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Childhood gaming roadblocks you've now conquered?
Idx86
Long days and pleasant nights.Registered User regular
Long days and pleasant nights.Registered User regular
I apologize if this thread has been done before, but don't recall anything in recent memory.
Did you ever have an old video game that absolutely stopped you cold at a certain part as a kid? A tough boss, an unsolvable puzzle that frustrated you for hours, something you eventually gave up on? I remember conceiting defeat on a couple of different occasions, and then when I sold the consoles that was the end of it.
Well, technology sure is a wonderful thing, isn't it? The old consoles have been brought back to life through various means giving us a shot at redemption. I've highlighted my two favorite revenge matches below.
Punch-Out - Great Tiger - I could not beat this son of a bitch to save my life. I remember play it when I was 7 or 8. Maybe my coordination hadn't developed all the way yet, but when he went into that illusion punch whateverthefuck thing he did, I was screwed 100% of the time. Kicking his ass 13 years later in college was very therapeutic.
Final Fantasy IV - Magus Sisters - Another boss that stopped me cold in my tracks. It was 1/3rd approach and 2/3rds me not knowing that you could pick up the Flame Sword in the tower. When I bought the PSX Final Fantasy collection years later and found that sword, it was game over for those bitches.
What are some of your childhood gaming roadblocks that have now fallen at your feet?
Did you ever have an old video game that absolutely stopped you cold at a certain part as a kid? A tough boss, an unsolvable puzzle that frustrated you for hours, something you eventually gave up on? I remember conceiting defeat on a couple of different occasions, and then when I sold the consoles that was the end of it.
Well, technology sure is a wonderful thing, isn't it? The old consoles have been brought back to life through various means giving us a shot at redemption. I've highlighted my two favorite revenge matches below.
Punch-Out - Great Tiger - I could not beat this son of a bitch to save my life. I remember play it when I was 7 or 8. Maybe my coordination hadn't developed all the way yet, but when he went into that illusion punch whateverthefuck thing he did, I was screwed 100% of the time. Kicking his ass 13 years later in college was very therapeutic.
Final Fantasy IV - Magus Sisters - Another boss that stopped me cold in my tracks. It was 1/3rd approach and 2/3rds me not knowing that you could pick up the Flame Sword in the tower. When I bought the PSX Final Fantasy collection years later and found that sword, it was game over for those bitches.
What are some of your childhood gaming roadblocks that have now fallen at your feet?
2008, 2012, 2014 D&D "Rare With No Sauce" League Fantasy Football Champion!
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Mega Man 2 - Dr.Wily's first stage. There's a room with nothing. You need to use your items to get from a ladder to the other. I tried using Item-2 but it's so hard. The solution was to use Item-1 but I just beat Heat Man and didn't ever use it before, and it never came to me to at least try it and see what it does. Also, it didn't take me as long, but this one was pretty hardcore too: Boss
Twenty-two years later (thanks to the VC) I finally beat that S.O.B. Now I can die in peace.
And yes, I did beat KQ2.
Snoopy's Silly Sports Spectacular - POLE VAULT Fuck. I still can't do it.
Shit...same with Caveman Games, or whatever it was called :x
Yeah, what the fuck was up with that? Actually, I did it recently. Even now that I know how to do it (thanks to GFaqs and forums), I still have a hard time doing it.
Anyone remember the first Final Fantasy for the GB? As I recall, it was poorly translated and hard to follow, but I was a kid so I had no idea. All I remember is the last(?) boss was called "Creator" and he wiped the floor with me back and forth. The guy had to have had a bajillion HP, he just would not go down.
Until I used a Chainsaw on him. (Chainsaw was like an FF "Death" spell; had a chance to instantly kill the enemy. Rarely worked, and never on bosses.)
When I killed him with that, I about threw the GB out the window, it was so rediculous.
Years later I got ahold of Final Fantasy II, which seemed a lot cooler. You traveled up some sort of galactic tower going from world to world, collecting some sort of spell-enabling spheres, or something. Eventually I ran into Apollo, who wiped the floor with me in much the same fashion. I can't recall if I ever defeated him...
Inquisitor77: Rius, you are Sisyphus and melee Wizard is your boulder
Tube: This must be what it felt like to be an Iraqi when Saddam was killed
Bookish Stickers - Mrs. Rius' Etsy shop with bumper stickers and vinyl decals.
In fact now I've mentioned it I think I may play a bit tonight.
