Play This Set

pinguupinguu By pinguupinguu.

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.

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”).

Pokemon Ranger Shadows of Almia (NDS)

Game Console Genre
Pokemon Ranger: Shadows of Almia Pokemon Ranger: Shadows of Almia Nintendo DS Action RPG

Set and Writeup by pinguupinguu pinguupinguu

Capture…..On! Return to the world of Pokemon, but this time as a…. Ranger? That’s right! Welcome to the second game in the Pokemon Ranger trilogy: Shadows of Almia. As a recent graduate of the Ranger School, you finally get the chance to chase your dreams of becoming a Top Ranger. Assigned to the Vientown Ranger Station just west of the Ranger School, you begin your journey to help others and keep peace across the land and sea of Almia.

Lurking in the darkness, however, is a group of villains named Team Dim Sun that are trying to rule over all Pokemon and people in Almia. Will you, and the other rangers, come together to stop the evil plans of Team Dim Sun? That destiny, is yours to decide.

Accompanying this riveting game story, is an achievement set that highlights all 16 main missions, 60 side-quests, 6 DLC missions, and other various challenges. Watch out for those missables! This set requires you to get a maximum capture rank (S) on each boss on the first encounter, so make sure to save up before fighting each boss! In addition, there are little fun room challenges that I have incorporated into the set to keep things less monotonous. Examples include getting through a room within a certain amount of time, and even getting through a room without taking any damage.

These challenges encourage players to not only interact with Pokemon, but the different environments of the areas they will run through as well! Each boss battle has very recognizable Pokemon, such as the legendary pokemon Heatran, Cresselia, the three Regis, Regigigas, and even Darkrai.

So… what are you waiting for?! Begin your quest, NOW, to become a Top Pokemon Ranger! Will you accept the challenge of S-Ranking every single Pokemon in the game? Chase your dreams, and grab your capture styler along the way!

Pokémon Ranger (NDS)

Game Console Genre
Pokemon Ranger Pokemon Ranger Nintendo DS Role-Playing Game

Set and Writeup by SporyTike SporyTike

Everyone probably knows the main intro of the Pokémon games when the professor of the region tells you that some people use Pokémon as pets and some for battling. But, there is another type of person which uses Pokémon for another purpose: a Pokémon Ranger. These people don’t use Pokémon for battles or capturing them just to have them. They are like park rangers which help other people and Pokémon by asking Pokémon for help. For example, when a path is blocked with rocks they ask a fighting-type Pokémon for help to clear the way and afterwards they release them again. Furthermore, they don’t use balls to capture Pokémon, they instead use a device called a Styler to draw loops around the Pokémon to proof their strength and skills so the Pokémon begins to respect them. In this game, you are one of those rangers that gets different type of missions where you need to help Pokémon and people to ensure a peaceful life in the Fiore Region.

Pokémon Ranger is definitely one of the harder Pokémon games available on RetroAchievements. The reason for that is that the Ranger series is made with the main feature of the Nintendo DS in mind: The Touchscreen. On the Nintendo DS, you need to draw loops around the Pokémon on the screen in order to capture them. However, using a mouse makes this a bigger challenge than it is was for all the players who originally played this game on the Nintendo DS. Additionally, the touchscreen has small borders so you don’t accidentally leave it while drawing circles fast. Unfortunately, this is not available when playing this game with achievement support. While there are mostly story progression achievements, there are also some challenges getting perfect captures on the legendary Pokémon and catching multiple Pokémon at the same time. This is a great opportunity to show people how skilled you are with your mouse.

~Subset~ Pokémon - Crystal Version [Shiny Pokédex] (GBC)

Game Console Genre
~Subset~ Pokemon - Crystal Version [Shiny Pokemon] ~Subset~ Pokemon - Crystal Version [Shiny Pokemon] Game Boy Color Role-Playing Game

What do Espeon, Umbreon, Tentacruel, Weezing, Ditto and Raikou have in common? Well, all of them are Pokémon which are capturable in the Johto region. These were favorite Pokémon named from players who are currently playing this set. At some point, every Pokémon trainer hears about Pokémon which have different colors than they normally do. These special creatures are known as shiny Pokémon. Being the owner of one of them is a big honor! Since they are so rare, many trainers have never even encountered one. However, a professor with the name Spor. Y. Tike, is very interested in these different-colored Pokémon and decided study to do a study on them. He found out that every region had it’s own ways of increasing the odds of finding such Pokémon.

