RFGen 2019 NES Challenge

[EZ Racer]

@crabmaster2000- Glad you enjoyed it and thanks for the shout out.

@singlebanana- What team(s) are you playing as for Tecmo Bowl and TSB?

[Crabmaster2000]

130 game beaten, woo!!

@EZ Racer - your thought on Mega Man 6 echo my own. It's not my favorite, but I like to put it in once and a while because of the interesting changes it has in it. And yeah the rush adapter animations can get a bit grating after the 10th time......

I took down the second dungeon, the catacombs, tonight in Bard's Tale. Stuck my nose into the 3rd dungeon, the Castle, 3 times and barely survived one encounter each time. So I went back to the catacombs to grind the boss since he gives wicked xp. Few more times down the catacombs and hopefully I'll be capable of the exploring the castle tomorrow in tomorrow nights session.

[singlebanana]

@singlebanana- What team(s) are you playing as for Tecmo Bowl and TSB?

Well, as much as it pains me to not play with my beloved Chicago Bears, I think that the 49ers are the best balanced team in Tecmo Bowl.  The Bears have a great back with Payton, but running becomes tough sledding when the playoffs start. Also, with the lower rated QBs (like McMahon), they tend to float passes rather than throw them quickly. This becomes a big issue as you make your way to the end, since coverage gets much tighter and you have to make decisions quicker even if your play is not read correctly. The 49ers also have a nice slant to Roger Craig in Pass 3 that rarely gets intercepted (even if read) if you hit him after the inside break.

In terms of defense, Ronnie Lott is pretty quick at safety, so I typically just stop the run in his direction each down. I can usually make the tackle in the opposite direction and only give up 1-3 yards a play and I can drop into coverage if needed, which with some patience can lead to an interception. The other great thing is that if they are on my side of the field and I can get them to 4th down, I can block every kick with the second player from the top by running in an L pattern at the snap.

Right now I am two games away from completion and have the Browns and Redskins left.

As far as Tecmo Super Bowl is concerned, I feel like it is more of a passing game. As a result, I also typically play with the 49ers in this game due to their great passing (Young, Rice, Taylor) and decent running (Waters). Another great team to use is the Cowboys (which I will probably use to mix it up) with Aikman, Smith, and Irving.

[Crabmaster2000]

Can't you just be a one man Bo Jackson team and dominate if you want to make it easy on yourself?

[singlebanana]

Can't you just be a one man Bo Jackson team and dominate if you want to make it easy on yourself?

Not really that easy. Bo only has one run play. It works well in the beginning, but running becomes very difficult later on.

[zophar53]

It's been really fun reading this thread, and inspiring (both to participate and for an article idea). I pulled out my Raspberry Pi last night to fire up some games myself, but for the life of me I can't find the controller I had it set up with. Probably in a box somewhere, lonely and waiting to be unpacked. I fired up the emulator on my PC instead and got a few games in; almost "finished" Tetris a few times. Not ready to commit to anything yet, but I'd really like to. We'll see what I can get done in the next few days. It'd be great to see if I could return to some games I loved as a kid that I could never quite finish (Batman and Blaster Master, to name just two) I may even crack open the NES Classic that's been sitting around unopened since I got it lol.

One clarifying question though. Not sure if this was addressed and I missed it in the sea of updates, but are we allowed to use continues for the games that have them, or do we have to do it all in one round of lives? I saw EZ Racer mention it, but not sure what the final ruling is on that. It's disappointing turbo fire isn't allowed; I'm finding these games a lot harder without it. I was absolutely in love with my NES Max as a kid.

[Disposed Hero]

I'm pretty sure continues are allowed as long as you aren't using any cheat codes to give you extras. At least, I sure as hell hope they are allowed or many of my completions are no longer valid.

[singlebanana]

I'm pretty sure continues are allowed as long as you aren't using any cheat codes to give you extras. At least, I sure as hell hope they are allowed or many of my completions are no longer valid.

Yes, continues are allowed if offered in the game.

[Crabmaster2000]

It's been really fun reading this thread, and inspiring (both to participate and for an article idea). I pulled out my Raspberry Pi last night to fire up some games myself, but for the life of me I can't find the controller I had it set up with. Probably in a box somewhere, lonely and waiting to be unpacked. I fired up the emulator on my PC instead and got a few games in; almost "finished" Tetris a few times. Not ready to commit to anything yet, but I'd really like to. We'll see what I can get done in the next few days. It'd be great to see if I could return to some games I loved as a kid that I could never quite finish (Batman and Blaster Master, to name just two) I may even crack open the NES Classic that's been sitting around unopened since I got it lol.

One clarifying question though. Not sure if this was addressed and I missed it in the sea of updates, but are we allowed to use continues for the games that have them, or do we have to do it all in one round of lives? I saw EZ Racer mention it, but not sure what the final ruling is on that. It's disappointing turbo fire isn't allowed; I'm finding these games a lot harder without it. I was absolutely in love with my NES Max as a kid.

We'd love to have you join us! Definitely dig that controller out and dive in.

