MAGFest Wrapup Addendum

Yeah, one of my criticisms was that I felt some of the challenges were misplaced difficulty-wise, and that was definitely one of them (If I remember my look at the statistical breakdown of challenges completed correctly, that one was the most completed Expert challenge)–I thought that one was actually EASIER than the Hard challenge for the same game. By and large, though, they did a good job with the difficulties, and that fact that there was some overlap between the difficulties kind of forced you to employ strategy and pick and choose what you wanted to play (Unless you were myself, Kareshi or Metal Dream and just brute forced your way through everything). And yeah, the Save States definitely helped. When you got there, you just loaded up a save state and off you went. It was a good setup, and they really did a good job overall of combining stuff anyone could play for a sticker or a button or whatever (The Donkey Kong challenges for Normal, I guess the Rock Monster challenge for Expert). Theoretically, you got unlimited tries at a challenge, but if there was a queue of people waiting to play they’d eventually kick you off to give someone else a turn.

The Expert Tyson challenge was indeed to knock him out in one round , though I failed to even complete the easier version of the challenge, which was simply to defeat him. Guess I didn’t practice that one quite enough…but anyway, yeah, the one-round knockout (Which no one did, though I have to give fellow Shizzie “Tyson Code” [Yes, really–okay, his Shizz name is technically 0073735963, but it’s easier to just say “Tyson Code”] the perseverance award for the weekend–he tried for literally hours on Friday night, and a bit on Saturday morning, to get it and just couldn’t do it. I think he was one of only 2 people to even do the easier “Defeat Tyson” challenge) was one of the three challenges the guy manning the booth figured would be nearly impossible, along with Metroid Expert (Which again, no one did, though I guess Kareshi came close) and Zelda II Expert (Which Kareshi did first, followed by myself and Metal Dream).

My full thoughts on the challenges are here.

By the way, yes, more of my friends both online and offline should definitely go!

Well, Tyson was one I didn’t practice a whole lot, as I said. Part of the problem I had is that he doesn’t necessarily do the same thing every time, even during the first 1:30–in other words, I’d expect him to flash, dodge in anticipation of the flash that didn’t come, and he’d flash and punch as I came out of the dodge and thus knock me the heck down before I could do anything about it.

One of the gaming accomplishments I’m pretty proud of is learning to survive that gauntlet of end bosses on Ninja Gaiden in one life. This doesn’t sound like a big deal…until you consider that I learned it on an NES, meaning each failure earned me another run through 6-1 to 6-3. Needless to say, I got good at both the gauntlet and Act 6 very quickly. Looking back on the weekend, I think I was the only one to pull off that particular challenge–even the mighty Kareshi got hung up on the second boss (Which I agree is the hardest of the three).

Funny thing about that Zelda II challenge–the first guy to beat Thunderbird actually failed the challenge. He had half a life box left after beating Thunderbird, and tried the usual go into the corner and crouch/stab strategy on Dark Link…and Dark Link immediately jumped on his head and killed him. I was actually nervous after I beat the Thunderbird in the Expert challenge–I had done the Normal challenge earlier in the weekend, and that time, I got a complete jerk of a Dark Link who jumped on my head like four times (Fortunately, I think Thunderbird had only hit me once). Luckily, he behaved during the Expert challenge, and 3 points and undying respect belonged to me.

And yes, the challenges were definitely my highlight of M6, and really of ANY of the three MAGs I’ve been to. Hopefully they’ll have more next year.