TheGameDisplay

2 hours ago, scaryice said:

Nice, Sky Kid is such a tough game. I was trying a few years ago and I only got to stage 21. Happy to see that one off the list!

I got it down to quite the science, making most ordinarily tough parts of the game fairly doable on a consistent basis. . Anyone who might want to tackle it in future years may want to check out my winning run!

@mbd39 Thank you so much!

Sky Kid and Slalom are done! Took me a good while to get the hang of Slalom, but after beating one hill I was able to come back the next day and beat the other two fairly easily. It's actually a really fun game!

On 3/18/2024 at 4:40 PM, nerdynebraskan said:

Did you start Carmen Sandiego? If so, how's it going?

I could use another long, mellow game. I could start Carmen, if it didn't grab @Foochie776's interest. Or I could do Roger Clemens MVP Baseball again, assuming that @TheGameDisplay isn't working on it. I may also try Little Ninja Brothers again; I remembered that this game has a history of acting up on this Everdrive, so I may have to go to my backup or... maybe even pull my original cart for it! Shocking!

Appreciate you wondering what games I might be playing! No need to worry too much about me right now, and just tackle whatever you enjoy! I can come in later with clean-up if there's anything that looks like it's stuck on the list.

Ring King

Roadblasters

Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves

I beat Rally Bike at the end of October and just realized that it's still on this list! It's a really fun game, but the last couple of stages during the second loop are quite vicious. Even almost a month later, I still have all of the stages completely memorized. That's really a requirement if you're going to pull of the near-perfect runs the game wants from you in the end.

Aside from a couple of Famicom games, I have not beat any NES games during November. I've decided to dedicate the month to something else, but will be back in full force on NES games in December!

1 hour ago, Khromak said:

Well, turns out my cartridge of gemfire had a bad save battery, so I had to start all over again this morning. Thankfully with the lessons learned, it wasn't too bad to get caught up. Gemfire is done! 

What a fun game, though admittedly not very challenging. The enemies only attacked me maybe once? And I won every battle I attempted. The turn based tactical combat is pretty interesting, though it could definitely be much faster. I enjoyed this, I'd gladly play it again

Nicely done! There must be something weird about Koei games because I'm not sure that I own a single one that has a working save battery in it. I found that out the hard way as well when I played my first Koei game, Bandit Kings of Ancient China. It looks like it's saving just fine, but then nope, nothing. Be sure to check that right away if you plan to tackle any others!

I was never the biggest fan of tennis, but then I played through Racket Attack and my whole world view changed. Tennis is intense, especially when you play the Jaleco version with incredibly questionable controls!

4 hours ago, nerdynebraskan said:

Long time, no see! You seem to be playing through in roughly alphabetic order, but is there some sort of more specific method to your madness? Do you skip games that give you too much trouble?

I spent nearly the last month beating Q*Bert, as well as the 4 games on both Quattro Adventure and Quattro Arcade. Unfortunately, Q*Bert was already claimed, and I don't see the Quattro games under the Bonus section, so I haven't had much to report!

In November 2021 I started out on an adventure to beat every single North American NES game, including the unlicensed ones. It started as a personal project, something I was just doing for fun because I love the NES and have always wanted to beat more of the games that I own for it, but in 2022 I started sharing some of my adventures on places like YouTube. In November of 2022 I uploaded this video that gives the gist of what's going on, and I'll probably make a similar update video of sorts later this year!
 

But yes, I'm beating them all in alphabetical order! Even if they don't end up in this thread or on my YouTube channel. I appreciate your interest!

Race America is done. Overall I quite enjoyed it! It has pretty good controls for a racing game. Perhaps too good, as you don't even need to slow down to take turns. I like that even when facing the toughest opponent you always have a chance to make a comeback as long as you don't screw up too badly. In some other NES racing games I've played, once you fall behind you're pretty much toast.

