Beat every Game Boy game - 2020 - 225/497

[Floating Platforms | 717]

I started Killer Instinct tonight. I've completed 3 characters so far out of 9. To get access to the 9th (aside from looking up the cheat code online), you have to beat the game on Very Hard.  I've only been doing normal and I am terrible at fighting games. I'm thrilled the game has unlimited continues (hopefully Very Hard does too otherwise I'm screwed), but kinda annoyed that it needs them. My last run with Orchid started strong but the last 3-4 matches took tons of tries and the game said I used 52 continues.... Hopefully I find a character I'm really good with, but it'll probably be a bunch of button mashing until I get lucky.

[Floating Platforms | 717]

Alright, Killer Instinct is fully done, I believe.  I beat the game with the original 8 characters, then I beat the game on Very Hard (with Sabrewulf as most of his moves were left, right, button - making it easy to mash my way through). Then I used the code for Eyedol and got his ending on normal.  I didn't get the code for eyedol after beating it on very hard. I used 25 continues, so my guess is I needed to do it in less than that to get the code to display on the game? The only videos I see online are people doing it without continuing, so maybe I need to do it somewhere between 0-24 continues?  Not worth trying at this point. I can at least say I've done about as good as pure button masher could.

Here's the sword you get for winning on Very Hard

Here's the start of Eyedol's ending.

Next is Castlevania Adventure for my milestone 50th game, which won't count for this group, but is locked in for my personal challenge, then I'm moving on to Wayne's World - a game I purposefully bought as a child and enjoyed to a degree but could never beat, so fingers crossed!

[Splain | 2,570]

Finished Ultima. That last dungeon is outrageous. I finally started using an FAQ just to protect my sanity, because it's literally designed to kill you over and over in ways that are very easy to avoid, as long as you know about them. So instead of repeating that dungeon a hundred times, I cheated like a dirty cheater. The good news is that the game auto-saves, so if you get stuck or soft-locked, but not DEAD, you can reset the game and it puts you at the start of the last room you entered. That can be abused slightly, but it has probably saved me an hour or two of repeating the same rooms over and over just to get back to where I almost died from something like a surprise ambush of rats, which I can now anticipate and prepare for.

I really don't know how I feel about this game. That last dungeon is ridiculous. This ending screen is funny though, I don't know why I'm so blocky compared to Lord British. They must have just blown up an in-game sprite to 4x size.

[Mae247 | 207]

Are we going to make it with all done this year?

[Splain | 2,570]

7 hours ago, Mae247 said:

Are we going to make it with all done this year?

Welllllll...

There's a solid amount of games in the GB library that we've never beaten, and I like exploring those games together, even if it's at sort of a leisurely pace. In 2019 we beat 219 US games, which has been our best year ever. 2 months is still plenty of time to beat that record, (and I'm happy to slam out some quicker games to reach it) but unfortunately I don't think we're going to finish them all by the end of the year. To accomplish something like that, one of the key ingredients is a REALLY strong start at the beginning of the year. Then you get more outsiders taking interest and wanting to help.

[Floating Platforms | 717]

We might have a chance at the record at least!  I just beat Wayne's World. I'll have the image, etc up later when I have time to get all my video highlights done.

I have the week off from work and I plan to devote my afternoons to streaming Game Boy. That's on top of my now typical 2-3 nights a week, so I'm hoping to be good for some more games by the end of the month if all goes well. Most of what I have lined up look to be quicker.

Tomorrow I'll be starting Street Racer and that might be one of the longer to beat titles if it takes the full estimated 6 hours

[Floating Platforms | 717]

Follow up from yesterday. I don't know how to create gifs, otherwise I would have. All the digitized images I found while playing Wayne's World have a shaking effect, including this thumbs up congratulation screen.

