Sumez

That's the only conclusion I've been able to draw, too. How about allowing coalition goverments, making room for a potential multi-party system in the first place? This two-party structure really feels like a comic book version of democracy. Like several people have been saying here, this whole "with us or against us" thing is harmful to politics.

As someone who has no idea how USA's version of "democracy" works, I had to look up what this meant, and it seems like something that (probably) doesn't really have any consequences at all?

It kind of bothers me that Billy bookcases are the standard cheap IKEA solution. They have another line of shelves, Bestå which come in a 20cm deep variant which is completely perfect for DVD or CD case sizes, as well as NES, SNES, MegaDrive, and most other console formats. It saves a lot more space in a room than a Billy shelf, and you don't get a ton of awkward empty space on your shelf which will eventually end up used for a mess, or games stored in double layers (ugh). Unfortunately the ~190cm tall version of the shallow frame variation isn't a part of the lineup anymore - at least not around here, and they are getting really hard to come by. You can get a similar result from stacking three 60cm ones, but that requires a lot more wall attachments and wastes a good amount of shelf space. For bigger items however, the 40cm deep variant is still super useful. I'm really proud of my storage solution for arcade PCBs using one of these, though unfortunately I've run out of space again since:

With 10 channels and FM modulation, it's not really "NES music" at all. You could stream MP3 to an NES using expansion audio if you wanted. That said, this sounds really awesome, and whoever made it is super skilled.

Whoa what. I feel like GTA 5 came out like last year, but apparently it's a few years older... Why does time move by so fucking fast?

Found a *local* listing for Windjammers last weekend. Local as in I could actually just get in my car to drive there and pick it up. Wild! I officially stopped buying Neo Geo games 15 or so years ago, but I've had a few holes in my collection ever since. With that game finally down, I don't feel that I'm really lacking any games anymore outside of a few key ones: Super Dodge Ball, Zupapa, Magician Lord, Nam-1975, and Metal Slug X. Oh, and Twinkle Star Sprites. But it seems unlikely I'll ever be able to throw money after that one.

I'm impressed, I always fail at that, since being any higher than the floor when his fireballs move downwards, will cause them to turn around as they home in on you. As long as you stay on the floor, they'll despawn below you, so I try to just avoid them and only move up when I'm certain to get a hit in on him.

Can't speak for Deadeye, but "amazing" might be overshooting it IMO. But it's not bad. It's a stereotypical modern indie platformer, mostly focused on in-air movement tech and basic puzzle solving. It has a fair amount of backtracking in its second half, but minor changes to the stages makes that less tedious than it sounds. It has a lot of amateurish feeling elements, and a somewhat cringeworthy, persistent style of humor, but overall I think it's an enjoyable game. Its Ninja Gaiden focused marketing campaign is confusing as heck, because it really has nothing to do with that game.

Yeah, each of them stays dead. Like Tulpa said, it means you can keep subweapons for the later ones and cheese them. This is the least fun way to beat the game, but at least it gives people an easier option. The first of the three bosses is very simple though. It'll easily kill you when you come unprepared, but as soon as you see its pattern, you probably won't ever get hit by it again.

Yeah I was talking about the original version included in the game. They also included SOTN, and that one featured a completely new translation.

Yeah!! No time for cheese strats here! Ninja Gaiden is one of the absolute best games on the NES, and you shouldn't let anyone tell you otherwise. But the boss fights is generally a weakness of the game. Mostly pointless, going down in no time with little effort - and one of them even rewards just tanking damage rather than trying to avoid it. But then there's Jaquio! Despite its simplicity, this boss fight is just amazing IMO. Like the rest of the game, it is equal parts puzzle and execution, and avoiding being hunted down by fireballs that refuse the leave the screen is the key here. Pull up your pants and fight the guy like a real ninja, or you'll be missing out on one of the absolutely most memorable boss fights of the 8-bit era.

Dude. Typing of the Dead. It's way more fun than you'd think you could have with a typing game.

Only the intro is spoken in German, the rest of it is in Japanese. Wasn't it translated for the PSP release? I recall it being so, but it's been a while, and I tend to return to the PCE one.

Yeah, as if having a second DKC2 is a bad thing. DKC1 though... it's really overrated.

This is the idea I subscribe to. There's a difference between completing and beating. Doesn't mean either isn't valid.

Caving in an using an E-tank is always better than risking spending the next 15 minutes farming for weapon refills. Fortunately the boss doesn't do a lot of damage, and depending on where you are standing, dodging the attacks is just a question of a single timed jump. I think it's better to take your time and always stop to dodge an attack, than trying to rush the boss.

Well, if the game straight up tells you that you lost, but you continued to play to the end after that... You finished the game of course, but in my world a "victory" implies not having failed.

Damn! I guess my assumption was wrong. The search for the truth continues.

See this is where we can chat. I think this is a more interesting subject than just "would you label this as cheating". Because "cheating" in a single player game essentially comes down to whether you're "cheating yourself". So let's get the meme out of the way https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aFJqOlYaJbs Like I just said, no one can or should tell you "how" to play a game. But I do often come across a certain unwillingness to accept a game's merits given certain challenges. People tend to assume that something isn't fun without even having given it a decent attempt. Or the good old "I'm and adult with a job and a dog that needs walking, I don't have time to play games in a non-platonic manner!". People tend to immediately assume that attempting any challenge in a game, self-imposed or not, is something reserved for either people more skilled, or people with more time to spend playing video games, or just people who are willing to put more effort into a video game than should be expected. But here's the thing - even getting through Ninja Gaiden using countless continues took me two days as having fought hard enough one afternoon caused me to take a break and start over the next, going all the way. With that out of the way I could have stopped there, and the game would still be fun, but given a few more days I managed to beat it without using continues. A feat that feels incredibly satisfying given how impossible it seems on your first attempt. It really doesn't take incredible skill to do this, all it demands is a tiny amount of determination and willingness to learn the mechanics of the game. And it's this dive into how the game really works that allows you to experience it in the way it was designed to be played. It's fine if you don't want to go for this, but I do think anyone who hasn't at least tried will have a harder time understanding just how good that game is. Conversely, I could have also taken it further. You could go for a no-death challenge, or a pacifist run. Hell, you could even start speedrunning the game. And this just goes back to how it's all subjective. I play plenty of games that I credit-feed though and then never touch again, because I don't feel like they'd give me any more. But it's an approach that makes it very easy to miss out on some of the better video game experiences out there. And I think especially given the design you see in most modern games, it can be difficult to readjust your mindset to the way most action games were designed in the 80s and early 90s. A modern game is a single run through that frequently can last anywhere from 10 to 100 hours, and although there may be challenges available to anyone who wants to start over and experience it again, no one is expected to do so. In the 80s when you owned maybe three games, and one could essentially be completed in less than an hour, things were different. It really depends on what game you are talking about of course, but for this subject I'm focusing on arcade inspired actions games like Castlevania, Ninja Gaiden, Super Mario Bros., Ninja Warriors, Ghouls n Ghosts, Contra, Mr. Gimmick, Gradius, Mega Man, Hagane, Final Fight, etc. - the list goes on. These are all games designed with the mindset that anyone owning them would play them again and again to hone their skills and get better, getting continuous enjoyment from them. Not all games keep being enjoyable played like this, but in my opinion any great action game should. So how do you get the best enjoyment given spending more time with them? Again, it's really up to you. As a kid I'd play SMB1 over and over again taking every warp zone getting me to 8-4 as fast as possible. I was never timing my runs like a speedrunner, but I think the ability to beat the game in a matter of minutes is one of its many great assets. But looking at the concept of continues/credits, what would the idea of having them on top of a lives system be, if your primary goal isn't to avoid using them? The screen usually says "Game Over" right? Most games of this type will give you X amount of lives and unlimited continues allowing you to essentially keep banging your head against the wall until you eventually break through. Some games will add a bit of challenge even with this approach, by making a continue take you further back than a lost life. Meanwhile others will allow you to just respawn immediately, making the concept of extra lives completely pointless if you choose not to limit your continue usage. That's definitely the best way to get through the first time. And if you don't feel like you enjoy the game well enough to keep playing it after that, it's completely fine. Hell, if you only ever played worlds 1 and 8 of Super Mario Bros. 3 using the warp whistle every single time it's not like you can't have a ton of fun doing that. But you'd also be well aware that you are missing out on worlds 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7, full of stages that might be just as fun.

That's good to hear. I've had Grand Master lying around for the better part of a decade, and I haven't even pulled myself together to pop in the cartridge yet.

What's the point here? Whether anything is "legit" depends entirely on what your goal is. If you don't want to play every stage in SMB1, and skip a majority of the game using warp zones, that's what they are there for. But the result is that, well, you won't be playing every stage. You could also just not play the game at all, and thus skip every stage if that's what you want. It's all valid. I'm the guy who'll tell you that if you truly want to "beat" a game, you need to do it without using continues. But in reality you're the only person who gets to decide what you want to do or not.

Doesn't sound like a good strategy to me? If you die mid-fight, you can lock yourself out of being able to beat it, because you don't get your ammo back. You'll be stuck farming weapon refills for ages, which is the worst thing that can possibly happen in a Mega Man 2 run. The only way to beat it is to go in with full ammunition on the crash bomb, and don't destroy any walls that you don't need to. There are few ways to optimize it IIRC you can beat the boss with like one shot left on the crash bomb, but it's better to assume you don't have any in case of screw-ups. The wall right in from of you when you enter the room can and should be skipped using items 1, 2, or 3. The one in front of the upper right trap can be skipped too in a similar manner, but it can also be destroyed along with either the wall below it, or the trap above it. The leftmost wall can also be destroyed along with the trap above it. Honestly, this boss (and the majority of the stage) is the primary reason that I don't understand why anyone could claim MM2 is the best of the series. The game is great, but it would be better without it.

The answer will be the same as everything else, it's subjective. But I'd file this as cheating. Obviously the game isn't designed with this approach in mind. "Cheating" would be a heavy misnomer here, but it's kind of in the same category as stuff like credit feeding/using continues, P-wings, or save scumming. It's a feature of the game, no one's saying you can't play on easy, and it's up to you whether you want to do it. It's a great way to make a game more beginner-friendly, it can help any players starting out, and it's a good way to practice if you want to move up to "the full experience". There are probably examples of games that are better on easy, but it's also likely those aren't very good games in the first place.

Ok, I'm curious. Since this is one of the rare scenarios where a busted up cartridge is still with what I'm assuming is the original owner..... What the hell happened to that game?

Of course it's not "cheating". That said, if you're using E-tanks in Mega Man, you should feel bad. Kidding aside, of course E-tanks are there for a reason, and you're free to use them. But there's clearly a design philosophy around them that goes deeper than that. They are there to help out beginners, but anyone who feels like spending more time with the game and digging into them should aim to try for a completion without using them or continues. It creates a nice natural dynamic difficulty to the games that is more inclusive without shunning people who like a challenge. Of course, the "E-tank" here is really a symbol of any similar mechanic in any action games. But the Mega Man titles especially are really great in this aspect. Obviously they are also designed with a "buster only" challenge in mind - but moreso than E-tanks that should never be the goal for any player starting out. The games are designed around the help you get from weapons that can be acquired, and it's a central mechanic you'd be robbing yourself of if you just ignored them from the get go. When doing it makes the game "less fun", and/or simply cuts out content or central gameplay elements (like level skips, items that can trivialize a boss fight, removing the consequences of failing, etc.) It's really subjective, but I'd say that's the gist. Stunlocking bosses with the holy water in Castlevania isn't a glitch, but you could argue you're robbing yourself of the experience of fighting them and achieving a satisfying victory. Whether you want to do it or not is up to you - personally I cheese the Death boss every time.