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1) Legendary Axe II (TG16) (6.0) (1/1) (2.5 hours)
2) The Magical Quest Starring Mickey Mouse (SNES) (7.5) (1/3) (1.5 hours)
3) Tiny Toon Adventures: Buster Busts Loose! (SNES) (6.5) (1/3) (2.5 hours)
4) The Adventures of Batman & Robin (SNES) (7.0) (1/4) (2.5 hours)
5) The Great Circus Mystery Starring Mickey & Minney (7.5) (1/6) (1.5 hours)
6) Phantom 2040 (SNES) (7.0) (1/9) (9 hours?)
7) Batman: Return of the Joker (NES) (8.0) (1/10) (0.5 hours)
8) Super Street Fighter II: The New Challengers (SNES) (8.0) (1/15) (0.5 hours)
9) F-Zero (SNES) (7.5) (1/16) (1 hour)
10) Star Fox (SNES) (7.0) (1/17) (1 hour)
11) Marvel Super Heroes in War of the Gems (SNES) (8.0) (1/17) (1 hour)
12) Saturday Night Slam Masters (SNES) (7.0) (1/20) (1 hour)
13) Shinobi (GG) (7.0) (1/22) (2 hours)
14) Iconoclasts (PC) (9.0) (1/27) (11 hours)
15) Final Fight 3 (SNES) (8.0) (2/3) (1.25 hours)

Forgot to update with this one. I've beaten it before as Guy, this time as Lucia. I need to try an Expert run, though; much like Konami, Capcom decided to taunt the player with a screen at the end saying to try the "next level". Not sure what it changes in the ending, though.

Lucia is pretty effective; very quick, decent range, and a great dashing attack. Don't like that rising kick (Guy's fireball is much more useful), but overall she's a good choice to take on the game. I also hate the penultimate boss; I have no idea why he gives me way more fits than the final boss.

Games Beaten in 2018 So Far - 18
* denotes a replay

January (16 Games Beaten)


February (2 Games Beaten)


18. Final Fantasy Legend - Game Boy - February 5



Final Fantasy Legend is actually the first game in the SaGa series and was simply given the Final Fantasy brand in North America to encourage sales. As it's the first RPG to be released on the original Game Boy, it's naturally a bit rough around the edges, but if you take that into account, there's a pretty decent little monochrome game to be found here.



The game's story revolves around a party of heroes' quest to ascend a massive tower to "paradise," but to do that, they need to find four sacred orbs to unseal four doors. The gameplay is largely standard for a JRPG, but the way parties and attacks are set up is a bit different. You can choose between a human character, a mutant character, or a monster character. Human characters only get attacks based on the weapons they have equipped, and they don't gain stats through combat; there are items that must be bought and used to raise each of the stats along with some stat boosts from equipped armor and weapons. Mutants can equip and use weapons and armor but also gain certain abilities as they level up in combat. Monsters have certain abilities based on what type of monster they are, and you can consume meat from defeated monsters to change your monster's type and move set. It's an interesting mechanic.



The visuals actually look pretty nice for such a relatively weak system. It's best enjoyed on something other than an actual original Game Boy in my opinion because of the ghosting on the screen, but regardless, its looks quite nice. The music is EXCEPTIONAL as well, but I'm a bit biased as I just generally love the Game Boy's sound chip. My only real gripes with the game are that the story isn't particularly interesting and, as a result, the game can start to drag in places; and the uneven difficulty curve. It's a fairly rough-around-the-edges game. The game's difficulty is pretty fair and reasonable in the first two worlds, but it spikes in the third world and spikes dramatically in the fourth world and endgame.



Final Fantasy Legend is definitely a rough game, and there are some serious quality of life issues, but for being the first on the system and almost 30 years old, it holds up surprisingly well. It looks nice and sounds great, and while the difficulty curve and balance leaves some to be desired, the gameplay is good enough that I think it's definitely worth a playthrough even if you end up getting frustrated and quitting partway through. Maybe emulate it to see if you like it, but if you're a fan of Square JRPGs, it's worth checking out.

