Shantae: Risky's Revenge playthrough log

Oh wow, this gameplay is so much smoother than the first game... I really appreciate how the death pits are clearly marked with death clouds floating up out of them. The attack items are now tied to magic instead of inventory, so you can actually use them now. also this game has the same sorta thing as Wario Land VB and Kirby TD, where you go can through multiple layers of the Z-dimension.

But the biggest improvement is... This game actually has a built in overworld map. Just that is enough to make me want to play this completely blind without a walkthrough... If it turns out I'm missing some hidden stuff I'll use a walkthrough after beating the game to get everything.

11/11/2015

I started to notice this game was gonna be very short and easy compared to the first one... If there's really only 3 seals to collect and that map of Sequin Land covers every area in the game...

The first labyrinth was expectedly easy. It had the monkey transformation (which has much better controls now), and I think I got all the magic jams in the level. You need magic jams in addition to gems in order to buy all higher level magic powers.

The 2nd level wasn't actually a proper labyrinth.. It has you exploring a desert with lots of bottomless pits, and a fairly complex network of caves... Before going here though, the characters back in town hint you towards going to see the mayor who is currently near the lighthouse at the beginning of the game...

Shantae playthrough log

Reading the manual for the first game now... it seems kind of interesting. A looping overworld section leading to 5 separate town areas, a day/night system, and labyrinths (the game's dungeons) which are locked until you do some specific story tasks. The pause screen is very Zelda-like, showing a bunch of optional hidden collectibles as well as required story items.

One of the optional collectibles, warp squids, give you different warp dance powers that warp you to a certain place depending which warp room you returned those warp squids to.

Shantae has dance powers. Magical dances that give her different abilities. The dancing mechanic works kind of like playing the ocarina or conducting the wind. There's also a secret dance you can only learn if playing the game on a GBA.

Wow, this game is tough... not only is it tough to just survive (enemies ambush you constantly), it's also tough to find your way around... In particular I got kind of lost at this huge waterfall area on the way to the 2nd town, and the respawning enemies and pitfalls make it very inconvenient to explore...

Undertale blind playthrough log

I first heard a bit about this game on a retsutalk video... it has a really cool battle system where you can either reason with/manipulate your enemies into quitting the battle, or do a sort of danmaku fight against them.. and you can do a "genocide run" where you fight/kill everything and the music/atmosphere and characterization of your character becomes entirely different.

It starts off a bit slow... that dumb goat woman (named "Toriel", heh get it) keeps mothering you and tries to keep you from heading into danger, and literally holds your hand through the whole thing... it seems like there's a lot of variations in dialog options but I'm not sure what it all means. In order to proceed past this tutorial area, you have to fight the goat woman and defeat her.. so far all the battles could be won without killing, but this battle I couldn't figure out what to do so I ended up killing her... the scene was kind of sad...

The next section of the game was really fun. These two retarded skeleton brothers keep trying and failing badly at capturing me... there's some really funny and cute dialog here... I made it all the way through the snow forest section and into the first town before stopping there.

I did the date thing with Papyrus, then I ran away from Undyne and went through the waterfall area... that section was kinda creepy, especially when the flowers started talking and shit... then I ran away from Undyne again, and managed to spare her and run away to Hotlands... it got kinda hard here but I still had no trouble mostly...

The atmosphere got really heavy as soon as that lizard girl told me that in order to cross the border, I'd have to kill the king and take his soul... Sans met me at the hallway leading to the throne room, and gave me some speech about the whole "EXP = Execution points" stuff... I was only at lvl 7 by now, so I guess that's why he let me go without too much trouble.

King Asgore was just a male version of Toriel from the beginning... their houses were even exactly the same... except for the fact that Asgore's house had golden flowers everywhere, instead of those sausage plants.

As I was walking around, a bunch of monsters that I

Mother 1 high playthrough part 5 (finale)

After going back to magicant to get Teddy fully equipped... used a guide to find out I had to "check" the dragon in order to wake him up and fight him... For some reason I only tried using telepathy before and it did nothing... Got the 6th melody from the dragon...

- Holy Loly Mountain -

I know this place is called "Mt. Itoi" in the original translation...

Got everyone's best weapons in this first maze section. enemies are kinda tough here but not bad with lots of PSI... Franklin Badge blocks some Starman attacks...

Levels are now at: 41, 31, 28...

Now on Itoi Cliffs / Holy Loly Mountain outside F1/F2... A tree trunk is blocking the way... Telepathy does nothing... Check... Danger Seems to be lurking nearby... Oh of course, I can just walk around it.

Got defeated by a couple of confusing/stoning scorpions...

Your friend Teddy was just brought in, and is still unconscious... Oh, you don't want to pay? Your friend could die you know.

