Floating Platforms

6 hours ago, the_wizard_666 said:

Knocked off Yoshi's Cookie.  So this is another first time win, but I'm not sure if this is truly the ending.  Upon completion of 10-10, and watching the credits, it gave instructions to get a level select to choose levels 11 and beyond.  I'm not sure if any of these have an ending as well, nor do I care enough to bother at the moment.  That said, I certainly didn't beat it from scratch.  I chose level 10 on low speed.  Speed doesn't seem to affect the ending at all, though apparently levels 1 through 9 have a cut scene that plays before advancing to the next level.  I'm inclined to say it's beaten, at least for the purposes of this thread, but does anyone have any info on the later levels, if they have a unique cut scenes too, or if it's just a bonus for people that have otherwise mastered the game?

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.

4 hours ago, MegaMan52 said:

The game isn't even hard, and it's short

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

10 hours ago, the_wizard_666 said:

those "____ Simulator" games tend to be a bit rushed out the door due to being simple yet popular enough to be profitable.  They're usually fun, but also a bit janky.

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.

2 hours ago, the_wizard_666 said:

Apparently a fix is incoming

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.

I'm considering Powerwash Simulator done.  Normally I go for the platinum trophy if it's within my skill level, but that will have to wait. I beat the main story and apparently that specific trophy is glitched.  If it gets patched, I'll revisit and do the challenges to finish it out.

Anyway, the game is a nice, mindless relaxing experience that was a perfect way to wind down before bed. Really nothing challenging about it and that's okay. The levels had a nice variety of settings. Probably too many vehicles, but otherwise, they kept it interesting. There was a story throughout that went to sort of unexpected places but was far too sparse to be considered a selling point. The goal is to zone out, put on a stream or YouTube video on the background and spray the night away.

I've been playing another sleepy-time game in Danganronpa (sleepy in that reading that much on the TV makes me fall asleep accidentally), so I'll probably spend my PS5 time going back to Assassin's Creed Valhalla and/or Yakuza 0 when I want to stay awake.

Paperboy is done

Paperboy is not a bad game, and this plays well enough, but the zoomed in screen of the Game Boy makes this one of the worst versions you could try. Half the fun playing this as a kid is tossing papers into windows or other things to see the destruction effects, but that takes a backseat to surviving when trying to beat it. Save those papers to toss at enemies so they stop in their path.  This took a while to learn. After some time, I found a sweet spot where most sidewalk things wouldn't touch me. Then it was a matter of managing speed. I thought slow was better, but it hurt me more than I knew until I tried speeding up. Still, there are possibly always unavoidable deaths depending on the RNG load-out as you could be hit with 3 or 4 obstacles in the same little section. I barely made it through by the skin of my teeth with a deathless run on Sunday with no lives remaining thanks to a brutal Saturday that took everything from me.

I got some good practice on Itchy & Scratchy: Mini Golf Madness last night too, making it to level 8 of 9. I hope to beat that tonight.

Next on the list are:
180    Platforming/Action    Simpsons: Itchy & Scratchy in Miniature Golf Madness, The
181    Platforming/Action    Amazing Spider-Man 2, The
182    Sports    World Bowling
183    Platforming/Action    Pac-In-Time
184    Platforming/Action    TBD
185    Arcade    Frogger

Since World Bowling is potentially impossible, I will probably swap other games in between attempts.

Decided to do another pinball game on the couch. Revenge of the Gator is done after a lot of resets. I didn't accept a first ball score under 100,000. The ball physics in this are not great and there are tons of cheap losses.

3 hours ago, Splain said:

Are you talking about Paperboy 2?

Sorry, nevermind... I have an old spreadsheet that I work off of sometimes to compare times with other GB runners. There the goal is listed as beat the high score of 11,000.  I see that it does say get through the week here.

