guitarzombie

Finished Ultimate Air Combat.  Actually finished it earlier but I got locked out trying to remember my password on my phone to share some celebratory photos.

Its a really solid game but my MAIN gripe is during the dog fight part, the computer is very unfair.  You can shoot a homing missile at them and they can speed up so fast that the missile just disappears.  Also they can go lower and higher than you.  A lot of time they're lower than you but as you get lower it warns you, you're too low and crash, but the CPU can.

The game is 9 sections, with 4 levels each, and each level having a dogfight and ground section.  Its really smart having to outweigh how many missiles you can get to make the dogfight or ground section easier or harder.  I liked to use the F14 and the "Phantom" missiles, that are almost guaranteed, unless the CPU flies way off screen.  But then you don't always have strong weapons for the ground section.  Sometimes the objective can be destroyed really easy, or really hard.  Anyway, its REALLY close to being a real gem, but just a BIT too hard towards the end.  Although the 8th and 9th section dogfights were MUCH easier than the 5-7 for some reason.

On the last level of Ultimate Air Combat.  Im just trying some strategies out.  I can't tell but it looks like the final level layout is a bit random, which could make it easier or harder to complete depending on how they randomize the defenses. 

5 hours ago, Daniel_Doyce said:

Sorry, it's been a while. I was thinking of the Harrier. I still stand by the normal gun working well in the ground areas, especially in later leves, though.

Ah.  Also stupid me, when I looked at the manual (maybe I missed something?) I forgot you could speed up or down!  That made it MUCH easier to beat those levels i was struggling with now that I can outrun those homing missiles!  Jeez!

9 hours ago, Daniel_Doyce said:

This game is fun. I had to use the helicopter to have any chance of shooting the planes down, and mostly used the machine gun in the ground phase to jizz on the targets, especially in the later levels.

I beat it years ago but I don't remember a helicopter?  Im about 60% done but what's getting tough is the Phantom missles work great in the air, but then you'll have difficulty in the 'ground' areas from all the rockets locking on and shooting you down. 

No one is wasting time and money following you for no reason other to play some meaningless noises that you can't record?  Yeah, go see a doctor.

10 minutes ago, scaryice said:

I get what you're saying, but there's no way you could've played it on release like that. And it also goes back to the whole code discussion. I think I've said before that it's fine to not play it.

You had to get the code from contacting the developer after beating it, correct?

Working on Ultimate Air Combat.  Probably gonna do a few missions a day.

Accidental double post

1 hour ago, nerdynebraskan said:

Thanks for the write-up. I was using walktrhoughs when I tried Rad Gravity a few years ago; I remember burning through the game up to the last level, and I'm pretty sure I had every upgrade available. Then I got to the last level, and I couldn't last 30 seconds. I beat my head against that proverbial wall for about an hour, got no better, and put the game down until someone else beat it.

I've been there, but with the passwords you totally could have chipped thru it!  Also the final boss battle is really interesting.  Its pretty challenging but you can get a rhythm to it once you find the right height. 

Actually I forgot to mention after I beat it, something happened and my character soft locked haha.  I had to use the communicator, and beat it again just to see the ending!

Ok finished Adventures of Rad Gravity.  @nerdynebraskan the most annoying levels are the last two.  The volcano level (luckily you can skip past a little part of it) and the final level.  Basically the final level there are areas that you're gonna get hit like 99% of the time.  I ended up being able to memorize and get thru the first 3 parts of the last level without getting too much damage.  At the VERY end before you fight the boss you can get the "white" armor.  The problem is you basically have to redo the last half of the level again but playing thru it again with white armor is MUCH easier and pretty much something you would need to fight the last boss.  The best part of it is, they give you a teleport/code for the last level boss, AND the final boss.  So at least they help you at the very end.  Also I'm sure if you got enough health upgrades, you can play pretty sloppy on the last level and get past it easy.  The problem is you need to use some platform thing and it takes away part of your life.  If you use it over some spikes, and get hit, you cant use it again properly to make jumps over walls so you have to start over.  So I'd say get used to how to use that platform thing, and memorize the first few parts of the last level and it shouldn't be too bad. 

1 hour ago, nerdynebraskan said:

I like that game, and would like to finish it someday. But man, I was surprised by how sharply the difficulty spiked on the last level.

Yes, WOW was I surprised!  I had a tough time with the Volcano level.  At the last one now and jeez its long and annoying.  I dunno how I did it before and I remember NOTHING about it.  It also has one of those "Where the hell do I go now?!" teleport mazes.  May take me another day depending how frustrated I get, but thank god for passwords.

Im at the end of Adventures of Rad Gravity.  Only a couple of levels left so I should be finished at some point today.

2 hours ago, McBryce said:

The Lone Ranger.

This would be a solid 8/10 if they gave you a couple lives or a checkpoint.

Its a pretty good game.  This was on my list but its been so long I don't really remember it, except it was pretty long and to only buy silver bullets IIRC.

Finished Dynatron City.  Again not too bad, just some hitbox weirdness.  I had to look up some help defeating the end 'super bosses' I got stuck on.  I lost all my members except Radium dog, which is pretty much the easiest way to defeat the final boss and it took one try.  Although I almost messed up because I didn't have much life left and when you attempt to use the 'supercharger' in the options menu, to engage it you have to hit "A" and not "Start", which is what I did and in the split second I realized to double checked I got punched haha.  But I made sure not to make the mistake again and beat the final boss. 

Quirky game that i'm sure if someone had as a kid they would have probably enjoyed, but not so much for a casual NES'er.  But I think its relatively fun and not a chore.  Id say the points for this one wasn't for difficulty but obscurity.

I've been chipping away at Defenders of Dynatron City.  Its a fun little game and relatively short, it's just the hit detection is rotten.  I got to the end of the final level right before fighing the boss and died.  Which is unfortunate because the boss in comparison is really easy.  I should take this down within 24 hrs.

9 hours ago, the_wizard_666 said:

Fun thing to note in Mutant Virus - the alarm only sounds on incomplete rooms, and the rooms only get threatened if you're not in them.  So when you're in the final room, the internal clock no longer matters.  Having little health in the final room is no issue at all, as long as it's a room where you can safely hold the viruses at bay.  Great job by the way...I've got 349 games on my personal list, and I count The Mutant Virus as the one I feel is the biggest completion on it.

Yeah, I remember trying to find if there was a pattern to them and I couldn't find anything.  Its after a set amount of time, but it varies and isn't strictly consistent.   The last room I did was probably the toughest one, so I had to angle myself just right since I had a CV pumping out bad virus near me.  I had put a CM over it but it wasn't one that moved in the same direction.  Plus you cant shoot the super gun thru it, so I only had one tile of space above and below it to wipe out the middle part.  I started on the far right where the other white blood cell things are and did that area easily.  In order to move to the other side I had to pass those proxy white blood cell things, so that means when I got close it shot out, and could potentially kill me.  I passed it and worked on the bottom of the room but got overwhelmed and almost died, so I had to stay to the right area which was mostly safe.  Since the middle area was still active and I only had 1 tile to shoot around, the virus would creep in on me, so it was still pretty dangerous.  I just had to be careful and take my time.  I would probably say that was the hardest room.  All the others just take a while but aren't too bad, and its while you're tackling those rooms that the other ones go haywire, so you'd have to leave, and take care of that, then something else goes etc.  I can get outta hand pretty quickly and if they're rooms far away from each other you can get unlucky there too.

2 hours ago, nerdynebraskan said:

Congrats to @guitarzombie for doing The Mutant Virus. That's a huge clear that boosted our odds of beating the whole catalog.

I may be within a few days of doing another run at RoboWarrior, but I'm curious if @TheGameDisplay may already be onto it. He last posted a few weeks ago with conquests in the R's.

I got too far to turn back haha.  It was nerve-wracking because after a few times dying stupidly on the last bit of level 4, I pushed thru to level 5 trying to get a feel for a strategy.  I realized the real enemy is time.  So instead of trying to figure out what CM bombs go with what room, I basically used them in the room they're found in, except for one room because its so easy.  After a few attempts, and dying with 2 rooms left etc, I got to the point where I had my super gun and CM running in the last room I needed with not a lot of life but one extra life needed.  Its a room where if you get too close to 2 areas, it shoots a white bloodcell thing that not only will kill you in one hit, but also add more virus to what you just cleaned.  I died, but had full life left.  I took a chance, did ok but then lost a LOT of life.  SO I had zero lives left and one blip of life left.  Since I had all the other rooms I had time on my side so I was INCREDIBLY careful and took my time.  I ended up doing it and I felt that excitement you only get by barely finishing a tough NES game. 

Now its up to someone to do Ikari Warriors

This comes with a celebratory end screen photo.  Remembering that last time I beat this, it was snowy and today we had a bunch of snow.  Glad I wrote a guide, and took me way longer than I was hoping... and now I have a headache...

Mutant Virus:

9 hours ago, Dr. Morbis said:

I find it really counter-intuitive to the concept of "completing" a game that you guys are all so perfectly fine with skipping large portions of games and then calling them beaten.  It makes me wonder about all of the games that mention in the manual how to choose your level before starting: by the rules of this project, I've listed all of the one-level-completions that I can think of that you guys should be totally fine with:

-Gyromite- select final phase on the menu screen and complete it and you've "beat the game."
-Wrecking Crew- select final stage on the menu screen and complete it and you've "beat the game."
-Ice Climber- select final mountain on the menu screen and complete it and you've "beat the game."
-Guerilla War- select second last stage on the menu screen and complete the final two levels and you've "beat the game."

There are probably a bunch more that I can't think of, but is this how you guys are actually "beating" these games every year for this project - skipping the entire games just because it says how to do it in the manual???  If so, I guess I'm living in a different world than the rest of you NES players, but that's okay; as Kurt said in '91, "Oh well, whatever, nevermind..."

Whats with the attitude?

1 hour ago, Khromak said:

Just beat bubble bobble (good ending). The boys treated me pretty well this time, and I even had to beat him twice because I couldn't figure out the stealing lives thing

I thought that I read that the developers put in the ABBA code for Ikari Warriors on purpose for people to actually find accidentally out of frustration.  I can't remember where but I know I didn't just make that up.

Finished Burai Fighter on easy.  Didn't take me that long but man that final boss takes a LOT of hits even on easy!

Since no one said anything, I'm gonna assume I can beat Burai Fighter on the easiest difficulty?

Wanted to ask what are the win conditions for Burai Fighter?  On the easiest you still play all the levels but only on the hardest "Ace" you see an ending.  Does it matter?