At the NA Campout last weekend, I beat Little Samson for the first time. Such a fun and awesome platformer. I also beat Contra Force and Double Dragon twice, but I've beaten those 2 games before. All three games were beaten on a power pak, for the record.
I ordered a new laptop this week which arrived yesterday, but it sat neglected because I was too busy beating Princess Tomato in the Salad Kingdom.
Basically the game is a point-and-click adventure without the point part of the equation. For each screen you have a list of commands you can use to observe and interact with your surroundings. It sounds kind of lame, but it was actually pretty fun.
The story is generic: rescue the princess, defeat the bad guy, save the kingdom, but the interesting twist was that every character (with one random exception) was some kind of anthropomorphic fruit or vegetable.
For each screen you check your surroundings, hit things, take and use items and talk to people. Sometimes you have to "fight" enemies, but it's not fighting in the traditional sense. You engage them in "Finger Wars" which is essentially Rock, Paper, Scissors with an added step to it. Sort of silly, but the real meat of the game is the interactions and figuring out what you need to do to advance. There are also a few 3D maze sections that you need to navigate through (like in Fester's Quest or Golgo 13). You will need to make a map for these because they are long and confusing (or if you're lazy you can probably look it up).
In essense, the gameplay is an easier version of that found in games like Deja Vu, Shadowgate and The Univited. Without the pointer you're left with a much more finite amount of possibilities in each room so you get through places much faster. Though, some actions do need to be repeated to get what you need so it can be tedious at times, but that could be said about all games in this genre.
I had a good time playing this game. The story plays out in amusing fashion and the length isn't too bad at all. At the very least, the characters are fun. If you like games like Shadowgate and Deja Vu, then give this one a run sometime. I don't think you'll be disappointed.
Finally took down The Immortal today after two weeks of grinding. Tough, tough game. I owe a lot to both YouTube and GameFAQs for helping me through this one.
The first half was quite a struggle, but I actually came to like it a lot towards the end. It'll be worth a replay at some point down the road.
One of the more difficult capcom 'kiddy' games probably.
I thought it sucked until I gave it a chance and found out you can upgrade your shit. It starts out hopelessly slow and the firing is slow, feels really gimped. After you upgrade that puppy it actually controls decent.
The original GB game was one of my all-time favorites, and I had always expected the sequel to be awesome, but it wasn't quite as good as the original. I think the controls are not quite as tight, and the larger displayed area alters the game dynamics slightly.
A lot easier than the original, IMO, but still a great game.
I beat Castlevania last week. I took Death with the cross because I died and lost the Holy Water. Today I beat Mega Man 6 and yesterday it was Ninja Gaiden II. I will probably play NG II again tomorrow.
That's the sexiest thing I've ever seen a woman type.
Over the past week, or so, I've beaten MM2, MM3, and MM4.
I tried to start with MM1, but got frustrated at a couple of points, so decided to get my chops back with one of my childhood favorites, MM2.
I'll probably pick up MM1 again tonight before beating 5 and 6.
Then I need to FINALLY beat 9
ETA: yesterday and today I beat 5 and 6. I would say that 6 had a few of the hardest levels in the series, and definitely had the most bosses that felt like they required energy tanks to beat.
5 was not hard at all. The 1-up drop rate was insanely high, and no levels really stuck out as difficult.
After many struggles and tribulations, beat Magician last night.
I chose this game because I literally knew nothing about it. I had no idea what type of game it was, what the graphics looked like, how it played and I'd never heard anyone talking about it. Turns out it's pretty solid and very unique.
A basic story of an evil wizard Abadon that needs to be defeated by you, the lowly apprentice leads you into one very intersting (and a little complicated) Action RPG.
Basically, you have no weapons in the traditional sense and you start off with nothing but bread, water and money. Throughout the game you need to monitor your health, hunger and thirst to keep alive and your mana level to keep you in the magic business.
There's four different types of magical attacks in the game Fire, Lightning, Physical and Ven (poison). You will gain multiple spells for each type and to keep from taking damage you can use magic to build up individual shields for each. There's also a slew of miscellaneous spells that help you along the way.
