Games Beaten In 2023

[newtmonkey]

Adventures of Lolo (NES)

I sat down last night with the intention of just getting playing the first couple of floors... but I became quite addicted and after an hour or so or playing I completed the entire game in a single sitting!

 

This was one of those random games I bought back in the day when I was a kid, because the screenshots made it look like a Zelda-esque action RPG.  I remember being initially disappointed that it was actually a puzzle game instead, but grew to enjoy it.  I never finished it legitimately back then (I used level codes to skip boards I couldn't solve), so it was very satisfying to finally complete this without skipping levels or looking up solutions.

 

It's really quite an exceptional game.  The graphics and music are simple and repetitive, but charming, but of course the real appeal of this game is its puzzles.  The game does a great job of slowly introducing new puzzle elements, and by the last three floors or so you really need to take what you've learned and apply it in new, interesting ways.  The game always follows its own rules, and never just hands you a puzzle that makes no sense (even if it might seem so at first).  I love how each "board" fits into a single screen and how the game starts each board in a paused state, allowing you to take a breather when you reach a new board and analyze it without any pressure.  I also like how the game deviously throws lots of red herrings at you, distracting you from the real solution.

 

I'll definitely be playing Adventures of Lolo 2 in the future.  That will be exciting, because I've never even played that one before.

Edited April 17, 2023 by newtmonkey

[Keir]

Commodore 64 - Zak McKracken

Another really tricky point & click adventure like Maniac Mansion which I played a lot as a kid and was never able to beat. There were several times I was tempted to look at a walkthrough but I only gave in once (I couldn't figure out how to open the middle door in the Mars face). Also, thanks to @wongojack for telling me about the Universal Hint System. I didn't use it to solve any puzzles but it was helpful in that it let me know I was on the right track.

Edited April 27, 2023 by Keir

[+wongojack]

On 4/16/2023 at 9:03 PM, newtmonkey said:

Adventures of Lolo (NES)

I sat down last night with the intention of just getting playing the first couple of floors... but I became quite addicted and after an hour or so or playing I completed the entire game in a single sitting!

 

This was one of those random games I bought back in the day when I was a kid, because the screenshots made it look like a Zelda-esque action RPG.  I remember being initially disappointed that it was actually a puzzle game instead, but grew to enjoy it.  I never finished it legitimately back then (I used level codes to skip boards I couldn't solve), so it was very satisfying to finally complete this without skipping levels or looking up solutions.

 

It's really quite an exceptional game.  The graphics and music are simple and repetitive, but charming, but of course the real appeal of this game is its puzzles.  The game does a great job of slowly introducing new puzzle elements, and by the last three floors or so you really need to take what you've learned and apply it in new, interesting ways.  The game always follows its own rules, and never just hands you a puzzle that makes no sense (even if it might seem so at first).  I love how each "board" fits into a single screen and how the game starts each board in a paused state, allowing you to take a breather when you reach a new board and analyze it without any pressure.  I also like how the game deviously throws lots of red herrings at you, distracting you from the real solution.

 

I'll definitely be playing Adventures of Lolo 2 in the future.  That will be exciting, because I've never even played that one before.

Great writeup.  I had a very similar experience with this as a kid and also ended up finally finishing as an adult.  I've played Lolo 2 a bit (and liked it), but I've never finished that one.

[+wongojack]

1 hour ago, Keir said:

Commodore 64 - Zak McKracken

Another really tricky point & click adventure like Maniac Mansion which I played a lot as a kid and was never able to beat. There were several times I was tempted to look at a walkthrough but I only gave in once (I couldn't figure out how to open the middle door in the Mars face). Also, thanks to @wongojack for telling me about the Universal Hint System. I didn't use it to solve any puzzles but it was helpful in that it let me know I was on the right track.

I'm glad you made it to the end.  I couldn't do it when I tried a few years ago.  I really like UHS when it has a game I want.  I wish there were more games that had gotten that treatment over the years.

[neogeo1982]

Local exchange had some Dreamcast games surprisingly.

Dead or Alive 2. Played through with Ryu and Ayane. I have the 3rd game on original Xbox but had never played this one. Solid fighting and combos. Multi tiered arenas and good detail on the characters. This is a fun one.

