I played some games in the last 2 months, but unfortunately I fell into the pit of playing the pointless piece of poop Path of Exile again, which I yesterday deleted for the probably 15th (no joke!) and hopefully finally final last time.
New retroachievements.org score:
28503 points - Rank 207 (of 26394 registered players, up from Rank 256)
New grandmasteries:
-) Felix the Cat (Gameboy)
-) Pokemon Red (Gameboy)
-) Yugioh Word Championship 2004 (GBA)
-) Super Mario Advance 2 - Super Mario World (GBA)
-) Felix the Cat
Insanely easy Gameboy platformer, beat this in my first session of playing it. Decent enough, they should have put in an hard mode akin to Kirby's Dream Land.
-) Pokemon Red
Last Gen 1 game down. I honestly don't remember what I used or if anything special happened. ^^ Pokemon overkill.
-) Yugioh World Championship 2004
Another of the many Yugioh GBA titles. Fun game, but the card unlock mechanism is shit compared to the sequel (2005). It's basically "use 1 of every card" all throughout the game except for normal monsters. I tried to use ritual in the beginning but couldn't make it work due to the lack of support cards (or multiples of them rather), so I went to regular beatdown to beat this game's set into submission.
-) Super Mario Advance 2 - Super Mario World
Port of the best jump and run ever with some unnecessary minor changes. Luckily the set creator took out one unfair achievement on my request which I had previously tried to get for 2 straight hours without knowing how what exactly would make it trigger, lest I would never have been able to finish this set. Lots of fun to complete this otherwise - even a slightly flawed Mario World port is still a damn good game!
Other mentionable games:
-) Tennis (NES)
It's a NES tennis game, what did you expect. I had trouble hitting balls at all early since the timing is very weird (same for serving - in real tennis you hit the ball at the HIGHEST point of the throw). Balls the computer plays close to the sidelines are sometimes just impossible to return, which is why I put this one on hold.
-) Pinball (NES)
A glorified pachinko machine, this constitutes the only pinball game I've ever seen in my life (and please remember, my specialty IS pinball video games!) that has no nudging whatsoever. Not even 1-way. No clue what they were thinking there! Playfield-wise, it's decent enough. The only important thing is to raise the lane savers by turning the eggs to chicks - and if you manage to randomly (since no nudging) flip the cards over, you actually have a chance at getting a good score - the middle drain can be mostly avoided with flipper control, but the unavoidable left (and more rarely, right) drains will curb your morale. The flaw forever keeping this game down in the dirt is the dreadfully annoying "invisible flippers" part which you have to go through in every fucking game - would have been ok as part of a timed mode, but not as a core feature based on your score. Won't complete this set as it's way too luck-dependent, and too hard to be realistic, with the invisible phase (for me) killing all fun - if you didn't manage to set the ball savers up beforehand, it will ruin your game.
Fun fact: the Princess rescuing mini-stage is one of only two instances I've experienced where losing the wizard mode (= dropping the princess) can actually cost you a ball - the other being the pinball game with the best physics ever made - Pro Pinball: Fantastic Journey (I once played a 6-hour game on that one that would've snatched me a top 5 spot on the Twin Galaxies leaderboard - one of the top gaming feats in my life.)
-) Super Mario World Bros (SNES, Hack)
Another remake of SMB 1 in the World engine. The final achievement (Bowser stealth master) is much much harder than anything else. Apparently I incorrectly remember that I completed it, so I will have to do it again (?).
-) Yugioh Worldwide Edition (GBA)
Another Yugioh game with the same engine as 2004 and 2005 but stupider gameplay (enemies have to be searched at the weird ass city map). Set was bugged as I tried it which somewhat annoyed me as I wanted to wolf it down.
-) Asterix (GB)
Very similar gameplay as in the NES version, but different level design. Some parts are rather hard, but I will try to finish this platformer.
-) Bomb Jack (GB)
Fun little arcade-style game that requires you to collect bombs as you avoid the enemies. Harder game modes will be too much for me, but I might try to squeeze a few more points out of this.
-) Batman: The video game (GB)
Good platformer with weird story (apparently you fight Jack (Nicholson) and not actually the Joker he played in the movie!). The flying levels up the difficulty rapidly, and there is one level afterwards that does likewise - tanks block all the spots you would need to jump to, so you need to have the right weapon or you have no chance to get through. Luckily you can keep your powerups even throughout continues, which is very merciful. Will go at this again.
-) Pokemon Gold (GBC)
My first encounter with Gen 2! After grandmastering all 3 Gen 1 games (which even half a year ago I would have never thought I would ever do in my life), I was set on enjoying this one. Initially this one disappointed me (the new starters, for example, all look stupid as hell; the entire Unown part is bafflingly unneeded and the map layout is just not up to Kanto standards). While it does not have the same magic as Gen 1, it's still a decent entry in the series. Kanto revisited is so undeveloped (what were they THINKING!?! every other landmark or house you visit is broken, changed to be contentless, barred, or given up by its residents) it should have thrown out early in the development process in order to make Johto, which is overall disappointing as a territory, better!!! Gameplay-wise, many new elements have been added (held items, new types to counter the allmighty Psychic, day and night phases which are a rather annoying addition in my view (I will 99% of the time play at night, so I will necessarily have to look into the cheat to switch the daytime if I actually go for the Catch 'em all achievement. By the way, Pokemon are unnecessarily hard to catch in this generation compared to the previous. It's no isolated incident for me to require 20 or more ultra balls for a regular ass pokemon at low life, which is totally uncalled for in my opinion. What I do like is that some battles (especially certain gym leaders) are much harder than anything you have experienced in Gen 1 - but then again, this might only be because Psychic is no longer OP.
In an extremely annoying incident, my savegame got corrupted just before going over to Kanto (my computer crashed while, apparently, I had been saving) - so if I go for Gen 2 completion as well, I will have to do this one all over again...
-) Pokemon Silver (GBC)
Currently at Mt. Moon, so getting close to beating the Silver version. Only hard thing in the set will of course be the catching achievement which is insufficiently valued at only 75 points (should be 100 as in the Gen 1 sets, AT LEAST. It's multiple times harder with crappy catch rates, stupid spawn-only appearances and day and night catch lockouts!). By the way, I just use the pokemon
-) Romancing Mario (SNES, Hack)
Decent hack, hard but would be worth pursuing if not for one critical and to be honest baffling idiotic mistake - saving spot rules were changed so you can only change when you beat them initially, which makes this game unplayable on hardcore. I only wanted to go to sleep at 11 PM but went on til 1:30 AM only so I could make it to the next savespot - and failed. What I hate most is to waste my time for nothing, so I won't bother with this garbage hack any more.
-) Wario Adventure (SNES, Hack)
And another issue in the "Removed from Super Mario World Central" compilation that for some reason constitutes most Mario World hacks on RA (like there weren't GIGATONS of better hacks available to make sets for). Giving up Mario's fireballs for Wario's shitty dash that gets you killed most of the times you actually use it would be ok, what absolutely is not though is the first world boss' ability to get you perma-stuck in a corner (i.e. YOU CAN'T MOVE AT ALL!), leaving you only with the option to reset the game, negating your previous progress! Happened several times to me. Oh, and to beat him you have to hit him with ALL 6 of the 6 blocks you can pick up in his room - absolute no-go. Deleted permanently from my playlist for that painful lack of quality control.
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