Thanks, everything helps

Today's updates are done

The good ending thing needs to be used carefully. Like with Ogre Battle, I intentionally did a "bad" ending, by releasing an optional devil. But then you have BoF II, where the bad ending involves not doing a good portion of the game. And even on that one, you get the credits on the bad ending (I think anyways). And on the third hand, you have games like Metroid, where on the nes I ignore like 80% of the game.

So for me, the rule would be any difficulty that gives you an ending or credits, as long as it presents all levels and areas.

I agree, you should need to beat all of Breath of Fire 2, I'll update that one tomorrow

Thoughts on the secret final, final boss of Demon's Crest?

Since he's secret and you get the credits without him, I'd say not needed. He's more like an akuma style extra boss. But this one isn't as clear cut as some others.

I don't think it should have to be the good ending, bad endings should be okay, barring things like the aforementioned Breath of Fire II. If getting the bad ending means you skip a good chunk of the game, then that shouldn't count. If you have to play through the full game and still see the bad ending, I don't see that being a bad thing. It's like getting the worst ending in Super Metroid. You still have to beat the full game to get it, it's not difficulty-specific, and you see the credits, so I think the bad ending should still be okay in that case. Of course, this gets really complicated by games like S.O.S. with multiple endings, both good and bad, and all require finishing the game to see. I personally would consider any completion of S.O.S. to count, but you might think the worst endings for each character shouldn't count. Those are the kind of grey areas that need to be figured out.

As for Demon's Crest, from what I've seen about the hidden boss, it's only unlocked once the game is completed. To me, that's like killing the Demon Lord in Wizardry II...a fun extra to do after finishing the game, but not really required to beat the game for this purpose. While it should be required to 100% complete the game, we're not really going for that here. It's not "Can NA 100% Complete Every SNES Game" as far as I'm aware

I didn't even participate this year, but next year I plan to do at least a couple again. I'm a bit surprised 2 of my favorite games remain unbeaten. Uncharted Waters and F-Zero.
As far as I can remember, F-Zero gives the credits whichever league you beat.

Well, Super Metroid's least-favorable ending still isn't "bad". I think what's undesirable -- and shouldn't be considered sufficient, IMHO -- is an ending where the game makes it clear that you've failed in some way, e.g.:





Hard to argue that you've really beaten a game if it tells you that.

I have F-Zero marked as completed this year.  Which sounds right, otherwise I would of tried to knock it out

 

Brock, I'd tweak the Family Feud description -- it's not really "one game" since it's literally impossible to earn the $80K in a single game, and takes four games minimum to get there. I'd just say "Win (Earn $80,000+)".

Andre Agassi Tennis should be winning the 4-round Tournament mode (which is much nicer than having to win 4 consecutive tournaments in the Genesis version), but I haven't done it yet myself. I need to find a winning pattern in this game; it's tough.

I'll check on International Tennis Tour; probably, you have to play through the whole career mode, which is loooong. This time the Genesis version (Davis Cup Tennis) is the nicer one, since you can just win the Davis Cup.

Alright, I have updated the thread and I will weigh in on the topic, I guess.
Brock is correct in assuming that I only started the thread this year out of necessity. It was over halfway through January and there was no thread in sight so I got things started but it wasn't really my ambition to run this thing because it's a huge amount of work.
It's hard to be engaging and keep people occupied when the SNES thread has a considerable number less people than the NES thread. Literally those guys are at like 50% completion before January is done, and considering that there is a world of difference in terms of the complexity and length of SNES games, we will never get close if we don't get more help. We must have people filter over from the NES group once they finish completing their list. I think it's really awesome that Brock was able to complete 100 games for us this year, but also a little bit depressing that more than a third of overall games completed were done by one person.
I guess it could also speak volumes that nobody even started this thread until January 17th, where the NES and even the N64 thread went up on time.

Also to explain my own absence, I was in Japan for a while and am now preparing to move there so things got pretty busy for me in October.

You did a shit ton of work for this thread, and have my thanks.

I would normally add a smart ass comment here, but it's christmas.  Unless you count THAT as a smart ass comment. Or that one.  Awww fuck I'm stuck in a loop. Oooo that was definitely one, so I'm done.

 

Yeah, lots of props for the work you did Rooster.

As for participation, I'm hoping having the added scoring, and someone obsessive like myself bumping the threads repeatedly, will help us out next year. Or possibly prizes for the top three scorers

I've always been against prizes simply because everything is done on the honor system. There's nothing stopping someone from claiming they beat something just so they could get to the top spot to win a prize. In a "just for fun" setup, people are less likely to lie because there's no real benefit to them for doing it.

Or, uh, maybe it's not so tough:



Beaten on Professional difficulty. As I suspected, you just have to beat the 4-round tournament to win. It was quite challenging until I figured out the right pattern: take up residence on the service line, and attack everything. The CPU always serves wide to the same spot, so when returning, stand in the doubles alley and tap B + diagonally into the court, and sometimes you'll hit a clean winner right up the line.

When serving, aim up the middle, not out wide (the CPU likes to hit screaming cross-court returns on wide serves). If you get into a long rally, just hit a lob and the CPU will frequently whiff on it.

The CPU also doesn't seem to understand the concept of returning to center after hitting the ball, so that helps. BTW Professional difficulty may actually be easier than Amateur, since Amateur selects your shots for you automatically and I'd rather have full tactical control, thanks.

That's true.  I don't think it negatively impacted the N64 contest, but you never know

 

For what it's worth, now that I have my everdrives for all my systems, I'm planning on doing more of these next year for NES & SNES.

I had briefly considered doing a prize this year, but then I would have to force everyone to provide a photo of every game they completed, which would probably end up being even fewer games completed overall.

Yeah, that's another consideration. You might increase interest, but it might harm participation at the same time. I say save the prizes for the weekly contests. The reason I started the original thread wasn't necessarily to succeed in the goal, it was to drive people to play games that might otherwise sit on the shelf forever. I know the drive to finish something off the NES list has led to me picking up games I never would've played through otherwise, even if I enjoyed the game. The Mutant Virus is a prime example...I knew it'd be a bitch to play through, but I liked the little bit that I played, so I made it a point to beat the game. Took almost a full week with the system on pause. I really just wanted people to step out of their comfort zones and play new games. That's why I even made the (extremely unpopular) rule in the second edition that if you beat a game the previous year, you would not be credited the following year. That led to annoying headaches for me keeping track of it, and people upset that they couldn't knock off their favorites, so that rule was abandoned...but the point is still there.

TL/DR: This thread isn't supposed to be about winning things. It's supposed to be about playing games you'd never otherwise try out, and hopefully finding a new favorite or two in the interim. The game itself is the prize.

Well I think the scoring system might help with that. I know I'll be targeting some of those unbeatens next year

I have completed Metal Marines

Ok updates made. I'll just wait until we're on post 700 to repost the list so don't have to keep scrolling down to it

Actually, screw it, I want to update before I leave the office, so I'll be doing this...

and this...

and this...

and this...