the_wizard_666

It's quite possible, but nobody has contributed it to the sealed contents thread to know for sure. The only licenced game that I've encountered for sure without a dust sleeve is Arkanoid. For the longest time I thought it might have been a reseal until the other variant was confirmed as well. Though assuming FF did not have one, your speculation as to why is definitely plausible.

Because that's technically what every city, town, village, hamlet, or any other location where humans live is called...

Curse?

Apparently dismissing your allies and doing a solo run makes the framerate almost acceptable, but then you also have to do a solo run of the game. Honestly, I doubt it would be half as bad as it is if the game ran smoothly.

Yeah, I've only played it back in the day on the Dreamcast, but I don't remember much downtime either. I actually found I didn't have enough time most days.

True, though there could be some truth to it. The quote itself sounds like complete spin, but it's not unheard of for countries to sign contracts with developers to rebuild war torn areas. That's likely what has happened - the company is on retainer for the rebuild, and someone spun it in a negative way to make Israel look bad.

When I did Metal Gear, it only took about a half day or so. Its intimidating, but not terribly long or difficult.

Not to mention that generally there's no dibs on games in these threads. If someone gets it done first, then they get it. The idea of saying you're working on something is just to make sure everything can actually get done in time, not to say nobody else should work on them.

I think the worst part is that it's apparently a great game on PC. It's just a completely botched port. I have a buddy who says it's his favourite of the series, and he plays it once a year or so.

Oh good, I'm not the only one who realized it used the Simpsons engine

Ultima: Warrior of Destiny. It looks phenomenal, right up until you try and actually play it.

More progress. Just made it through Summer Slam, and man was I busy. I had to defend my Hardcore title, then face Kane for the European title, and after that I had a world title match against Shane McMahon of all people (who randomly won it from The Undertaker on Heat). Had both Cactus Jack and Dude Love come out, not sure if I'll have to face them or not, but apparently my Raw match is another tag match, which I hate, so I'm calling it for today. I'm currently undefeated as well, though it may just be quicker to just get counted out every match and not worry about my record. And for anyone who cares, I'm running as Ken Shamrock, with Steve Blackman as my partner. Definitely not going easy on myself here by taking mid careers, but whatever.

How the hell is Wheel of Fortune still up? Ah well, it's not anymore, I just ran through a game. Got the 25K prize too.

Well, I still have a fair but to do before getting to the Rumble, so let me know what you find. Edit: apparently the only real benefit to winning the title at Mania is to unlock Shawn Michaels, which is why they require winning the Rumble. It's like how you have to win King of the Ring in order to get the chance to unlock Dude Love. So unless we're requiring unlocking HBK, there shouldn't be a need to do it in order to consider it beaten. Just my two cents though.

Santa Claus Saves the Earth

So I have to win the championship at Wrestlemania then. Okay. I only ask because it says to complete the road to Wrestlemania, which implies just getting through the mode. Wins and losses are irrelevant to the stated goal, so yeah, just wanted to make sure. I'm probably not doing all three anyway, I just want to get one game in the books so that I can be part of the year that the list gets completed.

So question - for WWF Wrestlemania 2000, are we required to win the belt in Road to Wrestlemania, or just finish the year? Finishing the year would be easy enough, but winning the belt requires winning the Royal Rumble first. I've just won the King of the Ring, so I've still got a ways to go yet, but I want to know whether or not to try hard

