Kinda like quick-disconnect bridges, I guess…
hope everyone had a good holiday. Mine consisted of lots of swimming, outdoor sporting, eating that damn boss from Blaster Master’s level 5, spending time with family, and I managed to fit in some NESing between the activities.
1942 & 1943, developed by Capcom, released 1985/1988, completion time: about an hour and a half (plus about 30-40 minutes on 1942)
As was suggested earlier on this thread, I decided to give 1942 a try. Alphabetically, this game comes first on the list of NES games. I KNEW when I was getting into this game that I probably wasn’t going to finish, because I suspected that this was one of those games that didn’t have an ending, and after playing about 10 stages, it started repeating itself. 1942 & 1943 are vertical auto-scrolling shooter games made by Capcom and originally released in arcades. You fly a Lockheed P-38 and take on the entire Japanese air force single handedly. By shooting a series of pink planes, you can get weapon upgrades, and three times per stage, you can do a flip which will make you temporarily invinsible - great for when you are surrounded. Note that these are two games that absolutely require turbo controllers (and are perfect for auto-fire, since you almost NEVER want to stop shooting) if you still want to have feeling in your thumb when you finish it. 1942 has a number of flaws. As mentioned, it was a direct port of the arcade version - a game that’s fun for about 5-10 minutes, but once you run out of lives, you probably aren’t going to put another quarter in unless you’re trying to get on the top 10 list for points. This is exactly that type of game - shoot shoot shoot until you get the high score, and they’ll keep providing you with more enemy planes. There is no variety to the stages either. You’re mostly flying over water, and occasionally you’ll see an island, but there’s no maneuvering like most air shooters have. Another huge complaint with 1942 that I absolutely have to mention here is that game has some of the most awful “music” I’ve ever heard on the NES. It isn’t even music, it’s just morse code beeping, with a drum track under it!! Anyway, once I realized that continuing to play 1942 was going to be a waste of time, I moved on to a more familiar game - 1943. This game was what 1942’s NES port SHOULD have been. Capcom improved on everything wrong with that game. It kept the same platform, but now every stage has a boss (and some of them are HUGE, multipart bosses), there is some damn fine music which Capcom would later on get a reputation for, and there’s an experience-building system - you can raise your offensive power, defensive shields, energy level (in 1943, unlike 42, you have an energy meter which counts done 1 point per second, as well as additional points for every time you are hit. You only die if you get hit when the meter is at 0), special weapon upgrades, and special weapon time, one at a time, every time you find a special hidden item…there’s usually one per level. This game has 30 levels, each level taking 5 minutes at the most to complete - it DOES have a password system too. There are some pretty intense moments, but the whole game is pretty managable once you get the hang of it. Now, I know I never finished 1942, and am probably not going to (and I don’t think there even IS an ending), but I would recommend everybody thinking of doing it to just go ahead and play 1943…it’s more of a remake than a sequel, and 1942 has nothing to offer that 43 doesn’t.
