Gaia Gensouki

I played it on an emulator back in the day after playing Lufia 2 for months on end, but somehow couldn't get into the first game. It felt really, really old-school and not as fun and polished as the successor. Maybe Neverland just struck lightning in a bottle with the second game.

Wow, this was extremely close! I am sorry though. Maybe we both can get the points as an exceptions since it was so close? Thanks. And yes, it was definitely very hard! I had to go back a few levels and get the advanced shields and blasters or I would never have made it. And even with these the final battle against Moff was very tough. The second one was really great, iirc, but I unfortunately sold it back in the day...

**SPLAIN ALERT** Am I doing this right? Anyway, I have played Star Wars: Rogue Squadron until the end of chapter IV where the credits roll. While this game successfully evokes an authentic Star Wars athmosphere and plays well for the most part, some aspects of this game are quite aggravating and didn't age too well. Especially some of the later missions were really difficult and frustrating like the mission in the cloud city which goes on for far too long and is incredibly difficult or the second bomber mission where you're in a volcano crater and constantly get hit by seeker missiles without any hopes of evading them. Oftentimes I couldn't even see the missiles or shots from enemies and couldn't udnerstand why I did get hit or why I just died. Of course you have a few lives for every mission, but whenever you fail or run out of lives you get have to endure the long-winded game over screen and have to get through several menus. Just why isn't there an easy redo option or something like that? This was annoying even with regular missions because I died so often, but I imagine that this must be even more frustrating when you're aiming for gold in every level. Also, in some mission it was unclear what I had to do or why I suddenly failed a mission etc. Overall this game doesn't seem quite as good as I remembered it and I would honestly rather replay Star Fox 64.

@Kid Dracula Just how did you do that? I tried that game last year, but I just couldn't make it far. I think level 4 was where I got stuck. There were just too many enemies, imho, and especially those ships that constantly "drop"(?) object on you that you can barely destroy. They always overwhelmed me. Also, when bosses have less and less "parts", the remaining parts shoot more and more projectiles until it becomes almost impossible to evade them anymore. I had no idea how to get through those. And it seemed to me like certain power ups did not appear after seeing the game over screen once. Thus it actually became much harder after dying a few times, or at least that was my impression.

Okay, I'll see if I give Alien Soldier on super hard a try, but the last time I only made it until level 16 or 17. It's really crazy. Anyway, I tried to beat Golden Axe III, but I am not sure, if this even counts. This is because there are two endings afaik and I got the "bad" ending where it says that true peace is not restored and that I will have to journey again to obtain the Golden Axe. I know that there is another ending where you have to fight another boss which triggers a different ending. But I have no idea how to get this one and the last time I tried to research that I couldn't find an answer either. Apparently it's random or triggered by some unknown event(s)???

I was browsing through my small collection of N64 cartridges to see if i could find something to contribute to this challenge as well. So I have decided to give Star Fox 64 a go as I haven't played it since I was a child. I forgot most about it like how to access the different paths and I accidentally ended up on the red path if not for a short diversion on Macbeth. However, it was still a nice and fun challenge that had me on the edge of my seat a few times. For example, I beat Andross on my second attempt despite having been inhaled by him which obviously destroyed my wings. So I did this just with the regular shot and almost no health. I also totally forgot about the escape sequence and nearly died there. When I finally escaped I had not a single line on my life bar left. While I did have a few lives left, it was still exciting. Anyway, I have a few games left that I could tackle. I'll see if I can contribute a little bit more. Emulating doesn't seem like a good option for the N64, so I'll probably stick to the games that I already own.

Alien Storm is done. Another tough one off the list. Speaking of Aliens, does Alien Soldier have to be beaten on Superhard? After all, that's the default difficulty. It's basically the same as Supereasy with the only difference being that you have limited lives/continues.

I beat The Revenge of Shinobi. This was a really hard game and not necessarily in the fun and challenging kind of way, but rather cheap and frustratingly unfair. Enemies are constantly put into spots where they annoy you the most. You jump over a gap from one platform to the next? There's an enemy shooting at you just nearly out of sight, so that you fall into the gap and die. Or enemies shoot at you from out of screen or from positions where there's little to no chance of escaping enemy attacks. And shit like this happened all the time in this game. Really the only way to have a realistic chance at beating this requires so much memorisation that it ends up being frustrating and annoying. It's hard to believe that this game is held in such high regards when it contains plenty of player-unfriendly design that's just out to punish you. The successors improved upon this formula in many ways and are far superior, imho.

Totally Rad is done. And just like Whomp 'Em it's yet another decent, if unremarkable, Mega Man clone. But still, I quite liked it. It made for a short and sweet playthrough and the dialogue was laughably bad.

Yeah, that moment was great and unexpected. And there was a lot of nice humor here and there too, e.g. the current King of Alefgard hiding in the weapon shop. I took a break from turn-based RPGs and beat Whomp 'Em. A pretty decent and fun Mega Man clone. But it would have been better if the special weapons were a bit more useful. I mostly just used them in the final stage.

I finally beat Dragon Quest II. Another big one off the list! I would still say that the first half or two thirds of the game were great and a lot of fun. The battle system and the adventure-like exploration hold up fairly well for such an old game and it was mostly well balanced. Where this game falls apart however is in the last part, basically when you're getting close to the Cave to Rhone and Hargon's Castle. Here you will face two dungeons with extremely difficult enemies and the Cave to Rhone is also incredibly long and treacherous. I think that just in these two dungeons I have probably spent around half of my total playtime trying to make it through and mapping these dungeons. When I started there I was a little bit over level 20 and when I finally beat the endboss I was almost at level 40 with my protagonist. These were some long, long grinding sessions spread out over many days, which is why I will probably take a short break from DQ before trying DQ III.

