Beat every Game Boy game - 2022 - 160/566

[RH | 4,887]

Guys, FF Legends has bested me in the worst way. I find it too bland and boring, I tried but it’s such a chore and I don’t play games that aren’t at least a little fun.

Sorry, but someone else can take this one.

[Gloves | 11,758]

41 minutes ago, RH said:

Guys, FF Legends has bested me in the worst way. I find it too bland and boring, I tried but it’s such a chore and I don’t play games that aren’t at least a little fun.

Sorry, but someone else can take this one.

How dare you.

[koifish | 555]

On 2/28/2022 at 1:39 PM, Seppatoni said:

Bart Simpsons Escape from Camp Deadly done.

The game is much shorter and more boring than I remembered.

This game is a bad nightmare for me. Ay caramba!

[koifish | 555]

2 hours ago, RH said:

Guys, FF Legends has bested me in the worst way. I find it too bland and boring, I tried but it’s such a chore and I don’t play games that aren’t at least a little fun.

Sorry, but someone else can take this one.

what kind of meat did you drop on defeat?

[koifish | 555]

On 3/1/2022 at 8:17 PM, Floating Platforms said:

Bomberman GB is finally done - thank merciful RNGeezus

This was not fun.  Correction, it was fun for about the first 4-5 hours where the actual Bomberman gameplay is in effect. The last 10 hours trying to beat the last boss was ridiculous and unnecessary. Level 8 is a boss rush where you have max powered bombs. Easy enough until you get to the end where you have a boss with three phases. The first phase has a lot of random elements in their projectile attacks that cause a ton of cheap hits. The second phase requires a good bit of learning, but at least it's a steady pattern so when you learn how to be safe and hit with a good amount of speed, it's fine. The third phase is garbage dumpster fire cheap BS and hit detection seemed to go out the flippin' window. You need 10 hits on that last phase. You have 5 minutes total to do all 3 phases, so even if you don't die super quick, you might run out of time. The powerups you earn throughout the game become a detriment as you'll jump over things in your car when you don't want to, or you'll toss a whole line of bombs instead of just one because the input thinks you hit A slightly differently, thus trapping you at a crucial moment and ruining that run.  The boss stuff doesn't feel like Bomberman, it feels like artificial padding in a game that simply does not need it.  Everything up to that point is cool. 7 unique levels and you get to pick your objective. Power-ups that are largely useful and build off of the levels. Great graphics and sound. All ruined by a dark souls boss that got transported into a Game Boy game.

Anyway, next up is SolarStriker. I'm hoping this will be an easier, happier time.

I don't remember how I beat that final boss, but there was a trick I think to make it never shoot you in a way that was dangerous. Still, I felt similarly and thought it was annoying. I mean so many of the boss fights are not so hard that I didn't bother much when the boss rush happened, but the final boss was a pain in the butt.

[Floating Platforms | 713]

20 minutes ago, koifish said:

I don't remember how I beat that final boss, but there was a trick I think to make it never shoot you in a way that was dangerous. Still, I felt similarly and thought it was annoying. I mean so many of the boss fights are not so hard that I didn't bother much when the boss rush happened, but the final boss was a pain in the butt.

I started to get a bit better on that several hours in (when I could finally semi-consistently reach the boss and survive long enough to learn his behaviors), but I still never really understood when that final phase was vulnerable to bombs and when he wasn't.  I also had a lot of deaths come about from the lines of bombs stuff even when I was avoiding his path enough.  It would have been cooler if the end levels were massive maps that tested your abilities to use the power ups instead.  Maybe Atomic Punk will be better whenever I get to that one?

[koifish | 555]

12 hours ago, Floating Platforms said:

I started to get a bit better on that several hours in (when I could finally semi-consistently reach the boss and survive long enough to learn his behaviors), but I still never really understood when that final phase was vulnerable to bombs and when he wasn't.  I also had a lot of deaths come about from the lines of bombs stuff even when I was avoiding his path enough.  It would have been cooler if the end levels were massive maps that tested your abilities to use the power ups instead.  Maybe Atomic Punk will be better whenever I get to that one?

