Hoskat

Thanks everyone! I'm glad some people are getting enjoyment in my Nintendo ramblings.

Over the summer I finally got the last game I needed for my NES collection (Bonk's Adventure) and decided to ramble on video for 18 minutes about my 30 year journey. In the video I talk about: * My definition of complete collection * A history of my love for Nintendo and some of the nerdiest things I've done over the years * Stories of how I acquired some of the games

Genre: Soccer Publisher: Tecmo Total Time Played: 20 Hours Short Review: The most unique sports game on the console plays more like a role playing game. Luckily, you don’t need to know much about soccer to get a lot of enjoyment out of this game. Interesting links related to Tecmo Cup Soccer Game Soundtrack Playthrough (4 hours 4 minutes) Instruction Manual Not What I Expected When I was 5 years old my mom signed me up to play soccer, my first team sport. When we arrived at the first practice I cried and refused to get out of the car. That was the end of my soccer career. With the exception of gym class I’m not sure I’ve ever played soccer. Needless to say, I don’t know much about it other than there are 2 teams and the goal is to kick the ball into the other teams net and whoever has scored the most at the end of the game wins. I was not looking forward to this game, a 30 year old game about a sport I know nothing about. I was fully expecting this to be a huge slog, it was not. I never felt like I fully understood this game, but, this was not because I don’t understand soccer, it was because the game was a black box that even the internet couldn’t fully help me understand. I never got a handle on it and I’m going to spend the next several paragraphs complaining about the game a lot. But, somehow I still enjoyed every minute of playing it. So, it’s like Blitzball? When I described this game to my brother he said it sounded like the mini game Blitzball from Final Fantasy X. I’ve played through that game twice and while I have played Blitzball I never focused on it. It was a side quest/mini game that I didn’t really enjoy. I definitely see the similarities with Tecmo Cup Soccer and maybe now that I’ve finally grown to love this type of game I should revisit Blitzball. Blitball from Final Fantasy X is a more sophisticated version of Tecmo Cup Soccer A Text Adventure With RPG Elements I used to play The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy on my grandfathers Apple IIe computer. It was a text based game where you literally typed in the command you wanted and the system would respond with text that told you the outcome of your selection. It was a very primitive game that required precise typing to accomplish the goal. There were no images at all, the game took place mostly in your head. Tecmo Cup Soccer is similar but adds a visual layer and instead of typing your commands free form you select them from a menu. The visuals in the game are stunning and remind me of the great cut scenes in Ninja Gaiden. Ninja Gaiden is well known for incredible cut scenes What’s the Story? I didn’t expect a soccer game to have a story and the story is pretty thin but the first time I turned on the game I was surprised that this wasn’t a typical sports title. It isn’t a game that keeps track of wins/losses or goals scored. It is a very linear game. You play soccer matches, your players get better and eventually you win the tournament. I actually appreciated this. That linear goal is wrapped in a story about a boy named Robin Field whose dad is a big soccer star. He trains Robin and his brother Cecil to play soccer and then leaves with a note saying he will see them at the Tecmo Cup, the biggest soccer tournament in the world. In order to get to the Tecmo Cup Robin must first assemble a group of friends and win the national tournament and then take the best players from every team in the national tournament and play in the Tecmo Cup. Between each game and each half of a game there is a screen or two of generic text about wanting to win the next game Throughout the game you will see a lot of screens like this with generic platitudes. Several times throughout the game you see a cut scene with a guy named Lucas who says he will join the team after his injury heals. I kept waiting and waiting and waiting for him to join but it wasn’t until the final game in the Tecmo Cup that Lucas can play. Yes, he is the best goalie in the game by a long shot but I don’t think the 15 or so cut scenes with him saying he would be back soon was worth it. Stats In a traditional role playing game each player has stats that determine how they will perform. These stats include things like Hit Points, Magic Points, Agility, Luck, etc. In Tecmo Cup Soccer each player has similar stats that determine how good they will perform. Offense Guts – This is equivalent to stamina. Each move in the game reduces this number. The more guts you have the more this player can be used in the game. Dribble – The higher this value the better the player will be able to evade opponents as they surround him with the ball. Pass – the ability to pass the ball successfully to a teammate without it being intercepted. Shoot – The higher this value the more likely a shot will go into the goal. Defense Tackle – The ability to slide and kick the ball away from an opponent Mark – Blocks an opponent from dibbling past you or passing the ball Cut – Cuts off the opponent from passing the ball Goalie Punch – When the opponent shoots on your goal this will have your goalie punch the ball away. The ball gets loose and there is a chance it will go back to the opponent. Catch – Instead of punching the ball away the goalie will catch the ball allowing him to then pass it to a teammate. Pass – The higher this value the better chance that the goalie’s pass will make it to a teammate. Pre-Game Setup Before each game you sit in the locker room and your coach fills you in on the latest changes. He first will list off all of the players who have gotten better since the last game and then you have a few options: Advice – The coach will tell you about the team you are about to play. It is always something generic like “Don’t let Ayerton get the ball, he’s a tough opponent” Memo – This is where you talk to Anne, who I think is Robin’s girlfriend. She always says how good of a job you are doing and then provides you with a super long and complex password so you can pickup where you left off. L. S. – This stands for League Standing. This option only appears during a few games after the national tournament but before the Tecmo Cup. It shows your wins/losses which determines if you win the preliminary tournament or not. Member – This only appears after you win the National Cup. It allows you to sub in players from the