rdrunner

On 11/1/2023 at 11:35 PM, PII said:

Haven't played it but screenshots looked cool so I took a look at a play-through on youtube.  Kinda hard to tell exactly what the player is supposed to be doing.  It almost seemed like the wizard is invincible...

It's definitely pretty complicated.  The wizard is not invincible though.  He has a digital strength gauge.  The first screen ends when it runs out (unavoidable).  On other screens, running out ends the game.

The screens each have different goals:

• 1: Grow trees
• 2: Use trees to crush eggs
• 3: Destroy gravestones to defeat the Necromancer

Anyone here ever play Necromancer on Atari or Commodore?  Never heard of it but just recently tried it out.  Not bad for it's age, great for Halloween!

21 hours ago, CMR said:

Do games like Legendary Wings or Lifeforce count?  I'm guessing no because they're still shooters in both modes?

To me shooters are shooters, though I know some people really prefer vertical only or horizontal only.  Judgement call.

10 hours ago, koifish said:

Does Kid Icarus count?

Technically yes.  It's mostly a platformer, but the final stage is definitely a shooter.

Great work as always!

I would give the difficulty edge to Ninja Gaiden over Castlevania, but it's close.  They both have the knockback thing when you get hit, which causes a lot of problems until you master the tricky spots.  Ninja Gaiden's final act is much more epic however, especially on a first playthrough.

More NES:

Air Fortress
Battletoads
Bionic Commando
Flying Warriors
Laser Invasion
Mission: Impossible

12 hours ago, koifish said:

I have heard a lot of terrible things about a case in 2 involving a clown, people say it's halfway through and that it is the worst part of the whole series.

Yup, the third case in Justice for All, Turnabout Big Top, involves a very not-funny clown.  It's just one case though and the case just after is great.  Worth pushing past this one.

First: If we require an actual ending, then it would be Karateka on the Atari 8-bit computer (love that game!).  I also "beat" Space Invaders for 2600 by completing the hardest level where they start one row away from landing.

Last: Portal 2.  Finally finished it last month after quitting around Chapter 7 and taking roughly a 5-year break.  Those rusty old chambers took too long to navigate and I lost interest for a while, but I finally went back and pushed on to the (insane) ending.

Middle: Roughly 2003, which is when I did my NES Zelda speed run.  34:05 during the pre-TAS era, which beat everyone else at the time by at least 2 minutes.  Still one of my favorite accomplishments!

Just reached another milestone in Celeste: Over 20 hours and 3500 deaths (so far) and I have now found all collectibles in the main game, including all of the hidden stuff.  Was really hard to figure out where and how to find a few things, but I managed to solve everything without a guide.

"B-Side" levels next?  Still not sure yet.  Been quite a ride though!

On 10/5/2023 at 2:39 PM, GPX said:

I honestly doubt many of us would have played enough games on both platforms to do a genuine comparison of the top 10 for each side.

That would be me...

N64
Zelda Ocarina of Time
GoldenEye 007
Donkey Kong 64
Diddy Kong Racing
Mario Party 1-3 (tie)
Zelda Majora's Mask
Banjo-Kazooie
F-Zero X
Perfect Dark
Super Mario 64

PS1
Castlevania Symphony of the Night
Metal Gear Solid
Final Fantasy VII
R-Type Delta
Devil Dice

...um, haven't played much else...

Various Arcade Stuff (ex: Konami Arcade Classics, Q*Bert/Frogger remakes)
Looney Tunes Sheep Raider

8/10 - Childhood favorite.  Can't go any lower, despite all the warts.

Believe it or not, you can beat Fester's Quest without turbo or even button mashing.  Like others have said, just take that first few minutes and max out your gun's level (or at least to level 7).

I actually like this one better than Blaster Master.  Both games have the crappy concept of downgrading your weapons, but I'd rather have it happen due to an item than from taking damage.

Oh, and Sunsoft nailed the music here as usual!

I sometimes would get a sore left thumb from the ol' NES d-pad when I play a lot.  Then I just loosen my grip and keep going.

Celeste - Heard great things about this game and finally decided to pin my ears back and play through it.  I just reached the summit in about 9 hours, including collecting about just over half the strawberries.

