Summer Games Challenge 2015

[BoneSnapDeez]

Not a game on my list, but I gave it shot last night.......

Damn Kaboom! is hard!

[darsparx]

Playing some more DKC since I can at least take that one on the go, and man I stink at the Monkey mines Bouncy Bonanza level I used to think mine cart carnage was hard(still is but mostly because of timing) but man my timing is even worse in this game especially when using the tires to bounce across. I've gotten past this part before but dang won't be doing it this time(and apparently won't be getting the Candy's Dance studio bonuses either with the way this is going )

[Ack]

1. Final Fantasy V
2. System Shock 2
3. Descent
4. Ultima
5. Loom
6. 7th Guest
7. Mortal Kombat 2
8. Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis
9. Super Mario Bros. 2: The Lost Levels
10. Castlevania: Dracula X

One more down. I'll post my thoughts in the Games Beaten thread tomorrow. Right now I'm just glad to be done with Final Fantasy V and knock it off both my Summer Challenge and my backlog.

[MrPopo]

What's next? I recommend Descent if you've got a strong constitution.

[Ack]

Not sure. Still holding off on MK2 until July...which means I have some time to kill. I may take a break for a few days and do some writing or something to switch things up.

This is the farthest I have ever gotten in my summer challenge, so I'm feeling pretty good, but a bit worn out.

[darsparx]

Playing some more DKC since I can at least take that one on the go, and man I stink at the Monkey mines Bouncy Bonanza level I used to think mine cart carnage was hard(still is but mostly because of timing) but man my timing is even worse in this game especially when using the tires to bounce across. I've gotten past this part before but dang won't be doing it this time(and apparently won't be getting the Candy's Dance studio bonuses either with the way this is going )

Yeah bad judgement on my part, on millstone mayhem now, I think about halfway now, though the dang sp is weirding me out doing this blinking red and maybe staying it for a second or two then going back green...weird(and I've still never looked this up even though I've seen it before on another sp wonder if the battery is loose or something...)

[MrPopo]

Not sure. Still holding off on MK2 until July...which means I have some time to kill. I may take a break for a few days and do some writing or something to switch things up.

This is the farthest I have ever gotten in my summer challenge, so I'm feeling pretty good, but a bit worn out.

Then I'd say either take the break or do Indiana Jones. Descent and Lost Levels are both the kinds of games that like to kick your ass, so if you're worn out they wouldn't be good.

[CFFJR]

Two more down.

1.Mega Turrican
2.Strider - Complete
3.Vectorman - Complete
4.Earthworm Jim - Complete
5.Ghouls 'N Ghosts - Complete
6.Toejam & Earl - Complete
7.Phantasy Star 4
8.Alien Soldier
9.The Revenge of Shinobi
10.Flashback: The Quest for Identity

A couple of whales from childhood too.

Vectorman is a very pretty game, and great fun as shooters go. Some of the backgrounds repeat with a different color scheme, which is kind of a shame, but the different looks are still nice. One of them, Nightscape, is particularly cool. Its a night time level featuring a thunderstorm, with occasional lightning strikes silhouetting your character.

The game forces you to beat it in one go, as you can earn lives but there are absolutely no continues. That's not too tough to do at all though. This was probably my worst run yet, but I still managed to recover fairly easily. I'm really surprised that I never came close to beating this game as a kid.

Toejam & Earl was played on Random, as it probably should be. It took a few attempts, and the game can occasionally be very frustrating with enemies that can quickly hit in succession fast enough to ruin you. I played co-op with my girlfriend, and at one point she was swamped by three boogeymen at once (which disappear and appear, sometimes right on top of you) and went from full health to dead in just a couple of seconds.

Aside from that annoyance though, its a fun challenge, and definitely more entertaining together than my attempts to play it alone. Unfortunately she ended with a game over when we had 8 out of 10 ship parts, but thankfully the next two levels contained the last two parts, and I managed to carry on and finish.

Love that funky music too.

