John198X

If you're saying 5 stars (aka 1000 pts) in any 4 game/modes, I take that to mean that if you're really good at say, Fire, you could get 1000+ pts in Easy Modern, Hard Modern, Easy Classic, and Hard Classic, and that would trigger the first credit roll. If that's that case, then maybe I'll come back to it a little sooner. That's at least slightly less daunting.

One of Boku Dracula-kun / Kid Dracula on Famicom’s “boss fights” is a quiz show hosted by a chibi Statue of Liberty. The questions are mainly about geography and Konami games. I don’t think the Game Boy semi-sequel has an equivalent segment.

I have 1,000+ on Octopus only. Fire is my second best with that 998... so discouraging. Manhole definitely seems like the most daunting. Yeah, moving on, lol. Maybe some day...

Just now catching up. Ys III: Wanderers from Ys finished back on 3/31. Battle Clash on 8/20 using a Wii Remote as a light gun substitute. Only played the regular version of the game (after the ending you get a code for hard mode, just like Yoshi's Safari).

Parodius (Euro version) finished on 8/6. I had also been working on Game & Watch Gallery, but after failing at 998 points on "Fire," I think it's gotten the better of me for the near future...

Finally made it over to this forum. Here's what I have for Genesis in the last few months: 04/05/20 - Ys III: Wanderers from Ys My first exposure to Ys was renting the SNES version of this and finding it incomprehensible. I later came to really like 1 & 2 on the Wii Virtual Console, but I was still hesitant to give this one a try in 2020. Pleasant surprise - I really like this too. So much so, that I've played through it three times this year (TurboGrafx, Genesis, and SNES). While I find the TGX version's voice acting charming, the Genesis is still probably the best one. The SNES is pretty dire in comparison - the worst gameplay balance and by far the worst music (a true crime). 08/14/20 - Menacer Had this as kid. Played this time with a Wii Remote as a light gun substitute. What a low effort affair. You know you're not in for much when the title screen music track just continues playing throughout 5 of the 6 games (the ToeJam & Earl one actually has it's own music! ... lifted directly from TJ&E...). To back up the victory conditions, Rockman's Zone, Front Line, and Pest Control do seem to stop adding new elements after the first handful of rounds. I'd say Space Station Defender actually has 4 distinct, but similar, rounds that increase in difficulty (barely). But, for any normal retrogame player, you're very likely to see all there is to see on your first attempt at any of these first four minigames. Whack Ball definitely has 5 looping stages, which I actually found kinda difficult until I got lucky with powerups. Ready, Aim, Tomatoes is definitely the meatiest thing here. I'd agree it seems to start reusing stages somewhere in the low double digits (probably late teens or around 20). Difficult to tell without analyzing a video or something. 08/23/20 - ToeJam & Earl Also had as a kid. Played through a randomized game (default option). Pretty easy to get through now having actual context for rougelike elements. Very charming. 08/24/20 - Wonder Boy in Monster World The previous Monster World game, Dragon's Trap / Curse, is another favorite I got into through Wii VC. And this sequel is totally a step down... but it's still good.