Beat every Game Boy game - 2022 - 160/566

[Splain | 2,560]

On 2/13/2022 at 9:46 AM, Philosoraptor said:

I thiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiink Zoop is done. @Splain, I beat levels 1-9, which are all the selectable levels in Level Mode. However, the back of the box says there are 99 levels. I assume that's more of a "level 29 kill screen in Tetris" sort of boast, but let me know if you think I need to do more or if what I've done is sufficient.

Unless there's evidence that beating level 99 gives some sort of ending (and I'm not going to look for that, lol) then level 9 is all that's needed. I've tried to beat level 9 many times, and got close but never clinched it. I tried approaching it from earlier levels so I could have a stock of springs, but I'm just too slow. Nice job!

I need to update the thread!

[koifish | 555]

I finished Game and Watch Gallery. Oil Panic was a limp across the finish line, I got my last error at 1002 points.

I did all the modern games, and noted still that the win screen says "To be continued". Now I want to know if there's a special ending if you get 1000 points on the classic games too. The pain point then is that, to max out the game, you have to get 1000 points on all 16 game/style/difficulty combinations. That might be more than I can handle, especially for games that I'm not good at, like manhole.

[Philosoraptor | 468]

Catrap is done. I played the Japanese version, Pitman (DMG-PMA). Aside from stage 60 being slightly larger in Pitman, there are no differences.  Pitman is also completely in English.

I started Boxxle earlier this year and got about halfway through before I put it down (someone else feel free to beat this). As the stages grew larger, they ended up being a few minutes of figuring out the puzzle and five or more additional minutes of pushing the remaining boxes where they needed to be. You screw up? Start over. You pause? Start over, because bad UI. Ugh.

Catrap/Pitman's puzzles are just as good, if not better, and all the levels can be beaten within a minute. It has great controls, a rewind function, a password function, and a level editor that outputs your levels as passwords if you want to share them with friends or revisit them. Overall, it's a great game, and easily in the conversation of best puzzle games on the GB, IMO.

[koifish | 555]

Nice work on Catrap. I bought that on 3DS years and years ago, but never finished stage 80. Still wonder how you are supposed to do it. Maybe....5 years from now

[Splain | 2,560]

I've fixed some of the points problems in the chart, but now I have some new, exciting problems with scoring the JPN games, and I still haven't tackled the 2nd-clear problem.

[Splain | 2,560]

Oh, and @Philosoraptor thanks for the info about Soccer/Football International. The idea is that the games are functionally identical, so they count across regions. Since they aren't in this case, they're... different... games.

@koifish the "to be continued" in G&W Gallery (and the fact that none of the credits are real) has been an elephant in my brain for a while. It's obviously not the best ending, but the "100% not required" combined with just how hard it would be to get everything in that game has caused us to just stick our fingers in our ears and sing.

We did once float the idea of mailing a cartridge around to the people who are able to get 1000 pts in the various games. There's games I can easily get 1000 on, so I'd do those and pass it on. Then we'd know for sure what happens, since at the time there were no YT videos or anything documenting it. Surely there's a Game Genie code or something that could help simulate it though...

[RH | 4,895]

@Splain, check again.  I'm the one that completed Final Fantasy Adventure, not @Philosoraptor.

[Floating Platforms | 713]

12 hours ago, koifish said:

I finished Game and Watch Gallery. Oil Panic was a limp across the finish line, I got my last error at 1002 points.

I did all the modern games, and noted still that the win screen says "To be continued". Now I want to know if there's a special ending if you get 1000 points on the classic games too. The pain point then is that, to max out the game, you have to get 1000 points on all 16 game/style/difficulty combinations. That might be more than I can handle, especially for games that I'm not good at, like manhole.

Congratulations! That game intimidates the heck out of me.  I think there actually is a normal ending if you get all the stars - that isn't much different than the TBC one.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJNjPv-zexc&t=5699s cc: @Splain 

That video was uploaded in mid 2021 and seems to show it at about the 2.5 hour mark. I know I'll want to try for all stars regardless whenever it comes up for me. Maybe next year, I'll give it a shot.

