rdrunner

Thanks for the replies everyone! Remixing this game with Solomon's Key would be awesome. There's hardly anything out there like that either. I've played through Montezuma's Return but wasn't that impressed. The door colors (or symbols) were too similar despite this being a "color" Gameboy game. The overall presentation was lacking as well. Really enjoyed Milon's Secret Castle. That game is way better than people give it credit for. Legacy of the Wizard is on my todo list. It's a tough game to get into, but the similarities to Castlequest are definitely there.

Seeing someone do Castlequest on the NES completions thread got me thinking about how great this game could have been. It's really rough around the edges but is a lot of fun if you sit down and map out a strategy. Only problem is that the strategy part is more fun than actually playing through the game. It would have been a lot better if the castle was broken down into smaller pieces, at least at first. Instead the game plays more like one giant "final" stage. Was also thinking that I have never seen any other games attempt to improve upon the whole "maze of color-coded locked doors" mechanic. About the only game I can think of that even comes close is Montezuma's Revenge on the old Atari/Commodore computers. Great treasure hunting game with a lot more freedom of movement. It only uses 3 different key colors and there are always enough that you never get stuck without a way through a level. Are there any other similar games that I missed?

I don't have that many walkthroughs, so fun coincidence. Which one next year lol?

Show of hands: How many people on their first time playing Q*Bert jumped off the top of the pyramid?

Agreed! While I still really love the original, this remake was extremely well done.

Has anyone ever tried to get their Xbox 360 gamerscore (or similar) to a certain exact number? I just finished having some fun with this, landing on 20,000. Nothing fancy I know, but points come slower when you play mostly cheap XBLA games. I decided to do it in style, by going for a hard achievement that I had been putting off: Beating all of the challenge rooms in Bionic Commando Rearmed (achievement aptly named "A Real Challenge") The game features 56 optional rooms full of spikes and traps to swing through with your bionic arm. Most of these were fun, but I think some of them were made just to frustrate people. For example, one challenge is called The Perfect Swing, where the entire room is just one extremely difficult grapple that took me almost a hundred tries to get right. Naturally, the toughest room was saved for last. Challenge #56 is called Final Exam. It's a gigantic maze that forces you to utilize every possible trick swing in complicated ways, all under a strict time limit. The paltry 90 seconds forces you to be extremely efficient, almost to the level of a speed runner. I barely had any time left on the clock when I finally broke through. 466 attempts later, I became only the 978th Xbox user to clear this thing. 20G seems a bit low all things considered, but still, my kind of challenge! Anyway, just thought it would be fun to share. Would love to hear other people's achievement stories!

Not voting. I love all of these games for different reasons and am calling it a tie.

Never tried B mode, but I've gone pretty far through A. It think the difficulty completely maxes out in loop 6. I remember a big spike when you reach loop 4 and then things get a little faster from there, especially the moths.

Sorry, you're right. I should have included the card in the photo. It was rather awesome, all 2.5-d and everything.

Little late to the party, but wanted to thank @Megamanfan for this awesome set of NES games! I've barely played any of these before and can't wait to try them. They will provide some nice breaks during the busy holidays. Merry Christmas!!!

Glad you liked your new Gameboy games! Those are some of my all time favorites.

8/10 - Full marks for inspiring everything that came after, but I just like all those other games more. Ms. Pac-Man would get a 10 from me, as that's the one I played to death in the arcades. I'm also a big fan of Super Pac-Man. I actually haven't really seen that many original Pac-Man machines. Everywhere I've been, the arcades only had the sequels.

8/10 for me. I don't play a lot of RPG's and honestly this was the game that made me swear them off. Nothing against it personally, but this was where the games from this genre just got too long for my level of free time. That said, I fully see why people love it. Modern world setting (revolutionary for the time), fun "new" game mechanics (limit breaks/materia), and timeless music. Story had me going for the first part of the game, especially Midgar and a certain spoiler that may or may not qualify 25 years later. However, a large portion of it was rather difficult to follow, to the point where I had to read falsehead's excellent plot analysis on GameFAQs to make sense of it. For what it's worth, I enjoyed watching the Advent Children movie. Overall, this is still my second favorite Final Fantasy, behind only FF4. Take that with a grain of salt, since the only ones I've played are 1, 4, 6, and 7.

I vaguely remember this one. You have to play though the whole game while carrying the gnome or something? I like your thinking on this, but sadly I would probably unlock other stuff if I tried it right now. Definitely trying to make the achievement something hard. Like I remember beating Super Meat Boy's dark world for the first time to get to 10K.

