This week it's time for a bit of boasting, as we ask you to reveal what video game achievement is your proudest. It doesn't have to be one of those official, DING! - You've Just Achieved Something- game achievements. It can be something you just did. Perhaps you finished an old game that was really hard? Maybe you pulled off a spectacular time or maneuver?
Or perhaps it was something you spent years working on? Whatever it is, we'd like to know.
While you're pondering on exactly which of your video gaming feats is your very favorite, here are ours. Jeremy Parish Editor-in-Chief. Achievement: The 90-minute final boss fight. Game: Final Fantasy VIII.
Developer: Squaresoft. Year: 1999 I could be lazy and just put 'I beat Battletoads before emulators and save states existed, yo,' but I don't mark that up as any sort of real accomplishment. It was more a fevered mania, really. No, when I look back, the most I've ever been pushed to the ragged edge of failure by a video game only to triumph in the end was with Final Fantasy VIII's final boss, Ultimecia. Now, these days, FFVIII has a reputation for being a total cakewalk thanks to its insanely exploitable mechanics. If you know what you're doing in that game, you can perform some specific hijinx very early on that will render the remainder of the adventure moot.
But that's now. This is then.
My first time through the game, I didn't know about any of those level-fixing strategies or how to refine certain cards into powerful spells that would semi-permanently boost your character stats to godly levels. I muddled through it like I would any other RPG, enjoying the unique systems for what they were and never really giving much thought to how I could possibly grind to cheat or whatever. And going into the final battle, I knew nothing about its peculiar traits that make it unlike any other Final Fantasy endboss.
Sure, it starts about like you'd expect: You fight Ultimecia, then she summon's the main protagonist's personal totem to destroy the heroes, then she at last reveals her true form. Standard stuff so far. But that final form is where things get tricky. You battle Ultimecia outside of time, which means that if any of your characters get knocked out and stay down for more than a turn or two, they're lost forever to the time stream. As you lose characters permanently, they'll be replaced by reserve heroes, but once all six of your party members cycle through, that's game over; you can't resummon someone who's been lost to time. But Ultimecia has an even more devious skill that takes advantage of the particulars of the FFVIII combat system. See, leveling up has very little place in FFVIII (in fact, it can work to your disadvantage).
To boost your skills, it's better to 'junction' magic spells to your stats, and the more powerful the magic and the more spells of that type you have stocked, the greater the stat boost. It's pretty novel, and high exploitable, and Ultimecia can do something no other enemy in the game can: She can completely deplete a character of their entire stock of a certain spell. Not only does this remove your ability to cast that spell in combat - troubling, if you lose your healing magic - but it also removes the spell's effect from the associated character stat. And so it was that I found myself fighting Ultimecia for nearly an hour and a half with a ragged team of two, protagonist Squall and his lady friend Rinoa, the last two standing, Squall with sadly diminished magic power. And Rinoa with a bare pittance of hit points and a lousy set of magic to begin with, since she was a reserve character. I went into the battle not knowing about the permanent losses that could be inflicted, so when two of my main party members were knocked down in battle, I didn't immediately resurrect them. And a turn later, they vanished forever, to be replaced by the ill-equipped idiots who were pathetic weaklings because I never bothered using throughout the game.
They died pretty quickly, too, and I couldn't resurrect them in time because I needed to prioritize healing Squall. So it was down to two characters, Squall and his back-bencher of a girlfriend, and Ultimecia blasted away the spells junctioned to Rinoa's hit points almost immediately.
She dropped from something like 5000 HP max to 1200, making her vulnerable enough that many of Ultimecia's attacks could take her out in a single hit. So Squall found himself alternating between attacking and resurrecting his sweetheart, while Rinoa mostly sat around and died. She had no decent attack power to speak of, and her best healing spells had been the ones junctioned to her HP and removed forever. At that point, I should have said, 'Ah well, it was a good try,' reset the game and gone into the battle again better prepared for the villainess' special skills.
But no, I had to go and be pig-headed about it and refused to back down. So I took on the final boss with, basically, a single viable character who had to spend half of his time bringing literal dead weight back to life. I suppose it was neatly symbolic of the game's themes, Squall standing tall and protecting the woman he loved, but mostly it just dragged the fight to numbing length. And at any point Ultimecia could have destroyed the magic junctioned to Squall health or strength, bringing the battle to a quick end.
