bronzeshield

I don't know what's happening with your save issue (it's been too long for me to recall the details), though from what I'm reading I think you have to go to the inn at Castle Britannia to save, and maybe you were going to Lord British instead? In any event there's a famous trick to Ultima: Exodus (at least the NES version) that makes the game very easy:

Agreed with Gaia Gensouki: clearing the Japanese library is extremely unlikely, since there are a bunch of Koei and Koei-esque strategy games that haven't been translated, plus RPGs, quiz games, etc. But tracking individual wins would be great.

The Pastebin says that the win condition for Barker Bill's Trick Shooting is to "play and beat each event, including the special ones in Fun Follies mode (stage 4, 5, 9)". However there's no end to the regular events (they just loop forever, and/or the manual says Round 99 repeats endlessly), so I don't see how you can "beat" them; I've won a couple rounds in each, but there's no high score to surpass. I'm wondering if the real win condition is to reach Round 10 in Fun Follies, which takes you through the additional event types (Trixie's Shot in Round 4 and Bill's Thrills in Round 9) and lets you see the special stages too. What does everyone think? By the way I'm not committing to beat BBTS, as either I or my Zapper (or both) lack the consistency necessary to get very far in the game so far. But we'll see.

I had a hankering to play some Sky Kid last night, and made it to Level 14. We'll see how I do -- no one else should hold off on my account, if they feel like taking it on -- but it's been on my priority list for a while, so I might put some time into it and try in earnest to beat it. Tough game, though.

I've actually been seriously considering doing the first game, since I've never finished it and I've meant to since childhood. I know it'll be a grind, of course. So -- sigh -- yes, count me in for Bases Loaded. But only the first game; the others don't look like my speed. And @nerdynebraskan, thanks for your kind words! We'll see about Solomon's Key -- I'll need to start out by learning Levels 44-48 so I've got them down pat, as that concluding gauntlet is so brutal.

In the continuing spirit of takin' one for the team, I was "abel" [sic] to make it to the final mission, and beyond: Marvel's X-Men (aka Uncanny X-Men) is done.

M-O-O-N, that spells "bronzeshield beating a game he didn't really feel like playing again but he took one for the team and after all it didn't take that long": Jimmy Connors Pro Tennis Tour (aka Jimmy Connors Tennis) is done, beaten on Intermediate, 1-set matches. Don't try to outslug the CPU in this game, it'll never work. The trick is: serve out wide (B + angle); hit a soft second shot (B), so that the CPU goes behind the baseline, and rush the net; then, put the ball away with a volley, Up+A. If you're receiving serve, go straight to step 2; if the volley doesn't work, go back to step 2. Do that every time, and you'll win all your sets 6-0, like I did (except the first, since I was remembering how to play), and it took only about 90 minutes since the pace is so comically fast. You can skip blurbs with the Select button to make it go even faster.

While I didn't use it myself when I beat Dragon's Lair last year, I think the pause strat is legit, as are all pause strats. If the game lets you do it with a regular NES pad, it's fair game. I can't speak to others' skills with Dragon's Lair, but I found it very demanding and wouldn't be able to beat it easily year after year. Then again, I was getting to Level 5 pretty much every time and the final boss was the real bottleneck, so I don't know -- maybe it could become almost routine. A scary thought. And hey, just saw your Total Recall screenshot. Yes, as a game-provided resource, that's gotta be legit to continue from the theatre and go straight to Mars (or however it works) -- certainly, it's what I did when I beat the game. Nice job!

Adventure Island, Milon's Secret Castle, and Rad Racer are a few that come to mind where the code is in the manual. Solomon's Key has its continue code on a poster that was included with the retail release (which is a game-changer in terms of its playability). Can't think of any others right now. Early Sega Genesis games really liked to do this for some reason, but it didn't show up as often on the NES.

Thanks! It's just Jimmy Connors left, isn't it? That one's really quite easy, since it's just a question of playing the same match a dozen times or so. I'll probably leave it for someone else since it's just a dull, repetitive grind; at least Racket Attack has a bit of challenge and complexity to it. I bailed on Solomon's Key after I left my emulator on pause for a few days and when I went to resume, the audio had crashed. Since sound cues are helpful in the game, I kind of gave up at that point, but in retrospect I should have invalidated the run and used a savestate to practice Levels 44-48, in hopes of maybe warping to Level 45 (on a later, legitimate run) and running straight through. I'll get back to it at some point, but the requirement to marathon Levels 41-48 to beat the game is a real drag, though at least I ultimately got the hang of Level 43 (allegedly the hardest one in the game).

I didn't really Juana play this game, but I took one for the team: Racket Attack is done.

Working on Solomon's Key. I've reached the Level 41 continue point (after initially warping to Level 45 and getting a GAME OVER), and have more or less mastered Levels 41-43, but I haven't been able to complete 44 yet. I'm on course for the least-good ending, but hey, it's still a "good" ending.

Karate Champ is done: No ending screen in this game, but that screenshot is right after the loop point, with a score earned by going through the first 10 fights. The graphics started glitching on me in Level 10 (the third CMP fight), where the background tiles became totally corrupt after my first knockdown, but temporarily went back to normal after I won the fight (and then glitched again later in Level 11 and on the title screen). Come to think of it, the whole thing seems glitchy -- for some reason my emulator doesn't play the music, and bugs in the sound started showing up after a while -- maybe it doesn't get along with Nestopia. @NESfiendThe trick to Karate Champ seems to be standing still, waiting for the CPU to approach, then hitting Down+A+B for a ducking punch. At least 50% of the time the CPU will walk right into it (more often with earlier opponents). If it doesn't work, you can jump over the CPU (Right+A+B) and then jump back for another try. TMR had a totally different strat, but this one -- which I found myself -- was quick and easy and worked well for me. Or, you can get a lead in the score, and then run down the clock by repeatedly jumping over the CPU, which is what I did in my last fight just to be safe.