17 minutes ago, G-type said:

One thing I don't understand is that the stealth part of the game was barely a factor 99% of the game the enemies were always on high alert and chasing me down the moment I stepped onto any new screen

It sounds like you had the enemy bug in your inventory, which when held causes the enemy to always know your location and set off alarms immediately when entering a new screen. You can get rid of it by selecting it on the inventory screen.

Nicely done though! I did a blind live playthrough earlier this year and it took me around 6 hours to beat without a guide. The map is rather convoluted so there was a lot of pointless running around but otherwise it was a pretty good game. I also used to pause trick to get around those gaps, especially at that one part where it's like 5 rooms of nothing but them, so I have no idea if it's actually possible without. I'm looking forward to playing Snake's Revenge soon.

I beat Q*Bert for the NES without any cheat codes. Never did I imagine this would be one of the most difficult games on the console, but wow, what a journey it was.

On 9/10/2023 at 2:48 PM, Khromak said:

Kiwi Kraze is done. The first few stages are relatively challenging action platforming. Stage 4 can go to hell. The swimming is boring, there are no checkpoints (except 4-4), and the challenge is ridiculous. Stage 5, oddly enough, is easier than stage 4, but still quite challenging. All in all, a fun game but not one I'm looking forward to playing again soon. Maybe another game to add to the "once a year" list 

Very nicely done! My two biggest gripes with this game:

1. The extremely tight time limits that aren't displayed anywhere on screen. The levels force you to explore and try different paths, but then all of a sudden out of no where you'll be given the indication that time's almost up. At least let the player know how much leeway they have to look around!

2. The eye bleedingly bad color palettes. The walls, the blocks, the background, the spikes. More often than not they will all be exactly the same color.  You will strain your eyes and brain trying to discern what the heck it is that you're even looking at half the time. Enjoy constantly running into 8x8 pixel spikes that you didn't even see because they look nearly the same as everything else.

Even once a year would be too often for me when it comes to the NES version, haha. Once was enough. However, I've since had the chance to try the arcade version (The NewZealand Story) and actually enjoyed it WAY more. Definitely give it a shot if you get the chance!

On 8/14/2023 at 12:51 PM, Khromak said:

Finished AD&D pool of radiance. Love this game, it's a ton of fun, even though most of the mechanics are broken as hell. This time I played with a fighter/ mage/ thief because a guide suggested thief was necessary, but I found that to be a total waste. In hindsight, I think a combination of fighters, fighter/cleric, and fighter/mage is probably best. The straight cleric and straight magic user just seem weak. They level faster, but offer no other advantages. 

My party consisted of: F, F, F/M/T, M, C. Felt like extra heals probably would've helped, though most of the Cleric spells are useless other than Hold Person (sometimes) and Cure Light Wounds.

Highly recommend this one if you like tactical rpgs. Save often, and experiment with different dialog options, spells, etc. until you're satisfied.

I beat Pool of Radiance a couple of weeks ago as well! It was the first time for me. I loved The Bard's Tale, and this game definitely had a similar vibe, albeit a different battle system. Overall I loved this one too!

My party consisted of F,F,C,M,T. This worked pretty well for me, having the two fighters in front with the cleric positioned to heal them when necessary. Then the Cleric and Magic User in behind firing projectiles.

Unlike The Bard's Tale and some other first person RPGs, this game is really nice when it comes to providing you with maps of where you are. The pencil and graph paper were really only required for a portion near the end. And I'm not much of a tactical RPG person, but the battle system was simple enough that I didn't have any trouble.

Here are a few victories that I have to add to the list:

Peter Pan & the Pirates

This one is really rough. Definitely one of the worst games the NES has to offer. It wasn't very hard, but I got to the end a couple of times and died. The magic meter refill items that you need to fly over large gaps in the final levels don't respawn, so one death is really all that's required to have to start the whole game over again. Thankfully it's less than a half an hour romp once you know what you're doing.