But she didn't, and I persevered, beating the final boss of the game in my first shot despite the overwhelming odds against me. These days, though, I'd totally just reset. What was I thinking? Jaz Rignall Editor-at-Large. Achievement: Number of Consecutive Headshots. Game: Unreal Tournament. Developer: Epic.
Archon Classic 2010 Pcp For Sale
Year: 1999 I've been playing games for eons, so I have quite a choice when it comes to achievements. Back in ye olden days of the very early 80's, I notched up World Record scores on games like Defender, Missile Command, and Pole Position, amongst others.
I'm definitely proud of those early days, but if I'm really honest, when it came down to World Record scores, it was less about skill, and more about having access to a location where you could play uninterrupted for what was sometimes days on end. Sure, you still had to be good enough to clock a game so you could play it endlessly, but there was more to it than that. You also needed the mental and physical constitution to endure that kind of punishing marathon gaming session. My friend broke the Robotron 2084 World Record, but after playing for four days straight, his immune system failed and he was bedridden for a fortnight, and sick for months after. At the time we had no idea something like that could happen Unfortunately, all my records were fairly quickly beaten, because I was capped at around 20-hours of gameplay.
I was allowed to enter my favored arcade with the service people at 7:00 am, and could play continually through until 3:00 am the following morning, thanks to the fact that the arcade was attached to a nightclub and the owners were happy to let me stay locked inside after midnight until they closed the whole place down a few hours later. I couldn't stay any longer, because local ordinance required the arcade to close for at least four hours a day. Even though I managed to achieve some pretty cool scores within that time limit, I'm just a tad more frustrated than proud, because I know I could have gone on for at least another day or two before keeling over from exhaustion. So instead, I'm going to talk about something that happened in the very, very early days of Unreal Tournament. It's easy to forget that it's just 15 years since UT introduced one of my (and many other's) favorite, most-obsessed-over game mechanics - the headshot.
Yes, good old BOOM NO SKULL FOR YOU! My personal favorite achievement went down on Facing Worlds - one of the all-time great deathmatch maps. Me being a sneaky sniping bastard, and Unreal being the sneaky sniping bastard's gaming equivalent of a heroin cupcake with PCP and cocaine frosting, I played that game to death. In the process of playing the veritable buttocks off UT, I became rather a dab hand at it. Especially when it involved staring down a scope at potential victims' noggins and pulling the trigger at just the right moment.
So much so that in one particular game, I managed to notch up 51 consecutive headshots in a row. I'm sure there are plenty of other gamers who were capable of racking up similar or better consecutive brain-venting numbers, but for whatever reason, I'm really proud of my effort. Fifty-one popped melons. Fifty-one enemy groans of annoyance. Fifty-one moments of deep satisfaction. Mike Williams Associate Editor. Achievement: First Complete Karazhan Run.
Game: World of Warcraft. Developer: Blizzard Entertainment. Year: 2004 Karazhan, oh mighty Karazhan. The dark Tower of Medivh, trapped in the area of Deadwind Pass between Duskwood and Swamp of Sorrow.
Karazhan was a unique dungeon for its time. See, in vanilla World of Warcraft, a raid dungeon meant you found 39 other friend and slam your head against difficult raid bosses and trash mobs for hours. You farmed your gear, you got attuned, it was a whole line of mess just to get the chance to see the damned dungeon. When the first expansion for World of Warcraft came around, 2007's The Burning Crusade, Blizzard decided to throw casual raiders a bone. If you didn't have the guild to field a 40-man raid - 25-man raids were the top tier in Burning Crusade - Karazhan was your alternative.
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Karazhan was my alternative. And I tanked the entire thing on my Blood Elf Paladin. It was my first taste of solid raiding, hours and hours of methodically killing trash in a specific order, of dying against all 12 raid bosses (except Attumen the Huntsman, that scrub), of falling in the wrong spot or pulling the wrong mob. In the time that it took my guild to clear Karazhan the first time, there were definite stumbling blocks: The Wizard of Oz Opera Event, Netherspite, and The Curator come to mind. But at the top of the tower stood the Eredar Prince Malchezaar, who was the hardest encounter I had tanked up until that point. Night after night we fell. Night after night we got really close.
Random deaths to the Enfeeble/Shadow Nova combo, the Infernals, or those stupid flying axes. It was a hell of a fight.