Continues are absolutely allowed. Use as many as you need to beat stuff like Batman, no shame at all. The exception are games where you have a cheat code to continue, stuff like Ikari Warriors or Arkanoid. It's pretty rare so you shouldn't have to worry about it with most titles though.

[MetalFRO]

The exception are games where you have a cheat code to continue, stuff like Ikari Warriors or Arkanoid. It's pretty rare so you shouldn't have to worry about it with most titles though.

This brings up a good question: isn't there a game-breaking bug in Ikari Warriors that makes it nearly impossible to finish the game w/o cheats? I thought I remember hearing that somewhere.

[Crabmaster2000]

The exception are games where you have a cheat code to continue, stuff like Ikari Warriors or Arkanoid. It's pretty rare so you shouldn't have to worry about it with most titles though.

This brings up a good question: isn't there a game-breaking bug in Ikari Warriors that makes it nearly impossible to finish the game w/o cheats? I thought I remember hearing that somewhere.

It's beatable. Just extremely challenging

[singlebanana]

Tecmo Bowl down! The San Francisco 49ers are World Champs. You're welcome Zagnorch.

[img width=700 height=525]http://i.imgur.com/9mpRwLE.jpg[/img]

[img width=700 height=525]http://i.imgur.com/E7ZEQJ6.jpg[/img]

[Crabmaster2000]

It's a ghost town in this thread lately. What's everyone up to lately? Working on long titles? Taking a break? Life keeping you busy? Only 1 day left for January and then I'll update the thread with our new community and personal goals for February. Anyone who completed the January goal of "beat at least one game you've never played before" I'd love to hear more about that too. Why did you choose the game you chose? Was it a worthwhile playthrough? Are you going to dig deeper into that series/developer/genre when you may not have before?

I grinded for quite a while tonight and just at the end of my play session I was able to beat the boss in the Castle tonight. He gave me so much freakin xp (and a measly 5 gp, lol) my whole team went up two levels!! I'm gonna have to run the castle a few more times tomorrow to take advantage of that massive xp boost and then move onto the next dungeon. Just unlocked my level 6 spells too, so interested to play around with those and see what my Wizard and Sorcerer are capable of with their new boosts.

[singlebanana]

Well, I played two games that I had really never played before. Surprisingly, one was Pinball (which I beat) and the other is Gremlins 2, which I am still working on...

I was really impressed with the physics of Pinball for such an early game.  As some of you know, I'm a big fan and collector of pinball machines, so I have a good grasp on the feel of the gameplay.  I was stunned that the flippers were so bouncy and that I could even bounce pass (let the ball drop onto a dead flipper to bounce over onto the other)!  More modern games don't get this aspect right.  There's not a ton to do in Pinball, but I can really appreciate the effort here and love the bonus, Breakout-like room with Mario. Fun game and much better than I expected.

I have always heard rumors that Gremlins 2 was a great game on the NES, but sadly, I had never managed to take the time to sit down and play it.  You play as Gizmo and work your way through 5 main stages and at least 2 levels for each, to defeat the final boss.  The game is rather short, but not too short, as the difficulty in later stages gives it length to newcomers. The game does a great job of using environments from the movie and the boss Gremlins are even the main baddies from the movie as well!  The weapons and power-ups are cool and since you can only buy one item per level from the shop and must choose between a weapon multipler, a balloon (that no-damage rescues you when falling in a pit) an extra life, partial life refill, or an extra heart (life container). What you choose tends to vary based on whether you need life, want to skip a portion of a stage with your balloon reset, or whether you would like to have extra firepower against a boss.

The view in the game is from the overhead perspective and this makes platforming rather awkward at times, especially when conveyor belt platforms are introduced. I always find that overhead platforming is never very good in games and this, while better than most, is no exception. I like that the game makes you use a different weapon for every stage to give it some variety and the cutscenes are really well-done and impressive for such an early title.  Though frustrating at times, I highly recommend this game.

[Disposed Hero]

Yeah, I haven't been very active here over the last week or so due to a combination of burning myself out and pretty much all of my gaming time going into the Resident Evil 2 remake. I'm sure I'll get back into it before long.

As far as beating at least one game I've never played before, I actually beat several! Mighty Final Fight, Sword Master, The Little Mermaid, Journey to Silius, Shatterhand, Rollergames, Vice: Project Doom, Power Blade, Bucky O'Hare, Power Blade 2, and Jackie Chan's Action Kung Fu were all games that I had little to no experience with. I gave my thoughts on these games when I finished them, but I want to give a special shoutout to Shatterhand, Vice: Project Doom, and Power Blade. I've wanted to play these games for a long time after seeing them on many different hidden gems lists and thinking they looked like a lot of fun, and they certainly didn't disappoint. All three of those games are among my favorites on the system now and are games I'm sure I'll come back to again and again.

It has also opened my eyes to Natsume as a developer, so I will be seeking out more games from them. I particularly want to try out Shadow of the Ninja and Dragon Fighter sometime soon.

This has been a lot of fun so far, and I'd say we had a very productive January!