Floating Platforms

I really appreciate all the spoiler tags being applied to the Tunic and Obra Dinn talk. I'm planning to dive into those next after I can knock out at least one of the three behemoths I'm currently tackling. Sadly it will still be quite a while. Current progress AC: Valhalla - Power level 200, maybe about 30% done with the map objectives & 60% done with the story. No DLC done Yakuza 0 - Ch. 7. Trying to focus more on side stories and alt modes. Finished all the RC car racing, 1/5th done with the real estate and just started the Cabaret mission. So much to do. Danganronpa 3 - haven't worked on it lately. Still have the post-game grind to go through Mario Kart 7 - I'll hopefully be done by end of month. One more gold cup in 150cc to acquire in order to unlock mirror mode.

And the GB version of Chase HQ only has the one loop, which also makes it a lot more manageable. I'll second the vote for Bubble Bobble and throw Star Trek: 25th Anniversary out for contention. I know that it's a slightly different game on NES but the GB one has a nice variety in the shooter stages (that don't exist in NES) and enjoyable action puzzle planet levels with your crew in between.

Pac-in-Time is done We can update the completion requirement on this one to say "Beat all 70 Levels". I was hoping it was only going to be 50, but there are 7 worlds with 10 stages each. A mostly fun puzzle platformers that continues to throw new ideas or mechanics at you. There were a few levels that gave me trouble. Most of the time when I got stuck, it was from the puzzle solving perspective of figuring out how to pass an obstacle. On one level, 5-5, I spent about 90 minutes trying to navigate a gauntlet of RNG instadeath at the beginning and navigating two rapid firing enemies. I probably overcomplicated things too much but the gameplay is not meant for the level of precision that this stage seemed to want. Generally speaking, the gameplay is good and I say this is a better Spider-Man game than the two I've played on GB. Pac-Man can have access to up to 4 abilities, one is a string thing that allows you to swing across. It's incredibly intuitive and smooth most of the time. Otherwise, there is an underwater swim, a "hammer" that is used when you need to chomp through certain things, and a fireball/hadouken. What's missing in this Pac-Man game are power pellets and the ability to eat enemies and, largely, ghosts. There are a couple later stages where ghosts appear and are treated like any other enemy, but it's clear that this was a repurposed property where they wedged in a known character. Still, aside from that one rage-inducing stage, it was a good time, even if it was overly long. My week long break from World Bowling is over so I'll try more of that on Monday. I was hoping to sneak in one or two more games, but I almost didn't get this one finished after three nights.

I'm taking a break on World Bowling for at least a week. After 30 hours, the best I've managed is to get to level 5 of 6 (three times total) and twice I've bowled an overall high of 268. The game isn't frustrating, it's just confusing. Every time I think I might have a lead on a new strategy, the next attempt kills that theory. Either there's some RNG stuff happening in the background that would mean the "correct" approach is different on the specific playthrough and/or level, or I simply haven't cracked the code. There are times when I can somewhat fly through a couple stages and then other times where it'll be an hour before I can make it out of the opening stage because I can't locate strikes. Right now, the game seems possible, but very heavily reliant on a big string of good luck. But maybe the cartridge is toying with me and giving me false hopes like a slot machine that teases three "7"s before rolling over. Anyway, next week I'm going to start Pac-in-Time and then my next games after that have already been done here (TMNT 2 & Frogger). I'll alternate between World Bowling tries and other stuff so I can still feel like I'm making some kind of progress.

World Bowling progress is kind of non-existent. I've reached Canada (stage 4 of 6) several times, but can't make it past there. Score wise, I've managed 268 as an all-time high. You need 250 on the final stage, so theoretically this is all possible, but I think it's going to require quite a bit of luck as consistency seems impossible.

Lego City Undercover: The Chase Begins is done It's a Lego game, so it's good for mindless fun. The story in this 3DS Prequel was abysmally lacking. There were some 3D rendered cut scenes, but most of it was done through voiceless text boxes. I don't really mind that tactic, but even those have massive leaps of faith in logic and progression that there is literally no cohesive narrative. The jokey, cute-sy storytelling is a big draw for Lego games. The world here is the same as the console version, but crunched a bit and missing a couple of areas. It's not seamless and each new area needs to load. Most of the time and interest comes if you are an obsessive collector like me as the main story and unlocking all the abilities will get you to less than 30% done on the indicator shown in the picture. The rest of it is exploring the levels and finding all the stuff. It's fine but the main story that I played on Wii U was miles ahead. Not sure if I should pop in Kirby Triple Deluxe or Yoshi's New Island next. I'm also still plugging away at my platinum quest for a few long games. Splitting time between Danganronpa V3 (story is done, just getting started on the post-game extra modes), Yakuza 0 (in the middle of Chapter 2), and Assassin's Creed Valhalla (no idea how to measure my progress - I have 3 allied territories and character level is 75-ish). AC: Valhalla is quite weak compared to Origins and Odyssey. There's some quality of life stuff that's missing like having your raven actually mark things or highlight enemies (maybe that comes later, but I haven't found a way to upgrade it), the parkour traversal seems practically broken at time chasing those damn tattoo designs and the world is annoyingly big and purposefully empty. Too many quests are having you travel 400m away to talk to someone and then go another 400m to the next location to do something for a couple seconds and then go back. I felt more engaged and immersed in the previous two games.