After beating the game you only get the thumbs up image with your score but you get to hear a royalty free version of parts of Bohemian Rhapsody! I remembered the game being tough as a kid but playing it now, I understand that this is just from lack of any continues or passwords. Back then I got to the outside of Benjamin's apartment (the last level before the boss fight), but could never pass it.  The difficulty spikes on that part with a new mechanic of wind affecting your jumps paired with a couple pixel perfect jumps and enemies you have to hit while jumping to progress. The Benjamin fight took several tries for me to figure out but I eventually learned the best place to defend against his jump kicks. The enemies are dumb (sentient musical instruments, flying TV screens) and besides Benjamin, the only other boss was a stack of records. Knock back is insane and occasionally you can get caught between two enemies and pinball back and forth.  The levels should inspire exploration for powerups, but the enemies drop enough and time can be sparse so it's best to zoom to the right while kicking with Wayne or shooting with the underutilized Garth (his levels are typically a minute long). So, yeah, not very good but not mind numbing. They tried to sort of relate back to the movie story, but could have done more. I'm just glad there aren't multiple endings like the movie had.

Edited October 27, 2020 by Floating Platforms
reducing picture size

[Gaia Gensouki | 1,073]

I needed a change of pace from Final Fantasy Legend 2 and instead beat R-Type II. It reminds me a lot of Super R-Type, but is of course stripped down a lot. However, it plays fairly well and is quite impressive for a Game Boy game. It's also easier than R-Type on the Game Boy thanks to unlimited continues, checkpoints and the ability to shoot down enemy projectiles with your own. It's good enough for a fun little diversion, but fairly short with its five levels.

[Floating Platforms | 717]

I was busy today.  3 more games are down.  I will probably get to beat 2 more tomorrow as well.

I thought Street Racer was going to take about 6 hours, but it took less than 2.

A surprisingly quick racing game that sounded more intimidating from the instructions. There are several different attack moves that you can pull off, but I got through all the cups using just the basic punch. There are 8 different, unique characters to choose from that have attribute benefits and drawbacks as well as cartoony personas. Each character also has its own home track backdrop and accompanying music. The music in general was really good and I liked the character sprites in the menus. In game, though, some tracks make it really hard to tell what's going on and the car sprites blend in with the road. The items are also blended in too much, or all look the same (there are three different white pointy items that all do different things), but there's not enough time to truly react to collect or avoid them on purpose anyway. The racing is very forgiving and even though you'll go on the edges of the track a lot, you don't lose much, if any speed. You don't have to win each race either as you can earn bonus points for other things and the cup takes the total of all points after all races. It was a fun, short playthrough that offers other modes that I didn't explore, but might be tempted to try someday.

As you can see above, after beating the gold cup, it gives a password for the "Mega Cup."  I tried a few times to figure out how to access it, but came up empty. I'm not sure if someone else wants to give it a try, but I'm not sure if it's a real thing. Happy to try it out if there is a way to make it work. An online search doesn't give me any info other than one gamefaqs article says it unlocks Silver and Gold Cups - so maybe it's a password that allows you to see all cups, but I think the gold cup password would do that too?

After that, I took on Jordan Vs. Bird: One on One

It's a clunky basketball game that pretends like it's offering more than it is. There are three modes, 1-on-1, Slam Dunk contest and 3-point contest. None of them are good. For 1-on-1, you have some options to select from but really they amount to how long you want to subject yourself to the floaty jumps and lackluster gameplay.  Blocking shots takes some practice and in general you want to avoid jumping because the animation takes forever and if you miss, then your opponent has free reign of the court.  Stealing the ball is possible, but pretty rare. Rebounding didn't make sense to me and there were many times when I thought I was in position and blocking him out, but came up empty.  The dunk contest also made little sense and was very particular. You can practice the dunks and follow the leader mode will teach you where to jump, but it still took a lot of tries to find the exact spot. When you do jump correctly, finishing the dunk seemed to generate random results. I only won the dunk contest because the computer goes first and I picked the same dunk as him and happened to do it better once. I actually missed 2 of the 3 dunks (which is why my win screen shows all zeroes), but the better single dunk score for the one I made was higher, so I win!  The 3 point contest was hard, but the most fun. The CPU can shoot and move faster (even though you're both Bird). I never finished all 5 racks despite my attempts to hit buttons as fast as possible. Basically I had to try enough times for the CPU to give me a chance (highest they scored was 29 of 30 - instant reset) and then get that timing right to beat their score.  NBA All-Star Challenge was better, which is saying something.

