Gaia Gensouki

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.

On 4/2/2024 at 7:34 PM, Tablew/chairs said:

I’m pretty sure there’s something you can do to remain on the bar and build your score I don’t remember exactly but there’s a way where you can just keep performing tricks without ending the run when you’re supposed to

Did you perhaps remember how that trick worked? Because I've been trying this over and over, but I can't get any higher than 7.70. I even tried cheating during practice mode with turbo buttons, but even then I can't get any higher. So I'm wondering, what I'm doing wrong. It can't just be about pressing A really fast, because there seems ot me more to it. And when it wants to finish, it mostly shows "Finish", but sometimes it shortly flashes another move. However, getting the timing right to do several more moves at this point is borderline impossible. I couldn't find any useful tips on gamefaqs or strategywiki either.

9 hours ago, Brickman said:

It’s like watching a kid play SMB for the first time and dying on the first goomba. They learn the levels and eventually are flying through the game.

Same goes with Sonic. Learn the levels and you’ll be flying through the levels and not losing rings. 

The difference is that Sonic regularly forces you to go fast and doesn't give you enough time to react. This is cheap difficulty and any not-popular game would get flamed hard for this. By contrast, SMB gives you plenty of time to react to the first goomba and almost every other threat in the game. It doesn't feel cheap and you don't have to play the levels over and over again in order to memorize everything and to get by. However, if you do, you can also speed through the game like crazy. It's a game that rewards god playing while still being fun for beginners and intermediate players.

And the argument of "git gud" can be used for pretty much any game to disregard criticism about its flaws. It's not really constructive.

5 hours ago, Dr. Morbis said:

You don't get it: that's the flaw!  You're arguing that the game is great if you approach it from the perspective of a speedrunner learning the game for the first time who is hell-bent on mastering it... but what about the rest of us?!?  You're right, the game is great if you approach it as a speedrunner, because that's who the game was built for, but it sucks for everyone else.

As someone else already mentioned, go and play/master Kid Kool if you think this is such an epically awesome way to design a game, and report back with your comments...  

My point with Kid Kool was, that it has similar design elements (or flaws, in my opinion), but it's somehow regarded as one of the worst games on the NES that barely gets played even in the challenges on this site, whereas Sonic is widely regarded as one of the best, if not THE single best game on the entire Genesis/Mega Drive. So I must be missing something. My theory was, that this is because of clever marketing and Sonic's unique place in the history of the console war. But yeah, reading through RH's replies there must be something that I don't quite see or get at the moment.

However, I think it's really nasty of you to ridicule an honest and civilized discussion, twisting the arguments and dragging it all through the mud with passive-aggressive comments.

I've made it to the 8th day of Track & Field II and am stuck again on the horizontal bars. Maybe I'll have to do some research on how to stay on there longer and get a higher score, because this is the challenge that I've repeatedly failed on. But I might need a few more days of rest before I can try this again.

In Genghis Khan I've started World Conquest as the Japanese and so far managed to conquer 8 out of 27 countries. Both games will definitely take some more time, but I'm optimistic that I can beat them sooner or later.

Somehow I'm in the mood to replay Might and Magic VII again. Anyway here's the new screenshot:

10 minutes ago, RH said:

No, part of the difficulty is struggling through the levels as if they are any platformer but the ADDED benefit is once you can navigate the level, you can further improve your game by learning optimized paths that allow you to blaze through the game, buy you have to EARN that.  This is not broken, but intentional game design.

To me this sounds like the retro gaming equivalent of a modern gamer saying "It gets good after 20 hours." So you basically have to play through the game over and over again until you memorize everything only to blast through the game? I can do this with every other game and basically speedrun it, too. The only thing lacking is, that it doesn't have the same sense of speed, but at least with certain other games I have fun playing them from the getgo without having to go through loads of frustration.

If you want a similar experience, try Kid Kool on the NES. It gets crazy fast, too. Problem with running into enemies? Well, just learn the whole game by heart so that you can speedrun through it. The developers even encourage it, because the longer you take, the worse your ending gets. But somehow I don't see die-hard fan communities around this game despite similar game design and even predating Sonic by about 3 years in Japan and over 1 year in the US. Maybe it's because Kid Kool isn't cool? Basically, I can't imagine Sonic getting as popular as it is, if it wasn't for marketing and its place in video game history.

