Summer Games Challenge 2018 - begin when ready!

[alienjesus]

3:43pm and were still working through Ecco: The Tides of Time. This game is longer than I expected, I'm still only about half way!

Stage 13 - I have to find some lost Killer Whales. There are 8 of them. It takes quite a long time, but it's fairly easy.

Stage 14 - This one is a hard mode exclusive level apparently. It reminds me of Ecco 1 levels, which is to say it's really tedious. Lots of backtracking and tedious moving around of spike rings to break open new passages.

15 - This one was short but took a few attempts. You have to follow other dolphins around in this level as they show you where to go. They're quite fast and make erratic turns though, so it's easy to lose track.

16 - This one was really dark, and the alien enemies are here for the first time. On hard mode they kill you in one hit, which sucks. The actual stage was easy enough once you figure you need to reuse the same key twice.

17 - This one was very short and easy, but really cool because you transform into a jellyfish halfway. Jellyfish are like the goombas on the ecco series, easy fodder to defeat. But as you swim around as a jellyfish there are a couple of occasions where dolphins shoot sonar at you, so it's like experiencing life from the other side. Super easy though.

18 - This was a simple level with a teleporter and not a lot else. There was some enemy who gave me a homing shot ability for the 3D stages.

20 - I honestly barely remember this stage. I mostly grabbed myself a sonar power up and blasted through everything.

21 - This sucked. It's a boss fight where a giant seashell tries to slam you into walls whilst you swim down a trench full of eels, who kill you in one hit. The only real way to progress is to learn which side the eels are on and memorise it. At the bottom you fight a giant eel inside the shell but I killed it in abotu 2 seconds by spamming sonar so at least that bit was easy. After that I got 2 asterite orbs and was told to find the others.

22 - This seems like it might just be part of the last level actually, but I grabbed 4 more asterite orbs and returned them before moving on. Based on how many orbs the Asterite originally had, I'm going to assume I've got a whole lot more to gather yet.

That's me on Ecco for now though - I think I'm going to take a break and play a different summer game for a while.

[alienjesus]

Double posting because I think it will be easier than adding to my ecco notes above.

Since I wrote that I've been playing Mega Man 8. So far I've cleared the intro stage, the first 4 robot masters (Tengu Man, Clown Man, Grenade Man and Frost Man) the mid-stage and the first of the second set of robot masters (Aqua Man).

It's pretty decent so far, the weapon selection is pretty solid.

My only trouble spot so far was the jump, jump, slide, slide section in Frost Man's stage, which caused me more trouble than I care to admit.

[lordb0rb4]

Double posting because I think it will be easier than adding to my ecco notes above.

Since I wrote that I've been playing Mega Man 8. So far I've cleared the intro stage, the first 4 robot masters (Tengu Man, Clown Man, Grenade Man and Frost Man) the mid-stage and the first of the second set of robot masters (Aqua Man).

It's pretty decent so far, the weapon selection is pretty solid.

My only trouble spot so far was the jump, jump, slide, slide section in Frost Man's stage, which caused me more trouble than I care to admit.

What version are you playing on AJ?
I was between this and X4 for my Summer Challenge.
How about dificulty?

[alienjesus]

Double posting because I think it will be easier than adding to my ecco notes above.

Since I wrote that I've been playing Mega Man 8. So far I've cleared the intro stage, the first 4 robot masters (Tengu Man, Clown Man, Grenade Man and Frost Man) the mid-stage and the first of the second set of robot masters (Aqua Man).

It's pretty decent so far, the weapon selection is pretty solid.

My only trouble spot so far was the jump, jump, slide, slide section in Frost Man's stage, which caused me more trouble than I care to admit.

What version are you playing on AJ?
I was between this and X4 for my Summer Challenge.
How about dificulty?

I'm playing it on Legacy Collection 2 for PS4. It's a port of the PS1 version of the game.

Difficulty wise, if you're experienced with other Mega Man games, I'd say it's been fairly reasonable overall. I had a hard time on Frost Man's stage but there's been lots harder in other games in the series. It's harder than Mega Man 5 or 6 but easier than 2 (on difficult), 3 or 9 for example.

Finished up for the night now, after polishing off all 8 robot masters. Tomorrow I'll muscle through Wily's Castle.

