bronzeshield

Don't forget my Vapor Trail clear! Maybe you overlooked that one because I initially beat it on Easy before editing my post to note that I did the other difficulty levels.

I'm not sure if we're counting Japanese-exclusive games as a "bonus", but I did a 1CC clear of Eliminate Down on Hard with 3 starting lives:

For what it's worth, Ultima III has at least one crucial line of dialogue that doesn't show up in-game because of a bug. Someone did a patch at ROMHacking.net to fix this and other issues.

Vapor Trail has Easy and Hard difficulty only, and I just beat it on Easy: Dunno if it counts -- I assume so -- but in any event I'll probably take on Hard soon anyway. EDIT: I've now beaten the game on Easy/5 credits, Easy/3 credits (the default), and Hard/5 credits, with the same ending in all cases. EDIT #2: And now I've beaten Hard/3 Credits, the game's hardest setting.

Oh, you should definitely submit your name. You're already contributing to the world by doing what you do -- the more people that know about your project, the better! Those of us who don't stream, our contribution is watching what we can (and honestly I pretty much only follow 1-2 streamers at this point).

Every time I try to say "Yabba-dabba-doo" a trademark symbol pops up, which must mean I beat The Flintstones: Completed on Hard with the stock number of credits. (If you beat it on Normal, instead of getting the final ending screens after the credit, Barney prods you to "challange" Hard difficulty instead.)

Oh dear Lord, I had no idea there were so many! Granted many of the entries are the same person doing multiple systems, but still. StingX2's list has a ton that aren't on mine, and I have a few (mostly abandoned or completed projects) that aren't on his.

Thanks, Red, and to all who contributed! I'd be into doing it again next year as a full-year thing. There are a lot of Master System games I want to beat, especially the 3D games -- I figure if I own them, I ought to beat them -- but my job sometimes has me too tied up to play much so 3 months is tough if I'm in a busy time at work.

Who's that, out of curiosity? Always curious if there are people doing challenges that I don't know about.

I tried Thunder Blade for a bit, made it to stage 2. Might give it another shot though it's certainly not what I would call a good time!

Wow, a nice big push happening at the end! I tried Spider-Man tonight but found it frustrating -- I need to read the manual, I suppose, though I was able to get to the Power Station at least. I'm open to going after Shanghai. It appears I might need to replay that one for my own list of beaten games, as I never thought to try my hand at the saved patterns -- I just won a single game and called it done.

Out of This World is done: One of my all-time favorite games, though I'd never played the Genesis version before. I think I prefer it on SNES (soundtrack) or even 3DO; have to think back to the Sega CD version, maybe I preferred that one too. FM synthesis just can't muster the grandeur needed here. I also found a few spots were weirdly unforgiving compared to the SNES.

Great Baseball is done: Beaten on difficulty level 1, as Boston over Seattle. I'd never played it before (or not for more than a few minutes), but the game is mostly intuitive, though the fielders are slower than dirt.

OK, Whip Rush is done on Normal! Fun game. EDIT: Also beat Hard difficulty, with the same ending.

I beat Whip Rush on Easy tonight; I plan to go back and tackle Medium/Normal/whatever it is, at which time I'll take a picture. Totally your call whether to count it or wait for the Medium completion.

No continues + the annoying Fantasy Zone gimmick of having all power-ups be timed + the annoying gimmick specific to this game that you have to go back to the enemy energy point constantiy. Yet the enemies can choose to park themselves on said energy point, making it impossible to do anything about it if you don't have a weapon, and you can't keep a weapon and hold on to it. It seemed to me, at least, that you can end up in dead man walking situations where you can't outrun the faster enemies, can't earn enough money to buy the weapons necessary to do something about it, and are blocked from zeroing out the enemy energy point by enemies who camp out on it -- so you burn through all your lives in a manner of seconds. It'd be forgivable if the game had unlimited continues or passwords for level groups, but the thought of putting a lot of time into the game, only to have RNG decide I'm not going to beat that stage, is aggravating. I guess the idea is that you're supposed to perform brilliantly in early stages so that you have a ton of money to buy whatever you need in later ones, but I don't think the game pulls it off. It punishes you for not playing perfectly, but doesn't reward you for doing so, if that makes sense. At least in a real shmup, you can hang on to your weapons with enough skill.

I tried Fantasy Zone: The Maze and Strider. Neither were games that I see myself beating in the next 18 days. FZ:TM's requirement -- 51 stages! -- is especially appalling, though at least you can start at Stage 25 or whatever it is.