 

[neogeo1982]

Also picked up Soul Calibur and have been working on getting through the missions and unlocking art & extras. Beat a few times with several characters. This has so many bells and whistles to it. Very fluid fighting. I still play the newer ones but had never had the Dreamcast one before. Fun to play and looks good on modern TVs too.

 

[+thegoldenband]

7. Kaiketsu Yanchamaru 2 (Famicom)

 

Nice-looking in places, tries to be deeper than the first game, but undercooked and too easy. The first game (Kid Niki) was more fun. C-.

 

8. Spartan X 2 (Famicom)

 

Nice-looking in places, tries to be deeper than the first game, but undercooked and too easy (except the part where streams of enemies drop on your head). The first game (Kung Fu) was more fun. C-.

 

9. Milon's Secret Castle (NES)

 

I respect what they were trying to do, I really do, but actually playing the game is a chore and didn't need to be. Why not give Milon a bit more zip, horizontally? And why not have more than two boss types? C-.

[neogeo1982]

Dreamcast

Phantasy Star Online - ver1 for 105 hours then upgraded to the ver2 update for last 16 hours

Hard Mode playing solo beat Dark Falz at level 58. Got some good drops at the end too. Used every last healing item and 3 revives I had on me.

 

[Keir]

PC DOS - F. Godmom

This was another game that I played in college but never beat. It clearly seems inspired by Lode Runner but instead of digging holes you use your wand to copy a pattern from one square and paste it on another temporarily (e.g. in the screenshot above I copied a coin and pasted it on some ladders in order to move them and create the ladder on the left). Some of the 50 levels are very difficult and fortunately you can save your progress and retry any level as many times as you want. Apparently there are 50 more levels that you could mail away for after beating the first 50. Not sure if I can find those but this feels good enough for now.

 

[RetroSonicHero]

Grand Theft Auto: Vice City (2002, PC Port)

 

Such a fantastic game, seriously. I don't know what I can say about it that hasn't already been said. The soundtrack, the gameplay, the mission design...

While some parts of it feel a bit old by today's standards, if you look past some aspects of it such as the archaic controls, it really is a wonderful time.

Edited May 25, 2023 by RetroSonicHero

[Keir]

Commodore 64 - Impossible Mission

I played this game a lot as a kid and while I always enjoyed exploring, avoiding robots, and searching for puzzle pieces, I never fully understood how to win the game. I used a lot of save states to get to the end, and now that I understand how to get there I'm going to try again without cheating!

 

[newtmonkey]

Dragon Quest III (Famicom)

I completed this for the first time tonight, and I had a blast playing it over the last month or so.  I used a Hero, two Martial Artists, and a Priest for my party, and it was a lot of fun.  The Martial Artists start out quite weak, but after a few hours into the game they became extremely powerful and fast (and you save a ton of gold since they get their best equipment only a few hours into the game).  Between the two of them, I could usually take 1-2 tough enemies down in battle before the enemy even got a turn!

 

I ended up completing the game at levels 38-41, depending on the character.  I found the game to be very fair, with no need to grind EXP or gold at all at any point in the game.  I also had a ton of fun mapping out all the dungeons on paper; the game is truly massive, and I used up 20+ sheets of graph paper to map all the caves, towers, and dungeons.

 

One thing I really liked about this game is how nonlinear it becomes during the middle section.  The first few hours of the game are very linear with you going from town to cave to town, but once the main quest actually begins, you're free to explore the world, gather information and clues, and solve quests in almost any order (within reason).  The difficulty also levels out during this section, so it doesn't artificially "gate" you from exploring the world through overly difficult encounters, etc.  A big part of this is that the game has very few "boss" encounters... as long as you can survive the random encounters, you can go pretty much anywhere.  Much like Dragon Warrior II, it reminded me more of computer RPGs like the Ultima series or Shard of Spring, than it did your typical console RPG.

 

Another thing I really liked is how useful even your low-level spells are throughout the entire game.  The sleep, silence, and kill spells are effective even against endgame enemies.  Also, running from battle is very reliable; you can almost always run from the second round, and if not, almost certainly from the third round.  You can really push your party far into dangerous territory by making clever use of spells and running from difficult encounters.

 

All in all, a 5/5 game for me.