bench and build the team you want. Start – Starts the game The Main Game (Offense) Each game starts off with your team, The Tops, getting the ball, the second half always starts with the other team getting the ball. The game consists of 2 30 minute halves. But, these are Nintendo minutes where each minute is closer to 10 seconds. An entire game came be played in under 15 minutes. When you have the ball you see your character on the top half of the screen running on a soccer field. You never see another player. Under the large animation of your player you have a bunch of stats. On the left you see the time left in the half and the current score. In the middle you see a view of your player’s location on the field denoted by the soccer ball. You always go towards the goal on the top of the field. On the right hand side you see your players current stats. Each second that passes the Guts stat lowers as the player is using energy which lowers his stamina. At any point you can press the B button to bring up the action menu. This moves the image of the field up next to your player and replaces it with “What now?” where you can choose to dribble (up button), pass (left button) or shot (right button). Depending on your selection here changes what happens next. If you chose to shoot the ball you will see an animation of the ball flying through the air, sometimes it passes other players, sometimes it is intercepted and sometimes it makes it to the goal where you see the goalie dive to stop the shot. Sometimes he does, and sometimes the ball goes into the net. Sometimes the ball goes through the net, sometimes it hits the goalpost and there is even a chance that the ball hits the goalpost so hard it explodes. In my experience, it didn’t matter what stats my player had, it didn’t matter which team I was playing, it didn’t matter if I did a special shot (more on that in a second). It always seemed completely random what happened when I would shoot the ball. This is my biggest gripe in the game. No matter how good my stats were there was no way to see the stats of my opponent so I never knew if the matchup was even or not. I never could get a handle on any of this. I’d watch YouTube videos and see people playing who were at a much lower level than me dominating every team. Nothing I have found online explains any strategy for where to put which players on the field or how to do know if a pass or shot will be successful. Anyway… As you level up your players their stats increase making them stronger dribblers, shooters, passers and gives them more guts to perform these actions. In some cases the player even learns a special shot. This shot is much more powerful than the regular shot and is accompanied by a special animation and flashing screen. These special shots use a lot more guts than a regular shot and sometimes a player can only perform 2-3 in a game before they run out of guts. So, use these only when you are sure to score (as if there was a way to know this). I read a walkthrough online that said some team (I forget which and am too lazy to look it up again) has a really strong goalie. If you score on the goalie it hurts his morale (not a stat that is visible to people playing the game) and it makes him easier to score on a second time. The note also says that he is really good at blocking special shots and your regular shots have a better chance of scoring against him. I probably shouldn’t put too much stock into a random internet article I read but if this is true it makes me really mad. What is the point in having special shots that seem to be much better than the regular shot if in some cases those shots are not worth shooting? I’m ok with this if there was any note or memo or player comment or any indication at all how you could use this knowledge to your advantage. Passing the ball is another annoyance for me. I learned a strategy in the final game of the Tecmo cup that would have potentially made the game easier for me. When you bring up the “What now?” menu you can choose to pass the ball. When you want to pass the ball you see a different view of the field and this time you actually get to see where the players are located. You have the option to chose one of 4 players to pass to. When the player has the soccer ball by their name they flash on the screen above so you can see where they are in relation to you. What I didn’t learn until the last game was that if you cancel the pass and then select pass again the players you can pass to change. I always assumed I only had the option to pass to the 4 players under “Whom?” and many times the player I wanted to pass to was not in the list. Passing was another huge black hole for me. Sometimes I would see my player with the ball, there would be no opponents anywhere nearby and the player I was passing to was also wide open. I would pass to him and the pass would be intercepted. Other times I’d pass the ball to a player who had 3 or 4 players around him and the ball would go right to him. I never saw any indication with all of the on screen graphics that would let me know which pass was going to work and which wouldn’t. It always seemed completely random, which is fine, but, having the screen visualizing where the players are wasn’t necessary since it didn’t seem to help me at all. I feel like showing a picture of a bag of marbles while I selected who to pass to would have been just as helpful. If you bring up the action menu and decide you don’t want to pass or shoot you can always select “Drib” which will take you back to the main screen of your player kicking the ball down the field. Sometimes I’d bring up the menu, look at my players location to the opponents on the pass screen and try to map out how to keep dribbling to avoid the players. Just like I mentioned above this was pointless. Sometimes I’d pull up the pass screen, it would show me as wide open so I would continue to dribble. I’d take one step and an opponent would intercept me. What is the point of showing a map of the field and all of the players locations if it is an inaccurate representation? Like in an RPG there are random encounters. This is where 1-5 members of the opposing team appear and try to stop you from reaching the goal. When this happens your player has the option to keep dribbling, pass the ball to a teammate or shoot the ball at the goal. After you make your selection a few animations will play out showing how your player fared against the opponents. Here lies a problem. You can see your players stats on the screen, you cannot see your opponents. The rule of thumb if the opponent has a real name and not just a number it means they are one of the better players on the team. So, again, no matter what I selected the outcome always seemed random. Sometimes 5 opponents