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

[PII | 1,884]

7 minutes ago, BeaIank said:

16 minutes ago, PII said:

Nice going, that was faaaaaast

Took almost a week. That was slow as hell.

...from the perspective of one who has only briefly sampled the game.  At least ya didn't wait till 11:59 12/31/20 !

[Splain | 2,561]

CONGRATULATION!

[bronzeshield | 293]

4 hours ago, BeaIank said:

Now someone beat Bases Loaded already so my sacrifice won't be for naught.

Nice one, Bea! And don't worry, I'm on it...

[Bearcat-Doug | 5,104]

Looks like it's all up to @bronzeshield now.

[Bearcat-Doug | 5,104]

8 hours ago, bronzeshield said:

Nice one, Bea! And don't worry, I'm on it...

How many games do you have left?

[bronzeshield | 293]

15 hours ago, Bearcat-Doug said:

How many games do you have left?

Ooh, that's a good question. Let me see...

...OK, so that's my total...carry the two...

...what's the square root of that?...OK, now take the derivative of both sides, and factor out the variables...now use the quadratic formula...

Aha, I've got the answer: zero!

And that's because Bases Loaded is done, you see:

Just before the last pitch of the last out of the last inning of the last game. 

And here's the scoreline. Usually I tried to get a couple runs and then end my at-bats as quickly as possible, which would make the games average around 25-27 minutes, but this time I decided to let my sluggers do their worst.

Ironically, I screwed up in the 8th and chose the wrong unhittable pitch, which the opposing team immediately belted for a home run -- resulting in one of only two games in which I gave up any runs at all.

Finally, the rather pathetic ending:

No "congratulations" or anything? Oh, well, at least it's something.

So here's how to beat Bases Loaded with zero challenge:

• Choose Jersey, and choose Hall as your pitcher. (He's the last one listed, so select him faster by hitting down, left, down.)
• For his first 40 pitches, tap A and hold the D-pad up+right. When he goes into the third frame of his windup, switch to down+left. This pitch is unhittable by the CPU. If you don't screw up earlier, this will work until you're 0-1 in the 5th inning with 1 out.
• For the rest of the game, simply tap A to pitch, and do nothing else. Like Bugs Bunny's slow pitch, all batters will swing and miss, or simply do nothing for a called strike.
• On the batting side, get a run or two early if you can. Two is good in case you screw up like I did (twice).
• Once you've got the minimum runs with which you feel comfortable, bunt or check-swing everything. If you get two strikes, swing early to miss deliberately. End those at-bats quick and you can keep it to about 26 minutes per game.
• After every game, reset so that you can just use Hall again, and put in your password. Now repeat this whole process 79 more times. Enjoy!
• Paste gets the rep in this game, but it's Bay that's the home run king -- he kills every ball he touches. I've hit home runs by accident with Bay when attempting to check my swing. One of them is usually good for one or two HRs per game.

BTW I played the first 79 games in an emulator and only switched to real hardware + real cart for the last game.I can't imagine sitting in a little game room with nothing else to do for this one, so I highly recommend watching trash TV, talking on the phone, listening to books on tape, or otherwise multitasking to pass the time faster.

I marathoned the last 16 games today so that we could get it done for Christmas, and watched TV and movies with my wife for all but the last game.

[Bearcat-Doug | 5,104]

27 minutes ago, bronzeshield said:

Ooh, that's a good question. Let me see...

...OK, so that's my total...carry the two...

...what's the square root of that?...OK, now take the derivative of both sides, and factor out the variables...now use the quadratic formula...

Aha, I've got the answer: zero!

And that's because Bases Loaded is done, you see:

Just before the last pitch of the last out of the last inning of the last game. 

And here's the scoreline. Usually I tried to get a couple runs and then end my at-bats as quickly as possible, which would make the games average around 25-27 minutes, but this time I decided to let my sluggers do their worst.

Ironically, I screwed up in the 8th and chose the wrong unhittable pitch, which the opposing team immediately belted for a home run -- resulting in one of only two games in which I gave up any runs at all.

Finally, the rather pathetic ending:

No "congratulations" or anything? Oh, well, at least it's something.

