Summer Games Challenge 2016

[Xeogred]

It's awful lonely up in this thread lately. Has everyone else dropped out now?

I'm still here! I was just away for a week. But even so, I beat Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins on the plane ride -- so I continue to progress!

Thoughts to follow when I'm not half-dead from convention fallout, airline delays, and a redeye flight.

Key if you haven't, you need to play Metroid 2 AM2R now since I think you recently ran through the original!

[Ack]

So, Kid Icarus.

I tried it on FDS and NES.
I tried going slow with point-grinding and then tried just blazing right through.
I tried it with and without save states.

And I just ain't feelin' it. It feels like a weird combination of Metroid (which rules) and, uh, I dunno, Ice Climber or some other janky old black label game (not good). There are just too many elements that annoy me. The omnipresent pit at the bottom of the vertical levels, the loss of points upon death, the damn maze sections...

And yet, there are still some promising elements. The graphics and music are solid. Control is alright. Definitely feels like "old Nintendo." I just don't know if I'll get to finishing it this summer. I'm burned out. Fire Emblem ain't happening either. Whatevs, 8/10 ain't bad.

You try the Game Boy one yet? I actually like it more than the NES original.

[Key-Glyph]

Key if you haven't, you need to play Metroid 2 AM2R now since I think you recently ran through the original!

I heard about this a long time ago when it was first being pitched, I think -- is it done? Where do I find it?

Man I loved Metroid II so much.

[Stark]

It's awful lonely up in this thread lately. Has everyone else dropped out now?

I'm still here! I was just away for a week. But even so, I beat Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins on the plane ride -- so I continue to progress!

Thoughts to follow when I'm not half-dead from convention fallout, airline delays, and a redeye flight.

Key if you haven't, you need to play Metroid 2 AM2R now since I think you recently ran through the original!

You might want to hold on to the download if you still have it the dev took down all the download links due to Ninty suing.

[ElkinFencer10]

Yeah, and then email it to me.

[Exhuminator]

You can download AM2R right here:

http://www.filedropper.com/am2r10_32

[Stark]

Cool, grabbed it ... for posterity and prosperity and propriety.

[Exhuminator]

Shadow Tower Abyss

I've got 5 hours in this now, I've taken down 2 of the 7 "lords", or rather, bosses. I've cleared the first tier of the Shadow Tower, and made it to the second tier. There's only a few HLTB time submissions for this game, and they average 8 hours. I find that brief completion time very difficult to believe at the moment.

Right now I am totally in love with Shadow Tower Abyss, as in 10/10 in love with it. I really have nothing to complain about so far, with only praise to express. Granted that opinion may change by the time I beat it, but if the level of quality stays this high... well, STA may be my 2016 GOTY indeed.

That said I find it hard to play STA for more than about two hours at a time. The reason being is the immersion is so strong, that I find myself sucked into its world in a way that is actually kind of stressful. Like my shoulders get tired from being constantly clenched in anxiety of what horrors I'm about to come up on next. This is a good thing, don't get me wrong, but can be exhausting. STA isn't a breezy game to play, let's just put it that way.

I'm definitely glad I played through the original Shadow Tower before this, there are a lot of subtle and direct callbacks to it in Abyss. So far Abyss has taken everything that was great about Shadow Tower into itself, while fixing all the things that weren't great. Creeping through scary environments, isolated in fear and apprehension, brutal battles with vicious monsters, awesome hidden loot stashed away, a threatening and constant air of mystery, and every inch of success hard-won all on your own. Magnificent stuff.

[Stark]

Can't wait to play Shadow Tower someday, sounds badass.

[Exhuminator]

Shadow Tower Abyss

I cleared two areas on the second tier of the tower last night.



One area had an industrial factory motif overrun with huge vines. This area wasn't too difficult except most of the enemies there could regenerate appendages, meaning you had to kill them as quickly as possible. I got tricked by a bastard NPC who asked for money, then locked me in a room with an exploding treasure chest. I made my way out of there and he was gone. Really sucks because I'm pretty sure I needed to kill that guy to finish a sidequest for a demoness' request earlier in the game. Probably locked myself out of a magic sword or something. Anyway, ended up working my way to the bottom of the place and killing a boss resembling a giant plant with a huge eye. From there I moved on to the cliffs area.



Oh man, the cliffs. So this place consists of narrow walkways precariously crisscrossing a bottomless pit. Being super careful not to fall off is hard enough, but then there's these damned harpies flying around who make your life miserable. They fly around haphazardly, and then dive bomb you, and do massive damage if they hit (and they will hit). The first time here I made it through the area and killed the boss (super powerful harpie with magic armor), then on the return trip screwed up trying to take a shortcut and fell off a goddamn cliff. Cost me 45 minutes of gameplay (there's no save pillar in the cliffs area that I could find). The second time through I was pissed off and in a hurry, and ended up getting killed by a harpie protecting its nest. (It wasn't too happy that I killed its chick.) That cost me another 30 minutes of gameplay. The THIRD time through, I just took things as methodically as possible, and utilized guns and offensive magic as much as possible, and maneuvered as carefully as possible, and finally succeeded. I killed the boss, got the next elevator key, and left the area still in one piece. But yeah, I saw this screen way more often then I'd like to have last night:



I put three straight hours into Shadow Tower Abyss last night, but my save file says I've only been playing for 6.5 hours. Of course that doesn't include the 1.5 hours I've lost from dying and losing progress. Still loving STA though, don't get me wrong. I stayed up too late playing, and feel like shit today, always a good sign I'm playing something great!