Floating Platforms

Well damn. I can easily say your hands have it worse. I can't imagine stretching my hands in a reasonable way. I'll keep my fingers crossed for you (or is that bad to say here?) For sure, that was the pacing I was talking about. Still, even at 1 review per week it would be 10 years before the series was done. I certainly don't blame him for wanting to diversify, but it is sad that we won't get to see his full treatment on some of those later titles - despite that obvious snark. Agreed on Game Boyle. I like that he usually takes the time to try to beat the games and brings that into his review and its all presented in an upbeat way even when the game is bad. Looks like he is also branching out into GBC though.

I'm afraid I don't have any experience with Hyperboy and don't own either NBA Jam cart yet. It's been a long time since I've played any NBA Jam, but how viable is it to avoid turbo altogether? I tend to remember it ran out super quick on arcade/SNES, so most of the game was without it. I imagine you've already tried that just from resting your hands if nothing else.

Down goes Frazier Bowe! Down goes Frazier Bowe! It took a lot of tries and my hand and forearms are cramped from all the attempts (I played with my two fingers on A & B for more dexterity, instead of using my thumb for everything), but I somehow managed to knock the champ down. I'm not sure how much of it was me getting better and how much was luck based. It seemed like Bowe fought differently each time I faced him, and changed a bit from round to round. I think I was trying to beat him for about 3 or 4 hours total and the farthest I got was round 5, where just about every fight of mine ended anyway, but couldn't knock him down. In the winning bout, I knocked him down for the very first time ever in the third round and surprisingly, he didn't get back up in time. The game has flaws for sure, namely that you can't be as responsive and fluid as the CPU and they will cheese extra rounds by blocking everything when they're in danger of getting knocked down, but overall I still love this game for its challenge and the sense of accomplishment I get from it. Even with the frustrations, I still think it's my favorite boxing game behind the Punch Out series. Either on Jan 1 or 2, I'll be able to get started with the 2021 games and will likely have a decent amount of time to devote that whole weekend and first week. I'll be starting with Lethal Weapon to get a first time clear for the challenge off the list right away. @koifish, good luck with NBA Jam TE! Those controls sound like a huge pain

I do have friends that stream without talking or showing their face. I personally only do face and am making plans to do graphical overlays at some point in 2021, but keep my mug out of there. I'm sure some would want my voice out too, but oh well! I've toyed with the idea of doing a YouTube review of each game, but more in the vein of SNES Drunk or Game Boyle rather than Jeremy Parish (I really wish he would find the time to finish the entire series, but seems unlikely with his pace). The time investment to get anything edited felt like it would be too much time away from beating more games, though. I'd gladly watch anything you produce. Maybe start at the end of the release spectrum and work forwards and meet Jeremy at the middle! In terms of this challenge, I've been absent for a couple weeks, but I'm desperately trying to get Riddick Bowe Boxing done before the end of the year. I would hate to either start over next year or not have it count at all, and I'm sitting at second place only to Bowe. I've made it to round 4 against him, but still haven't knocked him down once in several attempts. I have Wed & Thurs off, so there should be a few more hours left to keep plugging away. Still, it looks like we've beaten the record, which is fantastic! Really looking forward to what the next year brings as VGS continues to grow.

Some do stream it, but GB is low on the pecking order. I would say only GBC is lower, because I don't know a single console challenge person who is specifically playing those games. It's either original GB or GBA for handheld. NES, Genesis, SNES, etc can be kind of popular, but yeah if I was trying to actively build an audience, I would not be streaming Game Boy. Honestly the only reason I do stream at all is because I wanted to have a recording of my quest to beat everything and figured I might as well have the option for people to stop in and chat while I do.

Congrats on both of those! The inverted controls seem to be the biggest challenge. I know of two streamers that tried the game. One gave up for now and the other decided to make the goal to finish one game (not even win) because the controls and difficulty were too much. I hope you keep your optimism with it if you ever make a full run of it! As far as I know, mercy rule is 10 runs at the end of the inning, regardless of series, if the game offers it at all. Game & Watch is intimidating, too. At least its the smallest one. I'm watching Gilgatex do the GBA gallery #4 and he needs 170 stars to get the first ending. You'd think that with how semi-popular the game is, no one currently knows if 80 stars on this version will give a different ending yet. I'm sure you found the same video I did that only shows the modern version of the 4 games with an ending. I'd think the "to be continued" part is referencing that they planned to do G&W 2 and beyond, but crazy that we don't know for sure.

