Games Beaten 2016

[Sarge]

Playing games which pushed hardware like that ON the original hardware is so weird sometimes, especially more cost-prohibitive ones like Mega Man. Considering how well they run on the anthologies they've released since then, it's almost like a new level of difficulty playing them when everything runs so fast.

Like, when I got Metal Slug 2 on my MVS unit, that game was SO easy because of how badly everything slows down in later levels. To someone like me who was used to playing Metal Slug only through the Wii anthology, where everything runs SO fast, it was a cake walk! I guess there's no way for that kind of emulation to effectively emulate hardware-induced slowdown, but it's just something that's fun to notice nonetheless.

Emulation actually does a good job with the hardware slowdown, at least if it's one of the more accurate emulators. A lot of them do some hackery to get things working, and the behavior isn't quite in line with the actual system. I know something like Nestopia does a good job of capturing all the quirks, even the little glitch on the title screen and the weapon select menu of MM3.

A lot of the anthologies tend to play a little more fast and loose with the code, and let things run quicker than they actually should. Sometimes that's by choice, sometimes it's just because the dev decided it's "good enough".

Speaking of accurate emulation, I'm reminded of how SNES9x ran Super FX games far faster than the actual system. I believe it's because it doesn't honor the restriction on simultaneous reads and writes to memory, so it actually returns the data much faster. That gives a much faster frame rate. I remember looking for this because I was convinced that my copy of Stunt Race FX was somehow busted. No, it really was that slow.

That does get back to accuracy, though. Base level SNES (and NES) is quite accurate, especially with something like higan/bsnes, but apparently implementing a cycle-accurate SA-1 would take some significant computing resources... which is why the emulation authors take shortcuts in the first place.

[Sarge]

@MrPopo: Yeah, that's what I was thinking. There were tons of Robot Master fights that had significant slowdown in MM3. Some was probably because they threw too many projectiles on screen, but man, it can really screw around with your timing.

[Sarge]

January:

1) Bonk's Adventure (NES)
2) Little Samson
3) Holy Diver
4) Holy Diver (legit!)
5) Mitsume Ga Tooru
6) TMNT II: The Arcade Game (NES)
7) Mighty Final Fight
8] Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!!
9) Monster In My Pocket
10) Battle of Olympus
11) Gunstar Heroes (repeat)
12) Dragon Age: Inquisition
13) Dragon Age: Inquisition - Trespasser
14) Captain America and the Avengers (NES)
15) StarTropics
16) Double Dragon II: The Revenge (NES) (save states)
17) Double Dragon II: The Revenge (NES) (legit)
18) Crisis Force
19) Esper Dream 2
20) Felix the Cat
21) Moon Crystal
22) Panic Restaurant
23) Frankenstein (NES)
24) Crystalis
25) Nekketsu Kakutou Densetsu

February:

26) Killer Instinct (GB)
27) Mashin Hero Wataru Gaiden
28) Sly Spy (Arcade)
29) The Red Star (unreleased XBOX, also on PS2)
30) Adventure Island 4
31) Cocoron
32) Batman: Arkham Knight
33) Xeodrifter (Vita)
34) Doom 2
35) Brandish: The Dark Revenant
36) Magical Pop'n
37) The Ninja Warriors (SNES)
38) Phantasy Star (SMS)
39) Phantasy Star III
40) Super Smash Bros. for 3DS
41) Brandish: The Dark Revenant (Dela Mode)

March:

42) Freedom Planet (Milla, 82 lives lost)
43) Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis
44) Lara Croft Go
45) Oniken
46) Mario & Luigi: Paper Jam
47) Batman: The Video Game (GB)
48) Batman: The Video Game (NES)
49) Super Spy Hunter

April:

50) Mega Man 2
51) Mega Man 4
52) Mission: Impossible (NES)
53) Mega Man 6
54) Super Mario Bros. 3
55) Sword Master
56) DuckTales 2
57) Rush'n Attack (NES)
58) Mega Man 3
59) Mega Man 5
60) Mega Man
61) S.C.A.T. - Special Cybernetic Attack Team

More thoughts on the rest of the games:

So Mega Man 5 seems to catch a lot of flak these days. Although I notice that it waffles between that one and Mega Man 4. I think there's both fine games, although in some ways, MM5 is the easiest of the entire series. Well, barring MM2, but I've played it to death, even more than the rest. It might just be me.

