Showing posts with label contra. Show all posts
Showing posts with label contra. Show all posts

Monday, May 23, 2016

SuperPhillip Central's Favorite VGMs - GreatNES Awaits Edition

I'm feeling retro this week, and guess what-- so is SuperPhillip Central's Favorite VGMs! I'm taking you guys and gals old school with a special NES edition of the Favorite VGMs. We've got everything from Super Mario Bros. 2 to Disney delights like Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers and Duck Tales 2. You can't have an NES special edition without some Contra, so I'm throwing that in as well. How about some Batman to finish this edition off? Okay! You got it!

For past VGM volumes featured in previous editions of SuperPhillip Central's Favorite VGMs, look no further than the VGM Database!

v1146. Super Mario Bros. 2 (NES) - Character Select


We start this special NES edition with a jaunty little ditty from Super Mario Bros. 2. No, not The Lost Levels, as it's known on the side of the Pacific. I'm referring to the Doki Doki Panic version of Super Mario Bros. 2, complete with playable Mario, Luigi, Princess Toadstool, and Toad. Choose your character wisely, as each has their own unique play style to put you ahead of or behind the proverbial 8-ball!

v1147. Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers (NES) - Zone A


Ch-ch-ch-Chip 'n Dale! Rescue Rangers! Back in the late 80's and early 90's, Capcom and Disney paired together for some absolutely incredible 2D platformers and games. Two of these on the NES featured the dynamic duo of Chip and Dale. This favorite VGM of mine comes from the very first level of the first game. It makes me want to hook up my NES and enjoy the box-chucking mayhem of the game.

v1148. Duck Tales 2 (NES) - Niagara Falls


With sadness I share this VGM volume. Alan Young of Mister Ed and more recently Scrooge McDuck voice actor fame passed away last week. He was a great performer, and he even reprised his role as Scrooge McDuck for Capcom's Duck Tales remake several years ago. Duck Tales 2 followed the same structure of the original, allowing players to choose their destination and explore nonlinear levels.

v1149. Contra (NES) - Jungle


Are you one of the skilled gamers that can beat the original Contra without the famous Konami code? Not me! That's for sure! As a kid, I was lucky to get passed the first level, this action-packed jungle. I must have played that level so many times that every note of this jungle theme is etched in my memory. It's still good to this day!

v1150. Batman (NES) - Stage 1


My favorite actor who played Batman is none other than Michael Keaton. He played the dual role of Bruce Wayne and Batman with tremendous ability, showing a slightly unhinged man overall. The game that features his likeliness, modeled after the movie, released on the NES, and it's one of the better old school Batman games. Its soundtrack is classic retro goodness, really pushing that NES sound card to great use.

Monday, November 16, 2015

SuperPhillip Central's Favorite VGMs - Really Retro Edition

As is customary most of the time at the start of the work week, SuperPhillip Central's Favorite VGMs are here to soothe you with their sultry songs from video games both past and present. This edition is all retro with music from systems like the NES, Super Nintendo, Sega Genesis, and Sega Saturn.

We start off with the action-packed Radiant Silvergun. Then we kick some ninja butt with The Revenge of Shinobi. Next, Top Gear (no relation to the car-enthusiast show of the same name) and Contra get their time in the sun. Lastly, Ninja Gaiden's NES debut ends this edition.

If you want to take a trip back into the past with past VGM volumes, look no further than the VGM Database.

v1006. Radiant Silvergun (SAT) - Return (Early Take)


We begin this edition of SuperPhillip Central's Favorite VGMs with the most recent console in this edition, the Sega Saturn. That's how retro we're going with this edition, dear friends! Radiant Silvergun's soundtrack was composed by the great Hitoshi Sakimoto, a man who went on to compose one of my favorite soundtracks of all time, Final Fantasy Tactics.

v1007. The Revenge of Shinobi (GEN) - China Town


Yuzo Koshiro is one of the most impressive video game soundtrack composers around, and his early works really rock. Not literally, as this song from The Revenge of Shinobi's China Town level is hardly what you'd call rock 'n roll. Regardless, Mr. Koshiro's works both past and present never manage to fail to impress, if I do say so myself.

v1008. Top Gear (SNES) - Track 1


Kemco and Gremlin Graphics teamed up to release this 1992 Super Nintendo release, Top Gear-- known as Top Racer in Japan. Top Gear is a notable game in the Super Nintendo's library as it was one of the first racers for the system. Top Gear also gets credit for having a sensational soundtrack, as this theme, among many others in the game, shows.

v1009. Contra (NES) - Ending Theme


All right. Time to admit it, kids and kidettes. You used the 30 live cheat to get through Contra, didn't you? It's okay. We pretty much all did. Heck, I'd argue that the first level, the Waterfall, is one of the hardest, making it easy to see the Game Over screen before even finishing that level. Still, even with 30 lives in tow, Contra is still quite the challenging game, so this ending theme is your reward for hanging tough.

v1010. Ninja Gaiden (NES) - Unbreakable Determination


Earlier in this edition we had Sega's ninja series, Shinobi, represented. Now we give our full attention to Tecmo's Ninja Gaiden. Watch out for those quick-to-respawn enemies as you make your way through level 4-2 on Ryu Hayabusa's quest to seek revenge for the death of his father. As many know, Ninja Gaiden would be rebooted on the Xbox, even having THIS game as an unlockable bonus.