PSN: SirGrinchX
Oculus Rift: Sir_Grinch
I kinda feel bad that my mother and I beat KQ2 three hours after we brought the game home... ;-)
She and I played through those games together... whenever a new King's Quest or Space Quest came out, she took the day off work, kept me home from school, and we played together. Good stuff.
Anyway, childhood gaming roadblocks? I actually beat FF4... I mean, I guess a game that was too boring for me before being playable now would count?
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YES! I remember that game all too well. I made it to the second world and that's about as far as I could manage. I wonder if that game is still around somewhere.
Weren't those games really Romancing SaGa or something akin to that?
2008, 2012, 2014 D&D "Rare With No Sauce" League Fantasy Football Champion!
Haven't conquered, but I can play some of them without screaming like a little girl. BioShock helped me cope. But then again, it wasn't as scary as I expected. Having that shotgun kinda helped me feel safe.
"OH SHIIIIT! *BLAM BLAM* Hahah. Bitch."
Final Fantasy Legend on the GameBoy was the first game of the SaGa series. Final Fantasy Adventure was the first game of the Mana series.
Funny how that worked out.
*I finally got past the Marshmellow man in Ghostbusters and whooped Zod's ass
*I beat the dragon boss in Fantasy Zone II: The tears of opa-opa in route to beating the entire game
*I finally beat fucking lord of the sword.
*I "beat" astro warrior although my dad had "beaten" it many times when I was younger (it loops)
*Beat Maze Hunter 3D. That was damn fun, I miss that game
*Beat Space Harrier 3D and that was also fun
*I beat Mr. Big in Gangster Town... he used to always whoop my ass
*I "beat" Zaxxon 3D, though it also loops
*beat the final level of thunderblade
*I sat down and beat Bubsy from start to finish. That was NOT fun
*I BEAT THE FUCKING MECHA DRAGON IN WONDERBOY IN MONSTER LAND FUCK YOU MECHA DRAGON FUCK YOU
that last one is the one I'm most proud of. If anyone remembers that game, it was fucking BRUTAL. 1 life for the whole game (unless you buy a potion midway through the game), no continues, and the final castle was a never ending maze if you went the wrong way. And to top it off the mecha dragon was the hardest mother fucker EVER EVER EVER GOD I HATE HIM. Man, I'm getting all kinds of pissed just thinking of that fight.
Years later, I revisited the game on at a friend's house and was finally able to conquer it. It didn't seem nearly as intimidating as it had originally. Then I watched a video of some dude doing a glitched speed run of the game, and beating it in about 10 minutes or something, and I went right back to being ashamed.
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Fuck you wonderboy in monster land. At least no ending meant that Wonderboy III could happen and be badass.
....
Damn near all of it -_-
YEAH!!! COME ON... FUCK YOU!
I remember seeing that in a speech bubble on a Mike Tyson's Punch Out review once, wish I had a picture of that page in the magazine.
That guy knows the way to go, but don't be fooled. That castle is the fucking DEVIL.
God I love that game.
EDIT: What a puss, he doesn't have the bell...
EDIT DOS: Fun fact, that game is the very first video game I remember playing. I can play that game with my eyes closed... except that fucking castle fuck you!
I replayed it a year ago. Finished it in under an hour.
How did you manage this? I've tried for YEARS! I even dug the old C64 out the other month and couldn't even get to the bastard
PSN: SirGrinchX
Oculus Rift: Sir_Grinch
Well I dunno how different the sega master system version is from the C64 version, but I'd move my guy as far up as possible until his head was almost touching the marshmellow man. Then I'd line myself up with the left part of the door. I'd wait for him to bounce on the left side and as soon as he started to move right I'd run up. If you time it for just as he's jumping from the left side you can move in.
The worst part? The parts that follow are like ten times harder. Climbing those stairs is hard as shit. Zod himself isn't too hard, though.
EDIT: The best part of that game is that it acknowledges how fucking difficult the final part of the game is, and even if you lose you still get a good ending.
PSN: SirGrinchX
Oculus Rift: Sir_Grinch
FUCK!!
I think they were. And yeah, FFII on GB had me at Apollo. That bastard was so hard. Of course, another boss got me stuck for a long time: Venus. I guess I chose a sucky team combo and never properly levelled them up, Venus was simply unbeatable. I restarded the game from the beginning, made a new team, grinded a little bit more, and beat her ass without too much trouble.
Apollo, though, he's hard as hell.
It is a combination of most older games being unforgiving and me just not having the patients to sit through them when I can play current games with great storylines, amazing presentation, and more varied combat.