So here's how to beat Bases Loaded with zero challenge:

• Choose Jersey, and choose Hall as your pitcher. (He's the last one listed, so select him faster by hitting down, left, down.)
• For his first 40 pitches, tap A and hold the D-pad up+right. When he goes into the third frame of his windup, switch to down+left. This pitch is unhittable by the CPU. If you don't screw up earlier, this will work until you're 0-1 in the 5th inning with 1 out.
• For the rest of the game, simply tap A to pitch, and do nothing else. Like Bugs Bunny's slow pitch, all batters will swing and miss, or simply do nothing for a called strike.
• On the batting side, get a run or two early if you can. Two is good in case you screw up like I did (twice).
• Once you've got the minimum runs with which you feel comfortable, bunt or check-swing everything. If you get two strikes, swing early to miss deliberately. End those at-bats quick and you can keep it to about 26 minutes per game.
• After every game, reset so that you can just use Hall again, and put in your password. Now repeat this whole process 79 more times. Enjoy!
• Paste gets the rep in this game, but it's Bay that's the home run king -- he kills every ball he touches. I've hit home runs by accident with Bay when attempting to check my swing. One of them is usually good for one or two HRs per game.

BTW I played the first 79 games in an emulator and only switched to real hardware + real cart for the last game.I can't imagine sitting in a little game room with nothing else to do for this one, so I highly recommend watching trash TV, talking on the phone, listening to books on tape, or otherwise multitasking to pass the time faster.

I marathoned the last 16 games today so that we could get it done for Christmas, and watched TV and movies with my wife for all but the last game.

I've never been able to play more than one game at a time, 16 in one day is some serious dedication. Congrats on knocking the last game out!

[Daniel_Doyce | 470]

Wow that's awesome! 677/677 and a week to spare!

 

[Gaia Gensouki | 1,073]

Wow, we did it! Thanks to everyone who sacrified themselves by playing these overly long, tedious and sometimes extremely difficult games. It was great that I could be a part of this and especially in a year where we managed to beat every game!

Will there be a new theme for next year's thread?

[scaryice | 585]

Thank God for Bea & Bronze, for beating the games that no one else wanted to play. And thanks to all of you for helping to make this possible! It's the fourth time in nine years we've completed all licensed games (2012, 2015, 2016, 2020).

The final game:

• 2012 - L'empereur
• 2015 - Mutant Virus
• 2016 - To the Earth
• 2020 - Bases Loaded

 

My personal highlight for the year was beating Ikari Warriors for the first time. It took several weeks of playing the game regularly, and using every glitch in the book. It felt so great to reach the end after all that effort! The game still sucks, though. Another one that was memorable was Super Glove Ball, since that had gone unbeaten four times and was always cleared near the end. It isn't too bad though, once you realize that grinding is the best way forward.

[scaryice | 585]

Stats update! As usual it took us forever to beat the final 100 games or so:

	2012	2013	2014	2015	2016	2017	2018	2019	2020
50	2-Jan	1-Jan	1-Jan	1-Jan	1-Jan	1-Jan	1-Jan	1-Jan	1-Jan
100	4-Jan	1-Jan	1-Jan	1-Jan	1-Jan	1-Jan	1-Jan	2-Jan	3-Jan
150	9-Jan	1-Jan	1-Jan	2-Jan	2-Jan	1-Jan	2-Jan	5-Jan	5-Jan
200	16-Jan	3-Jan	3-Jan	3-Jan	3-Jan	2-Jan	4-Jan	10-Jan	8-Jan
250	29-Jan	7-Jan	6-Jan	4-Jan	5-Jan	4-Jan	6-Jan	22-Jan	11-Jan
300	6-Feb	14-Jan	11-Jan	6-Jan	8-Jan	10-Jan	9-Jan	14-Feb	17-Jan
350	17-Mar	25-Jan	17-Jan	10-Jan	12-Jan	16-Jan	15-Jan	19-Mar	22-Jan
400	26-Apr	17-Feb	26-Jan	16-Jan	19-Jan	27-Jan	30-Jan	14-Apr	30-Jan
450	7-Jun	2-May	16-Feb	21-Jan	31-Jan	7-Feb	10-Mar	19-May	14-Feb
500	22-Jul	10-Jul	9-Mar	31-Jan	21-Feb	10-Apr	11-Jul	20-Jul	1-Mar
550	16-Aug	8-Nov	7-Jun	10-Feb	21-Apr	2-Sep	13-Nov	21-Oct	31-Mar
600	14-Oct	xxx	13-Sep	24-Feb	29-May	xxx	xxx	xxx	21-Apr
650	30-Nov	xxx	xxx	8-Apr	26-Aug	xxx	xxx	xxx	20-Jun
677	31-Dec	xxx	xxx	12-Jun	13-Dec	xxx	xxx	xxx	25-Dec
Total	677	562	638	677	677	589	582	587	677