I did one loop of R-Type III. This game is just brutal. You basically have to learn every level by heart and even then it's still incredibly difficult to get through. This game had me cursing and swearing every now despite the unlimited continues.

I beat Gunstar Heroes for the first time. I used to hit a brick wall in level 5 or 6, but this time around I got past them and the near endless boss rushs to see the end. Of course I had to make use of the unlimited continues. Otherwise it would have been too difficult for me. What made it doable this time around was the combination of the fire and the laser weapon. It may have a short range, but it can destroy most enemy projectiles. This saved me multiple times.

And I beat King's Knight! It took me maybe only 90 minutes this time compared to the many many hours last year. I even only needed one try for the dragon this time around. The way to that boss however was the toughest part. I would consider this game to be one of my guilty pleasures: it's objectively bad and I wouldn't recommend it to anyone, but somehow it's still fun to me.

@Andykin Skysk8r Thanks! And yes, that level is really rough. This and the final part of level 7 took me the most lives. But on my second run I got through pretty well. Speaking of which, I think that Shinobi III is the most fun during the first few levels. Somewhere around level 5 or 6 the fun factor drops significantly, imho. That's also where I usually stop playing. Today I beat Shadow Dancer. It's "arcadier" and shorter, but it is still a lot of fun. However, it continues the questionable Shinobi tradtion of having an extremely difficult level near the end of the game. Also, the final boss fight was really, really tough. Those Ninjas the endlessly spawns are really annoying. On my second run I wasted 12 lives on the final level including the boss. It took another continue until I got lucky and beat him.

And Shinobi III is done.

I beat Crack Down and Gain Ground on my Switch as part of the Sega Genesis Classics. See the corresponding Genesis thread for pictures since I didn't want to post them twice, i.e. clogging up the server with pictures. Edit: You can add Shinobi III, Shadow Dancer, The Revenge of Shinobi, Alien Soldier, Gunstar Heroes, Shining in the Darkness and ESWAT to that list. Also, there are 50 games in total on the Genesis Collection for the Switch.

I beat Gain Ground with a score of over 200000 and Crack Down. Gain Ground is actually one of my favorites on the Sega Genesis and it's imho too bad that so few people actually talk about it or seem to like it. It's like Ikari Warriors, but in good and with a lot of different and unique characters that change up the formula quite a bit. This allows you to approach every level in several ways in order to beat it as quick as possible.

I have recently played both Kid Icarus games for NES and GB and I too much prefer the GB version over the NES original. It is just smoother, fairer and a bit easier (e.g. eggplant wizards weren't always in such tough spots, there are more healing items and fountains etc.). It also removes most of the grinding for points and hearts, so that you can get quicker to the actual fun parts of the game. The biggest things missing though are the colors, of course, the multiple endings (no kiss from Palutena on the GB game!) and the final boss Medusa of the NES version which looked really cool. Apart from Kid icarus I could only repeat the many games that have already been mentioned. Maybe I would second Mole Mania since it's an original game offering a lot of fun content and quirky humor. It was designed by Shigeru Miyamoto after all.

And I finally beat Zelda II: The Adventure of Link. It's still really difficult for me and I still can't beat Dark Link legitimately, but despite that I had fun. It doesn't deserve its status as the black sheep of the series, imho.

Air Fortress is fun, but also fairly long and difficult. Only 5 to 6 hours sounds like quite an achievement. In the meantime I'm currently playing Zelda II on the go and Dragon Quest II at home. In Zelda II I have finished the fifth palace today and in DQ II I'm still looking for the sigils. The game is very fun so far and still plays well, even if it's a bit grindy and missing some QoL features. I'm especially missing a save feature since I frequently have to input between 40 and 50 characters just to load a game. Also, the game is starting to get really challenging. The fireflies in the Lighthouse are especially grueling since they just spam their fire breath that deals over 10 damage to every party member. If 5 of them appear and all attack me with their fire breath it's an instant game over for me. I was already wiped twice in that dungeon.

I beat Gargoyle's Quest: Ghosts 'n Goblins, again.

I beat the highscore for Millipede in Arcade Classic No. 2: Centipede / Millipede and for both games in Arcade Classic No. 3: Galaga / Galaxian. As for Game & Watch Gallery: is it necessary to get 1000 points in every game on every mode and every difficulty? I just got 1009 point in the Octopus game on easy and got the following screen (the fourth pic at the very bottom):

The other day I beat P.O.W: Prisoners of War and Iron Tank on the SNK collection. Both games were the NES versions. I have this mdoern system and somehow I mostly just use it to paly older games. I even wished there were a proper Virtual Console where I could play all the other games that I have bought for the Wii U or 3DS.

It may not be much, but here's a humble contribution by me: Castlevania: The Adventure and Kid Icarus: Of Myths and Monsters. I used to dislike Castelvania for the Game Boy since it's so slow and its level design is lacking in parts and sometimes also sardistically difficult. But as I kept trying and trying it grew on me. Also, the music is really good and some tracks are absolutely fantastic for a Game Boy game. I recently beat Kid icarus on the NES so I wanted to try the GB version again and compare it. The GB version is just sooo much more fun since I don't spend hours grinding for hearts and points or losing my progress over and over again due to some unfair part of a level. This version is much easier and more player-friendly. I greatly prefer it over the NES game, which I won't be touching again any time soon. The only aspect of the NES version that was superior to the GB game is the music. Moreover, the NES game had several endings and the best ending was really cool, i.e. Palutena giving Pit a kiss whereas the GB game only shows you this creepy Teletubbies sun smiling at you.