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T-Pac

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Posts posted by T-Pac

    The 2024 Backlog Challenge

    in The Gauntlet

    Posted

    On 2/6/2024 at 1:56 PM, Brickman said:

    Disney's Kim Possible for the GBA done. This is known as Disney's Kim Possible 2: Drakken's Demise in the US but Japan only received one of the Kim Possible games.

    This game doesn't fit into my remaining backlog challenge but I do have a separate personal goal of reaching 50 GBA games played by the end of the year.

    This game was surprisingly a very well made game and fun. The game is a action platformer and the stages are well designed and offer a decent challenge. I've never watched the show but I ended up watching an episode after finishing the game and the developers nailed the feel and look of the show. The graphics are nice and bright and have a very SNES feel to them. 

    The soundtrack is catchy and once again they kept it close to the feel of the show. 

    You'll get a new power each Episode, these powers aren't anything special but you start with a grappling hook which is similar to Bionic Commando. The grappling hook has been well implemented and makes traversing through the levels a lot more interesting and useful for finding hidden items.

    The combat in this game is tight and Kim performs all sort of acrobatic moves. The developers took their time to get the combat feeling just right. The only problem is that the enemies are pretty much useless. They delay their attack on you, so by the time they even think of attacking, you've already killed them.

    Some of the levels do drag on a little as well and without that challenge of enemies it gets a bit boring.

    The boss battles are ok but nothing too challenging and because you spawn exactly where you are if you die you can just lazily brute force your way through.

    Overall, this is a game worth playing to fill some time (shouldn't take you more than 2 hours). With a few more tweaks and added levels this could have easily gone from a good game worth playing to an excellent game not to be missed.

    7.5/10 

    Neat - I probably would've loved that game as a kid, since the GBA was my first game system, and I grew up watching Kim Possible.

    [T-Pac]

    Series that should be more, or got too much

    in The Gauntlet

    Posted

    I'm probably in the minority here, but I prefer a series to only have a few entries, no matter how good it is.

    I just got the full set of 6 Famicom Rockman games over the holidays, but instead of being excited to play them all, I'm just overwhelmed that there are so many of them haha.

    [T-Pac]

    T-Pac Arcade

    in The Gauntlet

    Posted

    10 hours ago, G-type said:

    I never really got into pitfall...for Jungle adventures, I found the vine swinging in Jungle Hunt more satisfying and when it came to mapping routes and racing against the clock, I was much more partial to Private Eye.

    I can see your point with Jungle Hunt. I prefer the vine swinging controls in Pitfall, but I like how you get to chain-swing in Jungle Hunt.

    [T-Pac]

    The 2024 Backlog Challenge

    in The Gauntlet

    Posted

    15 hours ago, wongojack said:

    Nice, I have never gotten all of the treasures.  Can't make myself do the mapping required.

    Me, either. But I think I was only missing 4 or 5 of them on my best run, so I came pretty close haha.

    [T-Pac]

    • Like 1

    T-Pac Arcade

    in The Gauntlet

    Posted

    Pitfall [Atari 2600 - 1982]

    I didn't get the hype for this game when I first tried it a few years ago. But now that I sunk my teeth into it - I love it.

    [T-Pac]

    image.png.824f1faf44abbea54bf5c2ffbd8aaeec.png

    • Like 2
    • Love 3

    The 2024 Backlog Challenge

    in The Gauntlet

    Posted

    On 1/26/2024 at 3:34 PM, twiztor said:

    Super Princess Peach (Nintendo DS)

    i'd heard surprisingly little about this Mario spinoff title, but it caught my attention for being the only game to star Ms. Toadstool (until the upcoming Switch game releases).

    i enjoyed this game, but it's pretty shallow as far as platforming games go.  interesting if underutilized emotion mechanics. level design that wasn't as intuitive as i expected (you have to "rescue" all 3 Toads in each stage, but it's generally unclear if a warp pipe/door is the actual path forward or a side path to find said Toad. i had to do a decent amount of backtracking). difficulty is nonexistent (akin to the mainline Kirby games).

    post-game opens up new stages. haven't given them a play, but i'm vaguely interested. i mainly played this during my downtime at work, knocking out 1 world per day. a decent time killer, but significantly less addicting than the Mario vs DK series.

    20240126_142537.jpg

    Oh - neat! My sister and I had this game as kids. I really liked it, but the mechanics felt a little clunky compared to the other Mario games I was familiar with.

    [T-Pac]

    On 1/28/2024 at 9:52 AM, JamesRobot said:

    Just finished Mega Man Dr. Wily's Revenge.  I was fairly surprised at the challenge and completeness of this game.  Mega Man doesn't really suffer from the limited real estate of the Game Boy screen and feels right at home with its contemporary NES counterparts.  I'll be diving more into the handheld Mega Man games in the future.  Also really dig the Pinball Neon Matrix filter that the Analogue Pocket offers.

     

    bp3U99p.jpg

     

    Did you play the whole game with that red tint???
    My eyes hurt just thinking about that haha, but I guess you must acclimate to it after a while.

    [T-Pac]

    7 hours ago, the_wizard_666 said:

    Well, I haven't really done a lot of gaming, but despite not really actively wanting to keep my NES streak going, it's sort of still happening. 