Anyway, that power shot is awesome, although the size can be an issue from time to time with enemies that require more accuracy to place the shot. I'm actually surprised at how few regular shots some enemies take, though. I'm also surprised how much trouble I had this time with the (spoiler?) fake Proto Man. By trouble, I mean actually having to burn an energy tank. Anyway, I find that these days, I really play fast and loose, so there are times where I look like a savant, pulling off insane maneuvers and death-defying tricks... and then I do something completely boneheaded. Not unlike my Contra runs! Ah well.

So to finish it off (I mean, at this point, why not?), I played through the original Mega Man. And yes, I did beat it legit, without the select trick. If you know what to look for, the Rock Monster isn't nearly as bad as it seems, and it's really just the first iteration that is the toughest, since you don't get a good lead indicator of which piece is coming your way. However, if you keep in mind that you only have to dodge the ones on the floor and one level up from that, you'll have a much easier time of things. It's somewhat easier once you get past that. I did notice that despite how it might look, you've only got time for one shot per iteration.

Also, the clone gave me some issues as well. I always forget the tricks to take him out easily. Sometimes, I can just do it firing away with regular shots, but that actually can backfire if he starts cornering you. I finally figured out that a good stock of Elec Beam will get you through most of the fight. When you fire, the engine apparently can't handle having another shot on screen, so it's basically just you shooting, and it does two blocks per hit. Not too shabby.

The last boss gauntlet is sometimes an issue for me, but I breezed right through it this time. Got lucky at the end, Guts Man was crowding me, but just happened to jump backwards into my bomb. Thanks, RNG! Wily himself is actually kinda easy if you know the positioning tricks. Fire works beautifully for the first form, and the Cut Blade does wonders on the second, scoring multiple hits per toss. To avoid the stupid circling shot, you just need to be in front of him, not too close, but not that far, either. Probably a body length or so away. The shot will miss every time.

It's actually quite remarkable how fully-formed the series was, even at the outset. Despite a few rough spots, Mega Man is still one of the best action games on the system. It was probably a bit mind-blowing to get something of this quality that didn't have Nintendo's name attached at the time.

EDIT: Hmm... next we have Forgotten Wor... ahem, S.C.A.T. It apes quite a bit of Capcom's arcade shooter, and has a rather unfortunate acronym for a title. Contrary to it, though, the game is definitely not poop! I'm not sure I'd call it a classic, but it's solid. There's also some heavy Contra influence right at the end, and even some of the sound effects sound a lot like Konami's (seriously, pause the game, and tell me they didn't just slightly tweak Konami's NES pause tone).

The game's pretty tough, and I used a bit of save stating, but from what I can tell, it's unlimited continues, and you get six "lives" to start each stage, with the opportunity to pick up a refill usually toward the end of a stage to prep you for the boss. If you know where enemies are coming from, you can really leverage the multi-directional fire. I found the Wave shot to be most effective, with the Laser right behind, and the Bombs... well, they're powerful, but they're just too slow. Chance are, you're gonna die with them.

It's definitely one of those games I'd love to find legit. I'm pretty sure I haven't been able to find a copy yet... the memory gets fuzzy on these things some days.

[Exhuminator]

Nice job beating the yellow devil legit. I still haven't done that. I find all of MM1 easy up until that point.

So, after having recently beat all these NES Mega Man games, how would you rank them now, from greatest to least?

[PartridgeSenpai]

Star Fox Assault (GC)

What a game! Considering I didn't even know it existed until a week or so ago, I'm so glad that I found it in that resale shop, even if it was for about retail price.