9 hours ago, Philosoraptor said:

Catrap is done. I played the Japanese version, Pitman (DMG-PMA). Aside from stage 60 being slightly larger in Pitman, there are no differences.  Pitman is also completely in English.

Hell yeah! Catrap was a childhood favorite of mine and is one of my milestone games (not until Game #425, though). Definitely never beat all the levels as a kid, but absolutely loved what I played. 

[Splain | 2,560]

2 hours ago, RH said:

@Splain, check again.  I'm the one that completed Final Fantasy Adventure, not @Philosoraptor.

@Philosoraptor beat you to it, on February 6th. It's my fault for not updating the thread sooner. Sorry! You'll still get points when I work out the details.

 

28 minutes ago, Floating Platforms said:

Congratulations! That game intimidates the heck out of me.  I think there actually is a normal ending if you get all the stars - that isn't much different than the TBC one.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJNjPv-zexc&t=5699s cc: @Splain 

That video was uploaded in mid 2021 and seems to show it at about the 2.5 hour mark. I know I'll want to try for all stars regardless whenever it comes up for me. Maybe next year, I'll give it a shot.

Hell yeah! Catrap was a childhood favorite of mine and is one of my milestone games (not until Game #425, though). Definitely never beat all the levels as a kid, but absolutely loved what I played. 

Well there it is. It's definitely the better ending. Should we require it?

[Philosoraptor | 468]

9 hours ago, koifish said:

Nice work on Catrap. I bought that on 3DS years and years ago, but never finished stage 80. Still wonder how you are supposed to do it. Maybe....5 years from now

For whatever reason, stages with stacked enemies like 80 were easier for me. Although 80 might be the hardest one. It's the "push these rocks, climb these ladders, and run through this sand in a very, VERY specific pattern" stages, like stage 77, that gave me the most trouble. 

46 minutes ago, Floating Platforms said:

Hell yeah! Catrap was a childhood favorite of mine and is one of my milestone games (not until Game #425, though). Definitely never beat all the levels as a kid, but absolutely loved what I played. 

It's certainly a game worth beating as a milestone! I'll be excited to see you beat it!

4 hours ago, Splain said:

Oh, and @Philosoraptor thanks for the info about Soccer/Football International. The idea is that the games are functionally identical, so they count across regions. Since they aren't in this case, they're... different... games.

You bet! I figured you'd be OK with functionally identical or maybe one minor difference like Catrap/Pitman, but Soccer/Football International is a different story. I also figured the longer write-ups for Japanese games might help you or others in the thread determine scoring, completion requirements, or whether they're worth importing/emulating. 

[Splain | 2,560]

Nice, I started going through every Japanese game to see which ones are playable by a non-Japanese speaker. Basically to see which ones are acceptable substitutes for expensive English-language games (if they got a release outside Japan) and which ones are worth checking out, for the novelty of playing stuff that didn't get released in USA or PAL regions. I'm 63.4% of the way through the list

[RH | 4,895]

9 hours ago, Splain said:

@Philosoraptor beat you to it, on February 6th. It's my fault for not updating the thread sooner. Sorry! You'll still get points when I work out the details.

 

Oh, sorry.  I went back and ISOed his work and missed that.

[Philosoraptor | 468]

The 30 "Going Up" puzzles in Kwirk are done.

Interesting game. Definitely a good one. I wish the Going Up mode was longer and delved a bit deeper in the mechanics it establishes, but maybe that's what the "Heading Out" mode is for. I'll have to try it later.

[Philosoraptor | 468]

The Japanese exclusive, After Burst (DMG-ABA), is done. It is in full English, including this unsatisfying ending screen:

Not every robot is created equal. 

The goal of the game is to destroy a lunar-module-looking thing on every stage aside from the boss stages on 10, 20, and 30. At the end of every fifth stage, you get a password.

Your robot is equipped with a loopy-ass jump like in Super Mario Land 2 and a gun that must be charged to shoot. At full power, it shoots straight, but any less than full power results in the bullet falling in front of your robot at various distances, depending on how long it was charged. This is regularly used to take out ground-based targets. You can fire anywhere from parallel to the ground to straight up in the sky, including many angles in between.