I also have a note about paperboy 2 where I put "get through 3 weeks?" but haven't looked into that at all and don't recall where I would have come across that

Maui Mallard in Cold Shadow is done

Sadly, it's not good. The game has good ideas and intentions and a bit of variety in the levels and in the bosses but the controls and hit detection make this duck sink instead of swim. First we have some of the floatiest jumps I've encountered - on par with Toy Story and Pagemaster, and the movement is slippery as well. Everything must be made of ice. It's unclear what you can actually land on sometimes and it's unclear where your exits are. Some doors work, most don't. I found this manhole looking thing that took me to the next part of a level but it felt like a glitch. The powerup icons can be tough to read against the background and there are bug enemies and bug ammo, so be careful to avoid the moving ones. The ninja mechanic is slightly broken. You use your staff to swing on certain points and the hit detection to actually latch on is extremely finicky and inconsistent. You also need to swing at the bottom of the animation for some reason. There's supposed to be a thing where you use your staff to wedge between walls and climb, but that didn't work ever. Ropes were near impossible to grab as well.  Of course there are blind jumps and limited continues. Thankfully I found a cheese spot for the final boss at least. Maybe the 16-bit versions are better but I had to fight against the character too much here.

Also, Popeye 2 is done

This would have been a lot more fun if my cartridge wasn't freezing so much. One time I got to the final boss, lost, and then had a freeze on my way back. Thankfully I was able to get it clean enough and thankfully the game is short enough when you know what to do, that I was able to power through. It's a fun, mostly easy, platformer that reminded me a bit of Super Mario Land, Batman, and a touch of Castlevania Adventure. Solid level layouts with only the very last one including a really devious part in the beginning. The boss fights ranged from mindless to I'm not totally sure what to do so I'll try ways to brute force it. The sprite work was solid and the music had it's moments. I wish you could use the people you rescue as one-time power-ups or for some function but at least I learned how to use the inventory as that was key to helping me win.

I'm now working on Paperboy. Any reason why the goal isn't to get through Sunday on here?  If it's just the high score, I got that on my second run, but I'm going to keep trying until I can do the full week.

I was hoping to get it done last weekend, but 48 levels took a few nights. Anyway, Battleship is done.

I also knocked out a quick one with Pinball Dreams

That second board is dumb with so much empty space and plenty of rebounds that lead straight to the gutter. But jackpots are super easy overall so this didn't take tons of time.

3 hours ago, Splain said:

Awesome, so would you say topping the board on either course is good to call it beaten?

Yes, definitely. I was hoping (but not expecting) that beating both would do something else, but oh well.  I did not test the theory of just getting under par and not reaching #1, though. So, if someone later comes through and does get congratulations on a #2 score, we should probably adjust it again.

Golf is done

The game has its charms, but hiding below the surface of the cute character sprite and the simplistic gameplay is a surprisingly difficult, demanding golf game. There are 2 courses: Japan (easier) and US (harder). Both offer hole layouts that are anything but straightforward most of the time. There is little to no opportunity to hit a par 4 green in one shot or a par 5 in two. They show little pockets of fairway in "alternate" routes, but those rely on perfect conditions and the random wind to be going the right direction (which it never does), so really they are fake outs. There are also several longer holes where your 1W is going to end up in the water or sand, so you have to scale back and set up a shot to get over the hazards. The ball physics are not good. If you are in deep rough, virtually every club is garbage. If the ball hits the green, it will almost always bounce or roll until it's in the rough (where your putter is garbage even though you're right on the edge). Basically friction doesn't exist on the green unless you're already on it and trying to put. The putting is also quite specific and demanding. Anyway, the "saving" grace of the game is that it saves your progress after every shot settles. The manual tells you that and tells you how to reset, so if you hit a bad shot, you can reset before it's done rolling and try again. That's pretty much the only way to get the 6 or 7 under par needed for the victory screen in Japan (12 or 13 under for the harder US course). Since I abused that feature, I went ahead and got both courses done but the endings are the same and there's nothing extra for doing both.

