NES Completions thread 2021 - 665/677

[Gaia Gensouki | 1,073]

Just beat Werewolf: The Last Warrior. What an aggressively mediocre game with awfully janky controls. The fourth and fifth level were really cheap causing most of my deaths. There are constantly enemies that hit you out of nowhere just to throw you in a pit. And the final boss was incredibly difficult and took way too many hits to beat. I think it took me roughly 40 hits to beat him in his second form, while he could beat me in 10 hits. But whenever you were down to roughly one third or two fifth so of your HP you transform back into a human and are so weak that you can basically just sit there and let them kill you. So I had an almost perfect run for the first four and a half levels and then wasted all of my life on the final boss. Overall it took me many hours to beat this damned game. Anyway, it's typical Data East/Jaleco jank and I can't blame anyone for not tackling this game any sooner.

I'm seriously running out of games that I'm willing to play or that I can beat at all. I tried Crash 'n the Boys or that Capcom Olympic '92 or so, but I just can't tap the buttons quickly enough. Outside of caveman Games I can't beat any of these sports compilation games.

[Khromak | 768]

@Gaia Gensouki I just put Werewolf into my NES to play it. I've been putting it off for so long because it's awful. Kinda glad you took it tbh. I'm also in a similar situation with the remaining games, there's not much I think I can beat without pulling my hair out.

[nerdynebraskan | 356]

All-Pro Basketball is done.

I played through with the New York Slicks this time. Once again, I went undefeated. Once again, the end screen tells me I went 34-1. Bleh. But with Wash making good progress on Bases Loaded IV, that leaves the Second Season of Bases Loaded as the last time sink of a sports game needing to be tackled.

With this completion, I have edged past @BeaIank's 2016 championship score to clinch the 7th highest score in the history of this competition. I am still 20 points short of scoring 5,000 in my lifetime, but I'm not sure what I'll try next.

I even took a picture of the end screen with my new smartphone (...sigh), but I can't figure out how to get that picture from there to this forum.

Edited April 25, 2021 by nerdynebraskan

[Strikezone1 | 154]

16 hours ago, the_wizard_666 said:

*pokes head in*

*looks at list*

Hmmm...still not doing the entire library huh...

*walks out*

What’s missing? Are you looking for PAL/JP games to be included? Just curious.

[mbd39 | 2,020]

3 minutes ago, Strikezone1 said:

What’s missing? Are you looking for PAL/JP games to be included? Just curious.

I remember him quitting this thread when unlicensed games were no longer included.

[the_wizard_666 | 1,325]

1 minute ago, mbd39 said:

I remember him quitting this thread when unlicensed games were no longer included.

This.

[Strikezone1 | 154]

Nice takedown of Werewolf, @Gaia Gensouki! Tough game for sure. I can’t disagree that the controls and difficulty are frustrating. But it’s one of those game where once ya get the hang of it, it’s not too bad. I had figured out an almost sure-bet pattern against the final boss that lightened the frustration. The biggest headache for me was easily the waterfall stage.

[Strikezone1 | 154]

19 minutes ago, the_wizard_666 said:

This.

Gotcha.

Aren’t a majority of the unlicensed games pretty shitty though? Outside of a few decent at best Camerica games, and a few Tengen games that never got licensed?

[the_wizard_666 | 1,325]

1 hour ago, Strikezone1 said:

Gotcha.

Aren’t a majority of the unlicensed games pretty shitty though? Outside of a few decent at best Camerica games, and a few Tengen games that never got licensed?

There's around 20 Tengen games that are all at least decent, if not fantastic  Remember, they're basically Atari under a different name, and any games they didn't make were either Sega or Namco licenced properties.  And the Camerica (aka Codemasters, a company that's STILL making games) games were all at least playable, if not outright good...although they're all pretty tough games (I've played almost all of them, and have yet to beat one personally).  I also have beat 3/4 of the Color Dreams library and enjoyed every one...well, except Menace Beach.  AVE also had some decent games.  I honestly think it's just Action 52 that causes issues, but it's easy enough to remove that from the list.  And really, they were removed from contention AFTER the entire list was completed.  Like every unlicensed game was beaten within the year, and yet they got dropped.  That's when I lost interest.  So really, you're not beating the entire list of NES games unless you also include unlicensed games and the PAL exclusive titles.  Anything less is an incomplete list.  Hell, I'd even argue that homebrews should be on the list.  But what do I know, I just started the whole thing.  It's sad because Scary's been the best thing to happen to it, with his statistics and his dedication to the thread, something I could never manage myself, so in that regard he's been fantastic.  I just don't understand why he'd cut a hundred games off the list, especially after they'd already been done.  I'd gladly knock off as many unlicensed games as I could personally if that's what it took...hell, I did most of those Color Dreams games personally.  The real reason for the thread though was never to actually achieve the goal, it was to get people to dust off those unplayed carts that needed a bit of love and have people experience new games, rather than just playing the same handful of games on a regular basis. And if Action 52 is the reason for this happening, because of it's sheer brokenness, why do every other title have to be stricken?  There's already omissions due to redundancies (combo carts, reskins, etc), so why not take off one game (or two, because Cheetahmen II is also pretty damn broken) and let the rest fly.

