Krunch

This is actually not too bad a game I just fired it up and haven't looked in the thread much. It's basic but I like the feel of it during a match, messier than the familiar wrestling engine but more freedom of control

Round 2 - 35,434

Indeed Battletoads was an odd case since it's been played many times before. Other games the rulesets are what they are especially for games played for the first time in contest history (like these famicom ports, World Games was another - sometimes it's gonna fall flat but that's the only way to play the obscure games. Those are some of my favorites too.) it either works or it dont. The rulesets are mindfucks sometimes. Personally I dig that, but either way matched with the context of playing the game it becomes easier and that's when you can go deep on a game. (Sometimes it surprises me. I never thought I'd call Rollergames one of my favorite NES games but I was simply introduced with a well-edited ruleset. Or Conan: one of my dream contest games precisely because I don't understand it!!!). Anyway with the Battletoads it honestly was a major improvement and a necessary intervention on the ruleset, I thought it quite genius actually and it wasn't something that ever occured to me in earlier contests, I thought the Battletoads' ruleset would always stay bland. Without tinkering the rules usually are farthest progress at 999,999. Its seems like it's not bad but on the higher levels it's kinda weird cause then the metric for tiebreaking becomes scoring low, which would be kinda ok since some of the low score methods are more classically fun - but the prob is it kinda takes the focus back off the progress for the elite people who want to play the long game, whereas a guy like me who can't get to 999,999 is just playing for farthest screen on lower levels. Basically even though the NES has its roots in arcade it doesn't necessarily hold up to that style of competition, it's not the primary thing driving the game design. Sometimes its really hard to design around, but nevertheless the important determinant for a great ruleset seems to be that the limits and the incentives in the ruleset by which we are measuring the player's relative skill in competition should weigh the Metric that we believe makes a player great at a particular game.

Yes!!! I never heard this one. This epitomizes the Alberta collecting experience. So many shitholes, so many gems

Nice to see you around again. I'll try more speed but I won't lie I'm working with a handicap (playing on a laptop with keyboard inputs) so I wonder if it's gonna even do much for dexterity. I can get through the sun/dragons part pretty well with a decent arsenal. Buuut the real reason is I'm terrible at shmups especially this classic type. I really want to get this. I have a serious chance of missing my first participation point of the season here.

Hey everyone I've tried like 25 times now and im still not close to participation So

Haha that's my thing I flip Sculptors Cuts from the wild. I have found 3 in the wild including a CIB for $45. I seen another one once for $100 in a game store when it was more like $180 but didnt go for it (though I shouldve since I thought it was like 130). The other N64 CIB's I paid market rate or close to for. I've bought a few decent other rares from the wild, these are some of my best. Some are game stores but always undervalued and usually you gotta dig for it anyway. Kid Kleetz really nice Box and Inserts $35 Panic Restaurant with no back cover manual $5 Pro Sport Hockey and Jimmy Connors Tennis carts in a $3 for 10 Tecmo Cup Soccer, found box and cart separately for $3 each Metal Storm cart $7 Milennium Controller $40 Metal Warriors cart in a 10-game $40 lot sealed Daikatana $220 bag of 7 Game and Watches - $4 total Volleyball on two occasions once with Ninja Kid, Soccer CIB - $60 total, all same game store purchase on different price tags Chubby Cherub CIB - $60 Cowboy Kid CB $25 Lethal Weapon Game Boy $5 Maxi 15 cart (garage sale) $3, pawn shop once too for $15 Mega Man X2 goodwill $3 Mega Man X3 in a $120 game/console lot, solid roster of other games sealed Jimmy Houston's Bass fishing - game store $60 Hurricanes cart - $5 (sold it for $10 only a year later, d'oh! This one really surprised me when I later found out its value) Kid Klown, Godzilla 2 carts (rough) about $35 for the pair, game store same day as the tecmo cart Rockin Kats Complete goodwill $4 Chrono Trigger $10 (along with bunch of other stuff) Zombie Nation CIB - $60 trade/cash, hard to evaluate deal with game store. Got a Action 52 CIB and other undervalued IB's same day. I found another cart for $60 years later elsewhere Earthbound box no tray, $30 game store this one still baffles me Got EVO cart and box in 2 different random trades. Didn't really trade anything super great, just sellable stuff like consoles and good games. Now I just need a third trade for that damn manual!!!

