When I first started collecting games for older consoles in a serious manner and came to the decision that I'd "get a full set," this was in the early 2000s. My young, optimistically naive self always had it in my mind that I would have that done in the matter of a year or two and then I'd "beat them all" and then simply move onto the SNES and repeat the process. The harsh reality quickly set in that this wasn't a feasible goal, but the idea never left my mind. In 2011, I was still hunting for NES carts to complete my set and had only dabbled in a small chunk of the library, which were both far cries from my original intentions, but that "beat them all" concept was still gnawing at me. So finally in October 2011, I decided to start keeping track of my journey for my personal posterity. I kept a google doc and recorded each game as I completed them. I started off with a 100 NES games in 100 days challenge to get the momentum really amped up. This is a lot easier than it may sound when you have the entire library to choose from. I could knock out games I was immensely familiar with in a single day and do some cursory research or pick games from genres I was comfortable with. I had so much fun with those first 100 games, it was honestly one of the most fun gaming experiences I've ever had.
When I first started collecting games for older consoles in a serious manner and came to the decision that I'd "get a full set" this was in the early 2000s. My young, optimistically naive self always had it in my mind that I would have that done in the matter of a year or two and then I'd "beat them all" and then simply move onto the SNES and repeat the process. The harsh reality quickly set in that that wasn't a feasible goal, but the idea never left my mind. In 2011 I was still hunting for NES carts to complete my set and had only dabbled in a small chunk of the library which were both far cries from my original intentions, but that "beat them all" concept was still gnawing at me. So finally in October 2011 I decided to start keeping track of my journey for my personal posterity. I kept a google doc and recorded each game as I completed them. I started off with a 100 NES games in 100 days challenge to myself to get the momentum really amped up. This is a lot easier than it may sound when you've got the entire library to choose from. Games I was immensely familiar with I could knock out several in a single day and just some cursory research or picking games from genres I was comfortable with made that challenge a breeze. I had so much fun with those first 100 games, it was honestly one of the funnest gaming experiences I've ever had. I jammed through Mega Man 1-6, Super Mario Bros 1-3, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 1-3, all 3 Contra games several of the Capcom Disney classics and some personal favorites like Bubble Bobble, Ninja Gaiden, Batman, Little Samson, Dr. Mario, MC Kids, Tiny Toon Adventures, Kirby's Adventure and others. Had a great time with all of those, but also had just as much fun with the discovery of games that were new to me for the first time. New favorites like Power Blade, Xexyz, Journey to Silius and Metal Storm started to emerge. Rediscovered childhood gems like Caveman Games, World Games and Snoopy's Silly Sports Spectacular brought back waves of nostalgia (I have always had a soft spot for sport compilation games). But perhaps most interesting to me was all the new experiences I had completely missed out on. North and South was so weird yet compelling. Kickle Cubicle was similar enough to the Lolo series that it just fit like an old glove despite my lack of familiarity. Jaws had such a different vibe to it than most of the games I was used to playing that it really stuck with me. Circus Caper, on paper, sounds like something I should be into, but it was kind of a clunky beautiful mess. Why was that?
To get straight to the point, we did not make our goal of beating every North American licensed NES game in the year 2019. Is that a disappointing outcome? Heck no! We ended up conquering 514 of the 669 game list in a single year. We had 30 members participate throughout the year! Some of which I havn't really had a good opportunity to interact with before and it gave me a chance to get to know them better. Beyond those 30 players we had several other members offer advice and support and simply cheer us on. Even though we fell short at the end we had an incredible time exploring new worlds, gritting our teeth over challenging areas, mashing buttons faster than ever before and most importantly, sharing our accomplishments with our peers.
It was quite heartwarming to see people scratch games off their backlog, overcome childhood hurtles and discover new favorites. Every game is not a winner, but I do feel there is something valuable to learn even from playing a stinker. I hope that every player feels that the time they invested in this community challenge was as worthwhile as I did. Whether you joined us for 1 game or 100 I'm incredibly thankful for your participation.
The RF Generation community of collectors and players has committed themselves to demolishing the entire licensed NES library in the year 2019. Is that even possible you say, with your help it totally is!! Check out the RFGen 2019 NES Challenge thread to see how to join in at anytime throughout the year. There is plenty of opportunity to participate regardless of your skill level, favorite style of game or the amount of time you have to invest. Come over and play with us here:
Here we are everyone. The final month of 2019. It's fairly obvious at this point that we will not reach the goal of beating the entire licensed NES library in 2019, but we gave it a valiant effort and have put a monstrous dent into it. However, I and a few others still plan to keep taking down NES games this month to see how close we can get. Please join us if you want to mess around in the weeds of what's left of the Nintendo Entertainment System library.