oh no, I was mostly curious if I dodged a bullet by using SGB2. I know I've heard of a very small number of incompatible games, but I'm not sure which ones they are. Thankfully, even the Wisdom Tree games have worked on my SGB2 at least.

Well, I think it may have been some weird bad luck on your side. Mine booted right up. I didn't try actually playing a level, but I got as far as entering a stage, which sounds like it was further than your error allowed.

Very likely that the improvements in the SGB2 made it possible for me to get through it. I think I remember someone in my twitch chat mentioning a small number of games that don't work on the regular SGB and maybe Skate or Die was one and I forgot because it wasn't affecting me personally. I'm still curious enough to try to get it working on my SGB tonight. Anything to delay more World Bowling tries.

Really? What happens when you try? I was able to play it on my SGB2 a couple years ago.

Yeah, 12 could easily be a typo or looking at other factors, but regardless there's not enough in that post to make me want to take them at their word. Sadly no, the game is not fun. Once you get used to the controls and everything, it's easy but very tedious and the missions do take about 30-40 minutes each to beat with 25 targets to kill and then landing after. But yeah, I'll keep exploring as time and mood allows. I think the highest I would ever consider going is to beat level 50. I can't imagine there would be any ending hiding at level 99 and even if there is, it's simply unachievable by normal standards in a game with no passwords or saves or level selects. Someone would have to literally play for over a day straight (possibly 2) without turning the Game Boy off to reach that. Mr. Kitchen would have some explaining to do if he coded that.

I've seen that comment as well, and honestly if they're claiming nothing changes after round 12, then it's hard to trust it. Every mission up through 16 will change either the number of enemies you have to destroy and/or the amount of the two special ammos you receive. Everything from level 16 through 23 (so far) has you kill 25 targets with 12 standard 1-shot missiles and 10 1-shot seeking missiles. They also claim to have used a level select cheat (which I can find no record of anywhere - so maybe he could be editing the code), so I figure I can slowly confirm some of this myself to be extra sure as the source isn't fully reliable in my eyes. Oh, and I just checked again and the person is answering their own question, so maybe they're trying to get someone else to confirm their findings? Anyway, I fully expect everything to stay the same and I doubt I'll go as high as 99, but I'm curious if there's a potential ending at either 25 or maybe 32. I doubt I'll keep going past that.

Quick update on Turn & Burn. It's been a long time since I've sat down to emulate more missions, but I was able to do a couple tonight. So far missions 16-23 have the exact same criteria and ammo loadout. I've maxed out the score and that didn't stop anything. Right now, it still does look like 16 levels is the "end point" of original content and then it keeps repeating from there with a new mission number. I'll keep plugging away here and there to at least level 32, but considering each mission takes 30-45 minutes, it's hard to imagine an ending this deep.

Okay, the New Owner banner is a thing (the TAS moves so fast you have to go frame by frame in this video to see it, but it is there) From the description - The ending shown in the previous run was found to not be actual best ending, the actual best ending (which is ownership of the Caesars Palace casino) requiring at least $5,963,776 to achieve. The authors do this by getting two absurdly lucrative jackpots in a row at the Slots with some careful RNG manipulation. So, apparently there is a slot machine that will pay out $5million, but you still need another $1 Million to reach the owner status, so they found the right frame to hit jackpot twice.

ah that's right. bad memory about the limo thing. I think I saw some weird TAS thing showing the casino owner ending on some system but it was a while ago. I'll see if I can dig it up. I could very well be mistaken and I truly hope it's not real since I'm personally trying for best endings. In World Bowling progress news - I made it to stage 4 of 6 (Canada) several times tonight, but it definitely plays differently from the first 3 countries and I haven't quite figured out the sweet spots. My overall high score for a game is 257 followed by 249. So, even though this may still take a long time, I think it might be feasible with luck.

