Gaia Gensouki

This looks very interesting. However, I hope that it's not just a rehash of NES remix, but that this one goes way beyond the scope of NES remix.

Although my dream would still be for Nintendo to put a bunch of their games in a neat little package like Sega does with their Genesis collection or Capcom and Konami with their Mega Man/Castlevania collections etc. It would be nice to have a bunch of Nintendo's legacy titles, and not just NES, on a physical cartridge for their modern console. Unfortunately they only do this with a subscription service, which I really dislike.

I was fully prepared to pass on this one since I absolutely didn't like it during my first testing sessions and never made it past level 5 no matter how many tries. However, something clicked today and I was making steady progress during the past 5 or 6 hours. I eventually got a lucky run and ended up with this score:

Level 16 - 120,040

Today I beat Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III: The Manhattan Project. I played it as part of the weekly NES challenge and decided to finally try and beat the whole game, while I was at it. And I think that it's a really good beat 'em up for the system. Actually, it's hard to believe that this game is running on the NES in the first place. Really incredible graphics and it plays very well, except for the special attacks which sometimes didn't work for me.

But there is one big downside to this game: the levels go on for a bit too long and some of the later bosses take way too many hits. Therefore this game can sometimes drag a little. Couple this with the limited continues and having to potentially start this game over from the very beginning, it can be a bit demoralizing. Still, it's an overall good time and an easy recommendation, which is why I would give it an 8 out of 10.

1. Little Nemo: The Dream Master (8/10)
2. TMNT III: The Manhattan Project (8/10)
3. Destiny of an Emperor (6.5/10)
4. Wurm - Journey to the Center of the Earth (5.5/10)

PS: I also tried TMNT II just a moment ago and it feels a bit weaker than III. I made it to level 7 before getting a game over. Maybe I'll try to beat it too since it's technically also on my list. But maybe some other time.

I barely made it to level 8 on a single continue for the first time and got to Shredder on my second continue, but failed pretty miserably and am a little discouraged to try again, because level 8 is just too damn long. On top of that there are limited continues which is really discouraging. Though I would like to finish this one for my personal backlog.

I've been looking through the Top 1000 list and out of the first 200 games I have not played 120 games. There's way too many modern games for my liking. But this could be an interesting project for a backlog challenge in the upcoming year(s).

Full list of the games I haven't played or only played for a short amount of time, i.e. less than half of the full game:

44 minutes ago, koifish said:

ha ha, for me the it's 21st century. Exceptions exist, but fair to note; Academics point out how hard it is to put definite caps on the end of an era in music and art history, hardly surprising it is not agreed on in games.

For me personally modern gaming starts with the PS3/Xbox 360/Wii/NDS era. That coincides with the rise of HD games, mobile and casual games, indies, wide-spread distribution of online gaming, the dark age of Japanese games etc. I think you can also start to see a shift in game design roughly in the early 2000s or around the time of the PS2/Xbox/GC/GBA era. The games start to feel very different and you have plenty of new IPs. There's also a shift in the genres that are popular, e.g. less arcade-style games, shmups, belt scrollers and 2D games in general. Meanwhile open-world, sandbox, immersive sims, FPS, cinematic action-adventure games and MMOs are getting more and more popular. However, I still like the PS2 era since there a are plenty of fun and interesting JRPGs to play.

I have a book called "An Illustrated History of 151 Video Games" by Simon Parkin. It only covers games until 2012, but I think this could be a decent starting point. Maybe we could add and subtract some games? Anyway, here's the list:

1970s: Computer Space, Pong, Laser Clay Shooting System (later re-released as Duck hunt), Gran Trak 10, Sea Wolf, Night Driver, Breakout, Space Invaders, Warrior, Galaxian, Asteroids, Adventure.

1080s: Pac-Man, Missile Command, Defender, Donkey Kong, Robotron 2084, E.T. The Extra Terrestrial, Dragon's Lair, The Black Onyx, Elite, Marble Madness, The Way of the Exploding Fist, Super Mario Bros., Gauntlet, The Legend of Zelda, Dragon Quest, Metal Gear, R-Type, Street Fighter, Maniac Mansion, Final Fantasy, Ghouls'N Ghosts, Hard Drivin', Tetris, Populous, Sim City.

