So, I should have made this a blow by blow reporting on my Johto adventures.

Sadly, when I am in the zone and making progress, I forget to talk screenshots and stuff.

This very much being the case with Clair and the Elite 4, Clair being a real pain as she has 3 Dragonairs with a priority to use Thunder Wave.

Paralysis cure berries will only save you a turn. Unless she misses with Thunder Wave.
But they all seem to also be packing either Dragon Breath or Ice Beam... Wish I had that move myself.

Twister can flinch, so at least it has that going for it.

Let's not forget that she also has a level 40 Kingdra. A tanky blighter who packs a punch.

I am glad for these achievements I could use items. I was constantly reviving things to ensure I only used Dragon type Pokemon to beat her.

My mind is now set on the Kanto gyms. Which opens a few new problems. But at least the gyms will require more common Pokemon types.

So, I was going to wait until the final two videos were published today to talk about this, but I am a damnable, excitable puppy at times and just want to share now!

Following getting all #RetroAchievements on Jet Force Gemini, this marks my 150th game Mastery on the site. This adds it to my milestones, and that fills me with a ridiculous amount of joy.

Milestones are clocked for every x amount of games beaten or mastered. With the first set of milestones at first, 5th, 10th, etc. Eventually, the gap between logged milestones increases. Once you hit the 50th milestone, the next milestone is 75th.

My July Clean-up allowed me to orchestrate it perfectly, so Jet Force Gemini was to be the 150th, adding it to the exclusive milestones list. This was initially unintentional until I noticed the potential. But the pressure has paid off, and now one of my favourite N64 games is forever in a special list on my profile.

So, I remember doing this as a kid, completing the Unown Dex, mostly because I sunk so much time into Pokemon Silver.

Catching them all really is just a case of bragging rights, I thought you also got a certificate that you could print via the Gameboy printer. Not that it matters too much, having this achievement is enough to prove I have done it.

But yeah. The only thing I never did on Pokemon Silver was completing the Pokedex, which is definitely an end goal for me. Though it should be noted, when I say complete it, it will be as complete as you can make it without trading.
I even had the legendary Dogs... My stumbling point was Tyranitar and the roaming Kanto legendary bird.
This time, I am taking no prisoners.

So, for those who might be interested.

Since I had made significant progress on the games I am playing in my free time, and also restarted recording Let's Plays, I have updated my planned gaming schedule for the next while.

I have shuffled a few bits around, to break up what will be longer RPGs with shorter games as a palette cleanser.

Whilst I want this list to be somewhat final, things may shuffle around further still, but at this moment in time, this is the plan. My hope is, if anything changes, it will be because something has jumped the queue due to significant interest from myself.

So, the last two and a bit weeks have been ridiculously productive for my #RetroAchievements clean-up.

I have managed to get 14 (soon to be 15) games over the line of Mastery, including such delights as Star Fox 64, Castlevania Dawn of Sorrow, Driver, Kirby's Adventure, Golden Axe, Super Mario Land, and a myriad of Sailor Moon games.

I am impressed with myself and can now go back to what I was doing just before I started this clean-up... What was I playing again... Oh... Oh god, no...

So, as someone who had played Super Mario Bros 3 to death, like, it is probably one of my most played Mario games, next to Super Mario World.

I did not know about the white mushroom houses at all! I remember seeing that there was an Anchor item in the game, but never found it.

Little did I know that the Anchors are hiding in the illusive white mushroom houses, that require you to hit a certain coin threshold on specific stages per world.

Feels good finding all of these now.

As part of my July clean-up, I finally managed to get a 1 continue clear on Golden Axe for the Genesis.

It took about 7 or 8 attempts, and with each run, I was learning some of the nuances of the game. Some interesting conscious design choices at play, such as the most common enemies getting priority on running attacks being the main one.

I forgot there was a back attack as well. It is done by pressing B and C together, it also does a surprising amount of damage! It proved quite effective against the armoured Knight bosses/mini bosses, though the running attack also deals with them effectively, if a little slowly.

Considering this was a game I never beat as a kid, beating this without using the continues felt like this would be quite the insurmountable mountain, a skill barrier that would take much longer to break through.

Well done, indeed.

So, this mission on Driver, "The Briefcase," was actually stonewalling me from mastering this game for a long time. I tried to clean up this game way back in August 2024, which is wild. I felt like I did the time trials, and all did only a few months ago...

Driver, on #PS1 , was the first game I beat* on RetroAchievements, and to see it mastered now fills me with joy. I can finally put this game to rest.

Driver is not a good game. Technically impressive for the time, but it can be dull and frustrating. Some mission branches are absolutely savage and frustrating.

(* I had the game on softcore for a while because I was unaware that there were two modes to RetroAchievements. Thankfully. I learnt about this before I did the final mission, "The President's Run," which was a brutal experience).

I feel this took way longer than it should have.

I don't know how many hours were spent actually learning how to play the game. My first run of this was a fumble at best, and by the time I got to my third character completion, out of seven, I had a good grasp of how to play the game.

I should note that my "beaten time" was only getting 15 of the 41 achievements. Which was just beating story mode as one character.

This means it took me roughly 16 hours to get the last 26...

Altogether, I did about 10 runs of story mode, as I failed a few loss-less runs and I had to do a hard mode run, which proved much easier than expected!

10 runs doesn't include any failed attempts at a loss-less run.

At least this one is now over.
It's actually quite a fun game, if you ignore how brutal your opponents can be.

So, this is the first time I think I have felt this whilst doing a game on #RetroAchievements

Some achievements are a bit tedious or require patience and skill building.

