Floating Platforms

Brain Drain is done

I finished the game on Genius and then...

Got the hall of fame on Genius in Brain Race (which only took one try and is much more forgiving than the main mode)

What an awful puzzle game this turned out to be. The basic premise is fine. You have a pattern in the upper left corner that you're trying to match and you move the cursor around to rotate 4 tiles at a time to try to match it. That seems engaging enough for a while. Then around the level 100 mark (of 250 levels), they throw the BS at you. The levels now are plagued with various gimmicks to make things harder. Maybe the pieces will rotate on their own, or you'll be blocked from seeing parts of the screen, or the game will move your cursor, or it will freeze it in place, or invert your controls. Then even later, it applies two of those gimmicks at a time. Very quickly, it stops being a puzzle game. Now you're fighting the game itself, wrestling for control and there simply will be unwinnable situations. Other BS from the game: There are 3 difficulties, rookie (levels 1-50), student (31-150), and genius (51-250). That means that if you don't know any better (and I didn't for a long time), beating student and then going to genius would mean you are redoing 100 levels. Why? Passwords come every 20 levels in Genius, but bonus games where you earn either level skips or an extra live (you only get 3 before needing to start over at that batch of 20) appear every 15. All of this garbage means that the developers had no faith in their game. Artificial padding from lives and hard to reach continues paired with frustrating, nasty gimmicks that take away the actual puzzle solving aspect means you made a terrible game. It doesn't take a genius to see that.

Now, since this was my "break" from bowling, I'm going to roll some balls for a while again. When I get sick of that, I have Hunchback of Notre Dame waiting.

Tunic is done.

I'll put my long review in a spoiler tag so I can rave and/or rant about everything, but the TL:DR of it is: A really great game that felt like two separate games that should have been integrated more.

I think I'm going to knock out one or two shorter games before diving back into Danganronpa 3 & AC: Valhalla

11 hours ago, Sumez said:

Have you started taking notes yet? I really recommend getting pen and paper out for anything that looks suspicious

So, I beat the story last night

but I didn't end up taking notes for anything for that. I did get stuck a few times, but nothing that wasn't solved by scouring the manual over and over. The bigger problem I had was navigating the world. For whatever reason, I just never got the hang of what doors and paths went where. I lost so much time going across the whole map just to learn I was in the wrong spot. I'm not sure if any amount of notes would have helped my brain deal with that.  I honestly don't know why it was such a big issue either as my in-game map senses are usually solid and it's not like the overworld is tricky in that way.

I was using a txt file for some of the optional secrets and made a MS paint like thing for a different thing. But I can happily say that I beat the game without looking things up, but after that was done, I did start going online so I could get all the secrets and I can easily say that there's a bunch that I would have never figured out.  I just have a couple more trophies to get before the platinum is unlocked so in a day or two I'll be totally done.

On 5/3/2024 at 2:07 PM, Reed Rothchild said:

Hard to say.  Depends on your brain.

Man, with this game, my brain always feels like it's failing me. Amazing how you can feel temporarily smart when you figure something out only to learn it opens a single room and not the next area.

Kirby's Triple Deluxe is done

I've completed the story, Dedede's Tour (which is just the game again as him, but with some warps and fewer collectibles), I did all the Kirby Fighters stuff on easy (mini smash bros gauntlets) and I did the 3 courses on drum dash, but I play most 3DS stuff with sound off so I didn't get all gold to unlock the 4th course. I also didn't touch Arena which is the boss rush as I was able to mostly brute force most of them and didn't feel like taking time to learn strategies to deal with several in a row.  I also was over 100 keychains short of the full set, so that 93% was going to take a long time to get up to 100% even with those other modes done. Replaying levels to farm keychains (that could be duplicates) sounds like too much of a slog.