I looked up a video to refresh my memory. Aside from a bomb-laying technique that I don't know about, it more or less shows the tricks on how to beat him.

Spoiler

The first form can only be damaged when it isn't moving. It will spiral around and spit at you, but always stops in the middle, so you want to drop a bomb such that it goes off right as it is in the middle and not moving. Otherwise you're just running laps to avoid the spit attack. The second form has two heads but only one can be damaged at a time, and they alternate (it's always the lighter-colored one). They're actually the easy ones, just hide from their lasers and use this mass-bomb drop technique (which I don't know how to do lol, I think I just found a way to run back and forth that didn't get me killed somehow). The final form can be damaged any time, but has a really long cooldown on hits where the boss is invulnerable. It just keeps rushing you down with the goal of killing you before you kill it, so you have to run laps around the field dropping bombs to try and hit it enough before it hits you.

Video is pasted at the start of the key battle moment:

 

 

[koifish | 555]

@RH curious what happened but I'm guessing you had your best fighter die in battle and now you're stuck in world 2 or world 3 with no good characters and/or far from the tower? If so then I feel for you, it's a hard place to get out of. If you (or anyone else) wants some info, I'd advise this strategy for the game to make it relatively painless:

Spoiler

Start world 1 with four mutants. They lose and gain powers constantly, but with four of them you are all but guaranteed to have a Death or Stone spell, which are one-hit kills on almost every enemy in the game, even bosses. The other magic is OP too, so really just use magic from all the mutants to kill grind the hell out of the world. World 1 is even easier to grind because you have the king's items. The shield makes the user invulnerable, the armor is far outclassing any enemy in the first world, and the sword far outclasses any weapon in the first world. However, they aren't strictly necessary, and once your mutants level up enough they won't need them. At that point, defeat the world 1 boss (losing the king's items) and go to world 2. Your OP mutants should still be carrying you through this world and even through world 3. Around that point though, you should have a ton of money built up, and so it is likely a good time to build a fighter. To do so, drop one of your mutants (let it die and then replace it from the guild hall) and then spend your money on HP200, HP400, Strength, and Speed (in that priority really, IIRC HP200 will scale just as much for a new human if they haven't been used, so use HP200 up to 200 so that you save the difference in cost) and after a dump of money you should have a capable human. Outfit them with the best sword and armor you can, and they will become the backbone of the team in case something happens to the mutants (sometimes I just have the human use shields to ensure it always stays alive). TBH I don't even know if you need the human, mutants are so OP you can probably just make one your "human". I just did it this way to have a human that I could directly upgrade stats of with money, since once you hit the later game the money just pours down on you and it's trivial to slam the stat upgrades.

One last trick to finish the ending: Make sure you get the Saw item, and have it equipped when you fight the final boss. A coding bug makes it so that the saw, rather than 1-hit kill any enemy whose defense is lower than your offense, does the opposite, and one hit kills any enemy with HIGHER defense. That means the final bosses in the game all die to one hit from the saw. This glitch is a rather famous exploit in Japan and became a bit of a series joke referenced later on. Anyhow, use this if you find the final bosses to be too much (IIRC they do have a massive spike in damage output, so you may end up wanting to use the saw to cleanly finish the game).

Kawazu games are super interesting, and yet I feel like I often have no idea how to play them correctly. I think that this is the point of the series though; SaGa games are supposed to be less like RPGs and more like simulations of another world, and that means making the systems obfuscated and confusing so that players can't just powergame through and make the world into a hollow toybox imitation of a real world. On the other hand, that sometimes makes the games very esoteric and really hard to play. Tough to say whether that's better or worse, but at least they are interesting!

