8 asterix - round viii rescuing getafix and heading home

Dear Readers,

Now to rescue Getafix and go home to Gaul! The entire level is a chariot race.

7 asterix - round vii lost in egypt like eejits

Dear Readers,

We left Greece meaning to go to Rome, but ended up in Egypt like eejits! "I believe we are lost!" Obelix says.

6 asterix - round vi crossing the mediterranean

Dear Readers,

Instead of turning around when we got to Greece, we continued across the Mediterranean, thinking Rome might've been on the other side!

5 asterix - round v - ending up in greece

Dear Readers,

We were supposed to go to Rome, but we ended up in Greece! Obelix wondered if we took a wrong turn. We did indeed.

4 asterix - round iv going south

Dear Readers,

We headed south at least, though it looked like we were bypassing the Italian peninsula...

3 asterix - round iii in the snowy mountains

Dear Readers,

Round III took place in the snowy mountains, possibly the Alps. Some nice upbeat music here.

2 asterix - city rooftops and castle

Dear Readers,

The next stage was an autoscroller and took place on the rooftops of an urban setting.

1 asterix - sega master system version

Dear Readers,

I gave this a go recently. SEGA made a couple of their own Asterix games so I was curious to see what they were like.

2 maze walker - beat the game!

Dear Readers,

I played another good long session of this game and I reached the end! I had to use the Helper Mode though, which gave me much needed 30 lives to start with!

1 maze walker - plodding along in 3d

Dear Readers,

One of the big draws for me to buying SEGA 3D Classics Collection was the inclusion of this Master System game, which originally had an option to be played while wearing 3D glasses. I was tickled by the fact that they went to the trouble to adapt this for 3DS!

4 ASTRO WARRIOR - 149,800 POINTS HIGH SCORE, OPTION DRONE STRATEGY

Dear Readers,

Still haven't gotten past the third level, but I got a higher score!

3 ASTRO WARRIOR - SCARY THIRD LEVEL, 141,000 POINTS

Dear Readers,

Now for the third level! Never played it before so it's uncharted waters for me... er... uncharted space.

2 ASTRO WARRIOR - DEFEATING NEBIROS

Dear Readers,

Let's have another go at this and see if we can beat Nebiros!

1 ASTRO WARRIOR - LASER BLASTING THE WAY TO NEBIROS

Dear Readers,

Lots of RPGs and Minecraft lately! Let's play a shmup/stg! I played a bit of this on my SEGA Arcade Gamer Portable.

1 ALEX KIDD IN MIRACLE WORLD - FIRST FEW LEVELS

Dear Readers,

Today I'll talk about playing this game on the bus. The version I'm playing is the SEGA Arcade Gamer Portable so the jump and punch buttons are reversed to what I'm used to. It's not bad since I was playing at a slow and deliberate pace, punching everything and collecting everything.

I'd like to get used to the blocks that have guaranteed grim reapers, so that I can avoid them. Some of those blocks sometimes have extra lives in them too. Also, I have no idea what some of the items do, so I'll have to look up some instructions. There's this blue ball that doesn't seem to do anything.

Getting used to this game takes a bit of time. I forgot that the cycle-copter thingy breaks when you fly into the ceiling. Lots of risky rewards with the floating money bags just under the hard ceiling too.

I got as far as some cave a few levels in. There's this item that makes little guys jump out of it but I have no idea what it does yet. I didn't get further than this.

The Janken matches are something that put me off the game when I first played it. I didn't like the idea of some kind of random or gambling element in it at the cost of a life. I think there's a pattern to them or something. I'm not sure.

20 Sonic Chaos - Aqua Planet Zone Act 2, 100 Ring Strategy

Dear Readers,

Today I'll talk about this stage and getting 100 rings in it. Lots of ten ring boxes to be found and this makes it easy!

First collect the rings you and try to bounce to the highest part of the stage. Don't worry about bouncing past the ten ring box here as there are plenty more up ahead. Jump to the right and onto the loop to find some rings and 6 ten ring boxes. Jump to the next platform and stay up high. Jump further to reach another platform with 4 ten ring boxes. That should do the trick!

1 Bank Panic(Master System)

Dear Readers,

I have to tell you about this game I love so much! Gameplay wise, it's got the sensibilities of a Game & Watch game like Oil Panic and it's a pure arcade game with its scoring system. I especially love filling the blanks with money, the gentlemen tipping their hats and rendition of "I Wish I Was In Dixie" as the background music! It's such a pleasure to play!

In this version of the game, the colours are quite bold and I'm not exactly sure what "FAIR" is and if it's a difficulty you can change, or how you get EXTRA letters.

In this session I had, I reached Round 9 and got a score of 318,200.

6 Fantasy Zone - Fast Offensive Strategies!

Dear Readers,

There's a YouTube walkthrough for this game that's 8 minutes and 55 seconds long! Amazing isn't it? I guess since there's no autoscrolling in this shmup, it would take a lot shorter to play through than other ones. The bosses too, since the ones I've seen can be beaten in one hit with the right weapon, you could plow through this game very quickly if you were skilled enough!

So I guess it's best to always have a very strong offence to make the stages go quickly. That makes sense, as taking a long while often stirs a lot of trouble e.g. the bosses bum rushing you if you take too long on them.

What I've generally been doing in a recent session is buying Laser Beams and 7 Way Shots whenever possible. This tears through bases quickly and the SEL balloon always appears when one of them runs out. Except during bosses of course.

Heavy Bombs then are good for some of the earlier bosses and of course, the Fire Bomb is great on Round 4 for all those ground bases.

So yeah, I can now beat the first few levels fairly quickly and handily! So far, I've only learned about the first 4 Rounds. I need to practise more after that.

5 Fantasy Zone - Sussing Dolimicca(Super Planet) Round 4, Perfect For Fire Bomb!

Dear Readers,

Today I'll talk about coming up with a strategy for Dolimicca, which has all its 6 bases on the ground! Aha!

The bases are all in a straight line, so it makes sense to buy a Fire Bomb and chase it as it tears through all of them, right?

The boss is this giant fish with an open mouth of teeth. The tongue is its weak spot and a heavy bomb will take care of it. How to switch to the heavy bomb though if you've used the fire bomb? I suppose it's best to tear through 5 bases and wait for the yellow SEL balloon to appear, then choose the heavy bombs and whatever else. Then, to destroy the last base before facing the boss.

4 Fantasy Zone - Sussing La Dune(Planet of Sand) Round 3, Using Some In-Game Terminology

Dear Readers,

Today I'll talk about intel I've gathered while playing the third stage, or Round 3 as the game calls it. I guess I should use the terminology the game and instruction manual uses. The instruction manual I have is just for the AtGames portable, so it doesn't go into too much detail on much of anything besides controls and general description. I found a scan of the original release's instruction manual on segaretro.org though. That's a great and very useful website! :)

The spiral enemies I saw on Round 2 or Tabas(Planet of Fire) are called C-Souls. On La Dune, the most troublesome enemies I find are the Goro, which are these groups of three balls that move in an upward/downward pattern on the screen. They stay onscreen when you move left or right, so they're tricky to deal with. The 7 Way Shot is handy for them.

6 Bases here too.

The boss here has all these tiny nasty laser cannons. It's best to take them all out in one hit with a heavy bomb! It might take a second one, depending on your aim.