Yeah, that's part of what I remember, but I think RBI allowed you to coax a rundown which could be manipulated to let you get home. I might be thinking of a different baseball game or maybe that's only when the IA is running the bases to get easier outs instead of easier runs....all I definitely remember is that in RBI, California is severely underrated team and I had just as much success with them as I did with the AL All-Stars. The baseball game I'm most concerned about on Game Boy is Roger Clemens. I understand that one is extremely difficult to control, possibly on top of tough CPUs. Thankfully, because of my convoluted system of game selections, I don't have to worry about sports after this until I beat a dozen other games.

If Extra Bases is exactly like RBI on the NES then that makes sense and you could probably cheese the baserunning as well. I remember exploiting the AI offensively and defensively for some quick wins. On my end, I started Riddick Bowe last night and played 25 fights (career only lasts 40 fights before you're forced into retirement - but there are passwords so I think you can go back to an earlier place). I'm currently ranked 10th (23-2). I've been grinding stat boosts quite a bit by fighting lower ranked guys but still feel like my stats are way too low for a real shot.

I remember looking it up last year or in 2018 because there was a chance I was going to play it? Or maybe just trying to help cement the criteria? Not sure if anyone has the ability to search the old NA threads for the discussion on it, but what I had found was Zenic Reverie's YouTube videos and the consensus there, as well as any other place that mentions potential looping was that 99/100 is the last original level and then you start to see repeated rooms, but the game will go forever (unlike Gauntlet 1 on NES). I don't remember exactly who brought up the idea of killing the dragon as an end point though. Not a bad idea really, since going through 100 levels would likely be 4-ish hours. I'll still probably try it one of these days.

Taz-Mania is done. It's not a bad game, but it's not a good vehicle for Taz as a character. You have to move through the levels pretty carefully, you only get 3 spins per life (adjustable in options), you don't use the spins to dig through or around obstacles, for a character that's depicted as always hungry in the cartoons you don't eat anything. I don't know if had anything to do with the cartoon either. There was no story at all in the cartridge. The platforming is fine with only a couple of blind jumps. There's variety in the levels and you even have a racing like segment in each level to break up potential monotony. The bosses aren't hard, but look big and great. The graphics overall are outstanding. Music and sound effects leave a lot to be desired. I think if this wasn't a "Taz" game, I might like it more. Since it didn't fit the character, I consider it above average. Next for me is Riddick Bowe Boxing - a game I had a lot of fondness for as a kid due to its challenge level. I never beat it back then so I'm excited to see how long it might take to actually take down the champ. I don't think I'll get to start trying until next week though.

Gauntlet II is done. I only beat the dragon, but I did it 4 times before I died (first encountering him on level 15). Only got 2 special items overall, the sword, magic up (x2) and the 4th was lost to me shooting the potion by mistake. I will likely revisit at some point to get through 99 levels, but I was getting bored with it. The transporters are the worst part of the game. Let me know if I'm missing something, but they appear to be largely random in where they send you. I had one level where I killed everything in the level and broke every block I could find, but couldn't reach the dragon guarding the exit because it was through a teleporter that I couldn't get to no matter what. Wasted over 1000 health trying everything. If it weren't for some random BS spots, the game would be a total pushover. It's still somewhat fun, but without at least a second player, it gets old fast. Tomorrow I should be able to get through my next game Taz-Mania. Then it looks like a boxing game after that.

One of the very first accessories I got back then was an attachable light. It had, I think, two small bulbs on the sides that would make the screen bright enough to play indoors or in the car without worrying about glare as much. That helped to eliminate or reduce the blur to make action games more playable. At some point I got the magnifier too. But yeah, otherwise some of those games are really tough to see if you're not in direct sunlight

That's interesting. I kinda wish I would have known that going in, but I also don't know if it would have made much difference? Tough to say, I guess. So, I finally beat Iron Man X-O Manowar. I think this may be worse than Superman. The controls are somewhat complex and not very responsive. It's very easy to plan to do something simple like fly but jump or shoot instead. Speaking of flying, it's only allowed in short bursts, you can't adjust your height downwards once in the air and it moves to slowly to get around most enemies. Everything is stiff and the levels largely force you to inch forward to kill each enemy. Sometimes items wouldn't spawn after they died as expected. The bosses were varied, but perhaps too difficult. It took an hour for me to get through one. There were too many levels with terrible design. Basically no part of this was fun. I suggest anyone playing this to do it on Easy since other challengers beat it in 2 hours that way, but it took me 8 on Normal for the same ending. Next up for me is Gauntlet II. Not sure if I'll stop after the first dragon or try to go through the 99 levels.