I've also been working on Mega Turrican here and there, and my progress is up and down depending on the day. I made it to a train level tonight, which requires some tighter jump timing than it seems at first glance. I lost a lot of lives very quickly, and continuing dropped me back to the previous level, so I stopped. Too irritated to play any more.

[alienjesus]

1. Fire Emblem: Ankoku Ryuu To Hikaru No Ken (Famicom)
2. Super Aleste (SNES)
3. Banjo-Tooie (N64)
4. Saturn Bomberman (Saturn)
5. Shenmue (Dreamcast)
6. Final Fantasy VIII (PS1)
7. Metroid: Zero Mission (GBA)
8. Shinobi (Game Gear)
9. Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater (Vita)
10. The Curse of Monkey Island (PC)

So I started my Summer Challenge with Final Fantasy VIII, played it pretty much exclusively, and planned to beat it first to take out the longest game as soon as possible.


So naturally, the first game I finished was Metroid: Zero Mission! I was away from home for the weekend, so I took my GBA with me and blasted through this game in a few hours. I finished with 55% completion in 2 hours and 57 minutes. I've played the original Metroid before, but this is a pretty great way to experience the game. It has a different feel to the NES game - slightly less atmospheric perhaps, but I put that down to the bright colour palette that I'm guessing was used to make things appear distinct on the original GBA screen.

The new section at the end where you play as Zero Suit Samus was pretty cool. It was certainly very tense - running for your life from basic space pirates was an interesting experience and I love how on edge the whole sequence made you. It was very reminiscent of the SA-X from Metroid Fusion.

I'll post some more comprehensive thoughts in the Games Beaten thread later!

I'm away for the weekend this weekend too, at a music festival. I might try and take out Saturn Bomberman over the next few days so I've at least taken out more than 1 game on my list before the end of June.

[Exhuminator]

One tale of many from my (mis)adventures in King's Field II...


The Termite Queen:

I was lost in a winding subterranean pathway somewhere near Central Village. I'd just spoken with a distraught woman concerning her son's disappearance. Ruminating over that I came upon a dead end, with a bit of writing scrawled on the far wall. Approaching the inscription, suddenly the floor gave way beneath me. Slamming to the earthen floor below, I was surprised to hear the screeching sound of a nearby monster. Turning around, before me stood a huge termite the size of a dog. Before I could swing my axe in its general direction, it was already upon me. Its giant pinchers nipped my leg and suddenly I was paralyzed, a stunning poison that made me spin in circles, unable to control my body. Worse yet, the termite was now munching down on me, draining my life away as I spun helplessly. Life faded, and death came. That all too familiar scream of despair, and everything went black.

Reloading my last save, I made my way back to the dead end. This time I sprinted, allowing myself to jump over the trap door. Now I could read the description. It said: "Beware, termites below!" Oh From Software, you cheeky bastards. But this time I was ready as I purposefully fell through said trapdoor. Landing hard, I sprung into action, swinging my axe into the termite's eyes. It yelped in pain, stunned, allowing me to circle strafe behind it, and I laid into its abdomen mercilessly with wild axe swings. The beast perished, leaving behind a bit of gold. What now lay before me was a dark dirt tunnel leading into darkness. I could hear the screeches of termites all around me. I wearily drew forward into the darkness.

Following the winding passage, it wasn't long before it emerged into a large room. This room had dark passageways opening into it from all directions. The bones of other unfortunate souls lay scattered about my feet. It was not long before termites began to pour into this room from the various portals about. I fought my way past a few of them, and began exploring the dank tunnels from whence they came. Within one portal I found a strange yellow tree going, with some sort of fruit I could not reach, nor shoot down with my bow. In another tunnel, I found a hole that fell deep into a watery cavern, I could see vicious fish swimming within below. I continued onward, and eventually after killing many termites, I reached another large room. And even from a considerable distance away, I knew something was very dangerous in it. The tips of pinchers the size of small cars were a dead giveaway.