Damn stingy health care system...

Okay this time I'm not messing around with these scorpions... either escape with Dimens. Warp or PK Beam Omega them with Ana to end the fight quickly. Found a doctor's house way up here... Teddy lets Ninten and Ana be alone in the room together...

Ninten... please stay with me. It's so quiet here. Would you like to dance?

*queue dancing scene, emotional music, more dialog with Yes/No flavor text options*

Ninten... Do you like me?

Teddy comes in to say it's time to go... suddenly a giant robot attacks.
Def Up Beta, PK Beam Gamma... nope its still futile even with our best moves...
Lloyd comes in on a tank to save us... Teddy still unconsious... you don't have any options except try to talk to Teddy...
Welp... Lloyd's still a wimp... but Ninten and Ana can pretty much carry the party at this point anyway...

Ugh this Brainger enemy is so much harder now
Brainshock... no effect on Brainger
Brainger danger...

Few... made it to the doctor checkpoint...
Really really tough alien enemies here... Lloyd is so useless... PSI Shield Beta and PK Beam Omega is really the best way to get through them...
Levels are now at: 43 34 36...

Found a boat at the lake dock, Holy Loly Mountain outside F2... Lloyd managed to get it running. Went straight into a whirlpool...
Is... this...
Oh nooooooooo!
It's the same sort of area as duncan factory... took a looong elevator down... this looks HUGE!!
Used Check. "No problem here"
oh,

Castlevania: Legacy of Darkness - Cornell - high playthrough log

Legacy of Darkness is actually an expanded remake of the first N64 Castlevania game. It starts with a new werewolf character who has a different story that takes place before Reinhart and Carrie's stories. And then after you beat Cornell's story you unlock Reinhart and Carrie and their story modes are the same as they were on the original version. Also there's some overlap in the levels between the 3 character stories, but each character has at least 1 or 2 of their own unique levels that no other character goes through...

Oh yeah also there's a 4th character, Henry, that you also unlock after you complete it with Cornell. Henry's story mode is just a pointless little fetch quest where you have a limited time to save all the children, and he doesn't have any unique levels.

First I'm gonna play through all of Cornell's story while high.

high session 1: 10/09/2015

This was a GREAT first high session with this game omg...
I've played and beaten this game before, like about 7 years ago, and I'm really glad I decided to replay this while high.

Mother 1 high playthrough log part 4

To start with, I had to rely on a guide to know that the next area is the Desert, east of Santa Claus Station... I bet there was some NPC hint that would've lead me here, but I don't remember and didn't write it down...

- Yucca Desert part 1 -

This place is very big... I don't wanna get lost in this clusterfuck overworld again, so I'm just gonna go straight toward the dot. Found an oasis, someone camping out there with a little plane, says he can't find the last land mine he planted in this desert a long time ago...

So uh... do I wanna ride in the plane or do I wanna look for this land mine? hmmm... oh and I get to ride in the tank if I buy enough plane tickets.. okay sure.
Course A: it just flies around over the desert and lands back at the tent... this shows that there's there's a ruins area a bit farther to the east.
Course B: It flies west to the factory and past some houses I'm not sure if I've been to or not...
Can't carry all 10 stubs... sigh, gotta warp back to Magicant and deposit items...

Ugh, apparenly one of the melodies is hidden near some random cactuses in the desert that you pass by in the plane course A... may as well take this time to explore the perimeter of this giant area and try and see what's available... Oh wow, I can get all the way to Easter station. Which would've been the next stop after Santa Claus Station if the bridge tracks weren't broken. I guess I'll explore here for now before finishing the desert stuff.

- Easter -

Some creepy Lavender Town-esque music here...

Seems a lot of people have gone missing.

Bring my mommy and daddy back, please.

A big flying ship took all the grown ups away.

At the left side of this town is the house of a brother and sister and a strange baby.

Mommy told me this baby has a special power.

Oh hello there. My name is Tom Garrickson. Introducing myself is my hobby.

lmao

Used telepathy on the baby.

I am this baby's consciousness. I have psychic powers, just as you do. I possess the ability to teleport. With it, you can return to anywhere you've been before.

Learned teleportation PSI... sweet, now I can warp to anywhere, not just Magicant. in fact I probably don't even need to carry around the

Mother 1 high playthrough log part 3

Re-explored the Thanksgiving area to make sure I'm not missing anything... there's another dot just a bit north of the Duncan Factory, but I can't get there...

Also it seems like I can walk through the whole train track tunnel to the next town if I wanted to? Unless maybe the enemies in that tunnel are way too tough or something. There's a skeleton inside the tunnel:

You'll end up like me if you don't take the train.

