Rock band hard/expert drums, one hand + foot pedal only. The other hand throws up the horns. \m/
We are talking about things that are actually possible.
The iron man diablo bit sounds fun and would work for almost any action RPG. Sacred 2 would be an excellent candidate for this.
chamberlain on
0
TheScrupleThe Oldest of BridgesRegistered Userregular
edited June 2009
If you do the Def Leppard challenge, you're not expected to get 100%, just pass. One of the best songs for this is "Move Along" on Hard. You can get 100% all the way up to the first chorus with one hand + foot pedal. You can go further in the song if you hold the stick in your hand and "punch" the yellow and red pad at the same time. Starts to hurt after a while though.
TheScruple on
All prairie dogs just want to be heroes
0
DunxcoShould get a suitNever skips breakfastRegistered Userregular
If you do the Def Leppard challenge, you're not expected to get 100%, just pass. One of the best songs for this is "Move Along" on Hard. You can get 100% all the way up to the first chorus with one hand + foot pedal. You can go further in the song if you hold the stick in your hand and "punch" the yellow and red pad at the same time. Starts to hurt after a while though.
Only pass? Sounds like most of Leppard's career. OH NO HE DIDN'T.
Also, I'm debating whether using one's head to hit the drums in climatic parts is acceptable. It is pretty rocking to use your skull as a drumstick.
If you do the Def Leppard challenge, you're not expected to get 100%, just pass. One of the best songs for this is "Move Along" on Hard. You can get 100% all the way up to the first chorus with one hand + foot pedal. You can go further in the song if you hold the stick in your hand and "punch" the yellow and red pad at the same time. Starts to hurt after a while though.
Only pass? Sounds like most of Leppard's career. OH NO HE DIDN'T.
Also, I'm debating whether using one's head to hit the drums in climatic parts is acceptable. It is pretty rocking to use your skull as a drumstick.
Rick Allen had a lot more then one pedal to make up for his one-armed-ness.
chamberlain on
0
DunxcoShould get a suitNever skips breakfastRegistered Userregular
If you do the Def Leppard challenge, you're not expected to get 100%, just pass. One of the best songs for this is "Move Along" on Hard. You can get 100% all the way up to the first chorus with one hand + foot pedal. You can go further in the song if you hold the stick in your hand and "punch" the yellow and red pad at the same time. Starts to hurt after a while though.
Only pass? Sounds like most of Leppard's career. OH NO HE DIDN'T.
Also, I'm debating whether using one's head to hit the drums in climatic parts is acceptable. It is pretty rocking to use your skull as a drumstick.
Rick Allen had a lot more then one pedal to make up for his one-armed-ness.
What feat of Gnomish Engineering be this?!
Disclaimer: I don't have anything personal against Rick Allen. I just really fucking hate Def Leppard.
I once decided it would be a great idea to play through Mass Effect on veteran difficulty using nothing but the starting armor and weapons and the upgraded versions of that armor and those weapons.
It doesn't sound that bad, right? You can upgrade your armor and weapons. They aren't as good as the really top tier equipment, but by the end, you're so great it doesn't even matter, right?
That's what I thought until I had to play through Therum with my starting equipment.
There's this Pizza Hut the next town over. Ever since me and my friends have been kids they've had a little sitdown arcade machine there that has Castlevania in it. So we grew up and got really good at all the Castlevanias, but we never conquered the one in the Pizza Hut.
This was because it was made to only give you 3 hits per stage on your life bar, and ridiculous time limits in some stages. The third level in particular, we would be running out of time before even being close to the mummies.
Anyways we eventually (last year?) went there with a bag full of quarters and beat it, most of the level runs ended up being perfects. So whenever we're bored of the NES cartridge we always to go Pizza Hut for an extra challenge.
Diablo I Iron Man is a classic, but Diablo II Iron Man is rather different. The game forces you back to town at times but you just refuse to do anything except move your main quest along. No quest rewards, no buying/selling/gambling, no stash, no repairs.