I had a similar experience with King's Quest 4 (I might have told this in said previous thread too, don't remember). I was stuck inside the whale. Somehow I knew, even as a little kid, that the solution was to tickle the whale's uvula with a feather (why this seemed logical to me, I will never know) but everytime I tried "tickle uvula" the game just told me "you can't reach it". So, I typed "climb tongue" to which the game replied "do it yourself". I was completely stumped. Years later, when I replayed the game, I finally realized, with the wisdom age brings you, that the game meant for me to maneuver my character onto the tongue and it would climb the tongue automatically. Doh!
Atleast I can credit King's Quest 4 for teaching me what a uvula is.
There are several games that I've never managed to beat even at this age, mostly though because I simply haven't tried anymore.. being as I seem to have only gotten worse at platform style games, instead of better. I just don't have that patience anymore that I had as a kid.
Biggest of them all though will always be Zeliard. Damn evil little game. I always, always, got stuck in the last dungeon. I've never managed to navigate my way through that damn dungeon, not even when I replayed it years later. Argh!
Fantasy Zone.
If anyone has played the game and gotten to the final boss then they know what I'm talking about. I can't find a video of him, but what the fuck at that ear-face thingy that it shot out. It was near impossible. I could make a perfect run of the entire game, without ever even visiting a shop, and still get obliterated by the final boss.
I remember the first time I beat him, my thumbs ached from slamming the fire button down so fast. I beat him with fucking bullets. It wasn't until years later that I read an AM2 interview that said the boss could only be beaten with heavy bombs because he was too fast. I actually beat him the impossible way.
Since finding that out, however, the final boss has become a cake walk. And the ending, unlike wonderboy in monsterland, was actually satisfying. Man what a great game.
man, I beat Ghouls n Ghosts and Ghosts n Goblins when I was little. All the way through. Both times.
How the fuck did I do it, I have no idea. I went back and played ghouls n ghosts not too long ago and it took me like 4 hours to beat the first time through. I remember breezing through it.
My younger self could whoop my ass in video games now. I was such a hoss.
No way in hell can I do that now.
Probably a combination of better twitch, more patience, and more time.
Anytime I go through Megaman or Super Mario I remember doing it a lot more by the seat of my pants when I was younger. Now I remember to slow down sometimes and use my brain instead of just my reactions.
Work smarter, etc. This does make most classic JRPGS much too easy though, when I was a kid FF games were so damn hard because I never used weaknesses or any magic except against bosses.
I agree though, I used to be much better at games, it was perhaps because I had much much more time to put in to games. I was an utter demon at California Games as a young 'un, I can't even stay on the surf board on it anymore.
PSN: SirGrinchX
Oculus Rift: Sir_Grinch
Mortal Kombat 1 and 2 are notoriously hard until you learn how laughably weak the CPU is to low attacks, sweep kick in general. Then it becomes a matter of getting your timing down.
King's Quest 3 was also a PITA at the beginning (one of my first games, evar). How the hell am I supposed to know that I'm supposed to make the Wizard poison cookies? And, anytime I wonder around for a bit, the Wizard comes along and kills me.
Ultima IV and V were no thrill rides in some of the dungeons, either.
Games were HARD then. Now, everything seems so easy and people complain when the bad guys can "magically" shoot you in CoD. Dude, try Ikari Warriors for awhile and get back to me about "hard".
YES THEY WERE
You've just spent 3 hours getting to this the final boss you have 2 lives and 1 hit kills. Oops game over start all the way from the begining.
P.S. there is no continue
man games were hard as shit.
Nope, we won't take your quarters. Even if you only had 1 life from the previous stage. All the way to the beginning of the game with you.
also, still trying to get past three floors on Die Hard for the NES
The whole game is hard as fuck and there are no instructions telling you what you're supposed to do.
thanks to trial-and-error and Save-states in an emulator i managed to beat that thing finally.
Also, When i was younger i got stuck in Indiana Jones and the Search for Atlantis, because i didn't know what an "entrenchment tool" was. And i remember thinking to my young self "great I'm trapped in a cave-in and all i have is this stupid entrenchment tool... it kinda looks like a shovel but it doesn't work"
Then i learned that WW2 era entrenchment tools were collapsible shovels, that you have to OPEN before you can use...
I like how the Wii incorporates save states, but in a way that doesn't allow abuse.
I can't really think of any other major roadblocks, except for maybe the underwater bomb diffuse sequence in TMNT. What a fucking bitch. I should try that again to see if I'm any better.
Anyway, I used to be able to get pretty far as a kid, but I replayed it recently and was able to beat my records. I've yet to completely beat it.