 

We started off the year slower than usual, perhaps because of the change to VGS:

Games beaten on January 1st

2012	26
2013	164
2014	158
2015	131
2016	132
2017	167
2018	122
2019	73
2020	68

 

Total number of people beating at least one game

2012	88
2013	85
2014	64
2015	43
2016	58
2017	58
2018	40
2019	45
2020	35

 

I've used the points system since 2014. There's still 49 games which have been worth the same number of points every single year. That includes:

1 point (27) - Amagon, Anticipation, Chessmaster, Contra, Donkey Kong, Donkey Kong Jr., Double Dragon II, Duck Tales, Fisher Price: I Can Remember, Galaga, Hogan's Alley, Ice Hockey, Kung Fu, Mario Bros., Mega Man, Mega Man 2, Monopoly, Ninja Gaiden, Pac-Man, Popeye, Remote Control, Super C, Super Mario Bros., Super Mario Bros. 2, Super Mario Bros. 3, Tetris, Wild Gunman

2 points (5) - Duck Tales II, Ghosts 'N Goblins, Panic Restaurant, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II, Wayne Gretzky Hockey

3 points (1) - Jack Nicklaus' Major Championship Golf

10 points (16) - Conflict, Days of Thunder, Destination Earth Star, Dungeon Magic, F-117A Stealth Fighter, Flight of the , Intruder, Flying Warriors, Hunt for Red October, Little Ninja Brothers, Loopz, Might & Magic, Motor City Patrol, Rally Bike, Roger Clemens' MVP Baseball, Super Cars, Ultimate Air Combat

 

There's also 17 games who's point values have changed every year. That is to say, they've never had the same value two years in a row:

1943	6	7	6	4	6	5	4	5
Bases Loaded III	8	6	5	6	4	6	7	9
Black Bass	10	9	8	9	8	7	8	9
Bram Stoker's Dracula	6	7	5	6	5	6	7	9
Die Hard	6	5	4	3	2	1	2	3
Family Feud	5	3	4	5	4	5	6	5
Mickey Mousecapade	4	3	4	5	3	4	6	5
Solstice	7	5	4	5	6	7	8	10
Spider-Man: Return of the Sinister Six	7	6	7	6	5	6	7	6
Star Wars	6	5	6	5	6	7	8	6
Super Pitfall	6	7	5	4	5	4	2	4
Super Spike V'Ball	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	6
Superman	4	5	4	3	4	5	4	5
Target: Renegade	9	8	9	8	7	5	3	2
Thunderbirds	9	8	6	7	6	5	6	7
Trog	4	5	4	5	6	5	4	5
Twin Eagle	4	5	6	4	3	4	3	2

 

Also, I posted this a while ago, but here it is again. The games which will be changing by 2+ points in 2021:

			2020	2021
Athena	+2		4	6
Barker Bill's Trick Shooting	+2		4	6
Bases Loaded III	+2		7	9
Battle Tank	+2		8	10
Bram Stoker's Dracula	+2		7	9
Conan: The Mysteries of Time	+2		4	6
Ferrari Grand Prix Challenge	+2		7	9
Fist of the North Star	+2		5	7
Gauntlet	+2		6	8
Home Alone 2: Lost in New York	+2		7	9
Karate Champ	+3		4	7
Knight Rider	+2		4	6
Predator	+2		3	5
Prince of Persia	+2		6	8
Q*Bert	+2		8	10
Rambo	+2		4	6
Solstice	+2		8	10
StarTropics	+2		4	6
Street Cop	+2		8	10
Super Pitfall	+2		2	4
			2020	2021
Arkanoid	-2		8	6
Bump 'n' Jump	-2		8	6
Castlequest	-2		10	8
City Connection	-2		6	4
Ikari Warriors II: Victory Road	-2		8	6
Image Fight	-2		7	5
Kabuki: Quantum Fighter	-2		4	2
Kiwi Kraze	-2		8	6
Lethal Weapon	-2		9	7
Overlord	-2		5	3
R.C. Pro-Am II	-2		10	8
Rad Racer	-2		8	6
RoadBlasters	-2		5	3
Sky Shark	-2		6	4
Snoopy's Silly Sports Spectacular	-2		6	4
Spy vs. Spy	-2		3	1
Star Wars	-2		8	6
Super Spike V'Ball	-2		8	6
Trojan	-2		4	2
World Championship Wrestling	-2		10	8
Yoshi	-2		6	4

