Redmond

Mr. Nutz - I didn't realize this one was on the list till I had finished it.  Surprisingly good platformer.  It's basically "Great Value" Castle of Illusion, but it does refine the controls a bit and places more of a focus on the projectile attack.   Worth checking out if you've gone through the A-tier stuff on the system.  Also there's a level called "Frozen Nutz".

Bubsy in: Claws Encounters of the Furred Kind - Completed.  This one was a bit tougher than I was expecting.  It's very easy to get tilted and your lives will just start melting away ( you get 9 to start and 0 continues, but you can find a handful of continues hidden in the levels ).  It is fun to gain momentum and go flying around everywhere, but doing so is a coin flip at best as you're guaranteed to eventually run into an enemy or hazard ( Bubsy is a one-hit KO ). 

Cool Spot - also completed.  I went back after finding out about the contest ( finish on Difficult mode + get all of the UNCOLA letters without using a continue and you get a screen that tells you to take a picture of your TV or w/e and send it to the address listed ), but unfortunately there must be different versions out there and I just got the stock ending.  Not the greatest platformer in the world but not bad either.  

Contra: Hard Corps beaten.  I think this was the "best" ending although there are 2-3 endings that seem tougher to get.  I'm not sure if the wolf is the best character, but he can take out enemies pretty quickly with his charge move.  Needless to say it's a great game.

Final Zone - I remember thinking the cover was really cool when I was a kid but I think that's where my affinity towards it ended so I guess that was a lesson learned.  It has a somewhat intricate dual-gun system, but you'll only ever really need like 1-2 of them and it seems like you do the most damage just crashing into enemies.  I beat it on Easy ( for shame ) but I don't think too much changes between the modes.

16 hours ago, MrWunderful said:

How do you get such clear screen caps?

I am playing on RetroArch and just use print screen.

McDonald's Treasure Land Adventure is in the bag (er Happy Meal box).  It's more like proto Dynamite Headdy with Ronald McDonald and co shoehorned in vs. being a full-fledged game ( there are only 4-5 short stages ).  There is a very random sequence where you transition from being on a train to total darkness and when the lights come back there are bunny ballerinas ( dancing to Swan Lake ) which you have to use as platforms.  I kind of wish they had saved that bit for Dynamite Headdy. 

Castlevania: Legacy of Darkness beaten ( at least with Cornell / the first playthrough ). 

Kinda just randomly started playing this one in the morning.  It might be a bit rough around the edges, but I still think it's the best 3D Castlevania.  The balance of platforming and combat in CV64 and LOD feels more unique and closer to classic Castlevania than the other efforts.

Atomic Robo Kid - Strange little shmup.  Has branching paths at different points, but I don't think it changes too much.  I had rented this one as a kid and hadn't really revisited it till now.  It's not very difficult ( especially if you use the ability to shoot through walls ) but you kinda need to be set up with the correct power-ups going into the last boss ( 2+ shields, main laser upgrade, and the speed upgrade, could maybe get away with less tho).  I kept killing the shop keeper my first times few the game as he's just a little robo dino guy that pops up on the screen with no real indication he's helpful.

Was gonna give The Adventures of Batman and Robin a go, but that game is tough and I haven't played it much in the past so there's no muscle memory or other knowledge to rely on so it would be a project.

Chakan - Hard Mode ( didn't seem too different from easy aside from your hit points being halved).  This game is made way more difficult by the spotty hit detection, especially the non-sword weapons.  If anyone tries to play this just be forewarned that the 2nd set of stages are pretty brutal, especially the Volcano ( if you land on 2 overlapping platforms you'll glitch through them and fall into lava ) and Dragonfly portions ( no tips for those, steel yourself I guess lol, they are essentially a labyrinthian buzz wire game where you're constantly harangued by flying bugs and off-screen enemies that can shoot you).  

It's a cool game in spite of being somewhat rough around the edges.  I liked the atmosphere/vibe enough to press on and see it through to the end.  

On 3/21/2023 at 8:26 PM, final fight cd said:

i beat this game several years ago.   i found the last boss to be a sum bitch.  took me many attempts to finally learn his pattern.  did you have trouble with the final boss?

Yeah, I had to practice it a bit with save states to have a chance and then went back and did a normal run.  I think I was trying to use World of Longplays as a guide but those are tool-assisted in a lot of cases and one of the moves they do isn't really viable ( at least it wasn't for me ).

