scaryice

Last night I was trying to beat 1942 again, which is not as bad as it sounds - it's relaxing in an rpg grinding sort of way. Just pure shooting with little in the way of variety (it's like the Uncharted 1 of NES shooters). Anyway, I got 75% of the way through it and the game soft-locked on the third boss. So that sucked.

Got it, thanks. Gaia is crushing it this year. Can he finally beat nerdy, after three years in a row of being the runner up? Welcome back! Still plenty of good games left.

Joust finished:

I noticed that the win condition for Joust seems wrong. Looking at the archives, wave 16 was decided because that was the first appearance of the last enemy type, the shadow lord. However, that only seems to be true for the arcade version - in the NES version, his first appearance is on wave 21. So, it looks like it should be beat wave 21 instead.

Classic Concentration - here's my new Miata for winning the bonus round (with zero seconds left).

Speaking of Karnov, did you all know, there are only 4 games which have been beaten by a different person every year since this competition started (2012-22)? Karnov is one of those four, along with Bubble Bobble, TMNT Tournament Fighters, and Where in Time is Carmen Sandiego. Already, BlackVega beat TMNT:TF this year for a second time, so that's off the board, leaving three. mbd39's Karnov completion will ensure that at least one game will continue that streak into 2024. There were another 30 games at the conclusion of 2022 that have not had a repeat clearer, but also have not been beaten in every year.

Everybody loves Karnov's Theme!

Heavy Barrel beaten, although I had to continue at the final boss (meh).

Pet has been gotten to - Seicross is finished:

Very nice! See, I knew people would rather do hard challenges on good games than play through the awful stuff.

Couple challenges, couple rpgs, a few unlicensed games, Battletoads... A nice productive day for this competition!

I think it's just a vegetable that Japanese kids hate, along with green peppers (that seems to be the most common one I see in anime these days). Here's an article from 2011: https://japantoday.com/category/features/food/eggplant-most-hated-vegetable-among-kids

I tried playing Faxanadu for a hour or so a few years ago, but I couldn't get into it. I'm not sure why people seem to regard it so highly? Also, looks like Gaia has actually moved ahead of Nerdy for the time being...

You're definitely good enough to do any of these. Have confidence! I've done a few before: Guerilla War, MM2, MM3, SMB3, Super C, Zelda 2. Honestly, those runs were easier and a more fun experience than beating bad obscure games like Metal Mech and Super Glove Ball. SMB3 was the hardest of those just because it's longer with no saves. Obviously if it's a challenge, it's going to be harder than a normal run. I assume that with so many people who love these popular games, someone will be willing to put the effort in to tackle them. Everyone here has probably beaten Mario, for example, so I worried that making it too easy might be a problem. And also, it's hard to think of things other than difficulty to base it around - there's not a lot of NES games that allow a ton of different gameplay choices, and many of the ones that do are longer rpgs. Like, I was going to make a Dragon Warrior one about using certain characters/classes, but that's a big time commitment. In Tecmo Super Bowl, if you pick the NT and just fall back, that would be ok. Here's a clip of someone getting past that enemy in MM3:

I've (finally) posted the bonus games list! It includes the same 40 unlicensed and 15 PAL games from last year (both of which were not cleared, BTW), as well as 25 Famicom games (no repeats from a year ago). I picked at least one game from each of the top 12 most prolific publishers (there's only five Konami games because I was holding back - seriously, they have so many good ones). I also tried not to pick too many long rpgs. Here's a list of those games: Attack Animal Gakuen Bio Miracle Bokutte Upa Bokosuka Wars Cosmo Police Galivan Don Doko Don 2 Donald Land Fantasy Zone II Ganbare Goemon 2 Hi no Tori Holy Diver Idol Hakkenden Kaiketsu Yanchamaru 2 Keroppi to Keroriinu no Splash Bomb Konami Wai Wai World Lagrange Point Metal Slader Glory Mitsume ga Tooru Mother Pizza Pop Pocket Zaurus Star Wars (Namco) Sweet Home Takahashi Meijin no Boukenjima IV Takeshi no Chousenjou Zombie Hunter Lastly, here's the list of 20 challenges: Adventure Island II or III - Beat the game without using a dinosaur. Pretty self-explanatory. Castlevania - Beat the game while only using the whip. That means no sub-weapons usage. Duck Tales - Beat the game by getting the bad ending (exactly 0 dollars). See here for details. Final Fantasy - Beat the game with a single character (kill off others asap). This has been a popular challenge among fans for a long time. Gauntlet - Beat the game with the warrior. Have you tried to play as this guy? He's super slow in a game where your health constantly ticks down. Guerilla War - Beat the game without continuing. I've done this previously, and it makes the game into a totally different experience. Kirby's Adventure - Beat the "extra game". It's the harder difficulty that unlocks after you get 100%. Legend of Zelda - Complete a swordless run (get to Gannon). You can't quite finish the game without a sword, but you can get all the way to the final room. Another challenge people have been doing for ages. I hear the wand is very useful... Mega Man 2 - Beat the game only using the default weapon (except for boobeam trap & alien, item 1/2/3 use ok). You need the Crash Bombs for the boobeam boss, and the Bubble Lead for the Alien. That's it. Mega Man 3 - Beat the game only using the default weapon (except for final boss, rush use ok). I believe only the final boss needs anything other than the buster? I know there's a very difficult enemy to get past in the Doc Robot Spark Man part, on the ladder. I remember just using another weapon there when I did this run years ago, however it actually can be gotten past. Metroid - Beat the game while getting 100% items. You'll have to keep track yourself, unlike the later games. Speedrun.com has the details: 21 Missile Tanks, 8 Energy Tanks, Morph Ball, both Ice Beams, Bombs, Varia Suit, Wave Beam, Screw Attack, Hi Jump, and Long Beam. Mike Tyson's Punch Out - Beat "Another World Circuit." Use the password to access it. Ninja Gaiden - Beat the game while only using the sword. That means no sub-weapons usage. Super C - Beat the game without dying. To me, this was a lot more challenging than doing it for Contra. But it's not too bad since it's so short. Super Mario Bros. 2 - Beat the game without getting hit (or dying). Warps are fine. Super Mario Bros. 3 - Beat the game without dying (no warps). I did this on the Famicom version, and it was tough. This one should be a little easier, though you still need to plan out your P-wing/cloud usage. Tecmo Super Bowl - Play a full season and win the Super Bowl with the Colts (no NT glitch). Indy is considered the worst team in the game. The Nose Tackle glitch would be when you easily sack the QB as soon as the ball is snapped. You should probably play as a LB or DB for fairness, I suppose. TMNT - Beat the game by using only Michaelangelo & Raphael. Wizards & Warriors - Beat the game without continuing. Like Guerilla War, this makes an easy game into a real test. Zelda II - Beat the game while only leveling one stat (8-1-1, 1-8-1, or 1-1-8). I would recommend attack - the other two are much harder to complete. asdf

Vegas Dream done, just a matter of re-entering the password over and over while you try to double up a bunch of times:

Qix beaten:

I mean, that's cheap, but it counts. I downloaded an Othello program in order to beat it, so I can't act like I'm any better.

Well, it seems like more people would be into the challenges runs than NES style modern games. So I'll put together a few more challenges and then post the whole bonus list this weekend. I actually have very similar ideas for those four games, although I was thinking of something harder for Mario 3. BTW, you really should play Mega Man 9, it's the best game in the series.

Very nice to have this one off the board so early! Certainly one of the longer and more annoying games to finish.

Is it really that different than including a homebrew made in the same modern era? I'm thinking of games like Blaster Master Zero, Mega Man 9, Spelunker HD, etc - all of which clearly have NES-style gameplay. That's another way to get people to find new favorite games, right? I get what you're saying, though. It does seem like a step further to have games like that. Maybe I should get more opinions before making it official. What do you guys think? I could just make some more challenge runs instead, if people would prefer that.

We now know what the 1 point games will be for 2024. There will be nine games that go from two points to one (for the games in bold, it's their first time being worth 1 point): Balloon Fight, Deja Vu, Double Dragon, Dynowarz, Fisher Price Perfect Fit, Kid Klown, Mickey's Safari in Letterland, Spy vs Spy, Tecmo Super Bowl

Yeah, exactly. I may throw in a few non-sequels that are very obviously based on a certain game/series. Limiting this to 21st century stuff, since stuff like Donkey Kong on the Game Boy is too close to the actual NES era. I'm planning on limiting it to 100 again. Mainly for the sake of only having a certain number of points overall. Also because we didn't even come close to finishing last year. Right now I'm thinking 40 unlicensed, 20 other licensed games (aka PAL and Famicom, maybe 10 each?), 20 challenges, and 20 "non-NES sequels/successors." Leaning towards picking the same 40 unlicensed as last year since we didn't finish them. Probably the same PAL games as well since the selection isn't very big. I'll pick a few different Famicom games though. I'm trying not to just have everything be 'beat the game without dying'. It's kind of hard to be more creative without getting too difficult - trying to make a few easier ones as well.

This is how I feel trying to do the half pipe in 720. I know it's possible to do tricks on it (but it never happens).

I'm working on it. Still planning on having unlicensed/PAL/Famicom stuff. But I think this time, instead of the homebrew/hack/unreleased sections, I want to add some modern non-NES 'retro sequels'. Not just anything, but stuff that is obviously based on NES games. I also want to add some challenge runs, to give people another reason to revisit the better games that all get cleared the first few days.