would surround me and my player would have a low dribble stat and I’d dribble and pass all 5 players. Other times one opponent would be in front of me and my player with the strongest pass stat would have the ball and attempt to pass to a guy with no opponents in between and the ball would be stolen. It makes no sense. The Main Game (Defense) Anytime you don’t have the ball you are on defense. It always felt like I was on defense much more than I was on offense. The screen looks similar to when you are on offense except you can’t see the stats of the player with the ball. The soccer ball on the field at the bottom of the screen represents where the player is on the field. Notice anything? There is no way to know where your players are in relation to the ball. So, how do you make your players try to steal the ball? Well, the truth is, I don’t know. When the other team had the ball I would just randomly push the D-Pad in a bunch of directions hoping that I was invisibly controlling a player of mine towards the ball. But, since I couldn’t tell where I was in relation to the ball I didn’t know which direction to press. This may have just been placebo and the real way to stop the ball was just wait for a random encounter. Again, I don’t understand this game mechanic at all. When an encounter did happen it would show a list of all of the players on your team who are around the ball. You get to select what each player would do to try to stop the opponent. Tack, Cut, or Mark. Tackle attempts to steal the ball, cut attempts to cut off a pass and mark tries to block the player’s path forward. As you guessed, there is no rhyme or reason as to which of these commands would work. No matter how good my players stats were the outcome always seemed random. with a cut stat of 107 this is what I’d select. Sometimes it would work, sometimes it wouldn’t. What Happens If The Game Ends In A Tie? National Tournament (basically the first 1/3 of the game) The game ends in a shootout. Each team picks 5 kickers and each gets one shot to score a goal. The only choice you have to make is to kick to the right or left. If the defender dives left and you shoot right you score. When you are the goalie you do the same, choose whether to dive left or right. If you chose correctly you block the shot. Whoever has the most goals at the end of the shootout wins. If there is another tie you do another shoot out. Preliminary League Tournament (2nd 1/3rd of the game) This is a tournament where every team plays every other team. If the game ends in a tie the game ends in a tie. After all teams play all other teams the winner is determined by number of wins, ties and losses. If there is a tie in win/loss stats the winner is determined by points scored. Tecmo Cup (last 1/3rd of the game) In the Tecmo Cup when a game ends in a tie you play 2 more halves, each is 10 minutes instead of the regular 30 minutes. If there is still a tie you then go to a shoot out. Level Up! After each game (I think they are called matches in soccer) your coach will tell you if any players on the team “got better.” If a player is on the coaches list they have leveled up and all of their stats increase. In some cases a player will learn a special move like a more powerful shot. In the case of Damon, he learns a new dribble move where he basically plows over members of the opposing team. There isn’t a special command for this, it just happens. Another example of something that I don’t fully understand why it works that way. Depending on which team you are playing against, if you lose you will rematch the team or be forced to go back a game and play the team before the current opponent again. Again, there was never an indication on what would happen if you lost. If I lost a game for the first several hours of my playthrough I would just enter the password and try again. But, then I realized I needed to level up because I was never going to beat a team without good stats. Luckily, I found a team that if you lost against you would play them again. I kept losing on purpose just to improve my players. I never saw any clear indication but I suspect that if you pass a lot your pass stat will go up more. If you dribble a lot that stat will go up, etc. By the time I reached the final game most of my players were on level 16 or so. When I checked out YouTube the videos I found of the final game most of the players were on level 13. So, I had more than enough stats to dominate the final game. Except, I didn’t dominate because stats don’t seem to matter. I took me half a dozen tries to beat Brazil Jr. in the finals of the Tecmo Cup. No matter how hard I tried I just could not score a goal. I tried regular shots, every super shot I had including Damon’s Blast Shot which is the most powerful in the game. The goalie on Brazil was insane! More than one time it was tied 0-0 with less than a minute left and Brazil scored a goal right as the timer went to 0. Talk about frustrating! The Final Game Do you know how many times I played the final game? Me either, but it was a lot. I would lose and instead of resetting and putting in the password to try again I would let the game kick me back 2 games and then fight my way through those teams in order to level up again and again. After doing this a few times I was finally ready. Most of my players had Guts over 900 and were level 18 or 19. Even with this I would still struggle to score goals and the computer would seem to always get the best breaks. I know the game is decided by a bunch of hidden stats and random numbers but I just wish I knew what those were. It bordered on unfair. On the last game I was up 1-0 with less than 2 minutes left. The best player on the other team got the ball and went straight across the entire field without one of my players stopping him and shot to tie the game at the last second. Then in overtime neither team scored so it went to a shootout which is pure luck. This actually happened probably on 3 occasions on the last game and I just never could get the game to go my way, until I finally beat it which took wayyyyy longer than it should have. Final Thoughts Even though I never felt in control of the game and I used more brute force than strategy to play through Tecmo Cup Soccer Game I still somehow really enjoyed it. The animations are up there with NES Open Golf and Ninja Gaiden as some of the best on the NES. I hope at some point in the future someone way smarter than me decodes the code behind this game so I can finally learn when a pass or shot will be successful or not. I did have a lot of fun in middle school playing World Cup Soccer but haven’t played it since then. I imagine that is the only soccer game on the NES that will even hold a candle to how fun this game was. View the full article

