NES Completions thread 2020 - 677/677 (All Clear!)

[Gaia Gensouki | 1,073]

@NESfiend Not sure whether I've said that Bard's Tale was bad or horrible. Sure, there may be some parts about it that I don't like or that are repetitive/annoying, like the final dungeon and the horrible final boss, but for the most part it was a really decent old-school RPG. I guess it just shows its age and is not quite as good and fun as some of the later RPGs on the NES, but certainly playable. Pool of Radiance is a bit better overall, but has a few annoying flaws as well, like I mentioned above. But now that I've tried many of these old RPGs myself I actually have a newfound appreciation for those (S)NES JRPGs. They may lack some of the complexity, but they're easier to get into (no hours of rolling virtual dice during character creation or an overwhelming amount of stats/items with no clear usage or obscure leveling systems that have to be abused) and for the vast majority just more fun to play. I can't comment on sports game though since I've rarely played them. But interesting how NES sports games appeal more to you than those on the SNES. One would usually expect the opposite?

[NESfiend | 1,515]

4 hours ago, Gaia Gensouki said:

@NESfiend  But interesting how NES sports games appeal more to you than those on the SNES. One would usually expect the opposite?

Your description of Bards Tale made it seem excruciating. If I remember right, the final boss has a one hit kill move and takes 8 min to beat. Your only hope for getting through him is that he doesn't use that move at random. A scenario like that may have lead me to take a hammer to the cart. 

As to the above, sports games were just a really good fit for a simple 8 bit format. And a lot of the later and more popular sports games are really just an NES game with better graphics. Great example, NES Open has the exact same swing measures/options as Mario Golf for 64. Its really the same game with more courses and characters. Golf story is also just an offshoot of that game. Ken Griffey Jr baseball plays exactly like an NES baseball game with updated graphics. And when they go beyond that in later titles, baseball games really fell off. Sports should be games you can pick up and learn quickly so you can be competitive right away. Most of the NES games fit that bill. When they tried to do more with a lot of SNES titles, the results were mixed at best. Thats why everyone is complaining about Goal 2. You have to really learn it. You didn't have to learn much for the good sports titles world cup, bases loaded, nes open, tecmo bowl, etc.  RPGs, IMO, need the more complex formats and options to be playable with a few exceptions like the original final fantasy. My NES collection is like half the library and I have two shelves that are just sports. I havent bothered to buy a lot of those primitive RPGs. My SNES collection, on the other hand, is only like 150 -200 games and I have a ton of RPGs. 

Edited May 14, 2020 by NESfiend

[bronzeshield | 293]

Worked on Gumshoe for a while tonight. Made it to the final boss once, did OK though I was very low on bullets, but wasn't able to make it that far again before the game crashed.  Maybe I'll pick it back up over the weekend. 

[Daniel_Doyce | 470]

Grinding on Might & Magic. Decent chance I'll finish it this weekend.

[NESfiend | 1,515]

Ever since I hit 50 wins, feels like bases loaded 2 really kicked it up a few notches on difficulty. May just be that I'm out of practice, but I would swear I'm pitching the same way I have all season. I had been holding them to 1 or 0 and now they are hitting everything. I went from winning in blowout fashion most games to really struggling to win at all. @Tablew/chairs, @bronzeshield and anyone else who has played thru these games, have you noticed increases in difficulty or do you think I'm just losing my mind from the grind?

[Daniel_Doyce | 470]

Might and Magic is done. It was... ok.

I don't think anyone has claimed Ultima Warriors of Destiny, so I can start on that in a few days.

[Tablew/chairs | 242]

Good News!

Bill Elliott's Nascar Challenge is beaten and the even better news is i've now finished all of the system's racing games! 

