RFGen 2019 NES Challenge

[Crabmaster2000]

Been working on Bill Elliot's NASCAR Challenge on and off for a while now. Was finally able to beat it tonight. For only having 8 races and essentially 3 different tracks it was quite difficult. Bill Elliot always seems to get 1st places, but I somehow got him to place 3rd on a race that I got 1st on after over a dozen hours of playing and that just changed everything and gave me just enough points to sneak past him overall.

[img width=700 height=526]https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51359262310_e5718d9628_b.jpg[/img]

[Crabmaster2000]

Woof, what a chore this one was. Spent about 10 hours of my day yesterday getting to the 5th and final level, but couldn't quite finish it before I had to go to work. So I did something I haven't done since I was a kid and left my system on all night. That wasn't so much of a worry, the bigger concern was leaving my recording setup on over night. Wasn't sure how it would handle a 20+ hour session. Seemed fine when I got home though and another 1-2 hours of play time and I was able to finally finish The Mutant Virus. The game was quite challenging to wrap my head around for the first 6-7 hours, but by the end it started to make more sense. There is a time limit that I didn't know about that made stages 4 and 5 considerably harder than I thought they'd be since I was just trying to take it slow and safe, but after seeing how little time I had I had to re-strategize and figure out how to navigate levels more efficiently and occasionally take some risks to try and clear an area faster. This meant a lot of dumb deaths in the final areas and without being able to do a quick restart it meant a lot of putting the controller down and wait a minute or two for the virus to slowly overtake my remaining lives so I could start again. 

[img width=700 height=525]https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51361866849_693a8a63b1_b.jpg[/img]

[Crabmaster2000]

Finished off Gauntlet tonight. Was really great for the first half, but just became too much to be fun in the later levels.

[img width=700 height=526]https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51365626652_c55be30241_b.jpg[/img]

[MetalFRO]

Hats off, that can't be an easy game to finish by any stretch, both due to difficulty and sheer length.

[Crabmaster2000]

Hats off, that can't be an easy game to finish by any stretch, both due to difficulty and sheer length.

It's not as long as you'd think for a game that has 100 levels. Many of the levels are like 30 seconds long and you don't go through all 100 in a linear fashion. Instead lots of stages have multiple exits and you just need to take the correct ones to hit the treasure and clue rooms. Only the last 2 maps had a difficulty that was a pain, the other 3 were actually really fun

[Crabmaster2000]

Followed up Gauntlet with some Gauntlet II! Definitely a step back in most regards from the first game. No music, most rooms are fairly dumb and there was even one that was unbeatable and required me to just sit there for like 3 minutes until the stage tiles just turn into exits. Game starts looping levels at level 102 so it's just an endurance run until that point basically.

[img width=700 height=526]https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51368936299_55c6249cec_b.jpg[/img]

[EZ Racer]

Been working on Bill Elliot's NASCAR Challenge on and off for a while now. Was finally able to beat it tonight. For only having 8 races and essentially 3 different tracks it was quite difficult. Bill Elliot always seems to get 1st places, but I somehow got him to place 3rd on a race that I got 1st on after over a dozen hours of playing and that just changed everything and gave me just enough points to sneak past him overall.

[img width=700 height=526]https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51359262310_e5718d9628_b.jpg[/img]

I usually love racing games, and I remember picking this one up to try and beat for the challenge in 2019. I can still picture how clunky the controls felt. Well done for seeing it through.

[Crabmaster2000]

Been working on Bill Elliot's NASCAR Challenge on and off for a while now. Was finally able to beat it tonight. For only having 8 races and essentially 3 different tracks it was quite difficult. Bill Elliot always seems to get 1st places, but I somehow got him to place 3rd on a race that I got 1st on after over a dozen hours of playing and that just changed everything and gave me just enough points to sneak past him overall.

[img width=700 height=526]https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51359262310_e5718d9628_b.jpg[/img]

I usually love racing games, and I remember picking this one up to try and beat for the challenge in 2019. I can still picture how clunky the controls felt. Well done for seeing it through.

It did feel very awkward to control initially, that had a bit to do with how you setup your vehicle and the current speed you're driving at as it feels very different under different circumstances. And you never really want to lean on the d-pad for any turn and instead just give it a lot of quick taps. I've spent a lot of time learning NES racing games, but this one definitely had the biggest learning curve.

