Ganbare Goemon Gaiden: Kieta Ougon Kiseru (NES) playthrough log

This is the first of the Dragon Quest-clone spinoff RPGs of the Goemon series.

Man, it's been a long time since I've actually sat down and played one of these 8-bit JRPGs. They aren't very thrilling or satisfying to play in the slightest. They don't require any real strategy or thinking at all. But I dunno still there's something really meditative/relaxing about grinding through them... I guess things like walkthroughs and emulation speed up tools go a long way towards making these games more playable. Like, without a turbo button I don't think I'd have been able to sit through this shit.

Unfortunately, my hunt for a translation patch for this game came up short. I guess I'll just rely on a walkthrough to figure out what little bits and pieces of the story I can. I also have to play the game with a notepad open containing all of the menu translations so that I can at least figure out the attacks and the shop items/equipment and all that. it kind of adds a huge layer of difficulty onto this, but whatever, I need to beat this to satisfy my ocd.

From what I can tell, Goemon has lost his favorite pipe, and Ebisumaru helps him go to look for it. Then you start journeying to other towns and get caught up in other unrelated stuff. At one point early on, they get a lockpicking wire which lets them get through locked doors.. They come to a town full of cats, and a cat throws them in jail, and while escaping, they join up with a fugitive cat who was also in jail.

There's a part where you go through a dungeon to get a large diamond as a reward, but the only use for it is to give it to a random NPC, who gives you a fish in exchange for it. That fish is a key item needed to get up a waterfall to get to this one town. Just as they're approaching that town, a giant female robot walks by...

Ganbare Goemon 2 (NES) playthrough log

This game is amazing. It's like the first Goemon game except WAY better. This might even be one of my favorite NES games. Ganbare Goemon 2 introduces Ebisumaru. A 2nd player can play as him cooperatively alongside Goemon. They both have the same abilities. There's also a 3rd powerup, which is a sort of homing fireball, but it's kind of slow and has terrible range. Also sometimes instead of the lucky cats that appear from chests, you get feces, which downgrades your attack.

The gameplay here is a definite improvement over the first one. Same basic concept, with open ended towns, you have to find 3 passes and the exit.. but you can tell a lot more effort went into this one. The levels feel so much more varied and unique, not bland and samey like the previous game. There aren't as many hidden passages and 3D mazes, and there are more linear platformer-focused sections. And this game actually has boss battles, which the first one oddly lacked...

This game also introduces the wacky humor that the series is known for. A lot of houses have pointless dialog like:
"I bought Twinbee 2, The Goonies 2, and Gradius 2."
"Welcome back, hero of the tuna fish! To get to the next level you need... Ah, I'm in the wrong game."
"I am mystery chinese man. I tell quality joke. Straw hats past their heyday! ...You no laugh."
"I tell joke. A pun is its own reword. ... Why no laugh?"
"I tell joke no more. I am sick of life."

Ganbare Goemon! Karakuri Douchuu (NES) playthrough log

Here's the first "true" Goemon game that started the gameplay formula that the series is known for. Although at this point it still hasn't found its wacky, comedic flavor yet (these early games still use the frowning, serious Goemon), the gameplay got its roots here.

The stages are open-ended towns, that you explore in 3/4 overhead view (like in Double Dragon, so you can move in 8 directions but still jump over stuff like a sidescroller).. You get money by jumping over chests and pots, and also sometimes get lucky cats that increase your attack power, and sandals that increase your speed. There are various shops that sell defensive equipment, health, etc.. some houses are enter-able but have no purpose except for a line of dialog. Also there are hidden passages that you can only find by jumping over a specific unmarked part of the ground (or if you buy the candle item which lets you see hidden passages for a while).

Also in every town, one of the enter-able shops contains an entrance to a 3D first-person maze section. There's nothing that can kill you in these sections, and the timer is frozen, so there's literally no possible way to die here.. I don't really get the point of it. But each town has one of them, and 1 of the 3 passes you need to get is always in this section, it's a completely weird and pointless detour from the rest of the gameplay... but that's kind of what this series is known for, a mish-mash of various different gameplay elements mixed in with adventure/rpg/platforming.

This first game is kind of flawed.. although it tries some new things, it does get repetitive very quickly. Once I got going, I got into the flow of completing every stage:
- find the shop containing the 3D maze, and complete it
- find the shop that sells a candle
- use the candle to find all the hidden passages until you have all 3 passes
- find the exit

Kid Icarus: Uprising playthrough log

Angry Kirby syndrome with that American box art...

Started playing this today.. went straight to 5.0 intensity and decided to stay there, since I was still just barely beating the early levels without dying. Playing with the autofire turned on makes it more fun, but sometimes I still have to shoot manually because it doesn't autoshoot at some enemies that have some kind of guarding ability.

6/08/2015

Defeated Medusa at stage 9, after a bunch of boss refights. it really fools you into thinking it's the final stage... Dark Pit comes along and helps us defeat her... But it's not even the half way point. Then the real final boss, Hades, reveals that reviving Medusa was all his doing, and that his real plan is to steal the wish seed... The underworld forces cause the Phoenix to lash out, and after defeating it, the Phoenix creates a beacon. Pit hopes that this will inform the human world that the Wish Seed is a fake, but Hades says this will trick the humans into thinking the Wish Seed is real. Palutena realizes that defeating the Phoenix was a huge mistake, and fell right into Hades plan.

Now, the humans are destroying each other and wreaking havoc on the earth to get to the Wish Seed. Viridi, the goddess of nature, doesn't like this, so she attacks the humans and imprisons them in her labyrinth.. Pit rescues them and defeats one of Viridi's guardians...

