Snickerd00dle's Summer Game Challenge 2011

[noiseredux]

Someone else can probably help you with the specifics of that part (my memory is hazy)...why did you set the end of August as your deadline when summer ends in September? For some people I assume it was for school related reasons, but surely people other than me are giving it until the end of actual summer, right?

I just felt like an even three months felt like a good enough chunk of time for me to do this experiment. I almost feel like hitting the end of August and giving myself permission to stop for real will give me the breather I need to happily pick MGS and CT back up to complete them. But yeah no real reason other than I was ready to start playing on June 1st and just thought of it as June, July & August are the "Summer months." Pretty arbitrary really.

[Crabmaster2000]

I have slowed down on playing a bit these last few weeks, mostly to build my MAME cabinet and start getting ready for the fall semester. I plan to play up until the actual end of summer in late September, so I am hoping to make progress on what I have left:


-Super Metroid (SNES)
-No One Lives Forever (PC) - PLAYING
-Diablo (PC)
-A Boy and his Blob (NES)

can anyone give me an estimate on how long each of these might take for an initial run through to the end credits?

I've been checking out your MAME build every few days. Fantastic job!! Also one of the best excuses anyone could have for slacking on their summer playing.

Here is my estimates for a first playthrough of your remaining games without using a guide:

Super Metroid - 5-6 hours
Diablo - 8-10 hours
A boy and his Blob - 5-6 hours

Its been a while since I've played any of them, but those numbers should be fairly close anyway. I think A Boy and His Blob would be the most frustrating and if you had to cut one I'd cut that one.

Got a bit further in Chrono Cross tonight. After a bunch of exploring and not doing anything useful I finally figured out where to go and am moving along again. They are tying in more and more Chrono Trigger plot now, which is really cool. Had time to play more, but didnt get much sleep today and am super exhausted and finding it hard to concentrate. Hopefully I'll be better rested tomorrow.

[CFFJR]

One thing about the schedule to keep in mind (since I had the same thought as noise with June, July, August) is that summer didn't officially start until June 22nd. We'd already been playing for three weeks by then.

Dsheinem, just for the record, I think you should tackle Super Metroid next. Its an awesome game and its not very long at all (like I said a while back, it took me a little under 5 hours). You could nail it in a weekend.

All of this leads me to ask, Noise, are you still thinking about a Winter Game Challenge? Because I've already started planning a list for that.

[dsheinem]

summer didn't officially start until June 22nd.

[CFFJR]

summer didn't officially start until June 22nd.

That's just perfect.

[alienjesus]

So, on topic, I just got through the pure land on Secret of Mana, and I'm about to start my assault on the mana fortress. Assuming its the final battle like it wants me to think, I should be done pretty soon.

[Xeogred]

So, on topic, I just got through the pure land on Secret of Mana, and I'm about to start my assault on the mana fortress. Assuming its the final battle like it wants me to think, I should be done pretty soon.

Indeed you're at the final stretch. Have you been enjoying it?

[alienjesus]

So, on topic, I just got through the pure land on Secret of Mana, and I'm about to start my assault on the mana fortress. Assuming its the final battle like it wants me to think, I should be done pretty soon.

Indeed you're at the final stretch. Have you been enjoying it?

Yes and no. I've enjoyed it more than I did initially, and more than I expected, but it has a lot of things about it that bug me, particularly the laughable story (presumably translation issues with available space?) and the fact it often didnt tell me where I was supposed to go. Travelling with flammie on the world map sucked despite looking awesome because nothing was very clearly labelled, making spells level up was so irritating and time consuming and i felt it dragged a bit at certain sections, even while it was throwing rediculously short dungeons at me - it felt a bit like they wanted to put too much in. The hit detection can be rather wonky, and the start of the game was really unbalanced too, the game became much easier as it progressed, mostly thanks to magic.

On the other hand, I enjoyed running about and killing enemies, I liked the variety in the spells, the character sprites were really charming and the bosses can be quite fun. I'd definetely say overall I've enjoyed it, but I don't see it as the absolute classic most do.

[Xeogred]

Yes and no. I've enjoyed it more than I did initially, and more than I expected, but it has a lot of things about it that bug me, particularly the laughable story (presumably translation issues with available space?) and the fact it often didnt tell me where I was supposed to go. Travelling with flammie on the world map sucked despite looking awesome because nothing was very clearly labelled, making spells level up was so irritating and time consuming and i felt it dragged a bit at certain sections, even while it was throwing rediculously short dungeons at me - it felt a bit like they wanted to put too much in. The hit detection can be rather wonky, and the start of the game was really unbalanced too, the game became much easier as it progressed, mostly thanks to magic.

On the other hand, I enjoyed running about and killing enemies, I liked the variety in the spells, the character sprites were really charming and the bosses can be quite fun. I'd definetely say overall I've enjoyed it, but I don't see it as the absolute classic most do.

Glad to hear you're at least seeing it through to the end though! It's one of my absolute favorites (possibly my favorite SNES JRPG soundtrack as well), but yeah... there's no denying it has issues. Are you going to consider giving Seiken Densetsu 3 a shot afterwards sometime though? Let's go over some of your SoM complaints:
- Hit detection is WAY better in SD3. Along with that, they do away with the "charging" which I will never miss at all whenever I go to SD3 after SoM or Evermore. Instead, your characters build up some attack bars with each hit, and when you get 4 you can then do a stronger attack. Later in the game with class changes, you'll get stronger special attacks that can hit everything on the screen, or just do more damage than normal specials.
- No magic levels, no need to grind that crap then.
- I LOVE that you actually see how much exp enemies give you when you defeat them.
- Maps are broken up into smaller sections, but this puts less stress on the game. I remember SoM could get a little laggy sometimes or the music would get buried in sound effects and stuff, not an issue in SD3.

Aside from that, the game offers:
- 6 characters to choose from at the start. There's three mildly different paths depending on who you pick, and at some points in the game different dungeons.
- The branching class system is just awesome. It's a "no turning back" thing, but all the more reason why this game has insane replay value. There's mid classes to choose from when you hit level 18 I think, then final classes when you hit 38 or something along with a special item.
- Some of the best graphics on the SNES hands down and some of the best music, man I wish that composer did more stuff. This game seriously has like 12 boss themes or something, I love it. Keeps it interesting.
- I can't believe how much Legend of Mana stinks compared to this game, lol
- Stat distribution with level ups, so again, just a lot more dynamic gameplay here.

The story kind of like SoM is nothing to brag about, but it makes up for it with everything else. I find it to be perhaps the most replayable JRPG's I've ever played. The gameplay is just so damn fun it's crazy.

As for SoM's translation, yeah. Maybe it just wasn't handled very well. I hate to show you this now that you're at the end, lol... and maybe it's nothing too special (can't comment on this myself since I haven't played it like this), but here's some fan re-translation that looks pretty awesome:
http://www.fantasyanime.com/mana/som_enhanced.jpg
http://www.fantasyanime.com/mana/somdownloads.htm

[Crabmaster2000]

Just saw the credits roll on my Chrono Cross which means I'm officially done my summer gaming challenge!! I'll write up a bit about each title and some other junk on my Blog and then post a link here when its done.

The last several hours of Chrono Cross made Chrono Trigger seem even more amazing!