So, for the 1-on-1, I actually only did the 11 point game. I checked a video and it is the same ending as a full game. Everything I played was on the default 4 difficulty (which is the hardest). If I need to go back and knock out a full game for the clear, I can.

Lastly tonight, I played Avenging Spirit for the first time.

This game lived up to its hype. I loved the graphics. Loved the cutscenes. Loved that there were so many characters you could control as the ghost and that they were all different enough to make the choice matter.  I tried harder to stay alive when I had someone that suite my play style. Rarely was it about finding the right one to move on to the next part of the level as each could do it.  The instruction book was helpful in knowing where to find the 3 keys, but the cutscenes also gave enough context and I loved the surprise after getting them all.  It was fun exploring the levels, although I wish they were all non-linear, and coming across new challenges all the time.  Truly a great game in all respects.

Tomorrow, I'm starting with WCW: The Main Event. Then Superman.

[Splain | 2,570]

Wow! Great job. Street Racer has those other weird modes like Rumble and Soccer, that I always appreciate seeing in GB games which often don't toss in other gameplay modes.

And dude, I played a lot of Superman a couple years ago, but I never could finish it. I won't say anything else about it to color your perception of it.

[Floating Platforms | 717]

5 hours ago, Splain said:

Wow! Great job. Street Racer has those other weird modes like Rumble and Soccer, that I always appreciate seeing in GB games which often don't toss in other gameplay modes.

And dude, I played a lot of Superman a couple years ago, but I never could finish it. I won't say anything else about it to color your perception of it.

Yeah, Street Racer was a nice surprise. One of these days, I'll probably try out those other modes. Here's what I have to say about Superman now that I've finished it.

Garbage. Superman can fly for an unlimited amount of time, but the control of it is very unintuitive. I never fully got the hang of it. When flying, getting hit will make you dip, and that will make you lose lives in some stages. Navigating a sea of enemies in the air was more about muscle memory and learning instead of skill. In general, the first several stages require you to replay them to learn what's going on and where the enemies are going to be placed. They will often shoot before you can prepare otherwise, and even when you know what's coming, it can be tough to avoid damage. WIth only 6 lives to get through the game, it takes some doing to slog through it. Your attacks are limited, which is strange. You can ricochet bullets if you time things right, but otherwise, you have to punch when enemies get too close. No projectiles like laser eyes. You can dash, but it doesn't hurt people. It's weird to see Superman so watered down. Speaking of water, the 2 water stages messed with my eyes as the backgrounds constantly waved as you went through the mazes fighting sharks. Yes, you fight sharks, but not Lex Luthor. The only boss was a giant robot that you fight twice in the exact same way. The title screen, game over screen and congratulations screen are just a black outline drawing, which perfectly sums up how phoned in this game was.

I also beat WCW: The Main Event on what I think is the medium difficulty? I chose to do best of 3 falls/pins to speed things up a bit while giving me a fighting chance if I lose the first round and that worked well.

Of the two wrestling games I've played so far, this one is by far the best, mostly because it's actually playable. I don't know wrestling to comment on how good the roster is, but you can pick from a few different guys that all have their own unique sprite and special move. Other than that, I think they all play the same. Most of my time was figuring out the controls and as soon as I learned that the special move was tied to Select only the game got easier (I had been trying several things and settled on Select +B or A, which was tough to pull off). I quickly found a loop that I could reliably put guys in to whittle their health down.  You can pick different ways to set up your tournament, which was neat to see, but alternative modes would have better.  Fun, easy to play and learn, and fast.

Next up for me is Mysterium. Not sure what to expect on that one, but looking forward to trying it out.

[Splain | 2,570]

What!! You just slammed Superman out, just like that? I spent a week on that game, but I couldn't get past level 7? 8? There's a level where I couldn't figure out how to get past a certain enemy without taking damage, so I could never finish the level, even if I got there with all my lives. Well done!

Definitel interested to hear what you think of Mysterium. I need to finish up my game of Megalit that I started earlier in the year...