The flying sections are all great, needless to say. I was at two minds about the on-foot sections at first, but once I played a level or two and died a couple times, I was cruising through them. The only issue I have control-wise is the land-master, which handles kind of weird, at least in the control-scheme I picked. Maybe if you play with just the control stick and not the c-stick it drives more managably.

The story was actually way more serious and dark than I was expecting, tbh. With all the campy voice acting to start, I really wasn't expecting things to get nearly as grim and bleak as they did.

Verdict: If you liked Star Fox or Star Fox 64, this one is at least worth a try. The on-foot stages might totally turn you off, which I'd understand, but I didn't find it a total deal-breaker, and came to even like them a fair bit :3

Now that I'm done with that (somewhat of a) third-person shooter, I kinda wanna play Metal Arms: Glitch in the System (which I happen to have on GC). Not sure though. Probably going to try and finish Vanquish first.

[Sarge]

Nice job beating the yellow devil legit. I still haven't done that. I find all of MM1 easy up until that point.

So, after having recently beat all these NES Mega Man games, how would you rank them now, from greatest to least?

Hmm... probably 2 > 3 > 5 > 6 > 4 > 1, although 4, 5, and 6 are very close to each other. And MM3 sneaks in very close to MM2 as well, although I really think it drops the ball with the Doc Robot fights. It's very nearly a game that would be better without them, or the stages entirely (even if there's nothing wrong with the stages themselves).

[Sarge]

January:

1) Bonk's Adventure (NES)
2) Little Samson
3) Holy Diver
4) Holy Diver (legit!)
5) Mitsume Ga Tooru
6) TMNT II: The Arcade Game (NES)
7) Mighty Final Fight
8] Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!!
9) Monster In My Pocket
10) Battle of Olympus
11) Gunstar Heroes (repeat)
12) Dragon Age: Inquisition
13) Dragon Age: Inquisition - Trespasser
14) Captain America and the Avengers (NES)
15) StarTropics
16) Double Dragon II: The Revenge (NES) (save states)
17) Double Dragon II: The Revenge (NES) (legit)
18) Crisis Force
19) Esper Dream 2
20) Felix the Cat
21) Moon Crystal
22) Panic Restaurant
23) Frankenstein (NES)
24) Crystalis
25) Nekketsu Kakutou Densetsu

February:

26) Killer Instinct (GB)
27) Mashin Hero Wataru Gaiden
28) Sly Spy (Arcade)
29) The Red Star (unreleased XBOX, also on PS2)
30) Adventure Island 4
31) Cocoron
32) Batman: Arkham Knight
33) Xeodrifter (Vita)
34) Doom 2
35) Brandish: The Dark Revenant
36) Magical Pop'n
37) The Ninja Warriors (SNES)
38) Phantasy Star (SMS)
39) Phantasy Star III
40) Super Smash Bros. for 3DS
41) Brandish: The Dark Revenant (Dela Mode)

March:

42) Freedom Planet (Milla, 82 lives lost)
43) Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis
44) Lara Croft Go
45) Oniken
46) Mario & Luigi: Paper Jam
47) Batman: The Video Game (GB)
48) Batman: The Video Game (NES)
49) Super Spy Hunter

April:

50) Mega Man 2
51) Mega Man 4
52) Mission: Impossible (NES)
53) Mega Man 6
54) Super Mario Bros. 3
55) Sword Master
56) DuckTales 2
57) Rush'n Attack (NES)
58) Mega Man 3
59) Mega Man 5
60) Mega Man
61) S.C.A.T. - Special Cybernetic Attack Team
62) TaleSpin (NES)
63) Double Dragon III (NES)
64) Donkey Kong (NES)
65) Astyanax (NES)

A passable NES Disney game from Capcom. I used some save-stating, but there's probably no reason to. I ended up with eleven lives at the end. The wrecking ball boss gave me the most issue, and knowing what I know now, I would have snagged a life upgrade earlier than I did, because the best defense in that fight is a good offense. And figuring out how to bait the wrecking ball while you're blasting away.