 

Edited December 26, 2020 by scaryice

[Foochie776 | 1,051]

Good work to all! Can’t wait for New Years now  

[Andykin Skysk8r | 49]

14 hours ago, bronzeshield said:

Ooh, that's a good question. Let me see...

...OK, so that's my total...carry the two...

...what's the square root of that?...OK, now take the derivative of both sides, and factor out the variables...now use the quadratic formula...

Aha, I've got the answer: zero!

And that's because Bases Loaded is done, you see:

Just before the last pitch of the last out of the last inning of the last game. 

And here's the scoreline. Usually I tried to get a couple runs and then end my at-bats as quickly as possible, which would make the games average around 25-27 minutes, but this time I decided to let my sluggers do their worst.

Ironically, I screwed up in the 8th and chose the wrong unhittable pitch, which the opposing team immediately belted for a home run -- resulting in one of only two games in which I gave up any runs at all.

Finally, the rather pathetic ending:

No "congratulations" or anything? Oh, well, at least it's something.

So here's how to beat Bases Loaded with zero challenge:

• Choose Jersey, and choose Hall as your pitcher. (He's the last one listed, so select him faster by hitting down, left, down.)
• For his first 40 pitches, tap A and hold the D-pad up+right. When he goes into the third frame of his windup, switch to down+left. This pitch is unhittable by the CPU. If you don't screw up earlier, this will work until you're 0-1 in the 5th inning with 1 out.
• For the rest of the game, simply tap A to pitch, and do nothing else. Like Bugs Bunny's slow pitch, all batters will swing and miss, or simply do nothing for a called strike.
• On the batting side, get a run or two early if you can. Two is good in case you screw up like I did (twice).
• Once you've got the minimum runs with which you feel comfortable, bunt or check-swing everything. If you get two strikes, swing early to miss deliberately. End those at-bats quick and you can keep it to about 26 minutes per game.
• After every game, reset so that you can just use Hall again, and put in your password. Now repeat this whole process 79 more times. Enjoy!
• Paste gets the rep in this game, but it's Bay that's the home run king -- he kills every ball he touches. I've hit home runs by accident with Bay when attempting to check my swing. One of them is usually good for one or two HRs per game.

BTW I played the first 79 games in an emulator and only switched to real hardware + real cart for the last game.I can't imagine sitting in a little game room with nothing else to do for this one, so I highly recommend watching trash TV, talking on the phone, listening to books on tape, or otherwise multitasking to pass the time faster.

I marathoned the last 16 games today so that we could get it done for Christmas, and watched TV and movies with my wife for all but the last game.

Any advice on batting? I cant hit anything. Every time I try that game my score is zero. I tried playing it for a while and got to the point where I could stop them from beating me by over 5 points but I still basically never scored.

Edited December 26, 2020 by Andykin Skysk8r

[DoctorEncore | 3,691]

Wow, 2020 was a rough year in terms of number of participants. I'll try to do my part next year.

Congratulations everyone!

[Dr. Morbis | 2,088]

If you add unlicensed games back in so that we can truly try and beat "every NES game" then I'll happily contrubite a bunch, as I did in the early years when Mike was running the show...

Regardless, this an awesome feat, so congrats to all who participated!

[PII | 1,884]

19 minutes ago, Dr. Morbis said:

If you add unlicensed games back in so that we can truly try and beat "every NES game" then I'll happily contrubite a bunch, as I did in the early years when Mike was running the show...