Genre: Arcade Publisher: Nintendo Total time played: 15 Hours Short review: An arcade style Pac-Man knock off that is addictive even if the controls aren’t quite as easy to pick up as I would have liked. Interesting links related to Clu Clu Land Soundtrack Instruction Manual Video Review (CGRUndertow) Full Game Playthrough (23min 47secs) Hi, hello, how are you? Remember me? I play Nintendo games and try to beat them. But, I’ve been MIA since May 10, 2022 and haven’t beaten a single NES game. I took a short break after finally beating Solomon’s Key thinking that Clu Clu Land would be a cake walk since I thought I just needed to go for a high score. I expected to be done with the game when I was tired of playing it since there is no ending. What I discovered was there are 20 stages before it begins looping and getting through those 20 stages took longer than I expected. Now, 90% of that is because I didn’t play it enough days in a row to finally get good at it. I have no one to blame but myself. What is Clu Clu Land? At first glance it is basically a Pac-Man knock off. It was one of the games for the NES that came out the day the NES was released way back in 1985. In 1985 video games were still trying to figure out what they were and almost all home console games were versions of existing arcade games. Since arcade games were meant to suck quarters out of your pocket they needed to be simple to learn, hard to master and never end. The designers wanted you to feel like each time you played you got a little better and constantly come back for more. Clu Clu Land was not an existing arcade game, but, it sure seems like it would have been. It has all the hallmarks of a game that would have been successful in an arcade. The goal of the game is to move your character (Bubbles) around the screen uncovering hidden gold bars. Once all of the gold bars are revealed the level ends. You can see how many gold bars are left on the stage by looking at the “LAST” number at the top of the screen. It is a simple concept and easy to pick up. There is a bit of a story if you read the manual but the story doesn’t need to exist. All you need to know if that you want to uncover gold bars, not fall in the black holes and not come into contact with the sea urchins. Characters and Collectibles Bubbles – The main character of the game, she moves in a straight line on her own, she will change direction if she hits a wall or if you reach out and grab one of the poles in the stage. The controls are simple but do take a while to get used to. If you are moving left to right you will hit UP and DOWN to grab turn posts . If you are moving up and down you will hit LEFT and RIGHT to grab turn posts. You can grab a turn post and as long as you hold down the direction Bubbles will spin around and around until you let go. It takes a bit of practice to get the timing down. Pressing A or B will shoot an electric shock wave that freeze sea urchins and makes them non-dangerous to Bubbles for a few seconds, in the later levels the sea urchins are non-dangerous for very little time. Sea Urchins – These are the blue spiky looking guys. They come out of the black holes and try to touch you. Much like the ghosts in Pac-Man if they hit you you lose a life. Luckily Bubbles can shoot a projectile by hitting A or B, which the manual calls “Electric Shock Waves”. If you hit a sea urchin they will turn yellow/orange. If they are not blue you can push them around the stage without getting hurt. Push them into a wall to get 500 points. If you kill a sea urchin another will come out of the black hole shortly. Gold Bars – The most lasting legacy this game has is the gold bars. They are the exist same sprite as Rupee’s in The Legend of Zelda that game out a bit after Clu Clu Land. So, you could say, without Clu Clu Land we wouldn’t have Zelda’s iconic Rupee. These gold bars are hidden around the stage, if you pass between two posts where a gold bar is hidden it will be revealed. Each level features gold bars in a pattern. You will play these levels a bunch and eventually memorize all of the patterns the gold bars could be. Sea urchins are unable to pass through the gold bars. Black Holes – The little multi-colored octagons are black holes, This is where the sea urchins will emerge and if you run into one you will lose a life. However, if you are holding onto a turn post you can swing through a black hole no problem. Turn Posts – These are the white circles all over each stage, use them to change Bubbles direction by reaching out her arm and grabbing them like a kid grabbing and spinning around a flagpole at recess. Fruit – Much like Pac-Man, every once in a while fruit appears somewhere on the screen, pick it up to earn extra points. Rubber Trap – A pink bar that spans 2 posts that Bubbles bounces off of and changes direction. Like the gold bars you can’t see these until you run into it and reveal it. These can be pretty annoying and it is possible for a stage to have 2 rubber traps next to each other and Bubbles can get caught bouncing between them indefinitely with the only way out being to run out of time or get hit by a sea urchin. Bonus Sack – A money bag that appears on the screen sometimes. The manual says it gives you 11,500 points, I’m pretty sure that isn’t true, it was much fewer points. Bonus Timer – A clock that will randomly appear on the screen, get this to freeze all the sea urchins on the screen for several seconds. I’m embarrassed by how many times I hit a frozen sea urchin and lost a life. Bonus Flag – A white flag that randomly appears on the screen. This is a 1-UP. You know how I learned this? By reading the manual after I beat the game. I never knew how I was getting extra lives while playing, I thought it was every so many points. If I had known I would have beaten this game months ago. I almost never picked up these flags figuring they just gave me a few points. The Levels There are 5 regular levels, 1 intro level and 1 Bonus level. After playing through each level you get to the bonus stage and then the levels loop. In each of the 4 loops of the game Bubbles gets faster and more sea urchins can be on screen at once. After playing some of the later stages when Bubbles is really zooming around the first few levels feel painfully slow. The manual was nice enough to show you all of the possible shapes the gold bars could be laid out for each stage. Read the Manual You know the old trope that men never read instruction manuals before putting together furniture, fixing a carburetor or cooking a meal? Well, I didn’t read the manual before playing Clu Clu Land and it cost me months of trial and error. So, from now on I plan on reading the manual before I play the game. If I had read the manual I could have seen the shapes above and had a better idea of what each level had in store. I would have also known the white flags were the only way to earn extra lives. I also would have seen the best part of the manual, one that is totally something I would do because I’m lazy. In the bonus stage you are supposed to get 3,000 points for finding all the gold bars (which are blue in the bonus stage). But, the game was programmed incorrectly and you only get 30 points. Instead of fixing the code they just put a note in the manual. Also, they a call the “Gold Bars” “Gold Nuggets” in the note. Not a lot of consistency in the manual, feels right at home with something I’d write. Frustrations Clu Clu Land is surprisingly addicting. I would say it is in the top tier of the NES release titles (called Black Box games). There were a couple of minor issues I had to keep it from being perfect. The number in the top left of the screen is how many lives you have left. This number is always 1 less than the number of lives shown on the screen you see between levels. I kind of get why it is this way, but, it is just not a great UX experience. The screen between levels is painfully slow and cannot be skipped. Pausing the game is instantaneous, unpausing the game takes about 2 seconds. The controls are easy to pick up but they are a bit more sluggish than I like. When you shoot the sea urchins to turn them yellow/orange they sometimes don’t push the way you want them to and you’ll have to change directions to push them into a wall Bonus Stage I never successfully revealed all the blue gold bars on the bonus stage. My highest number was 60 in the allotted time. I did always enjoy these stages as they were a nice breather after the yellow stage before it which was always pretty tough. Lucky for me, the bonus you get for clearing the stage is less points than you get for not clearing the stage. The Loop After beating all of levels 4 times the game starts over and Bubbles is super slow again. There is one small change though, and one I’m thankful I didn’t have to play through to “beat” the game. When you cross over a gold bar more than once it changes colors and then if you cross over it again it changes colors back. All the gold bars on the stage need to be the same color to beat the stage. I’m sure it is possible but would be so hard as the shapes the gold bars make on the stage make it nearly impossible to pass over them all without passing over at least one of them twice. Final Thoughts I was familiar with Clu Clu Land and have had it in my collection for years but had never played it before. It should not have taken me 6 months to beat, but, most of that time was spent not playing video games and then when I would finally get back to it I’d have a short learning curve of relearning the control nuances. If it weren’t for the few gripes I mentioned above this would be a nearly perfect game. Honestly, it feels like a smart phone game that you can pick up and play for a few minutes at a time and never get tired of playing. This game is way better than it needs to be and while I don’t recommend playing it until you clear all 21 stages I do suggest playing for a bit just to see what all the cool kids were playing in 1985. View the full article