One of the most interesting things is the way you gain spells. You can either:
a) Find a scroll in a treasure chest b) Buy a scroll from a shop c) Input the name of the spell on your subscreen
The interesting part is, if you already know the name of a spell you can input it any time you like (at a small cost of mana), which means if you have a list of all the spells in the game, you can use them right from the beginning if you like. This leads into a very strange game mechanic: basically they expect you to miss things your first couple tries and end up having to restart the game from the beginning. Which is why learning the spell names comes in handy.
You can save your game, but only 15 times maximum. Which means you have to be careful with them.
As you go along you raise your max mana by completing certain tasks all the while using your magic to make your way to the Abadon's castle and eventually defeat him. My first time through I missed one thing. One lousy thing that kept me from reaching max levels. So I went back and started over and played much more efficiently this time and won out with the ultimate rank of Magician at the end.
Like many other Taxan games (ie GI Joe, 8 Eyes) this game has not one but three quests and there is no difference at all between the quests except for how difficult the enemies are. I ended up beating the first and the second quest fairly easily, but getting both annoyed and bored with the third so I called it quits.
All in all, it's definitely an interesting and enjoyable game. The graphics and music are both pretty solid and it's interesting enough to keep you playing, at least through one quest.
I found Magician also to be a unique and interesting game, but I quickly got bored with the constant "do-over" nature of the game, and my character's complete lack of stamina, so I pretty much gave up after the big forest level. It's one of those games where you really have to just plug away at it for hours and hours, and eventually win through trial and error. I'm getting older and my time and patience are much more limited. Had I played this as a kid, I would have schooled it.
In other news, I mucked my way through Bugs Bunny's Birthday Blow Out the other day, Snore.
I've given Magician a couple of tries, but never a serious run where I considered taking notes.
I find that I accidentally assault the local populace and get branded a murderer, making life far less convenient
Hahaha, that is a problem I ran into as well. I'd get a little trigger happy and then I'd get my ass handed to me. The biggest fix to this problem (among others) is realizing that you really don't need to kill very many enemies at all. In fact, in most situations unless you expressly have to kill the thing you'll do better just charging through and letting your shield absorb the damage. Otherwise you spend way more mana, food, water and health trying to fight.
Notes were key to my success as well. As I figured them out, I wrote down all the basic things to do in each stage and followed my instructions to victory.
------
In other news, last night I beat Kid Klown in Night Mayor World.
Though not a bad little platformer, I was a bit disappointed in this one. I've heard good things over the years and was expecting something more out of it. The controls are solid, but the game itself is very short. I beat it the first time I ever played it. It took well under two hours and I ended the game with something like 17-20 extra lives. Think Felix the Cat easy.
The graphics were a little subpar and the music completely forgettable. It also had a pretty crappy ending. Not Flinstones 2 crappy, but lame none-the-less. Honestly, I think I prefer a simple Congraturations screen over a super cheesy ending. I find the Engrish to be more enjoyable.
Overall, there is really nothing bad about this game, it's just kind of mediocre and not very exciting. If you play it, you'll probably like it, but it's not going to blow your socks off.
And yet another game goes down. After an insane weekend, I came home and finished off Gremilns 2: The New Batch.
I'd heard in the past that this is a pretty solid game, but I was very surprised by how good it actually was. The controls are very tight, the difficulty progression is great and the graphics are pretty incredible. The cut scenes were especially impressive.
Out of what I've played, I'd say this is easily the best movie adaptation on NES. It followed the movie reasonably well and all in all it was very fun. Granted, it's not very long and on the grand scheme of things it's fairly easy, but there's more than enough challenge to give you at least some trouble.
The past two nights I managed to beat Dragon Spirit: The New Legend and Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves.
First, let's talk about Dragon Spirit.
What a great game.
I really loved the idea of an intro stage that forces you to test out of easy mode. Basically, if you die in the intro stage you're forced to play as the Gold Dragon (easy mode with more life, stronger firepower and five levels instead of nine). If you live you play as the Blue Dragon and take on the game at full force.
I also really loved how you could get power ups to give your dragon more heads. Not only does it give you more fire power, but it looked friggin' badass having three heads while flying around and decimating anything that stands in your path.