The Adventures of Bayou Billy, developed by Konami, released March 1989, competition time: about 2 hours (even though there’s only maybe 20 minutes of actual gameplay from start to finish)
Jesus fuck. I know this game has a reputation for being hard, so much that there was a Captain N: The Game Master where Motherbrain discovers that the only game Kevin can’t beat is THIS ONE, but this was just insane. I mean it when I said I never got by the first level before, and it took me probably an hour of dying and restoring just to make it through the first level this time around. The big thing that makes this game so hard is #1 every enemy has the same hit points as Billy and #2 they have a much easier time hitting you than you do hitting them back, and #3 for whatever stupid reason, you are forced to stop and fight a bunch of enemies, including alligators who are isolated to the water and have NOTHING to do with your quest, rather than having the option of avoiding them and running ahead. I suppose most beat-em-up games are like this though. I honestly don’t know how ANYBODY who bought this game back in 1989 managed to beat it. Infact, I’d like to know just many times this game was returned, either out of frustration, or because the cartridge got smashed when it was thrown out the window, set on fire, and then smashed with a steel toed boot. Honestly though, after level 1 (and level 3 which is basically a mirror image of level 1), the game does calm down. The two shooting levels are a piece of cake (note that if you are playing this on a emulator, and I hope you are, cuz otherwise you are never going to SEE the second stage, choose GAME B or else it’ll expect you to play with a zapper) and the two driving stages are manageable (btw, since when could Jeep Wrangler drive 180mph?). The key to getting through the rest of the game is getting the whip. Once you have the whip, you have the distance you need to attack without worrying about missing and getting hit back. Okay, for those of you who are wondering the deal with this game, besides its cruel level of difficulty, Bayou Billy, who is a severe ripoff of Crocodile Dundee, has this girl named Annabelle…Anabelle…Annabelly (see, there ARE continuity problems in this game!) who gets kidnapped by Big Daddy - the same big daddy from the Chief Wiggam PI episode of the Simpsons (infact, I think that whole episode was ripped off from this game) and you gotta go through the swamps and New Orleans to rescue her…it’s a beat-em-up similar in style to Double Dragon, but there are also two shooting stages (like Duck Hunt) and two driving stages (like Rad Racer, but with guns). If you ever DO manage to beat the game (and I applaud anybody who even seriously tries to), you do get one of the longer endings for an NES game…and the big surprise is that Bayou Billy is played by none other than Billy West…the voice dialouge is so intelligible (just like Konami’s Double Dribble and Blades of Steel) that I didn’t think ANYBODY did his voice. This is one game that I absolutely never want to touch again. Beware.
A Boy and His Blob, developed by David Crane, released March 1990, completion time: 3 minutes (yes, MINUTES)
After Bayou Billy, I needed some reassurance by playing a game I KNOW I can beat blindfolded. A Boy & His Blob is a really obscure game that I bet nobody would have even played if it weren’t for the 4 page review in Nintendo Power. My brother wanted it for his 8th birthday just because of that review…in the beginning, it actually took us a long time to finish. This is one of the first “sandbox” games, where it’s actually more fun and rewarding to just screw around, rather than try to beat the game. The story is that this blob comes to planet earth, and meets this kid, and they become friends, and the blob wants him to save his planet, which was taken over by some marshmallow king who looks like Jabba the Hut. The catch is that when you feed the blob jelly beams, he turns into stuff. Feed him punch jellybean, and he turns into a hole…feed him cola and he turns into a bubble…feed him apple and he turns into a jack. All of them are either puns, rhymes, or just plain confusing (strawberry bridge?)…and then there’s the ketchup jellybean, which makes him CATCH UP to you, if he gets stuck somewhere. Having all of these tools at your disposal, plus a pretty non-linear world, (although it’s a side scroller, so if you want to move vertically, you better make sure you don’t fall to your death) there’s a lot of random stuff you can do. However, if you know what you’re doing, and actually want to finish the game ASAP, you can do it in about 5 minutes
]and if you want to do it in 3, immediately use a root beer rocket, fly to the blob’s planet, and when you land, go to the very left of the screen. Prepare to throw a jelly bean, but rapidly press left and right while he is winding up for the throw, but stop when he releases, and it’ll scroll the screen to the left for a split second - to the screen with the king - and when it returns, ALL of the enemies on the planet are gone. All you need to do is run all the way to the right, until you reach the door that you need the lime key for. Go one screen to the left, and use the punch hole directly underneath the hole in the ceiling, whistle for the blob, and let him make another hole. Run to the right (while still in the second hole), and you’ll be running through the ground, and will fall off the right edge of the screen and end up in the king’s room. You know what to do here. Enjoy the lame graphics for the ending.