Welp, some good news, at least one of the buyers ( I believe it was for one of the first 2 listings, not the most recent auction ) stumbled across the Reddit post and was able to get a refund (props to final fight CD for the suggestion ).  The seller also changed their name from redturtleraph to nostalgiasales.

5 hours ago, Philosoraptor said:

CIB collecter and Earthbound enthusiast here. That box is 100% fake, and the insert is a reproduction. I have two real Earthbound CIBs in my possession, and while it looks right on a precursary glance, too many small things are off about it. I could go into extreme minutiae about it, and I'm willing to in a PM, but not a public post. I'll outline some of the things that are immediately off about it:

• The size of certain images are too large.
• The colors and print quality on both sides are not of the same quality as the originals, even if it's faded.
• If it were faded, some of the colors have not faded as they should, meaning they're wrong.
• The physical box that they used is manufactured differently from the original.
• The printing of text and images is not correctly aligned with other aspects of the box.
• The insert doesn't show the wear or staining one would expect to see from nearly 30-year-old white cardboard.

I can't speak to the authenticity of the Toys R Us stickers, receipt, bag, and other stuff.

Thanks for the thorough breakdown.  I’m in a fever-dreamish state I didn’t want to throw this seller under the bus under those conditions without confirmation.  On the last point, I think you could apply that to the state of the box as well, it’s missing what seems to be some common wear amongst authentic boxes.

Another strike against them is I was able to find the original listings for the receipts and the giraffe stickers they used.  

It would be nice if there was a way to contact the buyers from May, but I can’t think of any off the top of my head.  Getting the current listing nixed immediately might not be the best approach either.  

Thanks for the responses.  I’m a bit under the weather so I’ll check back hopefully later today.  Didn’t want to throw anyone under the bus ( too late I guess ), but I’ll maybe share more after checking some more known authentic boxes.  Hopefully a few more takes roll in.  
 

I'm not really sure what the point of this post is going to be, but this Earthbound Big Box popped up on my feed and it's, umm, interesting.

Earthbound Big Box ONLY NO RESERVE TOYS R US | eBay

I'm no expert or anything, but comparing the color / print quality on this box to an authentic one, it seems clearly inferior / off.  I guess you could chalk it up to sun fading or some sort of variance ( doubtful, I know ).  I'm pretty sure there's a more obvious "tell" ( likely more than that )without doing the comparisons, but if the pics were angled a bit differently this one might pass.

I looked through the seller's history and they had other EB boxes sold:

EarthBound Big Box & Tray (Super Nintendo 1995) NO RESERVE Snes 45496830434 | eBay

Due to the photos, this one looks a bit more passable and the color seems better, although it might just be the way the pics were taken (  lower light idk ).

And another:

Earthbound box and tray only Super Nintendo SNES Toys R Us NO RESERVE | eBay

So someone takes a fake box, does some "relicing", going as far as adding a Toys R Us bag, price/store stickers, receipts, and beating it up slightly.

IIRC I made a similar topic back when NA was around and a few people chimed in.  I bought one of the repro boxes myself back in the day just to be able to compare / be aware of what was out there.  I'm not personally interested in this at this point, but given people are potentially being ripped off to the tune of $1-1.5k, I thought it might be something worth posting ( 2 of the previous buyers left positive FB on the boxes they bought ).  I'm kind of preaching to the choir as far as this forum is concerned, I imagine everyone does their due diligence and whatnot prior to buying stuff but just doing a quick search there weren't exactly a lot of resources on comparing authentic vs fake EB boxes ( perhaps with good reason ). 

So if you are in the market for one of these, I would advise trying to find some high-quality photos of known authentic boxes and comparing to both the listing photos and, if you purchase one, when you receive it.  There seems to be at least a few things the repro makers are missing, but between all of the "window dressing" with things like receipts and whatnot, non high-quality pics, lighting, etc, it can be difficult to discern between fake/real.  

EDIT: Originally had this in the form of a question or something when I was typing it up but mods can move to the general forum if that works better.

I've been buying some of those Transformers reissues while perusing Wally World for whatever typical wares I get there ( cheap keyboards, brooms, etc ), so a $10-20 trip ends up being like $60 but I guess that's the nature of the beast.