That's interesting. The vertical stacks only go 7 high, so that would be risky with the randomness. It took half the match to even see one symbol needed. That might be a better strategy for a 2P versus, though. I might be okay at that Jeopardy version. I watched Sportscenter all the time back in those days. I've yet to have any of the 3 Jeopardy games I have pop up in my randomizer yet (at least not before someone else does it here). It's looking like we have an outside chance of beating the record this year. I hope to be good for about 5 more games at least? Maybe up to 10 if they go fast. Besides Iron Man, I have 2 more first year clears planned in the next five as well. Fingers crossed!

Stargate is done. I think I kind of figured out how it all works, so for anyone curious here's what I could gather in case someone wants to try it in the future and, like me, can't find a manual. It's a match 3 (I think just from stacking vertically - didn't try horizontal or diagonal) and you have 7 symbols at the top of your screen that is your address/gate. Try to clear stacks for all 7 symbols to clear the gate. Depending on the square on the battle grid you choose, you need to either clear 1, 2, or 3 gates to win that way (you can tell by # of stars in the square). You can also win by filling the opponents playing field to the top. You don't have control over that other than making matches which throws junk tiles on their side (they do the same to you). It's possible junk only comes through when you match a gate symbol - not sure. You can't see their grid, but you have two bars on the sides of the screen. The left one appears to be how many gate symbols they have left. The right is their playing field height. Really, your best course of action is to ignore them, match the gate tiles as fast as possible and keep your fingers crossed. Most of my wins came from topping out their height rather than the gate. When you win a match, you win the square on the grid and convert any previously won surrounding squares. Have the most squares at the end and you win. It's an okay game and maybe I would have liked it a little better if I had instructions and didn't have to piece together how to play and win on my own, but it still feels too luck based for a puzzle game. There wasn't skill involved in placing pieces. It was simply match the symbols when possible and mitigate height when you can't. The game gave too many of the helpful column clearing tiles early in rounds when they are pointless (often times as the first drop) and I ran into a couple cases where I needed just one more symbol for a match and went through 30 pieces before it showed up (keep in mind each tile can be flipped and so each tile has 2 random symbols). It was annoying to lose through no fault of my own ability as often as I did. Certainly not a Tetris killer, but moderate fun for a little bit. Sorry for the ramble. Anyway, I started Iron Man X-O Manowar in Heavy Metal as my next game and ran into technical issues. What I played is bad. Maybe worse than Superman? But it has passwords so we'll see.

Very cool! I'll be able to add a 10th first time clear very shortly too. It actually looks like we have 202. I think you missed crossing off Superman and WCW Main Event. Make it 203 because Tail 'Gator is done as of this afternoon I don't know this game isn't talked about more often, I thought it was great. There was a nice mix of level attributes like the clouds you slowly sink through, waterfalls, currents, and disappearing platforms. The enemies had variety and all the sprites looked good. The bosses were neat, but overall too easy. As you progress, you have to plan your path around the level to make sure you're getting all of the chests without backtracking too much and avoiding the bad guys so there was a bit of strategy combined with the random power up drops from the chests (and hidden bonus ones). Overall a great platformer and passwords after every level makes it accessible and perfect for short burst Game Boy play. I also started Stargate and lost my first battle mode attempt. I realized too late that the gate selection matters and is like an Othello game where if you lose the round, you lose surrounding squares from previous battles. Not sure it mattered, because I have no idea how to actually win or lose a round. It just sort of happens. I lost many when the tiles didn't reach the top and I won many where I felt like I hardly did anything. I would guess there's some sort of strategy that I'm missing, but right now it makes no sense and I just keep on matching tiles until the round decides to end one way or another. Might have this one done tomorrow night.

