Philosoraptor

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.

Tonight I beat Pilotwings for the first time. Honestly, I'm unsure how I feel about this one. Pilotwings falls adjacently, but squarely outside the normal genres of games I typically play. Aircraft? Love 'em, but usually in on-rails shooters or SHMUPs. Combat sims? Sure, but I gravitate towards stuff like Armored Core, Mechassault, and Gundam Breaker. The only true flight sims I've put any time into are Top Gun on the NES and Star Wars Jedi Starfighter on the OG Xbox, and I don't think either are a good comparison for Pilotwings. Is it great? Is it OK? No idea. I thought the difficulty curve was fair, but the controls were hit and miss. IMO, the rocket belt and skydiving controlled the best and the plane controlled the worst, especially when landing. I also found that the Mode 7 graphics made moving targets more difficult to hit than I would have expected, especially in later stages. Based on Reed's rating scale, I'd give it a 6 or a 7. However, I'm interested in trying another, preferably newer game in the same genre. Are there any amazing games or series out there that y'all would recommend?

I hate hate HATE visual novels and point and click adventure games. Danganronpa, Phoenix Wright, 999, Grim Fandango, Monkey Island...no thanks. I've bought a bunch hoping to like them over the years and ended up selling them all. The only exception is The House in Fata Morgana, which might be in my top 25 games of all time.

Honestly, because I saw the grade you gave this game, I ended up beating this one yesterday. I figured since it's been on my shelf since 2015 and I'm a massive Tenchi Muyo fan, maybe I'll find something redeeming about it. How bad could it be? Well, to add on to the great points brought up by MagusSmurf: The sprites are nice and the well-executed translation captures the spirit of the show, but the story isn't anything to write home about. The game chugs with the maximum number of characters on the map (8 — 4 allies and 4 enemies). Simply using fewer characters causes the game to run significantly smoother, but the character limitation significantly hampers any creativity that the devs could have had with the stage designs. At most, 4 additional reinforcements/enemies may spawn if you don't kill the first 4 quick enough. The characters and enemies who canonically can teleport do so to move. The rest lumber or slowly penguin walk like an action figure without any leg articulation. The stages are all basically the same. They're all 5x10 - 5x20 corridors with maybe some holes in the floor thrown in to spice things up. Feast your eyes on THIS SPICINESS: The game is mercifully short. Less than 10 hours. It's honestly what keeps the score as high as it is. If it was significantly longer, it would be much, much worse. There are no advanced mechanics to be found here: no weapon triangles, no equipment, no items, no elemental attacks, no height advantages, and no terrain. Also, no new mechanics are introduced throughout the playthrough, making this one of the simplest SPRGs out there. Some bosses have AoE attacks, but the standard enemies will only attack one character at a time. Depending on whether your allies can transform, they have either 4 or 8 attacks when they hit the maximum level. Overall... I agree with @MagusSmurf and give it a sad Ayeka/10.

As glamorous as the olden days may have been, I'll pass on getting hotboxed in a floating metal tube for hours on end. It was fine to smoke anywhere on planes up until the late 1970s. It took until the year 2000 for the USA to fully ban all smoking on all domestic and international flights. I had enough of that growing up, thanks. That being said, airports were certainly less of a PITA pre-9/11.

Kirby Super Star is done. I've never played this one before, but it lived up to the hype. It's amazing how much it improves upon the previous games in the series and how much was borrowed from this game and reused in the Smash franchise.