[pierrot]

It's a port of the PS1 version of the game.

Ew, gross--. Why?




1. Garou: Mark of the Wolves
2. Sega Rally
3. Killer 7
4. Metroid Prime
5. Super Monkey Ball
6. Streets of Rage
7. Zelda II
8. Uncharted 1
9. Virtua Racing
10. Dragon Quest VI


I actually played through the story mode of Mark of the Wolves, as Hotaru, almost a week ago. It was not easy. I have no idea how many credits I burned trying to get through it, but it was at least 20, I'm sure. Gato, and Grant were just the worst. They repeatedly trashed me, hard. Maybe partly my fault for playing Hotaru--it seems like she might not be one of the better characters in this game. In any event, it wasn't unenjoyable. I find the short hops to be pretty unintuitive in MotW, though. Anyway, MotW is pretty all right. I've never had strong feelings about it in the past, and that hasn't really changed after I finally cleared a story mode run. I got a "bad" ending, though. Getting the "true" ending is way beyond my realm of investment.

[lordb0rb4]

It's a port of the PS1 version of the game.

Ew, gross--. Why?




1. Garou: Mark of the Wolves
2. Sega Rally
3. Killer 7
4. Metroid Prime
5. Super Monkey Ball
6. Streets of Rage
7. Zelda II
8. Uncharted 1
9. Virtua Racing
10. Dragon Quest VI


I actually played through the story mode of Mark of the Wolves, as Hotaru, almost a week ago. It was not easy. I have no idea how many credits I burned trying to get through it, but it was at least 20, I'm sure. Gato, and Grant were just the worst. They repeatedly trashed me, hard. Maybe partly my fault for playing Hotaru--it seems like she might not be one of the better characters in this game. In any event, it wasn't unenjoyable. I find the short hops to be pretty unintuitive in MotW, though. Anyway, MotW is pretty all right. I've never had strong feelings about it in the past, and that hasn't really changed after I finally cleared a story mode run. I got a "bad" ending, though. Getting the "true" ending is way beyond my realm of investment.

Oh, what a bummer
I came to enjoy MOTW a lot more over the years, great gameplay and visuals IMO.
Terry is a beast and that Ryo Sakazaki kinda guy is awesome too.
But yeah, the whole bad and good ending is annoying, maybe you give Fatal Fury Special or FF 3 a go next year?

[lordb0rb4]

Max Payne
Castlevania Chronicles
Mafia
Altered Beast
Metal Slug 4


Sonic Adventure 2
Turbo Outrun
Fatal Fury
Sonic The Hedgehog
Outrun 2006 C2C
Art of Fighting
Ridge Racer V
Mega Man X4

And Metal Slug 4 is down, and i must say that i loved it, even the zombie pieces (the reason i hated Slug 3) aren't annoying and dull, the variety is amazing and all the vehicles are a nice addition.

[alienjesus]

It's a port of the PS1 version of the game.

Ew, gross--. Why?

If you're saying 'why?' am I playing that version, it's because it cost me £15 instead of £200.

If you're saying 'why?' they put that version on the disc, it was probably easier to work with than something made for the Saturn's dodgy hardware.


More Ecco today! I'm almost at the end now!

[marurun]

There’s a difference between dodgy and hard. Jaguar is dodgy. Saturn is hard.

[Key-Glyph]

Hey AJ, nice work with Tides of Time so far! I hope you're still able to enjoy the game despite playing on Difficult difficulty. That mode exists as an unbalanced extra challenge to folks who have already beaten it, which is why I recommended against starting there. That, and Normal difficulty dynamically adjusts to how you're doing -- so if you keep getting thrown out of the autoscrolling sky levels, for example, it'll eventually slow down the scroll speed for you. That makes things less frustrating while perhaps being less of a blow to players' egos, since the game is only giving you a reprieve when you need it until you get back on your feet (fins?) again.

It's not that I don't think you can do it, but more that I'm sad to think you might not have a chance to have fun with the game. It's tiring to be aggravated the whole time... which is often what Difficult mode does to a person. I just played through on Difficult a month or two ago myself and even I, a key gyph, was tempted to take a ragequit break from the last level.