Olympic Summer Games is done. I'm really surprised that this hadn't been tackled before because it only took about an hour to finish, including practicing the events. I didn't have the manual, so I used gamefaqs to tell me the controls for a couple events, like pole vaulting. It took some effort to learn that and skeet shooting, but the rest are easy enough. I wish there were a bit more to the game. I'm glad it wasn't too challenging, especially since it was a button masher for the running needed in almost all events, but more could have been done to give the game more life. Extra modes would have been a start. If you place in an event, there's a cutscene of you getting the medal, but after the entire competition is done, there's no cutscene showing your overall standing. It simply cuts to the stands and the title of the game before going to credits. Gameplay wise, it was nice that events used similar controls but were different enough to be unique. It was even nicer that they were not too complex nor needed frame perfect precision timing. The animations were smooth and interesting but the sprites were too blocky and looked like an early C64 game, but the best part of the game was probably the surprisingly good soundtrack. I didn't medal in every event, but here's the standings after all events on Normal difficulty. And this is what plays after the last event finishes. Now, I'm currently working on Tail Gator. I got through half of level 3 and then had some weird audio glitches in my stream so I decided to stop for the night and pick it up tomorrow. Really digging this game too so far.

Took longer than I wanted thanks to multiple crashes and freezes several levels in, but Mysterium is done. It's such a good concept for a game that sort of falls apart later. Basically, you get told all of these things through the manual (which is basically required if you're not going to use a guide) and scrolls/crystals found in the levels. Then the last level forces guess work on you. You have to take leaps of faith and deal with trial and error in crafting keys and hoping to go through the right door with the limited materials given. I wish there were more clues in the exposition or scrolls to help with those parts. Still, for the other 9 levels, I had a lot of fun making the charts of items and learning patterns in the alchemy and writing down which keys are needed to progress. The enemies looked cool, but didn't act any different from each other. There were too many items that did the exact same thing (and overall too many different items that could be created since so little is necessary in the end) or items you can't tell what they do. It was fun to explore, but I'm glad I finally escaped the maze. Next up is Olympic Summer Games which I'll either tackle this weekend or early next week

Yeah...I'm afraid I did it in less than 2 hours total. Most of the levels blur together, but are you talking about the giant robot thing that shoots missiles? That's the mid-game and end-game boss and I could tell you the deep dark secret if you want. The rest of the enemies might hit me but not enough to sap all my health before I could kill them by punching bullets back or punching them. There was one level where all the guys are on hover vehicles and it's impossible not to get hit a few times. You need to kill one of them to get the last key you need. Otherwise, I just tried to creep through and go slow and hit attack a bunch to reflect bullets back. I put several hours into Mysterium tonight and I'm glad I found the manual scan otherwise I would have been totally lost. But bigger than that, I was lucky to have Zenic Reverie join the stream and he told me you could dodge enemy fire while aiming. The manual doesn't say that, it only says you can aim your fire, so I was running on the assumption that my adventurer was static. Learning that aiming is also strafing was a huge game changer. But I still failed because I played around too much with the crafting and created an unwinnable situation with a door I couldn't unlock on level 6 of 10. Now I know better, and I know more of the basics of what item/liquid combos will produce what items, so I can be a lot more conservative in those opening levels and hopefully knock it out tomorrow. I'm really loving it so far. It's such a different type of experience on GB and it's been fun to break out the pen and paper to write notes and use the logical and critical thinking part of my brain. Edit: Ran into another unwinnable situation in level 10. Was not expecting the inventory wipe. Pretty sure my strategy of going straight for exits hurt me as I probably needed some optional doors to find more scrolls. But I have a ton of notes about what keys I need for each level and the other doors I found so next time I hope to solve the mystery