1990s: John Madden Football, Fire Emblem: Ankoku Ryu to Hikari no Tsurugi, The Secret of Monkey Island, Super Mario World, Bomberman, Lemmings, Street Fighter II, Sonic the Hedgehog, The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, Another World, Wolfenstein 3D, Super Mario Kart, Mortal Kombat, Final Fantasy V, FIFA International Soccer, Gunstar Heroes, Myst, Ridge Racer, Virtua Fighter, Doom, Sensible World Soccer, Super Metroid, Theme Park, Command and Conquer, Wipeout, Sega Rally Championship, Pokémon, Resident Evil, Super Mario RPG, Quake, Super Mario 64, Nights into Dreams, Meridian 59, Tomb Raider, Diablo, Parappa the Rapper, Final Fantasy VII, Bushido Blade, Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, International Superstar Soccer Pro, Final Fantasy Tactics, Goldeneye 007, Ultima Online, Fallout, Gran Turismo, Metal Gear Solid, Half-Life, Dance Dance Revolution, Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, Crazy Taxi, Virtua Tennis, Super Smash Bros., Tony Hawk's Pro Skater, Shenmue, The Sims.

2000s: Deus Ex, Counter Strike, Phantasy Star Online, Bejeweled Deluxe, Devil May Cry, Advance Wars, Super Monkey Ball, Ico, Grand Theft Auto III, Halo: Combat Evolved, Rez, Animal Crossing, Kingdom Hearts, Final Fantasy XI, Neverwinter nights, Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell, Disgaea: Hour of Darkness, Warioware, Inc: Mega Microgrames!, Eve Online, Knights of the Old Republic, Prince of Persia: Sands of Time, Manhunt, Katamari Damacy, Half-Life 2, World of Warcraft, Resident Evil 4, God of War, Lego Star Wars: The Video Game, Nintendogs, Brain Training, Killer7, Civilization IV, Guitar Hero, Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved, Monster Hunter Freedom, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, Gears of War, Wii Sports, Crackdown, Peggle, Desktop Tower Defense, Bioshock, Skate, Portal, Super Mario Galaxy, Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, Street Fighter IV, Braid, Far Cry 4, Little Big Planet, Demon's Souls, Flower, Minecraft, Uncharted 2: Among Thieves, Angry Birds, Red Dead Redemption, Dark Souls, Journey, Fez.

3 hours ago, Bearcat-Doug said:

I like this game, but it's way too long. 

Absolutely! I've just been trying to play through this game, but starting with level 4 the levels become obscenely long and it gets painfully boring after a while. It doesn't help either that the bosses become total damage sponges.

It's a good game at its core, but yeah, it gets painfully repetitive. Just got my first game over at the level 5 boss and I have no interest anymore in continuing. So I think it was a wise decision to limit the scope of this week's challenge.

Too bad though. I wish i could have beaten this game for me personally as I keep list of all the NES games that I've beaten.

Good to know who's working on which game. Unfortunately, I've at least tried almost every game left on this list and outside of Genghis Khan I don't see any game where I have a realistic chance of beating it.

I usually enjoy these old-school racing games, but 3 out of the 4 that are left are pretty bad and very difficult on top of it. iirc, Nigel Mansell's WCR seemed pretty well made, but I never managed to win even a single race.

Also, my work on these games has been slowed down significantly due to the weekly NES challenges since I only have so much time and energy that I can spend on video games.

I was skimming through these to see if there's maybe something simple and fun that I can plow through in a short amount of time, so I did one loop of Raiden, i.e. 8 levels. I liked this game on other platforms, but this one feels a little off. The graphics may be really good and there's lots of action going on with little to no slowdown. However, the controls feel a little bit sluggish and the horizontal scrolling of the screen is extremely slow. This means, that when you want to move to the left or right, you have to move pretty much to the edge of the screen and then it will slowly scroll to the side. Meanwhile enemies can shoot you with pretty much no reaction time.

1 hour ago, NESfiend said:

Curious what you and @Gaia Gensouki did for upgrade strategies. I was choosing all Rs, but only playing a couple days, I didnt mess around with all the letter and upgrade them each to see which is best in the end. When I went to check video for level 4 boss strat, the youtuber was going all Ls, but thats a sample size of 1

Level 4: L

Level 5: R to hit enemies beyond the walls and L at the end for the boss.

Level 6: L

Level 7: L for the levels itself and R for the boss. With the lasers it takes way too long to beat the boss.

It's also important to max out your weapons as quickly as possible and to get your energy bar almost to full at the end of the fourth level. It comes in handy at times during the other levels.

After man unsuccessful attempts at the level 4 boss I realized that the easiest way to defeat it was to use the laser and to fly right below him. For some reason he stops shooting at you when you're constantly hitting him. Plus, he's dead before he can even move.

24 minutes ago, BeaIank said:

So you died to max the health bar. Clever. I will have to change that so lives have more weight.

There. Now a life is worth more than a full health bar and thus managing to conserve it will play a bigger part on the challenge!

Dammit! I should have kept my score until the very end.

Though this now means that preserving your lives is more important than speed. I will have to adjust my strategy for that.

Here's my score before getting the +15k from the second boss.

129,100 + 20,000 + 8,000 = 157,100 (according to the new rules)

Current score: 138,300 + 50,000 + 1,500 = 189,800

32 minutes ago, mbd39 said:

Is this game crazy hard for anyone else? It's a cool game, but I only made it out of level 4 like maybe three or four times this week. One of the main issues is getting trapped by that stupid boss.