[RH | 4,887]

3 minutes ago, koifish said:

@RH curious what happened but I'm guessing you had your best fighter die in battle and now you're stuck in world 2 or world 3 with no good characters and/or far from the tower? If so then I feel for you, it's a hard place to get out of. If you (or anyone else) wants some info, I'd advise this strategy for the game to make it relatively painless:

  Hide contents

Start world 1 with four mutants. They lose and gain powers constantly, but with four of them you are all but guaranteed to have a Death or Stone spell, which are one-hit kills on almost every enemy in the game, even bosses. The other magic is OP too, so really just use magic from all the mutants to kill grind the hell out of the world. World 1 is even easier to grind because you have the king's items. The shield makes the user invulnerable, the armor is far outclassing any enemy in the first world, and the sword far outclasses any weapon in the first world. However, they aren't strictly necessary, and once your mutants level up enough they won't need them. At that point, defeat the world 1 boss (losing the king's items) and go to world 2. Your OP mutants should still be carrying you through this world and even through world 3. Around that point though, you should have a ton of money built up, and so it is likely a good time to build a fighter. To do so, drop one of your mutants (let it die and then replace it from the guild hall) and then spend your money on HP200, HP400, Strength, and Speed (in that priority really, IIRC HP200 will scale just as much for a new human if they haven't been used, so use HP200 up to 200 so that you save the difference in cost) and after a dump of money you should have a capable human. Outfit them with the best sword and armor you can, and they will become the backbone of the team in case something happens to the mutants (sometimes I just have the human use shields to ensure it always stays alive). TBH I don't even know if you need the human, mutants are so OP you can probably just make one your "human". I just did it this way to have a human that I could directly upgrade stats of with money, since once you hit the later game the money just pours down on you and it's trivial to slam the stat upgrades.

One last trick to finish the ending: Make sure you get the Saw item, and have it equipped when you fight the final boss. A coding bug makes it so that the saw, rather than 1-hit kill any enemy whose defense is lower than your offense, does the opposite, and one hit kills any enemy with HIGHER defense. That means the final bosses in the game all die to one hit from the saw. This glitch is a rather famous exploit in Japan and became a bit of a series joke referenced later on. Anyhow, use this if you find the final bosses to be too much (IIRC they do have a massive spike in damage output, so you may end up wanting to use the saw to cleanly finish the game).

Kawazu games are super interesting, and yet I feel like I often have no idea how to play them correctly. I think that this is the point of the series though; SaGa games are supposed to be less like RPGs and more like simulations of another world, and that means making the systems obfuscated and confusing so that players can't just powergame through and make the world into a hollow toybox imitation of a real world. On the other hand, that sometimes makes the games very esoteric and really hard to play. Tough to say whether that's better or worse, but at least they are interesting!

The short version is it was so grindy and I got bored. I did google "best party to start with" and everything I found was for an "even" experience.  Speedrunners didn't help because they all use to many tricks, so I just went with H(m),H(f),Mu,Mo.

I haven't died nor am I stuck. I'm just tired of the grinding and the world feels to bland to be engaging.

[Floating Platforms | 713]

11 hours ago, koifish said:

I looked up a video to refresh my memory. Aside from a bomb-laying technique that I don't know about, it more or less shows the tricks on how to beat him.

That's certainly not the tactic that I landed on. The first phase is about the same, except I was forced to move a lot more than this. The second phase I found a safe spot at the top and learned when to place bombs in their pattern. The third one I mostly went in circles and then just tried to stop here and there to bait the projectiles.  I'm sure it took me far too long to do this and I likely got into my own head a bit. Still, needing to learn 3 different phases through repetitive failure was a lackluster way to end that game.

[koifish | 555]

14 hours ago, Floating Platforms said:

That's certainly not the tactic that I landed on. The first phase is about the same, except I was forced to move a lot more than this. The second phase I found a safe spot at the top and learned when to place bombs in their pattern. The third one I mostly went in circles and then just tried to stop here and there to bait the projectiles.  I'm sure it took me far too long to do this and I likely got into my own head a bit. Still, needing to learn 3 different phases through repetitive failure was a lackluster way to end that game.

It's the kind of filler ending I expect from a game with a tiny cart size, but I can see how it would be frustrating. It was a bit of a PITA but I personally still enjoyed it. At least you finished it and don't have to play it again, right?

On 3/3/2022 at 10:13 AM, RH said:

The short version is it was so grindy and I got bored. I did google "best party to start with" and everything I found was for an "even" experience.  Speedrunners didn't help because they all use to many tricks, so I just went with H(m),H(f),Mu,Mo.

I haven't died nor am I stuck. I'm just tired of the grinding and the world feels to bland to be engaging.