TL/DR - I'm out until unlicensed and PAL are reinstated.  Maybe 2022...

[Khromak | 768]

Just finished mystery quest. My God, this game is savage. The controls are confusing but once you get the hang of them it's an alright platformer. The idea of making you loop 4 times to get the ending is asinine.

[Strikezone1 | 154]

@the_wizard_666 

I see your point about unlicensed. I personally don’t collect or have interest in unlicensed (outside of the half dozen Tengen carts I’ve had since the 90s) so needless to say I’m good with omitting them. But I at least see your point if they used to be in the list.

Homebrews seems like it might be tough. Aren’t there hundreds by now? Are the ROMs for all of them easily available for people who don’t have physical carts of them? I don’t follow homebrews much so I genuinely don’t know.

If anything I’d be for adding the few fully completed but cancelled games like California Raisins, Titan Warriors, Time Dover: Eon Man, Robocop vs Terminator, etc.

[the_wizard_666 | 1,325]

2 minutes ago, Strikezone1 said:

@the_wizard_666 

I see your point about unlicensed. I personally don’t collect or have interest in unlicensed (outside of the half dozen Tengen carts I’ve had since the 90s) so needless to say I’m good with omitting them. But I at least see your point if they used to be in the list.

Homebrews seems like it might be tough. Aren’t there hundreds by now? Are the ROMs for all of them easily available for people who don’t have physical carts of them? I don’t follow homebrews much so I genuinely don’t know.

If anything I’d be for adding the few fully completed but cancelled games like California Raisins, Titan Warriors, Time Dover: Eon Man, Robocop vs Terminator, etc.

And I understand that not everyone wants to play them, but that's kind of the point too.  I'm not the only one that likes playing them, I'm just the most vocal about it.  And yeah, they were there initially when I ran the show, as were the PAL releases.  Scary took over and dropped the unlicensed and PAL.  Okay, first year, that's cool.  That year the goal was accomplished.  The year after he put the unlicensed back in, and it was accomplished too.  Then he inexplicably removed them and added in PAL and a few random Famicom games (which imo made no sense, but whatever).  I never understood the logic of making the challenge EASIER after it was completed.

I do agree that homebrew is a huge can of worms, and the line really has to be drawn somewhere.  And with so many being limited releases, or flat out unavailable because the ROM hasn't been released, I would say that leaving them off, or only adding in the widely available ones that can be found easily, would do.  Having every NES Maker filler demo being part of the list wouldn't be a good solution, but having full games like the Battle Kid games, or the Candelabra games, I wouldn't mind seeing that happen. 

Also, I dig that idea.  Completed (or near-complete fully playable) cancelled games would be a neat addition.  I think with those (or the homebrew releases for that matter), the caveat that anything released after the start would not make the cut until the following year would be a necessary dividing line...I'd hate to have the list be done, and then all of a sudden a couple games get released in December and Scary has to drum up interest to scratch them off at the end of the year 

[nerdynebraskan | 356]

@the_wizard_666

I can understand your frustrations, especially as the original concept for this thread was your baby. And as someone who plays unlicensed games, imports, and prototypes I sometimes miss them in this competition, too. But we don't always get to choose the paths that our children will take.

It must also be pointed out that this challenge has taken on a life of its own. It has spawned imitators for other platforms, but this one has always seemed to enjoy the greatest level of participation on this forum and its predecessor. And that level of popularity has meant that it has drawn in a number of players who bring different motivations for participating:

-> There are definitely the folks who show up every January to play through their all-time favorites.