Power Punch II

If you've beat Mike Tyson's Punch-Out this game will be laughably easy for you. Go for the KO, or just knock your opponent down a few times and then dodge for the rest for the match and the victory will usually go to you. The only kind of challenging part is the final battle which works a bit differently than the rest of the game, but it's no where near as tough as Tyson is. The final password that you get also takes you immediately back to the final battle, so practicing and figuring things out is easy. Unlike in Punch-Out where you have to refight Super Macho Man every time before you can fight Tyson again.

Nobunaga's Ambition both I and II are now complete. I spent the past couple of weeks playing them. On difficulty Level 1 neither is too tough, it's just a matter of going through the paces and building up your armies, moving them around, carrying out the battles. Everything really adds up time-wise. It's interesting to see how Koei uped their game as time went on. Bandit Kings of Ancient China feels like a more refined version of Nobunaga II, and it or Gemfire would probably still be my go-to NES strategy game if I had to pick one. I think in terms of Koei games left to play I still have Romance I and II, and Uncharted Waters. I'm honestly amazed they localized so many of them.

36 minutes ago, NESfiend said:

If you do the match play (I think, something like that) option and win against each of the CPU players, it doesnt pay money, but it raises your status from ameteur to semi pro then pro. The tourney prize money then triples for every tournament you play. Cant remember if the hole in one, closest to pins, and long drive prizes go up too. Either way, makes it way quicker to get to a mili 

Ya! The first thing I did was bump my level up to Pro. I had a lot of experience from other games like black box Golf so golfing rounds at Par to get up there wasn't difficult. The problem was that when doing the paid tournaments the top CPUs were ending with like -11 or -12 so even my attempts which had me at -6 or -7 weren't paying out big because the CPUs were just so far ahead. One time I finished at -3 and somehow that won me the tournament which paid out $60,000, but that only happened once so I have no idea what was going on. Overall I found the level that the game requires you to golf at in order to win any serious money to be pretty high. Winning the Farthest Drive challenge could pay out up to $10,000, and winning the Closest to the Pin challenge could pay out up to $20,000, so winning those along with the occasional Hole-In-One which could pay out around $80,000 became my primary ways to earn money.

4 hours ago, Khromak said:

HAH! I wish. I do love how at ~200k or whatever it tells you to go buy a house in LA or something.

Don't worry, you should take the points, you cleared it. I am only like 100k in anyway, so it's NBD, was just doing it for this challenge I've already played my fair share of courses.

Haha, that was hilarious. It really was a different time. And only if you're sure! Otherwise, the points can definitely be yours. It sure does take a while to get up to $1,000,000. At the Professional level I was consistently golfing like 6 under par and still only making about $10,000 per tournament. I actually won one tournament where the computer opponents appeared to be slacking, otherwise the top guys usually golfed around 10 under par! The real money comes from winning the mini challenges and getting Hole-in-ones which grant you around $80,000 each. Cool game overall!

Here are a couple of my recent completions:

Nigel Mansell's World Championship Racing. I enjoyed this one. It was quite similar to some other formula one games on the NES, but I thought the controls were good and the soundtrack was great. Just be prepared to reset a lot because from my experience you need to be near perfect to rank near the top.

Nintendo World Cup. Like most Kunio-kun games it's sports with a beat-em-up twist. This one was also fun, with the biggest issue being the awful camera which can make it difficult to find out where your player is at times.

I also beat NES Open earlier this month, but I won't take that one away from you, @Khromak. Just let me know when you discover a way to print out that $1,000,000. XD

29 minutes ago, McBryce said:

Formula One: Built to Win. Holy shit what a frustrating game.