And one day he just fell. It was the greatest feeling, like a weight off my shoulders.
Honestly, I think anyone first completed raid dungeon is like that. At the end we collected our loot - I didn't get anything from Prince that time - cheered a bit and prepared to do it all again next week. That's the raid life. Kat Bailey Senior Editor. Achievement: Winning the Super Bowl in a League with 31 Human Players. Game: Madden NFL 13.
Developer: EA Tiburon. Year: 2013 The time that I won the Super Bowl in Madden NFL. In a league with 31 other teams. A little context: In early 2013, I was a pretty good Madden player, but I was struggling to actually win a championship. See, I could always make the playoffs; but once there, it became a game of inches, since my competitors were roughly at my skill level.
Previously, my two best runs had ended with fumbles on the final drive. I had played well, but the breaks hadn't gone my way. In Season 2 of our Madden 13 league, I had a very good Minnesota Vikings team helmed by super quarterback Mcleod Baltazar 'Highlander' Bethel-Thompson, but I was stuck behind the Green Bay Packers, who had beaten me four times in a row at that point. I just couldn't get around Jermichael Finley and his pesky corner routes. So right before I was set to meet the Packers in the playoffs, I basically locked myself in my living room and practiced until my eyes burned, determined to put an end to their reign of terror once and for all. Then, when the big day came. I utterly destroyed him.
It was a stunning fall for a team that earlier in the season had been on the verge of going undefeated. I went through to the NFC Championship Game, where I dealt the same treatment to the San Francisco 49ers (helmed by another Packers fan), and I suddenly found myself in the Super Bowl for the first time ever. Waiting for me was Joystiq's Mike Suszek (yet another Packers fan), who helmed a powerful Houston Texans of Milwaukee team. It was a tough and somewhat contentious game, but my Vikings eventually came out on top, and I watched triumphantly as Highlander and his coach Prince lifted the Lombardi Trophy.
I've been back twice since in smaller leagues, but nothing will top that dream run through a full league stacked with competitors at the top of their game. And you're right, I am a tremendous dork. This is probably as close as I'm ever going to get to seeing my actual team win it all, so I might as well enjoy it as much as possible. Achievement: Finishing the Game.
Game: Demon's Souls. Developer: FromSoftware. Year: 2009. Bob Mackey Senior Writer My greatest gaming achievement might be shared by thousands upon thousands of others, but it still marks an important turning point in my relationship with video games.
Seeing as I didn't buy a PS3 until the summer of 2010, I hopped on the Souls train a little late. I'd been following message board threads about the import-only version before Atlus decided to bring it over here, and the massive amounts of praise it received convinced me to pick up my own copy that fall. At first, it seemed like a completely straightforward action-RPG, but after a few hours passed, I knew I was in way over my head. It's not that I hadn't played complex games before-I just wasn't used to relying on an online community for support, being the lone wolf I am. So I struggled and sputtered my way through Demon's Souls on my own, gradually picking up on its unexplained mechanics.
It took me an embarrassing amount of time to figure out co-op, and even longer to understand how to fire off a single magic spell. I destroyed valuable equipment by taking it down the wrong upgrade path, boosted my character's stats haphazardly, and gradually stumbled my way through Demon's Souls inch by painful inch.
Of course, there were times when I thought I'd have to give up, and Demon's Souls would find itself shelved for weeks-even months-as I moved on to games that didn't present so much of a challenge. Its Valley of Defilement, one of the nastiest, most punishing levels in any video game ever, had me thinking Demon's couldn't possibly be finished, so I naturally assumed anyone who claimed to have done so was nothing but a filthy liar. In case you haven't experienced its poisonous horrors, the Valley makes Blight Town from Dark Souls look like a McDonald's playground, even though nothing is scarier than a cornered Grimace. In the fall of 2011, I'd been assigned to review the upcoming Dark Souls, which gave me the motivation to finally make it to Demon's Souls bloody end. And by the time I saw the credits roll, I looked back on our tumultuous relationship as a real learning experience: Demon's Souls wouldn't budge until I took the initiative to figure things out myself-and once I did, I wanted all of my gaming experiences to feel exactly like that. This trial by fire immediately gave me nothing but disdain for any game that didn't show the same degree of confidence as FromSoftware's RPG series, which began a new age of unrealistically high expectations. Speaking from personal experience, there's no better way to be constantly disappointed.
