NES Completions thread 2024 - 669/677

[Daniel_Doyce | 494]

On 9/27/2024 at 8:13 PM, BeaIank said:

Left hand only got worse since then and work got a lot busier. I don't have the time to count frames and wait for the right time to shoot. Nor I have the fine coordination needed to set the shot anymore since my left hand fully lost all tactile sensation it had.
Would love to do it, but it would take a full day or more in my current state and I don't have that kinda time.

My apologies @BeaIank, hope you know I wasn't taking a dig at you. Take care of your hands!

I am curious about the frame count comment - did you find some way to deal with the wonky "random" shots?

[BeaIank | 1,696]

7 hours ago, Daniel_Doyce said:

My apologies @BeaIank, hope you know I wasn't taking a dig at you. Take care of your hands!

I am curious about the frame count comment - did you find some way to deal with the wonky "random" shots?

Yeah, I know you weren't. Just giving you a full explanation on why I didn't partake on that thing.}
And yes. I need to play to refresh the exact details, but each power bar has 3 stages and they last 2 or 3 frames each. Don't remember exactly because it has been so long since I broke it. With frame counting, you can manipulate the poorly designed physics model of the game.

[Gaia Gensouki | 1,118]

I've been trying Hunt for Red October for a little and made it to the fifth level boss two times. That's where the game gets really tough. Not sure if I can beat the game though since there are two more levels which get increasingly difficult. If anybody wants to try, I figured out that you if you press select, the enemy torpedos won't follow you anymore and enemies seemingly can't see you anymore. But you have only limited use of this ability. Another helpful trick is using A+B, which will explode every enemy projectile on screen. Some levels would be extremely difficult without that. On top of that, sometimes yellow planes fly over the water surface and a skydiver jumps out. If you catch them, you'll get an extra life. These little things make the game much more manageable, but it's still a tough nut to crack.

It's kinda frustrating, that we can't make it through the last 10 games. So close, yet so far.

[PII | 2,046]

1 hour ago, Gaia Gensouki said:

I've been trying Hunt for Red October for a little and made it to the fifth level boss two times. That's where the game gets really tough. Not sure if I can beat the game though since there are two more levels which get increasingly difficult. If anybody wants to try, I figured out that you if you press select, the enemy torpedos won't follow you anymore and enemies seemingly can't see you anymore. But you have only limited use of this ability. Another helpful trick is using A+B, which will explode every enemy projectile on screen. Some levels would be extremely difficult without that. On top of that, sometimes yellow planes fly over the water surface and a skydiver jumps out. If you catch them, you'll get an extra life. These little things make the game much more manageable, but it's still a tough nut to crack.

It's kinda frustrating, that we can't make it through the last 10 games. So close, yet so far.

@Dr. Morbis might be a good resident sounding board here.  IIRC he is a fan of this game and has beaten it.

Five out of seven levels sounds like you've made it to that point in the game where the difficulty becomes momentarily unbearable until you finally figure it out and when you do you've got what you need to make it through the rest...

[Dr. Morbis | 2,121]

On 9/30/2024 at 3:17 PM, PII said:

@Dr. Morbis might be a good resident sounding board here.  IIRC he is a fan of this game and has beaten it.

Five out of seven levels sounds like you've made it to that point in the game where the difficulty becomes momentarily unbearable until you finally figure it out and when you do you've got what you need to make it through the rest...

It's honestly trial and error and repetitive attempts to build the muscle memory for the sub levels so you always know what's going to come at you so you can strategize your best positioning and whatnot - basically like how you'd tackle a side-scrolling shooter.

The weirdest part about the game, something most people don't know because no one plays it through, is that the last level is a completely different game all of a sudden where you're walking around inside the sub; it took me a couple of tries because there's no real way to prepare for this (I guess you emulator guys could save-state and practice or map it out ahead of time) other than getting through the whole damn game for each new atttempt...

Edited October 2 by Dr. Morbis

[Gaia Gensouki | 1,118]

I've finally beaten Hunt for Red October! Yes, it was a lot of learning by heart and figuring out strategies to beat the bosses or get through the levels with minimal losses. I once game overed at the level 6 boss, because I ran out of missiles to attack it with. I didn't realize that you had to go to the right end of the screen slightly below water for the game to spawn a very small submarine that you can shoot down for additional missiles.

Anyway, I made ot to the seventh level a few tries after that and somehow managed to beat it, even if only barely. This was so intense! But luckily the game threw you a bone. So when you make it to the stage inside the submarine you always star with 5 lives, no matter how many lives you lost during the previous stages.

Anyway, what a tough game, and I'm happy that it's done with.

[scaryice | 623]

Gaia is putting some some serious work to whittle this list down! 9 games remain. I don't think there's anything easy left, except maybe Dance Aerobics. The only one I've beaten previously is Ikari Warriors, which took quite a lot of practice even using glitches.

[Gaia Gensouki | 1,118]

Thanks, scary! I've been trying Top Gun: The Second Mission. It's supposedly very short with only 3 levels, but the game really makes you wokr for it. It's already very challenging from the getgo, but level 2 already amps up the difficulty by quite a bit. Suddenly even the average fighters become tough enemies that are hard to kill. I also feel like the enemies are more agile than you as a player. Personally, I enjoyed the dogfights in Stealth ATF much more and F-15 Strike Eagle being for interesting overall for a game of this style. Konami's game just runs faster and smoother, but it's very frustrating.