That's all well and good, but this game has a major problem: unresponsive controls. Quick taps that would otherwise be used to position your robot aren't recognized. Jumps and shots are delayed by about a quarter second. I don't know if this was on purpose to make it feel like you're in a giant, lumbering robot, but they succeeded.

It also suffers from inexplicable slowdown. If you have three or more enemies on the screen, or if it's one of the rare levels that is larger than one screen and has to scroll, you get massive amounts of slowdown just by charging your gun. We're talking one second on the in-game timer suddenly takes two levels of bad. I honestly don't know why, either. The screen isn't any busier than your average GB game.

Bosses are some of the easiest levels of the game, even the final one. Levels seem half-baked, but were probably that way because of the slowdown.

Overall, I'd recommend avoiding After Burst.

[Floating Platforms | 713]

On 2/16/2022 at 10:30 PM, Splain said:

Well there it is. It's definitely the better ending. Should we require it?

Maybe for next year? I know it's only February, but it does seem a little weird to change the requirements after the challenge has started. No idea how much precedent there is for that.

It's amazing that there is still so much undocumented on YouTube for Game Boy. Splain, I know you were wondering about getting all par on Lazlo's Leap and I think that video exists now to confirm there's nothing extra in-game to note that accomplishment.  But something like Wave Race -- I can't find any 800 cc World Series Circuit winning runs on YT. The only one I see is a "speedrun" that doesn't try to win. It's strange to think that when I get around to uploading mine that it would be possibly the first for such a well-known title.

[Philosoraptor | 468]

The Japanese exclusive Wedding Peach: Jamapii Panic (DMG-AWPJ) is done. This game is entirely in Japanese, and doesn't have a translation. I buy weird games.

I can't read Japanese and have never heard of Wedding Peach, but the devs spent a LOT of time on the protagonists' cutscenes, so I can guess that there are three magical girls (a la Sailor Moon) that lost the items that allow them to transform (...also a la Sailor Moon). They also sometimes appear in wedding dresses for some reason. I guess they had to be different from Sailor Moon somehow.

So, anyway, you're this thing:

And you basically play 10 levels of a Qix-meets Pac-Man maze/puzzle game where you stretch your tail, try to touch as many floor tiles as possible, and then touch your tail again to complete a loop and start a combo/chain. The level ends when you have stepped on and scored each tile in the stage. If you include a floor tile that was previously scored, it breaks your chain, so you want to go for the biggest chain possible at the beginning. There are four respawning enemies in each stage that can chase you, but you also have screen-clearing bombs for some reason. The mazes are less and less open as you progress.

After you recover all the lost items, the final level is a "boss fight" against this '90s anime character:

I miss the '90s anime art style.

The whole game takes about 30-45 minutes to beat, and it's an easy 1cc. Surprisingly, it's well executed, and I wish there were more levels in this game.

Sadly, I paid more for After Burst than I did this game, and I'm disappointed in past me because of that. It's actually decent-to-good. I can't recommend going out of your way to import it, but if you end up with a copy, you could do a LOT worse.

Edited February 19, 2022 by Philosoraptor

[Philosoraptor | 468]

The Japanese exclusive, Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon (DMG-AQJ), is done. Typically, this game is only in Japanese, but a partially completed translation patch exists. Some screens, like the pause screen, aren't translated, and there are a few errors with text overlapping other text. However, the main story text is all translated, and you can play the game from start to finish in mostly English.

This is an action game set in several scenes, including around town, in the high school, and in a gym. I haven't seen an episode of Sailor Moon since Toonami aired it, but I recognized several characters and the plot didn't seem too far-fetched from what I remember.

Gameplay-wise, you talk to some people, find out something is amiss, and then play a standard sidescrolling bit to get to the boss of each level. There are four levels in the game. Character sprites are huge and take up about half the screen. Enemies can run at you, drop from above, fly over you, or float in and attack you at crap angles. Boss patterns aren't complicated, but can be easy or difficult depending on whether you found the compact in the sidescrolling bit. You can take four hits before you lose it, but as long as you have it, you have a ranged attack. Otherwise, you have to resort to punting everything.

This game does have one notable feature; by pressing down on the D-pad and crying, walls in the background break and cause power-ups to appear. They actually have a dedicated button for crying. 

