Games Beaten In 2020.

[digdugnate]

Another one in the venerable Alpha/Zero series-

 

Street Fighter Alpha 2 (Ken) (Arcade)

 

SFA2 in a lot of ways is a really good improvement over SFA.  More characters, more varied stages, just more all around.    It seems like it controls smoother to me, but that could just be in my head.

[Steven Pendleton]

I've been focusing on Fire Emblem and Death Stranding, but I've had enough time to finish Sonic 2 on the Mega Drive Mini. I have lost track of how many times I've played it, but this was the first time I played beyond Emerald Hill act 1. I know I always say the thing is crap, but the input lag isn't super terrible after you get used to it (not that you should have to) and some games are worse than others and some feel perfectly fine, so it's encouraged me to give the system a second chance.

 

I started/finished PC Genjin just now and I don't really like this game much at all. It's just boring to play and I wasn't actually able to find a way to damage the last boss without taking damage for some reason. After the last boss killed me 6 times, I somehow got lucky and killed him when I had no lives left and only 1 hit before I would have gotten a game over.

[Steven Pendleton]

And I just beat another one on the Mega Drive Mini: Slap Fight MD! I don't think I have ever beaten a shooting game before, and I did it in the Special mode and I even did it with Toaplan mode on. This game is really awesome and has great music, but it can be frustrating if you die because the default speed is so slow that you have no chance and just have to keep trying with the unlimited continues. The first half of the game is really easy, but then the second half becomes considerably more difficult.

 

There are only 5000 copies of this game in the whole world, but if you have the cash and you can find it, it's definitely one to pick up or at least try it if you can!

[+thegoldenband]

20. 4-in-1 Funpak: Volume II (Game Boy)

 

It offers solitare, cribbage, dominoes, and "Yacht" (i.e. Yahtzee), and I suppose it does so competently. But if I was able to beat all 4 games in just over 30 minutes, despite not really remembering the rules to cribbage or dominoes, how good can it actually be? C-.

 

21. Fist of the North Star (NES)

 

Pretty much the epitome of early NES/Famicom jank. At least it's sort of playable, and has an iota of goofy charm, but when a game's brokenness is its strongest asset, you're in trouble.  D.

 

22. Takeshi no Chousenjou (NES)

 

In this case, it's intentional jank -- a kind of anti-game from a comedian who hated video games, and wanted to parody many of the same Famicom tropes that Fist of the North Star epitomizes.

 

(In fact the game itself is almost like a cross between Fist of the North Star and two Master System games that came later, ALF and Alex Kidd in High-Tech World. The resemblance to ALF in particular is sometimes acute.)

 

But the gameplay itself is little more than an obstacle, and -- if the fan translation patch is reasonably accurate -- the game's humor is more conceptual than actually-funny. The game's hangglider shmup stage is its sole attempt to be an actual game, but when your bullets repeatedly (and maddeningly) go right through your enemies, no meta-joke can save proceedings.

 

At least it's got a password system. Oh, and the trick to the karaoke scene: pick the children's song, and hold A (on Controller II) for 1.5 measures. Works every time, which is good since nothing else did. D-.

 

23. Escape from Atlantis (NES)

 

The trifecta of jank is complete, since this game is a prototype from Color Dreams, of all places. And yes, its controls are questionable, its hit detection erratic, and its stage goals obscure. But many of its faults are really an issue of being on the wrong system -- that is, they would be forgiven on a heartbeat on an 8-bit computer platform like the C64 or ZX Spectrum.

 

Escape from Atlantis also has one of the best ways of handling character death I've ever seen. Rather than a fixed number of lives, you get just one...but you can "renew" it an unlimited number of times, as long as you're able to escape the underworld without getting tagged by the Reaper. OK, there's no challenge to the Reaper sequence once you figure it out, but it's still clever -- and reduces the game's frustration factor by an order of magnitude.

 

It reminds me of Conan -- but if I gave Conan a D- (which I did), Escape from Atlantis should at least get a D, since it doesn't have that game's unforgivable, pure trial-and-error urn sequence. But actually, I'll go all the way up to a D+ -- because, gosh darn it, I actually had some bona fide fun with this game.

 

BTW I also beat AD&D: Dragonstrike and Castelian recently (as well as the Japanese version of Castelian, Kyoro Chan Land), but I'm not counting those since I didn't complete them on the highest difficulty setting yet.

