Philosoraptor

Massive congratulations on completing the SNES rankings! I've really enjoyed reading your episodic updates. I can guess both as a gamer and a writer how much time, effort, and energy this took you and your editors over the years. All of you deserve a pint, a long weekend, a good night out, and a good night's rest. "...But how in the world could I ever be happy enough with my writing to where I would feel confident about having it printed onto a physical page, never to be fixed up again?" The dirty little secret is you don't. Or at least I don't. Even when I publish what I write, five years down the line I'll reread it and think "that could be worded better, or that be more succinct, or this could be moved here, or..." With deadlines, you're striving for good enough or as good as it's going to get. With passion projects, you have all the time in the world. But remember, even the greatest writers of all time had multiple revisions and prints of their books to silently fix typos and errors. If you do ultimately end up making a book, just know it probably can't and won't be perfect, and that's OK. A minor wording issue on page 47 or a typo on page 112 isn't going to detract from the content you've written or the experiences you've shared.

It's been a while since I posted an update about the random games I've been beating. I've mainly been focused on handhelds recently, but I wanted to highlight some interesting ones. River City Ransom EX (GBA) - I'm a massive fan of the original RCR on the NES. It's easily one of my top five favorites on the console I revisit it as much as I do SMB 3. My GF bought me a beat-up box to keep my cart warm one fateful birthday many years ago, kickstarting my love for CIBs. Needless to say, it's got a special place in my heart. So, I've been side-eyeing this version on my shelf for years. What if it's bad? What if I hate it? Well, all that worry was for naught. In fact, I'd say it's probably better than the original. How? It's the same amazing game, but just more. More weapons. More street gangs. More one-liners. More techniques. And dare I say it...more fun. Quality of life improvements have also been added, such as not needing to specify "to go" or "eat in" for every order and you get a computer-controlled buddy instead of brawling it out by your lonesome. Final Fantasy Fables: Chocobo Tales - This one came as a surprise. I'll be the first to admit I'm not the biggest Square, Enix, or Square Enix fan. I had zero expectations for this game, but lately I've been trying to play games on my shelf when the urge strikes me. For whatever reason, this game stuck out to me a few weeks ago. I was blown away by how fun this game turned out to be. Of the dozens and dozens of mini and micro games, only one stood out to me as having bad touch controls. The diversity of control types and mini game ideas is staggering, and after playing several games that struggled to get the touch controls right in general, it's amazing they did it so well across the board. There's also a genuinely fun card game packed in here, too. The whole thing took me about 15 hours to beat, but I'd be happy to revisit it in the future and try for 100%. Might and Magic Clash of Heroes - This one I've been meaning to play for a long time. I've heard it was good, and it lived up to expectations. The story isn't amazing or unique, but it's an interesting mix of match/puzzle game and RPG where you're trying to make matches to queue attacks and bolster defenses. In standard fashion, when your hero's health hits zero, you lose. Battles are fun and reasonably quick (5-15 minutes, typically). The units and heroes you control change throughout the game, but the core gameplay remains the same. There's also enough depth here to keep an adult interested but not so much that it can't be enjoyed by a younger audiences. It takes about 20-25 hours to beat, but it's very easy to pick up and play. I also beat Sonic Blast, Sonic Labyrinth, and Sonic Triple Trouble on the Game Gear. Of the three, I liked Labyrinth the most. It's a departure from the standard Sonic formula, but it works for me. Compared to other Sonic games, you walk very slowly, however, spin dashing sends you careening around of the isometric, pinball-esque levels. It's also probably the easiest of the Sonic games I've played on the GG and SMS up to now. One other thing to note is that if you're epileptic, this is probably not the game for you. Whenever you a grab power-up, the background flashes until it runs out. Triple Trouble is a return to the standard 2D Sonic formula, but it's plagued by an extremely irritating water level that has you floating around in bubbles, avoiding spikes, and figuring out the maze in slow-ass underwater-Sonic speed. Otherwise, due to the lack of variety in its stages, it's not terribly noteworthy. However, that might be because I played the Tails route. What is noteworthy, is how awkward Sonic Blast is. It doesn't feel like a Sonic game. It's slow and plodding. The sprites look like fancy Saturn sprites that have been demade for the GG. The special stages have you running towards the horizon, but at best, they feel like a brisk walk. It also has the worst water level of any of the GG Sonic games; it's a maze of pipes, water currents, and multiple levels of platforms. It's very easy to get lost or just go in circles. The fifth (and last) stage is a maze of teleporters full of enemies that land cheap hits due to how cramped the corridors are. Here's how I'd rank the Sonic games I've played on the SMS and GG so far: Sonic the Hedgehog (SMS) (Best) Sonic 2 (SMS) Sonic the Hedgehog (GG) Sonic Chaos (SMS) Sonic Labyrinth Sonic Chaos (GG) Sonic Triple Trouble Sonic 2 (GG)* Sonic Blast (Worst) It's worth noting that, even though Sonic Blast and Sonic Triple Trouble are next to each other in the rankings, Sonic Blast is significantly worse. I'd say Triple Trouble is at least a 7/10 and Sonic Blast might be a 5/10. *Edit: After some thought, I think Sonic 2 (GG) is worse than Sonic Triple Trouble. The camera in Sonic 2 makes some stages extremely, extremely frustrating, especially as Green Hill Zone 3. It has you bouncing off of springs and essentially making blind landings in either spikes on other springs. You can't see any of them. It's all memorization. Nothing in Triple Trouble is that frustrating, including the water level.

