Beat the SNES Library - 305/714

[Strikezone1 | 154]

I beat Stone Protectors the other day. Forgot to take a pick of the ending screen. Decent beat em up game.

[nerdynebraskan | 345]

Wario's Woods is done.

[Gaia Gensouki | 1,067]

Just beat The Great Circus Mystery. A sweet but very short game. It's easier than the first game, so it didn't take long to beat. I also preferred this game's mountain climber outfit compared to the similar outfit in the first game that gave you a grappling hook which was difficult to use. Here it felt really nice and natural. Unfortunately the vacuum cleaner outfit is pretty underwhelming. I thought that the fire extinguisher in the first game was much more interesting.

[Gaia Gensouki | 1,067]

Mega Man X2 is done. I've finally settled a score with another game from my childhood. My parents rented this for me one time, because I was a huge fan of Mega Man in general and especially Mega Man X. However, this game never really clicked with me back in the day and I didn't stick with it long enough to beat it. I don't even know why I disliked this back in the day, since it's very similar to MMX. It turned out that this game is actually really good and fun once I gave it an honest chance. The visuals are great, the track list includes some great tunes and it's just fun to play.

If I had to criticize something, it would probably be the many instant death traps/spikes and a few power-ups, that are almost too hard to find or to get. I consulted a guide when I couldn't figure out some of the last power-ups. Also, the weapons you get weren't necessarily the most exciting. Outside of bosses or mid-bosses I rarely felt inclined to use the sub weapons, e.g. one sub weapon seemed to have no use outside of a single boss battle, unless I was missing something.

[Gaia Gensouki | 1,067]

Just played through E.V.O. - Search For Eden, but I am not sure, if this is the required good ending. I played through five chapters and made it to Eden where I met Gaia. Is this sufficient or is there more to the good ending?

Anyway, this is one of those games, that I never heard about until I stumbled upon it while searching for games to play on an emulator. Back in the day I didn't get too far, but this time around I finally wanted to beat it, or at least what seems like beating it to me. It was overall a whacky, fun and interesting playthrough. For those who don't know this game, it's basically an Action RPG where you're going through all stages of evolution. You kill enemies, eat their meat and gain evo points that you can use to evolve certain parts of your body that will improve your performance in certain ways. Sometimes evolutions may even have downsides, e.g. some body evolutions give you way more defensive power and HP, but they decrease your speed and jumping abilities. This is really cool and a fun twist to character development. One downside to this system though is that it too can end up in long grinding sessions, especially since your evolutions and evo points are usually reset at the start of each chapter.

The battle system is rather simplistic and not quite as polished as in some of the top tier Action RPGs on the SNES, but it's still fun. However the difficulty curve is a bit all over the place. Some levels and bosses were so easy that I could beat them without taking damage, while others where suddenly so difficult, that I had to grind for evo points and abuse the evo system to get health recovery. Whenever you change your body or horns, you will fully recover your hit points. So some of the more annoying bosses can easily be beaten by amassing lots of points and constantly healing yourself this way, thereby eliminating most of the challenge. But someone like the final boss is still difficult, even with this.

Another cool part about this game was the music. It evoked so many moods, from chill and relaxed, to mysterious, threatening or downright goofy. The ending theme was especially beautiful. And while watching the credits it suddenly hit me: the composer was Koichi Sugiyama, the composer who also worked on Dragon Quest! No wonder that the music was so good!

Anyway, I had a good time with this game and it feels nice to finally have finished this one. It's one of those weird old games, that I kinda miss nowadays. Or rather, I miss the old Enix, back when they gave such strange games a chance instead of just publishing mainstream streamlined games.

[nerdynebraskan | 345]

Pieces is done. I just beat the Vs. Computer mode on Easy, Medium, and Hard back-to-back-to-back. The only difference is that the higher difficulties are shorter. Easy has you fight the super-wimpy crab first, Medium has you start with the dorky kid, and Hard is only the few toughest ones at the end of the gauntlet. Kind of a waste of a difficulty setting system...

[nerdynebraskan | 345]

Mighty Morphin Power Rangers is done. It was too easy up until the final battle on the Moon. That took me about 10 tries.

[nerdynebraskan | 345]

I can't believe how many of the iconic RPGs haven't been touched yet. I think I'll start Earthbound, as I've never done it and have always meant to.

[LaytToTheParty | 22]

56 minutes ago, nerdynebraskan said:

I can't believe how many of the iconic RPGs haven't been touched yet. I think I'll start Earthbound, as I've never done it and have always meant to.

Um, 

@Reed Rothchild Earthbound's done. Is there any way to see what games haven't been beaten yet? The list on page 1 doesn't seem up to date. I also just beat SMB2 in All Stars if you'd like pics of that.

Edited May 23, 2020 by LaytToTheParty

[Reed Rothchild | 9,510]

I try to update every couple weeks.  Possibly tonight.

(I did constant updates for years, but it starts to wear on you)

[Bearcat-Doug | 5,104]

2 minutes ago, Reed Rothchild said:

I try to update every couple weeks.  Possibly tonight.

(I did constant updates for years, but it starts to wear on you)

I was going to ask since it seems like it's been a pretty long time since I finished Ken Griffey Jr.'s Winning Run and it wasn't marked off the list yet. I'm hoping to be able to help some more as I get time.

