Khromak

Conquest of the crystal palace is done. The hardest part of this game is the spike ceiling and the two final bosses. This time, I got the spike ceiling on the second try or so, first final boss on second try, and final boss on the first try. Because of this, it was WAY faster than any other clear I've ever done. It's a fun enough game, but some sections are kinda BS unless you know some tricks

Faria is done, surprisingly. I was going through the final dungeon trying to grind exp and gold, made it to the final boss so I figured I'd just go for it and I crushed him. Ended up winning with an inventory full of elixirs at level 18 with a scimitar (3rd best weapon) and a wood bow (worst bow). Guess the final boss is just a total joke. Frankly some of the regular enemies in the final dungeon did way more damage to me and gave me a lot more trouble

Funny you say that @BriGuy82 because I found the open space sections to be the more enjoyable part and found the side-scrolling shooter sections too difficult, which is why I gave up on trying to beat it. I am extremely bad at shooters though, so that might've played a role. Even with a save state at the beginning of each shooter stage, it still took me several attempts per level and I figured there was no chance I was going to string together all 8 of them in a row, since I could barely do 1 in a row on a good day lol. The hardest part for me was that sometimes enemies come from the front, sometimes the back. Sometimes you can hide in the floor and avoid all the enemies, sometimes that's a death sentence. Random parts of the ceiling drop on you and you have to remember where, and sometimes you have to pick a path (up or down) and I would often slam into the ground because I'm going too fast/too slow. To me it felt like 8 highly choreographed dances in a row where if you mess up you die. The free-roaming space sections were all quite easy and I think I 1-shot all of them first try after getting the mechanics down, they were a nice relaxing change of pace between each of the highly stressful side-scrolling sections where I was sweating bullets. This is all from memory, I haven't touched the game in a year or two.

The 100k one was glossy sticker, which is second print run, matte sticker is "first" print run. This stuff is all hazy and there are lots of other factors people look at, but that's the 10,000 foot view AFAIK.

second run, TBF...

All this talk of people who gambled with graded games is irrelevant IMO. Sure, any investment is a gamble and people know that when they get in. That doesn't change the fact that people who are directly profiting off increased prices were coordinating a fake sale as a promotion for the market. Meanwhile the same group of people has control over which games can get graded, what grade they get, how fast they get graded. Companies who make more money from higher value games (WATA) shouldn't be involved in determining the prices of games (giving interviews, going on TV) and they sure as shit shouldn't be selling their own graded games. Oh, what's that? There are 200 SMB in the warehouse waiting to be graded? Shit I'd better sell mine at the next HA event, let's put those SMB on ice until mine sells. Oh BTW bud can you make sure that's a 9.8 A++? The boss just went on TV and said this is super rare and worth a million, gotta strike while the iron's hot.

There was a manufactured sealed video game bubble. WATA & HA conspired to raise prices so they could make more money from grading services (pricing based on value of the game) and auction services (commissions based on sales). The most damning and recent evidence of this came out during a court case involving some sealed game owners suing WATA for expediting the grading of the games of their employees while giving slow service to their customers. During the deposition it came out that the 100k SMB1 was "sold" by a board member/investor of WATA to a bunch of other board members/directors/advisors of WATA/HA. The game never changed ownership because the original owner was also one of the buyers, and it seems like the whole sale was done intentionally to increase the perceived value of sealed video games. The WATA owner also went on TV, pretended to not know the owner of the game and said it was worth 1m dollars now. WATA employees were "forbidden" from selling their WATA-graded games, but their employees have done so and faced no repercussions. Their lead grader sold some games, one of their chief advisors sold a bunch of games, etc. Standard fake sales, grading company staff talking about how prices are going to the moon while also making more money by charging fees based on those inflated values. Questionable ethics all around and lots of coordination/collusion. Hiding the connections between the buyers/sellers, hiding the connections between the graders/sellers. Basically trying to avoid people recognizing all the conflicts of interest.

I started up a game of Faria, I'll probably work through that this week.

I'm not playing Gauntlet anymore, someone else can take that trash.

Yeah thanks, I have all the stat upgrades, 10 keys, 10 bombs, and a decent amount of EXP.

I've spent about 8 hours working on Gauntlet, probably 6 of which have been on the 79-100 section. During this process I broke one of my NES (probably slamming the reset button too hard). Fuck this game. I'll probably get it eventually, but that last section is such utter bullshit I can't possibly put it into words.

Couldn't find this guide on Gamefaqs, do you have a link? I skimmed through the only (AFAIK) NES guide on the site and couldn't find any details of this (which team/pitcher to use, which pitch to use).

Rainbow island is done again, really quite fun but some of the movement mechanics can get a bit frustrating at times and the final level is pretty tough.

Just finished Golgo 13 on my second attempt. God damn that last boss is an asshole. I watched a video of someone doing it on YouTube and they seemed to kill everything in about half as many shots as it took for me. Maybe my aim was slightly off or I wasn't timing it right, but it was stressful as hell and took me probably 10 tries. Every time I died I was expecting it to say end. Not gonna lie, if I game overed I was ready to give up on this one.