Ducktales, developed by Capcom, released September 1988, completion time: 18 minutes
Ducktales is another quickie. Fun game though. It was totally made to cash in on the success of the cartoon series, but being a Capcom game that WASN’T a direct port from the arcade, you know you were getting a quality game. The story is that Scrooge Mcduck is a greedy, rich bastard, who is trying to find some rare treasures around the world so that he can get even richer. He drags his family and friends along and half of them get captured, and the other half find some out of the way place to sit around and help you, should you pass them by. One of the funnest aspects is that you use a walking cane for a weapon. You can pogo with it, attacking enemies from above, or use it as a golf club, smacking enemies with rocks. I used to own the Gameboy version, which was SLIGHTLY different, so I got lost a couple times in the NES one. Similar to Mega Man, you can choose to play the stages in any order, although aside from one level which has an item you need to finish another level, it doesn’t really matter the order. I always thought it was strange how the game keeps making you go back to Transylvania, considering that was the only level in the game that WASN’T actually on the cartoon show.
How is everyone else’s challenges going?
Yeah, Bayou Billy was a motherfucker. I remember that my bane in that game were the driving parts. They had bad enough handling to just be borderline impossible if you couldn’t get the knack for that fucking driving.
I think the dent is still here…ah yes, here it is. The dent in my basement wall from my head. Frustration!
I’m gonna have a pretty busy week ahead, so I’ll give everyone a couple days to catch up. I’ll be back on Friday with Code Name Viper, and possibly Kabuki Quantum Fighter & River City Ransom too.
So far, since beginning this challenge, I’ve completed 7 games:
1943
Abadox
Adventures of Bayou Billy – way fucking hardest so far
A Boy & His Blob – shortest so far
Blaster Master – longest so far
Duck Tales – easiest so far
Silkworm
and banished 1942 to the unwinnable pit of doom
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
I’m so very sorry.
Battletoads!
Speaking of Masochism… I had a game called Section Z that was pretty bad. At the end of each level, you would choose one of two exits, sometimes an exit would take you way back like 30 levels. Also, some exits you couldn’t access until you found a boss somewhere on a different level (meaning you’d have to go back and try a different path to find it).
I did manage to beat it (thanks to a FAQ that gave the right paths).
Having now re-tried Blaster Master, knowing where everything is, I take back my incredulity. Apparently, the 20-hour figure I was using included a lot of blind exploring and a lot of needless (though useful) power-upping.
For further nominations: I know that puzzle games like Tetris are generally “survive as long as you can”, but there are exceptions. On the Nintendo version of Tetris, you could play type B, which started you off with some amount of junk already on the screen, and you had to complete some pre-set number of lines to win (whereupon you would get a congratulations screen). And in Dr Mario, each individual level was beatable (when you killed all the vira), and the level counter only went up to 24 (which was actually no different from 20). After you beat 24, it would loop to 24 again indefinitely, so it never completely ended, but I think it’s fair to say that once you’ve beaten level 24, you’ve beaten the game. So I would recommend adding one or both of those to the list.
A question, by the way: Some games have multiple difficulty levels (some of the Mega Man games), or a “Second Quest” once you beat the first one (Zelda, most famously). For purposes of this challenge, is a game only “beaten” when the hardest difficulty is beaten, or is just the first/easiest allowed?
I’d say that the purpose is to not only beat them, but to beat them quickly. It’s up to the white mage’s discretion, although I’d like to see how long it took to beat the regular mission, and then how long it took to beat the extended campaign, and then a total.
How about Genghis Khan next, or are historical simulations out?
DuckTales was incredibly easy to beat. I beat the game the first day I owned it as a kid, and that was when I was substantially less skilled at video games than I am today; it only took me a few hours. All you need to do is master bouncing on that cane all the time.
What about McKids? I know it wa sa McDonald’s game, but I actually remembered being surprised at how much fun I had while playing it. The fact that you could run through levels upside-down was a very cool twist for me.
:eek:
10-yard fight begs to differ, sir! Pistols at dawn!