[Crabmaster2000]

Between Miracle Piano sessions I've been playing Conflict a bunch this past week and finally beat it today. There is a pretty cool strategy game buried behind layers of things that just make it was too slow to enjoy. Which sucks because the whole time I'm thinking this should be more fun.

[img width=700 height=526]https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51394089019_d5429a5eba_b.jpg[/img]

[Crabmaster2000]

Won the Power Bowl in NES Play Action Football. Nothing too noteworthy here. It's quite hard to catch a pass so I just focused on rushing yards. Was a surprise to see Nester here as I just never knew he was in this game.

[img width=700 height=528]https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51403194945_109ebe3424_b.jpg[/img]

[Crabmaster2000]

Thanks to @engineermike for lending me the parts to play Stack-Up with I was able to cross this easy one off our list a few days ago. Really not much of a game and there is no real ending so I just played around in the direct mode until I accidently pressed select which resets the game. Got to phase 43 when you really only need to beat one phase. That was enough to get a good feel for it so I just beat phase 5 on the memory and bingo modes afterwards.

[img width=700 height=528]https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51465706088_b813f9e233_b.jpg[/img]

Much more importantly though I just beat Championship Pool. This game has been a true thorn in my side for YEARS now. It is definitely in the conversation when talking about the hardest NES games to beat. It shows you a flight path for your ball for up to 2 bounces which sounds like a really nice thing, but what it doesn't tell you is that it's' showing you all the different possible outcomes. So even if you have a very nice shot lined up there's always a small chance that it picks a bad path through no fault of your own and you'll miss. On the last 3 sets any single screw up will allow the CPU to clear that table and take the match. So not even counting the first 2 sets you basically have to win 12 games of pool (20 if you count the first two matches which have a bit more leeway) without mistakes while dealing with a random chance of missing during every single shot you take. It's been a rough journey on that game, but I'm so glad it's done now. Feels good.

Also had a very unique ending where you get interviewed by the tournament commentator and get to select answers to a few questions during the interview.

[img width=700 height=527]https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51464692222_b0d4f4dff8_b.jpg[/img]

[MetalFRO]

Wow, Championship Pool sounds like a slog! The Game Boy game of the same name is a solid pool simulator, but I never dove too far into the campaign mode, so I'm not sure how much randomness there is, as compared to the SNES version. Kudos for finally taking this one down!

[Crabmaster2000]

Wow, Championship Pool sounds like a slog! The Game Boy game of the same name is a solid pool simulator, but I never dove too far into the campaign mode, so I'm not sure how much randomness there is, as compared to the SNES version. Kudos for finally taking this one down!

I can't speak to the ports, but I can only assume they are better in terms of the tournament mode.

[Crabmaster2000]

Just finished Pirates!. I put it off for a long time because, gross, pirates. But it wasn't so bad. Definitely better than Uncharted Waters. You can kind of take it at your own pace which is nice and do as much or as little battling and you like.

[img width=700 height=524]https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51479590726_318a558727_b.jpg[/img]

BUT more importantly this is a massive milestone for me. That was my 659th NES game beaten which means I'm down to only 10 left and with Championship Pool out of the way I don't expect any major hurtles. Miracle Piano is something I'm already deep into (32/36 lessons already done) and I know it's going to take more time, likely weeks of practice, but it's doable. Mach Rider seems like it'll be a bit tough, but no where near the extent of many other games I've played. Beyond those two games it should be smoothish sailing.

[Crabmaster2000]

Took a couple days, but was able to finish Super Glove ball this morning. This is yet another game with a neat concept that just wasn't executed very well. The mazes are EXTREMELY unintuitive to navigate and some of the power ups are not only not useful, but kind of hurtful in some cases. The boss fights are a huge pain as are some of the very late game enemies with their one hit kills. All that said it's actually kind of fun to grab the ball and break apart walls like a 3D kind of arkanoid. The power glove is so hard to use that I opted for a controller instead. I had a couple great runs that choked right at the end so this morning I grinded out 20 extra lives and then started playing. Turns out that was a good thing because I lost 10 lives on one boss and then another 10 right before the final level. Ended up finishing on my very last life.

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