Even with earlier (i.e. late 1980s into 1990s) games there's a lot of truth to this. I've been on a Game Boy kick lately simply because the games are usually quick to pick up and start with, and are geared toward shorter play sessions. I don't mind a learning curve, but I don't want to commit to lengthy sessions, overarching plotlines, or game design that expects you to discover lots of "secrets" or collect lots of items to get a decent ending. I've often said that I'd rather have a 15-minute game that's tough as balls -- but plays fair and is consequently satisfying to beat -- than a 4-hour game that may be much more player-friendly and has better presentation, but also has gameplay that feels like filing paperwork: no real risk, no real reward, just a question of grinding away at it.

Nice. I started a game of that but wasn't really feeling it, so I'm glad to see it done.

Next to fall is Snoopy's Magic Show! About to clear the final stage. Last stage clear! I originally made it through the first 40 stages without continuing, but by the time I got near the end it was definitely 1-2 stages at a time. This game got panned by a certain well-known Game Boy reviewer, but I don't think it's so bad at all. Sure, it can be frustrating as hell, but usually it's just a case of playing better, or smarter. That said, a few later levels can only be won when RNG smiles on you.

And now Double Dragon III: The Arcade Game is done: Reasonable port of an awful game. I'm not sure if anyone has properly articulated how this game seems to work: for most enemies, there's a timer after they get knocked down, and if you attack before that timer runs out, you will not succeed. The trick is to hit and run, over and over again, and to use the environment to your advantage by forcing enemies to walk around a corner, and into your attack, in order to engage you. The front or side edges of ledges will sometimes work too. If all this sounds tedious in the extreme, that's because it is! What a betrayal of the Double Dragon franchise this game was, in that it totally torpedoed things like "fun" and "flow" in favor of a weird quarter-eating tactic.

So you're telling me that smaller screens are more immersive, I don't see better with my aging eyes when looking at a larger screen, and that handheld games from the 1990s weren't more modest in scope in general than console titles? Mind blown! In any event, if you're a handheld gamer, why not throw some wins in to the Beat every Game Boy game effort? https://www.videogamesage.com/forums/topic/6284-beat-every-game-boy-game-2021-97497/ I've mostly been playing Game Boy for the past couple weeks, thanks to that thread. And, despite the effects of presbyopia, i've even beaten some of them on the handheld!

Are smaller screens inherently less immersive? Of course: and it's not just a psychological thing, but a function of the way the eye focuses on nearby objects vs. distant ones. "Grandeur" is immersion, and immersion isn't easily had with 3-inch screens and tiny speakers. Do I get tired of the glare and wobble when I play Game Boy games on my GBA-SP AGS-001? Yes, yes I do. Does it feel nicer to play those games on the Super Game Boy 2? Absolutely, I see better and I play better. Are handheld games less ambitious, by and large? Probably not now, but back in the 1990s, certainly, they were more modest in scope. But nowadays, Game Boy and GBC games are perfect for when I'm half-watching trash TV with my wife, or otherwise multitasking. It's gratifying to knock off a game in an hour, either back when Game Boy games were cheap ($1/cart) or now that we have flash carts.

Of the games in the first post, I've previously beaten Alex Kidd: High Tech World, Cyborg Hunter, E-Swat, Ghostbusters, Kung-Fu Kid, Vigilante, and Y's [sic]. Ys takes a little while, but the others are all short and relatively easy, with the exception of the stupid roadblock in the Alex Kidd game. With Ghostbusters the main thing is that the password you get after your first attempt will make your next attempts easier. Kung Fu Kid, just jump over everyone; Vigilante, just spam weapons at the bosses (IIRC). With ESWAT there are two ROM variants, one harder than the other, but if you're methodical, either one is very doable. Cyborg Hunter is a tiny bit more involved but once you get the basic gameplay loop down, I remember it as being pretty straightforward. Not sure which game I'll do next. I was messing around with Golden Axe Warrior and it was amusing, but I don't know if I want to deal with an extended Zelda-style adventure right now. Might try one or more of the 3D games since I've owned the glasses for ages and feel as though I ought to make use of them!

Beat The Smurfs' Nightmare, admittedly on Easy difficulty (I'll do Hard for my own purposes later): Oh, good! So glad Al is OK. This was...a European-developed game? You don't say. It's quite decent, actually, except for the lack of lookaround (Un Indien dans la Ville spoiled me), and the stupidity of making you play up to 5 levels in a row to get a password.