Oh, I forgot to mention in my Ducktales review - I played on Normal difficulty. This is going to be my default, and with games with two modes, I’ll do the easier one. Difficult mode isn’t intended to be used for first time players…it’s something to try once you beat it the first time.
and Genghis Kahn is out, because I’m not doing RPGs in this challenge…that challenge comes later. So is 10 Yard Fight, which was too ashamed to even call itself a football game (when the original NES sports games came out, we had Baseball, Soccer, Volleyball, Kung-Fu, Ice Hockey, Mach Rider and…10 Yard Fight).
I loved NES, and SNES. I think I beat every game for SNES and most for NES. I’ll recommend some of my favorites:
Zelda 1. Easy but I’d be interested to see how fast you can do it.
Adventures of Lolo. Awesome puzzle game. It has an ending. It gets wicked near the end.
Battletoads. I dont think I ever beat this ><
Gauntlet. A classic!
River City Ransom. Already mentioned, but I <3 this game. Great beat-em-up.
Arkanoid. D’oh!
That’s all I can think of right now that would be good for this. There was a D+D style dungeon crawler that I’m trying to remember, but alas.
How about Low G Man? I always liked that game, but I could never get past the boss of the submarine stage.
Indisputably, but does it have an ending? I thought that you just had a never-ending stream of dungeon levels. Gauntlet Legends had a well-defined goal, but that was long after the NES era.
Yes, thank you.
I’m not quite sure how I made that mistake. I’m just glad that I didn’t accidentally link to the “tell us about your masturbation fantasies” thread or something.
I’m still working on Code Name Viper (I got stuck at the end of stage two and had to wait until I got home to consult Nintendo Power), and 3D Worldrunner gave me a headache so I had to stop playing it (this game really does cause motion sickness!), but I did complete two games this week, which were fond memories of my childhood which I had an urge to play again. I’ll do a lot of catching up this weekend.
Batman, developed by Sunsoft, released 1989, completion time: about 45 minutes
Another good side-scrolling action game from Sunsoft. When the Batman movie came out in the summer of 1989, it was the craze of the year, and naturally somebody had to cash in on the video game port. Fortunately, Sunsoft actually did a good job with it, and Batman would stand well even if it wasn’t based on a franchise, especially since the game hardly resembles the actual movie, aside from the cut scenes between stages. What makes Batman unique and fun is that you have three different weapons - a batarang, a rocket gun and a dirk (which look like three compact discs being thrown at three angles straight ahead), as well as punching, and you have the ability to jump off walls, a la Ninja Gaiden. There are also some crazy bosses, including one which is fighting an entire room. Fortunately, ALL of them have safety spots where you can just fire and fire and not take a hit. Two complaints I do have about this game - first, it’s a very DARK game…I don’t mean evil dark, I mean the level designs are so dark that it’s sometimes hard to tell where you’re able to jump or climb. Also, the opening music starts with a long low pitched note and a black screen, and it always used to make me think that my NES was frozen, since actual frozen games do this too! However, the music gets much better really fast…I’m willing to bet it was the same composer who did Blaster Master, but back then, nobody ever used their real name in the credits…
Commando, developed by Capcom, released 1986, completion time: 35 minutes
Ah, Commando. The overhead run-and-gun game that probably has a higher kill level than any other NES game of the genre. A turbo controller is VITAL. This game was originally known to me as the game where you die if you run out of grenades, but since grenades are so friggin hard to aim, that will never become an issue. Although the gameplay is nothing like it (aside from the truck attack sections), this game is actually a prequel to Bionic Commando - your character is Super Joe, the bad ass war hero who drinks, smokes and chews tobacco between stages (how in the hell did that make it past Nintendo’s censors?), who is the guy who needs to be rescued in the second game. While this game is fun, it can be tedious to actually beat, since the game recycles entire stages, and there is very little variety to the grey soldiers you are blowing away. One of my friends used to own this game, and he knew it back and front, which is why I was confused that I couldn’t keep finding snake pits when I played through it, since he spent half the game going in and out of them. It turns out that the snake pits, which appear when you throw a grenade in the right place, serve no real purpose other than raising your score, so I probably finished faster by NOT looking for them. The most annoying thing about this game is it is possible to get stuck in the corner of mountains and bunkers, leaving you a sitting duck until you can wiggle your way out. Also, the boss of each stage waves a white flag when you’ve killed enough of his cronies, but if you run right into him, he’ll still kill you, so you have to line yourself directly up with him about 1/4 down the screen so that your character will automatically run through him to the next stage. Like most early NES action games, Commando is a port from the arcade version, which would probably provide a more enjoyable experience.
