Khromak

Slay the Spire is insane, one of my favorite modern games. I've put hundreds of hours into it, on both Steam and Switch. I've gotten all the achievements on Steam and I'm working on getting the last few on Switch now. It's a ton of fun, there are tons of builds, lots of interesting mechanics, and each run feels quite different. The difficulty of adding Ascension levels really ramps it up and every decision becomes important. I'm nowhere near as good as people who play it a lot and frankly I rush through things too fast most of the time TBH, but it's crazy how deep you can get into it if you really know what you're doing. I love how all the different characters play totally differently, but there are some common strategies. It's such an incredible game, I can't get enough of it. It's one of a few games on Switch I've played a significant amount of and one I pretty much ALWAYS take with me when I bring my Switch some place.

I don't have a lot of guests and when I did they didn't really see my collection (it's in a somewhat tucked away area). Unless someone saw the arcade games and wandered over this way, they wouldn't normally have a reason to come by my game room. However, I have definitely experienced that conversation, when I'm telling someone (at work, or otherwise) about something I'm excited to have bought, or looking to buy, or whatever. Often times the price will come up and there's an awkward conversation about why I spent all this money on a video game when it's a down payment on a car. It's not necessarily a judgment conversation, but it's definitely a shock to most people. I know a lot of people on here tend to be thriftier and have hard limits of not spending over $100/game or whatever, but I've spent a fairly significant chunk of change on a few of the games I have and whenever I share that with friends/family/co-workers there's always some sticker shock of what I could've otherwise spent that money on.

I beat it last year for the first time ever. It's not a good game but the infinite continues means you can practice each section a bunch of times until you get it. The jank is bad but you somewhat get used to it after a while. It's definitely a memorization type of game. Didn't enjoy my time with it though

Started up a quest in DW3; this time, let's see if Goof-offs who transform into another class still goof off.

Bad dudes is done, a first time clear for me, and I've gotta say, no false advertising in the game title or the voice samples, this game is bad. Very simple controls, bad animations and very simple enemies throughout. The music is boppin though, and I don't hate some of the graphics. Wouldn't recommend it, I can see why it's a low pointer. It's a little tough but with some practice not too bad. Some of the bosses are cheap as hell and I resorted to some cheesy tactics for the win. I ended up going no death through level 6, dying twice on him, and ending up at the final boss with 3 lives to spare

I think I left the game on and paused for a couple hours while I was distracted with something else, then went back and finished the last level or two. I was trying to finish it all in one sitting, but I had some scheduled thing or other to do IIRC. Not gonna lie, I was screaming at my TV for that one bat jump in world 7. Then I got to world 8 and the same damn jump was there...I had to look up a video of someone else doing it to get an idea of how to do it, it was brutal. Euphoric once you get it though!

Yeah it's a tough one for sure. I spent HOURS on the last couple worlds, there were a few levels in there that were brutal. At the end of the day with the fairly generous checkpoints and infinite continues, it's pretty close to save-state scumming, except you have to string more successes together at once rather than just doing each thing once(ish). Glad you enjoyed it, I agree with your caveman review.

Some of those must be routinely beaten by people who have played them a bunch. I wouldn't call Bayou Billy or Ghosts 'N Goblins easy >.>; Still plenty of easy stuff on the list though, I've got a list as long as my arm, just not enough time to beat them all. After work today I'll try to knock something out, but I'm trying to have more of a focus on "new to me" games this year, which will probably slow things down.

Beat Krusty's Fun House again! This time I think I only used one, maybe two continues. I chose to look up the solution to the stairs puzzle with the pushing blocks because i was low on lives, but otherwise went totally by memory

I think there may be a language barrier here but the message was: You've been working on this game for 4 years already, at some point you have to release the game. It will never be perfect and you could work on it for the rest of your life and still have new features you want to add, bugs you want to fix, or balance changes you want to make. Just release something. Don't let "perfect" become the enemy of "great", as the phrase goes. That's not necessarily my opinion, though I find myself agreeing with the sentiment, but I wanted to hopefully help clarify the statement. I don't think people are that stressed about how many or what types of updates they get from you, most people (especially in this community) want the physical thing produced so they can play it.

