Play This Set

StingX2 By StingX2.

Contents

Intro

This is a place where achievement creators (and sometimes their fans) can advertise their work and tell the community why they should play those games (with achievements).

Our idea is to post 10 “Play This Set” per month. If you want to advertise your set (or a set you’re a big fan of), write a couple of paragraphs and send us a message (go to RAdmin page and then “Send Private Message”).

NOTE: don’t get frustrated if your article isn’t published in the next issue! If yours is not present here, it’ll probably be present in a future RANews issue.

Great Greed (GB)

Game Console Genre
Great Greed Great Greed Game Boy RPG

Set and Writeup by Snow Snow

Transported to another world, Sam must help defend the Kingdom of Greene from the Evil Baby Yoda with the help of deliciously named characters. The Visual style of the game while in the over world is very reminiscent of the Final Fantasy Legends series on the Game Boy, while in battle borrowing a similar style to other similar RPG’s such as Dragon Warrior. The combat is a bit different and Unique than most RPG’s as you only control one character in battle while every button at your disposal does a different feature.

Pressing A will do your standard auto attack slicing away with whatever weapon you have equipped.

Pressing B will have you try and dodge the enemies next attack, and for your d-pad you can assign any spells ranging from healing to damaging to buffs.

Battles are pretty fast-paced compared to most RPG’s of the time with the battle always being active time where if you don’t attack, they sure will!. Once you select your attack, get ready because the enemy will hit you at the same time, so plan accordingly. Great Greed is a random lesser known Game Boy Game, but for what it is, it’s a great game. Short, free-points, entertaining and at times absolutely insane story. What more could you ask for?

Wario Wario Touched (NDS)

Game Console Genre
WarioWare: Touched! WarioWare: Touched! Nintendo DS Minigames

Set and Writeup by lordpsycho lordpsycho

WarioWare: Touched is the 3rd Warioware entry for handhelds. Firstly released on 2003 for the GBA, it introduced the concept of microgames: games lasting 5 seconds or less where you have to quickly understand the task at hand and do it before the time runs out. Given in quick succession and continuously increasing in speed and difficulty, it’s a good way to put your brain and reflexes in action.

Thanks to Wario and his friends (?) quirky nature, you’ll find all sort of crazy things in here: chisel a toilet out of a marbel block, milk a cow, swat flies, hurl and iron ball, pick a nose or undress Wario, just to name a few. Use the DS touch screen to poke, cut, drag, rub, scribble, screw and unscrew everything that is thrown at you and aim for the top score on each stage.

[Editors Note: Please go to #helpme on discord if you are having issues with the games control scheme]

Namco Museum 64 (N64)

Game Console Genre
Namco Museum 64 Namco Museum 64 Nintendo 64 Compilation, Arcade

Set by Teddywestside Teddywestside

Writeup by rabbids4eva rabbids4eva

Developed by Mass Media, Namco Museum 64 is one of the only two arcade compilations ever made on the N64, the other one is focused on games from a company behind a certain company who made a series about some combatting mortals. Namco Museum 64 contains six classic games: Pac-Man, Ms. Pac-Man, Galaga, Galaxian, Dig Dug and Pole Position. The achievement set contains some challenges that you don’t see in other versions’ sets.

For example, you do 3 full consecutive clockwise laps of the ghost spawn area without a power pellet in Pac-Man, or have all 4 enemies inflated in the first level on Dig Dug. And this is the first time we get a set for the original arcade version of Pole Position, as the only version to get one was for the Atari 2600 port. If you are looking to find a challenge and you have a little lunch break, you owe it to yourself to play Namco Museum 64.

Super Mario Star Road (N64)

Game Console Genre
~Hack~ Super Mario Star Road ~Hack~ Super Mario Star Road Nintendo 64 Platformer

Set by SporyTike SporyTike

Writeup by Bendyhuman Bendyhuman

Star Road is a 130 star hack of Super Mario 64 made by Skelux way back in 2011. It quickly developed a reputation as one of the greatest Super Mario 64 hacks, but is it still deserving of that title nearly a decade later? Absolutely!

The game’s greatest strength is its level design. The levels aren’t unnecessarily large, nor are they small, and they are densely packed with secrets around every corner. For the first time since playing Super Mario 64, I found myself genuinely excited to explore each new course. Even the 100 coin stars, which I often find tedious in other hacks, were a delight to go for in Star Road.

The game’s difficulty level makes it a great next step for players who have completed Super Mario 64 and are looking for new challenges. It starts out fairly easy, gradually increasing in difficulty until the endgame, during which you are expected to pull off some semi-advanced movement techniques. Going overboard with difficulty seems to be a common trend in ROMhacks, but Star Road walks the fine line of offering a satisfying challenge without becoming excessive.