What makes this mode fun is trying it with each class. It's stupidly easy with a necromancer, but trying it with a barbarian or paladin will make you want to kill yourself.
AresProphet on
0
EvilBadmanDO NOT TRUST THIS MANRegistered Userregular
The Marathon Vidmaster Challenge was posed by Jason Jones (Bungie Software) on comp.sys.mac.games and alt.games.marathon in January 1995. In a post with the subject line "the marathon vidmaster challenge..." Jason wrote:
"I challenge anyone who thinks they rule at Marathon to complete all of the game's levels on Total Carnage starting with only the pistol and x1 health (via Command-Option Begin Game). Upload your replays!"
Vidmaster Rules
"i rebel against your rules your silly human rules."
[Durandal, UESC Marathon]
While there is no definitive (ex cathedra) list of Vidmaster rules the following have been compiled from Marathon, Marathon 2: Durandal, and Marathon Infinity. Memorize them.
Rule #1 Command-Option Begin New Game
Choose a level and start out with only one pistol, 3 rounds of ammo, and 1X shields. The rest is up to you. The objective? To complete the level. The Marathon Vidmasters' Page would add to this - complete the level as stylishly as possible. Too many Vidmasters not enough Style. Just Vid It - With Style!
Rule #2 Total Carnage Difficulty Level
Is it necessary to mention this? Well you'll find some films out there claiming to be on Total Carnage but there not. Don't be fooled by Spazeroids.
Rule #3 Punch All Switches.
A new rule introduced with Marathon 2. You can be forgiven in Marathon for not doing this but not in Marathon 2 and Marathon Infinity.
Rule #4 Never Shoot Where You Can Use Grenades!
Another of those new rules introduced with Marathon 2. Who needs grenades? On some levels you do if you want to activate switches, grenade jump, or climb walls so don't waste them. It's a silly rule. Rules were meant to be broken. Use your discretion. My wha...?! Of course you should never ever need to use the primary trigger on the Assault Rifle anyway. ;-)
Rule #5 Never Use The Caps Lock As A 'Run' Key.
Ha! Who would do such a thing? Spazeroids for one!
Rule #6 Never, Ever, Leave A Single Bob Alive.
Cruel but true. A Marathon 2 and Infinity rule. Then again Bob can now fight back! On some Marathon levels saving Bobs is a necessity. Again rules were meant to be broken. Use your discretion. Least you forget "It is your sworn duty as a security officer to protect Bob." (Marathon Manual page 15).
Rule #7 Just Vid It - With Style!
Vidmaster Options Think the rules are easy? Well here are some options.
Option #1 Fists Only!
Masochists need only apply! The Ultimate Style Trip! On some levels you have little alternative.
Option #2 No Recharging!
Sudden Death. The ultimate price for failure. Adds a new dimension to the phrase poenas dare.
Option #3 Kill Everything!
On some levels you must. On all levels you should. But you're forgiven if you don't.
Option #4 No Hits!
Ultimate Vid-ness! Finish a level without taking a hit. But remember - it's nothing without Style. Don't sacrifice your Style.
Option #5 Show all secrets on a level!
Not always possible without certain weapons but if it is possible these should be shown.
Vidmaster Don'ts
Don't #1 Hide Behind Doors
Don't be a spazeroid and constantly hide behind doors. It's a wussie technique. Dive into the mêlée. Endure. Vid It With Style!
Don't #2 Constantly Hug The Recharger
Yeah you know who you are! You get a nick so you run back to recharge your shields <yawn>. Walk the wire. Live dangerously. Vid It With Style!
Don't #3 Constantly Run Back To A Defensive Spot
You find a nice cushy spot to defend from so you keep going back. Wuss! Move forward, sieze the initiative, strike hard. Vid It With Style!
Vidmaster Do's
Do #1 Vid It With Style!
Expect the unexpected, do the unexpected. Be innovative, be daring, be cool. Too many Vidmasters not enough Style.
I managed to pull off the "Test of faith" achievement in Mirror,s Edge. (Never using a gun on a enemy) I'm also attempting a unarmed only run in Fallout 3 currently.
