bronzeshield

22 hours ago, nerdynebraskan said:

Oh, and @bronzeshield, how is Bases Loaded going?

Slowly, but it is going. I made decent progress last week but this week hasn't seen much. I've at least gotten it down to 25-30 minutes per game, so the hope is to average just over 1 win/day for the rest of the year.

Of course, if all else fails I'll marathon the rest of my team's remaining games toward the end of the year!

7 hours ago, Reed Rothchild said:

Hmm, after a million hours I have reached the final boss of Wizardry V.  And I cannot get remotely close to beating him.  Hell, I haven't even managed to get down one of his supporting mob.

So... shit.  I don't know what to do.  I'd have to spend a billion hours grinding levels and exploiting stat raises, just to have a chance.  Very disheartening.  Because of time budgets I'll probably have to shelve it for now.

Heh, even the CRPG Addict cheated to beat Wizardry V, though not on a console:

http://crpgaddict.blogspot.com/2012/06/wizardry-v-won.html

He was underleveled too, but says he reloaded until the supporting mob was made up of weaker monsters. Maybe that's an option here?

It begins:

I found the unhittable-pitch exploit, and picked the one Jersey pitcher capable of it, completely by accident. (Well, half of it, anyway: the technique changes when your pitcher tires out.)

Only 79 games to go! 

I ended up taking a break from the NES for the better part of two months, as I was getting worn down by the random crashes, and more generally burned out on a "video games = work" mentality I found myself in.

I may have fixed the crashing problem, and I'm still willing in principle to take on Bases Loaded -- but if NESfiend is feeling frisky about the game , and Daniel Doyce is willing to do Solomon's Key, perhaps it's better that I plan to do one or both of those next year instead.

Still might try Destination Earthstar, though if that one crashes on me mid-run, I'll be really mad...

On 9/10/2020 at 1:56 PM, koifish said:

On that matter, Bases Loaded is complete.

It was probably the toughest baseball game I've yet played on GB. The one issue with it is that there's a trick to basically always strike the opponent out, but I'd rather keep it to myself unless people want to know. Even when you know it, the trick still won't help you batting, and sometimes it seems to just not work anyway.

I'd be interested to know the trick and see it preserved for posterity. You could always hide it behind a spoiler tag if you think it's too game-breaking.

8 hours ago, Splain said:

Huh, really? It says "this is the last wave of Klax!" before 99 starts, and that's all you get. I've got it on Lynx, I might fire it up just for closure. Or the Genesis one for the thread.

Also, the Japanese version of Klax on GB is for some reason very different from the US version. I should try that too.

Yep, here's the ending for Genesis:

:ᴝo𝄩ᔕᓓጠ< ×ᴝ⤙⌐ ጠェ⊣ ᗜᴝᗆ

3 hours ago, Splain said:

I beat Klax. It loops after 99 waves and nothing happens in between. Sooo, here's a shot of wave 99 and then wave 1 with a 6-digit score.

It loops?! Klax is supposed to end at Wave 99 and congratulate you! Pretty sure the Lynx version does, and I know the Genesis version does. What a cheat!

On 7/23/2020 at 1:35 AM, Floating Platforms said:

Sure. The one I was referencing was Playcated.  Currently for Original GB, I track times for these console challengers besides him and myself.  John Carls (largely inactive), Belthic Gaming (formerly eBloodyCandy - also on a hiatus, but understand he will return at some point), Moelleuh (currently active), Atroz (nothing in 2020), Zenic Reverie (nothing in 2020), Sprinting Legs (largely inactive), Grannen Hiro (done with his SCN coded challenge).

If there are any other Original GB runners that you have that I'm missing, I'd be happy to learn about them.

Wow, that's many more than I knew about! I had you, johncarls, Zenic, and Grannen Hiro. I'll have to check out the others, especially Moelleuh. Too bad Playcated pulled down all his (?) videos; it looks like the Twitch channel is pretty bare as well.

3 hours ago, Floating Platforms said:

@Splain Unfortunately no.  The guy only posted the end screens/final minutes and not the full playthroughs.  And looking today, it seems like he deleted his entire YouTube channel now, which is too bad.  He was doing the GB library in chronological release order and almost got through 1992 before apparently stopping for good.

Out of curiosity, what was the username? I keep track of all the people who do full libraries, so if that project's been nuked I'd like to update my records.