The RF Generation community of collectors and players has committed themselves to demolishing the entire licensed NES library in the year 2019. Is that even possible you say, with your help it totally is!! Check out the RFGen 2019 NES Challenge thread to see how to join in at anytime throughout the year. There is plenty of opportunity to participate regardless of your skill level, favorite style of game or the amount of time you have to invest. Come over and play with us here:
With the year closing in all around us we've had a slight surge of renewed interest in the NES Challenge with a few members putting in some last minute efforts, come old players reappearing and a couple new names added to the scoreboard. We've still got a ways to go, but as of this writing we have collectively destroyed 492 game for the Nintendo Entertainment System in 2019.......which is pretty impressive, but still short of our goal of the entire North American licensed library. Click that link above and take a look at our remaining list of games and jump in and lend a hand. Still a surprising amount of variety to play so no excuses in these last two months!!!
The RF Generation community of collectors and players has committed themselves to demolishing the entire licensed NES library in the year 2019. Is that even possible you say, with your help it totally is!! Check out the RFGen 2019 NES Challenge thread to see how to join in at anytime throughout the year. There is plenty of opportunity to participate regardless of your skill level, favorite style of game or the amount of time you have to invest. Come over and play with us here:
With the year rapidly closing in on us we need all the help we can get! The list of remaining games may be smaller than ever, but boy is it dense. We need all sports stars, adventurers, action heroes, pilots, drivers, puzzle masters, strategic geniuses, arcade wizards and cartoon characters on hand to beat the remainder of the NES library.
Check out the list of remaining titles or even just pop in the thread to share tips or encourage our players to keep on going. With everybody banding together we can accomplish this lofty goal!
The RF Generation community of collectors and players has committed themselves to demolishing the entire licensed NES library in the year 2019. Is that even possible you say, with your help it totally is!! Check out the RFGen 2019 NES Challenge thread to see how to join in at anytime throughout the year. There is plenty of opportunity to participate regardless of your skill level, favorite style of game or the amount of time you have to invest. Come over and play with us here:
4 months left in the year and we are still going strong! 461 games beaten through January to the end of August 2019. That means we've got 208 titles left to beat in the next 4 months. With the community working together that's definitely an achievable number. We have taken down pretty much all the classic games at this point, but there are still a lot of great games, a lot of short games, a lot of easy games and of course several big challenges. If you're up for taking on a time consuming RPG or sports title, a much neglected Strategy game, maybe an largely ignored genre like a flight sim or even a hard as nails shmup we'd love to have you join our quest to beat the entire NES library in 2019.
The RF Generation community of collectors and players has committed themselves to demolishing the entire licensed NES library in the year 2019. Is that even possible you say, with your help it totally is!! Check out the RFGen 2019 NES Challenge thread to see how to join in at anytime throughout the year. There is plenty of opportunity to participate regardless of your skill level, favorite style of game or the amount of time you have to invest. Come over and play with us here:
We are back and stronger than ever!! After an extremely slow May I was having my doubts about our progress in this challenge. But after a crazy productive June and July we are back on track to make this challenge a reality!! As of July 31st we've collectively beaten 432 NES games which leaves us with an achievable 237 games to beat in the final 5 months of the year. With our selection of games dwindling we are getting into the weird, the bad, the ugly, the seedy underbelly of the NES. If you really want to deep dive into this amazing library now is a great time to join us in the NES Challenge.
The RF Generation community of collectors and players has committed themselves to demolishing the entire licensed NES library in the year 2019. Is that even possible you say, with your help it totally is!! Check out the RFGen 2019 NES Challenge thread to see how to join in at anytime throughout the year. There is plenty of opportunity to participate regardless of your skill level, favorite style of game or the amount of time you have to invest. Come over and play with us here:
With May being our slowest month to date thing's where not looking good for us to pass the halfway mark of the NES library by the halfway mark for the year. But with some very impressive June participation from several members we are more than 30 titles past the 50% mark of the entire licensed NES library! Starting July off with an impressive 370 NES games beaten by our own community members since January 1st 2019.