Speaking of Dance Aerobics, I do have a power pad and could give this game a try once I've recovered from the flu. Unless somebody else has beaten this game by then.

[Gaia Gensouki | 1,118]

I've made it the third and final level for the first time with a lot of luck. Maybe with a bit more practice and good luck I can get a successful run one day. From level 2 onwards I mostly just avoid regular enemies, because they're too fast and aggressive for me. I only focus on killing the necessary targets, which are usually the ground targets, i.e. tanks in this case. I also barely look at the regular screen anymore. The radar on the bottom is much more helpful in avoiding enemy missiles.

As for the second level boss, I found that you can beat him easily by flying as low as possible and moving to the left and right while shooting. This way he doesn't seem able to hit me. Anyway, I hope that I can actually beat this. Then we would be down to only 8 games left.

[scaryice | 623]

On 10/6/2024 at 4:37 PM, Gaia Gensouki said:

Anyway, I hope that I can actually beat this. Then we would be down to only 8 games left.

 

Here's what @Strikezone1 had to say about it in 2021:

 

It requires precise and intricate movement and timing, in addition to a lot of memorization. The insta-death missiles that enemies fire at you from behind is incredibly frustrating.

If order to get the feel & memorization required in order to beat it, you gotta practice a lot with with either save states if you're emulating, or the infinite lives code using game genie. The game only gives you 4 lives (3 to start, 1 via points right around the time you clear the first boss), which is ridiculously not nearly enough to get the practice needed for the later 2 missions.

I always took the 40 missiles (the middle choice). There are spots in each mission to utilize them, both in dogfights and on normal enemies.

I literally made hand written notes for each and every sequence, detailing where & how to move for each, and when to shoot a missile. This includes the dogfights.

It is imperative to take out the enemy of each dogfight quickly. If it goes to a long drawn-out battle, there's a much greater chance they'll kill you.

Another frustrating thing about this game (as you know I'm sure) is that you cannot pause, and refer to your notes. What I did was I made notes in large writing and put them right next to the tv so I could quickly glance at them.

Edited October 9 by scaryice

[Gaia Gensouki | 1,118]

Thanks, @scaryice. I've now finally beaten Top Gun: The Second Mission. I was very close to getting to the last boss twice yesterday and today I finally beat him. I almost made it there without losing a single life, but then I got hit by a laser shortly before that boss, and another time I got hit during the fight itself. But then on my third out of four lives, I finally did it. Feeling pretty ecstatic right now.

[Gaia Gensouki | 1,118]

I've been trying out Michale Andretti's World GP recently and finally managed to beat a couple of races, but after winning four races it suddenly said level 1 clear and set me back to the beginning, but level 2. Can't I just race all 16 races in one go? Does it always set me back and I have to do them over and over again until I can finally race a full season? If so, then I could see this game become a massive pain.

[bronzeshield | 306]

3 hours ago, Gaia Gensouki said:

I've been trying out Michale Andretti's World GP recently and finally managed to beat a couple of races, but after winning four races it suddenly said level 1 clear and set me back to the beginning, but level 2. Can't I just race all 16 races in one go? Does it always set me back and I have to do them over and over again until I can finally race a full season? If so, then I could see this game become a massive pain.

I haven't played it, but I've read that there are 9 levels of steadily increasing difficulty and number of races, and TMR's playthrough matches those parameters, so I'm guessing you're basically right.

I also read that you get passwords but they'll send you back to the beginning of the level to try again if you didn't finish at the top of the standings...! So I guess they have no purpose when it comes to beating individual races, just rounds? (Did you get a Level 2 password, by the way?)

Edited October 14 by bronzeshield

[Gaia Gensouki | 1,118]

6 hours ago, bronzeshield said:

I also read that you get passwords but they'll send you back to the beginning of the level to try again if you didn't finish at the top of the standings...! So I guess they have no purpose when it comes to beating individual races, just rounds? (Did you get a Level 2 password, by the way?)

Luckily that's not the case. The passwords send you back to the current race. So that's a big relief. However, the races getting more and more difficult with every level sounds insane. It's already plenty difficult and winning even a single race is quite the challenge. Man, the remaining games really are a massive pain.

[Gaia Gensouki | 1,118]

I've just made it to level 5 of Michael Andretti's WGP. The goal is beating level 9, so it's still a long ways off. Also, the difficulty has ramped up significantly from level 4 onwards so every race is such a struggle. I have to restart them over and over again to get a good placing. The later races also get really difficult or rather the CPU is so tough that it almost seems like it's cheating. What a frustrating game.

Is anybody else currently working on something?

[Daniel_Doyce | 494]

@Gaia Gensouki Working on Nigel Mansell here

[scaryice | 623]

14 hours ago, Gaia Gensouki said:

Is anybody else currently working on something?

 

I played a little bit of Ikari yesterday, so maybe I'll try beating it again. Gonna take a while to fully remember the route.