3 hours ago, Crabmaster2000 said:

Which game is less likely to get played Sky Kid or To The Earth? I'm gonna play something a little less infuriating first and then I'll get working on one of those two shortly after. 

I've been making a couple attempts on Sky Kid each week, though I got kinda burned out on the game. I plan to keep trying but you're absolutely welcome to go for it too -- the game's on my personal "to beat" priority list, so I'm not working on it solely for the thread.

I did think about trying To the Earth since I've done a bunch of other light gun games this year, but I haven't ever played it and its reputation is ferocious.

I spaced out on grabbing a picture, but I beat Earnest Evans today. Total jank, but I've always had a soft spot for this one.

13 minutes ago, Daniel_Doyce said:

@bronzeshield Go ahead with Bases Loaded. I'll work through Bill & Ted but I'm definitely using a walkthrough

Cool, will do. I have a real cart, and I'm curious to see how it behaves, i.e. whether it crashes at all.

Still plugging away at Sky Kid but it's a tough game -- albeit scrupulously fair in most regards -- and pushes one's risk/reward and perfectionist buttons pretty hard. Still, today I finally figured out how to get maximum hearts from the blue girls, so that's another 5-10k points per run to work with.

1 hour ago, Daniel_Doyce said:

If Bill & Ted is taken, I could try Bases Loaded (again, if it's not claimed yet).

I'm theoretically working on Bases Loaded, and I used to play it quite a bit as a kid so I'll have no problem picking it up. But I haven't started yet -- all my NES attention has been on Gumshoe, and now Sky Kid. Still happy to do it, but also happy to let you have it if you like.

I definitely want to clear Sky Kid first, as I'm getting closer on that one.

Nice to reach 650!  Still working on Sky Kid. Reached Level 21 today (of 26).

Made it to Level 20 in SkyKid tonight! I've started taking notes on all the levels, so that helps. The kamikaze ships are a real irritant -- an entire quadrant of the screen shouldn't be so aggressively off-limits.

11 hours ago, nerdynebraskan said:

As far as games I don't believe anyone has yet mentioned starting or planning to start, I believe those would be:

Airwolf, Back to the Future 2 & 3, Bill & Ted, California Games, Last Starfighter, Metal Mech, Michael Andretti racing, Rock N Ball, Stealth ATF, Thrilla's Surfari, and World Games.

As far as games that have been mentioned but are to the best of my knowledge in a gray area whether anyone is actually currently working on or seriously considering starting soon:

Athena, Athletic World, Battle Tank, F-117A, Jungle Book, Kid Kool, Kung Fu Heroes, Q*Bert, Sky Kid, Street Cop, Super Glove Ball, Super Team Games, and To the Earth.

I've been on a break from NES -- got a bit burned out by it, especially with the tendency to crash that my current setup has. For a few days I played some Jaguar instead, of all things (and enjoyed it!).

Of the games I had on my "to play" list, I've actually been playing Sky Kid the most, though (a) not very much and (b) I'm not really getting anywhere with it: Level 13 is still my highwater mark, and that's only halfway through the game.

I'm still committed to tackling Bases Loaded -- easy enough to switch between emulation and real hardware for that one -- and I'll probably crack Solomon's Key again in the next couple weeks. I'd really like to do Destination Earthstar and hope to do Sky Kid eventually, and might try To the Earth (though its reputation is intimidating and Gumshoe already cramped my hands enough).

Anyone is more than welcome to "steal" any of these, as I'm not in high gear right now, and need to beat them for my own list anyway so I don't mind if I don't end up getting the credit.

Well, that was one of the harder things I've ever done:

Gumshoe is beaten.

1 hour ago, scaryice said:

https://strategywiki.org/wiki/Gumshoe

You should probably that whole page. It says you need to shoot Zulie in the eye.

Thanks, but I've read that page. I know you need to hit Zulie in the eye with your machine gun (not the Zapper, since there's no hitbox).

The question on my mind is how many hits are needed, and why it seems to vary so much in different videos. What I'm worried about is the possibility that it's either linked to something earlier in the stage (e.g. the number of balloons you collect), or that Zulie regenerates health in some way.