Every level was intense and completely different than the last and the bosses were, for the most part, extremely cool. The controls were 100% perfect making every death your fault, no excuses. This wasn't the hardest shoot em up I've played, but it still had plenty of challenge, especially in the last stage.
This is a fantastic game and my only regret is that I didn't have this when I was a kid. I beat it on both Gold and Blue dragon mode and they end up having very different stories and resolutions.
Next up, we have Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves.
This was another really good game. When I was a kid, my little brother and I rented this one time and I recall getting to the part where you're escaping from Maid Marion's place and you have to get on a horse. We had the saddle, but no matter what, we couldn't figure out what to do with it. Turns out the answer is: while near the horses, choose the saddle and then click on "Use". Extremely obvious and easy to do ... kids are stupid.
Childhood dopishness aside, there's a ton to this game. There's somewhere around 20 different sections to complete, each with a different goal. Lots of party and item management. Tons of exploration. Normal fighting, melee fighting and dueling. Plus, sweet character interaction with pictures that actually look like people's faces (kind of).
I ended up mapping the entire game so I would know where all items and such were, but as luck would have it, only about half of that came in handy because I beat the game the first time I got past the boar hunt stage. Though, this game was good enough that it could definitely warrent another playthrough at some point.
My favorite part was when you finally approach the Sherrif of Nottingham and he says that stupid must run in your family to which Robin's reply is "Being dead is about to run in your family" to which the Sherrif's hilarious response was "Touche". Comedy gold.
Do yourself a favor, go play both of these games. They're fantastic.
The streak continues as I beat Panic Restaurant last night.
I'd never played this one before, but I know it's fairly popular among the people that have so I gave it a run.
The game definitely has a lot of charm. The sprites are amusing and the gameplay is solid. It's only six short levels long and has unlimited continues so this probably won't give most people much trouble. Without a doubt, it's worth a play through.
I'm thinking I might reach out to my PS1 tonight and finally break into the Metal Gear Solid series.
Since so many people complain this is the hardest game on the NES. After staying up about 3 hours later than I normally go to bed. I successfully completed Battletoads (one player game). This was after several stops and starts and situations where I was in the zone, only to be interrupted by a phone call or something else come back, and suck. I also had quite a few false starts where I'd get to a certain spot, loose to many lives, ruin my good momentum and start over.
This is an extremely good game. There's a sweet scene at the beginning which explains that basically you play as a witch, that happens to look a lot like Mega Man's other sister, fighting alien robots. You have six spells/attacks that you can use from the start of the game and it's up to you to save the Earth.
One thing about this game, it is mercilous. Each stage except the last is comprised of three sections and a boss. If you die, you go all the way back to the beginning of the section. If you die at the boss, you still go back to the beginning of the section. After you complete a level your power gets refilled, but NOT after you complete a section. Which means that if you plan on not dying then you better plan on almost never getting hit because you have a long way to go. Plus there's plenty of off screen traps that can instantly kill you if you're not ready for them.
Health is very sparse throughout the game and you start off with three lives. By the end of the game there's five one ups. There is no continues. So that's everything you have to work with. I promise you that you will not make it through this game your first time out.
There's a ton of trial and error involved in using your powers correctly to get through the stages unscathed. This is one of the best things about the game, in that you really need to know when to use the right weapon or you'll screw yourself hard. The broom is probably the most important weapon to master and once you realize that after you're riding it, you can still change weapons it becomes even more powerful though also more difficult to master.
The only problem I had with the controls was that sometimes if you're too close to a wall, you won't be able to jump properly and it can cause you damage. Other than that, the controls are amazingly tight, which they really need to be because you need to perform at a high level throughout the whole game if you want to beat this.
Also, you're strongest attack Fire takes away a significant portion of your health, which is fine, but it shoots automatically once the subscreen is closed so a bunch of times I accidentally handicapped myself by about 40% of my power when I chose it by accident.
The ending is a little weak, but from what I understand the Japanese version, Magical Doropie, has a lot more cutscenes and a fully fleshed out ending. I'm gonna have to look those up on youtube.
Still, fantastic game, impressively challenging and overall extremely well done. You definitely feel good once you finally beat this one.
A quick thanks to airlock78. I don't know how long this would have sat on my shelf if I hadn't noticed it in your 749 games video.
