gaia Gensouki | 1,079]

With a bit of luck I've made it to the F1 races. They're already quite difficult, but thanks to that 1 million dollar trick I have an advantage right now. I'll use that and the save function to make sure that I win the first few races and rack up some points. I'm expecting these races to get ridiculously difficult, so it doesn't hurt to earn a bunch of points at the beginning. I'm hoping to be done with this game in the next few days.

[Khromak | 770]

What's the deal with save states for long games? Is it acceptable to save state at the end of a play session to alleviate the whole "leave your console on for days straight" issue? There are a couple games I'm looking at with infinite continues/ lives, but they're long and don't have passwords or save functionality.

[nerdynebraskan | 356]

All-Pro Basketball is done for another year.

I finished with an official record of 28-7 and won the championship. I actually won seven games in a row today to go to 28-0, and then just decided to leave the Nintendo on and let the computer beat me 120-0 in the next six games while I went about my daily chores. When I started the 35th and final game, I picked up the controller mid-game while I was trailing by about 30 points. I came back and won that game, so my real record should have been 29-6.

All of my previous wins at this game were perfect 35-0 seasons that the end screen called 34-1 every damn time. So apparently, you just lose the last game no matter what. I hope no one has ever played this game to the end while tied with their last opponent (usually San Francisco) 2-2.

[mbd39 | 2,030]

57 minutes ago, Khromak said:

What's the deal with save states for long games? Is it acceptable to save state at the end of a play session to alleviate the whole "leave your console on for days straight" issue? There are a couple games I'm looking at with infinite continues/ lives, but they're long and don't have passwords or save functionality.

The rules say no save states so leave that console on.

[nerdynebraskan | 356]

On 3/2/2024 at 12:51 PM, Foochie776 said:

Is Carmen San Diego tough or tedious?

Did you start Carmen Sandiego? If so, how's it going?

I could use another long, mellow game. I could start Carmen, if it didn't grab @Foochie776's interest. Or I could do Roger Clemens MVP Baseball again, assuming that @TheGameDisplay isn't working on it. I may also try Little Ninja Brothers again; I remembered that this game has a history of acting up on this Everdrive, so I may have to go to my backup or... maybe even pull my original cart for it! Shocking!

Edited March 18 by nerdynebraskan

[BriGuy82 | 792]

3 hours ago, Khromak said:

What's the deal with save states for long games? Is it acceptable to save state at the end of a play session to alleviate the whole "leave your console on for days straight" issue? There are a couple games I'm looking at with infinite continues/ lives, but they're long and don't have passwords or save functionality.

Lol, I leave my nes on for days at a time. I just turn the TV off. The NES is indestructible! I think for ROBOCOP 2 I left it on for a week 

Edited March 18 by BriGuy82

[BriGuy82 | 792]

Pulled a few "star games" out. Gonna work on them for a while.

[mbd39 | 2,030]

20 minutes ago, BriGuy82 said:

Pulled a few "star games" out. Gonna work on them for a while.

Star Force is freaking brutal but you've been on a tear lately.

 

[McBryce | 375]

On 3/6/2024 at 6:12 PM, Daniel_Doyce said:

Shingen the Ruler is done. Last time I'm playing it. Just too boring and repetitive.

 

I’m probably going to end up doing this one next year. Any advice? I heard that if you level up your initial territory a bunch it helps out a lot. How similar is it to a KOEI game?

[nerdynebraskan | 356]

32 minutes ago, BriGuy82 said:

Pulled a few "star games" out. Gonna work on them for a while.

Are you wanting to play Star Voyager for your own personal satisfaction? Because it's already been beaten for this thread for the year. Now, Star Soldier still needs to be done, and its reputation isn't quite as savage as Star Force or Starship Hector. I suck at all three, but I'm not a shooter ace.

[Daniel_Doyce | 477]

29 minutes ago, McBryce said:

I’m probably going to end up doing this one next year. Any advice? I heard that if you level up your initial territory a bunch it helps out a lot. How similar is it to a KOEI game?

Yeah, there is a speedrun or two on YT if you want to see the leveling up. But the battles for each daimyo get super tedious. It's not as interesting as a Koei game, and the layout is very weird and clunky.

[Daniel_Doyce | 477]

14 hours ago, nerdynebraskan said:

I don't know much about Warriors of Destiny. Does this mean that your whole playthrough was screwed? What happened? Did you miss a critical item that you can't go back for? 

In unrelated news, it looks like I've clinched the completions crown for the 11th straight year.

I somehow got stuck in a forest and could not exit it, no matter how hard I tried. So I gave up and started over. I've made pretty good progress on the second playthrough.

[BriGuy82 | 792]

10 hours ago, nerdynebraskan said:

Are you wanting to play Star Voyager for your own personal satisfaction? Because it's already been beaten for this thread for the year. Now, Star Soldier still needs to be done, and its reputation isn't quite as savage as Star Force or Starship Hector. I suck at all three, but I'm not a shooter ace.

Lol, thanks. I'll look for star soldier. I'll hold off on Star Voyager for now.

[nerdynebraskan | 356]

I've restarted Little Ninja Brothers. It's stable on my other Everdrive, and I'm having a ball.

[Gaia Gensouki | 1,079]

Formula 1: Built to Win is finally done! This game had all the makings of becoming a top-tier NES racing game: fast and smooth racing action like Rad Racer, excellent controls, many racing tracks and upgradeable cars. This should have been a homerun. But the experience is marred by a wonky difficulty curve where the game is either a bit too easy or way too difficult.

