the_wizard_666

I'm not sure about other emulators, but Mesen allows you to close out and then pick up exactly where you left off without requiring a load. This means you don't have to save and load the state, and cannot reload if you immediately screw up. This could be the happy medium here...you aren't saving, so there's no temptation to load, but you don't have to leave a console on for days or weeks at a time.

Haven't played much NES lately, but in the interest of keeping track in case unlicensed is added to the bonus section once y'all finish the main list, Baby Boomer was knocked off by myself and @Dr. Morbis earlier today.

In fairness, a third of that is backstory, and another third is a semi-walkthrough that's structured like a "captain's log," so you can use it as a guide or to just add flavour to your experience. Regardless, it's a fun game, definitely worth playing through.

The lack of votes for Starflight saddens me. It's such a great game. Pretty much what every Star Trek game ever made should have been.

Just curious, are these gonna get seeded randomly or in order of nomination?

So after some more gameplay, I have now exceeded the number of games the manual mentioned, and still get passwords. Curious about this, I looked into the password system. Apparently the game will give passwords up until $80,000 and then won't give passwords anymore. With the Bullseye round, the most you could possibly get per round is $20,000, and would realistically be much lower. So by the sound of it, you could have 5 rounds total if you played matches consecutively, per the manual, but the password system doesn't track the number of wins so they've hard coded it to not actually allow passwords after a point that wouldn't likely be achievable in fewer than 5 games (but in reality would take far longer to do). I've played 6 games now and still have a valid password, and will likely need at least two more to get to 80K and confirm this development, but yeah, still no word on where the end of Family Feud would be.

Starflight

Yeah, I tend to do the women's title since it's shorter and has fewer frustrating matches...I remember spending hours trying to beat some of the paths on the world and IC belts because the AI is cheap as hell But yeah, I don't want to do that if there's objections from the peanut gallery. Also, if someone else wants to do it to chip away at their own personal progress, I don't want to take away from that either.

So I'm working on Family Feud. I've now won two games, took my password, and figured I'd mention it here since there are no requirements listed. According to the manual you get passwords as long as you haven't won 5 games, so I'm presuming that would be the requirement. I couldn't find any details about there being an actual ending for that, as every playthrough I saw had only completed one match. But yeah, it's either done now or will be soon, depending on whether one win is enough or if you want all five to count it. I'm not counting it on my own list until i do all 5, so it's still being worked on regardless, I just thought I'd mention it just in case.

WWF Royal Rumble is done. Tougher than I remembered, but in fairness I don't recall ever playing the tournament, and there's no way to select difficulty on it like there is in exhibition matches and the Rumble match itself. Also kind of amusing that I fought Hulk Hogan in the first match and the final one was against IRS At least they properly randomized it, unlike a lot of wrestling games back then.

Monopoly is done. Kinda surprised it was unbeaten to be honest, since it's kind of a gimmie. Played a full 8 player game against the computer. Hoarded properties as much as I could, and leveraged the Water Works and one railroad to get massive property deals from the computer...Basically gave the sets away for all the rest of those players properties. Also got one computer player to give all their properties and 90% of their cash in exchange for the games first set, a gamble that paid off as they never got enough cash in hand to build on them. From there, I traded singles to get the last part of various sets so I could complete mine, notably giving away the yellow set in exchange for the green one, and then building straight away. Thats when dominoes started falling, with every player dropping cash until I could fully build up. By then there was no recovery for the computer players and they all fell in short order. The one thing keeping this from being a version I'll play much in the future is that, on multiple occasions, the same cards came up on Community Chest and Chance on subsequent landings, which shouldn't happen early in the game (I could see it happening after shuffling the deck once all cards are drawn, but not before everyone passes Free Parking, that's just silly). On the plus side, it can handle 8 players instead of only 4 for the 8 bit versions, so it's a better party game in that regard. Also, on other versions the computer will mortgage everything before declaring bankruptcy, forcing you to either unmortgage or pay the fee, but here they calculate it, and if they won't make it up, they don't bother mortgaging everything and you get the properties unmortgaged (though buildings are still sold off). It's a small but nice touch imo.

