Tantalus

Super Mario Bros. 2

Congratulations to all! So satisfying seeing it actually done with a few days to spare. I do tend to agree with @the_wizard_666 about annual vs non-annual threads. Even if there's a down year (which I assume 2024 will be), once that annual reset hits, so does the momentum. It seems like there's never much momentum with the non-annual threads - other than maybe the TurboGrafx, but that is mostly just @Crabmaster2000 taking it on single-handed. That being said, I will personally be taking a bit of a break from the N64 and focusing on other systems. I do still have quite a few N64 games that I want to play/replay, but I think I'll save those until the Analogue 3D launches (supposedly 2024? So maybe 2025? Maybe 2030? Who really knows with them).

I've been spending some time thinking about this as I want to participate but I don't want to have a list that feels too restrictive. I've decided to group games together, with my goal being to beat at least one game from each group, and 15 games overall from the following: Game Boy - James Bond 007/Kirby's Dreamland 2/Mario's Picross/Mole Mania Game Gear - Desert Speedtrap/Sonic 2/Sonic Chaos GameCube - Rayman 3/Star Fox Adventures Genesis - Animaniacs/Bugs Bunny in Double Trouble/Phantasy Star 2/TaleSpin PC - Crash Bandicoot 2/Spyro 2/Talos Principle PS2 - Beyond Good & Evil/Klonoa 2/Prince of Persia: Warrior Within SNES - ActRaiser 2/Aero the Acrobat/Wanderer from Ys 3 Switch - One game from the Castlevania Advance Collection Circle of the Moon Switch - Crisis Core/Live-a-Live/Star Ocean First Departure R Switch - Final Fantasy II/III/Final Fantasy V

Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 is done. I want to like this game more than I actually do - it feels like it should be the perfect refinement of the formula of the first 3 games before they started to make much bigger changes to the franchise. Gameplay wise it feels good, and yet something always feels off for me compared to 1 and 2. The levels don't feel as well designed to me or as memorable, and the soundtrack doesn't do as much for me either. It is still a good game and I wish it would have gotten the same treatment as the Tony Hawk 1 + 2 remake from a couple of years ago, but it also marks when my interest in the series began to decline.

I played through Arcade Mode on Normal difficulty in Gran Turismo 3. I played a lot of simulation mode when this game came out, but I never touched arcade mode for some reason. I hadn't touched this game in many years, but I've been enjoying my time quite a bit with it, especially after playing a lot of bad/mediocre N64 racers this year.

Tiny Toon Adventures: Wacky Sports Challenge. I like this game quite a bit, especially at the lower difficulties (and multiplayer is way more fun than single player). I haven't played through the hardest difficulty in probably 20 years. There's not a lot of margin for error in a few of the events. I think I had 4 failed runs yesterday, including one on the final event where I just missed out on the point threshold to move on. Today I managed it on my first attempt, with one continue to spare.

I suck at fighting games and I couldn't care less about wrestling, but I somehow made it through WWF War Zone. I had tried the ECW game earlier, but that seemed to be beyond my skill level. So I don't think I can be of much help with the other wrestling games that are left.

Hmm, good question. I think I started with Monaco Grand Prix which I think was easier than either of the F-1 World Grand Prix games (they've all blurred together a bit at this point, I apparently also played F1 Racing Championship, which I don't remember at all). I found the acceleration and braking assists actually made things more difficult for me, so I turned those off. One of the things about the F-1 games is they have a lot of the same tracks, so once you've played through one of them, the others automatically become a bit easier. The tracks break down into 3 groups: Ones I knew I could win on (usually ones where I could cut corners by driving across the grass/dirt, giving me a leg up on the CPU that has to slow down to take the corners properly) Tracks that I didn't stand a chance of winning and just had to move on The in between tracks where most of my time was spent and were a bit of a grind - multiple tries to eek out a few extra points to keep my place on top of the standings The car settings are a pain, and one of my least favourite parts of these games, but once I managed to find settings that worked for me, I didn't adjust them too much between races.

F-1 World Grand Prix. I've played through several of the F1 games over the last few months, but this one felt like the toughest slog to get through, and I'm not really sure why. It doesn't feel that different than the others, and it's certainly not much different from it's own sequel, but I never felt like I got into a groove with it like I have with so many other racers (F1 and otherwise) this year. Glad it's done.

An NBA Jam clone with some atrocious rubber-banding. So many games won or lost by a single point. Somehow up by more than a couple points? Suddenly the CPU is draining half-court 3 pointers. And that's on the easiest difficulty setting. Ugh. Anyway, made it through, so NBA Hang Time is done.

FYI, I've been working on this one too. I'm at 24 or 25 teams beaten and hope to wrap it up yet this weekend. I guess we're at the point where we really need to say what we're working on so that we don't double up our efforts. I'm also about 1/4 of the way through F-1 World Grand Prix.

The grind is over. World Driver Championship is done.

I'm a few hours into World Driver Championship and making good progress, so I'll put a claim in on it. I won't have much time over the next 3.5 weeks, but after that I should be able to get some good gaming time in again to help close this thing out this year.

F-1 World Grand Prix II

I've been chipping away at Roadsters here and there over the last couple weeks and I'm glad to say it's finished. Not the worst game Titus put out on the N64, but it's still pretty mediocre.

One more for September - NBA Showtime: NBA on NBC is done. I've never been a basketball fan, but these NBA Jam style games are fun enough regardless, although much better against other players instead of the CPU.

And NASCAR 2000. More of the same. I think this had one more track than 99. Beyond that and some different looking menus, I wouldn't be able to tell the two games apart. Good ol' EA Sports. I'm glad there were only two of these to get through.

I don't like NASCAR, but I surprisingly did not hate my time with NASCAR 99. I mean, it's not a great game, but it's far from the worst racer on the system. I'll probably do NASCAR 2000 next.

V-Rally Edition 99

Doing what I can to help...though anyone can feel free to take care of a few them. I never realized just how many racers there were for the 64. @Jeevan weren't you going to take care of 77 games this year? You still good for that? By my count that would leave 27 for you and 22 for the rest of us. Seems pretty fair and balanced to me

F1 Racing Championship is done. Nothing too special, but fairly easy and not too long, so I appreciated that. I'm almost done with V-Rally and should be able to wrap it up over the weekend.

Excitebike 64. This seems to have reviewed extremely well upon release. This was my first real experience with it, but I can't say I cared much for it. I found it frustrating more than fun. I played through it on the Switch Lite and although the control layout is generally quite bad for most N64 games, this one was cramping my hands in ways I haven't really had before with any other game, on any system. I'm sure it would be better with an actual N64 controller, but I probably won't be touching this one again to find out.

Made it through San Francisco Rush: Extreme Racing.

Polaris SnoCross is done.

Monaco Grand Prix