Even with all the upgrades the enemy racers (the blue cars) are just as fast if not faster than you and the only way to have even a resemblance of a chance against them is using your turbo like a madman. But you only have limited turbo energy and the later race tracks are so long, that you will eventually run out of your turbo at around the halfway point. Then the enemy racers will eventually overtake you, no matter how flawlessly you drive. On top of that, if they drive into from behind your car will start spinning. If you don't react quickly you lose control and crash. This ruined so many of my runs at the end of the second lap. It's just so incredibly unfair! Because if you drive into the enemy cars, it's just a harmless bump. They don't get thrown off the track, you just lose some speed, so that others can overtake you. And oh boy, they will. Just make one major error, like a crash or driving on the green, and you can quickly go from first or second place to seventh or last. This is so frustrating and annoying.

The game also likes to throw dozens upon dozens nameless racers (green cars) in your way to halt youor progress. At pretty much all times there are one or two of them in your way and sometimes completely blocking the road. You have to overtake them as soon as possible or they will slow you down so much, that the blue cars will overtake you. However, make just one mistake like crashing into a green car and you basically lost the race. What makes this even worse is that the blue cars aren't affected by the random green cars. The drive through them! So you have ALL of the odds stacked against you and it's so frustratingly difficult that it sucks any and all fun out of this game that I used to have. Did they not playtest this? The only way to actually beat this game is by saving up at least 1 million bucks (ideally 1,5 million), use this to upgrade your F-1 racer and then try to dominate the early races. Because after a certain point winning a race is borderline impossible.

[nerdynebraskan | 356]

On 3/18/2024 at 2:36 PM, Khromak said:

What's the deal with save states for long games? Is it acceptable to save state at the end of a play session to alleviate the whole "leave your console on for days straight" issue? There are a couple games I'm looking at with infinite continues/ lives, but they're long and don't have passwords or save functionality.

I'm also interested in a bit more discussion on this. I don't care for save states, but I think I could live with using them in lieu of leaving a 35 year old console for days at a time with the kind of long games that Khromak is talking about. 

[scaryice | 596]

1 hour ago, nerdynebraskan said:

I'm also interested in a bit more discussion on this. I don't care for save states, but I think I could live with using them in lieu of leaving a 35 year old console for days at a time with the kind of long games that Khromak is talking about. 

I'm against it. If you allow them for this kind of convenience, then it's a slippery slope to allowing them for other things too. I don't think there's many games which even necessitate you to leave your system on for that long. A better use of your time is probably just doing a run on emulator with save states to practice, and then doing a real run without them.

[the_wizard_666 | 1,325]

43 minutes ago, scaryice said:

I'm against it. If you allow them for this kind of convenience, then it's a slippery slope to allowing them for other things too. I don't think there's many games which even necessitate you to leave your system on for that long. A better use of your time is probably just doing a run on emulator with save states to practice, and then doing a real run without them.

I'm not sure about other emulators, but Mesen allows you to close out and then pick up exactly where you left off without requiring a load.  This means you don't have to save and load the state, and cannot reload if you immediately screw up.  This could be the happy medium here...you aren't saving, so there's no temptation to load, but you don't have to leave a console on for days or weeks at a time.

[nerdynebraskan | 356]

8 hours ago, scaryice said:

I'm against it. If you allow them for this kind of convenience, then it's a slippery slope to allowing them for other things too. I don't think there's many games which even necessitate you to leave your system on for that long. A better use of your time is probably just doing a run on emulator with save states to practice, and then doing a real run without them.

The game that would be the strongest counterpoint for me is Tetris 2. 50 stages in one session, and there's a fair bit of luck involved since the pieces you're given are random. It's unfortunately common in my experience to be stuck on any given stage for 30-45 minutes. It's inevitably a 10+ hour commitment that emulator practice wouldn't do much to shorten. It's furthermore the kind of game that save states wouldn't even help you cheat at.

Now for someone who seems to emulate extensively, that may be less of an issue. Are you fed up with Tetris 2 for the night, or need to get to bed for work in the morning? You may only be on level 43, but you can just minimize that window and put the computer to sleep for the night. But for those of us still using the 30 year old consoles, leaving that on for 24+ hours straight is a very different thing. 

[Khromak | 770]

I understand the concern about save states and slippery slopes, that's why I asked for clarification because I could see the same problems cropping up and the temptation being there for some folks to re-load after something went wrong right after starting up their play session or w/e.

When I decide to tackle those games again, I'll try practicing them throughout the week and then maybe try to finish them on a weekend when I have a lot of time in a block to try to beat them.

[mbd39 | 2,030]

Bad Street Brawler is done. I actually enjoy this game even though the last level can be a pain in the ass. Unfortunately you don't get much time to take a picture of the victory screen and I couldn't get my tablet ready in time.

 

[mbd39 | 2,030]

I think that's the last game on the list that I've beaten before. Anything else will be new!

 

[Tablew/chairs | 252]

27 minutes ago, mbd39 said:

Bad Street Brawler is done. I actually enjoy this game even though the last level can be a pain in the ass. Unfortunately you don't get much time to take a picture of the victory screen and I couldn't get my tablet ready in time.

 

That’s funny you must’ve read my mind cause when you posted the other day I meant to comment that you should just do bad street brawler I remember you mastering it after the weekly a few years ago

[mbd39 | 2,030]

1 minute ago, Tablew/chairs said:

That’s funny you must’ve read my mind cause when you posted the other day I meant to comment that you should just do bad street brawler I remember you mastering it after the weekly a few years ago

Yeah. I was less rusty than I thought I'd be. I actually reached the last level on my first attempt. But it took me some tries to finally beat it.

 

 

[Gaia Gensouki | 1,079]

I'm currently working on Ferrari Grand Prix Challenge. It's a bit easier than Formula 1 and also allows yoou to save your game after every race. Unfortunately, it's via a password system, so it takes quite a while to restart. But thanks to this I should be able to slowly grind through the game. Currently I have won 3 races in first place. 13 more to go.