Last one I cared about was my all costumes (worst stats), no jellies (healing items), no deaths Mania run in Tales of Symphonia. I think, but I'm not sure, I also got the low level title.
It was fun. Started hard, then was easy, spiked a few times at certain bosses (the double boss fight at the wind elemental ruins was the worst), then after the big twist fight things were pretty safe. I've been thinking of doing it again, but recording it with commentary or whatever.
My personal [strike]favorite[/strike] obsession is Super Metroid.
Turns out the game is literally impossible without at least 3* energy tanks. Mother Brain is hard-coded to remove roughly that much with her first hyper beam; the others only trigger if you still have more than X energy.
The rest of the game is quite doable with no energy tanks. My most recent playthrough (assuming the cartridge's battery survived the move; the SNES did not) has me facing Ridley with the following restrictions:
Ice beam (off, only use on metroids)
Charge beam (required for bosses - see below)
3 packs of missiles (required; two to get the power back on, one during wrecked ship entry - I learned long after the fact that only one pack is required. oops)
1 pack of Super Missiles
1 pack of Power Bombs
Varia Suit (you need either the Varia Suit, or the High Jump + a couple of energy tanks; not both. Kraid with the Plasma Beam is fun.)
Gravity Suit.
Speed Booster.
If I didn't list it, I probably didn't get it - I may have forgotten one or two things.
What makes this run more challenging than my others is that I'm not allowed to use muntions on bosses/mini-bosses** It's deeply frustrating, but up until Ridley, all the bosses/mini-bosses have some way of healing you. Ridley has no such weakness. My greatest accomplishment was having him swap palettes, and that was once (last year) after literally years of on and off attempts.
Another limit is Pacifist mode in MegaMan X, X2 and X3. Basically, X is not allowed to harm any of the bots found in the level proper, unless it's absolutely necessary. This worked very well (with maybe a few exceptions) until X3, at which point it's nearly impossible. So I lifted the restriction by rationalizing that Zero considers himself a war machine and, thus, would have no compunction about cutting a oily swath through the level. This is offset by using him as little as possible - basically, if X (being a wuss) doesn't want to get his hands dirty, Zero (being awesome) steps in, and takes out the section that's giving him fits.
This led to the pointless, but interesting, knowledge that Zero can actually enter one mini-bosses chamber: the sub's reactor. Until then, I had assumed it was coded that if he got anywhere near one of those doors, the game forced X to port in. Seems it must be on a door-by-door basis, which is odd to me.
Speaking of Zero, I'm one of those guys, who tries to get S Ranks on all the levels.
Zero 4: Why, yes, Kraft, I can dodge your screen-filling laser. I just have to dash at precisely the right moment, hold it for as long as possible, and then both avoid running into you and making sure to get a hit in.
Zero 3: Well, I have a save at the final boss - I just have to kill all 8 bosses again, defeat Weil, Big Bad, and then the final-final in one run. While meeting insane requirements for damage/time/whatnot taken. I don't even remember what those requirements are.
Zero 2: I just restarted, and it was brutal to get the S on the prologue stage. I think it's the hardest game in the series, even without the whole Rank system.
Zero 1: I really don't remember if I ever got an S rank on the final stage or not. It's simply been too long.
* I'm actually not certain it's 3, but it's more than 0. And maybe I read somewhere it was 3?
** While writing this, I kept wanting to say 'sub-bosses'. Has that term ever been used?
The two challenges in Z2's prologue stage are Enemies and Damage. You need to kill 5 or 6 of the endless pantheons at the beginning - there aren't enough enemies in the stage to get the full 15 points otherwise. And the Golem enemies can be very tricky, as there's only about 2 pixels of wiggle room for hitting them with your sword without taking a hit.
I managed to pull off the "Test of faith" achievement in Mirror,s Edge. (Never using a gun on a enemy) I'm also attempting a unarmed only run in Fallout 3 currently.