The only really neat feature I can think of is that you can flip the direction of your plane, so you can double back, Defender-style. If you're ascending or descending a shaft, then you just flip your firing direction.

EDIT: So, yeah, Double Dragon III. Man, this game is tough. Strange thing is, I was tearing right through until I hit the mummies at the end. That's the first time I used a restore state, and the thing is, I could have done something much easier to beat them... just jump kicks with Billy. Seriously, it's that easy. The last boss is another thing entirely, but I didn't have any issues winning that fight. I've played the game enough times to remember how that fight goes down, and how to take advantage of the AI and the timing for the Cyclone Kick. If you've got some nunchucks left, those will help, too.

Anyway, to be more detailed about the fight, what you have to do is get above or below her, just in front, but not directly in line. As she moves upwards, you have to wait until the last second to pull a spin kick, so she tries to cast a spell and you smack her with it. If you go too early, chances are she dodges. Sometimes, she'll disappear into a flaming snake pillar thing. That's why you don't want to be right on top of her. Anyway, she respawns with that, too, directly underneath. The only way to dodge it is to move diagonally. I'm not actually sure if Chin's got enough speed to actually avoid it when she comes back in, so he likely needs to jump out of the way somehow.

Chin is actually much better utilized in the stages. He's slow, but has more HP, and his normal combo of punches / eye gouges kills most enemies in one flurry. The ninja is fast, but not terribly powerful, but that can be useful, too. And he's another HP sponge. Once you get the helper characters, you typically want to abuse them and save Billy for the bosses. Gotta have that spin kick.

Really, despite its problems, this is the best version of Double Dragon III by far. We all know the arcade version is trash, and pretty much every version closely hews to it. The NES version does a lot different on account of not being a port; it was also actually developed by Technos Japan, so it doesn't suck like the rest.

EDIT 2: More stuff. I guess a loop through Donkey Kong on NES counts?

Also, Astyanax. Basically the NES version of Legendary Axe. There was an arcade version, too. Anyway, you've got a strength bar that fills up, and you hit harder when it's full. Intriguingly, you can get three different weapons, and I just assumed that the sword was the best since it was the most powerful. But looking things up, even though the spear is weak, it apparently reduces spell cost. Could have been useful, especially with that time-stop spell. It works everywhere, even bosses. Take that, Castlevania! (The kicker is that some bosses can also use it on you.)

The other annoying thing about the game is some very well-placed enemies that will send you flying down pits. And the respawn point is always at the beginning of the stage. Still, I don't think there are limited continues, so it's something that can eventually be hacked through. Judicious use of that time-stop spell will see you through, especially if you know there's not a major boss coming up. Typically there isn't for the X-1 stages, so if it helps you slide through the stages, use it!

[BoneSnapDeez]

I had been writing long-ass entries about games in a blog, but with two kids now I simply don't have the time or energy. Thus I return to my old stomping grounds: Games Beaten. List is short, as I've mostly been playing RPGs this year. Some quick thoughts....

1. Tenchi Sōzō (Super Famicom)
2. Eternal Senia (Steam)
3. Tombs & Treasure (NES)
4. Magic Knight Rayearth (Super Famicom)
5. Zelda no Densetsu: The Hyrule Fantasy (Famicom Disk System)
6. Zelda II: The Adventure of Link (NES)
7. Seiken Psycho Caliber: Majū no Mori Densetsu (Famicom Disk System)
8. Deep Dungeon: Madō Senki (Famicom Disk System)
9. Deep Dungeon II: Yūshi no Monshō (Famicom Disk System)
10. Suishō no Dragon (Famicom Disk System)
11. Dandy: Zeuon no Fukkatsu (Famicom Disk System)
12. Lagoon (SNES)
13. Contra (NES)

Tenchi Sōzō (Super Famicom)

Better known as Terranigma. This follow-up to Soul Blazer and Illusion of Gaia eschews the experimental nature of its predecessors and goes for a more straightforward action-RPG approach. And with great success, I might add. This is a phenomenal game. The graphics and art direction are some of the best ever seen in a video game. Music is on par with the SNES greats. And gameplay is fluid and invigorating. There are a few flaws. There's a town-building element, which is tedious as all hell. And the story falls apart at the end, to the point of absolute absurdity (like when you have to descend into the sewers of Japan to extract an African lion that decided to scare children wat). Nevertheless, this game stands alongside Secret of Mana, Ys Book I & II, and Exile as a 16-bit ARPG titan.

