Floating Platforms

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!