Last Famicom game you played?

[Nightstar699]

Beat Lickle on normal/hard difficulty. Good game, however I prefer Takeru's other masterpiece. (Cocoron)

[nerdynebraskan]

I had a friend over last night, and he asked me about Life Force. So, I broke out the Crisis Force and we played some co-op. Naturally, he was blown away. That's such an amazing game.

I also let him goof off with my PAL copy of Little Samson. Which brings me to Nightstar:

Yeah, Lickle/Samson is really fun, isn't it? I suspect it might be too light on the difficulty for someone of your skill, but there's just so much done right on that game too.

[Zycrow]

Made a heroic attempt at beating Ninja Gaiden (NES). Pretty smooth sailing until 6-2, where I spent a good 30 minutes getting the enemy patterns down. The screen where you have a running soldier, a bat, and an eagle, followed by a knife-tossing guy and an eagle was where I lost most of my lives.

Figured out you could de-spawn the knife guy by waiting in a certain spot, but then the eagle would knock me back into the spawn zones of several other enemies - I think the level designers knew exactly what they were doing.

Eventually got through that with patience, rest of the stage wasn't too bad.

Watched a YouTube LP for some tactics at facing the final boss's first part - still got destroyed in pretty short order. Bumped back to 6-1; game switched off. I'll probably try again at some point when I have more patience for 6-2.

That's two Tecmo games that have kicked my ass this past month!

Meanwhile I'm still saved at the final dungeon of StarTropics. Gotta finish that one soon.

[P]

Oh yeah the difficulty goes to the moon at stage 6-2. It's in a whole other league from the rest of the game.

[Nightstar699]

6-2 is easy peasy. You have two primary options in the "AVGN room".

1) De-spawn the Hammer Brother, then jump onto its platform with a slash to take out the bird. Be ready for the soldier that jumps towards you on the next platform.

2) Keep the Spin Slash. Then that room is as simple as "jump and hit B"

The latter is optimal, nowadays I only do the former when I go for sword-only runs. The only tricky part of 6-2 (of the whole game, for that matter) are the Jetpack Ninja. But they can be dealt with consistently using proper management of your Spin Slash.

I also let him goof off with my PAL copy of Little Samson. Which brings me to Nightstar:

Yeah, Lickle/Samson is really fun, isn't it? I suspect it might be too light on the difficulty for someone of your skill, but there's just so much done right on that game too.

Actually I found it to be pretty tough played on the harder setting, as some of the boss fights got rough when I lost the mouse and golem... since they're the only two characters that can really damage the bosses, shame Samson's bells are so weak. This made me have to force a Game Over in the final castle, which hurt. But I think this game would be very easy with proper management of the health potions, I just need to practice it a bit more. But yeah it's a good game. Like Gimmick, though, I think it greatly falls short of the price it demands. It's a good thing a relative bought it for me as a gift. Now, Metal Storm? THAT is an expensive game that's worth every penny IMO. Power Blade 2/Captain Saver as well.

As for my last played, I just got done with a Castlevania no-death. Had to avenge myself for botching a run last night, Dracula gave me the worst spawns in history. (He teleported right on top of me 4 times in a row) So it felt good to teach him a lesson.

[Zycrow]

Oh yeah the difficulty goes to the moon at stage 6-2. It's in a whole other league from the rest of the game.

6-2 is easy peasy. You have two primary options in the "AVGN room".

1) De-spawn the Hammer Brother, then jump onto its platform with a slash to take out the bird. Be ready for the soldier that jumps towards you on the next platform.

2) Keep the Spin Slash. Then that room is as simple as "jump and hit B"

The latter is optimal, nowadays I only do the former when I go for sword-only runs. The only tricky part of 6-2 (of the whole game, for that matter) are the Jetpack Ninja. But they can be dealt with consistently using proper management of your Spin Slash.

I think calling it "easy peasy" is being a bit cheeky.  (But then, I'm not yet a person who can do a sword-only Ninja Gaiden run.)

The techniques you mentioned were definitely what worked, though. Keeping the spin slash is ideal, but in some scenarios I would die in the previous screen where the cannons could knock you back into an eagle spawn zone and if you didn't jump right, you would grab a wall and eat a bunch of projectiles. I do get the sense that the developers saved all of their meanest trick for that particular sequence.

As for my last played, I just got done with a Castlevania no-death. Had to avenge myself for botching a run last night, Dracula gave me the worst spawns in history. (He teleported right on top of me 4 times in a row) So it felt good to teach him a lesson.

I recall a similar feeling when I finally completed Castlevania several years back! Still haven't managed to do that without the use of holy water, but there are so many other games I haven't beaten...

Last game I played was Star Luster. I'm a big fan of Namco's early Famicom stuff, and Star Luster feels rather ahead of its time despite being base whole cloth on an older Atari game. There are plenty of games from the 1989-1994 range that don't feel nearly as polished and immersive.

