This is one of the cooler case mods I’ve seen: a NES shell that contains the hardware and software for emulating retro Nintendo systems, complete with controller ports and video/audio outputs. The full description and more photos of the mod can be viewed here.
I have seen this twice now and thought I would finally share it. Though the video is almost an hour, the game clock is timed at just a little over 30 minutes. While this is the fastest run of Super Metroid I know, the author says it could be better. I can remember beating games like Mega Max X in a day but, I never imagined mastering Super Metroid and beating it in such a short time. The author’s comments are below as seen on http://speeddemosarchive.com.
This is a Super Metroid any% run done single-segment. I started to challenge this time attack in around June 2006, and this movie is the one recorded on 9th August.
Before making this movie, I gained many hints from some tool-assisted speedrun movies, especially Terimakasih’s any% run and Michael Flatley’s incomplete 100% run which are available at TASVideos. From Terimakasih’s run, I got ideas of faster boss fights and less items. From MF’s run, I learned the arm pumping dash and many sensitive movements. Also, I got a lot of good information from the website “NINTENDON!”, which has a good Japanese Super Metroid community and also is famous for its good SM rom hacking. I’d like to thank BananaOyaji who is the webmaster of NINTENDON! and Sippu who is a good SM speed runner. Also, I’d like to thank catnap222 for helping with my submission and giving me some new techniques like the “Torizo quick kill” or the “Super short charge”. Moreover, I’d like to thank SDA and Radix for giving me the chance for publication like this.
Some explanations are following:
– Ceres escape can be faster, but it’s very difficult.
– At the Torizo fight, Samus made Torizo skip his first arm attack by moving in front of him just after the boss fight begins.
– Kraid fight was completely well done.
– In the Phantoon fight, I badly missed the first attack. What is worse, all of his attack patterns were the slowest ones.
– At the top room of the Wrecked Ship, I played quite badly, like missing the shine spark, and so on.
– At the huge room before Draygon, I failed the horizontal shine spark, though Samus charged at the required position.
– Mother Brain fight was one of the quickest kills. I attacked him with Charge Beam in the first half, and with Murder Beam in the latter half. Before his Hyper Beam, I took the gravity suit off instead of taking damage intentionally.
– It seemed that 31mins was impossible, so I went to the bomb room and rescueed the animals.In detail, there are nearly 100 mistakes in this run. If I had done well in the Wrecked Ship including the Phantoon fight, I would have gotten 31min. Using save points, I would make it even faster. Anyway, this run is almost my perfect. Enjoy!
This spectacular montage consists of many games from Contra to Klonoa to Mario to Castlevania. All of them are very different games stylistically and genre wise but, they all have at least one thing in common: your progression is based upon going to the right. Watch and remember!
Donkey Kong Country is a 2D sidescrolling classic. It’s a solid platformer and deserves its high praise. Developed by Rare in 1994, DKC entertained me for hours and was one of the first games I ever saw to 100% completion, or in this case, 101%.
I remember the first time I reached King K. Rool (the game’s final boss). My hands were sweaty and my mind was racing with excitement. At my young age, it wasn’t often that I got to beat a game. It took me countless hours to get there and I could already see the ending in my head. However, DKC was clever in tricking you towards the very end, giving you two parts to the final boss. After finally defeating him, you are rewarded with your infinite supply of bananas that was stolen.
There is a fine line between outright frustrating game design and frustrating elements of game design meant to challenge the player. Donkey Kong Country provides the latter: lots of aggravating moments and obstacles that seem impossible but can be resolved with skill or just dumb luck.
Back then the length and challenge of the game seemed longer and harder, playing it again definitely seems much shorter and a lot easier. I was able to breeze through it in a couple of hours. It is not perfect but, has plenty going for it. Donkey Kong Country’s music still rings in my head from time to time, the melodies and tunes are very well composed. And there are somethings you can’t forget after playing this for hours on end like the location of the bonus stages that gave you the most trouble.
The game was also released on the Game Boy Color (which I also played some time after beating the SNES version) and the Game Boy Advance.
Little things to recall …
Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars is a great game but, the PAL territories never got to play it. And apparently, it isn’t easy to mod for a PAL system. It doesn’t look like you could use any of the good old fashioned tricks to get it to play. Importing a North American or Japan console is one way to do it, or … you could take apart the cartridge itself and do some rewiring.
www.mmmonkey.co.uk has the solution if everything you’ve tried has failed.
However, if this is too much trouble or too risky, SMRPG was released to the Virtual Console.
Nostalgia Gamer 