Tantalus

Looks like he's coming for that top spot. Only one way to stay ahead...get crackin' on some more games!

I decided to give Nagano another go. After a few failed attempts playing as Canada and scoring poorly with the American judges, I decided to see if there was some built-in bias by playing instead as the US. I still scored worse with the Americans than the other judges (so it wasn't that the developers hated Canadians, they just hate everyone who plays this poor excuse of a game), but I was able to piece together a (barely) good enough run to win the championship mode. There doesn't seem to be any sort of credit roll, but I assume that should be enough to count as beaten?

What's not to love about a game where you play as an anthropomorphic monkey named, of all things, Spanky that bounces bubbles on top of his head that turn into different types of balls when burst, that are used to attack walking fruit? I don't know what the developers were on when they came up with the idea, but I'm glad they did. It's a great game.

I beat Spanky's Quest earlier in the week. I was a bit surprised to see it added to the Switch's Online library, but it gave me a chance to re-visit it after several years. A bit of an odd game, but I enjoyed my time with it.

One more for me this month. Top Gear Overdrive is done. This game probably has the best track design of the Top Gear games on the N64. Too bad the actual driving is pretty rough. The faster cars seem to completely break the physics of the game occasionally - go over a jump too hard are rub into a guard rail and suddenly the car is falling through the track. This was also the era when racing games loved to use generic rock music, which has not aged well IMO. I played the game on mute because it was so ear-grating. Despite all that, I didn't actually hate my time with it, but I'm also glad to be done with it. Also, apparently I unlocked a taco car for beating the game? I kind of miss the weirdness/quirkiness of the N64 era.

Destruction Derby 64 is done.

Top Gear Hyper-Bike is done now too. Not a great game by any stretch of the imagination, but I still managed to have a decent time with it. The championship mode is broken down into 6 seasons. The first 5 were quite easy, but there was a definite difficulty spike for the final one. At least it was fairly short.

As long as you don't start expecting this every year. Some of these are painful. Especially World Driver Championship. Finally done with this mind-numbingly mediocre game. It's not necessarily a "bad" game, but it was one of the most boring games I've played in recent memory. And at 15-20 hours, it certainly overstays its welcome.

Decided to revisit Super Mario Land 2 for the first time in a few years. I think I appreciate this game a little bit more each time I replay it. I like it's predecessor as well, but it is quite amazing the improvements they were able to make between the two games.

I've been working on World Driver Championship. I think I'm about halfway through. I didn't realize this game was going to be quite as long as it is, so it'll take me a bit yet to get through the rest of it.

Another one for the Collection of Mana - Secret of Mana is done. Haven't played through this in about 18 years, so it was nice to revisit it finally. I found the beginning rather dull, I quite enjoyed the middle sections, but then it started to drag near the end. Overall, still a pretty solid game.

Cruis'n Exotica is done. I've always had a bit of a soft-spot for the Cruis'n games - they're fun in short doses and tend not to overstay their welcome.

It feels like it's been a while since I had anything to post on here. In part, because I haven't had much time with the N64 lately, and in part because I've bounced off of a few games. I tried Hydro Thunder, but seem to be missing something with it as I got stuck on the intermediate races for a while and ended up walking away from it. I also tried Nagano, which seems like it should be a relatively short playthrough for anyone who knows what they are doing with. Unfortunately, I am not one of those people. Anyway, I tried Ridge Racer 64 and after a couple of races to get back into the series' rather unique style of handling, I managed to get through it fairly quickly. I enjoyed my time with it. Not sure what's next - it seems my personal backlog and the list of games left are starting to diverge a lot - but I'll see if I can at least get a start on another game for this month.

Rush 2 is done. A lot of what I said about the first game holds true about the second, though I definitely enjoyed this one more. The handling is a touch better and I like most of the tracks better as well. Some of the shortcuts are actually worthwhile in this game, whereas they never seemed to be in the first. Both games overstay their welcome when doing a circuit as you have to do each track four times (normal, backwards, mirrored, and backwards and mirrored). Thankfully I had built up enough of a lead in the standings that I could just time out on the last three courses and still win overall.

I haven't played through Sword of Mana since it first came out, so I didn't want to say anything too definitively about it. I appreciate FFA's brevity as I remember Sword of Mana being too long and stretched out without being interesting enough to compensate. Good to know that my memory serves correct here.

Just finished up Final Fantasy Adventure. I've been wanting to play this game for 20+ years, but never ended up buying it for the Game Boy. I grabbed the Collection of Mana on sale for the Switch a couple of weeks ago, and was finally able to play it. It's a solid game. I think I enjoyed it more than I did its GBA remake.

Snowboard Kids is done. I almost gave up on this one a few times, but switched up the gear I was using and was finally able to make it through. Probably won't be re-visiting this one any time soon.

It looks like you all have been crushing it lately! I haven't had much time for the ol' 64 lately, but have been slowly working through Snowboard Kids. It's been proving more challenging than I expected. I've made it through the first 6 courses (finally!) but from what I can tell online, I still have 2 more to go. Anyway, keep up the great work everyone!

Bust-A-Move 2 is done.

Made it through San Francisco Rush: Extreme Racing. I have a lot of fond memories of the first two Rush games from back in the day - my brother and I spent countless hours (especially with Rush 2) messing around, looking for all the hidden keys, trying to see how far we could jump our cars, finding secret areas, etc. We played them more as sandbox/exploration games, which is their strength. Playing through this now as an actual racing game? Frustrating. I had to restart most races countless times until I could piece together a good enough run. I may eventually get to the others in the series, but for now I need a break from Midway games.

Canada has won gold in Olympic Hockey 98. I was not enjoying this one at all initially, but dug into the settings and switched it from simulation to arcade at which point it played more like an early predecessor to the NHL Hitz games of the early 2000's. It even has the same announcer. I think it's using the same engine as the Wayne Gretzky games, but I haven't played those in so long that I can no longer say for certain.

Chameleon Twist. Not sure what to say with this one. What a strange game.

With my clear of California Speed, that's 38, but it looks like @LeatherRebel5150's clear of Mystical Ninja was missed, so we should be at 39, I think! How many more can we knock out this month yet?

I tried out MRC today, but I'm playing on an emulator and that was a no go - a lot of textures were missing, making it virtually impossible to play. So I turned to another racing game I remember renting once - California Speed. At the time, I remember thinking it didn't do enough different from the Cruis'n games to be worth my time. It definitely feels like it is part of the same series, but it does have some unique track design elements - driving through malls and volcanoes, or on a roller coaster - that give it a little bit of personality. It only took about half an hour to race through the state, so it may be worth checking out for any Cruis'n fans.

The handling is terrible, though it finally seemed to click well enough with me today. Overall, not sure if I can recommend playing it long enough to get to that point. It was short enough, but frustrating to get used to and mediocre at best once I was used to it. The music, while not as good as the SNES games, was probably the best part. Ha, I won't make any promises, but I do have a bit of a soft spot for racing games from this era, so I'll see what I can do. But anyway, I didn't have to help my spouse prepare dinner tonight, so I managed to get some play time in. I was closer to the end than I thought, so Top Gear Rally is finished. Not sure what (or when) the next one will be just yet.