Yeah, it is really hard and it took me many tries to even beat level 4 reliably and even then some runs just failed. Level 5 was the biggest obstacle for me since some parts are really just giant instant death traps with a bit of randonmess mixed in there. However, the game is fun enough, imho, that I kept trying.

@Sumez Just a reminder that it's your turn to post something next.

Made it to the final boss twice and choked on both occasions. I've beaten him before, but somehow the beginning of the battle is the most difficult. Once you get into a rhythm it's not that bad, but it didn't work out this time. Maybe tomorrow.

Easy 10/10 for me. My favorite Mario game across all consoles and handhelds, be it 2D or 3D. It looks beautiful. It sounds beautiful. It has plenty of content with a good difficulty curve and even a save feature! Yoshi is adorable, the bosses at the end of every world have more unique mechanics than in SMB3 and I love how the overworld and the levels change after you've beaten the rainbow road. It's just an all-around GOATed game, which is even more impressive since it's Nintendo's first game on the new hardware. To think that a company comes steamrolling with such a top-tier game right at the start of a console's launch is a rare feat.

There's also one more remarkable thing about this game and that is its fanbase. There aren't many games out there that have received so much attention from the fans who would go on to create countless hacks for this game. The SMW kaizo scene is really huge and they've created so many incredible hacks that are sometimes like full-blown games. Highly recommended to check some of them out. Maybe try Grand Poo World 2, Invictus, El Dorado and maybe Team Shell or Orcus. There's plenty of speedruns for these.

Almost got to the final boss on my most recent run. There were a few falling platform and these stupid robots that charge at you. They cost me my run.

But at least I got a score of 470k. Also, I've noticed that there's potentially a way to point press in level 6. I didn't want to risk my run, so instead tried to beat the boss as quickly as possible.

33 minutes ago, Reed Rothchild said:

If you like VI and VII you'd be fine with III, IV and V.  And probably II.

Good to know, thanks! I'm kinda tempted to play the console versions of II and III, but I still remember your review saying that at least MM III on the SNES is buggy and broken. But yeah, eventually I'll try to get around to playing them in one way or another.

Might and Magic VI was amazing and my introduction into this franchise. MM VII made it a bit easier and much more beginner-friendly. I've always wanted to play the earlier games in chronological order, but never really got around to it. I've tried the first game on the NES and its difficulty is relentless. But this was par for the course back in the day and it's quite the huge and amibitious dungeon crawler.

186,960, 470,970, 532,160

705,090

1 hour ago, Sumez said:

Wand of Gamelon?

Correct. It's the map for Zelda: The Wand of Gamelon.

No right guess so far. Bigger screenshot.

2 hours ago, RH said:

Imagine if I came in here and said “beer is nasty and sucks.  The fact that you have to learn to like it is proof I’m right”, probably 95% of you would want to burn me at the stake.

Guess I'm part of the 5 % who would agree. Beer is nasty.

2 hours ago, RH said:

I accept that’s my opinion about the stuff but I can also accept I’m in the minority.  I don’t have to tear down beer lovers because they enjoy something different that I do.  The same is true with Sonic.  You like it or you don’t.  There’s no need to berate the series just because it’s not your cup of tea.  In fact, it seems to be the SNES bois who have to keep pushing the Mario vs. Sonic narrative when, in fact, both can coexist.  Some can like one over the other, while others can appreciate what both series have to offer.

I will admit that I've been too harsh on the Sonic lovers/enjoyers and I'm sorry for coming off as too abrasive. However, these polls were about the very best games on the Genesis/Mega Drive, so I think it's not unreasonable to talk about the merits or potential flaws of the candidates and why a specific game deserves to be singled out among hundreds, if not out of over a thousand games as the very best that there is.

And I only brought Mario into the mix in order to contrast Sonic with a another platformer, that in my opinion did certain things better. On top of that, it seemed to me that Sonic earned its high reputation at least in part because of its role in the console wars and as the cooler and faster alternative to boring and family-friendly Mario.

Okay, I somehow did it. Track & Field II is done. The end of the horizontal bars is basically a slot machine. You have to keep mashing the A button while looking at the move list and hopefully not pressing B while "Finish" is displayed. The other moves, that you want to perform instead, just flash shortly. So I had to get into a rhythm to anticipate when they appear.

That being said, my favorite disciplines were archery and canoeing. Horizontal Bar and High Dive were the worst for me. The other discliplines were all fine. Overall, this game had pretty good variety and might be one of the better games of its kind. What disappointed me though is that you don't see a list of all the medals that you and your rivals have earned. Capcom Gold Medal Challenge had this and it was definitely a welcome addition.