Eternal Senia (Steam)

A six-hour Ys-y game created in RPGMaker. Yes please. Pretty easy overall, but the surprisingly gut-wrenching story makes replays for multiple endings worthwhile.

Tombs & Treasure (NES)

Falcom's Shadowgate-like adventure. Never been wowed by this one. The menus are cluttered, the battle system is shoehorned in, and the story just isn't that compelling. Still, at an hour of playtime it's worth taking for a spin every few years.

Magic Knight Rayearth (Super Famicom)

Ah, my first fan translation discovered in my teenage years. An absurdly easy game, but fans of the anime will lap it up. Fantastic music too. Still, the Saturn installment outshines it in every way.

Zelda no Densetsu: The Hyrule Fantasy (Famicom Disk System)

Floppy Zelda. Basically identical to the NES "port" released in the States, but with some small additional load times and disk-flipping. And Pols Voice that can be defeated by the power of your voice!

Zelda II: The Adventure of Link (NES)

A sort of White Whale for me, as I have owned the NES cart for years and have just now completed it. Yes, it's rough around the edges and sometimes unfairly hard. But power-leveling can get you out of most sticky situations. Really great dungeon design (the straightforwardness is appreciated after the first game's labyrinths) and visuals/music are top-notch.

Seiken Psycho Caliber: Majū no Mori Densetsu (Famicom Disk System)

A Zelda rip-off by the same company that created the Zelda II rip-off The Battle of Olympus. Seiken Psycho Caliber is a terrible game. Controls are broken, bosses are nigh impossible, there's a godforsaken TIME LIMIT, and there's no direction to the game whatsoever. Supposedly the cryptic bullshit was included as some sort of anti-piracy measure - only those who purchased a retail copy had access to the hints (on cassette tape!). Avoid.

Deep Dungeon: Madō Senki (Famicom Disk System)

Wizardry: the baby version. This is a stripped-down dungeon crawler with combat menus even more simplistic than those found in Dragon Quest. Kinda cool to see such an old (1986) Japanese "WRPG" but the game completely lacks those elements that made its Western brethren so intriguing.

Deep Dungeon II: Yūshi no Monshō (Famicom Disk System)

The sequel improves on things in almost every way. Enemies are more varied, music isn't as grating, and the game world now consists of two (deep) dungeons. It's incredibly easy to break the game via status upgrades though. 50% of the way through the game I found myself virtually unstoppable and then just coasted.

Suishō no Dragon (Famicom Disk System)

An obscure old visual novel from Square! It's very simplistic, and only 20 minutes in length, but the gorgeous 80s anime still and animations make this one worthwhile.

Dandy: Zeuon no Fukkatsu (Famicom Disk System)

A strange little Japan-ized version of the original Atari Dandy dungeon crawler. This one plays out like Zelda, but with a super tiny Hydlide-esque game world. A neat little game if old ARPGs are your thang.

Lagoon (SNES)

An Ys-y ARPG originally on X68000 with incredible music but really questionable combat. Your mileage may vary here - I love the game but it's hugely unpopular generally speaking.

Contra (NES)

Pure ownage. Pinnacle of the run 'n' gun genre. "Objectively" one the best games ever made.

That's all for now. Soon I'll be hitting up the SUMMER CHALLENGE.

[MrPopo]

You jest, but Tokyo has a real problem with sewer lions. It's almost as bad as the alligators in NYC.

[REPO Man]

You jest, but Tokyo has a real problem with sewer lions. It's almost as bad as the alligators in NYC.

Alligators in the sewer? Do you also believe in The Candyman?