[+jeremiahjt]

1943 and Super Pitfall on NES.  Super Pitfall is a game I have wanted to beat for a long time and I finally did it.  I never would have been able to beat as a kid when I rented it.

[+thegoldenband]

24. The Karate Kid (NES)

 

I first beat Karate Kid back around 1989 or 1990, hadn't really played it since, but was prompted to fire it up again when a recent NES Works video claimed that it was punishingly hard or unfair or otherwise unpleasant in the final section.

 

And that's a pretty silly take, because this is a very easy game that took me less than half an hour to beat again. It's no great shakes, but the visuals and presentation are at least competent. C.

 

25. Sega Chess (Master System)

 

A surprising amount of effort was put into this European-exclusive chess game, including nice opening title screens and a victory tune that's Follin-esque in its lavish length. Only sour note: when you promote a piece, the game appears to hang, though I guess it's actually considering its next move.

 

Otherwise it plays well for the period, and to beat Grand Chess Master difficulty took a few hours of real focus. (There's also an Infinite Think difficulty but it allegedly takes days to make a move, which suggests that it's not meant for actual gameplay.) A-.

 

26. Karate Champ (NES)

 

Thing is, if you're going to have a game with incredibly arcane controls, and the appearance of a punishingly steep difficulty curve that can only be surmounted by mastering those controls...

 

...you probably want to make sure that the whole thing can't be trivially looped by just ducking, punching, and running out the clock by leaping all over the place. Pointless, and that's no bull. D.

 

27. Shanghai (Master System)

 

Nice-looking, addictive as hell, and whenever I found something to fault, I soon discovered the game had already addressed it (e.g. tile identification). After many attempts, finally getting the win -- with the aid of multiple and entirely legal takebacks, naturally -- was quite gratifying.

 

Only major complaint: why not just tell me when I can't make any more moves, instead of making me manually select a menu option? A-.

[Nintendo64]

Resident Evil 2 for the Ps1. Great game, i will try out Resident Evil code Veronica for the Dreamcast next. I like the different puzzle aspects to these games.

 

Fire n Ice for the NES, is just one of my favorite games of all time. I am actually on the bonus stages now, but beat the game and its final boss. This is the best anxiety relieving video game i have ever played, and highly recommend it.

[Steven Pendleton]

Here is a weird one: Ane-san on the PC Engine. What a crazy soundtrack! Too bad the rest of the game isn't that great.

[Steven Pendleton]

I don't play a lot of ROM hacks, but I played an interesting one today: Vector the Crocodile in Sonic the Hedgehog. This is a fun hack that replaces Sonic with Vector. You DO remember Vector, right?

 

It seems they pulled Vector's sprite and all of his abilities from Chaotix on the 32X and put them in here. Vector still has his headphones and all of his 90s 'tude from Chaotix, which means he probably has more 'tude than Sonic! Since Sonic's sprite is gone, his colors are gone, too. If you know how colors on the Genesis/Mega Drive work, you'll probably understand what this means for the game itself. Sonic's colors have been replaced with Vector's colors, which come from Chaotix, which has weird, washed out pastel-looking colors. Because lots of objects in the game use the same colors as Sonic, you'll see lots of things that are now green, starting with the SONIC TEAM PRESENTS thing before the title screen and continuing all the way until the very end. Even the electricity that those weird things in Scrap Brain shoot at you is now green! Many objects are supposed to use the same red color as Sonic's shoes, but since those no longer exist, lots of things are now the same weird pinkish red color as Vector's shoes and it looks really weird, so don't worry, your system isn't broken. It also seems that the voices that do the SEEEEEEEGAAAAAAA when you start the game have been pitched considerably lower for some reason and the Sega screen itself can now be skipped by pressing Start. How strange!

 

In Chaotix, Vector is slow and can't jump very high, and that is reflected here. Like in Chaotix, Vector has the spin dash, which feels wrong in Sonic 1, and he can do his air dash thingy and climb on walls. This lets you bypass the majority of Marble Zone since you can just climb up the walls without having to go underground, so you can finish all 3 acts in maybe 3 or 4 minutes total! You WILL need to do his air dash to finish the game since there is no way to get through Labyrinth Zone Act 3 without it since there is a jump he can't make without using it. Be careful with Vector's wall climbing ability, since there are occasions where you can get stuck inside walls when using it in Spring Yard and Labyrinth and maybe more. It seems that they also removed the speed cap on running that was present in Sonic 1 but was removed in Sonic 2. People who know what this means will understand. Vector doesn't seem to control as well in the special stages as Sonic for some reason, so it's more difficult to get the Chaos Emeralds in this hack.