An Unarmed FO3 run isn't really handicapping yourself; depending on how you set your stats up it can actually be easier than using guns/energy weapons
In a recent playthrough of Jagged Alliance 2 I only allowed myself to buy medkits and toolkits from the merchants. For everything else, guns, ammo, armor, etc, I had to use what I could find or loot from the bodies of my enemies.
It was quite interesting, especially because my weapon progression was tied to that of the enemy's, whereas in normal playthroughs I end up with fancy assault rifles from merchants before they get to AKs. And I couldn't grow too attached to any particular weapon, ammo could run dry at any time. During several bouts of heavy fighting I had to drop some guns and grab the gun and ammo off of an enemy corpse.
Low level challenges in some RPGs can be pretty fun.
Final Fantasy 6 is actually well designed about that, for example. Boss fights don't give you experience and there's very few forced battles that do give experience. It's possible to beat the game with almost everyone under level 10.
o_Oo_Oo_O
Super Metroid is one of my all time favorite games, and I give it a runthrough about every year or two, but I have never tried sequence breaking, speed running, or a minimal game. I take the standard route through every time, to the point where I wouldn't be surprised if a playback of my last two runthroughs were almost 100% identical, screen by screen. I just really enjoy playing the game.
As for other games, every time I really even think about trying a self-imposed challenge, I usually get bored and move on to another game.
I went back through some of my old save data and looked at the limited or special runs I've attempted and managed to complete.
FFX - No Sphere Grid (I can't do the "No Grid, No summons" one, but oh well)
FF1 - All white mages, also the Team of One Black Belt
FF6 - Everyone below level 12
Diablo - Ironman
Nethack - No Wishes
Thief - Ghost
Jade Empire - No support/stun styles, No Transformations, No Leveling up.
Mass Effect - No stat increases, starting equipment only, Insanity.
KotoR I - No force powers.
Torment - No fighting. Talk your way out of everything.
Quake 1, beat a guy in a death match while using a touch pad 10-2 after he was talking trash in an irc channel, he was the host too, so no ping bitching from him.
Deus Ex - No points in any skills, no augs, no kills, only got healing from food items and water fountains.
Metal Gear Solid 3 - European Extreme, no continues, no kills, no equipment, no camo with special abilities, and the only weapons used against non-bosses (and a couple of bosses) were thrown food items. And for once, I didn't blow up the Groznyj Grad food supply shed before getting captured, but that was actually unintentional.
Left 4 Dead - Finished several maps on Expert, after killing all three other survivors in the starting safe room. Successfully Raced 4 Dead on single-player Expert No Mercy 1 by jumping off the roof and rushing to the safe room.
Marvel vs Capcom 2 - It would be possible to beat the game using a Guitar Hero controller, if Abyss wasn't even cheaper than Cable.
Prototype Hulk Smash: Only use Muscle Mass and Armor powers for combat.
Also "Pistol Only" works for a ton of games.
And 4xs work great for this shit. "No Military research", "No research only spying", "No spying", "No ships larger than x", "Ammo based weapons only", "Missiles only", one SE:V run I had once: "Drones only", etc.
Let me tell you drones only was about the most painful early game I've ever had. Each ship had one shot... they just didn't have room for any more than one drone launcher and enough cargo for one drone. Luckily one shot could pretty much blast away anything, but if I was outnumbered I was pretty rightly fucked. Once large ships became available this got a lot better, and once I had ship mounted space yards it became even better. Star Bases were pretty much the only way I survived there at the beginning... along with the beautiful fact that planets with no ship yards could at least build drones.
Contrastingly, that end game was just hilarity in motion. I had what amounted to space ICBMs. I could launch attacks systems away without putting a single ship in danger and since any planet could build them, I just had endless ammo. Some race would mouth off to me and there would just be swarms of drones flying through warp points and pounding their planets to dust without so much as a fleet needing to exist. I think at one point I just dissolved my navy.
Also in MoO if you were the Darlocks a "Spying only" run could be the best thing on the planet, since you could just start and influence wars as they happened and have the aggregate technology of the galaxy.