Uncharted: Drake's Fortune for PS4 on Easy. Aside from a few minutes of the Vita games, I've only played the fourth game (came with my PS4). I liked its blend of action and adventure, not to mention its gorgeous visuals, but felt like there was so many plot details that make no sense to anyone who hasn't played the first few games.

So... when the Uncharted Collection was on sale back in December I snagged it and am so glad I did. Of course, I don't know how far into the second game I can go since after buying it, I deleted it and began redownloading it prior to my internet getting shut off. And while I was able to complete the first game, I don't know how much of the collection was downloaded. I think I'm around 55-65% done.

PresidentLeever wrote:FFL1 got a pretty nice fan translated remake for Wonderswan Color which also includes a bug fixed version of the GB original, it's about on par with the GBA FF remakes in terms of the visuals and interface.

But the bugs are part of the charm, like cheesing the last boss.

What was the cheese method, anyway? I don't remember taking him down any other way but the normal "spam my most powerful attacks" method.

The "Saw" weapon is an instant death weapon. The intent is for it to cause instant death on a target whose strength is lower than the user's. Due to a bug, they flipped the comparison sign, so it only works on targets whose strength is GREATER than the user's. Guess what sorts of stats the final boss has.

MrPopo wrote:The "Saw" weapon is an instant death weapon. The intent is for it to cause instant death on a target whose strength is lower than the user's. Due to a bug, they flipped the comparison sign, so it only works on targets whose strength is GREATER than the user's. Guess what sorts of stats the final boss has.

Haha, that's hilarious. Wish I'd known that back in the day.

Yeah, Popo told me about that....five minutes AFTER I finally beat the boss.

Pretty sure I read about the saw way back when in Nintendo Power's "Classified Information." A good trick indeed.

Markies' Games Beat List Of 2018!
*Denotes Replay For Completion*

1. The Granstream Saga (PS1)
2. Perfect Dark (N64)
*3. Lunar 2: Eternal Blue Complete (PS1)*
4. Prince of Persia: Warrior Within (XBOX)
5. Donkey Kong Country (SNES)



I beat Donkey Kong Country on the Super Nintendo Entertainment System this evening!

It took me a little while to actually want to buy Donkey Kong Country. At first, I was put off by the 3D sprites as it looked a bit off putting for me. I was never blown away initially by the graphics and it took a long time of praise for me to get interested in it. Even then, I wanted to play the Donkey Kong 'series', so I got Donkey Kong Classics on the NES first. Finally, after so many years of waiting and putting off, I finally decided to buy Donkey Kong Country and give this heralded classic a shot of my own.

One thing that is a classic and without a doubt the best feature of the game is the music. Donkey Kong Country's music is some of the best on the console and just an absolute delight to listen to. I have heard some of the tracks before, but the entire soundtrack is absolutely fabulous and worth playing just to hear it for yourself. To the game itself, I would say it plays fairly well. Donkey or Diddy never felt out of my control and the jumping is very tight. You always feel like you are in complete control of the character and that is normal very tight. Also, I must say that I love Kranky Kong as he is probably my favorite character. I love his quips and I relate to him more and more as the years go by.

I have learned over the years that Rare programmers are just mean. Capcom is known for being hard, but at least they are fair. I don't think Rare is fair at all. The first half of the game is fairly doable and not too bad. The second half is quite brutal with stages going on forever, infrequent save points and have to redo bosses over and over again after continuing. Enemies are placed in areas just to be mean and they take every opportunity to screw you over. And for me, the graphics hurt more than they helped. It was hard sometimes on where to go, the end of platforms and the hitboxes of me and my enemies.

Overall, Donkey Kong Country is tight controlling game with some of the best music on the system. The water level music alone makes this game worth owning. It plays well and it has such a nice flow to it that you don't find in most platform games of that era. Be prepared for some brutal platforming and frustrating level design in the end. But, much like most of Rare games, it is painful, frustrating and annoying with some good controls and some awesome music!