Yeah, Street Racer was a nice surprise. One of these days, I'll probably try out those other modes. Here's what I have to say about Superman now that I've finished it. Garbage. Superman can fly for an unlimited amount of time, but the control of it is very unintuitive. I never fully got the hang of it. When flying, getting hit will make you dip, and that will make you lose lives in some stages. Navigating a sea of enemies in the air was more about muscle memory and learning instead of skill. In general, the first several stages require you to replay them to learn what's going on and where the enemies are going to be placed. They will often shoot before you can prepare otherwise, and even when you know what's coming, it can be tough to avoid damage. WIth only 6 lives to get through the game, it takes some doing to slog through it. Your attacks are limited, which is strange. You can ricochet bullets if you time things right, but otherwise, you have to punch when enemies get too close. No projectiles like laser eyes. You can dash, but it doesn't hurt people. It's weird to see Superman so watered down. Speaking of water, the 2 water stages messed with my eyes as the backgrounds constantly waved as you went through the mazes fighting sharks. Yes, you fight sharks, but not Lex Luthor. The only boss was a giant robot that you fight twice in the exact same way. The title screen, game over screen and congratulations screen are just a black outline drawing, which perfectly sums up how phoned in this game was. I also beat WCW: The Main Event on what I think is the medium difficulty? I chose to do best of 3 falls/pins to speed things up a bit while giving me a fighting chance if I lose the first round and that worked well. Of the two wrestling games I've played so far, this one is by far the best, mostly because it's actually playable. I don't know wrestling to comment on how good the roster is, but you can pick from a few different guys that all have their own unique sprite and special move. Other than that, I think they all play the same. Most of my time was figuring out the controls and as soon as I learned that the special move was tied to Select only the game got easier (I had been trying several things and settled on Select +B or A, which was tough to pull off). I quickly found a loop that I could reliably put guys in to whittle their health down. You can pick different ways to set up your tournament, which was neat to see, but alternative modes would have better. Fun, easy to play and learn, and fast. Next up for me is Mysterium. Not sure what to expect on that one, but looking forward to trying it out.

I was busy today. 3 more games are down. I will probably get to beat 2 more tomorrow as well. I thought Street Racer was going to take about 6 hours, but it took less than 2. A surprisingly quick racing game that sounded more intimidating from the instructions. There are several different attack moves that you can pull off, but I got through all the cups using just the basic punch. There are 8 different, unique characters to choose from that have attribute benefits and drawbacks as well as cartoony personas. Each character also has its own home track backdrop and accompanying music. The music in general was really good and I liked the character sprites in the menus. In game, though, some tracks make it really hard to tell what's going on and the car sprites blend in with the road. The items are also blended in too much, or all look the same (there are three different white pointy items that all do different things), but there's not enough time to truly react to collect or avoid them on purpose anyway. The racing is very forgiving and even though you'll go on the edges of the track a lot, you don't lose much, if any speed. You don't have to win each race either as you can earn bonus points for other things and the cup takes the total of all points after all races. It was a fun, short playthrough that offers other modes that I didn't explore, but might be tempted to try someday. As you can see above, after beating the gold cup, it gives a password for the "Mega Cup." I tried a few times to figure out how to access it, but came up empty. I'm not sure if someone else wants to give it a try, but I'm not sure if it's a real thing. Happy to try it out if there is a way to make it work. An online search doesn't give me any info other than one gamefaqs article says it unlocks Silver and Gold Cups - so maybe it's a password that allows you to see all cups, but I think the gold cup password would do that too? After that, I took on Jordan Vs. Bird: One on One It's a clunky basketball game that pretends like it's offering more than it is. There are three modes, 1-on-1, Slam Dunk contest and 3-point contest. None of them are good. For 1-on-1, you have some options to select from but really they amount to how long you want to subject yourself to the floaty jumps and lackluster gameplay. Blocking shots takes some practice and in general you want to avoid jumping because the animation takes forever and if you miss, then your opponent has free reign of the court. Stealing the ball is possible, but pretty rare. Rebounding didn't make sense to me and there were many times when I thought I was in position and blocking him out, but came up empty. The dunk contest also made little sense and was very particular. You can practice the dunks and follow the leader mode will teach you where to jump, but it still took a lot of tries to find the exact spot. When you do jump correctly, finishing the dunk seemed to generate random results. I only won the dunk contest because the computer goes first and I picked the same dunk as him and happened to do it better once. I actually missed 2 of the 3 dunks (which is why my win screen shows all zeroes), but the better single dunk score for the one I made was higher, so I win! The 3 point contest was hard, but the most fun. The CPU can shoot and move faster (even though you're both Bird). I never finished all 5 racks despite my attempts to hit buttons as fast as possible. Basically I had to try enough times for the CPU to give me a chance (highest they scored was 29 of 30 - instant reset) and then get that timing right to beat their score. NBA All-Star Challenge was better, which is saying something. So, for the 1-on-1, I actually only did the 11 point game. I checked a video and it is the same ending as a full game. Everything I played was on the default 4 difficulty (which is the hardest). If I need to go back and knock out a full game for the clear, I can. Lastly tonight, I played Avenging Spirit for the first time. This game lived up to its hype. I loved the graphics. Loved the cutscenes. Loved that there were so many characters you could control as the ghost and that they were all different enough to make the choice matter. I tried harder to stay alive when I had someone that suite my play style. Rarely was it about finding the right one to move on to the next part of the level as each could do it. The instruction book was helpful in knowing where to find the 3 keys, but the cutscenes also gave enough context and I loved the surprise after getting them all. It was fun exploring the levels, although I wish they were all non-linear, and coming across new challenges all the time. Truly a great game in all respects. Tomorrow, I'm starting with WCW: The Main Event. Then Superman.