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For more information, go. I was a bit of a completionist nut when I was younger. I once did no-level-up run on FFVIII (by farming Diabolo's No Exp skill transforming enemies in cards, which in turn also did not produce any exp), but Jeremy has already taken that game, so I'll let that one rest. I think I could say it was finishing Persona 3 FES or the original Persona 4 on the PS2, on the Expert difficulty, on my first playthrough in each game.
I think I was a bit of a masochist, come to think of it. The sheer amount of resets for optimization's sake makes me wonder what the hell was I thinking. To top it off, I hate grinding in RPGs with a furious passion. I think I tried (and beat) the reaper in P3 in level 53, exploiting the knockdown mechanic and a very expensive magic using Thor and Take-mikazuchi in a boss that could wipe my party in pretty much a single hit. Edit: And here is my second biggest achievement (I think): Finishing up Super Street Fighter IV Trials, even with characters I intensely dislike: Edited September 2014 by renatocosta90. The one that comes to mind for me is my No Equip Natural Magic Game for FFVI Advance.
While the first half of the game was pretty easy (except Ultros), the second half was a surprisingly big jump. I managed to beat the story and most of the optional bosses, but ended up stuck at Red Dragon Redux. With it, I was faced with either massive grinding (if that would even help) or making use of Nightshade, which felt like cheating. I'm not sure if I could deal with Kaiser or Omega anyway, but it seemed possible. So while I may not have completely finished it, I did get pretty far.
There are quite a few I'm proud of. I still haven't done a one-life run of Contra, but I have made it in two. I managed to finally beat Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!!, in the waning seconds of the last round, where one hit would send me or him to the mat. I was literally trembling, and when I managed to dodge that last punch and not miff the counter, I just couldn't believe it. I also finally beat most of the super-hard NES platformers like Ninja Gaiden, Castlevania and Castlevania III, and so on, but Battletoads is one that always eluded me. I never really had consistent access to the cart, and I just haven't wanted to go back to it recently. The speeder bike stage is really easy now, though!
It's the rat race stage that gets me. And getting 100% in every stage of Yoshi's Island. Took a while. I think my save is still alive. Mine isn't quite as epic as beating a particular game, but rather was achieving something that, by all rights, shouldn't have been possible. So, while they wouldn't dare exclude them today, once upon a time, Rockstar took planes out of GTA III. This was right after 9/11, so sensitivity about, well, most things, was high.
So no planes. Except one, the Dodo. Most people have managed to get it running, some can even take off. I landed it in Donald Love's back yard. So that one's a double win, because its a vehicle you shouldnt be able to control, landed in an area you shouldn't be able to access. If only the built-in video saving was a PS2 invention.
It brings a tear of joy to my eye seeing Demon's Souls indoctrinate another brave soul into the club. By fire of course. Harsh, cleansing fire. Beating Illadin one week before Sunwell hit landing us in top #1000 worldwide (things were different back then; people didn't care it was nine months late). Or me in a different guild going on a ganking rampage in Shadowbane till we had like 5 full nations chasing us around while we continued hit unwary pursuers when they least expected it (people bring a ton of gold like they ain't going to die and lose it or something made me laugh so hard). Made MILLIONS of ill-gotten gold that 5 hour session. Getting past Battletoad's jetski stage (never beat the full game though).
I'm sort of proud at just how much I've improved at Spelunky, in the face of constant failure. Over the past 9 months, I've gone from wondering whether I'd ever be able to escape from the mines to clearing both Hell and the one million gold (points) mark with increasing regularity, with dozens of in-game and self-imposed goalposts cleared throughout that time, and I'm still finding new challenges to overcome. Every agonizing death. has helped me to slowly refine my technique, master the game's physics and learn how to both observe & manipulate my surroundings, all to slightly better my chances of success. I've gone through stretches where I kind of hated Spelunky, but I kept coming back anyway, all in the hope that my next run through the caves would be at least a little bit better.
I've never shown anywhere near this level of dedication or patience with a game before, and it's not something I could've ever predicted would happen when I first downloaded it last winter.Well, most of them. No matter how good you get at Spelunky, you'll still fall victim to occasional shenanigans. Even after pouring 300+ hours into the game, the Insane Squirrel Physics of angry Shopkeepers can still find ways to leave me speechless.