I’d also like to give a special shoutout to the achievement set by SporyTike. The set does a great job at making sure you experience everything that Star Road has to offer. In addition to requiring full completion of the game, the set highlights several obscure secrets that would otherwise go unnoticed by most players. There are even leaderboards available if you’re interested in speedrunning!

I urge you all to give this one a shot. I’ve played many Super Mario 64 hacks, and this one is my favorite by far. I hope you love it as much as I did.

McDonald’s eCDP: eCrew Development Program (NDS)

Game Console Genre
McDonald's eCDP: eCrew Development Program McDonald’s eCDP: eCrew Development Program Nintendo DS Job Simulator

Set and Writeup by SporyTike SporyTike

One decade ago the fastfood company McDonald’s spent $2.2 million into an educational software which was supposed to teach the employees how to do their tasks correctly. They asked Nintendo which accepted the collaboration and then started developing a software for the Nintendo DS which was then used together with a special black Nintendo DSi with a McDonalds logo on it in about 80% of the Japanese fastfood locations.

The game had multiple functions, but the most imporant ones were that employees could have their own profile to do simulated tasks like creating a Quarter Pounder in a Cooking Mama-style and were able to do some quizes about products like how many tomatoes are on a BigMac or in general about McDonalds, getting a rating at the end of the task. Afterwards the manager was able to see their ratings to know which employee needs to improve where or which one should serve the customers because they were good in it.

However, the DS software was never able to completely replace the whole education. Many parts of the real job performance were missing like there was no communication between the employees or to real customers in the simulation. Also it was still a difference between to know how to do a task and actually doing the task. These problems were the reason that the game was never released outside of Japan and also wasn’t used that long as McDonald’s maybe wished when they had the idea.

Almost 10 years the game was completely forgotten, there were only a few images and videos in the internet and it seems like there were only a handful of game copies left which were sold for very high prices on Japanese auction sites. But that wasn’t the main problem. To start the game you also need to have a 6-digit ID and a 6-digit password which was always missing so nobody was even able to start the game.

Furthermore, the few people who actually got a cartridge also refused to dump them to share the roms with the world. It seemed like the game would never see a worldwide release. Until this year when a Youtuber found an auction and bought a copy which included the needed login data to be able to play the minigames. After many exhausting weeks with desperation and fear that his big plan to release the game would never become true, he was finally able to upload a working copy with their login files in November 2020 making the game finally available for the whole world. He uploaded a video of his adventure on his channel which is definitly worth looking into it. And for those who can’t read Japanese another person called “TheHomebrewerGuy” is currently working on a translation of the software.

Fire Emblem Thracia 776 (SNES)

Game Console Genre
Fire Emblem: Thracia 776 Fire Emblem: Thracia 776 SNES Tactical Role-Playing Game

Set and Writeup by ilikepie345 ilikepie345

Fire Emblem: Thracia 776 is the 5th installment in the Fire Emblem franchise. The game was released on September 1st, 1999 and is notable for being the final first party Nintendo game on the Super Famicom.

The story takes place in between the first and second generation of Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War, however, the story in Thracia 776 is mostly self contained and does not spoil the events of Genealogy’s second generation. I would highly recommend at least playing the first generation if you do care for story spoilers.

The gameplay involves your standard Fire Emblem experience. What sets this game apart from the others however, are the new mechanics introduced in this game. One of the most important new additions is the capturing mechanic. Provided a unit’s constitution is higher than the enemies, you may risk cutting your hit rate and stats in half, in favor of capturing an enemy unit to steal all of the items in their inventory. Since the game never gives you any money for buying new weapons, this is how the player receives new weapons and items.

A few other new mechanics exclusive to or introduced Thracia 776 include:

  • A Chapter route split and optional side Chapters.
  • Supports, which allow two units who support the other person to gain various stat bonuses.
  • Movement stars which provide a small chance for a unit to move again in a turn.
  • Level Up’s have a very small chance to increase a unit’s movement stat.
  • Thieves may steal any item in an enemy unit’s inventory provided their constitution stat is high enough.

Fire Emblem: Thracia 776 is notorious for its brutal difficulty. The game constantly pushes the player into uncomfortable and tense situations, many of which may even require the player to take the risk of dying with their favorite or most powerful units. Yet it also provides the player with many hidden properties and weapons, or multiple paths through a chapter, that allow an informed player to push back against the game. This makes Thracia 776 one of the most satisfying and rewarding Fire Emblem experiences even today.

The achievement set provides the player with the perfect experience. It covers just about every aspect of the game. The main thing I set out to do when making this set was to highlight all of the game’s secret events and give each chapter its own challenge, while also giving lenience to allow the player to use any unit they wanted, or to tackle any chapter in whatever way they wanted. I hope that players will find the set memorable, as it seems daunting of a list at first, but is perfectly manageable.