There's a very long list of games I'd sell before M.U.S.H.A. For all intents and purposes, it's probably NFS.

Probably the only Genesis game I wanted but didn't end up with: Crusader of Centy CIB. When I was looking at it, it was $300-$400, but so was M.U.S.H.A. with the reg card. I only had money for one, and I'm a much bigger fan of SHMUPs, so I chose the latter. Nowadays, Centy ($1500) is almost double the price of M.U.S.H.A ($800ish). I sometimes think of what could have been, but I've gotten a lot of playtime and enjoyment out of M.U.S.H.A., so I don't regret it. Nowadays, the NA version of Centy is far beyond what I'm willing to spend on a game. I've toyed with the idea of buying the Japanese version and patching it with the Retron 5, but other, newer games keep grabbing my attention and dollars.

Fun fact about #13, someone recently found a two-player mode of sorts for Super Punch Out. It works for Switch Online, the original cart, and the SNES Classic Edition. https://www.videogameschronicle.com/news/super-punch-out-multiplayer/

Facts. I'm a heathen who loves fossilized-tang-colored consoles and peripherals. However, the Brawler64 controller comes in less offensive colors, including standard gray. Edit: Since you mentioned it, I'm also someone who won't buy "Greatest Hits" versions of games if they have different colors on the spine or front cover of the game. S h e l f a e s t h e t i c matters.

I do have a Retron 5, and I do use it for the consoles it plays. It does a good job with most consoles, but worst with the GBA. I also have the Master System/GG adapter to play Game Gear games on a bigger screen. I like the conveniences of being able to pause or save state and return to the game later after turning off the power. Being able to apply translation patches and other romhacks is also a plus. I don't own a CRT anymore, and my SNES and one of my Game Gears need work, so the Retron 5 provides an easy and cheap way to enjoy those games in HD. Is it better than a CRT and original hardware? Probably not. It's just different. I'm not good enough at games for the additional .15 milliseconds of lag I get from my rig to really affect me in a negative way, outside of certain old SHMUPs. I do still own all the consoles the Retron 5 plays, so I do break them out for the aforementioned SHMUPs, unlicensed games and homebrews the Retron 5 doesn't wanna play, and Genesis tower of power shenanigans. As for controllers, I usually want OEM stuff. I use original controllers on the Retron 5 because, for whatever reason, the games seem less laggy with the controllers the games were designed for. The Retron 5 controller is possibly one of the biggest sin piles to be unleashed on gaming. The one exception, however is the wireless Brawler64 controller from Retro Fighters. Even though the joystick is a bit more Gamecube-y than N64ish, I find that it works just as well as an OEM controller. Aside from those exceptions, it's all OEM controllers with licensed discs/carts on original hardware. I don't begrudge others who have different preferences or prefer to emulate. This has been my primary hobby for my entire life, so, like @LostLevel83 said, I was lucky to get games, consoles, and controllers when they were significantly cheaper than today.

Funny. I just beat Bomberman II and Super Bomberman over the weekend, and Super Bomberman 2 is in my SNES right now, waiting for a time when I'm a little less busy. I absolutely loved Super Bomberman, so this has me hyped to play 2.

Which horse racing game is the best horse racing game? Which mahjong game has the best "mechanics?" Which pachinko game best simulates sitting in a smoky, cacophonous, 1990s pachinko parlor watching your monthly paycheck literally going down the drain? ...The world may never know.