Wow, Ultimecia. I had a tendency to rush through Final Fantasy games too fast when I was younger - not speedrunning or anything, but I'd always be woefully underleveled by the end. I'd end up running from everything in the final dungeon and beat the final boss by dumb luck on something like the 20th try.
The original, FF Legends 1 and 2 (I'd learned my lesson by 3), and 7 all gave me trouble, but 8 was the worst. Another aspect that made it tough was that Ultimecia's Castle stripped away many of your battle commands. You had to defeat minibosses (not pushovers) throughout the castle, choosing to restore one of your powers after each victory. Therefore, it's very easy to be handicapped when you fight Ultimecia. It felt great to finally win that fight, though.
I relied heavily on Cerberus to allow multiple casting, and Meltdown to lower Ultimecia's defence. One could also cheese it with Auras and hero drinks, but I didn't even have or know how to use any of that junk my first time through. Anyway, my pick is Yiazmat from FF12.
More of an endurance and brute-force leveling test than anything, but the adrenaline was flowing near the end knowing that 4-5 hours worth of work were at stake. Very cool - reminds me a bit of stealing the attack helicopter off the base in Vice City. I've only pulled that off a couple of times - it's much harder than swiping a tank. Yeah, The Answer was just mean. I remember enemy groups complemented each other very well with their elemental affinities - using any attack on all of them would surely hit someone strong to it, and they always seemed to exploit your weaknesses.
Not to mention the instant death spells flying around. Unfortunately I didn't find it very fun without the social links, but it sure was a challenge. My.proudest. achievement in gaming has little to do with gaming at all. In fact very little. Between the years of 2000 and 2006, I did not own a console. That's why it has so little to do with gaming.
I know, I know. Well, around 2000 (not 2OOO as some may type), I was being forced out of the college system and asked to demonstrate some real-life skills. Skills such as getting a job and shooting straight into the stratosphere of parentage. They were trying to determine whether I had the ability to do that.
Needless to say, I turned to heavy drink. Sure, I showed them it was plausible, but I didn't really want or care about going 'the whole way'. This went on and on for many years, and many strange encounters until 2006.
That was the night that Wii came out. I remember standing there, wondering why I was there. I had heard of video game fans, and video gamers. Somewhere in my heart I knew that was, in fact, what I was. So it was a little strange to be among parents and babies in strollers, tourists and some pretty hardcore New York City people.
But I am diving into detail, which is a big no-no for people like me. Yes, I bought the Wii. I don't think Reggie was actually.at. Toys R Us that night, but I may have missed him. I remember sitting next to a happy girl in the subway, stressing about whether or not my monitor at the time would support this new console's output.
I remember stressing very heavily about all the possible inputs/slots in the world. I want to imply gently that this was my proudest moment. It was my return. Six years without video games, and yet you return back to gaming. Because you love it.
(And after six years, you better know who the hell you are). I played a lot of Wii games, and then smoothly transitioned over to a PS3. Wipeout made me do it, but I think the intent was there all along. There was no way that 'does not play video games' insignia would ever be scratched into my heart again. Edited September 2014 by airbagfin51. My proudest achievement is more of a personal one that stands outside of video games themselves.
My friends and I used to run a little video game club on the University of Michigan campus. It was tiny and mostly unnoticeable except for the occasional Smash Bros. However, you know what used to pull in a lot of people? 16-player Super Mario Kart Double Dash!! Hooking up four GameCubes and four digital projectors and having more than 16 people looking to play and team up with friends and strangers was an incredible accomplishment that I literally would be unable to reproduce today. (No longer have access to four projectors, and I gave away my GameCube.I think.
I don't know where it is.) I don't have any particular in-game accomplishments. By now it would probably be Demon's Souls, except my daughter was born around that time. I can't play any of those games due to there not being a pause. No pause means no play for me. One of my proudest moments also was taking down Yiazmat and finishing all the hunts in Final Fantasy XII.
Of course it only left me wishing for even more.I still haven't done everything in that game though. Another achievement was un-cursing the Cursed Shield in Final Fantasy III (VI). Beating that last boss in Xenoblade.
Beating all the Special Challenges in Smash Bros. Street Fighter II on the hardest mode (I used to be good). 101% in Donkey Kong Country. One last achievement that I am almost done with is to play and beat all the Final Fantasy games in order (excluding the online games and the sequels to the numbered games). I am just going through Gran Pulse in XIII.almost there.