I also started Maui Mallard last night. It's pretty bad but unless the last couple of levels are brutally hard, I think I'll get it done Monday.

well, I learned that trying to play even simple platformers like Yogi Bear is tough for me when just using keyboard as my controller. So I'm nearly half done with Battleship

And NFL Football is done

This game is still trash. Took a few times and some quick resets when the CPU got touchdowns. Picking random teams. Anyway, don't pass the ball and hope you can intercept enough to get the win. I actually managed to run into the endzone for the first time and added more field goals that I expected.

I'm not sure what's next. I'm thinking a simple platformer like Yogi Bear or maybe Battleship

Bugs Bunny Crazy Castle is done. Congraturations to me.

I think I'll try to get NFL Football done next

32 minutes ago, Matt 4120 said:

Here's my upcoming game list:

Zelda Awakening (ongoing)

Vegas Stakes (ongoing)

Atomic Punk

and the unspeakable horror that is Boxxle

Nice! You're playing Boxxle so I don't have to!

Ended the night with a PB of +2 on the Japan course without resets (not even trying the US course), also shot +6 a separate time. Slowly improving.

1 hour ago, Splain said:

Good grief, there's no way I'll ever beat the game if that's the case. Lol. But we need to know!

Last night, I was doing okay and was even par up to hole 12 but then it all kept falling apart. So naturally getting under par may not be out of the realm of possibility. But I think resetting the game on every bad shot (the game saves after every completed shot when the ball settles) is probably the only way to actually "beat" the game. Since the save system is mentioned in the manual, it doesn't really feel like cheating either (to me at least). I'll still try a couple more days to see how much I can improve, but there's no way I can do the US course "legit." Tougher layouts and nothing but strong winds on that one.

I was looking more into Golf and it does seem like in order to get the Congratulations screen, simply getting under par is not enough. It seems that you have to top the course leader board in order for the caddy to say something other than "Nice Game. Please Play Again." I say this because the NintendoComplete longplay gets under par but doesn't get 1st and the congrats message doesn't pop for them.

If 1st is needed as I assume, then for Japan, that means a score of 66 or lower (possibly need 65 as I don't know if a tie of 66 will count), and for USA - the harder course  - 60 or lower (possibly 59).  There is almost no way I'm going to be able to do this without resetting every bad shot but I'll put a couple more days of tries into the Japan course. After my first day, my best round was +12.  If I'm save scumming my way to victory (which I plan to do next Monday if I don't get it naturally beforehand), I'll simply cheese both courses to see if there is anything extra for landing 1st place on both.

On the side, I worked on Bugs Bunny Crazy Castle during the Golden Globes and I'm nearly done with it.

Alright, I'm going to try to contribute a bit more besides what would happen from streaming new to me stuff.  When I'm sitting on the couch watching TV with the wife, I can try to emulate some stuff I've already beaten for the personal challenge.

Took a few tries getting accustomed to the keyboard controls but Baseball is done

Been a while since I've played this and forgot how lackluster this was. Sadly, it's still the 3rd best baseball game on the system so far.

The one thing that "bothers" me about that follow-up video is that it seems like he's considering the games that he simply decided not to play as part of completing his backlog.  If you truly decided you never plan to touch that game, then that's one thing, but in some cases he rationalized it by saying something like he played a similar game/genre so it's being skipped. That kind of fudging the numbers to make the year end totals look better is strange since it really wouldn't have mattered if met that arbitrary goal.  Those games would certainly still be on the backlog, and honestly probably still are for him, despite the presentation.

There is a difference between trying a game and deciding early on that you don't like it versus never trying a game at all. In my personal eyes, the first counts as something to take off the backlog. The second isn't.  Now, that's complicated a bit by digital vs. physical purchases. I have tons of digital steam games from humble bundles I have no interest in. I may never try them ever and that could be the case for some in that video that were retired.  However, a physical game that you never plan to try should honestly just be sold/donated/traded to get it off the backlog officially.

Anyway, long-winded response on something I actually don't care too much about as it's their own personal decision and I'll simply do my own thing with my own games, but still cared enough to give my two cents on the matter.

I just got to the part in Powerwash Simulator where the client texted me to say "you smell like a stinky butt butt" and then informed me when they had to poop and then again to confirm "i did it."

Does that count?