Maybe I'd go back in the future, because the game is fun.  Obviously you don't expect too much challenge from Kirby games, but this one is put together well and that final boss gauntlet was tougher than expected. Otherwise, it was mostly a breeze.  There was some thinking and puzzle solving needed in order to get some of those sun stones or keychains and I can imagine littler kids might have a tough time with those parts. Either way, it kept my adult brain engaged.

I'm also working on Tunic right now and I'm maybe halfway done...????

Here's where I'm at: 

On 4/29/2024 at 8:44 PM, koifish said:

You're around the point where I gave up. Hard to believe the game still has 100 more levels to clear after that.

So, I managed to get through that block and things got surprisingly easier.  I got through two more chunks within a couple hours so I'm on 191 now. If it stays this easy, I can probably get it done early next week

22 hours ago, Sumez said:

Depends on your definition I guess? No intentions of being smug. I found your stance interesting because obviously I struggle to see any reason to go for "all trophies" specifically in any game, so I was wondering what separates those cases from this one, which seems to be a pretty typical example from my perspective

Thanks for clarifying. It can be really hard to know through text, especially when we're dealing with a weirdly divisive topic like trophies and achievements....

Still, I might not be the best person to answer what specific games are good examples of platinums, but I can say that there's a ton of variety in how games, developers and series will handle those requirements.  It's easier to outline what makes a bad platinum - online multiplayer requirements (usually too difficult and will be impossible later on), games that require multiple paythroughs (the biggest drawback to Yakuza), or ones that require a lot of luck or hyper-specific things to line up just right (too many missable trophies).

In my opinion, a good platinum will entice you to push yourself a little harder or maybe spend a little time in extra modes that you normally wouldn't touch if trophies didn't exist. Maybe the trophies are largely story based, but there are a couple that ask you to think about combat in a slightly different way, use a different weapon type for a bit, or interact with the world in a unique manner.  Of course there are also super easy ones like the newer Spider-Man games where it'll come naturally if you're searching out all the collectibles anyway.

I believe that you're an advocate of people playing Metroid enough to get yourself into a groove where you can bounce from one power up to another and optimize the run. To be honest, that doesn't sound all that enjoyable to me on the surface. However, if that's all that stood between me and a platinum, I would be more inclined to consider it (and maybe really enjoy that experience).  Maybe a close comparison I could make to that hypothetical scenario is Bioshock. That requires you to play on the hardest difficulty without using checkpoints (save as much as you want). It was a very difficult experience at first, but I'm really happy that this is how I ended up experiencing the game.

Is that approach silly to a lot of people? Sure. And I get it. But it's still fun to see those 100%s next to the game titles, especially if it doesn't require all that much extra effort.

The Yakuza series, on the other hand, are not particularly difficult platinums (although there are some parts that are rough). They do not respect the player's time at all and that's why I wouldn't recommend it to most. For Kiwami, there was a ton of time spent grinding colliseum fights to farm money to buy stuff to check off the list. Zero didn't have any farming or grinding, but there was so much content that was generally time consuming (and then Legend difficulty was annoying since nothing carried over from that 100% hunt). So, it makes total sense that Reed said he stopped at 60%. It's still really easy to see basically all the worthwhile content that way. Leave the 100% for the compulsive idiots like me because I don't mind the occasional slog or mindless Mahjong session while I watch YouTube or Twitch and then I get the added "benefit" of getting the platinum in a series I really enjoy.

So, long winded response that actually probably doesn't truly answer your question, but yeah.

11 hours ago, Sumez said:

I'd be really curious to hear of cases where there is 

Is this is a smug/flippant response or a serious question? I know the trophy hunting debate has occurred a bunch of times on this site and I'm not really interested in starting that back up

I have slayed the beast. The Yakuza 0 platinum trophy is mine!