-> There are those like @Crabmaster2000and @Tablew/chairswho are legitimately out to beat every game in the catalog (or at least in its most famous North American set) and have played a disproportionate role in knocking out the really unpleasant and obscure stuff.

-> There are some like myself who do like the individual competition. Can I stay at the top of the leaderboard? Can I beat more games or earn more points than I did last year?

-> And there are the ones who see the reasonable yet ambitious challenge of three dozen nerds trying to collectively conquer the large and diverse library of the greatest console of all time within one calendar year.

Now, it's probably that last interpretation that is most disagreeable to you. And while some of us are motivated to explore the oddities of this console platform, others are more motivated by the prospects of achieving a quantifiable goal. Adding to what is already more than 650 games is already a way of stacking the deck against getting the job done. But when you start adding a bunch of stuff that fewer people played (and even fewer enjoy!), this thing can really start to become a drag for the completionists.

And the strict rules of this competition can make the unlicensed set even harder to complete, as evidenced by the fact that the forum only completed that subset in one of the three years where it was attempted. It doesn't just mean playing broken, mediocre games on the Action 52 or out of the Color Dreams family. It also means having to beat Camerica games on one credit, since almost none of the U.S. versions of those games offered continues. It's been argued that since they also built the Game Genie, they intentionally made their games outrageously hard with the expectation that consumers would have to break down and buy a Game Genie to play those games.

[Gloves | 11,776]

11 minutes ago, nerdynebraskan said:

@the_wizard_666

I can understand your frustrations, especially as the original concept for this thread was your baby. And as someone who plays unlicensed games, imports, and prototypes I sometimes miss them in this competition, too. But we don't always get to choose the paths that our children will take.

It must also be pointed out that this challenge has taken on a life of its own. It has spawned imitators for other platforms, but this one has always seemed to enjoy the greatest level of participation on this forum and its predecessor. And that level of popularity has meant that it has drawn in a number of players who bring different motivations for participating:

-> There are definitely the folks who show up every January to play through their all-time favorites.

-> There are those like @Crabmaster2000and @Tablew/chairswho are legitimately out to beat every game in the catalog (or at least in its most famous North American set) and have played a disproportionate role in knocking out the really unpleasant and obscure stuff.

-> There are some like myself who do like the individual competition. Can I stay at the top of the leaderboard? Can I beat more games or earn more points than I did last year?

-> And there are the ones who see the reasonable yet ambitious challenge of three dozen nerds trying to collectively conquer the large and diverse library of the greatest console of all time within one calendar year.

Now, it's probably that last interpretation that is most disagreeable to you. And while some of us are motivated to explore the oddities of this console platform, others are more motivated by the prospects of achieving a quantifiable goal. Adding to what is already more than 650 games is already a way of stacking the deck against getting the job done. But when you start adding a bunch of stuff that fewer people played (and even fewer enjoy!), this thing can really start to become a drag for the completionists.

And the strict rules of this competition can make the unlicensed set even harder to complete, as evidenced by the fact that the forum only completed that subset in one of the three years where it was attempted. It doesn't just mean playing broken, mediocre games on the Action 52 or out of the Color Dreams family. It also means having to beat Camerica games on one credit, since almost none of the U.S. versions of those games offered continues. It's been argued that since they also built the Game Genie, they intentionally made their games outrageously hard with the expectation that consumers would have to break down and buy a Game Genie to play those games.

Let's be real about one thing: the rules here really aren't very "strict" as you call them. 

Anyone can literally pop in and say "Game X is done" and they will be awarded the game, generally with little or no question. 

I'd not call that particularly strict, it's very honor system. 

[the_wizard_666 | 1,325]

Let's be real here  too - in two of the three years unlicensed games were in, I was the one running the show, and I would frequently be absent from NA for months at a time, which hampered interest.  It's why I handed it off to Scary in the first place.  The one year it was run with someone who kept up with the thread for an entire year was the one year it was actually accomplished.  So the argument that it was only achieved in one of three years is irrelevant, because the two years I ran it there wasn't a hell of a lot of interest due to my lack of maintenance.  Scary put them in once, and they were achieved once.  Why bury that accomplishment to make the list achievable when the achievement was already done.  And then the year the licensed list was pretty much completed in the first few months should've been a sign that maybe the amount of interest the thread brought in made what is essentially two completions a day a bit too easy to achieve.

[WashYourFace | 80]

On 4/16/2021 at 11:29 PM, WashYourFace said:

35 games down. They say that means I'm halfway. But half of zero is still zero. Half of infinity is still infinity.