I entered the room, and it was indeed a huge termite. The termite queen! As I stood in front of her, I could see a helpless child huddled in a corner far past where the queen stood. It must have been the mother's son! I stood to the side of the queen and swung viciously, she howled in pain as my axe caught her face. But then her little termite minions began to pour into the room, and I had to retreat to a nearby archway. This caused the termites to funnel one by one in my direction, allowing me to take them on one at a time. And so the battle went, I'd kill off four termites, run to the queen, strike her, more termites would show up, I'd retreat, kill them, and rinse repeat. Using this method I slowly but surely killed the queen. I rescued the lost boy, and in return he gave me a strange "Pirate's Key" he found on the shores of the island.

I left him to his own devices and began to work my way back out of the termite nest and its maze of tunnels. Eventually I came across the hole with the water and fish again. Feeling sporty, I decided to jump in it. Hoping to find a secret passage that lead outward to the shores of the island (considering there was ocean water and fish down there). I jumped in, landed with a splash, and proceeded to wade through the knee deep water, axing dangerous fish to death. Low and behold in the center of this watery cavern appeared a floating blue crystal. I quickly grabbed it, and used it, and thus released a new magic spell... the dis-poison water magic. Well, that would have been nice to have before I fought the poisonous termites. Anyway, magic gained, now it was time to get out of this watery recess. And that's when I realized... I was... trapped.

Yep. Trapped.

I frantically scoured the walls to no avail. No hidden passages lay in wait. I slammed my axe against every rock... nothing crumbled. I was utterly stuck. Doomed to starve to death in a shallow stoney grave of seawater and regret. I couldn't dare think of having to reload my game and do the whole termite fiasco over again. So I did the unthinkable, I checked a walkthrough (I hate doing that). Turns out the only way out of this damned hole was to use the Stargate and Starkey. Items I had found, but had no idea what they did. The walkthrough let me know you're supposed to leave the Starkey at a save point, and then use the Stargate to warp back to it. This costs 10 points of magic though, which I did not have. As gaining magic points back in King's Field II is not a breezy acquisition (so far).

Resigned to my fate, I let out a forlorn sigh, and reloaded my save game. That's the cost of playing King's Field II. If you can't handle the game at its worst, then you don't deserve it at its best. Patience and dire determination are the only keys to success here.

So, I killed the termite queen again, saved the kid, got the Pirate's Key... and this time I chose to avoid the water hole. But it wasn't long before I realized there was no way out of the termite nest. Frantically I spent thirty minutes desperately searching every dirt tunnel and earthen recess for an exit. Nothing, nowhere. Once again, I needed the Stargate to leave. Now, when I had reloaded last time, I left the Starkey at the save point... but I had no magic! I had no magic points to use the Stargate. In utter despair I wandered the nest hoping against hope to find a hidden exit. Finally I ended up in the tunnel with the old yellow tree once again. And that's when I noticed the strange fruit was no longer on the branch. It was lying on the ground. Indeed this was no ordinary fruit.

It was a Dragon Fruit. Holy shit man! Dragon Fruits restore all of your magic.

Do you know what that means?! It means that From Software planned all of this all along. They knew the only way to get out of the nest was to use your magic Stargate, which needed magic points. They knew you'd probably be out of magic points by now. And they programmed that very yellow tree to drop its fruit only after you killed the termite queen. THEY PLANNED THIS ALL ALONG. My mind was blown.

Amazed at From Software's foresight, I grabbed the fruit, ran back to the water hole, fell in, killed the fish, got the magic crystal, learned the new spell, and used my Stargate to warp back to the Starkey at the save point. I saved my game. And thus ended my turmoils in the termite nest! With her son returned, the mother would now allow me to proceed through the tunnel she was blocking, and a huge new part of the island became accessible.

My axe at the ready, I soldiered on into the unknown darkness once again.

So yeah, that one adventure there is what King's Field games are made of, chock full of really. These games are in a class unto themselves, and for the true adventurer, they are amazing and terrible experiences not to be missed.