Oh, and only homegrown human tech in X-Com, that's fun. You can research alien tech, and eventually you will need to build an avenger/Lightning, but up 'till then, Lasers, Medi-kits, motion sensors, and what you can buy.
Khavall on
0
MorninglordI'm tired of being Batman,so today I'll be Owl.Registered Userregular
edited June 2009
I tend to accidentally do this based on my way of playing games. Mainly because I play games for my own sense of fun. I don't really care what is efficient, just what I like to use, what I like the feel of. It's never a conscious choice. Sometimes I have to sit down and try to work out why I like to use it so much if I want to explain it to someone else.
So sometimes it's efficiency. Sometimes it's the look or visceral feel of what I'm doing. Sometimes it's story based, as in I'll try to keep to what I think the character would do if I like the character. Sometimes it's my own version of what I think the character should be like and I play it like that. It varies widely.
I get bored by super efficient solutions pretty quickly unless those solutions require some complexity to execute. So if there is, say, an overpowered thing in a game, I'll be bored of it quickly and wont touch it again if there's another ability/weapon/item/game mechanic that is more complicated. Even if it's way less efficient, if it can do the job eventually that's all I care about.
I'm not really a very good rpg player because of this. I like big epic battles so I just sit there passively building up big units. I tried a few times to learn how to make build orders and little unit engagements but I lose track of everything too fast and when I did win using such tactics it was over before anything visually or viscerally interesting happened.
So I just play the singleplayer campaigns now, turtle up and build up the epic army of doom and roll over the map drinking in the bloodbath.
Morninglord on
(PSN: Morninglord) (Steam: Morninglord) (WiiU: Morninglord22) I like to record and toss up a lot of random gaming videos here.
I remember playing Halo 2 on Live at a buddy's house into the morning quite often. Any small maps came up in the shuffle and we'd make sure the battle summary showed no bullets fired for which we'd obnoxiously brag about how well we did. We wouldn't have been such dicks if it weren't for the obvious fact that everyone else on Live playing Halo were assholes...or stoned.
Plus, all the different ways to limit your play in almost all the MGS games. I'm looking at you Big Boss Emblem!
Oh hey, one of these threads. Been a while since the last
Anyways, the only time I've ever done this is with FFX, in which I did a No Sphere Grid, No Summon, No Overdrive, No Escape, No Non-Encounters, No Blitzball run.
I tried to play World of Warcraft with Ironman rules. To make it more difficult, I decided to start the game in a hostile zone, meaning there would be no temptation to go into town.
I made a human paladin and at level four I began the long trek to the Tirisfall glades. By the time I reached it and levelled up to 6, my regular server was back up and I abandoned the project forever. I should note that this was a terrible idea and not as fun at it seems.
The Thief is a series where people regularly play with handicaps, namely playing by trying to never be discovered. The regular highest difficulty merely means you can not kill anyone, but a far greater challenge is to go in and steal everything with no one ever noticing you were there.
I tried to play through Prince of Persia: Sands of Time without creating any new sand tanks, and actually found it easier than collecting them all, as I knew the platforming stuff by heart, and it meant I could use the time-freeze power about three times as often.
Next time I get bored, I might try playing with no new sand tanks and no health upgrades. I think I'd be fine until the elevator fight at the end.
I beat Bioshock on Hard without using any Adam. Also, no weapon upgrades that I recall. As few tonics as possible - basically, if they could be bought with money/credits, then I think I picked a few up; or if they were lying around. Also, I rescued all the sisters; not out of any morality, but because Atlas managed to piss me off very quickly.
Tedious, but quite doable. The last boss was easy for me. I do not want to actually play that game 'correctly' and see how quickly he goes down with full powers.
In retrospect, I was extremely close to stumbling upon the twist during the prologue.
Mass Effect - No stat increases, starting equipment only, Insanity.
How, New Game+?
play through the game several times raising it up to insanity without increasing stats?
Once you've unlocked the hardest difficulty you can play a regular new game on it. It's not some big complicated thing.
