Summer Games Challenge 2014

[BoneSnapDeez]

Revised list:

Alien Syndrome
Castlevania: Symphony of the Night
Dragon's Curse
Exile
Final Fight
Mega Man
Metroid
Ristar
Super C
Zelda II: The Adventure of Link

Finished Ristar the other day, though I don't feel compelled to write much about it. It was okay. Feels like a Sonic game, but your star character Ristar uses his stretchy arms to grab and bop enemies as opposed to jumping on them. It's a frustrating mechanic a good deal of the time, and while I wanted to zoom through the levels like Sonic, many of the stages are bogged down with switches and pulleys and other inane little puzzles. Beautiful graphics and music, but not a game I ever desire to play again.

I also replayed Final Fight via Final Fight Double Impact on Xbox 360. It's essentially the same game but with a border that contains the arcade cab artwork and some graphical touch-ups. Somewhat confusingly, there are also some "challenges" that seem to be completely independent from the typical Xbox 360 Achievements. Some of them are stupidly simple ("Complete level 6 using less than 30 lives") and others have ridiculous names ("Sodom-ised" - are you kidding me?!).

Zelda II is up next. Playing it on the GBA.

[Retrogamer0001]

Revised list:

Alien Syndrome
Castlevania: Symphony of the Night
Dragon's Curse
Exile
Final Fight
Mega Man
Metroid
Ristar
Super C
Zelda II: The Adventure of Link

Finished Ristar the other day, though I don't feel compelled to write much about it. It was okay. Feels like a Sonic game, but your star character Ristar uses his stretchy arms to grab and bop enemies as opposed to jumping on them. It's a frustrating mechanic a good deal of the time, and while I wanted to zoom through the levels like Sonic, many of the stages are bogged down with switches and pulleys and other inane little puzzles. Beautiful graphics and music, but not a game I ever desire to play again.

I also replayed Final Fight via Final Fight Double Impact on Xbox 360. It's essentially the same game but with a border that contains the arcade cab artwork and some graphical touch-ups. Somewhat confusingly, there are also some "challenges" that seem to be completely independent from the typical Xbox 360 Achievements. Some of them are stupidly simple ("Complete level 6 using less than 30 lives") and others have ridiculous names ("Sodom-ised" - are you kidding me?!).

Zelda II is up next. Playing it on the GBA.

Geez, at this rate you'll be finished your list by the end of June!

[Ack]

Geez, at this rate you'll be finished your list by the end of June!

Well yeah, his intention was to get through a bunch of short classics so he could play a lot of longer RPGs this summer. His choices make sense to me.

[BoneSnapDeez]

Yeah. And I doubt I can play all ten back-to-back anyway. Gonna have to take a break sometime.

Also, there's a certain series that tends to distract me from whatever I'm doing and forces me to play one of its games instead. I'm not naming names but here's a hint:

[darsparx]

Yeah. And I doubt I can play all ten back-to-back anyway. Gonna have to take a break sometime.

Also, there's a certain series that tends to distract me from whatever I'm doing and forces me to play one of its games instead. I'm not naming names but here's a hint:

As if that wasn't completely obvious knowing you Though my problem is even making it through what games I put on mine because I want to play one each equally(really wish I'd genre balanced it debating figuring out which of my other nes or even gba games counts as classic and playing one of those instead....I need something that's not a rpg)

[Ack]

Yeah. And I doubt I can play all ten back-to-back anyway. Gonna have to take a break sometime.

Also, there's a certain series that tends to distract me from whatever I'm doing and forces me to play one of its games instead. I'm not naming names but here's a hint:

So...the next Madden, eh?

[alienjesus]

Expert mode is a fucking dick in Wave Race 64.

It's hard enough that computer are really good and that qualifying is really tough (you need an average of six 2nd place finishes and one first to qualify for the final race) but the game likes to throw a ton of bullshit at you to sap all the fairness out of it.

First of all, the computer racers are aggressive pricks. They will always ram into the back of your jetski, causing you to pull violently to the side, miss some buoys, and lose the race. If they're not doing this, they'll just straight up fly out of nowhere right into your racers head, knocking you off your jetski. You fall in in expert, you're probably not going to win the race - particularly on tracks 4 through 6 - the computer racers are ridiculous on these ones (especially 4, which is by far my least favourite course).