In the 5th installment of under-appreciated horror movies the guys loosen the reigns and talk a bit about some movies that were popular but don't get brought up in conversation as much anymore. They also discuss what they have been doing to get into the Halloween spirit and Matt and Luke talk about Halloween Ends. Keep up with everyone: Matt Video Game BlogMovie Review Facebook GroupMovie Review YouTube ChannelLuke Luke wrote a novel, Into the Wallwood, you can buy it HERE Jason Follow his art page on Facebook - Jason Shepard ArtworX

After taking the summer off the guys are back to talk about the biggest star in Hollywood in the 1980's and 1990's, Arnold Schwarzenegger. On top of his movie career they go into details about his early childhood, his body building career and his political career. Keep up with everyone: Matt Video Game BlogMovie Review Facebook GroupMovie Review YouTube ChannelLuke Luke wrote a novel, Into the Wallwood, you can buy it HERE Jason Follow his art page on Facebook - Jason Shepard ArtworX

The guys sit down to talk about 1992 and all of the video games that shaped their young pre-teen minds. Keep up with everyone: Matt Video Game BlogMovie Review Facebook GroupMovie Review YouTube ChannelLuke Luke wrote a novel, Into the Wallwood, you can buy it HERE Jason Follow his art page on Facebook - Jason Shepard ArtworX