 

Nicely done! Surprised by your review, though. I beat Built to Win last year, and enjoyed the bite-sized 2 lap races as opposed to longer marathons of some other racing games where one mistake right near the end can ruin your whole day. I also don't remember having any issues control-wise, and thought the system for upgrading your car was neat. The last few races of the final tournament kicked my butt, but I built up enough points in the beginning races to be able to afford the losses. Having the battery back-up was also nice so you could easily take a break and come back to it. My one complaint was probably that the music wasn't too appealing to listen to. Combine Built to Win's gameplay and Ferrari Grand Prix's soundtrack and you'd probably have my ultimate NES racing game. XD

On 6/28/2023 at 11:44 AM, MegaMan52 said:

Oh yeah, I remember that show. Still have an episode that I recorded on VHS in 2000 or so: 

I was actually on this show a few times. Used to be a fun yearly tradition to look forward to. We always called the opening music the Crash Man theme.

As for Mega Man 2, it's awesome. You can feel the love put into it. Mega Man 3 had some cool ideas, but was ultimately rushed. I actually like the Doc Robot levels, and wish something like that would have come back in later Mega Man games. But Wily's Castle is a mess. 

I also prefer the soundtrack in MM2 more. Each and every level has a track that hits hard, and gets you into the jumpin' and shootin' mood. Mega Man 3's soundtrack, while good, is more laid back and doesn't get me as pumped.

Weapon-wise I also like MM2 more. Not to mention I'll take Items 1-3 over Rush any day.

Overall they're both great games and everyone should play them!

52 minutes ago, the_wizard_666 said:

Awesome dude!  I honestly wish the game had passwords.  It's pretty fun, but hard as hell.  I don't know how many hours I logged, but my console was on for the better part of a week.  Your final level map looks similar to how I ran it by the end, though I didn't need to map it out.  There were a couple easy ones I would go in to grab the countermeasures and just leave, so that if they got alarms I could just pop in and out to keep the timer going.  I think most gamers can figure out the first two stages easily enough, but mastery over the game is not something that will ever come easy.  Congratulations on what I feel is the toughest NES completion I've ever done.

Thank you so much for that, and congratulations on beating it yourself! Once you figure out how everything works there certainly is some fun to be had. It's really satisfying when you clear a room, seeing those once seemingly impossible to manage floors turn completely blue. But it only takes one mistake for your whole attempt to go south. Patience and perseverance is a must!

Thank you! You can see some snippits of me grappling with this game in my YouTube community posts and shorts

I started just after 12am on June 23nd. I played for probably 4-5 hours, during which I made it to Level 4. After multiple attempts to beat it I couldn't stand to look at the dancing dots on the screen anymore, and made the decision to leave my AV Famicom on all night so that I could start from where I left off the next day (this game really should have had a password system).

The next day I played on and off whenever I had the chance, probably totaling another 4 hours or so. I still couldn't beat Level 4, but I was getting close. Progress greatly increased when I decided to map things out and carefully plot my route, deciding where was best to drop each counter measure bomb and finding the ideal order to tackle each room. I also used this day to get a better understanding of the game's mechanics, like how it takes approximately 8 minutes from the start of Level 4 before virus starts spreading within unvisited rooms automatically, and how once all rooms have virus in them it's not long before one of the rooms is breached and begins flashing on the map. Visiting this room and turning some of the virus blue will stop the flashing, then you can leave and try to get back to whatever it was you were doing. If two rooms flash at once you only have a brief moment before you Game Over, if a third starts flashing, you're done like dinner. But if you're down to just 2 rooms left, I found that you can let the room that you're not currently working on flash pretty much forever and you won't die.

So with all of this knowledge I got to a point where I was just a small patch of virus away from clearing my second last room of Level 4. The super gun is crucial, as it bounces off walls, has very long range, and passes over virus which has already turned blue. The problem is that you lose it if you die, and Level 3 and Level 4 only have 2 Super Gun item pick-ups. Well, I died just before clearing that second last room, and despite all my efforts, I just couldn't fight back as the virus was spreading too quickly. At this point I was experiencing the virus effect (this game's cursed version of the Tetris effect) and decided I couldn't take anymore. I didn't really want to leave my AV Famicom on much longer, as 24 hours was already pushing quite a bit past what I normally prefer, leading the the YouTube short you will find on my channel where I reluctantly turn the game off.