I was supposed to do it in a year.we are now almost to 3 1/2 years. My greatest achievement of all time though? Beating Super Mario Bros.
Without save states or save points about 20 years after I first played it. Not because people can't do that easily enough, but because I had never done it up to that point. It's just one of those things I hadn't done that I needed to do. Very cool comments board by the way. It was fun to hear about some of the neat things in games and be reminded of how many amazing experiences we've had. Games give us a challenge that can just grab us.and that carries over into persistence facing 'real life' challenges. There's value in it, in my opinion.
Jeremy, I know yout pain. When I first played Final Fantasy VIII, I started fighting Ultimecia and all was good until that final form, when all my GF were destroyed and I didn't have enough magic because I didn't bother to draw that much. The fight must have lasted 2 hours and I lost it. However, one week later, when all the rage had passed from losing, I tried it again, without any kind of grind and when I got to that part again I was seriously in pain as I was afraid I would lose another time. These time, however, I had Rinoa on my party and she had a ridiculously powerful Limit Break called Wishing Star, so I used hero on her, to make her invincible, and kept using that until I won. It certainly made me feel very good about it, and I'm glad someone had a similar experience with that final boss in particular.
I remember so many grueling boss fights that ended with me down to the last hit point or with my life/energy bar almost depleted, practically on the verge of being killed by a single poke from the boss in question, yet still determined and focused, managing to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. Indeed such a thing has happened to me so many times that they actually blur in my mind by this point and I can’t remember a specific instance when I was the most proud. So instead I will just go with a recent memory: The Perfect Run of Super Mario Galaxy 2. This game on the whole was harder than its predecessor, and many of its secret challenges are really devious, sometimes it forced me to remember platforming skills that I had not used since the 8-bit era. But nothing beats the very last course of the game, Grandmaster Galaxy, which can only be accessed after you obtain all the other stars, including the secret green ones.
It’s an extended obstacle course comprised of many sections with all kinds of hazards coming from every direction. Completing it the first time was already a grueling task. But then came the secret final challenge of the game: Completing it with a single hit point. A long stage that wouldn’t feel out of place on a platform hell game, no checkpoints, a single mistake and you are out. It’s something only a masochist or obsessive–compulsive completionist would attempt.So the weekend afternoon I finally managed to complete it, after I don’t remember how many fruitless attempts, I entered the stage with 60 lives, and ended with 5 or so. And yet, seeing certain character making another guest appearance to give you the final star of the game as congratulations for your efforts just made it worth it.
Edited September 2014 by docexe. Jeremy's (and others) mention of save states reminded me of games that I spent a lot of time on as a kid that I couldn't quite finish, but I went back to years later with save states and finally completed. These experiences don't really count as achievements because I obviously had to cheat, but they were at least satisfying closures: Blaster Master: I could never beat the final boss, without save states. Solar Jetman: Excellent game, but the end of the final level annoyed the heck out of me, and I couldn't beat it without an emulator.
You spend the entire game assembling an ancient 'Golden Warpship' from scattered artifacts. Once complete, for some reason you need to fly it through a side-scrolling Gradius-like level completely unlike the rest of the game, in which one hit kills you. The lesson being that antique starfighters made of gold are much less practical than production model space salvage pods. NES Double Dragon: Before save states, I never got by the jerk with the machine gun - I think he was the penultimate boss.
Even with emulators, Battletoads is just too frustrating for me. Without cheating, I'd always blow it on the snake level. I think I got a little further with save states (I remember dying against a machine gun dude - I'm seeing a pattern), but I just couldn't bring myself to keep at it, even with save state abuse. I'm quite impressed by anyone who stuck with it. It was either: A) The Neighborhood Watch achievement from The Orange Box where you had to protect every building at the end of Episode Two. B) Getting a platinum trophy in Velocity 2X for Vita (as well as Ultra) or C) Getting every backpack and going through every door in Yumi's Odd Odyssey/Sayonara Umihara Kawase. Probably one of those three.
EDIT: Ah, something somebody said jogged my memory. CoD4: Mile High Club on Veteran. I really don't know which of these four were more difficult. They all took at least two hours and they all took a toll on my hands.
Edited 2 times. Last edited September 2014 by TotalHenshin. Guild Wars: When a team and I (just a lowly Trapper-Ranger) finally beat Thunderhead Keep.
