I do not want games which "nearly do this" in your opinion

Do not want replies like "there's no such thing" because there are. I know of one game which nearly does this completely

🤭

But seriously, here's my recommendations.

Doom Eternal, commonly on sale for under $10. I only play the single player campaign. I've played through this game well over a dozen times and I love every minute of it. I can't get enough of it.

Cave Noire, for Game Boy, only released in Japan. It's a turn based, randomly generated roguelite, played in bite sized dungeon challenges. I never knew a turn based game could get my heart pumping so hard! Every time I finish a stage it feels so good and is so fun I need to stop and tell someone about it. 🙂

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WfInNxjkVTU

Everything looked so good until I saw the player ship movement and was so disappointed! 😟 The ship bounces around the screen at twitchy speeds, completely ruining the look and feel of the game.

I don't know if this is it but, what you describe is called "imposter syndrome", if that helps. 🙂

It sounds similar to one of my favorite commands! vidir 🙂

Hi! I'm a Game Boy collector / enthusiast / reviewer. And this question has an easy answer in my opinion...

Catrap

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FfV4MnGfiA4&t=284

• It's relaxing. It's a turn based, pure puzzle game. Like, there's literally no action. The enemies don't even move!
• It's big. 100 puzzles that slowly increase in difficulty. I was able to beat them all, over time.
• It's non-punishing. No time limits. No lives.
• No stress. Catrap was the first(?) game to feature an undo button. Try something out. Didn't work? Just hold B to undo. You can undo all the way back to the start of the stage, as many time as you want.
• It's simple. Up, down, left, and right to move. B to undo. I think A is introduced later to swap between characters?
• IT'S FUN. It looks good, plays good, and just feels good to jump around the stage. And completing a stage is so satisfying.

I hope you like it! 🙂

higher prices

I'm heavily into Game Boy collecting. I just checked their online prices. They might be the cheapest I've seen, in general. For example Pokémon Blue is lower than the common price I've seen online (especially considering usual shipping and fees), but not low enough people will buy them up and re-sell them.

https://www.gamestop.com/video-games/retro-gaming?prefn1=platform&prefv1=Game%20Boy%7CGame%20Boy%20Advance%7CGame%20Boy%20Color

No promises it'll stay that way, but they're very competitive for now.

What a great article!!

So, I'm a huge Game Boy fan. I'd heard about how good Puyo Puyo is, so I got a Japanese copy of Puyo Puyo Tsu. From what I can tell it's a great port. But I struggled so much getting into it! And then I read your comment...

Puyo Puyo Tsu is hard. It’s really damn hard. I’ve witnessed many new players struggle with even basic 3- and 4-chains, nevermind making the real big chains the game mode demands of you. And unlike Tetris where casual players do not need to know fancy T-Spin setups just to get started and play, you really can’t get far at all in Puyo Puyo Tsu without at least some understanding of chaining fundamentals.

...and I feel justified. 😅 What do you recommend is a good way for a new player to get into the game? Something to read, a video, or something else?

😄 The phone call was just to get some simple bonus tips, nothing really necessary.

What killed me was, to swap items, you hold Select and use the arrow keys. It's soooo unintuitive!

That was an outstanding write-up!

the difficult game of Fester's Quest on NES

Fun fact, the European release is vastly easier due to the simple fact that you can shoot through walls!

All enemies and bosses take less hits for them to be killed. The projectiles fired from the gun can go through walls and obstacles.

https://tcrf.net/Fester%27s_Quest

It still makes me angry for what we got in the US! 😤😅

On the Game Boy Advance, there's Punch King...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vS7vE0Llwkw

...and Wade Hixton's Counter Punch.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dP2VkguvyTs

I haven't played either of them, so no promises that they're good!

It looks great! 🙂

OMG I just came home with a Sanyo DS13320 from the side of the road and I am ECSTATIC!!! It couldn't be more perfect for an NES, and it looks in great condition externally.

I haven't plugged it in yet. It doesn't appear to be wet anywhere outside or inside, so hopefully it was put outside after it rained this morning.

Should I do or check anything before plugging it in and trying to power it on?

Richard Dawkins has an entire chapter on this exact topic in his book "The Greatest Show on Earth". I highly recommend reading it, even just that one chapter! It doesn't feel like a text book, and his writing is very easy to follow in my opinion.

It's chapter 8, "You did it yourself in 9 months". To summarize, many people mistakenly think of genes as a "blueprint", but he suggests it's better to think of genes as instructions for origami paper folding. Genes don't know the whole creature, they just know what to fold next, what to duplicate, what to bend, and so on, kind of like that. It's been a while since I read it. 😅

But I do remember, humans are so complex, we may never fully understand the complete embryo-to-adult growth process, BUT the author points out that there IS a creature, a very small worm, that we are able to understand everything.

That may not seem like a big deal at first, but think about it. Scientists understand the complete growth process of a living creature, from a single cell, every gene, every cell, everything, up to when it's fully formed. So cool.

Metroid II is my all-time favorite game in the series. It introduces her ship, introduces her iconic look, and is the last game in the series to not include the "break this with this item" blocks. I just love everything about that game.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motte-and-bailey_fallacy

Today I learned! :)

Justin Bailey Samus >>> Zero Suit Samus 👀

Pokémon: Let's Go Pikachu

FYI we got this game when we we got our Switch and it sat, untouched, for YEARS, until I finally picked it up a few months ago. Honestly, I REALLY enjoyed it! BUT... the first 30 minutes to an hour are very poorly done, and are soooo boring. After that it hooked me.

As someone who's favorite game in the series is the original Pokémon Red, I think this remake was quite well done. It looks great (much better than Sword / Shield in my opinion), and really trims out a lot of the fluff and grind of the classic games.

Also if he's playing, you can use the second controller to join him and casually help him catch and battle Pokémon. It's cute. :)

Let me know if you want any more in depth review or info.

Pokemon Blue

FYI the internal cartridge battery that's used to save your game is probably either dead or nearly dead!

A multimeter should show the battery at 3.25v. Anything less and it could die any day. Changing the battery isn't too difficult, but it requires soldering.

This is my favorite tool set used to take the one screw out to open the cartridge, to check the battery.

https://www.retromodding.com/collections/tools/products/repair-tools-set

I honestly don't really use it, but I am excited about it in the future. :)

I installed it because of OSNews, my favorite tech news website. But the Gemini page seems to be down?

https://www.osnews.com/story/136770/osnews-launches-gemini-capsule/

Yes! I use the Buran app (open source on Android) to browse it. :)