Two humans is destined to be a lot of money grinding. That's why I would recommend the approach that I did, the grind will be much better.

 

Maybe next time you can try the sequel. 2 is way more forgiving compared to the first game.

[Floating Platforms | 713]

8 hours ago, koifish said:

It's the kind of filler ending I expect from a game with a tiny cart size, but I can see how it would be frustrating. It was a bit of a PITA but I personally still enjoyed it. At least you finished it and don't have to play it again, right?

Very true. I really liked the game up until that last section. I'm sure quite a bit of that was that I let it get in my head. Having the 8th world be a boss rush was disappointing in general, though.  I do still have Atomic Punk (which I just recently picked up) and the Wario Bomberman games to look forward to at some point, at least.

[Seppatoni | 59]

Tiny Toon Adventures done. Love those Konami games 

[koifish | 555]

Cyraid is going well. It's somewhat similar to Lode Runner, only much more forgiving and a little more novel, though it's a bit easy. I'm surprised no one has beaten it before, maybe everyone just overlooks it.

[Floating Platforms | 713]

SolarStriker is done.  Should have finished it yesterday, but I ended up having a bit of trouble and made a bunch of stupid mistakes.

I'm terrible at shooters, but this one was very manageable, despite the fact it has no passwords or continues. I got to the level 4 boss on my second try ever, but managed to keep screwing up enough to only make it to the final level twice overall. The second time was the winner. You can get extra lives at every 50k points, and that was very important. Level 4 was the toughest of the 6 by far, but play it enough times and you'll get most of the enemy patterns and placements down well enough to get through it all. All the mistakes were my own and never from bad controls or cheap enemies.  I loved the way the dark blue and yellow default palette worked for this game, and the music was really good as well. If you want an added challenge, there is a hard mode that unlocks afterwards, but it seems like the ending is no different, so I'm skipping that.

Since I finished this early enough tonight, I started on Extra Bases and I'm currently 9-0 playing 9-inning games for fun and because these games go quick even if you don't mercy rule them.  Assuming there's no mirror match, I think I have 4 more games to go to have faced every team once. I won't have time play again until Monday, but hope to get that done then.

[Floating Platforms | 713]

Extra Bases is all done

13-0 and never lost a game in the process. Where you see the Game Over screen is where the passwords appeared until you beat every other team.  I chose "F" for Floating of course. None of the teams were especially hard, but team M has the best AVG and HR stats by a long shot. I decided to do the full 9-innings as the games go by pretty quickly and I was able to mercy rule the CPU nearly half the time anyway.  This could be the easiest baseball game on the system, but it was still a lot of fun. I love RBI 1 on the NES and this is very similar to that. The biggest differences I noticed: foul balls are a rarity, balls leaving the infield on the fly is a rarity, and there are no such things as throwing errors. It's also harder to cheese strikeouts, but the CPU rarely scores runs anyway.

 

Since I got that done pretty quick, I got about 2 hours into Best of the Best as well.  I don't have the manual, but I think I'm picking up most of the game mechanics.  I'm not sure if you do have to beat everyone before Cogneur, but I do plan to do that. There are 15 fighters, each with their own belt. If you win, you take it. If they win, they take one of yours and you have to beat them to get it back.  I've taken down 4 fighters and was then invited to fight "Bear" but lost to him. There didn't seem to be any penalty to losing to Bear, but I'm hoping I get another shot.

[Floating Platforms | 713]

Had some life distractions to delay this, but I beat Best of the Best tonight.  I'm kind of curious about the completion criteria and would love to hear from the person that beat this in a previous year to see what their experience was with it.

So, as I mentioned before, at certain times, you're invited to an underground circuit to fight "Bear" and then other fighters if you beat him.  I only got through 2 or 3 before facing the last 2 opponents on the selectable list.

After beating Cogneur, I got this screen:

That leads to credits, so maybe that's all that's needed? But hitting the button off that screen gave me the invitation to start the other circuit where I left off.

This time, I was somehow able to beat everyone that was left without losing once and got this ending screen:

I have no idea what would have happened if I lost in the middle of that. Would I have had to face Cogneur again to try the rest? Would the password from saving at that point lead me right back to where I was?  Curious to know what other people have experienced.

