Poll of the Day > Pick the game I try to finish next.

(+) Yeah! (+)

I just finished Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee (PS1) -- 3/10 Saved all 99 Modokons. My save file is at 18:17:15 at the final checkpoint. With load times and a restart, as well as mistakenly thinking I'd made it to a new checkpoint when I saved and quit for the day a few times, it actually took me a little under 24 hours from start to finish.

I started playing through blind and escaped the factory without finding any of the secret areas. Then I looked up a walkthrough just to see what saving all the Modokons would take, and it didn't seem like it would be all that much trouble, so I used that just to locate those secret areas. Finding the secret areas was the first negative to me as to do so yourself, you would need to just start suiciding off ledges in hopes that it's a secret. I do not like this design at all. Not long after restarting and making it out again, this time with all Modokons saved, it became a constant of needing to know in advance what was in store in the next screen or else you would be killed in about a half a second -- e.g. as soon as you land in the screen, you have to jump or else you will be shot; or as soon as you enter the next screen, you have to instantly turn around and start running away; or as you are getting chased, as soon as you enter the next screen, there is a pit that you have to jump across as soon as you enter. Many, many places would have several consecutive screens of this sort, so if you were playing this blind, that would mean that you would die on screen #1, make it past that, die on screen #2, make it past that, die on screen #3, etc. I find this to be atrocious game design. At this point, I just followed the walkthrough to the end.

Another major drawback is the save system. The ability to overwrite save files had been around for over a decade prior to this game, yet this is not an option. Neither is the ability to load a file without quitting to the main menu. So, if you like saving relatively frequently, your memory card will fill up pretty quickly, as every time you save, it creates a new file, requiring a manual deletion of old files to prevent this. Another bad thing about the save system is that it only actually saves your progress if you've reached a new checkpoint, which you won't know that you've done so unless you die and it sets you back to a new area. What this also means is that if you saved any Modokons and hadn't reached that unknown checkpoint, you get to save them all over again, which if this includes a secret area that gives you troubles, you get to have the joy of struggling through it some more. This is extremely annoying if you have to make it through another set of screens I described above before making it to the next checkpoint -- another reason why I followed the walkthrough. If not for Crash Bandicoot, this would probably hold the title of worst save system I've encountered.

It was nice that when you save all 99 Modokons, it gives you a movie gallery with all the FMVs including both endings, so I didn't have to either play though it again while saving no Modokons or look it up on Youtube. Unfortunately, it's only accessible by beating the game, as opposed to becoming an option in the main menu. So, you'll probably never want to delete that save file as you'll have to beat the game every time you want to simply watch some cutscenes.
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Advance Wars: Dual Strike came in 2nd last time, so it gets held over.
I'm pretty sure Breakout doesn't have an ending, so I'll pick an attainable challenge score. Being an Atari 2600 game, it might be doable to max out the score.
Word Hunt might be two-player only, like many Intellivision games. If that's the case, I'll go with whatever comes in 2nd place.
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How do you finish madden? One team to the super bowl in season mode? I'd skip that one otherwise

^ Yes, playing through season mode and winning the Super Bowl is what I would consider as beating it.
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Advance wars DS is great.
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