FreakBoards 2023 NES/GB Book Club #7: ???

[SkieSquiggles]

I was on it for a few days but then I caught covid and fukin forgort

[Finch]

I decided to play Metroid! I have started it, doubt I'll finish it within the month with the other games consuming my time, but it's pretty fun if punishing so far! I found missiles and the upgrade to let me hold 10 missiles, thought oh cool maybe this means I can open one of those doors I saw earlier, and I could not, so. I'm a little lost as to what I'm supposed to do! But a lot of games from this era are like this. I might look up a map or something next time I play, just so I waste less time going down corridors only to find a door I can't open, especially when I'm getting my ass kicked.

I did learn my lesson this time too, and read the manual before I started playing! It's mostly full of fun monster names, but it did tell me how to switch to missiles when I got those, so that's a definite plus. Also it's funny that they refer to Samus Aran as "he" but no one knows their "true form".

Anyway! If I manage to find some more time to play I'll post an update. I kinda want to at least get to one boss before the end of the month, but it may need to wait until I have some extra time after Christmas.

[Mak-Etcetera]

I HAVE PLAYED MY GAME. FINALLY Kid Icarus myths and monsters is a nice game. |
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This game is a lot more fun than i anticipated and has some "stuff" (positive)
The platforming is fair the difficulty is enjoyable (aside from most of the boss's health)
and its nice enough to let you save at the end of each level, which is lovely for a gameboy game. | The story/goal of the game is to complete pits training, by climbing the world tower from the underworld to "angel-land"
and you do so by platforming through levels fighting underworld forces collecting hearts and hammers which are money and a tile breaker
and then you get your score tallyed at the end of the level by zeus and if once you reach the point goal your heath gets upgraded

the levels are relatively short until you get to last of each "world" and then you go through a labyrinth like dungeon to find the boss i really enjoyed how they implemented the map in larger levels where its easy to get a bit lost they made the map an item in larger levels you can find in one of the rooms
and all that gives you is the shape and amount of rooms in said level but in other rooms you can find a pencil which marks the rooms you've been in
and lastly you can find a torch that shows where you are on the map
and personally i really like this system | also the manual has some real good art in it i recommend giving it a read here!
https://www.thegameisafootarcade.com/wp ... Manual.pdf i like crow they are a bird |
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| I havent beaten the game yet but as of now i think its fair to say i enjoy the game

I give it 3 out of 5 yoshi dolls

[Finch]

I did go back to Metroid!

I don't think I'm going to play much more because time, but Metroid is pretty fun but the original NES game is pretty difficult! Again I marvel at people's ability to stick to these games without save states. I can see the real promise in this premise, but without a map this game is really hard to navigate and I have no idea how you could possibly know where the secrets are when I can't see any on screen indicators for them.

[gnurst]

i don't know if anyone else has done it yet but fuck it, i might play through the original Mario.

[SkieSquiggles]

Unfortunately I have failed the gradius challenge, but it was fun to play while I played it.

[coin-cache]

Posting at a dubiously late time, but I did manage to sneak in some time for a game!

I was kind of flipping through the list of gameboy games to play (I almost picked Tail Gator too actually!), but then I saw this title screen and I felt like I was being called into this, I had to follow this creature.


The other thing that got my interest is that it's one of those tower climbing games. The main gameplay is climbing these cylindrical towers, where there is an attempt at a sort of 3d circular movement, which looks fairly good overall! Apparently this game is based off of a game series whose original name seems to be Nebulus.

I didn't get to have too much time with the game unfortunately, a couple hours at most, but I had a lot of fun! I found it pretty difficult from the start, and there are some odd decisions with some of the mechanics. There's a slow projectile that gets shot at you every 15 seconds or so (I did not count this so it's probably different in reality). This projectile is indestructible, so much of the game is planning around the timing of these things so you can avoid them properly. It's a frustrating mechanic but I think I came around to it as it went on, forces an interesting bit of strategizing.

There are some negative points for sure I think. The jump is not very fun to use. It's bound to the same button as a button that shoots a fireball: moving while hitting A jumps, hitting A while stationary shoots a fireball (accidentally jumping while wanting a fireball was definitely a thing). The jump feels sluggish and weirdly delayed?? Kinda like a lot of more puzzly platformer type games from the time, if that makes sense. The game is also kinda buggy in some ways, mainly that it doesn't play too well when both you and some object are moving at the same time. Some things appear to increase or decrease in speed, one time a ball just changed direction for seemingly no reason right next to me. A last more specific point was one point in the first level where it felt like a blind guess whether riding an elevator would get you hit by a ball not on camera until it's too late.

All that said, I had a good time with this game! Cool concept and kinda shaky execution (although still impressively readable overall), but was really engaging. Glad to get to do another bookclub game!

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I did also technically play Bubsy 2 for the gameboy, which apparently exists. Honestly had a pretty good time lol. It has the same weird level design decisions but it's kinda endearing, and the platforming is pretty manageable since you don't go very fast on gb it seems.

[stratsodia]

Ok so a bit late on this but I finally finished a game. I decided to go with Super Mario Land for the Game Boy solely because of the Ambassadors of Funk song. The song is cool so I figured I should play the game.

Ok so the game is pretty good. I had a great time going through it for the most part, It's a pretty standard, normal platformer mostly. Pretty easy for the most part but starting at World 3 there's a pretty big difficulty jump. Like World 3 was kicking my ass for a while there. There's some tighter jumps and the boulders and moai heads are real bastards there. This is also where you start to really see the differences in enemies and locations, there's a lot more unique designs and less standard grass/sand/ice worlds, it's really neat. I got through eventually on to World 4, which was still pretty hard but not too bad. Tatanga was pretty tough as a final boss but I just had to keep it up and get the movements down and eventually I got through. This would have taken a whole lot longer if I hadn't stockpiled like 20 lives, I burned through 5 or 6 easy on Tatanga.

Gameplay is pretty solid, a few finicky bits but nothing too bad. Soundtrack was pretty good too, also the underground theme? Ok so that's were that one Brawl song is from, awesome. One thing I've heard a lot is just how different the game is from other Mario games and I really enjoyed seeing that. I liked seeing different, less common enemies and more diverse, less standard Mario settings and scenery. I know people have been saying it for a long time but I think it would be pretty rad if Sarasaland came back.

In the end I had a lot of fun with the game. Thank you Ambassadors of Funk and Mario.

[Cuboid64]

NEW YEAR.


NEW SUNRISE.