Daily Save for 5/25/25
A RetroAchievements Saturday in every way.
Inventory Full
https://retroachievements.org/game/32817
This was a little homebrew game made in Gameboy Studio, I ended up beating this before but I needed a mastery for the Peak Streak event where you master a game a day. I'm working toward my 100 day badge and the going is getting tough for me at this point.
This seemed like an easy solution, just beat the game on extra without taking damage. Weirdly did this within ten minutes, but the killer was beating the game on the default difficulty without damage...that took two hours.
The game only consists of three stages and you need to run from the bottom of the screen to the top three times per stage to be able to plot wise sell that party members items. The party is basically over encumbered and this is the only way. The fighter has a lute from when she was a bard and on her first stage she moves left to right, her second she has one sword moving with her and the last she has two swords moving with her. Real simple stuff. Also big shoutout to the artist for the party members, they nailed it.
The second character is the mage she gets a little tricky with her Panda Faces she tosses at you because their hitboxes are not great. The real troublesome one is the last one, your priest cat girl. She teleports around leaving after images that hurt you and throws Dr Mario pills at you. You essentially must juke her out by faking you are going right then dash left, it doesn't always work in your favor. This was my run killer each time for a good two hours.
Still if you aren't under the pressure of mastering it, it is a very cute little homebrew and one I would play as an expanded title.
Super Mario Bros: The Early Years
https://retroachievements.org/game/8853
This ate up most of my time Saturday. The game is 8 worlds and a star world. To beat the game you need to find 3 green stars in each stage for the first 7 worlds. This wasn't as bad as it could have been and I pretty easily cruised thru this. The game play itself is just standard Mario fare, most levels call backs to other Mario adventures or later if you buy in to the story being in the past. Stuff like Super Mario Land's Egyptian tomb like levels for instance.
The real fun is finding the secret green stars as they are sometimes hidden in pipe sub rooms or just in little nooks and crannies. Though big shoutout to the very clever balloon level where you ride balloons up and down. It really keeps the action FAST without getting clogged up by its own gimmick. It is pretty much the stud level of the hack that could fit in a real Mario game.
After you beat all 8 worlds you must go to Star World, World 9, and do the final Castle. To get there you need 63 green stars and must have unlocked one of the other Star World exits. For ease of play you can just zip to world 8 and unlock that one to only need to do one level before Bowser's Castle. Or you can start the game do only world 1 secret exit, and go thru the gauntlet to his castle that way. The World 9 levels are recreations of other Mario Adventures dialed up to 9, not my favorite.
Also big un shoutout to the World 8 and 9 Castles which spike the difficulty forcing you thru a pretty tough gauntlet of a stage that overstays its welcome. It doesn't fit in with the rest of the hack.
Ranma ½: Bakuretsu Rantou Hen
https://retroachievements.org/game/472
We were required to beat the game as Ranma for a RetroAchievement Event this week. It was pretty easy, the game is at the bottom of this post for a reason. More weird than memorable. It's a fighting game where jumping is for your opponents but I guess not you. The final boss is a fever dream of strange things, but it also might be because I never watched the anime.