[Gaia Gensouki | 1,067]

Just beat Pinocchio. It's a decent game with really good production value, but the gameplay feels a little bit bland. On the one hand it's nice that they included so much gameplay variety, but on the other hand almost every stage felt like something completely different turning this game almost into some kind of mini game collection. I'm also not a big fan of the rollercoaster ride and the chase sequence on the raft. While the rollercoaster can get pretty quick and can feel quite nice, it also suffers a little bit of the problem, that sometimes the obstacles come at you too quickly to react adequately. With the rafting sequence it's quite similar. These were to some extent trial and error and memorization sequences, of which I'm not the biggest fan. On the other hand this game has really lovely colors (reminiscent of water colors), some nice sprite work and great fluid animation. The visuals are the most striking aspect of the game, but can't fully hide that there's a short and only decentish platformer underneath. It's certainly better than your average 16bit platformer, but it isn't in the same ballpark as the greats on this system either.

I've also started a playthrough of 7th Saga just to see if I can finally get this game off my unbeaten list. I could never make it far as a child, even though I absolutely loved the concept of the game.

[Reed Rothchild | 9,510]

Ugh, good luck.  It took me awhile.

[Reed Rothchild | 9,510]

...also, Space Megaforce is beaten

 

[Galdius | 1,507]

My first contribution to this thread: I just beat Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers: Fighting Edition.

[Reed Rothchild | 9,510]

I'll update while I make coffee

[Gaia Gensouki | 1,067]

While you're at it, could you add Super Bomberman 2 as well?

[Jeevan | 8,909]

anybody working on ff3?  I am playing it a bit at a time in between other games.........leveling and what not.........just throwing that out there, no claim i guess, but ya 

[Gaia Gensouki | 1,067]

I know that Pal and SFC games are only secondary, but I finished Super Bomberman 3 anyway. It's a really fun game and plays much better than SBM2 in almost every way. There's little to no slowdown, whereas SBM2 frequently slowed down to snails pace, the areas are more diverse and visually more appealing, there are a few more stages and some of the tracks in the third game are real bangers. Also, this game relies mcuh less on cheap death traps like randomly placed invisible mines, that you can only see by moving right next to them. Therefore Super Bomberman 3 was easier and more fun for the most part. The only annoying bit was the last stage, where the difficulty ramped up significantly with some quite cheap enemies and a tough final boss fight that cost me many tries. Luckily there is a password function and unlimited continues. I eventually got lucky, because I figured out how to abuse the AI of the boss, but it still required me to make it all the way through the final stage (that consists of 7 levels plus two boss fights) without dying or otherwise not losing my time bombs.  Anyway, this was still a lot of fun and I have finally beaten another game, that I played quite a bit back in the day, but that I never beat. And look at how happy they are!

[Gaia Gensouki | 1,067]

Since all good things come in threes I beat Super Bomberman 4. It was a really short playthrough: only 4 stages with 6 levels each and 2 boss fights. The final stage was nothing more than a boss rush of all 8 previous bosses, though with slightly reduced health, and the final boss with two phases. Somehow this game seemed a bit easier than the previous games since I died for the first time gainst the final boss and mostly just because I was careless. Overall I beat this one without a single continue. The campaign is very short and maybe not as good as the ones in the previous game. SBM3 is so far my favorite in the series, but then again, I couldn't really try out the multiplayer modes of the other ones. Still, you can't go wrong with any Bomberman game on the SNES, or at least so far.

[Gaia Gensouki | 1,067]

I have a question regarding 7th Saga: is it allowed to use the companion resurrection trick during the fight for the sky rune? Usually you're fighting alone, but apparently there's a bug that allows you to take your ally into battle as well by letting him get killed during normal battle and then resurrecting him during the fight.

[Reed Rothchild | 9,510]

Yes, dear God yes.  Any trickery to get through those BS fights is allowed.

[Gaia Gensouki | 1,067]

1 hour ago, Reed Rothchild said:

Yes, dear God yes.  Any trickery to get through those BS fights is allowed.

Ha ha ha, this actually made me laugh out loud. It seems like this game is really notorious for its difficulty.

Over the apst week I actually tried to win the sky rune fair and square. I'm playing as Valsu and the sky rune was taken by Esuna. This seems like one of the worst match-ups possible since I couldn't really harm her with my magic although she can sometimes one-shot me with her fire spell. Event he fire robe didn't help me. I think it might be bugged. And I was trying to beat her over and over again over the past week or so. Whenever I would gain a few levels or obtain a new rune I would try to beat her again, but I never got further than taking roughly 40% of her HP. It's just too dependent on luck. So I was wondering if i maybe should wait until I get the Elixir spell and maybe try to slowly defeat her, but if that trick is allowed I might just try beating her this way.

I honestly don't know what they were thinking when localizing this game. They pretty much ruined what would otherwise have been a pretty good game.

[Reed Rothchild | 9,510]

Oh God.  You will not get elixir for awhile, the thought of grinding for it early in the game makes me cringe.

I also played through with Valsu, and got through the first fight by tackling it again and again until I got lucky.

For the second fight (Esuna), she actually offered to join me.  So I jumped on that, mostly just to avoid the fight.

I guess worst-case scenario, see which random factors determine if she can join instead of fight.

[Red | 435]

On 4/4/2020 at 5:10 PM, Red said:

Hmm, now I kinda want to try Runes of Virtue II again.

Two months later and it's done!  Outside of the conveyer belt section with the switches in the last level, I enjoyed it quite  bit.  Definitely better than the other 3 SNES action RPGs I played a few months ago.  I really liked how fast your character is.  Made backtracking very tolerable.  I somehow managed to miss a bunch of items mentioned in the manual.  The dragon scale boots wold have been nice.  I also missed the magic top, which apparently makes you go even faster!

Now to track down the original Runes of Virtue.