Yeah.. that's not worth it after all.. the enemies aren't impossible, but they are hard, and the tunnel is VERY long...

- Snowman -

That pretty much covers everything I'm able to do here. Now off to Santa Claus Station, on the tracks north of Thanksgiving... If you go a bit beyond that, there's a weird maze of terrain that eventually leads to the area behind Duncan Factory, and you can see a cave but I can't see any way to get to it... oh wait, yeah, that was the first Magicant cave... And you can also explore a giant mess of trees and random terrain, that just seems to stretch out across the whole empty parts of the map where there are no towns or dots. and ultimately leads you nowhere... The bridge to the east is broken, so the train can only go to Reindeer, Halloween, and Snowman. all these seasonal themed areas...

I'll go to Reindeer first...
An old woman asks me to return a hat to a girl in Snowman. It has the name "Ana" on it. I don't really see any reason not to go there right now, so that I can get a new party member and start having some more inventory space... Reindeer exploration can be a bit later I guess.

Snowman is a very small self contained area... Here there's a couple that wants to go to Easter to look for their son, but the tracks are broken..

I heard the people of Easter were spirited away.

People telling me about Ana who lives in the church, and hasn't been to school.. also coughing at me and making my party sick...

Talked to the phone, and instead of asking me to save, Ninten's dad asked for my own name (as in me the player).

Ana says she saw Ninten in her dream.. and joins me to help find her mom in Easter.. she's very weak, so I just warped back to Magicant to train her... Oh wow..

Kirby's Return to Dream Land - high playthrough part 3

Went back to worlds 4-6 to get all the energy spheres I missed, didn't take long at all.

Dangerous Dinner

This volcano area has an amazing art style...
7-1... Used Snow Bowl ontop of a volcano... just barely beat the sphere doomer first try... had to shoot some heavy blocks at the dimensional curtain to push it back...
7-2... lava elevator... carrying a candle while floating across the water... a grey section with moving walls that crush you... beat the sphere doomer easily with Leaf power.
7-3... Weird cosmic area with sun/lava balls moving across... This art style keeps getting better....
The floor is moving in a loop... ceiling doesn't move...
Starting to get really tricky with these huge areas that expand vertically and horizontally... having Bird Kirby makes these parts way easier since you can fly a lot faster...

Metroid II high playthrough log part 1/2

Wow this backstory in the instruction manual is really good... looks like the enemy variety is very unique and huge compared to the first game...

In this you go to SR388 to destroy all the metroids... You start off with the long beam, the last game's high jump, and morph ball ability already.

- Level 1 -
- Metroid #39 down easily.. now the lava has fallen a bit, and this next area splits into 2 separate side areas.

- Level 2 -
- The first split path is a slightly complex Brinstar-like subsection with the bomb, 1 energy tank, ice beam, spider ball, some missile paks ... and 1 metroid... and a refill way up on the ceiling...
The spider ball is teased if you go to the dead end past the missile pak that you can't reach yet... have to back track here after getting it.

This game is deceptively linear... I'm gonna have to try doing a non-100% blind run while sober later on.

wow yeah... the spider ball makes exploring on your own way more fun... at the end of Level 2 you face 3 alpha metroids in a row with a bit of health refills (unless you grind)

- Level 3 -
omg this fortress submap is SO complex... tuuuuuubes

Wonder Boy in Monster Land playthrough log

Starting playing this while high... first read through the manual... it shows a drawn world map and names all the areas..
- Rack up points to get extra heart containers...
- an hourglass timer starts to remove health if it runs out...
- pause has Zelda-style status screen.. has slots for the hint items "Scroll to Catherine" and a "Letter to Betty" that you can find
- Guantlet and Helmet are like Link's Awakening powerups.. Wing Boots are like the Kid Icarus wings, guessing potion works like fairies..
- Flute, Star Charm, Hero's Emblem, Bell, and Ruby I don't know, the manual is very vague on what those do
- Shops become harder to find later in the game, and some shops become traps, some are even invisible to hide from the villains
- Boot upgrades allow faster running and higher jumping
- Some bosses have sword upgrades instead of the level exit
- Taverns flip the hourglass over to give you more time if you're running out... and something happens if you have 2 drinks apparently?

Playthrough attempt #1
Round 2.. found a guy hidden in the wall who tells me that the Emblem is needed to defeat the dragon... and he tells me to give a letter to Catherine in Boroboro.. that hint shows up as a reminder in the pause screen

wait really...? I died at round 4? the enemies there get kind of fast and hard to hit... your sword has very weak range.. and items/upgrades are expensive given what little money you are able to get (money doesn't respawn but enemies do)... I guess that was 1/3rd of the game?