Comments
Today I beat Mega Man 6 and yesterday it was Ninja Gaiden II. I will probably play NG II again tomorrow.
Spam-raping Death with Holy Water was so satisfying. Take that for 7 years of pain.
I had the same feeling when I figured that out as well!!
Basically the game is a point-and-click adventure without the point part of the equation. For each screen you have a list of commands you can use to observe and interact with your surroundings. It sounds kind of lame, but it was actually pretty fun.
The story is generic: rescue the princess, defeat the bad guy, save the kingdom, but the interesting twist was that every character (with one random exception) was some kind of anthropomorphic fruit or vegetable.
For each screen you check your surroundings, hit things, take and use items and talk to people. Sometimes you have to "fight" enemies, but it's not fighting in the traditional sense. You engage them in "Finger Wars" which is essentially Rock, Paper, Scissors with an added step to it. Sort of silly, but the real meat of the game is the interactions and figuring out what you need to do to advance. There are also a few 3D maze sections that you need to navigate through (like in Fester's Quest or Golgo 13). You will need to make a map for these because they are long and confusing (or if you're lazy you can probably look it up).
In essense, the gameplay is an easier version of that found in games like Deja Vu, Shadowgate and The Univited. Without the pointer you're left with a much more finite amount of possibilities in each room so you get through places much faster. Though, some actions do need to be repeated to get what you need so it can be tedious at times, but that could be said about all games in this genre.
I had a good time playing this game. The story plays out in amusing fashion and the length isn't too bad at all. At the very least, the characters are fun. If you like games like Shadowgate and Deja Vu, then give this one a run sometime. I don't think you'll be disappointed.
That game is pure ear and eye candy. And the gameplay is superb.
As much as I enjoyed the game as a kid, for some reason i think I'd only ever gotten to the Mist area.
It's not a very long game, I think it took me 3 hours, or so, total, over the course of the afternoon.
The first half was quite a struggle, but I actually came to like it a lot towards the end. It'll be worth a replay at some point down the road.
One of the more difficult capcom 'kiddy' games probably.
I thought it sucked until I gave it a chance and found out you can upgrade your shit. It starts out hopelessly slow and the firing is slow, feels really gimped. After you upgrade that puppy it actually controls decent.
I love me some capcom games!
I always sucked this up bad as a kid. Its really not too hard.
Its more or less learning what lines are ok for which obstacles and what their hit detection radius is. Maybe I'll give paperboy 2 a try.
Cool game for the fact its a classic, and you get points for vandalizing shit!
Cool game for the fact its a classic, and you get points for vandalizing shit!
The ability to vandalize shit makes any game an instant classic!
The original GB game was one of my all-time favorites, and I had always expected the sequel to be awesome, but it wasn't quite as good as the original. I think the controls are not quite as tight, and the larger displayed area alters the game dynamics slightly.
A lot easier than the original, IMO, but still a great game.
I beat Castlevania last week. I took Death with the cross because I died and lost the Holy Water.
Today I beat Mega Man 6 and yesterday it was Ninja Gaiden II. I will probably play NG II again tomorrow.
That's the sexiest thing I've ever seen a woman type.
I tried to start with MM1, but got frustrated at a couple of points, so decided to get my chops back with one of my childhood favorites, MM2.
I'll probably pick up MM1 again tonight before beating 5 and 6.
Then I need to FINALLY beat 9
ETA: yesterday and today I beat 5 and 6. I would say that 6 had a few of the hardest levels in the series, and definitely had the most bosses that felt like they required energy tanks to beat.
5 was not hard at all. The 1-up drop rate was insanely high, and no levels really stuck out as difficult.
I chose this game because I literally knew nothing about it. I had no idea what type of game it was, what the graphics looked like, how it played and I'd never heard anyone talking about it. Turns out it's pretty solid and very unique.
A basic story of an evil wizard Abadon that needs to be defeated by you, the lowly apprentice leads you into one very intersting (and a little complicated) Action RPG.
Basically, you have no weapons in the traditional sense and you start off with nothing but bread, water and money. Throughout the game you need to monitor your health, hunger and thirst to keep alive and your mana level to keep you in the magic business.