No kids, 3 nieces. Two of them live 12 hours away, but one is reasonably close! I don't spend enough time with her to indoctrinate her into the NES lifestyle though

Hmmm IDK what glitches you're referring to but I don't *think* I used any, at least not that I'm aware of. It's definitely not unplayable solo. Outside of the fact that you lose 1 character per level to the shitty AI, it's perfectly functional after that. The lack of i-frames, knockback, and enemy respawns can get annoying, but they're all pretty manageable with some experience and careful play. I can typically knock out a win in 2-3 hours or < 10 tries. It's not too bad, just gotta use the right characters for each stage, be careful and take it slow.

I just finished Kirby's adventure, a game I'd never played for more than a half hour previously. Gotta say, I was pretty disappointed. It looks great, sounds great, love the animations and I love the IDEA of the game, but the controls were frustrating throughout, vanilla Kirby sucks, and a lot of the powers felt sluggish or downright useless. It's not an awful game, especially not by nes standards, but I was expecting much better

I've been meaning to have a friend play it with me, but I don't have a lot of local friends who are into retro games. Maybe none.

The immortal is finished once again. As always, the final boss and the barrel swimming sections were the worst and took many, many tries. This year I didn't look at any videos or guides and played the whole thing from memory as a challenge to myself, I did alright

X-Men is beaten for another year. Always frustrating, but still has its fun parts. It's mostly enjoyable for me at this point, except when I get stuck in a corner or trapped by a magnet and die before I can control my character...

Beat captain planet, again. This has been a staple game for me every year for the contest. It's actually pretty fun once you learn all the tricks, though the controls can be a bit annoying at times. I aced most of the bosses this time around, where sometimes they've given me trouble in the past. Really creative game, give it a try (maybe with a guide) if you haven't already

Funny you guys mention it about Orb-3D, I've really enjoyed that game and played through it 2 or 3 times. There are some levels which are quite difficult and it can get frustrating, but I like it. I wouldn't say it's my favorite game ever, but definitely not a one-and-done, never play it again type.

Just finished adventure island 3, which of course is another new clear for me. I think it's probably my favorite of the three and the easiest (coincidence). It's pretty forgiving and, as is custom with this series, the final world is the real pita

Yeah I agree the mechanics of it are much more frustrating, but I found the controls in AI2 to be much more manageable and there were FAR fewer jumps that were pixel perfect. They were much more generous with the weapons. In the original AI there are a bunch of levels with no weapons at all and you have to make it through the whole thing by jumping between every single enemy. They're surprisingly different from each other, I have a hard time saying definitive things one way or the other, but I definitely feel like AI2 feels like it has more deliberate design where the original is more of like being beaten over the head with the difficulty stick. They're both pretty fun though, and they give that Ninja Gaiden style feeling of mastery when you get good at them. I'm sure if I knew where more of the secrets were, I'd have a much easier time with them too.

Adventure island 2 is done, another first time clear for me. Hard to tell which of these two was tougher... I'm inclined to say the first one, but I spent a very long time on the last world of this one. There weren't any specific jumps that were harder, but the levels felt longer and with no checkpoints you have to do the whole thing in one shot. The controls are WAY different between the two. I felt I had more control in this one and could adjust in mid air a lot more, which was nice. Playing them back to back is a trip though, definitely took some getting used to. Oh, and for this one I did it mostly blind, except on the last world I looked up which eggs to pick to get to which levels, because I was just picking randomly and it was sending me all over the world, sometimes to 6 or more levels before getting to the boss, which was frustrating.

Just finished adventure island, a new first time clear for me. It's a good game, but I sometimes wished they hadn't made some of the spider jumps so trolly. Very difficult, but nowhere near the hardest I've beaten thus far

Hey, I have a tattoo from this game! I voted 9/10, it's an excellent game and anyone with even a passing interest in platformers absolutely must play it, can't recommend it enough. Love the art style, music, story, characters, it's just a beautiful game. The difficult is also, as others said, right there. It's easy enough to clear if you just want to say you beat it, but also punishingly difficult if you want a challenge. The secrets are great and well-hidden but mostly intuitive. I haven't gotten close to completing all the achievements, which I blame on the terrible d-pad on the Switch Pro controller and not my lack of skills.

Less than 5 minutes ago (almost the exact same time) I just did the same thing with Adventure Island. Heartbreaking. I was on 7-3.

Just beat battletoads. This year it took me like 7 tries to get through, so I'm definitely very rusty. Got to the dark queen with all my continues and then proceeded to waste them all practicing how to beat her... thankfully I didn't game over, I would've... been very upset