NES Completions thread 2021 - 665/677

[WashYourFace | 80]

Street Cop is done! That was exhausting. I'm old and out of shape. I won't be playing again until at least tomorrow night or Sunday, so if somebody wants to knock out any remaining Power Pad games, go for it!

[WashYourFace | 80]

49 minutes ago, Daniel_Doyce said:

I'm done with the first 8 missions of Conflict. It's a really frustrating game, since the battles (especially air) come down to random chance. It's like playing chess and making the right move and then having your piece randomly explode half the time.

Yep. That game pisses me off.

[scaryice | 582]

Adventure Island III finished. I haven't played part two in a while, but it seems like this one is a bit harder than that one. I dunno. Still not sure which one is the better game, either.

[Bearcat-Doug | 5,104]

Double Dare is done.

[nerdynebraskan | 345]

8 hours ago, Daniel_Doyce said:

I'm done with the first 8 missions of Conflict. It's a really frustrating game, since the battles (especially air) come down to random chance. It's like playing chess and making the right move and then having your piece randomly explode half the time.

I'm a little curious about your in-game strategy.

For me, Conflict is a game about finding and exploiting mismatches. It is very rare for me to engage an enemy fighter jet with anything other than anti-aircraft artillery. My fighters are for shooting down their bombers. My bombers versus their tanks. My tanks versus their anti-aircraft artillery. As long as you enter one of these fights at or near full health and ammo, these are all scenarios that can only end three ways: 1) I blow them to smithereens (most common, even if they're at full strength) 2) They escape the battle, but generally with only a shred of health left (semi-common) 3) They somehow score the lucky "pilot hit!" critical and instantly kill me (which I probably suffer one of per every 2-4 missions).

I believe mismatches were a strategic priority in the minds of the developers as well, as the game was originally sold with not only an instruction manual but also a unit chart. This chart not only identifies every unit in the game, but also ranked their relative strength (strong, even, weak, very weak) against other units in the game. Additionally, the CPU is very smart about taking mismatches that are offered to it. Your enemy will always find and take any opportunities in-range to send a bomber against your tank or a fighter jet against your air units.

Yeah, there are theoretically even matches (fighter jet vs fighter jet or anti-air artillery vs bomber) that might still seem attractive to an aggressive general. Since the initiator of combat generally fires first, you might think you have a good chance of victory if you engage in these kinds of match-ups. But I generally only take these fights out of desperation, because I have found the game's turn-based luck to be pretty sharply in the computer player's favor. So I usually only resort to even matches if I'm trying to finish off a wounded enemy or I'm afraid of the unit doing some kind of critical damage to my forces on their next turn (such as bombing an undefended factory or my flag tank).

And given the game's sharp handicap of "Fame Points" (FP) towards the CPU army, which are used to determine which kinds of reinforcements you can summon, you need to minimize your casualties. Getting a fighter jet blown up can pretty quickly reduce your reinforcement options to worthless infantry. Strangely, you don't "buy" reinforcements, since ordering their construction will never cost you FP. So I hope you're already in the habit of ordering an expensive unit in almost every round or situation. I will sometimes put infantry on top of a factory that I'm struggling to defend and expecting to be attacked by a powerful enemy unit, since their deaths have a minimal impact on my FP. But otherwise, you should be cranking out air units or armored vehicles at every opportunity.

Given that the CPU army is usually larger and stronger than yours, and will only become more powerful over the first few rounds since they have so many more FP than you do, you have to exploit the weaknesses in their AI to boost your odds of victory. Your opponent is obsessed with air superiority. You only need to have one air unit in your army, and the CPU has a 100% chance of building fighter jets or anti-aircraft artillery (since it also alternates 50/50 between its air and ground factories under most circumstances). The simplest, though often tedious, option is to concentrate defenses around your factories and be waiting for their fighter jets with anti-air artillery. Blast a few MiGs out of the sky, and soon they'll have 0 FP. Send a tank or two out front to clear out their anti-air artillery, and then bomb their factories and flag tank with bombers.

[Bearcat-Doug | 5,104]

Commando is done.

[Daniel_Doyce | 470]

4 hours ago, nerdynebraskan said:

I'm a little curious about your in-game strategy.

For me, Conflict is a game about finding and exploiting mismatches. It is very rare for me to engage an enemy fighter jet with anything other than anti-aircraft artillery. My fighters are for shooting down their bombers. My bombers versus their tanks. My tanks versus their anti-aircraft artillery. As long as you enter one of these fights at or near full health and ammo, these are all scenarios that can only end three ways: 1) I blow them to smithereens (most common, even if they're at full strength) 2) They escape the battle, but generally with only a shred of health left (semi-common) 3) They somehow score the lucky "pilot hit!" critical and instantly kill me (which I probably suffer one of per every 2-4 missions).

I believe mismatches were a strategic priority in the minds of the developers as well, as the game was originally sold with not only an instruction manual but also a unit chart. This chart not only identifies every unit in the game, but also ranked their relative strength (strong, even, weak, very weak) against other units in the game. Additionally, the CPU is very smart about taking mismatches that are offered to it. Your enemy will always find and take any opportunities in-range to send a bomber against your tank or a fighter jet against your air units.

Yeah, there are theoretically even matches (fighter jet vs fighter jet or anti-air artillery vs bomber) that might still seem attractive to an aggressive general. Since the initiator of combat generally fires first, you might think you have a good chance of victory if you engage in these kinds of match-ups. But I generally only take these fights out of desperation, because I have found the game's turn-based luck to be pretty sharply in the computer player's favor. So I usually only resort to even matches if I'm trying to finish off a wounded enemy or I'm afraid of the unit doing some kind of critical damage to my forces on their next turn (such as bombing an undefended factory or my flag tank).

And given the game's sharp handicap of "Fame Points" (FP) towards the CPU army, which are used to determine which kinds of reinforcements you can summon, you need to minimize your casualties. Getting a fighter jet blown up can pretty quickly reduce your reinforcement options to worthless infantry. Strangely, you don't "buy" reinforcements, since ordering their construction will never cost you FP. So I hope you're already in the habit of ordering an expensive unit in almost every round or situation. I will sometimes put infantry on top of a factory that I'm struggling to defend and expecting to be attacked by a powerful enemy unit, since their deaths have a minimal impact on my FP. But otherwise, you should be cranking out air units or armored vehicles at every opportunity.

Given that the CPU army is usually larger and stronger than yours, and will only become more powerful over the first few rounds since they have so many more FP than you do, you have to exploit the weaknesses in their AI to boost your odds of victory. Your opponent is obsessed with air superiority. You only need to have one air unit in your army, and the CPU has a 100% chance of building fighter jets or anti-aircraft artillery (since it also alternates 50/50 between its air and ground factories under most circumstances). The simplest, though often tedious, option is to concentrate defenses around your factories and be waiting for their fighter jets with anti-air artillery. Blast a few MiGs out of the sky, and soon they'll have 0 FP. Send a tank or two out front to clear out their anti-air artillery, and then bomb their factories and flag tank with bombers.

Yes, I am following this strategy. But it's hard to blast MIGs and SU27s out of the sky when they either shit all over your M247s or M48s on the battle first turn, or avoid all your missiles. Maybe I am just having bad luck with the RNG since I breezed through 6/8 rounds but struggled mightily with the other two until the computer actually allowed my anti-aircraft to take planes down.

 

[nerdynebraskan | 345]

4 minutes ago, Daniel_Doyce said:

Yes, I am following this strategy. But it's hard to blast MIGs and SU27s out of the sky when they either shit all over your M247s or M48s on the battle first turn, or avoid all your missiles. Maybe I am just having bad luck with the RNG since I breezed through 6/8 rounds but struggled mightily with the other two until the computer actually allowed my anti-aircraft to take planes down.

 

The walkthrough on GameFAQs was invaluable to me in understanding the game, but I liked the M247 more than that author did. Its ammo is infinite, and the machine gun can obliterate light ground units that come to destroy it as well as being decent against fighter jets. But its armor is pretty thin, making it vulnerable even to the crappy ground guns of an enemy fighter.

The M48's missiles are devastating against air units, but are very limited in number so you have to keep them close to a city tile for resupply. Still, if you have a full load of missiles you should be able to land at least one hit on an enemy fighter for at least 12 damage. If you are behind an enemy fighter and fire a missile, they will always use their best defensive move (CHAFF or JAM) to try to avoid it. That move has excellent odds for dodging, but forces the jet to have slower turn/reaction which reduces their odds of getting to counter-attack on the next round. If you fire your crappy guns at the enemy jet, they will often use a lesser defensive move like LOOP or ACCELERATE which will give them better odds of counter-attacking you the next round. In some of those instances, if you're still behind them and in range to attack you get to choose another attack before they can adjust their defensive posture. THUS, if you're low on ammo or otherwise afraid the jet is going to escape you, you can take the chance of firing your guns to put them on a medium defensive posture and then possibly catching them with their pants down for a missile strike on your second attack (if you get one).

BOOM. (The sound and animation of a MiG exploding is pretty satisfying, isn't it?)

[nerdynebraskan | 345]

Young Indiana Jones Chronicles is done.

[NESfiend | 1,514]

Jack Nicklaus greatest 18 is done. Some positives, but all outweighed by broken putting and a very slow and annoying load screen - before every single shot

[Strikezone1 | 154]

14 hours ago, scaryice said:

Adventure Island III finished. I haven't played part two in a while, but it seems like this one is a bit harder than that one. I dunno. Still not sure which one is the better game, either.

I think 3 is easier and much better than 2.

[NESfiend | 1,514]

Ive gotten started on goal 1. Took me a while to figure out scoring but I think I got it. Game time will be tough to come by for a few days, but Ill be chipping away

[scaryice | 582]

Well, why not do this one as well. Adventure Island II:

[scaryice | 582]

9 hours ago, Strikezone1 said:

I think 3 is easier and much better than 2.

I'd say that 3 is definitely the better game. I still think it's slightly harder as well. There are some parts of 2 that are harder, like the bosses flying away (ala SMB3) and the penguin enemies. The swimming stages are a lot harder too. But there's plenty of things are easier, like being able to scroll the screen backwards and most of the boss fights themselves. Seems like there's a bit of invulnerability after getting knocked off a dino as well. It's a close call.

I do wish 3 had an interesting final stage like 2 did. But overall, the extra dino/weapon/stages make 3 more fun to me.

[Red | 435]

On 1/18/2021 at 9:41 AM, Bearcat-Doug said:

I tried Dusty Diamond's last year, but I couldn't beat the Amazon team in the final game. It seemed like they would just crush home runs no matter what I did.

 

On 1/18/2021 at 4:43 PM, NESfiend said:

I got to the amazons last night and will play them tonight. Its all about knowing who the best pitchers are and hitting the corners of the plate. If you throw down the middle, they crush them. And if you dont have one of the games better pitchers, they will rip you up no matter how well you pitch. 

Although I never tried it on the Amazon team, there is a trick I discovered that could possibly get you unlimited runs in the game.  Every time you pause then unpause the game while you are at bat, the pitcher will move to a different position.   You can keep doing this until the pitcher is on the far left or far right of the mound (you want the pitcher on the same side as your batter).  If you do this, the pitcher will throw a ball or hit the batter almost every time.  I got my score into the 20s doing this before stopping (out of boredom, not because I couldn't keep going).

[Bearcat-Doug | 5,104]

44 minutes ago, Red said:

 

Although I never tried it on the Amazon team, there is a trick I discovered that could possibly get you unlimited runs in the game.  Every time you pause then unpause the game while you are at bat, the pitcher will move to a different position.   You can keep doing this until the pitcher is on the far left or far right of the mound (you want the pitcher on the same side as your batter).  If you do this, the pitcher will throw a ball or hit the batter almost every time.  I got my score into the 20s doing this before stopping (out of boredom, not because I couldn't keep going).

I'll have to give that a try against the Amazons and see if I can beat them that way.

[NESfiend | 1,514]

3 hours ago, Bearcat-Doug said:

I'll have to give that a try against the Amazons and see if I can beat them that way.

Its a cool glitch, but you can beat it legit. Pitch as mikey, then Josh. Paint the left corner. Dont leave anything over the middle of the plate. Youll get lots of ground outs and only need a run or two to get the W. Make sure your lineup is stacked and youve got the right guys in the right positions. Pm me if you try it and need advice on that

[nerdynebraskan | 345]

1 hour ago, NESfiend said:

Its a cool glitch, but you can beat it legit. Pitch as mikey, then Josh. Paint the left corner. Dont leave anything over the middle of the plate. Youll get lots of ground outs and only need a run or two to get the W. Make sure your lineup is stacked and youve got the right guys in the right positions. Pm me if you try it and need advice on that

Do you have other suggestions on building your roster? Dusty Diamond is in that respect similar to Legends of the Diamond, which I've made an annual habit of beating now. The hardest part of LotD is arguably building your roster from the available players at the start of the tournament, and I got to a point where I put that into writing in my personal document of tips on beating NES games just so I could remember that from year to year. LotD gives stats and notes on that roster-building screen that make it pretty obvious what the particular strengths of each player are. (I personally prefer to swing for the fences and so six of my eight position players have at least 490 career home runs.)

Unless they spell out the attributes of the players in Dusty Diamond in the manual, there's an awful lot of mystery in trying to figure out which players are really worth recruiting.

[Bearcat-Doug | 5,104]

3 minutes ago, nerdynebraskan said:

Do you have other suggestions on building your roster? Dusty Diamond is in that respect similar to Legends of the Diamond, which I've made an annual habit of beating now. The hardest part of LotD is arguably building your roster from the available players at the start of the tournament, and I got to a point where I put that into writing in my personal document of tips on beating NES games just so I could remember that from year to year. LotD gives stats and notes on that roster-building screen that make it pretty obvious what the particular strengths of each player are. (I personally prefer to swing for the fences and so six of my eight position players have at least 490 career home runs.)

Unless they spell out the attributes of the players in Dusty Diamond in the manual, there's an awful lot of mystery in trying to figure out which players are really worth recruiting.

I've had good luck using the lineup in this guide. They also give you info on each of the players.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/nes/587257-dusty-diamonds-all-star-softball/faqs/13527

Edited January 24, 2021 by Bearcat-Doug

[NESfiend | 1,514]

1 minute ago, nerdynebraskan said:

Do you have other suggestions on building your roster? Dusty Diamond is in that respect similar to Legends of the Diamond, which I've made an annual habit of beating now. The hardest part of LotD is arguably building your roster from the available players at the start of the tournament, and I got to a point where I put that into writing in my personal document of tips on beating NES games just so I could remember that from year to year. LotD gives stats and notes on that roster-building screen that make it pretty obvious what the particular strengths of each player are. (I personally prefer to swing for the fences and so six of my eight position players have at least 490 career home runs.)

Unless they spell out the attributes of the players in Dusty Diamond in the manual, there's an awful lot of mystery in trying to figure out which players are really worth recruiting.

There is a guide on gamefaqs that is a good start for a reference point. However, it has some bad info and overlooks a few good players. Ill pop the cart in and build my usual roster either tonight or tomorrow. Ill give you what I think is pretty close to ideal. 

A cool quirk to exploit is Josh's ability to run through a tagout. Works any base but first and only one time per pitcher. 

[Bearcat-Doug | 5,104]

1 hour ago, NESfiend said:

Its a cool glitch, but you can beat it legit. Pitch as mikey, then Josh. Paint the left corner. Dont leave anything over the middle of the plate. Youll get lots of ground outs and only need a run or two to get the W. Make sure your lineup is stacked and youve got the right guys in the right positions. Pm me if you try it and need advice on that

I probably just need to put the time in. One of these days, I need to give it another shot.

[nerdynebraskan | 345]

Princess Tomato is done.

[NESfiend | 1,514]

Got to the final match of Goal! (England) and got beat up. The difficulty definitely ramps up throughout the game and the peak is high. Really been enjoying it though. Difficulty is just right to make it exciting. I won or tied every game with scores of 2-1, 2-2, 1-1, 1-0 being most common. 

[NESfiend | 1,514]

Alright, here is a pretty damn good lineup for dusty. Diablo and Fuji are huge hitters who cant run well or do much in the field. 5 and 6 spots are perfect and they are both great at those positions in the field. Louis and Mikey hit well and have crazy speed, so perfect 1 and 2 and both great outfielders. Zelda is a great SS and can hit bombs when you hit the sweetspot on the wand. Otherwise, zelda grounds out a lot, so you could move down in the lineup if hitting is troublesome there. Either way, hes a great shortstop and good pitching yields a ton of grounders, so you want him/her out there. 

Flip is a great pitcher I use every game but the amazons. Ive beat the amazons primarily pitching with flip, but this time around I tried mikey and josh and found it easier. Flip is also a good hitter and is serviceable anywhere but the outfield. Froggy somehow works in center, but not left or right. Hits decently, but runs the bases so quick, every decent hit is extra bases. Slash is a big hitter who is serviceable at 3rd. Josh has the free base glitch, works great at 2nd, and hits pretty well. Also a stud pitcher, part of the theme here. 

Between flip, josh, mikey, and babe, team is stacked with great pitchers who can hit. 

Edited January 25, 2021 by NESfiend

[Strikezone1 | 154]

On 1/24/2021 at 3:03 AM, scaryice said:

I'd say that 3 is definitely the better game. I still think it's slightly harder as well. There are some parts of 2 that are harder, like the bosses flying away (ala SMB3) and the penguin enemies. The swimming stages are a lot harder too. But there's plenty of things are easier, like being able to scroll the screen backwards and most of the boss fights themselves. Seems like there's a bit of invulnerability after getting knocked off a dino as well. It's a close call.

I do wish 3 had an interesting final stage like 2 did. But overall, the extra dino/weapon/stages make 3 more fun to me.

See I thought 2 was quite a bit harder than 3. I actually consider AI2's difficulty reputation to be a bit underrated. Island 8 is a bear; most the stages are pretty tough I thought, especially the last stage. The diamonds in AI3 lighten it's difficulty quite a bit.