Would I recommend going for the platinum trophy? No, there's honestly no real reason to. I personally usually like to go for platinums if my gaming skill level will allow me to and if there's no multiplayer (and I usually prefer to avoid anything with a NG+ as part of the plat). For whatever reason, I had it in my head that I wanted to go for platinum on all of the Yakuza games. Kiwami was a rough experience in a couple places like certain mini game challenges and the climax battles. This was rough mostly from the time commitment it required and that the second playthrough on Legend is a completely fresh start (there's no skill/item carryover). That made some of the situations quite difficult, but thankfully I only had to replay a couple sections once or twice. For those that are curious, I'm not sure of my exact time, but the Legend playthrough was 13 hours and the main 100% run was probably 120? So 140-ish hours total perhaps.

Storywise, I loved it and I'm glad I played this after Kiwami so that I understood a lot of references and what they were building to. I might have gotten even more out of it if I went further in the series first, but I also might have forgotten too much.  I will say that Majima's ending was a bit unsatisfying because I loved the characterization of him throughout this.  Gameplay, there's obviously a ton of variety to be had and the silliness of the sidestories and minigame content strangely complements the overtly serious main story.  I loved the presentation of the cutscenes but I don't know why they decided to have some with in-engine graphics and text, other parts in fully rendered cutscenes with voices and this third version that had subtle character movements and voiceover. Either way, I was invested until the second playthrough where you cannot skip nearly as much as you should be able to.

I'm definitely looking forward to diving into Kiwami 2 later this year but I want to wait 2-3 months and get a couple more games done like Tunic, Danganronpa V3, AC: Valhalla (oh god...I'll have to remember how to play this) and who knows what else.

Brain Drain is one of the more frustrating games I've ever played.  Few games so far have legitimately made me rage but this is now one of them.  I'm in the 130-150 stretch and what pushed me over the edge was this one level where the game will not only freeze your cursor for a couple seconds, but will also swap pieces randomly on you. So you can put something in its proper place and while you're waiting for the game to let you move again, it is swapping things once or twice and negating what you just did or making it worse. Absolutely infuriating. This game stopped being a puzzle game about 50 levels ago when it introduced these gimmicks. I'm no longer solving rotating puzzles, I am now actively fighting against the game.

I miss bowling, but I can't go back to it yet because of my challenge numbering system and the amount of progress I've made on saved videos. I need to finish this dumpster fire out first before bowling can lull me to sleep again.

Arrgh, I really need to make Tunic my next game so I can go back and read all these comments.

Getting closer in Yakuza Zero. Just 8 more climax battles and the Legend difficulty run. Then I stumble around as that fox or whatever the character in Tunic is.

3 hours ago, koifish said:

IIRC the different levels determine where you start in the sequence. Pretty sure genius starts after 50, but you go until 250; Student IIRC ends earlier than that. And yes, Brain Drain IS indeed BS.

Okay, that's what I thought. I'll continue with just Genius and then if my chat thinks I should also finish up Student, then I will, but it sounds like I'll see all the content through Genius.  The game was fun for a bit, but then it took the puzzle aspect away from the puzzle game with all the gimmicky crap. Now it's me fighting the game rather than trying to solve a puzzle. Fun.

3 hours ago, koifish said:

Qix is humbling me; 500k might be the toughest challenge I've yet attempted for a GB contest. It really shows me how good this game is, that you can do so many different things in it and challenge it in so many ways. I really really really hate the qix though, that little string bastard is a PITA!!!!

Qix was a great time but yeah, one of my longest games so far. I wish I could offer tips, but other than going for riskier moves in the early levels to max points with 99%s, I don't know if there's much to say. Good luck!

Yakuza Zero is closer to being done. Staying up late on a Friday night, I've now finished the completion list and beat the other Amon guy. Now all that's left is to do the Climax Battles and then go through the game on Legend difficulty. It will still take some time but nothing seems too daunting at this point.

I have a question about Brain Drain for anyone who's gotten pretty far or beaten it.

Last night, I beat Rookie mode. Then I went to Student and it started me on level 20. I got to level 110 and was ready to stop for the night since this game is BS.  However, I decided to try Genius to see how obnoxious it would be and it started me on level 50.