50 games won now. For some time, I thought I was in hell, like Sisyphus in an eternity of useless effort and unending frustration. But then I thought, maybe this is some version of heaven, where nothing bad ever happens - which means nothing interesting ever happens. An eternity of blandness. But I think it must be purgatory. Neither heaven nor hell, earth nor afterlife. One day, I will finish this game, and I don't know where I will be then, but at least it won't be doing this.

[Khromak | 768]

Well since nobody asked, I'll give my $0.02 on the PAL/unlicensed games. I think everyone would agree we need to draw the line somewhere, do we include multicarts? PAL? Famicom? Homebrew? Hacks? Next obvious statement: everyone is entitled to a different opinion about where that line is drawn.

In my opinion with the current level of interest/participation, I don't think it's likely we'd finish a list including all PAL and unlicensed games.

My second opinion: I don't think that finishing the entire list necessarily has to be the goal. As @nerdynebraskan said, everyone has different goals. Personally, I use this contest the way it was intended (I think), which is to say it gives me a reason to beat games I would've otherwise never given the time of day. I'd like to complete the whole library at some point but it's probably not realistic as I'm not very good at vidyas and some genres just really don't appeal to me at all. At the end of the year I think it would be cool to say that me and a handful of my (internet) friends completed the entire library in a calendar year, but that's necessarily my highest priority.

Finally: if we want to put this whole thing to bed, someone could make a poll and ask the people actually playing the games what they want to include. In the interest of fairness, perhaps anyone with some arbitrary number of completions like 10 in the last 5 years or something gets a vote? Then it's binding and we update the list for next year?

[bronzeshield | 293]

It might be informative to remind ourselves of how the unlicensed list went down in 2016, since the stats are still available at GoCollect aka NintendoAge. Here's a breakdown of who did what:

Bea Iank
2016 unlicensed points: 166
Single-game carts beaten: 28
Compilation cart games beaten: Action 52 (5 games), Quattro Adventure (1 game)

nerdynebraskan
2016 unlicensed points: 102.33
Single-game carts beaten: 21
Compilation cart games beaten: Caltron (2 games)

bronzeshield
2016 unlicensed points: 65.92
Single-game carts beaten: 8
Compilation cart games beaten: Action 52 (24 games), Caltron (1 game), Quattro Arcade (1 game), Quattro Sports (1 game)

MaarioS
2016 unlicensed points: 55
Single-game carts beaten: 5
Compilation cart games beaten: Quattro Adventure (2 games), Quattro Arcade (2 games)

scaryice
2016 unlicensed points: 31.75
Single-game carts beaten: 5
Compilation cart games beaten: Action 52 (8 games), Caltron (3 games), Quattro Sports (1 game)

catfriedrice
2016 unlicensed points: 10
Single-game carts beaten: 1

the wizard 666
2016 unlicensed points: 10
Single-game carts beaten: 2.5 (3 split with Dr. Morbis, 1 solo)
 
acromite53
2016 unlicensed points: 9.25
Compilation cart games beaten: Action 52 (14 games), Quattro Sports (1 game)

Dr. Morbis
2016 unlicensed points: 8
Single-game carts beaten: 1.5 (3 split with the wizard 666)

tablew/chairs
2016 unlicensed points: 7.25
Compilation cart games beaten: Quattro Adventure (1 game), Quattro Arcade (1 game), Quattro Sports (1 game)

Ozzy 98
2016 unlicensed points: 6
Single-game carts beaten: 2

guitarzombie
2016 unlicensed points: 3
Single-game carts beaten: 1

WashYourFace
2016 unlicensed points: 1.5
Single-game carts beaten: 1
Compilation cart games beaten: Action 52 (1 game)

bimmy lee
2016 unlicensed points: 1
Single-game carts beaten: 1

Note that we were also joined by TheMexicanRunner in 2016, who accounted for a bunch of pain-in-the-ass licensed games that would otherwise have siphoned off some attention -- or, more likely, simply resulted in a failed year. His participation rejuvenated us, I think.

(Post #1 in the linked thread is truncated at game #440, so you can't see his specific contributions, but there were 33.)