...well, I guess I don't need to know the answer to that, because Fist of the North Star is done: Janky-ass game, to say the least. On my unsuccessful next-to-last run, almost all my character deaths came from getting knocked into pits in Level 6.

I've started working on Fist of the North Star, and something really weird happened: I made it to the final boss Shula (aka Shura), lost my last life, then got a GAME OVER and continued for the first time (I think?). But then I somehow selected the Vs. mode, since I've never used the Continue function in the game before and was thrown off. That immediately put me into a battle against Shula again, which I won, and then rolled over into battles against the first 4 bosses, all of which I won. Then it dumped me into a corrupted version of Stage 5, whereupon I immediately fell through the floor and got another GAME OVER. Then I went to continue the regular game, only to be dumped back into the corrupted Stage 5 over and over again, and fall through the floor over and over again. Is this a known...thing? And, by the way, if I make it to Shula/Shura without continuing, lose, and then continue, will I be able to reach him again on that playthrough, or do I have to start again from scratch?

I've always felt that Hydlide was unfairly treated, and I'd almost agree with you that the reputation of Ghostbusters is overblown, because the main body of the gameplay is kind of enjoyable... ...but the staircase sequence in the NES version is just unforgivable. Not only is it unfair and physically taxing, but I hate, hate, hate games that play stupid games with physics in which your frame of reference and the enemies' aren't the same. That is, you occupy the game's environment, but the enemies are tethered to the screen/display itself, and are immune to scrolling. Ghostbusters does this, Castelian does this (on the horizontal axis, with the randomly-spawning "satellite" enemies), and the recent SNES homebrew Sydney Hunter and the Caverns of Death does this. It's just a cardinal sin of design that breaks immersion, wastes time (since it intrinsically forces you to wait out enemy patterns you can't otherwise affect), and feels both lazy and unfair to the player. BTW I think using the door glitch/health rollover glitch in the stairway sequence isn't even an exploit, because it can so easily happen as part of routine gameplay. When I beat the game as a kid, I figure I must have triggered it by accident. So all wins that use it are "legitimate", IMHO, though kudos to Gaia Gensouki for the skill involved in beating Ghostbusters without it!

Down goes Castelian: Beaten on Novice difficulty, on my second-to-last credit of my last continue. Seldom have I played such a complete bastard of a game. It seems like the designers took every possible opportunity to make the player feel beleaguered, persecuted, and unfairly treated. I suppose the idea is to make your triumph all the sweeter, but I'd rather just have responsive controls, consistent physics, and environmental cues, thanks. A recent TAS turned up a really elegant shortcut in Level 8, which worked quite well and was a huge help. Not only does it save time, but it temporarily prevents a really nasty group of enemies from spawning, allowing you to make a series of difficult jumps without having to deal with them.

Took down 4-in-1 Funpak: Volume II with unexpected ease, considering that I'd completely forgotten the rules of cribbage and dominoes and still don't really understand either of them. The first solitaire game went my way, dominoes somehow worked out, I got a Yahtzee -- excuse me, a "yacht" -- right away, and then I beat cribbage on my second attempt.

(Re: Ghostbusters) It depends on whether you consider the health wraparound bug a "cheat" or not. It's extremely possible to trigger it accidentally, since it's caused by doing something that's a normal and intended part of gameplay, so I don't consider it a cheat since you'd have to avoid an entire aspect of the game (opening doors) just to avoid triggering it. Without that bug, I'd say it'd be close to impossible.

Super Pitfall is complete: I assume the Second Quest isn't required. I'd like to like this game, if only it didn't make itself such a hassle. (Yes, I'm aware of the 30th anniversary ROM hack -- haven't tried it, though it looks really nice.)

Hey, did I just get the 500th victory with AD&D: Dragonstrike? Beaten on Medium difficulty with the Gold dragon. Last time I played on real hardware, but I've been worried about the stability of my setup, so I played in an emulator this time...which, hilariously, crashed right after I got these screenshots. Glad it waited until after Tiamat was done! BTW I'm at around 200 licensed NES wins (plus 50 unlicensed and/or games from other regions). But some of them need to be replayed for various reasons, e.g. I beat the game when I was a kid but may have used a code or slowdown, so I'm probably at more like 160-170. (Generally, I also don't count the game as beaten until I've completed the highest difficulty setting. Funnily enough, I think Dragonstrike is the only game that's affected at the moment, since I haven't done Hard yet.)

I've started working on AD&D: Dragonstrike. About 2/3 of the way through at this point. I loathe that bone dragon boss -- such a bag of nonsense. EDIT: Now on the next-to-last level.

Star Voyager is done: Irritating that the damage RNG can so easily make or break an otherwise good run ("Close to victory? Whoops, there goes your laser cannon!"), and that the game apparently regenerates the motherships you kill if you leave the sector without clearing out all of the cannon fodder ships. I like the Starmaster/WarpSpeed approach better, where the game's more transparent about the number of ships in an area. Oh, well.

All-Star Tennis '99 is awful, but fairly easy to beat if you know the trick: just slice everything (I think it's C-Down as I recall) and wait for the CPU to make mistakes. It's possible to go for a winner now and then, but it's easier to just junkball the CPU to death, since the game loves to send your hard shots long.

Getting a kinda Grace Slick ca. Starship vibe from that one: