rdrunner

Just in case it helps, make sure that whenever you reach a dash/zipper, you let go of the gas while holding the weapon button.  Your vehicle should have a blue fireball instead of red or green for the biggest speed boost.

Skipped ahead through all the bickering.  This really shouldn't be the "Sonic 2 does/doesn't deserve to win" thread.  It's likely going to win and that's fine.  Majority vote wins out.

It's been a fun bracket.  Thanks for setting it up!

I like the Gradius intermission in Blades of Steel.  Thought it was really clever at the time.

22 hours ago, AstralSoul said:

I don't know enough about classical music to tell you the names but Catherine on PS3 features several classical tunes (and the soundtrack as a whole is amazing). And Eternal Sonata on PS3/XBox 360 is basically a love letter to Chopin. 

I'll second the Catherine soundtrack.  The classical music is remixed with a nice combination of old and new sounds.  The original music is good as well.

Just updated the main post when I logged in tonight and saw the new mirror tracks.  Guess someone out there heard me!

Pity my trial subscription is running out.  Not planning on paying to play this, but it does look nice for anyone still interested.

Are people still playing F-Zero 99?  I tried a few games with my NSO trial subscription and noticed that the waiting screens were nearly empty (10-30 users) until the timer ran out and a bunch of what looked like bots showed up to bring the race count up to 99.

Worried that this game is dead or dying, which would be a shame.

EDIT: Almost because I said something, the game was just updated tonight with new tracks (sort of).  They made mirrors of all 15 original tracks, but they're NOT straight up mirror mode.  All the mirrored tracks have new stuff added to them (boosts, jumps, rough patches, mines).

Beethoven's "Ode to Joy" is all over video games, especially Peggle...

@T-Pac The inverted volcano stage comes after the Moai level.  You probably triggered the warp to stage 5 by destroying at least 10 Moais during the level.

You're not missing a lot.  It's mostly just stage 1, but upside down with more enemies.  The volcano at the end also has reverse gravity, so all the rocks "fall" up.

There are other warps in the game for other conditions, each of which skips one stage.  You know you hit one when a bunch of indestructible green Moai fly across the screen after beating the boss.

Elevator Action.  Tons of improvements over the arcade game (forget NES, which is garbage).  There are attack dogs and sentry robots to go along with the standard enemies, new weapons doors that give you machine guns, shotguns, or grenades, plus every 6 stages, you get a rescue mission where you climb up through a maze.

7 hours ago, CMR said:

Just another classic NES game that needed a SNES sequel.

Yeah, though I do like the two portable versions.

I still prefer 1.  Every Wily boss is a winner (except maybe #3).  Final boss gauntlet with no E tanks FTW.

1 hour ago, T-Pac said:

Wait - Bombjack is in Solomon's Key!?

NES version or arcade?

[T-Pac]

Can't vouch for arcade, but yes Bombjack is in NES Solomon's Key.  He's super-hidden though.  You need to bump a specific block with your head a bunch of times to make him appear.  Catching him turns all the enemies into fairies.  Works in two rooms, I believe.

Oh, and don't forget he's also the star of the final halftime show in Tecmo Super Bowl!

15 hours ago, DarkTone said:

Playing Balatro 

I saw a review for this.  Really high on my wishlist!

Original 10/10 - So many memories of this game.  Never owned it until later in life, but I rented it a ton.  Started out by getting confused about the stage numbering and skipped the neutral areas in favor of doing area 2 just after 1 (should have read the manual).  Took turns with friends trying to do the hardest swing combos and together we slowly reached the final 3 stages, though I ended up beating the game myself from there.  The final stage is one of the best on the NES!

I also loved this game enough to speedrun it.  I wasn't the best at it, but I could still reach the ending in under 19 minutes.

Rearmed 9/10 - I have this on X360 and really enjoyed it.  As people have said, it's a nice remaster that does a lot of things well.  I also beat all of the challenge rooms, which while they were not the highlight, they are definitely great extra content for people who like that sort of thing.

Haven't played Rearmed 2 yet, but based on what I've heard, I'm not in a hurry.

Lamenting how Powerball is getting killed by Snow Bros, a game I thought nobody actually likes, but is just rare and expensive.

Really enjoying the thread.  Thanks for doing this!

Powerball (no not the lottery)

Personal favorite of mine.  Rugby/soccer, but with a ball that can knock people over.

Super Hang-On

4/10 - I was an Atari 2600 kid and extensively played over 40 games during roughly 1981-86.  Pitfall was in my bottom 5 of those, barely beating out the likes of Word Zapper and Video Olympics.  It just didn't hold my attention the way other games did.

Strider

Shinobi 3

This is a bit if a cheat, but Arcade Archives.  You can spend a lifetime mastering even one arcade game.  Having access to a large selection would keep me busy forever!

10 hours ago, Crabmaster2000 said:

Some more ending requirement thoughts:

I'm also unclear as to why we accept loops for some games, but not others. Like Ghosts 'n Goblins and Air Fortress require the loops, but none of the Taxan games or Isolated Warrior, Magician, Kick Master, etc? I feel like the game telling you during the ending that there is a harder mode and that harder mode giving a definitive ending is similar enough to a game telling you that the ending is coming after another playthrough that they should be treated the same way. It makes more sense to me than 2 loops of a game like Rally Bike that doesn't offer either of those things. 

 

Alpha Mission is a weird one too. There is actually a Area 13 if you defeat the final boss with 3 hits from the Thunder Special. Then you play Area 13 which is a boss rush mode, and since you used up your energy on those Thunders it is pretty challenging. BUT if you actually beat Area 13 the game doesn't loop you to Area 1, instead it sends you back to redo Area 12. It's kind of like you get punished for being cheap on the final boss by using the Thunder Specials to make it easy. If you beat the final boss in any other way though Area 13 only flashes on screen for a second before you get looped to Area 1 again. Not sure which way is "legit", but it's just a unique situation I think. 

Black Bass is a weird one too. You don't actually get anything for clearing the season so if you win a Class A tournament prior to the season ending I feel like that is sufficient. 

If we don't require best endings then Caesar's Palace or Pirates! shouldn't require the the best car or title, respectively. You could just play a game and then leave in the bus or taxi and that should count. 

High Speed I feel like should be you have to to "Beat the System" twice to get the "You've Beaten the System This Time" message rather than a high score which doesn't actually signify anything in game . It feels like a table goal for the game. 

If something like Overlord requires the hardest difficulty to get the ending screen than I also think TMNT Tournament Fighters, Rampart and Gun*Nac should require the same condition as well. 

Urban Champion and Pac-Man I also think should be to reach their best rewards of Champion Rank by beating Round 138 and the Blue Key by beating Level 12 on each game. 

Good points on these (at least the games I've played).

I've always thought that the win criteria across the board is a bit inconsistent.  At the same time though, the NES library is complex enough that there is some wiggle room for case-by-case basis.

Take arcade games.  Yes, Donkey Kong deserves more than clearing the three stages once to beat level 1.  The question is how far should we go?  Max difficulty (level 6) sounds decent, but does that mean all arcade games should be played to the same point?  Some games might be too hard for that (anyone try to beat 6 loops of Kung Fu lately?).  Whatever happens, yes please do make Galaga at least a little more interesting!

Then there's the ol' "Ghosts 'n Goblins" rule.  Does every game really need to be looped as many times as it takes to reach the "final" ending if it has one?  For example:

• Bubble Bobble?  Happy ending is one thing, but I've always found Super mode to be excessive.
• Gun.Smoke?  Doesn't increase in difficulty, so very little reason to keep playing past one loop, making the final ending more of an easter egg.
• 8 Eyes?  Loop 3 IS an easter egg (password only available in magazines and later internet).
• Arkista's Ring?  4 loops?  Seriously?  Raise your hand if you knew this one from playing the game without hearing about it first.  Anyone...?

I didn't know about the Alpha Mission thing.  I always used shields when I played and ignored all the other weapons.  That final boss takes forever to kill with just your normal weapons, but it's doable if you get closer, where your shots do more damage.  Need to play hit-and-run a lot though.

Spelunker I would think could count as beaten after one loop.  Additional loops have the exact same maps, with the only difference being invisible keys and how they're collected.

Also something you may not know:  Loop 6 is the final unique loop (not 4).  On loops 4 and 5, you collect the invisible keys by shooting flares, but on loop 6 you also have to jump AS you shoot the flare (had to figure this out myself without a guide).

Worth noting is that we don't tend to waste our time voting on games that are actually bad.  It seems reasonable to me that we had scores of 5-10 for the games we have gone through.

If we had a bunch more Superman 64's, we could easily see some lower scores.  The question then is whether we care enough to do that?

14 hours ago, Gloves said:

A small, non-exhaustive list of Gen 7 bangers.

• GTA 5
• Uncharted
• Oblivion + Skyrim
• The Last of Us
• Red Dead Redemption 1 & 2
• Mass Effect
• Bioshock
• Fallout 3 + NV
• LittleBigPlanet
• Batman: Arkham Series
• Metal Gear Solid 4 (and V)
• Hotline Miami
• Burnout Paradise
• Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 1-3, World at War, Black Ops
• Dead Space 1 & 2
• Wolfenstein
• TellTale series (e.g. Walking Dead, Wolf Among Us, others)
• Street Fighter 4
• Persona 5

 

The list goes on. Gen 7 was phenomenal.

 

Yup, just confirmed that I must not be a "true" gen 7 gamer.  Out of this whole list I only own SF4 and the first Batman, neither of which I've spent any real time on yet.

I do have a whole bunch of Xbox 360 games, but I just steer away from the big ones due to time constraints.