What I've been doing over the last few months...
New retroachievements.org score:
11039 points - Rank 437 (of 14110 registered players)
About 70 places closer to the top, quite nice for the fact I haven't really accomplished too much since the last update.
Games I spent time on were:
-) Yugioh World Championship 2005 - 7 Trials to Glory (GBA)
A title overshadowed by the 2006 version I used to play a lot, years and years ago. This 2005 incarnation is severely crippled in its deck building mechanisms (to this day I don't know how to sort my cards!), I literally needed to ask for help to even be able to build my first deck! The actual gameplay is nice and fast though (speedup also helps), even though the very limited AI and old-school-ness of the card pool makes this a very easy game compared to more recent incarnations. The mechanics of game progress are a jumbled mess in this game, to be able to play various tournaments and do challenges you need to "sleep" in order to pass time - with the aforementioned becoming available randomly. Quite annoying and needlessly complicated, needless to say that the formula has been much improved again with the 2006 sequel. Still, it's a Yugioh game and therefore enjoyable enough by default. Not sure whether I will try to GM it as I would need to start a new game in order to be able to do so (and need to possibly do a lot of retries for some of the achievements).
-) Super Tennis (SNES)
I've been working hard on becoming the first person (!) to GM this game's very time-consuming and rather boring set (well it IS a sports game, what would you expect...)
Super Tennis is a more than decent SNES tennis game held back rather sharply by its ridiculously low difficulty and some limitations in ball control and swing selection. I won't elaborate any further on this title as my mini-review should match (PUN) the blandness of playing this monotonous and unrewarding title. Btw, topspin return = RIDICULOUSLY OP! Didn't they test this game before they released it!? *facepalm*
As the achievement set (which has the STUPIDEST achievement names possible!) requires me to win the game again and again with all the different players, I've been doing just that. About 8 players x 3-4 hours per playthrough are left. Super Tennis has an absolutely atrocious password system; thus I am pretty much limited to grinding this game on weekends (I currently am working in an office, which is the best job I've ever held actually!) in order to be able to avoid the pain of entering 40-something letters, numbers and question marks (seriously...) per password *facepalm*.
-) Super Bomberman (SNES)
One of the best multiplayer experiences I've ever had was 4-player multiplayer Bomberman (not even an official version, but some Windows freeware clone) with mates and family members. 15 years later, I got very little fun out of this first Bomberman title on the SNES. The campaign mode is rather boring (remote bomb = OP), with the last boss being an extremely negative experience to boot. You need the "fist" powerup (not the "boot" unfortuntely, or I could have made a pun :-() to be able to defeat said... and you lose (some of) your powerups on death. Ergo, if you die to him, you are better off fast-forward suiciding so you can play the previous level again and farm the fist and remote bomb. A very painful and frustrating experience that certainly coloured my opinion on this title quite heavily.
I am reluctantly attempting to grind down the battle mode challences, but as these are very hard and need a lot of luck, I'm pretty much stuck at the third level and don't know whether I'll brute force these after all as the process certainly isn't any fun at all.
-) Donkey Kong Land (GB)
A more than decent title (very good for a Gameboy title, but lacking in comparison to the eternal classics on the SNES). Controls have some wonky moments (e.g. bouncing on enemies is very jumpy, also rolling feels rather off compared to the SNES games - a platformer of course lives and dies with how precise and fluid its controls are, and in the case of this game, they are a valid reason I can't see myself replaying this title too frequently). Levels are, oddly enough, usually much longer than SNES ones and therefore fittingly have multiple save points. I'm currently at the beginning of World 4 (of 4), so I can't give a final verdict on the difficulty compared to the "Country" games. Overall, it's a quite good game. As usual I can't judge music or sound since I play with those off, listening to music or watching videos on the side instead.
-) Chrono Trigger (SNES)
I've been trying to play this RPG several times over the last 10 years, but never got too far, being hampered by the tiresome combats and my general weariness to complete games (I have actually stopped playing games ON THE FINAL BOSS, no joke! only to start them again from the beginning and quitting them at some point again... and so on!)
Now, since I have a reason to play games all the way through (points!)... nothing has changed. Mood is, as is common knowledge, only a thing for cattle and loveplay - but in my case mood is everything when it comes to long-winded non-action titles like this one, and said mood doesn't hit me too often. Right now, I'm in the second section of the game (the past) and have very little motivation to boot this up - but tomorrow this might randomly be completely different! Chaotic neutral!
-) Frogger (SNES)
Doesn't need many words, it's just a very late (1998!) port of the classic arcade game. I got to stage 4, then it gets too hard for me. LOL
-) Zelda: Link's Awakening (GBC)
Now this is a game I actually played back in the day when it came out! Same as Pokemon Blue (I think), I beat this game on the original machine but never on emulation. I might not be able to complete this 100% as you need to do a deathless run (to see the epilogue or something), but I'll try to beat as much as I can otherwise.
I only count the top-down titles as "real" Zelda games, so this one, along with the eternal classic Link to the Past, is - for me - as good as it gets (haven't played the GBA titles though yet). Ocarina of GRIME for all I care!
Of course (people actually called me arrogant partly because of using phrases like "of course" a lot!), next to all this retro shit, I've been playing Entropia Universe 24/7. There is never a reason NOT to sweat, so I've been working on the last batch of 5000 gallards in order to be able to finally check off my first iron mission. Also dabbled a little in the Arkadian Gold Rush (Category I) event, but quickly got bored of shooting the same damn monster for hours. Injecting some uncommons or even a boss into the mix would have worked wonders here... Additionally there was the problem of getting the right weapons for this kind of monster -
I've never been hunting big stuff, so I couldn't do much more than
randomly get a gun from the auction I deemed able to do the job.
Stuff I'm planning for the "near" future (think 6 months *sigh*):
-) Game of Thrones season 1 review (ugh!)
-) Why I dropped Yu-No (visual novel)
-) Puella Magi Madoka Magica anime review (this will be another big one!)
-) Working on my first serious fanfic "Sennen Empire" (a Yugioh fanfic, basically a project for me to get back into writing fiction after a more than 5-year break!)
StuffIcouldreviewifIhadtakennotesbutIdidntsoIwouldhavetowatchthisstuffagainwhichprobablyisnt worththehassleeeee *pant pant*:
-) Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei anime
-) Another anime
-) Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc (visual novel) (...though it would be a lot of fun to tear apart this clusterfuck!)