Honestly, the game was making me feel pretty blah. Staring at those dots for so long, I needed a break, and I kind of dreaded going back to it. I didn't play the game again until 12:15am on June 27th. I expected to be able to use what I had learned to finally reach Level 5, and then maybe I'd stop there and leave my AV Famicom on all night again, allowing me to give the final level a shot the next day when I was refreshed. I ended up making it Level 5 without too much trouble, only dying a few times along the way, so I decided to give the level a go as I hadn't been playing for overly long.

The most important thing to know about Level 5 is that there is a Super Gun pick-up which you KEEP even when you die! A huge issue in Level 4 was that because you were limited to just 2 Super Guns, even if you had lots of lives you were pretty much toast if you lost both of those. You can try to juggle the Super Gun with other items so that if you die you can the pick up the Super Gun again with full health, but that's easier said than done during the heat of battle.

So building off of what had brought me success in Level 4, after arriving in Level 5 my immediate goal was to map out the level, locate all items, and plan my route. I spent all lives that I had remaining from Level 4 doing this. With everything organized I proceeded to make my first real attempt, which unfortunately ended in failure, but still provided a good learning experience. Now with all of that behind me, I made attempt #3, which ended with great SUCCESS! Level 5 seems very overwhelming, but for me, that never disappearing Super Gun power-up made all of the difference. I found it easier than Level 4 for that reason. 

So at about 5am I took that photo which I posted above. All-in-all I played the game for about 15 hours. My left thumb was absolutely dead. Constantly cranking down on the D-Pad to stop my propulsion. The arrow was actually imprinted into my thumb. I look back on the game as not being as bad as it initially seemed, but it's still not one that I'm in any rush to play again.

I apologize for the life story. XD

I'll help out a little bit:

Mach Rider

Michael Andretti

Might & Magic

Mutant Virus

16 hours ago, Dr. Morbis said:

Congrats, man!  I actually beat Micro Machines for my personal list once and I had a no-death run going into what I thought was the final race; well, I beat the "last race" to fill up the trophy case, but then it said something like "win this race to become champion," and it made me do the same race again, and I died once, so it ended up being a one death run.

The game is definitely difficult, but you can make it a whole lot easier by researching which opponents are the hardest to beat and choosing them out of the gate and saving the wimpier opponents for the end.  Conversely, you can make the game much more difficult on yourself by purposely leaving the really good opponents to the end for a more satisfying victory.  That's what I did, and I always use Walter, so I feel like my victory over the game was well-deserved.

Thank you! And congratulations to you as well. Haha, I didn't know about the final race either. That track was my least favorite in the entire game, and I breathed a sigh of relief once it was over with, only to end up having to do it again at the end! And not only that, but you're now required to place 1st. I was in 2nd place, down to my last life, going into the final turn of the final lap, and I made the pass to take home the gold. It was the stuff of Hollywood legends. XD

I look forward to going back and playing with different character combinations. There are a few quirks I wish were worked out, like the collision detection against solid objects or how racers in front of you can seemingly disappear on the final lap, but overall it's a fun game!

Thank you! Playing through all of the NES games in alphabetical order, the only Code Masters game I've beat to this point that had infinite continues was Linus Spacehead's Cosmic Crusade. Games like Big Nose, The Fantastic Adventures of Dizzy, Fire Hawk, and now Micro Machines were all Game Over once and you're playing the entire thing again. Even MiG-29 which came immediately after Micro Machines had no continues! 

That Game Genie theory actually makes a lot of sense. I definitely noticed how consistently unforgiving Code Masters games were. At least they tend to be pretty fun and decently made, especially compared to other unlicensed NES games out there.

I beat Micro Machines a few days ago. It's a fun game to mess around with, but brutal to try and beat. I'm not sure that all of the people who like to sing its praises have ever actually attempted to play it through from beginning to end. But regardless, it's done, and I did have some fun. XD