Monthly Archives: October 2007

Take That, Mother

Posted on by
Reply

Woo, I finally finished Super Metroid tonight, after taking 8 hours and 42 minutes, and collecting 86% of all items, according to the post-game stats. I’m sure it could have been done more efficiently, but I’m happy to have finally completed it at all. There wasn’t really a lot left to do, just to get the screw attack, a couple more energy tanks and miscellaneous ammo increases, a couple more bosses, and the final boss.

Ridley and Mother Brain were tougher fights than I expected, knocking me down to my last energy tank in both cases (though I had unused reserve tanks, at least). I lost a bit too much health on the way to MB and let a few too many super missiles get wasted while fighting the pseudo-Metroids on the way to her, and had trouble dodging the lasers in her room, which accounted for most of the trouble. I think I started the MB fight proper with only five or six energy tanks left, of fourteen.

So, how did I celebrate this victory? By going and buying three more games on the Wii’s Virtual Console, of course. Super Mario Bros: The Lost Levels, available in North America for the first time (aside from the enhanced version in All Stars); Landstalker, an interesting-looking isometric RPG for the Genesis; and Neutopia, a suspiciously-similar clone of the original Zelda. I’d never even heard of the latter two before, but got them based on forum recommendations.

I’m not sure what game is next, though. Time to finish off the night with some more Picross DS…

Good Timing

Posted on by
Reply

And after receiving those 360 games, today I finally noticed in one of my all-too-frequent refreshes of the Xbox service site that my registered serial number had changed, and the status of that system is now ‘Shipped to customer’. The tracking number doesn’t work yet, but that might just mean that the number has been assigned but they haven’t actually picked it up yet. (Edit: The tracking number is now live!)

Unfortunately, the serial number is that of an even older system than the one I sent in, so it looks like I’ll be getting a refurb instead of a new system. To be fair, they didn’t explicitly say that I’d be getting a new system back, just a different one. Oh well, as long as it works…

Your Mother Named You *Botwoon*?

Posted on by
Reply

I yet again failed to complete Super Metroid, though I did beat a couple more bosses (Botwoon and Darygon) and picked up a few more abilities (space jump, plasma beam, and spring jump). That’s nearly all of them, and I’m close to full on energy tanks, so the end can’t be too far off.

I think I’m sick of wall jumps and the grappling beam, after a few areas where you had to successfully pull their moves off a good half-dozen times in a row, without fail. Fortunately the space jump mostly obsoletes the need for those from here on. Also, the bosses have been fairly easy since Phantoon; I beat him while on my last energy tank, while I barely broke a sweat on the two above.

I also finally got my copies of Halo 3 and Eternal Sonata from Amazon. I got the Collector’s Edition of Halo 3 and unfortunately, like almost everyone else who got it, the game disc was loose and scratched up a bit, and the steel tin is slightly bent in a bit on one side. The scratches don’t look too serious though; there’s only one easily visible one and it extends outward from the center, which is much less damaging than one that runs parallel to the tracks. MS has instituted a replacement program if it fails to play properly, but it would help if I get my 360 back from them first so I can even check…