In the Johto region, he made an incredible discovery: A Pokémon which hatches from an egg has a very high chance of being shiny when one of its parents is too. The chance is even higher when one of the parents is a shiny Ditto. After some investigations, he found out that the odds are about 1.5% for a baby to be shiny when a shiny Ditto was used in the breeding process. With that discovery, Professor Tike was able to find a way to rearrange Ditto’s DNA to be able to transform any normal Ditto to its shiny version. After these findings, he wondered to himself if there is any Pokémon-Trainer who is able to not only register every Pokémon in the Pokédex, but also register every shiny version too. He asked several young trainers for help and some of them accepted the challenge. Some of them even helped because they were interested in this study, while others wanted to challenge their luck and patience. Furthermore, Prof. Tike wants to expand his study to more regions after some time when his Johto Quest is fully achieved. Will you help him achieve this goal?

Earthbound (SNES)

Game Console Genre
EarthBound EarthBound SNES RPG

Earthbound is one of those games everyone should play. As a kid, I had emulated it but never even made it to the first miniboss since my patience for RPGs was quite low. As years passed, it seemed like I could not escape Ness and his friends. I fell in love with the world as it was presented through the Super Smash Bros. series. I heard covers, remakes, and remixes of the soundtrack everywhere I went on the internet. Even the developers of some of my favorite games had credited it as an inspiration. I needed to give it another try. I grabbed my wallet, got an EShop card, and purchased it on Virtual Console for WiiU. I was shaking in my seat: this was the moment I would finally play it.

I couldn’t even make it to the first boss.

Why? Earthbound was funky and weird, which was right up my alley. Why could I not get into this game like everyone else could? Well it’s quite simple really, Earthbound is not a game for kids. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not putting on a mask of cuteness and playfulness like Conker’s Bad Fur Day is. Earthbound really is that wholesome. Earthbound isn’t a game about enjoying the time you have while you’re young, it’s about remembering it. It’s a game for reminiscing. The bright colours, the funky music, it’s all about remembering what the world looked like through the eyes of a child. Every scary dog on the street was just revving up to attack you, every bird was getting ready to steal your lunch. The police at night would hide the supernatural from us, and every bee could wipe out a whole army with its stings yet would fall at the quick swat of an adult. Bullies who would hang around the arcade were part of some larger gang and authorities were just greedy adults who would stand around doing nothing all day. This is the world of a child, this is the world of Earthbound.

At every moment of Earthbound, through its wacky characters and places, feels nostalgic. You’ve lived through this all before: every fight, every obstacle. This game will make you yearn to be a child again, beforing showing you that you still are that same person that you always were. You still rely on others for courage, you pray at times of weakness, authorities are still evil and all your friends are all still so far away and yet so close. Every moment we still learn and evolve and this is our world. Earthbound will make you laugh, cry, get you off your seat dancing, and even make you want to crawl away into a grave. You will put hours into gaining seemingly useless objects and by the end of the thirty hour journey, you’ll want to do it all again. But, you didn’t need me to convince you to play this game, after all, it’s Earthbound. This game stinks.

Mario vs. Donkey Kong: Mini-Land Mayhem! (NDS)

Game Console Genre
Mario vs. Donkey Kong: Mini-Land Mayhem! Mario vs. Donkey Kong: Mini-Land Mayhem! Nintendo DS Puzzle

Are you ever too lazy to grab your controller? Well, you’re in luck because Mario vs. Donkey Kong: Mini-Land Mayhem doesn’t actually require one! The only actions that require a controller are pausing the game (useful to exit or restart a level) and moving the screen more easily (can also be done by touching the arrows at the edge of the screen).