Regardless, this an awesome feat, so congrats to all who participated!

Just want to put in 2 quick pesos and say that I'd help out with the unlicensed portion !

[bronzeshield | 293]

8 hours ago, Andykin Skysk8r said:

Any advice on batting? I cant hit anything. Every time I try that game my score is zero. I tried playing it for a while and got to the point where I could stop them from beating me by over 5 points but I still basically never scored.

It's hard for me to say since I started playing this game when I was a wee kid, so it feels intuitive to me in a way that it probably shouldn't (if that makes sense). One thing, though, is that the batting is more nuanced than it appears -- you can get a lot of different subtle shifts in the swing by holding the D-pad for varying amounts of time.

I'd say wait for something low and down the middle of the plate, and swing low at it. Those seem to be the easiest to connect with. High balls are the hardest to hit, and often require a quicker tap of the D-pad rather than a longer press. But in general a lot of balls are only struck from a position slightly lower or higher than you might expect. The duration you hold A also seems to matter in some degree, if only because you can check-swing into a bunt.

[WashYourFace | 80]

Yay, we did it!

Actually I did nothing.

Hope to contribute next year, though.

[Daniel_Doyce | 470]

I'm going to focus on the harder RPGs next year, like Wizardry and Bard's Tale and crap like that, along with whatever else i haven't played before that looks interesting. I will leave the Koei games for someone new this time

[ThePhleo | 2,184]

Any short PAL exclusives that can be added?

Definitely gonna participate next year when I can.

I play NES anyway, might as well kick all y’all’s butts while I’m at it! (Not really, I still suck at games 32 years later)

[scaryice | 585]

My total was 48 NES games beaten for this thread in 2020, and 20 of those were first time clears. That's more new contributions than I've provided in many years, so I thought I'd summarize my opinions of those games with a big post (some of these are just copy-pasted from my original posts). Here we go!

In order beaten

1) Ikari Warriors 3 - Easy and forgettable, thanks to the unlimited continues. The exact opposite of the first two!

2) Golf - It's golf. Good for 1983 I suppose.

3) Soccer - It's soccer. Not worth playing in any year.

4) Rollerball - A decent enough pinball game. Not too ridiculously hard like some of them. It's by HAL of Kirby/Lolo fame so it makes sense that it's good.

5) Bad News Baseball - Better than Tecmo Baseball, but still not on the level of Tecmo's best efforts. Probably one of the better baseball games, but after spending more time with it, I don't think it can match the top tier (Baseball Simulator, Baseball Stars).

6) Demon Sword - Spiritual successor to Legend of Kage, with deeper gameplay. Fun game that shouldn't be so obscure!

7) Cliffhanger - Simple and short, yet still annoying. Amazing to see something like this get released when so many great Famicom games didn't.

8. WCW - Difficult to get used to, but after beating it I think I prefer it to any of the NES WWF games. Let's be clear, though, none of them are worth playing today other than for curiosity's sake.

9) Untouchables - I was having trouble until I realized that you can reload your gun in the final section (unlike what the Gamefaqs FAQ says). An interesting game with a variety of shooting stages, and short enough that it didn't get boring. I'll probably revisit it in a future year.

10) Alfred Chicken - Surprisingly, this game was enjoyable. Normally, these sort of mascot platformers end up being generic and boring. Actually, maybe that was more the case on Super NES (and Genesis), when they started getting way too stale. I don't want you to think I loved this game; it wasn't amazing or anything. Just a little more interesting and different than your usual 8-bit title from the genre.

11) Robocop 3 - Welp. Annoying mechanics but not too hard. Definitely not a good game.

12) Goal - I'd beaten Goal 2 several times before, but this is the first time for the original, which was way more annoying since you can't change the timer to have quick matches. I ended up beating Japan & USA in the World Cup semis and final, very realistic. Final was actually a great game, I was winning 2-0 with two minutes left, and it ended 3-3 and went to penalties. Luckily I won the shootout 5-4, mostly because the one time I messed up and shot straight down the middle, the cpu dove the right way and would've saved it. Also, there's a nice typo in the shootouts: "keyper" instead of keeper.

13) Last Action Hero - Well, I beat Cliffhanger already so why not this one too? It seems hard at first, but just like that game, it's actually super easy. Sony Imagesoft, what a company. This is probably the better of the two though (maybe).