In addition, the rubber banding is extreme, and the racing lines are ludicrous. You can be 4 seconds ahead crossing the line for the lap, and without fail you'll be overtaken on the first corner of the lap by someone who thinks they're in F-Zero X instead of Wave Race. They'll probably try to knock you off as they pass. And they're faster - faster than it's possible for you to go, particularly if, like me, you use Ayumi Stewart. Any racer that makes it almost impossible to win with on of the characters is doing it wrong imo. Th computer will shoot miles ahead taking flawless lines leaving you no hope of catching up (this is a big issue on track 6). The best you can do is follow as best you can and hope they crash into something and fall off, which they do rather randomly and sporadically. This never happens in course 6 - Twilight City though. The best you can hope for as Ms. Stewart is 2nd from what I can tell.

To top it all off, track 7 is totally new to expert mode, and actually pretty tough. It's cruel that it's so far in, meaning you have to have a good run to even make it here, and you have bugger all chance to practice it.

I like Wave Race 64 a decent amount, but expert difficulty is frustrating and cheap.

[alienjesus]

A double post, but I think it'll be clearer to read my thoughts seperately anyway.

Carried on in Symphony of the Night. Discovered some new areas and fought 2 new bosses. Bosses I;ve fought and the order I found them in spoilers below:

1. A lizard bird thing and a demon (Alchemy lab)
2. Doppelganger (Outer Wall)
3. Scylla Worm woman (Sewers)
4. Hippogriff (Chapel/Belfries)
5. Lesser Demon (Library)
6. Minotaur and Werewolf (Colosseum)

I obtained some new powers which will help me explore most of what's left of this castle now I reckon:

I can double jump, turn into mist and turn into a bat.

My Relics section has LOTS of empty space though, so I'm assuming there's lots more to find.


Stats:
Alucard level 20
HP: 169, MP: 110, Heart: 108
Equipment: Holy Rod (finally a weapon upgrade!), Knight Shield, Bandana, Silver Plate, Crystal Cloak
Relics: Soul of Bat, Soul of Wolf, Form of Mist, Cube of Zoe, Spirit Orb, Leap Stone, Faerie Scroll, Jewel of Open, Merman Statue, Faerie Card

Really enjoying this one. I keep expanding the mpa though - I bought the basic map at the library and it looked almost finished, but most of the places I went today weren't on it, so lots still to find I guess!

Tomorrow I be exploring more of Orlox's Chambers, accessing all the high up stuff I couldn't before and then finally exploring the clock tower properly.

[darsparx]

*sigh* i feel the need to edit this list again, going to move some games to reserves and try to switch a few onto the list to not make it so rpg heavy. If the list kept going like it was i feel I would get tired of rpg's like I did for a few weeks when I started playing my dad's nes since that was all he had when I dug it out...

- super mario bros(deluxe on gba sp with gbc cart)
- crystalis (gbc and nes)
- final fantasy I (psp)
- ys I & II (psp)
- SM64 DS
- The adventures of lolo(nes)

Reserves if others are completed:
- Pokemon yellow(gbc with silver being added if I beat this one)
- dragon warrior
- final fantasy adventure(gbc)


And before anyone says anything I know the ds title probably doesn't count but it is a decent version of the sm64 game I will have on hand plus I've never fully beat sm64 so I figure I'll beat this version and if I get a n64 by the end of summer and sm64 I'll beat that one too. But for now that seems more solid than it was...

FF1 update: now on my way to the Matoya's cave. I've always somehow went there before provoke and never played the game before I did so the first time. All my characters are default and level 5, love the names it gave me for generating ones: Argus, Gerad, Sara, and Zok. Definitly going to play more soon, loving this one since this port fixed what was wrong in that version off psn where i couldn't save where I wanted to, call me spoiled(I blame Golden Sun) but it's nice being able to save where I want to

[noiseredux]

OMG TR Anniversary would be a way better game if it had save states.

EDIT: Just beat Midas' Palace.

About 6.5 hrs on the in-game play clock. 18 hrs on the Steam clock.

Apparently I'm now halfway thru - hitting level 8 of 14.