Also, here's proof that I got all the titles.

Anyway, I thought this game was a blast and really enjoyed my time with it. 8 different move sets, each with about 12 or so different moves to choose from made for a nice variety to find the style that suits you best, or find one that matches up better against your opponent.  The music is minimal, but the graphics looks pretty dang good. I like that the training stats do not deplete after each win, but they do take a steep dive after a loss. Late game, the fighters are a bit more unfair and their hits will take priority over yours and hit harder, even though the stats are even. Still, with persistence and playing around with strategies, each fighter is certainly beatable and its satisfying to earn those belts.

Next up for me (most likely tomorrow), I'll finally be playing Batman: The Video Game. Been looking forward to this one. This will not be my first time ever playing, but will be my first time beating it.

[Splain | 2,560]

@Floating Platforms Nice job on Best of the Best. I had the requirement as "Defeat Cogneur to see the Congratulations screen. (need to beat all invitational fighters?)" So obviously I have no idea, lol. I looked it up, and it was beaten by @BriGuy82 in 2020. Link:

Looks like it was just the Congratulations screen there, like the requirement said. But the ending you got is definitely the better one, so what should the requirement be?

Also, good luck with Batman. I spent hours on the last level and could never beat it. My understanding is there's a weapon (the W weapon?) that doesn't appear in that level, that makes it much more possible. So you have to bring it from a previous level and don't lose it.

[Floating Platforms | 713]

16 minutes ago, Splain said:

Looks like it was just the Congratulations screen there, like the requirement said. But the ending you got is definitely the better one, so what should the requirement be?

I'd love to hear other people's thoughts. I know that the thread isn't intended to necessarily require 100% completion or best endings all the time. Beating Cogneur does produce credits, so it's hard to say that it shouldn't count. I think the thing that holds me back most is that I don't know if you get a chance at those "invitational" fighters again if you lose. I really lucked out and beat the last of them non-stop. If there are unlimited chances and can easily access that circuit through a new password, then we probably should include it.

19 minutes ago, Splain said:

Also, good luck with Batman. I spent hours on the last level and could never beat it. My understanding is there's a weapon (the W weapon?) that doesn't appear in that level, that makes it much more possible. So you have to bring it from a previous level and don't lose it.

Thanks but actually... Batman is done!  It took me about 2 hrs 15min but about 90 minutes of that were spent on the last level. Yeah, the Wave weapon was necessary for me, and it does exist in 4-1. I think the real key is getting the weapon power high enough to take down the turrets on the auto-scrolling 4-2. I was able to get through with power 7, but since power-ups are limited in world 4 (I was starting with 5 on my continues), I could see someone needing to start from scratch to find more.

The game is really only hamstrung by the jumping physics and controls. It reminded me of Super Mario Land in that way. Surprisingly tough to get the momentum right or to control where you're going to land. Jumping problems led to over half of my deaths. I also had some problems on the auto-scrolling 4-2 where I was ducking and would walk off the ledge even though I didn't think I was hitting right as well. Sometimes my button presses were too fast to register the jump out of the crouch and I'd walk off as well. Unlimited continues saves the day, though.  Otherwise, the game may be short, but it has a variety of levels and has a shooter segment that is pretty fun. The final boss battle against Joker added a fair amount of challenge and the game was overall really well done for an early GameBoy title. If the controls were tighter, it would be amazing. I'll just call it really good.

Next up for me is Pac-Attack. I'm not sure when I'll be starting that one, but it will probably take a couple weeks to get through once I do.

[koifish | 555]

I finished The Getaway: High Speed II. There wasn't much to it really. The multiball and jackpots were pretty easy to achieve, more so than other pinballs I've played on GB. I also don't think it's as much fun as other GB pinballs however.

[Floating Platforms | 713]

So we're currently fostering a dog and I won't get to stream and go through my normal stuff while he's here. Instead, after his bed time, I go upstairs and have been running through NHL 96 on emulator as a revisit to see if the ending to "sevens" mode is different than the single-elimination playoffs.  I'm assuming it won't.

Anyway, I discovered a glitch and if anyone wants to try this, save your passwords, because I had to go back and restart.

