Lurker > MZero

Cloud

Kind of a boring winner but I like him more than Kefka

Bane_Of_Despair posted...

Lame final, bleh

Yeah not the most exciting conclusion

on the plus side I won the prediction contest oh yeah

sir

6. Beat a game in a completely new series
Gradius

33/52

Game #16 - Gradius (Konami, 1986)

Final time: 4:27

It started off pretty decent, but the last couple levels were kind of annoying. Why are those amoebas in Level 6 so tanky? And why are there so many? It's also dumb that they and enemy fire can pass through the webs like they aren't there but you have to shoot through them or you explode.

Then there's the stage 7. I got all the way to the end and died because I didn't predict a closing door and was too far away to get through. That was pretty irritating, to say the least.

Anyway it's kind of decent for what it is, I guess? I'm not a big fan of these kind of games, but I've played much worse. I'm actually ranking it behind Zelda, which should give you some idea of my expectations for each game.

NES games beaten: 13/65
Total games beaten: 16/217
JP exclusive games beaten: 1/23
Total play time: 75 hours 27 minutes

MZero Game Ranking

Super Mario World
Super Mario Bros.
Pokemon Trading Card Game
Adventures of Lolo
Balloon Fight
Ice Hockey
The Legend of Zelda
Gradius
Excitebike
Ice Climber
Mario Bros.
Baseball
Donkey Kong
Tecmo Bowl
Tennis
Soccer

Vivi's score still seems more impressive to me considering he got like 3x the number of votes

NBIceman posted...

I've been using a <$200 phone for years so that's an easy answer.

Yeah this. Budget smartphones get the job done for me

Level 8
th3l3fty**

Level 7
DpObliVion(****)
Leonhart4**

Level 6
5tarscream***
Arti**
Camden***
changmas***
Crescent-Moon***
resistance_pro*****
Runemistress****
terpaholic****
ZeroSignal***

Level 5
andel***
foxhead84**
HanOfTheNekos***
KCF0107***
Meow1000***
MZero*****
Shattered**
thekitchensink(**)****
Whiskey_Nick******
Xuxon***

Level 4
Fiop***
fortybelowsummer***
HBJDubs***
Jakyl25*
KommunistKoala***
Mewtwo59(***)*
pepper2012
SirChris**
theawesomestevr***
VeryInsane**

Level 3
Bartz***
Cody11533***
Jukkie*
mccheyne**
MegamanX**
MMXcalibur*
MysteriousStan*
Paratroopa1***
Stripperiffic***
Suprak**
SwiftyDC
Thorn***
VengefulKaelee*
wallmasterz*
Wigs*
Wizardsfan1000**

Level 2
BlueCrystalTear*
Dancedreamer*
Eddv
KokoroAkechi*
WickIebee*

Level 1
Bossman_Coolguy
guffguy89
StifledSilence*
ZaziGuado*

Auron

way

In fairness, every team gets a Thursday game so a few stinkers are inevitable

*Peeks at game*
Bears get an OPI - 3rd and 19
Draw for no yards
Shank punt, Carolina gets the ball at the Bears 40
Holding
OPI
1st and 30 from their own 40

what a game

Luigi

I have beaten Level 5 of Gradius

The slowdown when you're fighting those weird brain things is unbearable, yikes

wg64Z posted...

I need at least one person to get the final song of Round 1. Please.

I failed sorry

Round 1: 4 points Mega Man (1), Pokemon Black and White, Sonic (1)
Round 2: 13 points Frog's Theme/Frogs, Punch-Out Wii, Final Fantasy X, Zelda (1)
Bonus Round: 0
Round 3: 24 points Yoshi, Meta Knight, Clive, Tommy
Round 4: 18 points Dracula, Klaptrap, King K. Rool
Round 5: 10 points Guitar Hero 2 - Jordan
Before and After: 0

Total: 69 (nice)

Indianapolis
Baltimore
Cincinnati
Jacksonville
New Orleans
Pittsburgh
Tampa Bay
Arizona
LA Chargers
Dallas
Seattle
New York Jets
Buffalo

Cloud

Not a specific commercial, but for some reason a lot of stores in Japan have little TVs in certain areas that play a 5-second ad on repeat all day and it gets annoying really fast. I hate all of them

tag for after the Suns game

WazzupGenius00 posted...