Join us for July as we press forward to our next milestone!
The RF Generation community of collectors and players has committed themselves to demolishing the entire licensed NES library in the year 2019. Is that even possible you say, with your help it totally is!! Check out the RFGen 2019 NES Challenge thread to see how to join in at anytime throughout the year. There is plenty of opportunity to participate regardless of your skill level, favorite style of game or the amount of time you have to invest. Come over and play with us here:
For the last couple months even cutting our community goal drastically we've continually fallen short of our monthly targets. So this month, and possible just going forward, I'm scrapping the community goal to hit a certain number of games. I was really hoping to have at least half the library done by now (and we are extremely close to doing so) to give use some extra wiggle room later in the year, but we will persevere regardless.
Participation has dropped off massively in the last 2 months and we could still use all the help we can get. So please take a look at the list of remaining games and join in if you're able to. Still lots of great titles that haven't been attempted yet as well as many hidden gems to yet be uncovered!
2 of our amazing members and NES challenge contributor's spend many hours putting together this video and recording all of the amazing music in it to immortalize our efforts in the first 2 months of the NES Challenge. Huge shout out to Wempster and Disposed Hero for making this happen!
If you want to see your own name show up in a future video all you have to do is beat an NES game with us. Check out the link below for more info. We can use all the help we can get!
The RF Generation community of collectors and players has committed themselves to demolishing the entire licensed NES library in the year 2019. Is that even possible you say, with your help it totally is!! Check out the RFGen 2019 NES Challenge thread to see how to join in at anytime throughout the year. There is plenty of opportunity to participate regardless of your skill level, favorite style of game or the amount of time you have to invest. Come over and play with us here:
The RF Generation community of collectors and players has committed themselves to demolishing the entire licensed NES library in the year 2019. Is that even possible you say, with your help it totally is!! Check out the RFGen 2019 NES Challenge thread to see how to join in at anytime throughout the year. There is plenty of opportunity to participate regardless of your skill level, favorite style of game or the amount of time you have to invest. Come over and play with us here:
Even with our committed members slaying games left and right we managed to fall a little short of our Community Goal of 300 Games beaten by March 31st. Our unflinching players are not discouraged and continue to journey towards our ultimate goal of beating the entire NES library in 2019. We still managed to defeat 282 total games last month with 52 of those being in March alone!
The RF Generation community of collectors and players has committed themselves to demolishing the entire licensed NES library in the year 2019. Is that even possible you say, with your help it totally is!! Check out the RFGen 2019 NES Challenge thread to see how to join in at anytime throughout the year. There is plenty of opportunity to participate regardless of your skill level, favorite style of game or the amount of time you have to invest. Come over and play with us here:
Although we fell just a little shy of our February community goal of beat at least 250 total NES games we still made great progress knocking down another 72 games in the shortest month of the year. That combined with January's amazing start puts us at a solid 222 going into March.
Our personal goal for February was for every to pick at least one sports title to beat. These are often not the most highly anticipated games to be picked so this was a small effort to get a few out of the way early in the year so that when we dwindle our list down as the year goes on we are not simply left with lots of long seasons of sports titles that no one is particular interested in playing. We saw members tackle some great sports titles such as: Blades of Steel, Base Wars, Tecmo Super Bowl, Skate or Die, and Super Spike V'Ball, and some not so great sports titles like: Bases Loaded IV, Baseball, 720, Championship Bowling, WWF King of the Ring, Jack Nicklaus Major Golf, and Jimmy Connors Tennis.
The RF Generation community of collectors and players has committed themselves to demolishing the entire licensed NES library in the year 2019. Is that even possible you say, with your help it totally is!! Check out the RFGen 2019 NES Challenge thread to see how to join in at anytime throughout the year. There is plenty of opportunity to participate regardless of your skill level, favorite style of game or the amount of time you have to invest. Come over and play with us here:
So today is day 91 of my 100 NES games in 100 day challenge. Fortunately for me though I finished my 100th game a few days back and successfully completed my second 100 NES game in 100 day challenge!!! What started off with many fairly simple games (children's titles, and game shows mostly) ended up being pretty satisfying overall. I played a lot of great titles that I have been neglecting like Gemfire, Nightshade, Bucky O'Hare and many others. Since my last update these are the game I have finished though:
One of my favorite publishers Taito, put out a cool little puzzler appropriately called Puzznic. In Puzznic you have a time limit in which to figure out how to match 2 or more colored gems together in order to clear the entire play area. What starts of as very simple matching eventually becomes pretty tough in the later few levels. Its a very simple premise and even though you have a time limit that only really matters if you're worried about score. If you just want to progress to the next puzzle its quite a relaxing game as you can take your time experimenting until you come up with the right solution.