What's crazy is that the limo may not be the best ending. Someone left a comment on my playthrough video (that somehow auto-erased, or they deleted after?) stating there's an ending at $5 million+ to become the Owner of the casino. How would that ever be possible if there's no workable pattern in roulette or the other wheel? But yeah, maybe the win condition should be simply leave in a better vehicle than you get for the default cash.

Maybe my problem is that I've only played King of the Ring, WCW and War Zone so far - all quite different. KotR was super quick, WCW was fine, War Zone is one of only 3 games (of 180) that I've ranked 1/10. The controls really don't work and I had to find a cheese tactic to make it through.

Nice work knocking all of these out. I think the count is probably over 60 now? Those wrestling games can be frustrating at times since it seems like every one has different, unintuitive controls.

This is on my personal revisit list to see if there is anything significantly different for getting stage 99-10 on high speed. I would certainly say you can consider this done since there is an ending and credits. I see YouTube videos for people getting 99-10 on NES, but not GB. If it's anything like the NES ending, then it appears to be near identical (but without the cutscene). 10-10 shows mario, yoshi, bowser and peach and 99-10 shows only mario and yoshi with items bouncing around them. It does look like you can stage select with that code the normal ending gives, so it may not take too much time to explore.

Panel Action Bingo is done I went the numbers route. Still pretty easy until the last few levels of each section. Not sure what my next keyboard game will be. Maybe a golf or racing game.

The Amazing Spider-Man 2 is done I absolutely hated this one. While it's safe to say that it controls better than the first Spider-Man game, it's still a jumbled mess when it comes to anything web related. Plus, while you don't have the awkward high jump, there is an awkward double jump that you must perform in order to wall grab. None of this works as expected. The web mechanics honestly feel broken and largely useless except for a couple key areas where you must latch on to something to progress (thankfully very minimal overall). Don't bother attacking with web. By the time you get to the enemy, they've broken out and if you get to close to anyone, they hurt you anyway. It took me about an hour to figure out how to get through the first level, and that only happened because of an inadvertent hint in my chat. Before that sticking point, I was encouraged by the exploration aspect of the game. Get an item, use that item to open a new area and do more stuff. Some of the stages are connected and you can get in over your head if you're not careful. That's all interesting in theory, but the terrible mechanics and awful enemies that annoyingly knock you back ruin that. Also, you can soft-lock. If you need web and there are no more power-ups left (as they don't respawn after death), you're just screwed. Every level is like a mini-puzzle that should be fun to figure out but they are all frustrating in their own ways thanks to terrible controls and inconsistent behaviors in the programming. I haven't been legitimately angry at a game in a while, but this got me there. After that lovely experience, I also started learning World Bowling. After about 1hr 45min, I got to the second stage twice. If I can manage to find a spot where I can get 2-3 strikes in a row semi-regularly, then I'll be in good shape.

Even easier if you happen to know or remember where the secret bonus games are, but still a fun time. You'll probably get to it well before me, since I have World Bowling to fight, but I have TMNT II on deck soon. I've only played the first TMNT on Game Boy so I'm interested to see how they compare.

The Simpsons: Itchy & Scratchy in Miniature Golf Madness is done Here's another game from my childhood that I could never beat. I don't know if I made it past level 5 back then, but in my first 2 tries I made it to level 8 and then the third try was the charm using one continue. Generally, it's not a terrible game, but boy is it frustrating at times. There are a bunch of Itchys with various weapon types and some of them move incredibly fast and/or shoot projectiles before you know they are there. You can try to combat something as soon as it appears on screen, but all the weapons you're given have a slow wind-up time and it's pretty common to still get hit and die unless you know where that Itchy spawns or you guess right and throw ammo in advance. The hit boxes are pretty unfair and your swings can go through him, but if you touch a single pixel and you're dead. The music is an obnoxious loop that lasts 10 seconds and doesn't change no matter the level. The graphics are the high point with well-done sprites and a huge variety in level designs and final obstacles for the holes. It's a bit disappointing that the mini-golf aspect isn't better utilized. It's not really a golf game, but rather an escort mission. Getting under par will earn you an extra life, but that's it. Overall, it's fun but not great - like most of the Simpson's games on Game Boy. Next I'm going to swing through Amazing Spider-Man 2

I agree. I don't know if I would have fully bothered if it wasn't included in the PS+ monthly games. I found House Flipper to be more polished and more engaging. But this still worked well as a mind-off relaxing game to end my days.

Oh nice! I think I saw that they were aware of it, but didn't look too far. It's good that they're still working on things, because I will say that the game doesn't always run too well overall - which is odd for a game with a single mechanic and usually no moving objects aside from yourself.