It can definitely be tough to recover. But also the rank goes way down after a death to give you a chance

(if youre unfamiliar with arcade game lingo, rank refers to the adaptive difficulty many games utilize which typically makes the game harder the longer you play/the more you play well, as well as reducing the difficulty after a death or when a continue is used. Shooting games are where it is most evident, but other genres like beat em ups also utilize it. Clearing a game on one credit or doing speedruns sometimes requires careful management of rank, even necessitating intentional deaths at times. For example TMNT speedruns intentionally die right before the fight against Bebop and Rocksteady at the same time because it lowers both of their health significantly, saving a lot of time there. Technically you can keep the rank a little bit lower in Gradius by not using all your powerups, but its not really worth it to do so.)

Huh, never knew about that. Thanks for the detailed explanation! I hadn't noticed a difference, but maybe I was too focused on being disappointed I lost all my powerups lol

Chicago

Thorn posted...

also is that vegas line a typo? did half the team retire and i missed it? how can the jets be a road favorite?

nope. The Raiders are bad

A few ground rules:
-If I have you blocked you aren't allowed to participate (Note: I don't have anyone blocked)
-Please say which level you are on when you post your pick. In most cases it will be obvious, but this makes it easier for me to record the picks.
-The deadline to make a pick is before the official kick-off time of the game in question. You cannot pick a game that has already started. Some levels may have different deadlines, so read carefully.
-The deadline to answer the bonus question is at the start of games on Sunday (1 PM ET).
-Please don't edit your picks. If you'd like to change, please do so in a clearly labeled new post.
-I get my spreads from an online site providing lines from several sources, both in Vegas and out. Although these sources may continue to change their lines throughout the week, the ones I post in the topic are frozen and final for our purposes.
-You may use bonus points to skip any level after it is guaranteed you cannot pass it (at the end of the week's games, typically). You may only skip the level before I have posted the next week's topic. The price for skipping is in proportion to the level you are skipping. Skipping level 1 would take 1 bonus point, level 2 will take 2, level 5 will take 5. So on and so forth.

Explanation of Levels:

Level 1: Pick a winner. Simply pick one team to win their game. If they win, you go on to level 2.

Level 2: Pick an Underdog to win. You must pick a team that is an underdog to win their game. Underdogs will always be the team listed second.

Level 3: Level 3: 2 Games with Spread. Using the spreads I provide, pick 2 games. You must get both correct to move on. Spreads work by giving (-) or getting (+) points. The team that is the favorite to win "gives" points to the underdog. If you choose the favorite to win, they must still win after "giving" those points to the underdog. If you choose the underdog, you would be correct if they win the game after "getting" those points. For example, if a game says "Giants (-2.5) vs. Cowboys," if you pick the Giants, they must actually win the game by at least three points; if you pick the Cowboys, you would win if they actually won the game or lost by two points or less.

Level 4: 2 Game differentials. Pick two games and specify them to have a score differential of either 10+ or 5-. Make sure to specify which you pick, if you pick a score to be 10+ and the score ends up 3 apart, you do not advance. You do not need to pick the winner, as long as the differential is correct, it does not matter which team wins.

Level 5: 2 Over/Unders: I will now provide over/unders for each game. This number relates to the final score. You must choose 2 of the games and decide whether the final score will be OVER the number I provided or UNDER the number I provided. You must get both of these correct to advance.

Level 6: Pleaser: Pick one team to win using the spread, but with the pleaser, you lose 6 points on the spread. In other words, add six points in whichever direction makes it harder to win. For example, a (-2.5) spread becomes (-8.5), a (+3.5) becomes a (-2.5) spread, etc.

Level 7: QB, RB, WR: Pick 1 player to throw a touchdown pass, 1 player to rush for a touchdown, and 1 player to catch a touchdown pass. They must all be from different teams, and must also combine for at least 4 touchdowns in their respective positions. Typically you will be picking a QB, RB, and WR, but you may pick players from other positions to fill those roles (i.e. a TE or RB to get a receiving touchdown). You must make it clear what role you are picking the players for if it is not the standard QB/RB/WR or QB/RB/TE. If the player gets a touchdown in a different way (i.e. your rusher getting a receiving touchdown), it does not count.