[Floating Platforms | 717]

Yeah...I'm afraid I did it in less than 2 hours total. Most of the levels blur together, but are you talking about the giant robot thing that shoots missiles? That's the mid-game and end-game boss and I could tell you the deep dark secret if you want.  The rest of the enemies might hit me but not enough to sap all my health before I could kill them by punching bullets back or punching them.  There was one level where all the guys are on hover vehicles and it's impossible not to get hit a few times. You need to kill one of them to get the last key you need.  Otherwise, I just tried to creep through and go slow and hit attack a bunch to reflect bullets back.

I put several hours into Mysterium tonight and I'm glad I found the manual scan otherwise I would have been totally lost. But bigger than that, I was lucky to have Zenic Reverie join the stream and he told me you could dodge enemy fire while aiming. The manual doesn't say that, it only says you can aim your fire, so I was running on the assumption that my adventurer was static. Learning that aiming is also strafing was a huge game changer. But I still failed because I played around too much with the crafting and created an unwinnable situation with a door I couldn't unlock on level 6 of 10.  Now I know better, and I know more of the basics of what item/liquid combos will produce what items, so I can be a lot more conservative in those opening levels and hopefully knock it out tomorrow.  I'm really loving it so far. It's such a different type of experience on GB and it's been fun to break out the pen and paper to write notes and use the logical and critical thinking part of my brain.

Edit: Ran into another unwinnable situation in level 10. Was not expecting the inventory wipe. Pretty sure my strategy of going straight for exits hurt me as I probably needed some optional doors to find more scrolls.  But I have a ton of notes about what keys I need for each level and the other doors I found so next time I hope to solve the mystery

Edited October 30, 2020 by Floating Platforms

[Floating Platforms | 717]

Took longer than I wanted thanks to multiple crashes and freezes several levels in, but Mysterium is done.

It's such a good concept for a game that sort of falls apart later.  Basically, you get told all of these things through the manual (which is basically required if you're not going to use a guide) and scrolls/crystals found in the levels. Then the last level forces guess work on you.  You have to take leaps of faith and deal with trial and error in crafting keys and hoping to go through the right door with the limited materials given. I wish there were more clues in the exposition or scrolls to help with those parts. Still, for the other 9 levels, I had a lot of fun making the charts of items and learning patterns in the alchemy and writing down which keys are needed to progress. The enemies looked cool, but didn't act any different from each other. There were too many items that did the exact same thing (and overall too many different items that could be created since so little is necessary in the end) or items you can't tell what they do. It was fun to explore, but I'm glad I finally escaped the maze.

Next up is Olympic Summer Games which I'll either tackle this weekend or early next week

[Floating Platforms | 717]

Olympic Summer Games is done.

I'm really surprised that this hadn't been tackled before because it only took about an hour to finish, including practicing the events.  I didn't have the manual, so I used gamefaqs to tell me the controls for a couple events, like pole vaulting. It took some effort to learn that and skeet shooting, but the rest are easy enough.  I wish there were a bit more to the game. I'm glad it wasn't too challenging, especially since it was a button masher for the running needed in almost all events, but more could have been done to give the game more life. Extra modes would have been a start. If you place in an event, there's a cutscene of you getting the medal, but after the entire competition is done, there's no cutscene showing your overall standing. It simply cuts to the stands and the title of the game before going to credits.

Gameplay wise, it was nice that events used similar controls but were different enough to be unique. It was even nicer that they were not too complex nor needed frame perfect precision timing. The animations were smooth and interesting but the sprites were too blocky and looked like an early C64 game, but the best part of the game was probably the surprisingly good soundtrack.

I didn't medal in every event, but here's the standings after all events on Normal difficulty.

And this is what plays after the last event finishes.

Now, I'm currently working on Tail Gator. I got through half of level 3 and then had some weird audio glitches in my stream so I decided to stop for the night and pick it up tomorrow.  Really digging this game too so far.

[Splain | 2,570]

Nicely done! That's 200 US games cleared, 224 total. Maybe it's weird to only publish the US count, but if we're comparing to prior years, then we're comparing to years where PAL-region and JPN games weren't counted. Shrug. Maybe next year we'll shoot for something like 300 worldwide games, and then that can be the metric moving forward. Or something. I'm still playing games, I just need to focus on beating some before the year is out.