This one was a pain in the ass but there are certainly more difficult racers on nes

 

 

[Tablew/chairs | 242]

5 hours ago, NESfiend said:

Ever since I hit 50 wins, feels like bases loaded 2 really kicked it up a few notches on difficulty. May just be that I'm out of practice, but I would swear I'm pitching the same way I have all season. I had been holding them to 1 or 0 and now they are hitting everything. I went from winning in blowout fashion most games to really struggling to win at all. @Tablew/chairs, @bronzeshield and anyone else who has played thru these games, have you noticed increases in difficulty or do you think I'm just losing my mind from the grind?

i can't say for sure but i wouldn't think it would get harder.  I think that's the game where the players have hot and cold streaks though so maybe that's what you're experiencing? i don't remember much from my play through

Edited May 16, 2020 by Tablew/chairs

[NESfiend | 1,515]

3 hours ago, Tablew/chairs said:

I think that's the game where the players have hot and cold streaks though so maybe that's what you're experiencing? i don't remember much from my play through

Yes, I never pay attention to the biorhythm crap. Now that you mention it, it seems like every time I bring in a new pitcher lately, he's showing all negative with that stuff. Probably a combo of that and fatigue. Thanks!

Edit: @Tablew/chairs I had missed the post above. Finishing every racer on the NES is a friggin crazy feat. Congrats on a milestone I'm sure only a handful of people have beat. I know only licensed games count, but have you beat micro machines? I have always wanted to and put in a lot of time, but could never get there

Edited May 17, 2020 by NESfiend

[Crabmaster2000 | 501]

On 5/16/2020 at 2:59 PM, Tablew/chairs said:

Good News!

Bill Elliott's Nascar Challenge is beaten and the even better news is i've now finished all of the system's racing games! 

This one was a pain in the ass but there are certainly more difficult racers on nes

 

 

Any advice for this one? I'm planning on starting it soon

[scaryice | 587]

Just found a great tip for Ikari Warriors from the TASvideos forum. You can guarantee a tank drop at the beginning of stage two by killing the first tank, then bombing the left wall. Then the second tank will always drop a tank. That should help tremendously with the first bridge and the guys in the water right after.

[Kid Dracula | 126]

You guys are killing it. I want to try to help out for at least 1-2 more. Any suggestions? I tend to be better at shooter/platform. RPG and flight simulation would not be my strengths. I am not against playing a bad sports game. Looking at the remaining games I was thinking 8 eyes, Kung fu heroes, mutant virus or thrillas surfari. The only one I’ve played before is Kung fu heroes. It was for about 20 minutes and it seems hard. 

Edited May 18, 2020 by Kid Dracula

[Tablew/chairs | 242]

13 hours ago, Crabmaster2000 said:

Any advice for this one? I'm planning on starting it soon

First thing is check YouTube videos for the proper car settings.(I used arnpoly settings for the road courses and some other video for the ovals) I ran just the 10 mile championship it’s 4 laps on the oval courses and 2 laps on the road courses. There’s 8 races and you need to win 5. You want to qualify on the ovals in the top 3 spots that allows you to pretty easily win the race and lead every lap and you’ll gain 15 points on Elliott.  The road courses are difficult and you’ll need to beat him on at least one. I stopped trying to qualify on the road courses because I would end up like 15 or 16 and using auto qualifying I started 11th and saved the time/aggravation. If you win the ovals and one road course you’ll be up 70 points, coming in at least 3rd on the other three road courses you’ll give up 20pts per race and you’ll end up beating him by 10pts. There’s a sorta trick for the road course turns just hugging the outer edge, I had trouble using it consistently but arnopoly mentioned that he used it really successfully.

[Gastro | 3]

I beat Wizardry II, Knight of Diamonds.

This one's a grindfest, where you need to grind to create a proper character, grind against specific enemies to not be wiped out and grind to reverse your alignment if you accidently don't spare an enemy. The last armor piece wiped out almost my whole party in one turn and thankfully my last couple characters were able to finish them in the next turn. The most annoying part was finding the rooms to get items needed to progress through the game. I was originally playing it a flash cart but for some reason I left the game which saves it and I'd come back to nothing being saved, so I had to switch to emulator.

[scaryice | 587]

13 hours ago, Gastro said:

I beat Wizardry II, Knight of Diamonds.

Nice job! Love seeing the hand drawn maps. Looks way neater than the ones I've drawn (my Phantasy Star 2 dungeon maps were... not the best, let's just say).

Anyway, this brings us down to the final 50 games.