Just start at level one, and then never raise the stats of you or anyone in your team. It's actually interesting because it's probably the only run in which I had Kaiden in my team all the way up until the end game.
In every other playthrough... well... not so much.
I also remember a couple of challenge runs that I never got around to finishing:
Baten Kaitos - No leveling up
Gladius - No dying, don't do the extra dungeon. (Fuck that insta-kill sword, by the way)
Chrono Trigger - Beat Lavos with only Crono.
Posts
We are talking about things that are actually possible.
The iron man diablo bit sounds fun and would work for almost any action RPG. Sacred 2 would be an excellent candidate for this.
Only pass? Sounds like most of Leppard's career. OH NO HE DIDN'T.
Also, I'm debating whether using one's head to hit the drums in climatic parts is acceptable. It is pretty rocking to use your skull as a drumstick.
Rick Allen had a lot more then one pedal to make up for his one-armed-ness.
What feat of Gnomish Engineering be this?!
Disclaimer: I don't have anything personal against Rick Allen. I just really fucking hate Def Leppard.
It doesn't sound that bad, right? You can upgrade your armor and weapons. They aren't as good as the really top tier equipment, but by the end, you're so great it doesn't even matter, right?
That's what I thought until I had to play through Therum with my starting equipment.
This was because it was made to only give you 3 hits per stage on your life bar, and ridiculous time limits in some stages. The third level in particular, we would be running out of time before even being close to the mummies.
Anyways we eventually (last year?) went there with a bag full of quarters and beat it, most of the level runs ended up being perfects. So whenever we're bored of the NES cartridge we always to go Pizza Hut for an extra challenge.
Xbox : gunst4r
What makes this mode fun is trying it with each class. It's stupidly easy with a necromancer, but trying it with a barbarian or paladin will make you want to kill yourself.
The Marathon Vidmaster Challenge was posed by Jason Jones (Bungie Software) on comp.sys.mac.games and alt.games.marathon in January 1995. In a post with the subject line "the marathon vidmaster challenge..." Jason wrote:
"I challenge anyone who thinks they rule at Marathon to complete all of the game's levels on Total Carnage starting with only the pistol and x1 health (via Command-Option Begin Game). Upload your replays!"
It was fun. Started hard, then was easy, spiked a few times at certain bosses (the double boss fight at the wind elemental ruins was the worst), then after the big twist fight things were pretty safe. I've been thinking of doing it again, but recording it with commentary or whatever.
Anyone want to beta read a paranormal mystery novella? Here's your chance.
stream
Turns out the game is literally impossible without at least 3* energy tanks. Mother Brain is hard-coded to remove roughly that much with her first hyper beam; the others only trigger if you still have more than X energy.
The rest of the game is quite doable with no energy tanks. My most recent playthrough (assuming the cartridge's battery survived the move; the SNES did not) has me facing Ridley with the following restrictions:
Ice beam (off, only use on metroids)
Charge beam (required for bosses - see below)
3 packs of missiles (required; two to get the power back on, one during wrecked ship entry - I learned long after the fact that only one pack is required. oops)
1 pack of Super Missiles
1 pack of Power Bombs
Varia Suit (you need either the Varia Suit, or the High Jump + a couple of energy tanks; not both. Kraid with the Plasma Beam is fun.)
Gravity Suit.
Speed Booster.
If I didn't list it, I probably didn't get it - I may have forgotten one or two things.
What makes this run more challenging than my others is that I'm not allowed to use muntions on bosses/mini-bosses** It's deeply frustrating, but up until Ridley, all the bosses/mini-bosses have some way of healing you. Ridley has no such weakness. My greatest accomplishment was having him swap palettes, and that was once (last year) after literally years of on and off attempts.
Another limit is Pacifist mode in MegaMan X, X2 and X3. Basically, X is not allowed to harm any of the bots found in the level proper, unless it's absolutely necessary. This worked very well (with maybe a few exceptions) until X3, at which point it's nearly impossible. So I lifted the restriction by rationalizing that Zero considers himself a war machine and, thus, would have no compunction about cutting a oily swath through the level. This is offset by using him as little as possible - basically, if X (being a wuss) doesn't want to get his hands dirty, Zero (being awesome) steps in, and takes out the section that's giving him fits.