 

2020 First-time clears

Mae247	19
Floating Platforms	9
koifish	5
Gaia Gensouki	4
Splain	4
bronzeshield	2
BriGuy82	1

 

[Floating Platforms | 717]

Very cool!  I'll be able to add a 10th first time clear very shortly too.  It actually looks like we have 202. I think you missed crossing off Superman and WCW Main Event.

Make it 203 because Tail 'Gator is done as of this afternoon

I don't know this game isn't talked about more often, I thought it was great.  There was a nice mix of level attributes like the clouds you slowly sink through, waterfalls, currents, and disappearing platforms. The enemies had variety and all the sprites looked good.  The bosses were neat, but overall too easy. As you progress, you have to plan your path around the level to make sure you're getting all of the chests without backtracking too much and avoiding the bad guys so there was a bit of strategy combined with the random power up drops from the chests (and hidden bonus ones).  Overall a great platformer and passwords after every level makes it accessible and perfect for short burst Game Boy play.

I also started Stargate and lost my first battle mode attempt.  I realized too late that the gate selection matters and is like an Othello game where if you lose the round, you lose surrounding squares from previous battles.  Not sure it mattered, because I have no idea how to actually win or lose a round. It just sort of happens. I lost many when the tiles didn't reach the top and I won many where I felt like I hardly did anything. I would guess there's some sort of strategy that I'm missing, but right now it makes no sense and I just keep on matching tiles until the round decides to end one way or another. Might have this one done tomorrow night.

[BlackVega | 583]

Ah, I just beat Donkey Kong Land 2 by some coincidence:

Also I beat Bomberman GB which is really Wario Blast if that counts

Edited November 12, 2020 by VegaVegas

[Floating Platforms | 717]

Stargate is done.

I think I kind of figured out how it all works, so for anyone curious here's what I could gather in case someone wants to try it in the future and, like me, can't find a manual.  It's a match 3 (I think just from stacking vertically - didn't try horizontal or diagonal) and you have 7 symbols at the top of your screen that is your address/gate. Try to clear stacks for all 7 symbols to clear the gate.  Depending on the square on the battle grid you choose, you need to either clear 1, 2, or 3 gates to win that way (you can tell by # of stars in the square).  You can also win by filling the opponents playing field to the top. You don't have control over that other than making matches which throws junk tiles on their side (they do the same to you). It's possible junk only comes through when you match a gate symbol - not sure. You can't see their grid, but you have two bars on the sides of the screen. The left one appears to be how many gate symbols they have left. The right is their playing field height.

Really, your best course of action is to ignore them, match the gate tiles as fast as possible and keep your fingers crossed. Most of my wins came from topping out their height rather than the gate.

When you win a match, you win the square on the grid and convert any previously won surrounding squares. Have the most squares at the end and you win.

It's an okay game and maybe I would have liked it a little better if I had instructions and didn't have to piece together how to play and win on my own, but it still feels too luck based for a puzzle game. There wasn't skill involved in placing pieces. It was simply match the symbols when possible and mitigate height when you can't. The game gave too many of the helpful column clearing tiles early in rounds when they are pointless (often times as the first drop) and I ran into a couple cases where I needed just one more symbol for a match and went through 30 pieces before it showed up (keep in mind each tile can be flipped and so each tile has 2 random symbols). It was annoying to lose through no fault of my own ability as often as I did. Certainly not a Tetris killer, but moderate fun for a little bit.

Sorry for the ramble. Anyway, I started Iron Man X-O Manowar in Heavy Metal as my next game and ran into technical issues. What I played is bad. Maybe worse than Superman? But it has passwords so we'll see.

[Splain | 2,570]

On 11/11/2020 at 4:28 PM, Floating Platforms said:

I think you missed crossing off Superman and WCW Main Event.

WHOOPS

 

On 11/11/2020 at 5:14 PM, VegaVegas said:

Also I beat Bomberman GB which is really Wario Blast if that counts

I assume you're talking about the Japanese Bomberman GB? Because there's a USA Bomberman GB, and it's the same as the Japanese Bomberman GB2. If so, then yeah that counts as a Wario Blast clear.

 

As for Stargate, someone in here, last year or so, pointed out that you can also stack every rune in order, and that counts as getting them all. Might be easier than matching 3 of each, until the CPU drops something onto your stack.

