Floating Platforms

Took a break from Game Boy last week and taking a further break from Penguin Wars this week (did reach 22/40, though). Last night I moved to the next game on my list and beat T2: The Arcade Game with the best ending. There are actually two different endings for this one as far as I know. From what I could tell with SNES documentation, it's all based on the Cyberdyne level. If you destroy all the equipment (there is a counter), then you get the good ending. The screen below the image I pasted says "Cyberdyne has been destroyed." If you leave even one piece of equipment, then it says that Judgment Day could still happen and you don't get this screen at all - I referenced NintendoComplete's GB playthrough video to confirm the difference afterwards. As for the game itself, it's not good. The hit boxes are very finicky and small. The enemies will drain your health extremely quickly, especially if you have more than one on the screen shooting you. There are a couple areas where you are guaranteed to die at least once if not twice due to the onslaught and bad hit detection. You only get three continues before the game over and starting from scratch, so every life counts. The basic grunt robot enemies will appear semi-randomly and also drop random power-ups, so while you can learn the levels to a degree, there will always be a bit of RNG at play. There's no music during the stages and I imagine that's to maximize the graphical side. Even with a bunch of robots on the screen, I didn't notice any slowdown. The levels have a great amount of detail and the sprites look great. Unfortunately the story is told in text only. It would be great to see a couple digitized screenshots to flesh it out. I had a hell of a time with the final boss. I was trying everything I could think of and eventually did look it up to find out I was doing the right thing, but the stinking hit box was evidently off-line just enough all those previous shots to not finish him off. Glad to be done with this, but I know the T-1000 will return when I get around to playing "Judgment Day" Next up for me is going to be Dragonheart and then I'll throw some more hours into Penguin Wars.

Update on Penguin Wars: New PB is only slightly improved to Game 21 of 40 after about 12.5 hours of trying and moving over to the Bat. I really wish there was some more documentation of later rounds so I could see what strategies other people used, especially when they get knocked down. Looking at this video of the 10th cycle, it seems they're playing defensively the whole time and hoping for the best. The hit detection also looks a lot different than what I've experienced and they only got knocked down temporarily once. Wonder if there was any TAS stuff happening or just a super lucky run. The one thing I have noticed from the video is that the opponents will get up instantly if they get knocked over. That means their down-time decreases with each round (as far as I can tell, my character's stay the same no matter the round), and probably confirms I don't bother with the super shots after a while. Mostly talking to myself here, I suppose, but all that to say that I'll probably give it a few more serious attempts, but if I'm still not making progress I'll probably switch to something else.

Very nice! I loved Off-Road in the Arcade, but still haven't taken the plunge to try out the GB version more than 2 minutes. I put my first real effort into Penguin Wars tonight. My Personal Best so far is Game 19 of 40. The biggest thing I'm struggling with right now is that if you get knocked down as of Game 5 or later, then you're pretty much guaranteed to lose that round. The enemies will home in the powered up ball which keeps you on the ground longer and I can't move fast enough to avoid the next super ball (at least as the Penguin). The manual says you can mash buttons to get up faster, but I haven't found that to be true. I doubt anyone has any advance tactics for the later rounds, but I'm open to hearing them as right now it's quite a bit of luck required to get "far." What is interesting is that each cycle changes the gameplay a bit more. The animals are more aggressive from cycle 2, but also the obstacles start showing up earlier in the round, and in cycle 5 the balls fall from mid-screen at random, varying speeds so you have to do some quick dodging and planning to avoid the enemy's incoming projectiles as well as your slower to arrive starting balls. This will certainly be a challenge and I'll be upset if it turns out that extra cut scene is just in the PAL region!

I didn't even think to check the PAL name. Great find! Well, looks like I have my marching orders! Anyone on this forum a data miner that can dig up more fun stuff like this?

I was thinking I might get a chance to play Penguin Wars in the next couple days and since it's such a short game I was considering beating it with every character. So, I did a quick YouTube search to confirm the end screens are different (they are), and I saw a random comment from someone claiming there is a secret ending? "There actually IS an ending, but to see it you have to win 40 games in a row (defeat everyone ten times). Have you tried that?" I've been trying to find some sort of confirmation, but have come up empty. Have any of you heard of this before? If true, it really makes me wonder how many other secrets are still hiding.