In addition to the regular Puzznic game there is also a Gravnic mode. In Gravnic you have the same goal of matching gems, but instead of sliding the gems around the screen individually you change the gravity of the entire room causing all the gems to react at once. If you check out my video you'll see that I spent well over 7 hours playing Puzznic/Gravnic in order to solve all the puzzles. For an NES game I feel the packed a lot of value into this little puzzler. Would have been great to see a 2-player mode, but if you like solo puzzle games its definitely worth checking out.
Track & Field II is a game that I've actually been plugging away at for weeks now. I've mentioned in the past that I don't like using Turbo controllers and that made this game extremely challenging. In fact I'd rank it among the most challenging games I've been able to beat when playing it with a standard controller. The final day of the game was the most taxing for myself with both the Archery and Horizontal Bar giving me a TON of trouble and countless failed attempts. The game is fun when playing against human opponents, but its pretty frustrating when playing to win the single player at times. Not to mention that I had to take 1-2 week breaks in between my attempts to let my poor fingers recover from the massacre they endured by mashing the A button so much. In fact I literally tore a chunk of my fingernail during one attempt. Glad to be done this one.
After Track & Field II it was nice to slow things down again with something like Swords & Serpents. Its a fairly basic First Person Dungeon Crawler. Just the speed of game I was looking for at the time. There is a dragon at the bottom of a 16 floor dungeon and your goal is to slay it. Simple as that. Each floor has a different little theme or trick to it to spice things up a bit. There are check points on the 1st, 5th and 10th floors, but otherwise you must use warps or stairs to traverse down to the bottom. The password system as Bombatomba has pointed out is pretty brutal in this game though. Each of your 4 characters has a code as well as your overall game, and in addition to that you have to rename your characters each time you start the game up. Because of this it takes 3-5 minutes just to start playing again each time. Other than that little hiccup and the 9th floor which I wasn't a big fan of the game was a lot of fun. Very simple, easy to understand, and fun.
To keep things on the same pace as I was still recovering from Track & Field II I popped in Tombs & Treasure. This game is a little hybrid of RPG, Point & Click Adventure, and Dungeon Crawling. Like Swords & Serpents Bombatomba has spoken a bit about it during his summer challenge last year. Like a lot of early adventure games I felt you lacked direction quite often and it was challenging to know where to go and what to do. Not the best example of any of the genres it takes on, but its kind of a neat offering overall. Worth checking out only if you're a big fan of any of the genres or just want to try something a bit unique.
What better way to finish off my 100 day challenge than by slaying yet another Dragon? I was very pleasantly surprise by AD&D Dragon Strike so I thought I'd check out the only other Advanced Dungeons & Dragons game I owned, Heroes of the Lance. Again I was kind of surprised by the style as I had assumed it to be a first person RPG or dungeon crawler of some sort. I was a side scrolling action RPG instead. You have a group of 8 characters who are represented by whomever you have place at the front of your team. Your goal is to traverse a dungeon and slay a dragon with a specific staff that you start the game with.
The team they provide you with is pretty diverse and features warriors, clerics, wizards, dwarfs, elves, etc. Lots of different classes and races to play around with. The game itself was much shorter than I had anticipated though. Once you figure out how to approach different enemies (such as attacking them high, middle or low or what spells are most effective) its a pretty simple game too. The last boss is huge and terrifying, but if you managed to keep the staff with you and use it on him it isn't really a battle. He dies in one hit from it. Definitely didn't do as much for me as Dragon Strike, but still a very interesting game and has been looking forward to trying the other 2 AD&D games.
Here is the full list of 325 NES games beaten since October 2011 when I started my first challenge. This 100 in 100 challenge started with Sesame Street Countdown and ended with AD&D Heroes of the Lance.
Future Plans - Take a short break from NES and play Batman Arkham Asylum with the rfgen community. Maybe play another modern game or two and then return to the NES, but at a much more relaxed rate. Still craving some slow moving games so I plan to check out some stuff like Wizardy or some of the KOEI games I've been neglecting.