    Anyway, that's 35 games on the year over the first 34 days, which even with all the simple completions seems absolutely insane to me.  I've had literal YEARS that didn't even come close to that number...almost half-way to my record total of 75 (set in 2022) with 11 months to go on the year just feels nuts.  Also, I'm 4 more games away from an overall total of 350 (that includes Famicom, homebrews, European, unreleased, etc...basically anything released for the NES/FC), so that's my next goal...whether I actively keep my streak going to hit it though, that I'm not certain of.

    Whoa - that's impressive, dude!

    [T-Pac]

    • Like 1

    DarkKobold's Game Library, set-by-set

    in Show Off

    Posted

    @DarkKobold I know people like to hate on the packaging for SMS games, but that looks soooo nice all-together as a set.

    How did you approach games released in different formats for different regions?
    (Just dipped my toes into the Master System myself, and I had to get a German copy of Transbot since the US release was exclusively in card format and I only have a cartridge-reader.)

    [T-Pac]

    Game debates voting: numerical vs literal?

    in The Gauntlet

    Posted

    This is gonna sound blunt, but ...

    ... when a poll lays out specific ranking criteria and you vote without following it, you’ve just invalidated the results.

    There’s nothing stopping you from using your own ranking system in a different context, though. Just not in the Game Debates.

    [T-Pac]

    • Like 1
    • Haha 1

    The 2024 Backlog Challenge

    in The Gauntlet

    Posted

    05/40 - Ordyne [NEC PC Engine - 1989]

    Finished: 2024/01/27

    Caveats: I used turbo fire for my playthrough. I also practiced the final level with save-states, then went back and beat the whole game without them.

    [T-Pac]

    image.png.53f6ce19071892a9d78b1d7abba68c63.png

    • Like 8

    T-Pac Arcade

    in The Gauntlet

    Posted

    Ordyne [NEC PC Engine - 1989]

    For whatever reason, I wanted to mimic those chapter-page illustrations from Dragon Ball with this one.
    Also - I wonder if Ordyne could be considered a proto cute-em-up (although Twinbee predates it by a few years...).

    [T-Pac]

    image.png.53f6ce19071892a9d78b1d7abba68c63.png

    • Like 4

    T-Pac Arcade

    in The Gauntlet

    Posted

    14 hours ago, Dr. Morbis said:

    I just want to say, this sounds like a ridiculous feat only because you wanted to beat it on your "first pass," so to speak.  The idea at the time these old NES games were released was that you would play the game over and  over from the start over weeks or months and slowly build the muscle memory and skills needed to beat each level, all the while memorizing the layout of difficult parts so that you knew exactly what to do and when. 

    This definitely wasn't my first pass at playing Adventure Island haha - but I get what you mean. 

    That being said - playing each round over and over until I memorized it is exactly how I went through the game. I just did it with breaks in-between when I got tired - hence my admiration for clearing it in a single sitting, no matter how familiar you might be with the game.

    14 hours ago, Dr. Morbis said:

    If you're save-scumming through a game, then every difficult section seems nigh impossible only because you're always getting through it just by the skin of your teeth rather than putting in the time to learn each area thoroughly.

    Yeah - when I use save-states, I generally try to implement them in a way that still forces me to "learn the game" rather than just brute-force through it. That way I get a relatively genuine feel for it, as well as the satisfaction of learning its ins-and-outs, but without spending months on a single game like you mentioned.

    14 hours ago, Dr. Morbis said:

    I know the thought of replaying games until you're really proficient at them is totally passe in our modern gaming world, but there is something really satisfying about putting in the effort and bettering your skills and then stomping all over a game that at first glance appeared to be nigh impossible.

    This is definitely a compromise I've had to make with myself...

    To me - the satisfaction of having experienced / finished more of the games in my library, but with less time devoted to each ... outweighs the satisfaction of mastering just a small handful by spending so much time with them that I don't get around to the rest.

    That's not to say there's anything wrong with either approach - it's just a matter of what your own goals are.

    14 hours ago, Dr. Morbis said:

    All of this is to say that I don't think Adventure Island really is that hard when it gives you unlimited continues so that you can play the levels over and over ad infinitum until you've learned them really well.

    My best game of Adventure Island is a first death on 8-2, but I also hope to one day pull off a no-death run...

    I don't care if you wouldn't consider that impressive or difficult - I think it's incredible and you should be proud of the accomplishment, dude!

    [T-Pac]

    • Like 1

    The Collector's Quest Podcast

    in Virtual World

    Posted

    CQ Podcast: "Don't collect posters for concerts you didn't even go to."

    Me: "Don't collect carts for competitions you didn't even compete in."

    NWC (gray) is the equivalent of some random kid's little-league baseball trophy.
    (*runs away as Nintendo fans grab their pitchforks and torches*)

    [T-Pac]

    • Like 3

    How big is your collection in 2024??

    in General Collecting Discussion

    Posted

    I'm currently sitting around 370 physical games:

    45% - NES / FC

    28% - Atari 2600

    9% - SNES / SFC

    6% - GB

    5% - Genesis / MD

    5% - TG-16 / PCE

    2% - SMS

    I plan to put a hard cap on my collection around 460 physical games, which should be enough to cover most of the "must-have" titles left on my shopping list for the next several years.

    I know a lot of people roll their eyes at the idea of "playing every game in your collection", but I'm actually aiming to do it - so I need to be wary of adding too many more titles. (Especially since it'll take me well over a decade to play through everything I already have just a single time haha.)

    [T-Pac]

    • Like 6
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