Level 8: 5 Game Teaser: This is the opposite of level 6. Instead of losing 6 points on each spread, you actually gain 6 points on each spread. But you have to get all 5 games right to move on. So a team favored by 9.5 will now only have to win by 3.5, a team that is getting 2.5 points will now be getting 8.5 points.

Schedule (Favorites listed first; home team in CAPS):

Thursday, November 9th
CHICAGO (-3.5) vs Carolina 38.5

Sunday, November 12th
9:30am (GERMANY)
Indianapolis (-1.5) @ NEW ENGLAND 43.5

1pm
BALTIMORE (-6.5) vs Cleveland 37.5
CINCINNATI (-6.5) vs Houston 47.5
San Francisco (-2.5) @ JACKSONVILLE - 46.5
New Orleans (-2.5) @ MINNESOTA 40.5
PITTSBURGH (-3.5) vs Green Bay 38.5
TAMPA BAY (-1.5) vs Tennessee 38.5
4pm
Atlanta (-1.5) @ ARIZONA 42.5
Detroit (-2.5) @ LOS ANGELES CHARGERS 48.5
DALLAS (-16.5) vs New York Giants 38.5
SEATTLE (-5.5) vs Washington 45.5
8:20pm
New York Jets (-1.5) @ LAS VEGAS 36.5

Monday, November 13th
BUFFALO (-7.5) vs Denver 46.5

Bonus Question: Name a losing QB to throw for more yards than their opponent.

Oh yeah, and also the check points are almost always detrimental because you spawn in the middle of a tough section with no powerups, so you're pretty much better off starting over from the beginning of the level every time

Princes

_SecretSquirrel posted...

Stupid Dogs

I completely forgot about this show

RacistFAQs officially dead

Kefka
Auron

Beat level 3 of Gradius

so far my only major complaint is that enemies can come from behind you. You can't shoot backwards so that seems unfair. Also I was just there 3 seconds ago where did that enemy come from

Sometimes when you go to the top or bottom of the screen to shoot the turrets or collect a powerup, another one will just zoom in from the left side and kill you and it's really frustrating

UshiromiyaEva posted...

How did you miss the best part?

https://twitter.com/travisakers/status/1721566097865085228?s=19

he was until January 20th!

Arc the Lad

sometimes my own brain confuses me

Lightning
Yuna

Steiner posted...

genuinely thought the topic was the most leading we've ever had. 99 red balloons is a very famous song,

after googling I have never heard nor heard of this song

Crescent-Moon posted...

And if the Chargers somehow blow tonight, the team that the Jets replace is the Bengals at #7.

never underestimate the Chargers' ability to Charger

Mr_Crispy posted...

Zelda is pretty player friendly, probably as player friendly as you can get in the era it came out in since it's still probably not that long after Tower of Druaga's successful but infamous completely nonsensical player hostile esoteric bullshit.

Like if you want to see what it was like back then you could play Atlantis no Nazo or Mighty Bomb Jack. (...Do not play Atlantis no Nazo. Just don't.)

yeah Zelda is good for its time, and most of the issues I have with it are products of its era. I know there's much worse from the NES days though

Yeah I get it, sorry I fell behind but I'm working on getting caught back up haha

I beat the first two levels of Gradius so far. I am using the continue code though, it's in the game so it's fair game imo

Not sure, whatever I'm in the mood for at the time, I guess? Maybe Kirby or Link's Awakening

Steiner posted...