[scaryice | 587]

On 5/18/2020 at 8:01 AM, Kid Dracula said:

You guys are killing it. I want to try to help out for at least 1-2 more. Any suggestions? I tend to be better at shooter/platform. RPG and flight simulation would not be my strengths. I am not against playing a bad sports game. Looking at the remaining games I was thinking 8 eyes, Kung fu heroes, mutant virus or thrillas surfari. The only one I’ve played before is Kung fu heroes. It was for about 20 minutes and it seems hard. 

I hear 8 Eyes is decent, since it's clearly based on Castlevania. I don't think it's too hard if you know the right order to play the stages in.

[NESfiend | 1,515]

2 hours ago, scaryice said:

I hear 8 Eyes is decent, since it's clearly based on Castlevania. I don't think it's too hard if you know the right order to play the stages in.

His post is probably going to be the closest thing we get to someone volunteering to beat mutant virus. He has the skill to do it in a lot less time than most of us mortals. I say tackle the virus @Kid Dracula! My understanding is its one of the hardest beats on the system. 

[Strikezone1 | 154]

4 hours ago, scaryice said:

I hear 8 Eyes is decent, since it's clearly based on Castlevania. I don't think it's too hard if you know the right order to play the stages in.

It is a very solid game, and you're right in that it isn't that hard once you know the right stage order and get the feel for the controls (like anything else). One other thing to contend with is the fact that 2 of the 7 levels are maze-like (Egypt & Germany). The mazes aren't too bad, but if ya get hung up you can always just check out a playthrough. The game is very forgiving with the pretty high amount of damage you can take, plus abundant energy refill drops, plus unlimited continues. 

You shouldn't have much issue beating it @Kid Dracula. If I had to guess I would say it is one of the easiest (and best?) games left on the list.

I'd take it out but I am currently working on advanced & expert difficulty settings on Gun-Nac, which are effing hell. Thankfully for this thread that intermediate (default) setting is sufficient for the clear.

[Strikezone1 | 154]

Wow, down to the last 50 games already! This year has far and away been the fastest pace for this thread out of the few years that I've been following/contributing. 

[Daniel_Doyce | 470]

Ultima: Warriors of Destiny is done.

Apparently this is a really shitty port of a good game on the Apple II and other computers. This version is terrible, especially for a 1993 (!) game,  and was the last of the NES Ultima games released. Apparently FCI tried to directly use the computer-based game engine, and it was too large and complex for a console, so this disaster is what resulted. Anyway, it's done.

 

[Gaia Gensouki | 1,073]

Wow, so all RPGs are done except for Pool of Radiance? I'll try to speed up my game. I've been slowly chipping away at it and just got rid of the kobolds outside of the city yesterday. But I think it will still take quite some time for the remaining dungeons as I'm expecting them to be longer and harder than the ones before.

[Daniel_Doyce | 470]

I'm going to try Dirty Harry next for a change of pace.

[scaryice | 587]

Made it to stage 3 of Ikari Warriors for the first time last night. Making some steady progress - it's not an impossible game when you get used to it. What sucks though, is how long it takes to do each attempt. The first stage is super easy, but it still takes like 8 minutes to beat. Only then does the real game start, and due to the way you lose all your powerups, dying is very hard to recover from. It's the Gradius syndrome in full effect (even moreso than Gradius itself).

You can get an item to negate this, but there aren't any in the early parts of stage 2 when it's needed the most.

Edited May 20, 2020 by scaryice

[guitarzombie | 924]

5 hours ago, Daniel_Doyce said:

I'm going to try Dirty Harry next for a change of pace.

The first level is really tough because its so long and a maze.  You really need to know where to go.  The 2nd and 3rd level are easier but have some difficult parts.  Like in the 2nd level I think you have to jump on a moving box.  And the last level the cliff platform 'maze'.

[scaryice | 587]

On my second trip to stage 3 in Ikari Warriors, I actually got through it and made it to stage 4 last night. Although, I was on my last life and literally died five seconds into that stage.

Stage 3 is not too bad compared to stage 2. In the second stage, there's just a few tricky parts going over the water which are very hard to get through without dying. If you're not familiar with the game, you move much slower in the water. Plus, there are enemies which alternate between going underwater and surfacing, and you can only hit them when they're above water. If you die once and lose your upgraded grenade, it's way too difficult to get through those sections.