Alright, I am abandoning Championship Pool for the time being. I realize I simply don't have enough time right now to devote to a real attempt. Have another rough patch hitting. So, when I can get back to playing, I'm switching it out with Penguin Wars. One additional piece of good news I learned for Championship Pool is that if you score 140 or less in Speed Pool to get the warp (which took me about 3 hours of trying), it will stay in effect as long as the system stays on. If I can reach a point in my life where I can leave the SNES on and consistently come back to try more, I'll try to knock this out. The speed pool path will definitely be the way to go, though. If you win the entire regional one, but fail the championship tournament the you have to replay the regional. No contest between that and spending a bit of time to unlock the warp.

I'm happy to contribute as much as I can if you do! I just finished doing the 8-ball championship tournament on emulator and there are technically different endings there. After you win, you are interviewed and can check various different dialogue options. I found two different end screens depending on which answers you give. I don't think the 9-ball tournament will have a different overall ending, so I'll show them off when I finally put the game to rest. Biggest concern right now is finding a large enough block of time to make a few solid efforts on real hardware. Didn't have a chance this past weekend, but hopefully this coming one will work. I would love to move on already!

No wonder no one's completed Championship Pool so far. I've been playing on emulator with save states to practice and to also see if the 8-ball tournament will give a different end screen than the 9-ball. Last night I got through what I thought was the last round, but it was the last qualifying tournament round before the actual championship tournament. With no save states or passwords, that's a steep hill to climb. The good (?) news is that there is a way to bypass the qualifying tourney if you fail. I got a message saying that if you score 140 or less on the first Speed Pool Challenge and then start the tournament, it'll warp you to the championship round. So, anyone trying this in the future can save a little hassle. Haven't started putting together a legitimate run yet, but may try the real hardware attempts this weekend.

Burai Fighter Deluxe is done. I went a little above and beyond what the requirements were. I learned there was a 4th, hidden difficulty so that was my goal. I beat the game on Ace in order to unlock it (honestly not sure if Albatross would do the same, but thought I'd learn the game on the hardest available before getting into "Ultimate." Ultimate really wasn't much different than Ace. The enemy's bullets move a lot faster, but otherwise it looked the same to me. The ending gives a different message as well if anyone is curious about that. The game itself is okay, but not great. It was a bit of a challenge to learn at times but didn't really post much trouble. The bosses were pushovers, although the last one took a ton of hits. Nothing to write home about, and honestly pretty boring most of the time, so I look forward to eventually getting to play much better shooters on the system. Next up for me is Championship Pool (I don't think anyone's stated they're working on it yet, but if I missed it, let me know). I understand the game is a bit notorious, so it'll be interesting to see how long it ends up taking me. I already know I'm going to be doing the 9-ball tournament, so if anyone wants to take on the 8-ball tournament and race, we can compare endings when it's all done! What? No one? Fine. I'll be in my room if you need me.

Sounds good to me. I already have my 15 tentatively planned, and if I can get through it all, there will be 5 more first time clears to add, including a few of those pesky sports titles. So progress may get slow here and there if I have to work through seasons, but if there's nowhere to travel to these days, I can eventually use vacation days to relax and devote some solid hours to the cause.

Hey, so I'm still alive and actually have had time to play games a bit lately. I no longer think I'll have time to get through 30 games this year as originally planned, but I'm going to shoot for 15. Anyway, 5 months in, I finally beat my first game of the year -- Incredible Crash Dummies. This took me a lot longer than it probably should. Out of the five mini games, only the rocket ship one gave me any trouble. I have a heck of a time with the momentum based movement and you have to be pretty precise on the last two difficulties. It was far too easy for me to over-correct and crash, or assume I had the right speed going but fail because I was one notch too slow or too fast. Either way, 4 of the 5 mini-games are all about learning the routes to not die. The fifth is diffusing bombs on an "I Love Lucy" conveyor belt situation and that was the least fun since it took forever. Overall, even though I struggled a lot with the game, all the mistakes were my fault, so I never got frustrated with anything other than my lack of ability and the prospect of spending another 20 minutes to get to the end to try again. Thankfully the music in this game is absolutely fantastic, and I honestly think that kept me going at times. Not a terrible game, but not a great one either. I'm going after Burai Fighter Deluxe next, but I think I'm going to go all out and try to beat it on Ultimate. Good to be back.

Holy cow, we're all getting lapped over and over here. I'm still plugging away at Crash Dummies. Learned that the game has a hidden password menu so I've been using that to practice the later waves. Just need to get the routes down for that 4th wave, then I'll put together a run from the very beginning (since the game doesn't offer passwords naturally). So far, it's a fun challenge

It's really cool to see all the progress made so far. I'm hoping that I'll be able to jump in soon to start helping out. I'm going to shoot for 30 games this year, even though I missed last year's goal of 25 by 1. Last night I finally got a chance to boot up the SGB2 again to start learning Incredible Crash Dummies. Not too bad so far, but not great. I almost got through the second cycle and I think it will all come down to learning routes for most of the mini games. Maybe by the end of the week (or earlier) I can claim a spot at the bottom of the leader board here.