I gave it an 8. Of the big fighting game franchises, Street Fighter has always been down there with Samurai Shodown as one my least favorites. Even among Capcom fighters, I prefer Darkstalkers and Cyberbots. I'm also one of the heathens who really enjoyed Street Fighter EX3. That's not to say Street Fighter 2 and all its variants aren't great or that I don't understand why they get the fanfare and praise they do; they're just not my preference.

I think it's odd playing some games on newer consoles, controller-wise, especially if I've played the original release. However, If the choice is owning it in a compilation or praying I'll get lucky or prices will drop, I'll take the compilation. Doubly so if one or more pricey games are in a compilation, like the Aleste Collection or the TMNT Cowabunga Collection. Still, most publishers throw in arcade games, concept art, alternate versions, or extra goodies that make compilations worth the price without pricey games in them.

Great write-up! I like the countdown idea. Take a well-deserved victory lap. Also, you're really selling me on that game. I really have to put some time in that whole series. I've never beaten any of them. Something to think about for next year's backlog challenge...

I liked Sonic the Hedgehog the most, Sonic 2 next, and Sonic Chaos the least. Chaos has floaty physics that make it the Super Mario Land 2 of the trio. Sonic 2 is the "most Sonic" of the three, if that makes sense. Sonic and Sonic 2 are neck and neck for me, but the glider is what loses the race for Sonic 2. If I were to rank all 6, I'd probably go with: Sonic the Hedgehog (SMS) (Best) Sonic 2 (SMS) Sonic the Hedgehog (GG) Sonic Chaos (SMS) Sonic Chaos (GG) Sonic 2 (GG) (Worst)

I spent last weekend tackling some 2D games in a franchise I should have been playing more of a long time ago: Sonic. I ended up playing Sonic the Hedgehog, Sonic 2, and Sonic Chaos on the SMS and Game Gear, and was able to beat 5 of the 6. So, first off, all three are basically the same on both consoles. Some bosses were altered to fit the smaller Game Gear screen, but for the most part they play similarly, have similar if not the same level layouts, and play at the same speed. The gamebreaker, however, is the screen resolution; the SMS is 256x192 and the Game Gear is only 160x144. Sonic 2 was released at the same time on the SMS and Game Gear, but the Game Gear versions of Sonic the Hedgehog and Sonic Chaos were released a month or two later than their SMS counterparts. After playing both versions, I think the games were originally created with the SMS in mind. How does that affect the games? Well, it makes the SMS games way easier. The spikes on the ceiling that drop from off the top of the screen in Sonic 2? You can see those on the SMS. Bosses? Typically way easier. On both consoles, Sonic Chaos was the easiest, Sonic the Hedgehog was next, and Sonic 2 was the hardest. Sonic the Hedhehog's difficulty is pretty similar on the SMS and the Game Gear. It's not really as fast paced as most Sonic games and has much more platforming, making it a highly enjoyable experience on both consoles. Sonic Chaos's Game Gear port didn't seem as smooth as the SMS version, and the speed of the game and resolution of the Game Gear certainly take its toll. Initial playthroughs had me losing four times as many lives on the GG version as I did on the SMS version, and I played the GG version right after the SMS version. I knew what was coming, and it was still significantly harder. And then there's Sonic 2. The SMS version is polished. It's tight. It's got great levels. It's got a glider with crap controls. But most importantly, it was painfully obvious it was made for the SMS. Sonic 2 is very generous with rings and extra lives to balance out the higher difficulty. However, on the Game Gear, the game plays extremely fast and the reaction times required are amped up significantly. The cramped screen also makes the somewhat toothless bosses on the SMS significantly harder. I didn't even bother trying to beat the Game Gear version of Sonic 2. I'll come back to it one day, but it's going to be a headache. Feeling confident, I popped in the Genesis version of Sonic the Hedgehog, and I got a game over in act 3 of the Marble Zone (stage 2 of 7). Brutal. Compared to it, all the SMS and Game Gear games somewhat to quite a lot easier. Oh, all five games I beat are very good and very fun. Sonic 2 on the Game Gear can be frustrating, but I'd say it's still worthwhile. I feel like the screen resolution makes it cheap, whereas I think the Genesis version of Sonic the Hedgehog is just hard (but still great).