The game has an annoying habit of eating inputs rather regularly: probably somewhere between 5-10% of inputs didn't seem to register. However, it's not game breaking, and the controls are otherwise responsive enough.

It's another game that takes about 30 minutes to an hour, depending on how lost you get when you're searching for NPCs to progress the story.

Overall, meh.

[Philosoraptor | 468]

Another Japanese exclusive, Magic Knight Rayearth 2nd: The Missing Colors (DMG-AR2J), is done. It's also known as "Mahou Kishi Rayearth 2nd: the Missing Colors." This game is only in Japanese, but a "99% complete" translation patch exists. I only came across one untranslated sentence, but it appears some text couldn't fit in space provided in the screens, so there are several truncations and hyphenations.

This is a very, very bare-bones, straightforward traditional RPG. How bare bones? There is no item shop in the game and no equipment either. After visiting the only town at the beginning of the game, you visit three dungeons to retrieve the missing colors. You're led straight to the first dungeon from the town. After it's done, you go straight from the first to the second and from the second to the third. No side quests, no shenanigans, no superfluous items, and no grinding. Just boom bam bang done. The whole thing takes about five hours to beat on a first playthrough.

Random battles are balanced well, with there not being too many or too few. You get your last spell at level 20, and I arrived at the final boss at level 21 without ever having to grind.

Since there are only four locales, the world map is tiny. Maybe 3X3 Game Boy screens big. Dungeon floors are similarly small, with the last and largest maybe being 3X3 screens. So, there's no really getting lost here.

Aside from a few standout puzzles, like a Kanji-related puzzle, expect to be mostly pushing blocks, pulling levels, opening doors with keys, and navigating very basic and short mazes to reach your destination. Random battles do not take place in most puzzle areas, which is nice.

Enemies and bosses aren't difficult, status effects heal after battle, you have a healer in your party from the get-go, and MP potions drop frequently, meaning that the game can be cruised through. It's very much a beginner-friendly RPG.

Battles are standard-fare. Your choices are attack, magic, defend, item, and run. You can press one button to have all your party members perform a basic attack, which expedites most of the menuing you have to do. 

The writing is fine. I don't know how true the translation is to the original script, but I could definitely see some personality showing here and there that reflected what I saw in Magic Knight Rayearth for the Saturn. You get what you'd expect from a middle-of-the-pack NES RPG. 

Overall, it's a relaxing RPG that doesn't do anything to differentiate itself, but what it does do is basic, yet solid.

Edited February 21, 2022 by Philosoraptor

[Philosoraptor | 468]

Another Japanese exclusive, Final Reverse (DMG-FIJ) is done. What little text in this game is completely in English.

This is an interesting one. I don't know of another game like it.

So, it's kind of a SHMUP, but it's also kind of a 1v1 fighting game. Each "fight" has two rounds. The first is a 30-second preliminary round, where you draw a track with your spaceship, adding twists and curves to the line while the opponent does the same. Your spaceship must stay on this line. If you die in this round, you are not penalized, but whatever portion of the line you didn't draw is filled in with a straight line to the other end of the screen. The second is a deathmatch, and you switch lines. So if you were able to draw a bullcrap line, the computer gets stuck with it (and vise versa), like so:

Included are 10 ships that either are slow and hit harder or faster and have weaker shots. Maybe there are other variants, but those seem to be the major differences. There are power-ups, but the rounds are so short that they're rarely useful, at least against the computer.

The game also has both horizontal and vertical fields of play:

There are also four modes included in this game:

• 1P Mode - Each side gets five different ships. Battles are fought 1v1 on a non-scrolling screen until one side has no more ships left. There are five different levels on this mode, and you get credits for beating any level on this mode.  
• Scroll Mode - Each side gets five different ships, and the stages are slightly larger and scroll (like, maybe 1x2 Game Boy screens worth of scroll). Battles are fought 1v1 until one side has no more ships left. There are five different levels on this mode, and you get credits for beating any level on this mode.
• 1 VS 1 Mode - Each side gets one ship, and it's a winner-take-all battle. There are five different levels on this mode, and you only get the "wining the championship" screen for beating any level on this mode.
• 2P 1 VS 1 Mode - I didn't play this but I assume this is probably the most fun mode on the cart, and that's saying something. I assume it works the same as the 1 VS 1 mode.