I did a couple quickos, Jeopardy! Sports Edition (I don't know anything about sports figures from 25 years ago, but I squeaked by on non-specific trivia like how many players are on a hockey team, stuff about the olympics in general, etc) and Shanghai.

[Floating Platforms | 717]

5 hours ago, Splain said:

As for Stargate, someone in here, last year or so, pointed out that you can also stack every rune in order, and that counts as getting them all. Might be easier than matching 3 of each, until the CPU drops something onto your stack.

I did a couple quickos, Jeopardy! Sports Edition (I don't know anything about sports figures from 25 years ago, but I squeaked by on non-specific trivia like how many players are on a hockey team, stuff about the olympics in general, etc) and Shanghai.

That's interesting.  The vertical stacks only go 7 high, so that would be risky with the randomness. It took half the match to even see one symbol needed. That might be a better strategy for a 2P versus, though.

I might be okay at that Jeopardy version. I watched Sportscenter all the time back in those days. I've yet to have any of the 3 Jeopardy games I have pop up in my randomizer yet (at least not before someone else does it here).

It's looking like we have an outside chance of beating the record this year.  I hope to be good for about 5 more games at least? Maybe up to 10 if they go fast. Besides Iron Man, I have 2 more first year clears planned in the next five as well. Fingers crossed!

[BlackVega | 583]

On 11/13/2020 at 6:56 PM, Splain said:

I assume you're talking about the Japanese Bomberman GB? Because there's a USA Bomberman GB, and it's the same as the Japanese Bomberman GB2. If so, then yeah that counts as a Wario Blast clear.

Yep that one. Also I beat Donkey Kong Land 3 but this is the version daltonists hate

[Splain | 2,570]

On 11/16/2020 at 3:41 PM, VegaVegas said:

Yep that one. Also I beat Donkey Kong Land 3 but this is the version daltonists hate

I'll allow it.

Turns out I have the manual for Stargate. It says you can get 3-in-a-row for each symbol individually, stack all 7, or build all 7 around in a circle, clockwise or counter. Each one gives different bonuses based on its difficulty, stacking all 7 being the hardest.

In other news, I grabbed an old DMG and broke the bank in Casino Funpak. The easiest way to do this is by playing video poker. In other video poker games, the lowest point-bearing hand is a royal pair, and you just get your bet back, nothing more. But in Casino Funpak you get twice your bet back, so it's very easy to stay afloat. So then it's just a game of getting lucky when you bet big, and increasing your bet until you happen to hit a million dollars.

[Floating Platforms | 717]

34 minutes ago, Splain said:

Turns out I have the manual for Stargate. It says you can get 3-in-a-row for each symbol individually, stack all 7, or build all 7 around in a circle, clockwise or counter. Each one gives different bonuses based on its difficulty, stacking all 7 being the hardest.

That's interesting. I kinda wish I would have known that going in, but I also don't know if it would have made much difference? Tough to say, I guess.

So, I finally beat Iron Man X-O Manowar.

I think this may be worse than Superman.  The controls are somewhat complex and not very responsive. It's very easy to plan to do something simple like fly but jump or shoot instead. Speaking of flying, it's only allowed in short bursts, you can't adjust your height downwards once in the air and it moves to slowly to get around most enemies. Everything is stiff and the levels largely force you to inch forward to kill each enemy. Sometimes items wouldn't spawn after they died as expected. The bosses were varied, but perhaps too difficult. It took an hour for me to get through one. There were too many levels with terrible design. Basically no part of this was fun. I suggest anyone playing this to do it on Easy since other challengers beat it in 2 hours that way, but it took me 8 on Normal for the same ending.

Next up for me is Gauntlet II.  Not sure if I'll stop after the first dragon or try to go through the 99 levels.

[BlackVega | 583]

10 hours ago, Splain said:

By the way, my gawd I recently got the original Gayboy DMG and... how do you even use it?? The screen is absolutely HORRIBLE and VERY hard to see anything and the contrast is almost non-existent... On the other hand, Pocket is better, maybe not significantly but at least that one is "passable"?

Edited November 20, 2020 by VegaVegas