I've never studied Greek, so I have no clue whether you can study them simultaneously or where to start. I know some people who were going for a Linguistics major in college did, but YMMV. From what I understand, Latin and Greek are pretty different. FWIW, ancient Greek, especially stuff like Homeric and Attic Greek, is also very different from modern Greek, and learning one won't help you that much with the other. I liked and used Wheelock's Latin the most when I took it in junior high and high school. The college level courses I took didn't use textbooks; instead, we were given excerpts, handed a dictionary, and told "good luck."

On the Ball is done! This is a fantastic game. It makes great use of Mode 7 and the controls are spot on. The difficulty is really fair, as the game gives you three continues in each round, and each continue refills your timer. The courses never get same-y, either. It's a good time that I'd gladly return to in the coming years. I may be a bit biased because I love these types of games, but IMO, this game is a solid 9/10.

Doomsday Warrior is done. When I was reading through snesrankings.com, I noticed that this game was the lowest rated game I owned. By a lot. a lot a lot. #680 of 714. Ouch. I popped this in hoping to have at least a modicum of fun, and there really wasn't any to be had. How do they have nine button configuration options and zero that are actually good? Why is block LT or RT? Why is jump assigned to a button and not up on the D-pad? WHY? I did appreciate the attempt at an RPG-style leveling system between fights, but punches and kicks never did enough to do noticeable damage. Specials use Guile-style button inputs that make you easily hit by opponents' specials (hold back and then press forward plus a button, for example). In later rounds, opponents slowly heal damage ans take less damage at the end of their health bar, making slower strategies ineffective. So, what's left? Throws. Lots and lots of throws. Daisy is the quickest and has the easiest throws to execute (hold forward and push kick when close to an enemy), so that's who I beat the game with. I've played a few other bad fighters this year, and, shockingly, this isn't the absolute worst. I ended up giving it a 3.5. Doomsday Warrior currently holds the silver, but Brutal: Paws of Fury on the Sega CD is the Lance Armstrong of the "worst 2D fighter" bicycle race.

Wow! Massive congratulations on that! What a feat! Have a cold one, man, you've earned it. ___ Well, yesterday I beat two Famicom games that were night and day in terms of quality, even though they were both made and published by Namco and released only nine months apart. The first, Wagyan Land, was atrocious. It also isn't easily beatable without the translation. The platforming parts of the game aren't bad, except for they drop inputs, causing unnecessary deaths. You have seemingly infinite continues, but it doesn't make up for bad platforming. There is one power up that progressively levels up your shouts/stun attacks until you gather four and become temporarily invincible and faster. Later, you can get an item that lets you constantly use an overpowered attack or an item that lets you fly but not attack. That's at least a neat idea. However, the real sin are the bosses. Bosses either challenge you to a game of memory/match (like SMB 3) OR Shiritori (しりとり), which is a Japanese word game where the players are required to say a word that begins with the final kana/ending letter of the previous word. I played with a translation, so it was the latter for me. There are also bosses at the end of nearly every stage. I haaaaaaaate those types of games. You have to get more matches than your opponent to beat them. However, opponents never forget anything on the match game, so it's who can get on a run first. The other game can only be won when you select a word that doesn't have another match on the board. Like, if none of the items on the board start with e when you chose "tree." That is, until the last boss. You have to beat the Dr. Wily lookalike at both the match game (easy) AND Shiritori. However, against him and only him, you have to make at least 24 matches with a limited number of cards AND you have to beat him. Each card may have multiple acceptable answers, such as "squid, octopus, or kracken" for the squid card. However, others only have one, like balloon. If your opponent selects "ewe" or "sheep" instead of "lamb," at the end of the game you end up with a bunch of cards like balloon AND you haven't made enough matches. So, you have to help him not make stupid choices. It's also timed. If you lose, you lose a life like you do for all boss battles, but if you beat him without enough matches, you get to play again...and again...and again until you make enough matches. It took me FOUR HOURS to beat him. Absolutely brutal. IMO, platforming gets a 5 and bosses get a 0. So, I give the game a 2.5. ___ The next game was Mappy Kids, which I thought was worlds better. I played it in Japanese, and there was really only one minor bit that was difficult for English speakers. This game reminds me a lot of a Capcom game, like Chip 'n' Dale Rescue Rangers, with a little SMB 3 thrown in. You have the ability to slowly descend by helicoptering your tail a-la the Tanooki Suit in SMB 3, and the rest is just pure Capcom. You play as the kids of Mappy and Mapico, and the goal of the game is to collect enough money in the 15ish stages to buy things that improve your and your parents' lives. Mappy Kids is not terribly difficult, I'd say about as difficult as SMB 3, and gives a good amount of lives throughout. The platforming in the later levels gets kinda tough, and there is recoil/stun lock can absolutely roll you into pits. However, you don't lose a life for falling into pits or getting hit, just some health. You also lose some money when you're hit, but you can recover it like in Sonic games. If you don't get hit too much, you'll have enough money to buy everything and get the good ending with a few levels to spare. In between each level, you play one of three mini games for rewards chosen from a slot machine. The flag raising mini game is very difficult without knowing how to read Japanese, since you have to follow instructions. The sumo one and the spot the difference one can be effectively played without knowing Japanese. (Image credit http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/mappy-kids/) Mappy Kids is very straightforward and has no real secret areas or levels. There are only a few power-ups, it has a mostly linear overworld, and there are no bosses in the game. From start to finish, you'll probably put an hour or two into it. It's not super long, but it's a good time while it lasts. It also supports 2 player co-op. I'd recommend this one, especially if you like Rescue Rangers. 8/10.