The guys sit down to tell stories about their first jobs and the people they met working there. Matt and Luke had paper routes. Luke worked at a grocery chain, Matt worked at a Mexican restaurant and Jason worked at both a Mexican restaurant and a grocery chain. Keep up with everyone: Matt Video Game BlogMovie Review Facebook GroupMovie Review YouTube ChannelLuke Luke wrote a novel, Into the Wallwood, you can buy it HERE Jason Follow his art page on Facebook - Jason Shepard ArtworX

After 3 months I knocked out Solomon's Key. Thank goodness for that continue code! https://hoz14nes.wordpress.com/2022/05/10/solomons-key/

Genre: Puzzle Publisher: Tecmo Total time played: 25 Hours Short review: An ingenious puzzle game that takes great hand eye coordination, puzzle solving skills, a steel trap memory and luck. Many people consider it to be one of the hardest games on the NES Interesting links related to Solomon’s Key Full Video WalkthroughSpeedrun by Arcus (19min 34sec)SoundtrackInstruction ManualA great game I wasn’t in the mood for It has been 3+ months since I completed Pinball. I believe that makes this the longest distance in time between two games in the 9 years of this journey. The length in time wasn’t because the game was really hard, which it definitely is. I’ve just been much busier than normal in 2022. So, I’ve not had the free time to tackle NES games like I used to. A lot of my free time has been spent watching movies and uploading to my spoiler free movie review YouTube channel. Between a full time job, keeping up with chores and household projects, my YouTube channel, and raising a 4 year old I found myself only being able to play 20-30 minutes at a time a couple of times per week. In a game like Solomon’s Key that makes it hard to memorize levels because they are all so intricate and there are so many of them. Solomon’s Key reminds me a bit of Wrecking Crew because of how each level is a single screen puzzle and Milon’s Secret Castle where there are a million blocks on screen and any one of them could be hiding an item. How to Play As I stated exactly 1 sentence ago Solomon’s Key features a bunch of levels that are each a single screen. You control a guy named Dana whose job is to get a key which opens a door and then get to that door. In the first level this is very simple, but, by level 3 you better be prepared to try over and over again. This is a game where it is impossible to beat some of the later levels in one try because what seems like a solution may be a red herring, a trap that if you attempt means you can’t beat the level. Each block location becomes important. Dana jumps with the Up button on the Directional Pad. He creates blocks by pressing A. He can create a block directly in front of him, or, if you hold down he creates a block down one square diagonally from where he is kneeling. If you stand so far to the edge of a block that it looks like you might fall he can create a block 2 squares in front of him. Any brown square can also be removed by hitting A while standing in front of it. Pressing the B button will throw a fireball and clear enemies from in front of you. But, only if a small fire icon appears in the top right white bar on the screen (next to “Fairy”). Fireballs are hidden in some stages that you can pick up if you find them. They could be hidden inside a brown block, or, they could be hidden in a random space and not appear until you create a block in that space and then remove it. They also could be hidden behind another item. A few items in the game can be hit with A and they transform into a vase that increases your fireball count by one. The goal is to get to the end of the game which is roughly 50 levels. I don’t know for sure because some of the bonus and hidden levels are not numbered and depending on some hidden items you do or don’t pick up the game has different levels and different endings. Get the key and go through the door…simple Just beat the game Initially my goal was to play through every single level, find every item, play every hidden level and bonus stage and get the best ending. But, I just don’t have the time or patience to do it. I feel like if I owned this game as a kid and didn’t have the internet or a dozen other consoles to distract me I could have mastered the game by sheer repetition. It just wasn’t in the cards in 2022. I quickly decided my goal was just to get to the end of the game without using the internet even if it wasn’t the best ending. Items There are so many items in this game, some give you fireballs, some give you different fireballs, some make your fireball white bar longer so you can hold more fireballs. Some unlock bonus stages, some are just for points, some give you extra lives, the bells make a fairy appear and if you get 10 fairies you get an extra life. There are probably more that I’m forgetting. The point is, I never memorized the items well enough to be able to tell you what they did. I probably should have learned and tried harder to collect them in the early game because I desperately needed them in the later game. The secret continue code It would be a miracle for me to beat Solomon’s Key without continuing and initially I thought I would have to do just that. Thankfully I learned that on the poster that came with the game a continue code was given to the player. By holding A+B+Up on the game over screen you can continue on the stage where you lost your last life. This was an absolute life saver and the reason I never bothered much with finding all the secret items in each room. When you get a game over you lose any unused fireballs and since I died so often I figured I’d just practice each level until I could beat it. I thought I was taking the easy way out by just plowing through the levels and not learning each levels secret. Level 43 which I found this to be the hardest room in the until I got to level 46 which was harder Hidden warp zones In multiple levels there are small icons like that look P-Wings that act as warp zones. If you pick up this item you are warped 7 levels forward when you walk through the door and complete the stage. I accidentally found one of these and was surprised to learn it warped me 7 stages. This probably saved me 2 hours of game play to not have to learn those stages I skipped. I later learned there are several of these warps hidden throughout the game. While I enjoyed learning many of the stages I would have loved the ability to skip some of those harder levels. That’s what I get for not exploring every block in every level. Save states to the rescue That continue code that I spammed my entire play through has an Achilles heel. It turns out once you reach level 41 the continue code quits working and if you use it on a later stage it returns you back to level 41. That means you have to beat the last 10ish levels on a single continue. Of course these are by far the hardest levels in the game. For the most part the levels required brain power to beat but these last levels require brain power and precision timing. A single brick put in the wrong spot or removed at the wrong time renders the level unbeatable. Since extra lives are few and far between that means you have to play those last stages nearly perfectly. Because of this I created a save state each time I beat a level and just practiced each level dozens of times until I could beat them. Once I did this for each of the last levels I began attempting to do them all at once. Without this modern day “cheat” I’m not sure I would have ever had the patience to beat the game. A couple of the later levels took me probably 100 times to beat which means I would have had to play through the earlier levels that many times to get enough attempts to beat it This one took a long while to master. Every time I beat it I felt like I got lucky. A worthy challenge The older I get the more I like puzzle games like this. I mentioned above that Wrecking Crew is another great puzzle game and so is Adventures of Lolo. These games take puzzle solving skills more so than hand eye coordination and nothing feels better than solving a complex puzzle on your own. If I had been in a better place while playing through this game I would have probably beaten it quicker and probably enjoyed it a lot more. It is a great game, the level design was great and the puzzles were tough but not impossible. I would definitely consider it a hidden gem and recommend it to anyone. It isn’t one I expect a lot of people to beat but I think playing through a few levels would provide some great entertainment. Level 46, I’m embarrassed to how many attempts this level took Finals Thoughts It took a long time but I finally beat those last 10 or so levels on a single continue. 4/30/2022 is when I finally beat each level using save states and it wasn’t until 5/9/2022 that I was able to beat all the levels at once. Beating Solomon’s Key gave me a great sense of accomplishment. I’m sure I would feel it even more if I kept playing it and mastered each level and beat it without the continue code while getting every item, unlocking every bonus stage and getting the best ending. But, alas, it was not in the cards for me right now. Solomon’s Key is a great game if you give it a chance. I’ve enjoyed watching others play through it on YouTube and learning that many of the levels can be beaten many different ways. The game designers really outdid themselves creating such clever puzzles with multiple solutions. View the full article

The guys invite a special guest, movie critic, Tommy Wood from Reel Talk: A Movie Podcast to discuss what is quite possibly the best all time year for movies, 1999. Multiple genre defining masterpieces, completely original scripts, animation classics and multiple cult films make up this great year. Keep up with everyone: Matt Video Game BlogMovie Review Facebook GroupMovie Review YouTube ChannelLuke Luke wrote a novel, Into the Wallwood, you can buy it HERE Jason Follow his art page on Facebook - Jason Shepard ArtworXTommy Reel Talk: A Movie Podcast

The guys sit down to discuss the music that shaped their life in 1989. Jason really hates one of Matt's picks and Luke didn't have a lot of context for what was cool because of his age. Apple Music Playlist Spotify Playlist Keep up with everyone: Matt Video Game BlogMovie Review Facebook GroupMovie Review YouTube ChannelLuke Luke wrote a novel, Into the Wallwood, you can buy it HERE Jason Follow his art page on Facebook - Jason Shepard ArtworX

The guys sit down to talk about the TV shows that shaped their life in 1991. 1991 was a year for Nickelodeon and talk shows. Follow Us Online: Episode Blog with Show Notes, Videos and PhotosFacebook GroupKeep up with everyone: Matt Video Game BlogMovie Review Facebook GroupMovie Review YouTube ChannelLuke Luke wrote a novel, Into the Wallwood, you can buy it HERE Jason Follow his art page on Facebook - Jason Shepard ArtworXJason illustrated a children's book, The King Who Forgot, you can buy it HERE

The guys sit down to discuss one of the all time greatest children's entertainers and most recognizable character actors of the 1980's, Jim Varney aka Ernest P. Worrell. Since he is one of the most famous people from our neck of the woods we all know people who knew him personally. Follow Us Online: Episode Blog with Show Notes, Videos and PhotosFacebook Group Keep up with everyone: Matt Video Game BlogMovie Review Facebook GroupMovie Review YouTube ChannelLuke Luke wrote a novel, Into the Wallwood, you can buy it HERE Jason Follow his art page on Facebook - Jason Shepard ArtworXJason illustrated a children's book, The King Who Forgot, you can buy it HERE

