RFGen 2019 NES Challenge

[Disposed Hero]

Front page posts have been updated to this point. Also, I'm going to go ahead and claim Faria: A World of Mystery & Danger.

[polykill_trav]

Finished Orb 3D last night. I think it would be less tedious to perfectly stab the center of my own eyeball with a vibrating pen.

[bombatomba]

O M G Treasure Master

[img width=700 height=537]https://i.ibb.co/R06d9JD/Treasure-Master-2019-07-23-14-55-50.png[/img]

I'll pick something later.

[bombatomba]

Actually, I think I will take Mendel Palace.  I remember the commercial from back in the day but never played

[Disposed Hero]

Front page posts have been updated. Keep knocking them out!

[EZ Racer]

I have been trying to knock out Rainbow Islands all month, and finally am making some progress. Definitely a mixed bag of a game. Some really neat gameplay elements, but some really frustrating execution at times.

[shane]

Beat Twin Cobra. Probably won't get any more games in this month. This was ok as long as you kept a particular weapon throughout. The gun powerups cycle between modes until you pick them up, and the one that's a dark green will give you a shot in four directions, with the shots kind of bending toward enemies. Most of the bosses will have you making circles around them, so this is key to finishing them off as fast as possible. A big drawback for me is the fact that your speed is pretty much equal to enemy bullet speed, meaning you can only dodge by going diagonally away from a bullet's trajectory. This is fine if nothing else is on the screen in that direction, but that's not often.

[img width=700 height=446]https://i.imgur.com/tJKWZCc.png[/img]

[Schlibby]

I’m still plugging away at batman return of the joker.

On the one hand it has infinite continues. On the other it has some unfair enemy placement and dodgy mobility

[Crabmaster2000]

I'm back!! Thanks so much for covering for me while I escaped for some much needed family time @Disposed Hero. That was greatly appreciated.

@bombatomba - wicked job taking down Treasure Master!! That's no easy feat. May be the most challenging platformer in the system. Congrats!

@polykill - Nice win on Orb 3D. I kind of like the game so I don't share you sentiment about it,  but can kinda of see where you're coming from with a few of the stages.

@shane - good work as always!

@EZ Racer - totally agree with you on Rainbow Islands. There's some really great levels and some real junk levels in that game. It's all over the place.

@schlibby - Batman RotJ is my least favorite Batman game on the NES. It looks pretty cool, but that's about all it has going for it.

To get back into the swing of things tonight I beat Low G-Man and started messing around with M.U.L.E..
 
Normally I love me an action platformer, even the sub-par ones. Low G-Man just wasn't very much fun though. It's got weird mechanics where you have a stun gun and then once enemies are stunned you have to attack them directly above/below you. It makes the game feel quite slow and sluggish. You're character is also a bit slippery on the ground which isn't great. It's also got a Gradius style power up system where you lose everything when you die and have to start rebuilding your power ups. Made some of the later stages pretty brutal because if you didn't have your jump upgraded you couldn't make certain platformers. Thankfully it had unlimted continues so I just solidered through.

[img width=640 height=479]https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/48404124181_acd27454e1_z.jpg[/img]

M.U.L.E. is very interesting. I didn't get a win on it yet, but I played nearly two hours so far and feel like I've got a decent grasp on it now. Hopefully tomorrow I'll have it done and will talk more about it.

That puts me at 47 games beaten in 36 days.

[MetalFRO]

I’m still plugging away at batman return of the joker.

On the one hand it has infinite continues. On the other it has some unfair enemy placement and dodgy mobility

Good luck with this one! I remember a friend renting this, when we were kids, and it's quite difficult. There are some situations where a few hits seem unavoidable.

[Schlibby]

And the Joker is down!

[img width=700 height=525]https://i.imgur.com/Xb8GbJL.jpg[/img]

A meh game. Unlimited continues means even someone like me with no skill can probably take it down in the end. And the artwork is nice. But it has issues with mobility (a very fixed jump, knockback etc). And as MetalFRO says some of the enemy placement makes for unavoidable hits.

[bombatomba]

Unlimited continues means even someone like me with no skill can probably take it down in the end

Sounds like my kind of game, lol.

[Crabmaster2000]

Nice job sticking with it Schlibby!

I was able to beat M.U.L.E. after a few more attempts tonight. Very neat game, that was apparently a much bigger deal on the Commodore back in the day. You get dropped off on a new planet along with 3 other aliens and you're tasked with making the most successful colony of the 4 aliens. You have to obtain land and develop it to produce food, energy and an element called smithore. Between each of your turns there is an auction phase where you can buy or sell the resources you're low/high on. So for example if I produce more food than just my colony needed to survive I could sell my surplus to the other colonist at a price we both agreed on. If they only needed one or two units they may only be willing to pay 10-15 dollars for it, but if they need several units and I'm the only seller at the time I could charge 50+ dollars per unit. It took me about 7 or 8 tries to beat the game, but each attempt was always interesting and I was learning new techniques and rules to the game such as the MULEs you buy to develop your land are tied to the stock of Smithore so you could sometimes manipulate the cost of MULEs or how much your smithore is worth depending on the current stock. Cool game that would be neat with all human players, but I can't imagine being able to get 3 other people that want to learn a strategy game like this.

[img width=640 height=481]https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/48413238297_9b9b0353f3_z.jpg[/img]

Also put some more time into Airwolf tonight. Made it to Mission 17 out of 20 during one run. I've found that stages 6-9 are by far the ones that are the toughest. Really just need one good run to Mission 10 and I think I can finish it off. Hopefully tomorrow.

That puts me at 48 games in 37 days now.

[Crabmaster2000]

Two more games off the list tonight. Finished off Goal and Goal Two.

Yesterday I played quite a bit of Goal and didn't have much trouble until the final match of the tournament. The difficulty spike was nuts. Played maybe an hour to get to the finals and then spent about 3 hours consistently losing and rarely able to score a goal. Tonight I played another hour and a half and finally got my win on it. Very thankful there was a password system on this one.

[img width=640 height=477]https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/48430379901_af1bbebf46_z.jpg[/img]

Much less punishing was Goal Two. The default controls run you in diagonals so I can to change that because it was hurting my brain. Also dropped the rounds to 1 minute and then played through the tournament. The auto goalie was a lifesaver. Had a few retries, but only took about an hour and half to finish the Super Cup. I don't think I'd recommend either of these soccer games over NES World Cup, that one's still my fav.

[img width=640 height=483]https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/48430520527_f7c1601d92_z.jpg[/img]

Got to level 20 in Airwolf tonight which is the final stage I need to beat before it loops and am pretty salty about how things ended. Got into the stage on my last life. In every 5th level there is an orange plane that if you shoot down you get an extra life. I shot down the orange plane and for some unknown reason this one didn't give me the extra life I so desperately needed. No problem, though I'll just have to finish this stage without dying. Made it through the hardest part at the start and was entering the refueling station (which also heals all damage) and then it was a straight shot to the final prisoners and victory. As I entered the fueling station my helicopter exploded...... In the dozens of attempts I've had on this game now I've not once ever botched a landing in a refueling station and I'm not really sure how I even screwed up this landing. If only I had that extra life from the the orange plane......

That puts me at 50 games in 39 days now. Halfway to 100!!!!

[bombatomba]

Picked up Mendel Palace again and remembered why I took a break:  I was stuck at the seventh level of the last castle for about eight hours.  Well, make that ten hours, just for good measure.  I don't want to put this down yet, though.