There's four different types of magical attacks in the game Fire, Lightning, Physical and Ven (poison). You will gain multiple spells for each type and to keep from taking damage you can use magic to build up individual shields for each. There's also a slew of miscellaneous spells that help you along the way.
One of the most interesting things is the way you gain spells. You can either:
a) Find a scroll in a treasure chest
b) Buy a scroll from a shop
c) Input the name of the spell on your subscreen
The interesting part is, if you already know the name of a spell you can input it any time you like (at a small cost of mana), which means if you have a list of all the spells in the game, you can use them right from the beginning if you like. This leads into a very strange game mechanic: basically they expect you to miss things your first couple tries and end up having to restart the game from the beginning. Which is why learning the spell names comes in handy.
You can save your game, but only 15 times maximum. Which means you have to be careful with them.
As you go along you raise your max mana by completing certain tasks all the while using your magic to make your way to the Abadon's castle and eventually defeat him. My first time through I missed one thing. One lousy thing that kept me from reaching max levels. So I went back and started over and played much more efficiently this time and won out with the ultimate rank of Magician at the end.
Like many other Taxan games (ie GI Joe, 8 Eyes) this game has not one but three quests and there is no difference at all between the quests except for how difficult the enemies are. I ended up beating the first and the second quest fairly easily, but getting both annoyed and bored with the third so I called it quits.
All in all, it's definitely an interesting and enjoyable game. The graphics and music are both pretty solid and it's interesting enough to keep you playing, at least through one quest.
In other news, I mucked my way through Bugs Bunny's Birthday Blow Out the other day, Snore.
I find that I accidentally assault the local populace and get branded a murderer, making life far less convenient
I've given Magician a couple of tries, but never a serious run where I considered taking notes.
I find that I accidentally assault the local populace and get branded a murderer, making life far less convenient
Hahaha, that is a problem I ran into as well. I'd get a little trigger happy and then I'd get my ass handed to me. The biggest fix to this problem (among others) is realizing that you really don't need to kill very many enemies at all. In fact, in most situations unless you expressly have to kill the thing you'll do better just charging through and letting your shield absorb the damage. Otherwise you spend way more mana, food, water and health trying to fight.
Notes were key to my success as well. As I figured them out, I wrote down all the basic things to do in each stage and followed my instructions to victory.
------
In other news, last night I beat Kid Klown in Night Mayor World.
Though not a bad little platformer, I was a bit disappointed in this one. I've heard good things over the years and was expecting something more out of it. The controls are solid, but the game itself is very short. I beat it the first time I ever played it. It took well under two hours and I ended the game with something like 17-20 extra lives. Think Felix the Cat easy.
The graphics were a little subpar and the music completely forgettable. It also had a pretty crappy ending. Not Flinstones 2 crappy, but lame none-the-less. Honestly, I think I prefer a simple Congraturations screen over a super cheesy ending. I find the Engrish to be more enjoyable.
Overall, there is really nothing bad about this game, it's just kind of mediocre and not very exciting. If you play it, you'll probably like it, but it's not going to blow your socks off.
And yet another game goes down. After an insane weekend, I came home and finished off Gremilns 2: The New Batch.
I'd heard in the past that this is a pretty solid game, but I was very surprised by how good it actually was. The controls are very tight, the difficulty progression is great and the graphics are pretty incredible. The cut scenes were especially impressive.
Out of what I've played, I'd say this is easily the best movie adaptation on NES. It followed the movie reasonably well and all in all it was very fun. Granted, it's not very long and on the grand scheme of things it's fairly easy, but there's more than enough challenge to give you at least some trouble.
Check this one out.
Finished off another shoot 'em up game today. Gyruss! Was on my last life when I defeated the sun boss! Wohoo!
Fantastic work, dude. Gyruss is a great game and far from easy. I was pretty pumped when I beat it a few years back.
The past two nights I managed to beat Dragon Spirit: The New Legend and Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves.
First, let's talk about Dragon Spirit.
What a great game.
I really loved the idea of an intro stage that forces you to test out of easy mode. Basically, if you die in the intro stage you're forced to play as the Gold Dragon (easy mode with more life, stronger firepower and five levels instead of nine). If you live you play as the Blue Dragon and take on the game at full force.