Been playing through Golgo 13 today, just got to the final mission, got through the water level and died in the base. Then I got hit a couple times in the water section so I figured I'd just kill myself to get my health back to full. Lo' and behold, there are limited continues. Wish I'd known, I might've been more careful. After continuing 20+ times, I figured there were infinite continues. NOPE! 52 continues. What a load of shit. I'll probably jump back into it after I've had time to cool down again. It's a fun (enough) game, but damn does that burn my ass. Spent HOURS getting through this game only to be sent straight back to the beginning.

Battle of Olympus is done, I think my second time ever beating it? This time I got all the extra items which I don't seem to remember getting last time, especially the fire shield. Seemed pretty useless though to be honest, I think I only blocked a couple fireballs at most with it the whole game.

This sounds like having a second delusion simultaneously. Do you have any concept of how difficult it would be to stalk someone, even within a single city? If you're talking across multiple counties, in multiple states, and into another country, that's totally unreasonably difficult, especially for an individual, and super especially for months on end. Ultra especially if this guy's a felon and doesn't have a job. Where's he getting the money, while not working, to stay in hotels in strange cities for months on end, while traveling across the country, into other countries? IDK, it doesn't make any sense to me whatsoever, the logistics are just a complete nightmare. I'm with the rest of the group here, nobody is capable of self-diagnosis, especially with something this serious. Your past experience being a caregiver is meaningless, sorry. Hairstylists don't cut their own hair, surgeons don't do surgery on themselves, lawyers don't represent themselves, and psychologists don't diagnose themselves with mental health disorders. Not good ones, anyway. because it doesn't work.

According to the requirements document: Beat the game on a single credit to get the ending screen There are 50ish levels IIRC, you can pick any level you want to start on, and when you beat it to moves to the next one in the series. I played through the levels one at a time, "continuing" as I lost all my lives, and when I finished the last level it just kicked me back to the menu or started over at level 1, IDR which. If you want to actually get the ending, you need to do the whole thing without running out of lives. You get 1 life per level you complete IIRC, and it might escalate if you do multiple levels in a row and/or there might be points-based lives, but it's REALLY easy to lose a whole bunch of lives in a row on a single level and there are a massive amount of levels, including some really tricky ones. Completing the whole thing in 1CC is a real challenge. I attempted it last year a few times and got to like...level 10. It makes sense as the completion requirement for this contest though, since that's the only way to trigger the ending.

I must say between the games being completed lately and others being started by others, my "to do" list is getting awfully short now! I've got < 10 left now I think? I'll probably re-visit the thread's list again once this list is emptied and see what else I might be willing/able to try. At the very least, it's really exciting to be getting through so many games so early in the year, it's barely halfway through February! I'll be starting Battle of Olympus some time tomorrow, probably get a good ways through it since I don't have too much else going on.

Ultima quest of the avatar is done, and my cartridge is now filled with completed save files

StarTropics is done, I stand by my earlier statements, the controls are too stiff considering how difficult the game gets towards the end (alien levels). I was able to cobble together a win, but it didn't feel like I earned it through mastery of the game, like other action games. I'd say it's like a 6-7/10 for me. Not much desire to go back

I'm about halfway through Startropics now, though obviously the second half will be much tougher than the first half. Thus far: very meh. Graphics, sound, atmosphere, etc are all great, but the gameplay is trolly and annoying at best. Trying to play an action combat game with what feel like RPG controls is really awkward and leads to a lot of cheap hits IMO. Dreading the end game when it truly gets tough

Battletoads & double dragon is complete, for the first time by me. It took some practice on the last couple stages but honestly I think I lost most of my lives on the rope stage. This game is quite a bit easier and more forgiving than battletoads, in my opinion. Still tough and certain sections feel like total BS until you figure them out, but once you know a few tricks, it's not bad at all Edit: oh also this game is WAY more focused on combat and has very little twitch reaction/memorization. If you're into the beat-em-up parts of Battletoads but didn't care for Volkmire/Turbo Tunnel, or the precision platforming & timing of a lot of those stages, this one will be much more your style. It's VERY different from the original, definitely more of a mashup of DD & Battletoads than a straight sequel.

I've beaten all of these before, except StarTropics. A lot of people rave about it so it's been on my radar for a while but I've never gotten around to it. I've done Little Ninja Bros once a few years ago, but it was all 2-player. I'm not sure how much that affects the balance of the game, but I remember some of the bosses being brutal with 2 players, hopefully they give them half the health/damage when you're single player, oof. Let me know whatever you pick and I'll take it/them off my list so we don't duplicate efforts on some of these longer games. Edit: I've also never beaten BT&DD.

It's on my list of potential games to play this year, but I haven't wanted to commit to 30+ hours for 7 points so I say go for it lol. Speaking of side projects, I've been thinking of taking on Athena, but it seems like you need to do it all in one play session, right? It seems like "Continue" only works if the system remained powered on. That in mind, I've been thinking of leaving that for a weekend day where I have a really long time to play at once, so I can get through the whole thing without interruption. In the mean time I'll probably start practicing Battletoads & DD, or start a game of Faria, Battle of Olympus, Startropics, or Little Ninja Bros. Any opinions?