You have to win 4 games to move on to the next round (maybe 3 in the first round, I forget already). If you're winning and no one has control of the puck when the time runs out, play stops everyone celebrates, but then it triggers a face-off. The face-offs will keep happening until someone actually grabs the puck in that second (since the clock is still zeros).

The problem comes in that each of those fake endings are actually added to your win total, but also don't count towards progression.  I didn't really notice it until I confirmed that I played more than 4 games and was still facing the same team. My win total wasn't a zero, 1, 2, 3 or 4 - it was a Dash and it wouldn't change after any further wins.  After starting over, I kept track of all my passwords and after what should have been my second win, it said "5" at the top. So, I went back, re-won that game and kept control of the puck and it said "2" like it should have.

I don't know, I thought that was an interesting quirk. So, ignore that impulse to shoot on goal at the buzzer or else!

Anyway, this revisit should have been done by now, but with the set back I have several more games to go.

[Floating Platforms | 713]

Okay, NHL '96 is done.

So, now I can confirm that the ending to Sevens mode is the same as New Playoffs - an unexciting team banner with a Stanley Cup trophy.  By no means a hard game (honestly I was building up a 3-4 goal lead and then just sitting with the puck for the majority of the time - it's amazing how infrequently the CPU tries to take it), but certainly not worth the hassle and time to go through that many wins.

I probably won't get through any more revisits this week, so I'll still say Pac-Attack is my next game that I'll likely start Tues next week.

[PII | 1,883]

Milon's Secret Castle

Played through this one tonight for the first time (on gameboy.)  Lots of little differences between it and the NES version.  Slight variations in room layout due to smaller cropped screen, less parasols, Bosses are super easy by comparison and got some really cool, unique new sprites.  Title screen music and an intro, some new music within the game as well, the balloon in the well was much more difficult to capture.  Disappearing steps can only be stepped on one at a time rather than two at a time.  Certain tougher enemies like the fireplace flame and the giant bat things in Maharito's room were much easier to go after.  The bee shields were a lot easier to go after as well.  Hard mode was slightly faster as expected and the enemies all took two hits which was unexpected.  Parasols did not rise super fast like in the NES hard mode and bosses took a lot more hits, or at least the first one did.  I did not play all the way through on hard mode.  I'll save that for another night...

But nothing could have prepared me for the revelation that came with the new ending screens.  Apparently Milon and Princess Garland are in actuality,............[drum roll]............. THE ALTER-EGOS OF NONE OTHER THAN LINK AND ZELDA !!  {See pics}

Maybe everything M.S.C. will go through the roof in price once everyone knows it's a secret Zelda game and therefore must have it at any cost!

 

 

Edited January 8 by PII

[Floating Platforms | 713]

Finally started Pac-Attack tonight and got through level 54 of 100.  This back half may take a couple more play sessions because I'm already encountering levels where the random pieces are a problem.  The first piece dropped is always the same, but everything after is totally random, and it can make for difficult or unwinnable rounds. I have a feeling this will also make learning the tricks to later levels a bit harder as experimentation will be inconsistent.  Still, I think I'm making decent progress and maybe it will be done this week if I get lucky and get enough time.

[Floating Platforms | 713]

Pac-Attack is done as of late last night.

What really holds this game back is the complete randomness of the pieces. You will always start out with the same opening move, but from there it's all up to chance. Some of the later levels appear to require very specific moves to be made or else you will ruin any chance of a clear because there's an extra block or ghost.  I spent a few hours on one specific level (Level 97 - and maybe I was approaching it incorrectly, but it didn't seem like I was) and found myself restarting countless times to get a workable opening set of moves that wouldn't get me stuck later. If this worked like Tetris 2 and gave you specific pieces up to a point, it would also make it an actual puzzle where you could learn how to approach the level. The randomness made me question my approach far too often as I wasn't getting reliable consistent feedback from the game.  I really like the concept of the game and many of the levels are very forgiving, but the last set of 10 have a couple that verge on unfair.

Next I have Lazlo's Leap waiting for me and I'll start that up tomorrow night. At least we know that getting par on every level doesn't change anything.