I've finished the last stipulation of my initial backlog challenge (beat 20 games across a variety of platforms). The last game ended up being Time Gal for the Sega CD. I've never played a FMV game before, so no clue how this one stacks up to others, but I enjoyed it. It did seem like the audio and visual queues weren't quiiiiite synced up. Not sure if that's really the game's fault, though. I think I lost a pin or two in the composite cable for my tower of power consumption. I've got a new one on the way, as well as a composite cable for the Saturn, which has a grainy picture through the RF switch, and a Retro Fighters N64 controller. I'm hoping the N64 controller will stand up to some Mario Party, because all the other controllers haven't over the years. I was super, SUPER close to beating Brutal: Paws of Fury, but I got wiped on the last round of the Dali Llama at least 10 times. Also, Brutal has got to be one of my top contenders for worst fighting game I've ever played. Even worse, from what I've read, the Sega CD version is supposed to be one of the better versions... Next up are some import games I've been meaning to play for a while. Woo!

I think it comes down to a couple of factors: I have Aphantasia, which makes stories with a lot of visualization or stories that have lots of flowery, descriptive language less enjoyable for me. I also blame it for why I suck at geometry, spatial reasoning, and directions. I write instruction manuals for a living; by the end of the day I'm usually done with heavy reading. Something has to be really, really enthralling to get me to want to read a bunch of text after work. A lot of visual novels are either too violent for my taste or are dating simulators, which are fine, but I'm out of the dating pool and the tropes in dating simulators don't hold my attention like they would have 15 years ago. I don't like solving the types of puzzles common to most visual novels/point and click adventure games. I don't enjoy sorting through walls of text for a solution, remembering who said what 10 hours of gameplay ago, solving mysteries, figuring out moon logic, or deducing what I need to do with some random object. To those points, the stills and images in Fata Morgana were well placed and made situations that would have otherwise been difficult for me to visualize much easier. Its story and the language it uses were both enthralling and easy to follow. It was too violent for my taste, but I was hooked by the time the real violence happens; if the Bestia arc was the first chapter instead of the second, I would have quit and sold the game. Finally, like you mentioned, there is almost no gameplay aside from a few quick time events. That's not to say the games I mentioned not liking are bad. Far from it. My girlfriend is a big fan of most of the games I listed, and she plays them and other story-heavy games quite often. If anything, I'm envious of people that can and do like them because I want to like them too.

I haven't beaten a single Mega Man game in my life. In those regards, you're already ahead! Great clears, @MagusSmurf!

Thank you, @Sumez! That's been pretty much my story as well. In previous years, the things that kept me from gaming were a crappy commute, a stressful job that made me want to come home and crash instead of game, and watching looots of sports. Late last year, I got a new job that's work from home and we cut cable, so now it's watch stuff on Youtube, play video games, or both. I honestly haven't had this much time to game since I was in elementary school. Considering how good people on this site are at games, I think if everyone had 30-40 guilt-free hours a week to game, y'all would be beating more games than me each year or beating crazy hard games left and right. Thanks, @twiztor! Earlier this year I was on pace to beat a game a day. I had beaten 96 in early April, but then an emergency came up and I had to move. The next two-and-a-half months were filled with nothing but moving stuff one carload at a time, cleaning the old place, and organizing stuff in the new one. I'm in a much better place now, both figuratively and literally, and I'm really happy to get back on track. If I'm honest, that pace was never going to hold. I don't have enough games I can beat quickly enough to beat a game a day, or even a game every other day. It took me almost a week to beat Bomberman 64: The Second Attack, which is probably a more reasonable pace for most of the games in my library. I've continued to update the list I originally created on page 3 of this thread if y'all are curious about what exactly I've beaten over the year.