A few things in that guide are kind of bogus. For instance, it's possible to take on Zulie with zero ammo, because you can still make your guy bounce to avoid Zulie's shots, and the machine gun doesn't drain or depend on your ammo. Because of that, I'm not sure it's worth the risk of going through the lengthy bonus area, which makes the stage twice as long and gives the game more opportunities to screw you over by dropping something on your head without warning, or having a grasshopper spawn into you just as you need to make a tricky jump.

(Also, the part about continuing is poorly phrased: you have to shoot the words GAME OVER to continue, but it's misleading to say you "get one chance" -- you can shoot and miss several times, as long as you register a hit before the screen disappears. And if you can't hit a static target like that within 5-6 seconds, you ain't getting very far in Gumshoe anyway. )  

Meanwhile I spent 45-50 minutes on Gumshoe tonight before it, sadly, crashed. Made it to Zulie once. My suspicion is that there's something flawed with my EverDrive N8, since it loves to crash on older games, while newer, more complex games are oddly less likely to cause trouble. (Or maybe it's the RAM in my NES, and newer games do better since they use on-cart RAM? But real carts haven't been crashing on me...)

Unfortunately I don't see much point in trying to chase the problem down since there are too many variables, and I doubt KRIKzz is interested in troubleshooting someone dealing with an ancient NES + a Famicom to NES adapter + an old version of the EverDrive OS + etc.

I finally finished Spelunker yesterday, so I started in on Gumshoe again. Made it to the final boss (Zulie) a ton of times, so it's just a matter of getting the timing down for the ridiculous number of hits required. After 3 hours of trying my game crashed, but it only took me 30-45 minutes to make it to the last level, if that, so I'm feeling like I'll get this one sooner or later.

Does anyone know the exact triggers for the secret areas in this game? There's so much speculation about it, but no hard data, and it's definitely not merely a matter of collecting enough balloons -- it must be collecting a certain balloon, or something with the score, or who knows what.

And watching different videos of the final boss fight on YouTube, I saw people hit Zulie anywhere from 18 to nearly 30 times before he went down, so it seems like there's some weird variability there too...? Tell me his health doesn't regenerate!

Nice! Right now I'm working on Spelunker for my own list, but after that my plan as of now is to account for Bases Loaded, Destination Earthstar, Gumshoe, and Solomon's Key. I might also try for Skykid but no promises there because it's an extremely demanding game.

The only other game left that's on my main list (i.e. games I want to beat sooner rather than later) is Kid Kool -- but man, do I loathe the controls and general gameplay approach of that one.

BTW Orb 3-D is a relatively easy clear for anyone who's got three hours to spare. I wound up hating the game when I beat it, though, and don't want to play it again.

Looks like he finished his quest!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PO1jzQEOUBI

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1zKWPHCCFuS4JOR3kWdyWqReVSpv7WxL14mOJGuFKdVY/edit#gid=0

Worked on Gumshoe for a while tonight. Made it to the final boss once, did OK though I was very low on bullets, but wasn't able to make it that far again before the game crashed.  Maybe I'll pick it back up over the weekend. 

2 hours ago, PII said:

I was trying to beat shooting range about a week ago and no matter how well I did at the bonus level (shooting every bottle), it would never award me the 10,000 bonus.  I'd always clock in around 36,000 or so..

From what I understand, the trick is to shoot every bottle without missing even once. I've never done it, but I think arnpoly has.

The problem is, the Zapper just isn't reliable enough to demand perfection in any light gun game. (Really, no light gun is -- and all light gun games should have been designed accordingly, from the Atari 2600 through the 3DO and beyond.)

Plus the bonus stage is dickish in that it flashes the bottles off and on -- and though it gets easier as the stage progresses, the first and last bottles always seem reluctant to register a hit. I could get every other bottle perfectly and miss the first and last.

I don't really know what I did to break 40k on my winning run, but I'm glad I did.

Shooting Range is done:

There's a case to be made that getting silver might be enough of a win condition to meet our standards, but in any event I got the gold.

Pretty thin game, but at least I was able to win it without getting a perfect score in the bonus round. What a weird bottleneck -- to make a "bonus" round nearly mandatory to get a decent ending.

23 minutes ago, scaryice said:

I've always counted one loop for Freedom Force. Are you gonna do Shooting Range next? That's another easy one.

I might, and was thinking of doing so, though I've never played it!

I'll also have to load it onto my Everdrive, since it's mysteriously absent from the ROM set I assembled back in (gulp) 2008 and have been using ever since. Probably need to upgrade that one someday...