14) Die Hard - I followed the speed run route with an FAQ, so I don't feel like I actually played this. But I did beat it! Different than most NES games, and certainly good by movie game standards.

15) Darkman - It's not awful once you get used to it. However, there's so many aggravating gameplay mechanics, and the weird momentum based jumping still make it easily below average. This is one of those games where I had to play through it once with save states to have a fair shot at doing it legit.

16) Robocop 2 - Brutal game with many cheap deaths. Compares very closely with Darkman, which is why I chose it. Still, Darkman is way more fun. Even with infinite continues this one is still incredibly annoying.

17) Dash Galaxy in the Alien Asylum - It only took me less than 90 minutes to copy the TAS route and execute it. You can be a little safer and get a couple extra lives, but that doesn't seem necessary once you know it. Questionable platforming aside, it's very easy to go straight to the end when you know what to do, otherwise it's a gigantic maze that requires backtracking and many pointless areas. Also, I think I might finally be able to remember the difference between Dash Galaxy & Rad Gravity, which I always seem to get confused.

18) Ikari Warriors - Already wrote about this a few days ago above! Looks like I need to play the 2nd game next year, right? Anyway, Ikari is a bad port with an unfair challenge level that only the most dedicated will complete. Still, it's one of my most memorable NES moments, as the feeling of triumph was amazing!

19) Crash 'n the Boyz: Street Challenge - Rough at first, but easy for the 9 a pointer in the end. The usual easy to play, decent-but-not-deep Kunio action.

20) Super Glove Ball - It really wasn't that hard of a game, despite always being one of the last ones left. Not even close to Ikari Warriors. I spent two hours farming 50 lives, and then I only ended up using half of those. Now, of course I was using guides - playing blind and not knowing which rooms to go to would be a nightmare.This game may seem like an Arkanoid/Breakout style block breaker, but your shooting ability is way more useful, to the point where you should almost never even bother bouncing the ball to clear the screen. So your first impression of the gameplay ends up being quite different than your optimal strats. This is the kind of game that maps shoot to the select button, though. I think I pressed select more in this game than any other. Naturally, select is also the button to go to the next screen - it's just that kind of game, where you can also easily trigger accidental warps under random tiles. There's a lot of flaws here, but still, not the worst experience to power through and complete. I think Arkanoid would be much, much worse.

Also worth noting

I beat Lagrange Point and Mouryou Senki Madara, two Famicom exclusive rpgs from Konami, both of which featured enchanced sound. Both were kind of disappointing and rank below the DQs and FFs of the system. Lagrange was a bit better and more memorable of the two.

Edited December 28, 2020 by scaryice

[bronzeshield | 293]

Following scaryice’s post, I beat 22 games for the thread this year — but to my surprise I beat an overall total of 55 NES games this year (!), plus four Famicom games.

A lot of that was replaying games I'd previously "beaten" with savestates, cheat codes, or slowdown in the past (sometimes decades ago), and now wanted to beat legitimately. I'm now up to around 200 licensed wins, depending on how you count it (198 by one reckoning, 202 by another).

For the thread, these were my first-time-ever clears (chronological order):

Spot: The Video Game!
Palamedes
Super Jeopardy!
Ring King
Karate Champ
Castelian*
Barker Bill’s Trick Shooting
Shooting Range*
Gumshoe
Bases Loaded

(*I plan to go back and beat Castelian and Shooting Range on higher difficulty levels, though. Maybe in 2021?)

These were my "first-time-legit" clears for the thread:

Back to the Future
Super Pitfall
Fist of the North Star
Freedom Force

And these were games I’ve cleared before, sometimes many times:

Overlord
Chessmaster
Battle Chess
Star Voyager
Advanced Dungeons & Dragons: Dragonstrike (on Medium, but I want to beat this on Hard in 2021)
Racket Attack
Jimmy Connors Pro Tennis Tour
Marvel's X-Men

Toughest first-time clear? Probably Gumshoe, that game is brutal.
Easiest? Super Jeopardy or Spot.
Most satisfying? Maybe Back to the Future, to slay some old demons.
Least satisfying? Bases Loaded is just a slog.
Least fun? Ring King -- but at least I had to work out some fresh tactics for the last opponents.
Game that required me to up my skills the most? Barker Bill’s Trick Shooting — I went from being crap at the game to being rather good at it.
Best new discovery? Palamedes is a blast!
The one(s) that got away? Tried a bunch to beat Sky Kid this year, didn't manage it. Maybe in 2021? I also bailed on Solomon's Key and want to get that one under my belt...