[Keir]

On 5/29/2023 at 9:06 AM, Keir said:

I used a lot of save states to get to the end, and now that I understand how to get there I'm going to try again without cheating!

I did it! No save states, and less than 9 minutes to spare (meaning one death would have been the end for me!)

 

I think the fact that I kept going even after winning the first time is a testament to how good this game is.

[neogeo1982]

Dreamcast - Record of Lodoss War

    Took around 50 hours. The last 10 hours was just grinding weapon and armour skills. The game was really good til near the end with a steady stream of boss battles that progressively required gear leveling. Really good overall and nothing else like it on Dreamcast. Very much like a Baldurs Gate or Diablo game with slash and looting. After the ending it lets you load up your save for additional content like another dungeon. It was gonna require even more skill grinding so I called it quits for now. 

[neogeo1982]

Dreamcast - Power Stone

    Even on 3 star difficulty it can get tricky on the last few rounds. I use Falcon a lot and can usually beat it. Wish this series and a few others from that era would get new entries or an HD remaster.

 

[Keir]

Commodore 64 - Times of Lore

Another unfinished game from my childhood down. The version I was playing seems to crash after it gives the final score, so I had to watch the ending video on Youtube. It was not hard to beat, but it was also not fun. It's sometimes described as "Ultima light" though really they are worlds apart. ToL isn't even an RPG, just a rather boring action game disguised as one.

[Cynicaster]

Earlier this week I beat NES Contra for the first time without using the Konami code or any continues.  I don’t think it’s that hard of a game but I just never got around to doing this until now.  
 

The weird thing is I wasn’t even really trying.  I was testing out my controls setup and just selected Contra as the test game because Contra rocks.  But as I played I just got into a groove and ended up beating it.  I always wanted to do it because it’s one of the great unfinished tasks of my gaming childhood.  Felt good to do it 34 years after first getting the game.  

[zylon]

SNES Final Fantasy Mystic Quest 20hrs ish

[newtmonkey]

Tengai Makyo ZIRIA (PC Engine)

I'm glad to get this one over with, and despite it being a pretty terrible RPG and not a good game at all, I didn't hate it.

 

---

 

I'll start with the good, because there's not a lot of it.  The enemy art during battle is quite good, and some enemies (mostly bosses) are slightly animated.  The characters are all pretty likeable, but it's nothing you haven't seen before in any anime or game.  The overall conceit of the story is interesting, in that the game is supposed to be based on writings from a well-intentioned but cluless foreigner who gets Japan all wrong.  However, nothing is really done with this; I mean, how different is this from something like Momotaru Densetsu or any other historical Japanese game with fantasy elements?

The best thing about the game is how "magic" (techniques) are handled.  Instead of earning them as you level up, you find them throughout the game in the form of scrolls.  You can only carry a limited number, so you have to choose which ones seem most useful.  You can also learn a few optional sword techniques from masters throughout the world, but you have no control over using them as they just have a random chance of triggering (very rarely).

 

Now for the bad.  This game has a lot of problems.  You'll go through a massive stretch lasting hours where you get no equipment upgrades and barely level up, and then all of a sudden you're upgrading your equipment every 15 minutes.  It also takes forever to gather your full party, so it's basically like playing a really slow, boring version of Dragon Quest (the first one!) for what seems like a dozen hours or so.  Even when you do gather your party, there's just not enough to the combat.  Buffing/debuffing techniques are too unreliable to bother with, and attack techniques are too weak for how many points they cost to use.  That means that 99% of the game is spent just attacking and healing.

Outside of the enemy art during battle, it's a really ugly game.  The tiles and sprites are poorly drawn with low detail, and there's simply not enough variety.  Being a CD-ROM game released in 1989, you'd expect tons of unique monsters, areas, and characters, but nearly every area is identical, and you get a ton of recolored enemies. Take out the voice clips and the two (!) redbook audio tracks, and this could easily have been a HuCARD game.  Contemporary cart RPGs like Phantasy Star II or Dragon Quest III blow it out of the water in every way, from complexity and variety, to scope and graphics.  Hell, even Dragon Quest II and Final Fantasy, both released in 1987, are far more complex and satisfying RPGs than Tengai Makyo ZIRIA!