For those not familiar with Guild Wars, Thunderhead Keep was an infamously difficult escort mission where you are tasked with making it to the fortress, and then defending it from a 20-minute all-out attack from the White Mantle (evil cult), Stone Summit (evil dwarves), and Mursaat (evil ethereal wizards); an attack that includes two big bosses. The worst part is that the guy you're supposed to protect is quite aggressive and will run into enemy mobs if they get too close to him, so not only do you need to keep an eye on the gates, you need to make sure he stays out of danger, especially against the Mursaat forces, as he was susceptible to their instant-kill attack that your team is protected against. It was probably the toughest mission in the game, even more difficult than the final mission. Phantasy Star Online: Beating the MOME mission (Unsealed Door).
Just mentioning the name of Dr. MOME should give goosebumps to anyone who played this hellish mission on the Dreamcast. It's an escort mission where you go through part of the third area with an underleveled, underequipped, and overaggressive scientist.
That's tough enough, since you now have to be careful with aggroing enemies so MOME doesn't run into the middle of a mob with nothing but a pea shooter and a few Monomates. By far, the most difficult part of the quest was the boss fight afterwards against the second boss, Del Rol Le.
This boss was formidable when you fought it alone, but when you've got a weak NPC that can be almost killed in one tentacle swipe? So not only do you have to be extra careful on the way to the boss to conserve MOME's Monomates, but during the boss battle itself you have to make sure he's standing in the right places on the tiny raft, as far away from the boss as possible. This mission was so infamously difficult on the Dreamcast that they thankfully changed it for the GameCube and PC remakes so that MOME isn't around for the boss fight; it was a minor change that effectively lowered the mission's difficulty from 'almost impossible' to 'somewhat easy.' I'm generally pretty terrible at video games, but I do have a few accomplishments that might make me sound like I'm good. First, in WoW Burning Crusade I was part of a top 20 world kill on Kil'Jaeden, the final boss of the hardest (and last) raid instance.
Second, one day when I was playing Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD online I ran into Alex Valle, also known as Mr. Street Fighter, and actually managed to beat him once. To this day I have no idea how that happened. He was even playing Ryu, who is his main character. Edited September 2014 by thestage. I wish I could say it was completing the Mr Perfect challenge in Mega Man 9 but I eventually gave up trying.
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Maybe someday. Beating Dark Souls was a pretty proud moment for me. It was my first Souls game and I had no idea what I was doing.
I soloed the ENTIRE game. Not because I thought it would be cool or anything like that. I just didn't know how to summon people or to be summoned. Turns out it was because I was undead through most of the game. So theres that and I've beat both Battle Kid games.
Those were not easy the first time through. Mine would be getting the platinum trophy for White Knight Chronicles II on PS3, which took over 500 hours and oddly enough was my first ever platinum.
The true heart of the game (and 'meat' I suppose) was in online play, and accounted for 90% of that time. I was fortunate enough to find a guild early on with extremely kind, skilled, and patient players. Farming for rare items, obtaining rare equipment, S-ranking 100 quests, rebirthing to master every possible skill, and playing enough to reach an online/guild level of 30 took forever, but it was fun all the way and I'm quite proud of that platinum. Did my best to help others reach the same goals along the way. (takeshikitano3 on PSN and Twitter).
It's funny, but I didn't remember the Yellow Devil being all that bad as a kid, and never realized until recently how notorious it is - I'm sure I wouldn't be able to handle it now, though. I did play MM2 (and maybe 3) first before tracking down the original, so maybe that experience helped. I never knew about the pause trick, but I did have a rapid-fire controller. Like the robot masters, I don't think that mattered against the Devil, but it did help a lot against regular enemies, the Dragon, and the Guts Dozer in MM2, if I remember right. Your story reminded me of times I've also blown through games while home sick. I most distinctly remember having a bad flu when living alone for the first time after graduation.
I rented the original Red Faction on the way home from the doctor and played it straight through to completion over 2 days because I was too sick to sleep properly, alternately blasting the heat and A/C in my apartment and dozing off with the controller in hand. Ping g5 vs g10 irons. In retrospect, that doesn't sound like the smartest thing I could have done. I grew up with two consoles before graduating high school: a Genesis and a PS1 (got my first laptop in college, then discovered emulators, but that's a different story). My gaming, therefore, was restricted to what few games I owned and what few (by the mid-aughts, anyway) I could rent. Perhaps my most-treasured game, actually the set of two - is Sonic 3 & Knuckles.