...are you kidding me? how did anybody read this topic title and say anything other than
balloons

idk what this is

MartinFF7 posted...

what's funny is if Auron and Edgar were to win today, quarterfinals would be:

7 vs 13
7 vs 10
6 vs 13
6 vs 10

that...would be pretty incredible

tfw your top 3 characters are from 6, 10, and 13 but none of them are in this hypothetical quarterfinals

Vanille's sudden surge in popularity is interesting to say the least

Funnily enough Locke/Vanille is our last chance at a finals rematch, though that is very unlikely

Locke
Edgar

feels wrong to vote against Auron but here we are

Dead Redemption

argh I had DA:I at first but I'm not aware of Bioware's reputation being bad so I went with Overwatch instead, because obviously Blizzard has been going through it for years

I'd say Lolo is good and Excitebike is bad, with Balloon Fight, Ice Hockey, and Zelda being kind of in between depending on how I'm feeling. My write-up on Zelda was pretty harsh, but I held it to a high standard based on reputation.

I think I'll try Gradius and Metroid and then maybe take a break from NES and play some Game Boy or something lol

Leonhart4 posted...

He absolutely kidnaps her from Home, and Seymour forces the ceremony to conclude after Tidus and company show up to rescue her. You can say he doesn't "force" her, but he knows Yuna doesn't want to marry him.

She tells the party in the Thunder Plains that she decided to marry him, and during the wedding ceremony Seymour says something like "you'd play at marriage just to send me?". It's heavily implied that Yuna went along with the whole thing and wasn't forced into it or kidnapped. Heck, she proves like 10 seconds after the wedding that she could have gotten away if she wanted to.

If you want to say he forced her to marry him because of the very last part, that's a fair argument, but like if she just says no from the beginning and doesn't try her risky plan he probably wouldn't have done anything.

I don't even like Seymour and I'm not trying to defend him here, but that whole arc was about how Yuna was trying to do everything by herself and got herself into that situation by not relying on the others

Ashethan posted...

Seymour on the other hand finishes above Wakka, and just below Lulu even though he's also a creepy guy who kidnaps people and forces them to marry him (I swear this wasn't intentional!)

Seymour doesn't actually kidnap Yuna or force her to marry him though, he just asks her to

7. Beat a game in a series you've already played some of
The Legend of Zelda

49. Choose a random page on TVTropes and beat something from the video game section
Pokemon Black

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/NightmarishNursery

32/52

Game #15 - The Legend of Zelda (Nintendo, 1986)
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/5/5e37ab2b.jpg
Final time: 7:09

I know a lot of people like this game and even claim it's their favorite in the series. Honestly though I think this game is really, really bad. The open world concept is kind of neat and innovative at the time, but it's terribly designed. Those screens where you get stuck until you do the right combination of screen changes? Absolutely terrible. Who thought those were a good idea? Why isn't there any sort of indication of which walls are bombable or which trees are burnable? I don't like handholding any more than the next guy, but at least something to make you think "hey there's something unusual here" but no, you just have to bomb every wall in the dungeons.

Then there's the enemies. They have no discernible patterns so you just kind of have to guess where they're going, and they don't have attack animations so all they have to do is bump into you to damage you, which sucks. This is especially annoying with those knight guys who you have to hit in the back. If they were at least trying to attack you instead of wandering around aimlessly you can figure out the right time to attack, but they can just turn whenever and hit you.

And what's the deal with Ganon? Why is he invisible? And if you touch him while he's invisible it damages you, which is so dumb. You can kind of tell where is he based on where the fireballs come from, but it's still ridiculous.

I could go on and on, but basically I think this game is kinda cheeks. I'm a big fan of the Zelda series, so I guess the one good thing I can say is that it spawned a great series that gave me a ton of enjoyment... later on.

NES games beaten: 12/65
Total games beaten: 14/217
JP exclusive games beaten: 1/23
Total play time: 71 hours

MZero Game Ranking

Super Mario World
Super Mario Bros.
Pokemon Trading Card Game
Adventures of Lolo
Balloon Fight
Ice Hockey
The Legend of Zelda
Excitebike
Ice Climber
Mario Bros.
Baseball
Donkey Kong
Tecmo Bowl
Tennis
Soccer

I didn't do an update for SMW but it slaps and will probably be number 1 for a long time

Squall
Yuffie

MZero posted...

Steelers/Titans 5-
Chiefs/Dolphins 10+

Bonus: 5

I don't like any of the level 4 picks this week so just getting it over with asap

change the second one to Browns/Cardinals 10+

Mario