I'm pretty sure that level 50 through 70 (the first password) were the same as Student. So, do I really need to play Student at all? Does the game really have you backtracking for no good reason? Also, does anyone know how many levels in Student? I thought it would stop at 100. My guess now is 150, but that would mean Genius forces you to play 100 levels again if you're doing them all.

Adventure Island II: Aliens in Paradise is done!

This felt like more of the same in many ways. There's no new power ups (except for the invincibility crystals, which I tried once and didn't work against a boulder so I forgot about them), the level designs are very similar with the same graphics. The levels are short and the dinosaurs you can find are the same (I think - maybe there's one more new one?). Still, I enjoyed this a bit more than the first.  I really liked that certain levels had secrets that let you go a shorter, alternate path. I used that most of the time, but in a couple instances, I found those levels to be harder and I decided to take the long way around. Regardless, after you beat the boss, all of the unplayed levels from the other path get unlocked. Great idea. It's also good that you can backtrack to other worlds at anytime. It's sad that it's basically necessary as many of the later worlds give you no eggs or weapons at all, so you have to go back and farm powerups and weapon drops from secret rooms over and over to build up the ammo.  A couple of the bosses took me several tries to learn, but none were overwhelmingly difficult.

I'm not sure if I'm going to try World Bowling a bit more or jump into Brain Drain.

11 hours ago, koifish said:

Good luck with Brain Drain, that game is a killer.

As long as it's not another 50+ hour game, I'll be happy! Right now I'm worried that World Bowling will end in the 100 hr range

World Bowling has bested me another week. I'm going to try to get some emulation practice in and test theories. I feel like I'm getting better, but I can still barely break 200 on level 5 France if I'm lucky (need 240 to move on). I have no idea what's going on in that level that's so different. I feel like the strike zone is totally randomized, or there's a different pattern I haven't encountered or???? I need to save state and try things in order to properly learn.

Anyway, Monday I'll jump on Adventure Island 2 then start Brain Drain.

Next two to add to my soft dibs - Ninja Boy & Madden 95

I have the day off from work and decided to finally knock out the story mode of Yakuza Zero, so that first step is done.

Currently I'm at 96 hours and my completion list is a beefy 84.49%.  I spent a large chunk of time going around and taking care of a lot of things so most of what's left is the gambling and Mahjong lists. I also need to win money on various other mini games and do about 40 more coliseum battles.  Oh and get all the weapons and gear. And beat up a bunch more people with Majima. And the final substory battles. And maybe a cash grind to buy the remaining abilities. And.....

Right now I'm feeling like there's a good chance I can get this platinum by the end of April if I don't get too stuck on anything specific.

Finished up Frogger as it was a viewer vote backlog, then thought I'd try Super Off Road and was surprised to finish that off quickly.

There's the 99 nitro

Here's the top of the points standings after that race. It was a close call. I actually was on my last continue when I eked it out.  This is an absolutely terrible port of a great game. The frame rate chugs like hardly anything I've seen. The turning is rough and unresponsive, which is a problem when that's the core mechanic of the game. There's a lot of collision physics with you and the cars which made using turbo less than ideal as I usually ended up pushing them forward with me. The tracks had really strange reaction spots too. Some points would pull me upwards, others off to the side. Other parts acted like a brick wall and I didn't know why. I never fully felt comfortable playing it, but at least it was easy enough to beat on my first try despite all its flaws.

Most likely I'll be going back to World Bowling on Monday and won't have a chance to start Adventure Island II until my next break from that.

The sad thing about sports games is that the bad ones are usually really, really bad. Worst on the system bad. Many of the good ones get lost in the shuffle and/or can't compete against wholly unique games in other genres. The ones that are remembered fondly tend to be games that have a gimmick like NBA Jam or NFL Blitz or Baseball Simulator 1.000.