 

Vector's sprite is huge and sometimes gets in the way. I am not sure if his hurtbox is actually bigger than Sonic's, but I did get stuck in one of the special stages and couldn't move because of his huge sprite, but it fixed itself when the stage rotated and I fell out. I never have problems with the special stages and can always beat this game without ever failing a special stage or dying, but for the first time in 20 years in ANY Sonic game not only did I fail a special stage but I actually got a game over and had to use a continue! I died a whole lot for some reason, even though I played regular Sonic 1 like 5 days ago with no problems at all. Maybe it's just me, but it's very hard to pick up rings after taking a hit in this hack, so it is much more difficult than regular Sonic games.

 

I always liked Vector since he's a cool guy and crocodiles are awesome and I always wanted to play as him in a game that isn't trash, so this hack made me very happy! This hack is very good and a lot of fun, so if you like this game/series/Vector or if Sonic just doesn't have enough 'tude for you, I highly recommend that you play it! I played it on the Mega Sg, but I read somewhere that it doesn't work on real hardware. My Mega Drive is put away right now, but I tested the first act and first special stage on the Nomad since that's a real Genesis and the hack works just fine. No guarantees for anything after that!

[+thegoldenband]

28. Racket Attack (NES)

29. Marvel's X-Men (NES)

 

Beaten these several times before, no need to comment.

 

30. Gal's Dungeon: Yakyuuken Part II (Famicom Disk System)

 

I'm glad this pirate hentai game got fan-translated, because if you cut away the 8-bit cheesecake (of which there isn't much) and the rock-paper-scissors battles, there's enough of a dungeon crawler left over to offer a couple hours of amusement. (At least if you like note-taking and, toward the end, making maps.)

 

It's no great achievement as a game, but the fact that it's entertaining at all is, under the circumstances, a real victory. C-.

[Eltigro]

I recently completed both the Sega Saturn and Sony Playstation versions of Tomb Raider.  ?

[Punisher5.0]

2 hours ago, Eltigro said:

I recently completed both the Sega Saturn and Sony Playstation versions of Tomb Raider.  ?

Which one did you like more?

[Eltigro]

3 hours ago, Punisher5.0 said:

Which one did you like more?

They were really pretty much the same.  A few graphical differences.  I played the Saturn one on original hardware and game, through composite and Retrotink to my flat screen and the Playstation version was via the PS3 with the game downloaded from the Playstation store, so the PS version looked nicer and it was easier to see things.  But if it had been original hardware and composite hookups, I doubt it would have been much different than the Saturn version.  

[Gibstov]

1. Bully (Scholarship Edition PC)

 

I really liked this game.  I think it is my favorite GTA game.  I beat the main story, I still have other stuff to do in the game.

[Lord Mushroom]

On 4/23/2020 at 2:15 AM, Eltigro said:

I recently completed both the Sega Saturn and Sony Playstation versions of Tomb Raider.  ?

Some nice uncles in white coats will now take you away.

[digdugnate]

prepping for the super awesome Streets of Rage 4, in the last couple of weeks I replayed and finished the previous three:

 

Sega Genesis:
 

Streets of Rage

Streets of Rage 2

Streets of Rage 3

[+thegoldenband]

31. An Adventure in Williamsburg (Tandy MC-10)

 

A BASIC type-in game (I think?), so there's no need to rate this text adventure. It provided an hour of amusement, though much of that was spent banging our head against the wall of one particular puzzle. Turns out we just needed to wait for a character to die spontaneously! n/a

 

32. Barker Bill's Trick Shooting (NES)

 

By reaching Round 11 in the Fun Follies mode, I saw every type of stage at least once, so even though it has no ending per se I'm calling this Zapper game done.

 

Barker Bill's could have been a decent game, but it's too RNG-dependent, throwing nasty curveballs at you in one playthrough while treating you with kid gloves the next. And that parrot is just infuriating -- it's one thing to forbid shooting the dog, but the damn bird is an adversary and ought to be subject to summary execution. D.