Gemfire is my recommendation for Koei noobs, for the same reason I don't particularly care for it - it's not as deep as the rest, so it gives you a chance to dip your toes in without being overwhelmed. Anyway, for me personally, I'd go with this order: 1 - Romance of the Three Kingdoms II 2 - Uncharted Waters 3 - Genghis Khan 4 - Bandit Kings of Ancient China 5 - L'Empereur 6 - Romance of the Three Kingdoms 7 - Nobunaga's Ambition II 8 - Gemfire 9 - Nobunaga's Ambition Romance of the Three Kingdoms II is also my pick for favourite NES game, so that's tough to beat. Uncharted Waters is not a strategy game, but I can't in good conscience leave it off the list Romance of the Three Kingdoms was the first Koei game I ever played, and I absolutely loved it...right up until I played the sequel. Sadly, it's incredibly archaic. Anyway, I'd recommend for someone who hasn't played them, as mentioned above, start with Gemfire. If you dig it, I'd suggest the first two games they released (Romance of the Three Kingdoms and Nobunaga's Ambition). They're so damn primitive that they're hard to enjoy if you've played the later games at all. As mentioned above, Uncharted Waters is not a strategy game, so that can be played anywhere and not affect your ability to enjoy the rest. Bandit Kings, L'Empereur, and Genghis Khan can be played in any order after those archaic beasts, as they all have similar mechanics and pacing. You really can't go wrong with any of them. Anyway, save Romance II for last, as it's tough to go backward from perfection Some game specific pointers: L'Empereur - I would also recommend starting on the first scenario when/if you play it. You start at a lower rank, meaning you don't have access to some of the commands at the start. What that does is it allows you to learn the game in pieces. Once you get a few territories, you get promoted and get a few more abilities. By the time you get to where the final scenario would be, you will know everything inside and out. Romance of the Three Kingdoms - According to the manual, the earlier scenarios have shorter win conditions than clearing the whole map. That is a lie. Once you achieve those conditions, the game says "now go for the rest of them" or something along those lines. So to get the ending, you have to conquer the entire map on any scenario (though the ending is the same regardless). Nobunaga's Ambition - Assassinations are your friend. Do as many as you can against your neighbours and just buy their territories. Much easier than battling. On the lowest difficulty, there's only a handful of daimyos that you actually have to fight - the rest can be assassinated relatively easily. Even on higher difficulties you can assassinate some daimyos early on, though it gets much harder as the game progresses...but on easy, the ninja seem to have their numbers. Bandit Kings of Ancient China - This is the only game where the goal is not to conquer the entire map. You need to accumulate fame points. Once your fame is high enough, you can then attack Evil Gao Qiu. Once he's dead, you win. This one I beat in a single day when playing it blind. Definitely worth playing, but yeah, it's a lot simpler to win than the rest. I don't even think I had half the map by the time I won. Also, there's a time limit in the game - can't remember exactly, but apparently you have to win by a certain year. Genghis Khan - While it extends the game significantly, play through the Mongol Conquest. When you finish, you and a few of your generals graduate to the World Conquest mode. The benefit here is that you will be in a significantly better position to begin than you would if you just started World Conquest, and will likely have better generals serving you as well (assuming you set them up correctly of course). That said, if you want to be any other ruler besides Genghis Khan, you can skip right to World Conquest. And a fun side note - Romance of the Three Kingdoms and Bandit Kings of Ancient China are based not only on history, but on ancient Chinese novels based on the historical events. Romance shares the name with the book, while Bandit Kings is titled Water Margin. Both are interesting reads, though with Ro3K, I'd get the Moss Roberts translation, as the nomenclature is different between the games and the Charles Henry Brewett-Taylor translation and can be confusing because of it. Water Margin uses real names, while the game uses nicknames, so that also makes for some confusion in that regard. Guess they figured Americans would have no real knowledge of the story, so the Chinese names would be meaningless to them, and decided the nicknames were just cooler. And honestly, they probably aren't wrong there.

Nobunaga's Ambition II is now done. Going in I felt like the only worse Koei NES game was the first. Having beaten it, I'd move it up past Gemfire to number 7. I'd still rather play damn near every other Koei title, but it was a bit more engaging than I'd initially believed.

I remember playing it in high school. It was awesome at the time

Even though I know it's 100% not it, I'm gonna say Santa Slayer because most people forgot that damn game existed

Oh good, I can play something fun instead

Huge Nobunaga 2 update. I'm up to 25/38 fiefs, have cleared my northern flank, and made massive progress on the western front by threatening every single-fief opponent. On the eastern front I have reduced the Hojo to one fief, and have a ~1000 troop army on Uesugi's doorstep. This will likely be in the bag by the weekend...possibly even as soon as tomorrow.

Play whatever you want man. Just because someone's working on it doesn't mean you can't. It's more like everyone is claiming something just to make sure it gets done. Anyway, I made a shitton of progress on Nobunaga 2 today, so much so that I'll likely be done by the weekend, if not tomorrow. I'll likely start chipping away on Attitude after that if its not done by then.

Nope. Though based on that fact he was probably one of the better ones.