Space Harrier

Got a couple more black box games to add to the collection. Mario Bros and Excitebike means I have 12 left games left to get a full set. Hoping to pick up a few more by the end of the year. Next up we have Buster Bros Collection and a complete copy of Rambo First Blood Part 2. For whatever reason I was having a tough time coming across a decent copy of Rambo, but I am happy to add it to the collection as it’s a tough but fun game. Buster Bros is awesome and I had never heard of the 3rd game until seeing this collection. Also picked up Metal Slug Anthology and Tekken Tag Tournament. Got a cool 8 bit Marco from Metal Slug, also got the Wendy’s Mario Advance/Mario Kart board game. The board game is complete, but the box is probably a 5 or 6 out of 10. Still cool to have. Picked up these cool NES cartridge key chains. I chose to get some of the cooler looking ones. Lastly, an update to a pick up that happened a few years ago. Some of you may remember that I picked up a free but untested Commodore 1702 monitor from my school back in 2021. Unfortunately, once I brought it home, I discovered that it didn’t work. So it’s been sitting in my room for almost 3 years. At Christmas last year (I forgot to post this in my last update), a family member surprised me when they pulled out a Commodore 64 and a matching disk drive. They mentioned to me that they had found them sitting in the recycling area at their work, and picked them up as soon as they saw them. It’s pretty cool that I have gotten almost an entire Commodore setup for FREE! The only money I have spent on this was a power supply for a C64. I have been really busy, so I haven’t been able to do anything with them, other than confirm that both the console and the disk drive both appear to turn on. Eventually I will fix all three of them and have a nice working set up. That’s all for now, thanks for reading!

Mario's Picross is done. Fun game that I have a lot of nostalgia for. By the way @Splain, I don't remember who beat it but I didn't clear Pac-In Time.

I went crazy and picked up a bunch of Atari games over the last while. Mostly lots that I purchased. Too many to list. Most notably, I was able to collect most of the text label games. Still missing a few, but I did burn out so I’m in no rush. Not everyone’s cup of tea but I think it’s kinda cool. A few random games. I have the 3-D glasses floating around somewhere. The effect is actually pretty good. Really enjoy Tekken 3 too. Picked up some heavy hitters (for me anyway) for my NES collection. While I like the Castlevania games, I’m most happy with finding a reasonably priced Clu Clu Land. I could never find a copy that wasn’t overly expensive, same for Wild Gunman. The 3 new additions to my black box collection put me over the halfway mark.

Game and Watch Gallery is done. This is a series I have had a lot history with, mostly with 4 but I did play and now own the others. I'm pretty good at Fire and Oil Panic, but I suck at Octopus and Manhole which is weird considering they are also both in 4 and I'm not that bad there, oh well. It plays great and I love the music, I even listen to it and the other games when I'm not playing. In terms of progress on other games, I'm currently finishing up the kinoko course in Mario's Picross (I played through easy picross which took a little more time but I like the game so it's fine), and I just finished the world 2 boss for Wario Blast. After that, I'll be looking at Pocket Bomberman. I did mention Atomic Punk, but that seems like kind of a time sink at the moment, so that may get punted down closer to the summer.

Super R. C. Pro-Am is done. This game gets difficult in the later stages especially with the AI that suddenly gets a speed boost. But it's still fun. Kwirk is also done. This is a fun puzzle game that took me a while to beat.

Solar Strike is a pretty boring and mundane shooter, very similar to Star Force on the NES. Took a few attempts but I got it eventually. Meh. Who Framed Roger Rabbit. I had relatively low expectations going into it, but I found a fun but short game. And that's it's only downfall: with six scenes to get through, I felt a little disappointed once I reached the end of the game. Very fun otherwise.

Another 2 done: Elevator Action. This is a fun but short update on the arcade game. In the last level, you have to enter a door (which appears to be randomly generated based on other YouTube videos) to get to an enemy gauntlet in a small hallway. It's frustrating because you need to fall down the smaller hatches to fall multiple levels. I'm sure they are randomly generated too You really need a few hearts and the machine gun to mow down the robots which take multiple hits. The music is good but got a little annoying after awhile. Not bad overall. Nintendo World Cup. I found this to be fairly easy. When choosing your team, I'd recommend either Germany, Italy and Argentina. These are apparently the best teams in the game. Before each game and each half, you can move your players into different positions, you get to choose whether you want to pass or dribble for offense and to choose if you teammates will score or only pass to you. I found that the offense option didn't really matter to me, but I'd recommend having goals on for the earlier games, and then off for the last few teams. The AI is kind of dumb, consistently running into the opponents and not doing anything. You have to tell them to slide or tackle to do anything. I also found that I could sit for a few minutes not doing anything, it would probably harder if I choose one of the worse teams. The music is good and the controls are tight. I liked the game but wished that the time each half takes would be quicker, 4 minutes is a lot and takes for ever.