This led to the pointless, but interesting, knowledge that Zero can actually enter one mini-bosses chamber: the sub's reactor. Until then, I had assumed it was coded that if he got anywhere near one of those doors, the game forced X to port in. Seems it must be on a door-by-door basis, which is odd to me.
Speaking of Zero, I'm one of those guys, who tries to get S Ranks on all the levels.
Zero 4: Why, yes, Kraft, I can dodge your screen-filling laser. I just have to dash at precisely the right moment, hold it for as long as possible, and then both avoid running into you and making sure to get a hit in.
Zero 3: Well, I have a save at the final boss - I just have to kill all 8 bosses again, defeat Weil, Big Bad, and then the final-final in one run. While meeting insane requirements for damage/time/whatnot taken. I don't even remember what those requirements are.
Zero 2: I just restarted, and it was brutal to get the S on the prologue stage. I think it's the hardest game in the series, even without the whole Rank system.
Zero 1: I really don't remember if I ever got an S rank on the final stage or not. It's simply been too long.
* I'm actually not certain it's 3, but it's more than 0. And maybe I read somewhere it was 3?
** While writing this, I kept wanting to say 'sub-bosses'. Has that term ever been used?
Handmade Jewelry by me on EtsyGames for sale
Me on Twitch!
It was quite interesting, especially because my weapon progression was tied to that of the enemy's, whereas in normal playthroughs I end up with fancy assault rifles from merchants before they get to AKs. And I couldn't grow too attached to any particular weapon, ammo could run dry at any time. During several bouts of heavy fighting I had to drop some guns and grab the gun and ammo off of an enemy corpse.
o_Oo_Oo_O
Super Metroid is one of my all time favorite games, and I give it a runthrough about every year or two, but I have never tried sequence breaking, speed running, or a minimal game. I take the standard route through every time, to the point where I wouldn't be surprised if a playback of my last two runthroughs were almost 100% identical, screen by screen. I just really enjoy playing the game.
As for other games, every time I really even think about trying a self-imposed challenge, I usually get bored and move on to another game.
The only other one I really "know" about is that you can get super missiles without fighting Spore Spawn. I don't know how though.
How does one get through the acid pit before lower Norfair without the Gravity Suit? That and other stuff boggles my mind.
I can never pull that one off, because I suck at mock-balling.
How/Where
FFX - No Sphere Grid (I can't do the "No Grid, No summons" one, but oh well)
FF1 - All white mages, also the Team of One Black Belt
FF6 - Everyone below level 12
Diablo - Ironman
Nethack - No Wishes
Thief - Ghost
Jade Empire - No support/stun styles, No Transformations, No Leveling up.
Mass Effect - No stat increases, starting equipment only, Insanity.
KotoR I - No force powers.
Torment - No fighting. Talk your way out of everything.
Damn I play a lot of games...
twitch.tv/Taramoor
@TaramoorPlays
Taramoor on Youtube
Metal Gear Solid 3 - European Extreme, no continues, no kills, no equipment, no camo with special abilities, and the only weapons used against non-bosses (and a couple of bosses) were thrown food items. And for once, I didn't blow up the Groznyj Grad food supply shed before getting captured, but that was actually unintentional.
Left 4 Dead - Finished several maps on Expert, after killing all three other survivors in the starting safe room. Successfully Raced 4 Dead on single-player Expert No Mercy 1 by jumping off the roof and rushing to the safe room.
Marvel vs Capcom 2 - It would be possible to beat the game using a Guitar Hero controller, if Abyss wasn't even cheaper than Cable.
Also "Pistol Only" works for a ton of games.
And 4xs work great for this shit. "No Military research", "No research only spying", "No spying", "No ships larger than x", "Ammo based weapons only", "Missiles only", one SE:V run I had once: "Drones only", etc.