And regarding cartridge sizes: Mario 3 had ~385KB and Super Mario World 512 KB compared to Sonic's 512 KB and Sonic 2's 1024 KB. Despite Sonic games being slightly larger in file size, the amount of content is rather small compared to what a good Mario game offered you. The levels also felt more distinct with plenty of variety and different mechanics thrown at you.

This looks so familiar! Is this maybe from Might and Magic VII?

Hot take incoming: Sonic has never been particularly good and is a total mess of a game that only got famous because of very strong marketing and Sega fanboys wanting to stick it to Nintendo. It's the ultimate example of style over substance. Sega fans were starving for anything that could rival the Mario platformers and would latch on to anything even remotely decent and Sonic was at least a better game and character than the absolute joke that is Alex Kid.

As for the game itself, it's an overly frustrating mess that doesn't know what it wants to be. On the one hand, it had to be a fast game so that it can be cooler than Mario. On the other hand, they also wanted complex, almost maze-like level layouts with multiple paths and all kinds of secrets, just like Mario. However, this clashes fundamentally. If you want your players to go fast and just speed through the game, then including all these alternate paths and secrets that require careful exploration, are like antitheses to one another.

So you could just be like, fuck it, I'm just speeding through the level. But then it gets so fast, that you can't react to enemies or stage hazards anymore and just run or jump into them. However, if you go too slow, then you can't make it past many of the obstacles. So you're either slow as a snail where you can't even make it past certain obstacles or you get ridiculously fast. There's little in-between. This also makes the precision platforming in later stages very annoying. Other games get blasted into oblivion for having such sluggish or bad controls, but Sonic somehow gets away with it.

What's even more frustrating, however, is that they on the one hand want you to go fast, but at the same time you should collect a lot of rings and make it through the level unscathed to the checkpoints or so, so that you can get the chaos emeralds. Nothing is more frustrating than carefully collecting the stupid rings, only to get hit by an enemy, that you can sometimes not even see beforehand, and then to lose almost all of your precious rings. Who in their right mind thought that this would be a good idea? It's absolutely infruriating! Imagine in Mario 64, when you're collecting 100 coins to get a star and for every hit that you take, ALL of your coins fly around the screen and you have to collect them again with some of them even being gone foever, so that you have to either redo the level or have to give up on that star. This is ridiculous! I can't believe that nonsense like this gets defended as good game design or as peak Genesis game.

I could go on and on about what is so truly awful about Sonic, but I'll just leave you with this: Do you know what's a similar, but much better platformer than Sonic that's also been developed by Sega? Ristar. It has the same level design philosophy with the complex levels and hidden secrets, but a slower and more deliberate pace with very tight controls. It's also visually and thematically much more creative than Sonic with some creative and wild levels. On top of that, you're not forced to collect stupid rings and then lose them with a single hit. It's so much better than the mediocre mess that is called Sonic, but somehow it never caught on with the wider public. This just goes to show that Sonic as a franchise is not famous because of its quality, but only because of the unparalleled marketing by Sega and Sonic's place in Sega's rivalry with Nintendo.

5 hours ago, Daniel_Doyce said:

Well, there are two left. Genghis Khan is definitely harder, but RotTK2 is no slouch either. If you're serious, let me know since I'm going to start on one or the other next.

I've started Genghis Khan with world conquest on the lowest difficulty.

Since my fingers are still wrecked from Trakc & Field II I thought about maybe trying one of those turn-based strtegy games from Koei. Is one of these currently worked on? And would it be okay to chose a lower difficulty?

I'm currently wokring on Track & Field II and have at least made it to the 4th day out of 8. Unfortunately, I'm stuck right now at the horizontal bars and haven't yet figured out how to score highly on this game. Plus, this type of game is bad for your fingers. So I'll need to take a break for a few days every now and then. Not sure if I'm good enough to actually beat the whole game, but I'll keep trying.

Level 11 - 78,963

Level 11 - 92,007

5 hours ago, NostalgicMachine said:

What a boring final lmao.