Starflight is done. I had intended to do a full run with just whatever in game notes I acquired, as I'd previously beat it with a guide. Then my battery decided today was the day to crap out. And knowing that there's only two things that need doing, and that I'm a lazy ass that doesn't want to start over, I opted to follow a speed run to get it done. It's unfortunate, since it's a fantastic game, but it is what it is. Honestly, aside from the resource mining, the game is functionally Star Trek, and should appeal to any fan of the series, as this is basically what every Star Trek game ever made should have been.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/nes/587113-bases-loaded/faqs/30570 It's under "Special Pitcher Trick." Hawaii has two pitchers that can do it, which is ideal since you have to rotate between games. Using passwords after each game can offset this as pitcher rotation isn't saved, but if you want to play multiple games in succession, inputting the password after each game is not ideal.

I would argue that the bonus world is the entire point of the game and should be done. But I don't know what precedent has been used previously. @scaryice what do you think?

I remember watching this on YTV when I was a kid. It actually started in the late NES/early SNES era, and also featured Sega consoles. Think I even saw a Jaguar on once, but don't quote me on that. For some reason I distinctly remember seeing an episode featuring Universal Soldier. Thanks for the nostalgia trip man!

My dad referred to RPGs as "maze games" because they felt like wandering through a maze to him. Pretty much any game involving exploration (including games like TMNT or Simon's Quest) were classed as "maze games" to him. The point I'm making is that I would hardly call that a genre, it's just something old people would say when they didn't know the actual terminology. Bomberman would probably fit more as a straight action game. There's no puzzle element to it really...you kill the enemies and go through the door. Even more heavily action oriented action-puzzlers like Kickle Cubicle still had a degree of having to solve the puzzles, as the player would have to figure out the right path through the level, and could easily fail if they made a mistake. Bomberman hurts a player for poor execution, and has a time limit that can cause a player to fail, but the player can't fail because they didn't figure out how to go through the door.

The Lawnmower Man? No idea

Is maxing the score required for the ending or did you just do massive overkill for its own sake? I'm curious what the requirement is so I know whether to go for it or not lol

But what if you can beat it in 10? Also, it'd be hard to enforce rules like no resets without video proof, and that'd probably also be the only way to ensure the time frames. I love the idea of getting the Koei games some love, but I can't see it working as a weekly contest game.

I'm curious how we could even work a ruleset for Koei games that would work. Maybe Uncharted Waters, maybe, but odds are it just won't work. I could see you do well in the puzzle genre though

I consider myself to be an average gamer at best...hell, I can't even beat SMB1...but I won the sports genre in 2022 and do reasonably well in the puzzle genre. Winning the tournament is tough as hell, but the weekly portion rewards consistently playing every week rather than perfecting every game. If nothing else, I'd say give it a whirl...you don't have to post extreme scores every time, just post something and you'll advance in the leaderboard. Casual would be the way to go, as seriously competing is a time sink for sure. I have to say I enjoyed the contest because I got to play games that I never would've thought to play, and not only did well, but actually beat several of them. I went through a full 82 game season of Tecmo NBA because the contest got me into the game...I never would've even played it had I not been competing. That said, I took last year off because none of the games being played appealed to me in any way. Most were games I either knew I didn't enjoy or had no interest in playing, so I skipped 2023. I heard a rumor that The Punisher was being considered though, so I'll probably be back this year for at least one week

I was actually excited to play that one...then I realized I don't own it Maybe next year I'll have snagged a copy, as it seems like it'd be right up my alley!

Battle Arena Toshinden is done. Honestly, this one surprised the shit out of me. I'm not much of a fan of fighting games, and 8 bit fighting games with two buttons are generally the worst of the worst...but this was an extremely pleasant surprise. Solid gameplay, excellent visuals, and great audio all make for a great game! Didn't think I'd say this about a fighting game, but I'd actually consider replaying this one!

If you did it all in 2024, you should head over to the Game Boy completion thread. I think it's still on the list there. If you started it last year though, it sadly won't qualify there, but I figured I'd mention it anyway.

Street Fighter II has been put to rest as well. Kinda meh TBH. It looks and sounds fantastic, especially for a Game Boy release, but even just generally...too bad the gameplay is sluggish as hell and kinda bland overall. Still, considering how bad 2-button head to head fighting games tend to be, I'd say it's one of the better ones available. Worth a quick run, but more of a curio than anything.