Let me tell you drones only was about the most painful early game I've ever had. Each ship had one shot... they just didn't have room for any more than one drone launcher and enough cargo for one drone. Luckily one shot could pretty much blast away anything, but if I was outnumbered I was pretty rightly fucked. Once large ships became available this got a lot better, and once I had ship mounted space yards it became even better. Star Bases were pretty much the only way I survived there at the beginning... along with the beautiful fact that planets with no ship yards could at least build drones.
Contrastingly, that end game was just hilarity in motion. I had what amounted to space ICBMs. I could launch attacks systems away without putting a single ship in danger and since any planet could build them, I just had endless ammo. Some race would mouth off to me and there would just be swarms of drones flying through warp points and pounding their planets to dust without so much as a fleet needing to exist. I think at one point I just dissolved my navy.
Also in MoO if you were the Darlocks a "Spying only" run could be the best thing on the planet, since you could just start and influence wars as they happened and have the aggregate technology of the galaxy.
So sometimes it's efficiency. Sometimes it's the look or visceral feel of what I'm doing. Sometimes it's story based, as in I'll try to keep to what I think the character would do if I like the character. Sometimes it's my own version of what I think the character should be like and I play it like that. It varies widely.
I get bored by super efficient solutions pretty quickly unless those solutions require some complexity to execute. So if there is, say, an overpowered thing in a game, I'll be bored of it quickly and wont touch it again if there's another ability/weapon/item/game mechanic that is more complicated. Even if it's way less efficient, if it can do the job eventually that's all I care about.
I'm not really a very good rpg player because of this. I like big epic battles so I just sit there passively building up big units. I tried a few times to learn how to make build orders and little unit engagements but I lose track of everything too fast and when I did win using such tactics it was over before anything visually or viscerally interesting happened.
So I just play the singleplayer campaigns now, turtle up and build up the epic army of doom and roll over the map drinking in the bloodbath.
This is the only way to play.
Plus, all the different ways to limit your play in almost all the MGS games. I'm looking at you Big Boss Emblem!
I should try that, normal felt disgustingly easy.
How, New Game+?
play through the game several times raising it up to insanity without increasing stats?
Anyways, the only time I've ever done this is with FFX, in which I did a No Sphere Grid, No Summon, No Overdrive, No Escape, No Non-Encounters, No Blitzball run.
That said, that's hardly handicapping yourself.
I made a human paladin and at level four I began the long trek to the Tirisfall glades. By the time I reached it and levelled up to 6, my regular server was back up and I abandoned the project forever. I should note that this was a terrible idea and not as fun at it seems.
The Thief is a series where people regularly play with handicaps, namely playing by trying to never be discovered. The regular highest difficulty merely means you can not kill anyone, but a far greater challenge is to go in and steal everything with no one ever noticing you were there.
Next time I get bored, I might try playing with no new sand tanks and no health upgrades. I think I'd be fine until the elevator fight at the end.
I beat Bioshock on Hard without using any Adam. Also, no weapon upgrades that I recall. As few tonics as possible - basically, if they could be bought with money/credits, then I think I picked a few up; or if they were lying around. Also, I rescued all the sisters; not out of any morality, but because Atlas managed to piss me off very quickly.
Tedious, but quite doable. The last boss was easy for me. I do not want to actually play that game 'correctly' and see how quickly he goes down with full powers.
In retrospect, I was extremely close to stumbling upon the twist during the prologue.
Once you've unlocked the hardest difficulty you can play a regular new game on it. It's not some big complicated thing.
Just start at level one, and then never raise the stats of you or anyone in your team. It's actually interesting because it's probably the only run in which I had Kaiden in my team all the way up until the end game.
In every other playthrough... well... not so much.
I also remember a couple of challenge runs that I never got around to finishing:
Baten Kaitos - No leveling up
Gladius - No dying, don't do the extra dungeon. (Fuck that insta-kill sword, by the way)
Chrono Trigger - Beat Lavos with only Crono.
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