I also really loved how you could get power ups to give your dragon more heads. Not only does it give you more fire power, but it looked friggin' badass having three heads while flying around and decimating anything that stands in your path.
Every level was intense and completely different than the last and the bosses were, for the most part, extremely cool. The controls were 100% perfect making every death your fault, no excuses. This wasn't the hardest shoot em up I've played, but it still had plenty of challenge, especially in the last stage.
This is a fantastic game and my only regret is that I didn't have this when I was a kid. I beat it on both Gold and Blue dragon mode and they end up having very different stories and resolutions.
Next up, we have Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves.
This was another really good game. When I was a kid, my little brother and I rented this one time and I recall getting to the part where you're escaping from Maid Marion's place and you have to get on a horse. We had the saddle, but no matter what, we couldn't figure out what to do with it. Turns out the answer is: while near the horses, choose the saddle and then click on "Use". Extremely obvious and easy to do ... kids are stupid.
Childhood dopishness aside, there's a ton to this game. There's somewhere around 20 different sections to complete, each with a different goal. Lots of party and item management. Tons of exploration. Normal fighting, melee fighting and dueling. Plus, sweet character interaction with pictures that actually look like people's faces (kind of).
I ended up mapping the entire game so I would know where all items and such were, but as luck would have it, only about half of that came in handy because I beat the game the first time I got past the boar hunt stage. Though, this game was good enough that it could definitely warrent another playthrough at some point.
My favorite part was when you finally approach the Sherrif of Nottingham and he says that stupid must run in your family to which Robin's reply is "Being dead is about to run in your family" to which the Sherrif's hilarious response was "Touche". Comedy gold.
Do yourself a favor, go play both of these games. They're fantastic.
The streak continues as I beat Panic Restaurant last night.
I'd never played this one before, but I know it's fairly popular among the people that have so I gave it a run.
The game definitely has a lot of charm. The sprites are amusing and the gameplay is solid. It's only six short levels long and has unlimited continues so this probably won't give most people much trouble. Without a doubt, it's worth a play through.
I'm thinking I might reach out to my PS1 tonight and finally break into the Metal Gear Solid series.
This is an extremely good game. There's a sweet scene at the beginning which explains that basically you play as a witch, that happens to look a lot like Mega Man's other sister, fighting alien robots. You have six spells/attacks that you can use from the start of the game and it's up to you to save the Earth.
One thing about this game, it is mercilous. Each stage except the last is comprised of three sections and a boss. If you die, you go all the way back to the beginning of the section. If you die at the boss, you still go back to the beginning of the section. After you complete a level your power gets refilled, but NOT after you complete a section. Which means that if you plan on not dying then you better plan on almost never getting hit because you have a long way to go. Plus there's plenty of off screen traps that can instantly kill you if you're not ready for them.
Health is very sparse throughout the game and you start off with three lives. By the end of the game there's five one ups. There is no continues. So that's everything you have to work with. I promise you that you will not make it through this game your first time out.
There's a ton of trial and error involved in using your powers correctly to get through the stages unscathed. This is one of the best things about the game, in that you really need to know when to use the right weapon or you'll screw yourself hard. The broom is probably the most important weapon to master and once you realize that after you're riding it, you can still change weapons it becomes even more powerful though also more difficult to master.
The only problem I had with the controls was that sometimes if you're too close to a wall, you won't be able to jump properly and it can cause you damage. Other than that, the controls are amazingly tight, which they really need to be because you need to perform at a high level throughout the whole game if you want to beat this.
Also, you're strongest attack Fire takes away a significant portion of your health, which is fine, but it shoots automatically once the subscreen is closed so a bunch of times I accidentally handicapped myself by about 40% of my power when I chose it by accident.
The ending is a little weak, but from what I understand the Japanese version, Magical Doropie, has a lot more cutscenes and a fully fleshed out ending. I'm gonna have to look those up on youtube.
Still, fantastic game, impressively challenging and overall extremely well done. You definitely feel good once you finally beat this one.
A quick thanks to airlock78. I don't know how long this would have sat on my shelf if I hadn't noticed it in your 749 games video.