 

[the_wizard_666 | 1,325]

@KhromakThat's actually a perfect idea.  Especially with how it goes.  Maybe even do the poll yearly, every December, so that new participants can weigh in, and people that have moved on no longer have their vote swaying the decision.  I'd honestly feel better personally about it if it was a community decision as opposed to the arbitrary decision of the guy running it.  And I'll even concede a "No Active Enterprises" option to eliminate the broken Action 52 and the similarly broken Cheetahmen II.  I just feel that there are a ton of quality unlicensed games that people forget about, because they mentally picture the worst of the worst.  Giving the participants a voice for the following year's inclusions is probably the perfect outcome.  And if the community voted against it, I'll probably rejoin, as again, it would be the decision of those who are actually playing as opposed to a one man ruling.

[Khromak | 768]

Not to derail the meta conversation, but I picked up Legacy of the Wizard today and I'm enjoying enough that I think I'm going to be finishing it in the next few days, unless some of the other characters or bosses are too obnoxious and make me give up

[nerdynebraskan | 356]

@Gloves

This thread may be run on the honors system, but that doesn't mean that the rules aren't strict.

The rules even irritated The Mexican Runner when he joined us in the 2016 edition, because he used a continue code to beat Kung Fu Heroes and his completion was disqualified. His rules are that he doesn't look stuff up online, so by finding that continue code on his own he was fine with using it. Our rule here is that cheat codes are only valid if they're given away in the game or printed in the inserts sold with the game.

Forbidding turbo controllers certainly makes shooters in particular more daunting for our aging collection of gamers. I remember looping Sqoon four or five times for the first year I beat it (2014?) because there is supposedly an alternate ending (which I never found), and I also remember the wicked case of tennis elbow I had at work the next day.

I happen to broadly agree with the rules as they have been made here, but I can still recognize that they disqualify the participation of many other gamers who are still enjoying these old games under slightly different terms.

[NESfiend | 1,515]

My two cents on unlicensed may be best of both worlds. Goal is still licensed only and do the count that way. Collectively thats the main goal. Keeping it a big milestone that isnt out of reach with current participation. 

But, still award points for unlicensed and keep a tab of who beat them in a separate section. Maybe award a chunk of points to the top 3-5 finishers additionally as a bonus. If this works and it gets to the point that it looks mildly achievable after a given year, reincorporate them in all the way 

@the_wizard_666, curious if youd be ok with that middle ground

Edited April 27, 2021 by NESfiend

[nerdynebraskan | 356]

@the_wizard_666

Your memory is faulty. We've actually included the unlicensed games in three years of the "Scary Era." And we only successfully cleared them in one of those three years, or once in five tries if we include your earlier challenges as well.

NAL = North American (NTSC-U) Licensed

NAU = North American Unlicensed

EL = European (PAL) Licensed

SF = Select Famicom Games

2012 - NAL only (Challenge completed on New Year's Eve)

2013 - NAL + NAU (Challenge failed)

2014 - NAL + NAU (Challenge failed)

2015 - NAL + EL (Challenge completed in mid-June; by far the fastest effort to date)

2016 - NAL + NAU + EL (Challenge completed in late December)

2017 - NAL + SF (Challenge failed)

2018 - NAL + SF (Challenge failed)

2019 - NAL only (Challenge failed)

2020 - NAL only (Challenge completed on Christmas)

Our forum's membership and level of activity aren't what they were five years ago. I would argue that we may have only cleared the list again last year (after three straight years of disappointment) because we had more time for gaming being holed up alone in our homes because of the pandemic. And that we seem to be on pace for clearing the list again this year because we're still in that mode.

If folks are down for adding other categories of 8-bit Nintendo to this challenge, I'm game. I contributed mightily on both Unlicensed games and Famicom exclusives when they were part of the competition, and I would've played some PAL games too if @BeaIank hadn't beaten them all in January. I've even beaten a couple of the prototypes. The Trekkie in me would definitely add Star Trek V to my now annual playthroughs of Star Trek: 25th Anniversary and Star Trek: The Next Generation.

[nerdynebraskan | 356]

And I just want to also give a shout-out to @WashYourFace once again. Not only are you playing one of the most tedious games left on the board, but your public journal of the experience has been really entertaining. Suffering really does create the best art, doesn't it?

[the_wizard_666 | 1,325]

2 hours ago, nerdynebraskan said:

@the_wizard_666

Your memory is faulty.

I blame concussions

Honestly, I'm not surprised.  And yeah, the last few years probably would've been rough with the whole NA going bye bye and all.  I'm just glad to see it still going strong after all these years.  I don't remember if it was two or three years that I ran it initially, but either way, it's over a decade and still going strong.