Personally I like the yearly reset, but wouldn't mind seeing it paired with a king of the hill type system so multiple people could finish the same game and get some sort of points. Getting to around 50% complete each year isn't bad at all and the drive to do better each year is a motivator. Having a forever thread means people could ignore the sports more like you're saying and also possibly create some apathy since they could do it anytime, and thus do it never. I still consider myself to be pretty new to this whole thing, but it seemed like some of us were focusing more on the ones that were never completed with the extra points incentives. I am one of those types that is trying to beat all GB games, but life keeps getting in the way of my already limited playing time. I didn't even reach my goal of beating 25 games this year thanks to multiple family matters that popped up the last couple months. I'm happy to contribute as much as I'm able to (going to shoot for at least 30 games done in 2020) and I'm intrigued by the ranked list and what that will look like. I've been writing mini reviews and keeping tabs of my own personal 1-10 score for each game I've completed since starting my quest. So I'll keep watching this space, and I'm hoping I'll be able to get my next completion done in mid-January.

Congratulations. I just picked up Yogi this summer, but haven't dived in. Good to know there is a better ending to shoot for. I don't usually go for the hardest setting personally, because I'm pretty bad at games generally, but I do try to be as comprehensive as possible. You know I was actually thinking of stopping after I beat my next game as that would put me at 25 for the year personally and I want room for improvement, but if we're close to a record, then I may have to keep rolling along to help.

Haha. So it's not bad until it sucks your desire to play out of your soul. Got it! Still haven't started it yet, so we shall see. Thank you. It was disappointing and Spike was a butt. I was really hoping for a Bugs Bunny Crazy Castle type of a thing, but no. Instead it was Snoopy's War of Attrition. Figure out the puzzle in a minute and spend 10 minutes retrying until the random enemy AI lets you execute the solution. Oh well. When the goal is to play them all, there's bound to be some stinkers.

Snoopy's Magic Show is done... Do you want a game that relies almost completely on luck? Well then do I have the game for you. Snoopy's Magic Show (magic show not included) is chock full of no surprises, unresponsive controls, giant hit boxes, tight corridors and random enemy movements. Do the same thing 10 times and get 10 different results. Keep trying that level until you get lucky enough for the game to allow you to beat it! No skills necessary, anyone can play. You might have to hit "A" a couple times, though. Marvel at the recycled levels. Wonder at the power-ups that don't last long enough to be used. Shriek in terror at the grating music and sound effects. You'll want to look away, and you should. Run, don't walk, to your next game. Found out you can double click to resize the images! Next up for me is... Incredible Crash Dummies... Uh oh. I think I need to have a talk with the randomizer.

It is my humble honor to offer the first completed Game Boy game on the VGS thread. Mole Mania is done! What an addicting, charming, and long puzzle game. The goal is the same on each screen but the method keeps changing. Sometimes the challenge is about avoiding enemies, sometimes it's about timing it right, most of the time it's about moving things around in the right order, and in many cases there appears to be more than one right way to solve the puzzle. Each stage introduced new and compelling mechanics. What I also found interesting is that the game would include elements you could completely ignore. I don't know if they were meant to be fake-outs or not, but it added to the challenge for me. This screen is presenting me with chess, but wants me to play checkers. The bosses were a mixed bag as some were simply tedious. The bonus stages provided a good change of pace, but I found them to be a bit frustrating since Jinbe moves so fast. The cut scenes and characters were cute and put later GB games to shame. Highly recommended. (by the way, the images look like they're displaying really large and I didn't see resize options when inserting from URL, so feel free to pass along any hints on the best way to add them on here.) **EDIT: learned how to resize down from 1000 to 400** Next up for me, the randomizer chose Snoopy's Magic Show.

Just about anything Game Boy related is interesting to me.

Hi everyone, I never made an introduction post over on NA, but figured I might as well start fresh along with the new forum. I'm Floating Platforms and I joined NA because I decided to start up a console challenge to collect and beat every US Original Game Boy game and the "Beat every game in a year" threads were a great resource that I could also contribute to. I didn't really take participate in other parts of the boards, but I did lurk around. I look forward to joining more conversations and getting to know more of you. Gray carts forever!