Modes where you get five ships take about ten minutes to complete, and modes where you get one ship take about two minutes to complete. If you manage to kill every enemy in a five-ship mode with your first ship, you get this screen, too:

A major caveat, I do love SHMUPS, so my final thoughts on this game may be a bit biased because of that.

I love this game. Rarely do we get SHMUPs where you're fighting another player, and this one is way ahead of it's time. I'm not aware of another one until Shippuu Mahou Daisakusen: Kingdom-Grandprix on the Saturn, which came out over six years later.

It is rather simple, but charming. The controls are good, the idea is unique, and I ended up beating every level on every 1P mode. With a similarly skilled friend, I bet it would be even more fun. Is it going to stand toe-to-toe with the best on the console? No, because it's a bit lacking for content. But it is at least good if not great. And above all, it's fun.

Edited February 21, 2022 by Philosoraptor

[Bucket | 93]

Centipede is done.

There's not much to say about this game. It's graphically basic, but plays well.

I'm still playing through Sword of Hope 2, but it is a relentless grind-fest in places, so it can be a but slow to make progress with.

[RH | 4,895]

@Philosoraptor and everyone else, I'm about 1/4th through Final Fantasy Legend.  Please let me finish have that one.  (Unless someone called it before me.)

[Philosoraptor | 468]

36 minutes ago, RH said:

@Philosoraptor and everyone else, I'm about 1/4th through Final Fantasy Legend.  Please let me finish have that one.  (Unless someone called it before me.)

Haha! I don't plan on playing the Legends games this year. I'm not a big traditional RPG guy, especially pre-PS1 era. I'll be curious to hear what you think of them.

On that note, what did you think of FF Adventure?

[RH | 4,895]

1 hour ago, Philosoraptor said:

Haha! I don't plan on playing the Legends games this year. I'm not a big traditional RPG guy, especially pre-PS1 era. I'll be curious to hear what you think of them.

On that note, what did you think of FF Adventure?

Oh, I wanted that one (and I thought I called it, but I might not have.). That's my favorite childhood game.  As a kid back in the early 90s, I was blown away by the level of storytelling in a GB game.  It gets a lot of hate on the port, but for it's time (and considering it was a GB game) it was phenomenal.  This last play through was probably my 4th play through, and that's not counting various remakes.

[Philosoraptor | 468]

The Japanese exclusive Ultraman Chou Toushi Gekiden (DMG-QUJ) is done. It is typically in Japanese, but a full translation is available, and it's a pretty good one to boot. I beat it on Normal difficulty. There are also Easy and Hard difficulties.

Ultraman is an enigma to me. I have a lot of games with Ultraman in them thanks to the Compati Heroes series of games, but I wouldn't say I'm knowledgeable about the series, characters, or plot. I'm more of a Gundam fan at heart. This game apparently follows a 1993 manga with the same name; there is a training arc, a tournament arc, and a final boss fight all within the 30 minutes it takes to beat the game. I'd liken it to experiencing a sped-up, re-skinned season of DBZ, even though Ultraman is 20 years older.

Gameplay is a mish mash of genres. There are 1v1 fights, SHMUP levels, and platforming levels, all of which are executed competently but are pretty basic. Ultraman has a standard punch that can be charged longer for various other attacks, regardless of stage genre.

Controls work well and are responsive. The graphics were pretty good, too. Overall, I'd say this is a good game, and a much better entry in the Ultraman series than the abysmal SNES game.

Edited February 21, 2022 by Philosoraptor

[Philosoraptor | 468]

Kid Dracula is done. I ended up playing my Japanese copy, Akumajou Special: Boku Dracula-Kun, and patching it to the NTSC version because I like English and I'm a cheap-ass sometimes. 

This game is so great that it stands up to the Famicom version, IMO. I honestly wasn't expecting the FC and GB versions to have so many differences, since the Japanese artwork on the carts is the same. It's mind-blowing that Konami managed to put something like this on the GB and have it run with no slowdown and have no control issues. Absolutely phenomenal.