[Nightstar699]

I think calling it "easy peasy" is being a bit cheeky.  (But then, I'm not yet a person who can do a sword-only Ninja Gaiden run.)

Well, Cheeky is my middle name. Ninja Gaiden does indeed have a very "deliberate" feel to the stage design, a big part of why I love it so much. In fact my last played game was... Ninja Gaiden! Decided to end my night with a no-death run of this beautiful game, and it was a good run too. I'm getting better at performing the rapid sword-slash glitch that speeds up the Jaquio fight.

I recall a similar feeling when I finally completed Castlevania several years back! Still haven't managed to do that without the use of holy water, but there are so many other games I haven't beaten...

Oh trust me man, I'm a Castlevania runner and even I wouldn't dare let go of my Holy Water past stage 4. The Frankenstein and Death fights are way, waaay too crazy and random to be done consistently with insufficient weaponry. Ninja Gaiden sword-only is fairly easy, but Castlevania whip-only is a whole different story.

[Zycrow]

Well, that makes me feel a bit better about my CV skill.

Among a bunch of other stuff, I've been playing Ninja Jajamaru-kun. The difficulty curve seems better-balanced than its predecessor (Ninja-kun), and the frog summon is impressive for a 1985 game. I like it a lot!

[zmaster18]

I love Castlevania, and the most difficult parts of the game are Frankenstein and Igor, the hallway leading up to Death, and Death himself. I have been able to do these parts with just the whip.

I've been playing Ninja Gaiden recently and the last stages are totally tough. I hate that when you die at the last bosses, you go back. Apparently this was a glitch made by the programmers that was intentionally left in the final game... This game is tough, but so good. You actually feel like a ninja because you need to be fast. You also need to know exactly what's coming up ahead of you. Those birds can be such bullies though   

[Nightstar699]

Is it really a glitch if it's intentional though? Speaking of Ninja Gaiden, I no-death ran it a couple times today to test out some more speedrunning strats, I didn't set a timer but I looked at the clock before and after, and it was a 13-ish minute run so a few minutes off from the record.

But yeah I know what you mean, getting sent back to 6-1 makes it a very difficult challenge to learn, if I wasn't so obsessive about this game as a kid I know I would have never had the will to master it. Birds feel like the worst part of Ninja Gaiden, yeah, but when you master their layout they honestly aren't bad. The Hammer Bros. (any of the multiple enemies that throw items in arcs) are the worst part because there's genuine randomness to their weapon throws, the birds spawn the same way, every time, so once you memorize them they aren't much of a problem.

Although I don't have a strat for Frankenstein or Death whip-only, I do know how to clear the hallway leading up to Death: If you don't have Holy Water, NEVER and I mean, NEVER jump during this segment. Just advance forward and whip away to destroy the knights, if you stay grounded you should be able to dodge the Medusa heads when they swerve below or above you, just watch for their pattern. The good thing about Axe Knights in this game is that you can destroy their axe with a standing whip, whether it's high or low, as opposed to later CV games.

Well, that makes me feel a bit better about my CV skill.

Among a bunch of other stuff, I've been playing Ninja Jajamaru-kun. The difficulty curve seems better-balanced than its predecessor (Ninja-kun), and the frog summon is impressive for a 1985 game. I like it a lot!

Ever played Super Ninja Kun on Super Famicom? Really great platformer.

I've also been playing a lot of Captain Saver/Power Blade 2 today, love this one.

[Zycrow]

Ever played Super Ninja Kun on Super Famicom? Really great platformer.

No, I haven't! Will have to put that one on the list.

Finally beat StarTropics.





The difficulty ramped up pretty high toward the end, but not in an unfair way. Managed to defeat Zoda on the first try, though at the end I had 1/2 a heart. (Actually 1 1/2 hearts, since Zoda hilariously dropped a single heart refill upon death.)

Only thing I didn't like were the bits where spikes randomly pop out of the ground. In particular there was one dungeon that had a checkpoint which started you IN a room with random spikes, which I felt was a little too cruel and punishing.

[NintendoKing]

All Night Nippon: Super Mario Bros.

[L___E___T]

I played a bit of Akumajou Densestu Just for the soundtrack, never gets old.

[nerdynebraskan]

I played through the FC version of Contra in co-op mode with a friend yesterday, so he could see the cutscenes and background animations that got cut from the NES version. Also played through a bit of Gimmick! (mostly for the music, as he's really into that Sunsoft sound), Bio Miracle Bokutte Upa, and Don Doko Don.

[Zycrow]

I played a bit of Akumajou Densestu Just for the soundtrack, never gets old.

Seriously, it's worth owning just for that. I wouldn't have believed that the music in the NES version could have been improved upon. Those Konami chips, man!