I hope GSH wins.

That's the problem with every best of list that is decided by majority vote. You will always see the usual suspects up there and it ends up being super boring. That's why I usually prefer more individual lists that sometimes have some surprising games on there.

I'm still recovering from a cold, so there's not much going outside for me right now. Enjoy it for me too.

Instead I played some more Balloon Fight and finally got to phase 20. I could do some more point pressing later on and I think I missed the bonus in one of the later bonus levels. So there's still room for improvement, but I'm not sure if it's worth the grind. But we'll see. There's still three more days to go.

Love Balloon Fight. It's probably my favorite black box game behind Super Mario Bros. Anyway, here's my current score.

310,250. Must have been the beginning of phase 13 or 14.

372,800 in Phase 17.

487,250 in Phase 20.

50 minutes ago, T-Pac said:

This is such a solid list, dude.

I'm pretty sure I bought Over Horizon on your recommendation a couple of years ago, and I had a great time with it. And I just finished a playthrough of Gradius II and loved it even more.

Thanks. And I'm glad, that you ended up liking Over Horizon. I prefer it slightly over Gradius II, because OH is quite a bit easier than Gradius II and is therefore more comfy for me to replay, which I like. Not every game has to be a nail-bitingly tense experience. Otherwise I might have also mentioned Undead Line for the Mega Drive as an honorable mention, but due to the high difficulty I have a love-hate-relationship with that game. Also, Slap Fight MD is a lot of fun as well. It's a competent port of a typical Toaplan shooter, but with extra bells and whistles.

1 hour ago, T-Pac said:

Musha Aleste is hovering near the top of my "to-play" list for Mega Drive shooters. I'm hoping it holds up to the hype (which seems likely, based on the short time I spent play-testing my copy).

I wish you a lot of fun with that one. With hyped-up games like that it's always a bit problematic though, if they can actually live up to the hype.

1 hour ago, T-Pac said:

I absolutely love Image Fight on the NES, but I've never tried the PCE version. (And I obviously love R-Type on the TG-16).

Glad ot hear that and it seems to rank quite highly in your list as well. The PCE version is just a highly beefed up version that plays a lot quicker and smoother. There's also a Japan-exclusive sequel, that's pretty good, too. (I bought both games for the Virtual Console on the Wii U, back when that was a thing.)

At the end of 1-3 I just triggered the two Goombas so that they would walk to the right. Then, when the green turtle came, I used Mario's tail to knock it over and move it to the right. As the Goombas came closer and closer I picked up the shell and managed to get to the goal without the green turtle ever leaving its shell again. That's how I got the 4 coins.

5 coins however seemed impossible to me, so I didn't spend much time on it.

Based on system:

Atari 2600: Galaxian

NES: Over Horizon (Honorable mention: Gradius 2: Gofer's Ambition)

PC Engine: Image Fight (Honorable mention: R-Type)

SNES: Axelay

Mega Drive/Genesis: Thunder Force IV (Honorable mention: M.U.S.H.A.)

Overall Top 5:

1. Image Fight
2. Thunder Force IV
3. Over Horizon
4. M.U.S.H.A.
5. Axelay

That being said, I haven't played that many games in the genre and I kinda suck at it, too. But as long as the game is fun and the challenge reasonable, I still perseverse and try to beat it. I also haven't played many of the classics, yet. Unfortunately, these games tend to be very expensive, so I can not reasonably collect them and have to rely on other methods of playing them. Luckily, there are many re-releases on many of the now expensive classics, so that I will eventually get to them.

Kid Kool is done. I got the bad ending, but I doubt that I will ever go back to this game to get a better ending. I liked The Krion conquest by Vic Tokai, but this one is really quite bad.

Is one of the good endings required in Kid Kool? Because if it's okay to let the King die, I might be able to grind my way through the game since it seems to have unlimited continues.

I just read the comment about how you can turn enemies into coins if you're at the end of the level. So here's my new score:

1-1: 59 Coins, 246 time left.

1-2: 35 Coins, 235 time left.

1-3: 87 Coins, 190 time left.

1-4: 45 Coins, 221 time left.

226 coins, 892 time left.