I did like a few thousand better but it don’t change my ranking so no point in posting. Pretty cool game I wish I wouldn’t have slept on this one

You’re safe this week my dude, I just played for 5 min and put it up. I got a bunch of shit I gotta go and do so I’m pretty much done. Didn’t think this would be such a sleepy week

4250

Yeah that was the rub for me, all week I knew more time would end up being necessary to get it down but I never got down to it, I only played for like an hour, I’ve been playing switch and the Mario Party series a lot lately. Oddly I think I enjoy this game so much that the contest isn’t as necessary for me to really get into it so maybe that stalled my motivation?? Other games especially the obscure stuff I guess I put more into it compared to the quality if I like the game since I know that the context of the contest is what’s elevating the experience. some things that helped me were going right not left on level 1, it flips and changes some of the levels but not too drastically, and also just tried to upgrade speed and missiles (speed first cause then you get more pods total). Whirlpool level doesn’t come until level 7 on right path which was ultimately key to get 8th. One thing I didn’t pull off was hitting the jump that goes way over a huge chunk of landform on the laterish river level. Using force pods strategically could be a good way to boost lower level scores but I never really got up to that either. Awesome game and totally original and that’s what makes it shine along with other Rare games. Battletoads also has very original gameplay even if the IP is considered derivative. To anyone struggling with burnout, I’ve been there too and I’m really only ever focusing on get a good regular season score. I haven’t missed a contest yet this year… so I always get the +3 but sometimes it means not really putting in the full effort every time and picking your battles. Sometimes it sadly means that a game you really like or wanted to try doesn’t line up with the right week and you’ll have to half-ass it for the minimum points. (That was my story this week - I even suggested this game in the pre-season suggestions thread!) It sucks to not feel like it’s your all but for a regular season total score it’s still better to half-ass it and just keep taking the +3’s. sometimes you can sneak in top 8 while still not really trying and get a few more. It’s all a balancing act. The change over the years from top 5 to top 10 to top 8 with +3 minimum was a way to reduce the spread and boost steady participation as a counter approach to, basically, being able to put up deadly juggernaut scores.

If my count is right this puts me in 8th place. I still have time left but it’s a fairly big leap to do anything. Congrats on all the monster scores. The whirlpool levels are the thing giving me trouble everything else is mostly fine. I might try to start the level with 5 pods and see if using force through them works? This is such an amazing game though. Some games are hard to gain utmost appreciation for outside of the contest structure but Cobra Triangle is just purely good. I’d even call it the single most underrated NES game.

89,800

This is not a good week to start late. That’s all I know so far.

Yeah no kidding there’s that extra thing because it’s already hard to keep track of swings and keep it all together. It comes down to the fact that one second it could be a great run with all the numbers plugged in and then slip it’s all gone that quick. On a level with a prize bomb, maybe not so bad if you can reclaim it. On a filler level, that’s bad and worse is a filler level that’s difficult without the hammer cause that’s a good way to burn lives

To expand on the main point of how to get the hammer: Precisely it’s that to get the hammer from the prize bomb, you need to make it so that when you blow up the third bomb, the prize bomb, your total number of hammer swings plus the stage number is 1 number above any multiple of 8. (9, 17…) example: on stage 4, blow up the prize bomb as your third bomb to blow on your 5th swing (4 + 5) = 9 there are other rewards for different remainders after 8 such as a cow and Santa. Meaning even just blowing up the prize bombs third once you have the gold hammer, or while you’re looking to get it but might miss the number of swings and get a lesser item, its a strong point source either way. deafcode I’m doubly impressed by your score if you were routing anything based on hitting the basic wrench enemies with the gold hammer, or even just doing it, cause that’s not an easy hit to reliably pull off - you really have to get close to them. On my run and some others I had the hammer on and off, but was able to reclaim it along the way without having a totally set way to have to do it

Nothin else from me but added another pic I had with more of the screen of my previous score to my post. I’m always surprised the golden hammer isn’t more known early on in these contests

Holy! That’s a monster score!!!!

I couldn’t believe it lol I had thought it was closeish but didn’t really know. Question now is how much farther to try for. Mostly just high bars ahead. I’m appreciating this game more now. One of the nice things about it is no timer, fireball is pretty mild as a timer although as an enemy it can be an insta-loss at a really inopportune time. It’s not impossibly hard to reclaim the hammer along the way but it’s still easy to get pinched between the wrenches, even slipping off a bad girder on low point levels can be really damaging to a run.

New score posted and I’m sorry @mbd39 it really was not intentionally that close

Usually I’m happy to shun Wrecking Crew but this time I’m enjoying it a little bit. It seems like whenever we play this it’s dedication that wins it, solutions be damned.

174,800

58,980

3,240 this ones just a complete blank for me

I had a few runs and if I had to sum it up I'd say this game is vicious by the megaton & brutalitarian brickwall-meet-face lipsplitting savagery on super duper knucklebuster chumpmaker difficulty toast