Tuesday, May 20, 2014

Toughest Tasks in Gaming History - Volume Two

Do you consider yourself to be a hardcore gamer? Just how hard of a hardcore gamer do you think you are? Do you think you could perform some of the most difficult feats in gaming? Even if you don't think you could, Toughest Tasks in Gaming History is here to show you some of the most challenging feats in gaming. No, we don't mean things like becoming a credible gaming journalist. No, no! We're talking feats that will amaze friends within your gaming circle. This second volume contains tasks from games like Gears of War 3, Dead Rising, and Super Smash Bros. Brawl!

If you missed the inaugural edition of Toughest Tasks in Gaming History, have no fear! We have the first volume's link right here!

Seriously 3.0 - Gears of War 3 (360)


Some tasks in gaming are tough because of the challenge involved, while others are tough due to the time investment required. Gears of War 3's Seriously 3.0 achievement focuses on the latter. In the original Gears of War, there was the original Seriously achievement, earned through obtaining 10,000 kills. The sequel required the player to up their killcount exponentially with 100,000 enemies killed. This time one could earn these kills in and out of multiplayer (through grinding the last level over and over again in a sensationally stupid, tedious, and so-not-worth-it way).


Seriously 3.0 requires you to reach level 100 as well as acquire all 65 Onyx medals. What does that actually mean for the player? Well, one has you being forced to play over 15,000 multiplayer matches at the very minimum and score over 70,000 kills. Unless you absolutely can't live without Gears of War 3, this tough task is only reserved for the biggest fans of the game.

7 Day Survivor - Dead Rising (360)


Through completing the main campaign of Capcom's Dead Rising for the Xbox 360, Infinite mode unlocks. This mode requires Frank "covered wars, y'know" West to survive for seven in-game days. Each day in Dead Rising lasts two hours, so simple math has a 7 Day Survivor achievement-acquirer spending 14 hours total on this task.


You must constantly babysit Frank, as his health bar is always declining. He must eat over 40 meals at the very least to stay alive (a full health bar will empty in 20 minutes), he must survive against a zombie horde that wants him as a nighttime snack, and there are no checkpoints or save points to help the player with. That means you must have your Xbox 360 on for at least 14 hours. Huh. No wonder our damn Xbox 360 overheated on us when we got this achievement!

Collecting all of the trophies - Super Smash Bros. Brawl (Wii)

With the Super Smash Bros. series' fourth and fifth installments releasing later this year, it seems like as good a time as any to look back at the latest game in the franchise, Super Smash Bros. Brawl. One cool feature of Brawl, which was also in Melee, is that of trophies. These trophies are modeled after various characters, objects, items, and more from numerous Nintendo properties. It's a veritable virtual museum for Nintendo fans.


Super Smash Bros. Brawl introduced a challenge wall, much like what was seen in Kirby Air Ride, another Masahiro Sakurai directed title. As in-game tasks are completed, individual panes on the challenge wall shatter, revealing a prize.


In order to get every trophy in the game, a player needs to not only acquire all the trophies found in the challenge wall (this means beating the game's modes on the hardest difficulty), but he or she must turn every enemy and boss in the Subspace Emissary mode into a trophy with a trophy stand item, and beat the Classic and All-Star modes as every character. Not just immensely challenging as a task, but time-consuming, those who have collected every trophy Super Smash Bros. Brawl has to offer are without a doubt the best and brightest the franchise has to offer.

Super Monkey Master - Super Monkey Ball: Banana Splitz (Vita)


The PlayStation Vita's edition of the Super Monkey Ball series is a title that will grab you by the monkey balls and not let go. It's a very difficult game, featuring a steep leap in difficulty going from the intermediate to the advanced stages of the game. It's a feat all on its own to simply beat the fifty stages of the advanced mode, and that's because you don't have the luxury of unlimited continues until after you beat the mode.


What does Super Monkey Master entail, then? Well, it's the simple task of beating every stage in the game without ever using a continue. Be sure to grab as many bananas as you can to rack up those lives, master those challenging stages as many times as you can in Practice mode, and keep those palms steady! If you can somehow obtain this incredibly rare trophy, then pat yourself on the back, as you are indeed a Super Monkey Master!

Beating the game - Contra (NES)

...How about without the famous Konami code? Heck, even with the code activated, the original Contra on the Nintendo Entertainment System was no walk in the park... Well, maybe a walk in the park if your park has a hail of gunfire, explosions, and one-hit kills every step of the way.


Without the Konami code activated, which would give players thirty lives to work with, Contra only gave players three lives to work with. Yes. Three. Lives. Throw in the little caveat that every hit you took was a one-hit kill, and those lives just fly away like scraps of paper in the wind.

Players had eight levels to complete in order to beat Contra, and if you could beat the game with just those three lives, you were the coolest kid in elementary school. Nowadays, many gamers are soft-- using save states, tool-assisted runs, and other girly-men handicaps. We should know...