Follow up from yesterday. I don't know how to create gifs, otherwise I would have. All the digitized images I found while playing Wayne's World have a shaking effect, including this thumbs up congratulation screen. After beating the game you only get the thumbs up image with your score but you get to hear a royalty free version of parts of Bohemian Rhapsody! I remembered the game being tough as a kid but playing it now, I understand that this is just from lack of any continues or passwords. Back then I got to the outside of Benjamin's apartment (the last level before the boss fight), but could never pass it. The difficulty spikes on that part with a new mechanic of wind affecting your jumps paired with a couple pixel perfect jumps and enemies you have to hit while jumping to progress. The Benjamin fight took several tries for me to figure out but I eventually learned the best place to defend against his jump kicks. The enemies are dumb (sentient musical instruments, flying TV screens) and besides Benjamin, the only other boss was a stack of records. Knock back is insane and occasionally you can get caught between two enemies and pinball back and forth. The levels should inspire exploration for powerups, but the enemies drop enough and time can be sparse so it's best to zoom to the right while kicking with Wayne or shooting with the underutilized Garth (his levels are typically a minute long). So, yeah, not very good but not mind numbing. They tried to sort of relate back to the movie story, but could have done more. I'm just glad there aren't multiple endings like the movie had.

We might have a chance at the record at least! I just beat Wayne's World. I'll have the image, etc up later when I have time to get all my video highlights done. I have the week off from work and I plan to devote my afternoons to streaming Game Boy. That's on top of my now typical 2-3 nights a week, so I'm hoping to be good for some more games by the end of the month if all goes well. Most of what I have lined up look to be quicker. Tomorrow I'll be starting Street Racer and that might be one of the longer to beat titles if it takes the full estimated 6 hours

Alright, Killer Instinct is fully done, I believe. I beat the game with the original 8 characters, then I beat the game on Very Hard (with Sabrewulf as most of his moves were left, right, button - making it easy to mash my way through). Then I used the code for Eyedol and got his ending on normal. I didn't get the code for eyedol after beating it on very hard. I used 25 continues, so my guess is I needed to do it in less than that to get the code to display on the game? The only videos I see online are people doing it without continuing, so maybe I need to do it somewhere between 0-24 continues? Not worth trying at this point. I can at least say I've done about as good as pure button masher could. Here's the sword you get for winning on Very Hard Here's the start of Eyedol's ending. Next is Castlevania Adventure for my milestone 50th game, which won't count for this group, but is locked in for my personal challenge, then I'm moving on to Wayne's World - a game I purposefully bought as a child and enjoyed to a degree but could never beat, so fingers crossed!

I started Killer Instinct tonight. I've completed 3 characters so far out of 9. To get access to the 9th (aside from looking up the cheat code online), you have to beat the game on Very Hard. I've only been doing normal and I am terrible at fighting games. I'm thrilled the game has unlimited continues (hopefully Very Hard does too otherwise I'm screwed), but kinda annoyed that it needs them. My last run with Orchid started strong but the last 3-4 matches took tons of tries and the game said I used 52 continues.... Hopefully I find a character I'm really good with, but it'll probably be a bunch of button mashing until I get lucky.