I like the older toys too like the Marx stuff ( King Kong, Yeti, Merry Makers, Spooky Kooky Whistling Tree ), will eventually get around to getting some of those but they've gotten $$$ like everything else in recent years.

I'd still say Mischief Makers is great even as a one-and-done type game, but it really is more built around getting all the yellow gems and S-Ranks.  I also have no clue which games people are using as a comparison to place Mischief Makers as being meh or whatever.

10 hours ago, ikk said:

This game has a terrible camera, but I was still having fun with it. The levels are fine and I enjoy the game's sense of humor. But then I got to the first boss fight... This game has the worst boss fights I've ever encountered.

You have to collect 100 marbles riding a barely controllable pig and the boss is also collecting them, so in order to get all marbles you need to pick up a bullet to shoot him so he drops his marbles. Of course the boss is also shooting you to get your marbles. So this takes a long time.

As if this first boss fight wasn't bad enough the 2nd boss fight is the same, except this boss can teleport... And yes, of course he can teleport in front of you to pick up a bullet and instantly shoot you.

I finally beat the 2nd boss after a bunch of tries, but I'll be slowly making my way through this game.

Pork Boarding FTW!! It's an acquired taste lol.

Hook is finished.

Yeah, wasn't really a fan of this one, remember having a better time with the SNES version but that was probably a decade+ ago.  I did like that they included the part where the fat kid rolls down the stairs.

High Seas Havoc completed.

This has always been one of my favorites ( not to sound like Richard Christy lol ) in spite of its issues and weirdness.  This might have been the first time I've actually beaten the game sans any save states ( you do get infinite continues though ).  The last 2 bosses are a fun time.

Playing through Kingdom (2015).  It's a simplified strategy game with 2D pixel art where you play as the king ( or queen ).  I guess I am on a roll with atmospheric games that are cryptic and have some issues/bugs.  I enjoyed this one though and am just going through the achievements now ( they are pretty terrible tbh ). 

I did encounter a somewhat game-breaking bug where my builders refused to build.  The first time it happened, they stopped midway through building an outpost/boundary and so my knights ( the most expensive units in the game ), archers, and other builders all got demolished.  A couple of builders also noped out on another run, but it was in a much less crucial spot and so I was finally able to win in spite of that.

It's free on Steam though.  It is fairly short ( 2-3 hours once you know what you're doing ) so the bugs don't have a huge effect ( I did read about someone getting 20+ hours in one of the sequels and one of the bugs happening ).  It's definitely stronger earlier on when you're having fun figuring things out, but I will likely check out the sequels when a sale pops up.

MMX 100: Closed-Back Gaming Headset | beyerdynamic

MMX 300: Premium gaming headset | beyerdynamic

I don't have either of these, but I do have the Beyerdynamic DT-990s ( just headphones, no mic, the ones linked have mics tho ) and they're much better than any gaming headset I've used (granted, with the 990s you need a DAC/Amp which is another $100 or so on top of the $100+ for the headphones ) and so I would imagine those should be good.  Build quality is very solid as well as I've had these for 2 years now and they're still holding up.  Not to sound like a salesman for them, but it looks like they're having a sale lol and the MMX100s are $99 w/ free shipping.

Chakan: The Forever Man.  I think people probably play this for like 5 minutes and then quit, but it's a solid game once you learn the moves and have an idea of what you're doing.  There are still some incredibly frustrating and broken parts later on ( mainly the dragonfly and lava levels ), but I like the atmosphere and there are moments where everything kind of clicks.  Definitely worth a 2nd look if you've ever been interested in it ( I would also recommend to start with practice mode so you can learn what the alchemy flasks do ).

20 hours ago, Gloves said:

A really beautiful looking game (and series) that I can't seem to enjoy no matter how hard I try. 

Same.  I need to try to play through it again though.  I just find SOTN, Hollow Knight, and the other games it inspired a lot more interesting/enjoyable due to the inclusion of unique items and whatnot which actually add some variety or change the gameplay up versus finding missile expansion #50.

I have seen some differently textured cases like that ( legit I mean ).  Maybe the tab was removed like a soda/beer can tab, just moved it back and forth till the plastic wore down, I've seen a lot of these exactly the same as well.  I tried to track down my copy of Altered Beast to compare, but I couldn't find it ( I did find some extra copies of stuff I didn't know I had tho).