8/10 - Hovered between 7 and 8 on this one. No specific feature of this system stands out. I don't have Kinect, I never paid more than the $1 trial for a Gold account, and I barely own any exclusive AAA titles. And yet somehow I own/love more games on this system than any other console except my NES (by far), thanks mostly to Xbox Live Arcade and keeping a sharp eye on sale prices for the last 10 years. Does it say anything that almost every game I like on this system can be had elsewhere? Maybe, but I think that says more about modern consoles in general than it does about Xbox 360 specifically. So take all this with a grain of salt, but this is currently one of my favorite systems. I went through my history and jotted down every game I've played through and enjoyed. This list is too long to deny that there was something great going on here! 1942: Joint Strike, BattleBlock Theater, Bionic Commando Rearmed, Boom Boom Rocket, Braid, Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons, Castle Crashers, Catherine, The Cave, Comic Jumper, Deathsmiles, Dodonpachi Resurrection, Double Dragon Neon, DuckTales Remastered, Fez, Galaga Legions/DX, Geometry Wars 1&2, Half-Minute Hero, Karateka, Life is Strange, Limbo, Mega Man 9, Mushihimesama Futari, Outland, Pac-Man Championship Edition/DX, Peggle, Portal, Raiden Fighters Aces, Raskulls, Rayman Origins, Scott Pilgrim vs the World, Shadow Complex, Space Invaders: Infinity Gene, Splosion Man, Super Meat Boy, Winterbottom ...and that's not counting stuff from other eras, like arcade, Genesis, and N64. It also doesn't include other great games I just haven't gotten around to yet. For example, I have a couple of Batman's Arkham games and just need more free time. Ditto Portal 2, Mirror's Edge and the two Rayman games. Oh, and my Gamerscore is a paltry 19,970. This thread popped up just as I was trying to think of a fun achievement to go for to land on the big 20K.

I've never been one to talk about "age", since that's more of a graphical evolution bias. I can still get hooked on any good game. Isn't that all that matters?

Never played (and I don't do survival horror).

7/10 - Missed the system when it came out, so no nostalgia hurts the vote. I still own a lot of great games, though I won't play any of the blocky 3D stuff. Had enough of that with the N64.

6/10 - Top heavy game library, with not much past the top 20 or so. Had some good times with the best stuff, notably Smash, Metroid Prime, Super Monkey Ball, and the Zeldas. Negative points for making the Mario games more "kiddie" starting with this system (Sunshine, Mario Party 4-7).

First holiday season with Switch! Anyone besides me having fun deciding what to get from the big eShop sale? Was excited to finally see Hollow Knight get a price drop, as I've been eyeing that game from day one. Also picking up Shantae and the Pirate's Curse and Sonic Mania. Only problem is cutting myself off soon after. The one other major game I want but was waiting for a "real" sale for is Cuphead. Guessing that game is popular enough not to need advertising. Anyway, fun times!

Go everything working with the soft cloth + credit card trick. Was hoping all it needed was a little cleaning. Thanks for the help!

I recently picked up an old SNES Super Game Boy that plays fine but has some audio issues. It can always play the chime when turning on the console, but after that roughly half my games have almost zero sound. For example, Donkey Kong '94 has no music but Pauline still screams "Help!!!" at the start of every level, but other games like Metroid 2 play perfectly with sound. I did some online searches on the topic and saw a variety of stuff that suggested everything from replacing sound plugs to simple cleaning, but not sure exactly what to do. Any chance that the pins are just dirty? I don't have a cleaning kit, so would be interested in knowing if anyone knows a good DIY alternative. I thought of doing the old Q-Tip trick that I use on my games, but it's tough to get between the pins on a console (cotton gets stuck). If it's more than that, not sure where to start or if it's even worth the effort. Off hand, I would need to invest in a star screwdriver and figure out where to buy parts. I don't want to pay more than it's worth to fix. Any thoughts appreciated. Thanks!

Count me in!

Anyone get into any Lakitu battles in this game? Something similar happened to me last night while playing the weekend "special battle" where the levels are picked by the game instead of the players (survived the attack, but ended up 3rd after the red timer ran out on me).

It definitely looks like a great game. I was considering a download ever since I got a Switch, but hearing the song you picked has clinched it. Now just waiting for a good download price in the eShop.