Going back through all the levels again to pick up what I missed (love how the game menu includes a checklist for each level section and an achievement "diary").  Not sure if I'm going to try the harder stuff yet, but we'll see.

How to tell if a game is awesome: You reach the ending and still feel compelled to keep playing!

9/10 - I was skeptical about the whole "lawyer game" concept at first, but it really does work quite well.  I love point and click adventure games. especially ones like this with such a compelling story.

5 hours ago, DarkTone said:

F zero 99. 

Looking forward to my next free trial of NSO to play this!

47 minutes ago, AstralSoul said:

Don't love but like it a lot. My 7th favorite mainline FF so right in the middle of the pack. 

Lol I would need to play 3 more FF games just to have a 7th favorite.

I have this and Necrodancer.  I haven't played Cadence because I started with Necrodancer first, but have been looking forward to trying it.  Love me some 2D Zelda, even if it may be different with the rhythm stuff!

Haven't played enough to vote, but I have the x360 remake and it's definitely on my todo list.

Will probably never play it without an affordable re-release, but if that ever happens sure, of course I'm interested.

Oh, and Strider (another ceiling-walker game).

1 hour ago, SNESNESCUBE64 said:

There are always risks, the ribbon cable connector is really fragile and they are all baby parts on the board. Your best bet is to watch a couple tutorials on youtube before doing it. Don't just watch one, watch a couple, quick cut tutorials always miss things.

That is good advice.  I appreciate your help!

For people like me that don't own a Wii U and also don't plan on buying the GameCube versions at market value, I'll take them on Switch any way I can get them.

9 hours ago, SNESNESCUBE64 said:

I had this happen once to my ds lite after I dropped it. I was able to fix it by reseating the ribbon cable. Ds lites are kind of a pain to disassemble, but the lower screen is a lot easier to replace.

Yeah after watching a few videos, even a simple thing like reseating the cable sounds quite intense!  I'm debating whether it's worth risking what is currently an acceptable GBA while I still have my 3DS.  I also do not have a tri-wing screwdriver, so I can't even open it yet.  Also not clear on what to use to separate the screen from the plastic frame.

Any serious risks involved?  Shorting out a board?  Breaking an irreplaceable part?

Metal Storm and pretty much every good NES game released in or after 1990.

Also still waiting for "Axelay 2" as Konami promised.

Turned on my Nintendo DS Lite and discovered the touchscreen was blank white.  It appears to still take inputs though.  Upper screen is fine.

Can this be fixed easily or is it time to replace?  I checked online and didn't see this exact issue.

Thanks in advance!

Just finished World of Light on Smash Bros Ultimate.  Took me just over 30 hours to get 100% (I'm slow.  Everyone online says they did it in 20, but I assume it's faster if you did some Spirit Board stuff first).

As someone who hasn't played a Smash game since Melee, I enjoyed playing as a whole bunch of "new" fighters.  My favorites out of the post-Melee bunch are Wario, Pac-Man, and R.O.B.

The game was quite the ride at first, but it got boring in the second half once the difficulty leveled off.  They really should have added tougher fights later in the game.  I lost WAY less often once I got a few fully-leveled "Legend" spirits.

Not a huge fan of the spirit system, as I prefer to just fight straight up.  The idea that I can adjust a battle's difficulty by which spirits I choose took a while to sink in.  I still think it's a bit too complicated, especially for younger players (would my 7-year-old get it?).

I really didn't like being almost "forced" to change spirits for practically every fight.  They should have had the auto-pick spirit button allow you to pick your strongest primary instead of something challenging (or at least let you customize it).  I spent more time on the map screen than I did in actual fights!

Without getting into spoilers, I loved the endgame a lot.  I just wish the mind-blowing fight just before the final battle was replayable.  From what I can tell, the only way to see it again is to play through the whole game again.

The final battle was truly epic.  Hype was definitely well-deserved!!!

Ending was meh.  Didn't expect much, but it looked phoned in.  Pity, since the opening movie showed lot of promise.

Great game, for a long modern.

8/10

If invincibility isn't kosher for you, you might try "earning" a bunch of extra lives by spamming easy enemies?  I did that when I was first learning the game.