 

The biggest problem with the game is the overall structure.  The land of Jipang is full of villages and towns, but they are all basically the same thing; the villages even have the same exact layout and are just copy and pasted all over the land.  Talking to NPCs is a massive waste of time, as within a village or town every NPC basically just says the same exact thing, just in a slightly different way.  But you absolutely have to talk to them, because every once in a while, one of those villagers is an important quest character.

 

The game is actually the third attempt by the developrs, after scrapping two versions of the game that were quite far into development (the second version is said to have been nearly complete). The game that was released was in development for only six months, and it shows.  Without enough time to actually make a good game (or balance this one), the developers just put a bunch of band-aids on the game.  Whenever you hit a difficulty spike, the game immediately hands you some tool to completely negate it.  Toward the end, you have a technique that completely blocks all enemy attacks and another technique that completely blocks all enemy magic... these work 100% of the time, even on bosses.  This makes the final area, including a tedious "boss rush" against literally every boss you've defeated over the course of the game, a total cakewalk.  The last boss, by the way, is incapable of hurting you at any level, as the quest items you gather in his castle reduce his damage to 0.

Having said all that, I did like it enough to play to its tedious conclusion.  I'd give it a 2/5, since it's not broken or offensive or anything.  The best thing about playing and completing this, though, is that I can now play through its sequel, Tengai Makyo Maji MARU, which is much beloved by Japanese RPG fans.

[+thegoldenband]

10. Kyoro Chan Land (Famicom)

 

The Famicom version of Castelian (or Tower Toppler, or Nebulus, or...), but with a password system and a licensed character. The game has some creative ideas and thoughtful stage design, but manages to make itself actively unpleasant and player-hostile in so many ways, one wonders what the designers considered "fun". Only the passwords make it playable. And why the hell didn't they use the second action button on the controller, instead of assigning jump and fire to the same button -- inevitably yielding endless mishaps when you meant to do the one, but the game does the other? D.

 

11. Marble Madness (NES)

 

Picked it up, beat it on the first try. Still a great time! A.

 

12. Jakks Pacific Disney 5 in 1 (Plug & Play)

 

I think I'll count the included games individually:

 

12a. Lilo & Stitch: Stitch's Search for Paradise

 

Fairly basic collectathon aimed towards kids, in which you can run out of time but otherwise can't die. If you want to get every single photograph you're supposed to collect, a bit of tricky platforming and rubberbanding à la Knuckles Chaotix (or something) is required, but otherwise it's straightforward. Decent for what it is. C.

 

12b. Aladdin: Aladdin and the 5 Gems of Agrabah

 

This resembles a simplified version of aspects of the Genesis and SNES Aladdin games (more the latter than the former). Some of the platforming requires nearly pixel-perfect jumps, and handling some enemy placements is also rather tricky. Still, not too difficult, and no worse than an average 8- or 16-bit platformer of the classic era. I'd say it crosses the line into "mildly entertaining", even. C+.

 

I'd like to beat the Timon & Pumbaa game, so maybe there'll be a 12c, but I think the other two (a golf game and a Puyo Puyo clone) have no ending per se. EDIT: Nope, the golf game has an ending!

[+thegoldenband]

12c. Lion King: Timon to the Rescue

 

The 40 levels in this dumbed-down version of Pipe Dream appear to be procedurally generated from a RNG seed, varying from playthrough to playthrough. This would be fine, except that some of the levels make it possible to get into a "dead man walking" state where Pumbaa is walking in the wrong direction, clockwise instead of counterclockwise (or vice versa), with no way to correct it and no way to complete the level. Here's an example:

 

 

If Pumbaa were walking counterclockwise, the win would be trivial -- just rotate the corner he's currently on by 90° counterclockwise -- but since you can't rotate a piece while he's on it, the level is in an unwinnable state. (Sending Pumbaa back to the starting door at the top counts as a loss.) It tends to come down to the very first turn, and you don't really get enough time to think it through in the few seconds before the level starts.

 

So, rascal that I am, I started taking pictures and cogitating before some of the later levels (in fairness, the pause screen shows you most of the stage layout, but not all). I only needed to do that for a few of them, but one was ferociously difficult and I had to work it out for a good few minutes before unpausing! I think it was this one:

 

 

Try working it out for yourself. It's quite something!

