Can Sega-16 Beat the Last of the Genesis, Sega CD, & 32X Libraries in 2021?

[goldenband]

That sure looks likely to be the best possible ending to me -- not that it matters for our purposes, since a "good" ending is enough, but what more could they do? Anoint you President?

Terrific work, RvR! I know firsthand how punishing that game can be. Great to see it go down.

[goldenband]

I just spent the afternoon playing through Stellar-Fire on Easy, so I'll aim to complete a run on Normal sometime this week.

Not a great game -- who the hell thought it was a good idea to have a game like this where you can't back up (reverse)? And the infinitely respawning enemies pretty much destroy one of the main points of a game like this, i.e. to overcome overwhelming odds through methodical and tactically savvy play, picking off enemies one at a time or charging in when necessary.

Instead you're just supposed to fly through the featureless levels and collect stuff, then face an uninspired boss. Blah.

This game seems like an attempt to challenge the Jaguar, but it ends up making games like Hover Strike and Cybermorph look a lot better by comparison -- at least those have some design wisdom behind them.

[RvR]

Stellar fire is when you drive around collecting crystals in polygon world right? I remember it was impressive but not too fun. It had a great framerate for its era.

Also I just realized Lemmings is left unbeaten but Im pretty sure Goati beat it. Maybe it was Lemmings 2 but he beat one of them at least.

[goldenband]

Goati did indeed beat Lemmings -- I know he's been planning to stop by and post that victory.

And yeah, Stellar-Fire is technically impressive but a mess to play. The lack of a reverse button is just criminal -- it destroys any tactical aspect to combat, since you can't circle-strafe or anything. Between that and your total lack of firepower, I guess they wanted to punish you for getting in fights?

[Cafeman]

I replayed and beat Sega CD Jurassic Park CD a few days ago. I didn't think to take a picture as the copter flew away from the island at the end!

[goldenband]

Awesome, Cafeman! Thanks for posting your win. Great to see that Sega CD list shrink by quite a bit this year.

[RvR]

Great win Cafeman, that is a game that started sapping my patients the moment I started it. Its a testament to a strong will to see it through.

[Cafeman]

Great win Cafeman, that is a game that started sapping my patients the moment I started it. Its a testament to a strong will to see it through.

Thanks! It is not that long or frustrating once you understand WHAT to do. I went through the frustrating part back in the 90s so I only died about 5 or 10 times on this play session. 1 Trike death, 2 Rex deaths, 2 or 3 raptor deaths, and 2 or 3 Biosyn soldier deaths.

[Goati]

Ok!
I've been meaning to be around here more, lately.

Anyway, I'm here to report on two clears: Zero Wing and Lemmings

Zero Wing
clear stats

Time: 17:20:02
Deaths: 802
Clear date: 2020-09-20
Notes: 1loop, 1CC, Normal difficulty

About Zero Wing, I have finished, on one credit, a loop on Normal difficulty. I haven't bothered with the other loops other than checking the meme-endings online.
I have finished the game on Easy first, getting the blobdance ending. I think it defaulted to that? I don't remember.

Click here for a link to the livestream, timestamped to the final boss.

This home port of the arcade version is an improvement, mostly with its rearranged Tatsuya Uemura soundtrack, which is easily this title's best trait. Also to point out, enemies now don't all flash red when you hit them.
The game also has really good spritework and excellent enemy variety, but that's where it ends, sadly: boring, slow stages never make for a good shmup.
The catching mechanic, supposed to be the game's gimmick, is useless and doesn't add much to the game nor do you ever really need it.
Check out manual scans though for extremely good enemy artwork.
Another lacking area is actually about the music: boss fights don't have their own music, nor a generic boss theme: the game just keeps playing the stage theme. I think even the stage clears don't have a jingle, and it feels pretty unsatisfying for otherwise cool giant boss sprites.

A trick is to get the green shot versus bosses, it does the most damage especially up close. Not something you easily figure out since that's the homing shot.

I had a nasty freeze while getting into the spike-rock boss room during what was a perfect run. Very annoying.

________________________________________________

The other game, which I'm proud to report having cleared with absolutely no hints or help, not even from the manual, which lists 3 solutions for 3 specific levels, is Lemmings.

Lemmings
clear stats

Time: 60:18:56
Fails/resets: 907
Clear date: 2020-11-06
Notes: All 180 levels, no hints or help whatsoever

All 180 levels were finished, with the most difficult one easily being the last Mayhem level (level 150, I think); the "Sunsoft" stages afterwards were almost a pushover, in comparison to Mayhem.

Not that it matters (no regional differences), but I happen to own both games' Japanese release, so I played both on a Japanese cartridge.

Click here for a video of the livestream where the game is finished

[goldenband]

Awesome, Goati!! For some reason Sega-16 totally stopped sending me timely notifications of threads*, so I'm only seeing this now.

You've taken Genesis win #666 and brought us to only 25 games left: one hell of a nice way to start 2021. Can we get one of these lists done this year? We're getting closer and closer!

*(actually, I know why, it's because Gmail tends to treat them as spam and they're delayed by several days for mysterious reasons)

[Aarzak]

I love that this thread is still going (as well as goldenband's avatar ).

I've chalked up 14x entries in previous years, curious about trying for a 15th in 2021.

[goldenband]

I love that this thread is still going (as well as goldenband's avatar ).

I've chalked up 14x entries in previous years, curious about trying for a 15th in 2021.

That'd be awesome -- we're now at the point where every win represents a big step, percentage-wise, toward the goal.

You can rest assured I'm going to keep my avatar for the foreseeable future. It's one of my favorite moments in video game history.

[Seingalt]

Unfortunately none of the remaining games is on the list of games that I plan to play in the near or medium term.
However if you try to start a concerted effort to finish the Genesis/NTSC or Mega Drive/PAL list in 2021 you can count me in.
If this thread once again gets going I’d definitely be willing to change my gaming priorities.

[goldenband]

Well, I'll commit to trying to add six wins to this list in 2021. Ideally 12, i.e. one per month, but I'll try to be realistic here. I got burned out on Genesis after the first half of the 2010s (I beat over 100 Genesis games between 2009 and 2015!), but I'd like to come back refreshed.

To that end I started on Blaster Master 2 today. I see why this game hasn't been beaten yet -- not because it's that hard (so far), but because it's long and joyless. It feels like a low-tier Amiga game that got a Blaster Master skin half-heartedly slapped onto it.

[Seingalt]

Well, I'll commit to trying to add six wins to this list in 2021.

Do you refer to the Genesis/Mega Drive games or all lists taken together?