All the way through?

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Ozzybear
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Re: All the way through?

Postby Ozzybear » April 22nd, 2015, 1:30 am

Just finished Bloodborne for Ps4 !!! This game was incredible ! Definetly well done , best one in the "souls" series. ~ozzy~

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Atariboy
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Re: All the way through?

Postby Atariboy » April 22nd, 2015, 7:25 am

Finished the Japanese Super Mario Bros. 2 tonight on the Wii U (Super Mario Bros: The Lost Levels, to us Westerners). That includes World 9, which requires the use of no warping throughout the main 8 worlds. I'd like to say that I didn't use save states, but there's just no way that a normal human being could do this one without those.

Left to do now is a play through using Luigi, since as I recall, this is the game that introduced his now characteristic floaty physics. Then afterwards, six additional play throughs (using warp pipes to speed the process) to unlock the secret World A-D levels, which requires beating level 8-4, eight times in total.

Hard to imagine being able to beat this one in its original Famicom form, without save states. Nintendo of America was wise to pass this one over I think, although I'm sure that there's a few aliens out there that have managed the feat after many hours of practice.

And playing it via off-screen play made it even more frustrating since there's just enough lag here to annoy in a tough platformer like this one.

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Rev
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Re: All the way through?

Postby Rev » April 22nd, 2015, 7:51 am

The only time I have ever played the original Super Mario Bros. 2 was on Super Mario All Stars. My sister and I beat all the Mario games on there and then finally gave that game a try; the first time we were warped right back to the first level of the game, I was so pissed. We beat it eventually, but the game might as well have had save states, since the world was saved on the SNES cartridge. I don't think we could have beaten it on the Famicom/NES.

Vexer6
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Re: All the way through?

Postby Vexer6 » April 22nd, 2015, 11:27 pm

I beat the Lost Levels on SMB Deluxe on the GBC and managed to get through it without using save states.

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Atariboy
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Re: All the way through?

Postby Atariboy » April 23rd, 2015, 12:04 am

Yeah, not only do you have the advantage of being able to restart at the first stage of each world when you see a game over screen, but there are many other advantages.

By default, you start with two extra lives. Another good example is reaching World 9, where you're not stuck with just a single life to get you through four stages as in the Famicom original, but instead get to carry forward whatever stock of spare lives you had accumulated during the main 8 worlds. Even the unlock requirements for World A-D have been sanitized, with you only having to beat worlds 1-9 once, without warping.

And then there's just the smoother performance of the game in general. They tried to do a bit too much with the original's engine with The Lost Levels, which isn't shy at causing a lot of slowdown. That makes some difficult situations when things get busy in the original, much more difficult.

You have a fighting chance at it in the All-Stars versions with a lot of trial and error.

jon
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Re: All the way through?

Postby jon » April 23rd, 2015, 7:30 pm

I'm only familiar with the All Stars version, and it's just way too hard in some places to beat it without dying. But I don't think it should be difficult to beat it on 1 continue. You can use that secret way to get extra lives at the end of each level, and grab others. I do think it may be borderline impossible to beat it without dying like I did SMB, all 64 levels :).

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Atariboy
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Re: All the way through?

Postby Atariboy » April 24th, 2015, 12:43 am

Correcting my post above, the All-Stars save system is even more robust than I remembered. You can return to a specific level, not just level 1 of the world that you've selected.

Vexer6 wrote:I beat the Lost Levels on SMB Deluxe on the GBC and managed to get through it without using save states.


While I never played this one except for a short trial of regular Super Mario Bros. on my Everdrive a year or so ago (I like that the water and lava are animated, as they are in the All-Stars version), that version was apparently heavily sanitized and edited.

It has the save system like the All-Stars remastering has and many spots were modified to make them easier, thanks to the GBC's screen that basically forced many compromises. And like All-Stars you start with the new standard of 5 lives instead of the classic 3, each time you start the game or load your save. And I bet the game engine is more robust and able to handle the action, where as like I said, the original Famicom effort isn't shy at slowing down and can cause you issues occasionally with your timing.

And sadly, it was also apparently a fairly lazy effort. All the extra worlds are absent, there's no wind, and Luigi's unique physics are gone.

But still, sounds like a fine achievement. I believe I did similarly with the All-Stars version many years ago, but there's just no hope for me with the Famicom original, without cheating as I did. Even building up a large stock of extra lives with the shell trick is going to pose a huge challenge, since you'd always return to being a 1 hit kill and couldn't take out more difficult foes that throw hammers at you (Moments the game loves to slow down to half speed) from a safe distance.

Vexer6
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Re: All the way through?

Postby Vexer6 » April 25th, 2015, 5:10 pm

Indeed it was a proud moment for me, I remember the level that gave me the most trouble was the one where the Hammer Bros start running towards you, getting past them required insanely perfect timing and it nearly drove me insane.

If those levels were sanitized I don't even want to think about how insanely hard the original version was!

Ozzybear
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Re: All the way through?

Postby Ozzybear » April 29th, 2015, 3:38 pm

Just finished the single player campaign of Battlefield Hardline on Ps4. Definetly not my style of game but just needed a change of pace. ~OzzY~

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Rev
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Re: All the way through?

Postby Rev » May 4th, 2015, 7:56 pm

I just beat Gain Ground SX for the Pc Engine. I picked it up a while ago (I think I even made a post about it) but after a while I kind of put it aside. Since I'm finally done with Chrono Trigger I wanted to play something else that wasn't too long. I picked this one back up and cleared all 50 stages. I really love the strategy with this game and the fact that you still have a chance to save your characters (minus 3 stages) as long as you don't kill anyone else on the stage. The game does a good job ramping up the difficulty and gets much harder by stage 4. I tried to beat the game last night and on stage 4-1 I sacked like 1/3 of my characters trying to figure out how to stop a wave of rushing enemies. Today I knew what to expect so I did much better. The only problem I really had with the game was the lack of two player support and that final boss... I have no idea how you are supposed to dodge his homing missles (I don't even think you can) so you pretty much need at least 6-7 quick characters to ran at him, hit him for a few points, die, and repeat. Still, a lot of fun. If I would have known there were only 50 levels I probably would have tried to beat the game sooner.


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