Pokemon Silver has some interesting ideas for the achievement list, but in practice, it becomes mind numbingly dull and sucks the fun out of the game.

Typical Nuzlocke rules for gyms, with a level limit is fine, it does throw a spanner in the works where Kanto is concerned, but that's the nature of Gen 2 Nuzlockes.

But combining this with same typing most gyms, with that level limit.

Do you know how many ice type Pokemon you can catch before defeating Pryce? Or Dragons before Clair? (The answer is 1)

Getting to the next gym and then spending an increasingly longer time training new mons to the appropriate level is a test of patience that I didn't anticipate being so soul crushing.

Yes, I only have myself to blame. I am not looking for sympathy.

So, I started it a little early, that is, going back and cleaning up some of the beaten games and getting them over the line to mastery.

For some reason, I decided the best place to start with some of the Sailor Moon games, specifically the #SNES beat-em-ups.

I said I loved beat-em-ups when I talked about Hyper Iria. I said that game was good! So Sailor Moon being a bigger franchise surely they SNES beat-em-ups are good, right? Right?!

I talked a little about both these games before, I can't remember exactly what I said, and going back through all my toots to try and something searching for them is a pain in the butt.

But a quick summary, I might be all beaten up on the genre for a few days. Clearing both Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon and Sailor Moon R 5 times back to back is just a little exhausting...

I will have some words to share on them soon, but right now, I am going to take a short break.

So, this will be the last "new game" I play in a while, as I want to go and clean up my beaten games a little bit.

The name of this game, Hyper Iria, and I checked out the one screenshot RetroAchievements had for it. It looked interesting. A 2D action game and apparently beat-em-up? I love a good beat-em-up!

I was going in blind for this, and immediately, I could tell this was based on something, like an anime or manga, because I had NO CLUE what was going on. All I knew was, I was some lady called Iria, assisted by an AI companion called Bob, who shoots and kicks aliens and doesn't afraid of anything!

It takes a bit of getting used to, with the slightly awkward jumping and different melee moves. The levels are mazes, making certain levels quite frustrating. Once I got a handle on it, I found this game to be a blast! Though a little short

I might need to hunt down the source material on this, just because I kinda want some context to this game

Jesus christ, I'm so glad that this one is done, I think I might be having a couple of nightmares for a little while. Not that nightmare involving Xenomorphs hasn't been a constant in my life for a long time.

Truth be told, there are only a couple of the 22 levels that I would class as scary, and you really do feel naked until you have a pulse rifle and some armour.

If you haven't played this game, I do encourage people to give it a look at or hope that we get a remaster by Nightdive sometime in the future. Honestly, a remaster for this game could go down an absolute treat.

I used to talk big about the first PC based Aliens vs. Predator game, especially the marine campaign, but I would say that this game is just as good, possibly better!

The irony is, I am going from one bug hunt to a different kind, with Jet Force Gemini on my horizon! At least that game doesn't scare me!

Heck yeah! Let's go!

Just need to patch and check the other 3 chapters and I should be good to go on recording this game!

Though I do need to sort out Dog of Bay part 2...

So, an interesting game I was recommended to check out by @jake4480 was SWAT Kats: The Radical Squadron for #SNES

I'll get into a full toot about this soon, as there is quite a bit to unpack.

RetroAchievements wise, it wasn't that bad, no damage-less boss challenges, no 1 continue clear, only a couple of all items collected, and only one world needed to be beaten on hard mode. Quite generous, really. A developer had the opportunity to make this torture.

This one had the potential to be an absolute nightmare, but I am glad it was quite comfy, even if the game has some rather challenging moments, especially some of the boss fights.

So yeah, I'm happy to look into game recommendations, as I probably wouldn't have noticed this one if not for the recommendation.

At this point, I am literally this shameless whenever I see anyone post retro games I have never heard of.

Oh boy, this is the start of the 4:3 layout, which means we're getting close to the modern era of our VODs.

Let's kick this short stint of classic PlayStation games off with some Way of the Samurai!

This is definitely a title I want to return to, especially now with my fresh new #RetroAchievements!

https://youtu.be/8e136PPHlTc

Oof, so this game took way longer to master than planned, only because the achievement maker set some frustrating challenges.

Anyway, this is a cool game I found on the #GameGear
Crystal Warriors.

Imagine Fire Emblem, but the affinity of the character actually means something beyond the support mechanics. Each class has one of four elements, and they are effective or weak against another one. It is a surprisingly tactical game because of this. The level cap is 9, and hitting that cap is pretty much a given and won't make (most of) your characters overpowered

It features perma-death for your characters too and a weird monster taming mechanic, which I seldom used because the monsters very quickly become too weak to be useful, except as meat shields, and even then 99% of the time I'd rather tank damage to retaliate with higher damage.

Worth a look at for anyone who enjoys strategic RPGs and also a bit of a challenge.

So, I didn't expect to fly through Clock Tower for the #SNES
The game is much shorter than expected, so obtaining all the endings didn't take as long as initially expected, and a fair few boil down to the final action in the game.

For an early survival horror game, I personally think it is great, I have developed a bit of an obsession with it. The controls are a little clunky at first and take some time to get used to. Navigating the mansion takes a bit of time, not helped by the fact that the game randomises some of the locations of some rooms and items a little bit.

Death in the game is not all that punishing. The game auto saves after each room transition, though you can hit a dead end, especially if you don't grab the ham from the fridge. Thankfully, the game has a quick start function, skipping the intro sequence and throwing you straight in if you do need to restart the game.

I plan to do a Let's Plays of the PS1 version later this year.