The entire gameplay focuses around guiding Mini-Marios to the goal. By touching them they start walking and from that point on you have no control over them anymore, but you can build bridges, trampolines, conveyor belts and much more. If a Mini-Mario should turn around you have to make them do that by creating a wall in front of them, let them walk on a conveyor belt or any other way that works. This creates interesting puzzles where you have to think about how to guide these Mini-Marios to the goal without having them fall into a pit.

The game is split into 8 worlds, each having 8 level, a minigame and a bossfight. All of which are built on the same principle of creating bridges, trampolines and other gimmicks.

Alone in the Dark (3DO)

Game Console Genre
Alone in the Dark Alone in the Dark 3DO Interactive Multiplayer Survival Horror

Let me take you on a journey. 29 years in the making, spanning the course of 23 years, and over 12 gaming platforms. Just to arrive at a single conclusion. We most certainly are NOT Alone in the Dark.

The survival horror genre goes back four decades. However, one very key pitstop on our track back through time stands out. Alone in the Dark was released in 1992 on multiple platforms, one such platform being the 3DO. At the time, the 3DO was revolutionary in graphical progression forward, and can still be looked back on, as such, to this day.

What a forgotten console, and a fantastic series’ first release! The Alone in the Dark series released its first title in 1992 and its latest release in 2015. The retro gaming community thrives on looking past the new age graphics shock and awe factor and enjoys the game in its entirety or simply for its nostalgia factor.

Alone in the Dark is a true survival horror game as much today as it was during its peak. In the game, you choose one of two starting characters and enter the mansion in search of a piano for various reasons. Upon entering, you become trapped inside the mansion and must navigate your way out, solving varying puzzles, fighting for your life, and sometimes just escaping certain death all together.

The player can search any area, open and close doors, push certain objects, and pick up items. Items in the inventory can be used, opened, read, thrown, or put down, though not all of these options are offered for every item. Available space in inventory is determined by weight, not number of items. Inventory is highly limited, and the player must often discard items to make room. It is possible to discard items that are needed to complete the game, but remain in play and can be retrieved later until a certain point.

Books and journals scattered throughout the game give narrative to the story and puzzles within and provide hints on how to complete particular puzzles and progress forward. The game is designed in a non-linear fashion, and you can explore the mansion in any order once you leave the starting point. You can retrace your footsteps at will, and sometimes that is required. However, you are able to get to a point of no return and that’s game over, even if the character hasn’t died. This particular factor of the game can be unforgiving, which isn’t much of a reality in games nowadays unless you’re on specific hardcore modes. I feel it enhances the immersion of the game with the character’s choices! A save feature does allow for handy backups, but the reality that you let your character get trapped in the mansion will haunt you forever 🙂

An achievement set designed around exploration and the unique interactions available within the mansion is now at your fingertips. As a survival horror game enthusiast, this was a game I wanted to knock off my personal bucket list. It turned out to be a remarkable experience, and I’m excited to be able to share

Donkey Kong 94 (GB)

Game Console Genre
Donkey Kong Donkey Kong Game Boy Platformer

Donkey Kong for Game Boy is a port of Nintendo’s classic arcade game for their hit handheld system, featuring all four levels redesigned to fit inside the Game Boy’s compact screen.

…Is what they want you to think. Clearing the “last” level reveals the game’s true nature: A massive puzzle-platformer where you’ll be chasing Donkey Kong across a hundred levels over 9 varied worlds filled with traps, platforming challenges, and puzzles to rescue Mario’s (girl?)friend, Pauline.

Mario has received a bit of an upgrade from his arcade days as well, and is now able to perform all sorts of acrobatic feats, from handstands to flip jumps and even flinging himself from hanging ropes. Mario’s slick new movement options help to make Donkey Kong one of the smoothest platformers on the Game Boy.

The achievement set itself is well-made and a lot of fun, too. It may seem daunting at first, as it will require two full playthroughs (One for 100% completion and another for speedrunning), but both objectives are highly rewarding and a lot of fun to plan out.

Donkey Kong is an absolute blast the whole way through, and easily belongs on any Game Boy must-play list.