 

Anyway, the "dead man walking" issue is a downer, and it'd be nice if it bothered telling you what the bonus cherries do (especially since they only appear in out-of-the-way places when timer is low), or if it were possible to gain extra lives. Still, for a stunted version of Pipe Dream, it's halfway decent. C-.

 

12d. Lion King: Simba and the Tree of Trials

 

Does (massively) beating the default high score count as beating a game with no ending? I guess so, if I say it does. Weak Puyo Puyo clone with unrewarding mechanics; all the fanfare in the world for combos doesn't matter if you don't get anything for them. D.

[+thegoldenband]

12e. Donald Duck: Donald's Golf Tournament

 

Turns out that this golf game -- the last of the built-in games on this Disney plug-and-play -- does have an ending! Beaten on Rookie, Amateur, and Pro difficulty, and that last one wasn't altogether easy. Not sure if anyone has posted the end screen of this one to the Internet; all the playthroughs on YouTube I've checked end up below first place.

 

Despite the somewhat counterintuitive putting, this is a very decent little golf game. It moves at a brisk pace, has easy controls and logical difficulty settings, nice music and presentation, and honestly puts many 8- and 16-bit efforts to shame. On my Amateur playthrough, I got what I think was the first hole-in-one I've ever gotten in a golf game, which was nice. Well done, Jakks Pacific programmers! B.

 

[zylon]

NES Crystalis 

Edited July 11, 2023 by zylon

[newtmonkey]

Dragon Slayer: The Legend of Heroes (PC Engine)

Although this ultra-orthodox RPG was released on the PC Engine in 1991, it's actually a port of a PC game originally released in 1989.  It really doesn't do anything particularly interesting, and plays like most any other linear console RPG from the era... that means turn-based random encounters, a continuous loop of town->dungeon->boss->next town->repeat, and a fixed party of characters.

 

It starts out honestly pretty bad.  It's EXTREMELY grind heavy at first; not only do you need to grind just to survive early on, but the game prevents you from progressing until you reach a certain level of experience.  Characters in the game will literally tell you stuff like "I won't join you unless you're level 5 or higher" or "we need to be at least level 8 to beat this next boss"; those aren't recommendations, by the way... the game literally will prevent you from continuing the game until you've reached the proper level.  I've completed dozens of console and computer RPGs over the years, and this is the first time I've ever encountered such a thing.

 

Luckily, the game drops this nonsense after the first chapter, and slowly but surely, it also drops the mandatory grind just to survive.  The last 75% of the game is actually a joy to play, with no need to grind at al.  It ends with a massive maze that's sadly pretty dull, as it's full of extremely tough enemies and lots of treasure chests full of restorative items (boring).

 

Having said all that, the game has some good stuff.

 

It's a really basic looking game, but it's charming.  Everything is tiny, but quite detailed (especially the enemy art during battle).  It's got a very good soundtrack, and interestingly, you can choose between CD audio or PSG (chiptune) versions of the soundtrack, with the PSG audio sounding surprisingly good.  The only downside is that there really aren't many tracks throughout the game, so it gets a bit repetitive.

 

The dungeons are also quite good, with lots of useful treasures to find throughout.  You can see the enemies running around in the dungeons, and it's actually pretty easy to avoid them if you want to.  I actually found myself looking forward to each dungeon, cave, tower, or whatever.

 

Finally, the writing is actually quite good, even if the story is pretty dull.  The characters all have their own personalities and quirks, and there's a good amount of intra-party banter and even some fun character development, all without being excessively wordy.  It reminded me of Final Fantasy IV (1991), only written much better.

 

Overall, not anything special, but it's worth getting over the first awful hour or two because the game becomes quite nice after that.  I'll definitely be playing the sequel.

[Keir]

Commodore 64 - Indiana Jones in the Lost Kingdom

I don't know why I put so much time and energy into this awful, ugly game as a kid. Perhaps it was the challenge of figuring out what the heck I was supposed to do, since the manual does not explain anything, or maybe it was spending my hard-earned allowance on it and wanting to get my money's worth (I even convinced my parents to let me call the toll help line!)

 

I used save states to make it more bearable. It is rather short (6 levels) so after beating the game with save states I tried again without and was able to make it to the end of level 4. I'm sure I could make it to the end with a little more practice, it's just hard to justify spending my time that way!