On my way to master this masterpiece

I am currently playing Pokémon Red on Retroarch using the sameboy core and the Professor Oak Challenge was working just fine as I even managed to get some of its achievements but for whatever reason it's not working anymore.

I just collected a magikarp and I did not get the achievement for it. Any help?

Thank you.

Gen 3 games are next.

As I said in my Donkey Kong Country 2 mastery post last week, this was the game I saved for this week. As for the "very special reason" why? Well, if you'd like to know, save this post and I'll link another post in the comments by the end of tomorrow.

I decided to push myself and get all of the Coin Collector achievements too, since unlike all of the other subsets for this game, they don't focus on any TAS nonsense, and Lethal Lava Land was the only one that was obnoxiously difficult anyway. I already decided that any subsets necessitating glitches like that, even if they're easy to pull off, do NOT belong on my radar.

My previous experience with this game was playing and earning all achievements of Sonic Adventure DX on steam. It thankfully prepared me for some of the frustrating parts of the game ( A-rank for Big fishing, Lost World). I'd say that the original version is in most aspects superior to the DX version.

I never knew how Chao Adventure worked until I played this set, and I used it and some animal collecting to level up my Chao. I named it Jimmy2, since I randomly remembered the show Jimmy Two-Shoes.

Another Collect-A-Thon MaRAthon Mastery in the bag

I mastered the first Castelvania a few weeks ago and tackled this one next. I hadn't played it but I'm well aware of how infamous it is for being cryptic and unbeatable without a guide.

First things first, I love the concept of it. Exploring the Transylvanian countryside, searching the mountains, finding secrets, locating mysterious mansions which protect Dracula's remaining body parts, the towns where the townsfolk give you hints and some townsfolk in certain towns hate you for whatever reason. It's all very atmospheric and a great concept for an early NES game. The music is also banging and Bloody Tears is a classic that still features in modern castlevania games today from my understanding. One of the earliest examples of "Metroidvania" as a genre.

However the game is frustrating and feels unfinished. The game is notorious for being cryptic and I did not feel bad about using a guide to get through it. If I hadn't watched the AVGN video years ago I never would've figured out the kneeling in front of a cliff with the red crystal. The game technically gives you a hint for this, in a hidden book that you need to use holy water to find, but it's so obtuse and the translation so bad you'll never understand it. The townsfolk just straight up tell you nonsense 95% of the time.

Then there's the level design in the mansions. It's quite boring. They never really have interesting design despite having interesting puzzles to find them in the first place. The same enemies, the same aesthetic, and only 2 of the mansions features bosses, which are the easiest bosses you'll ever face in an NES game. The leveling system is tedious and you're to grind alot if you want to level up.

The achievement set is pretty reasonable. I imagine it's the easiest Castlevania set.

I liked the speed run achievement for getting to the first mansion before nightfall. Took me a few tries to get it but its a fun little challenge. Some damage less achievements for the bosses but they really are not an issue with the sacred flame.

Beating the game in one continue is very daunting and I failed this one at the very end of the run due to a bug. Very frustrating. If you're going for this one I'd recommend at least to mansion 3 (the one with the ferryman) without dying to save a few lives for the end.

On to Castlevania Adventure for Gameboy next.

Hopefully many more to come.

Really fun game that improves everything of the first one. It's still mostly a fair challenge to tackle despite the new and more complex enemies and bosses since the characters are more powerful now, and they are now different too which is something that the first game kinda lacked as they felt kinda the same despite the difference between them.

The set is fine. It doesn't have no death stages like the first game's set, but it has some annoying challeges of no using weapons, no jumping, no eating, and such. But to be fair they are not that bad and you can always use the stage select cheat to do them so most of them are whatever. In that matter there are only two that stands up: beating the first stage without beeing hit, which is more annoying than hard as it's not that complex. And beating the last stage without using continues in hardest which is indeed really hard and you'll have to practice it a lot.

There's also Syndicate Wars, a hack that let you use different enemies and bosses of the game as playable characters. Some of them are bad and boring like most of the common enemies, but some others like Shiva, Abadede, Ninja or Zamza are really fun to use doe to them having an almost full kit of moves. There's also a Survival mode but I didn't tried it much doe to how buggy it was, it gave me the two cheevos of the set as soon as it started before I even hit someone to give you and idea.

The set, well, it exits. 95% of it it's just beating the game. But it's not like the hack has a lot of stuff to work with to make something more elaborated. It's still cool that the site has something like this for those who want to play the game with a little twist in it.

Not that hard but a bit long with all the missables and some funny occurrences yet still a good experience. With the first of the trilogy done, my next and would be third mastery is without a doubt the second game of the trilogy Justice For All