more great Engrish in the ending:
CONGRATULATIONS <3
YOUR ALL MISSION IS OVER
THANK YOU FOR PLAYING
YOUR GREAT PLAYER <3 <3
THIS GAME WAS ENDED
Chubby Cherub, developed by Bandai, released 1986, completion time: 25 minutes (about half of which was spent trying to escape the dark pit of doom)
This was the first time I’ve played this game…it was suggested by somebody earlier in this thread…but I was familiar with it. I remember reading about this game in The Official Nintendo Player’s Guide and thinking it was the stupidest looking thing ever. Bandai had a reputation back then for making really crappy games (just wait until I accept the Jeckyl & Hyde challenge!) and for having games where A attacks and B jumps, because they just HAVE to be different, and break a tried and true tradition. There’s really not much of a story to it - you play as this extremely creepy looking cherub, who flies around on rooftops slaughtering puppies and owls and eating food to increase your killing power. You have to rescue really weird looking kids who were kidnapped to advance to the next stage, and occasionally you’ll get a stop sign where the only way to advance is to sin (gluttony, of course, by eating every piece of food on the screen). Surprisingly, the gameplay isn’t as bad as you’d expect, although it never gets very hard (with one exception, coming up) so anyone who’s ever played any side scrolling action game should be able to handle it. However, there’s one catch. Fall down a cliff and you’ll receive a fate worse than death - you’ll end up in a completely black pit, with one eyed monsters who can’t be killed but won’t hesitate to try to kill you ASAP. There are invisible blocks which you must jump around to find, since you also aren’t allowed to fly in here, and you need to work your way up to the door in the upper right corner. This wouldn’t be QUITE so bad except for the fact that even if you die, you won’t lose a life, so you are TRAPPED in here until you get out, with no option of dying to continue from the beginning of the stage. About half of my entire gameplay experience was spent escaping this room, and I made absolutely sure to never fall down another cliff again. And I wasn’t at all shocked to find that once I beat the game, I got nothing except for a CONGRATULATIONS screen and Japanese-style dance music.
Code Name: Viper, developed by Capcom, released 1989, completion time: about an hour
This game fits the definition of “cheap”. You can’t really call it a run-and-gun cuz if you go through the game with guns blazing, you won’t even make it halfway through the first stage. The enemies in this game are SMART, and they shoot first, and they don’t miss, and they also know how to duck to avoid your shots. There are a number of doors which you must pop into to find ammo or to rescue hostages, and if there are any enemies on screen, they’ll be waiting to shoot the moment you exit the door, before you have the chance to fire back. This is the biggest challenge in this game, at least until you learn how they act, and then the game becomes much more managable. This game is a side (and occasionally vertically) scrolling action game. You’re some Army guy, running through South America trying to bust up a drug gang. Each time you complete a stage, you get a little more of a note translated, which eventually reveals a surprise about the leader of the gang that I’m sure everybody saw coming. The interesting thing about this game is that aside from the very end, there aren’t any bosses. To beat a stage, you need to find the hostage which can give you a bomb to blow open the door, which is why I got stuck in level 2 the first time I played it earlier this week. There’s very little replay value to this game, but it’s worth a play if you want a action platformer where the enemies aren’t idiots.