----

Outside of the thread, these were my first-time-ever NES clears:

Puss ’n Boots
Jaws
Wheel of Fortune
Wheel of Fortune featuring Vanna White
Wheel of Fortune: Family Edition
Wheel of Fortune: Junior Edition
Cabal
Millipede
Jeopardy! Junior Edition

And these NES games I’d beaten before, but needed to replay legit (or on the highest difficulty):

Gradius
Ikari III: The Rescue
Escape from Atlantis (proto)
Double Dribble
Life Force
Super C
P.O.W.
Captain Skyhawk
Street Fighter: 2010
DuckTales
Spelunker
Amagon
Renegade
Bionic Commando
U-four-ia
Cybernoid
Castle of Dragon
Rescue: The Embassy Mission
Bucky O’Hare
Journey to Silius
Jackie Chan’s Action Kung Fu
Gyruss

Finally, my new Famicom clears, mostly replays of games I’d beaten with savestates in the 2000s:

Musashi no Bouken
Devilman
Takeshi no Chousenjou (yes, I beat this one legit!)
Wagyan Land

And two NES games I cleared just for fun:

The Karate Kid
Marble Madness

 

Edited December 28, 2020 by bronzeshield

[WashYourFace | 80]

5 hours ago, scaryice said:

20) Super Glove Ball - It really wasn't that hard of a game, despite always being one of the last ones left. Not even close to Ikari Warriors. I spent two hours farming 50 lives, and then I only ended up using half of those. Now, of course I was using guides - playing blind and not knowing which rooms to go to would be a nightmare.This game may seem like an Arkanoid/Breakout style block breaker, but your shooting ability is way more useful, to the point where you should almost never even bother bouncing the ball to clear the screen. So your first impression of the gameplay ends up being quite different than your optimal strats. This is the kind of game that maps shoot to the select button, though. I think I pressed select more in this game than any other. Naturally, select is also the button to go to the next screen - it's just that kind of game, where you can also easily trigger accidental warps under random tiles. There's a lot of flaws here, but still, not the worst experience to power through and complete. I think Arkanoid would be much, much worse.

Yeah it was terrible when I beat it because of the random warps. Arkanoid is a much harder game, but at least it makes sense. Super Glove Ball is just random nonsense. Imagine playing it back in the day with no guide/walkthrough. Imagine playing it with the Power Glove

[Daniel_Doyce | 470]

@bronzeshield@scaryice Thanks for the end-year review. I think i will try some of those high point games that aren't so bad.

I beat 32 games for the contest, including the Koei block and Shingen. The surprisingly enjoyable game for me this year was Ultimate Air Combat. It's pretty tough, but quit doable, and a lot of fun.

I also didn't think F-115A and F-15 Strike Eagle were very difficult, just tedious. Dirty Harry is also not that bad since it has passwords.

Overlord is slowly making its descent from a 10 pointer to a "within first half hour of contest clear." I can beat Othello in under 10 minutes, so maybe I'll drive that one down too.

Games I have no desire to play again: Athena, Solomon's Key, Orb-3D

Edited December 28, 2020 by Daniel_Doyce

[NESfiend | 1,515]

14 hours ago, Daniel_Doyce said:

I'm going to focus on the harder RPGs next year, like Wizardry and Bard's Tale and crap like that, along with whatever else i haven't played before that looks interesting. I will leave the Koei games for someone new this time

Unless, you can convince @Gaia Gensouki to take on the koei games, I foresee you getting begged to do them late in the year. Im sure he will be happy you are taking on bards tale and the like though. 

Awesome we finished it off! Ill try to reach a similar level of participation as I did this year in 2021. May be tough without all the time shut in, but Ill get an earlier start. Maybe not Jan 1, but definitely Jan 2. 

 

Edited December 28, 2020 by NESfiend