Floating Platforms

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

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.

On 3/15/2024 at 12:07 PM, Splain said:

The GB versions of Klax, Chase HQ, Wildsnake, and some others move slightly slower so they're more approachable for people like me who are kinda bad at video games lol.

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.

13 hours ago, PII said:

as soon as you took an interest I had a feeling that maybe I jumped the gun with my pronouncement which does seem to be the case now.

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.

8 hours ago, PII said:

Yeah, good idea, just in case It's flukin' on my SGB for some other reason...

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.

26 minutes ago, PII said:

I recall reading somewhere that the SGB2 can play at least some pal games that won't work on a SGB.  I'd have to presume that the same holds true for regular Game Boy games that don't work on the SGB.

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.

12 hours ago, PII said:

EDIT: Almost forgot, if anyone is interested this game belongs on any list of Game Boy games that do not work on the Super Game Boy.

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

11 hours ago, the_wizard_666 said:

Anyway, there's all sorts of reasons why he might have 12 in his head...could be a mistake, especially if there was time between him playing it and posting about it.  He could have also just not noticed the changes, or maybe he was counting new enemy appearances and not quantities.  Regardless, I'd be more inclined to go with the opinion of the guy playing the game currently than someone likely padding their statistics by answering their own question.  I'm thinking 16 is probably where it gets to the maximum based on the information you've provided, but yeah, I'd be curious how high it actually goes.  Like I said, if you're enjoying the game, I'd go for 99 just to put it to rest, but that doesn't have to be done at the expense of anything else either.  Maybe just if you're bored and feel up to it, you pound out a couple levels, until you get to that point.  Again, only if you want to do it. 

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.

29 minutes ago, the_wizard_666 said:

Apparently a question was asked and answered about it on GameFAQs.  Dude played through to mission 19 and said nothing seemed to change after mission 12.  He also apparently edited his way to mission 99, and beating that just repeated mission 99 again.  Basically sounds like an infinite looper, especially with the score maxed out.  Given that you're playing it fresh, if you feel 16 is the actual end point for new content, that's probably good enough...though if you're enjoying it, it could be worth confirming that it does that without hex edits.

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.

7 hours ago, the_wizard_666 said:

It's the sports car, not the limo, like with the NES version.  The only thing I saw about the 5 million plus ending was a guy on YouTube who did the required random 5 mill plus number but skipped through the ending.  Plus when my round glitches and I ended with over $65 million I just got the sports car ending, so my guess is that it's an urban legend and not real.

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.

1 hour ago, the_wizard_666 said:

Honestly, I'm wondering if getting the best ending should be required.  Obviously going broke is the worst, and the game shouldn't be counted as a win if you just cash out immediately, but the first ending that requires actually playing gets triggered at $20k.  That may be a better, and more realistic, plan than going for $140k moving forward.

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.

19 hours ago, the_wizard_666 said:

Honestly, most of those are a half hour or less to knock off.  I just pulled one of the GB binders off my shelf and started pulling short games to play.  I'd actually hoped playing one or two would make me tired enough to sleep.  I still haven't slept though, so it didn't do the trick The three WWF games I knocked off are all pretty basic.  Controls are actually pretty solid once you know what they actually are   That said, I fired up WWF War Zone as well, since it's the last WWF game I need to beat for my personal list, but I couldn't figure out a damn thing. 

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.

4 hours ago, the_wizard_666 said:

Anyway, I think I may be done for the time being.

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.