I actually bought neither at retail; the Sonic 3 I nabbed from a cousin who moved out of the house and left his Sega behind and the Knuckles cart I bought at a pawn shop. On a related note, it took me nearly 4 years to figure out Carnival Zone, when someone mentioned the up/down mechanism casually. I actually instead taught myself how to enter debug mode and ghosted through the drum, which worked well enough but was really tempting to use for other moments of. Personal gain.
At any rate, once I sat atop my Sonic throne with both games and knowledge enough to make it to the end (save for the more traditional early exit of dying), I got to work. I played and played, hours and days on end, until I could run through the combined cart in a single sitting. Then I played until I could gather all the Chaos Emeralds, and all the Super Emeralds. Eventually I was good enough that I could sit down and in just a couple hours complete a run including Doomsday Zone with 100+ lives and 25+ continues, with any character. I suppose such a run (I've never timed myself, so I don't know what my personal best is) would be the achievement, but I get more satisfaction out of the muscle memory I still have: cruising through the entire game, bringing down Robotnik in mere seconds, ringing up 3 emeralds in a single zone, hoovering up not more than 50 but not less than 35 rings to get into a sphere bonus (and coming out the other side with 200+ rings and a lightning shield), even perfecting the art of tracking down 50 rings in Emerald Palace Zone to hulk out as Hyper Sonic for the Knuckles fight (git gud, echidna). It's a calming experience to pick up the ol' boomerang and soak it all up once more. Actually, you know what, now that I'm thinking about Sonic, clearing Death Egg Zone in Sonic 2 was really major for me the first time.
They don't give you any rings! I never did scoop all the Chaos Emeralds in Sonic 2 without savestates.
Old school accomplishment - held the national high score for the arcade game, Wizard of Wor, back in 1982. I had gotten very good at the game by cutting class in college and partnering with my best friend to advance through all the mazes. After a couple months of mastering the machine at the Student Activity Center at my university, i encountered a machine at a small arcade that had the difficulty setting at its lowest point. I was able to stay in a solo game for about 45 minutes, racking up a top score that sat at the top of the national scoreboard (in Iowa) for about 6 months. I'm not sure - it was about 9 hours playtime (though people have done it in 2 or 3!), and it took me a week of playing it a couple of hours per evening. Its best doing it on European Extreme, cos then the game automatically ends when you get an alert. The difficulty spiked in odd places.
The bit where eight of Ocelot's troops surround the ruined building at Rassvet was very tough (they kept waking up!). The End was surprisingly easy, just used thermal goggles to see his footprints and kept chasing him down for some CQC.
Volgin was horrendous though. The Mk22 was really ineffective, so I ended up fighting him with that handkerchief soaked in chloroform. Not easy with the ten minute time limit. Good fun though. But my wife thought I was mental. Shin megami tensei III: Nocturne, beating Lucifer and completing the demon compendium. SMT III is one my favourite games ever, i was completly absorbed in this game and wanted to know and complete everything.
To this day, i only failed at the press turn challenge but hey! Challenging the allmighty Lucifer is something really rewarding.
The compendium was hard to complete, but i really felt like the master of universe after that. Also Obtaining Platinum on Resonance of Fate. The arena challenge is really long and the neverland is tricky. I really died lots of times to get those two achievements so i guess it's related.
Oh and Ultimecia was indeed a pain in the ass, i didn't have any aura or boost, and the fight lasted for 2 hours. Phoenix resurrected my party twice and the deadly move was a counter attack: Angel Dingo. Funny to end it that way!
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Features. Weighing in under 2 lbs (including barrel, ASA, 9volt battery and regulator) the Empire Mini™ might be THE Lightest & Tightest electronic marker available. NEW patented proprietary P.C.P. (Pressure Controlled Poppet™) operating system.
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Only 2 sets of Wires (quick disconnect wires connecting battery to the board, and the solenoid to the board). One Screw Quick Strip - Bolt guide, bolt and bolt return spring then simply slide out the back of the gun. Uses a Hall effect sensor. Volume chamber in Grip Frame. Two stage bolt system to be gentler on paint. Control Button Located Back of Front Grip. Stock Barrel is.691.
Stock Trigger can adjust pull length, stop points, and sensitivity. It won't like CO2 at all. It's been in development 4-5 years. Works at 160-200psi Product Accessories.