Genre: Pinball Publisher: Nintendo Total time played: 3 Hours Short review: One of the earliest NES games takes takes a stab at recreating the excitement of playing a pinball machine in an arcade. Interesting links related to SoundtrackVideo Review (Classic Game Room)PlaythroughIt’s Pinball! I have played real pinball before on multiple occasions but I did not grow up in pinball’s prime. When I would go to an arcade as a kid there were pinball machines but my heart wanted to play the video games, pound the buttons, rotate the joysticks and put quarter after quarter into the machine to try to beat the game. Pinball just seemed old and outdated so I would only play pinball if the arcade game I wanted to play was occupied. As an adult I still don’t play pinball much but I have a much great appreciation for the technology that makes it work. I can’t imagine the engineering that goes into making the hundreds of mechanical parts work in tandem to provide a fun experience that is skill and luck based. The art of the pinball cabinet is incredible, I just wish I had more experience playing the games. Copy Cat Of course since pinball machines were so popular in the 70’s and early 80’s it makes sense that Nintendo would try to capitalize on that and provide a pinball experience on your TV. For the most part NES Pinball succeeds. There is enough here to make it interesting for fans of actual pinball cabinets but by today’s standards it definitely feels very bare bones. The developers tried to create the pinball experience 1 to 1 instead of adding in features that could not possibly exist on a mechanical pinball machine. How to Play Playing pinball is very straight forward even if the control scheme in unorthodox. There are 2 games modes, A and B. The only difference I could find is that the ball felt heavier and faster in mode B. I’ve read that this mode is more realistic and mode A is more arcade style. In my play through I focused on mode A. The directional pad controls the left flipper and the A and B buttons control the right flipper. The A and B buttons also launch the ball back into play when you start the game or lose a life. The goal of the game is to score 150,000 points. This isn’t a goal the game gives you but the goal that the internet has determined is the score needed to “beat the game” as it allows you to see everything the game has to offer. At 100,000 points your flippers disappear and at 150,000 points they return. When the flippers disappear they are really still there and work just as they always have, you just can’t see them making the game a bit more difficult. The invisible flippers are the only thing in this game that could not be accomplished on a real pinball table. If you score 50,000 points you do get an extra ball, there is no fan fare, no sound queue, no visual queue. You just will look down and see the ball number is increased by 1. Top Board The top half of the pinball game This is the top half of the game board, if the ball falls down the black path to the left or in-between the flippers it will drop to the bottom half of the board. I spent a lot more time on the bottom half than the top half. The top half I had much more success scoring points even though I never stayed here long. I won’t go through every single point scoring opportunity but just hit some highlights. Most of the time I found that luck played a bigger role in my success than skill which made the game rather frustrating. My favorite way to score points was to bounce the ball off of the white/pink 100 circle in the middle and up between the blue/white vertical lines which scores 1,000 points on the way up through and another 1,000 on the way back down. I was never good at pulling this off but every once in a while I’d get lucky and it would bounce 10 or so times in a row giving me a quick 10,000 points. If you can shoot the ball up through the left side and hit all the white balls the seals bounce a ball on their nose and you get 100 points with each bounce, this was another quick way to score points…if you could shoot the ball up that narrow path. The best way to score points is pure luck. You can shoot the ball up and around the green pillar on the left and when it rolls over the white line the 3 penguins in the image above create a slot machine and if you get lucky and it lands on 3 penguins a stopper appears between the flippers making it impossible for the ball to fall between them. This bumper remains until you shoot the ball around the green pillar again. On my winning run I scored about 80,000 points on this screen with the bumper in place. Bottom Board The bottom half of the board The bottom half of the board is much more stressful. The points are harder to get down here and the 3 100 circles shot the ball in a random direction when they are hit. The best way to score points here is to get in the center of the 3 circles and just watch the ball bounce between them for several seconds. If you hit one of the 3 eggs above the flippers it turns into a bird, hit the bird and it disappears, hit the invisible spot and the egg comes back. If you get all 3 birds on screen at once it creates a bumper on both the right and left sides which keep the ball from falling and losing a life. If you hit a bumper the ball bounces back into the game but the bumper disappears. To get it back you must get the 3 birds again. In my experience at least 50% of the time the ball would hit the bumper it would bounce back into play, hit something and immediately go right back to where the bumper was and fall to lose a life. If you can get the ball to travel between the little walls under the cards at the top of the screen it flips the cards over. If you flip all 5 cards over a bumper appears between the flippers. If you get this bumper and the 3 bird bumpers you are nearly invincible and just need to focus on points without fear of losing a life. If you hit all the numbers on the left side of the screen the horizontal pink lines on the right side of the screen disappear and allow you use the plunger to shoot the ball back to the top of the screen. Finally, if you shoot the ball inside the red circle at the top right of the screen it takes you to a bonus stage. Bonus Hey look! It’s a him, Mario! In the bonus stage you move Mario left and right to bounce the ball around the screen. If you hit any of the numbers they change between 3 colors. If all of the same number are the same color the blue lines at the top under the princess get smaller. If you do this a few times it creates a hole and the princess falls down, you must catch her and direct her to an exit. This was a nice touch but I don’t think I ever got enough points or got enough enjoyment to make the bonus stage worth it. Final Thoughts You know…this was kind of fun. It’s another one of those that is fun to pick up and play but not really fun to try to score the 150,000 points to beat it. The game felt like 90% luck and 10% skill. You just can’t control where the ball is going to bounce and if you get just a few bad bounces it is game over. I did find some enjoyment in trying to hit everything and see what would happen. I think it is easy enough for anyone to pick up and play and enjoy for 10 minutes at a time. In 2022 it feels more like a free phone game experience than a full fledged game, but, for 1985 I bet it was pretty revolutionary. View the full article