 

33. Freedom Force (NES)

 

Beat the first loop, though I used pause strats to clear the last level. This also could have been a decent game, maybe even an excellent precursor to Lethal Enforcers, but again it's too RNG-dependent, and likes to troll the player too much: why on earth does the Health powerup only appear onscreen for half a second? It's just stupid design, as is the grenade launcher that kills hostages and enemies alike. D+.

[Punisher5.0]

I finally beat my first Mega Man game. I went with Mega Man X on the SNES this week. I think Im going with MM7 next. Ive made it to Wily before but never finished it.

[Steven Pendleton]

I just played The Lost World Jurassic Park on Game Gear. I can't believe how short this game is. 20 minutes long at most, first playthrough. Last boss/level is annoying, though.

Edited May 13, 2020 by Steven Pendleton

[+thegoldenband]

34. Double Dribble (NES)

 

My notes say I beat this as a kid, but I don't know on what difficulty level, so I cleared all three difficulties playing as New York. It's a slick game for its time, but I have to admit that the CPU's cheapness on Level 3 -- stealing the ball at will, always running faster than you -- is a bit irritating. B-.

 

35. Life Force (NES)

 

Also beat this as a kid, but I used the Konami code to do it, so I wanted a legit clear. I was kind of shocked to do so in under 90 minutes of gameplay, and 1CC to boot. It's an excellent shooter that's only marred by its fondness for cheap death traps -- and that's not a trivial flaw. B+.

 

36. Super C (NES)

 

And once again, a childhood win that was probably beaten with the aid of a cheat code, so a code-free replay was in order. Playing Operation C recently helped me to get in the right mindset for this one quickly, but I was still a bit surprised by how fast it went down. Nonetheless, a fun and well-designed game with no real flaws, except maybe a slight lack of inspiration in the boss department. A.

[+thegoldenband]

37. Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out!! (NES)

 

I wasn't sure if I'd ever actually done the Super Macho Man - Mike Tyson double without using the password to skip directly to Tyson directly, so I ran through the whole game. I beat everyone on my first try up until Macho, but I couldn't remember the timing for his Super Spin Punch, so I ended up losing to him 3x. Then, when I replayed the final circuit from the start, I beat Macho and then Tyson on my first try, so I somehow got an undefeated record for Little Mac.

 

As for the game, isn't it obvious? A+.

 

38. P.O.W. (NES)

 

I don't much like this game -- it's one of those that's 90% easy and tedious, 10% bizarrely punitive. (And of that remaining 10%, half becomes easy when you learn the pattern, and the other half stays random and cheap.)

 

I'd forgotten that it had infinite continues, though, so it wasn't too tough to claw my way through. A 1CC holds little appeal, but could be done. C-.

 

39. Captain Skyhawk (NES)

 

And this game, I actively dislike. Yeah, Captain Skyhawk has flashy graphics and presentation, but who cares if the gameplay is hot garbage? The main isometric mode largely becomes trivial when you realize flying next to the mountainsides allows you to avoid most enemies and their attacks, while the other modes are basically a stunted version of Top Gun and the mini-est of minigames.

 

It's a short, shallow game whose challenge mostly comes from not being able to see what hit you. Thanks, sprite breakup; thanks, whoever thought an isometric game where the enemies only shoot straight ahead was a good idea. D.

[fultonbot]

Skyrim

Outer Worlds

[8th lutz]

I've beaten more than 3 games this year, but they were for the Switch. 

 

2.) YS VI: The Ark of Napishtim - Playstation 2

I am fan of the YS series and I've beaten a lot of YS's games through years. 

I am not a fan of the jump dash at all. It is a good YS game despite the dash jump. The music is good. 

 

3.) YS V: Lost Kefin, Kingdom of Sand - SNES

I beaten the reproduction of the game with a translation since I can not read Japanese.  I consider it one of the weaker games of the YS series that I've played. While it has a magic system, it is not a must to use at all. The music not that great overall. The game itself is easier than Mask of the Sun on the SNES. 

 

 

[Nintendo64]

Rygar (NES) This is a classic game in my opinion. It can be difficult at times, but I feel like it is definitely worth playing.

 

Rush n' Attack (NES) This is a great game to play, and like Rygar and allot of NES games, can be difficult in certain areas.

 

I would recommend both Rygar and Rush n' Attack for those who have never played these games. The weapons in both of these games are very satisfying to use, and I feel are unlike allot of games that I've played before.

[Zap!]

Just beat Super Castlevania IV on my Twitch Channel. I like to complete it from start to finish every year or so.