That's why it was strange to me that we never got games for more of those ESPN 2 competitions. I would have loved to try a lumberjack competition game or a strongman game (where you have to roll tires and pull a bus. Anyone remember Magnus Ver Magnusson?). I know they would be incredibly similar to any other track & field or Olympics game but if you make it a little more arcade-y, the unusual subject matter might have peaked some curiosity.

I'm on a break from World Bowling and beat TMNT 2 for my personal list and also trying to get through Frogger. After that, I can contribute new stuff again. Here's a quick update on my soft dibs of what's coming up:

Super Off Road
Adventure Island II: Aliens in Paradise
Brain Drain
Hunchback of Notre Dame, The

I think I will probably get through Super Off Road this week. If I'm really lucky, I might also get Adventure Island 2 done as well but that might have to wait for my next bowling break

20 hours ago, Splain said:

So I'll keep playing but I'm definitely gonna take breaks (heh) with other games in the meantime.

My experience with it was interesting. I noticed some things that I'll keep in spoiler tag in case you don't want hints just yet, but they might help the process go faster?

Good luck with Championship Pool.  I save stated my way through a couple tournaments a few years back and it was...interesting.  Still not sure how to fully tackle that one and definitely don't want to try it the same year I'm slogging through Bowling.

Speaking of, last night was wild. Most of the time, I couldn't get past the second round. I probably made it to Canada (round 4 of 6) twice? in the 3.5 hrs I played.  But on the flipside, I got a new score PB of 278 from 11 strikes - nearly perfect. I had another near perfect game later for a score of 277 and tied my previous high of 268.

So, why can't I beat this? Well, because there seems to be a lot of chance involved and I cannot figure out how to manipulate things.  When I'm doing well, it's from trying to hit the same strike zone range.  However, that doesn't always work. Sometimes, the range is very forgiving and other times it feels super specific. Sometimes, I think it's constantly shifting or moving along the power meter.  So it's not like I can hit the first level and perform really well each time because the strike zone is different every time, and likely has one of multiple different attributes tied to it. Then, multiply that by 6 with growing point requirements and different reactions for the different countries (Canada is absolutely brutal and one mistake is a run killer).  That's where the luck comes in.

It sucks, because anything beyond the first ball has no randomization at all. I know how to pick up 7-10 splits easily and it will never fail if I hit my spot, but if you bowl the initial ball in the exact same spot twice in a row, there's a high chance it does something different. After 40+ hours in trying I have not found one specific location that will always work for a strike on any of the levels.

My current theory is that with each attempt, the strike zone difficulties and locations are randomized along the 6 courses. I'm thinking that if I get a more difficult loadout and can barely squeak by on the first two levels, that will hopefully mean that the remaining four stages will be more forgiving which is necessary for those high point requirements.

The game's not frustrating to play because of the controls, but I'm frustrated at myself that I cannot seem to learn anything new that will give me a better chance at winning. There's not enough feedback visually or auditory to help with adjustments (or maybe I'm not picking up on it).

Rant over...I'm trying one more night and then taking a break with the next games on my list (which are already done here): TMNT 2 & Frogger. I have Super Off-Road after that. Maybe I'll be able to squeeze that in next week too.

Mario Kart 7 is done

I got gold cups on all levels, but I have no interest in trying to get 3 stars on everything. I've become less and less interested in this series as time went on. Loved playing multiplayer on the SNES, 100%'d the N64 one, then did the same with the DS version a decade+ ago. This one is fine, but it's bland and boring. I've played a tiny bit of 8 on Wii U (I'm one of the dozen switch owners that doesn't have it for that system) and finished a couple races and was ready to be done. It doesn't hook me. Picking this up for 2 races at a time during breaks was the best way to slog through it. 

1 hour ago, Matt 4120 said:

I didn't clear Pac-In Time.

That was me.  I am still working on World Bowling, but no new progress this week. Will give it a few more days before another break