It's been a while but I'm back with a couples of clears: Pac-Man is done. I dislike this port because it feels extremely difficult, even more so than the arcade game. Everytime I try to use the warp tunnels I get immediately get killed, with the ghosts being unusually aggressive. The screen crunch doesn't help at all. I feel that Ms. Pac-Man is a little more fair. Picross 2 is also done. I played through only the Mario game mode, which I would consider the "default" game ending since the Wario mode has to be unlocked. I played this game completely unrelated to the challenge and really enjoyed the game. I think I still like the first game simply because the second game is more tiring to play. And yes, I am still trying to work on Boxxle... but at this rate it will take years to finish.

I kinda assumed that when the clear condition said “clear all levels”, I thought this just meant to beat the main path of the game. As for a clear condition, I think that beating the main game chapters to get the default ending would be a viable one, since you would get the “default” ending. But I think getting an ending other than the sleeping ending could work too. If we come to a better condition I can definitely go back to clear it.

Surprisingly, Vegas Stakes is done I don't really like this game. It's a shame because HAL did a great job with the presentation. It doesn't feel like your playing the games to progress in the game, it just feels like your playing until you reach one of the events. The events are the only way I made real progression in the game. The only two games that were worth playing were the slots and the roulette. Earlier today I had around $45,000 from playing a little here and there over the week. I had absolutely horrible luck, but after a while I came upon good luck in the form of a string of events that allowed me to get to the $90,000 at which point I just played the roulette to get to $100,00. When I got to the last casino, I exclusively played the roulette and kept a large amount, but not enough where if I lost it I wouldn't be super upset. I did loose a few times but eventually I managed to beat it. I have started playing Boxxle. I am not having fun. I think in my previous attempt I made it to some where around the 9th world and I am currently on 04-03. Hooray....

Monopoly is done I Also finished Wario Land 2 Monopoly is fine, not really sure what I could say about it anyway. I played against Ollie, he kinda sucked at playing lol. Wario Land 2 is good, but it's hard for me to go back to it after beating the excellent Wario Land 4 last year. I like the music and the graphics. It's weird not seeing any colour as I'm used to the GBC version. I couldn't tell any differences between the 2 versions as far as I could tell. I only beat the "main" part of the game. As I mentioned in a previous post, there are hidden levels that open up after the game. There are 25 more treasures and 25 more panel pieces to find along with multiple additional endings, making for quite a high replay value. With that game out of the way, I will hopefully get some time this weekend to work on Link's Awakening. Vegas Stakes is looking like more of a long term project with how slow I'm playing. If it continues to be slow, I may give up on it temporarily and come back later. Here's my upcoming game list: Zelda Awakening (ongoing) Vegas Stakes (ongoing) Atomic Punk and the unspeakable horror that is Boxxle

WCW: The Main Event is done I don't remember what I said in 2022, but this game feels unfinished. Some lower matches were harder than the championship match. Other times I could just continually get my opponents into a corner and continuously pummel them with a suplex and dropkick combo. There's a circle icon in the game that I think activates a special move, but I didn't use it. Pretty meh game. In other progress news, I am on Chapter 2 Story 3 for Wario Land 2. I really like the game. I looked up a guide for getting all treasures and I have been getting all the little pieces that you get from the bonus games at the end of every stage. I also learned that there are hidden levels once you beat the main game which is pretty cool. For Vegas Stakes I have $30,000, thanks to the lottery ticket event being a winner multiple times in a row, as well as playing the roulette. There are 3 casinos in the game, with the last one being unlocked only when you have $100,000. Not sure how I feel about this game yet, but it seems like it will take a while (Ugh).

Shanghai is done I used to play this game as a kid to waste time. I was never really any good at it and could consistently get through the default tile set, not much after that. I thought I would have more fun with it but the nostalgia glasses must have blinded me going into the game, but I can't really fault it because it's an early game. Still fun though.

Jeopardy Sports, Jeopardy Platinum and Jeopardy Teen Tournament are all done. I have included only one screenshot since the ending is similar between all versions. After 2 years, I can still say that they suck. At least the guy at the podium is having fun. Unfortunately, I got side tracked over the weekend so I haven't been able to make much progress in Link's Awakening. I am currently on the third dungeon so still a ways to go for that game. I may take a break and come back later in favor of Wario Land 2 or Vegas Stakes, but it will get done eventually.

Last two for today Dr. Mario Ms. Pac-Man I currently have these games cued for the next while: Link's Awakening (already started) The other 3 Jeopardy games Wario Land 2 Vegas Stakes Ideally, I should have Zelda done by the end of the week. The Jeopardy games are simple but are quite tedious to play so I will space those out. Wario Land 2 I have played the GBC version plenty of times, but I want to actually enjoy the game this time. Never played the Gameboy version of Vegas Stakes.