Aquaria playthrough log

Just started a new game on this today... I'm really enjoying it.

Naija, the Zora-like character, narrates the story to you as you progress... She lives in this isolated underwater cave area and has never thought about trying to leave... she says that she can hear the "verse" that calls out to her in this area... After some really chill exploration, I found a new verse, which teaches Naija the ability to lift rocks with her mind.

Now, all over this first area there have been rocks that could have cooking materials or new recipes hidden under them... but in order to go back and find them all again I'd need to re-explore the whole first area, and I'd have to remember which parts of the map I've re-explored, which is kind of annoying.

I also found a large stone tablet thing, which was connected to a statue of Zora people in another area that showed a four-note verse. Playing that verse at the stone tablet thing, opened up a portal to a small alternate world type area, with nothing much in it... wtf

I explored a bit deeper, and found the 2nd verse which transformed Naija into a being of pure energy... in this form, you can shoot homing fire shots at enemies, and charge up a really strong attack that can also light up those orbs which unlock certain doors. The door closed behind me after I got this ability, and I was stuck in the Energy Temple. I explored every nook and cranny of this area, but all I found was a single white orb that I could light up with energy, and I don't know what that opened up.... I retraced through the whole area, and didn't find any new passageways opened up...

Kid Icarus: Of Myths and Monsters playthrough log

This game seems tougher than the NES one.. finding your way around is harder because of the smaller screen resolution, and I got game over at the first boss cuz he takes like hundreds of hits.

I missed a "beat this test for an upgrade" thing in one of the earlier levels... will try again later. this time I'll grind up some hearts/potions and try to get all the powerups I can before the first boss...

You don't have angel allies in this to help you against the boss. instead, all statues just reward health or map/pencil/torch items.

Attempt #2

I started this over again later that night... really the only hard part of this game is the beginning, where you need to make sure you grind enough to get all the bottles and powerups. I got lucky and won a barrel at like the first vase room (didn't even need to cheat for it either), so now I could grind for all 8 bottles.

I got to the minotaur boss again... his pattern is simple, but I still find it really hard to dodge him. However, with all my strength powerups and bottles I was able to beat him.

DKC Tropical Freeze hard mode high playthrough log

I'm loving the atmosphere and music of this game even more than the SNES ones. Also, once you start completely ignoring the puzzle pieces, and think of the K-O-N-G letters as optional but nice to have, the game plays a lot better. it basically feels like playing DKC1 except generally harder all around.

The difficulty on hard mode is just right... On normal it was too easy, there were checkpoints and heart refills all over the place. On hard, there are no checkpoints and you only have one kong and one hit through the whole level, you really gotta carefully navigate all the obstacles.

Worlds 1-3

Kid Icarus first playthrough log part 2/2

The world 2 labyrinth was kind of tricky to find my way around, and I ended up beating it without saving all the allies (which turns out they are completely useless against this boss anyway). Hewdraw is a really annoying boss that jumps around the room and never stop. He's very predictable but still hard to hit and avoid.

World 3 goes back to vertical scrolling levels with horizontal wrap-around, and still the challenge just isn't there at all. It feels like I'm way overleveled. There are some tricky-ish platforming segments that might've made me actually use some of those feather items if I played this when I was younger and inexperienced at platformers... now though I breezed through these stages like it was nothing.

The world 3 labyrinth, holy cow what a confusing level that was... it took me forever just to find the map. By then I had memorized the path from the entrance to the closest shop and healing spot... Then while searching for where to go I ended up grinding to 5 reserve potions, 9 extra hammers, and 999 hearts... none of which were needed. I eventually cleared the entire map and saved everyone before finally finding the boss in the top right corner. Pandora is just a stupid bubble face that floats around with a couple other bubbles. All the allies got killed, but I was able to beat him without any trouble.

Then the 4th world.. which is just a single sidescrolling stage...

Captain Silver playthrough log

Decided to try and beat this game that I played a lot when I was a kid, but never managed to make it past the first couple levels... The fact that you die from anything in one hit probably made me not want to give it a serious try. The 2nd level where you're on a boat, I barely even recognize most of it... it completely changes up all the enemies by then. It's not actually THAT hard though, surprisingly... just getting the powerups and avoiding the easy predictable enemies enough to make it to the level boss with all your lives is enough to get through it... The bosses can get kind of hard though.

Star Wars (NES Namco game) playthrough attempt log

wow this is hard... only 3 lives, and 1-hit deaths...

I'm gonna want to try and beat this with savestates. keep retrying each stage until I can beat it without losing more than the amount of lives I gained from the stage.

... wow... so I got up to the death star level on novice mode. the level is a giant maze... all the obstacles are very easy to avoid once you know they're there. it feels like I'm playing a metroid game now. I didn't feel bad about save stating here, cuz the alternative would be drawing my own map of each room so that I'd know what to avoid and wouldn't die.

it turns out, in order to beat this level, you can't pick up the blaster. if you do, you won't be able to get into the garbage shute on the detention level. and since I was on my last life, I was permanently stuck...

I like this game though... I might try and beat it from the beginning on hard mode.

Attempt #2 - 3/25/2015

no. no. nonononononono.

I retried this again from the beginning.

First of all, the first boss kills me a lot just because you die in one hit, and this boss's movement pattern is stupid and you only get a tiny precise window where you can hit him and just barely get away. That's one part where I feel the need to use savestates even on novice.

Second, the space shooting sections rely on literal dumb luck to get through. It's practically impossible to get passed these on Hard mode without losing all your lives. That's another part where I feel like I NEED to use savestates even on novice.