Thank you! I don't know if this will be the new norm or if this is my MVP season, but I'm happy regardless. I've only beaten 20 of the games I beat this year in previous years, and they were mostly ones I beat for the NES thread. Based on the spreadsheet I keep, if I beat 20 more games, a third of the games I've beaten in my life will have been beaten in 2022.

For the first time in my life, I've beaten 100 games in a year. Life goal achieved. I think my previous best was 26. For #100, I beat one that I was saving for a special occasion, Bomberman 64: The Second Attack. I was having a hard time finding a reasonably priced copy...about 8 years ago...and my GF, being as awesome as she is, managed to snag a very underpriced BIN and surprise me with it after a hard day at work. So, the game itself means a lot to me. For those curious, she paid $160 for a slightly-faded CIB. Well, since we also recently celebrated our 10th anniversary, I figured I'd, you know, play the game she bought for me all those years ago. Don't worry; she wasn't mad that I didn't play it immediately. We both have seemingly insurmountable backlogs, and I've been told I have a bad habit of "saving" the good games for later, playing mediocre games I only kind of want to play, and then never getting around to the good ones. I'm working on that. I posted my feelings about the main story in the Beat Every N64 game thread, but I'll say it has the potential to be a pretty fun party game. I've always loved Bomberman 64's battle mode, so the fact that they've tried to provide both standard 2D Bomberman maps and 3D maps like in Bomberman 64 is pretty interesting. The bombs, with a few exceptions, explode in the standard cross shape, making The Second Attack a different experience from Bomberman 64. There are also five different battle modes, which is pretty neat. The story mode is puzzle heavy, and the end is surprisingly difficult. The verdict is still out on the battle mode, but I gave the story a solid 7/10. It's hard to recommend this one at today's prices, but at least it's not both expensive AND bad. So, after 100 games beaten, that must mean I've smashed my backlog challenge right? Have I beaten more games than I set out to at the beginning of this year? Hell yeah, definitely. Have I beaten the number I wanted to beat in specific genres? Yep. Quite easily. But, have I beaten a certain number of games for certain consoles? NOPE. Here's the number of games I've beaten for specific consoles (first number) as well as how many I originally wanted to beat (second number): 24 of 4 NES games/Famicom games 40 of 3 Game Boy games 3 of 2 SNES games 4 of 2 SMS games 8 of 2 Genesis games 0 of 1 Sega CD games 0 of 1 Saturn games 0 of 1 Dreamcast games 2 of 2 PS4 games 3 of 2 Switch games 8 of 0 Game Gear games 1 of 0 GBA games 5 of 0 GBC games 2 of 0 N64 games Lots of zeroes. So, yeah, I tend to get sidetracked and focus on one console until I move on. I was hoping the console requirements would get me to play games I otherwise wouldn't, and I'd say that's been a massive success. The site events have really, really helped me beat way more games than I would have on my own, and they've been a blast. I hope to keep participating in them to help chip away at my backlog even more. I know I'll beat the last few Sega games I need to to finish everything up, but I keep chuckling at how things have turned out. I think, if I had listed specific games at the beginning of the year, I might not have participated in the contests or beaten as many games as I did, so I'm happy with what I've done, even if it wasn't a true "backlog challenge."

Bomber Man 64: The Second Attack is done. I ended up getting the good ending, because why not. This is the first time I've played it, and it took me somewhere between 10-15 hours to beat. I don't play the N64 much. Before this year, the last N64 game I beat was Paper Mario in 2005. I spent nearly an hour resuscitating my N64 before it would play anything, but I finally got it working again. The Second Attack is certainly not worth the price it commands these days, but it's not too shabby. Each defeated boss gives you a different type of bomb with a different elemental effect. Later stages become more and more puzzle heavy with more and more backtracking to make use these new types of bombs. It can get tiresome, but it's at least it's not too egregious. Bosses are mostly easy as well. However, I had a hell of a time with the last bit of the game. 7/10. On a side note, this game has several different battle modes with both classic and 3D stages. I could see someone giving this game a higher grade if they factor the battle mode into the scoring.